* From: Jim Devine
According to Draper (and I agree), Marx's theory of revolution can be summed up by the notion that the liberation of the working class can only be truly won by the working class itself. It's the principle of "collective self-liberation" and it has "a certain stability over fairly long periods of time." It likely applies under all class modes of production and all other types of domination. It is not just a normative principle. ^^^^^ CB: We all want to occupy the political normative high ground of advocating democracy defined as "the working class as a whole as the ruling class". Yet so far in history, no prior mode of production has been overthrown by collective self-liberation. The working classes of slavery and feudalism, with all due respect to them, didn't fully demonstrate this high level principle. So, we might want to say that the current working class has a historic task unique to it. ^^^^^ Working-class collective liberation can't be won by "condescending saviors," by benevolent dictators of the proletariat. ^^^^^ CB; It might involve leadership , though. Leadership from "within", leadership from the ranks. It is not at all clear that _Marx_ didn't think that there would be leadership in the revolutionary process he advocates. Of course, Marx is not God ( as Lou Pro says), but this theory of Draper's seems to claim to be the same as Marx's, so for purposes of this discussion referring to or pinning down Marx's opinion is not to treat him like God ( God forbid !). Marx was not an anarchist. ^^^^^^ It can't be imposed from the outside. The recent attempt by the so-called "neo-Trotskyists" (neo-conservative ex-Trots) at "revolution from the outside" in Iraq was the bloody farce that proved once again what the previous bloody tragedies had proved (e.g., in Eastern Europe, where Stalin's armies imposed socialism from the outside).
