The Future of Revolution: Jasper Bernes on Communism from the Paris Commune to George Floyd
May 4, 2025
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Jasper Bernes, author of 'The Future of Revolution', dives into revolutionary history and theory, linking the Paris Commune to the George Floyd protests. He explores how workers' councils could shape future movements and the complexities of achieving true revolution. Bernes discusses revolutionary strategies, critiquing contemporary reformist approaches and emphasizing community engagement in areas like healthcare. He also highlights the dangers of misusing constituent power in revolutionary movements, pushing for a deeper understanding of systemic challenges.
Workers' councils are essential for empowering the proletariat through collective decision-making and direct workplace control, tracing back to historical uprisings like the Paris Commune.
Self-reflexivity within workers' councils ensures accountability, differentiating them from traditional democracies by enabling delegates to remain directly responsive to their constituents' needs.
The integration of revolutionary theory and activism in modern movements, such as the George Floyd uprising, highlights the importance of adapting historical lessons to contemporary struggles for social justice.
Deep dives
The Concept of Workers' Councils
Workers' councils, an innovative structure emerging from mass strikes, serve as crucial instruments in revolutionary movements. These councils, also referred to as Soviets, facilitate the coordination among workers who take over their workplaces, allowing them to enact collective decision-making through elected delegates. This form of organization aims to empower workers, providing a means for them to exert control over production and socialization of wealth. The historical significance of workers' councils can be traced back to the Paris Commune, which exemplified a democratic structure that could theoretically expand across borders and adapt to various conditions.
Self-Reflexivity in Councils
Self-reflexivity is essential for the sustainability of workers' councils, as it ensures that delegates remain accountable to the workers who elect them. This concept implies that delegates must follow explicit instructions from their constituents and are revocable on demand, distinguishing it from conventional representative democracies. By requiring consensus and alignment with the workers' goals, councils foster a feedback mechanism that reinforces collective power and prevents the emergence of bureaucratic elites. This structure aims to maintain a direct connection between the base and the leadership, promoting genuine representation and agency for the working class.
Armament and Revolutionary Power
The relationship between workers' councils and military force is critical in undermining the authority of the state during revolutions. Effective revolutions typically require the arming of the proletariat and the demobilization of standing armies, achieved through processes like mutiny or fraternal ties among soldiers. This strategy not only disperses state power but also empowers the councils by integrating armed resistance into a broader movement. In historical contexts like the German Revolution of 1918, the emergence of soldiers' councils illustrated the potential for mass mobilization to challenge state authority.
The Role of Theory in Revolutionary Movements
The dialectic between theory and practice is a vital aspect of revolutionary movements, where educated communists must align their perspectives with the needs and desires of the working class. While some schools of thought advocate for the eradication of intellectual leadership to prevent the co-option of movements, others assert that dedicated theorists can play a significant role in amplifying struggle. This 'partisanization' entails a commitment to activism that energizes movement efforts, ensuring that revolutionary ideals transform into actionable strategies. Thus, the effective integration of theory and practice is key to fostering genuine revolutionary potential.
Contemporary Struggles and the Future of Revolution
Modern revolutionary movements, such as the George Floyd uprising, represent a continuation of earlier struggles, highlighting the importance of amplifying grassroots initiatives while recognizing the complexities of insurgency. The tactic of establishing abolition committees embodies a contemporary interpretation of workers' councils, focusing on directly addressing community needs amidst the power vacuum created by state violence. These committees aim to evaluate communal demands, providing a framework for a comprehensive approach to revolution that integrates practical necessities with broader ideological goals. Ultimately, the evolution of revolutionary theory must continue to adapt to new contexts while remaining rooted in historical lessons from previous upheavals.
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How might a twenty-first-century revolution against class society succeed?
Communism comes from the future, but its hopes haunt our past. Reading revolutionary history from the Paris Commune to the George Floyd Uprising by the light of communist theory, from Marx to C. L. R. James, The Future of Revolution illuminates the possibilities for overcoming class society in the twenty-first century.
When Marx wrote that the Paris Commune of 1871 showed that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes,” he identified a principle that will remain true as long as capitalism and its class antagonism persist. Historical revolutions reveal essential features of our communist horizon, which would-be revolutionaries, then as now, must negotiate one way or another. In chapters that move from a critical history of the workers’ council to a reading of Marx’s theory of value as an inverted description of communism, Jasper Bernes synthesizes from a history of failure the key criteria for success. He defines for our present moment the urgent mission of the world proletariat.
