Re: Economic revolutions

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Chris Burford wrote:
>However there are other features which point to the surprising volatility
>of modern states. Amplified by 24 hours news reporting, a revolutionary or
>near revolutionary mood can sweep over a country within a matter of days.

A better analogy would be with the protests against Salvador Allende or
Mossadegh. Such activities have less to do with CNN than they do with the
power of the dollar and the CIA.

>It seems highly probable that the Serb opposition watched the wave of
>petrol tax protests that spread over many European countries last month.
>What is common with events in Serbia this week, is how mass protest,
>pitched at a non-confrontational level, can neutralise a police force, that
>is unwilling to take repressive action.

Non-confrontational level? Like drunken, pistol-waving goons accosting
ambulances and trying to drag wounded cops out and finish them off?

>This week, the opposition in Yugoslavia, were clearly targetting mass
>action against economic targets, energy supply resources, key transport
>routes. In such large numbers that without draconian action the forces of
>the state could not have stopped them, and such action might well have
>rebounded.

This was not a showdown between the Yugoslav government and protestors, but
one between the Yugoslav government and imperialism. The Sixth Fleet
scheduled maneuevers off the coast of Montenegro last week just to drive
that point home.


>Yesterday the events in Belgrade were no doubt far from totally
>spontaneous, even though it may take ten years to learn all the
>connections, including those to foreign funders.

No, just a click of the mouse: tenc.net

> The seizure of the
>television station is most unlikely to have been just a spontanous
>spill-over from popular protest, but will at some level have been a planned
>revolutionary objective of at least a section of the opposition. They may
>or may not have fully informed Kostunica in advance.

I think you mean counter-revolutionary, don't you? I know it is easy to
confuse revolution with counter-revolution these days.

Louis Proyect
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