After the revolution

Hey guys,

I was having a debate with a Trot, and I was convincing him, and his friends on our ideas, but then he made a few points that sort of tipped the balanced back his way as I wasn’t too sure on how to answer.

The questions were;

1. “How are we gonna get a vast majority of workers? That’s never happened before in any revolution.”

To this I told him that’s why ours would be different, it’s the first done by the conscious majority.

Any better answers?

2. “In the most likely scenario that we end up in a situation like the Russian revolution, Italy 1920s or Germany 1930s where things are really bad with capitalism after a period of rightist adventurism, a great amount of people want socialism and you know if you launch a coup you can take control, but if you don’t, you know the fascists will, you can’t wait for an election so what do you do?”

I wasn’t too sure on how to answer this apart from I don’t think alot could’ve been done even by Leninists to stop the fascists in Italy and Germany.

But he did get to me with the Russian example.

The Bolsheviks basically stopped fascists returning because they took power.

So what would we do in a similar scenario? Wait for an election even if we know a fascist coup is imminent?

3. What about after your revolution, even if it’s a big majority you’ll still have millions of capitalists dead set on bringing it back, what if they start a civil war? What if you’re isolated, ie France and Germany go fascist Britain is the only socialist?
You’ve abolished the state so how would you organise conscription? An army? How would you arrest those trying to bring back capitalism if there’s no police?

I wasn’t too sure on this one either.

I told him we’re not anarchists and by stateless I’m not sure we mean the same thing as they do, ie abolishing the police and such.

But I wasn’t confident on how to answer.

Any ideas?