Definitely not. There’s literally like 600 million people in the core added together, you do not need even a tenth of them to be active revolutionaries for something like that to work.
Think about 50 million people actively erm… doing a Marxism-Leninism. There’s no stopping that.
In another post, a comrade brought to my attention that just months before the revolution there were only 8,000 party members in the Bolsheviks. That should bring you relief.
How did 8 thousand got a revolution in a country of 100 million?
Apologies, just did a reading and it said that in February of 1917 they had 24,000 members. By the October of that year they had 200,000.
Still, 24,000 is a very small number. I’m sure it had to do with the increasingly worsening material conditions and diligent party work done by the Bolsheviks.
The Bolsheviks were also not the only ones fighting. It was a broad coalition of hundreds of thousands of people. Not to mention millions of defecting soldiers.
NO NEED TO RAIN ON THE PARADE WITH A DOSE OF REALISM OKAY
Jk, I figured. But still, the fact that it was the Bolsheviks that actually were able to make it happen and seize power is inspiring
Not at all, because the imperial core is always taking on displaced people from the periphery. That’s why the population never actually declined despite low fertility rates.
Unless the core is losing population at a rate in the high double digits, no.
Having a population measured in the hundreds of millions and its “rate of growth” is a -.1% won’t matter that much.
Is it actually decreasing? I don’t think that is accurate. It’s growing slowly but still growing. As others have pointed out immigration tends to compensate for low birth rates.
That being said, if a turning point was eventually reached when the population would start going into actual decline that may have the effect of accelerating revolutionary conditions. It would lead to a shrinking economy as there is no longer enough consumption to keep growth going. The impacts of this decline will be felt disproportionately by the working class and by a middle class rapidly sliding back into proletarian socio-economic conditions, while the decreasing total wealth is hoarded more and more at the top. This will lead to higher rates of radicalization and increased social instability.
The real question is whether that radicalization will be primarily in a socialist or a fascist direction, and knowing the imperial core it’s likely to be the latter.
The most clearly positive effect of a shrinking imperial core population/economy is that the ability of the imperial core to impose its will on the global south will be crippled. Their ability to maintain their economic hegemony will inevitably decrease as their share of the total global economy shrinks. Ideally a shrinking imperial core population would also lead to lower manpower pool for the recruitment of imperialist forces, but i don’t think it’s quite that simple…they will still find plenty of mercenaries and recruits from lower class backgrounds with poor economic prospects.
Nope. As long as the corporate media gains confidence, there won’t.
Decreasing numbers of bourgeoisie make revolution more likely, not less.
