SPARK! Organizing for Revolution
Module 2
How Revolutions Are Born
Revolutions, though rare, have irrevocably determined the path of humanity’s history and future. But how do revolutions begin? Taking a deeper look into the Bolshevik Revolution and the history of revolution in the Caribbean, we will interrogate their contexts and subsequent paths in order to understand the origins of these earth-shaking processes. What were the conditions and dynamics that set the stage for these revolutions to take root? What were the elements that ignited the revolutionary process? How were revolutionary forces able to organize the masses to emerge triumphant?
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Bolshevik Revolution
The devastation of World War I, which claimed the lives of approximately 18 million people, left millions of Russians demanding peace, land, and bread—and although it took many by surprise, history shows us that the moment was ripe for revolution. Their victory marked an irreversible turning point in human history and inspired anti-colonial and revolutionary struggle across the world for decades to come. For the first time, workers won the fight for an alternative system and way of organizing production that was not built on exploitation, but rather was built by and for the masses: socialism. We will investigate the conditions out of which the revolution was born, the role of the Bolsheviks in charting the path forward, and the lessons they leave for us today.
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Revolution in the Caribbean
The victory of the Haitian Revolution in 1804 was a world-shattering moment that forever transformed the trajectory of history, revitalizing the struggle for liberation not only in the Caribbean but across the world. For over 13 years, the masses of the enslaved Haitian people rose up in rebellion, sustaining their fight for freedom and refusing any consolation prize that was not full and total liberation. This triumph spurred uprisings in the coming century that fueled revolutionary transformation in the supposed ‘backyard’ of one of the greatest imperial powers, terrifying slave-ocracies across the world by showing that an oppressed people, organized and determined, can challenge the strongest force of oppression—and win.
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Media and the Battle of Ideas
“When a people is imbued with these ideas, when a people is convinced of these ideas, that people is invincible, and no weapons, no matter how sophisticated, can conquer them.”
–Fidel Castro, on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the Cuban Young Communist League, 1991
From Fox News to the New York Times, mainstream media has functioned as an arm of US imperialism and capitalism. The blatant lies and propaganda they’ve spread, particularly in the last 9 months of the US-Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people, has crystalized their position as agents of the ruling class in the eyes of the masses. Conversely, we’ve witnessed the power of alternative media platforms across the globe and even within the heart of the empire, and the role they’ve played in advancing liberation struggles and successfully exposing the lies of the imperialists.
Join us for a conversation on the battle of ideas with journalists Alina Duarte and Zoe Alexandra who will share their experiences and insights on using alternative media platforms as tools for revolutionary struggle.
Module Reflection Questions
Module Terms
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The mode of production that is characterized by landownership by the landlord class and their almost complete control of serfs. The landlord owned most of the land. The peasants and serfs owned little or no land, and had to depend on farming the landlord’s land for a living
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Serfdom was a condition in which a tenant farmer was bound to a hereditary plot of land and to the will of the landlord. The vast majority of serfs in medieval Europe obtained their subsistence by cultivating a plot of land that was owned by a lord. This was the essential feature differentiating serfs from slaves, who were bought and sold without reference to a plot of land.
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The term "tsar" (also spelled czar) historically refers to a title used for the emperors or supreme rulers of Russia from the late 15th century until the Russian Revolution in 1917.
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The necessary class alliance that Vladimir Lenin proposed to act as the revolutionary force in the Bolshevik revolution, an alliance of “millions of urban and rural poor" that would defeat the Tsarist autocracy and be replaced with a “revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry"
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Bolshevik is Russian for “majority”, and refers to a faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party that advocated for a more centralized party structure and the overthrow of the capitalist system through a proletariat revolution. After the death of V.I. Lenin, Bolshevism came to be described as Leninism.
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Menshevik is Russian for “minority” , and was the faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party that advocated a more gradualist approach towards socialism.
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Soviet means “council”. Soviets were a people's assembly that emerged in the 1905 Russian Revolution against the tsar. After the 1917 October Revolution, the term soviet was used for local governments elected by workers, as well as the higher councils that those local soviets elected in turn.
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Colonialism is the extension of capitalist control over another country, entailing the domination of a people or area by a foreign state or nation to exploit their resources, labor, and markets.
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Abolitionism, throughout history, has been the movement against inequality, oppression, exploitation, and class distinction. In the US, Europe, and the Western hemisphere, abolition was first used widely to define the movement to abolish the system of chattel slavery, the transatlantic slave trade, and the plantation economy.
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Internationalism arises from an understanding that the system of capitalism is global, with the imperialist US at its head, and therefore, the international working class is united under one strategy against one enemy
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The Third International, also known as the Communist International, was founded in 1919 in Moscow. The COMINTERN sought to both materially and ideologically aid the struggle of oppressed peoples globally and of the workers in the industrially advanced countries.
Resources for Further Study
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From Columbus to Castro
From Columbus to Castro is a definitive work about a profoundly important but neglected and misrepresented area of the world. Quite simply it’s about millions of people scattered across an arc of islands — Jamaica, Haiti, Barbados, Antigua, Martinique, Trinidad, among others – separated by the languages and cultures of their colonizers, but joined together, nevertheless, by a common heritage.
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Haydee Speaks of Moncada: The Spark that Lit the Cuban Revolution
This book is a discussion held in 1968 between the introverted leader and the curious youth of a new revolutionary society. Their conversation gives us an intimate glimpse into the unique experience of fighting at the frontlines of a liberation struggle—a position where you don’t know what lies ahead. Years later, Haydée’s testimony serves as reference for the long fight of the Cuban people in achieving sovereignty, dignity, and building a socialist project.
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The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
This powerful, intensely dramatic book is the definitive account of the Haitian Revolution of 1794-1803, a revolution that began in the wake of the Bastille but became the model for the Third World liberation movements from Africa to Cuba.
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Red Star Over the Third World
This book explains the power of the October Revolution for the Third World. It is not a comprehensive study, but a small book with a large hope – that a new generation will come to see the importance of this revolution for the working class and peasantry in that part of the world that suffered under the heel of colonial domination.
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Jose Martí's Versos Sencillos
Simple Verses is a poetry collection by Cuban writer and independence hero José Martí. Published in October 1891, it was the last of Martí's works to be printed before his death in 1895.
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Haiti’s Forced Payments to Enslavers Cost Economy $21 Billion, The New York Times Found
'The Greatest Heist In History': How Haiti Was Forced To Pay Reparations For Freedom. Over the century following the 1804 revolution, Haiti was forced to pay French slaveholders and their descendants the equivalent of between $20 and $30 billion in today's dollars
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Martí, Eye of the Canary
The 2011 historical drama explores the childhood and adolescence of Cuban national hero, José Martí. Set during the 1860s in colonial Havana. Martí, The Eye of the Canary follows “El Apóstol” from the age of 9 to 17 as he experiences firsthand the often brutal inequalities of Spanish colonial rule, and feels the fire of injustice rise within him.
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Toussaint Louverture
Toussaint Louverture is a 2012 French film written and directed by Philippe Niang