The American Revolution was inspired by one book entitled Common Sense by Thomas Paine. We even find British political tokens with the saying “END OF PAIN“, which was obviously a pun on his name. He was demonized by the British as the man who inspired the Revolution. According to this intense studies of the Continental Army at Valley Forge, the average age of George Washington’s soldiers in 1777 was between 20 and 25. That was the average because the youth who joined were 16 to 18. The last verified surviving American veteran of the war was John Gray of Virginia who joined the Continental Army at the age of just 16 in 1780. George Washington himself wrote: that “to place any dependence upon militia is assuredly resting upon a broken staff.” Of the New England militia, Washington wrote, “Their officers generally speaking are the most indifferent kind of people I ever saw.” Militia privates ignored commands issued by officers of the Regular Army, which disturbed Washington. The common age of a Continental soldier was quite young. One historian found that in nine New Jersey towns nearly 75% of boys who were just fifteen and sixteen. There are accounts of people such as artilleryman Jeremiah Levering who entered the service at twelve or thirteen, and hundreds more under the legal age of sixteen served in all services. Thousands more were under twenty. It was the youth who are inspired and do not appreciate the tragedy of war. The Roots of Evil Christopher Hibbert
If we look at the Russian Revolution, again we find a critical book that was at the root of the split entitled What is to be Done? Lenin wrote this work while serving a sentence of exile. The book was first published in Germany during 1902, but it was outlawed for publication and distribution in Russia. Lenin totally rejected the standpoint that the “proletariat” who he regarded as workers or working-class people collectively. This class in Roman times were called the plebeians. The proletariat, Lenin argued, was being driven spontaneously to revolutionary Socialism by capitalism itself, which he further contended had predisposed the workers to the acceptance of of Marxism.
Lenin also took the position that the case for workers will not spontaneously become Marxists simply by fighting battles over wages with their employers. Lenin argued that Marxists needed to form a political party to publicize their ideas and persuade workers to become Marxists. Lenin then took a step further arguing that to understand politics you must understand all of society, not just workers and their economic struggles with their employers. Therefore, to move the workers to become political and to become Marxists, they needed to learn about all of society, not just their own small corner of within it.
This is very important to understand because this is the same precise formula in operation today among the American youth. They are not the “workers” for most are simply students. They would not respond the the traditional class struggle of the early 20th century when the industrial revolution was just beginning and the confrontation between workers and employers were a major battle. Lacking that sort of class-struggle amount children who are not even employed, can only be accomplished precisely as Lenin argued, only from without. They would not spontaneously respond to poor working conditions since they do not work. The sphere from which a revolution can arise becomes possible only by obtaining knowledge is the sphere of interrelations between all classes on a theoretical basis. They do not understand the principle that Wall Street raises money to fund small business helping them grow to create jobs and the economy. Instead, the bankers engaged in proprietary trading are viewed as “Wall Street” when in fact they are simply speculators who bribe politicians.Lenin also made it clear that a revolution would only be achievable by the strong leadership of one person or a select few over the masses. Lenin set forth that once the revolution had successfully overthrown the government, this individual leader must release power, to allow socialism to fully encompass the nation. Lenin’s view of a socialist intelligentsia demonstrated that he was departing from Marxist theory in this regard. Lenin agreed with the Marxist idea of eliminating social classes creating the Common Sense (Dover Th... Thomas Paine Best Price: $0.01 Buy New $0.01 idea of a French commune from where Marx derived his theory, but Lenin saw a ruling class should maintain control creating distinctions between those in politics and the people not much different from our Western political classes. Lenin did not effectively support the Marxist theory of a classless society. The party split of Bolsheviks (majority) and Mensheviks (minority) in 1903, the differences originally began to surface with the publication of What is to be Done? Mensheviks generally tended to be more moderate and were more positive towards the liberal opposition and the dominant peasant-based Socialist Revolutionary party whereas the Bolsheviks saw the need for a strong political ruling class.
As discussed in What is to be Done?, Lenin clearly believed that a rigid political structure was necessary to effectively initiate a formal revolution and to maintain it. This idea was met with opposition from his once close followers including Julius Martov, Georgy Plekhanov, Leon Trotsky, and Pavel Axelrod. Plekhanov and Lenin’s major dispute arose addressing the topic of nationalizing land or leaving it for private use. Lenin wanted to nationalize everything to aid in collectivization to be centrally controlled by the political class. Plekhanov thought worker motivation would remain higher if individuals were able to maintain their own property, which was true.
The average party member was very young and that was the entire key to brainwash the youth who had no experience in life to understand their were really surrendering personal values and freedom to the political class as they are doing once against in the United States. In 1907, 22% of Bolsheviks were all under 20, with a staggering 37% were all just 20–24. Only about 16% were between the ages of 25 to 29. Therefore, 75% of the Bolsheviks were under 30 years old. The total membership was 8,400 in 1905, rising to 13,000 in 1906 and 46,100 by 1907.
empires-3rdcentury
Click for Full Text!