Social Justice, Conflict and Violence
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The statement to be discussed is as follows: "History proves that organized attempts to achieve 'social justice' invariably lead to conflict and almost as inevitably result in violence." This statement is reversed in a way that places the onus for violence and war on those attempting to redress social injustice rather than on those causing it in the first place. We might as well say, and more correctly, that "social injustice leads to organized attempts to achieve social justice and so to conflict and almost inevitably to violence." We can certainly agree that the quest for social justice results from a lack of said justice and that the quest has involved violence as a response to the recalcitrant elements bent on maintaining the status quo at all costs. Yet, it is true that attempts to achieve social justice do tend to lead to conflict and almost inevitably result in violence. This is true both on the international front and domestically as one group in a society seeks social justice from another. While the West has demonized Karl Marx and Marxist thought to the point where it is seen as a necessarily pernicious and dictatorial system, in fact Marxism was set forth by marx and Engels as a movement for social justice, based on Marx's perception of history as tending in that direction. Marx indeed called for violence as a way of implementing the change that he saw as inevitable, and indeed he saw violence as inevitable. The Russian Revolution was a social movement
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s to the test, but ideology was not the cause of the revolution but only one of the tools brought to bear in a social situation that had already deteriorated to an intolerable degree:
The revolutionary upsurge of 1917 derived its dynamic impetus from processes deeply rooted in Russian history, above all from the close connection forged between aristocracy and serfdom. . . the injustices and brutalities of serfdom provoked a number of violent revolts, which were put down with great severity and failed to alleviate the peasants' condition. As the system became entrenched, a fundamental cleavage developed between the mass of the population and the privileged élite.
One of the interesting things about the Russian Revolution is that it took place in a country that had not achieved the level of capitalism called for by Marx and Engels as a precursor to the revolution of the proletariat. Lenin did not believe it was necessary to wait for a stage of capitalist development during which the bourgeoisie would be in control, and so he skipped that step by simply declaring that Russia already was a capitalist country:
This eccentric view, which no other student of the Russian economy is known to have shared, rested on an idiosyncrati
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Approximate Word count = 2661
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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