Growing up in ex-com country I remember this phrase posted, painted, plastered in almost every school corner. Of course the meaning was evident and much obvious as it was supposed to convey simple message to school children "Do your homework and be conscientious in your study". Today, while I was re-reading Spivak' essay "Can the Subaltern Speak" I came upon a rather curious passage from Marx that was double quoted by Walter Benjamin and in subsequent order by Spivak which in turn spurred some curious thoughts about revolution and aftermath:
Marx continues in his description of the conspirateurs de profession as follows: "...They have no othet aim but the immediate one of overthrowing the existing government, and they profoundly despise the more rhetorical enlightnment of the workers as to their class interests. Thus their anger-not proletarian but plebian-at the habits noirs (black coats), the more or less educated people who represent that side of the movement and of whom they can never become entirely independent, as they cannot of the official representatives of the party." Baudelaire's political insights do not go fundamentally beyond the insights of these professional conspirators...He could perhaps have made Flaubert's statement, "Of all of the politics I understand only one thing: revolt", of his own.
Here Walter Benjamin quotes Marx to critique the valorization of any desire that has only one aim, to destruct and ovethrow any exisitng power. In its order Spivak uses Walter Benjamin's analysis to point the problematic of rhetorics of western Maoists, structuralists and post-structuralists. However,my concern here is not critique of western subjectivity but rather a pedagogical focus the passage has. In lieu of the thought that no revolution is won over a night I wanted to re-focus on the historical aspect of revolution itself and that certainly revolution is always followed by question "What is next?" Marx's point lies precisely in the warning that the political struggle is not an immature rebellion against power but rather full realization of the movement. In Mongolia the overthrow of communist state apparatus in 1990 was often celebrated as a democratic revolution. What followed afterwards can hardly be described as democratic rather the society slip was detrimental to the society as hardcore liberal capitalist values emerged. For this we could assume that when we manifest to make changes in the state power how often are we prepared to deal with the consequences? Do we do our homework proper to the learning experience?
