Recognising a Real Revolution
"The history of a revolution is for us first of all the history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny."
This memorable sentence appears in Leon Trotsky's classic work, The History of the Russian Revolution. It contains the essential measure - revolution from below - that socialists must use to distinguish the revolutions we can applaud from those we cannot.
The dramatic events in Nepal last month were an inspiring example of a revolution we can applaud. For here was a revolutionary situation marked first and foremost by the courageous determination of the Nepalese masses to take history by the scruff of the neck and force it onto a path of their own making.