honestly I think socialism will come to the imperial core last and as leftists in the heart of the beast the most we can do is impede the fight against socialism abroad.

as the British Communist party put it "we lost Plymouth but we won China" refering to a recent electoral defeat and their role in stopping arms shipments to the RoC for use against Mao

Sadly, this has always been the case. The rich own the means of the production, so how do we produce what we need for our freedom?

The answer is kind of obvious - if we want a successful revolution, the workers working those instruments will need to be onside. Facebook couldn't shut down if the server operators refused to shut down. Power companies wouldn't shut down if the workers refused to shut it down. Etc.

Would they send military/cops to make that happen? Sure. But even with the lofty goal of a revolution with most people onside, some conflict somewhere will be inevitable as the establishment won't want to let go. In reality, it's this overwhelming violent force that is the real obstacle, but it's also really the only obstacle, and getting the numbers and organisation to oppose it meaningfully is a serious challenge that cannot be overcome without serious effort.

But don't be fooled in thinking they control the means of production - its the workers that do.

I don't know much about it, but I do know that Nepal had a revolution that occurred between 1996 and 2006. The victors successfully deposed the monarchy and a nominally communist party now holds power. I literally don't know enough about the party to say how socialist the place is now, but it did happen despite capital's wishes otherwise. That's admittedly right on the cusp of the development of modern telecommunications and Nepal really isn't a center of any imperial core, but I don't think it's necessarily impossible for a modern revolution to occur.

The Boliviarian revolution in Venezuela started in 1999.

Burkina Faso also had a socialist revolution as recent as the 1980s, which again is admittedly before a lot of current communication technology.

I think the conclusion I'm reaching is that us imperial citizens will see a revolution last.

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I think the response to this is simple, because it's the same solution that it's always been: revolutions happen in local spaces with people who are together in person.

you’re probably facing the US military in addition to the militaries of all its allies

Likely not, as Lenin says,

"The fundamental law of revolution, which has been confirmed by all revolutions, and particularly by all three Russian revolutions in the twentieth century, is as follow: it is not enough for revolution that the exploited and oppressed masses should understand the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes; it is essential for revolution that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. Only when the 'lower classes' do not want the old way, and when the 'upper classes' cannot carry on in the old way, -only then can revolution triumph. This truth may be expressed in other words: revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis (affecting both the exploited and the exploiters) .10 It follows that for revolution it is essential, first, that a majority of the workers (or at least a majority of the class conscious, thinking, politically active workers) should fully understand that revolution is necessary and be ready to sacrifice their lives for it; secondly, that the ruling classes should be passing through a governmental crisis, which draws even the most backward masses into politics ... weakens the government and makes it possible for the revolutionaries to overthrow it rapidly"

People forget how much infrastructure for emergency services and crisis management is maintained by volunteers. In my county if shit were to hit the fan, I know some ham radio operators who have their house rigged up to a generator and handle a range of emergency communications for the whole county.

This sort of thing could be set up for revolutionaries as well. But that means labor to set it up and maintain it. It’d be sweet if a group of revolutionary techies could get a grant to install a bunch of rural broadband and then just… maintain access to those lines. There’s also some neat mesh network collectives in bigger cities. They try and do stuff like provide free WiFi to apartment complexes

Not the best example given all the baggage, but simply to your point about communication: People didn't begin amassing in Tahrir Square until AFTER the government pulled the plug on everyone's internet connection.

I think a lot of comrades understand this, which is why the idea of a revolution only achievable im the context of a societal collapse brought by the contradictions of capitalism is so popular.

Sure the centralization of the media is a problem, but revolutionary leftist ideas can still be shared successfully to a point before the bourgeoisie step in — look at how good r/CTH got at pipelining libs by the time the CIA stepped in.

It got shut down eventually, sure, but it means it's possible to use the internet to disseminate revolutionary ideas — there's been a lot of criticism of the consolidation of the internet into like 6 websites and movement towards a decentralized internet.

I'm confident that another left pipeline on the scale of CTH will exist in the future, especially as material conditions deteriorate further. Hopefully this time the left will have learned our lesson from the CTH ban.

It really depends on the country and a long list of other factors. Some countries aren't equally developed and so the digital stranglehold is almost nonexistent in some regions.

Having shitty infrastructure means it's actually not that centralized. Also the internet itself is technically decentralized, which means they'd be able to shut down the convenient internet but any revolution controlling a region could use the same equipment to run its own internet.

You should also assume that any revolution with the slightest chance of success would be armed to the teeth and present a challenge to the military, even if it's just 10% of the country armed with rifles.

A revolution doesn't have to be big and flashy. In today's capitalist hellscape, giving money to a homeless person is a revolutionary act. At least for now there's various ways to check out of society as much as possible. Pretty soon I'm going to start doing experiments with reducing my reliance on the grid. At least until something larger inevitably happens, if we try to reduce our consumption and work together, we can each do a little bit to make everyone's lives less shitty.