p As has already been mentioned, any social revolution is a law-governed phenomenon, and occurs under definite objective preconditions. The radi- 243 cal one is the conflict between the developing productive forces and obsolete production relations reflected in the antagonism between the ruling and the non-ruling classes. Yet a revolution occurs only when a revolutionary situation is present, i. e. when a set of necessary specific socio-political conditions for the overturn, speaking of the maturation of social contradictions, has taken shape. A revolutionary situation signifies a crisis of the ruling class’s political system, increased privation and need of the oppressed classes, a considerable increase in the activity of the masses. It develops for various reasons, including economic upheaval, bankruptcy of the policies of the ruling class, national or racial conflicts, struggle against the domination of foreign imperialism, the threat of losing national independence, defeat in war, etc.

p The emergence and development of a revolutionary situation is a contradictory process. It entails a fight of the opposing trends of social development. The development of a revolutionary situation is always opposed by the tendency to stabilise the situation, by reactionary forces who go all out to protect, even strengthen, their positions. Factors promoting the development of a revolutionary situation are countered by factors impeding this process, factors that break up the interaction of the already existing elements of the revolutionary situation. These factors mav be said 244 “to clot up" the channels of the revolutionary process.

p In Latin America in the late fifties and early sixties, the factors that impeded the revolutionary situation from developing were US imperialism’s influence on the domestic situation; the army acting as the main counter-revolutionary force; the heterogeneity of the workers. Resolute action by the vanguard of the revolutionary masses, including guerrilla warfare, was needed for a revolutionary situation to take shape. The practice of revolutionary struggle, however, has not borne out the belief that a seat of guerrilla warfare can of itself create an objective revolutionary situation.

p It follows that the maturing of a revolutionary situation is a spontaneous process, nothing more. Essentially objective, this process may be accelerated by revolutionary forces, developing from the complex of existing conditions in the basis and the superstructure.

p Being a prior condition for revolution, a revolutionary situation alone is, however, insufficient to bring about a triumphant revolution. For a revolution to take place the objective preconditions for it must coincide with the developed subjective factor, which consists of the following elements: the masses are to be ideologically prepared and determined to engage in a revolutionary struggle; the revolutionary forces are to be 245 well organised ; there is to be an organised revolutionary vanguard able to lead the masses in the fight against the old system. Lenin substantiated as a law of revolution the development of a nation-wide revolutionary crisis-a combination of socio-economic, socio-political, ideological and psychological factors leading up to a triumphant revolution.

p The shaping of the objective conditions for revolution and the subjective factor is a very complex process, for the reactionary forces seek to hold it down by all possible means. To overcome these forces means to close the breach between the objective conditions of the revolutionary process and the unpreparedness of the masses for a revolutionary struggle, i. e. to close the breach between the vanguard and the bulk of the workers.

p The question of how the material preconditions and the subjective factor are combined to produce that single force which destroys the old system, is one of the most important questions of the strategy of a revolutionary party. In substance, the triumph of a revolution hinges upon it. The various revolutionary contingents settle the issue differently, depending on the conditions existing in each country. In Cuba and in Nicaragua, for example, the earliest form of the revolutionary process was guerrilla warfare.

p The shaping and development of the subjective 246 factor is a multi-faceted process. Its substance is the training and activity of the most advanced class, first and foremost the working class, as the leade. or vanguard of the revolution, and its ability to unite and to rally all other working and non-working strata of the population. VVe see from history that the subjective factor is not immutable. It must gain strength all the time, and build up its capacity for action in order to ensure that the revolution is permanently on the offensive.

p The world knows of the tragic consequences of the defeat of the revolution in Chile. During the three years that the Popular Unity government was in power, it carried out revolutionary change of an anti-imperialist and anti-oligarchic character. The revolutionary process in Chile followed a peaceful (unarmed) course, but it was broken off by a fascist military coup. The Communist Party of Chile sees the main reason for this temporary defeat of the revolution in that the working class had not managed to exercise its hegemony consistently and to the full and proved unable to isolate the other sections of workers from the bourgeoisie. Pressed by the many difficulties, the Popular Unity front showed a lack of cohesion, which, to a considerable extent, was due to the leadership’s political errors.

p The party did not have a clear enough programme for seizing all power in the country and 247 accomplishing a transition to the next stage of the revolution. Neither did the workers see-due to their insufficient political knowledge and experience - the necessity for taking over all power. The result was that the Communists were not backed by an active force able to secure a final solution. The reactionaries were quick to make use of the weakness of the revolutionary forces. Backed by the covert support of US imperialists, they slaughtered the peaceful Chilean revolution. The Chilean events bore out once more the wellknown adage that a revolution that cannot defend itself is bound to perish.

p Whatever the form - peaceful or otherwise- of the revolutionary process aimed at destroying the old, exploiter, socio-political system and establishing a new system, it has nothing in common with evolutionary development and reformism.

Reform does not provide for the main thing - which is a radical overturn of the prevailing political system, of the economic and social structures. Hence, Marxism-Lenin ism rejects reformism as an idea of struggle for a new society, although it does not entirely reject the method of reforms. Revolution cannot get along without reforms, without certain changes in various sectors of the life of society. Still reforms are no more than an auxiliary means of struggle, both at the stage of preparing a revolution and during its accomplishment and completion. Agrarian 248 reform and many other democratic changes, for example, are of immense importance in people’s democratic, anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution. It follows that in the hands of the revolutionary forces reform is a means of revolutionary change, while in the hands of the reactionary classes it is either a concession to the masses or a manoeuvre in face of the threat of a revolutionary crisis or a means of consolidating their own positions.