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/"Fail fast, fail forward"

General idea - can't just jump to revolution, and setbacks inevitably occur along the way.

As long as failures don't lead to unrecoverable defeat, can be used to move things forward, and may actually be necessary. Prabhat Patnaik states it well:

By the dialectics of reform and revolution I mean the following: revolution is the denouement of a persistent demand for reform on the part of the people which the system cannot accommodate. Therefore pressing for reform and mobilizing people around a demand for reform is not “reformism”; it is itself a revolutionary task.¹

Part of what I despise about "left" politics in the US. Electoral processes could be useful if we had candidates pushing for real things and the system constantly showing how it can't allow it.

• This still occurs to an extent, but done well enough to avoid backlash (Bernie not even getting to make it as a dem candidate, for example). Other examples - state M4A initiatives getting crushed

1905 before 1917
Long March before CPC victory

Cases where setbacks occurred where much has been said re: how it should have been avoided

• Nkrumah being overthrown²
• Allende
• Sankara?

But it is possible that more severe actions could have provoked even greater backlash - is there a way to reasonably assess this?

Bolivia coup against Morales - ppl dying as a result. In that context, one can justify crackdowns to avoid coup as being the just thing to do to avoid counterrevolutionary bloodshed. Were there reasonable actions that could have been taken then? Now, MAS is back in power, and coup plotters are being prosecuted. Is there an argument to be made for this being the best way to go, as the escalations in crackdown are being justified in the eyes of others?

• This makes me think of the idea of "optics" and how its importance may be exaggerated in many cases, esp in the context of enemies who will paint your actions in the worst light regardless. But, I don't think it can be disregarded altogether. And the audience isn't just "Western eyes". There's a country's own people
• Similar ex could be Russian action in Ukraine. Donbass republics wishing for greater assistance/intervention throughout the years while Russia attempting to get Minsk agreements to work (which West seemed to have no intention of implementing a meaningful peace with, vs buying time to arm Ukraine), then the intervention itself - SMO at first, possibly hoping for the use of force to bring Ukraine to the table, then escalating to partial mobilization when that was shown to not be sufficient.
  • In hindsight one can say greater action should have been taken in 2014, Minsk should have been seen for the bluff it was
  • Especially so given the death toll in Donbass since 2014
  • Would the Russian population have been on board for such action? Instead, failed attempts at diplomacy seen by all, as well as the need for greater mobilization, as well as the intense Russophobia in the West on display for all
  • May not matter to Russian libs (who, like "Westies" in general would never care regardless), but to the greater population, that's another matter

Going back to the original idea, if "failure" at some level is necessary, is there a way to "fail fast" to get things moving along?

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