I think it would be interesting to discuss military jobs. Just look at the role state soldiers played in the Russian Revolution and then the Civil War. If the booj fight back, the military matters. There’s huge power for sabotage or even revolt. Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo comes to mind.
Positions targetted by espionage also matter.
Trades like electrician, plumber, heating/cooling. Or any sort of manufacturing. Basically anything that produces a good or service people need.
Logistics support work and anything that gives you enough time in the day to read and apply theory.
Material context matters, but anything that would help maintaining “soviet” organisation after the revolution. Truck drivers, bikers, hardware-capable technicians, but also nurses and medics, farmers, depending on the society maybe even programmers, and also military-capable workers.
It all depends on what sort of proletarian power structure you’re building and what are the key skills required to maintain and grow it both during repression and after victory. If there’s lots of rails, train engineers. If urban areas are sparse, maybe radio operators.
It depends which part of the revolution you have in mind.
There’s the negative project of being revolutionaries and destroying the old bourgeois system. And there’s the subsequent positive project of building up a new society and proletarian state.
Of course, the trades and other labor are critical but that is obvious to a communist and isn’t everything either. As Lenin said, in order to successfully build a communist society you would need a host of “white collar” professionals that will openly side with the proletariat instead of the bourgeoisie. The problem is most side with the bourgeois, that may be the entire reason why they sought their respective profession. This also why they are not reliable to lead a revolution. If you have the skill and education for a profession, which will mostly abandon the revolution, and you can be someone in that profession that is ready to side with the proletariat and potentially teach it how to do the work as well then you are invaluable. It doesn’t really matter much which job it is.
Many, many jobs will help support the destruction of the bourgeois state and many, many jobs will help support the creation of a proletarian state. It just depends on which aspect you want to support and what you’re willing to do and what you’re skilled at doing.
Heavy industry. Some job where you’re actually creating something useful and important and work in a big factory with lots of other workers
Bus driver and tram/train conductor, as well as engineers
Whatever you are good at. It’s more about who you work for, less about what you do.
The revolution requires maintenance workers, legal teams, doctors, artists, soldiers and virtually every other job. You just need to be good at what you do. Be smart, be vigilant, be ready.
See faith makes great for details.
In terms of the effect that striking would have, infrastructure and transportation would be important.
In the US… we need revolutionaries most of all. But it doesn’t pay very well…
Military officer, so you can sabotage the capitalist military and train your comrades.
