How yould a revolutionary military be orginized?

[ContrarianLemming]

how would a revolutionary military/militia be orginized around anarchist ideals?

why would such a military be better then our current totalitarian hierarchal militaries?

[CartCollector]

why would such a military be better then our current totalitarian hierarchal militaries?You'd elect the people above you, which would mean that you'd have less of a chance of being told to fight and kill by an officer you don't respect. This has an obvious morale benefit.

[CChocobo]

A militia much like the ones under the CNT-FAI during the Spanish Civil War.

[CHE with an AK]

I believe the Zapatista's have done a good job of displaying how to do this.

[Robocommie]

You'd elect the people above you, which would mean that you'd have less of a chance of being told to fight and kill by an officer you don't respect. This has an obvious morale benefit.

Except your officers may not actually have much expertise in the way of military science. Popular officers aren't necessarily competent ones.

[here for the revolution]

Yet it would avoid the WW1 scenario of the bourgeois consensus of military tactics (i.e. run at machine guns) and general low valuation of their soldiers lives leading to the deaths of many innocent members of the lower class.

[Tifosi]

Except your officers may not actually have much expertise in the way of military science. Popular officers aren't necessarily competent ones.

I think when your life in the matter you would vote not just for a guy you like personal but a guy you think can do the job right. It wouldn't be a half-arsed vote like many do in general elections today, well I don't think it would be.

[black magick hustla]

first, every militia soldier will have to chop a limb off in order to put an arm gun. then every militia soldier will have to replace one of his eyes with a cyborg eye. the revolutionary milita lies in the cyborg

[Robocommie]

I think when your life in the matter you would vote not just for a guy you like personal but a guy you think can do the job right. It wouldn't be a half-arsed vote like many do in general elections today, well I don't think it would be.

The thing is, it sounds very good in principal, but this was actually tried already - the Soviets used democracy in the early days, during the Russian Civil War, but they found the democratic principle did not make for an efficient command structure, and they had to get rid of it.

[Sir Comradical]

Democratically elected generals would be a nice idea but for the military, you need command, control and strict discipline. Maybe it's possible to have both? I don't know, I'm not a military man.

[Velkas]

Here's a passage from Homage to Catalonia (http://www.george-orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/index.html), by George Orwell, describing the organization of the revolutionary militias during the Spanish Civil War:

At this time and until much later the Catalan militias were still on the same basis as they had been at the beginning of the war. In the early days of Franco's revolt the militias had been hurriedly raised by the various trade unions and political parties; each was essentially a political organization, owing allegiance to its party as much as to the central Government. When the Popular Army, which was a 'non-political' army organized on more or less ordinary lines, was raised at the beginning of 1937, the party militias were theoretically incorporated in it. But for a long time the only changes that occurred were on paper; the new Popular Army troops did not reach the Aragon front in any numbers till June, and until that time the militia-system remained unchanged. The essential point of the system was social equality between officers and men. Everyone from general to private drew the same pay, ate the same food, wore the same clothes, and mingled on terms of complete equality. If you wanted to slap the general commanding the division on the back and ask him for a cigarette, you could do so, and no one thought it curious. In theory at any rate each militia was a democracy and not a hierarchy. It was understood that orders had to be obeyed, but it was also understood that when you gave an order you gave it as comrade to comrade and not as superior to inferior. There were officers and N.C.O.S. but there was no military rank in the ordinary sense; no titles, no badges, no heel-clicking and saluting. They had attempted to produce within the militias a sort of temporary working model of the classless society. Of course there was no perfect equality, but there was a nearer approach to it than I had ever seen or than I would have thought conceivable in time of war.

But I admit that at first sight the state of affairs at the front horrified me. How on earth could the war be won by an army of this type? It was what everyone was saying at the time, and though it was true it was also unreasonable. For in the circumstances the militias could not have been much better than they were. A modern mechanized army does not spring up out of the ground, and if the Government had waited until it had trained troops at its disposal, Franco would never have been resisted. Later it became the fashion to decry the militias, and therefore to pretend that the faults which were due to lack of training and weapons were the result of the equalitarian system. Actually, a newly raised draft of militia was an undisciplined mob not because the officers called the private 'Comrade' but because raw troops are always an undisciplined mob. In practice the democratic 'revolutionary' type of discipline is more reliable than might be expected. In a workers' army discipline is theoretically voluntary. It is based on class-loyalty, whereas the discipline of a bourgeois conscript army is based ultimately on fear. (The Popular Army that replaced the militias was midway between the two types.) In the militias the bullying and abuse that go on in an ordinary army would never have been tolerated for a moment. The normal military punishments existed, but they were only invoked for very serious offences. When a man refused to obey an order you did not immediately get him punished; you first appealed to him in the name of comradeship. Cynical people with no experience of handling men will say instantly that this would never 'work', but as a matter of fact it does 'work' in the long run. The discipline of even the worst drafts of militia visibly improved as time went on. In January the job of keeping a dozen raw recruits up to the mark almost turned my hair grey. In May for a short while I was acting-lieutenant in command of about thirty men, English and Spanish. We had all been under fire for months, and I never had the slightest difficulty in getting an order obeyed or in getting men to volunteer for a dangerous job. 'Revolutionary' discipline depends on political consciousness--on an understanding of why orders must be obeyed; it takes time to diffuse this, but it also takes time to drill a man into an automaton on the barrack-square. The journalists who sneered at the militia-system seldom remembered that the militias had to hold the line while the Popular Army was training in the rear. And it is a tribute to the strength of 'revolutionary' discipline that the militias stayed in the field-at all. For until about June 1937 there was nothing to keep them there, except class loyalty. Individual deserters could be shot--were shot, occasionally--but if a thousand men had decided to walk out of the line together there was no force to stop them. A conscript army in the same circumstances--with its battle-police removed--would have melted away. Yet the militias held the line, though God knows they won very few victories, and even individual desertions were not common. In four or five months in the P.O.U.M. militia I only heard of four men deserting, and two of those were fairly certainly spies who had enlisted to obtain information. At the beginning the apparent chaos, the general lack of training, the fact that you often had to argue for five minutes before you could get an order obeyed, appalled and infuriated me. I had British Army ideas, and certainly the Spanish militias were very unlike the British Army. But considering the circumstances they were better troops than one had any right to expect.

[Kléber]

How the Revolution Armed (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1918/military/)

[bcbm]

one wonders what those who are so quick to jettison democracy in one situation when it proves difficult would do in others.

i think its also interesting that the immediate problem is viewed to be the democratic process and not the structure it is to be implemented in.

[DPV]

The idea of a voted officer or ncos in the military is an interesting one, i for one would love to see that implemented here and see some of these incompetent "leaders" ousted and replace by someone who, as a group, is thought to be better decision-maker.

[red cat]

Democratically elected generals would be a nice idea but for the military, you need command, control and strict discipline. Maybe it's possible to have both? I don't know, I'm not a military man.

Military expertize develops mainly through experience and exchange of knowledge. It is possible for the masses into organize themselves to guerrilla squads and further into a democratic military force. However, as the movement becomes bigger, the ruling class tends to surround the peripheral areas of the movement with very stiff state-resistance. In these places, some amount of centralization becomes necessary when the movement spreads.

In later years, as the operations against the movement assume a national character, centralization on a national level becomes necessary for the movement too. However, if the base level cadres can sum up over political economic and military gains, then most of the cadres/fighters will turn against the leadership if it does more harm than good. For this, it is necessary for the political military and economic organs of the revolutionary movement to largely coincide, and the base level cadres to have political education. If this is achieved, then it is possible to have democracy and centralization in the revolutionary armed forces at the same time.

[Fullmetal Anarchist]

As an Ex-military man I'd say no officers or ranks just work as a Chinese parliment. It works for special forces and they can get the job done.

[manic expression]

Revolutionary military organization, I think, should be flexible first and foremost. Revolutionaries have to adapt to a wide range of conditions, and so martial organization must follow suit.

The PLA is a good example. During the Revolution and Korean War, the PLA was routinely faced with far greater firepower, and so the organization of the military maximized the advantages of a revolutionary army (minimal ranks, an emphasis on mobile infantry, etc.). This was applied to great successes. At the same time, however, certain weaknesses became apparent (the outrunning of supply lines, unable to counter imperialist air power, etc.), and the PLA's situation changed (they weren't a guerrilla army anymore), and a reorganization was almost inevitable. I think this has been to the PLA's benefit.

No one type of organization can possibly be sufficient for the thousands of factors revolutionaries face. Flexibility is key.

And on edit, I think troops directly electing officers is a bad idea all around. I don't think it's worked in a single instance. Having officers appointed and monitored by the democratic revolutionary vanguard is just as fair and far more effective of a process IMO.

[Don Blue]

Comrade, why would you want to organize a militia? America has a free, democratic system where we get to elect our government. If you really want change then vote for the party that represents you! :)

[red cat]

Comrade, why would you want to organize a militia? America has a free, democratic system where we get to elect our government. If you really want change then vote for the party that represents you! :)

Hi cappie ! :)

[#FF0000]

Comrade, why would you want to organize a militia? America has a free, democratic system where we get to elect our government. If you really want change then vote for the party that represents you! :)

You should probably read a book.

[AK]

You should probably read a book.
http://img.infibeam.com/img/5fa50593/791/2/9781438902791.jpg
Like so?

[The Inquisitor]

Comrade, why would you want to organize a militia? America has a free, democratic system where we get to elect our government. If you really want change then vote for the party that represents you! :)

Please don't feed the troll.

[AK]

Please don't feed the troll.
Are you trying to make out that Aeon is the troll or Don?

[revolution inaction]

As an Ex-military man I'd say no officers or ranks just work as a Chinese parliment. It works for special forces and they can get the job done.

whats a chinese parliment?

[The Inquisitor]

Are you trying to make out that Aeon is the troll or Don?

Don

[black magick hustla]

this threads are a bit silly. i mean, has anyone of you ever been a participant of a guerrilla? i think military organizations require whatever is necessary at those conditions. i dont know beyond that