Post Revolution: Holding People Accountable

[Dying_Willow]

Hello,

My question is, after a successful revolution and authority has been pretty much smashed, would all authority figures be dealt with and punished for their actions and the laws they made and enforced?

Would sick disgusting scum like the police along with their families, friends and supporters, be let off the hook now that they were no longer a threat? Or would people see to it that they rightfully suffered?

Thanks.

[Catillina]

I resume what I would do, not what somebody teached.


Hello,

My question is, after a successful revolution and authority has been pretty much smashed, would all authority figures be dealt with and punished for their actions and the laws they made and enforced?


Well, I dont realy know, I depends from case to case. But caution is needed, of course the ancient powerceepers wont let the Revolution be, they want the power back, so some have to be eliminated, or "castrated".


Would sick disgusting scum like the police along with their families, friends and supporters, be let off the hook now that they were no longer a threat? Or would people see to it that they rightfully suffered?

Well, the superior police officers perhaps, but not the simple policeman, their friends, or family.
-Policeman himself: He completed his orders, perhaps some exceptional cases would be punished, but the rest would be forgiven
-families&friends: well I dont see the reason to punish them, they cant be made responsible, only because their brother/friend etc was a policeman, so no, they wont be punished

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Hello,

My question is, after a successful revolution and authority has been pretty much smashed, would all authority figures be dealt with and punished for their actions and the laws they made and enforced?

They would probably run away to a non-communist territory before the revolution is successful, the bourgeoisie will flee in fear as was proved in the Spanish civil war, albeit briefly.


Would sick disgusting scum like the police.... be let off the hook now that they were no longer a threat?

Some of the police will be on the side of workers revolution and some will stick with their bosses. Those who stick will end up killed by capitalist forces because they will be sacrificed in battles to protect them.


along with their families, friends and supporters, be let off the hook now that they were no longer a threat?Or would people see to it that they rightfully suffered? be let off the hook now that they were no longer a threat?

What have they done? They aren't the police so they have nothing to answer for.

[blackwave]

Hello,

My question is, after a successful revolution and authority has been pretty much smashed, would all authority figures be dealt with and punished for their actions and the laws they made and enforced?

Would sick disgusting scum like the police along with their families, friends and supporters, be let off the hook now that they were no longer a threat? Or would people see to it that they rightfully suffered?

Thanks.


Calling the police 'sick disgusting scum' strikes me as childishly idiotic. And you'd go after their families and friends as well... christ.

What would be the point in punishing people? Why do you want them to suffer? Do you delight in suffering? In that case, you are as bad as or worse than anyone you are trying to overthrow.

[Niccolò Rossi]

I was reading Part 2 of the ICC's series on 'Marxism and Ethics (http://en.internationalism.org/ir/128/marxism-and-ethics-pt2#sdfootnote2anc)' and for what it's worth I thought this was somewhat relevant:

"It is not least this understanding that we are all victims of our circumstances, which make Marxist Ethics the most advanced expression of moral progress to date. This approach does not abolish morality, as the bourgeoisie claim, or sweep aside individual responsibility, as petty bourgeois individualism would have it. But it represents a giant step forward in basing morality on understanding rather than guilt - the feeling of culpability which hampers moral progress by cutting off the inner personality from fellow man. It replaces the hatred of persons - this prime source of anti-social impulses - with indignation and revolt towards social relations and attitudes."

This was also the point of view defended by the young proletarian dictatorship in Russia. It called upon the courts to be "entirely free from the spirit of revenge. They cannot take vengeance on people simply because they have lived in bourgeois society." (Bukharin and Preobrazhansky: The ABC of Communism. Commentary of the programme of the 8th Party Congress, 1919. Chapter IX. "Proletarian Justice". § 74. "Proletarian penal methods.")

Nic.

[blackwave]

That's interesting Niccolo. My approach is that consciousness is primarily dictated by conditions, and one should thus seek to transform social conditions rather than persecute individuals, which achieves nothing but satisfying one's hateful urges.

[howblackisyourflag]

I think we should worry about getting there before we try to think about far away problems like this.