Say no to Non Violence+!

[Ian Tomlinson]

Alot of left wing workers are turned off violent revolution by the white wash the capitalists has painted.

They say Ghandi gained Independence.

Actually no, the only reason Britain gave India independence is because they were severly weakened after WWII.

Even after India was given so called liberty, all its produce was still being stolen off the workers by national and oversees british capitalists.

MLK is supposedly another example of how to stand against oppression... To me he is an example of how to get massacred while singing for the perpetrators forgiveness.

The workers seldom listen to Malcoms call to "stop singing and start singing", they dont look to marx or lenin or mao, they seem to be fixed on non violence, this is a state of mind the rulling class has given us to make us weak and tame.

They also claim Mandella was non violent, yet i seem to remember him Leading the ANC before his imprisonment.

Non violence means violence against the workers without self defense or class war

Dont you agree?

[BBKing]

Non-violent protests tend to elicit more sympathy from those not yet committed and are harder to damn in general. It should not be marginalized as completely ineffective. I think it's too easy to dismiss King as a naive pastor who saw a hippie bond fire solution for us all. He had internal debates over pacifism: "I tried to arrive at a realistic pacifism. In other words, I came to see the pacifist position not as sinless but as the lesser evil in the circumstances. I felt then, and I feel now, that the pacifist would have a greater appeal if he did not claim to be free from the moral dilemmas that the Christian non pacifist confronts."

Everything tends to be framed around being the recipient of aggression. The American Civil War, the American Revolution, WWI, WWII, etc.

[Kenco Smooth]

To rule out pacifistic tactics is as stupid and harmful to the cause as ruling out violent ones. There is no reason we should limit ourselves to one doctrine or the other. Rather we should use both when each is appropriate.

I'm firmly against the minimalization of violent or non-violent tactics by anyone.

Also in regards to the Indian struggle for independance it's worth noting that, despite what liberal history has to say, the whole movement was far from pacifistic. Promoninent leaders of the movement such as Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh won huge popular support with their millitant tactics.

[Ian Tomlinson]

when i say say no to non violence, i dont mean say no to mass actions free of violence, ie Strikes, Marches, protests etc.

But limiting ourselves to non violence is counter revolutionary and ultimately leads to liberal fail

[Sasha]

i advise you to read this book http://www.akpress.org/2005/items/hownonviolenceprotectsthestate

excelent book that deals exstensivly with this subject.

(there is an torrent on pirate bay btw)

rejecting pacifism doenst mean using exlusivly violence, it means keeping all options on the table.

[Raúl Duke]

Tactics are tactics.

The best course is not to shot yourself in the foot by claiming strict adherance to violent means or non-violent means.

Everything has its opportune moments, the difficultly is gauging when one is to be non-violent and when one is to be violent.

However, for what we aim to achieve, there will eventually be some use of force, perhaps violent, since out ultimate goal is not to seek "reforms from above" but to take over and replace the current system.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

bumping this because i think it is an important issue that Marxists and Anarchists seem to have opposing views on.

I agree that it is important to keep all options on the table, violent or non-violent.

[Tablo]

Non-violence is beneficial to gaining support in the short run, but in the long run violence will become necessary. Those that preach against violence are naive fools with no significant understanding of the revolutionary situation.

[Coggeh]

bumping this because i think it is an important issue that Marxists and Anarchists seem to have opposing views on.

I agree that it is important to keep all options on the table, violent or non-violent.

Anarchists seem to have it in their heads that if your not throwing bricks at cops or firebombing banks for that matter your a pacifist.
Marxists are not and never were pacifists. The key is to use either tactic when appropriate, you don't in times of little struggle start rioting with no mass support, its simply counter productive and idiotic to do so. unless their is mass support and a real calling for militant tactics such as rioting to be used their not of much use. It wasn't the capitalist media that brainwashed the protesters and workers in Greece into thinking the firebombing was a bad thing it it was blatant common sense to most people that it was.

Violent action is useful is some situations depending on the conciousness of the working class at the time and the ability for the working class to protest/ strike etc. It can be used in the example of a fascist state where the working class is banned from organising and must turn to violent tactics or in the example of after the revolution when a counter revolution must be defended against.

The key difference is some anarchists fail to analyse situations correctly and turn to such actions out of pure failure to correct tactics with the appropriate situation the working class faces.

[howblackisyourflag]

Just do what's apporopriate to your own circumstances, dont be idealogically rigid about it.

Gandhis main policy wasnt actually non-violence, it was courage. He said be courageous, and use non-violence against your opressors, but that if violence is needed, then it is better to be violent and fight back than be a coward and do nothing.

Great talk about Gandhi by Norman Finkelstein here: http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2010/3/23/part_ii_scholar_norman_finkelstein_on_next_steps_t owards_resolution_in_israel_palestine

On violence,I read a fantastic review on a book called Violence by Slavoj Zizek here: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/violence-by-slavoj-zizek-769535.html

He talks about how the media loves to bring up reactionary violence of something like anarchists smashing a few windows, but they never talk about the much more common and deadly structural violence of capitalism, for example the fact that thousands of people die every day from lack of medicine that would cost a few cents to save their lives, while at the same time the pharma companies which make the medicine make more profits than any other industry ever, but the fact that this goes on is just considered 'the way it is'.

[Foldered]

i advise you to read this book http://www.akpress.org/2005/items/hownonviolenceprotectsthestate

excelent book that deals exstensivly with this subject.

(there is an torrent on pirate bay btw)

rejecting pacifism doenst mean using exlusivly violence, it means keeping all options on the table.
I'll definitely check this out. Thanks for sharing.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Anarchists seem to have it in their heads that if your not throwing bricks at cops or firebombing banks for that matter your a pacifist.

I disagree.

It is marxists who think only these things are "violence".

Organizing workers, occupying factories, defending communities, all of these things are "violence" and therefore Marxists support it too.

All anti-capitalist actions are violent because capital and the state identify such actions as being "violent".

For this reason, organizing workers and occupying factories is no different from smashing windows, fighting the police, and destroying the property of the ruling class.

[MaoTseHelen]

Amen comrade! +1

[griffjam]

the question of pacifism is serious only for those who have the ability to open fire. In this case, pacifism becomes a sign of power, since it's only in an extreme position of strength that we are freed from the need to fire.

http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/

[Animal Farm Pig]

Two quotations from Nobel Peace Prize winners:

"Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand." -- Yasser Arafat addressing the United Nations

"Firstly, we believed that as a result of Government policy, violence by the African people had become inevitable, and that unless responsible leadership was given to canalize and control the feelings of our people, there would be outbreaks of terrorism which would produce an intensity of bitterness and hostility between the various races of this country which is not produced even by war. Secondly, we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence." --Nelson Mandela on why he was a founding member of the Spear of the Nation.


Okay, the Nobel Peace Prize is kind of bullshit. Henry Kissinger also got one also. I don't personally have much love for either of the guys I quoted, but they make a good point. The key here is a combined political and military struggle. Occasionally, using just one or the other can work, but the power of the two combined is greater than the sum of the parts.


I'd like to address the most common objection to violent struggle that I've seen. "The masses don't understand; It will alienate people from our cause," etc., etc. This is a bullshit excuse as far as I am concerned.

Everyone here knows the violence, both physical and structural, perpetrated daily against the working people. We're not talking about anything theoretic or too advanced here-- we're talking about simple facts. That police beating the shit out of people for protesting is violence doesn't take much explanation. That people dying because they can't afford medical care is structural violence doesn't take too much more explanation. What takes a lot of explanation is the capitalist justification for this brutality.

One area where we're lucky is that (from my experience, at least) pacifism seems to be an entirely bourgeois disease. I challenge you to find a pacifist worker. I haven't met any. This works to our advantage.

We should adopt a twofold strategy:

1. Improve the class consciousness of the working class. The workers need to recognize themselves as a class, and recognize the violence perpetrated against the working class by capitalism. It's true that the capitalists have ideology and a massive propaganda apparatus on their side. That is their advantage. Our is advantage is simple-- reality. Class violence against the working class is real. Even if they don't have the words for it, workers can feel it in their bones. Our task is simple-- point out the reality to our comrades. As our working class comrades are able to articulate the class violence of capitalism for what it is, they will have no objections to undertakings of reciprocal violence.

This is such a basic task. The only reasons I can imagine why someone would not already be doing this are: 1) Laziness. 2) Secret contempt for "the masses." Perhaps you think they're just not equipped to recognize reality?

2. Use bourgeois pacifism to divide the bourgeoisie. As I mentioned above, pacifism seems to be an exclusively bourgeois affliction. We can turn this to our advantage. We can educate bourgeois pacifists to recognize capitalist state violence as violence. By doing so, divide the bourgeoisie. Yes, we can use divisive tactics against them as well.

We may have comrades who are generally on the right side, but have somehow picked up the bourgeois notions of "non-violence." That's okay. The capitalists have an entire system for indoctrinating ideology. It's not their fault. We should treat them as anyone else who has contracted any other infectious disease, like malaria or TB-- we strenuously work to cure them. We must not allow this issue to divide us as it will the bourgeoisie.