Killing in a Revolution: Would you feel guilty?

[Victory]

Hey guys,

I wanted to know your thoughts on the following question.

If there was a revolution to occur, and in the process you killed an innocent person without intent, when instead you were intending to kill a military target with the aim of overthrowing a government, would you feel guilty and not be able to live with yourself, or would you simply regret and be upset that you killed an innocent by mistake, and continue fighting?

You can offer more in-depth answers also of course.

My personal opinion if I was in this position is that, although I would sincerely regret the fact that I killed an innocent person, I would realise that in war such accidents sometimes happen, and I wouldn’t believe I was a "bad" person due to the fact my actions were not intended to harm a civilian, but were instead intended to help liberate the suffering.

Let me know your thoughts

[StoneFrog]

If you stopped fighting that person died in vain, pick up a gun and keep shooting.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I would certainly feel gulity but I don't think it would be enough to derail my beliefs entirely and stop me from activly perticipating in the struggle.

It's a sad but true unfortunate that cilivilians get stuck in the cross fire.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I feel guilty if it wasn't an innocent person? I'd imagine I'd feel guilty if I shot Glen Beck while he was charging at me with a special sword he made just for killing communists! I'd still be justified, but I wouldn't want to do this, so I'm sure I'd feel some level of distress about it.

We will never be able to out-gun the firepower of the ruling class, so we have to hit them where it hurts the most - the points of production and distribution - and all workplaces in general. Killing any individual by itself doesn't do anything to forward the revolution, so all killing should only be done in self-defense or in an effort to destroy the means of our oppression - otherwise it should be avoided at all costs IMO.

But, yeah, people will probably get killed - good people, bad people, just people and that's regrettable and a tragedy. We can do our best to minimize this by being well-organized and rooted in our communities and workplaces, but we can not ultimately control everything and the ruling class would undoubtedly try to physically smash the working class if there was a revolution. We don't know beforehand if a revolution will be bloody or peaceful... but we do know that without a revolution there is going to be needless starvation and suffering; mass imprisonment; millions killed in wars for profit and imperial power; racism; potential environmental ruin; potential extinction of humans through nuclear war; depressions; genocide; daily violence and fighting over scares resources; oppression; etc.

[BuddhaInBabylon]

I'm with Comrade Higgins. I gotta say though....We should be more focused on the non-violent aspects of the revolution before we consider any possibility of violent opposition for this reason: When the shit hits the fan, all hell will break loose in ways none of us can imagine. As much as we like to think that a guerilla uprising will last against the leviathan that is the military industrial complex, it will in all likelihood be like a scene from the terminator series (films) where the human resistance is brutally hunted and destroyed like rats. Have no illusions in thinking that the federales will come half cocked. If they move, it will be with everything they have, which is way more than any person not actively engaged in warfare RIGHT NOW, can anticipate or prepare for.
I just want to make that point because too often people are quick to talk about holding their iron, when they should be worried about printing that leaflet, or talking to their neighbors about the dangers of global capitalist agendas. Spreading the word is the most important part of our fight, if you ask me. Death leads to more death. Plain and simple. Knowledge is the key by which the floodgates of true freedom are opened.

[Magón]

I think I'd feel guilty for killing an innocent, but under whatever pretext it might be, it might also enrage after to fight harder against the enemy. Mainly because I'd feel an obligation to that person I killed, and their family, by killing an actual enemy, rather than another innocent who could have just been caught in the cross fire of us and the enemy?

But it depends on the situation as well, like why were/I was there, what was the information I was given, etc., etc.

[Pretty Flaco]

No matter who I'd killed, I'd still feel guilty. But I guess in a revolution, some sort of violence is inevitable. I'd prefer to keep the deaths minimal, even to the enemy.

[Peace on Earth]

If it was anyone but an extremely wealthy person who was hording his goods and wealth, I surely would. I'd probably even go out of my way to make sure the family of the deceased was doing alright financially, and after the revolution I'd see that they were set up nicely. Nothing can compare to the loss of a family member, especially one not involved in the conflict.

[A.R.Amistad]

If it was anyone but an extremely wealthy person who was hording his goods and wealth, I surely would. I'd probably even go out of my way to make sure the family of the deceased was doing alright financially, and after the revolution I'd see that they were set up nicely. Nothing can compare to the loss of a family member, especially one not involved in the conflict.

thats an awful lot of trouble to go to for a dead reactionary. can't say theyd do the same for you.

revolutionary wars are revolutionary wars is really all I have to say on this.

[stella2010]

I would never feel guilty. Not once. Never.

[Blackscare]

I would never feel guilty. Not once. Never.


Well I was gonna say how I doubt I'd feel particularly guilty if it was in combat, but now this person had to get all dramatic and silly and now I'm afraid to say it and look like a tool.

[Magón]

Well I was gonna say how I doubt I'd feel particularly guilty if it was in combat, but now this person had to get all dramatic and silly and now I'm afraid to say it and look like a tool.

I'm sure that the first time you killed someone, and probably the second or third time you did as well (if it went any farther than that,) you'd feel some resentment for doing so. All soldiers do I'm sure, but seeing death day after day would probably (like some video games do to some kids), make you numb to death, and you could probably go on killing.

[Ele'ill]

Hey guys,

I wanted to know your thoughts on the following question.

If there was a revolution to occur, and in the process you killed an innocent person without intent, when instead you were intending to kill a military target with the aim of overthrowing a government, would you feel guilty and not be able to live with yourself, or would you simply regret and be upset that you killed an innocent by mistake, and continue fighting?

This depends on other circumstances such as how competent the revolutionary process had been and was at the time of the innocent being killed.

I don't think we can afford collateral damage as we know it- by the examples set forth by the United States and other countries that seem to think 100,000+ civilian deaths due to munitions is ok. I don't think it's ok.

This question is easier answered if it is presented in the form of specific situations.


If I had to come up with something off the top of my head I'd say that widespread civilian casualties is incompetent and unacceptable- but even this depends on other various circumstances.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

[QUOTE=Nin;182372 . All soldiers do I'm sure, but seeing death day after day would probably (like some video games do to some kids), make you numb to death, and you could probably go on killing.[/QUOTE]

There's a massive difference between seeing someone killed in real life and witnessing killing in even the most violent of videogames.Seeing a corpse in person will always be traumatic no matter how many ultra violent videogames someone plays.

[chegitz guevara]

I'd do it. I'd feel horribly guilty. And I'd do it again. It would probably haunt me the rest of my life, but I'd still do it.

[Peace on Earth]

thats an awful lot of trouble to go to for a dead reactionary. can't say theyd do the same for you.

revolutionary wars are revolutionary wars is really all I have to say on this.
It's an innocent civilian who I killed. It's the least I can do, in his memory and for his family. Obviously if he was a wealthy man who was part of the problem I wouldn't do much except feel pretty bad about it, but for a fellow member of the lower classes I should take it upon myself to do something.

I think that attitude should be taken in any way, for that matter. The families that have had a member's life stolen from them by the attackers should be made financially secure. Isn't it the least one could do? After all, you took a life that you shouldn't have been taken.

[dawt]

"Being evil is worse than doing evil." (Or something along those lines)
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Killing civillians is horrible, and needs to be avoided if there's a chance - but accidents happen and that should not stop our cause. My take is: Shoot if necessary because not shooting won't save those people. The enemy won't stop at anything and his only goal is enslavement. I'd feel aweful though, yeah.

[Adi Shankara]

I'd feel sorry for the families, and I'd regret the effect it'd have on my karma (I know not all of you believe it, but I do), but the only thing that could make me kill would be a greater cause, i.e, the implication of communism or a revolutionary society Thus knowing that, I'd know all my slayings would be done for society and the betterment of it, so I wouldn't feel so bad in the end, even if I would feel sorry for those who fell at my hand.
Reactionaries know what they are getting into when they enter such wars; They certainly aren't innocent victims (unless pressed into war), but even so, you'd have to kill or be killed.

I guess I just see war realistically; to say that it's all bad or all good is false. It just is a duty that some of us may have to do sometime, or someday.
Kind've like in the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna tells Arjuna we all have duties and we all owe something to society, so we have to fulfill our duties, no matter how hard they may be.

overall, I just pray and hope I never have to go to war. It's something to be avoided, but if the time comes for a just revolution, then one can't be afraid to use the gun, but if it's an unjust cause (I.e, money dispute, gang war turfing), then I'd always condemn it. I have two friends serving in Pelican Bay for nefarious things.

Tl;dr: Violence is a terrible thing and must be avoided, but sometimes it can't be avoided, and when it can't, that is when one must fight bravely, without remorse until the battle is won, for the greater good.

[Chimurenga.]

Revolution is not a dinner party.

So, in other words, No. I would not feel guilty.

[Volcanicity]

If it was an innocent child i would regret it.But a revolution is a revolution,it aint pretty.

[tellyontellyon]

How many children are dying from aids in Africa because they can't afford the drugs that the big companies make massive profits from?

Capitalism kills every single day. :(

[Wanted Man]

It's so hypothetical that it's difficult to even seriously consider.

[Volcanicity]

How many children are dying from aids in Africa because they can't afford the drugs that the big companies make massive profits from?

Capitalism kills every single day. :(
The difference being we give give a shit about peoples lives,capitalism hasnt,doesnt,andnever will. Revolutions are bloody there will always be innocent casualties.That doesnt mean we shouldnt have some remorse.

[tracher999]

keep fichting 4 your freedom fuck that people that standing in your way

greetings:mad::cool:

[A.R.Amistad]

Actually, why is this in the learning thread? it should be moved to Chit Chat, along with all hypothetical questions like this

[Volcanicity]

Actually, why is this in the learning thread? it should be moved to Chit Chat, along with all hypothetical questions like this
Is there a we will never know until we have a revolution thread.

[NecroCommie]

I go by the rule: People who don't acknowledge human value, receive no human value (at least from me). Capitalist minions and nationalists of all colors deserve what is coming to them.

Civilians are ofcourse a different matter, but they too have political tendencies.

[A.R.Amistad]

Is there a we will never know until we have a revolution thread.

speculative questions with such open ended answers should be in Chit Chat

[4 Leaf Clover]

which side was that "innocent person" aligned to ?

if it was your side , then it is a great loss , but you can go over it if you continue the fight

if it was other side , then , it is success

if it was neutral , then you be neutral to it

in moment of revolution , wheel of history doesnt have mercy for indifferent

but of course , feeling of guilt would be natural , but accident is accident , even more when "innocent person" is standing in the battlefield

[Smokin']

Whilst violence may happen, there is a definite strong desire across this site for violence: I believe that, given a choice, a majority would opt for a violent revolution. These replies of "I'd do it and wouldn't feel guilty" reaffirm my believes. I have looked at this site and Stormfront for years, studying the people. The majority have the same thing in common. This same stupid bravado attitude such only has a negative effect. Those people who desire violence, and I believe there is a lot, are completely the opposite of the people who will make the right impact.

Assuming the best case did happensnd we got our way, would we really want some war mongering scumbag in any sort of power? Of course not. It's the same opinion I had when observing far right boards. If they are genuinely serious, then their opinions are counter productive.

Violence may happen and if it does, we will find out how we react then. However, some these posts about the potential of violence are simply wrong. I wonder if these people are more interested about being 'somebody' rather than make a positive effect. If you want to swing an AK over your shoulder, don a beret and think you're amazing, feel free, but your attitude is not the attitude that will win an actual war.

Could I do it? I don't know. Nobody does.

[Slav92]

The end justifies the means - victory in a revolution means victory over the poverty, hunger, exploitation and oppression that embraces todays world. Every country that turns to socialism is another step on the road to liberating the third and second worlds.

[Queercommie Girl]

Hey guys,

I wanted to know your thoughts on the following question.

If there was a revolution to occur, and in the process you killed an innocent person without intent, when instead you were intending to kill a military target with the aim of overthrowing a government, would you feel guilty and not be able to live with yourself, or would you simply regret and be upset that you killed an innocent by mistake, and continue fighting?

You can offer more in-depth answers also of course.

My personal opinion if I was in this position is that, although I would sincerely regret the fact that I killed an innocent person, I would realise that in war such accidents sometimes happen, and I wouldn’t believe I was a "bad" person due to the fact my actions were not intended to harm a civilian, but were instead intended to help liberate the suffering.

Let me know your thoughts

Define "innocent".

For me political principle is foremost. If the political programme of a genuine worker's vanguardist party told me to kill, I will kill, and by definition such killings cannot involve the "innocent".

There are no "natural ethics", only "political ethics", for "man is a political animal". If the political principle which is genuinely socialist states that person A is not innocent, then person A is not innocent, period, nothing else needs to be considered.

The Party Commands the Gun.

[leftace53]

pfft, there are no innocents in a revolution. :redstar2000:

But yes, I would feel bad, taking a life would weigh heavily on my conscience. Taking a reactionary life would weigh less on my conscience, but would have weight nonetheless.

[black magick hustla]

fapfapfapfapfapfap

[Os Cangaceiros]

Revolution is not a dinner party.

So, in other words, No. I would not feel guilty.

This has always been a curious quote to me, because I'm not sure who is saying, "Oh, revolution? I love dinner parties!"

All socialists (ignoring those who are explicitely pacifist, who are basically non-existent on this website) recognize the utility of violence.


The end justifies the means

Uh-oh...

[Zanthorus]

fapfapfapfapfapfap

Got there before me :(

[Chimurenga.]

This has always been a curious quote to me, because I'm not sure who is saying, "Oh, revolution? I love dinner parties!

Methinks that you're joking.

[28350]

I never do.

[el_chavista]

In any war there are no "surgical" killings: there always be unwanted civilian casualties.

[Leo]

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/014_terror.html

Also, a relevant quote from Rosa Luxemburg in What does the Spartacus League Want? :

The proletarian revolution has no need of terror to achieve its goals, it hates and abhors the murder of human beings. It does not need these means of struggle because it fights institutions, not individuals, because it does not enter the arena with naive illusions, whose disappointment it would have to avenge.

But the proletarian revolution is at the same time the death knell for all servitude and oppression. That is why all capitalists, Junkers, petty bourgeois, officers, all opportunists and parasites of exploitation and class rule rise up to a man to wage mortal combat against the proletarian revolution.

It is sheer insanity to believe that capitalists would goodhumoredly obey the socialist verdict of a parliament or of a national assembly, that they would calmly renounce property, profit, the right to exploit. All ruling classes fought to the end, with tenacious energy, to preserve their privileges. The Roman patricians and the medieval feudal barons alike, the English cavaliers and the American slavedealers, the Walachian boyars and the Lyonnais silk manufacturers – they all shed streams of blood, they all marched over corpses, murder, and arson, instigated civil war and treason, in order to defend their privileges and their power.

The imperialist capitalist class, as last offspring of the caste of exploiters, outdoes all its predecessors in brutality, in open cynicism and treachery. It defends its holiest of holies, its profit and its privilege of exploitation, with tooth and nail, with the methods of cold evil which it demonstrated to the world in the entire history of colonial politics and in the recent World War. It will mobilize heaven and hell against the proletariat. It will mobilize the peasants against the cities, the backward strata of the working class against the socialist vanguard; it will use officers to instigate atrocities; it will try to paralyze every socialist measure with a thousand methods of passive resistance; it will force a score of Vendées on the revolution; it will invite the foreign enemy, the murderous weapons of Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Wilson into the country to rescue it – it will turn the country into a smoking heap of rubble rather than voluntarily give up wage slavery.

All this resistance must be broken step by step, with an iron fist and ruthless energy. The violence of the bourgeois counterrevolution must be confronted with the revolutionary violence of the proletariat. Against the attacks, insinuations, and rumors of the bourgeoisie must stand the inflexible clarity of purpose, vigilance, and ever ready activity of the proletarian mass. Against the threatened dangers of the counter-revolution, the arming of the people and disarming of the ruling classes. Against the parliamentary obstructionist maneuvers of the bourgeoisie, the active organization of the mass of workers and soldiers. Against the omnipresence, the thousand means of power of bourgeois society, the concentrated, compact, and fully developed power of the working class.

The fight for socialism is the mightiest civil war in world history, and the proletarian revolution must procure the necessary tools for this civil war; it must learn to use them – to struggle and to win.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Methinks that you're joking.

Only half-joking.

It's just another Mao quote that sounds cool and "tough", but in reality has little to no real meaning. Same as the "barrel of a gun" quote. :rolleyes:

[Chimurenga.]

Only half-joking.

It's just another Mao quote that sounds cool and "tough", but in reality has little to no real meaning. Same as the "barrel of a gun" quote. :rolleyes:

No. It has meaning. You just don't understand it.

[Os Cangaceiros]

No. It has meaning. You just don't understand it.

Then why don't you explain it to me?

[Jazzratt]

Why do we get so many of these hypothetical "in the revolution would you..." threads. Perhaps it would be helpful to just have a sticky in this forum entitled "are you a macho hardman?" and never have to see another one of these fucking things again.

[Barry Lyndon]

I'd feel guilty I hadn't done it sooner. We should always think of all the people that we kill by letting the capitalists live.

[Devrim]

Why do we get so many of these hypothetical "in the revolution would you..." threads. Perhaps it would be helpful to just have a sticky in this forum entitled "are you a macho hardman?" and never have to see another one of these fucking things again.

So right. Maybe we should have a more realistic thread like "in a revolution would you...argue in mass meetings at your work...get up at five o'clock to leaflet the shift change...get involved in doing the boring stuff like labelling envelopes...all important things that will have to be done, but don't quite have the machismo-level of killing people.

And although the civil war was very bloody on the actual day of the Russian revolution, two people were killed in it. I am not sure that there would have been enough to go around all of the 'RevLeft hardmen'.

Devrim

[Smokin']

So right. Maybe we should have a more realistic thread like "in a revolution would you...argue in mass meetings at your work...get up at five o'clock to leaflet the shift change...get involved in doing the boring stuff like labelling envelopes...all important things that will have to be done, but don't quite have the machismo-level of killing people.

And although the civil war was very bloody on the actual day of the Russian revolution, two people were killed in it. I am not sure that there would have been enough to go around all of the 'RevLeft hardmen'.

Devrim

Devrim
Because they're more interested in the "Rev" than connected to the "Left". They just want a cause to stick to and pretend that when it happens, they'll be there on the front line.

Of course, if they were committed enough to kill or be killed, they'd be doing a lot more than fantasizing about it on an internet forum, just like the scum on Stormfront I mentioned.

The revolution starts whenever they want it to. Which, I'm guessing, is never.

A violent revolution should never happen in a first world country anyway. It doesn't need to and would be counter productive. There are many countries which do need it and need it now.

[Redswiss]

Yes, yes, I'd feel guilty. I'd feel guilty for killing anyone, except if the other person is standing in front of me and actually trying to kill me. So, I'm a pussy by some standards.

Well, I'd feel slightly less guilty for an enemy, but yeah.

[AK]

fapfapfapfapfapfap
Where's Psy when you need him? :lol:

keep fichting 4 your freedom fuck that people that standing in your way

greetings:mad::cool:
I can never take you seriously.

[ContrarianLemming]

If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl, and if you can't do that, find someone to carry you.

[Chambered Word]

And although the civil war was very bloody on the actual day of the Russian revolution, two people were killed in it. I am not sure that there would have been enough to go around all of the 'RevLeft hardmen'.

Devrim

What about the RevLeft hardwomen?

[Hiero]

This questions can not be answered on forum board. And yeah I agree they are very macho hard man questions.

Fanon (psychologist, anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist) in Wretched of the Earth has two interesting cases that I can remember.

One is a man who during the guerilla war (I can't remember which African Nation, maybe Ghana or Guinea) was responsible in some way for bombing cafe's that colonial soldiers and other high profiles would meet at. After the war he developed depression and other mental conditions because he began to think about if he had killed any innocents. I think they used to inform the workers that they were going to bomb the cafe first, like what they did in France against the Nazi occupiers but he could never be sure if they did get out. So he did feel guilt at the possibility of killing an innocent and this had a detrimental affect.

The other comparison is of a French soldier in Algeria who was responsible for torturing FLN fighters. He developed alot of messed up mental problems. In one situation he got angry at his wife and tied her and his kids up and began interogating the wife like how he would an Algerian independence fighter. Clearly he was affected mentally by his involvment in the systemic violence against colonised people. However when he was sent to Fanon (Fanon was working as a pyschologist for the French state and positioned in Algeria at the time) after disclosing this information he simple wanted Fanon to "fix" these problems so he could go back to his job and continue torturing people.

So even thought he developed mental problems, he ignored the source and did not feel any sort of guilt towards his victims.

My point is that this sort of psychological questions can not be asked in any realistic sense. And no one can answering with political camouflage (there are not innocent, communism is a higher goal etc). It appears that it is not something that can be rationalised. Guilt is a subjective feeling, an emotion that is invoked over time. You could kill someone in cold blood tomorrow, and in 20 years break down crying over it.

[Niccolò Rossi]

I'd feel guilty I hadn't done it sooner. We should always think of all the people that we kill by letting the capitalists live.

You can't blow up a social relation.

Nic.

[Queercommie Girl]

Then why don't you explain it to me?

"Political power comes from the barrel of a gun" is the flip-side of Clauswitz's "war is an extended form of politics".

Unless you think both quotes lack substance, there is no need to be biased against Mao.

[Jazzhands]

The bourgeoisie are easy to kill. Just take away their wealth and the power of capital that makes them bourgeois goes away.

[HEAD ICE]

It is a joke to answer this question. We all may like to believe we are the Red Rambo but reality works differently. The closest I can get to answering this question, I was once mugged in the park. Someone pulled a small little pocket knife on me and demanded my money. I always envisioned scenarios where I would be a super bad ass and go Bruce Lee style. In reality, I froze up and could not move. I felt like all the air was pulled out of me, and I was too frightened to even run away. I pulled out my wallet and he snatched it out of my hand and run away, but it still took me a good couple minutes before i could even move.

I've been in fights before, but I didn't live in an area where I had much to fear. I totally shut down the first time I had a weapon pulled on me, so I am not going to pretend to know what I would do in a counterrevolutionary civil war.

[Lyev]

It's very, very, very hard to envisage how a social revolution would pan out. Just think to yourself for a second, why should a revolution necessarily involve killing someone? If the majority of the people in one country or region wanted to do away with the bourgeoisie as the ruling class; to abolish of the wages system and of classes; an end to exploitation -- in other words, the end of capitalism -- then I'm not sure killing anyone (and rushing out into the streets with guns and bombs and whatever you think it will be like) is totally necessary. By the way, inane Mao quotes about dinner-parties don't help anyone here.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

How many children are dying from aids in Africa because they can't afford the drugs that the big companies make massive profits from?

Capitalism kills every single day. :(

See for me, this is awful logic.

You won't feel guilty killing a person, because Capitalism kills people too?

Isn't the death, poverty and general misery that Capitalism causes what we rally against every day?

I'm not interesting in judging someone who does/does not express guilt for killing someone for the revolutionary cause, but the argument you espouse is really not a good one at all.

[DaComm]

Wars have a historical tendency to be unpredictable, likewise seldom is it that deaths of civilians are 100% avoided. All I can say is, accidents happen, and on that note I would not fill myself with anguish and look down for the rest of my life, granted I would feel guilt seeing as I was the reason that someone's life was cut short. How much guilt, or even if I feel guilt at all would be dependant on who the person is. I would feel particularly regret if it was a left-sympathizer, but if it were a right-winger, a Glenn Beck perhaps, then I would feel no regret because they would not feel regret for us. In fact, their system functions by denying workers one of the most fundamentally human things; a garauntee of secure life and self-actualization.

[Queercommie Girl]

It's very, very, very hard to envisage how a social revolution would pan out. Just think to yourself for a second, why should a revolution necessarily involve killing someone? If the majority of the people in one country or region wanted to do away with the bourgeoisie as the ruling class; to abolish of the wages system and of classes; an end to exploitation -- in other words, the end of capitalism -- then I'm not sure killing anyone (and rushing out into the streets with guns and bombs and whatever you think it will be like) is totally necessary. By the way, inane Mao quotes about dinner-parties don't help anyone here.

I think your views are bordering on the utopian. To be sure, probably there won't be many deaths, but during the October Revolution people did die, and I don't see why any socialist revolution in the future would be fundamentally any different from the October Revolution, even in the most ideal cases. In less than ideal cases, actual war might break out, like during the Spanish Revolution.

In China, it's not just the Maoists who believe in "political power comes from the barrels of the gun". Chen Duxiu, the leader of Chinese Trotskyism and the Left Opposition of the CCP once said: "without overcoming the military force of the bourgeois in China, one might as well forget about a socialist revolution!"

Trotskyism isn't an excuse for utopian absolute pacifism.

[Barry Lyndon]

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/014_terror.html

Also, a relevant quote from Rosa Luxemburg in What does the Spartacus League Want? :

The proletarian revolution has no need of terror to achieve its goals, it hates and abhors the murder of human beings. It does not need these means of struggle because it fights institutions, not individuals, because it does not enter the arena with naive illusions, whose disappointment it would have to avenge.

But the proletarian revolution is at the same time the death knell for all servitude and oppression. That is why all capitalists, Junkers, petty bourgeois, officers, all opportunists and parasites of exploitation and class rule rise up to a man to wage mortal combat against the proletarian revolution.

It is sheer insanity to believe that capitalists would goodhumoredly obey the socialist verdict of a parliament or of a national assembly, that they would calmly renounce property, profit, the right to exploit. All ruling classes fought to the end, with tenacious energy, to preserve their privileges. The Roman patricians and the medieval feudal barons alike, the English cavaliers and the American slavedealers, the Walachian boyars and the Lyonnais silk manufacturers – they all shed streams of blood, they all marched over corpses, murder, and arson, instigated civil war and treason, in order to defend their privileges and their power.

The imperialist capitalist class, as last offspring of the caste of exploiters, outdoes all its predecessors in brutality, in open cynicism and treachery. It defends its holiest of holies, its profit and its privilege of exploitation, with tooth and nail, with the methods of cold evil which it demonstrated to the world in the entire history of colonial politics and in the recent World War. It will mobilize heaven and hell against the proletariat. It will mobilize the peasants against the cities, the backward strata of the working class against the socialist vanguard; it will use officers to instigate atrocities; it will try to paralyze every socialist measure with a thousand methods of passive resistance; it will force a score of Vendées on the revolution; it will invite the foreign enemy, the murderous weapons of Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Wilson into the country to rescue it – it will turn the country into a smoking heap of rubble rather than voluntarily give up wage slavery.

All this resistance must be broken step by step, with an iron fist and ruthless energy. The violence of the bourgeois counterrevolution must be confronted with the revolutionary violence of the proletariat. Against the attacks, insinuations, and rumors of the bourgeoisie must stand the inflexible clarity of purpose, vigilance, and ever ready activity of the proletarian mass. Against the threatened dangers of the counter-revolution, the arming of the people and disarming of the ruling classes. Against the parliamentary obstructionist maneuvers of the bourgeoisie, the active organization of the mass of workers and soldiers. Against the omnipresence, the thousand means of power of bourgeois society, the concentrated, compact, and fully developed power of the working class.

The fight for socialism is the mightiest civil war in world history, and the proletarian revolution must procure the necessary tools for this civil war; it must learn to use them – to struggle and to win.

I love Rosa Luxemburg. :wub:

[Lyev]

I think your views are bordering on the utopian. To be sure, probably there won't be many deaths, but during the October Revolution people did die, and I don't see why any socialist revolution in the future would be fundamentally any different from the October Revolution, even in the most ideal cases. In less than ideal cases, actual war might break out, like during the Spanish Revolution.

In China, it's not just the Maoists who believe in "political power comes from the barrels of the gun". Chen Duxiu, the leader of Chinese Trotskyism and the Left Opposition of the CCP once said: "without overcoming the military force of the bourgeois in China, one might as well forget about a socialist revolution!"

Trotskyism isn't an excuse for utopian absolute pacifism.Ok, I am not saying necessarily that revolution necessitates loads of cool bombs and tanks and whatnot, and neither I am saying that a socialist transformation would/will be totally peaceful either. I was merely describing such a situation that might or could occur; "might or could" being the operative words here. It's hard to envisage what a socialist revolution would be like in the 21st c. in the developed western world, as it's never really happened in this epoch. I will also emphasize, that as a revolutionary situation really starts to heat up, an aim for leftists would be politicizing, and reconfiguring the class-consciousness of the members of the police force and army, as the Bolsheviks did in the 1917. The bourgeoisie can't use these "bodies of armed men", to borrow a phrase from Lenin, on the proletariat and revolutionary forces if they've laid down their guns and joined "our", so to speak, side.

[Revolution starts with U]

I would feel horrible, and do whatever I could to comfort the friends and family of the victim. But was he really innocent? apathy is consent, consent is involvement.
Things happen in war, people die. This is never good, even when they are our enemies. But it happens, hanging up on it would only destroy the movement.

[nip]

I think I would feel guilty nomatter who I killed. Killing isn't my thing at all.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I think I could kill someone in a revolution and not feel bad about it. I don't know about innocent people, though I don't think I would feel horrible enough to stop.

[COMPLEXproductions]

I would feel the death of the innocent would riddle me with guilt, but I would see me stopping the struggle as them having died in vain. I feel that if I just stopped my fight, they died for nothing. I believe I am fighting FOR the innocent, therefore the innocent are on my side. If my fellow brother in arms dies, I will continue to fight, so the same philosophy holds true to any innocent. However, I don't believe in consciously "sacrificing" your comrades, for example as a distraction and seeing it as "necessary", if you know what I mean on this last note.

[Comrade Mango]

Violence is inevitable in any conflict with a state. I would feel guilty, but as Dawt said, accidents happen.

[IndependentCitizen]

I hate the idea of having to use violence to get your own way, It'd have to be a fascist, then I'd feel accomplished.

[Ocean Seal]

I don't know how it feels to kill someone, but I know that if I personally killed an innocent I probably wouldn't be able to deal with it. As so many others have not been able to. I don't think its feasible for most to kill an innocent and still keep fighting, and it cannot be easy for anyone.

[gorillafuck]

The bourgeoisie are easy to kill. Just take away their wealth and the power of capital that makes them bourgeois goes away.
They would obviously fight back.

And I would have trouble fighting, yeah. Both in that I'd probably feel guilty killing as well as that I would just not be a very good fighter. I don't have illusions about myself being some hardcore guy who can kill with ease for revolution.

Also, why does everyone on this site rage so hard against pacifism? There are pretty much no pacifists on this site, it's like raging against an imaginary person.

[HammerAlias]

I'd imagine I'd feel guilty if I shot Glen Beck while he was charging at me with a special sword he made just for killing communists!

The Blind Samurai?

[welshexile1963]

I wouldnt feel in the least bit guilty!

[Khalid]

I can't wait to find out.

[Chambered Word]

I can't wait to find out.

Nice sentiment. :lol:

[Autumn Red]

If and when the time comes, I would much rather be a field nurse.

[bcbm]

I can't wait to find out.

disgusting

[The Vegan Marxist]

If it was of the enemy, I don't think I would feel guilty, but I would be quite stressful of course. It would only fuel nightmares at night of reality in the morning. Though I'd keep fighting.

[Die Rote Fahne]

The lives taken in the revolution is nothing compared to the lives that will be taken if the revolution does not happen or fails.