What happened to anarchist violence?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Although it's still around to a much more reduced extent, I've always wondered this question. For a couple decades (perhaps more), anarchists were the jihadists of the international worker's/communist movement. And not just in Europe, either...in Chile, for example, Efrain Plaza Olmedo shot two upper class youth dead in Santiago in 1912. In 1909 Simon Radowitzky bombed the chief of police in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing him in retaliation for the chief's brutal suppression of worker's during the "Tragic Week". In 1931 in Miraflores Bolivia, anarchists of the local anarcho-syndicalist organization did a drive by on a military barracks, spraying it with gunfire and throwing dynamite. That's just three examples out of countless others...

I realize that we live in a totally different era today, in many ways what happened back then seems like an entirely different world, even though it wasn't THAT long ago, but I've always wondered what happened to that kind of fanatacism. Perhaps all the anarchists just got sucked into the "middle class" and have too much to lose now; or perhaps it has to do with late capitalism or post-modernism or something.

Thoughts?

[Zav]

Insurrectionism was a popular Anarchist tendency in the early 20th century, however in most places the people were not class conscious enough for it to be effective. It was a tactic, like Anarcho-Syndicalism is today. Also at the time killing was not as discouraged as it is now among Insurrectionists, and when people died in a bombing (whether caused by Anarchists or not), it turned people away from Anarchism and contributed to the "Anarchy is chaos" idiocy. Modern Insurrectionists are still frowned upon by most Anarchists, and are often believed to be cops trying to incite a riot during protests (usually it is cops that do that, but not always). The ALF and ELF are the only sort of successful modern Insurrectionists that I can think of.

[#FF0000]

Well the coal miners in Spain have been building home made rocketlaunchers and shooting them at police in between beers on the barricade.

So there's that.

Who knows where the rest of it went, though.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Maybe it's some sort of way the penal system controls criminality or some shit
That's probably not true anarchists back in the day were probably just generally cooler guys.

[Sasha]

we evolved as a tendency, while some tenants of illegalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegalism) and nihilism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism_movement) where incorperated into further anarchist theory, most notably in insurrectionism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrectionary_anarchism) but also in general anarcho-communism the whole concept of propaganda of the deed as a "vanguardistic" approach and to include assasinations and bombings got questioned after some notorious cases (berkman's failed assasination attempt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Berkman#The_Attentat), the represion of the Galleanists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Galleani), the lexington avenue bombing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexington_Avenue_bombing), the McKinley assasination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_William_McKinley)) even some of its most adherent supporters (goldman, most) began to express doubts on the vallue of the method and its theoratical base.
while not scrapping the concept of propaganda of the deed completly they analysed that an attack needed already widespread support before it happend to have any revolutionairy value, otherwise it actually decreased the populairity of anarchism, drove the workers in the arms or reaction and it only led to the loss of valuable, irreplacable comrades through their death or imprisonment.
an in my opinion correct analysis as current day attempts at anarchist volunteerism/vanguardism (CCoF/FIA, revolutionary struggle) proof.
there is much more to been gained by attacking the symbols of the system than its easely replacable pawns, occyping a factory and militantly defending it during a labour struggle is so much more effective than shooting the factory owner, burning down a single bank during a riot spreads so much more revolutionary imagination than blowing up the finance minister ever could, not to mention that the chances you get away and live to fight another day are considerably bigger.

[Book O'Dead]

Although it's still around to a much more reduced extent, I've always wondered this question. For a couple decades (perhaps more), anarchists were the jihadists of the international worker's/communist movement. And not just in Europe, either...in Chile, for example, Efrain Plaza Olmedo shot two upper class youth dead in Santiago in 1912. In 1909 Simon Radowitzky bombed the chief of police in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing him in retaliation for the chief's brutal suppression of worker's during the "Tragic Week". In 1931 in Miraflores Bolivia, anarchists of the local anarcho-syndicalist organization did a drive by on a military barracks, spraying it with gunfire and throwing dynamite. That's just three examples out of countless others...

I realize that we live in a totally different era today, in many ways what happened back then seems like an entirely different world, even though it wasn't THAT long ago, but I've always wondered what happened to that kind of fanatacism. Perhaps all the anarchists just got sucked into the "middle class" and have too much to lose now; or perhaps it has to do with late capitalism or post-modernism or something.

Thoughts?

Too many to put down here. However...

Anarchist violence went the way of Al-Qaida. And your last paragraph is reprehensible, to say the least.

I think it's an insult to imply that the renounciation of violence is necessarily the result of "getting sucked into the 'middle class' (a bourgeois supposition, if ever there was one).

Also, most of so-called anarchist violence is/was either the nefarious concoction of rogue states (such as the U.S. etc.) or the product of disturbed minds and personal grudges (or all of them combined).

[Comrade Jandar]

Also, most of so-called anarchist violence is/was either the nefarious concoction of rogue states (such as the U.S. etc.) or the product of disturbed minds and personal grudges (or all of them combined).

Your insinuation that violent acts of propaganda by the deed were carried out by either mentally unstable people or the "useful idiots" of bourgeois states as some kind of conspiracy, is reprehensible. These acts were usually undertaken by very class-conscious, militant workers or perhaps even better, by desperate workers, who while not steeped in the intricacies of theory or belonging to a formal workers organization, had no other outlet to express their frustration and alienation.

[Book O'Dead]

Your insinuation that violent acts of propaganda by the deed were carried out by either mentally unstable people or the "useful idiots" of bourgeois states as some kind of conspiracy, is reprehensible.

I've no doubt that the mentally 'unstable' (I said 'disturbed') and those who believe in the supremacy of the political state would find my rant to be reprehensible.




These acts were usually undertaken by very class-conscious, militant workers or perhaps even better, by desperate workers, who while not steeped in the intricacies of theory or belonging to a formal workers organization, had no other outlet to express their frustration and alienation.

Yeah, like Ted What'sisname (the Unabomber)!

[Os Cangaceiros]

Too many to put down here. However...

Anarchist violence went the way of Al-Qaida. And your last paragraph is reprehensible, to say the least.

Really? "Reprehensible"? :lol:


I think it's an insult to imply that the renounciation of violence is necessarily the result of "getting sucked into the 'middle class' (a bourgeois supposition, if ever there was one).

That's why I put quotation marks around it.


Also, most of so-called anarchist violence is/was either the nefarious concoction of rogue states (such as the U.S. etc.) or the product of disturbed minds and personal grudges (or all of them combined).

I don't think there's any evidence to support that claim, especially the bologne about "rogue states" supporting anarchist violence in the early 20th century.

[Book O'Dead]

Really? "Reprehensible"? :lol:



That's why I put quotation marks around it.



I don't think there's any evidence to support that claim, especially the bologne about "rogue states" supporting anarchist violence in the early 20th century.


More than you can imagine and either of us can ever know:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bebel/1898/11/02.htm

[Os Cangaceiros]

More than you can imagine and either of us can ever know:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bebel/1898/11/02.htm

Really? That's all you have to support the allegation of a huge network of anarchist saboteurs, supported by "rogue states"? LOL :lol:

You really have to take a dive into Alex Jones land to believe that horseshit, considering the fact that anarchists or anarchist-influenced individuals murdered heads of state in Greece, the USA, Russia, Italy etc. not to mention innumerable attacks/murders against members of the ruling class and the nobility. But let me guess, it was all orchestrated by a sinister cabal that was too petrified by the spectre of social democracy, right? :lol: If that were true I bet the aforementioned cabal really felt silly after WW1, all that effort that didn't need to be expended!

The Palmer Raids must've been some part of the shadow government's master plan to continue anarcho-terror too, even though it targeted immigrant communities that was the seed bed of revolutionary socialism/anarchism. But hey, I guess conspiracy theories rarely make sense. And the "rogue state" of Italy supplying anarcho-terrorists all over the world! Nevermind the fact that Italy was plagued by revolutionary violence around that time, culminating in "Red Week" which was heavily influenced by anarchists. Wow!

[Book O'Dead]

Really? That's all you have to support the allegation of a huge network of anarchist saboteurs, supported by "rogue states"? LOL :lol:

You really have to take a dive into Alex Jones land to believe that horseshit, ...Wow!


Mischaracterizing and ironically exaggerating what I've submitted here will not do if you wish to understand the nature of subversive violence in actuality and throughout history.

Go back and read Bebel's speech and study some of the history of modern terrorism (I posted a good lead about that in the thread Umberto Eco's "THe Prague Cemetery") and then tell me if you still admire and believe in in your pseudo-Anarchist "Bombism".

[Os Cangaceiros]

Sorry, but I've actually done quite a bit of reading on the topic of insurrectionary violence, and I haven't found much in the way of concrete evidence that the vast majority of acts carried out weren't done simply by people who did them for the reasons they said they did them for. And yes, I know all about operation Gladio and all the other cloak-and-dagger shit throughout history (it is my passion as an infantile ultra-leftist), but sorry, the bullshit that the ruling class dispatches terrorists to kill off other members of the ruling class in order to clamp down on "legitimate" socialist movements doesn't fly with me, simply because they don't need excuses to clamp down on serious threats to state power.

Also, considering the fact that Bebel came from the same general Marxist scene that branded anarchists "parasites" (according to Luxemburg), maybe you should get a better source for speculation regarding this proto-operation Gladio idea, until then I'll continue my deranged admiration for anarcho-bombists, even though you'd be hard pressed to find such admiration in any of my posts. :rolleyes:

[ComradeOm]

I realize that we live in a totally different era today, in many ways what happened back then seems like an entirely different world, even though it wasn't THAT long ago, but I've always wondered what happened to that kind of fanatacismSimple: It didn't work. After a few decades it became pretty clear that a) bombings and assassinations had achieved next to nothing, and b) that the price paid was too high. It's not that complicated

So focus generally shifted towards more sophisticated revolutionary models, such as syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism and Marxism. That is, the end of individual terrorism largely coincided with the arrival of mass class-based politics. [Edit: This was cemented by the apparent success of 1917 which decisively, until recently, shifted the centre of debate towards mass action]

[The Douche]

Although it's still around to a much more reduced extent, I've always wondered this question. For a couple decades (perhaps more), anarchists were the jihadists of the international worker's/communist movement. And not just in Europe, either...in Chile, for example, Efrain Plaza Olmedo shot two upper class youth dead in Santiago in 1912. In 1909 Simon Radowitzky bombed the chief of police in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing him in retaliation for the chief's brutal suppression of worker's during the "Tragic Week". In 1931 in Miraflores Bolivia, anarchists of the local anarcho-syndicalist organization did a drive by on a military barracks, spraying it with gunfire and throwing dynamite. That's just three examples out of countless others...

I realize that we live in a totally different era today, in many ways what happened back then seems like an entirely different world, even though it wasn't THAT long ago, but I've always wondered what happened to that kind of fanatacism. Perhaps all the anarchists just got sucked into the "middle class" and have too much to lose now; or perhaps it has to do with late capitalism or post-modernism or something.

Thoughts?

Its all about sensitivity to violence/death. The time periods you're looking at were much more brutal times, death violence were far more prevalent in general, and the repressive capabilities of the state were much smaller.

The proposition of revolutionary civil war is not all to daunting to the Russian soldier who has spent years in the trenches of WW1. The violence (and freedom) of robbing banks is not off-putting to the Spanish peasant who has watched people in her village starve to death.

But people now in the first world don't understand or know this kind of violence, and so the violence of assassination, bombing, and bank robbery is very foreign and scary to them. Violence (to the people of the developed world) is something that happens in far off countries, or that is carried out by a select elite group (soldiers or criminals) who are highly specialized and trained.

[TheRadicalAnarchist]

With movements like Occupy, the view on violence has changed drastically. Though I do not agree with non-violence, this ideology has made itself prevelant.

[Book O'Dead]

Its all about sensitivity to violence/death. The time periods you're looking at were much more brutal times, death violence were far more prevalent in general, and the repressive capabilities of the state were much smaller.

The proposition of revolutionary civil war is not all to daunting to the Russian soldier who has spent years in the trenches of WW1. The violence (and freedom) of robbing banks is not off-putting to the Spanish peasant who has watched people in her village starve to death.

But people now in the first world don't understand or know this kind of violence, and so the violence of assassination, bombing, and bank robbery is very foreign and scary to them. Violence (to the people of the developed world) is something that happens in far off countries, or that is carried out by a select elite group (soldiers or criminals) who are highly specialized and trained.


This is unfortunate.

To say that opposition to violence is something that comes from people who have never experienced it is, to say the least historically and anecdotaly false.

Mark Twain (to cite a famous example) was a pacifist who lived, worked and wrote amidst an enviroment of deceit, war and violence. Ghandi knew violence and the horrors of war; he was a stretcher bearer in France during WW1, for crying out loud! No to metion the type of injustice, degradation and violence prevalent in the India of his day and South Africa where, I believe he came into political maturity.

I myself have met people who have been to war and have seen a nauseating ammount of violencce and its after-effects that have turned them into raving, mouth-foaming pacifists. Hell, one such person, well into his seventies by now, had the whole back part of his rotting automobile plastered with bumper-stickers with all sorts of crazy and half-baked slogans proclaiming his well-informed opposition to war, militarism and violence. It was all he could do, I suppose.

Also, by your logic, just because I've never walked in the shoes of a capitalist or hung out at their country clubs I cannot divine his way of thinking or acting, especially as it relates to me or society at large.

Nowadays it's not necessary for anyone to have to suffer in order to understand suffering and develop empathy for those who actually do. Nor is it necessary for me to witness first hand an act of violence to undertand its consequences.

Like I said elsewhere in this forum: The best weapon against violence is effective, edifying communication between people. You'll see, how much better things can go for the working class if--as has happened many, many times troughout history and continues to happen--an army of worker writers, educators and organizers rise up and begin to speak, teach and write about all of the things that cause us grievance.

I think the saying goes like this: "One truth, well told, is mightier than a thousand lies". And, of course, the PEN is mightier than the SWORD!

[ComradeOm]

Its all about sensitivity to violence/death. The time periods you're looking at were much more brutal times, death violence were far more prevalent in general, and the repressive capabilities of the state were much smaller.Nonsense. The shift within anarchism against individual terrorism occurred just before Europe was about to plunge into what was probably the bloodiest period in its history. Trying to explain the failure of propaganda of the deed, and the like, through the population becoming less tolerant of bloodshed is silly

[The Douche]

Nonsense. The shift within anarchism against individual terrorism occurred just before Europe was about to plunge into what was probably the bloodiest period in its history. Trying to explain the failure of propaganda of the deed, and the like, through the population becoming less tolerant of bloodshed is silly

My statement is not directed at explaining the failure of illegalism, which i don't think was the question, but at explaining why illegalism is less popular now than it once was. I'll make another post when I'm not on my phone though.

[ComradeOm]

And the two aren't related? It's a modern vanity to assume that the past is a different country. The reasons that propaganda of the deed, or whatever the latest fancy name for this is, failed are as valid today as they were a century ago. If you want to explain why it's not popular today then I suggest you start with this: why it fell from popularity in the first place

And there are multiple (real) reasons to cover before you arrive at "sensitivity to violence/death". Again, starting with number one: Failure

[The Douche]

And the two aren't related? It's a modern vanity to assume that the past is a different country. The reasons that propaganda of the deed, or whatever the latest fancy name for this is, failed are as valid today as they were a century ago. If you want to explain why it's not popular today then I suggest you start with this: why it fell from popularity in the first place

And there are multiple (real) reasons to cover before you arrive at "sensitivity to violence/death". Again, starting with number one: Failure

First of all, it never really had popularity to fall from, and you're assuming things about my position that aren't necessarily true, but yeah, I need a computer before i respond again.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Its all about sensitivity to violence/death. The time periods you're looking at were much more brutal times, death violence were far more prevalent in general, and the repressive capabilities of the state were much smaller.

The proposition of revolutionary civil war is not all to daunting to the Russian soldier who has spent years in the trenches of WW1. The violence (and freedom) of robbing banks is not off-putting to the Spanish peasant who has watched people in her village starve to death.

But people now in the first world don't understand or know this kind of violence, and so the violence of assassination, bombing, and bank robbery is very foreign and scary to them. Violence (to the people of the developed world) is something that happens in far off countries, or that is carried out by a select elite group (soldiers or criminals) who are highly specialized and trained.

I'm actually not sure how true this actually is, despite it being an impression many people have (ie desperate individuals are the ones who commit desperate acts). I mean, the 9/11 hijackers didn't come from a hellish Palestinian refugee camp, and the "underwear bomber" was the son of one of the richest men in Africa. Many of the most fanatical early Russian terrorists and conspirators in the years before the Bolsheviks were from relatively privileged backgrounds, not serfs. There are many other examples.

So far I think I'm leaning more towards ComradeOm's explanation, although even that one doesn't completely satisfy me.

[The Douche]

Before I can really adress the argument further, what are the sort of eras/locations/situations we're talking about regarding anarchist violence?

I'm assuming that we're talking about limited (not mass) violence in the period following ww1 and before ww2/the spanish civil war. Which is a relatively small time period, but includes the illegalism of France, the bombings in the US, and the pistoleros/expropriations in Spain. (though those times frames are just from memory, so I might be running them together)


All I really said earlier, was that in the past violence and death (including non-violent death) was far more commonplace and society at large was far more desensitized to it. For instance, how many people on revleft have seen a dead body (outside of the hospital/a funeral/whatever)? How many factory workers today, in the first world, have seen a fellow worker mangled or killed by the machines on the line?

If I had seen the horrors of the trenches of WW1, I would certainly be a different person than I am today, and yes, I would probably be trying to assassinate princes and presidents. I challenge anybody here to tell me that soldiers (i.e. people who have seen real, real violence/death/destruction) are not more willing to use violence.

In a world where reality is more brutal and violent than the one in which we currently find ourselves, why would anybody expect the anarchists to not also be more brutal and violent?

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

They've mostly been neutered or spade and are trying to rationalize it with ridiculous theories and justifications.

[The Douche]

They've mostly been neutered or spade and are trying to rationalize it with ridiculous theories and justifications.

Don't call people cowards from the internet, it makes you look like an idiot.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Don't call people cowards from the internet, it makes you look like an idiot.

:rolleyes:

I'm just saying, the next time I hear the phrase "class consciousness," when speaking of political violence in the negative I'm going to pull my hair out.

Way I see it, violence is the equalizer, no tax brackets. That simple.

[The Douche]

:rolleyes:

I'm just saying, the next time I hear the phrase "class consciousness," when speaking of political violence in the negative I'm going to pull my hair out.

Way I see it, violence is the equalizer, no tax brackets. That simple.

I mean, I'm down with violence. But I don't think the reason anarchists are less violent now is simply because they're "wimps".

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I mean, I'm down with violence. But I don't think the reason anarchists are less violent now is simply because they're "wimps".

To be honest, what I really was getting at, was, we can all sit here and talk and pontificate and mentally masturbate but what I don't understand is, when it get's time to actually walk the talk, the majority of comrades on the Left back away, criticize and reject any real, tangible, objective action.

[The Douche]

To be honest, what I really was getting at, was, we can all sit here and talk and pontificate and mentally masturbate but what I don't understand is, when it get's time to actually walk the talk, the majority of comrades on the Left back away, criticize and reject any real, tangible, objective action.

I don't think thats true at all. Sometimes "real, tangible, objective action" is not violent at all.

Sometimes it is, in which case, I wouldn't say the "majority" of my comrades back away, if they do, they are probably not people who meet my definition of communist anways.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I don't think thats true at all. Sometimes "real, tangible, objective action" is not violent at all.

Granted and accepted but within the context of this conversation, I think you know what I mean.


Sometimes it is, in which case, I wouldn't say the "majority" of my comrades back away, if they do, they are probably not people who meet my definition of communist anways.

Of course none of my comrades back down either, that's why we've been criticized left and right (see any thread on Black Block). But agreed.

Fuck man, I'm getting drunk and worked a 13 hour shift, you know we agree, what the fuck. :lol:

[ComradeOm]

If I had seen the horrors of the trenches of WW1, I would certainly be a different person than I am today, and yes, I would probably be trying to assassinate princes and presidents. I challenge anybody here to tell me that soldiers (i.e. people who have seen real, real violence/death/destruction) are not more willing to use violenceAgain you have your timelines wrong. The height of what I'll lump together as 'physical force anarchism' (propaganda of the deed, illegalism or whatever) came not after WWI but prior to it. The backlash had started in the 1890s but after 1914 "assassinating princes and presidents" became very old hat. The violence that WWI did unleash was of a mass nature with the emergence of Bolshevism and, separately, the 'soldier-citizen'

If your thesis was correct, and the number of anarchist terrorist acts is influenced by the tolerance for violence within a society, then you'd expect acts of anarchist violence to soar after the particularly bloody periods. Instead the opposite happened. And explaining why requires far more than talk of '(de)sensitivity to violence'


I'm assuming that we're talking about limited (not mass) violence in the period following ww1 and before ww2/the spanish civil waWhy would you assume that? That's a very narrow timeframe to put on a discussion of anarchist violence...

[The Douche]

Again you have your timelines wrong

Like I said, I didn't double check them.


If your thesis was correct, and the number of anarchist terrorist acts is influenced by the tolerance for violence within a society, then you'd expect acts of anarchist violence to soar after the particularly bloody periods. Instead the opposite happened. And explaining why requires far more than talk of '(de)sensitivity to violence'

Yeah, you are misunderstanding my statement. 1) Not a society's "tolerance" for violence (the US, for instance, has a high tolerance for violence, so long as it does not occur within its borders, as long as it is in movies, on tv, in video games, in books, and in foreign countries though, its a-ok), but its exposure to and the prevalence of (actual) violence in that society. 2) I do not suggest that the prevalence of violence results in anarchist violence. Only that the prevalence of violence imparts on all individuals an acceptance of violence as a part of life, and some of those individuals become anarchists and continue to hold the same view of violence.

My statement boils down to this, in societies which are more violent, the anarchists will also be more violent. Will you really argue against that? Really? I think you'd have to be a fool.

[ComradeOm]

My statement boils down to this, in societies which are more violent, the anarchists will also be more violent. Will you really argue against that? Really? I think you'd have to be a fool.In societies that are more violent, people are more violent. Really, and I don't mean to be particularly harsh, that's pretty banal conclusion you have there

Although when you do check the dates I'm sure that you'll find that an increased level of violence in society does not necessarily translate into increased levels of physical force anarchism. It could easily be argued that the more violent the society, the more likely anarchists are to channel their energies into mass movements rather than terrorism

[Die Neue Zeit]

Nonsense. The shift within anarchism against individual terrorism occurred just before Europe was about to plunge into what was probably the bloodiest period in its history. Trying to explain the failure of propaganda of the deed, and the like, through the population becoming less tolerant of bloodshed is silly

Have you by chance read Engels's commentary on the Bakuninists in Spain? The shift to anarcho-syndicalism was already suggested by the likes of Bakunin himself.

[Book O'Dead]

A significant point that I failed to make in my last intervention is this: As far as I can tell, many, if not most of the "revolutionary violence" and "Illegalism" (all meaning to me essentially the same thing: Terrorism), has been carried out, not by jaded victims of violence, striking back at at their oppressors--as a previous post seems to imply--but confy-chaired bourgeois who concoct and direct terrorism from the safety of their economic privilege. Osama Bin Laden comes to mind as one example.
Of course, there are many exceptions to this rule. For example, the terrorist and guerrilla actions of the Viet Cong and similar national liberation movements throughout the world can be placed in a different and more honorable category of violence, that is, if "honor" and violence can ever be reconciled.

That's how I see it.

[The Douche]

A significant point that I failed to make in my last intervention is this: As far as I can tell, many, if not most of the "revolutionary violence" and "Illegalism" (all meaning to me essentially the same thing: Terrorism), has been carried out, not by jaded victims of violence, striking back at at their oppressors--as a previous post seems to imply--but confy-chaired bourgeois who concoct and direct terrorism from the safety of their economic privilege. Osama Bin Laden comes to mind as one example.
Of course, there are many exceptions to this rule. For example, the terrorist and guerrilla actions of the Viet Cong and similar national liberation movements throughout the world can be placed in a different and more honorable category of violence, that is, if "honor" and violence can ever be reconciled.

That's how I see it.

Yeah, Jules Bonnot was totally just like Bin Laden. And he was totally bourgeois, working in factories and being conscripted into the army and all...

[Book O'Dead]

Yeah, Jules Bonnot was totally just like Bin Laden. And he was totally bourgeois, working in factories and being conscripted into the army and all...

I don't know who Jules Bonnot is. But in case your reply is obscured by irony I offer this: Some who have engaged in revolutionary violence are worthy of our admiration, no doubt.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara is highly admired (though not exclusively for that reason and--in some revolutionary quarters--reproached for his use of violence) and Ho Chi Mihn is a great world hero and statesman who lead, if you will, an entire army agaisnt two empires.

But those are exceptions rather than the rule, and in this discussion I am mostly addressing the rule, that is, the generality, not the exception regarding the type of people who lead others down the no-return path of violence.

As far as I can tell, it's the comfortable, the protected and the priviledged that make up the leadership and executors of violence in our time; both on the right and on the so-called left.

[The Douche]

I don't know who Jules Bonnot is. But in case your reply is obscured by irony I offer this: Some who have engaged in revolutionary violence are worthy of our admiration, no doubt.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara is highly admired (though not exclusively for that reason and--in some revolutionary quarters--reproached for his use of violence) and Ho Chi Mihn is a great world hero and statesman who lead, if you will, an entire army agaisnt two empires.

But those are exceptions rather than the rule, and in this discussion I am mostly addressing the rule, that is, the generality, not the exception regarding the type of people who lead others down the no-return path of violence.

As far as I can tell, it's the comfortable, the protected and the priviledged that make up the leadership and executors of violence in our time; both on the right and on the so-called left.

The shit you're talking about isn't what the OP was referring to, just saying.

[Ele'ill]

I'm not sure that anarchist violence has been reduced.

[Luc]

i kinda agree with Mari3L wat about the anti-francoists like Libertarian Youth and the First of May Group in the 60s as well as the Angry Brigade in the 70s? then as someone mentioned the anarchsty (or anarchist i dunno 'em) ELF and ALF

[PhoenixAsh]

Ok...who was arguing that WWI was the only big conflict around at that time?

Several; major conflicts crossed over the European continent....


The Hungarian revolution. The Italian war of independence. War in the German states. Prussia with Austria, Prussia with France. Belgian war. Balkan wars. Italy vs Turkey. Anglo-Irish war. Russian Revolution. War in Poland, Balkans, War in Estonia and Latvia. War between Turkey and Greece.

And these are but a few of the armed military conflicts before WWI and during the interbellum. I deliberately left out some of the uprisings and revolutions.

So the period was extremely violent...with a high media interest in very explicit crime stories. Death penalties in several countries like England, France, Italy and Germany....and street mobs in several others. A time period when Shanghai/ing was still common in the docks of London...

[revolt]

Propaganda of the deed and urban guerillaism have shown themselves to be massive failures as theories, not just in the early 1900's when anarchist propaganda of the deed was common, but in the 1960's through the 1980's when new left urban guerillas were prominent in the US and western Europe, and amounted to nothing.

[PhoenixAsh]

I don´t know. I think society has become more individualised...in the last three decades. I think we will see more and more individualist and small group actions in the comming years.

And since we now have more effective ways of communicating...more people will know about actions and more people will copy. It is not that the theory has failed....the timing wasn´t right for it.

[The Douche]

Propaganda of the deed and urban guerillaism have shown themselves to be massive failures as theories, not just in the early 1900's when anarchist propaganda of the deed was common, but in the 1960's through the 1980's when new left urban guerillas were prominent in the US and western Europe, and amounted to nothing.

All theories are fucking failures if your litmus test is "did it create world communism".

And PS, your post doesn't adress illegalism, which most people don't want to touch, since illegalism is generally succesful in a specific context.

[revolt]

All theories are fucking failures if your litmus test is "did it create world communism".my reasons for considering it a failure are that all it ever did was cause people to rot in prison after having accomplished nothing, and gotten no gains other than some wasted lives of people who meant well.


And PS, your post doesn't adress illegalism, which most people don't want to touch, since illegalism is generally succesful in a specific context.I didn't read this whole thread so I was pretty much responding to the original post and really just my view on the idea of propaganda of the deed itself. I'm not even familiar with illegalism, so I can't comment on that.