Exiling is anti-internationalist

[ind_com]

Exiling counter-revolutionaries from socialist nations only makes the revolutionary activities of the proletariat abroad more difficult. Discuss.

[Ostrinski]

There are no socialist nations.

I'd say exiling is one of the more effective ways of dealing with political enemies of the state. After you isolate them from the population, anything is fair game as far as slander, discredit, fabrication, etc. goes. Going straight for the execution - especially of a high profile, prominent political or military figure - smells fishy. Looks dubious. The best way to cut off a political enemy's ability communicate their rebuttal is to deprive them of the means to do so.

Once this detachment has been achieved, you're in the clear for formulation of a propaganda campaign with minimal obstruction. Be sure that all media outlets are out of the hands of those that might possibly be sympathetic with exile. This operation can be tricky, but if executed correctly success is possible.

You can even say that they collaborated with Nazis or something and with any luck you'll find people simple enough to believe you :lol:.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

The title of the thread does not reflect the original post.

Yes, exiling could be considered "anti-internationalist", as internationalism seeks the dismantling of all states, and thus exile becomes rather pointless. However, why would the exile of enemies of the revolution, be a problem for foreign revolutionaries?

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I think a terror like that of the French Revolution is way more effective in dealing with counter-revolutionaries

[Permanent Revolutionary]

Well, a "reign of terror" also has its drawbacks, as it pumps up an atmosphere of division, and then it becomes tough to say who is executed for truly being an enemy of the revolution, and who is executed, just because they have too many enemies.

[hatzel]

However, why would the exile of enemies of the revolution, be a problem for foreign revolutionaries?

I think what he's saying is that if you exile a bunch of Thisland's right-wingers to Thatland, then Thatland's left-wingers will be lumbered with a load of right-wingers. This could be construed as palming one's problems off on others, a betrayal of internationalism. The OP can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the argument...

[The Jay]

I think a terror like that of the French Revolution is way more effective in dealing with counter-revolutionaries

That may be true, but it is also a good way to have people murder innocent people: remember the spanish revolution? There were murders of many nuns and others that didn't have anything to do with the power structure of the church's oppression there. Many priests that were not actually bad people were killed as well.

A Terror may very well occur, but it is certainly not something that should be looked forward to or intentionally triggered. Some good may come from it but they have turned into witch hunts in all the instances that I can think of.

I would prefer a peaceful transition, but don't really expect it. If there is to be violence it must be prepared for to end it quickly so that there can be as little bloodshed as possible. Terrors seem to be about the opposite.

[ind_com]

The title of the thread does not reflect the original post.

Yes, exiling could be considered "anti-internationalist", as internationalism seeks the dismantling of all states, and thus exile becomes rather pointless. However, why would the exile of enemies of the revolution, be a problem for foreign revolutionaries?

Because counter-revolutionaries will act against the proletariat of those countries. Someone who opposes one revolution, will oppose all others.

[ind_com]

I think what he's saying is that if you exile a bunch of Thisland's right-wingers to Thatland, then Thatland's left-wingers will be lumbered with a load of right-wingers. This could be construed as palming one's problems off on others, a betrayal of internationalism. The OP can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the argument...

This is exactly what I meant.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

That may be true, but it is also a good way to have people murder innocent people: remember the spanish revolution? There were murders of many nuns and others that didn't have anything to do with the power structure of the church's oppression there. Many priests that were not actually bad people were killed as well.

A Terror may very well occur, but it is certainly not something that should be looked forward to or intentionally triggered. Some good may come from it but they have turned into witch hunts in all the instances that I can think of.

I would prefer a peaceful transition, but don't really expect it. If there is to be violence it must be prepared for to end it quickly so that there can be as little bloodshed as possible. Terrors seem to be about the opposite.

I remember some stuff from the church in Spain saying the revolution was “barbaric because it destroyed centuries of civilisation”.

I really don't like moralist approaches towards terror.
People tend to forget that the terror was one of the only things that could save the revolution.

I also think Mark Twains words on the reign of terror are correct:
"There were two 'Reigns of Terror', if we could but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passions, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all for the "horrors of the... momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief terror that we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror - that unspeakable bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves."

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

That may be true, but it is also a good way to have people murder innocent people: remember the spanish revolution? There were murders of many nuns and others that didn't have anything to do with the power structure of the church's oppression there. Many priests that were not actually bad people were killed as well.

A Terror may very well occur, but it is certainly not something that should be looked forward to or intentionally triggered. Some good may come from it but they have turned into witch hunts in all the instances that I can think of.

I would prefer a peaceful transition, but don't really expect it. If there is to be violence it must be prepared for to end it quickly so that there can be as little bloodshed as possible. Terrors seem to be about the opposite.

I'm not sexually aroused by the thought of state run terror campaigns unlike other posters, but how could priests and nuns not be complicit with the oppressive church structures? We're not interested in liquidating the ruling class because they are mean, but because of their relationship to the oppressive structures they keep in place.

[Avanti]

Exiling counter-revolutionaries from socialist nations only makes the revolutionary activities of the proletariat abroad more difficult. Discuss.

exile them?

down mount krakatoa?

[Permanent Revolutionary]

I think what he's saying is that if you exile a bunch of Thisland's right-wingers to Thatland, then Thatland's left-wingers will be lumbered with a load of right-wingers. This could be construed as palming one's problems off on others, a betrayal of internationalism. The OP can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the argument...

Then an answer could be to exile Thisland's reactionaries to a remote and desolate area of Thisland. (Siberia being an obvious example)

[l'Enfermé]

Hahahahaha. You're missing the point, people. OP is sneakily implying that a counter-revolutionary like Lev Trotsky(how this counter-revolutionary became the figurehead of the Bolshevik armed forces during the Civil War, we cannot figure out! - he must have been very good at hiding his counter-revolutonaryness) should not have been exiled from a socialist nation like the Soviet Union(:laugh:) because that allowed him to stir up all sorts of counter-revolutionary trouble around the world, like that Fourth International business. Instead, Monsieur Trotsky(the Counter-Revolutionary) should have been locked up and executed in the cellar of some prison.

But of course our friend the enlightened(:laugh:) Maoist fails to comprehend that if the Stalinist regime was capable of killing Trotsky that early on, it would have. Alas, Trotsky's popularity among the working-class urban population was still too big. If the Stalinists were capable of doing more in 1929, they certainly would have. No one has ever accused them of restraining themselves from violence against their opponents.

[GoddessCleoLover]

As long as there exists a singular centralized vanguard party substituting itself for the proletariat the decision as to who is or is not a counter-revolutionary will be decided in an arbitrary and capricious manner for the benefit of whatever faction manages to control the organizational machinery of the party. We must develop a new and better revolutionary paradigm for until we do so we will not regain the support of the working class.

[Os Cangaceiros]

That may be true, but it is also a good way to have people murder innocent people: remember the spanish revolution? There were murders of many nuns and others that didn't have anything to do with the power structure of the church's oppression there. Many priests that were not actually bad people were killed as well.

IIRC from Anthony Beevor's book on the Spanish civil war, most of the priests who were well-liked in their local parishes were not killed.

Innocent people were definitely killed during the SCW, and that's always tragic, but in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak of war, the number was quite a bit higher in the "white zone" than it was in the "red zone"...

[GoddessCleoLover]

I hope that we can agree that circumstances have changed since the SCW and commit ourselves to not killing priests or raping nuns in future revolutions. The Cuban revolution succeeded without spilling the blood of priests and nuns, and I would like to think that we can do likewise.

[Ostrinski]

The existence of a terror or the need for a terror does not say anything particularly good about your revolution. When bourgeois states use political terror it signifies that the state is weak and support for it is shaky. Therefore it resorts to direct coercive means of its own maintenance because ideological alignment with the state among the masses is weak.

If a worker government needs excessive political violence to maintain itself it can only signify an extraordinary failure of the revolutionary movement's commitment to democracy and popular engagement and it signifies the great irresponsibility of the seizure of power without these things. The longer the revolution is to endure something like a terror the greater the danger that we might never get it back.

There's nothing moralistic about saying any of this or saying that it's generally bad to kill innocent people or have a situation where large amounts of innocent people may be killed. To dismiss those who oppose one's bizarre violence fantasies as moralist is juvenile. Scarce are there greater ways to cause people to question socialism and rethink their opposition to capitalism than to have a big carnage fest or to talk of having one as something other than a bad thing.

[Ostrinski]

Also, comparisons with the Jacobian terror in France don't really hold any water. The Jacobins were warriors of the bourgeoisie which was not a major portion of the population. They mowed off all the heads of the opponents of the new bourgeois order because though the French Revolution was a popular insurrection the only real task of the Jacobins was to create and maintain some stability for the burgeoning bourgeois republic.

At the end of the day the bourgeoisie don't need things like democracy, popular engagement, etc. for the maintenance of their rule because their system is a hierarchical one that only necessitates the active participation of the bourgeoisie themselves, not of the other classes that make up their system.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Also, comparisons with the Jacobian terror in France don't really hold any water. The Jacobins were warriors of the bourgeoisie which was not a major portion of the population. They mowed off all the heads of the opponents of the new bourgeois order because though the French Revolution was a popular insurrection the only real task of the Jacobins was to create and maintain some stability for the burgeoning bourgeois republic.

At the end of the day the bourgeoisie don't need things like democracy, popular engagement, etc. for the maintenance of their rule because their system is a hierarchical one that only necessitates the active participation of the bourgeoisie themselves, not of the other classes that make up their system.

Of course they were, they couldn't be marxists, capitalism didn't exist yet,
But for those times they were a major progressive force.

Of course when terror is needed on such a massive scale the revolution isn't at its strongest. That is exactly the reason terror should be used to make sure that the revolution succeeds, because a failed revolution has a much worse effect than the use of terror for a strong period.
Everything that is needed to save a revolution should be used, wether or not innocents get killed does not really matter in the long run.
Of course innocents get killed, it's a revolution. It's an break from the old society by force not a “normal” situation.

I wouldn't call it “bizarre violent fantasies”, on the contrary I would say it is in my class-interest to make sre a revolution doesn't collapse. What you are doing is the usual stuff that tries to slander people who do not reject violence as trigger-happy psychopaths.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

What about internal exile? Rather than palming off our own problems onto others, stick 'em in the arse end of revolutionary territory where it's harder for them to cause trouble and easier to keep an eye on them.

[Let's Get Free]

Terror doesn't do anyone any favors, and is often counter-productive. Revolutionaries should start tearing down the repressive apparatuses of the state, not building them up. And since a socialist revolution will be made by the working classes themselves, there isn't really much the counter-revolutionaries can do. Are they going to convince the workers that the revolution they had just made themselves was a bad thing?

[Ostrinski]

Of course they were, they couldn't be marxists, capitalism didn't exist yet,
But for those times they were a major progressive force.Which isn't the point at all. They can be progressive until the cows come home but they were class warriors for the bourgeoisie and the needs of the bourgeois revolution are fundamentally different from the needs of the proletarian revolution. The bourgeois revolution is merely a transfer and crystallization of political power of the already developed bourgeois class into the ruling class with a monopoly on political power. Not incompatible with political terror at all because the bourgeoisie is merely one segment of the population and therefore everyone outside of this class is disposable.

In contrast, the proletarian revolution is an emancipatory movement. The ultimate task of the proletariat is to abolish itself because a proletarian is not a good thing to be. The emancipatory movement of the proletariat must necessarily be one of ceaseless popular democratic involvement and because the proletariat does not need to exploit other classes to maintain society the socialist revolution constitutes the effective emancipation of humanity.

And that is why the comparison to the Reign of Terror is illegitimate. Unless of course you think something like Napoleonic France is what we are working toward in which case you are not my comrade. The one is a transition from one ruling class to the other, ours is the abolition of all classes, including our own.


Of course when terror is needed on such a massive scale the revolution isn't at its strongest. That is exactly the reason terror should be used to make sure that the revolution succeeds, because a failed revolution has a much worse effect than the use of terror for a strong period.
Everything that is needed to save a revolution should be used, wether or not innocents get killed does not really matter in the long run.
Of course innocents get killed, it's a revolution. It's an break from the old society by force not a “normal” situation.When terror is needed on such a massive scale the revolution is not ready to transform society and the seizure of power before the working class enact this seizure as a class is reckless at best, opportunistic at worst, and dooms the revolution to swift degeneration. Terror does not "make the revolution succeed." Quite the contrary, the existence or need for terror represents a great deceleration of the revolution and one that if not checked and worked against can permanently damage it.

Revolution cannot be "saved" if the conditions for its survival are not present, i.e. international proletarian solidarity etc. And of course it matters if innocents are killed. I sincerely cannot think of a greater way to make people rethink socialism than a giant carnage fest or massacre, and especially the proposal of one. I mean seriously, let's try and think rationally for a second. Just for a second. Why the fuck would anyone dedicate themselves to something like that? If I'm a worker, I'm joining the revolution to save myself, to free myself, to enhance my existence. Not to put myself in a situation of greater danger and misery than the one I was in before.

What you're proposing sounds like another bureaucratic state capitalist gangster state. Not my state, and certainly not the state of the working class, and a state that I would resist more tenaciously than a traditional bourgeois state because at that point the movement has been in motion and can be salvaged.


I wouldn't call it “bizarre violent fantasies”, on the contrary I would say it is in my class-interest to make sre a revolution doesn't collapse. What you are doing is the usual stuff that tries to slander people who do not reject violence as trigger-happy psychopaths.I don't reject violence or killing in a revolutionary situation. What I reject is the idea that systematic violent excesses are positive things that not only should not be worked against but worked toward.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Which isn't the point at all. They can be progressive until the cows come home but they were class warriors for the bourgeoisie and the needs of the bourgeois revolution are fundamentally different from the needs of the proletarian revolution. The bourgeois revolution is merely a transfer and crystallization of political power of the already developed bourgeois class into the ruling class with a monopoly on political power. Not incompatible with political terror at all because the bourgeoisie is merely one segment of the population and therefore everyone outside of this class is disposable.

The Jacobins were arguably the most left-wing group in the French Revolution.
I think if you look at history the French Revolution was not merely a transfer of power.
I remember a story about Robespierre not having too much contact with organisations of the people whicj is obviously one of the limitations the French revolution. But fair enough let's take a look at another use of terror the Red Terror, the Red terror was necessary and in a way saved the Bolsheviks.


In contrast, the proletarian revolution is an emancipatory movement. The ultimate task of the proletariat is to abolish itself because a proletarian is not a good thing to be. The emancipatory movement of the proletariat must necessarily be one of ceaseless popular democratic involvement and because the proletariat does not need to exploit other classes to maintain society the socialist revolution constitutes the effective emancipation of humanity.

I would argue the DotP is a period where the proletariat does oppress another class.
Only when there are no more capitalists the proletariat ceases to be a class.


And that is why the comparison to the Reign of Terror is illegitimate. Unless of course you think something like Napoleonic France is what we are working toward in which case you are not my comrade. The one is a transition from one ruling class to the other, ours is the abolition of all classes, including our own.

Neither were the Jacobins in favor of Napoleonic France. Of course it ended in that but the use of terror was not to achieve a Napoleonic state.


When terror is needed on such a massive scale the revolution is not ready to transform society and the seizure of power before the working class enact this seizure as a class is reckless at best, opportunistic at worst, and dooms the revolution to swift degeneration. Terror does not "make the revolution succeed." Quite the contrary, the existence or need for terror represents a great deceleration of the revolution and one that if not checked and worked against can permanently damage it.

Unless you're an idealist who thinks that after a revolution the bourgeoise will just accept anything, in which case you're opinion is not of much worth, I would say that there are still part of society that will fight against the revolution. The use of terror is a possibility against these people.


Revolution cannot be "saved" if the conditions for its survival are not present, i.e. international proletarian solidarity etc. And of course it matters if innocents are killed. I sincerely cannot think of a greater way to make people rethink socialism than a giant carnage fest or massacre, and especially the proposal of one. I mean seriously, let's try and think rationally for a second. Just for a second. Why the fuck would anyone dedicate themselves to something like that? If I'm a worker, I'm joining the revolution to save myself, to free myself, to enhance my existence. Not to put myself in a situation of greater danger and misery than the one I was in before.

Quite contradictory. On the one hand you say that for a revolution to succeed depends on material conditions but do not argue the same for why a worker should dedicate himself to the revolution. You're disregarding that that worker lives in certain material conditions which turn him towards the goal of socialism. Because it is in his class interest.

Also just because whether or not a revolution succeeds is determined, so to speak, by certain conditions, does not mean that we should sit back and enjoy the show. Active struggle is still needed.


What you're proposing sounds like another bureaucratic state capitalist gangster state. Not my state, and certainly not the state of the working class, and a state that I would resist more tenaciously than a traditional bourgeois state because at that point the movement has been in motion and can be salvaged.

I haven't talked about how this terror should go, merely that terror is something that is to be used in certain situations. So you're just talking out of your ass.


I don't reject violence or killing in a revolutionary situation. What I reject is the idea that systematic violent excesses are positive things that not only should not be worked against but worked toward.

I argue that terror is a part of the revolution and indeed should be worked towards.

[hatzel]

Well if you lot are going to keep talking about the Jacobin Terror, I can't help but be reminded of Walter Benjamin's 'Critique of Violence (http://www.scribd.com/doc/12200144/Benjamin-Walter-Critique-of-Violence)' - always worth a read, I might add - with the Terror as the archetypal example of law-making violence. I'll cite a (potentially) relevant paragraph from Saul Newman's analysis of the aforementioned:


[D]espite the differences between law-making and law-preserving violence, they both lead to a perpetuation of the law or, more precisely, power. Law-preserving violence, because it acts either to enforce existing laws, or to change only particular laws, maintains the authority of the legal system and the state. Law-making violence, which is directed towards the overthrowing of existing laws, only establishes new ones in their place. In both cases, the symbolic position of the law is sustained and perpetuated. Law-making violence is particularly problematic for Benjamin because it succumbs to the illusion that one is breaking absolutely with existing forms of authority, only to establish a new authority in its place, thus remaining, inextricably, within the very paradigm it seeks to overthrow. Therefore law-making violence only reaffirms the place of power. In fact law-making violence is irreducibly related to the problem of power, reaffirming the link between violence, law and power. As Benjamin argues, the violence in law-making is paradoxical: it has as its aim, in so far as it seeks that which is to be established as a new system of laws, the dismissal or overcoming of violence; yet, at the same time, violence is instantiated and reaffirmed at the very moment of this establishment of the law. So the paradox of the law is that it contains a hidden complicity with violence: violence cannot abolish the law without erecting a new legal order in its place; and law cannot abolish violence without itself acting violently. In other words, there is an irreducible violence at the heart of the law, despite the attempt of law-making to disavow the violence at its own foundations. Rather than the dismissal of violence, ‘it specifically establishes as law not an end unalloyed by violence but one necessarily and intimately bound to it, under the title of power’ (Benjamin 1996: 248). Power, in other words, refers here to this irreducible connection between violence and the law: violence against the law always involving a reaffirmation of the law; the law which seeks to dismiss violence always involving a violence of its own. Power is the signifier that presides over this connection. That is why, as Benjamin argues, ‘Lawmaking is powermaking, assumption of power, and to that extent an immediate manifestation of violence’ (1996: 248). Benjamin therefore forces us to rethink the question of violence within the problematic of power, and to re-examine the relationship between violence and power.

[Ocean Seal]

Hahahahaha. You're missing the point, people. OP is sneakily implying that a counter-revolutionary like Lev Trotsky(how this counter-revolutionary became the figurehead of the Bolshevik armed forces during the Civil War, we cannot figure out! - he must have been very good at hiding his counter-revolutonaryness)

I really don't think that was what he was going for from his first post.

[ind_com]

What about internal exile? Rather than palming off our own problems onto others, stick 'em in the arse end of revolutionary territory where it's harder for them to cause trouble and easier to keep an eye on them.


Then an answer could be to exile Thisland's reactionaries to a remote and desolate area of Thisland. (Siberia being an obvious example)

Internal exile is a good idea.