The Draft

[Orcris]

What is your opinion on requiring military service in a post-Revolutionary society? I doubt any of us are going to want to require people to join the militaries of capitalist, imperialist countries, but what about the militaries of socialist states? Should people who aren't conscientious objectors be required to join them?

[Skyhilist]

No, it's wrong to force someone to fight based on a draft. When you draft people you don't know what they'be got going on. Maybe they're going through a really tough time in life, maybe they have kids, or maybe they have some other thing going on that isn't possible to test for in some "fitness test" to see if they're good to serve. It really makes no sense to me that we'd need a draft anyways. After all, in a successful revolution to liberate the working class must be an act of the working class, so it seems that if very many people would be willing to fight for socialism if society was class conscious enough do undergo revolution. Anyways I don't think a draft is really fair or moral.

[blake 3:17]

I only know one one person who has had to deal with that situation. Nicaragua against the Contras.

And conscription was necessary and right. Alternative duties sound great, but when the shit hits the fan... Socialists SHOULD be socialists to end violence. 99% are.

One of the few things Zizek, who I'm very intrigued(?) by, has said that has much relevance on revolutionary praxis is on this question. If you'd be willing to issue the order, you'd better be willing to carry it out.

Edited to add: Just a few backgrounders on Nicaragua and the war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandinista_Popular_Army and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras

A relatively recent Left discussion of some merit is here: http://johnriddell.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/washington-threatens-reprisals-against-nicaraguas-voters/

[Orange Juche]

I've always felt, if you don't have enough people to fight the war, maybe you shouldn't be fighting it. There are nuances and nothing is black and white, but forcing someone into that kind of situation is a pretty weighty thing to do, and if it is done, should definitely be done with very deep consideration.

[Geiseric]

At the very minimum a direct democratic red militia could be needed to react to inevitable nazi terrorists who will be, and are already armed to the teeth for a civil war. Communists might find it advantageous to only employ defensive violence but that's not certain. Corporal punishment should be made illegal as soon as a revolution happens though.

[Skyhilist]

Under socialism, why would we even need to have a draft? We'd have reached a period where most were class conscious, meaning that would many would fight off any threats to defend socialism and worker control. I mean even under capitalism, plenty of people volunteer to fight in bourgeois U.S. wars who aren't even in the bourgeois class. I don't see why this would be a problem under socialism.

Also, seeing as the Nicaraguan government didn't even successfully fight off the U.S.-backed contras, doesn't that just demonstrate the futility of conscription? Or if you want a look at another example, look at Vietnam and how it took a turn for the worse for the U.S. bourgeois by the the end of the war due to conscription. Nobody who'd been drafted even knew what they were supposed to be fighting for, and many were discouraged and didn't even give a shit. It'd be no different with conscription under socialism.

[Blake's Baby]

What is your opinion on requiring military service in a post-Revolutionary society? I doubt any of us are going to want to require people to join the militaries of capitalist, imperialist countries, but what about the militaries of socialist states? Should people who aren't conscientious objectors be required to join them?

The terms of the question are very unclear to me. In post-revolutionary society, who is there left to fight? What are 'socialist states' do you think?

[Fourth Internationalist]

In the dotp, universal arms training should be required. Not a draft so to say, but so everyone is a part of the militia structure to defend the dotp. An army wouldn't be needed because the dotp shouldn't really be invading anyone but defending itself.

[Fourth Internationalist]

The terms of the question are very unclear to me. In post-revolutionary society, who is there left to fight? What are 'socialist states' do you think?

I think he's referring to the dotp and potential imperialist invasions, right-wing uprisings from within, etc.

[Paul Pott]

I think in the 21st century conscription would still suit a DOTP, but it should only exist to train the population to fight and resist an invasion. Conscript units would be purely defensive and only used on native soil. Their focus would be on supporting the main forces in assaults and on guerrilla warfare. Those who wanted could join the "professional" forces from there. Then there would be local militias of all able bodied men and women.

The conventional forces would be made up of volunteers.

Basically three components -

Conventional forces
People's Army
Popular Militias

Obviously the structure of the military depends on the country in question. Albania had the second and third, and since it posed no conventional threat to any other military in the region, Albanian strategy relied on making the country unoccupiable. That is why they built bunkers, pillboxes, fighting positions, and small supply depots everywhere.

[Dear Leader]

Conscription, no. An armed, dedicated and organized proletariat would be prepared to fight for the revolution.

[X5N]

I completely oppose forced military service.

[Luís Henrique]

So here again we strive to square the circle, ie, to find a democratic, socialistic, humane, nice, and perhaps even pacific, way of waging war.

There is no such thing; war is war and war is hell. That's the reason, of course, that we oppose it in principle.

If we don't want conscription, we don't have standing armies. If we don't want standing armies, we don't go to war.

If, conversely, for whatever reason, we do go to war, we do what is necessary to win it. Conscription seems to apply.

If, moreover, we go to war to defend a revolution for equality, then we must go to war in an egalitarian manner. We wouldn't want to create a separate body of people whose task is to unleash violence, if for no other reason, because it is pretty obvious that such separate bodies of specialised warriors will eventually turn their guns against us.

Luís Henrique

[Vanguard1917]

I doubt any of us are going to want to require people to join the militaries of capitalist, imperialist countries...

Didn't the Bolsheviks want this?

[MarxSchmarx]

If, conversely, for whatever reason, we do go to war, we do what is necessary to win it. Conscription seems to apply.


Just on this point, I think others have alluded to this, but what i understand of contemporary military strategy (at least for top-down conventional militaries) is that conscription is actually seen as counter-productive and generally undesirable. There was an initiative a few years ago to do away with conscription in NATO altogether I think because of concerns about the effectiveness of joint responses by states that retained military conscription. I think the places where it is still kept (Austria, Mexico, Finland, etc...), with the possible exceptions of Israel and South Korea, conscription has become largely a way to be roughly equivalent to a national service obligation with no serious military or strategic objectives.

It could be that the situation would be different in under alternative military organization. But my sense is that if anything a horizontal military would have more difficulties with conscription than a conventional military.

[Jimmie Higgins]

So here again we strive to square the circle, ie, to find a democratic, socialistic, humane, nice, and perhaps even pacific, way of waging war.

There is no such thing; war is war and war is hell. That's the reason, of course, that we oppose it in principle.

If we don't want conscription, we don't have standing armies. If we don't want standing armies, we don't go to war.

If, conversely, for whatever reason, we do go to war, we do what is necessary to win it. Conscription seems to apply.

If, moreover, we go to war to defend a revolution for equality, then we must go to war in an egalitarian manner. We wouldn't want to create a separate body of people whose task is to unleash violence, if for no other reason, because it is pretty obvious that such separate bodies of specialised warriors will eventually turn their guns against us.

Luís Henrique

I think this is generally true - at a certain point there would be no possibility of "tactical retreat" and shit we don't really want to have happen may happen. I don't particularly want people going around and shooting fascist sympathisers on the spot, but it happened in Spain and other situations.

But I think there are practical considerations which disfavor conscription in general - not to mention that liberation armies that acctally rally around a cause seem more effective in history as far as dedication and so on.

But I don't think we can abstractly rule it out - though I don't think it's ideal because it could errode mass support or create tensions or cause other problems. These factors would have to be weighed against the absolute necissity and how the decision to consript comes about would also play into it.

[cyu]

From an anarchist point of view: Make weapons available to everyone. They choose to do (or not do) with them as they please.

From http://everything2.com/title/anarchist+army

If your collective has to force its people to lose their lives or otherwise face punishment, then is your society worth fighting for at all?

[Leftsolidarity]

If your collective has to force its people to lose their lives or otherwise face punishment, then is your society worth fighting for at all?

Definitely.

It's not wanted, Jimmie and other posters explained why, but sometimes it could be needed to fend off a much bigger evil (fascist counterrevolution). That question posed is based off feel-good morality not the objective needs of the masses of the world.

Also, it's not "die or punishment". There is a possibility of death but being drafted into the military is not the same as execution.

[Ele'ill]

so a lot of folks are opposed to a military draft/forced military participation but what of production/labor and the crowd that likes to say if you don't work you don't eat

[cyu]

if you don't work you don't eat

When talking about motivations, we're getting into the realm of psychology, so some excerpts from http://cjyu.wordpress.com/article/equal-pay-for-unequal-work/

There are plenty of psychological studies that show “rewarding” work results in people liking the work less, and focusing on only the reward as their goal:

There was an experiment documented in Elliot Aronson’s The Social Animal – some people were divided into two groups. In one group, the people were paid to do a certain activity. In the other group, the people were not paid to do the activity, but instead the organizers emphasized things like how much fun the activity was. At the end of the experiment, the people who were paid were much less likely to have found the activity enjoyable and would only do it again if they were paid again. The others were more likely to do the activity again of their own accord.

http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm (http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm) also documents how giving someone a “reward” for work ultimately results in the person liking the job less and only going after the reward.

There is also this from http://bookoutlines.pbwiki.com/Predictably-Irrational (http://bookoutlines.pbwiki.com/Predictably-Irrational)


Ariely then ran another experiment. He read from “Leaves of Grass,” and then asked his students the following:



- 1/2 of the students were asked if they would be willing to pay Ariely $10 for a 10-minute poetry recitation



1/2 of the students were asked if they would be willing to listen to a 10-minute poetry recitation if Ariely paid them $10



The students who were asked if they were willing to pay offered $1 for a short reading, $2 for a medium reading, and $3 for a long reading.



The students who were asked if they’d accept pay demanded $1.30 for a short reading, $2.70 for a medium reading, and $4.80 for a long reading.