Violent revolution/protests

[TheYoungCommie]

So in history violence has been used to topple countless regimes. But along came Gandhi, a nice fellow who believed in peace and sacrifice. He made the masses think they could take a regime down by not acting in violence but in nonviolence. Thus inspired a man named Martin Luther King Jr. Then he did further damage to the thought of violent revolution and replaced it with the thought of nonviolent revolution. But in these times violent revolution is all we have, nonviolence is met with violence from opposition, the police, government militias, so I'm saying we must give up the thought of worldwide peaceful revolution and topple the capitalist regimes with our mighty hammers not doves.

[Fourth Internationalist]

All those processes involved quite a lot of violence, from both sides. Those events and people were by far not as peaceful as people imagine them. But yes you are correct that a revolution would inevitably be violent. The oppressors never listen to the oppressed unless there is a serious threat to their own power.

[Fourth Internationalist]

— 16 —
Will the peaceful abolition of private property be possible?

It would be desirable if this could happen, and the communists would certainly be the last to oppose it. Communists know only too well that all conspiracies are not only useless, but even harmful. They know all too well that revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily, but that, everywhere and always, they have been the necessary consequence of conditions which were wholly independent of the will and direction of individual parties and entire classes.
But they also see that the development of the proletariat in nearly all civilized countries has been violently suppressed, and that in this way the opponents of communism have been working toward a revolution with all their strength. If the oppressed proletariat is finally driven to revolution, then we communists will defend the interests of the proletarians with deeds as we now defend them with words. - Engels

[TheYoungCommie]

Answer violence with violence. If one of us falls today, five of them must fall tomorrow." - Evita Peron

[GiantMonkeyMan]

A slaveholder who, through cunning and violence shackles his slaves in chains - and a slave who, through cunning and violence, breaks the chains - let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality! - Leon Trotsky

[Brutus]

Of course the revolution will be violent- it is the forcible overthrow of one class by another, and the ruling class will do anything it can to clutch to the reigns of power; there is no depth that it won't stoop to as it desperately tries to remain the ruling class. Look at the Paris Commune and Russia.

[TheYoungCommie]

I did not quote them "approvingly". I'm a 15 year old American precursors to fascism are dead yo.

[TheYoungCommie]

and I did not ask if the revolution will be violent that's common knowledge.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

If it is a truly proletarian revolution then violence will be swift and minimal. Think about it: workers are the ones to fuel jet planes, build tanks, load missiles into launch pads, transport ammunition etc. If these are the people who are revolutionaries then there would be very little the bourgeoisie could do.

Of course, this is a dreamworld when compared to the reality of the armed forces who are largely indoctrinated into preserving the bourgeois ideology at all costs. I think hoping for a peaceful revolution is a liberal fantasy but hoping for a violent one misses the point of being a communist which isn't about revenge against our oppressors but about bringing an end to the very system which allows oppression.

[TheYoungCommie]

I was reading Pedagogy of the oppressed it said "In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both."

[Red Clydesider]

Certainly the idea of armed revolutionary uprising in any one country is dead. Even in 1917, as we know, it was a severe limitation - when no other revolution succeeded, even the German one.

Now, capitalism is so global - a global network of economic power - that any future revolutionary movement must be global too.

Though it seems an impossible dream, it’s still worth articulating it. The world needs an international movement having both long-term objectives and a vigorous current practice. Its long-term goals would include economic democracy.

In its ongoing practice, the movement would actively support efforts to bring down authoritarian governments. It would involve itself at the most intimate level with resistance movements, community protest movements, single and multiple issue campaigns, and communes and co-operatives. In so doing it would not try to impose any kind of ideology, but listen and understand the grievances and aims in every case and act in a supporting role.

All this should be open and without the least hint of secrecy or infiltration. The movement would vigorously engage with, as Žižek puts it, all ‘social antagonisms which generate the need for communism’.

Finally, the movement would continually seek to raise consciousness, publicising community struggles through the traditional and social media, and initiating public debate on social justice issues, especially current abuses of wealth and alternative strategies for the progressive use of wealth.

At some time in the future, during a crisis of capitalism even more damaging than the current one, there might be no option but violence, but the movement would look to use peaceful activism as a first resort.

James.

[che86]

"A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery. It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another." -Mao Zedong

"Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed." - Mao Zedong


"Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao Zedong

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

For every Mao or Che quote that fetishises the violence of revolution, there is one simple retort: unless you have the army on your side, then a violent uprising by a minority of leftists will result in horrendous bloodshed. If you do have the army on your side, then there is no need for a violent uprising.

Clearly, no political revolution is going to be 'peaceful', in the sense that the capitalists leave one evening and the workers walk into government the next morning to measure up the curtains. But I think we are talking about violent revolution in the sense of civil war - i'm incredibly suspicious of people who fetishise this sort of act. Either their motives for 'revolution' are wrong, or they are incredibly naive and don't understand that very little good can come of civil war, a huge amount of people and countries are destroyed and, contrary to what some believe, the inevitability of future conflict is increased by a civil war. In particular, a prolonged civil war vastly increases the risk of future conflict, and destroys a country's infrastructure.

[Ele'ill]

i think 'violence' is being used in a very linear and specific sense in this thread

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Sorry to quote at length, but this is still the best take I've ever read on the matter at hand:



Take up arms. Do everything possible to make their use unnecessary. Against the army, the only victory is political.


There is no such thing as a peaceful insurrection. Weapons are necessary: it’s a question of doing everything possible to make using them unnecessary. An insurrection is more about taking up arms and maintaining an “armed presence” than it is about armed struggle. We need to distinguish clearly between being armed and the use of arms. Weapons are a constant in revolutionary situations, but their use is infrequent and rarely decisive at key turning points: August 10th 1792, March 18th 1871, October 1917. When power is in the gutter, it’s enough to walk over it.


Because of the distance that separates us from them, weapons have taken on a kind of double character of fascination and disgust that can be overcome only by handling them. An authentic pacifism cannot mean refusing weapons, but only refusing to use them. Pacifism without being able to fire a shot is nothing but the theoretical formulation of impotence. Such a priori pacifism is a kind of preventive disarmament, a pure police operation. In reality, the question of pacifism is serious only for those who have the ability to open fire. In this case, pacifism becomes a sign of power, since it’s only in an extreme position of strength that we are freed from the need to fire.


From a strategic point of view, indirect, asymmetrical action seems the most effective kind, the one best suited to our time: you don’t attack an occupying army frontally. That said, the prospect of Iraq-style urban guerilla warfare, dragging on with no possibility of taking the offensive, is more to be feared than to be desired. The militarization of civil war is the defeat of insurrection. The Reds had their victory in 1921, but the Russian Revolution was already lost.


We must consider two kinds of state reaction. One openly hostile, one more sly and democratic. The first calls for our out and out destruction, the second, a subtle but implacable hostility, seeks only to recruit us. We can be defeated both by dictatorship and by being reduced to opposing only dictatorship. Defeat consists as much in losing the war as in losing the choice of which war to wage. Both are possible, as was proven by Spain in 1936: the revolutionaries there were defeated twice-over, by fascism and by the republic.


When things get serious, the army occupies the terrain. Whether or not it engages in combat is less certain. That would require that the state be committed to a bloodbath, which for now is no more than a threat, a bit like the threat of using nuclear weapons for the last fifty years. Though it has been wounded for a long while, the beast of the state is still dangerous. A massive crowd would be needed to challenge the army, invading its ranks and fraternizing with the soldiers. We need a March 18th 1871. When the army is in the street, we have an insurrectionary situation. Once the army engages, the outcome is precipitated. Everyone finds herself forced to take sides, to choose between anarchy and the fear of anarchy. An insurrection triumphs as a political force. It is not impossible to defeat an army politically.