Violence? (Split from feminism thread)

[The Disillusionist]

I'm a pacifist. I'm against hate and intolerance of any kind, no matter where it falls on the political spectrum. Very often, extremism leads to hate. I wouldn't side with any extremist group that advocates hate or intolerance. That's why I'm not a huge fan of radical illegalist anarchists, because they hurt people, and like most extremists, they give everyone else a black eye. And no, I'm not saying that all feminists are like that, I'd consider myself a feminist as well, but I want nothing to do with extremists.

[Illegalitarian]

Well, you're not going to find many anarchists or marxists who do not advocate violent revolution, since it has, historically, been the only sincere, efficient vehicle for change.

Our beliefs might be based in love for our fellow human (if you don't really give a shit about other people and their right to freedom and happiness, you're probably a shit communist), but, as they say, communism is not love. It's a hammer we must use to smash our enemies with.

[JTC]

ie: it often appears that these feminist movements are more concerned with increasing the power of the minority (the women) rather than aiming for equality itself.

Increasing the power of minorities within their socioeconomic situation IS aiming for equality because minorities have less power in society, than say, middle class white males. The goal however is not to give minorities MORE power within the current power structures, but to unveil and ultimately demolish said power structures so we can all be equal.

[consuming negativity]

I'm a pacifist. I'm against hate and intolerance of any kind, no matter where it falls on the political spectrum. Very often, extremism leads to hate. I wouldn't side with any extremist group that advocates hate or intolerance. That's why I'm not a huge fan of radical illegalist anarchists, because they hurt people, and like most extremists, they give everyone else a black eye. And no, I'm not saying that all feminists are like that, I'd consider myself a feminist as well, but I want nothing to do with extremists.

pacifism is pretty extremist, all things considered

[Creative Destruction]

I'm a pacifist. I'm against hate and intolerance of any kind, no matter where it falls on the political spectrum. Very often, extremism leads to hate. I wouldn't side with any extremist group that advocates hate or intolerance. That's why I'm not a huge fan of radical illegalist anarchists, because they hurt people, and like most extremists, they give everyone else a black eye. And no, I'm not saying that all feminists are like that, I'd consider myself a feminist as well, but I want nothing to do with extremists.

Then what in the hell are you doing here?

[Illegalitarian]

pacifism is - oh god, I hate to say this - a nice idea on paper, but in practice it's just not very practical as has been shown so many countless times.

I admire those personally who adhere to non-violence, and as Dorothy Day said, those people have a place among the revolution, as care takers, doctors, etc.. but violence is an inseparable part of revolutionary change, which is kind of an objective truth rather than an opinion.



Many pacifists on the left cite the October Revolution as a good example of a bloodless communist movement, while ignoring the blood shed during the real revolution, the February revolution, and the massive amount of violence that followed the October event that took the form of a civil war.

[The Disillusionist]

Ha. I'm an anarchist. By my political spectrum, the majority of you are conservatives. My definition of extremist is someone who takes an ideology so far that it results in intolerance and hate. I realize that in some cases, violent revolution is justified, but I believe that violence, even when it is necessary, should be very carefully thought about before being committed. I don't support in any way those "revolutionaries" who believe that the way to improve things is to kill everyone who disagrees with them.

Violence may be what drives revolutions (personally, I'd disagree), but it is also what crushes them, both from the outside and from within.

[Illegalitarian]

It's not that we want to kill everyone who disagrees with us, it's just that most of them won't give us a choice.

I'm all for a non-violent revolution and believe it should be sought after highly, but the chances of our class enemies giving us a choice in the matter is quite nil. I don't think many revolutionaries throughout history set out to kill all of the unbelievers. I doubt Robespierre wanted to lop off all those heads, I doubt Cromwell wanted to kill all of those that he killed (ok maybe that one is a bad example), and it's likely that Trotsky wasn't some raving lunatic murderer who simply hated tsarists.

That's simply the nature of political upheaval. It can be peaceful, sure, but the chances are nil.


Also I think you will find more anarchists on this site than marxists, and even most marxists here are more inclined towards anarchistic tendencies than the unpolished vanguardism leninism offers us.

[BIXX]

Ha. I'm an anarchist. By my political spectrum, the majority of you are conservatives. My definition of extremist is someone who takes an ideology so far that it results in intolerance and hate. I realize that in some cases, violent revolution is justified, but I believe that violence, even when it is necessary, should be very carefully thought about before being committed. I don't support in any way those "revolutionaries" who believe that the way to improve things is to kill everyone who disagrees with them.

Violence may be what drives revolutions (personally, I'd disagree), but it is also what crushes them, both from the outside and from within.
Lol so young. So naive.

[The Disillusionist]

Lol so young. So naive.

As opposed to what? The oh-so-mature idea that if someone doesn't want to play your way, you should use violence until they do? You really think violence against an inherently violent state is the best option? The US military and police force LIVE for violent uprising. There's nothing they love more, because it just gives them an excuse to tighten the chains.

Not to mention the fact that violent revolutions almost always result in atrocity and the degradation of original values, and the fact that violent revolutions very often lead to the creation of violent states.

You call me naive, but if you knew what violence was really like, and if you knew about the evil that always follows that violence, maybe you wouldn't be so gung-ho about the whole GI-Joe routine.

[BIXX]

As opposed to what? The oh-so-mature idea that if someone doesn't want to play your way, you should use violence until they do? You really think violence against an inherently violent state is the best option? The US military and police force LIVE for violent uprising. There's nothing they love more, because it just gives them an excuse to tighten the chains.

Not to mention the fact that violent revolutions almost always result in atrocity and the degradation of original values, and the fact that violent revolutions very often lead to the creation of violent states.

You call me naive, but if you knew what violence was really like, and if you knew about the evil that always follows that violence, maybe you wouldn't be so gung-ho about the whole GI-Joe routine.
I thanked the post whilst trying to quote you in Tapatalk. I have no idea how to undo this grave error.

Listen, I have an essay to talk for me that I'd like you to read: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-how-nonviolence-protects-the-state

Nonviolence is bullshit.

[Illegalitarian]

Yeah, no, the idea that violent revolution has always lead to worse things is pretty much objectively false

[The Disillusionist]

I thanked the post whilst trying to quote you in Tapatalk. I have no idea how to undo this grave error.

Listen, I have an essay to talk for me that I'd like you to read: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-how-nonviolence-protects-the-state

Nonviolence is bullshit.

Ah yes, Peter Gelderloos....I'm aware of his writing, and I'm not a fan. It's funny, he thinks violence is so effective, but he hasn't really done anything all that productive, except get thrown in jail and write books that only people who agree with him have ever really heard of. His writing is poorly researched, poorly supported, and poorly thought out.

Again, I don't reject the idea that violence in defense is justifiable, but this overly romanticized idea that violence is productive won't lead anywhere good.

Also, violent revolution always leads to killing, which is worse than the absence of killing. I don't see how anyone can argue that. If the state is already killing people, then that falls under the category of violence as defense, but aggression is just a good way to get massacred by a state that loves to grind dissidents under its feet, to alienate anyone who might have been sympathetic with you, and to establish an ideology of violence that will remain, no matter how the revolution ends.

[Atsumari]

Non-violence is something that does not exactly please me, but holy shit do I want to smack the anarchists who get self-righteous about violence when they open their mouth.

[JTC]

Sounds good in theory, though who's to say what determines a 'deserving minority'?

How about people of low intelligence or physical ability - do they deserve power minority enhancement as well?

Why should they not? Disabled activism is a thing, and I'm sure I'd be supportive of most of the things it calls for if I knew much more about it (I don't). If the goal is equality we must destroy the socio-cultural power structures which give the privileged class an objective advantage in society compared with other minorities (and even majorities in some cases). As for "whos to say?". We all do. Everyone participating in the society has a say built upon the theories already established by the literature on said subject. Criticism is welcome, but we also must recognize that some have it better off than others, not just in economic terms but in social terms as well. Isn't that what being a socialist is about?

[BIXX]

Ah yes, Peter Gelderloos....I'm aware of his writing, and I'm not a fan. It's funny, he thinks violence is so effective, but he hasn't really done anything all that productive, except get thrown in jail and write books that only people who agree with him have ever really heard of. His writing is poorly researched, poorly supported, and poorly thought out.

Again, I don't reject the idea that violence in defense is justifiable, but this overly romanticized idea that violence is productive won't lead anywhere good.

Also, violent revolution always leads to killing, which is worse than the absence of killing. I don't see how anyone can argue that. If the state is already killing people, then that falls under the category of violence as defense, but aggression is just a good way to get massacred by a state that loves to grind dissidents under its feet, to alienate anyone who might have been sympathetic with you, and to establish an ideology of violence that will remain, no matter how the revolution ends.

Criticizing people on their productivity is pretty useless, as almost no one has ever done anything productive in regards to revolutionary practice.

Also you failed to respond to his points.

I'm just curious how you think a nonviolent revolution would go? The bourgeoisie just give up? Throw the towel in? "Its been good, guys, but its time to let the oppressed have power."? Is this what you expect?

[Illegalitarian]

we just sort of walk up to the means of production and start producing goods and distributing them based on need. If they get in our way we ask them to step aside

[The Disillusionist]

Criticizing people on their productivity is pretty useless, as almost no one has ever done anything productive in regards to revolutionary practice.

Also you failed to respond to his points.

I'm just curious how you think a nonviolent revolution would go? The bourgeoisie just give up? Throw the towel in? "Its been good, guys, but its time to let the oppressed have power."? Is this what you expect?

Fine. It's hard to really respond to his points, because it's all just jabber anyway, but the gist of the paper, as I see it, is that nonviolence is a position of priveledge, endorsed by priveleged college students who ignore the desperate situations of the more oppressed, yeah? And that privilege, by some insane twist of logic makes nonviolence racist, and elitist, and carcinogenic, and it turns water into blood, and whatever else.

That's not true in the least because violence is the real priviledged approach. Only when a person already has significant power can that person have any chance of being successful in a violent approach. If Gelderloos had been living in a SERIOUSLY oppressive country, like Egypt, he could have been thrown in jail for life because of his silly little crimes, or even executed. It's Gelderloos's own position of priviledge that allows him to assume that violence is an answer. As another example, what about the minorities who have been protesting in Ferguson? If any of them had turned violent, the police and/or the national guard would have been happy to massacre them, and a huge portion of the US population would have been totally okay with that. As it is, the media used what few examples of crime there were, like the looting, to justify the actions of the police and to alienate the protestors from the rest of the populace.

It is an extremely priviledged position for Gelderloos to take, to say, "Hey, you should be like me, and commit crimes. I'm a middle class white guy, so I'm only really facing a few months jail time, but you're a lower class African guy, so you'll probably get shot, but hey, violence is the solution right? I will appreciate your sacrifice greatly." Violence is only a realistic option for those who already have enough power to get away with it, and if you already have enough power to get away with it, there are probably better ways you could use that power. I highly doubt we'll ever hear about Gelderloos trying his overly-romanticized, naive tactics in Egypt.

As for the outcome of a nonviolent revolution: capitalist states feed on exploitation of the workers. Without that exploitation, there is no real state, infrastructure collapses. By the time you have enough workers on your side to successful stage a violent revolution against a significantly better-armed, better-organized military, without being massacred, you will already have more than enough support to do some serious damage to the means of production without violence.

The vast majority of violent revolutions have been led by bourgeois, who already have the privilege to seriously threaten other, slightly more privileged bourgeois. Proletariat die in these conflicts, but it is rare for the proletariat to ever lead such an attack.

Also, I should have mentioned earlier, I don't agree with aggressive violence against people, but I'm totally ok with destruction of property, as long as it is playing a significant role in oppression/destruction of the environment/whatever else, and as long as it doesn't physically hurt anyone. But I don't support any of that shop-front window bashing and vandalism that anarchists are so notorious for (again, extremist actions of a few damaging the image of all) because that is just hurting people who shouldn't be hurt.

[Illegalitarian]

nonviolence is the idea of privilege, asking communities who have historically been brutalized and exploited to not defend themselves because it will "get them no where" despite the fact that it's the only thing that ever has.

It's also extremely naive to think that our class enemies, with nothing to lose, wouldn't unleash a mass campaign of violence against us in a last ditch effort to burn the whole thing down. Again, this is historically what they have been known to do, so why would we even give them the opportunity? It's nonsense.

[JTC]

nonviolence is the idea of privilege, asking communities who have historically been brutalized and exploited to not defend themselves because it will "get them no where" despite the fact that it's the only thing that ever has.

It's also extremely naive to think that our class enemies, with nothing to lose, wouldn't unleash a mass campaign of violence against us in a last ditch effort to burn the whole thing down. Again, this is historically what they have been known to do, so why would we even give them the opportunity? It's nonsense.

I think this thread is kind of getting off topic from the OP, but to participate in the discussion I disagree with both of you. Revolution is applicable in specific situations. I would argue that in totalitarian or authoritarian regimes, revolution would be necessary because the nature of oppression allows no other outlet for societal change, particularly in the global south. But in developed nations violent revolution will do nothing except to get any revolutionary attitudes crushed by the oligarchical tendencies of the capitalist system. In addition to being crushed, the populism of revolutionary or rebellious rhetoric will be discredited in the extreme. It will ultimately accomplish nothing in developed nations. But lets say it does work for some miraculous reason. Lets say that somehow the majority of the workers and even some of the petit bourgeoisie join the revolution and it overthrows the current order. The problem you have is that now the only way the people who are left understand change and transformation through violence. This is exactly the problem that South and Central America had after colonialism (except in Brazil). The only way that the people understood change was through violence so we get constant military coups and counter-coups resulting in the further disenfranchisement of the majority while only the hierarchical changes to the benefit of no one. Mexico is a particularly good example of how this works. Michael Hardt also says some good things about revolution....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0IopdH1e3s

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Ah yes, Peter Gelderloos....I'm aware of his writing, and I'm not a fan. It's funny, he thinks violence is so effective, but he hasn't really done anything all that productive, except get thrown in jail and write books that only people who agree with him have ever really heard of. His writing is poorly researched, poorly supported, and poorly thought out.

Again, I don't reject the idea that violence in defense is justifiable, but this overly romanticized idea that violence is productive won't lead anywhere good.

Also, violent revolution always leads to killing, which is worse than the absence of killing. I don't see how anyone can argue that. If the state is already killing people, then that falls under the category of violence as defense, but aggression is just a good way to get massacred by a state that loves to grind dissidents under its feet, to alienate anyone who might have been sympathetic with you, and to establish an ideology of violence that will remain, no matter how the revolution ends.

The state heaps violence upon people every day in it's normal day to day tasks. it operates entirely through the use of violence or the threat of violence. If you say you are in favor of self defense then I'm not sure what you're even objecting to. Actions taken against the state by an oppressed group are self defense by default, because it is always in response to the violence already perpetrated by the state to begin with.

If the state creates the prison, who is really responsible when the inmates riot?

[Illegalitarian]

Revolution is applicable in specific situations. I would argue that in totalitarian or authoritarian regimes, revolution would be necessary because the nature of oppression allows no other outlet for societal change, particularly in the global south. But in developed nations violent revolution will do nothing except to get any revolutionary attitudes crushed by the oligarchical tendencies of the capitalist system. In addition to being crushed, the populism of revolutionary or rebellious rhetoric will be discredited in the extreme. It will ultimately accomplish nothing in developed nations. But lets say it does work for some miraculous reason. Lets say that somehow the majority of the workers and even some of the petit bourgeoisie join the revolution and it overthrows the current order. The problem you have is that now the only way the people who are left understand change and transformation through violence. This is exactly the problem that South and Central America had after colonialism (except in Brazil). The only way that the people understood change was through violence so we get constant military coups and counter-coups resulting in the further disenfranchisement of the majority while only the hierarchical changes to the benefit of no one. Mexico is a particularly good example of how this works. Michael Hardt also says some good things about revolution....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0IopdH1e3s


Violence begets violence isn't grounded in reality, I've never understood this claim, as if we're all sharks who, once we get the taste of human blood, can never turn back, which is just entirely unsubstantiated. I don't even understand the rest of your argument, authoritarian regimes need to be violently overthrown because authoritarianism but "democratic" bourgeois nations can't be overthrown this way because the left will be discredited? When the material conditions are right for revolution and enough of the working class are rising up to accomplish a revolution, none of that will really matter.

[Atsumari]

This conversation about violence vs non-violence is making me miss the tankies vs Trot wars already.

One thing though that I noticed about many men regarding women's issues is that they want to be saviors of women from misogyny rather than being part of the problem. That is why so many people can get behind Malala Yousafzai, criticize Islamic conservatism, and creating post-colonial myths about Asian women. When the man's women collectively start telling many men to simply fuck off and respect their personal space, they are not exactly going to be happy. Mail order bride anyone?

[JTC]

Violence begets violence isn't grounded in reality, I've never understood this claim, as if we're all sharks who, once we get the taste of human blood, can never turn back, which is just entirely unsubstantiated. I don't even understand the rest of your argument, authoritarian regimes need to be violently overthrown because authoritarianism but "democratic" bourgeois nations can't be overthrown this way because the left will be discredited? When the material conditions are right for revolution and enough of the working class are rising up to accomplish a revolution, none of that will really matter.

I just give you an example grounded in reality, now give your own. Not more vague appeals to the glorious proletariat and Soviet rhetoric

[Illegalitarian]

I just give you an example grounded in reality, now give your own. Not more vague appeals to the glorious proletariat and Soviet rhetoric

You gave an example where there was a violent revolution in an area and then said that this was the reason other violent revolutions took place elsewhere in the region, which is correlation, not causation.

That's the issue with the concept of Violent change leading to a violent system, it's an empty sentiment with no basis in reality. One only needs to look at India and the systematic violence the state has been using against its political opponents for decades after their nonviolent revolution to see why this claim is false, but even if this wasn't the case, it doesn't mean much since, well, again, the assertion of violence causing violence is empty phraseology.

[JTC]

You gave an example where there was a violent revolution in an area and then said that this was the reason other violent revolutions took place elsewhere in the region, which is correlation, not causation.

That's the issue with the concept of Violent change leading to a violent system, it's an empty sentiment with no basis in reality. One only needs to look at India and the systematic violence the state has been using against its political opponents for decades after their nonviolent revolution to see why this claim is false, but even if this wasn't the case, it doesn't mean much since, well, again, the assertion of violence causing violence is empty phraseology.

India didn't have a nonviolent revolution....And what I said was to look at the history of Central and South America after colonialism to see that violent revolution rarely results with the intended consequences. Then I gave the more specific example of Mexico. Don't misrepresent my case please.

Violent revolution may be necessary to get to a place that will be less shitty for a particular society in a particular historical context, but in my studying of history I have rarely ever seen it work very well or effectively, particularly after the revolution. The only thing that I see consistently changing societies is the slow and unimpeded movement of time as specific groups, rebellions, reforms, (and yes sometimes revolutions), change that society to something better (usually). Simply claiming that revolution will work itself out is not enough of a justification for violent revolution, and if it is, I don't see any revolutionaries in the mountains of the United States or any other developed country at the moment. Why is that? In the United States there were more than 2 million strong affiliated socialists, even ignoring the leftist populists and unaffiliated. Why was there not a violent revolution then, especially when Russia was going through one? I haven't been convinced so far.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

The only thing that I see consistently changing societies is the slow and unimpeded movement of time
If you're a liberal, what are you doing on a revolutionary board?

[JTC]

If you're a liberal, what are you doing on a revolutionary board?

I'm not a liberal, I'm a socialist and ideologically an anarcho-syndicalist. Just because I'm not a revolutionary Leftist doesn't mean I'm automatically not a radical Leftist. I'm on this forum because this is literally the only online forum that seems to be a place to learn about radical Leftist thought without being consistently harassed by reactionaries or liberals.

[BIXX]

Yeah that's why we came here too but your tripe proved us wrong: liberals are all over this site.

[JTC]

Yeah that's why we came here too but your tripe proved us wrong: liberals are all over this site.

Apparently I was wrong about the harassment thing...I was wondering why the Left was so divided and I think I found out why. If only we could address each other with rational discourse but instead as soon as the ideology is criticized you lash out like a reactionary. I would label you as a reactionary if I didn't know better....

I came here to learn not to have petty fights. I thought the previous discussion was productive. I would like my post replied to in a productive way.

[Illegalitarian]

India didn't have a nonviolent revolution....And what I said was to look at the history of Central and South America after colonialism to see that violent revolution rarely results with the intended consequences. Then I gave the more specific example of Mexico. Don't misrepresent my case please.

yet you didn't substantiate that this was more than correlation.

Both of those areas were also full of latinos, maybe latinos are just naturally more violent :rolleyes::rolleyes:

and India didn't have a nonviolent revolution? What? Lol, check again. Certainly not a full-scale revolution ala Russia, China, etc, but they achieved their political ends through nonviolent movement


Violent revolution may be necessary to get to a place that will be less shitty for a particular society in a particular historical context, but in my studying of history I have rarely ever seen it work very well or effectively, particularly after the revolution. The only thing that I see consistently changing societies is the slow and unimpeded movement of time as specific groups, rebellions, reforms, (and yes sometimes revolutions), change that society to something better (usually). Simply claiming that revolution will work itself out is not enough of a justification for violent revolution, and if it is, I don't see any revolutionaries in the mountains of the United States or any other developed country at the moment. Why is that? In the United States there were more than 2 million strong affiliated socialists, even ignoring the leftist populists and unaffiliated. Why was there not a violent revolution then, especially when Russia was going through one? I haven't been convinced so far.


So because America didn't have a revolution when it potentially could have means.. violent revolution doesn't work? America didn't have a revolution because it had no concise revolutionary movement or consciousness among the masses, not because of anything to do with violence.


I like how reformists like to ignore that reformism has only worked on a meaningful scale when the political apparatus felt that unless it implemented said reforms it would be faced with violent reaction, such in the case of civil rights, women's suffrage, and pretty much every gain made by the labor movement, and arguably even gay rights.


This is revleft, not refleft. There is no such thing as reformist socialism, sorry.

[consuming negativity]

Apparently I was wrong about the harassment thing...I was wondering why the Left was so divided and I think I found out why. If only we could address each other with rational discourse but instead as soon as the ideology is criticized you lash out like a reactionary. I would label you as a reactionary if I didn't know better....

I came here to learn not to have petty fights. I thought the previous discussion was productive. I would like my post replied to in a productive way.

okay man

go read this: http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/ch03.htm

it's a chapter from "reform or revolution" by rosa luxemburg, and it could, with a few changes in wording, be a complete and direct refutation of what you posted

not just a refutation but one that's been proven in the pudding. correlation is not causation, but she makes a damn good argument and what she's saying would happen actually did happen exactly as she said it would.

also, can you stop acting like you're being persecuted because people disagree with you or question why you're here? they're really not being rude to you at all, and frankly i'd rather not see this become yet another "why are we revolutionary socialists" thread like that gets made every other week here in this very subforum.

[JTC]

yet you didn't substantiate that this was more than correlation.

Both of those areas were also full of latinos, maybe latinos are just naturally more violent :rolleyes::rolleyes:


No, it's because of the history of colonialism and the ways that these nations finally broke free of it. Most of them broke free of colonialism through violent upheaval (except for Brazil) which provided historical justification for further violent coups to overthrow any government (democratic or authoritarian) that some people didn't agree with or didn't like. I fear this will occur in developed nations and even in the global south (as it does).



and India didn't have a nonviolent revolution? What? Lol, check again. Certainly not a full-scale revolution ala Russia, China, etc, but they achieved their political ends through nonviolent movement

The had a non-violent rebellion led by a charismatic leader which managed to get India somewhat free of Britain (not economically). What ended up happening was violent riots and revolution in the streets and ethnic violence between Hindus and Muslims which occurred until the Muslims were promised Pakistan and the Hindus claimed India.



So because America didn't have a revolution when it potentially could have means.. violent revolution doesn't work? America didn't have a revolution because it had no concise revolutionary movement or consciousness among the masses, not because of anything to do with violence.


No, my question was why did one not occur, why was violent revolution either not applicable or not pragmatic? Why did no one even try?


I like how reformists like to ignore that reformism has only worked on a meaningful scale when the political apparatus felt that unless it implemented said reforms it would be faced with violent reaction, such in the case of civil rights, women's suffrage, and pretty much every gain made by the labor movement, and arguably even gay rights.


I don't think that it was so simple as that. I think it had more to do with civil disobedience and mass rebellion and political upheaval. The only one I could agree had the threat of violence was the Civil Rights Movement.



This is revleft, not refleft. There is no such thing as reformist socialism, sorry.

There is, objectively, such a thing as "reformist" socialism. It exists in academia, the historical literature, and in current political philosophical circles as a coherent and comprehensive umbrella term for multiple modes of thought. Saying "it doesn't exist" is simply ignorant and unhistorical.

[John Nada]

Violent revolution may be necessary to get to a place that will be less shitty for a particular society in a particular historical context, but in my studying of history I have rarely ever seen it work very well or effectively, particularly after the revolution. The only thing that I see consistently changing societies is the slow and unimpeded movement of time as specific groups, rebellions, reforms, (and yes sometimes revolutions), change that society to something better (usually). Simply claiming that revolution will work itself out is not enough of a justification for violent revolution, and if it is, I don't see any revolutionaries in the mountains of the United States or any other developed country at the moment. Why is that? In the United States there were more than 2 million strong affiliated socialists, even ignoring the leftist populists and unaffiliated. Why was there not a violent revolution then, especially when Russia was going through one? I haven't been convinced so far.Did the violent revolutions fail because they were violent, or were they violent because they were failing and there wasn't a way out.

On the lack of a US revolution, I think it might have been because of both a sense of hope and helplessness, though this is a vast simplification. Hope because technology was improving, and major reforms were being passed. Your children were far more likely to survive into adulthood, get fed, and it seemed like things were loosening up on social issues. Helplessness because of the fear of the unknown, an individualist perspective and police oppression. In other countries you might have had helplessness in the status quo and hope in the revolution. The dynamic was in reverse. Coupled together in view of the system, could have resulted in apathy, even in radicals.

Funny how this thread went from feminism to revolutionary violence. Is there some meaning behind this? Because it doesn't seem like women's liberation is hated, so much as ignored. And it'd be ignoring +51% percent of the world, disproportionally from the exploited masses.

[JTC]

Did the violent revolutions fail because they were violent, or were they violent because they were failing and there wasn't a way out.


Interesting question that's worth exploring.



On the lack of a US revolution, I think it might have been because of both a sense of hope and helplessness, though this is a vast simplification. Hope because technology was improving, and major reforms were being passed. Your children were far more likely to survive into adulthood, get fed, and it seemed like things were loosening up on social issues. Helplessness because of the fear of the unknown, an individualist perspective and police oppression. In other countries you might have had helplessness in the status quo and hope in the revolution. The dynamic was in reverse. Coupled together in view of the system, could have resulted in apathy, even in radicals.



Yes possibly, although I'm not sure what reforms were being passed in this time period (1910's about) as it was getting close to the Gilded Age.



Funny how this thread went from feminism to revolutionary violence. Is there some meaning behind this? Because it doesn't seem like women's liberation is hated, so much as ignored. And it'd be ignoring +51% percent of the world, disproportionally from the exploited masses.

There's no meaning it just kinda devolved (evolved?) into this. Yeah I think it's ignored while it's hated. It is interesting.

[JTC]

also, can you stop acting like you're being persecuted because people disagree with you or question why you're here? they're really not being rude to you at all, and frankly i'd rather not see this become yet another "why are we revolutionary socialists" thread like that gets made every other week here in this very subforum.

I made legitimate posts which were called "liberal tripe". I understand the suspicion, but maybe reacting to dissenting opinions or critique with a reactionary response isn't the most productive way to deal with the issue.

[Illegalitarian]

No, it's because of the history of colonialism and the ways that these nations finally broke free of it. Most of them broke free of colonialism through violent upheaval (except for Brazil) which provided historical justification for further violent coups to overthrow any government (democratic or authoritarian) that some people didn't agree with or didn't like. I fear this will occur in developed nations and even in the global south (as it does).

Not only is there nothing here that substantiates the claim that violent upheaval ingrains violence in the culture of a nation or its political atmosphere, but it also doesn't even make a positive assertion that violence is bad or ineffective.

All of those nations have had successful governmental changes through violent means so that kind of defeats your point.


The had a non-violent rebellion led by a charismatic leader which managed to get India somewhat free of Britain (not economically). What ended up happening was violent riots and revolution in the streets and ethnic violence between Hindus and Muslims which occurred until the Muslims were promised Pakistan and the Hindus claimed India.


So a non-violent rebellion did not beget non-violence? hmm


There was no violent revolution in America for the reasons I specifically outlined, simply put.



I don't think that it was so simple as that. I think it had more to do with civil disobedience and mass rebellion and political upheaval. The only one I could agree had the threat of violence was the Civil Rights Movement.


Well, it's not really an opinion, sorry.



There is, objectively, such a thing as "reformist" socialism. It exists in academia, the historical literature, and in current political philosophical circles as a coherent and comprehensive umbrella term for multiple modes of thought. Saying "it doesn't exist" is simply ignorant and unhistorical.

This is what we refer to as "social democracy", it is outright rejected by marxist and other communist academic circles as well as rejected by every radical left-wing movement of today and the 20th century.

This is not socialism, because socialism can, by its very nature, not be reformist. To state otherwise is to take the ahistorical and ignorant postiion.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I'm with JTC on the "India didn't have a non-violent revolution" thing. No Gandhi without Baghat Singh, yo.

The thing is, I disagree with the conclusions: I think it's pretty clear that, without violent struggle, the old colonial order would still be intact. I think wishing for a "peaceful" transformation from colonized nation to perfect communism is a bit . . . well, I sometimes ask God to help me play fullback, but it probably doesn't mean much.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

ALSO:

I've split this thread from the feminism thread because . . . wtf.

Examples of patriarchal bullshit on the left: derailing conversations about feminism to rehash "violence".

Secondly, I've handed out a couple infractions - to posters I like no less.
Please, please, please observe the stricter rules for the learning forum. If you want to call people liberals and generally be hostile (regardless of the validity of the claim) do it in another forum, or via PM. This needs to be a space people feel safe asking "stupid questions".

[Illegalitarian]

Right but to criticize that revolution as anything but lead and dominated by civil disobedience advocates seems a bit fallacious

[BIXX]

ALSO:

I've split this thread from the feminism thread because . . . wtf.

Examples of patriarchal bullshit on the left: derailing conversations about feminism to rehash "violence".

Secondly, I've handed out a couple infractions - to posters I like no less.
Please, please, please observe the stricter rules for the learning forum. If you want to call people liberals and generally be hostile (regardless of the validity of the claim) do it in another forum, or via PM. This needs to be a space people feel safe asking "stupid questions".
My bad, didn't notice this was learning. Will be more observant in the future.

[Illegalitarian]

oops, sorry :(

[The Feral Underclass]

Here is a pamphlet written by Ward Churchill giving the argument that pacifism is counter-revolutionary. It has an awesome title too.

Pacifism as Pathology (http://zinelibrary.info/files/pap_imposed.pdf)

[JTC]

Not only is there nothing here that substantiates the claim that violent upheaval ingrains violence in the culture of a nation or its political atmosphere, but it also doesn't even make a positive assertion that violence is bad or ineffective.

All of those nations have had successful governmental changes through violent means so that kind of defeats your point.


I didn't say that it "ingrains it in the culture" I said that a rhetoric of violence is used to justify further regime changes.

Mexico has had successful governmental changes? Gran Colombia? Where has any post-colonial nation-state (except for Brazil) had "successful" governmental changes? What does "successful" governmental change look like?



So a non-violent rebellion did not beget non-violence? hmm


I made a very short argument for why the non-violent rebellion in India was NOT non-violent.





This is what we refer to as "social democracy", it is outright rejected by marxist and other communist academic circles as well as rejected by every radical left-wing movement of today and the 20th century.

This is not socialism, because socialism can, by its very nature, not be reformist. To state otherwise is to take the ahistorical and ignorant postiion.


Social Democracy is not "reformist" socialism. Social Democracy's goal is to simply "humanize" capitalism as its end goal, this is not the goal of socialism. And what you are saying is simply not true. There is a large section of socialists who are reformists (i.e. do not believe violent revolution as the means). This is simply true. Whether you'd like to redefine socialism is another matter entirely.

[JTC]

Here is a pamphlet written by Ward Churchill giving the argument that pacifism is counter-revolutionary. It has an awesome title too.

Pacifism as Pathology (http://zinelibrary.info/files/pap_imposed.pdf)

I appreciate the resources but I'm not a pacifist :grin:

[DOOM]

azKNngXBICs

[Lily Briscoe]

Examples of patriarchal bullshit on the left: derailing conversations about feminism to rehash "violence".

It's a really boring discussion, too. Yes, violence tends to be a necessary part of revolution; it's pretty much the most banal observation ever. There's nothing 'virtuous' about it, though, and I'm extremely suspicious of people who elevate it to the level of some kind of principle. I think those who experience violence in their day to day lives tend to be pretty weary of it, and the people who fetishize it just come across as bored kids who live extremely sheltered lives and think it's all a video game or something.

[The Feral Underclass]

I appreciate the resources but I'm not a pacifist :grin:

I wasn't posting it just for you, it was for any one who wants to read it...

[The Disillusionist]

I can't find a link to it anymore, but "Nonviolent Action as the Sword that Heals: Challenging Ward Churchill's 'Pacifism As Pathology'" by George Lakey pretty well demolishes the arguments of both Ward Churchill and Peter Gelderloos, both of which are essentially the same arguments, which I think I refuted pretty well in my own little post. I mean, pacifism is racist and bigoted? That is one of the thinnest arguments I've ever heard. Those guys are reaching so hard they'll grasp at any straw they possible can.

Oh, and I just read that stupid comment about arguing about violence in a feminist thread somehow being bigoted and patriarchal. Give me a break, that's how conversation works, it's fluid, it doesn't always have to be about the exact same thing it started about. That's one of my biggest complaints about leftists, we use terms like "bigoted" and "bourgeois" to insult anything we don't like or don't understand, and it cheapens the meaning of those words. That kind of reactionary labeling also cheapens leftism as a whole.

[consuming negativity]

I can't find a link to it anymore, but "Nonviolent Action as the Sword that Heals: Challenging Ward Churchill's 'Pacifism As Pathology'" by George Lakey pretty well demolishes the arguments of both Ward Churchill and Peter Gelderloos, both of which are essentially the same arguments, which I think I refuted pretty well in my own little post. I mean, pacifism is racist and bigoted? That is one of the thinnest arguments I've ever heard. Those guys are reaching so hard they'll grasp at any straw they possible can.

Oh, and I just read that stupid comment about arguing about violence in a feminist thread somehow being bigoted and patriarchal. Give me a break, that's how conversation works, it's fluid, it doesn't always have to be about the exact same thing it started about. That's one of my biggest complaints about leftists, we use terms like "bigoted" and "bourgeois" to insult anything we don't like or don't understand, and it cheapens the meaning of those words. That kind of reactionary labeling also cheapens leftism as a whole.

if we believe that violence is at least occasionally useful in struggles upward in society, we can say that an ideology of pacifism, which allows no violence, is necessarily against those struggles

when the people on the bottom are of certain race, gender, etc. we can then say that the ideology of pacifism is racist, sexist, etc.

not inherently, but in real terms. there is nothing inherently wrong with pacifism as an idea; it is when you apply it practically on paper, which is the only place it matters, where it becomes bad in this way

---

you're kinda right about how people throw around terms not knowing what the fuck they're talking about, but that happens across the political spectrum. you can't insulate an ideology from stupid.

although yeah, to be frank, saying it's sexist for people to get off-topic is more than a bit of a stretch. i mean, it's not necessarily illogical, it's just pretty obviously not what was going on there. not that the thread hadn't gone way off topic, and not that this split was not necessary, but lol

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Lol so young. So naive.

Ah don't be a prick. If you think somebody is naive and young then educate them.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I wasn't posting it just for you, it was for any one who wants to read it...

Ward Churchill seems like a prick. His whole intro is based on the analogy of the lack of jewish retaliation to Nazism. Not only is his referencing of sources deliberately obtrusive (looking for the one quoted word in reference 10, for example, would take a fucking afternoon), he massively seems to distort the reality of events to suit his own purpose.

He fails to mention the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of jews, and the hastening of the deaths of tens of thousands of other Jewish residents of the ghetto, in exchange for only 100 or so Nazi deaths.

He fails to mention that the reason most Jewish concentration camp inmates failed to procure a 'gun or two' and fight, is that a great number of them were either elderly and inform, or young children.

He also seems to conflate opposition to the insistence of violent revolution with pacifism, which is simply not true and actually a pretty immature and harmful political idea.

I will read the rest later, but so far this is an argument that is at best shoddy and at worst a real dis-ingenuous attempt to justify a childish form of violence fetishism.

[The Disillusionist]

I still don't agree that pacifism is bigoted, because, as Vladimir mentions, usually the people at the bottom are most harmed by violence, because they don't have the authority or manpower to even defend themselves. Therefore it's the violent priveleged who bring harm to the people on the bottom by engaging in conflict in which they don't have to face the same consecuences. Even the culture surrounding violence is arrogant, valuing dead soldiers over dead women and children and other oppressed who had to pay the ultimate price for those soldiers' actions.

That being said, excellent posts commoner and Vladimir, I agree with the majority of what both of you said. I'm not a totalitarian pacifist, I don't believe in being a totalitarian anything, so I can agree that while I think pacifism is usually the better choice, violence does occasionally have its place.

[consuming negativity]

I still don't agree that pacifism is bigoted, because, as Vladimir mentions, usually the people at the bottom are most harmed by violence, because they don't have the authority or manpower to even defend themselves. Therefore it's the violent priveleged who bring harm to the people on the bottom by engaging in conflict in which they don't have to face the same consecuences. Even the culture surrounding violence is arrogant, valuing dead soldiers over dead women and children and other oppressed who had to pay the ultimate price for those soldiers' actions.

That being said, excellent posts commoner and Vladimir, I agree with the majority of what both of you said. I'm not a totalitarian pacifist, I don't believe in being a totalitarian anything, so I can agree that while I think pacifism is usually the better choice, violence does occasionally have its place.

Violence the word actually comes to English through the French verb "violenter", which comes from the Latin violentus (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/violentus#Latin), which is a combination of "vis", meaning "strength" and the suffix "-olentus", which means "full of" or "abounding in". But "vis" also meant "will" or "want", in the second person sense; "Quid vis", then, meaning "what do you want"? I think it is interesting that the Latin-speaking world combined the concept of will and with force or strength, because to me it seems like the original version of "violence", violentus, was not necessarily physically forceful, but rather more about imposing will. If we consider violence in this context, we can see how something not apparently violent in a physical sense, such as capitalism, could be extremely violent because it is imposing the will, forceful or not, of one section of humanity over another; namely, the "ruling" class, for lack of a better word to put it.

This, then, would completely back up your point - which I think is very good - that violence is necessarily carried about by persons who are able to do so. You cannot overwhelm someone else with force or force your will upon them if you are not able to do so, and so violence then can actually never be used to "punch up" as we would say is acceptable (ie. Jews attacking the Nazis in Warsaw) at the highest level of authority or ability to carry out violence, which would be far above the level that we're talking about. I actually think it is a bit ridiculous, then, to take any position in favor or against the concept of violence because it is necessarily vague and it can therefore be used to describe so many situations as to make any moral heuristic based on it as a concept completely unreasonable.

I don't actually think that you and I are in disagreement here; neither of us think it is acceptable to use physical force, except when necessary, to ends which are both moral and also which are actually achievable through the use of that physical force. The reason I went and looked up the etymology and all that was specifically because I thought that I could articulate our agreement better if I were to have a better understanding of what exactly it is that we're talking about; but I think you articulated it pretty well yourself. It is a very rare occasion when violence is used from the bottom up; especially on a societal level, as the use of violence requires the ability to use violence which prohibits "punching up" ever; it is only ever possible to "punch down" but to be justified in doing so out of necessity.

e: this seemed a lot more profound when it was rattling around in my head but i think you can probably add a bunch of shit to it and make it better

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Statistically, your odds of surviving were better if you fought in the uprising then if you got on the train for Treblenka. So, y'know, in that situation, it seems clear that armed violence was the better option because a) odds of not being gassed and b) even if that weren't the case, 100 Nazi causalities is better than 0. Better to die on one's feet, etc.

Also, fuck narratives of violence that erase the legacies off women's violent resistance. On this point I highly recommend Butch Lee's The Military Strategy of Women and Children, and Jailbreak Out of History: The Rebiography of Harriet Tubman.

With regards patriarchy and thread-derailing - screw your defensiveness. The fact is that refusing to seriously grapple with feminism in a sustained and serious way because there are other things you'd prefer to talk about is absolutely part and parcel of the problem.

[Rafiq]

The underlying point we must take away here is that Lantz's opposition to the use of violence (By revolutionaries of course. State-based violence is just "natural") has nothing to do with any utilitarian defects or, more specifcially, any tactical downfalls it may have. Lantz has an AVERSION to violence. Seeing the existing order and his existing reality tear apart horrifies him, as it does any other cowardly "radical" who takes comfort in his eternal opposition.

Any attempt to justify this aversion, or this fear - is nothing more than a mechanism of legitimization. We should then not take his posts seriously, as there is no argument to be had. This is his own personal problem - he does not truly believe in the viability of Communism and instead enjoys adhering to radicalism as a category of ruling-class ideological coordinates. Do you all actually believe he thinks a non-violent social/political revolution is possible? No one is this stupid. The utter naivity if he did!

The state is sustained by violence and force, and the existing order is sustained by violence and force. Our society itself is refined through blood and fear. There has never been a revolution in the history of human civilization that was without terror. Changing the order and relations of power itself is a violent act with or without bloodshed - the absence of bloodshed is highly, highly unlikely. Anyone who has ever had a semblance of any kind of study of any revolution in history understands there is no such thign as a peaceful revolution. Robespierre was a pacifist, violence does not intensify because of pure anger or righteous ignorance, carelessness - it intensifies out of necessity. A revolution may be carried out by a majority of the population, but even a 10% opposition (the number will be much higher, of course) would constitute 700 million people for the world's population. In the US alone 10% is 30 million people.

Not that we say all of them must die - but this number is more than enough for a civil war or a massive bloody conflict. Anything and everything that is necessary must be sought in order to secure the proletarian dictatorship. If the though of violence being used for political ends horrifies you, if the thought of violence against the existing order - against the slavery and barbarism of capitalism - makes your stomach turn, you are not a radical and you may as well stop pretending to be one.

It is not even a test of commitment in this simplistic sense. It is the very idea that you are unable to use affirmative, world-altering vitality to see your ideas actualize or appear right before you. It is the very inability to translate the struggle for emancipation into a real struggle that actually has real implications for reality. It is easy to think of this in the abstract - but I promise you it is entirely different. Communism must never be a romantic fantasy because nothing is worse than to see your fantasies come to life.

[Rafiq]

V
I don't actually think that you and I are in disagreement here; neither of us think it is acceptable to use physical force, except when necessary,

This is ridiculous! Who has argued for senseless and meaningless violence? When has violence been meaningless? Who on Earth argues that we ought to use physical force just for the fuck of it? No revolutionary IN HISTORY was fond of this idea - no revolutionary in HISTORY ever wanted to jump to mass terror right away. It is the fact that they were unprepared for it, if anything, that led to "excessive" violence!

Violence is not some horse you can tame and ismply be on your merry way. You cannot control outbursts of revolutionary violence, you cannot knit pick and choose which violence you deem acceptable and which violence you do not. Violence is a monster - violence is terror, the only thing that must be done for violence is to secure its character. Do you think the red terror, or French revolutionary terror was given by order of the state? No, mass popular terror has always been the bulk of the "excesses" of violence. Do you think Mao was sitting on his arse somewhere handing out orders for revolutionary excesses? No, not at all.

I absolutely find it fascinating how people think somehow, the dichotomy is between using "too much" violence and just enough. NO ONE wants to use "too much" violence or violence that is more than necessary. The only question is whether you are willing to curtail violence for "moral" reasons even if it jeopardizes the vitality or survival of the revolution. No one likes war, no one is fond of bloodshed (For fuck's sake - many Chekists went mad later in their lives!) - but the true test is whether you are ready to press on and go to the end, or renounce it all because you are morally assaulted.

These morals would never survive in a revolutionary situation. Just as the anti-violent morals of the liberal would not survive (Liberals in Russia aligned themselves with the white butchers!). The ideology of capitalism today might appear explicitly anti-violent, but it is only against the use of violence outside of the domain of the law, or outside of the domain of the moral coordinates of our existing order. In a revolutionary situation, the same liberal morality that condemns violence will be calling for mass white terror and blood. You then either choose a side - the violence of the revolution or the violence of the counter-revolution.

You might not believe me, and you may write this off. But if we are ever so lucky (or unlucky) to experience a revolution in the 21st century, you will know.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Re: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Statistically, your odds of surviving were better if you fought in the uprising then if you got on the train for Treblenka.

But this is a total anachronism because of course these statistics would not have been available at the time. Moreover, many Jewish people would have not been fully aware of their ultimate fate, or the form it would take.


and b) even if that weren't the case, 100 Nazi causalities is better than 0. Better to die on one's feet, etc.

Of course, whilst this is a common narrative amongst the left and anti-fascists, most people don't really think like this. People trying to survive do not generally think in terms of murder and revenge, they think of survival.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I still don't agree that pacifism is bigoted, because, as Vladimir mentions, usually the people at the bottom are most harmed by violence, because they don't have the authority or manpower to even defend themselves. Therefore it's the violent priveleged who bring harm to the people on the bottom by engaging in conflict in which they don't have to face the same consecuences. Even the culture surrounding violence is arrogant, valuing dead soldiers over dead women and children and other oppressed who had to pay the ultimate price for those soldiers' actions.

That being said, excellent posts commoner and Vladimir, I agree with the majority of what both of you said. I'm not a totalitarian pacifist, I don't believe in being a totalitarian anything, so I can agree that while I think pacifism is usually the better choice, violence does occasionally have its place.

I don't think I ever said that people 'at the bottom' are most harmed by violence, I was just pointing out the inadequacy of the holocaust example for the reasons I pointed out above.

In 'normal times', it is people at the bottom who are least hurt by violence, because violence propagated, for example, against property tends to affect those who have property, which is traditionally not the poor. The history of revenge violence against individuals has often affected rich, prominent individuals in society too (for example the abduction campaigns of the RAF in West Germany from the 1970s).

I don't think your use of 'totalitarian' is particularly valid either. You are either a pacifist or you are not. Refuting pacifism doesn't instantly mean you have a violence fetish. You can reject pacifism on the principle of its moralistic stupidity and ineffectiveness, whilst also having the common sense to see that violence where not necessary is equally as stupid and probably even less ineffective insofar as it will often turn principled workers away from a movement/cause.

[The Feral Underclass]

]I'm not a totalitarian pacifist, I don't believe in being a totalitarian anything, so I can agree that while I think pacifism is usually the better choice, violence does occasionally have its place.

So what is it that you're actually opposing? You're a pacifist when it suits you? That strikes me as entirely disingenuous. Pacifism is an opposition to the use of violence in all circumstances, that's what pacifism is. You don't' get to pick and choose what violence is acceptable...

I mean, who are you actually directing your views towards? If you think it's okay to defend yourself against violence using violence, you therefore classify any other kind of violence as unacceptable, but what violence is that exactly? What violence are you referring to that other people are championing that you think is unacceptable?

[The Feral Underclass]

Ultimately violence is a necessary part of political struggle. That doesn't mean it should be celebrated or fetishised, but it is incredibly naive and lacking of a general understanding of class society, to think that violence should not be used or that it won't be required.

[consuming negativity]

This is ridiculous! Who has argued for senseless and meaningless violence? When has violence been meaningless? Who on Earth argues that we ought to use physical force just for the fuck of it? No revolutionary IN HISTORY was fond of this idea - no revolutionary in HISTORY ever wanted to jump to mass terror right away. It is the fact that they were unprepared for it, if anything, that led to "excessive" violence!

Violence is not some horse you can tame and ismply be on your merry way. You cannot control outbursts of revolutionary violence, you cannot knit pick and choose which violence you deem acceptable and which violence you do not. Violence is a monster - violence is terror, the only thing that must be done for violence is to secure its character. Do you think the red terror, or French revolutionary terror was given by order of the state? No, mass popular terror has always been the bulk of the "excesses" of violence. Do you think Mao was sitting on his arse somewhere handing out orders for revolutionary excesses? No, not at all.

I absolutely find it fascinating how people think somehow, the dichotomy is between using "too much" violence and just enough. NO ONE wants to use "too much" violence or violence that is more than necessary. The only question is whether you are willing to curtail violence for "moral" reasons even if it jeopardizes the vitality or survival of the revolution. No one likes war, no one is fond of bloodshed (For fuck's sake - many Chekists went mad later in their lives!) - but the true test is whether you are ready to press on and go to the end, or renounce it all because you are morally assaulted.

These morals would never survive in a revolutionary situation. Just as the anti-violent morals of the liberal would not survive (Liberals in Russia aligned themselves with the white butchers!). The ideology of capitalism today might appear explicitly anti-violent, but it is only against the use of violence outside of the domain of the law, or outside of the domain of the moral coordinates of our existing order. In a revolutionary situation, the same liberal morality that condemns violence will be calling for mass white terror and blood. You then either choose a side - the violence of the revolution or the violence of the counter-revolution.

You might not believe me, and you may write this off. But if we are ever so lucky (or unlucky) to experience a revolution in the 21st century, you will know.

I believe that "excesses", or to put it better, mistakes and immoral actions caused from ignorance and "ends justify the means" type of thinking are what actually jeopardize the revolution. The revolution comes from necessity, but none of the rest does. They are mistakes that are not necessary but will unfortunately happen. And they are not detached from us; the masses are not some uncontrollable mob of blood-thirsty idiots who rape and murder because "that's what revolution is". We are the masses. And political violence is done not out of fear, but out of love, respect, and dignity. Fearful persons hide; loving persons fight. Our morals do not wash away in the revolution: they are amplified by it. We are amplified by it. The revolution is not forced on us from above but rather it comes from below when the disrespect of the people is pushed to a breaking point and becomes intolerable. What we do is a direct reflection of what we are. Excesses are from ignorance and fear and they are not to be applauded or accepted but thwarted at every turn. They are stains on our good character and our cause which is justified and inherently moral.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It's frustrating that the debate around violence still centres around the binary choice of 'violence vs non violence'. Such a debate, much like the hackneyed 'skills vs knowledge' debate in education, does little to actually help people understand the means and motives of actions both violent and non violent.

Ultimately whilst trying to attack this binary, Churchill succeeds in flipping the binary on its head rather than replacing it. He highlights examples of where any kind of non violence (passive jews, peaceful indians, peaceful blacks in the US) leads to no or negative outcome, and where violence of any kind (ranging from black panther self defence to world war) leads to some sort of positive political or social outcome. It makes him seem as though he is adopting a binary moralistic position of non - violence = evil outcomes, violence = good/just outcomes.

He would have been better off doing a proper analysis of the different motives and means of 'violence'. World war is a qualitatively different kind of violence to, for example, defending one-self against Pinochet's death squads. I think this is a point that is often missed in the crude violence vs non violence debate.

[Decolonize The Left]

I would like to draw attention to a, thus far, unspoken issue which is highly pertinent to the OP. What we are failing to address when we label the OP as naive, or ignorant, is the glaring issue of ideology within the original argument.

Pacifism, or better yet, non-violence, is an ideology which is actively reproduced in the working class simply by the fact that the ruling class is in sovereign possession of legitimate violence. The OP's post is demonstrative of this fact: that the ruling class actively and openly condemns all forms of working class violence and advocates peace and pacivity. It is a part of the conditioning of all people under postindustrial capitalism.

Ignorance and naivety have little to do with it; especially since we wouldn't say that those of our class who are not class consciousness are ignorant/naive! How patronizing. No, we must endeavor to explain the material realities which give rise to ideas like pacifism and peaceful revolutions, ideas which emerge directly from the ideology of the ruling class and deserve to be combated on this level. We would be wiser to claim that pacifism holds emotional and perhaps moral merit, indeed, but that this moral merit stems not from a moral system made by us - the working class - but a system made by our oppressors. The emotional merit is precisely testimony to the terrors of our current system and not to some ideal utopia without violence or struggle.

[Illegalitarian]

azKNngXBICs

I'll chime in on the rest of what has been posted recently when I'm not engaging in the revolutionary struggle of assembling a ping pong table, but I'd just like to quickly highlight that Zizek absolutely slays it here, and elaborate further on why.

The hallmark of liberalism is wanting the "thing without the thing", as Zizek put it. Wanting war without war, wanting revolution without revolution, wanting a situation that inevitably leads to violence, without the violence.

To them, the terror should have never happened. Every single person in anarchic revolutionary France should have been given a lengthy, speedy trial, an imminent war with the world's powers and a significant portion of the population either still sympathetic towards monarchy or not sympathetic towards Republican democracy be dammed.

In the end, it's nothing more than an appeal to pacifism, or worse, apathy. The guy who wrote "Citizen", the book most critical of the Jacobins, and held up the American Revolution as "the good one" the "one without tyranny".

Let's completely ignore the white washing of thousands and thousands of indigenous people being slaughtered for this American society to be established to further examine the less obvious, just as faulty logic here:

So a "good revolution" should include no unjust acts? No murders of people who are "innocent", then, and everyone suspected of counter-revolution should be spoken with fairly and honestly about their disagreements and such disagreements should be settled peacefully with no physical conflict? What of those British soldiers killed by the uprising colonists? Most of them normal men, stuck off in some god forsaken colony miles and miles away from home, surely they should have simply sat them down and talked out their differences amicably? Surely, King George could have been reasoned with in an open, honest discourse? Why did those British soldiers have to die? What of their families, who depended upon them for survival?

What makes the Red Coat with musket in hand less innocent than the peasant refusing to fight for the Republic, or hoarding food in a time of starvation, or openly sympathizing with royalist forces, or scoffing at the actions of a revolutionary government? What makes it moral for one to die, what makes this act "not tyrannical", as opposed to the other?

Ah, it must be the rifle that makes the difference between the two, then. Wait, but then why is it then deemed moral to pick up arms and engage him in combat, to partake in the same immoral act as he? If you did not have the musket, neither would he, then perhaps a lively debate could end your differences, without anyone being harmed. Perhaps he and his fellow redcoats could be rounded up and all given fair, speedy trials for raising arms against the republic? His comrades would most definitely wait for such an action to take place, we all know that prison rebellions never happened in the days of old and neither did prison liberation.

Is it because he, with rifle in hand, is actively fighting against the revolution while the peasant is not? Surely the average British soldier did not care for politics of any sort, for monarchy nor democracy, but rather, when he would eat next, when he would again see his loved ones, merely fighting for the interests of his homeland, interests he sees as being in line with the interests of everyone back in that homeland that he cares for. It matters not what he fights for, though, it is the fact that he is fighting at all, you see. He is perceived as a counter-revolutionary, as fighting against the ideal society envisioned by the founding fathers of America, and if a few royalist soldiers have to die for that society to come to fruition, it takes some cracked eggs to make an omelet, is that it? The nerve of those Americans, with their violent fanaticism, trying to create their paradise on earth on a mountain of bodies! The dangers of idealism, I tell you.

Does the difference, then, lie in the fact that those who died during the "terror" were sometimes entirely innocent parties merely suspected of counter-revolution, then? I suppose they, too, by the dozen, should have faced a fair, speedy trial, all with several jurors and an extensive look into their activities undertaken, midst attempted violent power grabs by newly emerging political factions, rebellions by pro-royalist forces, mass hording, foreign sabotage and every powerful army at the world amassing as the border, surely the resources and organization this would require would be very well used and would lead to the stability and safety of the revolution, rather than its immediate collapse while those who fought hard for what they wanted were making faster progress and climbing ruthlessly towards their aims.

If this is not the answer, then the only logical answer must be that there is truly no difference at all between the Red Coat and the accused counter-revolutionary citizen of France, with both being condemned to death for being perceived to fight for ideas counter to those being fought for by revolutionary forces whether they actually were or not. One of these revolutionary forces were "good" because their enemy was perceived "bad", while the other is considered terroristic because its victims were perceived "innocent", with the difference between innocence and counter-revolution in this worldview being built on the same pillar of self-defense stood upon by all revolutionaries, the difference being that we accept the horrors revolution might bring as necessary, while they only accept the revolution as an abstract idea in a meaningless vacuum.

And keep in mind that these are the very same people who, when an innocent somewhere is gunned down by the police, grasp their pearls and gasp at the idea of violence against those forces being undertaken by rioters, while justifying the revolutionary war which started in an extremely similar fashion as "the revolution without tyranny", while then turning around and condemning The Mountain as monsters for doing the exact same fucking thing! WHILE THEN SAYING IT WAS ALRIGHT TO NUKE JAPAN BECAUSE REASONS. This is the absurdity of liberal bourgeois morality, it leads us in circles, and to pointless arbitrary dead ends.

As Robespierre said, there is plenty of time to be humane after the revolution, but in the mean time justice must be swift and it must be violent. If you take the time in such a situation to weed out the truly innocent and the truly counter-revolutionary, if this is the chance you're willing to take, then you are not fighting for revolution, you are having a meaningless pissing contest to see whose intentions are the most honest, a contest you will ultimately lose by trying to implement your post-revolutionary ideas of what is right and wrong in a pre-revolutionary world that would see you dead without vigilance and a revolutionary fever that puts no doubt in the mind of your enemies where you stand.

[Lily Briscoe]

Speaking of meaningless pissing contests.

[consuming negativity]

"if you won't let us execute people en masse without trial, which is something not even the US government does during such dire times as fighting literal nazi germany, you are having a meaningless pissing contest"

holy shit you people are fucking ridiculous sometimes

i thought THEY were supposed to be the reactionaries

[Illegalitarian]

Speaking of meaningless pissing contests.

Good point, any other astute observations you'd like to pull out of your magic hat while we're here



"if you won't let us execute people en masse without trial, which is something not even the US government does during such dire times as fighting literal nazi germany, you are having a meaningless pissing contest"

holy shit you people are fucking ridiculous sometimes

i thought THEY were supposed to be the reactionaries



We will certainly have time and resources in the middle of a revolution for fair, thorough trials for suspected counter-revolutionaries.

Again with this empty sentiment for revolution without understanding what it necessarily takes to defend revolution. Is it awful that some innocent people could get caught up in the midst of everything? Absolutely. Inevitable? Absolutely. Does this mean we shouldn't have revolution? I guess so

[Rafiq]

I believe that "excesses", or to put it better, mistakes and immoral actions caused from ignorance and "ends justify the means" type of thinking are what actually jeopardize the revolution

Your idea of a revolution is heavily romanticized and is purely an abstraction. There hasn't been a pretty revolution in the history of human civilization. Being that you are just declaring things, I don't even see how I could argue with you. You claim that a revolution is about "love and respect", that it occurs "from bellow" (what? What dicthomony is this!). What does any of this mean? WHAT revolution fits these qualifications? What revolution has ever fit these qualifications? Again, it's all just a pure romantic abstraction. A revolution might amplify "our morals" but it absolutely opposes the morals of the existing order - which demonizes unofficial violence in principle. Our morality is not theirs. Our morality is violent in essence, it is the morality of violence - being that Communism can only mean the seizure of state power and the triumph of one class over many others - this is an act of violence in itself. The pretty functions of the existing order and all of those stupid spectacles which perpetuate a fetishization of "non-violence" - all of this is sustianed by gross violence.

Notice how in almost every TV drama, in every movie, piece of modern literature, whatever you want - you have an act which is deemed good, but as soon as violence is used, everything is demonized. Violence represents the violation of the pure: All of a sudden when it is used - we fall out of paradise and all sorts of horrible shit occurs. Violence does not have to mean rape, killing of innocents for no reason: The bourgeois order makes no distinction between revolutionary violence and rape, or perpetuates the idea that there are no distinctions. This kind of mentality that is perpetuated is adopted by users here.

[consuming negativity]

We will certainly have time and resources in the middle of a revolution for fair, thorough trials for suspected counter-revolutionaries.

Again with this empty sentiment for revolution without understanding what it necessarily takes to defend revolution. Is it awful that some innocent people could get caught up in the midst of everything? Absolutely. Inevitable? Absolutely. Does this mean we shouldn't have revolution? I guess so

There is no time right now to have a trial, therefore we just execute everybody. There are prisons, there are courts, there are plenty other recourse rather than just slaughtering people based on accusations of "hey! he's suspicious! get him!" .... but we need to do it your way and if we don't we don't want a revolution.

what

the fuck

am i reading

Yeah, there might be times when it's like "shit you guys, we're fucked, there's no other option" and obviously that is okay, but you have gone full madman on me. There's a reason that Robespierre was able to be blamed and it is because even back in the fucking 1700s people were against what the Jacobins did and you're actually suggesting we do that NOW and calling it moving forward. Like what the fuck?!


Your idea of a revolution is heavily romanticized and is purely an abstraction. There hasn't been a pretty revolution in the history of human civilization. Being that you are just declaring things, I don't even see how I could argue with you. You claim that a revolution is about "love and respect", that it occurs "from bellow" (what? What dicthomony is this!). What does any of this mean? WHAT revolution fits these qualifications? What revolution has ever fit these qualifications? Again, it's all just a pure romantic abstraction. A revolution might amplify "our morals" but it absolutely opposes the morals of the existing order - which demonizes unofficial violence in principle. Our morality is not theirs. Our morality is violent in essence, it is the morality of violence - being that Communism can only mean the seizure of state power and the triumph of one class over many others - this is an act of violence in itself. The pretty functions of the existing order and all of those stupid spectacles which perpetuate a fetishization of "non-violence" - all of this is sustianed by gross violence.

Notice how in almost every TV drama, in every movie, piece of modern literature, whatever you want - you have an act which is deemed good, but as soon as violence is used, everything is demonized. Violence represents the violation of the pure: All of a sudden when it is used - we fall out of paradise and all sorts of horrible shit occurs. Violence does not have to mean rape, killing of innocents for no reason: The bourgeois order makes no distinction between revolutionary violence and rape, or perpetuates the idea that there are no distinctions. This kind of mentality that is perpetuated is adopted by users here.

Every revolution fits those qualifications. I am too sleepy to sit and spell this all out right now, but if you still disagree tomorrow, I will write more on this subject, because it is one I care about a lot.

If "bourgeois morality" makes no difference and condemns all violence, then why do I keep seeing all these "support our troops" bumper stickers everywhere? The majority of people are not pacifists. That's just wrong. And it isn't just state-sanctioned violence that we feel is good, either. Everybody supports violence in self-defense.

[Illegalitarian]

It's frustrating that the debate around violence still centres around the binary choice of 'violence vs non violence'. Such a debate, much like the hackneyed 'skills vs knowledge' debate in education, does little to actually help people understand the means and motives of actions both violent and non violent.

Ultimately whilst trying to attack this binary, Churchill succeeds in flipping the binary on its head rather than replacing it. He highlights examples of where any kind of non violence (passive jews, peaceful indians, peaceful blacks in the US) leads to no or negative outcome, and where violence of any kind (ranging from black panther self defence to world war) leads to some sort of positive political or social outcome. It makes him seem as though he is adopting a binary moralistic position of non - violence = evil outcomes, violence = good/just outcomes.

He would have been better off doing a proper analysis of the different motives and means of 'violence'. World war is a qualitatively different kind of violence to, for example, defending one-self against Pinochet's death squads. I think this is a point that is often missed in the crude violence vs non violence debate.

This is not a gem to go unnoticed, and I mean that earnestly.


This is such an absolutely great point: No one is "fetishizing" violence, no one wants violence or thinks that it's super super cool and should always happen. These debates need a framed context, and violence in this context is referring to revolutionary violence that is both, in most cased, sporadic, popular, uncontrollable and unavoidable.

In fact, it was Robespierre's opposition to the butchering at Lyon and the mass drownings by the Herbertists and his opposition to the war mongering of the Girondists that brought about his downfall and united those truly carrying out the terror against the committee during 9 Thermidor.


There's a difference between welcoming violence and understanding, accepting violence as an inevitability, and a necessity. This is horrible, no one but the worst psychopaths would ever find comfort in this, but it's true, whether or not we want it to be.

[PhoenixAsh]

The Warsaw uprising was because the Jewish resistance found out what would happen to them on top of that the uprising was instrumental in inspiring several other uprisings such as in Sobibor.

[Illegalitarian]

There is no time right now to have a trial, therefore we just execute everybody. There are prisons, there are courts, there are plenty other recourse rather than just slaughtering people based on accusations of "hey! he's suspicious! get him!" .... but we need to do it your way and if we don't we don't want a revolution.

Let's take everyone united against the revolution and unite them in a small building full of cages, I'm sure that they won't either be broken out or rebel, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Prison_uprisings

Throw everyone suspected of counter-revolutionary activity in prison, though, and watch how fast they stay.

Of course there are "prisons and courts", of course giving someone a fair trial is more favorable than just killing them, but this is neither something anyone will be able to control during a revolutionary period nor will it even be feasible, given the huge number of those who end up on the opposite side of said events. We what, assign them all lawyers? Investigate their backgrounds, every last one of them, to see if such claims hold weight? What will our enemies be doing in the mean time, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for said trials to take place before they crush the gains we've made? This is the chance we take, we risk a revolution for a society that would see the end of poverty, war, and all of the other horrors of the earth based on moralist notions of right and wrong? We have plenty of time to worry about this after the revolution, indeed, this is why we fight, but to suggest that any situation in which innocents are caught in the crossfire is undesirable and should not be sought is naive nonsense.


This is an unworkable pipe dream. You're trying way too hard to give a humane face to something that has never and can never be humane, you want revolution without revolution., and have this notion in your mind of a romantic, noble revolution that has never and can never exist. You want violence but only the "right" violence against people we're 100% beyond the shadow of a doubt positive are counter-revolutionaries, you want to go over the entire population with a fine toothed comb during a radical shift in the global socioeconomic structure and risk everything we're fighting for, because of some moral abstraction of being fair and kind to an enemy that will show us no such kindness.

You want revolutionary violence in the case of self-defense, but you break down notions of self-defense to some petty reductionist individualist notion without realizing that what we're defending is the revolution, at all costs, in the most efficient manner possible.

To reference an online game we both play, you're essentially LSF, worrying about whether or not their constitution has been violated in the middle of a war with NoR.


Yeah, there might be times when it's like "shit you guys, we're fucked, there's no other option" and obviously that is okay, but you have gone full madman on me. There's a reason that Robespierre was able to be blamed and it is because even back in the fucking 1700s people were against what the Jacobins did and you're actually suggesting we do that NOW and calling it moving forward. Like what the fuck?!


It's a revolution. Not just a change of hands from one government to another, a full scale cultural, economic, political, social revolution. This changes everything. This goes against every sacred cow, every norm society currently holds, do you honestly think we will have any other option? Do you think we will be able to control a revolutionary situation and what happens within it, even?

The only reason the Jacobins were popular is because they supported the terror, which was extremely popular and already being carried out by the sans-culottes and many others throughout the country side. They did not invent the terror, the image of the mad dictator Robespierre chopping off every head that looked at him wrong is a Thermidorian invention, the Thermidorians who overthrew him, which was a largely unpopular move, so much in fact that afterwards they had to carry out the largest mass executions of the entire revolution.

This is not something we can control, it's not as if we can, in all of the hectic madness of revolution, say to those revolutionary forces; "weed out the counter-revolutionaries, but only the real ones". Revolution is not systematic state terror, it is decentralized, and usually the judgement call of whatever group is carrying out the act, which is why the executions in Paris were mostly against the aristocracy, the nobles, the ardent royalist supporters, while the endeavors elsewhere carried out by the Herbetists and others was so blind and horrific, which is the reason they were destroyed.



If "bourgeois morality" makes no difference and condemns all violence, then why do I keep seeing all these "support our troops" bumper stickers everywhere? The majority of people are not pacifists. That's just wrong. And it isn't just state-sanctioned violence that we feel is good, either. Everybody supports violence in self-defense.

Because it's truly no different than our morality on this subject, it's just of a different class nature. i

Bourgeois scholars do so much posturing about how communists are so willing to "kill everyone in their path to heaven on earth", and any hint of radicalism is condemned, but only because it's not their radicalism.

Do me a favor: Ask anyone you know what they think of the French Revolution, of the Russian Revolution, of the Chinese Revolution, or ANY major revolution throughout HISTORY. Then ask them what they think of the nuclear attacks against Japan, what they think of the civilian deaths during WWII or any American war for that matter. I think you'll find quite contradictory opinions, and they will moralize it fallaciously in different ways, but ultimately it comes down to bourgeois morality, the morality of violence being acceptable when it protects the status quo, but radical and vicious when it rises to attack it. Attacking civilian areas with nuclear weapons and invading third would countries who have done nothing against us is justifiable, that is "self-defense", but revolutionary violence is too "radical" and "mad utopianism", because why wouldn't it be?

It is this very morality that you are having a hard time shedding, I fear. Violence is only acceptable in cases of "self-defense" but then what constitutes self-defense starts to fall into a fallacious territory that fundamentally misunderstands, not only revolutionary change, but what self-defense, defense of the revolution, truly means, what it truly entails.

You are one of the wisest people I've had the pleasure of meeting and I consider us close friends, I know for a fact that you're more than capable of understanding that self-defense expands well beyond shooting at a man running at you with a bayonet (if they still use those).

[The Disillusionist]

I don't have much time, it's midnight and I have classes tomorrow but I have a few quick things to say:

Communer, you're right, I think we're in agreement.

Lol at Rafiq: "Your idea of a revolution is heavily romanticized and purely an abstraction. Clearly, you're a coward for disagreeing with me." Because romanticized notions of cowardice are totally productive. The idea of cowardice has killed only slightly fewer people than God and patriotism.

Finally, Pacifism is an ideology. It doesn't have to be absolute and it doesn't have to completely dictate how a person acts. In those rare cases in which violence is justified, it is much better to approach that violence from a violence-hating perspective to prevent as much as possible the atrocity that is so incredibly common in violent situations. I would say that the greatest military minds of history have been pacifists in a sense, hoping to win conflicts with as little actual violence as possible. The L33t-revolutionary-war-mongers were people like Custer, who was only interested in killing Indians, and got himself killed, justly, in the process.

However, whenever there is violence, ideals will be sacrificed, the powerless will suffer, and people will be oppressed. Countless revolutionary groups have engaged in violent "revolution" only to abandon nearly all ideology whatsoever in favor of continued raping and villaging of the people they claim to help. The Sendero Luminoso of Peru are an immediate example of a violent leftist group that almost completely abandoned any sort of ideological system in favor of continued, pointless war and the massacre of innocents. Yet another case of the violent privileged bringing oppression onto the heads of the already oppressed, both directly and indirectly.

I don't remember who made this point, but violent conflict doesn't just "ignore" the poor. Rich, privileged people fighting over land have, historically, made a habit of laying entire countries to waste and destroying thousands and thousands of human lives, then shaking hands and making up when it was all over. In that case, violence and oppression of the people were literally synonymous, as violence was simply the exploitation of the people in order to make a point to a person who was considered too important to hurt him/herself.

In fact, leaders of militant factions often have this attitude. As I mentioned earlier, to the demented mind of a violence "fetishist" as some on this site call them, the lives of soldiers and military leaders have more value simply by virtue of their position, with leaders being most important. Therefore you have conflicts in which thousands of people are killed and the leaders end up working it over with a pot of tea. In those cases, discussion ended up being the solution, violence was just the exploitative bonus slapped over the whole situation.

Oh, and finally, I'm not going to apologize for not always being entirely focused 100% on feminism, the world is not that narrow. I completely reject the idea that talking about violence vs. nonviolence in a feminist thread is in any way whatsoever bigoted.

Edit: Working class Americans have a very violent culture, the American government has done very little to discourage that. Driving people into a false frenzy over superficial gun control "threats", for example, is hardly the example of a bourgeois government encouraging pacifism in its citizens. All of our movies, music, and games are completely violent. We outdo ourselves to see who can create the most violent fantasies and shock the most people with them. School shootings are a regular occurence. The American proletariat is encouraged to be violent, because it allows our government to justify its misguided imperialist wars in the Middle East in the eyes of the public.

[John Nada]

I don't have much time, it's midnight and I have classes tomorrow but I have a few quick things to say:

Communer, you're right, I think we're in agreement.

Lol at Rafiq:"Your idea of a revolution is heavily romanticized and purely an abstraction. Clearly, you're a coward for disagreeing with me." Because romanticized notions of cowardice are totally productive. The idea of cowardice has killed only slightly fewer people than God and patriotism.It's not the idea of cowardice that kills, but the actions of those guilty of it. It's a serious offense in combat for a reason.
Finally, Pacifism is an ideology. It doesn't have to be absolute and it doesn't have to completely dictate how a person acts. In those rare cases in which violence is justified, it is much better to approach that violence from a violence-hating perspective to prevent as much as possible the atrocity that is so incredibly common in violent situations. I would say that the greatest military minds of history have been pacifists in a sense, hoping to win conflicts with as little actual violence as possible.While IMO blood-lust is a sign of a sociopath, pacifism is a tactic, not a law of reality. And I think some of the "great military minds" were sociopaths, but all recognized the limits of peace.[/quote]
The L33t-revolutionary-war-mongers were people like Custer, who was only interested in killing Indians, and got himself killed, justly, in the process.Damn right Custer and his troops got killed! They were killed, not by white people holding signs and singing kumbaya, but by armed Indigenous soldiers defending themselves!
However, whenever there is violence, ideals will be sacrificed, the powerless will suffer, and people will be oppressed.There is already violence, lost ideals, suffering and oppression. It's called capitalism. I want that to stop.[/quote]
Countless revolutionary groups have engaged in violent "revolution" only to abandon nearly all ideology whatsoever in favor of continued raping and villaging of the people they claim to help. The Sendero Luminoso of Peru are an immediate example of a violent leftist group that almost completely abandoned any sort of ideological system in favor of continued, pointless war and the massacre of innocents. Yet another case of the violent privileged bringing oppression onto the heads of the already oppressed, both directly and indirectly.You act like the oppressor is somehow innocent in all of this, and that liberating a racist, poverty stricken, neo-colony of the US is "pointless". The Peruvian state has killed more people than Sendero Luminoso ever could.
I don't remember who made this point, but violent conflict doesn't just "ignore" the poor. Rich, privileged people fighting over land have, historically, made a habit of laying entire countries to waste and destroying thousands and thousands of human lives, then shaking hands and making up when it was all over. In that case, violence and oppression of the people were literally synonymous, as violence was simply the exploitation of the people in order to make a point to a person who was considered too important to hurt him/herself.For the poor, life is constant violence. Poverty is one of the most lethal weapons ever made. If the bourgeoisie are willing to do this fucked up shit, why should they be respected as if they deserve a monopoly on inflicting pain?
In fact, leaders of militant factions often have this attitude. As I mentioned earlier, to the demented mind of a violence "fetishist" as some on this site call them, the lives of soldiers and military leaders have more value simply by virtue of their position, with leaders being most important. Therefore you have conflicts in which thousands of people are killed and the leaders end up working it over with a pot of tea. In those cases, discussion ended up being the solution, violence was just the exploitative bonus slapped over the whole situation.Didn't Mao say revolution's not a tea party?

The military in a revolution shouldn't monopolize the glory. A revolution requires the effort of all progressive forces.
Oh, and finally, I'm not going to apologize for not always being entirely focused 100% on feminism, the world is not that narrow. I completely reject the idea that talking about violence vs. nonviolence in a feminist thread is in any way whatsoever bigoted.You talk about how you hate militant revolutionaries, yet somehow when a thread on the challenges of feminism gets changed to some off-topic macho brocialist discussion, it's somehow not better to move it into a new thread. I do think moving the discussion about the challenges feminist face to off-topic machismo talk about violence is sexist. Others have recognized their error, yet you uphold it.
Edit: Working class Americans have a very violent culture, the American government has done very little to discourage that. Driving people into a false frenzy over superficial gun control "threats", for example, is hardly the example of a bourgeois government encouraging pacifism in its citizens. All of our movies, music, and games are completely violent. We outdo ourselves to see who can create the most violent fantasies and shock the most people with them. School shootings are a regular occurence. The American proletariat is encouraged to be violent, because it allows our government to justify its misguided imperialist wars in the Middle East in the eyes of the public.The violence is encouraged to defend property, patriarchy, white privilege, and the state. It's driven by an individualist dog-eat-dog culture inherently part of capitalism. Imperialist wars will happen under capitalism, they don't need AR-15s to justify it. It's a built in feature.

[consuming negativity]

No, Illegalitarian. The problem is not that I do not understand that you are willing to "defend the revolution at all costs". The problem is that I do understand that that's what you're willing to do.

Tell me, how many innocent people are we going to be murdering based on false accusations in order to bring about socialism? 7 million people? Does that seem like a lot? Because that's one tenth of one percent of the global population. Maybe we should bump it up further. How about 1% of the global population, or 70 million people? Would that be better for you? Exactly how far are you willing to go? You said you'd do anything to defend the gains of the revolution, so how about we kill off a good half of the people, including yourself, your family, your wife, and everybody you've known or ever loved. But we won't stop there. Let's keep going and killing everyone until the only people left in our glorious socialist situation are a few dozen posters from RevLeft and their collectively-owned pet dog. Is it still worth it to you? Or would you suddenly find reason for us to hold trials and be a bit careful about who we put up to the guillotine, Mr. Robespierre?

But you know what? That's not even my real problem with what you're arguing. My problem with what you're arguing is that the means you're willing to use to create your revolution won't even bring about the socialism you say you want. The French revolution that you're glorifying in your blood-thirsty dreams here was not even successful. It led first to a series of bloody wars and then back to monarchy. The October revolution? The grand gains of Lenin's revolution, the reason that all those anarchists were slaughtered, Kronstadt was smashed, and Stalin's comrades purged? Vladimir Putin is in charge, there are North Korean slave labor camps in Siberia, and the impoverished former Soviet citizens are rotting their veins with krokodil while the Communist Party™ talks about getting rid of immigrants. Yeah, clearly necessary. Clearly the terror did its job and brought about something other than the same feudalism and capitalism that were claimed to be destroyed.

"Oh, but the material conditions were not right! Oh, but they made mistakes! It'll be different next time, you reformist bourgeois pig!"

Yes, yes they did make mistakes, you're right. They listened to people like you and rather than working in the interests of the people, began to slaughter them wholesale in the name of their betterment. But people are not means to an end. They do not exist to be used as pawns to achieve your glorious romanticized revolution. You are commodifying them in the same way that they have been commodified in capitalism; their lives only being worth living to you if they agree with you and jump on your bandwagon and begin to slaughter their friends, neighbors, and fellow humans. That is why the revolutions fail. That is why communism in America is a marginalized status group for intellectual outcasts. Because even the dumbest of people can put two and two together and figure out that someone willing to murder them for their own good is not acting in their best interests at all. Because it doesn't take a genius, or an academic, or a Marxist to look at this shit and realize how fucking ridiculously awful it is. They know that things are bad. They know that life sucks, that capitalism is hateful and violent, and that things need to change. But what kind of alternative have you really given them?

[PhoenixAsh]

Two seperate issues are discussed here:

Violence as strategy
&
Violence as repression.

These two are completely different strands of violence within the context.

****

On the French revolution. The Thermidoran reaction was mainly people who served their self interests. They were not opposed to terror. They were opposed being subjected to it and not being the ones wielding the power and influence. (Of course the groups involved were varied).

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There's a difference between welcoming violence and understanding, accepting violence as an inevitability, and a necessity. This is horrible, no one but the worst psychopaths would ever find comfort in this, but it's true, whether or not we want it to be.

Again, though, the debate is not whether to accept violence as a necessity or reject it outright based on some moral argument. Or it shouldn't be.

Violence if not properly defined becomes a meaningless buzzword and unless we define specifically what methods of violence, and for what motives, we support and do not support, then it's just impossible to support violence across the board as an inevitability. I don't want to ever be in the intellectual position of supporting extermination and other cruel acts in the midst of a revolutionary period, in the name of the 'inevitability of violence'. But if you are to talk about, for example, destruction and expropriation of property, then fine. That is a productive form of violence. If you are to talk about defensive physical/armed struggle, then fine. That is a necessary and understandable form of violence.

[Rafiq]

"Oh, but the material conditions were not right! Oh, but they made mistakes! It'll be different next time, you reformist bourgeois pig!"


My god, I have had this debate too many times. Correlation does not imply causation. The violence employed by both the Jacobin government and France, and the state under the Bolsheviks if anything prolonged the revolution and allowed it to survive much longer than it did. This is incontestable. Without the reign of terror France would have fallen to foreign infilitration or counter-revolution quite fast - it's so cute how people think France simply existed in a vacuum. It was surrounded by the most powerful entities in the world, all of whom were hostile to its existence.

Hypothetical scenario: In 1921, the Soviet government began producing black boots en masse for their soldiers. Those same boots were worn by the soldiers suppressing the glorious Krodstat rebellion. Coincidence? I think not. Have you ever considered that the Bolsheviks wanted to destroy the Krodstat subversion, and that if they could have suppressed it without violence, they would have? Why is violence even a factor here in understanding the reasons why it was suppressed? Are you actually trying to say it was suppressed because the Bolsheviks got accustomed to using violence and were looking at any opportunity to use it? So, in your mind, had the Bolsheviks not used violence to suppress the Krodstat rebellion, but dishonest compulsion or magic, would it have been okay?

I don't even know why I'm arguing. Do you actually go on about your day thinking that the Bolshevik, or French revolutions failed because of the usage of violence? Violence prolonged their survival greatly, but that doesn't mean using violence alone is going to secure the revolution. It just means it is necessary for its survival, if it is able to survive. Do you even understand logic? No one has said that violence alone will secure the revolution, but that without it the revolution's security is surely doomed. It's incredibly ironic though: The problem with Robespierre was that he was too reluctant to use violence and violate the laws of the French republic in order to ochestrate a popular-backed coup against those who would later see him executed. Robespierre was not usurped by popular will, but by a few corrupt conspirators. Had he killed them, the French revolution may have survived much longer than it did. (but even then, the French revolution WAS IMMENSELY successful. It gave birth to a new era of civic values. It pretty much set a standard for politics that still survives today. To say that the French revolution didn't survive because the Republic of virtue didn't survive is beyond stupid). No new order can come about if it is not bathed in the blood of the previous ruling classes. I dare you to challenge me here: name one.

Since you are so keen on this "correlation implies causation" nonsense, tell me: Since you're saying that every revolution that has failed has also employed violence, give me an example of a single revolution in history that was successful that did not utilize violence or terror.

Bourgeois ideology invokes this myth that violence is some kind of spell, that people "go crazy with it", i.e. that killing the enemies of the revolution automatically ends in indiscriminate killing for no reason. Because apparently violence is some kind of hex that is waiting to be unleashed. No. Violence is simply a word you give to real actions. Indiscriminate violence was never a defining factor in any revolution. If you think this violence was indiscriminate, you are not looking hard enough.

I really don't know whether to laugh or retire in disappointment if you actually think that revolutions fail because people get carried away with violence. People use violence for a reason, and here's a hint: That reason isn't violence for the fuck of it. Violence had nothing to do with the failure of those revolutions, even if the utilization of violence may have been an effect of those failures. But the point is not the sword, or the thrust: It's whose holding the sword and why.


If "bourgeois morality" makes no difference and condemns all violence, then why do I keep seeing all these "support our troops" bumper stickers everywhere? The majority of people are not pacifists. That's just wrong. And it isn't just state-sanctioned violence that we feel is good, either. Everybody supports violence in self-defense.


I said it condemns all 'non-legitimate violence', if you would have actually read my post. Violence is good so long as it exists within the confines of the law, or a morality that sustains the existing order. Here's the thing, though: Violence in self-defense is stupid and vague. All revolutionary terror is employed in self defense. The point is that ideology defines the coordinates of what is considered self defense, and what is not. The majority of people are aversed to the idea of using violence and a morality outside of the domain of the state apparatus morality. Name me a single example in any sort of popular literature or media. Our society is obsessed with dystopian fiction in which rebellions happen because an illegitimate state has risen that has violated the principles of the existing bourgeois state.

[consuming negativity]

Terror like you advocate is only necessary to safeguard revolutions that are going nowhere. You say that the violence helped the revolution to survive, but what is the point of extending the life of a dead-in-the-cradle revolution to nowhere? It's not a confusion of correlation and causation, it's a simple observation: in the long-term, nothing was accomplished. The people died for nothing. The terror's most lasting impact is the continued association of the far left with the romanticization of death and failure in the eyes of the people it claims to be working in the best interests of; that is not a good thing. And to claim that the reaction against the "excesses" of either revolution had nothing to do with the fact that those excesses existed is what is really illogical here. The revolutions probably would have failed anyway, you're right - because the situations that produced the revolutions also produced the terror. That only goes to prove my point that the revolution you describe is not the one that is capable of producing the ends we're looking for.

[Rafiq]

Terror like you advocate is only necessary to safeguard revolutions that are going nowhere.

Put it this way: If the Red Terror started in September of 1918, and the German revolution would have succeeded one year later, the revolution would have survived. Neither the French or Russian revolution's defeat were necessarily inevitable. And it is wrong to say that the French revolution was unsuccessful, anyway. The French revolution was not a Communist revolution - it was a bourgeois revolution. And it set a precedent which survives to this day. Likewise, the October revolution failed, the radical bourgeois revolution still lived on. Where are the vestiges of feudalism in Russia, or even Eastern Europe today? Non existent. To say that the struggle was worthless even after it was clear the revolution would not survive is beyond wrong. This was a struggle to turn the world on its head - it may have failed, but to trivialize the sacrifices of the Russian proletariat and downplay their emancipatory heroism simply because we know now, in retrospect that their defeat was inevitable tells us you wouldn't have given a damn about the revolution to begin with. And it certainly does not mean that the good fight was in vain: it serves as a lesson and example that will, whether anyone likes it or not, be alive in any future revolution. The wandering souls of all the previous failed revolutions will find peace in the next.

To see revolutions as a means to an ends is wrong. Revolutions are the ends themselves, not the key or transition to your utopia. Your utopia will never happen, communer. The conquest of power is all we have to bring to the table: And we can never know what the new world will even look like without the existence of a movement which will bring a new world. Which clearly doesn't exist: its inexistence is not simply on a strategic or tactical level, i.e. the absence of people on the streets. The inexistence of a Communist movemetn means there does not exist a movement, or even set of ideas that has derived from present circumstances that could bring about a new world. Deriving from present circumstances means the ability to have a place in every fight in the world - to possess a langauge which can articulate and internalize the conditions of today without REDUCING them to the phraseology of past struggles.

[consuming negativity]

Put it this way: If the Red Terror started in September of 1918, and the German revolution would have succeeded one year later, the revolution would have survived. Neither the French or Russian revolution's defeat were necessarily inevitable. And it is wrong to say that the French revolution was unsuccessful, anyway. The French revolution was not a Communist revolution - it was a bourgeois revolution. And it set a precedent which survives to this day. Likewise, the October revolution failed, the radical bourgeois revolution still lived on. Where are the vestiges of feudalism in Russia, or even Eastern Europe today? Non existent.

To see revolutions as a means to an ends is wrong. Revolutions are the ends themselves, not the key or transition to your utopia. Your utopia will never happen, communer. The conquest of power is all we have to bring to the table: And we can never know what the new world will even look like without the existence of a movement which will bring a new world.

The bourgeois revolutionary precedent, if there even is such a thing, was set by the American revolutionaries who did not engage in terror and who actually succeeded with the help of the French government. Which was, of course, later overthrown with direct influence from the Americans. Sure, we can say that the Bolsheviks got rid of the King, but they assimilated a lot more of the old Russian autocratic element than you'd probably like to admit. And the French actually saw the re-establishment of a monarchy in the wake of their defeat. Again, objectively speaking, it is impossible to call either of these revolutions "successful" by any meaningful meaning of success.

I'm not looking for utopia unless you are, because we want the same thing. The difference is that I recognize that the way you want to go about achieving that goal is incongruent with the goal itself; what you want to do can never end in what we want, and probably won't ever actually happen again. I do not see ends and means; there is no difference between ends and means. It is as illusory and nonsensical as the purported difference between individual and collective interests, and it comes from a misunderstanding of reality.

edit: I quoted you before you edited your post. You can ask me to edit my reply to take into account your new information, or if you feel it addresses your main arguments, you can go ahead and reply to this.

[Rafiq]

The bourgeois revolutionary precedent, if there even is such a thing, was set by the American revolutionaries who did not engage in terror and who actually succeeded with the help of the French government. Which was, of course, later overthrown with direct influence from the Americans. Sure, we can say that the Bolsheviks got rid of the King, but they assimilated a lot more of the old Russian autocratic element than you'd probably like to admit. And the French actually saw the re-establishment of a monarchy in the wake of their defeat. Again, objectively speaking, it is impossible to call either of these revolutions "successful" by any meaningful meaning of success.


The American revolution could not have set this precedent because it was not a revolution in any meaningful sense but a war for independence! No fundamental changes in social revolutions were altered or challenged: It was simply a matter of breaking off from the yoke of British rule. How could the American revolution serve as an example aside from being the political exaltion of enlightenment values? Were the French people fighting for Independence?

Do you have any notion of French history? Here's a hint: France doesn't have a monarchy anymore. The french revolution survived for a long, long time.

[Illegalitarian]

Tell me, how many innocent people are we going to be murdering based on false accusations in order to bring about socialism? 7 million people? Does that seem like a lot? Because that's one tenth of one percent of the global population. Maybe we should bump it up further. How about 1% of the global population, or 70 million people? Would that be better for you? Exactly how far are you willing to go? You said you'd do anything to defend the gains of the revolution, so how about we kill off a good half of the people, including yourself, your family, your wife, and everybody you've known or ever loved. But we won't stop there. Let's keep going and killing everyone until the only people left in our glorious socialist situation are a few dozen posters from RevLeft and their collectively-owned pet dog. Is it still worth it to you? Or would you suddenly find reason for us to hold trials and be a bit careful about who we put up to the guillotine, Mr. Robespierre?

This is a non-argument appeal to emotion, and a pretty terrible slippery slope.

Will many, many people die during revolution? Yeah, no doubt. Will many of them likely be innocent? Sadly, yes. Innocent people die during times of political strife, and for that political strife to end, someone has to end up on top, figuratively speaking, and for a revolution to be successful, revolutionaries cannot hesitate to do whatever it takes, nor will they, nor have they ever.

It's not a game of "who can be more violent" or "who can be more just", it's a struggle for survival, because everyone involved knows what's in store for the losing side of history. It's not about what I think is acceptable, it's about the reality of what revolution actually means.


But you know what? That's not even my real problem with what you're arguing. My problem with what you're arguing is that the means you're willing to use to create your revolution won't even bring about the socialism you say you want. The French revolution that you're glorifying in your blood-thirsty dreams here was not even successful. It led first to a series of bloody wars and then back to monarchy. The October revolution? The grand gains of Lenin's revolution, the reason that all those anarchists were slaughtered, Kronstadt was smashed, and Stalin's comrades purged? Vladimir Putin is in charge, there are North Korean slave labor camps in Siberia, and the impoverished former Soviet citizens are rotting their veins with krokodil while the Communist Party™ talks about getting rid of immigrants. Yeah, clearly necessary. Clearly the terror did its job and brought about something other than the same feudalism and capitalism that were claimed to be destroyed.


This is just ahistorical ranting. Feudalism WAS abolished by the French Revolution, when the monarchy was restored it's not as if everything went back to being feudalistic, and their rule was extremely weak and lasted about a generation before collapsing in on itself.

Lenin's revolution failed not due to violence, but due to the fact that communist revolution cannot happen within the confines of one country and one country alone. The violence of the Bolsheviks and their supporters was carried out in order to maintain Bolshevik hegemony, and that's what it did.



Yes, yes they did make mistakes, you're right. They listened to people like you and rather than working in the interests of the people, began to slaughter them wholesale in the name of their betterment. But people are not means to an end. They do not exist to be used as pawns to achieve your glorious romanticized revolution. You are commodifying them in the same way that they have been commodified in capitalism; their lives only being worth living to you if they agree with you and jump on your bandwagon and begin to slaughter their friends, neighbors, and fellow humans. That is why the revolutions fail. That is why communism in America is a marginalized status group for intellectual outcasts. Because even the dumbest of people can put two and two together and figure out that someone willing to murder them for their own good is not acting in their best interests at all. Because it doesn't take a genius, or an academic, or a Marxist to look at this shit and realize how fucking ridiculously awful it is. They know that things are bad. They know that life sucks, that capitalism is hateful and violent, and that things need to change. But what kind of alternative have you really given them?

Again with the false assertion that revolutions fail due to violence and terror. Revolutions are violence and terror, that is what you're failing to grasp.

There's nothing here to argue with, just false assertions that I know you're above. Yes, clearly Americans are repelled by communism and by alternatives to capitalism due to violence, we're a peaceful lot after all :rolleyes:


Two seperate issues are discussed here:

Violence as strategy
&
Violence as repression.

These two are completely different strands of violence within the context.


I'm not sure how thick the line is between the two within the context in question.



Again, though, the debate is not whether to accept violence as a necessity or reject it outright based on some moral argument. Or it shouldn't be.

Violence if not properly defined becomes a meaningless buzzword and unless we define specifically what methods of violence, and for what motives, we support and do not support, then it's just impossible to support violence across the board as an inevitability. I don't want to ever be in the intellectual position of supporting extermination and other cruel acts in the midst of a revolutionary period, in the name of the 'inevitability of violence'. But if you are to talk about, for example, destruction and expropriation of property, then fine. That is a productive form of violence. If you are to talk about defensive physical/armed struggle, then fine. That is a necessary and understandable form of violence.


No one is supporting violence "because violence is inevitable" and the specific methods of violence and the context which it exists in is what is specifically being discussed here.

There's a difference between the notion of giving into a perceived inevitability and understanding the nature of something that is inevitably violent and not trying to separate it from its context out of abstract notions of morality.

[Illegalitarian]

Terror like you advocate is only necessary to safeguard revolutions that are going nowhere. You say that the violence helped the revolution to survive, but what is the point of extending the life of a dead-in-the-cradle revolution to nowhere? It's not a confusion of correlation and causation, it's a simple observation: in the long-term, nothing was accomplished. The people died for nothing. The terror's most lasting impact is the continued association of the far left with the romanticization of death and failure in the eyes of the people it claims to be working in the best interests of; that is not a good thing. And to claim that the reaction against the "excesses" of either revolution had nothing to do with the fact that those excesses existed is what is really illogical here. The revolutions probably would have failed anyway, you're right - because the situations that produced the revolutions also produced the terror. That only goes to prove my point that the revolution you describe is not the one that is capable of producing the ends we're looking for.

You're just saying things without actually thinking about them. The only revolutions that can survive are the ones that aren't violent? What? The only reason the French Revolution or any revolution throughout history survived was because of the dominance of violent tendencies among the population and within the revolutionary forces steering these movements. No one "died for nothing", the revolution abolished feudalism and codified the precedent set by Cromwell, codifying the ideas that shaped France's and indeed the entire modern world's future. I'm sorry, but you're just blatantly wrong and clearly do not know much of the event you're speaking of or you would know that these "reactions" had nothing to do with "excesses" at all. The Thermadorians were some of the worst perpetrators of the terror, vile men like Fouche who butchered people in Lyon. There's a reason the entire coup happened in the period of two days and ended in mass execution: they knew that it was unpopular and that they had to act fast before the Robespierrists rose to crush their plot, an event they barely escaped. Terror was the order of the day and that's why the Jacobins were so popular, because they had the stomach to back the peasant armies that were carrying this terror out.


The bourgeois revolutionary precedent, if there even is such a thing, was set by the American revolutionaries who did not engage in terror and who actually succeeded with the help of the French government. Which was, of course, later overthrown with direct influence from the Americans. Sure, we can say that the Bolsheviks got rid of the King, but they assimilated a lot more of the old Russian autocratic element than you'd probably like to admit. And the French actually saw the re-establishment of a monarchy in the wake of their defeat. Again, objectively speaking, it is impossible to call either of these revolutions "successful" by any meaningful meaning of success.


Jesus fucking Christ

How many Iroquois and other deaths are you white washing at the hands of Washington and his friends that was necessary to establish a base for the revolution? You do of course also realize that it was a war of independence between two bourgeois factions, and that there is a massive difference here between this and a revolution that is more than just a change of hands, but a revolutionary transformation of all of society, correct?

Not mentioning that the true precedent was set by Cromwell in the 17th century, and ignoring the false equation of feudalism with monarchy, or the notion that monarchy being restored meant that the revolution failed. As Rafiq said: where is the monarchy now? Where have they been, for decades upon decades upon decades?

Again with foolish notions of the American revolution being "the good one", the "one without tyranny". The Red Coats were not "innocent" because they were attacking the revolutionaries directly, yet as a communist you recognize that self-defense is not just confined to notions of defending yourself from men with guns, especially from a revolutionary standpoint. The most hilarious thing about this notion is the implication that the founding fathers were moral god kings, much unlike the stinky frenchman, right?

Had there been any significant uprisings from the population against the "revolution" I'm sure that things would have went far differently than they did in France or England or Russia, because America: Fuck Yeah :laugh:

I mean you're obviously not some liberal shill who doesn't understand history, but the logic you're using here is inherently in line with theirs.




I'm not looking for utopia unless you are, because we want the same thing. The difference is that I recognize that the way you want to go about achieving that goal is incongruent with the goal itself; what you want to do can never end in what we want, and probably won't ever actually happen again. I do not see ends and means; there is no difference between ends and means. It is as illusory and nonsensical as the purported difference between individual and collective interests, and it comes from a misunderstanding of reality.



You state this over and over again as if it means anything. Your notions of revolution are both mechanical and ahistorical and your notions of future revolution are clouded by abstract notions of morality that aren't based on anything but your own repeated assertions. I think we both know you're speaking in circles here.

There's nothing to address here or nothing to really say aside from pointing out the obvious: you're wrong. The revolutions you want to paint as failures were all successful in their goals and the violence perpetuated in these revolutions somehow leading to their perceived degradation is not based on literally, anything at all.

[John Nada]

The bourgeois revolutionary precedent, if there even is such a thing, was set by the American revolutionaries who did not engage in terror and who actually succeeded with the help of the French government. Which was, of course, later overthrown with direct influence from the Americans. Sure, we can say that the Bolsheviks got rid of the King, but they assimilated a lot more of the old Russian autocratic element than you'd probably like to admit. And the French actually saw the re-establishment of a monarchy in the wake of their defeat. Again, objectively speaking, it is impossible to call either of these revolutions "successful" by any meaningful meaning of success.It's not true that the American Revolution had no terror. It wasn't on the scale of France, but there was attacks on loyalist and their perceived supporter, particularly Native Americans. And it was still a slave state.

The American revolution then caused France and Spain to accumulate more debt when they tried to weaken the British by supporting it. Their support sharpened preexisting antagonisms between and inside the empires. Then, the Revolutionary wars delivered a blow to the forces of reaction.

Even with the restoration of the monarchy later, revolution was provoked in many more countries. Related to the French Revolution, Haiti was the first successful slave rebellion. The chaos created by the terror, Revolutionary Wars and later even the various Napoleonic Wars provoked wars of liberation through the Americas.

With the Bolshevik Revolution, it showed the world that a new way is possible, even though it's now in full capitalist restoration. In response to the threat of a revolution, many important reforms were passed to head off the possibility of revolution in capitalist countries. As much fucked up shit they may have done, the USSR uplifted the lives of there people and were instrumental in defeating fascism. They supported various wars of national liberation, changing the map of the globe.None of this could have happened under the reactionary czar, in fact it'd probably be the opposite

You may think all this shit is pointless, but look at all the progressive reforms and advancements today. Look at a map before those revolutions and after. How would the world be without those revolutions on an individual level? How could any progress be made? Name one thing they didn't have an effect on today. I doubt many of the people it effected want to go back before the revolutions. Even if it now appears that the Russian Revolution was all in vain, it may well have laid the foundation for a future revolution that's more successful. To deny this is to desecrate the memory of those who gave their lives for a better world.

[Illegalitarian]

The problem with Robespierre was that he was too reluctant to use violence and violate the laws of the French republic in order to ochestrate a popular-backed coup against those who would later see him executed. Robespierre was not usurped by popular will, but by a few corrupt conspirators. Had he killed them, the French revolution may have survived much longer than it did.

There's a reason the reaction was a carefully planned conspiracy: The rest of The Mountain wanted to do with The Right what had been done to the Girondists, and Robespierre wouldn't stand for it. In the end, though, it was an alliance of convenience on their end. Some historians say that he protected them out of political necessity, but he could have slaughtered them, turned them over to the Parisians just as easily, and did not.

When Robespierre was asked to call those by name on 8 Thermidor who he had accused of conspiracy and treachery against the revolution, those who overthrew him the very next day, some of whom he had called back to Paris to answer for their indiscriminate violence, he did not, because he knew they would be immediately executed just as Danton and the others, which he did not wish to see happen.

This was a man who walked away from judgeship in his earlier years because of his extreme moral opposition to the death penalty, a man who refused to be present during even a single execution during the revolution. He was a moderate who believed that man was naturally good above all else, and the realities of the revolution sent him into nervous breakdowns and fits of extreme illness. It's likely that he would have died from natural causes had he not been executed.


He was just as much a victim of the revolution as anyone else, and that's the point here: Revolution is violence, it is terror. No one can control this, it is not engineered, an invention of a handful of scoundrels and murderers, it is simply the nature of change of this matter. One can either accept this as reality and ring their hands about it until they're sick, or they can finish what was started and stomach their way through the darkest part of radical change, something Robespierre, an 'incorruptible man of virtue', could not do.



Even with the restoration of the monarchy later, revolution was provoked in many more countries. Related to the French Revolution, Haiti was the first successful slave rebellion. The chaos created by the terror, Revolutionary Wars and later even the various Napoleonic Wars provoked wars of liberation through the Americas.


Let us also not forget that it was Napoleon's romp through Europe, the spreading of Jacobin ideas throughout the land, that abolished feudal relations in Italy, Germany, and many other nations as well, on top of introducing and codifying in these nations new standards of civic values, art, education, science, law, human rights, and every other sociopolitical standard we now see today throughout the world, as well as a laid foundation for the later European Union. It was the greatest change in historical epochs since the rise of the Roman Empire, and it was all brought to fruition by the revolution.

The terror laid the foundation for all of this, it was a necessary response to the forces of reaction that were so desperately trying to cling to an outdated way.


Allegedly, when Chou En Lai was once asked in an interview what he thought of the French Revolution, his answer as, so eloquently, "it's too soon to tell". I think the same can and should be said of both the Russian and Chinese revolutions, as well as the others throughout Eastern Europe, South America and South East Asia. Their impact was without a doubt insurmountable, even by our standards today, but I have a feeling that in 100 years this will be even more so.

[consuming negativity]

The American revolution could not have set this precedent because it was not a revolution in any meaningful sense but a war for independence! No fundamental changes in social revolutions were altered or challenged: It was simply a matter of breaking off from the yoke of British rule. How could the American revolution serve as an example aside from being the political exaltion of enlightenment values? Were the French people fighting for Independence?

Do you have any notion of French history? Here's a hint: France doesn't have a monarchy anymore. The french revolution survived for a long, long time.

How can you say that social relations were unaltered when it led to the complete abolition of the monarchy in American territories and complete independence from the British aristocratic ruling class? Not to mention the establishment of a separation of church and state, the right to due process, or anything else in the bill of rights. And this happened without a reign of terror or any other severe abuses against loyalist Americans, if by "severe abuses" we do not include confiscation of their property and exile. Which, compared to summary execution, I feel is a step forward.

Yes; I am not a French historian, but I know enough about it to know that the terror of the Jacobins was spit back at them with the consent of pretty much the entirety of France. That's what happens when anybody and their mother is in danger of being murdered and there is an actual counter-revolutionary presence which can then point to the guillotine and get the rest of the country on board to go back the way they came. That's what happens when you lose the support of the people by not actually working on their behalf. Same thing happened to the Paris Commune. They weren't actually trying to help the people; they were too busy about creating some vision they had in their heads. And, in the end, the people were abandoned and thus they abandoned the revolutionaries in favor of the old system.


This is a non-argument appeal to emotion, and a pretty terrible slippery slope.

Will many, many people die during revolution? Yeah, no doubt. Will many of them likely be innocent? Sadly, yes. Innocent people die during times of political strife, and for that political strife to end, someone has to end up on top, figuratively speaking, and for a revolution to be successful, revolutionaries cannot hesitate to do whatever it takes, nor will they, nor have they ever.

It's not a game of "who can be more violent" or "who can be more just", it's a struggle for survival, because everyone involved knows what's in store for the losing side of history. It's not about what I think is acceptable, it's about the reality of what revolution actually means.

This is just ahistorical ranting. Feudalism WAS abolished by the French Revolution, when the monarchy was restored it's not as if everything went back to being feudalistic, and their rule was extremely weak and lasted about a generation before collapsing in on itself.

Lenin's revolution failed not due to violence, but due to the fact that communist revolution cannot happen within the confines of one country and one country alone. The violence of the Bolsheviks and their supporters was carried out in order to maintain Bolshevik hegemony, and that's what it did.

Again with the false assertion that revolutions fail due to violence and terror. Revolutions are violence and terror, that is what you're failing to grasp.

There's nothing here to argue with, just false assertions that I know you're above. Yes, clearly Americans are repelled by communism and by alternatives to capitalism due to violence, we're a peaceful lot after all :rolleyes:

No, it is not an appeal to emotion. I already told you the answer to the question on Facebook: it is an absurd paragraph because the idea of there being any acceptable amount of innocent deaths is absurd. Do we still revolt? Of course. But we do not tolerate under any circumstances the murder of innocents. If we want to be better than them, we have to actually be better than them. No, that doesn't mean we let the Nazis march through Jewish neighborhoods; it means that our response to "you kill innocent people!" should not be to go kill even more of them and do it with the same bullshit justification of the ends justifying the means. The means create the ends, which are themselves means to other ends. It is not a question of "we will do everything necessary", because the fact remains that whether or not you want to admit it, there is a limit to how far we should be willing to go in order to get rid of capitalism. Why? Because an uninhabited wasteland with no human presence is NOT better than capitalism. There has to be a breaking point for any logical person who is not so attached to the idea of saving his patient that he kills the patient knowing that there was nothing that could be ethically done anyway. You can't force history. You can't force people. You have to be willing to let the revolution die in the name of the health of the people if you want the people to be on your side. Because that is what it really means to be on the side of the people: to hold their welfare higher than the ends that you think are better from them. You are being paternalistic and you are so attached to the idea of socialism that you've forgotten why it is that you even wanted socialism in the first place.

[consuming negativity]

Jesus fucking Christ

How many Iroquois and other deaths are you white washing at the hands of Washington and his friends that was necessary to establish a base for the revolution? You do of course also realize that it was a war of independence between two bourgeois factions, and that there is a massive difference here between this and a revolution that is more than just a change of hands, but a revolutionary transformation of all of society, correct?

Not mentioning that the true precedent was set by Cromwell in the 17th century, and ignoring the false equation of feudalism with monarchy, or the notion that monarchy being restored meant that the revolution failed. As Rafiq said: where is the monarchy now? Where have they been, for decades upon decades upon decades?

Again with foolish notions of the American revolution being "the good one", the "one without tyranny". The Red Coats were not "innocent" because they were attacking the revolutionaries directly, yet as a communist you recognize that self-defense is not just confined to notions of defending yourself from men with guns, especially from a revolutionary standpoint. The most hilarious thing about this notion is the implication that the founding fathers were moral god kings, much unlike the stinky frenchman, right?

Had there been any significant uprisings from the population against the "revolution" I'm sure that things would have went far differently than they did in France or England or Russia, because America: Fuck Yeah :laugh:

I mean you're obviously not some liberal shill who doesn't understand history, but the logic you're using here is inherently in line with theirs.

The reason the Iroquois and the other natives were at war with the Americans is a bit more complicated than what you're saying here. The British encouraged the natives to attack and harass the American colonists and did so to keep them toward the coastline where they could be more easily controlled. The natives, of course, realizing that the Americans wanted to take all their shit and murder them, happily obliged their English allies. The kicker, of course, being that the English couldn't have given a fuck less about the natives, and once they lost the war, there was nothing standing between them and outright genocide pushed by none other than the American bourgeoisie which I do not apologize for, but rather understand were correct in their rebellion against the British. They were both monsters and heroes at the same time, in different situations. They owned slaves, yet advocated the abolition of slavery. They thought all men should be equal and thereby disenfranchised every woman within their borders. I have no delusions; you are splitting.

[PhoenixAsh]

Well if you totally disregard the violence against the natives...the violence and savagery against black loyalists...and if you totally disregard the violence against loyalists and those suspected of not supporting the revolution being beaten, tortured, stripped from their posessions and banned from their communities and the fact that they had to live in refugee camps for years after the revolution....

Well...yes...then there was no terror or violence during the American revolution and its aftermath...except for the battles etc.

[consuming negativity]

Well if you totally disregard the violence against the natives...the violence and savagery against black loyalists...and if you totally disregard the violence against loyalists and those suspected of not supporting the revolution being beaten, tortured, stripped from their posessions and banned from their communities and the fact that they had to live in refugee camps for years after the revolution....

Well...yes...then there was no terror or violence during the American revolution and its aftermath...except for the battles etc.

Apparently you cannot read (hint: I mentioned all of this already) and do not know the difference between "terror" and "warfare".

edit: no, actually, this entire post was addressed at a straw man, so I think it must be purely reading comprehension

[PhoenixAsh]

I think the problem is you white washing all this as "warfare" rather than what it really was so it supports your argument.

[cyu]

If you had a daughter and she was trapped by a rapist, what would she do? Would she fight back? Or would you have taught her to turn the other cheek and ask for more?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/your-favorite-political-t171310/index.html?p=2798061#post2798061

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/e8/ad/78/e8ad785198dc8154ad4359c8aaa5ee4e.jpg

[consuming negativity]

I think the problem is you white washing all this as "warfare" rather than what it really was so it supports your argument.

what is it with you and constantly assuming the worst of me?

if you can't engage in discussion with me without making ridiculous ad hominem attacks, don't.

i won't tell you again.

[PhoenixAsh]

what is it with you and constantly assuming the worst of me?

if you can't engage in discussion with me without making ridiculous ad hominem attacks, don't.

i won't tell you again.

Perhaps you should look at your own behaviour:
Apparently you cannot read.... c'est la toune qui fait la musique.

And as far as I can tell I did not engage in discussion with you. You engaged in discussion with me. I was making an observation and was kind enough to summarize your argument. Jeez. Even being helpful is not appreciated these days. :rolleyes:

You simply acknowledge something by labelling it into something different and then act as if it is a completely different issue so that you can maintain your argument. The giste is that you ignore the far and wide reaching violence committed by your patriots who were merely representing their own, economic, interests at the expense of the working class.


Now...you "won't tell me again"...should I see this as a threat? Because it sounded like a threat to me. Which kind of undermines your pacifism here.

[consuming negativity]

Perhaps you should look at your own behaviour: .... c'est la toune qui fait la musique.

And as far as I can tell I did not engage in discussion with you. You engaged in discussion with me. I was making an observation and was kind enough to summarize your argument. Jeez. Even being helpful is not appreciated these days. :rolleyes:

what can i say? being called a "fuck face" tends to make a person weary, especially when their position is being straw-manned and they're being accused of whitewashing murder because they'd rather be correct about an argument on a shitty political forum

[PhoenixAsh]

However I did not call you that in this debate...not that I disagree with the statement per se...but those are your words and not mine.

Your entire premisse is based on arguing the lack of terror by the American "revolution" in opposition to the French revolution...and as an example of how this is somehow an idealistic revolution. This is far from reality however as there was wide spread terror...you just label it as "war" rather than what it was: directed and unobstructed violence against those who did not agree with the patriots cause....which was maintained long after the revolutionary war ended.

[consuming negativity]

wow

[PhoenixAsh]

Yes. Thank you for acknowledging that your position was kind of obnoxiously based on a distortion of reality.

Here are your words:


The bourgeois revolutionary precedent, if there even is such a thing, was set by the American revolutionaries who did not engage in terror and who actually succeeded with the help of the French government.

Not to mention that you only acknowledged slavery and the repression of the native tribes. You did not mention the treatment of loyalists (of which the repression of the black loyalists was the most brutal) who spend years impoverished after the revolution...or who were forced to flee in fear of their lives. The treatment of loyalists and their families during the revolution and after the revolution were in fact dominated by mistreatment, torture, executions, disowning and confiscation and continued marginalization.

[PhoenixAsh]

But sure...of course those arguments are not really relevant and I was singling you out specifically and this was all an elaborate ad hominem against you. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

[consuming negativity]

>You did not mention the treatment of loyalists


And this happened without a reign of terror or any other severe abuses against loyalist Americans, if by "severe abuses" we do not include confiscation of their property and exile. Which, compared to summary execution, I feel is a step forward.

now kindly fuck off and never talk to me again

[PhoenixAsh]

You conveniently redefine terror and forget executions and torture....because it doesn't suit your narrative. As well as the squalor and abject poverty they and their families had to live in and social and economic discrimination for years after the revolution. Because that also never happened. But thank you for displaying your own dishonesty here.

:lol:

[Illegalitarian]

How can you say that social relations were unaltered when it led to the complete abolition of the monarchy in American territories and complete independence from the British aristocratic ruling class? Not to mention the establishment of a separation of church and state, the right to due process, or anything else in the bill of rights. And this happened without a reign of terror or any other severe abuses against loyalist Americans, if by "severe abuses" we do not include confiscation of their property and exile. Which, compared to summary execution, I feel is a step forward.

There was no monarchy in America, there were troops enforcing the will of a monarchy in the UK. Gaining independence from a ruling nation =/= altered social relations, social relations does not simply mean how a land is governed, or what laws are in place. It means the very mode of production, it implies both base and superstructure, neither of which changed during the American "revolution".

I'll address the patently false assertion that there was no US "terror" in the post below where all of the wild assertions are made.


Yes; I am not a French historian, but I know enough about it to know that the terror of the Jacobins was spit back at them with the consent of pretty much the entirety of France. That's what happens when anybody and their mother is in danger of being murdered and there is an actual counter-revolutionary presence which can then point to the guillotine and get the rest of the country on board to go back the way they came. That's what happens when you lose the support of the people by not actually working on their behalf. Same thing happened to the Paris Commune. They weren't actually trying to help the people; they were too busy about creating some vision they had in their heads. And, in the end, the people were abandoned and thus they abandoned the revolutionaries in favor of the old system.


Sorry, you're just wrong. There's nothing to debate here, you're just blatantly 100% wrong.

The Thermidorians plotted in the middle of the night, ran around like mad men threatening to kill deputies who were not on their side, and the next day threw Saint-Just and Robespierre in a prison cell and barely executed them in time before the Commune and a great many Convention troops came to rescue them, only to be a bit too late. There was then a mass rebellion which the Thermidorians ended in the mass execution of 70+ people, along with several other repressions, the greatest mass murder of the entire period, all necessary because the people of Paris and greater France did *not* want the Committee's current membership to be done away with.




No, it is not an appeal to emotion. I already told you the answer to the question on Facebook: it is an absurd paragraph because the idea of there being any acceptable amount of innocent deaths is absurd. Do we still revolt? Of course. But we do not tolerate under any circumstances the murder of innocents. If we want to be better than them, we have to actually be better than them. No, that doesn't mean we let the Nazis march through Jewish neighborhoods; it means that our response to "you kill innocent people!" should not be to go kill even more of them and do it with the same bullshit justification of the ends justifying the means. The means create the ends, which are themselves means to other ends. It is not a question of "we will do everything necessary", because the fact remains that whether or not you want to admit it, there is a limit to how far we should be willing to go in order to get rid of capitalism. Why? Because an uninhabited wasteland with no human presence is NOT better than capitalism. There has to be a breaking point for any logical person who is not so attached to the idea of saving his patient that he kills the patient knowing that there was nothing that could be ethically done anyway. You can't force history. You can't force people. You have to be willing to let the revolution die in the name of the health of the people if you want the people to be on your side. Because that is what it really means to be on the side of the people: to hold their welfare higher than the ends that you think are better from them. You are being paternalistic and you are so attached to the idea of socialism that you've forgotten why it is that you even wanted socialism in the first place.

This is "but if the gays can marry then next year we'll all be forced to marry pedophiles"-tier slippery slope logic.

No one is saying it's fine to kill everyone, just that innocents will absolutely die during a period of revolutionary violence and that there's simply nothing that can be done to stop it or control it, because revolution is from-below movement, it is not controlled by a few people with a penchant for psychopathy as you seem to think it is. You can wax and wain about how "the good one" won't see any innocent's dead, but at the end of the day you're making the same mistake as the liberals, wanting your cake without any of the calories.


The reason the Iroquois and the other natives were at war with the Americans is a bit more complicated than what you're saying here. The British encouraged the natives to attack and harass the American colonists and did so to keep them toward the coastline where they could be more easily controlled. The natives, of course, realizing that the Americans wanted to take all their shit and murder them, happily obliged their English allies. The kicker, of course, being that the English couldn't have given a fuck less about the natives, and once they lost the war, there was nothing standing between them and outright genocide pushed by none other than the American bourgeoisie which I do not apologize for, but rather understand were correct in their rebellion against the British. They were both monsters and heroes at the same time, in different situations. They owned slaves, yet advocated the abolition of slavery. They thought all men should be equal and thereby disenfranchised every woman within their borders. I have no delusions; you are splitting.


The natives were under attack long before the revolution.

None of this changes the fact that the American revolution saw loyalists beaten and killed, tribes that had nothing to do with the revolution slaughtered out of fear that they would side with the British, and black loyalists among many others tortured and beaten tenfold for simply being black. Youre pretty blatantly trying to whitewash what wasn't even "revolutionary terror", but a policy of institutionalized racism and genocide that had existed long before that was heightened by revolutionary chaos.

[consuming negativity]

Sigh.

I TOLD YOU NOT TO STRAW MAN ME AND YOU DID IT ANYWAY

WHY

WHY DO YOU TREAT ME THIS WAY

GOD DAMN IT

alright.


There was no monarchy in America, there were troops enforcing the will of a monarchy in the UK. Gaining independence from a ruling nation =/= altered social relations, social relations does not simply mean how a land is governed, or what laws are in place. It means the very mode of production, it implies both base and superstructure, neither of which changed during the American "revolution".

I'll address the patently false assertion that there was no US "terror" in the post below where all of the wild assertions are made.

lol what

this is, as you say, just blatantly 100% wrong

the monarchy of the uk is still the monarchy in many former colonies

to say that independence from the uk, including independence from the monarchy, did not change social relations, is ridiculous


Sorry, you're just wrong. There's nothing to debate here, you're just blatantly 100% wrong.

The Thermidorians plotted in the middle of the night, ran around like mad men threatening to kill deputies who were not on their side, and the next day threw Saint-Just and Robespierre in a prison cell and barely executed them in time before the Commune and a great many Convention troops came to rescue them, only to be a bit too late. There was then a mass rebellion which the Thermidorians ended in the mass execution of 70+ people, along with several other repressions, the greatest mass murder of the entire period, all necessary because the people of Paris and greater France did *not* want the Committee's current membership to be done away with.

i don't know enough about the french revolution to dispute this but i still think you're wrong as fuck


This is "but if the gays can marry then next year we'll all be forced to marry pedophiles"-tier slippery slope logic.

No one is saying it's fine to kill everyone, just that innocents will absolutely die during a period of revolutionary violence and that there's simply nothing that can be done to stop it or control it, because revolution is from-below movement, it is not controlled by a few people with a penchant for psychopathy as you seem to think it is. You can wax and wain about how "the good one" won't see any innocent's dead, but at the end of the day you're making the same mistake as the liberals, wanting your cake without any of the calories.

i never said that zero innocent persons can ever die, i said that the death of no innocent person is acceptable

it CAN be stopped. that it WONT be stopped is a tragedy.

and i never accused you of actually being willing to exterminate earth for socialism. YOU said that you'd do anything, not me. i was just showing you how ridiculous such a statement was.


The natives were under attack long before the revolution.

None of this changes the fact that the American revolution saw loyalists beaten and killed, tribes that had nothing to do with the revolution slaughtered out of fear that they would side with the British, and black loyalists among many others tortured and beaten tenfold for simply being black. Youre pretty blatantly trying to whitewash what wasn't even "revolutionary terror", but a policy of institutionalized racism and genocide that had existed long before that was heightened by revolutionary chaos.

i know the natives were under attack long before the revolution........

in fact, that's what i SAID. that the british had gotten the natives to harass the colonists to keep them from expanding inland.

when would this happen except BEFORE the war

---

it is undeniable that there was no terror in the american revolution. i didn't say it was all peaches, i said that there was not terror. torture and beatings are not mass murder. it's just not the same thing. it was brutal, it wasn't good, but it was also better than what you're advocating and these were the moral standards of slave owners.

so lol

[PhoenixAsh]

Lol

Yeah. Torture, beatings, executions, forced exile because of threat of persecution or death, fleeing for your live, burning down villages, mutilations, being forced to live in squalor and abject poverty, being subjected to indiscriminate punishment....

Thats not terror...

When you mean terror...you just mean whatever it is other revolutionaries that were not bourgeoisie and landowning aristocracy are doing....these things were just merely politely asking if people would just stop being political and economic advisaries.

God what a joke.

[Illegalitarian]

this is, as you say, just blatantly 100% wrong

the monarchy of the uk is still the monarchy in many former colonies

to say that independence from the uk, including independence from the monarchy, did not change social relations, is ridiculous

What did it change aside from British rule and British law being thrown off by the colonists? Nothing, that's what. Again, government changes and changes in law =/= a changing in social relations.

You're comparing apples to oranges. It was not a cultural, social, or economic revolution, but strictly a political one, a mere war of independence. You might as well be comparing it to the agricultural revolution xfd




i don't know enough about the french revolution to dispute this but i still think you're wrong as fuck


welp



i never said that zero innocent persons can ever die, i said that the death of no innocent person is acceptable

it CAN be stopped. that it WONT be stopped is a tragedy.

and i never accused you of actually being willing to exterminate earth for socialism. YOU said that you'd do anything, not me. i was just showing you how ridiculous such a statement was.


It literally never has, this is just an abstract notion of revolution that has never existed. It's still a tragedy, and no one is advocating that it happen, but it's just as much a part of revolution as it is any sort of war or violent large-scale conflict.

You're taking the pacifist position, whether or not you actually want to recognize it or not. And that's fine, I don't have anything against pacifists, just stop saying ridiculous things like "no I understand what revolution is" then turning around and saying things like this.



i know the natives were under attack long before the revolution........

in fact, that's what i SAID. that the british had gotten the natives to harass the colonists to keep them from expanding inland.

when would this happen except BEFORE the war


This probably happened. Native American's were certainly anything but a monolith, but for the most part native attacks upon Americans were responses to previously perpetrated violence and didn't have much at all to do with the British.



it is undeniable that there was no terror in the american revolution. i didn't say it was all peaches, i said that there was not terror. torture and beatings are not mass murder. it's just not the same thing. it was brutal, it wasn't good, but it was also better than what you're advocating and these were the moral standards of slave owners.

so lol

Lol, you're redefining what terror is just so you can be right.

"There were tortures and beatings and a lot of people were killed and it was brutal and it wasn't good and there was slavery.. but there was no terror".

Native American's dying wasn't terror. The Sons of Liberty systematically scalping people alive and lighting them on fire wasn't terror. Surrounding Ferguson's outnumbered loyalist troops and butchering them all, also not terror.

Have you ever heard of the phrase "lynch mob"? It came from an American Judge who hung suspected loyalists without trial, and sometimes had them whipped to death, acts which were retroactively deemed legal after the revolution was successful, which American academics viciously deny despite the overwhelming amount of historical evidence to the contrary and the fact that he referred to the tree still standing in his yard to this day as his "justice tree" or "hangin' tree.

I could go on, but do I really need to? Anyone with half a brain would call this terror, and so would you, if you weren't arguing right now :v


And this was all down in a fucking war of independence, could you imagine what these people would have done had this actually been a revolution in the marxist sense of the word?

[consuming negativity]

What did it change aside from British rule and British law being thrown off by the colonists? Nothing, that's what. Again, government changes and changes in law =/= a changing in social relations.

You're comparing apples to oranges. It was not a cultural, social, or economic revolution, but strictly a political one, a mere war of independence. You might as well be comparing it to the agricultural revolution xfd

...

if you can't read this post and see why you're wrong, there is nothing i can do to help you


It literally never has, this is just an abstract notion of revolution that has never existed. It's still a tragedy, and no one is advocating that it happen, but it's just as much a part of revolution as it is any sort of war or violent large-scale conflict.

You're taking the pacifist position, whether or not you actually want to recognize it or not. And that's fine, I don't have anything against pacifists, just stop saying ridiculous things like "no I understand what revolution is" then turning around and saying things like this.

i'm not a pacifist

i told you that we're in agreement and want the same things

you're the one who said i was being ridiculous by doing so

in fact you'll still tell me i'm being ridiculous because you've convinced yourself that murdering innocent people is part of revolution

which is just wrong. even if it always happens that does not make it an integral part of revolution.


Lol, you're redefining what terror is just so you can be right.

"There were tortures and beatings and a lot of people were killed and it was brutal and it wasn't good and there was slavery.. but there was no terror".

Native American's dying wasn't terror. The Sons of Liberty systematically scalping people alive and lighting them on fire wasn't terror. Surrounding Ferguson's outnumbered loyalist troops and butchering them all, also not terror.

Have you ever heard of the phrase "lynch mob"? It came from an American Judge who hung suspected loyalists without trial, and sometimes had them whipped to death, acts which were retroactively deemed legal after the revolution was successful, which American academics viciously deny despite the overwhelming amount of historical evidence to the contrary and the fact that he referred to the tree still standing in his yard to this day as his "justice tree" or "hangin' tree.

I could go on, but do I really need to? Anyone with half a brain would call this terror, and so would you, if you weren't arguing right now :v

And this was all down in a fucking war of independence, could you imagine what these people would have done had this actually been a revolution in the marxist sense of the word?

war is not terror. to argue otherwise is to be ridiculous.

i don't know anything about what you're talking about re: sons of liberty

slaughtering soldiers is not terror either.

searching for the "justice tree" brought me to an article about scotland which brought me here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangman%27s_Elm which is not what you said it was. at all.

so what i'm saying is... please source your claims for what the SoL did and this judge who executed people without trial. of course, even if you're completely right, it's still not the same thing, but if you're right it would also mean i underestimated what the americans did and so i'm interested in finding out how much of what you say is veritably true.

[PhoenixAsh]

Except terror is a specific part, act and strategy of war. It has been since...well..war.

The terror used against loyalist was not limited against soldiers...it was used against civilians sympathetic to the crown and civilians suspected of being sympathetic to the crown....as well as those opposing the bourgeois and landed aristocracy and not being sympathetic to the crown.

Now you can redfine what terror is to suit your own defence of the bourgeoise and landowning aristocratic classes but that doesn't mean your argument simply ignores reality and is white washing a whole lot of bloodshed.

But yeah...reality never was your strong point

[Illegalitarian]

...

if you can't read this post and see why you're wrong, there is nothing i can do to help you

Sadly this is not an argument and you've yet to show how your repeated assertion here is based in reality.




i'm not a pacifist

i told you that we're in agreement and want the same things

you're the one who said i was being ridiculous by doing so

in fact you'll still tell me i'm being ridiculous because you've convinced yourself that murdering innocent people is part of revolution

which is just wrong. even if it always happens that does not make it an integral part of revolution.



You say that yet you turn around and say things that make it pretty blatantly obvious that we are not in agreement, like the blatantly wrong assertion that innocent people do not die during times of large scale expansive political strife. It's not that it's integral, it's just that it's the natural result of violence political uprising and it always has been. If you can prove otherwise then fine, but we both know that you can't because what you're saying just isn't right.



war is not terror. to argue otherwise is to be ridiculous.



slaughtering soldiers is not terror either.


Classic goalpost moving. What the fuck is war if not organized systematic terror? Slaughtering soldiers, especially those who already surrendered such as in this instance, is not terror.

This is blatant goalpost moving and no one here honestly believes that you believe that because that would be fucking ridiculous.


searching for the "justice tree" brought me to an article about scotland which brought me here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangman%27s_Elm which is not what you said it was. at all.


I'd be surprised if you had found anything about it, it's not a very famous or well known thing, not enough to have its own wiki article.


so what i'm saying is... please source your claims for what the SoL did and this judge who executed people without trial. of course, even if you're completely right, it's still not the same thing, but if you're right it would also mean i underestimated what the americans did and so i'm interested in finding out how much of what you say is veritably true.

LOL, "even if you're right, you're not right."

Give me a fucking BREAK, killing civilians is not terror when you don't want it to be, but it is when it is?

I'm out. I could show you vivid pictures of Washington eating a baby and you would deny it, because you have an inability to be wrong. I'll shoot you a link to some articles on Charles Lynch later but this conversation is done

[Rafiq]

How can you say that social relations were unaltered when it led to the complete abolition of the monarchy in American territories and complete independence from the British aristocratic ruling class? Not to mention the establishment of a separation of church and state, the right to due process, or anything else in the bill of rights. And this happened without a reign of terror or any other severe abuses against loyalist Americans, if by "severe abuses" we do not include confiscation of their property and exile. Which, compared to summary execution, I feel is a step forward. /QUOTE]

This assumes that revolutionary terror occurs simply by merit of establishing laws that did not exist before, or more specifically, occurs simply by merit of the act of change. The point is that - where were the social forces of counter-revolution in America? The war of independence was a war of independence, the Americans didn't need to sail all the way to Britain to chop off the heads of the aristocratic ruling classes simply because the only social connection the British aristocratic ruling classes had to the colonies was the parasitic collection of taxes. That's the point communer, and that's why the two "revolutions" are incomparable. Loyalists did exist, yes - but they weren't as much of a threat because their loyalty to the British empire was out of either mere preference or convenience. American revolutionaries didn't give a damn about overthrowing the British aristocracy of Britain of whom the loyalists were loyal too, they simply wanted the British empire, and their toadies to get the fuck out. It was a war of independence. How is this in any way comparable to France? The social foundations for the American republic were already ripe for the American republic, the only thing that was necessary was to cut the yoke of British political rule. This was simply not the case for France. Are you suggesting that the subersive counter-revolutionary elements in France should have been deported or exiled? I can't believe what I'm hearing.

Where was the American aristocracy? What elements of internal class war are here, in any meaningful sense? None. Not unless you count slavery, which by the way, was abolished in one of the bloodiest wars of the 19th century. It's an interesting subject, because the northern campaign against the Southern planter class actually manifested itself as a form of terror.

[QUOTE]Yes; I am not a French historian, but I know enough about it to know that the terror of the Jacobins was spit back at them with the consent of pretty much the entirety of France.


Why are you so confident about your "knowledge" regarding the French revolution? It's complete bullshit. The terror was largely conducted BY not only consent, by by will of France. The duties of the convention were largely attempts to control the terror, not create it. You assume a false premise, and then run wild with it with all these ridiculous, 'absolute' declarations about "what happens" when you do this or that. No communer, your premise is false. The people of france howled for blood. Again, you ignore the fucking point: The jacobins reluctancy to utilize further popular terror was their downfall. Not the terror itself, but their conservative stance toward its utilization.

[consuming negativity]

What is the difference between overthrowing an aristocracy that rules you from next door or overthrowing one that rules you from across an ocean, other than the obvious differences that come from having your ruling class so far away in an era where communication took months? The only difference from our standpoint is that the bourgeoisie in America were much stronger because the ability of the aristocrats and parliament to rule over them was significantly hampered for many of the reasons you described. But the loyalists who allied with the British out of convenience... were mainly whom? Apart from the stooges of the crown, such as the soldiers and tax collectors? The southern land-owners who had interests diametrically opposed to that of American capital, who sold their slave-picked crops to the British and whom continued to oppose the industrial north all the way up until the differences culminated in the American civil war. To deny the class basis here and to chalk it up to "convenience" is beneath your intellect.

I am not confident about my knowledge regarding the French revolution, which is why I ceded the point to Illegalitarian earlier... not because I think I'm wrong, but because I'm arguing with people who I think know more about it than I do and I don't see any point in pressing forward with the point until I've learned more or someone else steps in who knows more about it. I'll take the same course with you, even though the idea that the CPS were anti-terror in comparison to the French populace sounds absolutely and entirely ridiculous.

[Illegalitarian]

What is the difference between overthrowing an aristocracy that rules you from next door or overthrowing one that rules you from across an ocean, other than the obvious differences that come from having your ruling class so far away in an era where communication took months?

... the difference is that there was no connection between loyalists and the aristocracy other than convenience, there was no aristocracy for the loyalists to defend so when the revolution started advancing, they largely abandoned it, those who were not either killed, or tortured and scared off of their land.

The "obvious difference" is the fact that in France it was a fight for survival, the aristocracy had their very lives to worry about. So did their loyalists. So did the revolutionaries, and that's why terror and violence on the most basic level was so much more widespread in one than the other.



The only difference from our standpoint is that the bourgeoisie in America were much stronger because the ability of the aristocrats and parliament to rule over them was significantly hampered for many of the reasons you described. But the loyalists who allied with the British out of convenience... were mainly whom? Apart from the stooges of the crown, such as the soldiers and tax collectors? The southern land-owners who had interests diametrically opposed to that of American capital, who sold their slave-picked crops to the British and whom continued to oppose the industrial north all the way up until the differences culminated in the American civil war. To deny the class basis here and to chalk it up to "convenience" is beneath your intellect.


You acknowledge this while taking the absurd position that there was "no difference" between the two revolutions. Hint: When one war is between the ruling class and the revolution and the other is against weak proxies of the ruling class in a far off land, it's going to have a significantly different character.

The loyalists consisted mainly of the population of the colonies, most people could have given less of a shit who ruled them and, like most people, felt far more safe with the status quo than they did with taking their chances with some sort of new government... which is why the revolution was not a popular uprising as it was in France, but a handful of petite-bourgeois and the forces they were managed to muster.

The southern slave-owning class were not opposed to the interests of US capital, they were some of the biggest supporters of the revolution due to the taxes imposed upon them by the crown and fear that abolition would be imposed on them eventually. There was no class basis in the American revolution, aside from a war between bourgeois factions.


even though the idea that the CPS were anti-terror in comparison to the French populace sounds absolutely and entirely ridiculous.

Collot and his sans-cullots lackies wanted to destroy the right and the dantonists outright, it was the CPS who saved them, only for them to turn on them later.

Robespierre quit being a judge just because he didn't want to sentence someone to the death penalty. He was so sick of the terror that he was constantly sick and having full-on break downs in the months prior, he took no pleasure in any of it and in the end refused to coup the government and decided to die because he just didn't have the stomach for any of it anymore.

[consuming negativity]

I thought our discussion was over? Make up your mind and/or let Rafiq handle his own discussion.

[Illegalitarian]

Our discussion about what terror means and what is and is not terror is at an impasse, is what I meant to say, because you said "if you're right you're still wrong" and there's just not much that can be said to that :|

[Rafiq]

The southern land-owners who had interests diametrically opposed to that of American capital, who sold their slave-picked crops to the British and whom continued to oppose the industrial north all the way up until the differences culminated in the American civil war. To deny the class basis here and to chalk it up to "convenience" is beneath your intellect.


Are you suggesting that the American war for Independence was a revolution against the slave-owning class? There was no class-conflict between the planter class and the American colonists during the war of Independence. Again, their allegiance to the crown was of convenience: they did not themselves represent the interests of the British aristocracy. They had their own distinct class interests. You ask what the difference in distance makes: And I am telling you it has nothing to do with distance as such. British and American society were completely different. American society did not have to do much to purge itself of British colonial rule - but the French had to go to great lengths to secure their revolution against their own aristocracy. There is a difference between fundamentally changing the society you are in, on a social level - and breaking off from the political dominance of another society. There was only one French society and only one French aristocracy to destroy. Ironic that you use the planter class as an example of subversive elements within American society: The same planter class that was utterly destroyed in a revolutionary war almost a century later.

What significant threat was posed by the planter class? Demographically, how many of them resisted and fought against the new American state? How many of them were loyal to the crown even after the war?

You cannot provide any examples of a revolution that was successful that did not utilize "excessive" violence because there exists none. The best example people can muster is the United Kingdom, but they forget about events like the English Civil war and Oliver Cromwell. There is literally no example. Nothing.

[consuming negativity]

Are you suggesting that the American war for Independence was a revolution against the slave-owning class? There was no class-conflict between the planter class and the American colonists during the war of Independence. Again, their allegiance to the crown was of convenience: they did not themselves represent the interests of the British aristocracy. They had their own distinct class interests. You ask what the difference in distance makes: And I am telling you it has nothing to do with distance as such. British and American society were completely different. American society did not have to do much to purge itself of British colonial rule - but the French had to go to great lengths to secure their revolution against their own aristocracy. There is a difference between fundamentally changing the society you are in, on a social level - and breaking off from the political dominance of another society. There was only one French society and only one French aristocracy to destroy. Ironic that you use the planter class as an example of subversive elements within American society: The same planter class that was utterly destroyed in a revolutionary war almost a century later.

What significant threat was posed by the planter class? Demographically, how many of them resisted and fought against the new American state? How many of them were loyal to the crown even after the war?

You cannot provide any examples of a revolution that was successful that did not utilize "excessive" violence because there exists none. The best example people can muster is the United Kingdom, but they forget about events like the English Civil war and Oliver Cromwell. There is literally no example. Nothing.

They had their own distinct class interests which caused them to side with the British against the Americans, but there was no class conflict? How is that possible?

You're asking me what significant threat was posed by them but in the same post you acknowledge that a war was fought wherein 600,000 people died to destroy the southern slave economy and bring about a feudal-esque sharecropping method of agriculture. Sure, they were not loyal to the crown after the war, but the American bourgeoisie is not loyal to the bourgeoisie of Russia, either, and furthermore, when the south did secede, they sought and almost received an alliance with the British against the northerners. And, as an American, I'm sure you're well aware that the southern economy still has not completely recovered from the devastation of the American civil war, and that there are still major cultural and economic differences between the northern and southern eastern US.

[PhoenixAsh]

Souuthern Plantation owners played an integral part in the revolution and were instrumental for independence.

What is ignored here is the Sommerset case where it was judicial acknowledged that in Brittish common law slavery was not recognized and therefore illegal. In combination with the Declaratory Act which brought American law under the scrutiny and final judgement of the crown.

Southern Plantation owners riled at the idea that Slavery would become illegal. A huge amount of effort was spend to influence the first drafts of the constitution to drop an article about the abolition of slavery. This was succesful to such an extend that slavery was considered both a right and legal within the blueprints of American post colonial society/economy.

[The Disillusionist]

This conversation isn't going anywhere, because clearly everyone already had their minds made up to begin with.

I just want to add that another factor in the American Revolutionary War was the British restriction of westward colonial expansion as one of the terms of the French and Indian war. (Part of the French terms of surrender was that the British do this to protect the Indians who had sided with the French, because the French generally had a better (though still not great) relationship with the natives than Britain did. However, hardcore American veterans of the French and Indian war, like George Washington, resented that British restriction, because they though (Manifest Destiny) that the Indian Territory should rightfully belong to them. That was just another factor in the rising tensions that led to the bourgeois American Revolutionary War.

Finally, I can't look for examples of nonviolent revolution, because I'm writing this with my phone as I ride the bus, and because I'm not convinced that this argument is all that productive. However, in another context, we could be having this same discussion about Marxism, and the fact that there has never technically been a successful, truly Marxist society. Does that mean that Marxism doesn't work?

[PhoenixAsh]

Well non violence doesn't work for te obvious reason that one of the parties invariably will use violence...usually the one that is in power. Succession of power without the use of violence has occured but never in a situation that changed the entire scope of the political, social and cultural nature of society or against a development that was already happening (Haiti)....and never without the ruling class benefitting in some form or another or faced massive outisde influence.

Even the so called pacifist movement of Ghandi caused thousands of lives and succeeded at the back ground of violent resistance.

That is not to say non-violent actions and tactics do not have their place and can't ever be effective. It is however saying that revolutions that radically change society, politics and economics will never be successfull in a non-violent way .

[Rafiq]

Finally, I can't look for examples of nonviolent revolution, because I'm writing this with my phone as I ride the bus, and because I'm not convinced that this argument is all that productive. However, in another context, we could be having this same discussion about Marxism, and the fact that there has never technically been a successful, truly Marxist society. Does that mean that Marxism doesn't work?

There is no such thing as a "Marxist" society. There can not be one either. There have been proletarian dictatorships that have failed, and yes many philistine ideologues are that its failure was by merit of being a proletarian dictatorhsip. This isn't a real analysis.

We can pinpoint and recognize the specific factors which led to the failure of every proletarian dictatorship. You and communer say that violence was the ultimate downfall of several revolutions - or at least "it didn't help". We then ask you to show us a successful revolution (as in, a historical revolution - a revolution that represents the transition from one historical epoch to another) in history whereby excessive violence was not utilized. There have been successful revolutions in history, in case you didn't know. None of them were non-violent.

[Rafiq]

They had their own distinct class interests which caused them to side with the British against the Americans, but there was no class conflict? How is that possible?

You're asking me what significant threat was posed by them but in the same post you acknowledge that a war was fought wherein 600,000 people died to destroy the southern slave economy and bring about a feudal-esque sharecropping method of agriculture. Sure, they were not loyal to the crown after the war, but the American bourgeoisie is not loyal to the bourgeoisie of Russia, either, and furthermore, when the south did secede, they sought and almost received an alliance with the British against the northerners. And, as an American, I'm sure you're well aware that the southern economy still has not completely recovered from the devastation of the American civil war, and that there are still major cultural and economic differences between the northern and southern eastern US.

This wasn't a semblance of class conflict because the Southern plantation owners sided with the British not because the "system" was fundamentally challenged, but out of mere convenience. Nothing was changed after the declaration of independence besides the establishment of civic values and the severance of British political colonial rule. There was no social revolution manifested in the form of class conflict. You don't have any idea of what you're talking about and you're repeating the same points which I have already addressed: The fight was against British colonial rule, not the fight to overthrow the British aristocracy who resided in England, without whom their could be no colonial rule. That is the point, and I can't even begin to articulate how this isn't able to register: The US experienced none of the terror or shock that comes with any revolution - simply because not much changed immediately following the revolution. No one significant in the US really had a problem with the bill of rights or what its implications were - no class was challenged or threatened by the establishment of civic values in the United States.

Yes the South seceded. And the north waged a war of revolutionary terror against them. Even the emancipation proclamation was a form of terror. I can't even fathom how someone is trying to argue against "excessive" violence as a pre-requisite for social change while using the American civil war as an example, one of the bloodiest wars in American history. But this is all lost in its legitimization in high school text books, or whatever you want.

[Illegalitarian]

They had their own class interests, but they did not side with the British due to these interests, therefore it was not a class conflict. They sided with the British for the same reason most of the colonists did: Supporting the status quo was the safer bet, which is why there was no class conflict between the southern plantation owning slaver class and the American bourgeois until they had to stare down abolitionism decades later.

It's also important not to look at the southern slaver class during the war of independence as a monolith; there were just as many southern land owners who supported the rebellion out of fears that the British would start enforcing abolitionist policies and start levying more taxes as there were those who feared economic upset from severing ties with the crown.

The significant threat came years later and ended in a reign of terror that certainly dwarfed that of the Jacobins, with Sherman and his forces burning down entire towns full of people. You cannot take the position that revolutionary class conflict does not necessitate violence, point to America as an example and then recognize the atrocities of the north, it's all a rather large contradiction.

[consuming negativity]

Y'all are confusing as shit and arguing mutually exclusive points here.

>There was terror in the American revolution that I'm whitewashing because I'm evil, but it also experienced no terror at all because it had no class conflict.

>The war brought about a complete severance of the colonies from the British monarchy, but no social relations were changed at all by removing a monarch from power in the colonies and additionally establishing a republican government as opposed to the former system of colonial exploitation.

>The southern land-owners sided with the British of pure convenience, but less than 100 years later, they were the targets of a "war of revolutionary terror" (which does not even make sense) based on having class interests diametrically opposed to that of the north.

My position resolves all of these weird conflicting positions coherently. There was limited persecution of loyalists to the crown in the colonies, social relations were altered between the Americans and the British aristocracy as a result of independence, and the southern landowners always had class interests opposed to the industrial north, even if they did not realize it at the time, or acted against their own interests because they got swept up in nationalism or had imperfect information. That many of them acted against their own interests or acted in their own interests without understanding why does not change what actually happened: there will never be any idiot sitting around talking about doing X or Y because it is in their class interest, because the entire idea is necessarily one that comes from outside analysis. That relations between the upper classes changed necessarily resulted in a changing of relations between them and the lower classes, and the success of the American revolution made possible the civil war, which all of you seem to agree had elements of class conflict.

Maybe it is time for us to agree to disagree. Fuck if I know. But I really don't see how any of this is incoherent or otherwise incorrect, and I've yet to see an entirely coherent counter-position come from the like, five of you who are apparently posting/lurking this discussion.

[Thirsty Crow]

Ha. I'm an anarchist. By my political spectrum, the majority of you are conservatives. My definition of extremist is someone who takes an ideology so far that it results in intolerance and hate. I realize that in some cases, violent revolution is justified, but I believe that violence, even when it is necessary, should be very carefully thought about before being committed. I don't support in any way those "revolutionaries" who believe that the way to improve things is to kill everyone who disagrees with them.

Violence may be what drives revolutions (personally, I'd disagree), but it is also what crushes them, both from the outside and from within.Oh jolly good, that liberal dictum of tolerance for once is openly expressed by an anarchist :lol:

Yeah, sorry but I couldn't resist it; actually I consider some anarchists comrades. Now to the point.

There is no rational reason to uphold tolerance as a principle; in practice, this would amount to a politics of compromise, which would postulate some degree of tolerance for exploitation (wage slavery) and ruling class domination. I don't agree with this at all, and discard tolerance as a principle.

When it comes to liberal politics and tolerance, it's often used in the sense of arguing for some form of equality for minorities - ethnic, sexual orientation based and so on. I don't advocate tolerance here as well but simply because it is preposterous to assume that there is anything here to tolerate. I tolerate stuff that is mildly annoying, but nothing about Serbs in Croatia or homosexual people is mildly annoying. I also think there is almost always a degree of patronization going on, in the sense of that middle class, white dude (/ of the demographically dominant ethnic group) preaching tolerance.

Now about violence. You don't at all seem like a consistent pacifist; and that's a good thing in my opinion as pacifism practically amounts to consigning the working class to social and political impotence. I actually agree with the underlying thrust of the argument, about the necessity of carefully constrained violence and the need for diminishing the scope and intensity of it as much as possible.

[Rafiq]

>There was terror in the American revolution that I'm whitewashing because I'm evil, but it also experienced no terror at all because it had no class conflict.

Interesting paradox, it would appear that you are absorbing everyone's arguments and attributing them to the same author.


>The war brought about a complete severance of the colonies from the British monarchy, but no social relations were changed at all by removing a monarch from power in the colonies and additionally establishing a republican government as opposed to the former system of colonial exploitation.

You're deeply misinformed as to what constitutes social relations and how they change. It could be argued that many aspects of society changed, but social relations to production did not (as a result of conscious political will, i.e. there was no aristocracy in the colonies that were overthrown. That is what I mean. Internal elements of counter-revolution did not exist - yes the British aristocracy posed a hindrance toward the development of capitalism in the colonies, but that's why a war was fought). Furthermore, there were no classes in the colonies which met bill of rights or the establishment of civic values with hostility. Obviously the declaration of independence was problematic for the British Empire, and a war was fought.

Conversely in France, the declaration of the rights of man was met with overwhelming hostility by the aristocracy and their toadies backed by the most powerful powers in Western Europe. Not to mention the fact that this revolution experienced the rage of the damned, of centuries of oppression and injustice - the old order was de-legitimized and all the French lower classes had left was the realization that they had been fucked over for a millennia. How was this in any way comparable to the North American colonies seceding from the British? Was George washington meant to canoe across the atlantic and give the British a good beating himself? Give me a single example of revolutionary justice during the war of independence. None.

You simply do not understand how revolutions work. The liberal mind views a revolution as a change in power, in which there are those who oppose it and those who support it. And the legitimacy of the revolutionaries is tested based on how they treat those who oppose it - as though a revolution is all simply a matter of conscious will. This is simply not the case.



>The southern land-owners sided with the British of pure convenience, but less than 100 years later, they were the targets of a "war of revolutionary terror" (which does not even make sense) based on having class interests diametrically opposed to that of the north.


The southern slave owning class would become a nuisance for the Northern Industrial bourgeoisie and as a small clique, they possessed overwhelming influence in politics. They became a hindrance for American industrialization. Conversely, "less than a hundred years before" industrialization had not even begun.

Also, during the civil war the Southern planter class, while backed by the British for their cotton exports, did not seek a return to the days of British colonization. They sought Independence as well. If they were truly counter-revolutionary elements during the war of independence, why did they not pledge their allegiance to the crown during the civil war?

No one denies that class antagonisms would have become inevitable as a result of slavery persisting in the South, but this wasn't an issue during the war of independence.


That relations between the upper classes changed necessarily resulted in a changing of relations between them and the lower classes, and the success of the American revolution made possible the civil war, which all of you seem to agree had elements of class conflict.


Sorry but your explanation is literally why Occam's razor exists. You are completely wrong. American social relations developed since the war of independence in a way that may have been different had they remained colonies, but this has fuck all to do with the American revolution itself. French revolutionary terror did not occur because of the Paris Commune in 1871. So I will ask you again: Which class during the war of independence, by merit of existence, was fundamentally opposed to the American revolution and the bourgeois civic values to come?

I have never seen such a confused, mess of an explanation. Just because the planter class would come into conflict with the northern industrial bourgeoisie several decades later does not mean the planter class's interests were vested with the British monarchy. That's how logic works, communer. The proletariat in 1848 were not counter-revolutionary even if they would have later come into conflict with the bourgeoisie attempting to overthrow the remnants of feudalism.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I don't understand why it's bad to be violent to the capitalist class and their stooges. They bomb and invade countries killing millions of people. Companies like Walmart pressure companies in the third world to pay the most bare minimum they can to put it cheaply on our shelves stocked by their wage slaves in America. Tech companies exploit conflict zones like the Congo so they could get the minerals they need cheaper. They're preparing for war as we speak for the Michael Brown murder verdict. They make lists of communists and have them tortured and killed, they assassinate our leaders and put them behind bars, infiltrate our groups to cause confusion, etc, etc, but we're supposed to play nice? We're supposed to treat them like we would treat eachother? These people don't care about our lives and wouldn't give two shits about killing us off.

With all the human suffering caused by them and the system they uphold we should be anything but kind, we should be ruthless and keep them terrified. It can be a life or death thing, remember when the Paris Commune DIDN'T use terror and when they lost they were massacred en masse, thousands of them! We're not going to win the future by not being violent.

[Illegalitarian]

Y'all are confusing as shit and arguing mutually exclusive points here.

>There was terror in the American revolution that I'm whitewashing because I'm evil, but it also experienced no terror at all because it had no class conflict.

This stems from your goalpost moving wrt the definition of what terror is, and the fact that Rafiq and I are arguing slightly different things.

There was absolutely organized oppression, torture and death of those few who dared to keep their loyalties to the crown, but there was no large-scale revolutionary terror in the sense that there was during the French Revolution, because there was no actual class opposition to the war of independence. America was a colonial settlement liberating itself from British rule, it was not a revolutionary war of people liberating themselves from the bondage's of feudalism, they did not have to completely reinvent the wheel as the French did, replacing the old social relations of production - which of course means also to effectively change the cultural and social mores of society - which means that dolts like Simon Schama who hold the position that the American Revolution was "the good one" are wrong on two accounts: There were atrocities carries out against many people during the revolution and the reason there was no large scale revolutionary terror can be explained by the entirely different material conditions in both parts of the world, which meant that revolutionary change in of of these places meant something entirely different than it did in the other, that indeed, one of these wars wasn't a revolution at all.

Jefferson himself recognized this, even, and acknowledged that had America been faced with the same conditions, the same thing would be necessary. His famous quote goes: "My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to the cause, but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam & Eve left in every country, & left free, it would be better than as it now is."



>The war brought about a complete severance of the colonies from the British monarchy, but no social relations were changed at all by removing a monarch from power in the colonies and additionally establishing a republican government as opposed to the former system of colonial exploitation.


Rafiq covered this sufficiently, I think. The monarchy was not "removed from power", British monarchical rule was done away with. This was a superficial instance of power changing hands, nothing aside from the leaders and laws of the country were changed. This is not what is meant by "social relations", as in, the relations of production that constitute a historical epoch, and the social, cultural, economic and political mores and values that arise out of this.



>The southern land-owners sided with the British of pure convenience, but less than 100 years later, they were the targets of a "war of revolutionary terror" (which does not even make sense) based on having class interests diametrically opposed to that of the north.


Class interests of a budding agricultural bourgeois in a world where trade is rapidly developing can change in a new nation in the period of ~100 years, this is not news nor is it contradictory or shocking, nor did the southern land-owners act as a monolith in whom they decided to support.





My position resolves all of these weird conflicting positions coherently. There was limited persecution of loyalists to the crown in the colonies, social relations were altered between the Americans and the British aristocracy as a result of independence, and the southern landowners always had class interests opposed to the industrial north, even if they did not realize it at the time, or acted against their own interests because they got swept up in nationalism or had imperfect information. That many of them acted against their own interests or acted in their own interests without understanding why does not change what actually happened: there will never be any idiot sitting around talking about doing X or Y because it is in their class interest, because the entire idea is necessarily one that comes from outside analysis. That relations between the upper classes changed necessarily resulted in a changing of relations between them and the lower classes, and the success of the American revolution made possible the civil war, which all of you seem to agree had elements of class conflict.


It only seems coherent because of your misunderstanding of what social relations actually are and your wrong assertion that in the early days of the US that the southern land owning class had interests opposed to a US industrial bourgeois that didn't even exist yet.

[consuming negativity]

i thanked rafiq's post because when trying to counter it i realized where i fucked up

so you just wasted your time there :s

>i don't get why it's bad to be bad to bad people

here we go again!

i'm out

[John Nada]

Thomas Jefferson once said,"The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." Some hardcore shit. I believe he was referring to Shay's Rebellion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shay%27s_Rebellion). I think it was kind of interesting. The merchants wanted to keep good credit with overseas customers. To do that the poor farmers were shaken down for hard currency. Many of the poor farmers were in debt due to the war. Back then not paying your bills meant you went debtor's prison. So the farmers revolted, attacking courthouses. It seems like it had an anti-statist, almost proto-anarchist character. However, when the Shayites went to seize an armory, it got crushed. Alarmed by the rebellion, the US's current constitution was passed, creating a stronger central government. Two years after the new constitution, there was the Whiskey Rebellion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion) which petered out when word of a strong pro-government militia got out.

[Illegalitarian]

Thomas Jefferson once said,"The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." Some hardcore shit. I believe he was referring to Shay's Rebellion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shay%27s_Rebellion). I think it was kind of interesting. The merchants wanted to keep good credit with overseas customers. To do that the poor farmers were shaken down for hard currency. Many of the poor farmers were in debt due to the war. Back then not paying your bills meant you went debtor's prison. So the farmers revolted, attacking courthouses. It seems like it had an anti-statist, almost proto-anarchist character. However, when the Shayites went to seize an armory, it got crushed. Alarmed by the rebellion, the US's current constitution was passed, creating a stronger central government. Two years after the new constitution, there was the Whiskey Rebellion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion) which petered out when word of a strong pro-government militia got out.

It was stated by Zinn that the American war of independence was an invention of enlightenment intellectuals and the newly rising bourgeois slave-owning middle class, which was born out of civil unrest among the urban poor and the new bourgeois' fear of what would become of them if such unrest manifested itself into a lower class-dominated movement, which forced them into a position where they had to whip up the masses into a jingoistic frenzy that was very much easy to control.

I'm not sure how much truth there is to that and I wouldn't know where to begin to look to confirm any of this, but looking at the rift that often times formed between the sans-culottes and the National Convention, which was dominated by the newly emerging bourgeois (a rift that was arguably the reason enemies of the convention were easily able to manipulate it during 9 Thermidor), I would say there is at least some truth to the claim.

It was probably never able to manifest itself into a class conscious movement due to the fact that America did not carry the baggage of feudalism, it had no overtly oppressive class of nobles to unite the people against it, outside of the British nobility, whose power rested on the presence of occupiers that were far easier to chase away and far less a threat than the aristocracy of France, their partners in the clergy, the former serfs still loyal to them and emigres backed by foreign armies on the verge of invasion.

[GaggedNoMore]

Violence may be what drives revolutions (personally, I'd disagree), but it is also what crushes them, both from the outside and from within.

Another popular misconception; right up there alongside the belief that revolutions just replace one kind of tyrannical despotic government with another. Which HAS happened, I admit. But it's not inevitable, like gravity or some other scientific law.

I'd encourage you to read "How Nonviolence Protects The State" By Peter Gelderloos for a more in depth explanation.

I'd link to it, but my post count doesn't allow me yet.

[PhoenixAsh]

It is in the artciles forum as a sticky

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=188159

[The Disillusionist]

Isn't this the thread where I already made the (easily made) argument that Peter Gelderloos's writing is complete crap? He's a priviledged young white guy making the very poorly researched argument that everyone who doesn't agree with him is racist/sexist/bigoted/whatever else he can misguidedly pin on them, because apparently everyone on earth is a young white college student with the priviledge of being able to break the law without facing serious, violent retaliation.

The last time Gelderloos was in any legal trouble, he got himself a slew of fancy, expensive lawyers and got himself acquitted. If a poor black person had tried some of the crap he's advocated, they would have been shot. It should also be noted that since his trial, Gelderloos hasn't done anything productive except write books about how other people should be doing productive things. If he's such a prophet of the true revolutionary form of anarchy, why hasn't he blown himself up for some oh-so-noble cause yet? Why wasn't he in Egypt, protesting against the military? Why wasn't he in Ukraine protesting the fascist government there? Perhaps because those countries are less of a vacation than Spain was?

[BIXX]

Isn't this the thread where I already made the (easily made) argument that Peter Gelderloos's writing is complete crap?
No, you've never made such an argument successfully.


He's a priviledged young white guy making the very poorly researched argument that everyone who doesn't agree with him is racist/sexist/bigoted/whatever else he can misguidedly pin on them, because apparently everyone on earth is a young white college student with the priviledge of being able to break the law without facing serious, violent retaliation.

The last time Gelderloos was in any legal trouble, he got himself a slew of fancy, expensive lawyers and got himself acquitted. If a poor black person had tried some of the crap he's advocated, they would have been shot. It should also be noted that since his trial, Gelderloos hasn't done anything productive except write books about how other people should be doing productive things. If he's such a prophet of the true revolutionary form of anarchy, why hasn't he blown himself up for some oh-so-noble cause yet? Why wasn't he in Egypt, protesting against the military? Why wasn't he in Ukraine protesting the fascist government there? Perhaps because those countries are less of a vacation than Spain was?

Your argument boils down to "he's privileged and so he can't know what he's talking about!"

This is in fact a stupid statement that reflects the worst aspects of identity politics. Furthermore, you assume in making it that there are no less privileged people who make the same argument/ agree with him. This means that if there are less privileged people who agree with him then your argument falls apart.

I am agendered, I have a Mexican friend who agrees with him, etc... I could go on but you're boring and also stupid. Basically it is obvious that you have no idea what you're talking about.

[The Disillusionist]

No, you've never made such an argument successfully.

Your argument boils down to "he's privileged and so he can't know what he's talking about!"

This is in fact a stupid statement that reflects the worst aspects of identity politics. Furthermore, you assume in making it that there are no less privileged people who make the same argument/ agree with him. This means that if there are less privileged people who agree with him then your argument falls apart.

I am agendered, I have a Mexican friend who agrees with him, etc... I could go on but you're boring and also stupid. Basically it is obvious that you have no idea what you're talking about.

My argument is based on the context of his argument. His argument is that pacifists are priviledged and therefore they are bigoted by encouraging all people to be pacifists. My argument is that he himself is priviledged, and therefore has no idea of the real consequences that violence can bring upon a seriously exploited people. Therefore he is every bit as bigoted by encouraging all people to embrace violent revolution. His argument is hollow because he accuses pacifists of being all these things that he himself can just as easily be accused of being.

But you've already made it clear that you have a pro-violent-revolution agenda, so let's be honest here and admit that you would have found anything I said stupid, as long as it didn't agree with you.

[BIXX]

My argument is based on the context of his argument. His argument is that pacifists are priviledged and therefore they are bigoted by encouraging all people to be pacifists. My argument is that he himself is priviledged, and therefore has no idea of the real consequences that violence can bring upon a seriously exploited people. Therefore he is every bit as bigoted by encouraging all people to embrace violent revolution. His argument is hollow because he accuses pacifists of being all these things that he himself can just as easily be accused of being.

But you've already made it clear that you have a pro-violent-revolution agenda, so let's be honest here and admit that you would have found anything I said stupid, as long as it didn't agree with you.
I would find anyone who said 2+2 does not equal 4 stupid. In other words, it is stupid to be against violent revolution, because it is true.


I have more to say but not enough time to say it right now.

[Palmares]

My argument is based on the context of his argument. His argument is that pacifists are priviledged and therefore they are bigoted by encouraging all people to be pacifists. My argument is that he himself is priviledged, and therefore has no idea of the real consequences that violence can bring upon a seriously exploited people. Therefore he is every bit as bigoted by encouraging all people to embrace violent revolution. His argument is hollow because he accuses pacifists of being all these things that he himself can just as easily be accused of being.

Well, if we're dumping all writer's on the fact that they are "privileged", we better start compiling a list of only the most oppressed people we know so we have someone to quote and reference. Oppression-olympics for the intellectuals!


But you've already made it clear that you have a pro-violent-revolution agenda, so let's be honest here and admit that you would have found anything I said stupid, as long as it didn't agree with you.

To my knowledge, your arguments seem to mostly stem from character assassination of Peter Gelderloos. And references to a pamphlet that "smashes" Gelderloos book so extensively, that it seems to have virtually disappeared into thin air.

Or maybe the author removed all evidence of it because it was so embarrassing? :lol:

To be honest, you'll have to explain to me how your ideas relate to you identifying as an anarchist...?

[The Disillusionist]

Well, if we're dumping all writer's on the fact that they are "privileged", we better start compiling a list of only the most oppressed people we know so we have someone to quote and reference. Oppression-olympics for the intellectuals!



To my knowledge, your arguments seem to mostly stem from character assassination of Peter Gelderloos. And references to a pamphlet that "smashes" Gelderloos book so extensively, that it seems to have virtually disappeared into thin air.

Or maybe the author removed all evidence of it because it was so embarrassing? :lol:

To be honest, you'll have to explain to me how your ideas relate to you identifying as an anarchist...?

I don't know what pamphlet you're talking about.

Peter Gelderloos is the one pulling the "priviledged" crap. Have you even read his book? As I wrote, just yesterday, his entire argument is based on the idea that pacifism is priviledged. I made my argument, IN THE CONTEXT OF HIS OWN FREAKIN ARGUMENT, THAT HE HIMSELF IS PRIVILEDGED AND THUS THE SAME EXACT THING CAN BE SAID ABOUT HIS ARGUMENT, THEREFORE HIS ARGUMENT IS HOLLOW AND UNSUBSTANTIAL. <-Read this. Seriously.

[PhoenixAsh]

My argument is based on the context of his argument. His argument is that pacifists are priviledged and therefore they are bigoted by encouraging all people to be pacifists. My argument is that he himself is priviledged, and therefore has no idea of the real consequences that violence can bring upon a seriously exploited people. Therefore he is every bit as bigoted by encouraging all people to embrace violent revolution. His argument is hollow because he accuses pacifists of being all these things that he himself can just as easily be accused of being.

But you've already made it clear that you have a pro-violent-revolution agenda, so let's be honest here and admit that you would have found anything I said stupid, as long as it didn't agree with you.

Name one non-violent revolution that was succesfull and was not counter revolutionary



Your criticism on Gelderloos is baseless. You have no arguments based on context...you have instead a character assassination. Especially when you say about an international active activist that he has no idea how violence affects people. That argument is not only ridiculous but it actually shows you have no clue what you are talking about. So no. He can't be accused of the same things as the pacifist clique is being accused of.

Pacifism is a middle class petit-bourgeois ideology....and pacifism in the Anarchist tendency developed mainly from religious and spiritualist Anarchism.

Now there is nothing wrong with diversity of tactics (like Gelderloos actually argues) but there is a whole lot wrong with pacifists who obstruct that and cooperate with police and government organizations to ensure non violence within the movement.

[Palmares]

I don't know what pamphlet you're talking about.

Peter Gelderloos is the one pulling the "priviledged" crap. Have you even read his book? As I wrote, just yesterday, his entire argument is based on the idea that pacifism is priviledged. I made my argument, IN THE CONTEXT OF HIS OWN FREAKIN ARGUMENT, THAT HE HIMSELF IS PRIVILEDGED AND THUS THE SAME EXACT THING CAN BE SAID ABOUT HIS ARGUMENT, THEREFORE HIS ARGUMENT IS HOLLOW AND UNSUBSTANTIAL. <-Read this. Seriously.

Pamphlet: George Lakey (March 2001). “Nonviolent Action as the Sword that Heals: Challenging Ward Churchill's ‘Pacifism As Pathology’”


Repeating your same argument, again and again, even with the addition of it being bolded, doesn't make it any more true. You need to address his ideas, not try to distract from them my obsessing about him as an individual. Plenty of great writers can turn out to be douchebags in real life.

And so what, if say, we agree with him being "privileged"? His claims of other's (such as pacifists) being privileged and he himself being so isn't mutually exclusive.

Kropotkin was from the aristocracy, but that doesn't mean have ideas about how working class people can struggle just because he is "privileged". Engels similarly was not from the working class, yet as we know, also has ideas how the working class could struggle.

Ad infinitum.

And of course, reducing Gelderloos whole argument to it being about privilege is very much inaccurate.

His fundamental point is that it doesn't work (except for maintaining the status quo). Not as a singularity anyway. And where it has, often has been from a multi-faceted attack, both violent, and non-violent.


Can you think of a real life example of where you think pacifism has been successful in a counter-attack against capitalism? I'm genuinely interested. Though, extremely sceptical.

[Khalistani]

Violence in the defence of others or the self is the highest duty of all mankind.

Otherwise, violence is never to be used at all.

[Ele'ill]

every instance of attack against the existent is an act of self defense

[Zoop]

Violence is never justified, except in the vast majority of cases when it is.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Violence in the defence of others or the self is the highest duty of all mankind.

Otherwise, violence is never to be used at all.

Wow thanks for regenerating this thread. I've never understood why it's never alright to go on the offensive but to always stay on the defensive. Sometimes a good defense is a great offense.

[Khalistani]

Wow thanks for regenerating this thread. I've never understood why it's never alright to go on the offensive but to always stay on the defensive. Sometimes a good defense is a great offense.

Offence by its very nature is harmful. Why would hurting someone or taking another human's life without good reason be okay?

"Desiring Peace, Prepared for War" is how we live our lives.

[Khalistani]

I'm rather curious as to how this conversation managed to segue away from feminism.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Offence by its very nature is harmful. Why would hurting someone or taking another human's life without good reason be okay?

"Desiring Peace, Prepared for War" is how we live our lives.And taking a hit is harmful at times too. Violence by its very nature is harmful, who are you to even resist someone elses violence? Why is it better to kill someone in self defense than in offense, you would rather harm and kill other human beings than be killed yourself? What type of morality is that? Is killing bad? Yes it's terrible, I'd never want to do it. Is dying bad? Of course, I never want to. But here's the thing, everybody dies, nobody escapes it, you'll never live your life without death. So if someone decides to be immoral and kill you then you should accept it because isn't being harmful to others immoral? You'd rather be immoral and inflict damage on other people to escape something that is coming to you either way.

[BIXX]

ART, this thread is so old that I have an infraction that has expired from a post in it.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

ART, this thread is so old that I have an infraction that has expired from a post in it.

Yeah but if someone wants to regenerate the thread and keep a discussion going, it's open. But the poster that necrod this thread can't post here so...

[BIXX]

Yeah but if someone wants to regenerate the thread and keep a discussion going, it's open. But the poster that necrod this thread can't post here so...

I'll be honest I didn't notice that it was khalistani who necroed the thread cause my brain was broken when I read previous post dates.