Abolition of the Draft and the Decline of Democratic Decency

[Rafiq]

I'd like to warn everyone that this is a heavily American-centric discussion and while - of course - while I encourage everyone no matter their national background to participate, I also ask that everyone keep in mind that I am ignorant, vaguely familiar at best of how militates function vis a vis politics in countries outside the United States. So I do not mean to generalize, or encompass (potential) political controversies that are dissimilar to that of those existing in the US.

I'd like everyone to watch this, or at least parts of it:

MNVKoX40ZAo

And I will begin deliberately provocative: The re-institution of the draft as a minimal program, similar to the fight for the 15 dollar wage - either fought for at the level of grassroots political organization or by a real existing party movement (which does not exist) is a potential struggle worth AT THE LEAST talking about.

Now, of course this will inevitably outrage any Leftist as a matter of basic political reflexes. I was certainly, greatly confused by this notion as well. But let's begin with a prevalent argument on this message board regarding the necessity of "dividing the military", the cliche'd argument about how the military is composed of working class individuals, sent to die for the exploiters, and so on.

I call this notion in to question as it pertains to the military in the United States. There have been notable studies which have shown - in fact - it is NOT the dispossessed who are over-represented as conscripts, but the petty-bourgeois sections of society:

http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/posts/Enlisted2.jpg

This is precisely the outcome of the volunteer military. Those who fight wars today are not those who are forced to do so by merely economic reasons, for the simple reason that emphasis on infantry and man-power has vastly declined as far as the functioning of a modern military goes. Certainly there are proletarian elements in the military - but whether or not they make the majority is highly questionable. There is data which suggests otherwise, but this is measuring income. Another possible problem with the data here is that this was compiled before the economic crisis of 2007, but it doesn't make a difference anyway. The point is very simple: AS A INSTITUTION it is not possible, at the present time, to politically mobilize soldiers to 'turn against their officers' in 2015. The military is not based on forced conscription, but volunteers, and the state prefers it this way.

This is for the simple reason that the draft as it existed from the second world war up towards the Vietnam war was, at the expense of its own intended function, one of if not the most fatally susceptible institutions to subversion and political agitation. It allowed the broad masses of people, politically mobilized, to oppose wars insofar as those wars depended on their participation. this is no longer the case today - the most rabid, vile and filthy elements of the petty bourgeoisie will gladly make up the sufficient numbers required by a modern military to suppress any political class struggle getting even close to a revolution. A re-institution of the draft, would give citizens the necessary degree of control over the ability for the predatory imperialist cartels, trusts, and banks to see their ends met in the domain of foreign policy - it would allow for a greater degree of FORMAL democratic control over the armed apparatus of the state. It would make the military a more ambiguous institution insofar as it would be able to be mobilized politically.

Those of you who are old enough should remember that precisely in Vietnam it was the incredibly high rate of 'treason' among American soldiers which impacted the war effort negatively - and the American state was well aware of this, which is why they revoked the draft. I do not even need to mention the red-scare paranoia following WWII of "communist infiltration" into the military either. The re-institution of the draft as a basic democratic institution, necessary fertile grounds for the political class struggle, is defensible insofar as we are today met with an influx of private mercenary corporations who are most obviously politically impenetrable and answerable only to the whims of capital. These private contracting firms and organizations exist for the sole reason so as to supplement the 'volunteer military' model that exists today. Communists must stand against the quasi-privatization of the military and fight for the ability to place the armed wing of the state apparatus under the potential control of the broad masses unified and led by the party (that has yet to exist). The American masses, as shown by the Vietnam war, overwhelmingly oppose being deployed on the ground.

Against those who would claim I suggest working people should be forcibly sent to their own slaughter - I tell you, you miss the point: THE STATE DOES NOT NEED the proletariat for blood sacrifice in another imperialist war. They do not. The draft would be the greatest possible burden upon the state, which has no use for such a great number of infantrymen. Get your head out of your ass. And of course, the same movement which would seek to re-institute the draft, is the same movement that would use this same organizational power to oppose any imperialist war. That is the point: what you fail to understand is that the American bourgeoisie DO NOT WANT a re-institution of the draft, not seriously. In fact, there are several articles published by the infamous Cato institute praising the 'volunteer' military model, even citing that in fact - the poor and the oppressed are not overwhelmingly represented in the military as 'proof' of its success:

http://www.cato.org/publications/foreign-policy-briefing/volunteer-military-better-draft

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/virtue-allvolunteer-force

In addition, even if it would result in a failure, the very FIGHT for the re-institution of the draft would open up a space of political debate that would accentuate controversies in our favor. Amidst the rise of this quasi-private state, what is better worth fighting for than the re-institution of the draft? The military would be a platform that would give ordinary Americans a common political space of solidarity, it would force them into direct proximity with each other, it would be the shared space that which the SOCIAL commonalities between the marginalized, dispossessed and exploited are made bear, and dare I say - no longer alien. Leftists must investigate the role of militarizes in matters of revolution thus far - from the role of WWII veterans in independence struggles in Africa, to the obvious - the role of the soldiers in the October revolution. We do not glorify the military, quite the opposite is what we seek: We would destroy the institution of the miltiary as far as its intended function goes by making it horribly inefficient and burdened with political controversy, and we would be given the unique chance to transform it, as an institution, into a platform for the political class struggle.

So fire away. But I would like to hear what you would have to say concerning how a potential revolution in the United Stats would deal with the military - how do you intend for the sons of the exploiters, parasites, rabid chauvinists and philistines to be swayed over to the cause that seeks their social annihilation?

[Armchair Partisan]

This sounds to me like one of those ideas which can be very eloquently argued for in theory, but in practice, it's perfectly simple and obvious why it's a terrible idea removed from reality - and there is no catch to it, either.

Firstly, you are effectively forcing people to learn to fight for the revolution at gunpoint. The revolutionary left is supposed to disdain concealing its aims, so what will we tell the workers? "Go die in Iraq for us, please! Maybe if you'll survive, you'll get enough combat experience to help us"? (Because if you force the state to reinstitute the draft, then the state WILL use them as cheap, expendable cannon fodder wherever they are required - simply to get whatever value out of this inefficient institution.) Matter of fact is, people don't want to die for a cause they cannot support, nor do they wish to risk dying, even - and even if 95% of the draftees spend their draft years lounging about in a barracks, making their beds for the pleasure of a dipshit officer, that's still a kind of slavery I have no intention in participating in, and neither does a great section of the populace. Thus, you would simply get a load of people who might, at best, think: "these commies have some good points, but seriously, they want to reinstitute the draft? Lunatics. Maybe some more sensible communist current might come along at some point..."

In addition, what I think you are not accounting for is that a military is a perfect arena of brainwashing, indoctrination and eventually, generating PTSDs. You might send in a load of politically conscious workers and get an output of very much useless ex-revolutionaries.

Thirdly, the diagram you show does not really support your case. First, it seems to show statistics based on pay, not class status, but we could simplify it by saying that the lowest 3 quintiles are lumped in with the working class, the highest quintile are the oppressor classes, and the 4th is a mixed bag - based on what I know about US living standards (not a lot, but certainly a little at least) that seems sensible. That, however, still only means there is a degree of underrepresentation among the working class - not that there are are only oppressors in there. That's more than enough to "split the military" still, just with slightly worse results. But you didn't think that a revolution would mean every working class soldier would defect, right? Some would remain blind patriots anyway.

Fourthly, just because the American bourgeoisie does not want something does not mean we should campaign for it.

Fifthly, I am skeptical of your argument of forcing underclasses together. When whites and blacks were forced together - it certainly didn't help end racism, I would say (what results the civil rights movement achieved, it achieved it by its own strength, after all). Letting women into the military does not look like it's about to end sexism. It just generated a new phenomenon of rape in the military.

This whole proposal seems to be an even more dubious kind of accelerationism - make everything shittier so that the workers realize they need communism! The problem is, the workers will not want to go to communism, but simply back to the better kind of capitalism, if this happens. They will not want communism - they will want to abolish the draft. As a matter of fact, this idea would simply be impossible to sell.

[John Nada]

Is minimal program different from minimum program? I think the minimum program is the minimum tasks completed for the maximum program of a DotP. Which a draft won't do.

Bring back the draft in the US is virtually never framed as increasing working-class leverage via more military training and representation in the ranks. Since anyone worth calling themselves socialist would oppose unjust imperialist wars, there's some contradictions in opposing imperialist wars yet wanting more people to join an imperialist military. And I'm not talking about the diamat type of contradiction either.

Besides the claim the poor and minorities are being de facto drafted, it's said that the rich would get drafted and actually have to fight in their imperialist wars. They wouldn't be so gung-ho about starting them. Even if those claims that the rich are overrepresented in the military are true(suspiciously those claims seem to come from rightist think-tanks), it's conscripting a part the bourgeoisie who otherwise wouldn't go anywhere near the military. This splits the bourgeoisie into war profiteers vs. not wanting to die. Double the amount now thanks to the heroic example of female soldiers under far more adverse conditions than an imperialist army. From the Red Army, Spanish Republicans and Vietnamese NLF to modern revolutionaries like the YPJ, FARC and Naxals.:hammersickle:

The quick collapse of the anti-war movement was the anti-war bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie withdrawing support. That it's an illusion of choice, there's still the slow but silent death of low-intensity warfare and plain "peacetime" imperialism marching on(kills way more), it just doesn't draw crowds for some strange reason:(. That's why imperialism personified Richard Nixon ended it. And there's been no shortages of near perpetual warfare on top of the quiet terror of imperialism since.

Really trying to get a bunch of supporters in the military is more of an insurrectionist putsch strategy. Rightist already thought the same thing and recruit from the military too, more so already. And that petty-bourgeois culture may simply produce a reactionary proletariat. I think it's a mistake to ignore that there's a far-right that has similar theories towards taking power, like waiting for a crisis.

The US has a very unusual bourgeois-"democratic", the Second Amendment. Other places they freak out/get excited if a militia loots a shotgun. A "people's army" can be legally made by civilians. However, Marx and the International Workingmen's Association came up with a very ambitious line:
[French and German subtitle reads: "Standing armies; their relation to production."]

(a) The deleterious influence of large standing armies upon production, has been sufficiently exposed at middle-class congresses of all denominations, at peace congresses, economical congresses, statistical congresses, philanthropical congresses, sociological congresses. We think it, therefore, quite superfluous to expatiate upon this point.

(b) We propose the general armament of the people and their general instruction in the use of arms.

(c) We accept as a transitory necessity small standing armies to form schools for the officers of the militia; every male citizen to serve for a very limited time in those armies. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1866/08/instructions.htm#10 What would the Republicans do? Guns and spending cuts on one hand, but WELFARE!:ohmy:

[Rafiq]

Everyone, please actually read my posts instead of inferring things that 'sound like' they would come from a Left based argument in favor of the draft. Really, why even post if you're not going to read? Was the title sufficient enough for you to judge the actual substance of the argument? Read. Now this is not a perfect idea, which is why I wanted to open the discussion. The arguments leveled against this idea, however, are purely pathological ones, full of the most regurgitated, hollow cliche's that I was so naive to think people would not bring here.


Firstly, you are effectively forcing people to learn to fight for the revolution at gunpoint. The revolutionary left is supposed to disdain concealing its aims, so what will we tell the workers? "Go die in Iraq for us, please! Maybe if you'll survive, you'll get enough combat experience to help us"? (Because if you force the state to reinstitute the draft, then the state WILL use them as cheap, expendable cannon fodder wherever they are required - simply to get whatever value out of this inefficient institution.)

This emanates a lack of an understanding of how a modern military actually functions. There would be absolutely no use in throwing people into the slaughtering grounds as raw cannon fodder for the simple reason that emphasis on infantry combat has greatly and overwhelmingly declined compared to previous wars. Honestly, did you even read my post? I don't see how you come to the conclusions that you do. The point was not that workers should be sent to die en masse. The point was precisely that of an opposite one: The opposition of imperialist war in practical term, subverting it, hindering it and disallowing it to come into fruition in the first place would be gained by the implementation of a draft fought for by a movement which is already anti-war in nature.

So degraded have our democratic standards been, that you actually are approaching this with such a level of externally attributed towards the state as something we are just "throwing" workers at, rather than actually challenging and impacting at the level of REAL POLITICS - you simply have failed to actually approach the real point which was being expressed in my post: Insofar as a draft exists, and insofar as a modern military would be forced to depend on one (rather than reactionary volunteers), the degree of control that which citizens will have over matters of foreign policy will greatly increase. You claim that "the state WILL use them as cheap, expendable cannon fodder wherever they are required". This is laughable, it's a pretty silly pseudo-left fantasy that has no bearing into how actual militaries function vis a vis society. Society is inter-connected enough, to be bale to express its innate disdain for this, resist this, and protest this - with or without a revolutionary movement, the broad masses of the United states would NEVER tolerate this. What you fail to understand is that the military would function as an institution of dual power in this regard - who would enforce "sending people to fight overseas", exactly? The police? When push comes to shove, the real repressive apparatus of the state that gets the last word is always going to be the military. If the military is composed of citizens at random, as a matter of a draft, then the same contradictions that manifest themselves AT THE LEVEL OF CIVIC LIFE, at he level of PUBLIC controversies, would manifest themselves at the level of the military.

This is what you fail to understand as a point I am making: I am NOT saying workers need to be manipulated into becoming Communists by suffering wars. Honestly, how the fuck do you arrive at this conclusion, that this was actually a point I was making? How? I am saying that re-instituting the draft would transform the military as an institution into a politically ambiguous one. I am saying that INSOFAR as the state is challenged, insofar as class struggle is waged at the level of policy-making, actual politics, this would permeate into the armed wing of the state. Until this becomes possible, then class struggle in the United States will NEVER be taken to its logical conclusion. Politicizing state-defense opens up doors of opportunity we haven't even thought of before. This is DIRECTLY related to the increased militarization of the police.


Matter of fact is, people don't want to die for a cause they cannot support, nor do they wish to risk dying, even - and even if 95% of the draftees spend their draft years lounging about in a barracks, making their beds for the pleasure of a dipshit officer, that's still a kind of slavery I have no intention in participating in, and neither does a great section of the populace.

A great section of the populace in question being the petty bourgeois, individualist pathology that pervades society as a whole. A real movement that would seek to re-institute the draft would already require the necessity degree of support among the broad masses to even be successful. That entails a great blow to this petty bourgeois, pathological, Silicon Valley bullshit attitude. In fact, what is most suggestive of this comment has actually little to do with a struggle to re-institute the draft, but your attitude towards Communism in general - which we should expect would most certainly be a "kind of slavery" in your mind. As if the pseudo-individualism of American capitalism would survive a proletarian dictatorship, an individualism only a tiny section of citizens are able to afford in practical terms. It's literally quite telling that your defense of the volunteer military is identical to that pushed forward by Neoliberal ideologues and petty bourgeois Californians (http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/17/the-californian-ideology-2/), namely that it would be an affront to 'individual liberty' and so on. When we speak of working people, we are not speaking about cattle who need to be manipulated in this or that way. Like who are you to approach them in such a way? I am speaking of their political mobilization as active political subjects. The notion that these are animals that will just be thrown to the slaughtering grounds places faith in the notion that they are unable themselves be mobilized politically.

The reality is that despite such empty pretenses to 'individuality', and silly, petty bourgeois notions of 'slavery' the lives of the masses, their destiny, and the degree of control they have over them are already deeply inter-connected with the power of the state apparatus and its repressive wing which enforces its domination. The 'freedom' felt by petty bourgeois ideologues at the present moment is nothing more than an illusion - the military already exists, and it is already enforcing their enslavement. The difference is that before, the masses in general had a degree of control over this repressive wing - it was not some quasi-private institution, the repressive wing of the bourgeois state required their participation. This gave them power they no longer have, to determine whether the military will actually follow the orders given by the state.

You claim people don't want to die for a cause they won't support. Well, that's quite the point: people will not die for a cause they do not support. The difference is that today, to take political struggle to its logical conclusion, would be suppressed by those who do want to die for causes that they do support. This demographic constitutes at least half of the military today (and as you yourself mention, probably EVEN MORE considering the assumption that ordinary people join for solely economic reasons from poorer neighborhoods is a baseless one), and we can assume most of the roles as military technicians, engineers and specialists (the roles which... Are actually in fact important). A draft-based military, conversely, will not give the rabid petty bourgeois ideologues and chauvinists any more representation than your typical, ordinary person.


Thus, you would simply get a load of people who might, at best, think: "these commies have some good points, but seriously, they want to reinstitute the draft? Lunatics. Maybe some more sensible communist current might come along at some point..."

Well no, Communists have not made it their goal to re-institute the draft. So what are you saying? How have ordinary people seen the "good points" made by Communists? What you in fact project upon what "loads of people" might think is in fact your own articulation of the argument. If this was upheld by enough Communists, it would most likely make you question your own faith in the ideas of Communism. Nothing is more popular on Revleft than playing this game, and I politely ask you quit it. "Loads of people" do not presently think 'commies have some good points' whether they do or don't favor the re-institution of the draft.

Accusing the argument of being 'crazy' and not sensible is groundless, because in reality, the argument is simply one you are not familiar with - as far as its ideological ramifications go. The argument is 'extreme', because it is an actual practical possibility. We Communists don't give a shit about standards of "sensibility" as understood by society. In fact what might be a better argument is this: That the ramifications of actually being able to re-insittute the draft would be so over-reaching on a political, social and ideological level in polarizing society that it would be impossible. The American reactionaries will be the ones who will oppose it, on grounds that it violates ' individual freedom' and so on. This is why I titled the thread the decline of democratic decency: More and more the powers which actually determine and impact our lives are technocraticized, depoliticized and exist outside of our control. If Armchair partisan is fine with this insofar as he is able to go on being an 'individual' while the state 'takes care' of the rest, then he is just as much an anti-democratic ideologue as the next reactionary. The notion that citizens should be forced to confront the powers that dominate them, that is 'slavery' in your mind? This is no more 'forcing' citizens to do things than Wikileaks 'forced' people to confront the secrets of their own states and their activities: everyone knew about them, but Wikileaks FORCED them to acknowledge its raw reality.

With or without the draft, Communists would aspire to 'force' citizens to engage in politics. But again, notions of 'forcing' people are still ridiculous for the simple reason that for this movement to succeed, it would entail mass grassroots organizing, mass popular support. Even if it only has a quarter of the necessary support for it to become a reality, it would POLARIZE society at the level of political debate in a way that is in our favor. Demanding the re-institution of the draft on both anti-war grounds, as well as a response to the increased militarization of the police, police brutality, etc. would be the goal.


In addition, what I think you are not accounting for is that a military is a perfect arena of brainwashing, indoctrination and eventually, generating PTSDs. You might send in a load of politically conscious workers and get an output of very much useless ex-revolutionaries.

More cliche'd, absolutely stupid counter-culture platitudes. Sorry, "brainwashing"? "Indoctrination"? So people as individuals in present society, they are what in your mind, free-minded, free-thinking peoples? No, because in our degraded Californian societies, in our post-counterculture societies, we are all "free". This is juxtaposed to the old, traditional authoritarian 'indoctrination' and 'brainwashing'.

Of course, during the Vietnam war, wherein the draft existed, the 'indoctrination' and 'brainwashing' worked really well on the soldiers who were throwing grenades at their officers and engaging in mass mutinies regularly, participating in the anti-war movement, giving it vitality and strength. Also in WWII, where Communist sympathies were so prevalent in the military that they would invoke the interest of HUAC and Mcarthyism. This is juxtaposed to the Iraq and Afghan wars, where rather than being 'brainwashed', citizens freely did not do anything about the wars. Well we Communists will take the 'indoctrination' and 'brainwashing', ideological notions grounded in Neoliberal individualism rather than any kind of socialist consciousness, over 'da freedum' any day.

Respecting ideas of 'indoctrination' and 'brainwashing' assume that the brainwashers and indoctrinators know the full extent of what they are doing, i.e. that bourgeois ideologues are actually smart enough, ideologically disciplined, and theoretically disciplined enough to actually do this. Any IDIOT who understands how ideology works knows that ideology can NEVER be 'forced' on people at gunpoint. This is nonsensical - if ideology was 'forced' on people through direct violent coercion, then it would not in fact be ideology at all, it would not be effective at all. It assumes that bourgeois ideology can be consciously equipped by bourgeois ideologues and used to 'brainwash' people. What a stupid notion: Bourgeois ideologues are absolutely not conscious about the ideological nature of their beliefs. Any attempt to "brainwash" people will result in a failure, because the notion that 'they' know how to brainwash people assumes that they have an understanding of psychological processes which is sufficient enough - but they don't, THEY ARE MORONS who don't even understand themselves. "Brainwashing" people will entail 'indoctrinating' them with the same contradictions that are present in bourgoeis ideology in general. Your respect for the power of the state is truly juvenile to this end. Political agitators will always be infinitely more 'fanatical' and true to their beliefs then the partisans of the state. This is why they were able to endure Siberian camps in tsarist Russia, nazi concentration camps, and the list goes on.

In fact, this kind of authoritairan 'brainwashing' is BETTER than the bullshit, illusionary notions of individual freedom held by people today - because it draws out the very raw nature of ruling ideology and makes it bear enough to be opposed. That is why citizens were INFINITELY MORE politically conscious, aware of the realities of power, in Communist states in the 20th century than those of the 'free world'.

But nevermind brainwashing. the 'free' citizens, immersed in 'free' and 'unideological', 'non-indoctrinating' mass media, monopolized, neo-feudal information technologies, and so on, I am sure there is actual revolutionary consciousness in their brains that could be washed by the military as of now. If revolutionaries are so weak that their convictions would be eroded by experience in the military, then sorry, they wouldn't be revolutionaries to begin with. But again, you still respect the leviathan of the state apparatus in thinking that there are no contradictions internal to it and that they have full, and complete control over people consciously. Politicizing the military would be enough of a goal, insofar as matters of military would be placed under the control of civic society.


Thirdly, the diagram you show does not really support your case. [...]That, however, still only means there is a degree of underrepresentation among the working class - not that there are are only oppressors in there. That's more than enough to "split the military" still, just with slightly worse results. But you didn't think that a revolution would mean every working class soldier would defect, right? Some would remain blind patriots anyway.

No, frankly, it isn't enough to "split the military", because the element here which you are forgetting is the fact that the military already requires supplementation by private contractors and private mercenary corporations. And what you say is the ruin of your own argument: the notion that every working class solder in the military, who as far as we know constitute only 50% of the military, if even (how many are petite bourgeois? How do we know these things?), have joined for PURELY economic reasons, and not political ones? how many of these working class youths aren't pissed off white kids whose military service is comparable to how they inhabit /pol/ on 4chan? How many of this 50% are PARTICULARLY engaged patriots? What you claim to be a "edger of under-representation" is in fact the greatest degree of under-representation. The US working class is not 50% of the population.

So you have yet to answer my actual question: HOW would a potential revolutionary situation deal with the military? How would they? Militairies are sustained by specialists, technical experts, engineers, real military power is grounded in specialization, NOT infantry 'thrown' into the slaughter. That's such a silly notion - war will never be like this ever again. So even if 50% would 'join us', that wouldn't mean shit, because it is NOT the military as far as military power goes which would be split, it would imply mean that you would have 50% of its members desert it, without any access whatsoever to military technologies, drones, and so on. And you bet your ass that 50% would be replaced tenfold by the petty bourgeois patriots that have yet to join the military, but certainly will out of necessity.

You don't get that in the Russian civil war, for example, it wasn't the Bolsheviks vs. the military. The military, military specialists, its technical power, this was DIVIDED, if not unevenly given in favor of the Soviets. This is not possible today with a volunteer military. It's that plain and simple.



Fourthly, just because the American bourgeoisie does not want something does not mean we should campaign for it.

If the American bourgeoisie does not want Trump, then certainly you're right, we wouldn't support Trump.

But that ignores the actual context of my claim: WHY and HOW the American bourgeoisie opposes the draft, i.e. the reasons for it - THIS IS WHY we should be open to supporting it. It would undermine their security in a way that is in our favor. That was my claim. I did not resort to the logic that "the bad guys don't like it, so we should". Again, how do you arrive at this conclusion?


Fifthly, I am skeptical of your argument of forcing underclasses together. When whites and blacks were forced together - it certainly didn't help end racism, I would say (what results the civil rights movement achieved, it achieved it by its own strength, after all).

Actually you're dead wrong towards this end. Racism indeed persisted, but a space that which both whites and blacks were in it together was created. Whether this was sufficiently taken advantage of by Communist agitators is besides the actual point. I claim that this would open up a space. You keep resorting to this silly kind of logic of manipulating the masses into doing this or that - let me tell you, THERE IS NO GUARANTEE ANYTHING WILL DO ANYTHING. That is up to US, and CONSCIOUS WILL, organization, skill, and the list goes on. There is no "press this button" and this will happen. I am talking about the opening up of POSSIBILITIES. So saying that the draft in the Vietnam war did not end racism, is literally so infuriatingly worthless as an argument.

Finally, the idea that the draft did not contribute to the success of the civil rights moment is also a groundless argument. The post-war black veterans DID contribute to the civil rights movement and the counter-culture in general, as a mass democratic upsurge which was engaged with the affairs of the state. The mass-movement against the Vietnam war, ONLY made possible by the draft, was born from the same processes. Opposing the Vietnam war, in practical ways, WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE with a volunteer military. You don't have this today, because the degree over which people are controlled - for the first time since the ancien regime - is immediately external to them. People really don't appreciate the extent that which DEMOCRATIC decency has eroded over time, honestly.


Letting women into the military does not look like it's about to end sexism. It just generated a new phenomenon of rape in the military.

What? WHAT? Where did I SAY it would end sexism? Where did I say it would end racism for that matter? I said IN PRACTICAL TERMS it would allow for a better means that which the divide between the white working classes and black working classes inhibits political mobilization. A draft would help overcome this - I DID NOT SAY it alone would end racism. As far as sexism is concerned, that's an entirely different argument - sexism and racism are not equivalences as just different kids of 'prejudice' as liberals will tell you. That is a different story all together, for the simple reason that sexism today is not the result of men and women not being in proper proximity with each other socially, politically or ideologically. Quite on the contrary, sexuality and sexual oppression are - surprise surprise - actually conditions of each other's existence in bourgeois society.

Whites and blacks, conversely, simply in their minds have little to do with each other politically. They do not inhabit the same neighborhoods, blacks are marginalized and ghettoized, 'outside' the cupola. While of course they are within proximity to certain degrees, they are divided insofar as their conceive their conditions of life to have little commonalities - black people are an entirely different 'cultural' group, in other words. That is simply incomparable with the complexities of sexual oppression.


This whole proposal seems to be an even more dubious kind of accelerationism - make everything shittier so that the workers realize they need communism! The problem is, the workers will not want to go to communism, but simply back to the better kind of capitalism, if this happens.

By the looks of lit, you aren't even close to being familiar with a quarter of the substance put forward in 'the proposal', to not even speak of it in its entirety, in fact, you have inferred stupid arguments I have never made because they sound like typical cliche's among the left. I am telling you this argument, derived from Frederic Jameson, IS UNIQUE. It is not a platitude. IT IS NEW. I DID NOT suggest 'making things shittier'. Quite on the contrary, re-instituing the draft WOULD NOT make things 'shittier'. I haven't even begun to discuss how this would give ordinary people so much more leverage as far as fighting for policy-based struggles like the 15 dollar wage, universal basic income, and so on.

You claim that "they will simply want a better kind of capitalism". You project your own ideological insecurities onto the broad masses. Who cares if they would want a better kind of capitalism? Do you THINK a better kind of capitalism is even immediately possible, or would be able to survive and endure in the long run? If a "better kind of capitalism" was possible, there would no point in being a Communist. Again, rather than conceiving the masses as potentially active political subjects, you think they're animals who will react in this or that way. That is pathologically a bourgeois approach to democratic matters. The reality is that the space of possibility that which we could organize and approach the masses, weaponizing them with proletarian consciousness, would greatly expand and open up.

Those Leftists who oppose reformsim on worthless moral grounds, who think reformism is actually possible but oppose it because "Well, not my opinion", that is the epitome of ridiculousness. Reforming capitalism WILL NOT alleviate the ills of working people in the long run. Being ABLE to reform capitalism in 2015 would require the same vitality, politically, and the same energy as a full blown socialist revolution would. That's how unlikely it is. Social democracy is dead, and will always be dead. The contradictions would remain. For people to even muster up the confidence in making such over-reaching changes, would necessarily presuppose the dominance of proletarian consciousness and revolutionary class struggle, in other words, radicalization. The idea that people will just want a 'better capitalism' reformism assumes that 'reformism' is not already requiring of an extremist kind of politics. This bourgeois mentality derives from the same kind of theoretical laziness that ONLY approaches the arguments at face value, rather than the ideological complexiites, and ultimately the material and social basis of it, that sustains them. In other words, this "true Communism", socialism-in-thought, is just as 'ideological' as a Reddit subforum. It is just as precariously held as ANY partisan position in bourgeois society, it respects only thoughts, and not the underlying social basis of those thoughts.

[Rafiq]

Is minimal program different from minimum program? I think the minimum program is the minimum tasks completed for the maximum program of a DotP. Which a draft won't do.

Which the draft would precisely do. Without the democratization of the military (I DO NOT mean some kind of direct democracy, but its institutional politicization along bourgeois-democratic lines, open up to civic society, etc.) there will never be a proletarian dictatorship.


Bring back the draft in the US is virtually never framed as increasing working-class leverage via more military training and representation in the ranks. Since anyone worth calling themselves socialist would oppose unjust imperialist wars, there's some contradictions in opposing imperialist wars yet wanting more people to join an imperialist military. And I'm not talking about the diamat type of contradiction either.

"Bring back the draft" is not framed along those terms because that is needlessly jargonistic from the standpoint of people who are not self-proclaimed socialists. This is how WE frame the argument. Typical arguments are framed in terms of precisely the same minimal demand - making the military a democratic institution again, giving citizens the political ability to oppose war insofar as that war depends on their participation. I have seen the argument before. It's not SIMPLY just about giving the working class necessary military training and representation in the ranks. That is only a single aspect - the other is in fact subverting the whole institution of the military and disallowing its quasi-privatization supplemented with increased police militarization. If a war is waged today, in another Iraq, wherever you want, it can be waged independently of what citizens want or think - there is plenty enough a good supply of rabid reactionaries who will be willing to take up arms, as shown by the data I gave, 50% of whom are by no meaningful definition possibly from the working class - the proportions who join out of non-economic (i.e. college) reasons are also unknown among the 'working class' 50%, but we can rightfully assume them to be significantly high.

You're right that this would be a contradiction, and yes, it would be one that concerns the dialectic. For the simple reason that the social basis of imperialism itself is one of contradictions, as every socialist understood - the bourgeois democratic state is itself rife with internal contradictions and antagonism. It is not "neutral", in the same way capitalism is not 'neutral'. But it is a real space of political action and agitation, which is why Lenin expected western socialists to engage in electoral politics where they could.


Besides the claim the poor and minorities are being de facto drafted, it's said that the rich would get drafted and actually have to fight in their imperialist wars. They wouldn't be so gung-ho about starting them. Even if those claims that the rich are overrepresented in the military are true(suspiciously those claims seem to come from rightist think-tanks), it's conscripting a part the bourgeoisie who otherwise wouldn't go anywhere near the military. This splits the bourgeoisie into war profiteers vs. not wanting to die.

It is infinitely more complex than what you are presenting here. I obviously disagree with the notion that the rich being forced to fight and die would alone stop wars from happening. I doubt that - the level of corruption in the US is sufficient enough so as to make draft-dodging easier for the well off as it was before.


it just doesn't draw crowds for some strange reason

But it is not a strange reason. There is a perfectly clear reason. When the state wages overseas war with a quasi-privatized military force, everyone can go about their lives not really giving a shit. With a draft, they are forced to confront the prerogatives of the imperialist machine on political lines. This is a basic pillar of bourgeois democratic decency which has been eroded by neoliberalism.


Really trying to get a bunch of supporters in the military is more of an insurrectionist putsch strategy. Rightist already thought the same thing and recruit from the military too, more so already. And that petty-bourgeois culture may simply produce a reactionary proletariat. I think it's a mistake to ignore that there's a far-right that has similar theories towards taking power, like waiting for a crisis.

It is not a surprise that Fascists recruit from the volunteer military, composed of people who are already reactionaries. In fact, if you watch the video, the point is that volunteer-militaires and quasi-private military institutions are PRECISELY the ripe, fertile grounds for Fascist mobilization. The theories Fascists have are not even close to being similar. The notion of making the armed wing of the state dependent on blacks, latinos, and so on - doesn't quite sit that well with them. What you are ignoring here is the fact that the petty bourgeois culture which pervades the US military is absolutely the result of the reactionary nature of the volunteer military itself - it is petty bourgeois insofar as it is a non-democratic, non-civilly connected institution that is 'outside' the sphere of politics. Like a mercenary corporation. The military today is heavily composed of anti-social, reactionary elements as a result of this quasi-privatized policy.

Was there a 'petty bourgeois' culture prevailing among the military during WWII? Or EVEN the Vietnam war? There wasn't. Really, watch the video. Fred Jameson addresses all such possible concerns here.


The US has a very unusual bourgeois-"democratic", the Second Amendment. Other places they freak out/get excited if a militia loots a shotgun. A "people's army" can be legally made by civilians.

Which was relevant when infantrymen actually mattered in wars. They don't anymore. Communists won't be waging a guerrilla war of independence (made impossible thanks to drone technologies) with the US, an external power otherwise occupying them. The second amendment really outlived its context and its relevance. The only real damage militias can do is petty bourgeois terrorism on reactionary lines - not a threat to the existence of the state. Militias can at the level of local, isolated communities enforce vigilante justice and enforce the worst kind of backwardness. We should not give a shit if they are crushed by the state - we should applaud such a development.

[Antiochus]

No.

I'll outline the reasons in a quick post and come back later to flesh it out.

First, one needs to understand what exactly is conscription ('the draft') and what is a professional army; why they are different and why do Capitalists oscillate between the two.

Unknown to most, professional armies are actually older than conscripted forces. With many militaries employing a combination of the two until the modern era; usually a professional officer corps that was traditionally made up of the nobility and levys drawn from the general population in a time of war. There were also 'special units', particularly the cavalry, that were full-time soldiers given the difficulty in training raw-recruits how to become mounted troops.

But what are the 'benefits' of one over the other. Namely, professional armies are usually cheaper, smaller, more loyal and better trained. However, in the age of industrialized war they were discarded by the wayside once "levee en masse" appeared. It now became possible to recruit armies that were far larger than a mere 0.1% of the population. These armies could eventually be trained after a few months/years to be as effective as a professional army but with the added advantage of being magnitudes larger.

This continued unabated in Europe until World War 2. One exception was England, which never had a large standing army and usually supplemented its forces with forced impressment (i.e prisoners).

The point being: Professional armies are what capitalists optimally want given their benefits. But conscripted armies are what they want given the maximum extent of their goals. The transition then becomes quite seamless when a small, local war transitions into a global conflict. The thing is, there haven't been major (in terms of scope) conflicts in the aftermath of world war 2. Even conflicts like Vietnam and Korea never taxed the manpower requirements of the U.S.

This is more or less why the U.S transitioned into a professional military for all purposes. But that is slowly changing. In Iraq, a backwards and relatively low-intensity conflict, the U.S committed up to 300,000 troops; nearly a fourth of its military. If the U.S were forced to fight two simultaneous conflicts with the same troop requirements, it could no longer do that with a professional army.

But what is then Rafiq's point of 'demanding' the draft again. This should be seen as a preview FOR conflict. Meaning, if the draft is reinstated, it will only ever be done so to facilitate the commencement of a truly global war, which we cannot in any way support.

I mentioned before the very real problem of 'dividing' the armed forces. The U.S military is very similar to how the German and British military were structured and why these two armed forces were particularly difficult to 'turn'. German troops were far more likely to fight in the Freikorps than in any Socialist movement and there were few if any points in time when the British army was divided upon class lines.

So what is a long-term strategy to change this? Reinstating the draft? Not exactly. What should be done is demand the transition from a professional military to a militia type army, like the one Switzerland has. This would in effect, "be a draft", but of a different nature, far more localized military units that would in effect be more susceptible to 'turn' on commanders. It would also be palatable to the capitalists because it is very, very cheap compared to the usual conscript militaries or even professional armies.

The caveat is; would this work in the United States as opposed to a country like Switzerland, I don't know.

[Rafiq]

what are the 'benefits' of one over the other. Namely, professional armies are usually cheaper, smaller, more loyal and better trained. However, in the age of industrialized war they were discarded by the wayside once "levee en masse" appeared. It now became possible to recruit armies that were far larger than a mere 0.1% of the population. These armies could eventually be trained after a few months/years to be as effective as a professional army but with the added advantage of being magnitudes larger.

But this is precisely the point: It was not only industrialization which led to the replacement of professional armies with the draft, but the dominance and emergence of bourgeois democracy. This was deeply rooted in the enlightenment and the emergence of liberalism, not simply the result of mass industrialization, but the result of industrialization and subsequently a basic standard of 'democratic' politics. Of course the material dimension here is of primary importance: But what I would like to highlight is the fact that the removal of the draft, coincided with a general decline of present day democratic standards which is still occurring. Again, do not mistaken me - of course the historic conditions led to it (as the autocratic states used conscription as well), but the decline of these same material conditions is synonymous with the decline of our democratic standards today.

Others have pointed out it: capitalism without democracy had existed for quite some time - this was not necessarily the industrial capitalism that developed in the United Kingdom, but 'capitalism' as such had existed before the 'democratic' age (of the 20th century) as we know it (the Hapsburg empire, etc). Even this aside, it is quite clear where we are headed to this end.


The point being: Professional armies are what capitalists optimally want given their benefits. But conscripted armies are what they want given the maximum extent of their goals. The transition then becomes quite seamless when a small, local war transitions into a global conflict. The thing is, there haven't been major (in terms of scope) conflicts in the aftermath of world war 2.

The basic functioning of a modern military in 2015 suggests that even in the event of a full scale world war, a full scale military confrontation that is - an emphasis on ground troops and infantry won't be there. If we ignore that this might entail the immediate use of nuclear weapons, even then technical specialization today is far more important than ground infantry use. Drone technologies, vehicular combat, and use of special forces is the modern means of war. Professional armies today are preferred by capitalists not only because of their obvious benefits which have always existed, but because the nature of war itself in our epoch has made the implementation of a draft quite useless.


But that is slowly changing. In Iraq, a backwards and relatively low-intensity conflict, the U.S committed up to 300,000 troops; nearly a fourth of its military. If the U.S were forced to fight two simultaneous conflicts with the same troop requirements, it could no longer do that with a professional army.

Would it require the same amount of troops? To what extent would you agree that the high number of troops was in fact actually owed to policing and occupation? Of course, we know the answer: the US upon the invasion of Iraq in 2003 committed some 190,000 troops, and the death tolls were in the hundreds. The age of trench warfare, infantry-based combat is over.


So what is a long-term strategy to change this? Reinstating the draft? Not exactly. What should be done is demand the transition from a professional military to a militia type army, like the one Switzerland has. This would in effect, "be a draft", but of a different nature, far more localized military units that would in effect be more susceptible to 'turn' on commanders. It would also be palatable to the capitalists because it is very, very cheap compared to the usual conscript militaries or even professional armies.

But the point I was making was precisely that this would NOT appease the capitalists. They would despise such a measure, which is why it would have to be fought at the level of grassroots mass political mobilization.

Of course I don't have any easy answers here. Even the existence of such a movement, successful or not, would be its own victory in that it would polarize politics on grounds that would be in our favor.

[Die Neue Zeit]

And I will begin deliberately provocative: The re-institution of the draft as a minimal program, similar to the fight for the 15 dollar wage - either fought for at the level of grassroots political organization or by a real existing party movement (which does not exist) is a potential struggle worth AT THE LEAST talking about.

Just to be very clear on this, comrade: this isn't the same as the call for workers' militias, right?


Now, of course this will inevitably outrage any Leftist as a matter of basic political reflexes. I was certainly, greatly confused by this notion as well. But let's begin with a prevalent argument on this message board regarding the necessity of "dividing the military"

I salute your sensationalist approach when you started this thread. I see clearly the link between this strategic necessity and what you're proposing tactically.


This is precisely the outcome of the volunteer military.

I'm not surprised at all by the class dynamics of a volunteer military.


The re-institution of the draft as a basic democratic institution, necessary fertile grounds for the political class struggle, is defensible insofar as we are today met with an influx of private mercenary corporations who are most obviously politically impenetrable and answerable only to the whims of capital. These private contracting firms and organizations exist for the sole reason so as to supplement the 'volunteer military' model that exists today. Communists must stand against the quasi-privatization of the military and fight for the ability to place the armed wing of the state apparatus under the potential control of the broad masses unified and led by the party (that has yet to exist).

That's another factor to consider as well, the growing role of mercenaries.


We do not glorify the military, quite the opposite is what we seek: We would destroy the institution of the miltiary as far as its intended function goes by making it horribly inefficient and burdened with political controversy, and we would be given the unique chance to transform it, as an institution, into a platform for the political class struggle.

This proposal, I think, should be linked to further discussion on public policy for veterans, both war veterans and other veterans.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Is minimal program different from minimum program? I think the minimum program is the minimum tasks completed for the maximum program of a DotP. Which a draft won't do.

I agree. The Marx-Engels minimum program is comprised of the minimum characteristics of a DOTP. Workers' militias would be a minimum demand, but as Rafiq said, this draft reinstatement is more like a $15 labour struggle.

It's too bad Trotsky conflated "partial demands" with "minimum demands." Draft reinstatement sounds more like a "partial demand" than a minimum demand.

By the way, it's a good thing you quoted Marx on "small standing armies" and "officers of the militia," because that may be more realistic:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/us-deficit-debate-t158896/index.html?p=2192889


I perceive the DOTP's military model to be a combination of soldier unionization and intra-military democratic rights (like recallability) with the old Armed Forces of the USSR (not the preceding "Workers and Peasants Red Army"), its zampolit (http://www.revleft.com/vb/political-oversight-over-t157827/index.html?p=2193434) apparatus, and its supporting defense industry.

And: http://www.revleft.com/vb/your-immediate-demandsi-t176607/index.html?p=2541298


I don't think "abolish" is the right word. Something implying wholesale turnover is more appropriate than something implying elimination without institutional replacement. Union rights for soldiers in the armed forces while retaining hierarchy and installing deputy officers for political work (zampolit) is crucial.

[Rafiq]

Just to be very clear on this, comrade: this isn't the same as the call for workers' militias, right?

No, the role of worker's militias in 2015 would either have to take on a drastically different character, or the relevance has been rendered obsolete. This is because the role of infantrymen in combat is not so important: And certainly, in the context of developed countries, peoples war, guerrilla war, has no actual practical viability outside being a fantasy of the petty bourgeoisie.

So I am speaking of the draft as it pertains to the repressive wing of the state apparatus.



This proposal, I think, should be linked to further discussion on public policy for veterans, both war veterans and other veterans.

I agree, the question of military matters in general is one that is all to often overlooked by the Left, dragging into the 21st century approaches to the problem which are greatly outdated .

[John Nada]

Which the draft would precisely do. Without the democratization of the military (I DO NOT mean some kind of direct democracy, but its institutional politicization along bourgeois-democratic lines, open up to civic society, etc.) there will never be a proletarian dictatorship.The mass mobilization of the nation arouse after the French Revolution. France shocked professional armies in battle. Over time other countries tried to copy it. In the US the draft began due to the American Civil War. Came back due to WWI. It was almost like an emergency measure.

Thing is "fourth-generation wars"(4GW) are different. There likely won't be many major wars directly between major powers and the US, bar an advancement greatly reducing the consequences nuclear war or complete degeneration of bourgeois-"democracy". It's unlikely that Mexico and Canada would pose the same threat as various states did to each other in Europe. America's wars are more like suppressing colonial rebellions. This doesn't usually require a mass mobilization of the entire country, except the host country.

If you look at the SPD's argument for the citizens' militias(which is similar to yours but not quite) it wasn't "so the people can overthrow the Kaiser". They'd play up the defensive side, like the threat Russia and France posed. That both, like in the past, can muster a large army, so all of Germany needed to arm themselves. It was not unlike outdated but commonly accepted and repeated defenses of the 2nd Amendment.

This had Engels saying almost comically jingoist shit in retrospect about the threat Imperial Russia posed, though with eery allusions to WWI or even WWII. Had a similar fear about weapons like the Maxim machine gun and powerful explosives that many today have of drones in the possibility of revolutionary war. IMO if Germany had a revolution in his life after 1848(which he participated in armed), Engels would've probably come to be regarded as a great revolutionary military strategist, something like Mao or Che. Though it was understandable because the Russian Empire was a main source of reaction(prison house of nations). A role that arguably the US now occupies, only mixed with Britain's former hegemony. A gun over any potential revolutions' head.

However capitalism had not yet entered the imperialist phase beginning with the Spanish-American War. The RSDLP would only real start organizing strikes after Engels's death. Japan didn't yet show Russia was a paper tiger and a European power could lose to a non-European nation. Followed by an insurrection leading to the Russian Revolution of 1905, which did have the parties(including the RSDLP) set up armed militias.

"Bring back the draft" is not framed along those terms because that is needlessly jargonistic from the standpoint of people who are not self-proclaimed socialists. This is how WE frame the argument. Typical arguments are framed in terms of precisely the same minimal demand - making the military a democratic institution again, giving citizens the political ability to oppose war insofar as that war depends on their participation. I have seen the argument before. It's not SIMPLY just about giving the working class necessary military training and representation in the ranks. That is only a single aspect - the other is in fact subverting the whole institution of the military and disallowing its quasi-privatization supplemented with increased police militarization. If a war is waged today, in another Iraq, wherever you want, it can be waged independently of what citizens want or think - there is plenty enough a good supply of rabid reactionaries who will be willing to take up arms, as shown by the data I gave, 50% of whom are by no meaningful definition possibly from the working class - the proportions who join out of non-economic (i.e. college) reasons are also unknown among the 'working class' 50%, but we can rightfully assume them to be significantly high.The two I've seen put forth the argument the military recruits are disproportionally richer(and classes are not defined by income of the neighborhood like the bourgeois standards but productive relations) are the Heritage Foundation and Cato. Sources I generally expect to bullshit, though it could be true. To be fair I didn't watch much of your video, is there any important parts to fast-forward to get the generally gist of it?

And voluntary military does not preclude gaining the support of the minority that are from a proletarian backround or even some of the petit-bourgeois strata. Moral and support both inside and outside(way more important IMO) the military can go hand and hand with demoralizing any reactionaries to just give up or look away.
You're right that this would be a contradiction, and yes, it would be one that concerns the dialectic. For the simple reason that the social basis of imperialism itself is one of contradictions, as every socialist understood - the bourgeois democratic state is itself rife with internal contradictions and antagonism. It is not "neutral", in the same way capitalism is not 'neutral'. But it is a real space of political action and agitation, which is why Lenin expected western socialists to engage in electoral politics where they could.As in a false contradiction, one made out of using an incoherent argument(not your argument but theoretically simultaneously supporting two opposite positions). The real contradiction between spending over a hundred years as an "anti-war movement", yet losing a support base in the military in process is an interesting one. I think it's partly a relic of trying to replicate the October Revolution and tailing the USSR, PRC and anti-imperialist movements. It was thought that the bourgeoisie would never give up a reserve of bodies. What was something beyond the limits of capitalism seemingly succeeded, in part due to contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the people and within the bourgeoisie. <br /><br />Productive relations of the armed forces changed from numerically proletarians to qualitatively lumpenproletarian mercenaries drawn from the petit-bourgeoisie. Rather than open a path towards revolution it has closed one. And that's what the left made a large chunk of its identity. Which is partly from trying to replicate Lenin.
It is infinitely more complex than what you are presenting here. I obviously disagree with the notion that the rich being forced to fight and die would alone stop wars from happening. I doubt that - the level of corruption in the US is sufficient enough so as to make draft-dodging easier for the well off as it was before.It is more complex and it definately won't end wars. Now the argument is that the military is a choice, so "it's all on you". Not unlike apologia for capitalism that if your poor "it's all on you".

>But the way bringing back the draft is put forward is more of a wager. "You want us to go to war, then we all should, including you chicken-hawks." Now the bourgeoisie can still buy themselves out, and likely will. But then it becomes,"You want us to fight and die, yet you're so chicken-shit that you had mommy and daddy pay to draft-dodge." And if there is a war, there will be some bourgeoisie who do go anyway and die This would create friction and infighting within that class(they don't just divide the proletariat but regularly each other), on top of the antagonism between the proletariat.

This creates infighting at top, polarizes the classes and exposes what's wrong with capitalism. "The rich people's war, the poor people's fight." That's what I'm trying to say, and why renewing the draft repeatedly gets voted down.
But it is not a strange reason. There is a perfectly clear reason. When the state wages overseas war with a quasi-privatized military force, everyone can go about their lives not really giving a shit. With a draft, they are forced to confront the prerogatives of the imperialist machine on political lines. This is a basic pillar of bourgeois democratic decency which has been eroded by neoliberalism.Was half-joking. I'd say "peacetime" imperialism probably kills and harms way more, but if there's no interventionism involved then nobody gives a fuck, for reasons you mentioned.
It is not a surprise that Fascists recruit from the volunteer military, composed of people who are already reactionaries. In fact, if you watch the video, the point is that volunteer-militaires and quasi-private military institutions are PRECISELY the ripe, fertile grounds for Fascist mobilization. The theories Fascists have are not even close to being similar. The notion of making the armed wing of the state dependent on blacks, latinos, and so on - doesn't quite sit that well with them. What you are ignoring here is the fact that the petty bourgeois culture which pervades the US military is absolutely the result of the reactionary nature of the volunteer military itself - it is petty bourgeois insofar as it is a non-democratic, non-civilly connected institution that is 'outside' the sphere of politics. Like a mercenary corporation. The military today is heavily composed of anti-social, reactionary elements as a result of this quasi-privatized policy.The theory of a crisis to take advantage of. They have a similar "wait for shit to hit the fan" theory, though always thoroughly petty-bourgeois in character. If it shit does hit the fan, then it shouldn't be assumed revolution's near automatic, because an unstable state can benefit many sides, even bourgeoisie in other countries. That's what I mean.

If it's basically a mercenary military(I'd argue in many countries it is), that's a step down from the era of bourgeois revolutions where they were able to mobilize the masses. Machiavelli noted in The Prince that mercenaries are unreliable. And historically they have been very inferior to one drawn from the citizenry. Which is the impression I get when Marx and Engels regarded the lumpenproletariat as one of most unreliable classes, like mercenaries. Generally used to defend empires, fight in colonies or launch coups. Which is okay for an fourth-generation war. Such demonstrates how degenerate capitalism has become.
Was there a 'petty bourgeois' culture prevailing among the military during WWII? Or EVEN the Vietnam war? There wasn't. Really, watch the video. Fred Jameson addresses all such possible concerns here.I'll try to get around, but it's pretty long. Did he address 4GW?
Which was relevant when infantrymen actually mattered in wars. They don't anymore. Communists won't be waging a guerrilla war of independence (made impossible thanks to drone technologies) with the US, an external power otherwise occupying them. The second amendment really outlived its context and its relevance. The only real damage militias can do is petty bourgeois terrorism on reactionary lines - not a threat to the existence of the state. Militias can at the level of local, isolated communities enforce vigilante justice and enforce the worst kind of backwardness. We should not give a shit if they are crushed by the state - we should applaud such a development.Guns are only a small part in war, even and especially revolutionary wars. Looking at a 3rd-World militia(and there's differences between the local militias, guerrilla cadre, mass supporters and political cadre, let alone between various guerrilla groups) and thinking putting guns in hands is what works or doesn't is like imagining putting on football equipment is what creates football players. You'd ignore their position in the team and all the things leading up to that pro-football player, from childhood up to that day. All the social relations that created them and their team. Something drones can never do anymore than become actors.

War's an extension of politics, and the latter should always predominate. To view things as what to destroy and not what to build is to ignore the point of war. If the gun takes over you get the cult of the offensive, adventurism, "left' deviations, nihilism, gangsterism and guerrillaism that will burn out quickly or might as well be a gang. Drones and bombs only destroy, they cannot have a positive relation with the people. They're sure to lose if all they can provide is death when the other side gives life.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The second amendment really outlived its context and its relevance. The only real damage militias can do is petty bourgeois terrorism on reactionary lines - not a threat to the existence of the state. Militias can at the level of local, isolated communities enforce vigilante justice and enforce the worst kind of backwardness. We should not give a shit if they are crushed by the state - we should applaud such a development.

If you're suggesting this little nugget of wisdom, then may I throw in another: how can amateur militias handle technologically sophisticated weapons such as nukes, subs, and combat aircraft?

[Jacob Cliff]

I can see eye-to-eye perfectly on the necessity of the draft as a means to achieve a "dual power" system, where the proletariat have an official lever in the main organ of the bourgeois state, but I am concerned with one thing:
You mention the irrelevance of modern infantry-warfare (which is most certainly true). Today, we use guided missiles and air strikes to achieve our military goals. But given the fact that proletarians being drafted into a military (whose staff is constantly decreasing, I'd figure, given the necessary manpower being reduced with technology) which has exhausted it's use of direct-confrontations and warfare, how exactly will this draft achieve anything? Yes, we'll have soldiers derived from the proletarian class in the military to disproportional degrees – but there will be hardly anything "shocking," or conscious-changing, in the military given the nature of modern warfare. If this is worded too convoluted, here's it out simply: modern soldiers are alienated. Individual soldiers are alienated from the horrors of battle, of bloodshed and of the disgusting acts of imperialism because now the strong arm of the military lies behind immensely powerful bombs lobbed from hundreds of miles away and jets shooting enemy combatants full of holes. I don't think proletarians entering the military via draft would experience the same consciousness-change Vietnam or WWII-era soldiers would, because there is a huge difference, as you already acknowledge, between the various periods' methods of warfare.


On a side note, with your mention of workers' militias/guerrilla warfare:
1. Why is dreaming and fantasizations of guerrilla warfare petty bourgeois? I certainly don't do this because I think it's hopelessly romantic and useless nowadays, but what designates this as belonging to their class?
2. Given their obsoleteness, how, then, would we go about achieving a revolution? Please don't mention the impossibility of "planning" these things or the unscientific nature of daydreaming over how a revolution can be waged. I'm not asking how it will happen, but I'm asking possibilities. Communists in the 1870s could never designate the fine-tuning of the Bolshevik Revolution, but they at least had an idea how how it would be carried out (by armed insurrection). If armed insurrection by workers' militias or whatever is out of the picture as a possibility, what do we have left? Because obviously, we'd get mowed down by an array of missiles, bombs and miniguns if we actually posed a threat (which we don't) and led a revolution.

[John Nada]

If you're suggesting this little nugget of wisdom, then may I throw in another: how can amateur militias handle technologically sophisticated weapons such as nukes, subs, and combat aircraft?The ones that survive won't be amateurs anymore.:)

How could a professional military survive? Okay most got all that too, but how do professional militaries still have to use that shit over and over on amateur militias and still not win? Do Afghan teens have superpowers or something?(Yeah I know 10-1 kill/death ratio)
On a side note, with your mention of workers' militias/guerrilla warfare:
1. Why is dreaming and fantasizations of guerrilla warfare petty bourgeois? I certainly don't do this because I think it's hopelessly romantic and useless nowadays, but what designates this as belonging to their class?Petty-bourgeois either means,"I don't like it," or "Peasants! Can't try that shit with 1st-World workers!"
2. Given their obsoleteness, how, then, would we go about achieving a revolution? Please don't mention the impossibility of "planning" these things or the unscientific nature of daydreaming over how a revolution can be waged. I'm not asking how it will happen, but I'm asking possibilities. Communists in the 1870s could never designate the fine-tuning of the Bolshevik Revolution, but they at least had an idea how how it would be carried out (by armed insurrection). If armed insurrection by workers' militias or whatever is out of the picture as a possibility, what do we have left? Because obviously, we'd get mowed down by an array of missiles, bombs and miniguns if we actually posed a threat (which we don't) and led a revolution.This usually meet with some variant of it's a divine mystery or possibly with some vague allusions to an "October road" strategy.

Think about it, if there was a sustained workers' revolt, what would that do to the economy? It'd burn up the fictitious capital like the Joker. What would happen to the state and culture? It'd be irreparably alter. And even if it got crushed by those weapons(anyone would do that likely needs to be fought) that won't be the only country affected.

[Antiochus]

Erhmm, infantry is useless?

That is quite a statement that I don't think is really backed by much evidence. Yes, massed infantry is pointless. But the average firepower carried by an infantrymen has increased exponentially. There are SAM systems capable of engaging dozens of targets simultaneously. Most modern anti-tank systems (MILAN, TOW etc..) are capable of destroying tanks at a distance at relatively low cost.

We are not at the point of "drone" warfare. And quiet likely, drone infantry would prove to be more useful than anything.

What should be analyzed, which is what Juan got to in his point, is whether or not we live in a post-Klausewitzian era of warfare (i.e whether we will see "total war" again). And the answer to this is: I think so.

You people underestimate the panoply of war. Gas was not used in world war 2. Even by desperate powers (USSR in 1941, Germany in 1944-1945). This was a tacit agreement in the same vein as two dogs agreeing to fight each other to the death; but leaving the meat they are fighting over untainted by their conflict.

[Rafiq]

The two I've seen put forth the argument the military recruits are disproportionally richer(and classes are not defined by income of the neighborhood like the bourgeois standards but productive relations) are the Heritage Foundation and Cato. Sources I generally expect to bullshit, though it could be true. To be fair I didn't watch much of your video, is there any important parts to fast-forward to get the generally gist of it?

I was referring to arguments made by 'progressives' regarding bringing back the draft.

The video is quite long, I acknowledge this. I would watch from 26:00 for a few minutes (five, at most) and he talks about it.


And voluntary military does not preclude gaining the support of the minority that are from a proletarian backround or even some of the petit-bourgeois strata. Moral and support both inside and outside(way more important IMO) the military can go hand and hand with demoralizing any reactionaries to just give up or look away.

I do not doubt this for a second, the difference is that unlike the October revolution, the result would not be a mutiny as such, i.e. the taking over of military faculties, battleships, aircraft carriers, (among other things) but mass desertion that would give us professional soldiers, yet leave us empty handed where it counts. We would then be forced to face a military which is institutionally still under the control of the state (i.e. not undergoing a mass mutiny) that could simply compensate for the loss by recruiting more willing soldiers (and there will be) with, of course, the help of private corporate militaries. What I propose would be the implementation of the draft so that the taking over of the military, or at least great sections of it, would be come possible.

Think about this in terms of factories, for lack of a better example. If revolutionaries were only to constitute 30% of the factory force, then they could just get replaced. Institutionally, the factory itself still functions as it did before. The goal however is to take over the factory, not desert it.


As in a false contradiction, one made out of using an incoherent argument(not your argument but theoretically simultaneously supporting two opposite positions).

The dialectic refers to processes of change, things in motion. But I see where you are coming from - I merely try to illustrate that the imperialist military apparatus, under these circumstances, would be pressed with internal antagonisms and contradictions.


The theory of a crisis to take advantage of. They have a similar "wait for shit to hit the fan" theory, though always thoroughly petty-bourgeois in character.

You're right that it is, when right wingers talk about "shit hitting the fan" it usually refers to some imaginary emergency event only possible for the pathological paranoid. They would use the military, rather than a means of social transformation, as simply a way to enforce the logic of the existing order. I am sure you are familiar with Smedley Butler and the businessman's plot in the 30's.

But at the level of abstraction, both the Fascist and the Communists seek to take power, it is true. This must automatically involve the military. We however seek to smash the state and replace it with our own, they seek to use it for their own ends. It is quite likely that Fascists would enlist private militaries to this end, who we can already suspect are ripe with their irk.


Which is okay for an fourth-generation war. Such demonstrates how degenerate capitalism has become.

It is good you recognize it. It is crucial we on the Left see this - and I also appreciate how you brought the example of the Napoleonic wars as the prelude to this. What awful, dark and rotten times we are living in indeed.


You'd ignore their position in the team and all the things leading up to that pro-football player, from childhood up to that day. All the social relations that created them and their team. Something drones can never do anymore than become actors.

Which is why, of course, I say that the military would have to be mobilized under a real-existing party movement, which does not yet exist unfortunately, with all of the ideological, and political discipline that entails. As Sankara said, a soldier without ideological discipline and training is a potential criminal. The problem is that doing this with the military today is an impossibility.

This part I have not really gotten into because it is a basic presupposition. The real aim here is the question of force: Political sophistication is the necessary pre-requisite. But as we know, it is not quite enough to see the ends of political objectives met. Legs will go nowhere without the mind. But the mind cannot travel without legs.

[Rafiq]

If you're suggesting this little nugget of wisdom, then may I throw in another: how can amateur militias handle technologically sophisticated weapons such as nukes, subs, and combat aircraft?

They won't, so to speak. The revolution will not rely on militias formed by emergency, but by - as I told Juan just now - military mutinies and the seizure of military technologies. We should seek to divide the military as an institution, not simply in terms of its combatants. The Russian civil war is a good example of how this worked. This also means bringing technical experts, engineers, medics, and so on to our side. The video I linked goes much farther than this in that it seeks to turn the military as an institution into an instituional embryo for a proletairan dictatorship, with an emphasis placed on draft-based public works, dealing with ecological crises's, and so on. It's very interesting.

And they are not crazy either. In fact, jameson and his friend speaker are both 'libertarians' in their approach, the latter goes as far as saying that we must 'combine anarchism with Marxism'. Obviously disagree towards this end, but I want to illustrate that they aren't proposing a military dictatorship but looking at institutions already existing which organizational structures (for running a society) could be based.

Obviously, that's a different discussion, right now we are talking about the tactical issue of the military. I do believe, however, they are inter-related.

[Rafiq]

You mention the irrelevance of modern infantry-warfare (which is most certainly true). Today, we use guided missiles and air strikes to achieve our military goals. But given the fact that proletarians being drafted into a military (whose staff is constantly decreasing, I'd figure, given the necessary manpower being reduced with technology) which has exhausted it's use of direct-confrontations and warfare, how exactly will this draft achieve anything? Yes, we'll have soldiers derived from the proletarian class in the military to disproportional degrees – but there will be hardly anything "shocking,"

I think you are confused. I am not simply saying more proletarians should be in the military in a vacuum. Instead, the draft would have to be fought for by what would be an objectively left wing politics. The right wing, either its reactionary (libertarian) or estabilishment sections, will be the greatest obsctacle to realizing this. Once the draft is implemented in a democratic fashion, then you already begin with a politically cosnciosu character as far as the military is concerned.

I want to highlight what I perceive to be the problems with my proposal, which we should discuss:

It would seem that implementing the draft itself, and realizing this goal, would already be such a radical step, that it might even immediately lead to a revolution insofar as it would be such a great obstacle to war. Whether this is a good or bad thing, we need to discuss - I am quite actually confident that fighting for the re-institution of the draft, would actually be so polarizing and accentuating of present antagonisms that it could lead to an all out civil war.

Perhaps this would have to be coordinated under the backdrop of an already existing party-movement, or some kind of new international political organ which could direct this. I think the very demand for this would be quite a shock for present political discourse. Its very essence, i.e. "We demand to be drafted!" would be so confusing in the field of political discourse that it might actually just work. I think this requires some further discussion - which I am glad everyone is now doing, we should all recognize there is a deadlock and conundrum with the military regarding a potential revolution that needs to be discussed.

On a side note, with your mention of workers' militias/guerrilla warfare:
1. Why is dreaming and fantasizations of guerrilla warfare petty bourgeois? I certainly don't do this because I think it's hopelessly romantic and useless nowadays, but what designates this as belonging to their class?[/QUOTE]

Because a proletariat political movement is in substance a democratic one, it involves the mass mobilization of actual sectors of a society, not simply people who retreat into guerrilla warfare, existing 'outside' the domain of social space. We seek to supersede capitalism, not run into the forest. Of course, this kind of combat is not reactionary in feudal contexts, but it is in modern capitalist liberal democracies.

It is petty bourgeois precisely because the petite bourgeoisie despise both the state and the democratic masses as a whole. Just look at the character of US militias. Think about: What could guerrilla warfare actually solve? It is democratic in peasant based contexts in some instances because the peasantry can passively support guerrillas while still going about its business in some way. This isn't true for the proletariat - it either joins the fight, or it remains complacent. I mean just think about it - people in factories striking, forming political committees, and then another sector of people in the forests fighting the state? How would that work? How would the state not exercise control, and punish the latter if this is a unified movement?


2. Given their obsoleteness, how, then, would we go about achieving a revolution?

Well that is certainly the topic of concern in this discussion. More generally, traditional models of party and movement building have been discussed in the past, but I want to link those with questions of military matters. But the point is, if this is what you are asking: First conquest of the state, and then smashing it in the process of institutionally replacing it (or doing this while at the same time conquering it).


Erhmm, infantry is useless?

That is quite a statement that I don't think is really backed by much evidence. Yes, massed infantry is pointless. But the average firepower carried by an infantrymen has increased exponentially. There are SAM systems capable of engaging dozens of targets simultaneously. Most modern anti-tank systems (MILAN, TOW etc..) are capable of destroying tanks at a distance at relatively low cost.

I meant massed infantry. Of course infantry in general is useless, but infantry divorced of necessary military technologies is today useless. That's all I mean.


We are not at the point of "drone" warfare.

Not 'complete' drone warfare, but certainly a next great war would utilize these technologies, no?


What should be analyzed, which is what Juan got to in his point, is whether or not we live in a post-Klausewitzian era of warfare (i.e whether we will see "total war" again). And the answer to this is: I think so.

But how would that pan out in the context of a revolutionary civil war?

[Guardia Rossa]

How, exactly, do you thing that a discussion over drafting people or not will happen and why it would cause a civil war? Doesn't seem logic to me. IMO what will happen is "Oh look, the communists are just like the fascists, liberalism (In Europeanite) best ideology, centrism, wohoo, fuck extremism" and "Communists want to take over the army, boooo, lets make a democracy [trnslt. as dictatorship] to prevent"

[Rafiq]

Doesn't seem logic to me. IMO what will happen is "Oh look, the communists are just like the fascists, liberalism (In Europeanite) best ideology, centrism, wohoo, fuck extremism" and "Communists want to take over the army, boooo, lets make a democracy [trnslt. as dictatorship] to prevent"

Quite naive to think this. In fact, such a movement would attract progressive sections of society that might very well not even be Communists but anti-war liberal Chomsky types, even from the Bernie momentum, and it goes on.

I mean certainly sections of the 'salaried bourgeoisie', tech yuppies, the petty bourgeoisie and obviously the ruling classes would oppose this development on those lines. We want this.

But look around. We aren't living in a climate where such a mentality prevails. And it is also naive to think, as I told Armchair, that we have this degree of influence anyway. It will either kick off, or it won't. If it doesn't kick off, it's not because people are passively thinking "commies are just like the Fascists'. ON the contrary the movement would be a direct response to the militarization of the police and the rise of private contractors. In that sense it could be attractive to those white working classes who are currently swayed by the reactionary petty bourgeois, Ron Paul esque militia movement . It would divide those types on class lines - the petty bourgeoisie would oppose it, but the working classes would not.

The objectives and aims of the movement would be made clear: Not "This is just a prelude to the scary communism", but political rhetoric along the lines of "democratization of armed forces". Again, watch the video from 26:00 for some five-six minutes.

If it would get big enough, hypothetically, it WOULD certainly be very polarizing. Think about it. Just think about how the right wing political discourse would attack it: "It's an attack on your freedom of choice!" and so on. We could win it if it comes to that.

[Guardia Rossa]

How do that relates to civil war? The events that led to the 1917 revolutions in Russia took more than 12 years from the first proletarian unrest, and during a World War. The first unrest was very different from "Occupy Wall Street". Yet, it would polarize who? Most people would be, say, "Pathologically" opposed to it.

[Rafiq]

It would polarize people on political and class lines if it gained enough attention. Think.

If it was successful, it could cause a civil war as it wouldnt be accepted by the reaction easily.

[Armchair Partisan]

Honestly, Rafiq, I really can't handle the full strength of a 3600-word Rafiq-bomb. I have tried to respond to some of your points below, but do be aware that yes, I have not researched this topic to a great extent, and I've devoted far less time to it than you. Please do not constantly remind me that I have not entirely understood your argument or not engaged with literally every point of your posts. If there is something you think is really important I haven't responded to (i.e. more important than most of the rest of your post), draw my attention to that. Or write shorter posts. I am simply limited in the amount of time I can and will devote to this conversation.


Everyone, please actually read my posts instead of inferring things that 'sound like' they would come from a Left based argument in favor of the draft. Really, why even post if you're not going to read? Was the title sufficient enough for you to judge the actual substance of the argument? Read. Now this is not a perfect idea, which is why I wanted to open the discussion. The arguments leveled against this idea, however, are purely pathological ones, full of the most regurgitated, hollow cliche's that I was so naive to think people would not bring here.

Skip...


This emanates a lack of an understanding of how a modern military actually functions. There would be absolutely no use in throwing people into the slaughtering grounds as raw cannon fodder for the simple reason that emphasis on infantry combat has greatly and overwhelmingly declined compared to previous wars. Honestly, did you even read my post? I don't see how you come to the conclusions that you do. The point was not that workers should be sent to die en masse. The point was precisely that of an opposite one: The opposition of imperialist war in practical term, subverting it, hindering it and disallowing it to come into fruition in the first place would be gained by the implementation of a draft fought for by a movement which is already anti-war in nature.

If the draft is instituted and everyone is trained as an infantryman, wouldn't the bourgeoisie at least then use those infantrymen whenever a conflict arises - trying to get whatever value they can out of this kind of military? To me, the answer seems like an obvious yes. So far, to me, it seems like your argument boils down to this: "demanding a draft would help us because it would degrade the quality of the imperialist military and because it would help make the character of the imperialist army more proletarian". This point of mine - that the bourgeoisie would indeed send those conscripts off to die if the draft passed - deals with the part before the 'and'.


Insofar as a draft exists, and insofar as a modern military would be forced to depend on one (rather than reactionary volunteers), the degree of control that which citizens will have over matters of foreign policy will greatly increase. You claim that "the state WILL use them as cheap, expendable cannon fodder wherever they are required". This is laughable, it's a pretty silly pseudo-left fantasy that has no bearing into how actual militaries function vis a vis society. Society is inter-connected enough, to be bale to express its innate disdain for this, resist this, and protest this - with or without a revolutionary movement, the broad masses of the United states would NEVER tolerate this.

Oh, I don't know, I think there have been plenty of examples of modern societies tolerating the wholesale slaughter of their conscript soldiers. Usually, the part where they start to "NEVER tolerate" it is when there are already other social problems anyway. Or hey, let's look at it this way: there is currently conscription in Russia. Do the Russians (without a revolutionary movement - a scenario you have allowed for) refuse to tolerate Putin's military adventures? No - as long as most Russians remain patriotic, they will support these adventures as long as they are successful. Or let's look at the other angle of this same problem. Are you saying that the Russian military has a proletarian class character? That if the Russians just became communist enough, they could rely on the military to help achieve a revolution?


What you fail to understand is that the military would function as an institution of dual power in this regard - who would enforce "sending people to fight overseas", exactly? The police?

The officers would give out the order, the soldiers would obey. You are making the mistaken assumption, apparently, that a draft would lead to a more revolutionary military rank-and-file. I contend that this is nonsense.


If the military is composed of citizens at random, as a matter of a draft, then the same contradictions that manifest themselves AT THE LEVEL OF CIVIC LIFE, at he level of PUBLIC controversies, would manifest themselves at the level of the military.

Such as? Because I don't think that the contradictions and characteristics of capitalist society in general and those of the capitalist military are one and the same.


It's literally quite telling that your defense of the volunteer military is identical to that pushed forward by Neoliberal ideologues and petty bourgeois Californians (http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/17/the-californian-ideology-2/), namely that it would be an affront to 'individual liberty' and so on.

I suppose you can lawyer it that way, if you really want to demonize me by comparing me to bourgeois ideologues. Now, the thing is, yes, I do want to ensure that the state can't do certain things to me at will. Forcing me to serve in their military is one of them. You can produce the most sophisticated, un-philistine arguments to the contrary if you want. I prefer to use plain, easily understandable wording, and I will do so right now, making clear an important point that you need to realize if you want to understand me. If the costs of communism are too great to outweigh its benefits, that is when I shall cease to be a communist. You may not value your life much. I do (save for some bouts of depression - I'm in relatively high spirits compared to about 1-2 months ago right now, though). You may not value the fact that you do not have to shoot people at the capitalists' orders. I do. These are two pretty high-value "rights", or whatever you want to call them, for me, and thus I make it a high priority not to have to give them up. Having these two as a prerequisite of revolution may not turn me off communism right away, but it would fill me with plenty of doubt nonetheless. Fortunately, I happen to think demanding a draft is not necessary for communism, and is even counterproductive. Otherwise, I would have a pretty big moral dilemma on my hands.


You claim people don't want to die for a cause they won't support. Well, that's quite the point: people will not die for a cause they do not support.

History has proven you wrong numerous times. Not everyone is perfectly rational or even particularly courageous. People can, indeed, be intimidated into acting against their interests.


A draft-based military, conversely, will not give the rabid petty bourgeois ideologues and chauvinists any more representation than your typical, ordinary person.

You mean, aside from the pretty clear fact that the bourgeoisie would be much more likely to fulfill the roles of officers, specialists etc.?


The notion that citizens should be forced to confront the powers that dominate them, that is 'slavery' in your mind? This is no more 'forcing' citizens to do things than Wikileaks 'forced' people to confront the secrets of their own states and their activities: everyone knew about them, but Wikileaks FORCED them to acknowledge its raw reality.

This argument would work if the proposal was to "force the state to pass a law that makes it obligatory to fight capitalism". Drafting citizens is not "forcing them to confront the powers that dominate them", though. It is much closer to the opposite.


Of course, during the Vietnam war, wherein the draft existed, the 'indoctrination' and 'brainwashing' worked really well on the soldiers who were throwing grenades at their officers and engaging in mass mutinies regularly, participating in the anti-war movement, giving it vitality and strength. Also in WWII, where Communist sympathies were so prevalent in the military that they would invoke the interest of HUAC and Mcarthyism.

Interestingly, however, the draft did not end up seriously threatening the state. Whatever the case, perhaps the Vietnam War is one of the best examples you can bring up in support of your argument, although I'm not sure how widespread these mutinies were and how relevant in the grand scheme of things (in comparison to more significantsources of pressure, such as the civilian section of the anti-war movement, the black rights movement, and the Vietnamese military).


If revolutionaries are so weak that their convictions would be eroded by experience in the military, then sorry, they wouldn't be revolutionaries to begin with.

Perhaps so. Unfortunately, it is a matter of fact that a lot of revolutionaries are, indeed, weak in this sense. Not everyone is equally politically conscious and intelligent in a revolutionary movement. A lot of people may join up for the wrong reasons, or with an incomplete grasp of Marxism. I know of instances of Cuban supporters of the revolution venerating Che as a saint, I'm sure the same thing applied to ordinary workers in service of the October Revolution as well. This is an unfortunate fact of life that you have to deal with, because I think it is very unfeasible to expect that every communist revolutionary will have a perfect understanding of the world by the time the conditions for a revolution are met.


So you have yet to answer my actual question: HOW would a potential revolutionary situation deal with the military? How would they?

An interesting question. This is actually something that has really given me consternation as well - I have long thought that the greatest obstacle to revolution is not fostering consciousness or "human nature" or whatever ruining an attempt at socialism, but the simple question of how to avoid being militarily suppressed.

So how will they be dealt with? Well, I doubt that a revolutionary force would be able to directly defeat the imperialist military anyways, even with a greater amount of conscripts with some military experience in the service of the revolution. IMO a revolution would rely on strikes and resistance incapacitating the economy of the state to the point where it cannot run any longer, not even to the point of continuing to attempt military suppression (and of course, a number of the state's supporters might still decide to leave the sinking ship if it gets bad enough). And, of course, defectors from the military as well as popular resistance would still be necessary to apply pressure and defend the revolution from just being suppressed straight away. It does not sound easy, but then an overreliance on the members of the bourgeois military would lead to an entirely different problem, IMO a far greater problem: that the revolution becomes a coup and that it would be the military guiding the workers, not the other way around.


So even if 50% would 'join us', that wouldn't mean shit, because it is NOT the military as far as military power goes which would be split, it would imply mean that you would have 50% of its members desert it, without any access whatsoever to military technologies, drones, and so on.

Okay, and once again: what makes you think that your solution would be better in this regard? The conscripts wouldn't be the ones to get to play with the drones and the nuclear submarines, anyway. These roles would be left to the more reliable and career-oriented (i.e. bourgeois or petty-bourgeois background) soldiers. Unless the bourgeois state is just inept, but if we make that assumption, we can justify any revolutionary strategy.


The mass-movement against the Vietnam war, ONLY made possible by the draft, was born from the same processes. Opposing the Vietnam war, in practical ways, WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE with a volunteer military.

Yes, this is a trivial argument, which can be translated as such: "you cannot oppose X if X is not there to be opposed". I mean, the Americans weren't really opposing the Vietnam War as such, weren't they? They were opposing the way it was fought - with the draft, with repression of various kinds at home etc. If the Vietnam War would have been fought with the military, the Americans wouldn't have opposed it because it was not really the Vietnamese they cared about. Some did, of course - the most politically conscious members of the anti-war movement, the communists, the ones who understood the need to have solidarity with the Vietnamese workers in order to advance their own working-class interests.. But they did not control the movement.


By the looks of lit, you aren't even close to being familiar with a quarter of the substance put forward in 'the proposal', to not even speak of it in its entirety, in fact, you have inferred stupid arguments I have never made because they sound like typical cliche's among the left.

Or, as in some cases, you have chosen to interpret my arguments in such a way that they sound absurd. Take the previous example: me saying "letting blacks into the military would not help end racism", and you complaining about how this is not what you said. At the end of the day, while we did not precisely say the same thing - we were pretty much talking about the same thing nonetheless. You said this:


it would allow for a better means that which the divide between the white working classes and black working classes inhibits political mobilization.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a way of saying "it helps end racism" or, if you prefer it that way, "it grants an opportunity to help end racism". After all, racism is pretty much the essence of the divide between the white and black working classes, isn't it? And solving that divide would stop it from inhibiting political mobilization. So yeah, same thing.


I haven't even begun to discuss how this would give ordinary people so much more leverage as far as fighting for policy-based struggles like the 15 dollar wage, universal basic income, and so on.

Not if they don't want to fight. You see, to give ordinary people the leverage to fight these struggles, you need to make them be willing to fight. Demanding a draft wouldn't give them the will to fight (the opposite is more likely, as I have already mentioned more than once). At best it would give them a tool to fight. But let's go back to the Vietnam War. The workers, enjoying the slightly increased political power they had, promptly used this tool to campaign for the end of the draft, and that was the end of the story, to put it simply. Yes, it turns out that workers think ending the draft is more urgent than fighting for communism. And I am inclined to think this will be the case in the future as well.


Who cares if they would want a better kind of capitalism?

You don't care? Odd. I would care if it turned out that one of my ideas to help bring the revolution closer was counterproductive.

Yes, we seem to think in very different ways, that is obvious. You also have a tendency to overcomplicate certain concepts, which really just serves to muddle the debate. Let me try to simplify the core of this debate. Your idea is that forcing the workers to join the imperialist military would be good because it would reduce the efficiency of the army while empowering the workers in the sense of granting them more military expertise. My counterargument is that:


There wouldn't be enough of a gain to offset the costs
If the workers understand that the draft can help them, they already have enough consciousness to be useful revolutionaries anyway. They can demand less gun control and learn to shoot at home, or join the military voluntarily and be there to split it, if they think that's useful.
As for those workers who don't understand this, they will just be further alienated - they will want to end the draft and will see the communists as their enemy in this regard. (This is a very important point, in fact, which I would like to recap. There is a crucial difference between a draft forced upon you by the bourgeoisie, and a draft forced upon you by the workers' movement. If you are opposed to the idea of being conscripted, you will struggle against the bourgeois state in the first case, but against the workers' movement in the second case. And yes, I very much doubt that any communist would really support the underlying idea of the draft: being forced to fight for a cause you don't support by a class that does not represent your interests.)

In fact, to stress that last point, I'd even like to respond to a part of another post of yours:



If [the part of the workers' movement that supports the draft] would get big enough, hypothetically, it WOULD certainly be very polarizing. Think about it. Just think about how the right wing political discourse would attack it: "It's an attack on your freedom of choice!" and so on. We could win it if it comes to that.


The last part is critical. Really? Could we? I think this debate would be a lot harder to win (remember: against an entrenched bourgeois media, no less!) than any other ideological debate related to communism we already know about, and we aren't doing too well on those.

[Rafiq]

Armchair, the reason these posts are long is because your arguments are contingent upon over-reaching ideological assumptions: Ontological ones, so much so to the point where one gets the impression that this could spiral into a debate about theology, the nature of logic, and so on here. For fuck's sake. And honestly, don't take this personally, please. It's not meant to be. Honestly try to see past this dimension here. I'm not some big asshole trying to bully you. I do this because I hold you to a higher standard. I am pointing out your faults here, yes, but this isn't a contest about who is the bigger dumbass. Let me assure you we are both as 'stupid' as each other outside of our positions here.


Honestly, Rafiq, I really can't handle the full strength of a 3600-word Rafiq-bomb. I have tried to respond to some of your points below, but do be aware that yes, I have not researched this topic to a great extent, and I've devoted far less time to it than you.

You can't "handle the full strength" and yet you want to cling on to your juvenile arguments and insist on knowing what my points "boil down to". You can't have both. Be honest. Why the fuck do you even post anything? Are we to assume the infallibility of your arguments, if every attempt I make to address them is going to be met with "Nah, not gonna read all of that, sorry, make your posts shorter"? Like I can't even RESPOND? If you're so confident you're correct on the mater, who are you trying to convince here? If it is impossible that an opponent will tell you you are wrong, why even post?

And do you understand how ridiculous you are for saying this? if I didn't go into the detail I did, the duration of this conversation would be just as long, and it would spiral into several off topic discussions and it would be composed of much more 'smaller' posts. I would say sojmething, and you would, out of another juvenile ideological assumption, call me out for something that appears erratic to you. I have to flesh out not only the arguments, but the basis of these arguemnts. ANd the reason I am doing this specifically with you, is becuase I don't want to give curious users the impression that this is a futile discussion in general. So for the sake of keeping this discussion from degrading into an ideological debate that encompasses so much more, I respond to you the way I do. The purpose is to ideologically justify the position. Most users that have posted thus far do not need this.

I am dealing with various levels of ideological assumptions and beliefs you have, that you might not be aware of. You conceive these as givens, as 'simple' truths. My posts will be just as long as they need to be in addressing this, that is the nature of cross-ideological debate.. Which YOU insist on prolonging out of a deliberate rejection of critically thinking about my 'overcomplications', Armchair, not me.


This point of mine - that the bourgeoisie would indeed send those conscripts off to die if the draft passed - deals with the part before the 'and'.

And, as I stated before, your point emanates a lack of an understanding of how a modern military actually works. You claim to know what my argument "boils down to", and yet you have just admitted that you don't read the full extent of my posts because I "overcomplicate" things. Very well, let me repeat myself:

This emanates a lack of an understanding of how a modern military actually functions. There would be absolutely no use in throwing people into the slaughtering grounds as raw cannon fodder for the simple reason that emphasis on infantry combat has greatly and overwhelmingly declined compared to previous wars. Honestly, did you even read my post? I don't see how you come to the conclusions that you do. The point was not that workers should be sent to die en masse. The point was precisely that of an opposite one: The opposition of imperialist war in practical term, subverting it, hindering it and disallowing it to come into fruition in the first place would be gained by the implementation of a draft fought for by a movement which is already anti-war in nature.

So degraded have our democratic standards been, that you actually are approaching this with such a level of externally attributed towards the state as something we are just "throwing" workers at, rather than actually challenging and impacting at the level of REAL POLITICS - you simply have failed to actually approach the real point which was being expressed in my post: Insofar as a draft exists, and insofar as a modern military would be forced to depend on one (rather than reactionary volunteers), the degree of control that which citizens will have over matters of foreign policy will greatly increase. You claim that "the state WILL use them as cheap, expendable cannon fodder wherever they are required". This is laughable, it's a pretty silly pseudo-left fantasy that has no bearing into how actual militaries function vis a vis society. Society is inter-connected enough, to be bale to express its innate disdain for this, resist this, and protest this - with or without a revolutionary movement, the broad masses of the United states would NEVER tolerate this. What you fail to understand is that the military would function as an institution of dual power in this regard - who would enforce "sending people to fight overseas", exactly? The police? When push comes to shove, the real repressive apparatus of the state that gets the last word is always going to be the military. If the military is composed of citizens at random, as a matter of a draft, then the same contradictions that manifest themselves AT THE LEVEL OF CIVIC LIFE, at he level of PUBLIC controversies, would manifest themselves at the level of the military.

As if the American people would tolerate simply being thrown into the slaughtering grounds for no fucking reason. This would literally be the equivalent of mass suicide in modern military contexts. The ONLY reason the state would even have the slightest inclination for this to happen, is purely out of spite. Again, if citizens were strong enough to be able to re-institute the draft, they certainly would be strong enough to resist any imperative by the state to spite them by sending them off to their deaths. Though, of course, in your mind, that's just so unreasonable, now isn't it. That's why I thoroughly went into detail explaining how such a notion is just a regurgitated, undying cliche of the Left that has no bearing in how militaries work in the 21st century. The epoch of trench warfare is over. Get your head out of your ass.

The reason I attack your posts, is because you literally shoot RIGHT PAST the whole fucking point of my initial post regarding the draft, which as been a means by which wars would be resisted.


Oh, I don't know, I think there have been plenty of examples of modern societies tolerating the wholesale slaughter of their conscript soldiers.

Like the Vietnam war? I'd like to hear the "plenty of examples" you speak of that are actually relevant in 2015, that would help characterize the propensity for contemporary society to tolerate this - after having been politically mobilized to re-institute the draft for clearly democratic reasons. The idea that people would just all of a sudden forget the feeling and confidence they derived from collectively pressuring the state to do this, and go die off en masse in a war when the whole purpose of the damned movement was to avoid this is so painfully stupid it actually borders the unbelievable. The notion that we are in the same epoch as one hundred years ago is literally, hilariously stupid. The US population will never tolerate the wholesale slaughter of conscripts - in fact what you fail to understand is that the move toward privatized and salaried military service was exactly a response to this. The WHOLE POINT of a draft in this context is to give citizens a greater degree of control over what the military is used for. I'm so sick of thinking for people. Like you can literally THINK on your own and understand why this argument is plainly stupid. To be able to mobilize enough people in the first place to make the necessary pressure for the re-institution of the draft, would already entail a politically conscious population. If we're going to argue that "the state will just" and so on, that assumes that the state is some big leviathan that doesn't have its own internal political contradictions and furthermore, is able to just whimsically do whatever it wants to the masses you conceive as passive animals.

I literally tried to explain this to you so desperately. You keep understanding everything in terms of existing in some vacuum. It's so ridiculous - it boggles my mind how someone can think this way. Have you no notion of context? Can you literally not even envision this in a concrete way, without resorting to silly abstractions? The grand majority of the users in this thread, whether critical or not towards me, have managed to do this. And you have not out of plain stubborn laziness, while insisting on your pride. Just stop.


Or hey, let's look at it this way: there is currently conscription in Russia. Do the Russians (without a revolutionary movement - a scenario you have allowed for) refuse to tolerate Putin's military adventures?

And this is EXACTLY what I mean when I accuse you of not being able to think about things outside of ossifying them into abstractions and pseudo-theoretical categories. The reality is that conscription in Russia does not exist and is not enforced VIS A VIS a grounded political opposition to the privatization of the military and the volunteer army. And what is painfully stupid is: Why stop at fucking Russia? Brazil, israel, all of these countries have forced conscription. It's a stupid argument, and it's for the same reason that I said:

I'd like to warn everyone that this is a heavily American-centric discussion and while - of course - while I encourage everyone no matter their national background to participate, I also ask that everyone keep in mind that I am ignorant, vaguely familiar at best of how militates function vis a vis politics in countries outside the United States. So I do not mean to generalize, or encompass (potential) political controversies that are dissimilar to that of those existing in the US.

I LITERALLY stated this in the beginning of my post! What a shocking, "overly-complicated" notion I have put forward: that the draft, or the movement towards it, has different implications, connotations and meanings on a political, social and ideological level across different contexts. You literally can't even think of things in concrete ways: EVERY SINGLE particular, tactical reference to a certain context for you must be ossified into some kind of eternal truth that has universal application. The fact of the matter is that I have made no pretenses to the Russian situation. Am i saying that the Russian military is proletairan in character? HOW THE FUCK has it been insinuated that I said this, Armchair? Is the American military in relation to the state, and the American political situation, EXACTLY THE SAME as that of Russia's, so that any reference to tactical or programmatic measures regarding the American military AUTOMATICALLY is a fucking pretense to the situation in not only Russia, but Brazil, Germany, Israel, and so on?

But I attack your silly argument anyway. In Russia, the political situation is infinitely more precarious than that of the United States, and the main reason being is that the Russian state is already not a bourgeois-liberal democracy, it is an illiberal state already. So any tactics at a revolutionary level in dealing with the Russian military would be just as arduous as dealing with the state in general: What Russians should push for is the fight for further political freedoms and the pressing of certain cultural issues (i.e. Gay rights, feminism, and the list goes on. This is just as true for Iran as it is any other reactionary state. If this was able to be successful, then it would depend on the demographic composition of the Russian armed forces (which I have every reason to assume is proletarian) as to whether the military question would uniquely be a problem. The reality is that if a progressive movement could take off in a country like Russia today, then it would most likely be able to divide the military. But again, your argument is dubious for the simple reason that the privatization of military service is quite universal everywhere, and a special emphasis on professional, private contractors is present in virtually every army. In Russia, the situation is different, therefore, the actions of Communists in Russia must be different regarding the military. Do I fucking claim to know what they should do? No, I don't. That is why I said - this is an American-centirc discussion and these tactics might very well not apply everywhere. Are you Russian? if this was the case, then you would do well to contribute to the discussion by talking about what can be done in the Russian situation. Evidently, you have decided to use the particularities of Russia's military vis a vis the state to qualify military politics in the United States.

Your argument fails to even come close to acknowledging should be a basic truism: THE REASON the re-institution of the draft in the United States would have an anti-war character is for the simple reason that the draft was abolished for the furthermore of the state's military objectives without citizens getting in the way. The very character of the movement which would seek to re-introduce the draft would have a long standing impact on the military as an institution itself. Saying this, is quite different from ossifying some eternal truth from it and abstracting it so as to come to the conclusion that: Every draft-based military is automatically resistant towards war and the prerogatives of the state. That is NOT what i am saying, this is an assumption wrought from the most juvenile kind of idealism to the point where such concerns should be taken to the philosophy forum, not here, were the topic has been made with the assumption that those participating have already sorted this out. To give you a better example, the reason we have OI (not that I am saying you belong there) is because we don't want every single fucking thread to be de-railed into discussions about why we should convince reactionaries to join us. You simply lack familiarity with the discussion at hadn, because you REFUSE to engage it without falling back on your ideologically based, pathological aversion towards it. You make broad, over-reaching generalizations about "Well the American people will remain patriotic" or "well the American people will still be the capitalist" and this is 100% meaningless. It's literally like you don't understand how political tactics work. We are not saying this will automatically bring society into Communism. We are saying that this would be a necessary PRECONDITION for a revolutionary movement. That does not mean upon being realized a revolutionary movement is guaranteed, NOTHING is guaranteed. That's how tactics work, for fuck's sake: it presupposes will.


The officers would give out the order, the soldiers would obey. You are making the mistaken assumption, apparently, that a draft would lead to a more revolutionary military rank-and-file. I contend that this is nonsense.

Revolutionary or otherwise, if a draft is won with the backing of popular support, on anti-war grounds, on grounds that citizens should have democratic control over the military apparatus (WHICH LITERALLY TRANSLATES TO CONTROL OVER WHETHER WE GO TO WAR OR NOT) by opening it to the political controversies of civic society, then you bet your ass resistance towards a war Americans don't want fought would be waged. This is what you amply don't fucking understand - you are ABSTRACTING a scenario in a vacuum wherein "The draft is in place, will soldiers obey the officers"? If you DIVORCE this from the actual fucking context, politically that is, then sure, they won't. The difference is that humans aren't robots where you can press the right buttons and X will happen without any consideration for real context. Real historical, political and social context must be acknowledged. You have not acknowledged these. instead, you resort to the logic of wisdom by telling us that "people in X circumstances will always act Y way" because of historical experience that has no bearing on present circumstances, or the CONTEXT of present circumstances.

I am not making the assumption that soldiers would automatically be fucking revolutionaries. In fact, if you actually kept up with the discussion, which you yourself admitted to not feeling obliged to do (All the while, making pretenses to knowing what my arguments "boil down to"), you'd know that I said reformists, politics from the 'bernie' momentum, etc. could trail behind it too. So a New Deal revivalist might just as back this as anyone else. That doesn't fucking matter - what matters are the tactical implications. And those are: This would open up the space FOR the politicization of military conscripts on revolutionary lines. I'm not FUCKING saying anything is guaranteed, for the last time! I am saying IT IS NOT EVEN POSSIBLE right now to deal with the military. Holy shit...


Such as? Because I don't think that the contradictions and characteristics of capitalist society in general and those of the capitalist military are one and the same

No, they're not, but the 'capitalist' military as it concerns 'capitalist' society as a whole, as it directly involves them, yes it does. It does just as much as a public healthcare service would. God this is just like the fucking Syriza debate - here we go with this worthless phrase-mongering. The "capitalist" society an the "capitalist" military? Well, that boils it down to the last 500 years of societies and militaries. Juxtaposed to WHAT? You don't realize how silly you sound. None of what you say emanates any respect for concrete conditions as they exist in the here and now.


Otherwise, I would have a pretty big moral dilemma on my hands.

Save us your petty sentimental nonsense, the ingenuity of your self-righteous pretenses to moral authority literally bleeds through your post. Draft aside, you simly fail to understand that this 'space' you have, that which you value so dearly - this 'space' where as an individual you can just let some autonomous process take care of everything, politically, this space is destroyed. This is why I must stress - this has nothing to do with the draft, but a deep seated pathological ideology on your part, and nothing more. THis is not a debate about the tactical use of re-instituting the draft, it is an ideological debate. The petty bourgeois ideologues despise and revile notions of collective solidarity. That is why the test of those who receive Jameson's brilliant insight will be: Whether they see it as "proto-Fascist" or not. The bourgeois ideologues, the "hip", post-counter culture kind, mind you (the predominant ideology, surprise surprise) will see it that way, certainly. You guise this deep seated bourgoies pathology by making ingeniune, self-righteous pretenses to 'refusing' to kill for the capitalists. How righteous of you! The state will see the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents, as they already have. But you can sit on your computer and have your moral authority in opposing it, I suppose. Your moral bankrupcy comes from the fact that THE STATE is going to wage wars and murder people without the draft. The POINT of the draft would be to disallow the prerogatives of the state to be realized militarily if they conflict with the interests of the broad masses. So if anything, YOU ARE in fact backing the wholesale slaughter of human life on behalf of the bourgeois state, you simply don't even want to acknowledge that you are a part of the totality which is responsible for this crime because of your worthless "individualism". We are living in an epoch of Imperialism. So I dismiss and I attack your crocodile sentiments and your pretenses to moral authority.

But honest to god, Armchair, no one gives a damn about your special, empty notion of "rights" and how it stubbornly relates to you. You're in no fucking position to be so confident in your 'feelings' and superficial beliefs. Really, you're not. If I had this mentality, if anyone had this mentality upon first approaching the ideas of Communism, they wouldn't have gotten anywhere. Hell, go look at my posts 5 years ago. If I was able to stomach the humility of renouncing certain religious sentiments, and EVERYTHING I thought I knew, you can stomach the humility of critically approaching the basis of your aversion, rather than wallowing in self-righteousness in it. These are reserved fro the petty bourgeois intelligentsia. The broad masses are looking for alternatives, Armchair is quite set in his beliefs, and we understand this. You must understand, while we acknowledge your disapproval, you do NOT speak for the broad masses. that's all I'm fucking saying - you don't. So saying any such movement is doomed to failure because of your OWN aversion to it is the problem here. You want to insist that "These are my rights, and if the costs outweigh the benefits, I would no longer be a communist". No one cares if you're a Communist (or if I am, or if anyone else is for that matter). Communism doesn't owe you shit. You either dedicate yourself to the political struggle, or you go about your trivial "individuality". No one is really trying to convince you of anything. Real socialists regularly struggle with themselves and their own 'moral' beliefs.

You're literally like a religious person who is a 'socialist' insofar as it won't contradict his deep seated religious beliefs. This domain of the 'sacred' for Socialists is ideologically invested in the revolution. Wholly. No ifs or buts about it. There are so few of us at this point, no one really cares about convincing you, me or any other intellectual. As an intellectual, it is YOUR responsibility to already have faith in the ideas of Communism and disseminate consciousness among the broad masses who aren't as lucky. Even if you are 100% a proletarian, you don't represent them - by merit of being an intellectual. Having experience at university, I am so sick of Leftists thinking they are owed something. They aren't. You either give yourself to the cause, or you stop pretending to identify with it. Even if ordinary people share your reservations on a superficial level, YOU reinforce those beliefs as an active ideologue, they simply passively adopt them out of proximity. Thus, Alex Jones, for example doesn't represent his viewers, because his viewers are uninformed and are not ACTIVE ideologues like him.

Armchair seems to be under the impression that he is now outside of state control, too. You're not. The state already dominates you. The draft won't make a difference to this end for working people, already enslaved by want, already marginalized and brutalized by the police, already with no sense of solidarity, belonging or dignity. It will make a difference for the bloodsuckers, yuppies and petty bourgeoisie who: 1. Don't want to be lowered from their class position to the 'filth' of the commons, as equals to the 'unwashed' masses, 2. Don't want the military composed of elements that could potentially turn on them, unlike the volunteer/privatized model.


History has proven you wrong numerous times. Not everyone is perfectly rational or even particularly courageous. People can, indeed, be intimidated into acting against their interests.

YOU are the one who said people won't die for a cause they don't support. Have you reversed your position? Again, you keep giving us 'eternal truths' without any respect for context. Why in this context would they be intimidated? WE are not speaking of individuals. We are speaking of socetial controversies. What bravery would people in the Vietnam war have, that soldiers today wouldn't have in opposing the war?


You mean, aside from the pretty clear fact that the bourgeoisie would be much more likely to fulfill the roles of officers, specialists etc.?

Officers yes, specialists no. A random draft would assort people to those kinds of positions, so while the bourgeoisie would probably have higher ranks, there is no reason to think they would occupy the role of military technicians, specialists, and so on. That is the point of the draft itself, after all. Regarding officers, the whole point of a military mutiny would be to overthrow them while retaining the power of that military - at the level of weapons technology and organization. a proletarian revolution won't just be led by jobless, unskilled people. It will include various non-bourgeois specialists, who, like the intelligentsia, would be divided, and so on. If it doesn't, it's doomed to fail anyway. But it's pointless anyway, considering the fact that military recruits are disproportionately of petty bourgeois/bourgeois backgrounds, not of the proletariat. The notion that only the military elite are able to equip, safeguard and possess technologies is groundless and silly.


Drafting citizens is not "forcing them to confront the powers that dominate them", though. It is much closer to the opposite.

Yeah, in fact, it is. After the police, WHAT POWERS stand in the way of the political power of the people? It's the military. So yes, a draft would force them to confront those powers, insofar as those powers would now depend on them. Militaires will go overseas and butcher innocents while citizens stand idly by and not give a shit because they have NOTHING to do with it.

Communists will smash the growing technocracy in any way they can. The draft WOULD force people to confront those powers at the level of direct proximity. And no one is saying my argument is without flaw, by the way. I have acknowledged problems it entails we should be discussing. YOU have not touched upon those, however.


Interestingly, however, the draft did not end up seriously threatening the state. Whatever the case, perhaps the Vietnam War is one of the best examples you can bring up in support of your argument, although I'm not sure how widespread these mutinies were and how relevant in the grand scheme of things (in comparison to more significantsources of pressure, such as the civilian section of the anti-war movement, the black rights movement, and the Vietnamese military).

Honestly, just stop. It's literally silly at this point. The draft did not seriously threaten the state? It didn't? The WHOLE Vietnam anti-war movement was CONTINGENT upon the draft and NOT ONLY the Vietnam veterans, but the youths who were ALL potentially susceptible to be drafted off to go and fight. The same goes for the civil rights movement - it wouldn't have been possible without the draft, without the ingrained political standards that blacks derived from WWII, the post-war baby boom and society, and so on. All of the things you mention were heavily, heavily inter-connected to the point where speaking of them separately is almost stupid. There was no dichotomy between the draft, the black rights movement, the "civilian section" (who were susceptible to being sent off to fight). The Vietnam war waged by DRAFT. EVERYONE was impacted. That's why it was so controversial in the first place! It's BASIC LOGIC and BASIC thinking which is lacking here, and it's not because you were born stupid, it's because you INSIST on not thinking critically for ideological reasons. It's so, so frustrating.


Perhaps so. Unfortunately, it is a matter of fact that a lot of revolutionaries are, indeed, weak in this sense. Not everyone is equally politically conscious and intelligent in a revolutionary movement. A lot of people may join up for the wrong reasons, or with an incomplete grasp of Marxism. I know of instances of Cuban supporters of the revolution venerating Che as a saint, I'm sure the same thing applied to ordinary workers in service of the October Revolution as well.

That is literally the worst example possible. Workers in service of the october revolution, who endured much, much worse, the COUNTLESS Bolsheviks who were sent off to Siberia, beaten, tortured, who literally went through the worst hell? Revolutionary IDEAS that cannot inspire necessary devotion are TOO WEAK. It is not the revolutionaries who are weak, but the relationship to the ideas themselves. That was my point. I claim your argument was silly for the simple reason that - being a Communist AGITATOR is not conditional by how 'soft' your experiences are. You must already fill your mind with not only all the treasures, but all the horrors of mankind. that doesn't mean fighting in a war, it means recognizing, soberingly, the traumas of life.

Never mind that though. Forget it. Your argument was that communist agitators would join the military and leave disillusioned because they get PTSD and are 'brainwashed'. I claim this is a stupid argument


IMO a revolution would rely on strikes and resistance incapacitating the economy

See, you don't understand how strikes work. It doesn't happen overnight. One strike goes on, and it inspires others. Literally the only outcome of this would be - NOT EVEN the military, but the police would crush these strikes if it needed to come to that. And that's it. The faith Leftists have in the general strike is so appallingly ridiculous in modern contexts. What you say relies on nothing more than the assumption some spontaneous strike that encompass the whole country at once will just 'happen'. It won't. That requires a degree of political consciousness and a political movement. Whose existence, again, would be thwarted by the threat of the military. You see, I can't derail this into a discussion about the viability of the mass strike, for fucks' sake.

First you say that people aren't brave and that people are easily intimidated. And now you rely on the faith that brutal state repressions using the military, or a militarized police to crush a potentially dangerous strike wouldn't intimidate the broad masses at all. But it doesn't matter. Why? Because you can bet at least 20% of society will not be with us come a revolution. If we do not take over the military machine, via a great mutiny, they will use it against us, even if all strikes are successful. Let's say the strikes are successful. What happens after that, when an international force comes to crush a great bunch of disorganized striking workers without any firepower or military means to them? What happens then? How much of that 80% will hold the line with absolutely no confidence in anything? The military is NECESSARY.


but then an overreliance on the members of the bourgeois military would lead to an entirely different problem, IMO a far greater problem: that the revolution becomes a coup and that it would be the military guiding the workers, not the other way around.

What a silly argument! The military would at this point be COMPOSED of workers! It's like you can't even envision a military beyond our professional, volunteer military. Sorry, that's NOT the argument. The 'military' would NOT constitute some separate caste we must win over, but something which is just as ambiguous as bourgeois civic society itself - the citizen would the soldier, not the other way around. Do you even know what a draft means or what it entails?


These roles would be left to the more reliable and career-oriented (i.e. bourgeois or petty-bourgeois background) soldiers. Unless the bourgeois state is just inept,

That simply sin't true. A military wide mutiny by proletarian, revolutionary elements would be enough to usurp these and take them over. We are speaking of an INSTITUTION WIDE mutiny. Not simply mass desertion, but the taking over of military technologies. The bourgeois state isn't TACTICALLY engaged in the class struggle consciously. They don't think in terms of "Hmm, let's give the nukes to the petty bourgeoisie, 40% to the bourgeoisie, etc.". That's so silly. If they thought like that, they wouldn't be a bourgeois state at all. The bourgeoisie is not capable of class consciousness. You see how this gets de-railed into theoretical issues which should be an axiom for a Marxist? Like THIS IS WHY MY POSTS ARE LONG.


Yes, this is a trivial argument, which can be translated as such: "you cannot oppose X if X is not there to be opposed". I mean, the Americans weren't really opposing the Vietnam War as such, weren't they? They were opposing the way it was fought - with the draft, with repression of various kinds at home etc. If the Vietnam War would have been fought with the military, the Americans wouldn't have opposed it because it was not really the Vietnamese they cared about.

K, that's my point. What you gloss over in your little "translation", however, is the fact that we are talking about control over the armed apparatus. It doesn't matter how many politically conscious people are leading the anti-war movement, this consciousness wouldn't mean shit if it didn't actually relate to the broad American masses who were in direct proximity with the conflict. As you claim, they didn't spontaneously care about the Vietnamese, they were only ABLE to care about them when they were made as the vehicles of attacking them. Compare that to the Iraq war: Doesn't matter how many politically conscious anti-war activists you have, the war was waged in such a way that didn't involve civic society.


So yeah, same thing.

No, it's NOT the fucking same thing. I did not say it would end racism - which is a PHENOMENA, I said it would help overcome the BASIS Of racism, not simply "racism" as such, but the BASIS of racism. There is a difference - the latter is being used here as an abstraction, the former is dealing with its concrete basis, which IS owed to the political divide between them as a result of mass ghettoization, among other things. And yes, I said it would provide a unique opportunity for this racial divide to be overcome politically. A POSSIBILITY. NOT a guarantee. Like what's so stupid about your argument is that Marx made a similar one to mine: That the abolition of slavery would help overcome the divide between the blacks and whites. He did not say it would AUTOMATICALLY do this, he said it would provide the opportunity to do this politically. The American socialists obviously failed to this end - that doesn't mean ending slavery made no difference as to how likely they were able to have done this. Were socialists JUST AS inept in combating racism, slavery withstanding, then without? No, they weren't. So you couldn't have said: "Marx said ending slavery would end racism" just from extrapolating his observation to that end.

So did I fucking say it would automatically end racism? No, I said it would make possible the racial divide to be overcome on political lines AS IT PERTAINS TO POLITICAL STRUGGLE. That alone won't end racism, the proletarian dictatorship will. The significance is TACTICAL. For fucks' sake. If this political struggle fails, then the racial divide would be reinforced and racism would be persist. You can't just "end"racism by decree. It is a societal PHENOMENA.


Not if they don't want to fight. You see, to give ordinary people the leverage to fight these struggles, you need to make them be willing to fight. Demanding a draft wouldn't give them the will to fight (the opposite is more likely, as I have already mentioned more than once)

No, you actually don't. Those are two entirely different issues. One concerns the dissemination of political consciousness among workers, an issue we have discussed thoroughly in DIFFERENT Threads, the other concerns tactical problems with taking this to its fullest conclusion. The issue of worker's PROPENSITY to fight for things is an issue WITH OR WITHOUT the draft. We have discussed it before, for the past 100 years. It's always been the same fucking ting: Workers will fight, if they have the hope to. Workers are not satisfied with present conditions, even if Armchair might be. That's why they're flocking to Trump and reaction, and in Europe, fascism.

Right now, it's hard to wage those struggle. It's hard to organize people and it's hard to connect people in a shared civic, political space. The draft would make this less difficult. SINCE we are presupposing the draft would require a mass progressive political movement, then it's settled: THIS SAME MOVEMENT, or the same MOMENTUM from it would also lead to OTHER demands, inevitably. Just do the fucking math. It's not hard. Think about it. You literally sit there and DEMAND I FORCE you to think otherwise. No one owes you anything. You either think critically, or you stop engaging the discussion like you know what you're talking about.


The workers, enjoying the slightly increased political power they had, promptly used this tool to campaign for the end of the draft, and that was the end of the story, to put it simply.

Workers ended the draft? That is nothing more than a fairy tail. The draft was ended by Nixon, who promised it in his platform for election. The alternative he proposed was an all-volunteer military for the EXACT reason that the draft was too difficult to maintain for the state, because it fostered the anti-war movement. Literally use your head: WHY WOULD NIXON promise an end to the draft, if he wasn't able to provide a better alternative for the bourgeois state? The volunteer-military reached its fruition at the onset of neoliberalism, where it was institutionally designed to prevent ANY democratic control over the military and matters of foreign policy. That's it. End of story. That people didn't have the foresight to see the over-reaching implications of this is supposed to mean what, exactly? We are talking about ORGANIZING people. Not passively watching them do things totally arbitrarily.

The toll of war on this country has been so high in terms of how wars have detracted spending on public works, so yes, there is enough sentiment to want to control the military democratically, as well as respond to the issue of increased police militarization as well as some of the insecurity working people have felt with the recent anti-gun laws. It would be a POLITICAL, DEMOCRATIC measure, not an economic one necessarily. It would be fought for under the banner of dual power and demanding leverage over the state. So it is comparable to a political fight for democratic freedoms you found in despotic autocratic states like Russia, though obviously not the same and not to such an extent. I'm trying to give you a feel of where I am coming from here.


You don't care? Odd. I would care if it turned out that one of my ideas to help bring the revolution closer was counterproductive.

Please, for fuck's sake, just stop. I DON'T CARE because I KNOW that this is literally meaningless. We are talking about TACTICS here. if people would just end up wanting a "better capitalism", I said IT DOES NOT MATTER because the practical effects of this WOULD NOT lead to a "better capitalism" AND PEOPLE WOULD LEARN THAT. For FUCK'S sake. Your own disilusionment and lack of faith in the particular ideas of Communism is the issue here, not that of the masses. I didn't just fucking say "who cares". Stop quoting me out of context. I SAID:

You claim that "they will simply want a better kind of capitalism". You project your own ideological insecurities onto the broad masses. Who cares if they would want a better kind of capitalism? Do you THINK a better kind of capitalism is even immediately possible, or would be able to survive and endure in the long run? If a "better kind of capitalism" was possible, there would no point in being a Communist. Again, rather than conceiving the masses as potentially active political subjects, you think they're animals who will react in this or that way. That is pathologically a bourgeois approach to democratic matters. The reality is that the space of possibility that which we could organize and approach the masses, weaponizing them with proletarian consciousness, would greatly expand and open up.

Those Leftists who oppose reformsim on worthless moral grounds, who think reformism is actually possible but oppose it because "Well, not my opinion", that is the epitome of ridiculousness. Reforming capitalism WILL NOT alleviate the ills of working people in the long run. Being ABLE to reform capitalism in 2015 would require the same vitality, politically, and the same energy as a full blown socialist revolution would. That's how unlikely it is. Social democracy is dead, and will always be dead. The contradictions would remain. For people to even muster up the confidence in making such over-reaching changes, would necessarily presuppose the dominance of proletarian consciousness and revolutionary class struggle, in other words, radicalization. The idea that people will just want a 'better capitalism' reformism assumes that 'reformism' is not already requiring of an extremist kind of politics. This bourgeois mentality derives from the same kind of theoretical laziness that ONLY approaches the arguments at face value, rather than the ideological complexiites, and ultimately the material and social basis of it, that sustains them. In other words, this "true Communism", socialism-in-thought, is just as 'ideological' as a Reddit subforum. It is just as precariously held as ANY partisan position in bourgeois society, it respects only thoughts, and not the underlying social basis of those thoughts.

The masses ALREADY are not Communists. For them to want a "better kind of capitalism" would be a fucking step up of their present state of consciousness. The working classes have nothing to lose. They are not like the bourgeoisie who must make compromises to this end. So 'beliefs' in a 'better capitalism' would be triumphed by real, concrete expereinces collectively and the real possibility that capitalism in fact does not have to exist. WHY SHOULD a 'better' kind of capitalism exist, when capitalism does not have to exist? Why should compromise be made where there doesn't need to be any? "The power of ideology and brainwash over the masses". No, Armchair, OVER YOU. This "power" will become dust the minute the masses have the necessary confidence in themselves and in their own power. Historical experience proves that, if nothing else.


Yes, we seem to think in very different ways, that is obvious. You also have a tendency to overcomplicate certain concepts, which really just serves to muddle the debate. Let me try to simplify the core of this debate.

You can't "simplify" it because it's as simple as it is already. So what you are in effect doing is making a straw man and talking out of your ass. In order to simplify a complex thing, you have to actually engage the complex thing. You haven't done this. So what exactly is your point here?


Your idea is that forcing the workers to join the imperialist military would be good because it would reduce the efficiency of the army while empowering the workers in the sense of granting them more military expertise.

I DIDN'T FUCKING reduce the argument to that. As I said to Juan, who actually can engage in this discussion without de-railing it into a petty, juvenile ontological crisis:

It's not SIMPLY just about giving the working class necessary military training and representation in the ranks. That is only a single aspect - the other is in fact subverting the whole institution of the military and disallowing its quasi-privatization supplemented with increased police militarization. If a war is waged today, in another Iraq, wherever you want, it can be waged independently of what citizens want or think - there is plenty enough a good supply of rabid reactionaries who will be willing to take up arms, as shown by the data I gave, 50% of whom are by no meaningful definition possibly from the working class - the proportions who join out of non-economic (i.e. college) reasons are also unknown among the 'working class' 50%, but we can rightfully assume them to be significantly high.

The reasons are infinitely more complex than what you state. It would allow POLITICAL STRUGGLES to impact the state's ability to wage wars. It's not just about efficiency: it's about POWER at this level. And it's not just because the military would have more proletarians. The military can have 100% proletarians and still be a professional army. It's because the military would represent and be composed of ORDINARY citizens. That means the controversies of civic life would impact the military, and vice versa. It's much more complex then you are trying to make it.

If you think this stupid, juvenile list can even come close to engaging the substantive points at hand, please just stop talking:


They can demand less gun control and learn to shoot at home, or join the military voluntarily and be there to split it, if they think that's useful.

Holy fuck. They can demand less gun control? Oh, you know what, I quit. Armchair is right. FUCK! I should have thought about that! IF ONLY there were more GUNS and infantrymen, more militias! I TOTALLY DIDN'T ALREADY TALK ABOUT THIS. K. Go practice with your assault rifle and take on weaponized aircraft, tanks, drones, missiles and military technologies in general: You know, the things which actually win wars, not fucking duck-hunting ass rifles.

And joining the military voluntarily is just as stupid as an argument as demanding workers 'voluntarily' form co ops instead of taking over the factories. INSTITUTIONAL, legal, and structural changes must be made for those kinds of demands, 'volunteer' models would be nothing more than a fucking charity. We have plenty of those. You KNOW shit doesn't work like that, and I can go into great depth why. Do I really have to? I'm so sick of arguing basic truisms and things that literally require only THINKING about them.

Mobilizing workers to join the military is so fucking stupid, because it would inevitably turn them into professional soldiers. The military is not structured institutionally to accomodate for a draft-based, democratic military. The draft would ALTER its character to this end, no amount of 'volunteering' to join is giong to solve this. In addition, no one will buy this model of doing things. Peopel will fight for something that encompasses the very basis of their lives. It's just as stupid to think that individual recycling will solve the ecological crisis rather than actual insittutional changes. But the proposal is purported to be much more honest. It wouldn't automatically entail revolutionary consciousness, LIBERALS and progressives can support it too. To be able to mobilize people so acutely so as to make them join the military en masse rather than fight for institutional changes to be made at the level of policy making, for POLITiCALLY ambiguous reasons, which is the point of minimal program, we are NOWHERE NEAR at the level of whimsically deploying people to ANY ends individually. May as well demand workers who want universal healthcare "set up their own" medical facilities with doctors who will help them out of altruism. Just stop.

The point is that it would help form the basis of BUILDING worker's consciouness. Workers consciousness being a necessary pre-requisite for this action, that is not assumed in the argument being made.


they will want to end the draft and will see the communists as their enemy in this regard.

how would the draft then be able to even be implemented? I SAID IT WOULD NECESSARILY ENTAIL A MASS MOVEMENT WITH POPULAR SUPPORT TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN THE FIRST PLACE. For FUCK'S sake. You should attack THAT, the viability of forming this mass movement, because your argument is so stupid - HOW could a fucking draft even be in place in the first place if worker's weren't behind it to begin with? Literally LISTEN to yourself. JUST THINK. I'm not going to think for you! Your arguments are so silly. "They will be futher alienated". So are you saying I seek to implement a draft magically without popular support? THE STATE DOES NOT WANT IT. WHO ELSE BUT THE BROAD MASSES COULD PRESSURE THE STATE TO IMPLEMENT IT, IN YOUR MIND?


And yes, I very much doubt that any communist would really support the underlying idea of the[/I] [I]draft: being forced to fight for a cause you don't support by a class that does not represent your interests.)

The "idea" he sais, as though we're talking about abstract, ossified principles. "That just doesn't smell right in my mind". Marxism for you, ladies and gentlemen. By this logic COmmunists should just run into the fucking woods and die, because YOU ARE SERVING THE CLASS ENEMY AND THE BOURGEOIS STATE ANYWAY. Do you "like" the idea as a commmunist of going to work? Of complying with laws? Of paying taxes? I can go into so much depth here. It is TACTICALLY WORTHLESS to talk about which 'ideas' smell right or wrong.

"Don't like the idea" he sais. While he pays taxes to fund imperialist wars that butcher hundreds of thousands. While he is using a computer made with precious minerals mined in Africa by slaves and assembled by wage slaves in China. "Don't like the idea" he sais. WE ARE NOT IN A POSITION to conform reality to what we 'like' arbitrarily and in a way that is tactically tasteless. If you want to do that, join a charity, or run around naked in the woods for all we care. We are talking about SUPERSEDING capitalism, which is full of internal contradictions, not retreating from it because you don't "like the idea" of it. You are not free, Armchair. You are not "outside" of things to have a moral authority over them, to pick and choose what you would 'like' to do. Get over it. And again, it's stupid because the whole fucking point is that this would be an impediment to 'fighting' in overseas wars and wars in general insofar as the masses oppose them. WE ARE AT A STAGE WHERE EVEN IF wars are UNPOPULAR, they can still be waged seamlessly. Like actually THINK about that! Fighting for democratic decency leads to the logical conclusion of Communism.

So I ask you again: HOW TACTICALLY would a draft entail 'going and fighting' for the class enemy in a way that you are not already? HOW? The whole POINT is that it would IMPEDE this, anyway. You claim "no communist would support the idea". K, Frederic Jameson and his left-libertarian friend do. As do a wide assortment of intellectuals on the Left who are endorsing his new book which comes out in June of next year. But I really don't give a shit, 90% of people who call themselves Communists today will probably have no representation in any future Communist movement.


The last part is critical. Really? Could we? I think this debate would be a lot harder to win (remember: against an entrenched bourgeois media, no less!) than any other ideological debate related to communism we already know about, and we aren't doing too well on those.

And you respect the bourgeois state and its media far beyodn what it is actually capable of. Communism SUPERSEDES these things - so that 'the media' won't even have the language to respond. Is the bourgeois media in favor of Trump? No, they aren't. Culturally, all outlets of media demonize Trump. They do, really. Go on Youtube, go anywhere. And yet that doesn't do shit for his level of support. Likewise, the media doesn't really talk about Sanders, and he's still getting quite big.

"The media" is not what is powerful. It is the complex network of ideology that it speaks for. It is how the media relates to people. Only pseudo-Leftists think this is some major challenge. The media's legitimacy is already waning, anyway. You really don't understand the all-encompassing ramifications of political class struggle. It transforms. EVERYTHING. And to think there is a big media conspiracy is also silly. OWS alone had a huge cultural impact on the media and different representations of it, both positive and negative are there. It's not simply all propaganda. Again, there are internal contradictions here - the STATE and the media do not transcend the social antagonism. But what is the point of your argument, really? Why not retreat into nihilism? ANY polarizing Left-wing debate has the media to answer to. This is not unique to the issue of the draft. So what's your point? When capitalism is superseded, it is SUPERSEDED, its INTERNAL antagonisms are brought to its highest conclusion. This polarizes society. We are not in autocratic Russia where we have to rob banks and shit. We live in what is the vestige of a bourgeois democracy, which means we have a degree of political freedom to organize.

I mean the best example of how your argument is baseless is Greece: In Greece, the WHOLE media was attacking Syriza. I mean, the oligarchs DIRECTLY controlled the media in demonizing Syriza, in doing EVERYTHING they could to stop them. And what did the Greek people do? They turned off their TV and didn't give a shit. They voted NO in the referendum of the summer, and even when they got fucked over they voted for Syriza again. Do NOT over-estimate the power of the media. IDEOLOGY is much more important, and this has its basis in people's conditions of life, not some external brainwashing machine as some paranoiac pseudo-Chomskyans think.

[Jacob Cliff]

It would be fought for by left wing politics? It's hard enough to convince the already infantile libertarian-socialist dominated trends in American communism to accept the necessity of revolution and party dictatorship, but now we are going to publicize our aims by fighting for the draft? I am no cynic, but I'm also not too optimistic about this prospect that we would be able to actually make the draft a serious issue. We would become the laughing stock – more so than today – of the political scene. You already acknowledge the seemingly absurd proposal to "Draft us!", and I very well understand the purpose of such a demand (that would weaken the bourgeois state, allow a sort of "dual-power," etc.). But given that most – in fact, "most" may even be an underestimate – of the proletariat is not communist nor interested in demands that would destroy the modern bourgeois state, how the hell will we carry them with us towards socialism? I mean, how the fuck will we be able to make "the drafting of proletarian and semiproletarian strata" even a somewhat important issue? The proletariat – whose class dictatorship we stand for – will be terribly confused at the emerging proposals that communists have been raising to "reinstitute the draft." On top of that, imagine the slander, the lies and the propaganda that will be spread against communists on top of what already exists. Not only will we be seen as utopian idealists detached from reality (or Slavaboos who are ignorant beyond comprehension), we will be seen as anti-proletarian and terribly authoritarian (not that the latter matters, but the very thought of that word scares Americans shitless).
In other words, what I'm trying to say is this: the practical use of such an aim is of necessity, and would certainly work out in our favor if it came into fruition, but we, campaigning as "communists for a draft," would not only attract the venomous slander of the Right which we already suffer from at terrible degrees, with their conflation of such demands to weaken capitalism with the revolutionary program itself, but we will also give the appearance of an anti-proletarian movement. I guarantee you, your average Prole isn't going to support a demand to reinstate the draft – he will look at such a demand as either laughably irrelevant or hostile to his existence as a class. Even if you wish to directly express in a movement to reinstate the draft that this has the aim of bringing the capitalist state to its knees, we will hardly attract a soul to this cause. Perhaps I'm being too pessimistic, or not fully comprehending your point, but this seems hopeless to me. I think if socialism is going to come to America, it's going to need to come through a coup. We simply don't have the support for a violent revolution, and we certainly don't have the support to muster a movement of pro-draft proletarians, who, in their minds, are voting for the demand: "Send me to my death!"

[Guardia Rossa]

Rafiq appears to have the correct understanding of the matter but he is overtly optimistic on how game-changing is conscription.

In Brazil, in the democratic getulism "era" we had sections of the army that were communist, this ended in 1964. They have revolutionary potential, but only in revolutionary situations.

But I doubt of making this our objectives. Really looks like acelerationism, but It's not.

EDIT: Or, What MarxianSocialist said. He beat me to it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The video I linked goes much farther than this in that it seeks to turn the military as an institution into an instituional embryo for a proletarian dictatorship, with an emphasis placed on draft-based public works, dealing with ecological crises's, and so on. It's very interesting.

And they are not crazy either. In fact, jameson and his friend speaker are both 'libertarians' in their approach, the latter goes as far as saying that we must 'combine anarchism with Marxism'. Obviously disagree towards this end, but I want to illustrate that they aren't proposing a military dictatorship but looking at institutions already existing which organizational structures (for running a society) could be based.

Obviously, that's a different discussion, right now we are talking about the tactical issue of the military. I do believe, however, they are inter-related.

Well, comrade, I did create this discussion for a reason:

"All power to the workers militia"? On workers paramilitary orgs / paramilitias (http://www.revleft.com/vb/all-power-workers-t173926/index.html)

[Rudolf]

Wow, I never expected to come across an argument for the draft this compelling. Tbh though i don't think the draft is possible now, seriously what use is the draft in modern warfare?

[Rafiq]

It would be fought for by left wing politics? It's hard enough to convince the already infantile libertarian-socialist dominated trends in American communism to accept the necessity of revolution and party dictatorship, but now we are going to publicize our aims by fighting for the draft?

In fact we don't need the support of those who presently call themselves Leftists. If the Left was reducible to that, there would be no history of the Left. Every single breakthrough of Left wing politics was at the expense of the prevailing 'trends', from Marx and Engels breaking with the Young Hegelians to the tiny Zimmerwald Left which would later go on to dominate the Left in the form of the comintern. That is not what Left wing politics is contingent upon - these types are provisionalities of history, their existence is not really anything of consequence in this context. It is telling, yes, but not of any tactical consequence.

I am not saying there are any easy solutions here. I am also not trying to spin some kind of new dogma. Some kind of imperative to transform the military, to politicize the issue of increased militarization of the police as well as the new reliance on private contractors, needs to be made. If it is not, there is no chance of a revolution. Period.


We would become the laughing stock – more so than today – of the political scene. You already acknowledge the seemingly absurd proposal to "Draft us!"

If it was simply some bizarre, fringe pamphlet-based traditional sectarian agitation, it would be the laughing stock of Revleft probably. If this issue were able to permeate the political scene so well that it would be qulaified on its terms, then no, it wouldn't be any laughing stock, because the rationale would be implicit in the demand. It wouldn't simply be construed as "bring back the draft" for no reason. That's why I stress, opening up the debate along would be a victory, because it brings attention to the decline of democratic decency as reflected by the inability for citizens to have any say, control or impact on the armed and repressive apparatus of the bourgeois state. This is a general trend towards a rent-based, neofeudal society we need to address.

I don't think this would be crazy in the eyes of public discourse. It would be confusing insofar as it could weaken the prevailing petty bourgeois consensus that the "government is gaining too much power over our lives". Militias are not demographically just composed of the petty bourgeoisie. Here in Michigan, which has some of the most militias in the whole country, a lot of them are composed of working-class whites who got fucked by globalization and NAFTA. Followers of populists like Alex Jones, Ron Paul, there are huge chunks of proletarians there. The demand for a democratic politics vis a vis the growing decline of democratic standards, is clearly present among the working class. It is not just paranoia - democratic decency IS being eroded in every possible way, from our slow acceptance of torture ethically, TV shows that deal with some kind of 'hidden' world of monsters which only a group of experts are equipped to deal with, the rise of abuses of information technology to serve corporate and political ends, privatization of police, prison labor, and the military, and the list goes on. There are serious political problems we are presently facing. This is under the backdrop of a wider emerging barbarism.

The only way to fight this is through political struggle.


But given that most – in fact, "most" may even be an underestimate – of the proletariat is not communist nor interested in demands that would destroy the modern bourgeois state, how the hell will we carry them with us towards socialism?

Socialism is not some 'thing' you need to sell to people. All the cold-war mentalities, all the 'deeply ingrained' anti-Communist rhetoric would wash away like nothing in the midst of giving it a new, practical context. Hegel tells us that we learn nothing from history, and he's right. Society is something which regularly is reproduced, it is not some 'remnant' of the past or the culmination of developments. It is self sufficient unto itself as a totality.

The proletariat is not Communist, but we are speaking about jargon here. Such minimal political demands could carry them to socialism as it would instill in them the necessary confidence that they can both be a formidable force, while at the same time realize demands in their favor. Lenin talks all about this - workers are never content in capitalism. Every single gain they make will be followed by new demand.


I mean, how the fuck will we be able to make "the drafting of proletarian and semiproletarian strata" even a somewhat important issue?

You wouldn't. The rhetoric behind the demand would be: Re-institution of the draft for all able bodied citizens from age [x]-[x]. This would mean it would be at random. I went over this several times: This is NOT just about getting more proletarians in the military. Even if the military was 100% proletarian it would not solve our problem, which is the volunteer military, which attracts only certain particular types of proletarians (for non-economic reasons).


The proletariat – whose class dictatorship we stand for – will be terribly confused at the emerging proposals that communists have been raising to "reinstitute the draft."

Thing is, it doesn't matter if communists or revolutionaries are proposing it, because proletarians aren't really familiar with communist politics anyway. the point is of tactical significance. There is no reason to be confused if the political aims, on an immediate, minimal level, are made crystal clear. I compare it to this end to the 15 dollar wage. Now anyone can back the 15 dollar wage, communist or otherwise. It doesn't matter.

Communist politics doesn't come out of nowhere. It derives from the actual building of a political movement which has relevance in relation to people's lives.


On top of that, imagine the slander, the lies and the propaganda that will be spread against communists on top of what already exists.

So? The assumption that propaganda is effective solely unto its own merits is silly. Propaganda can be as "slanderous" and vicious as possible. Unless it really, truly relates to people, it doesn't mean shit. Nothing was worse than Russian anti-semitism. The Bolsheviks prevailed. So there will be a horrible reaction to this. We can handle it. If we can't handle the reaction, then we were too weak to exist anyway. That it "sounds bad" in the context of Reddit politics, or politics as purely conceived in-thought as an abstraction, shouldn't bother us. What matters are concrete implications.

Do you know how silly it would have been for someone to propose Trump run for president and gain popularity? It happened. Things happen which defy conventional standards and norms. Such is the way of history.


but we, campaigning as "communists for a draft," would not only attract the venomous slander of the Right which we already suffer from at terrible degrees,

Let me be quite clear: Communists are irrelevant. It doesn't mean anything to be a Communist in the context of American politics in 2015. When the time comes where Communists put their money where their mouth is, above all others, then it will mean something to be a Communist. All we have to identify as Communists are our historical traditions, which we use to approximate to our own concrete circumstances. We aren't trying to mold reality to our abstract ideas. We're trying to locate the antagonisms present in our reality.

Such a movement would most likely engage progressives of many orientations, not just self-proclaimed radicals. Or, conversely, it could be the start of an entirely new radical political tradition in the US, similar to the "radical Left" that started as a result of Syriza, which we now see with Corbyn, and so on. We must focus on politics as they exist now, not what we want them to be. Let's ask: Why does Bernie Sanders get popular? What do people like about him, and why? Or Trump even? These are the questions which matter.

The Right will, insofar as capitalism exists, always be the Right, always venomously slander Communists. The IMPACT of this 'slander' is NOT based on the character of words alone, but the conditions of political struggle, the very context of those words. I already mentioned: All media outlets demonize Trump. And he gets more popular because of it.


We simply don't have the support for a violent revolution, and we certainly don't have the support to muster a movement of pro-draft proletarians, who, in their minds, are voting for the demand: "Send me to my death!"

Well look, all I want us to do is think about this critically. It is possible that a demand for the re-institution of the draft might only come AFTER a political, class based, sophisticated movement comes into fruition, as part of this movement's demands. I am not trying to spin some new dogma, or some new cult of the draft. The democraticzation of the military would obviously be justified in terms of universal healthcare, free education, giving citizens more power over the state, and so on. The latter issue is obviously enough of a problem so that a sizable number of proletarians are in militias, favor pro-assault rifle legislation, and so on.

What I seek to do in this thread, is to get this idea in people's heads - as in, do not dismiss it, do not 'explain' its possibility away. Actually engage this idea thoroughly and think about it. That's all I mean here.

[Rafiq]

It would be fought for by left wing politics? It's hard enough to convince the already infantile libertarian-socialist dominated trends in American communism to accept the necessity of revolution and party dictatorship, but now we are going to publicize our aims by fighting for the draft?

In fact we don't need the support of those who presently call themselves Leftists. If the Left was reducible to that, there would be no history of the Left. Every single breakthrough of Left wing politics was at the expense of the prevailing 'trends', from Marx and Engels breaking with the Young Hegelians to the tiny Zimmerwald Left which would later go on to dominate the Left in the form of the comintern. That is not what Left wing politics is contingent upon - these types are provisionalities of history, their existence is not really anything of consequence in this context. It is telling, yes, but not of any tactical consequence.

I am not saying there are any easy solutions here. I am also not trying to spin some kind of new dogma. Some kind of imperative to transform the military, to politicize the issue of increased militarization of the police as well as the new reliance on private contractors, needs to be made. If it is not, there is no chance of a revolution. Period.


We would become the laughing stock – more so than today – of the political scene. You already acknowledge the seemingly absurd proposal to "Draft us!"

If it was simply some bizarre, fringe pamphlet-based traditional sectarian agitation, it would be the laughing stock of Revleft probably. If this issue were able to permeate the political scene so well that it would be qulaified on its terms, then no, it wouldn't be any laughing stock, because the rationale would be implicit in the demand. It wouldn't simply be construed as "bring back the draft" for no reason. That's why I stress, opening up the debate along would be a victory, because it brings attention to the decline of democratic decency as reflected by the inability for citizens to have any say, control or impact on the armed and repressive apparatus of the bourgeois state. This is a general trend towards a rent-based, neofeudal society we need to address.

I don't think this would be crazy in the eyes of public discourse. It would be confusing insofar as it could weaken the prevailing petty bourgeois consensus that the "government is gaining too much power over our lives". Militias are not demographically just composed of the petty bourgeoisie. Here in Michigan, which has some of the most militias in the whole country, a lot of them are composed of working-class whites who got fucked by globalization and NAFTA. Followers of populists like Alex Jones, Ron Paul, there are huge chunks of proletarians there. The demand for a democratic politics vis a vis the growing decline of democratic standards, is clearly present among the working class. It is not just paranoia - democratic decency IS being eroded in every possible way, from our slow acceptance of torture ethically, TV shows that deal with some kind of 'hidden' world of monsters which only a group of experts are equipped to deal with, the rise of abuses of information technology to serve corporate and political ends, privatization of police, prison labor, and the military, and the list goes on. There are serious political problems we are presently facing. This is under the backdrop of a wider emerging barbarism.

The only way to fight this is through political struggle.


But given that most – in fact, "most" may even be an underestimate – of the proletariat is not communist nor interested in demands that would destroy the modern bourgeois state, how the hell will we carry them with us towards socialism?

Socialism is not some 'thing' you need to sell to people. All the cold-war mentalities, all the 'deeply ingrained' anti-Communist rhetoric would wash away like nothing in the midst of giving it a new, practical context. Hegel tells us that we learn nothing from history, and he's right. Society is something which regularly is reproduced, it is not some 'remnant' of the past or the culmination of developments. It is self sufficient unto itself as a totality.

The proletariat is not Communist, but we are speaking about jargon here. Such minimal political demands could carry them to socialism as it would instill in them the necessary confidence that they can both be a formidable force, while at the same time realize demands in their favor. Lenin talks all about this - workers are never content in capitalism. Every single gain they make will be followed by new demand.


I mean, how the fuck will we be able to make "the drafting of proletarian and semiproletarian strata" even a somewhat important issue?

You wouldn't. The rhetoric behind the demand would be: Re-institution of the draft for all able bodied citizens from age [x]-[x]. This would mean it would be at random. I went over this several times: This is NOT just about getting more proletarians in the military. Even if the military was 100% proletarian it would not solve our problem, which is the volunteer military, which attracts only certain particular types of proletarians (for non-economic reasons).


The proletariat – whose class dictatorship we stand for – will be terribly confused at the emerging proposals that communists have been raising to "reinstitute the draft."

Thing is, it doesn't matter if communists or revolutionaries are proposing it, because proletarians aren't really familiar with communist politics anyway. the point is of tactical significance. There is no reason to be confused if the political aims, on an immediate, minimal level, are made crystal clear. I compare it to this end to the 15 dollar wage. Now anyone can back the 15 dollar wage, communist or otherwise. It doesn't matter.

Communist politics doesn't come out of nowhere. It derives from the actual building of a political movement which has relevance in relation to people's lives.


On top of that, imagine the slander, the lies and the propaganda that will be spread against communists on top of what already exists.

So? The assumption that propaganda is effective solely unto its own merits is silly. Propaganda can be as "slanderous" and vicious as possible. Unless it really, truly relates to people, it doesn't mean shit. Nothing was worse than Russian anti-semitism. The Bolsheviks prevailed. So there will be a horrible reaction to this. We can handle it. If we can't handle the reaction, then we were too weak to exist anyway. That it "sounds bad" in the context of Reddit politics, or politics as purely conceived in-thought as an abstraction, shouldn't bother us. What matters are concrete implications.

Do you know how silly it would have been for someone to propose Trump run for president and gain popularity? It happened. Things happen which defy conventional standards and norms. Such is the way of history.


but we, campaigning as "communists for a draft," would not only attract the venomous slander of the Right which we already suffer from at terrible degrees,

Let me be quite clear: Communists are irrelevant. It doesn't mean anything to be a Communist in the context of American politics in 2015. When the time comes where Communists put their money where their mouth is, above all others, then it will mean something to be a Communist. All we have to identify as Communists are our historical traditions, which we use to approximate to our own concrete circumstances. We aren't trying to mold reality to our abstract ideas. We're trying to locate the antagonisms present in our reality.

Such a movement would most likely engage progressives of many orientations, not just self-proclaimed radicals. Or, conversely, it could be the start of an entirely new radical political tradition in the US, similar to the "radical Left" that started as a result of Syriza, which we now see with Corbyn, and so on. We must focus on politics as they exist now, not what we want them to be. Let's ask: Why does Bernie Sanders get popular? What do people like about him, and why? Or Trump even? These are the questions which matter.

The Right will, insofar as capitalism exists, always be the Right, always venomously slander Communists. The IMPACT of this 'slander' is NOT based on the character of words alone, but the conditions of political struggle, the very context of those words. I already mentioned: All media outlets demonize Trump. And he gets more popular because of it.


We simply don't have the support for a violent revolution, and we certainly don't have the support to muster a movement of pro-draft proletarians, who, in their minds, are voting for the demand: "Send me to my death!"

Well look, all I want us to do is think about this critically. It is possible that a demand for the re-institution of the draft might only come AFTER a political, class based, sophisticated movement comes into fruition, as part of this movement's demands. I am not trying to spin some new dogma, or some new cult of the draft. The democraticzation of the military would obviously be justified in terms of universal healthcare, free education, giving citizens more power over the state, and so on. The latter issue is obviously enough of a problem so that a sizable number of proletarians are in militias, favor pro-assault rifle legislation, and so on.

What I seek to do in this thread, is to get this idea in people's heads - as in, do not dismiss it, do not 'explain' its possibility away. Actually engage this idea thoroughly and think about it. That's all I mean here.


Tbh though i don't think the draft is possible now, seriously what use is the draft in modern warfare?

Well, not much use, obviously. But that's quite the point: a means by which these kinds of Iraq-style adventures, potential proxy wars are put to a halt.

[Rafiq]

THe purpose of popularizing the re-institution ot he draft as an idea, is beyond its practical effects as well. It would hit a certain ideological chord that needs to be hit.

I'll give you an example, that I will steal from Zizek. He talks about how the debate about universal healthcare was so polarizing and traumatic because it hit a chord about the ethos of free choice here in the US. In that sense, it was quite radical. Framing a debate along 'defending our democracy' which is proportional to what would appear as an 'affront to free choice' is EXACTLY the kind of ideological message we need. It would be an affront to our postmodern, Silicon Valley style post counter culture capitalism with all its 'individualist' values and so on. "Free choice" is literally the underlying justification of the conditions of the new precariat, new forms of labor a la Uber drivers, contract work and so on, which are EXACTLY mystified by this logic. Workers who are pissed off and dissatisfied with this, I believe, would potentially support this. The very ideological dimension behind the demand provides a sense of groundedness workers in capitalism presently do not have, as a result of both the mechanization of production which requires less manpower, the increased political leverage of corporations over individuals, and the outsourcing of jobs overseas.

So it might sound like a crazy idea. But think about it.

It would not be surprising that people would think this is "Fascistic". It is not surprising, given how people understand what Fascism means today, but they are wrong for thinking this. Many of the things people associate with Fascism: Collective solidarity, discipline, engaged self-sacrifice, 'extreme' devotion, this was nothing more than an aesthetic for Fascists - it was the Communists who made these virtues, the Fascists opportunistically stole that kind of aesthetic to win over workers. Every time you see some kind of spontaneous outburst of the poor, in third world countries for example, praise Hitler - like that one black nationalist in South Africa (who almost got expelled from his university), I forget who - of course it is disgusting, but it is done out of pure confusion - associating with Hitler characteristics that he only APPEARED to represent.

A movement to bring back the draft would be quite radical in nature, obviously, it wouldn't be some modest demand. It would convey a sense of immanence, emergency and a kind of 'enough is enough'. Workers feel ready for that - and Trump is the only evidence we need. That energy can be re-directed towards ends that actually serve their interests as a class.

[Rafiq]

In Brazil, in the democratic getulism "era" we had sections of the army that were communist, this ended in 1964. They have revolutionary potential, but only in revolutionary situations.

Interesting. How was this problem dealt with by the state on an institutional level?

[John Nada]

I do not doubt this for a second, the difference is that unlike the October revolution, the result would not be a mutiny as such, i.e. the taking over of military faculties, battleships, aircraft carriers, (among other things) but mass desertion that would give us professional soldiers, yet leave us empty handed where it counts. We would then be forced to face a military which is institutionally still under the control of the state (i.e. not undergoing a mass mutiny) that could simply compensate for the loss by recruiting more willing soldiers (and there will be) with, of course, the help of private corporate militaries. What I propose would be the implementation of the draft so that the taking over of the military, or at least great sections of it, would be come possible.Well then, demanding to bringing back the draft is a moot point. The rebellion will force the state to conscript people to fight it. Problem solved.:lol:

I'm not convinced defectors are key. The October Revolution was a "hail Mary" IMO.The caricature of it shouldn't be the template for a strategy(it wasn't just a year, but over a decade of on and off guerrilla warfare, especially in the cities), though it's a textbook example of a perfectly executed(no pun intended) insurrection. It's pretty much what most theories on making revolution in the west are based on, and it hasn't worked.

Some would defect and it'd be nice, but I don't think they have any special powers or even be decisive. More like one effect of the cure rather than the cure itself. I think it'd be better to just prevent people from volunteering for the imperialist military and giving them military training instead. A lot of the military is straight out of high school anyway, and that's who they prefer to recruit for a reason. The proletariat is supposedly the most revolutionary class, not military careerists.
Think about this in terms of factories, for lack of a better example. If revolutionaries were only to constitute 30% of the factory force, then they could just get replaced. Institutionally, the factory itself still functions as it did before. The goal however is to take over the factory, not desert it.I don't think it can be quantified as a factory. I'd view as piecemeal moving in zigzags up to at 50%. Still I could easy imagine a workplace with 30% revolutionaries raising hell and shutting it down, one way or another. Like saying only 30% of a field is laid with mines. Still not something you'd run through.
You're right that it is, when right wingers talk about "shit hitting the fan" it usually refers to some imaginary emergency event only possible for the pathological paranoid. They would use the military, rather than a means of social transformation, as simply a way to enforce the logic of the existing order. I am sure you are familiar with Smedley Butler and the businessman's plot in the 30's.I've seen right-"libertarians" and other far-rightists quote him on tyrannical government. Ironically he basically warning about people with the same fascist mindset as them and was condemning the system they hold dear, capitalism, and upheld what they fear most, socialism.

You'd think by Butler's resume his picture would by imperialism in the dictionary. Instead he did a reverse-Mussolini(why is right to left so rare?), moving towards the far-left after leaving the military. I honestly think he may have became a communist. He really broke down the problems of imperialism, capitalism and militarism in a very straightforward, understandable manner, accessible to the layperson, without bastardizing it. That's a rare skill, and with his experience, if he hadn't died of cancer, could've been a great political candidate to popularize socialism for the CPUSA or SPA. Like an American Bebel.
But at the level of abstraction, both the Fascist and the Communists seek to take power, it is true. This must automatically involve the military. We however seek to smash the state and replace it with our own, they seek to use it for their own ends. It is quite likely that Fascists would enlist private militaries to this end, who we can already suspect are ripe with their irk.They can't do anything effective, unless things go to shit. They don't want to arouse the support of the people, nor could they. It's usually individualist fantasies or their reactionary version of identity politics. It's appeals to the petit-bourgeoisie, but has the myopia typical of that class. It would take state backing for them to come close.
Because a proletariat political movement is in substance a democratic one, it involves the mass mobilization of actual sectors of a society, not simply people who retreat into guerrilla warfare, existing 'outside' the domain of social space. We seek to supersede capitalism, not run into the forest. Of course, this kind of combat is not reactionary in feudal contexts, but it is in modern capitalist liberal democracies.This is the reason Liebknecht gave:
As an examination of the Peasant and Town Wars in particular demonstrates, it is necessary to bear in mind the important role played by the different social classes, whether each class is united in one locality or mixed with other classes. When the class division coincides with the division of locality, it is simpler to wage the class struggle, not only because of the way in which class-consciousness is thereby developed, but also because of the way in which, speaking from a purely technical point of view, the military organizational unity of the class comrades as well as the production and supply of arms is facilitated. This favourable local grouping of the classes has been of aid to all bourgeois revolutions [5], but in the proletarian revolution is almost entirely lacking. [6] https://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-k/works/1907/militarism-antimilitarism/pt1-ch1.htm#1-1-3 This is possibly a reason a lot of guerrillas go for rural bases. Just liquidate the big landowners and the class composure is comparatively homogenous in the red base for dual power.

I think it's very possible that guerrilla warfare can be carried out in an urban or suburban environment by the proletariat. I see zero reason why, unless you focus on just a few focoist attempts or singular insurrections and think it must be mechanically jammed in or nothing. In fact, I don't see why extra-legal action can't be pared with mass work in the city, like the CPP, PCP and PKK did/do. Most of it isn't shooting and blowing shit up anyway.
It is petty bourgeois precisely because the petite bourgeoisie despise both the state and the democratic masses as a whole. Just look at the character of US militias. Think about: What could guerrilla warfare actually solve? It is democratic in peasant based contexts in some instances because the peasantry can passively support guerrillas while still going about its business in some way. This isn't true for the proletariat - it either joins the fight, or it remains complacent. I mean just think about it - people in factories striking, forming political committees, and then another sector of people in the forests fighting the state? How would that work? How would the state not exercise control, and punish the latter if this is a unified movement?It's been done. Most sophisticated insurgents do that right now. In fact, neither would work if both weren't done to complement each other. Supporting this very thing is the point of red bases.

I think this idea that you have to wait for one big moment to defend oneself, to the exclusion of mass work, has been a disaster for revolutionary socialists. I don't understand why it has to be all at once. Bolsheviks got luck, after over a dozen years of both legalist and guerrilla warfare.

Liebknecht Militarism-Anti-Militarism (https://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-k/works/1907/militarism-antimilitarism/index.htm) covers a lot of things relevant to this thread. The effect of militarist ideology on society, how conscriping workers has a detrimental effect and promotes reactionary ideas. He also goes over efforts to combat it. Really seems like a lot of it's still true, like suicide in the military that's made the news recently, how the military tries to use propaganda glorifying militarism, the military industry. Also discusses how the military might impend revolution.

[Rafiq]

Well then, demanding to bringing back the draft is a moot point. The rebellion will force the state to conscript people to fight it. Problem solved.:lol:

If the military as an institution is taken over, that is, if military facilities, and so on, are occupied through mutiny, this would not work.


I think it'd be better to just prevent people from volunteering for the imperialist military and giving them military training instead.

Well that's very well, but we couldn't provide them the actual training that would be necessary. Even if we made it so no one would join the volunteer military, this would mean revolutionaries would have to take on militarized police and private contractors. This is what separates our condition from that of one hundred years ago: The military power that sustain states and wins wars, is not accessible to the broad masses in any way possible - no matter the training.


I don't think it can be quantified as a factory. I'd view as piecemeal moving in zigzags up to at 50%. Still I could easy imagine a workplace with 30% revolutionaries raising hell and shutting it down, one way or another.

How would they do this without taking over the factory in some way? Those workers could easily be replaced. In a time of crisis, the reaction would be large enough to recruit from en masse to replace any deserting soldiers. My point is: Military infrastructure must be seized. That is quite critical.


I've seen right-"libertarians" and other far-rightists quote him on tyrannical government. Ironically he basically warning about people with the same fascist mindset as them and was condemning the system they hold dear, capitalism, and upheld what they fear most, socialism.

And ironically, the Fascism he sought to expose was actually in response to the same New Deal policies that were similarly adopted in Fascist countries. The point? Fascism takes on a different character in accordance with different conditions. There will never be a 'Fascism' in the US as it is in Europe. American Fascism will always be 'Libertarian' in nature, as you know.

Butler is one of those figures the American left should include in its aesthetic.

But on to the matter at hand, shit hitting the fan for right wingers is entirely different than it is for us Leftists. Our goal would be to completely transform, politicize and discipline the military with the ideas of Communism. Not so for Fascists, who are more than happy to let the masses of people wallow in ignorance and darkness.


I think it's very possible that guerrilla warfare can be carried out in an urban or suburban environment by the proletariat. I see zero reason why, unless you focus on just a few focoist attempts or singular insurrections and think it must be mechanically jammed in or nothing.

That would entail the wholesale destruction of city, urban infrastructure, and so on. The reason why guerrilla warfare cannot work in urban contexts, against the state, is because a revolution will be a war of conquest, not one of resistance (toward occupation or otherwise). A revolution includes the mass-democratic mobilization of the broad masses in general, that means waging large scale offensive struggles, mobile warfare, and in the context of 2015 in the US, the utilization of military technologies. Especially when you consider - we can most certainly count on an invasion from other capitalist powers the minute such an event would occur.

Of course, this kind of warfare could be a part of a revolutionary civil war. But it is not enough, and it certainly wouldn't be the primary means of warfare. A proletarian revolution would have ot utilize all the most modern means of warfare, to fight bourgeois militaries as equals, if not superiors. It couldn't be a war of resistance, but a war of conquest. The reason we should remember the context of the October revolution, was because for all it was wroth -it was the only successful proletarian revolution to ever exist. This had over-reaching historic ramifications for its character vis a vis the context of its historic epoch that can be paralleled. It is diffuclt to explain: AS the Bolsheviks were for the predominant, bourgeois order of their time, we must be for the predominant world order of our time. So obviously it would not be the same, but the dialectical relation would be the same. Communism's historic relationship to capitalism is eternal, it's just that the specific expression of Communism changes insofar as capitalism does.


I think this idea that you have to wait for one big moment to defend oneself, to the exclusion of mass work, has been a disaster for revolutionary socialists. I don't understand why it has to be all at once.

Of course, I totally agree. Mass work, organization, education, agitation, and the irk - these are all necessary pre-requisites to any revolution. This should be a given for us - the revolution will not come out of nowhere, a real movement must be a pre-requisite. But then again, the October revolution didn't come out of nowhere either. The Bolsheviks were programically, organizationally and finally theoretically sophisticated - only through their organizational methods were they able to seize power. It was a perfect storm for the sole reason that the opportunity to seize power arose. This opportunity will not be the same in every context, obviously, but we do have much to learn from this. "Seize the day", that is the mentality we should have. If we can seize power, we should do it, no matter any adverse conditions.


The effect of militarist ideology on society, how conscripting workers has a detrimental effect and promotes reactionary ideas.

Okay, but let's look at the context of the military in relation to society in Germany at the time. The military depended on the working people's sacrifice and forced conscription to sustain itself. Today, these would be burdens on the US military, as Jameson rightfully points out. Germany was not faced with the same degradation of democratic standards in the form of the volunteer military, and private military corporations intertwining with the repressive apparatus, so that people, no matter how class conscious, could not even do anything about them.

Last but not least, the question of the threat the military poses one hundred years ago, is irrelevant to the same question in 2015. And why? Because what makes or breaks wars today is not raw manpower, or the number of infantrymen. It is not anything which is immediately accessible, even at the level of conducting mass raids at weapons facilities. Military technologies require such great degrees of specialization, technical expertise, and so on, that the threat posed by the volunteer military today is infinitely more of a threat than it ever was in history.

[Guardia Rossa]

Interesting. How was this problem dealt with by the state on an institutional level?

That's a question I can't answer simply because I don't know how to translate it.

However, I will attempt to answer anyway, by giving an overall explaination of what I know that was happening at that time

The President was neo-getulist, this means he was a populist but differently from Getulho Vargas, he didn't attempt to build his own power structure (The country was politically divided between "the Left" and "the Right") and instead attempted to push his "Base Reforms" (Economic reforms, the nation was to backwards in some areas, actually it is to this day) independently at first and then in an alliance with "the Left" (Which included some brands of progressive nationalism and various sections of getulism)

As he attempted to gain the left's support for his agenda, he didn't attempt to stop the communists from organizing and gaining strength, resulting in poor farmers, low rank soldiers and the workers organizing in parties, movements, organizations and etc...

In various coup attempts the generals loyal to democracy and the communists soldiers refused to work against the government. At one instance in a air base the officials commanded the bombarding of the presidential palace the whole base refused, the officials disarmed the low-ranked soldiers because otherwise they would surely revolt and take control of the base. The governor from the state of Rio Grande do Sul convinced the general and the soldiers to resist against this coup attempt and declared that if the coup happend they would resist.

In 30 march of 1964, that is, two days before the military coup, Jango, the president, spoke to the sub-officials and gave them support. Many of them were communists. In 31 march the conservative generals of the military entered in contact with the US and started their march to the capital. The conservative general convinced the democratic generals (the President had brought the democratic and progressive generals to the capital) that resisting would only result in unnecessary deaths. The president first traveled to Rio Grande do Sul and then to Uruguai, where he exiled himself.