anarchist militias

[violencia.Proletariat]

how would these be organized, taking into account that there would be democratically elected recallable leaders. what would be the highest set of positions. and also, if a country were to the path of communism, by ways of left communism (without much hierarchy) how would they defend the country (i know thiers no countries, but i dont know what else to call the area)? if a capitalist country were to invade, how could the area defend itself ifficiently? would it be each county sized area for itself as in a confederate style system. or would there be some form of federalism, in which the militias were organized on a much larger scale for defense? any ideas?

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 08:36 PM
how would these be organized, taking into account that there would be democratically elected recallable leaders. what would be the highest set of positions.
It would be based on initiative. Everyone would be free to express leadership on the spur of the moment.


and also, if a country were to the path of communism, by ways of left communism (without much hierarchy) how would they defend the country (i know thiers no countries, but i dont know what else to call the area)? if a capitalist country were to invade, how could the area defend itself ifficiently? would it be each county sized area for itself as in a confederate style system. or would there be some form of federalism, in which the militias were organized on a much larger scale for defense? any ideas?

If a capitalist society, even existed at the same time as an anarchist/communist one. And invaded. All the people would need to do is not work the machines. The workers could overthrow the invading pro-capitalist army, in the same way it won the revolution in the first place. The working class would have more power than the invading forces (presuming they managed to re-establish class that quickly)

Fair questions, and I imagine their are many other possible answers to them...

[Nachie]

Fair questions, and I imagine their are many other possible answers to them...
Another answer might be to look at the EZLN in Chiapas. While not explicitly anarchist, they are functioning on libertarian principles and so are worth looking at.

The way the EZLN is structured is actually hierarchal, with a top-down chain of command as found in most militaries. This is for the most part a practical necessity, since the implementation of consensus or other participatory decision making processes has often proven disasterous in armed conflict where rapid manouvers are required.

Nevertheless the EZLN remains entirely subordinate to the Zapatista communities, which ARE run on a rotating, horizontal basis. This is the practical meaning of calling EZLN commanders "subcomandante" - they do have command, but not over the society they are protecting. This has seemed to be a very effective model (aside from the material fact that the EZLN could never defeat the Mexican armed forces).

Building on what Additives Free said, we're also assuming that an internationalist proletarian revolution does not confine itself to national borders, and therefore a global shutdown of the military industrial complex would be possible, crippling attempts to suppress the insurrection.

We cannot separate the question of military organization from the question of how to organize our future society, and in that sense both would probably arise from immediate need and take the forms most appropriate at the time. We can look reassuringly to events such as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 for proof that the proletariat is quite capable organizing itself spontaneously towards the immediate task of defense. We can also look at the total defeat of the PCP ("Shining Path") guerrillas in Peru as proof that uniting under a single hierarchal leadership is not at all effective.

See also the Kwangju uprising in 1980. In most cases it's useless to blueprint specific forms of military organization that could be applied to the entire revolutionary situation since the conditions in which this would be necessary can only arise from a spontaneous general social upheaval in the first place.

[bunk]

a capitalist country were to invade, how could the area defend itself ifficiently? would it be each county sized area for itself as in a confederate style system. or would there be some form of federalism, in which the militias were organized on a much larger scale for defense? any ideas?

I imagine that the people would work out the most effective sized seperate units for each area themselves. Communication between units would be easy presumably, with the advent of tele-communications. I think delegates from each area would have to meet up first though and represent their local people's views for making a provisional plan. Otherwise it could get very difficult if two units disagreed and therefore didn't co-operate when they need to to defeat the enemy.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by Additives [email protected] 23 2005, 04:56 PM

If a capitalist society, even existed at the same time as an anarchist/communist one. And invaded. All the people would need to do is not work the machines. The workers could overthrow the invading pro-capitalist army, in the same way it won the revolution in the first place. The working class would have more power than the invading forces (presuming they managed to re-establish class that quickly)


its more realistic that the us will be the capitalist country and some other industrialized country be the "communistic" one. now i agree that the US couldnt defeat the people if they cant control them but would it be worth even trying to hold conventional warfare? or would it have to be guerilla like tactics to defeat them? the main point of this isnt so much how militas would work but how defense on a large scale would work, which then asks are we going to have confederalism or federalism, or something else?

[The Feral Underclass]

Autonomous workers militias would defend communities and collectives and would be accountable to the communities they were defending.

In the case of dealing with specific counter-revolutionary activity, it could be that national or regional working groups were formed which were accountable to and only acted on the consensus of regional assemblies.