Agitating amongst the troops?

[Labor Shall Rule]

The Bolsheviks, in the hotbed of the revolutionary situation they were in with the First World War, had party members intentionally enlist for the purpose of fueling up revolutionary sentiment amongst detachments located on the front.

The Socialist Workers' Party, during the Second World War, also had agitators within the military. Horward Zinn recalled that a few pilots caused a stir after they refused to go on a mission to wipe out targets in a heavily populated area, and he later wrote that this moment was brought about from members of that party.


"Perhaps my conversations with that gunner on the other crew, the one who loaned me The Yogi and the Commisar, gave me the first flickers of doubt. He spoke of the war as "an imperialist war," fought on both sides for national power. Britain and the United States opposed fascism only because it threatened their own control over resources and people. Yes, Hitler was a maniacal dictator and invader of other countries. But what of the British Empire and its long history of wars against native peoples to subdue them for the profit and glory of the empire? And the Soviet Union--was it not also a brutal dictatorship, concerned not with the working classes of the world but with its own national power?

I was puzzled. "Why," I asked my friend, "are you flying missions, risking your life, in a war you don't believe in?" His answer astonished me. "I'm here to speak to people like you."

I found out later he was a member of the Socialist Workers party; they opposed the war but believed that instead of evading military service they should enter it and propagandize against the war every moment they could. I couldn't understand this, but I was impressed by it. Two weeks after that conversation with him, he was killed on a mission over Germany.

After the war, my doubts grew. I was reading history. Had the United States fought in World War II for the rights of nations to independence and self-determination? What of its own history of expansion through war and conquest? It had waged a hundred-year war against the native Americans, driving them off their ancestral lands. The United States had instigated a war with Mexico and taken almost half its land, had sent marines at least twenty times into the countries of the Caribbean for power and profit, had seized Hawaii, had fought a brutal war to subjugate the Filipinos, and had sent 5,000 marines into Nicaragua in 1926. Our nation could hardly claim it believed in the right of self-determination unless it believed in it selectively."

I am sure it's a strategy used by other revolutionary parties, but should we continue this practice today? I don't know why, but it seems almost taboo to instruct organizers to join the military for the sake of building a support base there. Is this even effective?

[Labor Shall Rule]

Maybe this should be moved to Practice.

[RNK]

I seriously doubt it. We have a big enough problem persuading the average citizen to understand and support communism, let alone the most die-hard, ultra-nationalist soldiers who are literally willing to die (and, more importantly, kill) for their capitalist system. It's worth a shot, though, particularly if several ideologically potent members joined the same unit.

[BreadBros]

Well one key difference is that the Russian army in WW1 and the US Army in WW2 were both mass conscription armies as opposed to the volunteer forces of today. So chances are you were more likely to find individuals against the war or imperialism in those scenarios than today.

Still, there are many people who join the army for economic reasons or are changed when they experience warfare. For example, I remember in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' there is a young Marine who helps Moore spread his message. Its more or less a way for Moore to look patriotic while doing his thing and thus being more acceptable to middle-class Americans. Still the young Marine (who is a minority) talks about how he "didn't want to kill other poor people any more" or something to that effect. So there is SOME possibility. The question is whether its worth it to risk your ass to contact that small minority and whether its even logistically feasible considering the reactionary watch that officers and other soldiers would probably act as. My guess is no.

[Tower of Bebel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 07:25 pm
Still, there are many people who join the army for economic reasons or are changed when they experience warfare. [...] The question is whether its worth it to risk your ass to contact that small minority and whether its even logistically feasible considering the reactionary watch that officers and other soldiers would probably act as. My guess is no.
In my opinion the last thing you wrote is not important. The reactionary watch of NCOs is an element in every army. The tsarist army was no exception.
So it's all about whether we can - by tomorrow - really convince soldiers or not. That's why I ask RedDali if he knows exactly when the Bolsheviks started to inlist contacts in the army. Was it during the war, during the revolution or even before the war? Because it's much easier to persuade soldiers in a (pre-)revolutionary period.

[Labor Shall Rule]

You have a point Raccoon.

If we are dependent on the forces we have now, we are doomed. These are individuals who are not only physically-trained, but also mentally-trained to kill; they are taught to hate the "sandniggers" and "towl-heads", which is certainly a characteristic of the current level of consciousness within the military at this present time due to the lack thereof a revolutionary situation. But we nevertheless have all the presquisites; the parties are cracking and folding due to the extreme economic imbalances in our country, and soon, the workers will naturally search for a third alternative for this two-party system, which would in turn challenge the monopoly that the capitalists hold over the state. With economic crises looming, there is a recipe for a revolutionary situation as we speak. We can forget that last year was the largest May Day marches on the planet, and in the history of the United States, so we can expect soldiers to change in consciousness also as the wider sections of the working class become politicalized.

As so, I don't think it's entirely incorrect to implant agitators within the military.

[peaccenicked]

http://libcom.org/history/vietnam-gi-resistance

It might be illegal to feed the army antiwar propaganda.

Not that socialists should care that much.

http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/redclyde/redcly202.htm

There are conditions in which it might be helpful

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story...2147052,00.html (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2147052,00.html)


Revolutionaries should not stereotype soldiers. People change especially under extreme circumstances.

[Tower of Bebel]

People should really read the first article.

[Comrade Castro]

I think getting military support is something we NEED to do. Right now, I'm reading a book about the Battleship Potemkin revolt in 1905. If you don't know, that was when opressed sailors on the tsarist battleship Potemkin overthrew their officers, tried to help the 1905 revolution, and after that tragic failure, fled to Romania. This inspired mass revolts in the military 12 years later. Anyways, Matyushenko and Vakulenchuk, the leaders of the revolt, were members of Tsentralka, the revolutionary sailor's association (a mix of Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, anarchists, but mostly sailors tired of being slaves). They had planned a revolt across the entire Black Sea Fleet, and distributed propaganda to all the crews on the ships. However, the crew of the Potemkin revolted spontaneously a few days before the combined fleet was supposed to, and it is unlikely this would have happened without the revolutonaries giving out propaganda, chanelling the hate of the sailors against their officers, and telling them that they should not have to take being treated like slaves and sent to die in the war against Japan. What I'm trying to say is that without dedicated revolutionaries, the mutiny and radicalization of the crew would not have happened. The military is the most important pillar of support of the State, and when it rises up against the State, the people know that something is very wrong. Which is why the appearance of the Potemkin in Odessa harbor after the crew taking over inspired the people to fight against the authorities, though sadly they were crushed. However, the revolt frightened the czar so much of the threat of more revolts, that he was forced to end the war against Japan. And the 1917 revolution would have been impossible without the common soldiers and sailors siding with the revolution, giving along with skilled fighters, WEAPONS. The revolution in the USA will not be quick and bloodless, and without military help, will quickly be massacred. The point is, we need as many revolutionaries agitating inside the military as possible. Soldiers are people too, and they can help us when the time is right. Would you rather have the entire military against you, or alongside you?

[peaccenicked]

There is no dogma that might help us. Every situation is different. While we take account of every similar situation beforehand. There has to be two forces at play,
1)primarily, desertions, even mutiny in the army and veterans or relatives of the dead in the fore front of the anti-war movement raising their voice at every meeting and every protest,
2)an anti war movement gaining momentum from war-weariness and a general desire to bring soldiers home.

This interplay will determine the intensity of communist work within the army.

[Organic Revolution]

I believe it is a good idea. My comrade was a marine, and through letters of mine, and telephone conversations he began to believe in anarchism, and that the war was imperialistic in nature, and about oil, and he started to agitate amongst his squad. Many of his squad took to it, but he mysteriously got discharged for the marines, so now he agitates in his community.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 11:04 am
I don't know why, but it seems almost taboo to instruct organizers to join the military for the sake of building a support base there.
They didn't join voluntarily; they were drafted. It was certainly more effective than sitting out the war in jail for draft refusal. Some SWP members joined the merchant marine instead, 'course that was even less safe.

After the war there was a mass movement of GIs demanding rapid demobilization - this made it a lot harder for Washington to use troops against the anticolonial movements across Asia, not to mention the Chinese Revolution.

I won't claim that the agitation of relatively few SWP members produced this - but looking at it broader, it certainly was the product of many workers with a considerable degree of class consciousness being drafted. Should these class-struggle minded workers have refused to go? That wouldn't have stopped the war machine, and woulda deprived the Going Home Movement of essential sparks.

The same thing was done to even greater effect during the Vietnam War, BTW. All kinds of antiwar organizations sprung up among GIs. And widespread opposition to the war contributed greatly to GIs in Vietnam being disinclined to fight if they could avoid it - even mass refusals of orders, plus fraggings and so forth.

And of course there's the Russian Revolution example - of course many Bolsheviks and other class-conscious workers were drafted and went into the army, including some workers drafted as a punishment for striking. Ultimately their influence took the soldiers away from the officers and the exploiting classes.

In contrast, where has draft refusal ever been effective? Mostly its practiced by pacifist groups who want to bear individual moral witness and save their souls - who don't care much if it's effective or not.

I was kinda hoping this might be a thread on strategy on agitating among troops - a much more interesting question IMO! And you can certainly try to reach out to enlisted soldiers without being in the military....

On that, Here's a lot of information on soldiers' organizing against the Vietnam War. (http://www.sirnosir.com/archives_and_resources/library/gi_organizations.html)

GIS United Against the War (http://www.sirnosir.com/archives_and_resources/library/articles/rough_draft_06.html) at Fort Jackson was one outstanding example. A couple of the GIs who started it, BTW, were members of the Young Socialist Alliance (associated with the Socialist Workers Party.)

It is certainly not illegal to talk politics with, give literature to, etc., military personnel, at least not in the U.S. Nor is it illegal for soldiers to excercise their constitutional rights. The brass sometimes tries to claim it is, or to discourage it anyway. But they've found themselves unable to actually court-martial someone for their political speech more than once - in the Fort Jackson case described in my last link for example.

I think that's important to emphasize in political work in the military, esp under current conditions. You gotta say again and again that soldiers do have the right to think and speak for yourself.

It's also important to keep in mind that the military is a class institution like any other in this society. The officers are an upper caste, forbidden even to "fraternize" with the enlisted ranks. NCOs are intermediate.

That libcom article is, I think, not so accurate. Ignores all the successful attempts to organize openly in the army, for example, in favor of a list of martyrs. But anarchists during Vietnam weren't part of any of the developments within the military - so how would they know about it?