Karl Marx on Vandalism and Destruction of Property

[HEAD ICE]

Just throwing this out there, against the moralism of the bourgeoisie and the left:

In all its bloody triumphs over the self-sacrificing champions of a new and better society, that nefarious civilization, based upon the enslavement of labor, drowns the moans of its victims in a hue-and-cry of calumny, reverberated by a world-wide echo. The serene working men’s Paris of the Commune is suddenly changed into a pandemonium by the bloodhounds of “order.”

And what does this tremendous change prove to the bourgeois mind of all countries? Why, that the Commune has conspired against civilization! The Paris people die enthusiastically for the Commune in numbers unequally in any battle known to history. What does that prove? Why, that the Commune was not the people’s own government but the usurpation of a handful of criminals! The women of Paris joyfully give up their lives at the barricades and on the place of execution. What does this prove? Why, that the demon of the Commune has changed them into Megaera and Hecates!
The moderation of the Commune during the two months of undisputed sway is equalled only by the heroism of its defence.

What does that prove? Why, that for months the Commune carefully hid, under a mask of moderation and humanity, the bloodthirstiness of its fiendish instincts to be let loose in the hour of its agony!

The working men’s Paris, in the act of its heroic self-holocaust, involved in its flames buildings and monuments. While tearing to pieces the living body of the proletariat, its rulers must no longer expect to return triumphantly into the intact architecture of their abodes. The government of Versailles cries, “Incendiarism!” and whispers this cue to all its agents, down to the remotest hamlet, to hunt up its enemies everywhere as suspect of professional incendiarism. The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the desecration of brick and mortar!

When governments give state licences to their navies to “kill, burn, and destroy,” is that licence for incendiarism? When the British troops wantonly set fire to the Capitol at Washington and to the summer palace of the Chinese emperor,[F] was that incendiarism? When the Prussians not for military reasons, but out of the mere spite of revenge, burned down, by the help of petroleum, towns like Chateaudun and innumerable villages, was that incendiarism? When Thiers, during six weeks, bombarded Paris, under the pretext that he wanted to set fire to those houses only in which there were people, was that incendiarism? – In war, fire is an arm as legitimate as any. Buildings held by the enemy are shelled to set them on fire. If their defenders have to retire, they themselves light the flames to prevent the attack from making use of the buildings. To be burned down has always been the inevitable fate of all buildings situated in the front of battle of all the regular armies of the world.

But in the war of the enslaved against their enslavers, the only justifiable war in history, this is by no means to hold good! The Commune used fire strictly as a means of defence. They used it to stop up to the Versailles troops those long, straight avenues which Haussman had expressly opened to artillery-fire; they used it to cover their retreat, in the same way as the Versaillese, in their advance, used their shells which destroyed at least as many buildings as the fire of the Commune. It is a matter of dispute, even now, which buildings were set fire to by the defence, and which by the attack. And the defence resorted to fire only then when the Versailles troops had already commenced their wholesale murdering of prisoners.
Besides, the Commune had, long before, given full public notice that if driven to extremities, they would bury themselves under the ruins of Paris, and make Paris a second Moscow, as the Government of National Defence, but only as a cloak for its treason, had promised to do. For this purpose Trochu had found them the petroleum. The Commune knew that its opponents cared nothing for the lives of the Paris people, but cared much for their own Paris buildings. And Thiers, on the other hand, had given them notice that he would be implacable in his vengeance. No sooner had he got his army ready on one side, and the Prussians shutting the trap on the other, than he proclaimed: “I shall be pitiless! The expiation will be complete, and justice will be stern!” If the acts of the Paris working men were vandalism, it was the vandalism of defence in despair, not the vandalism of triumph, like that which the Christians perpetrated upon the really priceless art treasures of heathen antiquity; and even that vandalism has been justified by the historian as an unavoidable and comparatively trifling concomitant to the titanic struggle between a new society arising and an old one breaking down. It was still less the vandalism of Haussman, razing historic Paris to make place for the Paris of the sightseer!

[Agathor]

This has no bearing on what's going on in Oakland, or on any Black Block vandalism. The Communards burned buildings for tactical reasons, as your Marx quote points out. To "stop up to the Versailles troops those long, straight avenues", and as leverage to prevent a crackdown. What tactical reasons are there for throwing a bin through a Starbucks window?

It's insulting to the Communards to associate them with the dumb kids smashing windows in Oakland, and infuriating everyone.

[NewLeft]

Marx was gangsta..

But really, why attack the small businesses..? Especially the ones that were helping out with the protests..?

[IndependentCitizen]

Marx was gangsta..

But really, why attack the small businesses..? Especially the ones that were helping out with the protests..?

And ran by families. I know a family that run a small fruit and vegetable store, very nice family indeed....

Small businesses are not enemies, big corporations are the true enemy; but what the fuck do middle class part-time anarchists know?

[KurtFF8]

Semi Relevant: Marx used to get drunk in London and throw rocks at street lamps then run from the cops

Now we had enough of our “beer trip” for the time being, and in order to cool our heated blood, we started on a double quick march, until Edgar Bauer stumbled over some paving stones. “Hurrah, an idea!” And in memory of mad student pranks he picked up a stone, and Clash! Clatter! a gas lantern went flying into splinters. Nonsense is contagious – Marx and I did not stay behind, and we broke four or five street lamps – it was, perhaps, 2 o'clock in the morning and the streets were deserted in consequence. But the noise nevertheless attracted the attention of a policeman who with quick resolution gave the signal to his colleagues on the same beat. And immediately countersignals were given. The position became critical. Happily we took in the situation at a glance; and happily we knew the locality. We raced ahead, three or four policemen some distance behind us. Marx showed an activity that I should not have attributed to him. And after the wild chase had lasted some minutes, we succeeded in turning into a side street and there running through an alley – a back yard between two streets – whence we came behind the policemen who lost the trail. Now we were safe. They did not have our description and we arrived at our homes without further adventures.

On a Pub Crawl with Karl Marx

[Ocean Seal]

Karl Marx gets it. It's class war, its ugly, get over it. And ffs, they are buildings. Buildings are not people, buildings can be rebuilt, and no one needs to cry over them especially not the buildings of the ruling class' authority.

[bcbm]

But really, why attack the small businesses..? Especially the ones that were helping out with the protests..?

battle lines are being drawn

And ran by families. I know a family that run a small fruit and vegetable store, very nice family indeed....

Small businesses are not enemies, big corporations are the true enemy; but what the fuck do middle class part-time anarchists know?

capitalist relations big and small are the enemy fuck your liberal moralism

[Decolonize The Left]

And ran by families. I know a family that run a small fruit and vegetable store, very nice family indeed....

Small businesses are not enemies, big corporations are the true enemy; but what the fuck do middle class part-time anarchists know?

Fuck you. No one really wants to destroy Old Joe Smith's Hardware Store in the name of rage and the revolution. Some shit gets broken when you put thousands of people in the street - it's inevitable. You simply can't unify every movement with that many people.

Now, if you want everyone to goose-step down the road in rigidly timed movements then you can have a nice, clean, riot, complete with orders and rules and everything. Then you can be sure that the nice people who own the nice stores won't have their nice things broken because some serious shit is going down outside.

- August

[bcbm]

Fuck you. No one really wants to destroy Old Joe Smith's Hardware Store in the name of rage and the revolution.

i do. or communize it

[Decolonize The Left]

i do. or communize it

No you don't want to destroy it - that would just be a huge waste of human labor. The store itself isn't oppressing you. The shit in the store isn't oppressing you. What's oppressing you is the labor-relations present in the overall system of which OJS's store is only a very small part.

- August

[bcbm]

i don't think you understand what 'make total destroy' means

[Commissar Rykov]

Ah the same people crying over smashing businesses. At least we know what side you fall on in regards to the Class War. Have fun with the Bourgeoisie I am sure they won't fuck you over...that hard.

[NewLeft]

Karl Marx gets it. It's class war, its ugly, get over it. And ffs, they are buildings. Buildings are not people, buildings can be rebuilt, and no one needs to cry over them especially not the buildings of the ruling class' authority.

And a waste of labour.

i do. or communize it

And no compensation for the store/business owners?

[Commissar Rykov]

And a waste of labour.



And no compensation for the store/business owners?

No compensation for the exploitation of their workers? Fuck your Petit-Bourgeois Liberal Moralism.

[bcbm]

And no compensation for the store/business owners?

we'll let them live

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Small businesses are not enemies, big corporations are the true enemy; but what the fuck do middle class part-time anarchists know?

You sound like one of those U.S. liberal "leftists" that like to whine about corporations.

Small-businesses are no better than big corporations. Yes, to hell with Main Street, too. Family-run and owner operated shops are just as much a part of capitalism as the big corporations (there are even family-run corporations anyway). Some of them fail because they cannot compete with the efficiencies of things more large-scale, but quite a few still fill an important niche, and there is no reason to think they are preferable to big corporations.

And ran by families. I know a family that run a small fruit and vegetable store, very nice family indeed....

And? A big fat corporate CEO, what if he is a nice, kind guy in person? So fucking what? Does that mean capitalism isn't so bad after all? And if Bank of America comes out in favour of Occupy Wall-Street (just for argument), does that mean they are good and should be spared any hatred?

[Decolonize The Left]

i don't think you understand what 'make total destroy' means

No, I think I do. I'm simply realistic about shit. I might want to use some of OJS's hardware for... say... building a barricade, or fortifying a structure, or digging a trench.

While it would certainly be ironic and humorous, watching you torch the store only to realize that you need all the shovels inside would be a sad moment indeed.

- August

[NewLeft]

No compensation for the exploitation of their workers? Fuck your Petit-Bourgeois Liberal Moralism.

I love the ruling class!! Exploit me!!
It's like when the g20 protesters smashed the window of a cooperative owned cafe.. They're such rebels.. Destroying the property of exploitive coops!!

[bcbm]

loot then burn, duh

[socialistjustin]

I am not for this black bloc stuff, but that doesn't mean we should be crying over some small business who are the same thing as a big business only smaller. I know some nice people who own small businesses, that doesn't mean I don't want to communicate those places.