The Legitimacy of Violence as a Political Act?

[AConfusedSocialDemocrat]

Noam Chomsky debates with Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag, et al.

December 15, 1967

ROBERT B. SILVERS: ... Under what conditions, if any, can violent action be said to be "legitimate"? ...

http://www.chomsky.info/debates/19671215.htm

[Sudsy]

When people are being massacred and tortured violence is more than necessary.

[JPSartre12]

http://www.chomsky.info/debates/19671215.htm

This is an interesting thread. Thank you for it, comrade.

I think that it goes without saying that we should be completely opposed to violence and killing under any circumstance.

However, the bourgeois State has no problem using force against us, so it is idealistic to assume that we can stage a revolution and destroy it without violence; any "violence" that we commit during the revolution is a matter of self-defense and retaliation, not petty murder and crime.

[Leftsolidarity]

I think that it goes without saying that we should be completely opposed to violence and killing under any circumstance.

However, the bourgeois State has no problem using force against us, so it is idealistic to assume that we can stage a revolution and destroy it without violence; any "violence" that we commit during the revolution is a matter of self-defense and retaliation, not petty murder and crime.

You completely contradict yourself here. Self-defense is still implementing violence and you might (will) kill the other combatant. You just said you oppose violence and killing under any circumstance.

It would be considered crime to the bourgeois state too.

[JPSartre12]

You completely contradict yourself here.

I'm not contradicting myself; I'm saying that, on matter of principal, one human killing another is atrocious, but it's something that we, if we're intellectually honest with ourselves, will have to accept as part of the reality of the revolution.

[Rafiq]

when it is necessary to retain or conquer state dictatorship. as communists we should not be concerned with justifying violence. we will do what we must to crush the class enemy, no more, no less.

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[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Well as a Marxist I hold a class oriented outlook that is incompatiable with the idea of a single universal human subject that is a priori to the idea of a system of ethical standards that would regulate political violence. I don't believe that there is a such thing as "humanity" and therefore I don't feel that the bourgeois are withing the same moral category as the proletariat, because as the proletariat's interests are directly opposed to that of the bourgeois, then we can say that both abstractly and concretely that any action that harms the power and well being of the bourgeois that is carried out by an individual is morally right from the position of the proletariat while it is immoral from the position of the bourgeois. So there is no similar interests that could possibly put the actions of either class in any sort of eqivelence. This isn't to say that the bourgeois aren't a moral category of their own but that they simply aren't in the same category as the proletariat. They are much like dogs, it would be wrong to rape a dog, but you surely wouldn't let it stray too far from your leash.

[Comrade #138672]

I wouldn't compare the bourgeoisie with dogs. Dogs are not our enemies.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It seems to me that talking about "legitimacy" already misses the point. Terms such as "legitimate" and so on presuppose the existence of some supra-class "true" or "correct" morality. As materialists, we ought to recognise that morality is always the morality of a class, and that to talk about "the true" morality is to commit a category error. As revolutionaries, we ought not to tie ourselves into knots in order to win the approval of the middle strata that Chomsky and Arendt represent.

Socialists are for the revolution; if something aids the revolution, as violence seems to, it is "justified" to us, if we must use such language.

As an aside, this theory of states being, as Chomsky puts it, "heavily coloured" by the manner in which they are formed, so that "cynical and vicious" actions "deface the quality of the ends that are achieved", demonstrates how far Chomsky is from a materialist analysis of society.

[Narodnik]

There are two ways to success. One is a genuine worker organization coming to state power and expropriating the capitalists by legal decree. The other is the workers becoming organized and active enough to overthrow the system, and then a violent revolution breaking out of the tensions forming between the conflicting classes. I would like to see the first option come trough, but if not, I support the SR Maximalists on the question of violence.

The position is that)when a time comes when class consciousness is on a high level, and revolution is likely, revolutionaries should conduct political assassinations of political leaders hostile to the revolution, and economic assassinations of chief financiers of the reactionary forces.

Why do I consider that legitimate? Because I see as a part of the process of liberation.

Class "cold" war exists in capitalism perpetually, and is brought out of it's "coldness" into light of violence pretty much every time the workers organize and voice their oppossition to the way things are, but even it's state of inertness, class war is real. Exploiters commit theft towards the workers, and use the threat of (state) force to do it systematically without interruption. The threat of force is constant, and it is that threat that becomes acted out in the mentioned worker protests, when the thieves feel threated by their victim, fearing their theft might be interfered with.

In a near-revolution situatution I mentioned, the class war will surely escalate. Even if it's not some servant of the system firing the first shot at a member of the organized workforce (which is unlikely, it is almost certain that the system will initiate conflict), but it's some worker firing the first bullet on the servants of the system, I find that justified, being that even without the bullet fired at the workers, threat of that bullet exists intristically in capitalism, and the first bullet of the workers towards the system would be a bullet of a victim fired towards it's perpetrator.

That is why I think if the first option (parliamentary) is not the one that happens, I support revolutionaries not only firing the first bullet, but carying out a series of assassinations of as many political and economic leaders of the reaction as they can before full blown revolutionary conflict develops.

[MP5]

Violence is a legitimate tool of the proletariat in class war. It is neither a negative thing or a positive thing it just is. Those who say that using violence to achieve political goals is wrong obviously forget the fact that the bourgeois use violence in the form of political repression against the proletariat everyday. So why should the radical left hold ourselves to some moral high ground that is perpetuated and used selectively by the bourgeois and the moderates just because they say that violence is evil? If there are other choices then yes why not use them but the bourgeois deliberately leave the proletariat with no other choice but violent insurrection as their in no other way to break their system.

Parliamentary changes can only make changes within the system it cannot change the system or dissolve it. Going that route just ends up with reforms that are meaningless and still does not address the real problem which is Capitalism. It's not like the Capitalists are going to peacefully give up a economic system that they rely upon and treats them very well. So i doubt a Communist revolution could happen without any blood shed.

[Red Nightmare]

Violence is necessary sometimes, in a communist society hopefully class violence will be a thing of the past but in order to reach that communist society violence will be necessary. I find it really hypocritical when people abhor the violence done by revolutionaries but defend and even praise the violence done by bourgeois regimes.