I believe that due to the inherent contradictions of capitalism a revolution is inevitable, and necessary, but it’s still not something that is easily palatable. Revolution is certainly romanticized, yet I still question every day whether or not I would be willing to die for my beliefs. My question to my fellow comrades is do you think non-violent form of revolution is possible, or will the state and reactionaries always crack down? I know that in the past those with power and prestige have been reluctant to give it up.
I’m going to pause my guerrilla war in the music sub for a moment:
We can absolutely beat the American military using a protracted people’s war.
Think bigger. Think smaller. Think dialectics and change and transformation and the metaphor of the spark that sets an entire prairie ablaze. The winds are beginning to blow in your favor.
The American military loses every battle after a few years. This is going to apply even moreso inside America.
Think how much recruiting is going to be fucked up when populist guerrillas, who have done their homework and developed base areas of support, start harassing soldiers during training and on the streets? What happens to morale and unit cohesion when Americans are violently harassing soldiers on training?
What if those Americans are also “BLM” and “ANTIFA” and use popular fronts to do popular things like staging liberations of pharmacies and redistributing medicine, liberating apartment blocks by unionizing tenants, preventing police from performing evictions, and so on?
We can do this for a long period of time and still have ever-growing mass support. Mass support is necessary. Maybe we know what we’re doing here.
We have to outlast them with only a few years of escalating antagonism and harassment. That’s it. Protracted. Peoples. War.
Stop thinking of it as primarily a set-piece battle between the rebels and the empire, it’s not, and those thoughts are leading people to the wrong conclusions (counter-revolutionary positions)
Hahaha this is actually a hilarious, succinct, and kind of spot-on counter-point to the argument ‘americans could never defeat the american army, because it’s the biggest army history has ever seen’.
Counterpoint: what war has the american army ever actually won hahahaha
To be pedantic, but the civil war, and the genocidal war against indigenous Americans. And we can question the various things the US had going for it that led to those victories, but at that point, how can we assign victory to any war by any force, and I’m already doing that by leaving out the war of 1812 and some other ones. Granted the US army hasn’t won large series of battles (though it hasn’t fought many battles like that since Korea either) that ended in enemy surrender since world war 2 (though there hasn’t been a war within the US since the end of the native american wars, so that’s a mixed sign.
Pedantic is good. ‘America always loses wars’ is one of those things that’s funny because it’s pretty true, but also couldn’t possibly be wholly true.
You’ve a good point about ‘no war on american soil’. I genuinely fear the american response if there’s ever a war on american soil. I mean, look at how people responded to 9/11. On the global scale, not the hugest thing; more americans were dying every day of covid than died there. But the response was… well, on a global scale.
Imagine if they got properly invaded, right? It’s a nation of, largely, hobbyist soldiers. Everyone’s armed to the teeth, looking for a fight, and extremely fragile. It would be explosive, fast, and very bloody, I fear.
Also, it’s not terribly fair to frame america as having been particularly helpful in WWII imo, which I know is a tired line haha. But, really, it’s like that douchebag in smash bros who turtles all game, only to come in with fresh legs and full stocks, and sweep people at the end, and then claim responsibility and dominance hahaha it’s a bit rich, frankly :P ;)
Think how much recruiting is going to be fucked up when populist guerrillas, who have done their homework and developed base areas of support
How would we get to this point, though? I have a hard time imagining a future where a majority of the country doesn’t (a) openly support whatever military dictator we’re talking about, or (b) at least go along with it. Where would this popular resistance come from, especially with how easy it is to demonize any left-wing political group that engages in even minor violence?
Can I just slide this question and tell you the abstract truth sparing the messy details?
We’re already out there working on agitation. We have underground Red Guards and front orgs and everything. Perhaps you saw how we shut down capital in Canada for months by blockading rail traffic? Hi!
The Maoists and the masses are working on it. For real. Out there in radical orgs right now. Did you see the national approval rating for torching a police precinct? We’ll absolutely have the people on our side, all the way.
We’re moving further by organizing and trying to get as many people on the left side of the barricade as possible. Theory and praxis, same as ever.
Did you see the national approval rating for torching a police precinct? We’ll absolutely have the people on our side
There’s a massive difference between supporting property destruction from afar and personally going out there with a gun to either shoot someone or get shot. I want to believe you, I just don’t see a lot of evidence for it right now.
I have more of a philosophical answer than a historical one. I think all moments in history are both violent and peaceful, in varying kinds and degrees. If the people had overwhelming power; say the military and police turned, and almost everyone was on board… holding a gun to the capitalist’s head could very well be enough, without having to fire it. Coups have happened in this way.
But that is still violent! But is it? Everything is, to varying degrees, peaceful and violent. Have their been peaceful revolutions in the past? Likely. Perhaps most weren’t. Either way, that does not determine the future. It can help us predict, but there is no way to know with certainty if the next revolution, which could very well be The Big One given the unique moment in history we live, if it will follow in lock-step with past revolutions in terms of the levels of violence that have tended to occur. After all, there’s never been a socialist revolution in an imperial core–yet.
The way I see it, the very existence of capitalism is extraordinary violence and the revolutionary violence that ousts it (no matter how graphic) is peaceful by comparison.
Capitalism directly chooses to keep millions on the verge of starvation, hoard healthcare, destroy infrastructure, wage imperial war, and imprison millions more for slave labor.
By comparison, a bloody revolution with short term violence that ends the constant violence we all live with is a peaceful option.
Ya! I totally agree. Capitalism and its consequences have killed 10039 garbillion people haha—I’m only just barely kidding. I agree.
But! I also think that, just for basic ethical reasons, revolution should aim to be as bloodless as possible. I don’t believe in revenge killings, or really punishment of any kind; I believe in progress, and reform. So… if it is possible to carry out the necessary revolution relatively bloodlessly, we should try.
I don’t excitedly await my turn to kill a capitalist. And I don’t particularly enjoy glofying the idea of it either, tbh. I would rather avoid the violence altogether, if that is at all possible during the coming revolution.
Of course, if revolution is here and it precipitated war, I would play my part. But leading up to that moment, I would do everything in my power to bring about revolution as peacefully as possible.
I think you’re arguing, basically, ‘violence is worth it’, which I agree with. And I’m arguing something entirely non-contradictory to that; ‘violence is undesirable, and should be avoided as much as possible’ :) :red-fist:
Well put! Violence isn’t good, but focusing on revolutionary violence and ignoring the violence inherent in the system is a common tactic used to discredit revolutions. I mean we’ve literally seen this during the protests (the “violent protestors” narrative). It’s absolutely important to try and avoid using violence, but it’s not something that can always be avoided. Especially if you’re doing mass action. If a revolution successfully liberates the oppressed, there’s a good chance they will want to do terrible things to their oppressors and it’s not important to stop that from happening (see China).
Reaping what they sowed and such.
Ask Allende.
a revolution doesn’t have to devolve into a civil war, but those in service of the state (law enforcement & military) will kill to maintain their power, and therefore, have to be killed for the revolution to succeed. it’s often why turning the military is the most important step.
I agree with you on the importance of turning the military. But doing that is often more a propaganda mission, right? Like it’s rare a people beats their military into submission, or scares them into turning sides with a show of force. It’s more about popular support? I’m cloudy on the historical trends; I know in the case of the Cuban Revolution it took very much both war and propaganda to ultimately turn the military.
But once you have the military, isn’t it relatively bloodless from there, too? I could see it happening in a way most would call relatively peaceful. Though I’m unsure!
(fwiw, I totally agree that revolution doesn’t require civil war, I think history’s pretty clear there :) I’m just having fun trying to imagine!)
I personally see it as incredibly naive to think there could be a successful bloodless socialist revolution. The ones there have been are defeated by the reactionaries pretty quickly, although the Bolivarian revolution is still an ongoing experiment. Like you point out, you’re always going to see attempted counter revolution, which has to be fought back in some manner.
The closest I could see to a bloodless rev in our circumstances is that society breaks down to such an extent due to the failures of capitalism and climate change that there is a collapse of the bourgeois state and a power vacuum into which a proletarian state can rise, however I think in this scenario there would be just as many competing reactionary interests that it would lead to widespread bloodshed anyway in the struggle for power.
I’m not trying to glorify violence or be pessimistic, I just find it quite unrealistic given historical precedent. Especially in the imperial core where the bourgeoisie have everything to lose.
