What is it you wanted me to reconcile myself to? I was born here almost 60 years ago, I’m not gonna live another 60 years. You always told me it takes time. It’s taken my father’s time, my mother’s time. My uncle’s time. My brother’s and my sister’s time. My nieces’ and my nephews’ time. How much time do you want? For your progress.
James Baldwin, 1989
That’s completely ahistorical. Violent revolution in China doubled life expectancy within a generation; violent revolution in Russia led to industrialization and the transformation of a fuedal backwater into a global superpower capable of stopping the Nazis; violent revolution in Vietnam led to the expulsion of violent exploitative colonial rule and establishing autonomy to this day, as well as allowing them to stop the Cambodian genocide; violent revolution in Cuba expelled the oppressive gangster state and led to Cuba having one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita in the world, which have been sent around the world to assist in humanitarian crises.
The claim that violent revolutions “always backfire” is just propaganda you were told to encourage complacency. The negative aspects of revolutionary countries are always highlighted and pushed to the forefront, while any positive accomplishments are ignored or written off.
Rather than looking at it in terms of just going out and trying to overthrow the government, look at it this way. The system is failing, and if it cannot correct itself with significant changes, then it will collapse. And currently, the right is better prepared for that collapse and more likely to take advantage of it. That’s a part of why they can be so obstructionist and not care if the system actually functions. What we need is to become better prepared, so that if an when shit hits the fan, we at least have a fighting chance. And in the meantime, if there’s any way to actually make the system work, then it’s through giving the powers that be something to be afraid of.
What we can do currently is to participate in other non-electoral tactics, such as strikes and demonstrations, while making preparations and building dual power structures. Again, rather than thinking in terms of, “How do we overthrow the government,” think in terms of, “If there’s a breakdown in order, and a fascist militia shows up to my community, what can we do about it?”
Currently, for example, there are masked fascist thugs raiding workplaces and dragging people away, claiming to be government agents, and we may not currently have the capacity to fight them and win, but what we can do is track their movements and give people early warnings to get to safety, and we can pressure workplaces to refuse to open their doors to them, and we can do whatever we can to make their jobs harder and make their lives hell while preparing for the day that we can kick them off our streets.
You’re 100% right about everything you just said. None of that involves rioting or armed fighting of any kind. That’s the thing I’m getting at.
Having ideological predelictions for or against violence are both liabilities. You have to evaluate the material conditions to determine which tactics are more effective and make the determination based on those conditions.
Abandoning any possibility of armed fighting, just because you evaluate it to be non-viable under the current conditions, is a mistake. The current conditions will not last forever, for better or for worse.
During the years of the Weimar Republic, the conditions weren’t there for the left to overthrow the government through armed fighting (the failed Spartacist Uprising demonstrates this), but one of the ways the Nazis secured power was through street-fighting, expanding their practical, physical control block-by-block, while the left failed to mount an effective resistance to them. While the Nazis controlled the streets, there was no real possibility of making a legal or political challenge to Hitler’s seizure of power (it would have been unenforceable). Had the left been better organized and better equipped militarily, they might have been able to remove the Nazis’ de facto control of the streets and better challenge their power. It could happen here.
History is full of examples that prove that armed fighting can be an effective tactic, and in many cases, is the only viable tactic.
Which I have done, and my determination is that rioting and larger-impact violence (like, say Weather Underground) tend to backfire and turn the public against the cause you’re fighting for. With very few exceptions (Luigi being one of them).
That’s a strawman. I’ve never once said that nor implied it. I made general statements about violence in general. I guess I should have been more specific. See above.
Stop living in the past. Those people are dead, and so is their worldview and culture. We live in different times now with different standards of behavior.
Yeah, that’s not happening now. Stop living in the past. The far-right in America is VASTLY outnumbered by those who oppose them. If it came down to it, and say, all the MAGAs in the South and in rural areas of blue states “rose again” and tried to take the streets by force, they would soon get a wake up call, because even the vast majority of police wouldn’t join their ranks (as crazy as that may sound to those of us on the left - there are “good” cops out there who believe in the myth that we were taught growing up about what cops should be - to serve and protect the public).
I’m not saying violence is NEVER the answer. I’m saying we don’t and shouldn’t treat violence as the only true answer.
You readily conflate adventurism with revolution.
To quote Castro: it is not the revolutionary’s choice to be violent. It is a path imposed to us by oppressors. So people have two choices: to give up, or fight.
If you’ve chosen to ignore the advice given to you in this very thread regarding the historical importance of violence, you’ve chosen to give up.
I agree with all of you that in the past, violence was necessary. But that was the distant past. A different generation is living now and we don’t need to kill anyone to have a revolution. And every time we do, except in VERY rare cases, it backfires.
Stop living in the past. Those people are dead, and so is their worldview and culture. So there’s really no telling what could happen from a violent revolution today.
Or, we could not arbitrarily write off historical examples and actually study and learn from history.
Lol, if you had opened with, “We don’t need to worry about defending our communities because we can always just rely on the cops to protect us” then I would’ve just laughed in your face.
I would have too. That would be fucking absurd. Can you please top whacking at straw men and actually address my points?
How are these two statements meaningfully different?