war is a crude form of politics, and another form of competition. the contradictions from war waged by a socialist state will be many.
Blanket statements about war being a crude form of politics tends toward dogma and not material analysis.
Reminds me of Mao’s “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” speech. “We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.”
Modern China is quite different from Mao’s China, but I think it is still true that there are conditions under which war is a necessary activity for a socialist state. One of those conditions would be acts of war imposed on that state by other bourgeois states. If Mao had not insisted on the necessity of war in revolutionary China, I don’t think we would have a socialist China today. The threat on China today is only increasing, and military force will inevitably have to be used to counter Western aggression.
I am not advocating hawkishly for war. It is not automatically the correct strategy. Nor is it automatically incorrect. War is a reality imposed on socialist states that has to be dealt with on its own terms.
Blanket statements about war being a crude form of politics tends toward dogma and not material analysis.
Reminds me of Mao’s “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” speech. “We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.”
Modern China is quite different from Mao’s China, but I think it is still true that there are conditions under which war is a necessary activity for a socialist state. One of those conditions would be acts of war imposed on that state by other bourgeois states. If Mao had not insisted on the necessity of war in revolutionary China, I don’t think we would have a socialist China today. The threat on China today is only increasing, and military force will inevitably have to be used to counter Western aggression.
I am not advocating hawkishly for war. It is not automatically the correct strategy. Nor is it automatically incorrect. War is a reality imposed on socialist states that has to be dealt with on its own terms.