Like I think a central state is needed for the first phase of the revolution, but the more brutal aspects is something I just don't want to do, even if I understand why they did them?

  • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    This passage from Blackshirts and Reds always sticks with me when I think about state violence in a revolutionary state:

    The transforming effects of counterrevolutionary attack have been felt in other countries. A Sandinista military officer I met in Vienna in 1986 noted that Nicaraguans were "not a warrior people" but they had to learn to fight because they faced a destructive, U.S.-sponsored mercenary war. She bemoaned the fact that war and embargo forced her country to postpone much of its socio-economic agenda.

    I feel like I read or listened to a more thorough elaboration of that somewhere, where Parenti talked more about the material programs that the Sandinistas had to sacrifice to survive in the face of reactionary terror, but I don't even know where to begin looking since what I remember isn't in the surrounding text in Blackshirts and Reds.

      • Mog_Pharou [he/him]
        1·
        4 years ago

        Yeah, Parenti refers to this as siege socialism and admonishes other leftists who engage in red bashing and regurgitate orthodox capitalist propaganda without taking into account the context and conditions that require a more iron-fisted approach to survive. Looking at you Chomsky.

        But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the work­ers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this "pure socialism" view is ahistorical and nonfalsi­fiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It com­pares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage. The pure socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be av oided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priori­ties set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed

      • GVAGUY3 [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        That's why I said the state is needed at first

    • GVAGUY3 [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      That is the tragic part of it. Wars will destroy your morals.

      • originalsin [none/use name]
        1·
        4 years ago

        That's where, with the advent of the internet, we need to somehow establish and propagate a more unified global leftist body that could prevent war. But that's such an ungodly, huge undertaking and requires more time then we have left. Best bet is to join the IWW and continue to push them globally. Sadly, they have less teeth than they did in the past. As is the way unions seem to go...

        • pooh [she/her, any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          This is partly why I think something like “revolutionary intercommunalism” might be a more viable path towards revolution around the world, and especially within the US. This is from Huey Newton’s “Intercommunalism” speech:

          We believe that there are no more colonies or neocolonies. If a people is colonized, it must be possible for them to decolonize and become what they formerly were. But what happens when the raw materials are extracted and labor is exploited within a territory dispersed over the entire globe? When the riches of the whole earth are depleted and used to feed a gigantic industrial machine in the imperialist’s home? Then the people and the economy are so integrated into the imperialist empire that it is impossible to “decolonize,” to return to the former conditions of existence.

          If colonies cannot “decolonize” and return to their original existence as nations, then nations no longer exist. And since there must be nations for revolutionary nationalism or internationalism to make sense, we decided that we would have to call ourselves something new.

          We say that the world today is a dispersed collection of communities. A community is different from a nation. A community is a small unit with a comprehensive collection of institutions that serve to exist a small group of people. And we say further that the struggle in the world today is between the small circle that administers and profits from the empire of the United States, and the peoples of the world who want to determine their own destinies.

          We call this situation intercommunalism. We are now in the age of reactionary intercommunalism, in which a ruling circle, a small group of people, control all other people by using their technology.

          At the same time, we say that this technology can solve most of the material contradictions people face, that the material conditions exist that would allow the people of the world to develop a culture that is essentially human and would nurture those things that would allow people to resolve contradictions in a way that would not cause the mutual slaughter of all of us. The development of such a culture would be revolutionary intercommunalism.

          • originalsin [none/use name]
            ·
            4 years ago

            I like this. This is a fitting description of the current situation. The biggest hurdle is creating and nurturing this revolutionary intercommunalism.

            I think that in the existence of most nations, there is still a large sense of independence and nationalism that occurs through state-run/funded propaganda. Until that aspect of the state is eliminated, how do you grow a sense of unity among the global proletariat? For every ML or anarchist that has the ability to connect with individuals globally, there seems to be three fascists that instill nationalist beliefs globally.

            From Brexit, to the response of the European migrant crisis, the coup of Bolivia, or Trump's presidency, there do not appear to be enough international prole victories for how quickly global mobilization needs to occur, to divert humanity from it's rapidly approaching demise.

            • pooh [she/her, any]
              ·
              4 years ago

              I like this. This is a fitting description of the current situation. The biggest hurdle is creating and nurturing this revolutionary intercommunalism.

              There are some groups out there pursuing something similar, and often connected to Bookchin's ideas regarding 'Communalism'. Rojava is one project most people here are aware of, but there are others with related projects like Fearless Cities, Symbiosis Revolution, and Black Socialists in America, to name a few. Maybe not directly related, but Vietnam and Cuba are both also pursuing things like cooperative farms and businesses that are more decentralized and community-based, and could become an important part of that global effort.

              I think that in the existence of most nations, there is still a large sense of independence and nationalism that occurs through state-run/funded propaganda. Until that aspect of the state is eliminated, how do you grow a sense of unity among the global proletariat? For every ML or anarchist that has the ability to connect with individuals globally, there seems to be three fascists that instill nationalist beliefs globally.

              I think you're right, but I also think that technology, combined with neoliberalism's quest to spread capitalism across borders, has maybe created a backlash and served to weaken nationalist sentiment among young people. So, opposition to neoliberalism and transnational online communities (like Kpop comrades?) could serve as a basis for a global movement. I think the threat posed by global warming also presents an opportunity for people to band together against a common enemy. It's going to take a lot of work, though.

              From Brexit, to the response of the European migrant crisis, the coup of Bolivia, or Trump’s presidency, there do not appear to be enough international prole victories for how quickly global mobilization needs to occur, to divert humanity from it’s rapidly approaching demise.

              Not yet, but there is some room to be hopeful. As bad as things are, there are still people who are willing to fight back in places like Bolivia, Paris, Portland, Latin America, etc. I think the will is there, but the left is poorly organized at an international level, and we need to change that as soon as humanly possible.