| Socialism and the use of force |
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| Thursday, 05 August 2010 22:37 | |
 Not believing in force is like not believing in gravity. L. Trotsky Whether it is explicit like a US missile slamming into an Afghan village or merely a implicit threat, the kind that allows a bailiff to repossess your motor car, force is an inescapable part of life in modern society. And while force seems to have played less of a role in pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies, it has certainly been a defining feature of every society since then. A fundamental aspect of socialism is opposition to the idea that “might is right”. We struggle against the arbitrary rule of fate and try to push back the meaningless chaos and destruction that characterises so much of human life. Radical, constant, ruthless use of violence is what created the ruling class in the first place. The very shape of the world – the subjugation of the “Tri-cont” the three continents of Africa, Asia, and Latin America to the enrichment of Europe and North America – was only possible with unimaginable brutalities, with a multitude of mindboggling atrocities. Then there is the everyday violence. Our prisons are full. Children grow up locked into poverty. War is a permanent feature of life. In the war in Congo alone more people have died than during World War Two. Because we appeal to the interests of the many, the amount of force we need to use is far less than they need to maintain their rule. But we oppose the rule of the mighty, of the few, not with open hands, peace, and moral superiority but with clenched fists, with solidarity. We oppose the arbitrary force of the few with the democratic force of the many. To deny any legitimate role for force in politics is religion, not politics, and like all religion, it serves ultimately the status quo, the rule of the few, a system of constant violence. Gandhi's main contribution to the Indian independence movement was to delay it as long as possible. Do the betrayals by the leaderships of the ideals of the national liberation struggles in Africa, Asia, and Latin America prove that violence is always wrong? How would our pacifist comrade advise the Vietnamese facing US gunships or the Guinean whose village was napalmed? Accept your lot, return to the peaceful, political path? How should a pacifist act if they were a slave of the French in Haiti, where life expectancy on arrival was something like seven years? These are not rhetorical questions. The fact that pacifists cannot answer them exposes pacifism as a religion, as pious preaching and not a strategy for liberation at all. Because of course, behind opposition to revolutionary violence, always lurks opposition to revolution itself. As Lenin said “Whoever expects a “pure” social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip-service to revolution without understanding what revolution is.” For all that the insurrection in Petrograd was almost bloodless, the workers state then fought a bloody Civil War against Russian reaction, backed by 14 foreign armies. Victorious in the Civil War, the democratic heart of the Revolution was lost by the physical destruction of industry and the revolutionary working class. This was followed by Stalin's bloody rule. Would it not have been better if the Bolsheviks had never taken power? That is the question that every revolutionary socialist must confront. It is a constant challenge. For myself, I am convinced that it was the right thing to do, despite the cost, because 1)The alternative was not Menshevik reformism, but anti-semitism and fascism. 2)The Russian Revolution ended the First World War. 3)The post-revolutionary period saw income inequality in capitalism drop for the first time since it emerged. It is interesting to note in passing that the Bolsheviks are blamed for the deaths they caused, but the British ruling class, say, are never held responsible for their responsibility for the deaths they caused. I don't consider this hypocrisy because the Russian revolutionary workers and the Bolshevik party were conscious of their choices. The British ruling class merely acted out of blind greed and brainless tradition. The massacre in Tianamen Square, with the resulting consolidation of the power of State Capitalism in China, was only possible because when the soldiers were ready to join the movement, the student leaders insisted they drop their weapons. A student who protests might be expelled from college, a worker who strikes is liable to be sacked, but a soldier who mutinies faces death. A point of no return had been reached, which the soldiers realised, beyond which there was no room for discussion with the Chinese regime. Meanwhile, behind the pacifism of the student leaders lay a refusal to take power into their own hands. Either the West or some progressive Chinese state or army boss would save them, they vainly hoped. As Bob Marley said, “Most people think great God will come from the sky/ take away everything and make everybody feel high/ But if you know what life is worth, you will look for yours on earth/ so now we see the light, we stand up for our rights.” Force must be used, I think, but violence can often be avoided. They say that in Japan there were once two master sword smiths. They competed to forge the finest blade. For a test, the first smith cut the surface of a swift-flowing stream with his blade. Autumn leaves rising on the water were sliced effortlessly in two as they passed. When the second placed his blade in the flow, though, the leaves simply passed by, on either side. Mike Tait Aug 6, 2010 |
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