Re: [Marxism] It's the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden

["Carlos A. Rivera" <cerejota@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "rrubinelli" <rrubinelli@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>



> I disagree with all your assertions.

Obviously.

> First and foremost, revolutions
> are not at all about payback.  It is always the fear and propaganda of
> the rulers that revolutions will lead to bloodbaths and indiscriminate
> acts of revenge.

Is that so?

"A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle to the death
between the future and the past."

Rightly so said Fidel Castro. Or if you are of the Trotskyite persuasion:

"There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything
depends on circumstances."

There we have two revolutionaries speaking about revolution in no uncertain
terms as an amoral excercise. While Fidel is more forceful, Trotsky's
practice is (rightly) crushing the White armies, and the civilians, mostly
peasants, that supported them, speaks even more about what he meant.

Revolutions don't *have* to be "bloodbaths and indiscriminate acts of
revenge", and are not mainly "bloodbaths and indiscriminate acts of
revenge".  But I dare you to name a single revolution in which bloodbaths
and revenge, on part of both sides (or the multiple sides as was the case in
Spain) were not only common, but a large part of the struggle. All
"bloodless revolutions" have drowned in short notice in their own blood.
Just look at Chile for an example.

> And historically that has not been the case.   Not in
> France, Russia, Algeria, Vietnam, etc. Indeed, the restraint of the
> oppressed is always greater than that of the oppressor who have no
> compunctions about destroying anything and everything to preserve their
> property.

And pigs have wings. Quit the acid please. This is a statement of fantasy
that contradicts any connection with reality. War, in form, is precisely an
excercise of destruction.

When a worker who sabotages his instruments of work, she is destroying. When
he goes out and shoots cops and the army on a barricade, she is destroying.
When he car bombs a rich people's neighborhood she is destroying.

This matter should be self-evident.

And of course, the car bombs of the insurgents in Iraq are but one more
recent example of how wrong you are in this assertion. I am sorry to burst
your bubble, but wake up and smell the coffee, war, however in agreement we
are with its politics, is a bloody, messy affair.

> Those of us around at the time might remember the village of Ben Tre
> .."It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it....."

We have our homologous examples, the basic one being industrial sabotage,
destroying your livelihood in order to save it. As a matter of fact, the Red
Army in WWII burned entire cities to the ground in order to deny the nazis
access to them. Again, it is the content, not the form, that is problematic.

> WWII, not when all is said and done, but at beginning an end, was made
> possible, and necessary, by the defeat of the working class revolutions
> after WWI.  It had absolutely nothing to do with imposing modernity over
> neo-feudality.  Try overproduction if you want a key to analyzing the
> roots of the conflict.

This is a more important question, but is beyond the scope of the current
discussion. If you want to discuss this at depth open another thread. I am
very interested in learning more about different perspectives about this. My
comment was meant in a sort of jest, but is not far from my current views on
the matter.

> Nobody is moralizing or claiming any moral superiority.  On the
> contrary, the analysis of Dresen should put the truth to the moral
> smugness off the Allies re atrocities, Blitzes, civilian deaths,
> blahblahblah

In this we agree. But so far, all I have read is "look how bad capitalism
is!!! it bombed dresden!!!" and not "look what hypocrites the capitalists
are, they bomb entrie cities and then claim they are not terrorists", which
would be the more correct line.

> The only good fascist is a dead one?  The targets in Dresden were not
> fascists or fascism, which are class structures, but the general
> population.

This "general population" can be positively be construed as being fascist or
at least in general agreement with their government. Why would they have
otherwise fled the Red Army?

>  The "good is dead" formulation is used by oppressors
> everywhere to justify indiscriminate slaughter..  remember  "The only
> good Indian is the dead Indian"?

Of which the revolutionary formulation "the only good fascist is a dead
fascist" is a pun on. Which only serves to drive my point. Like or not, war
is about destruction, even revolutionary war. And destruction, while it can
take many contents, is in form essentially the same. A fascist bullet and a
revolutionary bullet paint abstract art out of people's brains in exactlly
the same brutal manner. Hence, to condemn destruction and violence devoid of
any context, and furthermore, to make moral claims on amoral things, is at
best an exercise in futility and at worse an excersice on hypocresy.

As Trotsky said, it all depends on circumstance.

> Or how about this, from a more recent
> era  "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out."?

"Socialism or Death" is the secular, revolutionary equivalent, or "Die
bourgeoise (or french or yankee) pigs!" etc etc etc. OF course, you can take
the classic cop-out of saying "those were Stalinists, or those weren't real
revolutionaries or [insert usual cop-out]. But these were wide-spread
slogans in the Russian, Algerian and Vietnamese revolutions. There are even
songs with those themes.

You migth find in appaling, morally wrong. I find it the material reality of
the world we live in.

> Good fascists, bad fascists?  That had absolutely nothing to do with
> Dresden or any other action in that conflict, as the bourgeoisie proved
> day in and day out before, during, and after the war, welcoming, trading
> with, conducting business with, absorbing,  good and bad fascists into
> its ruling structure.

I frankly don't understand this argument...


sks





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