Comrades, recently I debated on the Che Guevara Discussion area the relation between the military and socialism. During the debate, I brought up a very controversal possibility that I felt should be debated. I said that the workers may have to continue maintaining armed bodies of men even when humanity has reached communism. I'm not saying I'm 100% correct here, after all we have never seen a true modern communist society. These are simply observations I have made. This also bleeds into other observations I've made. Of course, Marx said that communism abolishes all war, but does it? Thats what communism is supposed to do in theory, but not necessary what it is going to do in practice. Marx was wrong on many things, even when describing some aspects of what socialism would be like. War has been with man since the early cavemen. Many of the sports we play today for recreation originated for a martial purpose. In fact the earliest sports were combat sports. Humans' agressive tendencies have been a driving factor of war, but many of the biggest wars in human history have been over economical prizes. Early communal societies(ex. Celts, Ancient Slavs, Vikings, Germanic tribes, Mongols), which are seen as the examples for modern communism, placed a high empasis on warriors and combat training in young children. We even see this today with socialist nations, which are very militarized. Opposition to communism will probally be a common problem, even after the victory of the international revolution. You really can't completely destroy opposition permentally, theres always going to be people who oppose the system(whatever the system is). I'll explain more later. We also have to consider the national question. Stalin and paticularly Juche have said that revolutions must often adapt to the conditions to each individual nation. This is something Marx never really thought of, since he though it was simply the whole bourgeious vs. the whole proletariat. Stalin proved its more complicated. Of course, as communists we call for the abolishment of countries' boundaries, but I don't think this applies to cultural boundaries. Lenin claimed that national & languages differences would still exist after the fulfilment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the whole world even still for very much longer. The USSR promoted its ethnic minorites to take pride in their cultural heritage. China has done so too, and so has Cuba with its Afro-Cuban population. But could these differences truely dissappear once we achieve communism? I really doubt that. This allows the possibilities of inter-ethnic conflict. The USSR, although made huge progress in uniting its 150 different ethnic groups, still faced occasional ethnic warfare. Between 1945-1991, the USSR engaged in around 50 different ethnic conflicts. I'm not saying that unity between different races and ethnic groups is impossible, but yet we'll always have those hard-liners who want to start trouble. Because of these possibilities I've observed, I said that it might be possible to maintain armed groups to protect workers rule even into communism. I don't doubt that communism will get rid of the big major conflicts that capitalism has created. However. I do believe that small-scale conflicts, more in the forms of tribal and guerrilla warfare, could continue under communism. Like I said before, these are simply observations I've have made, I am in no way saying I'm 100% correct! If I'm wrong in many areas, than please tell me. I brought this topic up, because so many times things don't go exactly according to plan, whether in poltics or personal life. your comrade-in-arms, Spetsnaz http://www.geocities.com/john_boget __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Calendar - Get organized for the holidays! http://calendar.yahoo.com/
