Guess you didn't read the follow-up emails. I think there is most definitely a role for armed struggle when used in conjunction with class-conscious mass struggle. I do not think "peoples' war," "surrounding the cities," pre-Debray Debray focos offer viable paths for revolutionary struggle absent that class conscious mass struggle. There is no Soviet Union to prop up a Mao, an NLF etc.
You think those assaulting and killing abortionists and making thinly veiled threats against Obama need to be confronted? Absolutely, so do I. The question of course is one of CONTENT. What is the content of that confrontation? Self-style vanguards, wearing Chairman Mao buttons marching in the streets with AK 47s and red books? As for what the American people would or would not stand for, I think your assessment is rather superficial, shallow, and precisely because you base it on some allegiance, imagined or real, that you think you, or Marxists, might or might not share with the "American people" about Constitutional provisions and "social contracts." I have no idea what the "American people," as if such a thing exists apart from the class relations in the US, hold as inviolable and sacred. But whatever it is, it certainly isn't that document born of the great compromise with slaveholders-- the US Constitution. They didn't mind one bit when that "social contract" was shredded by the Patriot Act, Honeland Security, domestic wiretaps, etc. etc. Dixie Chicks excepted, and to the contrary not withstanding. What did bother them was losing control of the battlefield in Iraq. What did bother them was the economy tanking. I would expect if there is a military coup in the US, the stage will be set not by those against Obama per se, but by Obama himself as he fulfills the legacy of Bush, and as mass, class-conscious resistance grows to the economic privation essential to that fulfillment. And for your information, when Tom Ridge was Secretary of Homeland Security, he had plans drawn up in case it became necessary to cancel the 2004 elections if it became necessary to declare martial law in response to "terrorists attacks." So as push comes to shove and Obama strives to prove himself tough on terrorism, it's possible one might expect the bourgeoisie to pull some fantastic unbelievable stunt, like flying a couple of planes into a couple of tall buildings to set the alert level to day-glo fuscia/orange/red and ease the path to military rule. Sure there's a relationship between political power and the barrel of a gun. Everbody from Napoleon to Pinochet knew that without having to read the red book. So what? The question is: What is that relationship? Do the Maoists in India work in such class-conscious mass based struggle? Did the Shining Path? I find that a bit hard to believe as a comrade from that region has pointed out that those Maoists in India are not opposed to killing cadres of other communist organizations [thus continuing the grand tradition that goes back to the 1930s inside and outside the USSR]. You say that the relationship between armed and mass struggle requires serious consideration. Indeed it does. Consideration more serious than simple praise, defense, of the actions of a sect that opposes class-conscious mass actions. ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: "David Schanoes" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 5:18 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Armed Struggle > Artesian wrote: > "... the real question for all is: Is armed > struggle both (an) available substitute for and a > successful alternative to class-conscious mass > action?" ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
