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Title: How nonviolence is misrepresented
Author: Brian Martin
Date: July-September 2008
Language: en
Topics: nonviolence, pacifism, anti-pacifism, Peter Gelderloos, a reply
Source: https://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/08gm2.htm

Brian Martin

How nonviolence is misrepresented

Peter Gelderloos in his book How Nonviolence Protects the State claims

that nonviolence is ineffective, racist, statist, patriarchal,

tactically and strategically inferior, and deluded.[1] His attack on

nonviolence is fierce and unrelenting.

To assess Gelderloos’ views, I first outline the case for nonviolence

and the associated case against violence. This provides a foundation for

examining Gelderloos’ arguments. I give special attention to his

questionable assumption that violence always triumphs over nonviolence.

In my judgement, Gelderloos’ arguments are based on pervasive double

standards. In addition, he fails to spell out what levels and types of

violence he considers acceptable, an omission that undermines his

argument. Finally, I comment on connections between anarchism and

violence/nonviolence.

I am a longstanding supporter of nonviolent action, so it is predictable

that I am critical of Gelderloos’s arguments. But I also believe

critical analysis is valuable. Nonviolent activists can become more

effective by subjecting their beliefs to logical scrutiny and empirical

testing.

The Case for Nonviolent Action

Through history classes, Hollywood movies and the daily news, most

people come to believe two things about violence. One is that groups

with a greater capacity for violence — armies, weapons, military

industry and ruthlessness — can nearly always win over those with a

lesser capacity. This is the assumption behind the question “What would

you do to stop the Nazis?” asked rhetorically as a presumed refutation

of nonviolence.[2] Second, most people believe that violence is a tool,

usually a neutral tool. If it is used by bad guys — the enemy,

terrorists or criminals — violence is bad, but when used by good guys —

“our side” — then it is good. Most supporters of revolutionary warfare

accept these assumptions: they believe revolution is a good cause and

hope to use armed struggle to achieve it.

Nonviolent action challenges both these assumptions: the successes of

nonviolent action challenge the belief that superior violence always

succeeds; the characteristics of nonviolent action make it an especially

appropriate tool for helping create a nonviolent society.

Mohandas Gandhi was the key figure in creating awareness of nonviolent

action as a distinctive approach to social change, principally through

campaigns in South Africa beginning in 1906 and then in India from 1915

through the 1940s. Nonviolent action had been used for centuries before

Gandhi. For example, Hungarians who opposed domination by Austria used a

range of methods of noncooperation from 1850 to 1867.[3] One of Gandhi’s

achievements was to put nonviolent action on the agenda as a strategic

approach.

Gandhi’s campaigns had an enormous influence worldwide, leading to the

development and diffusion of nonviolent campaigning skills and insights.

In many social movements, nonviolent action has become the preferred

approach.

Nonviolent action, as a technique of political communication and waging

conflict, can be distinguished from conventional action and from

violence.

Conventional political action includes voting, lobbying and campaigning

— anything that is routine within a society. Conventional economic

action includes working, and buying and selling goods and shares.

Conventional social action includes meetings of clubs or neighbours,

charitable work and much else. Nonviolent action, in contrast, goes

beyond routine behaviour, often by challenging conventional practices.

Examples include protesters disrupting a government meeting by dressing

as clowns, a neighbourhood association setting up an alternative system

of social welfare, war resisters refusing to pay taxes, consumer

activists blocking service in a bank by opening and closing small

accounts, bus drivers refusing to collect fares, office workers sending

large files to clog an email system, and communities setting up local

currencies.

The boundary between conventional and nonviolent action depends on the

circumstances. When government repression is severe, handing out a

leaflet might count as nonviolent action, whereas in some places strikes

are so common and widely accepted that participating in one might be

considered conventional action.

Violence means physical force used against humans, including

imprisonment, beatings, shootings, bombings and torture.[4] Nonviolent

action excludes these. Sabotage — violence against objects — lies at the

boundary between violence and nonviolence.[5]

Nonviolent action thus encompasses a wide range of activities that go

beyond conventional, routine action but do not involve physical violence

against humans. When people think about nonviolent protests, rallies and

sit-ins commonly come to mind, but there are many other sorts, such as

workers refusing to tear down an iconic building, judges resigning in

protest over political pressure, roads activists digging up streets and

planting crops, and office workers misplacing or destroying files on

dissidents targeted for surveillance and arrest.

Nonviolent action is action — it doesn’t include passivity or inaction —

and it goes beyond conventional methods of political communication and

waging conflict, such as discussion, negotiation or lobbying. Nonviolent

action is nonviolent on the part of those who use it. Their opponents

can and often do use violence, sometimes brutally.

Nonviolent action can be divided into actions against something, such as

most strikes and boycotts, and actions for something, such as workers

organising to produce socially useful products or doing their jobs

without bosses. The against actions typically target injustices; the for

actions typically seek to build a better society.

With this picture of nonviolent action, what are the reasons for

choosing it rather than conventional action or violence? There are two

main traditions, commonly called principled and pragmatic

nonviolence.[6] Principled nonviolence is undertaken for moral reasons,

namely that it is wrong to use violence. This is the Gandhian tradition.

Pragmatic nonviolence is undertaken because it is believed to be more

effective than alternatives, in particular more effective than violence.

Principled nonviolent activists refuse to use violence under any

circumstances. For example, they refuse to join armies, no matter how

worthy the cause. However, many principled nonviolent activists pay

close attention to effectiveness: they refuse to use violence, but they

choose their tactics carefully.[7] Pragmatic nonviolent activists, on

the other hand, often proclaim their commitment to nonviolence, knowing

this increases their credibility. So, in practice, there is an overlap

of principled and pragmatic rationales.

Here I concentrate on arguments for pragmatic nonviolence because they

allow a more direct comparison with Gelderloos’ case. Principled

nonviolence has its own arguments and criteria which are important but

given less attention here.

Gene Sharp, the most prominent researcher of pragmatic nonviolence,

divides the methods of nonviolent action into three types:

protest and persuasion, such as marches, taunting of officials,

protest disrobings and renunciation of honours;

noncooperation, including many types of social, political and economic

strikes and boycotts;

intervention, including fasts, sit-ins, occupations, land seizures and

alternative institutions.[8]

From a pragmatic perspective, what are the reasons for choosing

nonviolent action? In other words, what are the benefits of nonviolent

action compared to alternatives? Out of many that could be listed, here

are four.

1. Nonviolent action involves withdrawal of support from the system. It

is a challenge to the legitimacy of standard behaviours or policies.[9]

In contrast, conventional actions, such as voting, implicitly support

the system by using its own methods.

2. Nonviolent action usually wins more support than does violence.

Nonviolent actions — at least when well chosen — leave open a greater

opportunity for communication. Opponents, by not being physically

harmed, are accorded a certain respect: implicitly, their health and

life are respected. Opponents are less fearful and hence do not have to

be as ferocious in defence or attack.

When violence is used against nonviolent protesters, this is widely seen

as unjust, and can lead to a major reaction against the violent

attackers, a process Sharp calls political jiu-jitsu.[10] This can

stimulate protest supporters to become more active, encourage uninvolved

third parties to join the side of the protesters and even disgust some

opponents of the protesters, causing their loyalty to shift.

3. Nonviolent action allows widespread participation. Women, children,

elderly people and people with disabilities can participate in many

forms of nonviolent action. This can be a goal in itself.

Much nonviolent action can be organised openly. This allows greater

participation than clandestine operations.

Much nonviolent action is empowering for participants, promoting

feelings of capability, solidarity and satisfaction.[11] Greater

participation means greater empowerment.

4. Nonviolent action as a method is compatible with the goal of a

nonviolent society.

Using methods that reflect the goal is called prefiguration: the methods

prefigure — in other words, anticipate or replicate in advance — the

goal. Prefiguration provides training and experience in what is being

sought. It helps create an element of the goal, even if a campaign is

unsuccessful. And it helps keep efforts on track.

If the goal is a society without organised violence, nonviolent action

has all these prefigurative advantages. It provides experiences in

living without using violence; it reduces immediate violence in the here

and now, even when campaigns fail; and it ensures that efforts are in a

nonviolent direction.

Each of these four points can be applied to violence.

1. Violence involves a withdrawal of consent from the system. In this

regard, violence and nonviolence are similar.

2. Violence often alienates potential supporters. Opponents may dig in

and resist more strenuously. A psychological perspective called

correspondent inference theory helps explain why. People often infer

someone else’s motivations by looking at the consequences of their

actions. If the actions lead to people dying, the inference is that

activists are motivated to kill — not to liberate, which might be their

actual motivation. This theory helps explain why terrorists’ motives are

so widely misinterpreted.[12]

Violence targets individuals, but harming individuals is not an

effective way to challenge systems of oppression. Killing a politician

does not undermine the state, because politicians can be replaced,

sometimes with ones who are worse. Furthermore, a person who is a

politician has other roles, such as parent, friend and musician.

Violence, by not discriminating between roles, destroys much that is

good, rather than targeting the damaging roles and building on the

beneficial ones.[13]

When challengers use violence, this gives greater legitimacy to state

violence against them. The jiu-jitsu effect is reduced, even when the

state uses far more violence than challengers.

3. Violence restricts participation. Young fit men predominate in both

armies and armed liberation movements. The secrecy accompanying armed

struggle also limits participation.

Violence can be empowering for those involved, but limited participation

means the empowerment is restricted.

4. Violence as a method clashes with the goal of a nonviolent society.

Using violence gives training, experience and legitimacy to violence. It

causes immediate suffering. And it is easier for campaigns to go off

track, down a path towards ongoing violence and associated domination.

Points 2, 3 and 4 constitute the core of the case against violence, from

a nonviolence point of view.

Note that these arguments for nonviolent action and against violence are

tendencies, not universal truths. For example, nonviolent action usually

wins more support than violence, but not always. Some nonviolent methods

allow only limited participation whereas some violent movements have

many participants. In adopting nonviolent action from a pragmatic point

of view, attention needs to be given to the circumstances.

Many nonviolent campaigns are largely spontaneous, without much

preparation, planning or training. No one expects armed movements

without weapons, training or plans to be very successful. Considering

the vast amounts of money and effort put into military operations, it is

reasonable to expect that nonviolent action could become far more

effective with more resources.

For those with a principled commitment to nonviolence, the circumstances

do not matter: they reject violence, even if assassinating a dictator

might reduce the suffering of millions. But there is an important link

between pragmatic assessments and principled stands. If, pragmatically,

nonviolent action is usually a better choice, then it can be

(pragmatically) sensible to make a principled commitment, because it

reduces the risks of misunderstanding by participants, of being falsely

labelled violent by opponents, and of going off track in a violent

direction.

Gelderloos

Gelderloos is an anarchist. He opposes systems based on hierarchy and

supports egalitarian social relationships created and maintained by the

people involved in them. He is opposed to the state, capitalism, racism

and patriarchy. Being opposed to capitalism puts him in the left

generally, but as an anarchist he is opposed to the state, including

state socialism whether advocated by reformist socialists seeking state

power through electoral means or by Marxist-Leninists who want to seize

control of the state, most commonly through armed struggle, in order to

crush capitalism. Gelderloos wants instead to destroy the state — and

capitalism, racism and patriarchy — so that people can create their own

non-hierarchical systems of self-rule.

Gelderloos is an activist and has spent time in prison as a result of

protest actions. His passionate commitment to liberation cannot be

doubted. But while respecting his vision, dedication and energy, it is

possible to criticise his arguments, conclusions and methods.

Rather than take up Gelderloos’ claims about nonviolence one by one, it

is more illuminating to understand his perspective as stemming from a

few key assumptions. At the core of his thinking is the view that

nonviolence cannot be successful against violence.

The state, in the conventional sociological conception, is based on a

monopoly over the use of legitimate violence. Gelderloos supports

revolutionary change including overthrow and dissolution of the state.

He believes that leaders of the state will not acquiesce. Hence, he

concludes, physical force must be used.

If nonviolent action cannot succeed against violence, then Gelderloos’

other conclusions follow.

Nonviolence is ineffective against oppressive systems backed by

violence (pp. 7–22).

Nonviolence is racist, because it allows racism to persist: “By

preaching nonviolence, and abandoning to state repression those who do

not listen obediently, white activists who think they are concerned

about racism are actually enacting a paternalistic relationship and

fulfilling the useful role of pacifying the oppressed.” (p. 34).

Nonviolence is statist, because it protects the state from the only

challenge that Gelderloos believes can overthrow it, namely violence:

“Put quite plainly, nonviolence ensures a state monopoly on violence.”

(p. 45).

Nonviolence is patriarchal, because it prevents women from using a

powerful tool — violence — against male domination: “a pacifist practice

that forbids the use of any other tactics leaves no option for people

who need to protect themselves from violence now.” (p. 67).

Nonviolence is “tactically and strategically inferior”: “The struggle

against authority will be violent, because authority itself is violent

and the inevitable repression is an escalation of that violence....

Lobbying for social change is a waste of scarce resources for radical

movements.” (p. 94).

Nonviolence is deluded about how revolutionary change can occur: “it

would be much easier to end the psychological patterns of violence and

domination once we had destroyed the social institutions, political

bodies, and economic structures specifically constituted to perpetuate

coercive domination. But proponents of nonviolence boldly sound the call

to retreat, declaring that we should treat the symptoms while the

disease is free to spread itself, defend itself, and vote itself pay

raises.” (p. 126).

Some of these arguments sound strange. How, for example, can nonviolence

be patriarchal when women have been so prominent in nonviolent action

whereas armed groups are almost always dominated by men? But Gelderloos’

argument has an underlying coherence built on his assumption that

nonviolence cannot succeed against violence, which leads to his

conclusion that violence is needed to overthrow oppressive systems,

including patriarchy: “if a movement is not a threat, it cannot change a

system based on centralized coercion and violence” (p. 22). Here,

“threat” means the potential to use violence. Because nonviolence, in

Gelderloos’ eyes, doesn’t pose a threat in this sense, he concludes that

it is patriarchal.

Therefore, rather than address in detail Gelderloos’ claims about

racism, patriarchy and the like, it is more useful to tackle his central

claim that nonviolence is unable to be effective against violence,

especially because this assumption is a common one. So how does

Gelderloos support this claim?

He certainly doesn’t do it by addressing nonviolence theory: he does not

systematically examine it.[14] Gelderloos treats all nonviolence as

principled nonviolence, thereby missing pragmatic nonviolence. He

mentions Gene Sharp only in passing and does not discuss Sharp’s theory

of power or Sharp’s methods and dynamics of nonviolent action. He does

not address the key dynamic of political jiu-jitsu, which explains how

violence used against nonviolent protesters can be counterproductive.

Nor does Gelderloos examine George Lakey’s strategy for nonviolent

revolution.[15] In fact, he assumes that nonviolence cannot be

revolutionary, for example referring to “nonviolent and revolutionary

activists” (p. 83).

Instead, Gelderloos assesses nonviolence by examining a number of

nonviolent campaigns. He dismisses every one as not really constituting

a success by using a series of arguments, deployed selectively, often

with a double standard in relation to violence.

1. Gelderloos’ first argument against nonviolent campaigns is to say

that they weren’t entirely nonviolent. If he can point to evidence of

violence in campaigns, he dismisses the contribution of nonviolent

action. Referring to 1962 black riots in Georgia and Alabama, Gelderloos

concludes “Perhaps the largest of the limited, if not hollow, victories

of the civil rights movement came when black people demonstrated they

would not remain peaceful forever.” (p. 12)

There is a double standard here. In guerrilla struggles and other

campaigns involving violence, there is also a great amount of nonviolent

action, for example during the Vietnam war, the Iraq war and the second

Palestinian intifada. Why should violence be given all the credit when

both violence and nonviolence are used?

2. Gelderloos’ second argument against nonviolent campaigns is to say

they didn’t really change anything. They weren’t liberation. They didn’t

overthrow the state — just the current rulers — and didn’t overthrow

capitalism. “The liberation movement in India failed. The British were

not forced to quit India. Rather, they chose to transfer the territory

from direct colonial rule to neocolonial rule.” (p. 9)

With this argument, Gelderloos again exhibits a double standard, because

he doesn’t assess violent campaigns with the same stringent

expectations. He refers approvingly to the Black Panthers in the US in

the 1960s and 1970s and the anarchist revolutionaries in the Ukraine in

the early 1920s, among others, none of which overthrew capitalism or the

state. He lauds these initiatives for standing up to the state, for

showing what can be accomplished, for striking fear into the heart of

rulers and for empowering participants. That is all well and good, but

he doesn’t give nonviolent campaigns credit for equivalent

accomplishments.

Gelderloos doesn’t give a single example of an armed struggle leading to

the sort of liberated society he espouses. Why not? Undoubtedly because

successful armed struggles — such as in China, Cuba, Algeria and Vietnam

— have not abolished the state but rather, if anything, strengthened it.

Armed struggle encourages militarisation of the movement, making it more

hierarchical and authoritarian. These features seldom wither away after

revolutionary victories.

3. If a campaign fails, Gelderloos attributes this to the use of

nonviolent action and insufficient use of violence. In the 1989

pro-democracy movement in China, “the students who had put themselves in

control of the movement refused to arm themselves ...” (pp. 122–123).

The double standard here is that Gelderloos does not mention the failure

of armed movements in Bolivia, Latvia, Malaya, Philippines, Uruguay and

many other countries.

Gelderloos ignores the difference between spontaneous and strategic

nonviolent action.[16] Many failed campaigns have relied mainly on

spontaneous nonviolent action, without careful planning and training. To

dismiss these as failures of nonviolent action as a method would be like

dismissing violence as a method because of the failure of spontaneous

rioting.

4. In referring to recent campaigns that unseated governments in Serbia,

Ukraine and other countries, Gelderloos says they were “orchestrated” by

the US government (p. 100). He doesn’t give any evidence for this claim,

aside from citing one newspaper story.

It is true that the US government has provided financial assistance to

some nonviolent movements, for example Otpor in Serbia, a key resistance

group in triggering the mass movement that brought down president

Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. The contribution of US government assistance

to these movements has been debated, not least among nonviolent

activists, some of whom have argued against accepting assistance because

of the risk of being accused of being pawns of the US government.

Gelderloos addresses none of the complexities of these situations,

simply assuming that because the US government was involved, therefore

it orchestrated the whole operation.[17]

The double standard in this case is that Gelderloos does not make a

similar claim in relation to violent struggles. During the Vietnam war,

the National Liberation Front received considerable assistance from the

Soviet government. Does this mean the NLF’s victory was orchestrated by

the Soviet government? Of course not. The struggle’s success depended on

the massive support and sacrifice of the Vietnamese people. Exactly the

same can be said about nonviolent campaigns that receive US government

funding: the campaigns would not stand a chance without popular support.

There is also a double standard in Gelderloos’ failure to mention cases

in which the US government supported violent resistance. In Afghanistan

after the 1979 Soviet invasion, the CIA covertly funded mujahideen

opponents. In Kosovo, the US government ignored a decade-long nonviolent

struggle[18] and then supported an armed movement, the Kosovo Liberation

Army, previously classified as terrorists. By Gelderloos’ logic, these

armed struggles were orchestrated by the US government and therefore the

role of violence can be discounted.

5. Gelderloos ignores a great number of nonviolent campaigns, thereby

avoiding the need to address their challenge to his argument. His claim

about US government orchestration falls down entirely for nonviolent

campaigns prior to the 1990s, before which there is no evidence of any

US government assistance. In one of many examples, in 1944 the dictator

of El Salvador — a US client state — was toppled in a popular nonviolent

campaign.[19]

Gelderloos claims that the nonviolent strategy of generalised

disobedience cannot bring power to the people because the state still

controls key resources and the loyalty of the military and police: “in

recent decades, the only significant military defections have occurred

when the military faced violent resistance and the government seemed to

be in its death throes.” (p. 99). To the contrary, there are quite a few

cases in which military defections have occurred without there being

much violent resistance, including the Philippines in 1986, various

Eastern European countries in 1989, the Soviet Union in 1991, and Serbia

in 2000. Gelderloos is right that military defections are essential for

revolution,[20] but defections can occur as a result of nonviolent

methods such as fraternisation.

Comparing Violence and Nonviolence

Gelderloos’ dismissal of the power of nonviolent action is so one-sided

and filled with double standards that it would be easy to miss an

important point: there has been very little systematic comparison of the

effectiveness of violence and nonviolence.

Making comparisons is complex, because the success of a campaign or

movement depends on many factors, including belief systems, human and

material resources, social cohesion, political alignments and

international factors, in addition to the methods used by activists. The

choice of violent or nonviolent methods may tip the balance in some

circumstances, but the other factors still need to be considered.[21]

In the vast body of research on social movements, there is little on the

effectiveness of violence. In one of the few relevant studies,

sociologist William Gamson in his book The Strategy of Social Protest

analyses 53 US challenging groups between 1800 and 1945. In a chapter

titled “The success of the unruly,” he assesses outcomes for groups that

used violence compared to those that were recipients of violence without

fighting back.[22] In this comparison, groups that used violence were

far more likely to be successful, namely to gain acceptance and obtain

new advantages. However, Gamson is reluctant to attribute success to

violence, arguing instead that “it is not the weakness of the user but

the weakness of the target that accounts for violence”: violence is “as

much a symptom of success as a cause.”[23]

Gamson does not use the expression “nonviolent action” nor refer to any

writings in the area. He does, though, analyse movements’ use of

“constraints” including strikes, boycotts and denunciation. He finds

that movements that used constraints but not violence were far more

likely to be successful than ones that did not use constraints. In

effect, he shows that coercive methods of nonviolent action — what Sharp

would call methods of noncooperation and intervention — are associated

with success.

Gamson’s study, while illuminating, does not directly compare the

effectiveness of options for a given movement because, as he well

recognises, he is analysing different movements in different

circumstances. However, he does give strong backing for the conclusion

that a movement being “unruly” is associated with success.[24] Violence

and nonviolence are different ways of being unruly.

In 2005, Freedom House published a study of 67 political transitions

occurring in countries with authoritarian governments in the period

1973–2000, looking at the level of violence, the source of violence and

the forces driving the transitions. Using Freedom House’s pre-existing

ratings of freedom in the countries before and after the transitions,

the authors were able to assess the comparative roles of violence and

nonviolence. Their principal findings:

“First, ‘people power’ movements matter, because nonviolent civic

forces are a major source of pressure for decisive change in most

transitions.”

“Second, there is comparatively little positive effect for freedom in

‘top-down’ transitions that were launched and led by elites.”

“Third, the presence of strong and cohesive nonviolent civic

coalitions is the most important of the factors examined in contributing

to freedom.”

“Fourth, the data suggests that the prospects for freedom are

significantly enhanced when the opposition does not itself use

violence.”[25]

These conclusions go directly against Gelderloos’ claims. Though he

might dismiss them because of the politics of Freedom House or because

none of the political transitions involved revolutionary overthrow of

capitalism and the state, nonetheless they undermine his claims about

the comparative ineffectiveness of nonviolent action.

In a forthcoming paper, Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth analyse data

for 323 violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006,

concluding that nonviolent campaigns are more likely to achieve

strategic objectives. They say, “Nonviolent campaigns are more likely to

win legitimacy, attract widespread domestic and international support,

neutralize the opponent’s security forces, and compel loyalty shifts

amongst erstwhile opponent supporters than armed campaigns, which enjoin

the active support of a relatively small number of people, offer the

opponent a justification for violent counter-attacks, and are less

likely to prompt loyalty shifts and defections.”[26] Additional careful

studies of campaigns and outcomes are needed because it is so easy to

reach a desired conclusion by the choice of a few selected examples.

Is Challenger Violence Justified?

Gelderloos frequently highlights the violence of the state — “the

greatest purveyor of violence” (p. 158) — and other systems of

oppression, with the implicit assumption that this justifies violence to

destroy these systems. The issue of the legitimacy receives quite a lot

of attention in discussions of violence. William T. Vollmann in his

mammoth analysis of violence, Rising Up and Rising Down, focuses on

justifications for and consequences of violence, and includes a detailed

moral calculus.[27]

But just because violence might be justified does not mean it is the

best option. If someone at a party swears at you, you might be legally

and morally justified in suing for slander, but it is seldom a wise idea

to do so: it is likely to be very costly and could harm your reputation

even more.[28] Similarly for violence: although justified, it might be

counterproductive in legitimising counter-violence, reducing

participation, and leading down a path towards more violence. This

highlights, once again, the importance of careful comparisons of the

effectiveness of violence and nonviolence, taking into account both

immediate outcomes and longer-term impacts on morale, solidarity and

mobilisation.

Attributions

Gelderloos’ arguments against nonviolent action in part miss the mark

because he misconstrues nonviolence and makes claims without evidence.

For example:

“... many pacifists in the US today also believe that if you are

rocking the boat or causing conflict, you are doing something wrong” (p.

20). The only evidence given for this sweeping claim is one email. Note

that Gelderloos’ persistent use of the term pacifist is misleading.

Historically, many pacifists do not engage in nonviolent action and many

nonviolent activists are not pacifists.

“But pacifists seem not to have given the violence of patriarchy its

due consideration.” (p. 66). Actually, many nonviolent activists are

feminists and have worked against male violence.[29]

“... nonviolence ... glorifies passivity” (p. 67). This is a common

misconception.[30] The terms satyagraha and nonviolent action were

developed to supersede the misleading expression “passive resistance.”

“Nonviolence focuses on changing hearts and minds, but it

underestimates the culture industry and thought control by the media.”

(p. 85). Persuasion is only one of the ways that nonviolence works.

Sharp lists dozens of methods of noncooperation and intervention.[31]

Pacifists “have the option of forswearing confrontation with state

power and pretending they are engaged in some process of magically

transforming the state through the ‘power of love,’ or their ‘nonviolent

witness,’ or by disseminating heartwrenching images of cardboard puppets

through the media, or some other swill.” (p. 108). Actually, nonviolent

activists have repeatedly confronted state power.[32]

“nonviolence is deluded in repeating that means determine ends...” (p.

130). The usual claim is that means influence ends.[33]

“The pacifist vision of struggle, based on a polar dichotomy between

violence and nonviolence, is unrealistic and self-defeating.” (p. 139).

Nonviolent activists are well aware of degrees of violence. It is

possible to draw a line between violence and nonviolence in theory and

practice while recognising different types of actions within each

category.

There are many other examples of contentious statements by Gelderloos

for which he gives no evidence or cites an email or personal comment but

draws conclusions apparently intended to apply to all nonviolent

activists. Gelderloos may be correct that some nonviolent activists are

— perhaps unconsciously — racist, paternalist or too timid. But this

does not mean that nonviolent action, as a method of struggle, has the

same characteristics, any more than the racism or other features of

violent activists mean that violence is racist.

Gelderloos often uses sources in a selective, misleading fashion. For

example, he criticises an article by Carol Flinders about women and

nonviolence, incorrectly portraying it as saying women are inherently

nonviolent.[34] He cites Martha McCaughey’s book Real Knockouts, an

analysis of the women’s self-defence movement, in support of his

argument for women’s violence against patriarchy, missing the complexity

and sophistication of McCaughey’s argument.[35]

Gelderloos approvingly quotes (pp. 114–115) Martin Oppenheimer’s book

The Urban Guerrilla concerning shortcomings of nonviolence but omits any

mention of Oppenheimer’s trenchant criticisms of violence, such as:

“For the organization of violence, for whatever reason, is basically

subversive of democratic values and institutions, and the habit of

solving political issues through violent means, far from liberating,

imprisons persons and personalities so that truly democratic

participation in decision-making become nearly impossible.”

“... the kind of people who become active in insurrections and survive

it tend not to be the kind of people who will create a positive,

humanistic order ... the kind of organization seemingly required to

conduct a violent effort is inherently subversive of such an order.”

“... both in terms of personality and organization, violence, far from

being therapeutic, endangers when it does not utterly destroy the

humanistic component of a social movement.”[36]

Violence: What Sort and How Much?

How Nonviolence Protects the State is curiously coy about the actual

role violence might play in liberation. Gelderloos explicitly rejects

presenting a definition of violence: “... one of the critical arguments

of this book is that violence cannot be clearly defined.” (p. 3). He

says that many activists consider everyday activities, such as “buying

clothes made in a sweatshop”, to be violent and says the concept of

violence isn’t useful when “no two people can really agree on what it

means” (pp. 124–125). However, even though activists may have different

conceptions about terms, it’s still possible for analysts to agree on

meanings.

Gelderloos, by leaving violence ill-defined, is able to avoid spelling

out what he sees as the appropriate or inappropriate use of violence in

liberation. He prefers to focus on hierarchy as the key to oppression

and to say that all means of challenging hierarchy should be considered,

without bothering about the difference between violence and nonviolence.

He advocates a diversity of tactics, assuming that the more tactics are

available to be used, the more effective a movement can be. Because a

commitment to nonviolence means ruling out some tactics, Gelderloos

concludes that nonviolence is bound to be less effective than a broader

diversity of tactics.

There are a few clues in the text about what sorts of actions Gelderloos

is thinking about:

“fighting cops or engaging in clandestine acts of sabotage” (p. 4);

“violent protests, bombings, and property destruction” (p. 15)

“hits a cop or throws a brick through a window” (p. 58)

“Killing a cop who rapes homeless transgender people and prostitutes,

burning down the office of a magazine that consciously markets a beauty

standard that leads to anorexia and bulimia, kidnapping the president of

a company that conducts women-trafficking” (p. 67)

“blow up a dioxin-emitting factory that is making your breast milk

toxic”; “kill the general who sends out the soldiers who rape women in a

war zone” (p. 69)

“expropriate money to fund and greatly increase the capacities of

grassroots media outlets” (p. 90).

The question arises: are there any methods that Gelderloos rejects? Does

he reject use of machine guns? Does he reject missiles? Does he reject

biological weapons? Does he reject nuclear weapons? Does he reject

torture?[37] If Gelderloos rejects any of these methods, perhaps because

they are inhumane or counterproductive, then he is drawing a line,

accepting that not all methods are acceptable in a diversity of tactics.

One of Gelderloos’ chief complaints is that nonviolent activists are

unwilling to support activists who use violence. Is Gelderloos willing

to support any activist, even ones who use land mines and chemical

weapons? If not, then his strictures against nonviolent activists, who

draw a line at a different place, reflect a double standard in his

argument.

Anarchism and Violence

Because Gelderloos articulately describes himself as an anarchist, some

readers might gain the mistaken impression that he speaks for anarchists

generally. Actually, anarchists have long debated and disagreed about

the use of violence in bringing about social change. Some anarchists

believe violence is warranted and necessary. The most famous armed

struggle by anarchists was during the Spanish revolution and civil war

from 1936–1939, when workers ran farms and factories and anarchist

militias defended the revolution both from Franco’s fascists (backed by

Hitler) and from communists. However, since then anarchist armed

struggle has not played a prominent role, though a few anarchists have

advocated using guerrilla methods designed for an industrialised

country.[38]

There is also a parallel strand within anarchism that opposes use of

violence.[39] Furthermore, some anarchists are openly committed to

nonviolence.[40]

Pragmatically, the prospects for armed liberation within industrialised

countries have been minimal for decades. In this context, many

anarchists believe that using violence would be futile.[41] Prominent

anarchist Murray Bookchin wrote,

The state power we face is too formidable, its armamentarium is too

destructive, and, if its structure is still intact, its efficiency is

too compelling to be removed by a contest in which weaponry is the

determining factor. The system must fall, not fight; and it will fall

only when its institutions have been so hollowed out by the new

Enlightenment, and its power so undermined physically and morally, that

an insurrectionary confrontation will be more symbolic than real.[42]

Another rationale arises out of the anarchist belief in prefiguration,

namely that means should reflect ends. If the goal is a world without

organised violence, this means avoiding violence in the struggle for

such a world. However, anarchists have long debated the application of

this principle to the use of violence.[43]

Marxists, in contrast, seldom subscribe to prefiguration. They instead

assume that the ends justify the means, most notoriously in capturing

state power to smash capitalism, after which the state is supposed to

wither away: the ultimate Marxist goal is communism, in which there is

no state, the same goal as anarchists. (This is the original meaning of

communism, as distinct from the reality of states ruled by Communist

parties.) Anarchists in the 1800s argued against Marxists, prophetically

warning that capturing state power was a prescription for dictatorial

rule.

Gandhi can be considered an anarchist.[44] He opposed the state,

proposing instead village democracy. He refused an offer to lead newly

independent India, unlike those anarchists who joined the government of

Republican Spain in the 1930s.

The goal of anarchists is a society built around non-hierarchical

structures organised by the people involved in them — an approach known

as self-management — and hence anarchists strive to create

non-hierarchical structures in their own organisations and campaigns.

They have promoted cooperatives and workers’ control as alternatives to

capitalist enterprise. They have promoted egalitarian relations between

men and women.

Another point of debate within anarchism is the issue of revolution.

Some, like Gelderloos, believe in destruction of capitalism and the

state in a mass uprising to bring about self-managed systems. Others

point to examples of self-management within today’s societies, believing

that anarchist practices can grow up in the interstices of existing

institutions, eventually supplanting them.[45] If social structures are

likened to a forest, then revolution is like cutting down the trees and

planting new species, whereas in an evolutionary model, new species grow

up between the old, eventually becoming dominant.[46]

Gelderloos gives no hint of debates over violence and revolution within

the anarchist movement: for him, anarchism seems to mean his own

particular set of beliefs. Nor does he acknowledge the anarchist

sensibility that is widespread in nonviolent movements.[47] Many

activists are sceptical of the state and other dominant institutions and

favour non-hierarchical forms of organisation, even though they are

unfamiliar with anarchist writings. They also favour nonviolent action,

which may explain why Gelderloos does not give credit to their anarchist

sensibility.

Conclusion

Since the days of Gandhi’s campaigns, nonviolent activists have been

criticised by supporters of armed struggle.[48] In recent years, the

most comprehensive critiques of nonviolence have been by Howard

Ryan,[49] Ward Churchill[50] and Gelderloos. Unfortunately, many

critiques suffer through inadequate understanding of nonviolence, often

due to a failure to engage with writings in the area.[51]

Gelderloos has shown enormous commitment as an activist and great energy

in compiling a comprehensive critique of nonviolence. Unfortunately, he

has missed his main target: in essence, he attacks principled

nonviolence from a perspective in which the ends justify the means. He

dismisses nonviolent action campaigns using a set of arguments that

display systematic double standards.

Underlying Gelderloos’ argument is the assumption that violence is more

effective than nonviolence. This is certainly a common assumption, but

if a critique of nonviolence is to have any real teeth, the assumption

needs to be justified and counterexamples addressed.

Gelderloos shows almost no awareness of the pragmatic tradition in

nonviolent action. He misrepresents nonviolent action as consisting

solely of protest and persuasion, missing the more coercive methods of

noncooperation and intervention. Furthermore, he ignores a large number

of major nonviolent struggles, successful and unsuccessful.

A key omission in Gelderloos’ argument is a discussion of limits in a

diversity of tactics: he does not say whether any methods should be

ruled out. Almost any activist will agree that some methods should not

be used, whether it is assassination, land mines or biological weapons.

The question then becomes where to draw the line.

The limitations of Gelderloos’ argument point to some ways for

nonviolent activists to improve the presentation of their own views.

Challenge the assumption that violence is always more effective than

nonviolence by using simple examples, for example of when violence is

counterproductive for the state or protesters.

Expose double standards in discussions of violence and nonviolence,

for example by pointing out failures of violence.

Become more familiar with case studies of nonviolent campaigns.

Be familiar with both the principled and pragmatic traditions in

nonviolence, and the interaction between principles and effectiveness.

Acknowledgements

I thank Andy Chan, Howard Clark, Jørgen Johansen, Colin Salter, Maria

Stephan, Ralph Summy, Tom Weber and Steve Wright for valuable comments.

[1] Peter Gelderloos, How Nonviolence Protects the State (Cambridge, MA:

South End Press, 2007).

[2] For a discussion, see Michael C. Stratford, “

Can nonviolent defence be effective if the opponent is ruthless?: the Nazi case

,” Social Alternatives, Vol. 6, No. 2, April 1987, pp. 49–57; Brian

Martin, “

The Nazis and nonviolence

,” Social Alternatives, Vol. 6, No. 3, August 1987, pp. 47–49; Jacques

Semelin, Unarmed Against Hitler: Civilian Resistance in Europe 1939–1943

(Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993); Ralph Summy, “Nonviolence and the case of

the extremely ruthless opponent,” Pacifica Review, Vol. 6, No. 1,

May-June 1994, pp. 1–29.

[3] Tamás Csapody and Thomas Weber, “Hungarian nonviolent resistance

against Austria and its place in the history of nonviolence,” Peace &

Change, Vol. 32, No. 4, October 2007, pp. 499–519.

[4] The damage done to people through oppressive systems, such as

exploitation, poverty and preventable disease, is commonly called

structural violence.

[5] Some forms of sabotage, for example workers damaging equipment to

interrupt production, such as in Nazi weapons factories, are commonly

seen as nonviolent action. Others, such as blowing up large dams, are

not, especially when the risk of hurting people is significant.

Disagreements and disputes about sabotage are a recurring feature of

discussions about nonviolent action.

[6] Judith Stiehm, “Nonviolence is two,” Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 38,

Winter 1968, pp. 23–30.

[7] Gene Sharp, Gandhi as a Political Strategist (Boston: Porter

Sargent, 1979).

[8] Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter

Sargent, 1973), Part Two. On Sharp’s relation to Gandhi, see Thomas

Weber, “Nonviolence is who? Gene Sharp and Gandhi,” Peace & Change, Vol.

28, April 2003, pp. 250–270.

[9] Sharp, Politics of Nonviolent Action, pp. 7–62; Gene Sharp, Social

Power and Political Freedom (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1980), pp. 21–67,

309–378.

[10] Sharp, Politics of Nonviolent Action, pp. 657–703.

[11] Ibid., pp. 777–799.

[12] Max Abrahms, “Why terrorism does not work,” International Security,

Vol. 31, No. 2, Fall 2006, pp. 42–78.

[13] I thank Jørgen Johansen for this point.

[14] Kurt Schock, “Nonviolent action and its misconceptions: insights

for social scientists,” PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 36, No.

4, October 2003, pp. 705–712, lists 18 common misconceptions about

nonviolent action. Gelderloos holds quite a few of them.

[15] George Lakey, Strategy for a Living Revolution (New York: Grossman,

1973). On nonviolent revolution see also Bart de Ligt, The Conquest of

Violence: An Essay on War and Revolution (London: George Routledge &

Sons, 1937); Dave Dellinger, Revolutionary Nonviolence: Essays

(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970); Narayan Desai, Towards a

Non-violent Revolution (Rajghat, Varanasi: Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan,

1972); Geoffrey Ostergaard, Nonviolent Revolution in India (New Delhi:

Gandhi Peace Foundation, 1985). On anarchist views, see Andy Chan,

“Violence, nonviolence, and the concept of revolution in anarchist

thought,” Anarchist Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2004, pp. 103–123.

[16] On the latter, see Peter Ackerman and Christopher Kruegler,

Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the

Twentieth Century (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994); Robert L. Helvey, On

Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking about the Fundamentals (Boston:

Albert Einstein Institution, 2004).

[17] Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchik, “Bringing down dictators:

American democracy promotion and electoral revolutions in postcommunist

Eurasia,” Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Cornell

University, Working Paper 5–07, July 2007, p. 15: “To reduce the

electoral revolutions to the machinations of the U.S., however, is a

serious mistake.” See also Andrew Wilson, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution

(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 183–189. I thank

Howard Clark for recommending these references.

[18] Howard Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo (London: Pluto, 2000).

[19] Patricia Parkman, Nonviolent Insurrection in El Salvador: The Fall

of Maximiliano Hernández Martínez (Tucson: University of Arizona Press,

1988). For other cases and analysis see Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall,

A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict (New York: St.

Martin’s Press, 2000); Ralph E. Crow, Philip Grant, and Saad E. Ibrahim

(eds.), Arab Nonviolent Political Struggle in the Middle East (Boulder:

Lynne Rienner, 1990); Philip McManus and Gerald Schlabach (eds.),

Relentless Persistence: Nonviolent Action in Latin America

(Philadelphia: New Society Press, 1991); Patricia Parkman,

Insurrectionary Civic Strikes in Latin America 1931–1961 (Cambridge, MA:

Albert Einstein Institution, 1990); Kurt Schock, Unarmed Insurrections:

People Power Movements in Nondemocracies (Minneapolis, MN: University of

Minnesota Press, 2005); Stephen Zunes, “Unarmed insurrections against

authoritarian governments in the Third World: a new kind of revolution,”

Third World Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1994, pp. 403–426; Stephen Zunes,

Lester R. Kurtz, and Sarah Beth Asher (eds.), Nonviolent Social

Movements: A Geographical Perspective (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999).

[20] Katherine Chorley, Armies and the Art of Revolution (London: Faber

& Faber, 1943).

[21] I thank Howard Clark for emphasising this point.

[22] William A. Gamson, The Strategy of Social Protest (Homewood, IL:

Dorsey Press, 1975), pp. 72–88. I thank Doug McAdam for recommending

this reference.

[23] Ibid., p. 82.

[24] A similar argument is made by Frances Fox Piven and Richard A.

Cloward, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail (New

York Vintage, 1979). See also Doug McAdam and Yang Su, “The war at home:

antiwar protests and Congressional voting, 1965 to 1973,” American

Sociological Review, Vol. 67, October 2002, pp. 696–721.

[25] Adrian Karatnycky and Peter Ackerman, How Freedom is Won: From

Civic Resistance to Durable Democracy (New York: Freedom House, 2005),

pp. 6–8.

[26] Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, “Why civil resistance works:

the strategic logic of nonviolent political conflict,” International

Security, Vol. 33, No. 1, Summer 2008, pp. 7–44.

[27] William T. Vollman, Rising Up and Rising Down, 7 volumes (San

Francisco: McSweeney’s Books, 2003). Vollman makes derogatory comments

about Gandhi’s views. However, he neither addresses pragmatic

nonviolence nor systematically compares nonviolence and violence.

[28] Truda Gray and Brian Martin, “

Defamation and the art of backfire

,” Deakin Law Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2006, pp. 115–136.

[29] Aruna Gnanadason, Musimbi Kanyoro and Lucia Ann McSpadden (eds.),

Women, Violence and Nonviolent Change (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1996);

Pam McAllister, The River of Courage: Generations of Women’s Resistance

and Action (Philadelphia: New Society Press, 1991).

[30] This is the first misconception listed by Schock, “Nonviolent

action and its misconceptions.”

[31] Sharp, Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Two.

[32] See the sources cited earlier on toppling regimes.

[33] See the quote from Martin Oppenheimer in the text below.

[34] Carol Flinders, “Nonviolence: does gender matter?” PeacePower:

Journal of Nonviolence & Conflict Resolution, Vol. 2, Issue 2, Summer

2006. Gelderloos (p. 160, note 31) says that Flinders praised the

“innate pacifism of ‘devout Hindu wives’” whereas Flinders actually just

referred to the behaviour of “devout Hindu wives” without praising it or

attributing it to innate pacifism.

[35] Martha McCaughey, Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women’s

Self-Defense (New York: New York University Press, 1997).

[36] Martin Oppenheimer, The Urban Guerrilla (Chicago: Quadrangle Books,

1969), pp. 50, 57 and 64. Emphasis in the original.

[37] Producing effective fighters requires special training to break

down instinctive reluctance to kill: see Dave Grossman, On Killing: The

Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston:

Little, Brown, 1995). Gelderloos does not say whether he endorses this

sort of training for activists.

[38] International Revolutionary Solidarity Movement, First of May

Group, Towards a Citizens’ Militia: Anarchist Alternatives to NATO and

the Warsaw Pact (Over the Water, Sanday, Orkney: Cienfuegos Press,

1980).

[39] You Can’t Blow up a Social Relationship: The Anarchist Case against

Terrorism (San Francisco: See Sharp Press, 1990).

[40] For example, Anarchists Against the Wall is “a direct action group”

of Israeli activists that “works in cooperation with Palestinians in a

joint non violent struggle against the occupation”:

[http://www.awalls.org][http://www.awalls.org]]. I thank Maria Stephan

for this example.

[41] Andy Chan, “Anarchists, violence and social change: perspectives

from today’s grassroots,” Anarchist Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 1995,

pp. 45–68.

[42] Murray Bookchin, Toward an Ecological Society (Montreal: Black Rose

Books, 1980), p. 260.

[43] Benjamin Franks, Rebel Alliances: The Means and Ends of

Contemporary British Anarchisms (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2006), pp.

139–152; Vernon Richards (ed.), Violence & Anarchism: A Polemic (London:

Freedom Press, 1993).

[44] Geoffrey Ostergaard and Melville Curle, The Gentle Anarchists: A

Study of the Leaders of the Sarvodaya Movement for Non-violent

Revolution in India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).

[45] Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action (London: George Allen and Unwin,

1973).

[46] I owe this metaphor to Val Plumwood and Richard Sylvan.

[47] Brian Martin, “

Eliminating state crime by abolishing the state

” in Jeffrey Ian Ross (ed.), Controlling State Crime: An Introduction

(New York: Garland, 1995), pp. 389–417, at pp. 400–401.

[48] Gandhi’s approach has been criticised from a variety of

perspectives: Thomas Weber, “Gandhian nonviolence and its critics,”

Gandhi Marg, Vol. 28, No. 3, October-December 2006, pp. 269–283.

[49] Howard Ryan’s book Critique of Nonviolent Politics: From Mahatma

Gandhi to the Anti-Nuclear Movement — a sympathetic critique that

engages with nonviolence writings in a well-informed way — is no longer

available online. For a detailed review see Brian Martin, “

Critique of violent rationales

,” Pacifica Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1997, pp. 83–91. [Update, 2010:

Howard Ryan’s book is now available. The review gives links.]

[50] Ward Churchill, Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of

Armed Struggle in North America (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2007). Churchill’s

analysis has many of the same assumptions, omissions and double

standards as Gelderloos’.

[51] William Meyers’ Nonviolence and Its Violent Consequences (Gualala,

CA: III Publishing, 2000) shows little awareness of writings on

nonviolence. Steven Best and Anthony J. Nocella II (eds.), Terrorists or

Freedom Fighters: Reflections on the Liberation of Animals (New York:

Lantern Books, 2004) has many contributions discussing nonviolence but

almost no recognition of pragmatic nonviolence.