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Title: Talking about revolutionary violence
Author: Dmitry Mrachnik
Date: 12 November 2017
Language: en
Topics: Revolutionary Anarchism, violence
Source: Retrieved on 5th February 2022 from https://www.nihilist.li/2017/11/12/talking-about-revolutionary-violence/

Dmitry Mrachnik

Talking about revolutionary violence

When the proletariat takes power, it may be quite possible that the

proletariat will exert towards the classes over which it has just

triumphed, a violent, dictatorial and even bloody power. I can’t see

what objection one could make to this. But if you ask me what would be

the case if the proletariat exerted bloody, tyrannical and unjust power

towards itself [i.e., toward working people], then I would say that this

could only occur if the proletariat hadn’t really taken power, but that

a class outside the proletariat, a group of people inside the

proletariat, a bureaucracy or petit bourgeois elements had taken power.

Michel Foucault

We are convinced that the world is a place where everyone quietly does

their own business and does not encroach on the position of another, but

the main thing of this ideology of the ruling classes is the position,

that we must tolerate, is given to us not by our will. The proletarian

can choose between several varieties of slavery or, if he crosses his

ethical guidelines, one of the rancid bourgeoisie can take place. The

revolution becomes a denial of these circumstances. It will be violent,

because no one will divest his authority and give his property to public

order. The ruling class will ignore our actions, as long as they are

peaceful, and will drown us in blood, defending its position, as soon as

our actions become more resolute. No one wants to kill, but if you are

oppressed you don’t have another way.

Any serious action aimed at undermining the foundations of the rule of

the bourgeoisie, will cause its tough and ruthless reaction. The class

struggle is conducted in the language of force, and the use of force on

the part of the proletariat is an act of liberation. All the political

steps of the proletariat, which are more resolute than a «peaceful

protest», will provoke a response in the violence way. Strikes are met

by armed mercenaries, the police suppress the occupation, and the

establishment of an alternative order will be met with machine gun fire

and defeat.

Of course, we shouldn’t exclude the bloodless version of the revolution,

in which the bourgeoisie simply won’t have the tools for suppression.

This is the best option, but it can’t be so easy. And that’s why we

should always be ready for the rivers of blood, even if we are not

responsible for them. We just have to prepare for the worst — to harden

our character right now, not to allow the pacifism to occupy a dominant

role in the moods of class organizations, and wherever possible, to

reveal the violent nature of the present social system, compared to

which even the bloodiest revolution is the embodiment of kindness.

The pacifism is false, because it sees violence only in some fights,

while state and economic coercion is not considered like violence.

Capitalism grinds hundreds of fates in its millstones every day, presses

thousands of lives with its presses and drinks the blood of millions of

working people. This violence is veiled and dispersed, while

revolutionary violence is open and concentrated. The Pacifists deny the

latter and prefer the former, playing into the hands of the ruling class

and strengthening its ideology, according to it the state is the pledge

of peace, and capitalism is the guarantee of honest production

relations.

Denying pacifism, however, we should not allow the cultivation of

violence as a self-sufficient political tool. In pure violence, without

any social intervention, there will be no practical sense. The movement

which is unable to defend and terrorism are both useless for the tasks

of social revolution. Also in violence and armed actions there is

nothing pleasant or even romantic. Shootings are only good in movies,

but in real life it’s stress, wounds, painful death or emotional trauma

for the rest of your life.

We want to eradicate the violence in the life of society, the violence

in the form of legislative, economic, police, prison and military, and

internecine kind, caused by poverty and embitterment. However, we will

have to force ourselves to do this to the new order or physically

exterminate the bourgeoisie, its henchmen and defenders — those who

obstruct the liberation of the proletariat — in order to secure and

consolidate our revolutionary achievements. Even if taking new positions

in the class struggle, whose state is far from escalation, is already an

act of violence against the bourgeoisie, which can quite cause blood and

death, then what about revolution?

It is necessary to put an end to the world in which some harmless and

peaceful demands, for example, the raising of the living standard, can

easily lead to corpses. To build a society without classes that

establish their power by force, we will have to kill and suffer losses.

There is and probably will not be any other way. Therefore, we are a

radical minority which protects the «flames» of the class struggle, we

call ourselves «dead men on leave» and shout loudly: «death to the

bourgeois!»