- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Reaction is always bloodier than revolution

Posted by: NJ ( DSA, MA, USA ) on February 22, 19100 at 10:30:46:

In Reply to: More moralizing posted by Barry Stoller on February 15, 19100 at 13:37:57:

Barry, your examples have NOTHING in common with each other. The Paris Commune tookj hostages when they were fighting for their very life against an evil and imperial state. It was quite literally 'us or them'. The hostages they took were representatives of exploitative and collaboriationist hierarchies who by their very presence in these groupd had thrown their lot in, implicitly, with the capitalists. Let's not forget that the VAST majority of the blood spilled in 1870, as usual, was Communard blood spilled BY THE CAPITALIST. Reaction is almost always bloodier than revolution.

The Trotsky/Stalin/Beria bunch of Bolsheviks, on the other hand (i don't know too much about Lenin) killed everyone- peasants, communists, religious people- who they thought was undesirable in a perfect society. Their exterminationist terror has NOTHING in common with the reluctatnt, defensive violence committed by the paris commune.


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