I used to be a football hooligan in what now seems like a previous life and I hope it comes as no surprise that the vast majority of the ultras sections are hunting grounds for right wing movements seeking out young (mostly) men who are willing to form what are essentially militias.
Apart from this several right wing groups throughout Europe and the US have their own militias who do martial arts and combat training.
This, of course, seems all very LARP-y until it doesn’t and they come to protests better equipped to fight.
For the time I have been active in political organizing not once have I seen the same effort coming from a left wing party and honestly it seems rather naive. I don’t think you should advertise stuff like that out in the open because that would make you an easy target for bad press and it will probably scare people away anyway.
But still. Should left wing organisations offer martial arts or other self defense courses? Should we be ‘above that’? And what if shit does hit the fan?
My mantra, everyday, “a fascist worked out today, did you?” Right now I can prepare myself, but agree there should be a collective effort to improve ourselves in a diverse set of skills
Militant leftists groups did exist and were systematically destroyed by western states. Think Black Panthers in the US.
Martial arts would probably be harder to vilify and easier to frame as self-defense (not like it’s a deception either and there’s precedent at least in some places for learning martial arts to be a personal thing you do for self-defense). I mean, I took some martial arts as a kid and it wasn’t for any particular ideological reason, just encouraged to I guess as self defense, hobby thing, got me exercise. I’d assume (though could be wrong) that once you start getting into the territory of training in firearm use, it becomes a lot easier to vilify, in particular in countries with stricter gun laws. Though depending on what kind of state apparatus we’re talking about, to some extent, they’re going to vilify regardless of what you do if they decide you’re a threat. Like how the Black Panther party of the US had their breakfast program for schoolkids vilified and if I remember right, one of their kitchens straight up destroyed by cops. But it’s probably not going to be the same calculation for every country and organizing effort.
If the fascists start cracking down, you don’t want to have only ideological support on your side and that’s it. Ideological agreement isn’t a defense in a firefight. But you also have to consider what the existing state will try to crack down on in general. I don’t think it’s ever a matter of being “above it”; community defense is important in general and even a silver-tongued capitalist propagandist would, I think, have a hard time arguing that’s bad. It’s more a question of what is best for the conditions you’re dealing with.
All revolutionary Marxist (and specifically Marxist-Leninist) parties should prepare themselves to operate in conditions of illegality eventually, which follows from seeking to seize power.
So, with that in mind, all parties should have at the very least an internal group focused on security, as in physical security in protests and such. Depending on the legal conditions this can include firearm security. There should also be militants in charge of understanding warfare, not only because of its analogues to militant politics but also because of the possibility of needing to put that understanding into practice.
But other than that, martial arts training and self defense courses are a great idea, but they shouldn’t only be for militants. One of the many social failures of capitalism is the seclusion and lack of hobbies or leisure for youth, particularly poor youth. If it’s possible with the party resources, having public gyms for training some sort of martial art would both materially and mentally help that audience while also enabling some combat experience for militants. And it can be relatively cheap too.
We should never be “above” any tactic, including combat training. Though training mobs of hooligans is not the wisest idea, rather it’d be more along the line of “defense personnel” for protecting civilians in protests and such. And always keep in mind that no amount of training will make anybody bulletproof.
You! You get it!
People forget that when revolutionary France happened, soldiers helped open the doors of the bastille.
So, leftists must operate in cells with distributed expertise. Leftists need people able to operate weapon, but more than that, they need to convince the imperial soldier that their cause is just. That’s the hard part.
Leftists should be doing combat training if they have the knack but I don’t think it is as important to a socialist revolution as it is to a fascist one.
Fascists use intimidation and violence to enforce their ideology. They exclude and persecute minorities but they are sure to communicate that if an individual isn’t supportive they can be targeted too. The only way to prove yourself a good fascist is to do inhuman acts to minorities or anti-fascists. Violence is the only path of upward mobility for most fascists.
Leftists use community and organization to build government after the masses overthrow the capitalists. The left does need people that are capable of violence but the primary concern is agitation. Why do martial arts training for an hour if you can make a crowd of ten people angry at capitalists instead?
Tactics is definitely something that leftists should study. If you can agitate and direct people to victory they will respect you and that respect can turn into support for the party easily. (I should read more Mao.)
Leftists use community and organization to build government after the masses overthrow the capitalists. The left does need people that are capable of violence but the primary concern is agitation. Why do martial arts training for an hour if you can make a crowd of ten people angry at capitalists instead?
This is very idealistic, the capitalists are not going to cede their power out of shame, they will use violence to protect it.
Agitation without proper martial organization will inevitably end in a tragedy. Communists need to be competent in organized violence to be able to take the power out of the capitalists hands, just like Mao said: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”. Agitation and martial organization should go hand in hand.
I’m not saying we don’t need to train because we can take on capitalism without violence. I’m saying if we only rely on leftists to do the violence we will never win against the capitalists. I’m not against combat training or self defence but it is not an essential need for every communist or even most especially in a pre-revolutionary situation whereas every single communist should be training and actively engaged in agitation all the time.
The revolution isn’t won by communists it is won by the working class. The goal of communists is to pick up the reigns after the revolution. Revolution is a reaction by the working class to worsening material conditions. Communists can’t start the revolution, they can only do a little to push it along. The revolution will come because of what the capitalists do not because the leftists have gained enough combat training and numbers.
The counter revolution will be won not because the nation has the most armed and trained communists but because there are more communists than anti-communists. Vietnam and DPRK won their wars because the only way to beat the communism was to kill every last man woman and child and the us couldn’t do that even when they tried.
Mao’s “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” came over a decade after the Qing had been overthrown in 1927. Its not a call to violence it is the recognition of the need to use violence to defend against the counter revolution. The guns are not the political power. The guns are fertilizer.
context
Communists should prove themselves the most politically conscious leaders in this war. Every Communist must grasp the truth, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. Yet, having guns, we can create Party organizations, as witness the powerful Party organizations which the Eighth Route Army has created in northern China. We can also create cadres, create schools, create culture, create mass movements. Everything in Yan’an has been created by having guns.
Even one of the most famous Combat trained Communists, Che Guevara didn’t make the most gains by doing combat. After the revolution in 1959 Castro said “I have said very clear that we are not Communists.” Che and the communists in the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations managed to propagandize Castro and the other revolutionaries and by 1965 they renamed the party to The communist Party of Cuba.
I agree with your main point but disagree on the specifics.
Fascist militias are so prominent because their primary mode of action is using violence against working-class people with the tacit approval of the state. Think of the Freikorps, the Brownshirts and Blackshirts, the Azov Battalion. They exist to commit acts of terror against civilians that the government proper would prefer to distance themselves from.
Marxists, on the other hand, will neither be committing terrorism against working-class people nor will they have the tacit but unofficial support of the state. The current Marxist movement neither has the capacity nor an urgent interest in building combat ability. That time will come, but it isn’t now.
Definitely something missing imo. The right has the monopoly on violence, and even though I’d say the left can ultimately appeal to more people and have strength in numbers, a willingness to use violence can overcome that. I think it is as you said: it sounds very LARP-y until it isn’t. This is probably by design though, as any leftist group that does pick up arms or does combat training will be a target for repression.
There is some tradition in this idea, maybe this is worth looking into: https://libcom.org/article/overview-italys-anti-fascist-gyms-and-boxing-clubs
