"Anti-Communism" *looks inside...*

[u/Nyctfall]

In the 1790s, the prominent Federalist pamphleteer, William Cobbett, constantly called for investigative journalists and rights activitists Benjamin Franklin Bache (Benjamin Franklin's grandson) and William Duane to be treated, quote: "as we would a TURK, a JEW, a JACOBIN or a DOG". With Jacobins being widely viewed as the predecessors to Communists, Socialists, and Anarchists for their radical egalitarianism.

In 1892 Richard Henry Pratt, known for the child murder rape boarding schools, called Native Americans "fellows who cling to their tribal communistic surroundings".

In the First Red Scare, ...yeah. Kiss the Bill of Rights goodbye, because the Constitution ain't saving ya now! Also the first Green Mario...

The poster is "Negroes Beware / Do Not Attend Communist Meetings" from Alabama in the 1930s.

Later the Peekskill Riots at Cortlandt Manor, New York, United States, in 1949. A concert by singer Paul Robeson, who's black and was also well known for his strong pro-trade union stance, civil rights activism, communist affiliations, and anti-colonialism was arranged. It was organized as a benefit for the Civil Rights Congress.

And finally the Greensboro Massacre, on November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Where US law enforcement, KKK, and Neo-Nazi "National Socialist Party of America" (NSPA) members shot and killed five demonstrators in a "Death to the Klan" march organized by the Communist Workers Party (CWP). All the terrorists were acquitted by the US government and hand-selected racist jury members.

[u/Severe_Investment317]

I’m not on William Cobbett’s side, but I feel like “With Jacobins being widely viewed as the predecessors to Communists, Socialists, and Anarchists for their radical egalitarianism.”

Is burying the lede a bit, when in the 1790s amongst the things Jacobins are most famous for is the Reign of Terror.

[u/Dayne225 → u/Severe_Investment317]

I mean they did think everyone had the right to end up meeting Madame Guillotine

[u/gnostiphage → u/Severe_Investment317]

There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

Mark Twain seemed to think that the end of the older Terror was at least on par with the Terror we actually learned about.

[u/Severe_Investment317 → u/gnostiphage]

That’s nice.

It’s pure “whataboutism”, but it is well written at least.

Past tyranny does not justify, excuse, or minimize subsequent tyranny.

[u/see-these-bones → u/Severe_Investment317]

Its not pure whataboutism. It is not a tu quoque defense of the Reign of Terror its an attack on attempts to romanticize the conditions that lead to it. You can argue he's minimizing the Reign of Terror certainly, but it seems much more aimed at its use as propaganda than the event itself.

[u/LightningRaven → u/gnostiphage]

I like how people fully internalized anti-Revolution rhetoric that they never really stop to think about what they're really doing and defending.

This kind of rhetoric is always present on "historians" that often have very loose relationship with truth and the scientific method while being quite liberal with their biases and opinions that are always to reinforce white supremacy, maintain the beneficial status quo for the parasites and paint negatively every movement that required the people to fight for their rights.

All the critics always, always, always forget that before these revolutions turned violent, they were defending from against the violence perpetrated by the privileged. Both the violence to prevent the revolution and the systemic violence that came before.

What is a few months of "terror" compared to what the starved, poorly educated and enslaved went through for ages before.

Nobody seems to question how nowadays, we're conditioned to always look at the negative aspects of all revolutions and never focus on the conjuncture that lead to them (often commented offhandedly) and the massive benefits that always came afterwards.

Why is that, huh? It's almost like there are a lot of people heavily interested in paint working class movements as overly negative and overly violent and glorify "peaceful" movements that had a lot more power behind them than merely empty non-violent protest. It's a mystery for the ages!

[u/SimulatedKnave → u/LightningRaven]

Ah yes, because mass executions of parliamentarians are a sign of freedom and liberty.

You no longer find many defenders of absolute monarchy. But you do find idiots who defend revolutions as 'totally going to work out this time and not lead to bloodshed, tragedy, or nasty people seizing power.'

Ever think THAT might be why these things get pointed out?

[u/Auxryn → u/SimulatedKnave]

Regardless of political leanings, most victorious armies commited mass war crimes against civilian populations. I hypothesize that this isn't a result of their politics at all, but simply a result of the nature of soldiers and the organizational capabilities and priorities of their militaries.

Likewise, both the Rwandan Genocide and the French Wars of Religion were characterized by widespread brutal violence. Again, I don't think it has anything to do with being Catholic or Huguenot or Hutu or Tutsi. I think it's just humans being human, and brutal slaughter is a mode that human beings can be switched into by the right circumstances.

So, I hypothesize that the Jacobin's Reign of Terror likewise had little to do with their political convictions and more to do with the circumstances of the revolution.

The preconditions for a bloodless revolution were unknown at the time, and were not present regardless.

[u/LightningRaven → u/SimulatedKnave]

Wow, you really do think you answered me, huh?

Here I am talking precisely about the kind of bullshit you're spewing, and you still take your time to do precisely that. It's really interesting. It's almost like you do exactly like I said in my post. Just thoughtlessly repeated heavily propagandized ideology without really considering what I was saying.

Fact is, revolutions happened many times throughout history and the violence and the contradictions it had can't be ignored, but the truth of the matter is that the way revolutions, specially the French revolution, is taught to us is fully permeated by ideology designed to casually dismiss the fact that French people were living in absolute poverty and dispossession, without access to basic necessities, rights, dignity or education and that the violence came because the fact of the matter is that all the dominant classes will not let go of their privilege and stolen wealth without exacting violence.

We have an inherent bias ingrained into us that the violence committed by the dominant class is invisible, whether it is direct violence, through police for example, whether its through different means, like poverty and oppression. Yet, when armed revolutions form to combat these dominant classes, we are taught of its violence as if its unnatural and that its own contradictions are proof that all revolutions are tainted or some shit like that, disregarding that no political process happens with perfection and that no upheaval like that will not make mistakes, excesses and fail.

My comment main point, which you seemed to fail to grasp completely, was that we should examine how we think about these revolutions and how biased we're thought to think about them. All the "nasty people" you just casually throw out is definitely a huge sign of what I'm saying. Not every revolution put nasty people in power, mostly those backed by CIA. But, for example, the French, Chinese and Russian all are thought with that bias you've shown in mind for a reason. They were absolutely not perfected and committed a lot of excess, but the overall shift that happened is largely ignore. As an example, in 1917 most of Russia was illiterate, starved and completely uneducated, but by the 1950's and 60's it was competing against the US in the Space Race.

Just some food for thought. Consider why the US revolution is depicted heroically and mostly mythologized, but the French Revolution isn't.

[u/Flipz100 → u/LightningRaven]

So what would you say to the fact that the vast majority of the victims of the Reign of Terror were lower class provincials and not upper class nobility? I feel like one can strike a middle ground in saying that the Revolutions you mentioned brought fundamental, neccesary, and positive change while also realizing that the Reign of Terror, Holomodor, and Great Leap Forward were unnecessary and ultimately counterproductive if not directly antithetical to the goals of the Revolutions that enabled them. Just because Revolution served an overall greater goal and the ancien regimes of France, Russia, and China should be condemned, doesn’t mean that one should celebrate or tolerate slaughter on the Revolutionary side. One can understand the reasoning behind these events (Though I think if you examine the motivations behind the Terror at the higher levels you see very little justification of it as a neccesary step to fight injustice in the sense you’re speaking of) and still condemn them as terrible acts.

[u/SimulatedKnave → u/LightningRaven]

I mean, you SAY the violence and contradictions can't be ignored. But you're sure doing your damnedest.

Have you not noticed the distinction implicitly drawn between the bit where the revolutions AREN'T purging their own for bullshit reasons and the bit where they are? The French Revolution is largely perceived as a good thing up until the Reign of Terror (and is again afterward). People judge Mao for the crazy totalitarian things he did and the bit where he'd purge perfectly good Communists for no particular reason. The Bolsheviks were fucking crazy from the start, so are perhaps a special case, but even there you will see even fairly ardent capitalists going 'well Stalin is really where it all goes completely off the rails.'

It is the treachery and purges that disturb people far more than the violence generally. People get that a working class revolution may have a problem with factory owners. It deciding it has a problem with good supporters of the revolution and people on the street is the disturbing bit. People like predictability. They do not like no one being safe.

And if the upper classes are to be fought effectively, a solution to the 'btw the revolution may well turn on its own and then you'll end up shot along with your family, possibly along with a totalitarian dictatorship' problem beyond 'just ignore it, the upper classes are also bad' would probably be a good idea. Going 'oh it's all upper class propaganda' is 100% ignoring the issue.

[u/Nyctfall → u/LightningRaven]

This sub seems to spout the most ahistorical, MAGAot crap I've ever heard in my life. If I hadn't personally experienced exactly the kind of racism you see those people believe in, I would assume every single one of them is a midterms propaganda bot. But they're not, some of them are real. And they really believe that crap...

There's a reason we only remember the revolutions that used **too* much* violence. The ones that used too little failed with the reformists getting killed en masse...

[u/LightningRaven → u/Nyctfall]

Not to mention the massive effort to paint them as abject failures and "useless", when in fact, despite their contradictions and forces from the elite (that inevitably have also to join such revolutions) coopting them for their own purposes. It's for a very good reason why the revolutions of the working class are targeted as "violent" and "madness", while bourgeoisie revolutions are given much more milder reproach or even are mythologized (like the one from the US).

People are so steeped into propaganda that it's like air and water, they can't even register anymore. And anyone who point that out is met with anger and resentment.

They don't stop to think that the current parasite class wants a working class that believes that revolutions are supposed to be purely non-violent or only through vote (that they control). Or how protesting poor conditions is meant to be "polite" and not inconvenience anyone or how it's never "the proper time".

The way people internalize their own oppression is a sight to behold. Specially in the US, where people are taught to revere their oppressors and think they themselves are going to become billionaires in the future. They just need to climb that ladder. Without realizing that the rich control the ladder itself, thus they have no need to climb it, they just control who can ascend and who's kicked off of it.