War and Communism
May. 5th, 2010 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbThe place of war in human affairs is overestimated. War rarely causes any great change in overall historical trends; nine times out of ten, the great trends of sociology, economics and culture have already decided which party will win, when war is joined. It is rare to find a war where historians are not broadly agreed as to the causes of success and failure, victory and defeat. War is often more in the nature of a notary act sealing an already unstoppable historical development. From the Second Punic War to the Cold War, history is full of conflicts in which the losing side "won every battle except the last", for the simple reason that the victorious side was inherently stronger in both demonstrable and intangible ways. what is more, war, in civilized communities, is only an episode, usually short in time or distant in place; the much longer space of peacetime tends to lay the premises for success or failure in the comparatively rare times of war.
Not that war is irrelevant. War tends to radicalize politics: before 1776 and Tom Paine's war pamphlet Common Sense, no serious American politician would have considered universal suffrage. Long periods of war can distract the attention of nations and devour the resources that might have been used for other important developments: the Napoleonic wars cut off most of continental Europe from England from up to 25 years, just as England was starting the Industrial Revolution, causing a cultural-economic disadvantage that, in the case of Italy, Spain and east-central Europe, lasted for centuries.
One interesting corollary is to do with the Communist movement. Socialist parties in general are very good at winning elections; from India to Sweden and to Spain, Social Democrat groupings have dominated the peaceful politics of the twentieth century. An interesting side effect is their increasingly abandonment of the rhetoric of violence, caused by an increasing confidence in their ability to achieve their goals by legal and electoral means.
Conversely, no Communist party has ever won an election outright. The unfortunate Salvador Allende, in spite of the homicidal and fabulously idiotic American reaction (c'est pire qu'un crime: c'est une betise), was a Socialist heading an incoherent, ineffective, loud-mouthed, quarrelsome left-wing minority government that was heading for the scrap-heap of history until the morons in Washington turned him into a Communist martyr, to the advantage of nobody but Moscow. Real Communists, however, are extraordinarily good at winning wars. Communists insurgencies place the enemy in the disastrous situation of having to resist by curtailing or destroying civil liberties (the trap into which Nixon and Kissinger fell), thus proving that they are exactly the kind of repressive brutes the Communists themselves claim them to be. And Communism is extaordinarily good at motivating people. As I said elsewhere, there was much to admire about the old Communists: everything, in fact, except the central issue - violence and murder. War suits Communism, one might say, because, like war, Communism "takes the best in man to do the worst."
But that is the point. Communism can win wars. Communism, in fact, is so like war that they might almost be identified, and does actually speak of itself as war - class war. But once the war is won, then what? It seemed a catastrophe to the West when Vietnam was lost; but in fact, it was a catastrophe to Vietnam alone. The country collapsed to the bottom of the world prosperity list, while the commanders and officers who had won the war covered their chest in medals and ribbons and proved wholly incapable of running a peaceful society constructively. Their sole positive achievement after 1975 was a nother war - the deiverance of wretched Kampuchea from an even more bestial brand of Communism. Meanwhile, all around them, other countries from Thailand to Taiwan prospered; even huge, messy, terrorist-ridden Indonesia proving more progressive and far more prosperous than united Vietnam.
Unlike democratic Socialism, Communism is wholly incapable of dealing with a peaceful society. Like all creeds built for war, it is not only ruinous but demoralizing when war ends. And war does end. People make compromises, accept defeats, and move on. The Cold War was nothing but one Communist victory after another; and in the end the triumphant army found itself knocking at the doors of the besieged fortress - not to enter in, but to be allowed not to starve.
Not that war is irrelevant. War tends to radicalize politics: before 1776 and Tom Paine's war pamphlet Common Sense, no serious American politician would have considered universal suffrage. Long periods of war can distract the attention of nations and devour the resources that might have been used for other important developments: the Napoleonic wars cut off most of continental Europe from England from up to 25 years, just as England was starting the Industrial Revolution, causing a cultural-economic disadvantage that, in the case of Italy, Spain and east-central Europe, lasted for centuries.
One interesting corollary is to do with the Communist movement. Socialist parties in general are very good at winning elections; from India to Sweden and to Spain, Social Democrat groupings have dominated the peaceful politics of the twentieth century. An interesting side effect is their increasingly abandonment of the rhetoric of violence, caused by an increasing confidence in their ability to achieve their goals by legal and electoral means.
Conversely, no Communist party has ever won an election outright. The unfortunate Salvador Allende, in spite of the homicidal and fabulously idiotic American reaction (c'est pire qu'un crime: c'est une betise), was a Socialist heading an incoherent, ineffective, loud-mouthed, quarrelsome left-wing minority government that was heading for the scrap-heap of history until the morons in Washington turned him into a Communist martyr, to the advantage of nobody but Moscow. Real Communists, however, are extraordinarily good at winning wars. Communists insurgencies place the enemy in the disastrous situation of having to resist by curtailing or destroying civil liberties (the trap into which Nixon and Kissinger fell), thus proving that they are exactly the kind of repressive brutes the Communists themselves claim them to be. And Communism is extaordinarily good at motivating people. As I said elsewhere, there was much to admire about the old Communists: everything, in fact, except the central issue - violence and murder. War suits Communism, one might say, because, like war, Communism "takes the best in man to do the worst."
But that is the point. Communism can win wars. Communism, in fact, is so like war that they might almost be identified, and does actually speak of itself as war - class war. But once the war is won, then what? It seemed a catastrophe to the West when Vietnam was lost; but in fact, it was a catastrophe to Vietnam alone. The country collapsed to the bottom of the world prosperity list, while the commanders and officers who had won the war covered their chest in medals and ribbons and proved wholly incapable of running a peaceful society constructively. Their sole positive achievement after 1975 was a nother war - the deiverance of wretched Kampuchea from an even more bestial brand of Communism. Meanwhile, all around them, other countries from Thailand to Taiwan prospered; even huge, messy, terrorist-ridden Indonesia proving more progressive and far more prosperous than united Vietnam.
Unlike democratic Socialism, Communism is wholly incapable of dealing with a peaceful society. Like all creeds built for war, it is not only ruinous but demoralizing when war ends. And war does end. People make compromises, accept defeats, and move on. The Cold War was nothing but one Communist victory after another; and in the end the triumphant army found itself knocking at the doors of the besieged fortress - not to enter in, but to be allowed not to starve.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-05 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-05 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-08 08:38 am (UTC)they do/did? where? there was a magazine/pamphlet thing years ago but, i find it surprising that someone would identify themselves as a mechanism of change.
But once the war is won, then what?
simple, maintain socialism, ensuring the needs and desires of the citizens/subjects are met within their means, whilst removing any possiblity that they might become alienated. see they were quite nice after all!8-)