This article leaves out one important question, a question that is the reason why I'm not in support of nonviolent resistance as an alternative to violence: Whether nonviolent resistance is more likely than violence at preventing a counter-revolution after the fact. I'll admit that it is possible for a government to be overthrown through nonviolent resistance, but then what? 1/5
Even if capitalism were to be successfully overthrown with no violence, how will counter-revolution be prevented, how will the chaotic and uncertain state of the country after the overthrow be remedied, how will the prevention of civil unrest after the uprooting of the system of government be dealt without violence of some kind, without repression of some kind? 2/5
It is extremely naive for someone to look at the state of a country after the overthrow of a government and think that it can all be dealt with using absolutely no violence or coercion, without the barrel of a gun. To quote Friedrich Engels from 'On Authority,' "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — ...3/5
...authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?" 4/5
I recommend you read 'On Authority' for yourself. It pretty much sums up the point I'm making here more articulately. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
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