Comradeship // Freechat

2276 readers

15 users here now

Talk about whatever, respecting the rules established by Lemmygrad. Failing to comply with the rules will grant you a few warnings, insisting on breaking them will grant you a beautiful shiny banwall.

A community for comrades to chat and talk about whatever doesn't fit other communities

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

What are your opinions on building, let's say, left wing 'militias'? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

I think the fact that Marxists won't be anti-working class fascists and that we won't have support of the state should mean that we have an even bigger incentive to build combat ability.