Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Stones fly and you cry - Regarding the agitation of the bourgeois media in this moment we quote a declaration of Rote Aktion Köln

“We had strenuous, intense and intense days in many aspects in Hamburg and the struggle is not over yet. At the G20 summit, the political representatives of the most powerful countries in the world met and haggled over the plundering and exploitation of the planet and the working classes. These days have made many things clear to us: the German state and its police and intelligence service does not allow discussions; It is his duty to protect this ruling order and to suppress consequent criticism with crude force; The Springer-Press organises the most massive propaganda against the resistance, becomes the organ of the repressive authorities and practically shows the hypocrisy of this brutal system. This weekend, the lines of the class struggle in Germany became clearer - who is on the side of the ruling order and who is on the side of the oppressed. In these days it was also shown: the resistance in the heart of the beast is possible, it was there and it was a problem for the ruling order. In an unbelievable number of places, people opposed the apparatus of violence and did not let themselves be driven out. We especially want to point out the injured and prisoners and express our greatest respect. As revolutionaries, it is not only for us to organize the resistance consistently, but also to put our force towards the care of the injured and prisoners!

Of course, after such an event, the ever-recurring "debate on violence" unfolds. The rulers can not accept the militant resistance and the violence of the oppressed, they have to defame it, find the "guilty" and denounce them and restore peace in the hinterland. We do not let our defamations in the aftermath be disturbed, but we can only reply from our perspective of the opressed: the rebellion is justified. The violence of the oppressed against their oppressors is justified. We can not be divided and are in solidarity with those affected by the repression.”

To underline the last point, we quote chairman Mao Tse-Tung out of “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement In Hunan” from March 1927:

THE QUESTION OF "GOING TOO FAR"
Then there is another section of people who say, "Yes, peasant associations are necessary, but they are going rather too far." This is the opinion of the middle-of-the-roaders. But what is the actual situation? True, the peasants are in a sense "unruly" in the countryside. Supreme in authority, the peasant association allows the landlord no say and sweeps away his prestige. This amounts to striking the landlord down to the dust and keeping him there. The peasants threaten, "We will put you in the other register!" They fine the local tyrants and evil gentry, they demand contributions from them, and they smash their sedan-chairs. People swarm into the houses of local tyrants and evil gentry who are against the peasant association, slaughter their pigs and consume their grain. They even loll for a minute or two on the ivory-inlaid beds belonging to the young ladies in the households of the local tyrants and evil gentry. At the slightest provocation they make arrests, crown the arrested with tall paper hats, and parade them through the villages, saying, "You dirty landlords, now you know who we are!" Doing whatever they like and turning everything upside down, they have created a kind of terror in the countryside.
This is what some people call "going too far", or "exceeding the proper limits in righting a wrong", or "really too much". Such talk may seem plausible, but in fact it is wrong.
First, the local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords have themselves driven the peasants to this. For ages they have used their power to tyrannize over the peasants and trample them underfoot; that is why the peasants have reacted so strongly. The most violent revolts and the most serious disorders have invariably occurred in places where the local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords perpetrated the worst outrages. The peasants are clear-sighted. Who is bad and who is not, who is the worst and who is not quite so vicious, who deserves severe punishment and who deserves to be let off lightly--the peasants keep clear accounts, and very seldom has the punishment exceeded the crime.
Secondly, a revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. A rural revolution is a revolution by which the peasantry overthrows the power of the feudal landlord class. Without using the greatest force, the peasants cannot possibly overthrow the deep-rooted authority of the landlords which has lasted for thousands of years. The rural areas need a mighty revolutionary upsurge, for it alone can rouse the people in their millions to become a powerful force.
All the actions mentioned here which have been labeled as "going too far" flow from the power of the peasants, which has been called forth by the mighty revolutionary upsurge in the countryside. It was highly necessary for such things to be done in the second period of the peasant movement, the period of revolutionary action. In this period it was necessary to establish the absolute authority of the peasants. It was necessary to forbid malicious criticism of the peasant associations. It was necessary to overthrow the whole authority of the gentry, to strike them to the ground and keep them there. There is revolutionary significance in all the actions which were labeled as "going too far" in this period. To put it bluntly, it is necessary to create terror for a while in every rural area, or otherwise it would be impossible to suppress the activities of the counter-revolutionaries in the countryside or overthrow the authority of the gentry. Proper limits have to be exceeded in order to right a wrong, or else the wrong cannot be righted.
Those who talk about the peasants "going too far" seem at first sight to be different from those who say "It's terrible!" as mentioned earlier, but in essence they proceed from the same standpoint and likewise voice a landlord theory that upholds the interests of the privileged classes. Since this theory impedes the rise of the peasant movement and so disrupts the revolution, we must firmly oppose it.”

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