Anti-Imperialism, War and Peace, Part 5
Christopher Caudwell, 1907 –
1937
Violence
The Communist Manifesto
of 1848 ends:
“The
Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that
their ends can be attained only by the
forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling
classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to
lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES,
UNITE!”
Earlier, it says:
“the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie
lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.”
When it comes to the expropriation
of the expropriators, the working class will not ask permission.
The proletarian revolution
will be an act of force, with no appeal, and in that sense it is bound to be a violent revolution, which does not mean that bloodshed is
necessary.
Blood need not be shed. But
the revolution will make its own laws. Otherwise, it would not be a revolution.
Bourgeois violence
The bourgeoisie is a violent
class. It acquired its position by bloody violence and it maintains its
position by constant applications of physical violence and bloodshed. It is the
bourgeoisie that invented permanent standing armies, the permanent police
force, and the prisons, all of which are in constant use.
In spite of all of its
protestations to the contrary, the bourgeoisie is not afraid of physical
confrontation. It is well prepared for bloody violence.
What the bourgeoisie fears is
not bloodshed, but the other kind of violence: that of unilateral expropriation
of the means of production, distribution and exchange. The bourgeoisie fears
the violence that takes, not blood, but property.
Caudwell
In the previous parts of this
series, we have read Clausewitz, Marx and Lenin on the political/military
nature of violence. In this part we will take an essay of Christopher Caudwell
(download linked below) so as to establish the moral and/or philosophical basis
of Pacifism and Violence,
if any such can be found.
Christopher Caudwell (1907 – 1937) wrote some extraordinary communist
literature that was only published after he was killed while fighting the fascists
in the Spanish Civil War, as an internationalist from England, and as a member
of the International Brigades.
Much of Caudwell’s best work
was published posthumously under the famous title: “Studies in a Dying Culture”.
Three of the essays can be found in the Caudwell section of the Marxists Internet
Archive, including his essay “On Liberty”, which contains the
statement: “I am a communist because I
believe in freedom!”
Another Caudwell collection
was published more recently in hard copy under the title “The Concept of
Freedom”.
Sheehan
Another source of Caudwell
material (including the image above) is Helena Sheehan’s web site, where Helena
has made a Caudwell centenary
page that is very moving, and will tell you many reasons why
Christopher Caudwell is remembered with such passion and love even now, so long
after his death.
In “Pacifism and Violence”
Caudwell asks almost at once:
“Are we
Marxists then simply using labels indiscriminately when we class as
characteristically bourgeois, both militancy and pacifism, meekness and
violence? No, we are not doing so, if we can show that we call bourgeois not
all war and not all pacifism but only certain types of violence, and only
certain types of non-violence; and if, further, we can show how the one
fundamental bourgeois position generates both these apparently opposed
viewpoints.”
What do you say when you are
confronted by a pacifist follower of M K Gandhi, or by a Quaker? This text can
assist you. Today’s downloadable text will help bring the essence of the
question into our dialogue.
This text will show you why
it is that communists are not pacifists, although we struggle for peace, and
why the bourgeoisie can never be peaceful, even when they call themselves
pacifists.
·
The image of
Christopher Caudwell reproduced above was painted by Caoimhghin O
Croidheain
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Pacifism and
Violence, 1938, Christopher Caudwell.
