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Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline

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CatOnTheWeb said:
The man is explicitly a Christian Minister, and he has a self admited history of non-violent protest to get results.

I think he's scaling up his personal faith and experience of 'turning the other cheek' and assuming it could applied on a global scale. Maybe he just….doesn't grok what it can be like to live under or next to a truly hostile government.
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It's probably even worse than OTL. The UASR leadership might be atheist but the state is secular and tolerates all religions (except the really racist preachers and the Catholic's but that's largely a choice of the Church). OTL unless you were part of a WASP congregation you got looked down on at best until well after WW2, in many cases even worse happened and people could extrapolate from their own experience that yeah the Nazi's could be doing this. Here not so much and the anti war movements need to see that some people really are that evil but for the last half decade they've had no real reference point to how bad that evil can be.
 
veteranMortal said:
If I were a pacifist I feel I personally would not try to argue any real commonality between my pacifism in the cold war and pacifism during WWII, which was a war against a genocidal regime actively seeking the eradication of numerous ethnic groups and other minorities.

But maybe that's just because I don't believe enough in the capacity of resilient peaceful protest to defeat the nazis. My bad.
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The rest of the SEU probably find this guy's involvement kind of an embarassment and wouldn't frame their own opposition to cold war militarism in those terms.

CatOnTheWeb said:
The man is explicitly a Christian Minister, and he has a self admited history of non-violent protest to get results.

I think he's scaling up his personal faith and experience of 'turning the other cheek' and assuming it could applied on a global scale. Maybe he just….doesn't grok what it can be like to live under or next to a truly hostile government.
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No, he was in Spain, by his own words (I expect the civil war?), so he did see it first hand.

He's just operating on virtue ethics rather than consequentialism, like a lot of moralizing religious figures. Violence is axiomatically evil and no good can be produced through evil means, that kind of thinking.
 
David Dellinger was a real figure, who actually went to prison during WW2 for refusing to be drafted.

He's best known for being one of the Chicago 7, who were charged with causing the chaos at the 1968 Democratic convention.

And he was very strictly non-violent, even when his own daughter was attacked during the trial.

www.nytimes.com

David Dellinger, of Chicago 7, Dies at 88 (Published 2004)

David Dellinger, whose commitment to nonviolent direct action against federal government placed him at forefront of American radical pacifism in 20th century and led to his becoming leading defendant in political conspiracy trial of Chicago 7, dies at age 88; photos (L)
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
Nyvis said:
No, he was in Spain, by his own words (I expect the civil war?), so he did see it first hand.

He's just operating on virtue ethics rather than consequentialism, like a lot of moralizing religious figures. Violence is axiomatically evil and no good can be produced through evil means, that kind of thinking.
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It honestly has the same energy as the people IOTL who argue that we shouldn't incarcerate right-wing terrorists and hate-motivated criminals.
 
Silent Runner said:
It honestly has the same energy as the people IOTL who argue that we shouldn't incarcerate right-wing terrorists and hate-motivated criminals.
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I think this one is even more hypocritical because they don't examine what it means to say people they don't think can be rehabilitated should be "hospitalized". That's just prison with straighjacket characteristics.
 
I am reminded by this update of a quote from Eric Blair OTL:

Eric Blair said:
Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security. Mr Savage remarks that 'according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be "objectively pro-British".' But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories. The Germans even run a spurious 'freedom' station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U. They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with. In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.
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However much you might respect the moral stance of Dellinger and other non-violent activists, it is unworkable and indeed actively counterproductive as a solution to fascism. The only solution to fascism is to, of course, blast it from the face of the earth by every means possible.
 
QueenOfRoses said:
I am reminded by this update of a quote from Eric Blair OTL:



However much you might respect the moral stance of Dellinger and other non-violent activists, it is unworkable and indeed actively counterproductive as a solution to fascism. The only solution to fascism is to, of course, blast it from the face of the earth by every means possible.
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Well actually the solution would have been to act in 1936 when Hitler remilitarised the Rhineland and a strong response from the west might have provoked a coup. By the time war starts though kill it with fire is the only solution I agree.
 
WW2 era left wing pacificism does really need to be viewed in the context of the post-WW1 world where it was revealed that a lot of the heavily publicized atrocities during the war were either made up, heavily exaggerated*, or both sides were really as bad as each other.


*I seem to recall that some recent re-evaluation of the evidence suggests that the German invasion of Belgium really was abnormally brutal but I'm speaking of how the situation was viewed during the inter-war period.

Edit:

In fact a wider issue with a lot of the proposed solutions to the Nazi threat - whether it be taking on a stronger stance on Germany at some earlier point, launching an attack into Germany in the autumn of 1939 - was that often something comparable had been tried in the 1910s and every British, French and presumably ITTL, American, settlement of reasonable size is going to have a reminder of how that worked out.
 
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Titanic Toxicity said:
Does a pacifist in this world expect soviet civilians to lie down and be executed en masse? How can you even believe pacifism is an option in such a scenario as a war against a truly genocidal opponent? What peaceful means is there to oppose that?
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There's repelling the invaders from your land (and Poland and Czechoslovakia) and suing for peace afterwards, then there's making a promise to destroy them in their home. A declaration of war is stating the intent of the latter, this being a time of Total War and all that implies.

Not that I agree with him. The cancer needs to be excised from its root at Berlin, Rio, Rome, Ankara, Tokyo, Bucharest, and so on. But it's unfair to say that he wants the Soviets to just lie down and die. Albeit you could make a point about the Holocaust though the sheer cold-blooded depravity of that isn't known just yet.
 
Raiho-kun said:
There's repelling the invaders from your land (and Poland and Czechoslovakia) and suing for peace afterwards, then there's making a promise to destroy them in their home. A declaration of war is stating the intent of the latter, this being a time of Total War and all that implies.

Not that I agree with him. The cancer needs to be excised from its root at Berlin, Rio, Rome, Ankara, Tokyo, Bucharest, and so on. But it's unfair to say that he wants the Soviets to just lie down and die. Albeit you could make a point about the Holocaust though the sheer cold-blooded depravity of that isn't known just yet.
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Very pointedly, none of the pacifists opposed undertaking defensive military operations. Their aim was "peace with honor", a very naive position for sure, but it was not total pacifism. Support for the declaration of war was taken by them to be support for the Party's aims of forcing unconditional surrender on the Axis powers.
 
Raiho-kun said:
There's repelling the invaders from your land (and Poland and Czechoslovakia) and suing for peace afterwards, then there's making a promise to destroy them in their home. A declaration of war is stating the intent of the latter, this being a time of Total War and all that implies.

Not that I agree with him. The cancer needs to be excised from its root at Berlin, Rio, Rome, Ankara, Tokyo, Bucharest, and so on. But it's unfair to say that he wants the Soviets to just lie down and die. Albeit you could make a point about the Holocaust though the sheer cold-blooded depravity of that isn't known just yet.
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Do they think that when pushed from thier occupying lands the Fascist will all just collectively throw down thier arms, shrug and say "guess we lost guys". Do the pacifist realize that if you don't either force a change in leadership or totally destroy thier warmaking capability (or preferably both) the war cannot end? If all you do is push them back to thier borders they shall just rebuild and attack again. Your annihilation is a fundamental cornerstone of thier ideology.



TGUT said:
WW2 era left wing pacificism does really need to be viewed in the context of the post-WW1 world where it was revealed that a lot of the heavily publicized atrocities during the war were either made up, heavily exaggerated*, or both sides were really as bad as each other.


*I seem to recall that some recent re-evaluation of the evidence suggests that the German invasion of Belgium really was abnormally brutal but I'm speaking of how the situation was viewed during the inter-war period.

Edit:

In fact a wider issue with a lot of the proposed solutions to the Nazi threat - whether it be taking on a stronger stance on Germany at some earlier point, launching an attack into Germany in the autumn of 1939 - was that often something comparable had been tried in the 1910s and every British, French and presumably ITTL, American, settlement of reasonable size is going to have a reminder of how that worked out.
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The problem with that analysis is that in the interview its clear that he still believes that he was correct in his pacifism even after the revelation of the sheer scale and indisputablility of fascist crimes against humanity. He is still a pacifist and does not appear to even had his beliefs even mildly shaken by the Holocaust.

Aelita said:
Very pointedly, none of the pacifists opposed undertaking defensive military operations. Their aim was "peace with honor", a very naive position for sure, but it was not total pacifism. Support for the declaration of war was taken by them to be support for the Party's aims of forcing unconditional surrender on the Axis powers.
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How do you achieve "Peace with Honour" with powers who view your total annihilation and or subjugation as a cornerstone of thier ideology? You can't say they support defensive measure when they voted against sending troops to defend the Soviet Union. I bet the whole "Oh we totally supported "defensive measures" was actually a post war myth they came up with after the sheer scale of Fascist atrocities became public knowledge and they couldn't handle how utterly indefensible thier actual position turned out to be once all the facts were clear and indisputable. Like all the Neo Confederate who try to claim the confederacy totally really succeeded for the purpose of states rights.

I am generally against harsh measures for anti war protesters but I would be willing to make an exception for Wars of Extinction where one side is wholly intended on genociding the other. If I was in the UASR in the 1940s I don't think I could bring myself to complain tok hard if they did lock Rankin and friends up for the rest of the war.
 
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Titanic Toxicity said:
Do they think that when pushed from thier occupying lands the Fascist will all just collectively throw down thier arms, shrug and say "guess we lost guys". Do the pacifist realize that if you don't either force a change in leadership or totally destroy thier warmaking capability (or preferably both) the war cannot end? If all you do is push them back to thier borders they shall just rebuild and attack again. Your annihilation is a fundamental cornerstone of thier ideology.
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To be fair to them, fascist war economics were hardly sustainable and pushing them back to prewar German borders would have seen them internally collapse without more loot to fuel the war machine, not successfully rearm for another round.

But it's still very callous for anyone caught under their boot in the meanwhile.

Titanic Toxicity said:
I am generally against harsh measures for anti war protesters but I would be willing to make an exception for Wars of Extinction where one side is wholly intended on genociding the other. If I was in the UASR in the 1940s I don't think I could bring myself to complain tok hard if they did lock Rankin and friends up for the rest of the war.
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None of those activists genuinely threatened the war effort. The worst they could do was encourage a few people to get themselves assigned to noncombat roles. There was no need for overreaction even if they were wrong.
 
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Titanic Toxicity said:
I am generally against harsh measures for anti war protesters but I would be willing to make an exception for Wars of Extinction where one side is wholly intended on genociding the other. If I was in the UASR in the 1940s I don't think I could bring myself to complain tok hard if they did lock Rankin and friends up for the rest of the war.
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Yeah no I liked that the UASR *didn't* persecute pacifists here, and also that it didn't crackdown on wartime strikes like what happened IOTL.
Obviously, this Dellinger figure is naïve as hell, but he does not mean any harm — he certainly isn't an element of a fifth column aiming to stab the UASR in the back, after all.

IIRC in the Reds! section covering WWI, a leftist historian articulated the hypocrisy of Oliver Wendell Holmes saying
"Debs, go to prison, idc about free speech, you're hampering the war effort" by mentioning how the Second Republic's First Amendment only said
"Congress shall make no law....abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"
There's no mention of peacetime here. There's no wartime exigency clause. And the equivalent principle applies to the third republic, whose basic law also has no provision for shutting down free speech for the sake of wartime exigency, naturally.

Ultimately, I'm largely in agreement with Nyvis. The pacifists were few and far apart, and were harmless. Hell, I'd say those hospital strikes actually did some good. Incarcerating them is completely unnecessary.
 
Titanic Toxicity said:
Do they think that when pushed from thier occupying lands the Fascist will all just collectively throw down thier arms, shrug and say "guess we lost guys". Do the pacifist realize that if you don't either force a change in leadership or totally destroy thier warmaking capability (or preferably both) the war cannot end? If all you do is push them back to thier borders they shall just rebuild and attack again. Your annihilation is a fundamental cornerstone of thier ideology.
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Beyond the apparent sustainability of Nazi German war economics (or lack thereof), it should be pointed out that both the Western and Communist blocs severely underestimated the ideological tenacity of the NSDAP and German High Command just as in OTL even after 1939/40. It's part of why the Soviets went through with Molotov-Ribbentrop, thinking the Nazis would, at the very least, be licking their wounds for a good few years after a confrontation with the two largest European powers before raring to have a go at the Union (which would have time to prepare by then). The assumption on part of the pacifists is that the Nazis will be unanimously desperate to sue for peace after getting kicked out Belarus and Ukraine with substantial loss of life, territory and seized industry.
 
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QueenOfRoses said:
I am reminded by this update of a quote from Eric Blair OTL:



However much you might respect the moral stance of Dellinger and other non-violent activists, it is unworkable and indeed actively counterproductive as a solution to fascism. The only solution to fascism is to, of course, blast it from the face of the earth by every means possible.
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But is that even possible?One cannot kill an idea. The German people ELECTED Hitler.They gave him the mandate.Reminds me of this from Look Who's Back:
Rooftop Scene
 
dcd said:
But is that even possible?One cannot kill an idea. The German people ELECTED Hitler.They gave him the mandate.Reminds me of this from Look Who's Back:
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But you sure as hell can kill its leaders and contain the idea via education and crackdowns so it is reduced to the insignificant fringe so that it is no longer a threat.
 
AG_AG said:
But you sure as hell can kill its leaders and contain the idea via education and crackdowns so it is reduced to the insignificant fringe so that it is no longer a threat.
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For how long though?And how far are you willing to go?
There are no easy solutions.Because as a great man once said:There can be no final revolution.
 
Raiho-kun said:
Beyond the apparent sustainability of Nazi German war economics (or lack thereof), it should be pointed out that both the Western and Communist blocs severely underestimated the ideological tenacity of the NSDAP and German High Command just as in OTL even after 1939/40. It's part of why the Soviets went through with Molotov-Ribbentrop, thinking the Nazis would, at the very least, be licking their wounds for a good few years after a confrontation with the two largest European powers before raring to have a go at the Union (which would have time to prepare by then). The assumption on part of the pacifists is that the Nazis will be unanimously desperate to sue for peace after getting kicked out Belarus and Ukraine with substantial loss of life, territory and seized industry.
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Though I have to wonder, would we be extending the same benefit of the doubt to right-wing appeasers?

Fascist ideological tenacity may not be as obvious but at this point the genocidal nature of their ideology has become eminently clear. Even if Nazism was stopped from raping and mass murdering its way through the Soviet Union it would still have a large number of victims to murder. Such as every Germany Jew, queer person, and socialist.

I don't think suppressing the pacifists is necessary, they clearly are not a significant political force, but in terms of consequences and priority their ideology is still genuinely vile. They would prefer to give the fascists more time to murder innocents just because they dislike war. I'm not going to pretend that pacifism never has any good points but WW2 is genuinely the worst possible time to be a fanatical pacifist. I doubt they're individually bad people but that doesn't make their political project any less unacceptable.
 
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dcd said:
But is that even possible?One cannot kill an idea. The German people ELECTED Hitler.They gave him the mandate.Reminds me of this from Look Who's Back:
Rooftop Scene
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You absolutely can kill an idea, especially one so specific in origin as fascism; remove the material conditions in which it thrives, criminalise its discussion and spread and within a generation or two it'll be more or less dead.

Also, like... most German voters didn't vote for Hitler in March 1933. People keep repeating this like its true. It isn't.
 
veteranMortal said:
You absolutely can kill an idea, especially one so specific in origin as fascism; remove the material conditions in which it thrives, criminalise its discussion and spread and within a generation or two it'll be more or less dead.
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Hell, even with material conditions theoretically conducive to an idea you can still thoroughly marginalize it. Just look at socialism in the US, the Left has undergone a resurgence of sorts and we're still thoroughly marginal.

This idea that ideas can't be suppressed effectively is historically illiterate and tbh kind of offensive, it completely erases the victims of campaigns of suppression like the mass murder of communists in Indonesia or COINTELPRO.
 
To be fair to the "Nazis were elected into power" side, it's not entirely wrong. Getting 43% of the vote isn't bad when there are multiple major parties. Particularly when you're a party that was as marginal as the pre-WW2 NSDAP was.

I doubt I'd go as far as credit them with some broad democratic mandate, particularly given how sweeping their changes were, but it's hard to deny that they lacked significant popular support.
 
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