Under pressure to mobilise 200,000 extra soldiers, Ukraine army recruiters are resorting to checkpoints, bundling men off the street and ignoring exemptions
When a socialist state needs soldiers, it doesn’t seem like they need conscripts. People are willing and able, for the most part. It’s only when a state loses its socialist characteristics and begins to prioritize expansion over stability that we see things break down.
This is historically and theoretically incorrect, Comrade; and rooted in idealism which runs aground when colliding with the unfortunate concrete material reality we live in, with the forces we are up against, and the lengths they themselves go to when such times arise — and cowering from what shows itself to be necessary to secure the revolution in such times would end up causing much worse harm than any conscription, when the reaction wins. This has been shown in every revolution and counter-revolution in history. The ruling class will not avoid these lengths, and the revolutionaries and revolutionary government can not afford to be any less strong-handed than them or against them or they are guaranteed to fail.
The ruling class does it in Ukraine and countless other inter-capitalist wars in history, why wouldn’t they do it against an actual revolution against their system? The colonialists imperialists conscripted for the occupation of Vietnam, and so from 1960-on the NVA and Vietcong instituted conscription. In the Soviet revolutionary war and counter-revolution The White army factions conscripted, so the Red army needed to conscript (even the “anarchist” Makhnovites conscripted for the same reasons). Every revolution which fell due to not being sufficiently powerful in war and organization to overcome the reaction in the counter-revolution subsequently and promptly came under a white terror in gross excess to all imaginable violence before it. This is the material reality to contend with.
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We see that the time is now here when it may be very dangerous to talk of opposing conscription in Ireland, and yet that opposition must be organised, and to be organised it must be discussed.
It is to be hoped that whatever discussion takes place now, those taking part in it will recognise that the time has gone past for smooth-sounding generalities, or mere political make-believe. We are now living in an era of ruthless brute force, of blood and iron. Whatever effect public opinion may have in times of peace it has little practical effect in time of war. In times of peace human life weighs heavily in the balance, and the most brutal of our rulers shrink from too readily shedding human blood. But in time of war all such considerations vanish, and the spilling of a torrent of blood in the city streets would cause the ruling class no more compunction than the slaughter of game on their estates.
Indeed that lesson has been all too tardily learned by the people and their leaders. One great source of the strength of the ruling class has ever been their willingness to kill in defence of their power and privileges. Let their power be once attacked either by foreign foes, or domestic revolutionists, and at once we see the rulers prepared to kill, and kill, and kill. The readiness of the ruling class to order killing, the small value the ruling class has ever set upon human life, is in marked contrast to the reluctance of all revolutionists to shed blood.
The French Reign of Terror is spoken of with horror and execration by the people who talk in joyful praise about the mad adventure of the Dardanelles. And yet in any one day of battle at the Dardanelles there were more lives lost than in all the nine months of the Reign of Terror.
Should the day ever come when revolutionary leaders are prepared to sacrifice the lives of those under them as recklessly as the ruling class do in every war, there will not be a throne or despotic government left in the world. Our rulers reign by virtue of their readiness to destroy human life in order to reign; their reign will end on the day their discontented subjects care as little for the destruction of human life as they do.
Hence they who now would oppose conscription must not delude themselves into the belief that they are simply embarking upon a new form of political agitation, with no other risks than attend political agitation in times of peace.
We will not be asked to accept conscription by the British Government unless the British ruling class has made up its mind that only conscription can save the Empire. If it does make up its mind to that measure it will enforce conscription though every river in Ireland ran red with blood.
The people of Ireland have been so long accustomed to temporising, and evading straight issues, that there is great danger that they may fail to recognise the gravity of their action, and attempt to fight conscription as they would attempt a cattle drive, or the making of poteen. That is to say in the spirit of a joke at the expense of the police.
Such an attempt in such a spirit would fare badly against a drastic resolve of the military to ‘make an example’ of the first conscripts who refused to obey. A round dozen corpses of young Irishmen would strike terror into thousands, but would not affect the appetites of those who daily order to their death thousands of young men in the prime of life and vigour.
Oppose conscription, by all means, but let us not teach those who look to us for leadership that such opposition can be conducted on the lines of dodging the police, or any such high jinks of constitutional agitation. Those who oppose it take their lives in their hands. Let them be made to realise that in advance. A fool, and ten thousand times worse than a fool, is he who would teach them otherwise. Our rulers will ‘stop at nothing’ to attain their ends. They will continue to rule and rob until confronted by men who will stop at nothing to overthrow them.
I did some very light reading into the red army and it does appear that it relied on conscription throughout. A lot of the army and its officers especially were former tsarists following the end of Russia’s involvement in WW1, but the bulk of the front line units were conscripts.
It’s one of the realities of a modern nation-state in wartime, but I agree that a system of government more representative of its people is more likely to be cooperative with whatever system of military it relies on.
lot of the army and its officers especially were former tsarists following the end of Russia’s involvement in WW1, but the bulk of the front line units were conscripts.
During the Russian Civil War? I’d be curious to hear how many conscripts were in the Red and White armies respectively.
But it does look like Russia used conscripts through Afghanistan. I suppose you’re right.
Has conscription ever not been a total racket?
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When a socialist state needs soldiers, it doesn’t seem like they need conscripts. People are willing and able, for the most part. It’s only when a state loses its socialist characteristics and begins to prioritize expansion over stability that we see things break down.
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DPRK isn’t doing active combat operations. The handful of DPRK mercenaries serving abroad are almost certainly there voluntarily.
They’ve got mandatory civil service, but that’s very different from going to the front lines to kill or be killed.
This is historically and theoretically incorrect, Comrade; and rooted in idealism which runs aground when colliding with the unfortunate concrete material reality we live in, with the forces we are up against, and the lengths they themselves go to when such times arise — and cowering from what shows itself to be necessary to secure the revolution in such times would end up causing much worse harm than any conscription, when the reaction wins. This has been shown in every revolution and counter-revolution in history. The ruling class will not avoid these lengths, and the revolutionaries and revolutionary government can not afford to be any less strong-handed than them or against them or they are guaranteed to fail.
The ruling class does it in Ukraine and countless other inter-capitalist wars in history, why wouldn’t they do it against an actual revolution against their system? The colonialists imperialists conscripted for the occupation of Vietnam, and so from 1960-on the NVA and Vietcong instituted conscription. In the Soviet revolutionary war and counter-revolution The White army factions conscripted, so the Red army needed to conscript (even the “anarchist” Makhnovites conscripted for the same reasons). Every revolution which fell due to not being sufficiently powerful in war and organization to overcome the reaction in the counter-revolution subsequently and promptly came under a white terror in gross excess to all imaginable violence before it. This is the material reality to contend with.
Read this short article by Irish Revolutionary James Connolly
FULL TEXT: Conscription (1915):
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We see that the time is now here when it may be very dangerous to talk of opposing conscription in Ireland, and yet that opposition must be organised, and to be organised it must be discussed.
It is to be hoped that whatever discussion takes place now, those taking part in it will recognise that the time has gone past for smooth-sounding generalities, or mere political make-believe. We are now living in an era of ruthless brute force, of blood and iron. Whatever effect public opinion may have in times of peace it has little practical effect in time of war. In times of peace human life weighs heavily in the balance, and the most brutal of our rulers shrink from too readily shedding human blood. But in time of war all such considerations vanish, and the spilling of a torrent of blood in the city streets would cause the ruling class no more compunction than the slaughter of game on their estates.
Indeed that lesson has been all too tardily learned by the people and their leaders. One great source of the strength of the ruling class has ever been their willingness to kill in defence of their power and privileges. Let their power be once attacked either by foreign foes, or domestic revolutionists, and at once we see the rulers prepared to kill, and kill, and kill. The readiness of the ruling class to order killing, the small value the ruling class has ever set upon human life, is in marked contrast to the reluctance of all revolutionists to shed blood.
The French Reign of Terror is spoken of with horror and execration by the people who talk in joyful praise about the mad adventure of the Dardanelles. And yet in any one day of battle at the Dardanelles there were more lives lost than in all the nine months of the Reign of Terror.
Should the day ever come when revolutionary leaders are prepared to sacrifice the lives of those under them as recklessly as the ruling class do in every war, there will not be a throne or despotic government left in the world. Our rulers reign by virtue of their readiness to destroy human life in order to reign; their reign will end on the day their discontented subjects care as little for the destruction of human life as they do.
Hence they who now would oppose conscription must not delude themselves into the belief that they are simply embarking upon a new form of political agitation, with no other risks than attend political agitation in times of peace.
We will not be asked to accept conscription by the British Government unless the British ruling class has made up its mind that only conscription can save the Empire. If it does make up its mind to that measure it will enforce conscription though every river in Ireland ran red with blood.
The people of Ireland have been so long accustomed to temporising, and evading straight issues, that there is great danger that they may fail to recognise the gravity of their action, and attempt to fight conscription as they would attempt a cattle drive, or the making of poteen. That is to say in the spirit of a joke at the expense of the police.
Such an attempt in such a spirit would fare badly against a drastic resolve of the military to ‘make an example’ of the first conscripts who refused to obey. A round dozen corpses of young Irishmen would strike terror into thousands, but would not affect the appetites of those who daily order to their death thousands of young men in the prime of life and vigour.
Oppose conscription, by all means, but let us not teach those who look to us for leadership that such opposition can be conducted on the lines of dodging the police, or any such high jinks of constitutional agitation. Those who oppose it take their lives in their hands. Let them be made to realise that in advance. A fool, and ten thousand times worse than a fool, is he who would teach them otherwise. Our rulers will ‘stop at nothing’ to attain their ends. They will continue to rule and rob until confronted by men who will stop at nothing to overthrow them.
Fair enough
I did some very light reading into the red army and it does appear that it relied on conscription throughout. A lot of the army and its officers especially were former tsarists following the end of Russia’s involvement in WW1, but the bulk of the front line units were conscripts.
It’s one of the realities of a modern nation-state in wartime, but I agree that a system of government more representative of its people is more likely to be cooperative with whatever system of military it relies on.
During the Russian Civil War? I’d be curious to hear how many conscripts were in the Red and White armies respectively.
But it does look like Russia used conscripts through Afghanistan. I suppose you’re right.