Question about militias vs. militaries

Hi LBC
I think Militia is a loaded term that took on a new meaning in Spain 1936.The etymology I'm not sure of but deduced from military and non orthodox the term has become accepted.In a revolutionary war a la Spain in which a dual power existed on one side the ramifications for becoming official or full time are well known but in the event of defending an Anarchist society its role is more clear cut and can be specialised into a more specific role.Hypothetically if everything was fine and placid with no Counter Revolution on the horizon the outward full on role could be scaled down but its an interesting scenario.

Anarchists oppose professional soldiering, yes – though they do also oppose professional everything in the sense that the aim is to break down the capitalist division of labour and so on.

However usually the distinction is made to emphasise the breaking down of militaristic structure. During the Spanish revolution, militarisation meant turning the confederal militias into regular armies; that meant the imposition of command hierarchies, hierarchical discipline, transfer of control to the government, abolition of the election of officers, etc.

Perhaps you have come across this pamphlet, LBC

https://libcom.org/library/towards-citizens-militia-anarchist-alternatives-n-t-o-warsaw-pact

I tend towards a less military confrontational concept of revolution as Freemind alluded to and suggest it the most likely scenario.

In the past, it was the general strike that would be the main weapon against the recalcitrant pro-capitalist resistance and their instrument would be acts of terror and we know that there is no military solution to such strategies as terror.

But i am no seer and closer we are to social revolution, the more clarity there will be on what needs to be done

Yeah basically like many arguments on the left this one really might mean nothing at all depending on how people define terms.
So to avoid having a semantic argument, I think you would have to define your terms the first place.
So looking at practical examples is probably helpful in terms of defining terms, then after that determining your view on them.
Personally, as in the example in Spain I would see revolutionary militias as non-state fighting units, whereas an army would be under the control of a state, or proto-state.
So in the Spanish example, militias were made up of workers who had volunteered to fight, and had revolutionary democracy in them (things like equal pay, elected officers, and in some cases voluntary discipline).
When the Spanish Republican government wanted to militarise the militias, that meant implementing uniforms, non-elected officers, imposed discipline, pay differentials etc.
So those types of features are the key differences I think. Not whether someone is part-time or full-time – in a revolutionary civil war situation, militia fighters effectively become full-time, until the conflict is over.
Not the type of situation we would want to emulate, but recent events in Afghanistan are good example of a small, more informal militia (albeit one run by a proto-state) "defeating" a much larger conventional army. This was because the rank-and-file of the conventional army had no motivation to actually fight for it.
But again, I kind of think the issue is largely semantic, because you can also disagree over the definition of a state. Because you could also argue that a revolutionary militia – i.e. a body of organised violence controlled by one class to use against another class – is a state. I think for us, compared with Marxist-Leninists, is that for us it would have to be democratic, and run collectively by the class as a whole, as opposed to run dictatorially from above.

But I think it's true that if someone specializes full-time in being a soldier, they will likely be better at it than someone who only does soldiering part-time. I'm not saying there should be full-time soldiers as a permanent feature of an anarchist society, but if counterrevolutionary armies start attacking, and must be confronted in war, I think full-time soldiers would be an asset.

Your point is one that is frequently highlighted by the SPGB throughout its history and in its arguments with anti-parliamentarians.

As its D of P says

That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organize consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.

From my reading of history when there is a militarisation of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance, it necessarily has resulted in the intervention of rival foreign powers. Syria is a prime example.

And could the Taliban have existed without the sympathy and acquiescence of a 'friendly' neighbour, Pakistan.

For a couple of days I've been wanting to reply to this thread, but my responses kept ballooning and quickly drifted off away from the discussion, so I've drafted and edited them into some more general thoughts and posted them here https://reddebreksbowl.blogspot.com/2021/09/militants-and-militaries.html

in case anyone's interested. It was initially a lot longer, including some topics that got my old class warned so I've cut it down a bit.

I actually know nothing of this history. I'm assuming these were democratic and autonomous militias that were then brought under state control?

Apart from a few regiments loyal to pro-parliament lords, the New Model Army was built out of volunteers who elected their own officers. This meant that positions were based on merit instead of status which was how the professional armies of the day assigned officers, it also gave political agitators who could read and write an advantage in selections. Multiple regiments essentially became mobile propaganda outlets for the political radicals. When they weren't in battle, they would be holding meetings or printing pamphlets to distribute in the towns.

I'm not sure why these three stages would necessarily be tied to building a state? It could obviously be used for that, but they could also be applied to smash the existing state and build a non-hierarchical self-government of voluntary federations.

Well leaving aside that Maoists don't believe in that, a major obstacle is the centralisation aspect, the base area imposes its control on the other areas through military strength. So in those areas, the final decider for power is the barrel of the gun. There have been cases where a dominant politico-military organisation has established a rebel territory and allowed the population some autonomy, but they're also not remotely tolerant of explicitly hostile developments, there are limits, and the power relationship is clearly weighted in favour of the centre.

Lucky Black Cat

Thanks for explaining.

Would you consider the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine (aka the Makhnovists) an example of a politico-military organization? As we know they fought off capitalist nationalist and monarchist armies and then encouraged full autonomy for communities in the region. But maybe you wouldn't categorize them as this type of organization because of their democratic structure. But they were the only organized armed power in the region, right?

Well, there was already a large peasant and workers movement aligned with the Ukrainian Anarchists and Revolutionary Socialists before the fighting started. The original insurrectionary army was founded (before Makhno arrived) as a defence group for them, and it grew from that as the conflict escalated. They weren't usually the only military force within what became known as the Free Territory, but the main difference between the Ukraine situation and the Maoist strategy in my opinion is that in Ukraine, a quite large and well established movement was already in existence, and it built a fighting force once the war was forced upon them by circumstance.

Whereas the maoist way of war is the opposite, build a large and entrenched movement off the back of a military conflict. Regardless of ideology, any group that embraces this strategy is embracing growth through military expansion.

For info on how discipline was imposed in Mao's pre-revolutionary base areas, see; https://libcom.org/tags/yenan-literary-opposition