Militant

“ Otherwise described, the process of militant organization is a process of regimentation, which, primarily taking place in the army, secondarily affects the whole community.
The first indication of this we trace in the fact everywhere visible, that the military head grows into a civil head—mostly at once, and, in exceptional cases, at last, if militancy continues. Beginning as leader in war he becomes ruler in peace ”

“ National ideals, based on a co-operative social order, would have the same power of resistance almost as a religion, which is, of all things, most unconquerable by physical force, and, when it is itself militant, the most powerful ally of military power. ”

“ That adaptation of individual nature to social needs which, in the militant state, makes men glory in war and despise peaceful pursuits, has partially brought about among us a converse adjustment of the sentiments. ”

“ Speaking abstractly, it cannot be denied, of course, that a militant organisation may thoughtlessly commence a battle, which may end in defeat, which might have been avoided under other circumstances. ”

“ Those ancient societies which progressed enough to leave records, having all been conquering societies, show us everywhere the traits of the militant regime. As, for the effectual organization of fighting bodies, the soldiers, absolutely obedient, must show no personal independence; so, for the effectual organization of fighting societies, citizens must have their individualities subordinated. ”

“ For the militants of the revolutionary organization, the revolution has begun. We might try to imagine the feelings of a long time member of the revolutionary organization as she runs toward a large group of excited people in a crowded railway station. This militant might have been a member of the organization during the dismal days when the majority of the people she spoke to, including her family and her closest non organization friends, considered her a sectarian, a true believer, even a crackpot. ”

“ Originally supreme, though passive, the third element in the triune political structure, subjected more and more as militant activity develops its appropriate organization, begins to reacquire power when war ceases to be chronic. ”

“ These relations of father to son and daughter, arising in advanced groups of the archaic type, and becoming more settled where pastoral life originates the patriarchal group, continue to characterize societies that remain predominantly militant, whether evolved from the patriarchal group or otherwise: victory and defeat, which express the outcome of militant activity, having for their correlatives despotism and slavery in military organization, in political organization, and in domestic organization. ”

“ That binding together by which the units of a militant society are made into an efficient fighting structure tends to fix the position of each in rank, in occupation, in locality.
In a graduated regulative organization there is resistance to change from a lower to a higher grade. ”

“ It teaches them to speak for themselves, and discover the force of their eloquence and the ingenuity of their resources. It is impossible to go to a meeting of the militant party without feeling amazement at the dexterity of all concerned. ”

“ The militant forces of the one, like the militant forces of the other, tend to the destruction of social mobility and the creation of social rigidity, making further social evolution difficult or impossible. ”

“ Warfare, with the stress on subordination and mastery and the insistence on gradations of dignity and honor incident to a militant organization, has always proved an effective school in barbarian methods of thought. ”

“ Hence the militant type is characterized by the absence, or comparative rarity, of bodies of citizens associated for commercial purposes, for propagating special religious views, for achieving philanthropic ends, etc. ”

“ Some people object that they understand the militant revolutionaries being in this frame of mind, but they do not understand the more intelligent passive and detached supporters of the advanced party sharing such childish views. The more intelligent and detached supporters are even more violent in their talk than the militant fighters. ”

“ Where the independent unions are weak in numbers and influence, consisting chiefly of militants, they shall work for re-affiliation with the stronger organizations in their industries, either as groups or as individual members, and thus bring the militants into their proper position among the organized masses. ”

“ After all, every one of the scenes depicts militants who are completely divorced from the new productive activities as well as the experimental social relations developed by the self organized population, militants who are not only pathetically behind the times but also alien to the liberating spirit of the new social activities, militants who are almost, in a sense, reactionaries. ”

“ But now, in spite of the misfortunes which have befallen our Order, I feel myself a thousand times more ready for action, more authoritative, more strong and more daring, at the head of our mute and black-robed militia, who only think and wish, or move and obey, mechanically, according to my will. ”

“ In more educated communities, ideals of government and conduct.
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In every one of these modes, be it observed, the instinct of repulsion correlates with the instinct of attraction. The strifes are the strifes of combinations, of groups or masses united in themselves by sympathy, in antipathy to other groups or masses. The esprit de corps arises alike in the species, the horde, the tribe, the community, the class, the faction, the nation, the trade or profession, the Church, the sect, the party. Always men unite to oppose; always they must love to hate, fraternise to struggle. ”

“ The rich call us bandits, but there is already an army of one thousand men waiting for you to join them, and we [p 146] call ourselves Soldiers of the Revolution. We have risen up to get for ourselves some portion of what we have lost.
“Will you not join us? Our general is a peon like yourselves. He feels our wrongs because he has suffered them, and he fights like a demon to avenge them. ”

“ The army of progress is recruited from all ranks and conditions—men of genius, intellectual spirits who are the first to realise the defects of the old system and to conceive a new one, synthesising the needs and aspirations of the people; lunatics, enthusiastic propagandists of the new ideas, which they spread with all the impetuous ardour characteristic of unbalanced minds; criminals, the natural enemies of order, who flock to the standard of revolt and bring to it their special gifts, audacity and contempt of death. ”

“ But it is needful here, as a preliminary, clearly to recognize the truth that the social structure evolved by chronic militancy is one in which all men fit for fighting act in concert against other societies. ”

“ I see the organizing of forces, not simply law and police which are indeed paid mercenaries from the region of violence, but legislation and literature, teaching and tradition, organized religion, getting themselves and the social structure together, year after year and age after age, halting, failing, breaking up in order to try again. ”

“ You, in your blindness, think you can stop the tidal wave of civilization and human emancipation by placing a few policemen, a few galling guns, and some regiments of militia on the shore you think you can frighten the rising waves back into the unfathomable depths, whence they have arisen, by erecting a few gallows in the perspective. You, who oppose the natural course of things, you are the real revolutionists. ”

“ These ringleaders and agitators may be divided into two clearly defined classes. The one includes the men who are energetic and possess, but only intermittently, much strength of will, the other the men, far rarer than the preceding, whose strength of will is enduring. The first mentioned are violent, brave, and audacious. They are more especially useful to direct a violent enterprise suddenly decided on, to carry the masses with them in spite of danger, and to transform into heroes the men who but yesterday were recruits. ”

“ The iron hand of a mercenary soldiery may keep for a time both classes tied down in common oppression. But the battle must break out in ever growing dimensions, and there can be no doubt as to who will be the victor in the end—the appropriating few, or the immense working majority. ”

“ Now was the work—the moment of interest—men and women groaning, staggering, and lying insensible; others shouting, leaping, and huzzaing; some singing, and not a few able-bodied spalpeens blurting, like over-grown children, on seeing their own blood; many raging and roaring about like bulls;—all this formed such a group as a faction fight, and nothing else, could represent. ”

“ They offend my sight. Our militia were merry fellows; they took liberties, stood their legs astride, their hats over their ears, they lived and let live; these fellows are like machines with a devil inside them. ”

“ And so, a new recruit enlisted to fight for a grand and noble human ideal, I behold even now the spectacle of partial and inevitable concessions being wrung from those who still pretend to maintain a position of uncompromising and unbending hostility, but who are helpless before the great cry of suffering and hope which springs from the depths of the masses of mankind in passionate emotion and in intellectual striving. ”

“ Where, and in what? It is here that we find people, revolutionists, who, whilst maintaining their own lives altogether under the system of force, strive against this force, opposing violence to violence. ”

“ The inactivity that is advocated is the principle that has ever had us left behind, and will leave us again, unless we arouse from lethargy and arm ourselves as men and patriots against the common enemy of God and man. For six months I have labored to arouse our people to the necessity of action, and I have the satisfaction to say not without success. I have seen companies organized and under the most proficient modern drill in that time. ”

“ You have sworn fidelity to me, you are the children of my guard, you are my soldiers, you have surrendered yourselves to me, body and soul. Only one enemy can exist for you—my enemy. With the present Socialist machinations, it may happen that I shall order you to shoot your own relatives, your brothers, or even your parents—which God forbid—and then you are bound in duty implicitly to obey my orders. ”

“ Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.—The foregoing and their savage multitudes of revolutionists are to be the vanguard of the evil host. ”

“ This is the age of the war of the oppressed against the oppressors, and every one of those ringleaders of the privileged gangs of murderers and swindlers, called Sovereigns, look to each other for aid against the common enemy, and suspend their mutual jealousies in the presence of a mightier fear. ”

“ They should not try to read anything between the lines. Let me announced with all the strength at my command, that I am not a terrorist and I never was, expected perhaps in the beginning of my revolutionary career. ”

“ Traces of that militancy would, therefore, pervade it still, and a campaigning quality—no longer against specific disorders, but against universal human weaknesses, and the inanimate forces that trouble man—still remain as its essential quality. ”

“ If the first be our object, and resistance is offered to us, how foolish to leave our enemies the means of resisting us with success? how weak to spare men who have done all they could to slay us, or women and children, by which the race of our adversaries may be kept up and increased? ”

“ He created an army out of nothing, induced his men by argument, suasion, and example to shake off the virus of indiscipline and sacrifice their individual judgment and will to the well-being of their fellows. ”

“ We have seen that, among peoples in low stages of culture, these furnish a marked case of non-militancy, absence of the political organization which militancy develops, absence of class-distinctions, and presence of that voluntary exchange of services implied by industrialism ”

“ It would have been very dangerous, at that critical period, to have exposed your weakness and timidity to the militia, as such an example might have been attended with the most fatal consequences to our cause. And as your conduct, upon this occasion, appeared to me to proceed from want of fortitude, and not the baser motives,—and as from the observations I made to you at the time, you seemed to resume more spirited sentiments in conversation, as well as from political motives, I continued to show an appearance of confidence, and concluded it best not to mention it to the General. ”

“ You are in the militia—that will do you no harm;—spirit and true courage in defence of our country is naturally and nobly employed.—We are in the upper world playing the old foolish game—in the same foolish way—and with the same foolish set that trod the ministerial boards when you left us. ”

“ You take the best lot of young men, all church members, if you please, and put them into an army, and let them invade the enemy's country, and live upon it for any length of time, and they will gradually lose all principle and self-restraint to a degree beyond the control of discipline. ”

“ In no other organization will men in great masses so entirely forget themselves as men will in battle under military discipline. What is the cause of this? Can we discover how it is done and apply the law to civil life? ”

“ The traditional way of dual unionism and the very essence of its program, is for the handful of militants to devise ideal unions, set them up in competition with the old trade unions, and to engage with the latter in an open struggle for control of the industry, a process which almost always results in simply stripping the old unions of their militants and leaving those organizations in the hands of the reactionaries. ”