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Against the Logic of the Guillotine
(crimethinc.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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Who do you include in your "we"? I think it might be useful to be more precise here so.
Most people I personally met that made jokes/memes/references to guillotines, to putting people against a wall and shooting them or to gulags were some kind of communists and communists implemented / used the death penalty when they got into power many times (or even every time?).
Good point.
I am mostly in a leftist bubble. Most people I know who will make gulag or guillotine jokes as a solution would vote strongly against people actually seriously advocating those.
People who unironically want a return of the death penalty (and therefore a state-sanctioned use of the guillotine) are usually from the far-right.
The guillotine is the symbol of when the people managed to judge the dominant caste with extremely harsh sentences. It is a reminder that governments can do "aggressive" things like taxing high revenues much more aggressively. Or put in jail fraudulent CEOs. That we have done much harsher in the past.
Lemmygrad is 100% not joking about guillotines and gulags.
The problem with all this, and that the guillotine is symbolic of, is that state power is always used against the weak. The guillotine isn't a defensive weapon. It can only be used, by definition, after an enemy has been subjugated. The logic of the guillotine, and it's symbolism, is revenge. The core logic of fascism is also revenge. The path from leftist ideals to reactionary dictatorship cloaked in those ideals follows that path.
Vengeance feels right because we are fighting against generations of injustice, but it can't end in a world without injustice. The world anarchists want to create is one that is fundamentally compassionate, even to those who have harmed us. Because everyone is a human, and everyone makes mistakes.
The defense of the revolution is the revolution. If the formerly rich are a threat to the post-revolutionary order, what has the revolution achieved? The world should be better for them too. They no longer have to chase wealth or fear for their lives, they can have time to work out whatever trauma drove them to hoard all that wealth.
The guillotine cannot reform. It cannot help. It can only kill those who are, by definition, no longer a threat. It cannot be used for anything but revenge, and there is no place for revenge in a revolution that seeks to build a better world.
This is why I advocate for gun ownership but refused to testify against the person who shot me. This is one of my favorite crimethinc pieces and I reference it a lot.
I am telling you about France, and while tankies certainly exist, their relevance in the far left is nil. People who seriously advocate for guillotines are the people for the return of the death penalty (mostly far right). And no one on the far left advocates for gulags or "reeducation". Stalinists have no party. Maoist neither. The fringest left wing party you will find are LO and NPA and while they are revolutionary, they do not advocate such things.
Like I said, the guillotine is mostly used as the symbol of our ability to punish powerful people.
I would obviously not support a movement that proposes to install a new revolutionary tribunal or a cheka, these are seeds of authoritarianism that lead nowhere.