A Review of Critique of Nonviolent Politics by Howard Ryan
(http://www. netwood.net/~hryan 1996)
Although some Gandhi-related books have already appeared on the internet (for example Mark Shepard has posted several of his Gandhi writings, including the full text of Gandhi Today1) Howard Ryan's volume Critique of Nonviolent Politics: From Mahatma Gandhi to the Anti-Nuclear Movement, as far as I know, is the first time that an otherwise unpublished book-length manuscript on the Mahatma or on nonviolence has made its debut in cyberspace.
While Ryan has read some of the main texts on nonviolence (for example the works of Gene Sharp2), because the manuscript was largely written in the early 1980's, he includes nothing of more recent developments in nonviolence theory, and his explanation on the first page that he will use the terms "nonviolence" and "pacifism" interchangeably shows a lack of clear direction. His main sources on the Mahatma are half a century old Indian Marxist critiques of Gandhi's nationalist politics. The book however is available for free to those with internet connections and is worth reading in order to gain an outsider's view of some of the key debates surrounding the politics of nonviolent action.
Chapter One contains a fair (but very brief) summation of the main arguments of those advocating nonviolence as a method of political activism and a promise of a constructive critique - something that is always welcome. However, it soon becomes clear that Ryan has his own agenda, one of belittling nonviolence and advocating a class-based revolutionary (and not nonviolent) approach to social change. His accusations of the adherence to moral dogmas, the use of mechanical logic and rigidity on the part of those advocating nonviolence (Ch.1) as the reasons for this stance are, however, not fundamental to the nonviolence that I am familiar with and generally less common than among those that adhere to various forms of revolutionary Marxism.
Ryan's belief in the efficacy of violence seems to stem from a childhood experience where a schoolyard bully stopped picking on him after he fought back physically (Ch.3). This (a popular theme in Hollywood movies) has led him to the belief that a bully can often only be deterred by violence or a threat of violence. While this contention can be disputed it also overlooks the problem of knowing that this is one of those bullies. His reasoning leads to violence as a very early tactic.
And this appears to be his goal. When Ryan does concede that "conversion can sometimes be a reasonable and necessary objective" (Ch.6), one is left wondering why he does it so grudgingly. Why does he not see conversion of an opponent rather than their defeat as the ideal objective that may work? What could be a better objective - the death of an opponent?
Ryan's analysis, perhaps unwittingly, is packed with the intellectual sleights of hand that he accuses the advocates of nonviolence of employing and contains far too many non sequiturs. For example the author attempts to dismiss the validity of nonviolence by pointing to the pacifists who came to condone violence in times of crisis, for example during the war against Hitler (Ch.2). If one chooses what can be seen as the lesser of two evils (perhaps because of a lack of a creative alternative vision) it does not mean that the evil disappears.
When he criticises the proponents of nonviolence for their "automatic assumption of the immorality of violence" (Ch.2) he is implying that anyone who believes in this is misguided or worse - supporting the status quo and siding with the exploiters. While most violent liberation movements offer the promise of a better life for the masses, too often the promise is not redeemed. Surely the assumption he criticises is the best principle to hold - one that may, after careful heart-searching, lead to the rare exception when one sees no other way. The Marxist belief in the inevitability of class war and even the liberating and cleansing effect of violence3 will generally only lead to a greater rather than reduced quantum of violence and suffering. It is a pity that he did not take the trouble to rethink and update his critique following the massive nonviolent liberation victories of the late 1980's.
His criticism that the proponents of nonviolence take examples out of historical context to back their argument unfortunately is often true. This simplistic method of arguing leads to sloppy analysis and even untruths, and is a far too common way of conducting debate in general. Marxists who want to believe in the efficacy of violence, and Ryan himself, are not immune. When he disparagingly points out that failed violent revolutions are uncritically used as a way of "disproving" the efficacy of violence, he overlooks one central point. The issue is not necessarily one about a causal link between the use of violence by the revolutionaries and failure, but that possibly more could have been achieved without the violence.
That armed revolutions "have won immense gains for hundreds of millions of people" (Ch.3) may well be true but it is at least equally true for nonviolent revolutions, with less loss of life and brutalisation. This overlooked fact diminishes his argument. And a little further along he does what he claims simplistic nonviolence theorists do: he blames the means of nonviolence for the horrifically brutal ends of the various Indo/Pakistan wars without taking cognizance of the historical context - implying that with a violent liberation struggle in India there would have been communal harmony - something no serious South Asia scholar has ever even hinted at.
He does nothing to invalidate "a fundamental of nonviolence theory" that states that violence begets violence. And when he argues that nonviolent theorists say nothing about the possibility of nonviolence begetting violence, he merely betrays his lack of familiarity with work that explores this very topic, even when it was written a decade before he drafted his own manuscript.4
He may be right when he argues that "movement strategies should derive from the study of actual conditions" rather than from easy maxims, however his assertion that "the method that begets the least violence, in the long run, is that best suited to the situation" (Ch.3) is little more than question begging. How, in advance, can anyone know which method will beget the least violence in the long run?
Ryan's criticisms of nonviolence theorists for having a simplistic approach to issue of power merely shows how long ago his manuscript was written. If he had read more recent literature and brought his manuscript up to date he would have included the work of Brian Martin5, Ralph Summy6 and read some of the feminist theorists7 working in the area. While criticising the nonviolence theory of power, he never offers an alternative analysis. And his criticism notwithstanding, he seems to accept the "simplistic" theory of power of the early nonviolence theorists, merely adding that at times "effective self-defence" may be called for, without ever clearly defining what form this should take or when it can be used. For example, he makes much of the history of US labour and tenant/landlord disputes as well as the suppression of draft resistance without explaining their connection to implicitly violent self-defence. What exactly is he suggesting? He tries to show that the US is brutal (we all know this) and discusses repression against anti-nuclear protesters. Should they use violence? Would this help their cause?
Further along in the same chapter (Ch.5), the author is again trying to have it both ways. When a nonviolent revolution is touted as a success but the regime put in place turns out to be little better than the one it replaced it is a case of misleading claims being made by the advocates of nonviolence. When these advocates point out similar misleading claims about the "success" of violent revolutions they are not looking at the larger historical context or taking various relevant explanations into account. He notes that the claims for nonviolent revolution following the overthrow of the Shah of Iran are almost quaint given the repressive nature of the succeeding regime. Nonviolence as a method of political activism does not guarantee automatic and unfailing success; no method of conflict resolution does. However, following the events of 1989, when ruling classes were overturned by nonviolent action, it is his criticisms that seem to have missed the mark.
In Chapter Six he again shows his inconsistency in applying his recommended standards to his own argument. In his analysis of American labour disputes he speaks approvingly of worker violence. While he concludes a section on a 1978 coal miners strike by noting that a "strict nonviolent discipline was not appropriate for this strike and may well have reduced its impact", he has not made out the case. He does little more than conjecture. Where is the analysis/evidence?
There are other problems also. His value laden comparison of nonviolent movements with violent ones - "one defending life the other sacrificing life" (Ch.5) is not a valid distinction to make. One taking life the other not taking it would be more accurate. And he has a habit of talking about defence as a synonym for armed uprising.
The chapter offering a critique of nonviolence as a method of social change based on suffering (Ch.5) also contains misconceptions. Nonviolence is not a desire for suffering per se. The suffering employed in nonviolence must be creative. No nonviolent movement offers "only an opportunity to be beaten, arrested, or tortured". This is not the goal of nonviolence as Ryan seems to suggest, he is confusing means with ends.8
His assertion that it is not nonviolence vs. violence that is important, but flexibility vs. non flexibility may be a valid one if nonviolence is inflexible. It is not, there is no one dogma. Some do believe in nonviolence as a cardinal rule, while for many others nonviolence is very flexible and creative. He would probably be the first to complain if Marxism was summarily condemned as being inflexible, if the inevitability of violent class war was characterised as an inflexible cardinal rule of all theoreticians of the left.
The arguments in this manuscript are rather awkwardly divided into three parts. The middle section, which sits uncomfortably between the sections on the "problems" of nonviolence theory and the use of nonviolence in the anti-nuclear movement is a "critical history" of Gandhi which should have been published separately as yet another fairly orthodox Marxist critique of Gandhi's involvement in India's independence struggle. In essence the basis for this section seems to be that because nonviolence theory owes much to the Mahatma, if Gandhi can be shown to have been a hireling of the bourgeoisie then nonviolence theory will have been shown to be reactionary, to work in the interests of the ruling class. Of course even if this were true (which it is not), the conclusion need not necessarily follow. Probably the critique would have had more coherence if the middle section was reduced to a paragraph with footnotes pointing keen readers to the various Marxist analyses of Gandhian politics.
Contrary to Ryan's claims, Gandhi's philosophy was
not developed for class reasons. It is true that there was much
more to the Indian independence movement than Gandhi and it is correct that
the movement and philosophy (which was not developed for that struggle but
well before it in South Africa) should be looked at within its historical context.
When Ryan uses headings such as "Gandhi's Middle Class Origins" he is really
doing something else. He is attempting to prove some form of guilt by association.
Do Gandhi's origins invalidate his philosophy? Can only someone of working
class origins develop a philosophy of struggle or be a true revolutionary? And if this
is the case, it invalidates what he said earlier in praise of well to do
revolutionaries who sided with the oppressed and
also took to the gun. And where would this analysis leave Marx himself?
There are a lot of Gandhis. In early versions of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia the Mahatma is little more than a lackey of the capitalists; later, as relations with India become more warm, he becomes a great nationalist fighter. While there are many other representations - Gandhi was far more than a political activist, he was primarily something else - Ryan focuses clearly on the first of the above alternatives. In fact he does more. His criticism of Gandhi's reluctance to kick an opponent when they are down are characterised as naive, self-defeating or worse because he is only able to comprehend Gandhi as a politician. But Gandhi was not limited by a narrow political vision. He also had a long-term strategy that was not based on power politics or narrow notions of national freedom at all. Gandhi was a fearless individual on a spiritual quest, something Ryan does not seem to comprehend.
When the claim is made that Gandhi refused to threaten the interests of
the wealthy, Ryan seems to equate this with Gandhi's refusal to sanction their
killing. There is a difference! Gandhi's nonviolence sought to deal with causes
rather than the symptoms of conflict. The need for the type of wealth and power
that exploits and oppresses others is itself a symptom of deeper causes, which
will keep throwing up new exploiters (who will continually have to be killed!) if
they are not tackled. And when the author talks of the possibility of the formation
of class unity among the Indian masses and the potential of their taking power
(something seemingly only prevented by a reactionary Mahatma), regardless of
his discussion of untouchability, he does not seem to realise that in a
caste-ridden society, class solidarity is simply
not possible.
The third part of the manuscript focuses on nonviolent direct action against
nuclear power and weapons, concluding that nonviolence is inadequate to build
a mass movement that could bring down governments and government
systems because of inherent rigidities in nonviolent politics. In contradiction to what
he says elsewhere, the implication from the previous chapters is that violence
would help. Any reasonable analysis would show, that in western countries at
this time, violence would alienate far more people making any movement even
less mass-based, and that governments are not about to be toppled by any
direct action, violent or nonviolent, while in non-western countries nonviolent
mass movements have done just this.
In the cases he cites where violence was used by protesters to "defend
themselves" (although in his accounts of such
actions in his final chapter police violence was
in retaliation for protester violence) he is forced to admit that the protesters had
no greater success than those who conducted less violent protests. The most
reasonable conclusion seems to be that Ryan simply approves the use of violence
per se.
A concluding chapter, one that pulls the at times ill-fitting threads together,
is missing from this manuscript. His short concluding paragraph, that calls on
the "movement" to "develop forms of
public protest that are both inspired and
mass-oriented" (Ch.20), does not seem to
follow from his lengthy and occasionally disjointed analysis and is clearly
inadequate. In place of genuine conclusion, all Ryan can offers is an appeal to
read Marx.
By way of summation, Critique of Nonviolent Politics comes across as a tract from a believer in violence as the only method that can, or should, be used by the oppressed; from a believer in violence as the only truly revolutionary means of social change. While the growth in, and success of, nonviolent politics makes his thesis outdated, many of the arguments in this work should be taken seriously (for example his lengthy discussion of the merits and disadvantages of the process of consensus decision making in Ch.18), and thought through carefully, by those interested in nonviolence as a method of political activism.
Thomas Weber
Notes:
1. See hhtp://www.aaronshep.com/Mark/peace
2. See especially G.Sharp The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973).
3. See F.Fanon The Wretched of the Earth (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967); and especially J.P.Sartre's forward to the book.
4. See especially L.Pelton The Psychology of Non-Violence (New York: Pergamon, 1974).
5. See B.Martin, "Gene Sharp's Theory of Power", Journal of Peace Research 1989, vol.26, no.2, pp.213©222.
6. See R.Summy, "Nonviolence and the Case of the Extremely Ruthless
Opponent", Pacifica Review 1994, vol.6, no.1, pp.1-29
7. See K.McGuinness, "Gene Sharp's Theory of Power: A Feminist Critique", Journal of Peace Research 1993, vol.30, no.1, pp.101-115.
8. See T.Weber, "The Marchers Simply Walked Forward Until Struck Down: Nonviolent Suffering and Conversion", Peace and Change 1993, vol.18, no.3, pp.267©289.