Chuck wrote:
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> What? So we can have an equal opportunity system of military slavery?
>
> I cannot believe that anybody on this list is defending a military
> draft. That's just so fucked up.
Engels's argument for the possibility of revolution in modern society was grounded in the assumption of conscript rather than volunteer/professional armies. He argued that an insurrection did not require the ability to defeat the army but only to hold out for enough days for conscripts to refuse to fire on others of their class. In 1968 the decision _not_ send troops to Chicago flowed from the inability to trust troops of the only available division to obey ordersif asked to suppress a riot.
And of course the Shah was overturned precisely because his general told him they could not guarantee the loyalty of the troops: his regime fell before a sort of mammoth Easter Parade repeated day after day in the streets of Teheran.
Carrol