Sometimes I hang out with Maoists. But like many in this group I am not a Maoist myself (uphold Deng!). This makes it kind of hard to ask them tough questions because I dont want to sound like an idiot or some kind of wrecker that causes trouble among the Maoists but I would like to ask some questions. One tough question is the question of child soldiers.
Moaists in the Philippines and in India have been accused of using child soldiers for quite some time. Maybe im wrong but among communists it seems kind of specific to Maoists. But I have never even one time heard a Maoist bring this up much less try to give rationalization or explanation.
Now I know better than to just trust HRW and take them at face value, so I always figured its at least possible that there is more going on here. Does anyone here have anything to say about communists, especially Maoists, and child soldiers? Have you heard a Maoist respond to this issue? Do you have any insight to the issue of child soldiers?
Child soldiers = not good. That’s about the extent of my insight. Don’t use child soldiers. It’s a pretty simple rule that any communist guerilla army should be able to follow.
I don’t know if Maoist guerillas have a pattern of using them, as you said western “human rights” groups are prone to doing anti-communist propaganda for the imperialists.
There is of course also the question where exactly you draw the line as to what constitutes “child soldiers”. If it’s anyone under 18 then arguably a lot of armies in history have used them, teenagers still under 18 would frequently join armies under false pretenses. The Soviets for sure probably had some 16 and 17 year olds fighting for them in the Great Patriotic War.
If we’re talking like clear cut cases where it’s not at all in the grey zone then i don’t know, but considering that some Maoist guerillas like the Shining Path have a… less than stellar reputation, i would not be surprised if others also resorted to similarly immoral methods. My guess is this is the result of insufficient/incorrect application of the Mass Line.
It’s an indication that you have failed to win over the people. If you’re recruiting successfully from a broad base of popular support then you don’t need to resort to such desperate measures.
Kind of like terrorism. Winning armies don’t do it.
I agree at best it seems like a loser thing to do. Something that would harm a revolution’s connection to the people. Obviously ive never been in any position close to armed struggle, so what do I know? I have no dogmatic position to take, I certainly dont blame the Soviets. But it just seems weird that its not talked about more.
I think it becomes a lot less clear of a situation when the conditions are bad enough for PPW. I’m not saying India or the Phillipines are as bad as Palestine, but just look at Palestine. The median age in Gaza is about 18-19, meaning about half of the people literally being genocided are children. A massive amount of these people never even can become adults because they are killed by the IDF at age 6 for throwing a stone at a tank.
In that situation would the bad guy really be the one giving some 14-16 year old a gun to defend himself against IDF goons?
Maybe one could draw the line between child and young soldier with puberty. No matter one’s age, if their body isn’t physically and hormonally mature they shouldn’t be enrolled