I’d be remiss if I failed to note that my correspondent’s argument is not only empirically wrong, but also deeply morally repugnant. All of these systems—American chattel slavery, the feudalism of ancien regime France or czarist Russia, modern capitalism—are deeply, intrinsically violent. *Even if* exploited people tended to free themselves through violence, and *even if* they took revenge against their former exploiters, that violence would still pale against the constant violence of the systems against which they fought. A history that prioritizes a handful of high-profile examples of spectacular but brief violence against elites while downplaying millennia of elite violence against everyone else isn’t really history; it’s propaganda. As Mark Twain noted: “A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.” 8/end #revolution #strike #RevolutionaryViolence #FrencRevolution #MarkTwain #TheTerror