[snip]: The death penalty, barbaric and lamentable, must be an option during a revolution. Afterwards, when private property in the means of production and classes have been swept away, it can then be swept away too.
Why on Earth do you need a death penalty during your revolution? The death penalty is a sentence, meaning that you have taken a prisoner. Once that prisoner is held in your custody, he is no longer a threat to
your revolution, therefore, why execute him? It seems needless.
Self-defense is fully justifiable, and if a man is shooting at you and you shoot him first dead, that's awful but justifiable. Shooting a man who is in chains is murder.
Lastly, I am certain that violence breeds violence, and that revolutions born in violence will lead to twisted, unforeseen consequences. Above all, I am loathe to grant the State the power to kill, because the noose is a hungry beast and it will demand more blood; witness the proliferation of the death penalty here in the U.S. once it was again made legal. Countries with the death penalty are that much closer to dictatorship.
