9. The Principal Revolutionary Strategies

To speak a bit more concretely, we will quickly go over the principal revolutionary strategies that have been theorized since the proletariat’s entrance on the historical scene. I have counted eleven, though this is somewhat arbitrary as certain categories could be subdivided to make new ones.

1. The Blanquist Insurrectionary Strategy.

The most advanced example of this strategy is the Blanquist strategy, theorized in the Manual for Armed Insurrection. A small group of armed conspirators (between 500 and 800 in the May 12 uprising in 1839) strikes when it thinks the people are subjectively ready for insurrection, acting in the place of the unorganized proletariat. They take control of the armories and distribute weapons, striking at the head of the political power and its agents of repression (attack on the police headquarters), systematically erecting barricades and organizing the masses who rally to the insurrection.

On a tactical level, Blanqui relied heavily on barricades – a decision which was correctly criticized by Engels. The passive tactic of barricades was pursued by the revolutionary proletariat up until 1848; the only way it could have succeeded would have been if large numbers of soldiers from the bourgeois army had decided to desert and cross over to the insurrectionary camp.

2. The strategy of the insurrectionary general strike.

Bakunin’s legacy (whether acknowledged or not), which aimed to bring about the abolition of the State through a single collective action, preferably a general strike. Such an insurrection would be set off as a result of the spontaneity of the masses. According to this strategy, the insurrectionary general strike will occur when the masses are subjectively ready, and this subjective disposition will allow all the objective questions (military, organizational) to be easily resolved thanks to the masses’ revolutionary creativity.

This strategy also relies on a large-scale breakdown of bourgeois power, this too being due to the subjective disposition of the masses (mass desertions from the army, etc.). This strategy was proposed anew in the interwar period by the Revolutionary Syndicalists, and has also reappeared at times amongst the “mao-spontex” and within the Bordiguist ultraleft.

3. The Strategy of Exemplary Terrorism.

Practiced by a tendency within the anarchist movement and by the Russian populists. It is based on either the actions of individuals or of a secret organization – and is always lacking any organic connection to the masses. Their only way of connecting to the masses is through the example their actions provide, or the attitude of their militants when faced with repression, and, eventually, some declarations.

The terrorist strategy was able to hit reaction at its highest points, provoking terror amongst the enemy and winning the admiration of the masses, but it has never been able to translate these factors into forces able to overthrow a government. Historically, this strategy has only ever produced failures: one does not “wake up” the revolutionary layers of the masses without organizing them.

4. The Leninist-Komintern Insurrectionary Strategy.

First implemented in October 1917 and meticulously theorized thereafter (notably in the collective work Armed Insurrection signed “Neuberg”), this was the strategy adopted by the Communist parties in the 1920s and 30s. It integrates and systematizes the analyses of Marx and Engels (and the lessons of experiences like 1905) by bestowing a central role on the vanguard Party which will work to bring together the elements necessary for a successful revolution (raising the revolutionary consciousness of the masses, political and military organization of the masses notably by creating a Red Guard, training and equipping shock troops and using these instead of barricades, setting up an insurrectionary headquarters, drafting battle plans, choosing the right time to strike, etc.). This strategy met with major failures in Germany (1923), China (1927), Asturia (1934), Brazil (1935), and elsewhere.

5. The Strategy of Protracted People’s War

Consists of three stages: a guerilla stage, strategically defensive (though tactically very active, made up of non-stop initiatives); a stage of strategic equilibrium; a strategically offensive stage during which the revolutionary forces are able to wage a war of movement and a (supplementary) war of position. The specific principles of Protracted People’s War were outlined as follows by Mao Zedong:

Attack dispersed isolated enemy forces first, attack concentrated strong forces later. First establish liberated zones in the countryside, encircle the cities by the countryside, first take the small cities, then take the large ones. Make sure to greatly outnumber the enemy in combat (the strategy is about how to fight one against ten, the tactic is to fight ten against one).

Ensure combatants have a high level of political consciousness, so that they will be superior in endurance, courage, and sense of self-sacrifice. Make sure to have the support of the people, take care to respect their interests. Make sure that captured enemies pass over to the revolutionary camp. Use the time between battles to improve, train, and educate yourselves. Victorious in Yugoslavia, Albania, China, and Indochina, this strategy has met with major failures, notably in Greece (1945-49) and Malaysia (1948-60).

6. The Strategy of the Coup

Relies on the relationship of forces being extremely favorable to the revolutionary party. For instance, in Prague 1948, we can note the presence of the Soviet Army, the strength and prestige of the Communist Party, the existence of popular militias (15,000-18,000 armed workers), the near total infiltration of the National Security Corps and of several army units, etc. This strategy has the advantage of being infinitely more economical than those which necessitate armed conflict. It can even maintain the semblance of legality, which enables the political neutralization of certain intermediate social strata. The coup generally results from an opportunity provided by extraordinary historic circumstances rather than a revolutionary strategy theorized as such or put forth as a model. Nonetheless, in the Third World in the 1960s and 70s it was systematically applied by young progressive officers connected in various ways to the Soviet Union.

7. The Strategy of Armed Electoralism

Based on the theory that a partial seizure of power is possible by legal means (the condition being that a large mass struggle exists to guarantee democratic rights) and that this partial seizure of power will provide the revolutionary movement with the tools that, in conjunction with the resources of the revolutionary forces themselves, will be enough to ensure the advance of the revolutionary process and to hold in check the reactionary counter-offensive (military coup or foreign intervention).

Organizations that adopt this strategy outfit themselves with a military potential to ensure a seizure of power which is actually based on legal methods. General Pinochet did a lot to discredit this strategic hypothesis, which had already experienced a bloody failure with the decimation of the Austrian Schutzbund in 1934.

8. The Focoist Strategy

A theory based on systematizing the specific experiences of guerillas active in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Latin America (including Cuba). It makes establishing and developing a mobile rural base of guerilla operations into the central aspect of the revolutionary process.

Focoism is not intended to be universally applicable, and was largely based on ideas about the duality of Latin American society (the capitalist city and the feudal countryside), of the impossibility of establishing liberated zones as was done in Indochina, etc. The guerilla’s mobile bases are supposed to develop into a people’s army, to encircle the cities until the regime is finished off by an insurrectionary general strike in the urban centers. Prior to this coup de grace, the proletariat’s role is limited to supporting the rural guerilla.

9. The Neo-Insurrectionary Strategy

Emerged following the success of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. In the wake of this victory many revolutionary forces either wholly or partially abandoned the Protracted People’s War strategy – a strategy that in some cases they had been pursuing for decades – in order to try to bring things to a head by calling for urban uprisings. This was the case with the New People’s Army, led by the Communist Party of the Philippines, until its 1992 rectification campaign brought it back to the concept of Protracted People’s War.

10. The P.A.S.S. Strategy (Politico-Military Fighting Strategy) of Combined Revolutionary Warfare (CRW)

Defined and implemented by Mahir Çayan and the founders of the People’s Liberation Party/Front of Turkey, and adopted by several organizations in the 1970s and 80s (Dev Yol, Dev Sol, MLSPB, THKP-People’s Revolutionary Vanguards, etc.). According to this strategy, the guerilla remains primary up until the stage of traditional warfare, and other forms of struggle (political, economic, democratic, and ideological) are subordinate to it.

The PASS strategy is divided into three stages: The creation of the urban guerilla (it is easier to build up a fighting force in a city, armed actions there will resonate more, the social terrain is better disposed to accept and assimilate high-level actions). The guerilla spreads throughout the entire country, and alongside the urban guerilla a rural guerilla is established. (This will play a greater role because a rural unit can withdraw and develop by progressively integrating peasants on an ongoing basis, while the urban guerilla, which must scatter to clandestine bases following each action, cannot hope to establish an ongoing relationship with the masses or develop into a people’s army.) The transformation of the guerilla forces into a regular army.

11. The Strategy of Protracted Revolutionary Warfare

Defined and implemented by fighting communist organizations in Europe. Based on the principles of Maoist Protracted People’s War but with the major difference of giving up on any form of rural guerilla (and with it the idea of the countryside encircling the cities), by substituting liberated zones with clandestine networks in mass organizations (trade unions, etc.), by the greater importance given to acts of armed propaganda, and by adopting new organizational relationships between Party- and military-oriented work (to the point, in some cases, of rejecting the traditional separation between Communist Party and Red Army and formulating the idea of the Fighting Party, justified by the new political quality of armed struggle), etc.

This highly schematic list is not meant as a “catalog” from which one has to choose some ready-made formula. Every particular situation calls for a particular response. Each concrete case will contain elements from different strategies, either due to inertia (the survival of old methods), or alternately because the struggle causes new methods to crop up, methods that will only be theorized and systematized after the fact. The most we can hope for is that this list serve as a guide. It will be noted that these strategies can be divided into two broad categories: those that seek to bring things to a head in one battle (insurrectionary strategies) and those that seek to settle matters through a series of battles and campaigns (guerilla strategies).

Each of these broad categories comes with its own deviation: a right-wing deviation in the case of insurrectionary strategies, which are sometimes adopted by forces affected by opportunism as a way of postponing the confrontation with those in power; a left-wing deviation in the case of guerilla strategies, which are sometimes adopted by forces affected by subjectivism in order to avoid doing the work required to root themselves in the class.

http://www.signalfire.org/?p=22763

One of the problems in the communist movement is the Hegelianism that remains buried in misinterpretations of Marx's philosophy. Here I'm referring to the idea that within the revolutionary form is the form of the new society, both underlined by the great spirit of history. This leads to the idea that the revolution can only come in a certain way (the mass spontaneous actions of the masses; the urban proletariat represented by unions led by the communist party; anti-hierarchical democratic forms; democratic parties that appeal to the mass liberal sensibilities to name a few examples) to result in the "authentic" revolution.

In reality, as the great honesty of SignalFire shows, there are many ways to revolution, and even the Maoist tactics of the site are admitted to have experienced failures. We must be scientific in our approach to revolution, the way Machiavelli, Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and Lenin were. This historical outline is only the beginning of the analysis that needs to be made once we shed the liberal and Hegelian shackles that still remain weighing down the science of Marxism.

Also if you can think of any more revolutionary strategies historically, be sure to post them

Impper posted:

the one where life becomes exciting and fulfilling

exemplary terrorism

wasted posted:

Exemplary terrorists are idiots who get killed because they don't know how to do simple criminal things like holding up trucks or B&E.

aesthetics

DeleuzerAndRetardi posted:

what kind of revolutionary has to ask when a social act is acceptable....

It’s always polite to excuse yourself from the dinner table.

deadken posted:

Impper posted:

anders breivik: exemplary terrorist

how long until we can ironically glorify breivik

i lived in oslo when that shit went down and i made this graphic that night. came in really handy as you can imagine:

Get_A_Job posted:

Convince me communism works.

ok