On the strategy of the revolutionary armed struggle
Published in "Resistance", voice of the PCE(r)
number 24, April 1994
The debate about the importance or the strategic role of the revolutionary armed struggle, which started long ago within the revolutionary movement in Western Europe, is far from having finished. We can find a proof of it in the supplement of the review "Correspondances Revolutionnaires", number 12-13 from October-November 1992, in whose pages appear two articles that have attracted our attention. The first of them is entitled "The armed struggle and the revolutionary policy" and is signed by the "Group of the political prisoners of the Combatant Communist Cells" (CCC). The other is an answer to the previous one and has an equally striking title: "Revolutionary violence and the construction of the Party, today, in Europe" and it is signed by the "Leading Committee of Proletarian Via" (PV).
These two texts have a great interest, at least for us, since they are going to allow us to clarify some ideas that had been left aside in previous polemics and that, however, are the basis of any discussion on this subject. Apart from that, we are very sorry not to share that "completely correct" style of debate used by the comrades of the CCC, which has undoubtedly made things easier for the editors of PV, who already from the introduction of their work declare: "We want to wring the neck to some kind of romanticism about the armed struggle, as a hypothetical solution to the current difficulties of the militant communism". "Why with the CCC?" they ask afterwards; and here is their answer: "Because these comrades have proposed this under a form that is convenient to us".
It is completely clear that under that conciliatory "form", under that "respectability" (which is much of the taste of the petty-bourgeois philistines), no revolutionary position can be defended. This is what has allowed PV, contrary to the wishes or good intentions of the prisoners of the CCC, to work things to their own advantage. It is true, as the latter have pointed out, that there is a "disagreement on a fundamental point", namely: "that PV does not consider the practice of the armed struggle necessary nowadays", while "on our part we are convinced of its immediate necessity"; but it is not less true that the arguments provided by the Belgian comrades in their speech, which have been very difficult for them to gather, do not succeed in establishing the disagreement that they proclaim upon a firm and clear basis, really of principles; they do not acquire at any moment any theoretic entity but, on the contrary, they get mixed up many times with the idea that they pretend to confront, without even succeeding in erasing that trace of "romanticism" that those of PV have found in their text.
This has taken place because the comrades of the CCC have not understood that the debate does not (or should not) centre around the immediacy or not of the armed struggle; they have not understood that this is only a derived question, conditioned by another which is much more important. The same can be said about the other questions on which they have been insisting in all their writings and declarations, such as the "initiator" or propaganda role that they attribute to the revolutionary armed struggle. All that is very just for the conditions which they describe, but it is not the most important thing as regards theory and practice. We should not be surprised, then, that the editors of PV act the tough guys in that way and that they proclaim out loud: "It is, in fact, a constant within all the European combattant trend, to deal with the armed struggle 'in general', without characterizing the context in which it takes place. There is nothing more false than this". Yes, it is true, there is nothing more false and they know it very well.
We are not surprised by the fact that, notwithstanding the huge interest that the ups and downs of this trend have always awoken in the editors of PV, they have overlooked the experience of the organized movement of resistance that our Party has been heading and leading for more than 17 years in Spain. But, as it seems, for those people we have not even reached the status of "combatants". Certainly, we are not hurt for such a discriminatory and even humiliating treatment that we have received from such illustrious and proven Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, as they undoubtedly consider themselves. On the contrary, as it is well known we are a bit "masochists" and we are not afraid of polemics. For this reason, we have no inconvenient to recognize their "valuable" contributions to the debate that is taking place and to dedicate them, on our part, all the time and the space that they deserve.
It is possible that the editors of PV have not even cast an eye over our materials, but, at least, they must have read the article "The contemplative criticism", that we devoted to the already famous Mr. Becker. That text has been quoted by the comrades of the CCC in the writing that PV submits to a rigorous analysis. Therefore, our article is also submitted to the wringing of necks that they have tried to do, although it is not mentioned at any moment. It is true that the comrades of the CCC have preferred to insert only a part of a passage of the greatest importance for the issue we are dealing with. But they have excerpted it, interrupting in several places the train of thought and its logical conclusion, to include some sentences that do not explain anything. They will know the reasons that have taken them to carry out such amputations, although we doubt that it is due to their deliberate purpose of keeping the "good manners". Let's see now what says that passage that the comrades of the CCC have shortened to their convenience.
"Violence is not in fact, the central issue in Becker's criticism of the urban guerrilla. His attempt is directed towards establishing the false dilemma as whether it would be the masses or a 'small group' the ones to exert violence. But, as far as we know, nobody has said here that the revolution can be the labour of a few chosen, no matter how heroic, abnegated and ready for sacrifice they are. What we maintain is the absolute necessity of incorporating the armed struggle to the revolutionary strategy, conceiving it as an essential part of it, as something that comes from all the historical development, from the objective-material conditions in which the class struggle in the capitalist States takes place nowadays and from their deeply reactionary, fascist and plundering nature. Under these conditions, which Mr. Becker is very careful not to mention, the armed struggle appears unavoidably as a result of the crisis, of the intensification of the exploitation upon the working class and other toilers, of the brutalities and the oppression that they suffer at the hands of the State; it comes from the conscious resistance that the masses are opposing to the system of the bourgeoisie which is immersed in a process of ruin and decomposition. This form of struggle, in a given moment, which is not necessary to precise now, will have to become the main one, to which all the others will have to subordinate"(1).
Well, perhaps what we have just quoted may be not enough to "characterize the context" in which the armed struggle in Europe is developed; but what nobody can doubt is that it represents, at least, an attempt of "characterization", that is to say, that such an essential fact is not ignored nor overlooked when coming to determine the revolutionary strategy. Notice, besides, that we are dealing with such an important problem at a general level, not from the perspective of the conditions of a specific country, such as Spain. But if the editors of PV are so interested, as they affirm, in this subject -and not only in "wringing the necks" of the romantics-, we dare to suggest them to read the texts from the PCE(r). They will find in them a "characterization of the context", which is not only general but also specific, referred to a specific country where the kind of struggle that they deplore so much is being carried out for many years. Can they make an effort and at least try? We must not lose hope. We know that for them, just like for their mate Mr. Becker, in whom they have undoubtedly inspired, all that struggle and the analysis that the Party has made about it are nothing but "armed reformism". We have made that analysis "of the context" that they are asking for. But, instead of noticing, studying and criticising it, they have opted for ignoring it. They are like ostriches when, in view of the immediacy of the danger, defend themselves by hiding their heads under their wings. That same attitude incapacitates them to study the problem in the just terms in which it is posed and even impedes them to understand such a clear and fundamental text concerning this question as it is, undoubtedly, Lenin's work "The guerrilla war", which they quote without realizing that it was written, precisely, to take a bit of light to the heads of those who "leave aside the civil war with trivial and monotonous sentences like the ones of anarchism, Blanquism or terrorism"(2).
What conclusions must we extract from that text? Above all, Lenin draws the attention on two fundamental questions that must be taken into account when examining the problem of the methods of struggle, that is precisely what we are debating here:
"First of all, Marxism differs from all the primitive forms of socialism in that it does not bind the movement to a single specific form of struggle. Marxism admits the most diverse forms of struggle [...] Marxism is not restricted, in any case, to the forms that exist and can be put into practice only in a given moment, but it admits the unavoidable appearance of new forms of struggle, unknown to the militants in a given period, when the social situation changes. In this sense, the Marxist learns, so to say, from the practice of the masses and does not pretend to teach them the forms of struggle which have been invented by 'systematizers' of cabinet [...]
Secondly, Marxism unconditionally requires that the problem of the forms of struggle be focused historically. To raise this question leaving aside the specific historical situation is the same as not understanding the foundations of dialectical materialism. In different moments of the economic evolution according to different politic, cultural-national and living conditions, etc., stand out in the first place different main forms of struggle and, in relation to this vary, at their time, the secondary, accessory ones. To want to answer merely yes or not to a given means of struggle, without entering to consider in detail the specific situation of the movement in question in a given stage of the development, means to abandon completely the field of Marxism.
These are the two main theoretic principles that must guide us"(3).
But to proclaim these two principles is not enough. Besides, Lenin made very clear that this does not exempt the revolutionary Party from the task of "generalizing", "organizing" and "giving a conscious character" to the new forms of struggle that the movement of the masses adopts continuously, highlighting in each moment, in each stage of development, which of those forms is the main one in order to boost and spread it; all the others must serve this aim.
However, from the position of Lenin quoted above, the editors of PV have deduced that "in fact, all the theorists of Marxism have been interested in situating the armed struggle within its political context". This "political context" is not other, in fact, than the moment of the general insurrection. Apart from that moment, according to PV, the armed struggle has no politic nor theoretic meaning. "To speak of the necessity of the armed struggle in Europe -they affirm- means to justify it politically in the current context. Unfortunately, the comrades of the CCC (as the greatest part of the combattant militants) do not say anything about this and all they do is to affirm the principle of its necessity. Their documents are out of time and we could hardly tell when they have been written". But in fact the ones that are out of time and of any reality are the editors of PV. For them, the whole problem is reduced, in the end, only to a matter of political "justification". Even this is completely blurred in their article from the moment when it is proposed in a unilateral way, separating it from its true basis or social, economic and historical context. Everything they say about the "context in which the struggle takes place" is reduced precisely to that: to a description of the politic situation or of what is purely immediate, forgetting all the essential features of the economic and politic regime of the epoch in which we live in the capitalist countries, therefore, apart from that pompous talk about the "context" and the attacks against the revolutionary struggle, in their article there is nothing that can even be considered as a serious attempt at analysing these problems.
As it seems neither Lenin nor any other Marxist has described the general framework in which the class struggle takes place nowadays in the whole world; they have not made clear enough the economic and politic "context" of imperialism, of the regime of the monopolies; neither have they characterized the opportunism that hides or distorts with a thousand cunning arguments that reality, at the same time that it sabotages the development of the class struggle in all its forms. For this reason it must not surprise us that, after so much talk about the "context" and the rest, they end up reducing the problem of the methods of struggle (and organization) that correspond to apply in this epoch (in the epoch of the general crisis of the capitalist system) to a question of tactics, of politic opportunity: perhaps yesterday the conditions were given for the development of the armed struggle, today they are not given at all, and tomorrow... well, in fact we don't know very well what will happen tomorrow nor can we know it, it'll all depend on the politic situation! The only thing that can be done now is "to vindicate the strategic character of the revolutionary violence". All the opportunists reason in this way. They make an apologia of capitalism and of the bourgeois politic regime, presenting it in such a way that it seems not to have changed from the end of the 19th century. This happens because they dream of using again the old methods of struggle that corresponded to apply in that epoch; in this way they want to accumulate revolutionary forces through a peaceful and legal process awaiting for the opportunity (the politic moment) that would allow them to "organize the insurrection". Only under these conditions are they ready to recognize the importance or the "strategic character" of the armed struggle (something very different is to organize and to carry it out if the moment comes). But to oppose today resistance to capitalism with the arms in the hands, and to try to help the masses and their revolutionary organization in this way, that is a form of "romanticism", of "terrorism" or of "armed reformism" that they feel in the obligation to combat!
They forget or overlook in their analysis the historic stage in which we are living, the monopolist, imperialist stage of the capitalist development and its correspondent politic regime of a police, militarist, deeply reactionary character, independently of the country in question and of any specific politic situation; they also forget, or don't want to take into account, that under these conditions it is impossible for the proletariat to organize its forces and to get them ready for the struggle if it doesn't use new methods suitable for the situation; they forget, or don't want to take into account, besides, that in any case, and even in the best case, the monopolist bourgeoisie will not be surprised at any "moment" by an insurrectional movement; that all this is already history and that the State of the monopolist bourgeoisie is nothing but the armed counter-revolution ready to jump upon the revolution at any moment.
"The old forms" of struggle, wrote Lenin in 1920, "have broken, since its new anti-proletarian, reactionary content has acquired an enormous development"(4). Lenin is not referring here to any specific politic moment nor to any specific country; he is raising a problem that comes from a general situation, that does not cover a given moment of the politic life of a given country, but a whole stage of the historic and economic evolution and that, therefore, affects the whole of the revolutionary movement of all the countries. From this comes the strategic character that the new methods of struggle have acquired. It is not a question, as the editors of PV suggest, of conceiving a strategy as "a succession of suitable tactics, according to the periods and the politic contradictions found", but of integrating the new methods of struggle, the armed activity and many other forms of resistance that are opposed everyday by the masses to the capitalist system of oppression and exploitation, as a part of the general strategy of the struggle of the revolutionary proletariat; it is, in the end, a question of "transforming, overcoming and submitting all the forms, not only the new ones but also the old ones, not to conciliate with the latter but to know how to transform all of them, the new and the old, into a complete, definite and invincible weapon of communism"(5).
Notes:
(1) "The contemplative criticism", "Resistencia", number 4, November 1986.
(2) V. I. Lenin: "The guerrilla war".
(3) V. I. Lenin: "The guerrilla war".
(4) V. I. Lenin: "'Left-wing' communism, an infantile disorder".
(5) V. I. Lenin: "'Left-wing' communism, an infantile disorder".