Being revolutionary does not mean “picking up the gun,” reciting the works of Lenin, talking about class violence and the dictatorship of the proletariat or condemning those that work for reforms. Being “revolutionary” means acting so as to shorten the time left before a successful social revolution in which the working class and other oppressed people seize control over their own lives and constitute themselves as the dictatorship over the old exploiting classes. Anything that advances such a social revolution is by definition revolutionary, anything that hinders such a social revolution is anti-revolutionary. There is no necessary relationship between “picking up the gun,” talking about class violence, condemning advocates of reforms and reciting Lenin, and being revolutionary. Making a successful revolution a complex task involving sophisticated strategy, patience, and understanding of the differences between primary and secondary contradictions, the ability to be flexible, maneuver, establish alliances, work in stages, and often times retreat. What seems like the shortest strait line course to revolution can often in fact be a dead end resulting in frustration, defeat and decimation of revolutionary forces. Winning in the shortest time possible (given the real obstacles) requires a zig zag course (as did the Long March in China) also working to weaken the enemy, strengthen ourselves and fighting only those battles which we win (strategic victories).
Often times in the debate between two Leninist factions, one arguing that it is time to pick up the gun and go into the hills to start a guerrilla war and the other arguing no, it is rather the time to go slow and engage in patient agitation and propaganda in the working class, it is the later and not the former that is the most revolutionary, assuming that at that particular time, there is not a crisis of sufficient proportions in the society, and that support among the rural population is not sufficient to snowball guerrilla warfare into a successful revolution. Under these conditions guerrilla warfare could be anti-revolutionary because it results in the deaths of some of the most promising cadres, mobilizes the petty bourgeois and many center forces on the side of the right, brings down unnecessarily repression, inhibits propaganda and agitational activities and results in the defeat and demoralization of the left (such would seem to have been the effect of premature guerrilla warfare in much of Latin America in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s).
Likewise, the debate between two Leninist factions, one arguing that it is time for an insurrection against capital, and the other arguing that we; must build a coalition with the non-Marxist led unions to fight for better working conditions and higher wages, it is not necessarily the first that is the most revolutionary. In a period when ah insurrection would clearly be an adventurist act doomed to defeat such an action would result in the death and imprisonment of many good cadre, repression directed against formerly legal work, isolation of those that advocated insurrection and the demoralization and defeat of the revolutionary left. The policy of integrating revolutionaries into mass struggles of the (not yet fully revolutionary) working class, however, could result in giving workers a feeling for their power as well as expose the nature of the system, thus greatly expanding the basis for a future insurrection which has a good chance of being successful.
Of course, there are times when both guerrilla warfare and insurrection are the appropriate strategies because there really is a revolutionary situation, e.g. Cuba in the late 1950’s, Vietnam in the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s, Russia in 1905 and 1917, etc. But it only during such truly revolutionary crisis situations, that insurrection and guerrilla warfare are revolutionary, i.e., advance the coming of the revolution. During non-revolutionary crises such strategies are adventuristic and actually hold back, and hinder their revolutionary process. The inability to see the anti-revolutionary nature of ultra-militant strategies in non-revolutionary situations is the source of a considerable loss of forces among revolutionaries. We too often make the idealist error of confusing our subjective feeling about what is revolutionary (judgments based on the absolute militancy of strategy) with what actually advances a social revolution (which must be based on a careful scientific analysis of concrete conditions) and which actually might not be especially militant in a given period at all.
The question always comes down to the fact that there are no easy answers about what is the truly revolutionary strategy in a given situation, only a concrete study of concrete conditions can give us answers. It is as easy to make the opportunists right error of non-seeing a really revolutionary situation when it exists, and therefore not adopting a militant strategy of seizing power as it is to make the adventurist error of seeing a revolutionary situation when it does not exist. Both errors have equally serious negative consequences in holding back the revolutionary process, and. thus in no way can we say that as a rule one danger is greater than the other. At any given time within a Leninist organization or movement with broad support there will almost always be some that argue that this is the time to attempt to seize power, and others that tend to argue that seizing power is not yet on the agenda regardless of the situation – i.e., there always tends to be adventurists and opportunists within our ranks. However, at any given time either the first type of error or the second tends to be the greatest danger.
During non-revolutionary situations in small parties and movements based primarily among the petty bourgeoisie and ex-students there is a strong tendency for the adventurist error to prevail (along with sectarianism and dogmatism). In large parties based in the working class in non-revolutionary situations where the pressure to alleviate the daily oppressions of working class people is immense the tendency to become opportunist tends to prevail. Workers can not be expected as a class to hold to Leninism as a faith waiting until a revolutionary crisis develops before seeking relief. The possibility of improving their conditions through mass struggles, and thus winning limited relief, is real, and given enough time is manifested in attempts to build alliances, coalitions and compromises that eventually tend to undermine revolutionary analysis and organization.
In truly revolutionary situations, among mass parties there is a tendency to make the opportunist error because the inertia of working so long to improve the daily life of the masses builds conservative instincts within the revolutionary party and a certain comfortableness with the status quo (e.g., fancy party headquarters), which predispose revolutionaries not to see a revolutionary crisis when it arises. The re-activization of the revolutionary movement thus often must occur through a break with the old party and the loss of valuable time and resources. Such was the case in the World War I period when the old Social Democratic parties revealed how ossified they had become by first supporting their respective governments during the war and then acting to repress working class revolution immediately after. The Socialist movement consequently had to split into revolutionary and non-revolutionary segments with many honest workers confused and remaining in the social democratic parties. A valuable opportunity was lost. Had the German Social Democratic party acted in a decisive and revolutionary way in 1918 to seize power the chances are that a successful revolution could have been consolidated in Germany. But the wavering and eventual anti-revolutionary attitude of its leadership, which sponsored the repression of the revolutionary left, proved fatal to the prospects for a German revolution. One might we’ll argue that the Italian or Spanish CPs might behave in a similar way given the development of a true revolutionary crisis in Southern Europe.
It is also possible that the development of a revolutionary crisis might instead produce a reradicalization of these parties due to pressure from below which would intensify during a revolutionary crisis. As it becomes more and more apparent to the workers that the struggle for gradual improvements is not getting any place (as their condition deteriorates), and as the possibilities for socialism appear more and more real in the short run, pressure for decisive action to seize power would be expressed in any truly democratic organization of workers. Whether of not this pressure is manifested in the ending of an opportunist line or in a major split in the C.P.’s depends on the degree to which their organizational structure is responsive to the workers at its base. It .might prove to be the case that the Southern European C.P.’s are considerably more democratic than the World War I period Social Democratic parties, and thus that the revisionist C.P.’s can reverse their course. But in any event the facts that these parties have not reversed their course (and are in fact accelerating their speed along it), and the fact that the post World War I phenomena of major splits from the Social Democratic Parties firmly rooted in the working class which affiliated with the Comintern and more or less immediately became major influences in working class struggles has nowhere in the advanced capitalist countries been repeated, indicates that a truly revolutionary situation does not yet exist in the advanced capitalist countries. When a truly revolutionary situation did exist, e.g., 1918-1921 in Europe, the conditions called forth a revolutionary party because of pressure from the working class, not because students and ex-students saw the need for a revolution. The development of the Maoist (and the revival of the Trotskyist) movements in Europe in the late 1960’s, and 1970’s has pretty much restricted itself to intellectuals and ex-students. Although a few, mostly younger workers, have become involved, nowhere has either tendency developed deep and mass roots in the working class of the order of what the new Communist groups were able to establish in the 1919-1921 period.
In non-revolutionary situations such as the current reality in the U.S. and Northern Europe the main danger tends to be ultra-leftism. This danger is especially great where the revolutionary worker’s movement is small and based primarily among intellectuals and ex-students-strata whose impatience and removal from the pulse of the working class is endemic. In revolutionary situations the main danger is opportunism, this is an especially serious danger in those countries with a long history of massive worker’s parties leading the daily struggles of workers for reforms, which have considerable inertia if not hardening of the arteries. In non-revolutionary situations, especially where the revolutionary movement is small, the primary task is to build a revolutionary worker’s movement, win people to socialism, develop class consciousness, give workers a feeling for their strength, create a disciplined organization that can act decisively in times of crisis, etc.
In non-revolutionary periods the struggles for reforms are, for the most part, constructive, especially when led by a party which draws revolutionary lessons from the successes and failures of these struggles. Fronts with non-revolutionary pro-reform forces are also useful means by which to win struggles, give workers a feeling for their power, build respect and trust for revolutionary leadership and recruit members into revolutionary organizations. Thus in non-revolutionary periods fighting for reforms is not the major danger, rather the sectarian, ultra-left policies which isolate the small Leninist groups from mass struggles are.
The danger of reform struggles in non-revolutionary situations where most of the working class is class conscious and the Marxist parties large comes not from the honest battle for reforms waged in alliance with reformist forces, but from failing to emphasize in agitation and propaganda the nature of the capitalist system, the need for revolution and the limits of reforms within a capitalist society. What is dangerous is to propagate the notion that a total transformation of the lives of workers can occur through a gradual process of reform. This is a danger because this could not happen under capitalism. Only a qualitative break with capitalism undertaken with hegemony of military force can qualitatively improve the conditions of workers. Education about this reality should be undertaken throughout campaigns aimed at reforms. Failure to educate the masses about the limits of reforms spreads illusions which may well-prove fatal. Hopes of gradual change through reform would ’block’ people from seeing that the decisive struggle will necessarily be military, and hence prevent them for preparing for such action. However, the very real danger of not preparing the masses for the necessarily military struggle is not the central issue until first the masses are class conscious, i.e., believe in socialism. It does no good to lecture the workers about the inevitability of violent revolution if the workers still favor capitalism. Instruction about which paths are and which are not viable and inevitable only become relevant when workers actually desire the socialist goal.
The primary problem where the revolutionary left in a non-revolutionary situation is big is to emphasize the necessity of military hegemony. This must be emphasized against the inherent and massive opportunist pressure coming up from below as well as from the leaderships. But the primary problem where the revolutionary left is small lies in just winning people to socialist class consciousness and giving them the feeling of their power. Under such conditions united and popular fronts are all the more important as mechanisms of awakening the oppressed. The question of violent revolution versus peaceful transition is not a central one because the issue is not real to the masses of workers who have not yet decided between socialism and capitalism. Consequently public lectures about the need for a violent revolution tend to be misplaced. In fact, undue public emphasis on the violent nature of revolution at this stage is likely to be objectively anti-revolutionary, since it can scare workers away, isolate Marxists as extremists and bring down premature repression. The issue of violent vs. non-violent revolution is simply not the central question on most workers minds at the earliest stage of the revolutionary process. The public centrality of this question would seem to be far more important to the petty bourgeois intellectuals who tend to grow up in liberal,- non-violent environments where violence, guns, illegality, etc., is taboo. Working class people on the other hand are much closer to violence, guns and illegality, and are rather open to using all three in pursuit of goals they truly believe in. Consequently, to convince workers that capitalism is their enemy and socialism their hope is already to go half of the way towards convincing them that military hegemony will be decisive in the struggle. This is most definitely not the case among petty bourgeois students, who have strong pacifist and legalistic leanings, and with whom the, mere intellectual conversion to the principles of socialism has little effect on their attitude about violence or illegality. The recitations of belief in violent revolution and illegal work thus seem to function primarily to break the mystique of legality and non-violence among the liberal petty bourgeoisie, rather than as effective measures against opportunism in the working class.
The public treatment of possibilities of violent revolution during this period must not carry over into the internal education and discussion of the revolutionary organizations. Cadre must fully understand the very real possibilities of violence, the absolute necessity of gaining military hegemony and the reality of beginning to prepare for it, if only psychologically and by emphasizing military organizing. Cadre must be fully prepared for all the contingencies of the struggle.
Once the working class is class consciousness, public emphasis on the question of military hegemony is no longer adventuristic or misplaced, but is now central. The question of how does the working class get socialism has replaced the question of how to develop class consciousness in the working class on the agenda. In non-revolutionary situations the immense pressure toward reformism exerted by the rank and file has to be actively countered with strong educational programs focusing on the nature of the state and the impossibility of gradual transition. Here, when the main danger really is opportunism, the major thrust of revolutionary efforts must be towards emphasis on the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the preparation for the military struggle, so that the somewhat successful struggles for reforms waged with the weapon of united and popular fronts do not lull workers to sleep, setting them up for the slaughter of a military coup de’ etat. The extent that such a preparation takes the form of creation of a well armed worker’s militia, winning over the -rank and file within the army, the actual creation of a Red Army in the hills, or merely preparing the workers for the necessity of creating a militia/Red Army/or winning the rank and file of the army is a product of the concrete conditions and the stage of development of the revolutionary struggle. Since it is impossible to have a reformist transition to socialism it amounts to murder/suicide not to prepare for the military reaction that necessarily will come from too successful a battle for reforms.
It must be emphasized that such military preparation has nothing to do with either sectarianism or adventurism. Pre-mature fighting with the army before the workers are in a position to win such battles would be adventurist and fatal. Preparation for such battles in the future is appropriate. Attacks on people who could be won to the revolution in a crisis but who will be driven away if treated like the enemy is sectarianism, but attacks on people who at the decisive moment side with the enemy is necessary.
Providing the revolutionary forces have military hegemony either through having won the rank and file of the army or having a Red Army which could Obviously squash any attempt at a right wing coup it is a real possibility that a social revolution need, not be violent (only because the workers are both prepared to be violent, and they have amassed superior means of violence). While revolutions need not be extra-legal, they must always involve relatively sudden transformations in which the working class exerts military hegemony. Attempts to make social revolution gradually through reforms necessarily fail, even if the working class has military hegemony. Likewise, attempts at rapid social transformation necessarily fail if the working class does not have military hegemony.
No ruling class has ever voluntarily given up its privileges merely because the majority of people want them to. As long as a privileged group has the means to preserve its privilege it will resist being reduced to the ranks of common working people. A life of leisure, command and power is far too valuable to an upper class to give it up merely because of a general moral principle that one should not use all the means available to it in pursuit of one’s ends. As long as the upper class retains special access to the military and police through ties of blood, friendship and common interest between top officers and the upper class, they will act together to preserve hierarchy and capitalist relations of production. The military will necessarily intervene on behalf of the upper class to prevent social revolution even if 100% of the people want socialism. The only thing that would prevent military intervention is the obvious reality of decisive military defeat for a coup d’ etat should it be tried, i.e., superior military force in the hands of the working class. Under modern conditions this can take one of three forms: (1) a rank and file organization in the army strong enough to disobey orders for a coup d’ etat and side with the revolution against their officers; (2) an independent Red Army, either of locals or an army of comradely neighbors which is guaranteed to crush a rightwing coup. It is not enough that the workers have rifles, for against rifles, the army and air force, under modern conditions, can put up devastating fire power which is sure to drive resistance underground or into the mountains to fight a rearguard action. This is not enough to forestall a coup, and likewise it is not enough to win an offensive insurrection. Even a well trained worker’s militia armed with light weapons can hot expect to win in urban areas against an army/air force which has a monopoly on heavy weapons and which keeps its discipline. Not even the Viet Cong was able to hold any cities until the last months of the war.
Guerrilla warfare which gradually builds up to conventional warfare is probably not a real option in the advanced capitalist countries, as the Tupamaro in Uruguay showed; unless popular support of the guerrillas is so overwhelming as to effect the army to the point of massive disaffections and refusals to obey orders. In any event in the advanced capitalist countries the key to revolution would seem to lie in insuring the loyalty of the rank and file soldiers to the working class struggle. Whether the revolution takes, the form of legal and semi-legal processes in which the revolutionary organizations win an election and attempt to implement revolutionary dangers, or whether unconstitutional means are resorted to, the rank arid file of the military is key. In the first case because they are needed to prevent a right wing unconstitutional move and in the second, because they are necessary to either seize the reigns of power, or at least neutralize the army while the workers’ militia seizes power.
Chile is the most recent case of what happens which socialism is attempted by-reforms without military hegemony. The attempt not only failed but resulted in grievous losses to revolutionary cadre and organizations. The right had no inhibition at all about violating legality and resorting to violence, neither can the revolutionary left. The only question is what strategy and tactics are best suited to allow the working majority to seize control of their lives from the small minority of exploiters, a small minority which not only makes the laws but feels totally free to use legal or illegal means as it suits them.
The primary question is not one of legality/constitutionality or illegality/unconstitutionality. A social revolution need not necessarily be made either within the legal framework or through seizing power in violation of bourgeois right. Just as the bourgeoisie uses legal and illegal means to preserve its rule, so to must the working people use legal and illegal means to assert its rights. First it must be understood that the Constitution and the legal system were set up by, for, and in the interests of the propertied classes, and are designed to systematically frustrate the popular will and operate in the interests of capital. Second it must be understood that large portions of the lower classes are confused by religion, patriotism, individualism, alcohol, drugs, etc., and often tend to vote for the religious and capitalist parties without really being conscious of what they are doing. As a result it is not necessary to play by the legal rules established by the upper classes, rules which they themselves violate or change whenever the working class, as in Chile, uses them against the interests of the upper class. If the overwhelming majority of politically active people give support of one kind or another to the revolutionary vanguard’s actions, and the upper class is exposed and isolated, this is a sufficient condition for both revolutionary action to be taken and for such action to succeed, whether or not revolutionary action was taken through legal or extra-legal channels. If the vanguard party tries to make revolution without such overwhelming support for actions taken, and without the upper class haying been exposed and isolated, the revolutionary attempt is bound to fail, whether or not it uses legal or illegal means.
The bourgeoisie felt absolutely no guilt about violating feudal legally when it made the British and French revolutions, cutting off the respective heads of the British and French kings, and establishing republics. Neither did the upper classes in the Colonies, when it overthrew British colonial rule, nor the Northern capitalists when they suppressed the insurrection of Southern Plantation lords. In all these cases the property of opponents was expropriated without compensation. The same folks that freely resorted to extra-legal means and violent methods to themselves come to power now preach non-violence to the working class. Hypocrisy. Each class establishes its own political and moral principles, its own legality, its own conception of right and wrong. When the bourgeoisie fought the feudal lords each side played by its own rules. It was right against right. The class war between capital and labor is necessarily waged on the same terms – bourgeois right versus proletarian right. Neither side is obliged to play by the rules laid down by the other. The victor is thus not decided by how well one side or the other stuck to the rules, but solely by which was able to mobilize superior military force. Morality and right enter in only to the extent that they give legitimacy to one side or the other and hence serve to mobilize bigger armies*for one or the other side.
Gradual transformation from capitalism to socialism is economically and socially impossible, even when the working class maintains a monopoly on military force. There is no real middle ground between capitalism and socialism. Either the economy is organized essentially by capitalist principles relying at heart on markets and competition among enterprises with decision making concentrated in owners or managers or it is at heart organized by a central plan geared to the interests of the working class and reliant on popular mobilization rather than elites and markets to keep it running. Attempts to rely partially on markets and-competition and partially .on worker run enterprises and a half hearted plan always result in the worst of both worlds. Capital flees the country, refuses to invest, and sabotages production. Workers are unable to successfully manage individual enterprises relating to one another through markets, the plan fails because it is only partial, etc. As a result discontent spreads and demoralization sets in, and the ground work laid for reaction. Such phenomena occurred in Nkrumah’s Ghana, Sukano’s Indonesia, Allende’s Chile, and Portugal in 1974-1975. Attempts to straddle the fence between socialism and capitalism necessarily produce economic crises which necessarily lead to social and political crisis. Any movement on the part of a government towards socialism must be rapid and thorough leaving no room for capitalists to consciously or unconsciously sabotage production or for international or local market forces to undermine the plan or worker’s power. The gap between socialism and capitalism is a quantum which can not be bridged in little pieces, but only through one big qualitative leap. This qualitative leap into socialism, although it can logically occur by legal methods and without violence is very likely to at some point involve either Violence or extra-legal methods or both. The qualitative leap must involve a thorough reorganization of the state apparatus and the state’s role in society. In fact it must essentially involve the destruction of the old state set up to function as an instrument of the bourgeoisie and its replacement with a very differently organized state – an instrument of the proletariat. This means that the mechanisms of decision making have to be put securely in the hands of the people who increasingly come to administer their own affairs.
All revolutionary transformations whether basically violent or not violent, legal or extra-legal necessarily involve broad and deep popular mobilizations and struggles outside of mere elections and parliamentary battles. Elections and parliamentary votes while they may have a role in a process of legal transition to socialism are merely the expressions of the revolutionary popular movements which are actually the sole source of the energy for revolutionary transformation. The masses must do it themselves, no legislature or ballot box can do it for them. It is popular energy which can intimidate the right from making a coup, which forces rapid change, which takes over and runs factories and government administration, which is behind the all around revolutionary transformation of life. Only the masses can seize control over their own lives. A revolution from above with merely the passive vote of the masses is an impossibility. The essential question is then not legality-extra-legality, violence-not violence, but rather whether or net there is a mass revolutionary movement capable of seizing state power or not. If there is such a movement it may well be able to use parliamentary forms to gain legitimacy for its cause, neutralizing opponents because the law is on its’ side (it would be foolish to refuse to use the law as its weapon, as the Communists did in Spain in 1936-1939, when it portrayed themselves as “Loyalists”) and it would be foolish to resort to violence if it already had the right intimidated and isolated, since gratuitous violence might mobilize support for the counter-revolution.
Far too facile lessons have been drawn by both the “revisionists” and social democrats on the right, and the ultra-leftists of the left, about the meaning of the defeat of Allende’s attempt to build socialism in Chile. The Italian CP’s analysis is that Allende showed that a united front government winning an election even with 51% of the vote) is insufficient to move to socialism, since the petty bourgeoisie and the army will resist and necessarily frustrate the attempt, and that support of the order of 75-85% of the population is necessary to prevent reaction and a military coup and insure the road to socialism. Further to secure the 75-85% support all kinds of insurances have to be given to military men, the petty bourgeoisie and even the capitalists, to quiet their fears and allow very slow and gradual measures to be taken towards socialism. This lesson is pure and simple reformism/revisionism.
The ultra-left around the world drew a very different lesson, they argue that the blame for the defeat in Chile lay not with Allende moving too fast without adequate support, but rather with his government’s refusal to distribute arms to the workers or rely on an insurrectionary strategy, instead spreading false hopes that the military would not intervene. Such ultra-left criticisms are based more in dogmatic assertions about never-never land than they are on a cold hard look at concrete Chilean conditions. Allende’s ascendancy to the Presidency in 1970 was an accident. In fact he had actually gotten more votes the last time he ran in 1964. The right was so confident of winning the election that it divided its support among two strong candidates thus allowing Allende to win with only slightly over one-third of the popular vote. There was no revolutionary crisis in Chile at the time and there was no clear popular upsurge for rapid and revolutionary change. The upper class had not been isolated and the army remained strong. The revolutionary left had to contest elections if it wanted to be a part of the political life of the masses, it had to honestly fight for improvements in the conditions of the workers it hoped to win and maintain the respect of the workers who were its supporters. Therefore, Allende was forced to seriously run for office and attempt to implement what changes he could, using his position or face the wrath of workers who would have legitimately felt betrayed had he not kept pushing for more and more for the working class. To maintain that the revolutionary left should not have spread illusions about peaceful transition, but should have concentrated instead on arming and training the workers is besides the point. The socialist and Communist parties did consistently teach that the capitalist state was an instrument of violence against the working class and that the working class would have to have superior military force. Nevertheless so long as elections existed in Chile vast numbers of workers and progressives felt the reality of peaceful change, i.e., bought in one degree or another the myth. If the revolutionary left started training and arming workers in 1960, they would not in fact have been in a position to lead a successful insurrection in 1970. Most workers would not have taken the campaign very seriously. The simple fact is people are willing to vote for socialism before they are willing to pick up the gun for it. This of course means electoral victories tend to occur before people are militarily ready to win a civil war.
The police and military would have been able to suppress a worker’s militias because the government had not yet been thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the masses, i.e., the police had eyes, ears and friends everywhere. The very existence of free elections in 1964 and 1970 in which the majority did not support the left parties indicates that a revolutionary crisis had not yet occurred, i.e., that most people were still supporting the system. Attempts at massive distribution of weapons to the workers after 1970 would have certainly provoked a coup before 1973 in order to prevent the creation of a Red Army. Indeed so long as the masses retain considerable faith in parliamentary forms, i.e., held illusions about the process of socialist transformation, the election of Allende was inevitable. It was likewise inevitable that Allende would be unable to generate military hegemony either before or after his election, because of the reformist illusions among the masses and the absence of a revolutionary crisis. The whole thing was a tragedy comparable to the Chinese massacre of 1927 or the Indonesian massacre of 1965. Part of the zig zag process of revolutionary transformation is that the masses must learn from their own experiences what is necessary to make revolution. The illusions of parliamentary democracy must be shattered by experience, the advanced consciousness of leading cadres is insufficient (see Stalin; Notes on Contemporary Themes: China, 1927, Pravda Article).
The memory of the heroic Allende years will live and grow among the Chilean masses and eventually burst forth in a genuine revolution.
The tragic events of 1970-1973 were more or less necessary. At best Allende could have used these years better in drawing sharper lessons about the nature of the state, and helping to dispel illusions about the probability of success. But to appear too skeptical about what he could accomplish would probably demoralize socialism’s supporters from even trying. The correct line for revolutionaries during this period seems to be that of the MIR which gave critical but active support to the Allende regime without becoming part of the government. The MIR tirelessly pointed out the impossibility of completing the project without gaining military hegemony, and continually warned of the probability of the coup. It actively encouraged the development of a worker’s militia and worked within the armed forces. Unfortunately the right did not grant the MIR sufficient time to gain enough strength in the armed forces or to build up a strong enough military counterforce to neutralize the right. No one who understands the nature of state power should have expected anything different.
Any socialist revolution will necessarily be (1) armed, i.e., the working class and its allies must have superior military force, and (2) rapid, i.e., piece meal reforms can not add up to the qualitative transformation necessary. Whether or not a revolutionary transformation occurs basically in extra-legal ways and is violent, however, is an open question. Revolutionaries must be prepared for both extra-legal struggle and for violence and must not be at all inhibited from using either as tactics and strategies. But neither must they fetishize them. Whether or not extra-legal, strategies and tactics, and violence, is resorted to is mostly a product of how the upper class responds to the growth of revolutionary forces in a crisis situation, which in turn is in good part a product of the response to the strength the revolutionary forces have been able to build up prior to the revolutionary crisis, and of the ability and will of the revolutionary forces to follow a truly revolutionary strategy (neither adventuristic or vacillating).
It is certainly a real possibility that in a country where the working class movement is very strong, almost all workers are in unions, workers have a militant tradition, the rank and file soldiers are draftees from the working class, are organized in soldiers unions and have connections with the worker’s parties, where firm ties exist with the petty bourgeoisie, etc. , the “reformist”/“revisionist” parties in government could attempt a series of rather basic but not revolutionary reforms, which, because of the untenability of a middle course between socialism and capitalism would result in the capitalists refusal to invest, sabotage of production, etc,, resulting in the creation of a revolutionary crisis. At this point a revolutionary seizure of power which is manifested in an electoral victory as well as in a massive popular movement setting up factory neighborhood councils (with the legal sanction of the newly elected government) could institute socialism. If the alliance between the petty bourgeois and the working class holds (i.e., no massive fascist movement is created) and the unity of the rank and file soldiers prevents a military coup, i.e., the rank and file soldiers support the revolutionary government, the capitalist class is isolated and unable to sponsor a counter revolution. Thus because the revolutionaries have military hegemony and takes decisive action in a crisis situation a genuine socialist revolution could occur with neither significant bloodshed nor extra-legality. It is a possibility that socialism might come in a country like Sweden, Finland, Denmark or another Northern European country in this manner.
But for the revolutionary process to occur without resort to extra-legality or violence everything must go right. The chances are that in most advanced capitalist countries the working class movement is not sufficiently strong, the alliance with the petty bourgeoisie not sufficiently firm, and organization within the rank and file of the army inadequate to guarantee that a popular movement manifested in an electoral victory and the rapid institution of socialism could forestall either a fascist movement based in the petty bourgeoisie or an attempted coup d’ etat by the army. In such cases, which are likely to be in the majority, either a bloody civil war will be precipitated because the strength of the fascists and the generals is Insufficient to crush the revolutionary movement, i.e., part of the army obeys orders, and part sides with the legal government, and a condition like Spain in 1936-1939 develops or the military coup/fascist counter revolution succeeds (as in Chile in 1973) and parliamentary rules are abolished by the capitalist class itself. In the first case the struggle immediately becomes primarily military and as the result of victory in such a civil war the working class comes into power, and the steps toward a thorough socialist revolution made. Serious revolutionaries must prepare themselves for such a civil war. In the second case any opposition to the military dictatorship is necessarily extralegal and any revolutionary activity is most likely to lead to armed struggle since the parliamentary course of reform is now closed. It is probably only in this situation, where the overwhelming majority of people are opposed to military dictatorship, that the objective conditions exist in the advanced capitalist countries for guerrilla warfare and the building of a Red Army independent of the official army, i.e., as in the partisan warfare against the Nazi occupations in the closing days of World War II in Europe. Serious revolutionaries must also be prepared for this eventuality.
There is also the possibility that although the majority of “class conscious, thinking, politically active workers fully understand that revolution is necessary” and “are ready to sacrifice their lives for it,” and the ruling class is in a crisis which it can’t solve, that the conservative parties could put together an electoral coalition which could narrowly win a popular election on the basis of desperate appeals to the more backwards segments of the masses – pain of excommunication for Catholics who vote for the left, lies about the Communists taking away people’s children and sending them to Cuba, use of racism and nationalism, etc. If the people who vote for the conservative parties in a crisis situation are in fact politically passive people who have been manipulated by the right and not politically active workers and petty bourgeois who would be prepared to fight in the streets against a revolutionary government it is appropriate for the working class to seize power through extra-legal means, if it looks like a bloody civil war will not be percipitated and the masses of people will accept a revolutionary government more or less immediately after it takes power. Such an extra legal route to power can be successful if both of the following conditions exist: (1) military hegemony, i.e., leadership of the rank and file and many officers in the army who are prepared to disobey the orders of the unpopular government, distribute arms to the people, and put themselves at the disposal of the revolutionary government as did the Russian army in October 1917, and (2) a massive popular upheaval which is resulting in, the take over, of factories and in other popular actions without, provoking massive fascist type actions in response. Such an extra-legal course might have to be followed in a situation where a country’s constitution does not provide for, or the ruling parties do not permit elections during crisis periods, i.e., that it is clear that the majority of people want a revolution but no election can be held for two, three or four years, and by that time revolutionary energies would have been spent and the revolutionary movement suppressed. Revolutionaries must be prepared to act independently of constitutions established by and for the upper classes, provided only that the overwhelming majority of people would support extra-legal actions when they occur (either before or after the fact),. The bourgeoisie has no qualms about extra-legal means, neither can the left.
Revolutionaries must be prepared for any of the four possible scenarios. Guarding against both adventurism and putting the party in place of the masses, and opportunism/vacillation, working class power must be brought about “by any means necessary.”