Armed Struggle; Both a strategy and
a tactic
Written by:
comrade Massoud Ahmad-zadeh
Table of Contents
Introduction by The Iranian People’s Fadaee Guerrillas
Circumstances
of the Genesis and Growth of the New Communist Movement 6
Examination
of the Present Socio-economic Conditions and the Question of the State of the
Revolution
On the Question
of the Stage of Revolution
The Examination
of Debray’s “Revolution in The Revolution?”
Party and
Guerrilla: Political Work and Military Work
Introduction by The Iranian People’s Fadaee Guerrillas
More than
four months have passed since the People’s Fadaee
Guerrillas began armed struggle. Several things have happened since that time;
perhaps it is still early to analyze their results. Nevertheless, they can be
presented in an overall manner.
Why did the
guerrilla struggle begin in Siahkal? And why did it
suffer defeat?
After
making an analysis of the conditions in
An armed
guerrilla nucleus was organized and set out for the northern forests under the
command of our martyred comrade All-akbar Safal Farahani.* For about
five months, this group continuously traversed the northern forests from east
of Mazandaran to west of Gilan.** It made scientific
studies of the geographical and socio-economic situation in those regions. By
taking long treks in both summer and winter, they adapted themselves to the
harsh living conditions in the forests and mountains. As far as we know, such a
reconnaissance of an area, both in duration and in the extent of area visited,
is unprecedented and has no equivalent in any similar guerrilla experience in
the world.
What did we
expect from the creation of this nucleus? How did we envisage its survival?
As
explained in the essay that follows, the aim of armed struggle at the outset is
not to strike at the enemy, militarily, but the strike at him politically. The
aim is to show to the revolutionaries and to the people the path of struggle,
to make them conscious of their own power and to show that the enemy is
vulnerable. It is also to demonstrate that struggle is possible, to expose the
enemy, and to make the people conscious. The creation of the guerrilla nucleus
in the mountains followed these aims. Considering the propagating role played
by the urban guerrilla for the mountain guerrilla, the action of this nucleus
not only would have repercussions throughout the region, but would also be
echoed throughout the country, and thus it would play a decisive propaganda and
political role in the growth of the Iranian revolutionary movement. It would
give new hope to all those struggling and to all the people, concretely showing
the path of struggle, and while gradually establishing a foothold in the
countryside and drawing the rural masses towards itself, it would become
prepared to also play a military role in the revolutionary movement.
From a
political viewpoint, it would be impossible for the enemy to isolate such a
struggle. Considering the very close relation between the city and the
countryside in the North, the struggle of this guerrilla nucleus would have
wide repercussions in the northern cities and thence would spread throughout
the whole country. In the North, because it is not like
Why, then,
did the guerrilla nucleus fail?
We do not
know exactly what happened. It appears that two factors caused its defeat:
disregard for constant mobility and disregard for absolute distrust. It should
be mentioned that our comrades in the mountains had learned respect for
constant mobility and absolute distrust not only in theory but also in
practice. So why did they commit such a mistake?
The only
reason we have been able to find is that they could not imagine that the enemy
would react so strongly and would mobilize in such strength to destroy the
guerrilla nucleus. We know that our heroic comrades were encircled in the Siahkal region and that the enemy concentrated the greater
part of its forces in the surrounding areas. Nevertheless, it would have very
easy for our fighting comrades to have been tens of miles away in a few days.
If such mobility had continued, the enemy would have been compelled to
militarize several thousand men in the Siahkal region
and its surroundings, it would have been compelled to mobilize several
thousands of men in the whole of the North and carry out strict controls over
all means of communication. This would have been very difficult and would have
taken much time. During that time the guerrillas could have strengthened their
foothold, increased their firepower, and elevated their military potential.
From this it may be concluded that the defeat of this nucleus was a mishap that
could perfectly well have been avoided. But, revolutionary struggle involves
certain risks at all times; such mishaps are neither abnormal nor inevitable.
In any case, it is from experiences such as these that revolutionaries should
learn lessons; and it is defeats such as these, which form the stages on the
ascent leading to victory. We have seen the enthusiasm and the hope which the Siahkal movement, in spite of its brief existence and its
defeat, has aroused among the revolutionaries and the people, although this was
even before the launching of urban guerrilla activity. The armed struggle of
the urban Fadaee has produced some remarkable results
as well. Under the influence of that struggle, and in order to respond to its
call, the student revolutionaries in the universities rose heroically and
unleashed the most massive demonstrations of recent years and with the most
fiery and revolutionary slogans possible in those circumstances. Due to the
influence of this same armed struggle, the military workers of the Jahan-Cheet factories courageously struggled to win their
demands and responded to counter-revolutionary violence with revolutionary
violence (even though they were unarmed). They thereby added dozens of names to
the lists of martyrs of the Iranian revolution. Today, the people are asking
themselves new questions. They wonder what the guerrillas are fighting for, and
for whom. How is such a spirit of self-sacrifice and unselfishness possible?
They realise that such sacrifice is possible and that with even a small force
it is possible to rise up against a heavily armed enemy. The revolutionary
movement has begun to lay down the basis for a tradition of armed struggle. It
is in the stage of crawling and taking its first steps through the setting up
of groups. Its armed activities cannot fail to show the road to be followed.
Through a series of successes and defeats, and successes again, it shows the
people the possibility of struggle and protracted nature. This is how the
people will gradually understand that the struggle is long and difficult and
that its development and success depends on their support. This is also how the
people and their vanguards will gradually rise up. We certainly do not expect
the direct support of the people immediately; they cannot be expected to rise
up all at once. At the present time, it is genuinely revolutionary vanguard
groups who represent the people. Conscious of the correctness of the armed
struggle, influenced by it and with the moral support of the people, these
groups take up arms and extend the struggle, thereby increasing the
possibilities of material support from the people. That is why the defeat of
one-armed group does not have a decisive effect on the outcome of the struggle.
If we accept that the struggle is a protracted one and if we accept as well
that it begins through organization in groups, does it matter if one of the
groups disappears? What is important is that the gun that falls from the hand
of a militant will be grasped by other militants. If one group fails, the
important thing is that the more advanced group or groups survive to witness
the results of their action, to exploit its effects, and to transform the moral
support which this action has created into material support through
organisational work. This may be accomplished by other groups; groups which
wish to fulfil their revolutionary responsibilities. We began our struggle with
these convictions we believe in our people and in their vanguards. We give our
blood in affirmation of this belief. Deep within ourselves we feel the need for
the people’s support; without this support we know our destruction and the
destruction of our path is definite. We dedicate our lives to this belief.
During the phase when the foundations and traditions of the armed struggle are
being established, such great sacrifices are inevitable. The sacrifices which
we have accepted, our martyrs who have bravely resisted against the enemy until
death, our imprisoned comrades who are resisting heroically the medieval
tortures of the Shah’s executioners, will all surely bring to flower the tree
of the Iranian revolution, the uprising of the sons and daughters of the
people. It is then that sooner or later the People’s war will begin. Under the
present conditions, the vanguard can be none other than a Fadaee.
Let the capitulationists jeer. The duty of every
revolutionary circle and group is to begin the armed struggle and to strike
against the enemy with every means at their disposal and in every possible way.
Experience has shown that there is no other path except that of the armed
struggle; and experience has shown that the people will support this struggle.
LONG LIVE
THE ARMED STRUGGLE, THE ONLY PATH TO FREEDOM!
LONG LIVE
THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF ALL OUR MARTYRS WHO HEROICALLY FOUGHT THE ENEMY UNTIL
DEATH!
SALUTE TO
ALL POLITICAL PRINSONERS WHO BRAVELY RESIST THE BARBARIC TORTURES OF THE SHAH’S
EXECTIONERS!
LONG LIVE
THE UNITY OF ALL REVOLUTIONARY FORCES AND ALL THE PEOPLES OF
Khordad, 1350
(June, 1971)
1
Circumstances of the Genesis and Growth
of the New Communist Movement
In the
recent decade, our country has witnessed a new phase in the revolutionary
struggle of our people. Although the puppet regime has resorted to all means to
subdue this struggle, from intimidation to allurement to imprisonment, torture
and murder, it has constantly encountered an ever more obstinate wave of
struggle. In place of any one fallen combatant, tens of others have risen, and
in the process the combatants have gained more experience in the struggle. Most
striking in the present struggle of the people is the unprecedented growth of
the communist movement in
In the present
phase, this movement is basically characterised by the simple gathering of
forces, its spontaneous growth and its isolation from the masses.1 To
comprehend why, we must look retrospectively. The imperialist coup d’etat of the 28 of Mordad
(August 19, 1953)** broke up all the
national and anti-imperialist political organisations. The only force which
would have been able to learn from this defeat and on the basis of which
analysis adopt a new line relevant to the new circumstances and to take into
its hands the leadership of the anti-imperialist forces that were actually
ready for struggle was a proletarian party. Unfortunately, however, our people
lacked such an organization. The leadership of the Tudeh
Party, a mere caricature of a Marxist-Leninist party, was only capable of
throwing its devoted militant cadres under the blades of the executioner before
fleeing.*** Thus, the organized
struggle basically came to a halt and whatever did take place was conducted by
the remnants of the shattered organizations within the framework of the same
old methods. This resulted, above all, in the further suppression of those who
were struggling.
Despite
this situation, at the end of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties, the
development of the contradictions and recurrent crises brought about a rapid
and spontaneous organization of national forces, which principally gathered
around the National Front and its affiliated organizations. But, in the general
framework of defunct slogans and limited by paralyzing methods, these struggles
were also unable to accomplish anything in the face of an enemy that
understands only force and exists on the strength of the bayonet. Of course,
one result of this situation was increasing awareness of the regime.
Demonstrations and strikes were successively defeated, and although these
experiences and the regime’s actions gradually led to the changing of slogans
(particularly reflected in the uprising of the 15th of Khordad June 5), the methods of struggle and the
organizational framework remained same.*
Through
this process, the organizations became extinct. The awesome image of the
bayonet again established its domination everywhere. But, the new circumstances
differed from those of the period after the coup d’etat
in one fundamental respect: no one could any longer trust the pervious slogans,
the old methods of struggle nor the outmoded forms of organisation. The Tudeh Party, which had not been able to exemplify a
communist party even for a moment during its existence, now had all its
organizations demolished, its devoted cadres subdued, and its traitorous
leaders on the run. This party was not even capable of providing a theoretical
or frame of reference for the later phases of the struggle. Thus, in a
situation of terror and repression; in a situation where our people’s struggle
had met with defeat; and in a situation where revolutionary intellectuals
essentially lacked any theoretical or background experience, the task had to be
undertaken afresh. The new communist movement got on its feet and the simple
gathering of forces was initiated. The objective was not to muster force in
order to strike again, but to analyze the conditions in order to find a new
path for struggle. Throughout the years before this, the treacheries and errors
of the Tudeh Party had completely destroyed its
reputation, and no revolutionary intellectual was willing to co-operate with
it. Under these circumstances, the bourgeois and petty bourgeois organisations,
were able to attract these revolutionary intellectuals. This situation finally
led to the penetration of the ideologies and tactics of the left petty
bourgeoisie into these organizations, however, their related ideologies also
lost their credibility.
If during
these periods the boundaries between Marxism-Leninism on the one hand and
revisionism and opportunism on the other had not yet crystallised on an
international scale, the distrust of the Tudeh party
might initially have led to the distrust of communism also. It became clear,
however, that the place of genuine Marxism-Leninism was indeed vacant and that
it must be occupied. Hence, revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, as the theory of
revolution, became the sole gathering point for the most persistent
revolutionaries. Thus, there appeared an extensive and striking acceptance of
Marxism-Leninism by the revolutionary intellectuals, and acceptance which, was
now moulded with the name a thoughts of Comrade Mao. In the process of the
exchange and publication of communist works, particularly the works of Mao, communist
circles and groups came into existence. Under the influence of revolutionary
experiences and peoples’ wars, the (theoretical) tendency toward mass armed
struggle increased day by day. Meanwhile, the Cuban experience also attracted
attention. There appeared those who wanted to engage in armed struggle by forms
not completely known to us.* Before
they began, however, they were arrested and thus were unable to provide the
movement with any positive or negative experiences. Therefore, despite the
claims of a few, the defeat of the groups who wanted to engage in armed
struggle did not by any means indicate the inappropriateness of armed struggle
because these defeats stemmed from a series of organizational errors and from
the failure to consider the rules of secrecy. When the simple gathering of
forces commenced, any form of contact between the peoples’ intellectuals and
the masses had been cut off in practice, and there was no serious link among
the intellectuals themselves, including the proletarian intellectuals. Now,
after the inner development of the communist groups, they accept that their
further growth is dependent upon serious contact with the masses, real
participation in their daily lives and also the building of a bond among the
communist groups as a first step towards their unity. While the subjective
elements for real progress have been developing, the prospect for the unity of
groups and real contact with the masses seems dim. Any attempt on the part of
the groups to establish contacts with other communist groups and to participate
in the people’s daily lives and political struggle (which, of course, is
certainly not extensive) exposes them to the danger of police attacks.
Our group,
too, has gone through this same process. Our group was also formed with the
immediate goal of studying Marxism-Leninism and analyzing the socio-economic
conditions of our country. In its development, the group reached a junction:
must the establishment of the proletarian party or the formation of an armed
nucleus in the countryside to initiate guerrilla warfare be pursued? We believe
that the revolutionary honesty required confronting this question seriously.
Unless we had honestly believed that the initiation of guerrilla war would lead
to defeat, rejection of this path would have been tantamount to the absence of
revolutionary courage and to the fear of action. Our group, nevertheless, did
reject this path. In my opinion, however, the rejection was fundamentally based
on a series of theoretical formulas which, we understood to be universal and
unalterable, and it stemmed less from a serious theoretical and practical
analysis of reality.2 Moreover,
our theoretical approach to the present conditions, our estimation of the
purported changes* carried
out by the regime, the rile of agrarian reform etc, did not lead us to turn
away from that choice but rather confirmed it. Although we believed that armed
struggle was inevitable, still we thought that the purported changes gave the
role of the town and the proletariat more importance and that the countryside
could no longer, as in the past, serve as a base for the revolution. This view
channelled our thoughts toward forming the proletariat party.
But, the
purported changes were also being evaluated from two other directions. The Tudeh Party wanted to justify its inactivity and its
reformist line by professing that in any case “positive” changes had taken
place; that by whatever means, the feudal mode of production had been dissolved
to a great extent; that the transition to capitalism had begun; that new
contradictions and class divisions had appeared in society; that the
proletariat had started its development and so on. They reasoned that the
assistance of the so-called socialist camp to the puppet regime and, in their
opinion, to the people of
The
“Revolutionary Organization”** which had split from
the Tudeh Party precisely because of its opportunism,
revisionism and its connectionist line and in order to preserve the perspective
of armed struggle, along with many other revolutionary communists took the
diametrically opposite view of the “purported changes.” In their view, any
acknowledgement of change and development was an indication of besmirching the
necessity of armed struggle, of evading the decisive struggle, and marked the
onset of concessionism. For this reason, they
believed that feudalism was still intact and that the objective conditions for
armed struggle existed. But this conviction, even though it contained an
element of revolutionary authenticity and respect for the revolutionary
principles of Marxism-Leninism, was at variance with reality. To deal with the
present realities requires a different viewpoint. The “Revolutionary
Organization,” due to its confinement within the framework of a series of
theoretical of formulas, has not been able to correctly deal with the paradox
of the “acknowledgement of change or armed revolution” and therefore denies
change (just as our reliance on theoretical formulas had caused our relatively
correct evaluation of the claimed transformation to be applied in an illogical
manner to be a specific conception of the Party and its formation).
But what is
the correct approach? Can it not be said that some changes have taken place,
that feudalism has essentially disappeared, but that armed struggle has not
lost its necessity? That the moment of the decisive struggle has not been
postponed? Has the disappearance of the contradiction and the appearance of a
new one made a change in the principle contradiction of our society? Or, has it
intensified the same contradiction?
2
Examination of the Present
Socio-economic Conditions and the Question of the State of the Revolution
Since the
Land Reform constitutes the basis of the so-called “White Revolution”, we will
stress this phenomenon. In this brief examination, we will show that the
objective of the Land Reform has been the expansion of the economic, political
and cultural domination of bureaucratic comprador capitalism in the rural
areas. Its goal was not that of remedying any of the numerous ailments of the
peasantry (so as to eliminate the grounds for revolutionary potential in the
rural areas by directing peasant support toward the regime). Rather, due to its
nature, the regime can only suppress the grounds for revolution in the
countryside through ever-increasing economic, political and cultural oppression
and suppression, though the branching of its influence into the rural areas and
through the expansion of the dominance of the corrupt bureaucracy.
The alleged
goal of the Land Reform was to give the land to the peasantry. Let us examine
how this was executed:
1. Land was
to go only to those peasants who were working on the master’s land as tenants
or sharecroppers. In this way, all land on which any wage earners worked or
which was under mechanised cultivation was exempt from redistribution. As a
result, vast lands, including the extensive holdings of princes, princesses,
big-shot bureaucrats, and the entourage of the bureaucracy were not
redistributed, and thus a considerable segment of the peasantry remained
landless. We must remember that in the midst of and prior to the height of the
Land Reform, many landowners evicted the sharecroppers and allegedly engaged
their land specifically in mechanized cultivation. By so doing, or on this
pretext, their land also remained immune from redistribution, Several others
had extensive sections of their land exempt from redistribution by granting
their land to their off-spring and relatives.
2. In many
areas where land was redistributed, land did not fall into the possession of
all the peasants because all the peasants did not have share-cropping or tenant
contracts or, in other words, were not peasants but were working on the land as
wage earners. It seems that according to the government’s own statistics (which
undoubtedly cannot be considered reliable) more than 40% of the Iranian
peasantry has been deprived of land forever. In any event, some land was
redistributed. Some landlords sold their land, and others rented it to the
peasants. Naturally, as far as possible, the best lands remained in the hands
of the landlord and the worst lands were left for the peasants.
3. Finally,
in some cases feudalism was preserved. Therefore, we now witness the following
dominant forms in land relations. To a great extent capitalism has come into
existence. Even though this form of production existed before the Land Reform,
its development was accelerated by the Land Reform. Exploitation is carried out
in its most savage form, and the agricultural labourer has indeed no financial
security whatsoever. He is given or denied work according to the whims of the
landlord who still remains a master. Some large landowners, particularly those
of the entourage of the regime and the royal court, including the princes, in
no way refrain from encroaching upon and appropriating the lands of the small
landowners. We have been witnesses to numerous clashes between the large and
small landowners. Whenever these two forms of ownership stand side by side, an
intense contradiction appears. It is those large landowners who are able to
drill deep walls when confronted by water shortage by means of their capital or
through their relations with finance capital and the use of loans. The small landowner
is obliged to rent their tractors and purchase their water; the large
landowners sell him water and rent tractors to him on their own terms.
Small
landownership as a form of production has, in the main, come into existence as
a result of the Land Reform, although it had existed in some areas previously.
Its main enemy is governmental bureaucracy and comprador capital subjecting the
peasants to oppression and exploitation in various ways through the Ministry of
Land Reform, the cooperatives, the various banks and recently the joint-stock
agricultural companies. Every year at harvest time, the Land Reform agents
appear to collect the payment on or rent of the land that has been sold or
rented to the peasants. Day by day the oppressed peasants, usually unable to
remit the demanded amount, assume a heavier burden of debts and loans with
tremendous interest rates. Wherever the peasants have shown courage and
refrained from the remittance of their payments, they have been immediately
faced with the bayonets of the gendarmes, the repossession of the land by the
Ministry of Land Reform and other suppressive measures. The formation of the
joint-stock agricultural companies, which the peasants rightly resist and whose
essence they feel with their flesh and blood, must in effect be termed a
conspiracy for the deprivation of ownership by the small landowner, the
inevitable consequence of the Land Reform. The cooperatives, by dispensing
loans, selling seeds and manure, and by pre-purchasing the produce of the peasants,
do not spare the peasant’s last pennies. Finally, one must consider the areas
where the feudal system has remained intact.3
The
objective of the so-called “White Revolution” was to expand imperialism’s
domination in the town and country. The “White Revolution” took place at a time
when the puppet regime was faced with the people’s anti-imperialist movement,
precisely when the urban masses had risen against it. How could it be that the
regime consciously set out to abolish its main class basis (i.e. Feudalism)?
Must it be concluded that the elimination of feudalism is merely a lie? Or must
it be said that feudalism was not the mainstay of the regime? If feudalism was
not the mainstay of the regime, then which economic power was reflected by the
political power of the state? And which power’s interest was primarily
promoted?
In
actuality, this power is world imperialism. The bases for the political
dominance of feudalism were weakened by the Constitutional Revolution, and
feudalism fundamentally forfeited its political rule to imperialism through
Reza Khan’s coup d’etat. The economic interests of
the feudals could only be safeguarded by a central
power supported and guided by imperialism. This central power, while
suppressing the people’s anti-imperialist movement, prepared the ground for the
expanding influence of imperialism. Feudalism was, in reality transformed to
dependent feudalism and wherever it rejected this dependence, it was subjected
to the aggression of the central power. With the expanding domination of the
central power and influence of imperialism, feudalism was more and more removed
from its positions of power. As soon as the feudal economy stood in
contradiction to imperialist interests, the regime, facing no serious
difficulty and without needing the people’s force to suppress feudalism,* basically
buried what had already turned into a corpse. In effect, Reza Khan’s coup d’etat was incomplete without the “White Revolution”.*
A
comparison of the regime’s land reform with a classic bourgeois land reform
depicts well the disparities of the two and their different consequences.
In the Eighteenth Brumaire
of Louis Bonaparte, Marx evaluates bourgeois land reform and its role as
follows: “After the first revolution had transformed the peasants from semi-
villains into freeholders, Napoleon confirmed and regulated the conditions on
which they could exploit undisturbed the soil of France which had only just
fallen to their lot and stake their youthful passion for property. But what is
now causing the ruin of the French peasant is his smallholding itself, the
division of the land, the form of property which Napoleon consolidated in
While in
While in
the past, the comprador bureaucracy supported feudal exploitation and the
peasant recognized it in the form of suppressive force of the corrupt and
oppressive bureaucracy’s gendarmes, now, the peasant sees himself directly
entrapped in the bloody grip of bureaucy and the
comprador bourgeoisie. In
In
In any
case, the peasant in the past saw a separation between feudal oppression on the
one hand and the bureaucracy and the gendarme on the other, despite having
repeatedly experienced their collaboration and unity. This time, he sees the
two in the same cloak, that of the government’s agents, the governmental and
semi-governmental banks, the Ministry of Land Reform, the gendarmes and more
recently the forest and natural resources rangers. As such, the peasant rightly
regards his calamity as stemming not from his smallholding, but from the
oppressive rule of governmental bureaucracy and its suppressive tools. The
determined resistance of the peasant against the formation of the joint-stock
agricultural companies illustrates this point.
The peasant
is realizing now that the principle cause behind his past calamity is the
government, the same government whose support of feudal oppression and
suppression he had witnessed repeatedly. The more aware peasants recognized the
“Land Reform” to be “politics” from the very beginning and experienced these
“politics” quickly. Those peasants who dared to learn the motive of the regime
and who resolved independently to chase the landlord off the land without “Aria
Mehr’s”* fatherly support, did
not, of course, encounter the landlord who chose to flee, but were blocked by
the gendarmes’ bayonets and suppressed.
Therefore,
the so-called “White Revolution” not only did not solve any of the numerous
problems of the great majority of the country folk, but in large measure
incorporated the contradiction between the peasant and the feudal lord into
that between the peasant and the bureaucracy and the suppressive governmental
apparatus. Thus, by intensifying this
Contradiction
and rendering it more conspicuous, it aided the peasant in recognizing the real
enemy and its true nature. The severe contradiction between a major segment of
the peasantry and the forest and pasture rangers (rangers created for the
protection of the forests and pastures that have been “nationalized” to lay the
grounds for the entrance of comprador capital in order to fill the pockets of a
handful of parasites), a contradiction which has repeatedly led to armed
clashes, illustrates the deep contradiction between the peasantry and the
governmental apparatus, which is dependent on imperialism.
But what is
the course of events in the town? While the bourgeois revolution had resulted
in the severing of the feudal shackles binding the urban masses hand and foot,
in the abolishment of heavy feudal obligations, and in free competition of
industry, here, the “White Revolution” coincided exactly with the suppression
of the urban masses and the consolidation of a central power that had for years
kept them in chains. It was carried out precisely to consolidate imperialist
rule and the interests of imperialist monopolies** to increasingly
suppress national industry, the national bourgeoisie, and the petty bourgeois
artisan and shopkeepers; and finally, to further intensify the exploitation of
the proletariat.
For years,
the town was experiencing the oppression, suppression, exploitation and poverty
emanating from imperialist domination. The keeper of this domination was the
same force that was instituting the “White Revolution”. While in bourgeois
revolution, it was necessary for the newly liberated masses to experience the
new conditions for decades in order to understand their nature and feel the new
bonds and new suppressive rule over them, here, the urban masses had understood
all this beforehand; the events of 1963, particularly the uprising of the 15th
of Khordad [June 5] were responses to the pretensions
of the regime. If afterwards, the waves of struggle ebbed, it was not due to an
acceptance of the regime’s lies, but to the violent suppression of the
struggle. How was it possible to believe in the so-called “White Revolution” in
the face of increasing poverty, continuous bankruptcy, the intensification of
exploitation by the violent domination of foreign capital and the fattening of
a handful of comprador capitalists and big-shot bureaucrats at the expense of
the bankruptcy of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie and the brutal
exploitation of the workers? Thus, while two generations sufficed until “the
interests of the peasants, therefore, are no longer, as under Napoleon, in
accord with but in opposition to the interests of the bourgeoisie, to capital,”
and “hence, the peasants find their natural ally and leader in the urban proletariat
whose task is the overthrow of the bourgeois order:” here in Iran, from a
historical standpoint, the peasants like the past semi-serfs in a semi-feudal,
semi-colonel country find their natural ally and leader in the urban
proletariat. In fact, as a result of the expansion of comprador capital into
the rural areas, a closer relationship between the peasantry and the
proletariat has developed. In the town, too, the brutal rule of comprador
capital more than ever has caused the contradiction between the proletariat and
the national bourgeoisie and specifically the petit bourgeoisie, to be
overshadowed by the contradiction between them and comprador bureaucratic
capitalism and imperialist domination. This process has developed through the
confinement of any capitalist mode of production to that of comprador
capitalism and through the bankruptcy and gradual elimination of the national
bourgeoisie caused by the imperialist monopolies.
Why do such
fundamental differences exist? Actually, the explanation of any change and
transformation in society would be futile and nonsensical without considering
the principal contradiction of the existing system, namely, that between the
people and imperialist rule. The problem of imperialist domination must be
regarded not as an extraneous factor that plays some role, but rather
organically as the basis for any analysis and elucidation.
Reliance on
force and anti-revolutionary violence has always been an integral part of
imperialist domination. Imperialism initiated its invasion of the East through
dependence on its political and military force, which stems from its worldwide
economic power. Depending on the fore-mentioned anti-revolutionary violence, it
disrupted the natural development as compared to that of Western societies. As
we know, the bourgeoisie, subsequent to its gradual take-over of the positions
of economic power, engages itself in the take-over of the positions of economic
power, engages itself in the take-over of the positions of political power so
that it may consolidate its economic power. But here, in the East, imperialist
economic domination was possible only through political and military aggression
and any continuation of economic domination has been inevitably shaped by
anti-revolutionary violence. Hence, in Reza Khan’s coup d’etat
we observed the establishment of a central power without it reflecting a
bourgeois economic power. (The central power and the measures taken by it
confused some people into thinking that Reza Khan's rule represented the
national bourgeoisie.) Thus, on the one hand, we encounter a bourgeois
political superstructure with the cutting off of the influence and power of the
local feudals; on the other hand, we witness the
continuation of feudal exploitation. At this time we witness the power of
capitalist monopolies before the development of capitalism has yet begun. The
feudal mode of production is changed without any corresponding change in the
political rule. Feudalism is eliminated without giving the peasantry the
opportunity to feel free for a moment. Feudalism is eliminated while the
national bourgeoisie, more than ever, is also suppressed. In fact, with the
establishment of imperialist rule, all the internal contradictions of our
society were overshadowed by one contradiction—the contradiction that spreads
the world over, the contradiction between the people and imperialism. In the
last half century, our country has witnessed the expansion of this
contradiction: the daily augmentation of imperialist domination. Any form of
transformation must resolve this contradiction. The resolution of this
contradiction means the establishment of the people’s sovereignty and the
downfall of imperialist domination.
3
On the Question of the Stage of
Revolution
In solving
the question of the stage of the revolution, attention must be paid to these
particulars. With the establishment and expansion of imperialist domination,
there is first the division of political power between feudalism and
imperialism followed by the transformation of feudalism into dependant
feudalism and, finally, the destruction of feudalism. Under these conditions,
the national bourgeoisie, not yet developed and weakened by the pressure of
foreign capital, loses the possibility of organizing as a class and in the end
gradually dies out. Hence, the national bourgeoisie cannot compose an
independent political force. The struggle against imperialist domination (i.e.
international capital) contains some elements of the struggle for a socialist
revolution within this anti-imperialist struggle and develop in the course of
the struggle. The national bourgeoisie is hesitant and unable to mobilize the
masses because by its nature it is incapable of persistence in such a struggle
and because of the historical conditions of its existence and its ties with
foreign capital. Also, the peasantry, because of its material conditions in
production, can never form an independent political force. Thus it must either
place itself under the leadership of the proletariat or entrust itself to the bourgeoisie.
The only force remaining is the proletariat. Although the proletariat is
quantitatively weak, it is very strong qualitatively and in its potential for
being organized. The proletariat, as the most persistent enemy of imperialism
and feudal domination and relying on the international theory of
Marxism-Leninism, can and must assume the leadership of the anti-imperialist
movement. It is in this regard that the fundamental differences between the new
bourgeois-democratic revolution and the classic bourgeois revolution unfold.
Although the immediate goal of the new bourgeois-democratic revolution is the
end of imperialist domination and the destruction of feudalism and not the
abolition of bourgeois private property, in the process of its development, the
embryo of the socialist revolution is implanted in its womb and nurtured there
very rapidly by the anti-imperialist character of the struggle, the
mobilization of the masses, the proletarian leadership of the struggle, and the
fact that any duration of capitalist relations gradually bring about close ties
with imperialism followed by the domination of imperialism. In this manner,
only a few years after the victory of the Chinese revolution, the proletarian
leadership was transformed into the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the
socialist revolution commenced in practice. As summed up by Chairman Mao, the
Chinese experience serves as an example.* But now that
feudalism has been eliminated in our country, has the Iranian Revolution left
its bourgeois-democratic stage and entered into the socialist phase? In my
opinion, posing the question in this manner is incorrect. Regis Debray expresses a significant point in this regard: “The
nub of the problem lies not in the initial programme of the revolution but in
its ability to resolve in practice the problem of state power before
bourgeois-democratic state, and not after. In
In reality,
during the last half century of the revolutionary struggle our people have
faced a state power that has assumed a growing bourgeois character in the
process of increasing imperialist domination. As a result, the political
dependency of feudalism has always been dependent upon their anti-imperialist
struggle. Thus, the more feudalism as a mode of production has retreated and
therefore the more the state has become bourgeois in form and character, the
more significant the socialist elements of the revolution have become. The
struggle against the domination of world capital has further turned to the
struggle against capital itself, and the necessity of proletarian leadership
has become more evident. Since the Land Reform has not benefited the peasantry,
such slogans as “the land should be given free to those who work on it” and
“abolish all state tributes” remain the fundamental slogans of the revolution
for the peasantry. On the one hand, considering the limited foundation and the
increasing limitations of imperialist rule and, consequently, its ever
increasing reliance on anti-revolutionary violence as the principle means of
preserving its domination; and on the other hand, keeping in mind the broad
mass base of the revolution and the fact that the condition for the victory of
the revolution is the victory of protracted armed struggle, revolution actually
commences with the most mass oriented and generalized slogans and programs. In
the course of this protracted armed struggle, which proletarianizes
the masses objectively and subjectively, the revolution will succeed and
continue through the most radical and revolutionary measure. The (protracted)
armed struggle is the environment within which the socialist elements of a
bourgeois-democratic revolution develop rapidly. This is the lesson that the
Chinese Revolution has given, that the Vietman
Revolution shows, and finally that the Cuban experience, despite its shortness,
has proven.4
4
Our
Line
As we have
said, in the course of its development and in its analysis of the experience of
the Cuban people, our group confronted the following question: is not the path
of the revolution the formation of the guerrilla nucleus and the initiation of
armed struggle? Can the revolution be tackled without the party? We became
familiar with the Cuban experience essentially through Regis Debray’s “Revolution in the Revolution?” Without a deep
understanding of Debray’s thesis and the Cuban
Revolution and, again, without a clear view of the objective conditions of our
people’s struggle, we rejected Debray’s thesis and
the Cuban way. Why did we permit ourselves to reject them without having on
hand a comprehensive analysis of the conditions of our country and without
really knowing the inner elements of the Cuban way? In my opinion, what caused
this was a theoretical error stemming from a superficial acceptance of a series
of theoretical formulas based on past revolutionary experiences. This point
will later be shown.
In this
way, we accepted that our goal and that of the other communist groups must be
the creation of the Marxist-Leninist party. Immediately, the question was
posed: what should be done to create such a party? Two fundamental duties then
confronted us. We and the other groups would have to educate the cadres for the
future party amongst the masses. That is to say, by working amongst the masses
and participating in their life of struggle, particularly that of the
proletariat, we had to prepare them for the acceptance of such a party.
At this
point, the initial differences of our circumstances with those of past
revolutionary experiences (
Why is the
insurrection the work of the masses? Didn’t the Cuban experience show that a
small armed motor force can initiate the insurrection and gradually lead the
masses to insurrection?5 Here, of
course, the concept of insurrection does not connote an armed urban uprising
(characterized by the sudden and massive armed movement of the masses together
with a leadership) but the protracted armed struggle to which the masses are
gradually drawn.
These
problems were posed at a time when the group understood that it had to direct
its attention outside of itself, to reality, the masses and other communist
groups. On the one hand, however, we had to contend with police attacks and
searches that were being carried out against communist groups, and, on the
other hand, the problem of contact with the masses seemed so difficult and seemingly
beyond our means. How could we establish contact with the proletarian masses?
Should we not reach the workers where they have organized themselves as a class
in the organs (ranging from small proletarian circles to unions, syndicates,
etc…) that have come into existence in the course of the spontaneous struggle?6 It is
through the course of this spontaneous struggle and class organization that, on
the one hand, circles of workers come into existence which have a wider horizon
and contemplate a broader and more protracted struggle; circles of working
masses, circles in contact with the revolutionary intellectuals who are the
source of political consciousness. On the other hand, in the course of its
development, this spontaneous struggle more and more approaches a political
struggle. Parallel to this course, the progressive workers’ circles develop and
expand, becoming more receptive to political propaganda and political
organization.
Socialist
consciousness, too, is introduced to the workers through the intellectual
circles’ contact with the workers’ circles and with the masses. In this
context, a comparison between the development of the Russian intellectual
circles during the early years of the twentieth century and the present
intellectual circles of our society can bring out the differences in conditions
between the two. Lenin portrays a typical circle in
“A
student’s circle establishes contacts with workers and sets to work; without
any connection with the old members of the movement; without any connection
with study circles in other districts, or even in other parts of the same city
(or in other educational institutions); without any organization of the various
divisions of revolutionary work; without any systematic plan of activity
covering any length of time. The circle gradually expands its propaganda and
agitation. By its activities it wins the sympathies of fairly large sections of
workers and a certain section of the educated strata which provide it with
money and from among whom the committee (League of Struggle) grows its sphere
of activity quite spontaneously; the very people who a year or a few months
previously spoke at the students’ circle gatherings and discussed the question,
“Where do we go from here?”, who established and maintained contacts with the
workers and wrote and published leaflets, now establish contacts with other
groups of revolutionaries, procure literature, set to work to publish a local
newspaper, talk of organizing a demonstration, and finally, turn to open
warfare…”*
But what
are the conditions we face? It is best to consider the development of an
intellectual circle in
On the
basis of the study and exchange of communist publications, a few individuals
come together. At first, the study constitutes the basis of the circle’s
endeavours, subsequently a certain amount of objective study of society is
pursued. In general, the group has no extensive contacts with the workers nor
does it attract the attention of even a small section of the working class. In
practical terms, they have no role or active relation with the people’s
spontaneous movements, which are themselves sporadic and limited. Publishing
local journals, organizing demonstrations, and particularly waging open warfare
must not even be mentioned; it is during this limited development that many of
these circles become targets of police blows under police-dominated conditions
and are shattered.
What is the
cause of this disparity of conditions? In the case of
In this
light, the question that confronted the revolutionaries was this: Should they
head the mass movement or not? Should a movement that is fundamentally
economically and politically short-sighted be transformed into a well-rounded
political movement? These intellectual-proletarian circles as a single unit had
to form an organization of united professional revolutionaries and by way of
leadership of all forms of struggle with a political context, push the movement
forward. An organization of professional revolutionaries that could guarantee
“continuity,” eliminate fragmentary and dispersed work, devise a prolonged and
steadfast program for an all-encompassing, far-reaching struggle and guide the
masses in this struggle had to be established.
In effect,
masses of workers had been drawn into the struggle, had to some extent acquired
class organization and had also produced their own organs of struggle.
Alongside these organs, proletarian circles that were extensively in contact
with the masses of workers and which enjoyed the possibility of vast
circulation and propaganda had been created. Now the question was this: Should
this spontaneous struggle be transformed into a struggle which would be
political in every aspect or not? It is precisely the method of approaching
this question that distinguished the revolutionaries from the economists, the
advocates of piecemeal efforts, and the followers of the spontaneous movement.
According to Lenin, the economists reasoned that:
“The
working masses themselves have not yet advanced the broad and militant
political tasks which the revolutionaries are attempting to “impose” on them;
that they must continue to struggle for immediate
political demands, to conduct “the economic struggle against the employers and
the government.”…Others, far removed from any theory of “gradualness,” said
that it is possible and necessary to “bring about a political revolution,” but
this does not require building a strong organization of revolutionaries to
train the proletariat in steadfast and stubborn struggle, all we need do is to
snatch up our old friend, the “accessible” cudgel. To drop metaphor, it means
that we must organize a general strike, or that we must simulate the
“spiritless” progress of the working-class movement by means by means of “excitative terror.” Both these trends, the opportunist and
the “revolutionaries,” bow to the prevailing amateurism; neither believes that
it can be eliminated, neither understands our primary and imperative practical
task to establish an organization of
revolutionaries capable of lending energy, stability, and continuity to the
political struggle.”*
But here in
Yet, is it
absolutely true that always and under all conditions spontaneous movements
reflect the abundance of the objective conditions for revolution, and that
spontaneous movements indicate the imminence of the revolutionary phrase? Can
the opposite be also true? That is, should we deduce that the lack of broad and
spontaneous movements indicate a lack of objective conditions for the
revolution, and that the revolutionary phrase has not yet arrived? In my
opinion, no. Under the present conditions in
And what is
our road? Today, sitting in wait for the extensive spontaneous mass movement to
then guide it, without having engaged in revolutionary action, without
attempting to thoroughly furnish the subjective conditions through
revolutionary action itself, is tantamount to following the spontaneous
movement in circumstances such as those in
Lenin
responds: “All those who talk about “overrating the importance of ideology”,
about exaggerating the role of conscious element, etc., imagine that the labour
movement pure and simple can elaborate, and will elaborate an independent
ideology for itself, if only the workers “wrest their fate from the hands of
their leaders.
Thus, the
author comes quite close to the question of the material forces” (organizers of
strikes and demonstrations) and to the “paths” of the struggle, but,
nevertheless, is still in a state of consternation, because he “worships” the
mass movement, i.e. he regards it as something that relieves us of the necessity
of conducting revolutionary activity and not as something that should encourage
us and stimulate our revolutionary activity. It is impossible for a strike to
remain a secret to those participating in it and to those immediately
associated with it, but it may (and in the majority of cases does) remain a
“secret” to the masses of the Russian workers, because the government takes
care to cut all the communications with the strikers from spreading. Here
indeed is where a special “struggle against the political police” is required,
a struggle that can never be conducted actively by such large masses as take
part in strikes. This struggle must be organized, according to “all the rules
of the art,” by the people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary
activity. The fact that the masses are spontaneously being drawn into the
movement does not make the organization of this struggle less necessary. On the
contrary, it makes it more necessary…”.*
Where the
conditions are such that the regime’s police terror aims at and has succeeded
in severing the links between the people and their intellectuals; where no
links exist among the strikers; where terror and repression have held back the
masses from any appreciable movement; where this same terror and permanent
repression have consistently caused the masses to assume negative attitudes
towards struggle and to avoid any political idea which in their opinion does
not offer any salvation; and where the regime attempts to suffocate any mass
movements in embryo – is a “special struggle” against the political police
necessary? Can the masses perform this task? Can the masses be expected to
perceive the straw nature of the regime or to learn it through their own
experiences? How can the masses who do not ask why should we struggle but can
we struggle, and how can we resist the face of the regime’s awesome power,
possibly become conscious of their historical power when repression has led
certain “revolutionary” intellectuals to explain the ferocity of this “paper tiger”
by the objective conditions being immature and the contradictions
insufficiently developed, while at the same time not seeing that it is
precisely the repressive force of the anti-people army which is the main factor
for the survival of imperialist domination? How can the struggle which finds
its course in history and whose victory and historical conditions guarantee;
the struggle whose roots are in the material conditions masses’ existence; the
struggle which is reflected at the same time in the conscious action of the
revolutionary vanguard and the sporadic and dispersed movements of the masses;
and finally the struggle which under heavy dictatorial and persistently
repressive conditions has taken on an explosive character at times bringing a
large part of the masses out on the streets and other times dying out as a
transient flame; how can the reality of this struggle be demonstrated to the
masses in a concrete way? How can a current be set into motion by which the
masses can become conscious of themselves, their interests, and their
formidable power and be drawn into the struggle? By persistent suppression, by
the backwardness of the (people’s) leadership, by the inability of the vanguard
to fulfil its role, and finally by the hellish propaganda of a regime which
relies on the force of the bayonet, a colossal barrier of suppressive power has
been erected between the people and their intellectuals, among the people
themselves and between the necessity of the mass struggle and the struggle
itself. How can this barrier be broken through and the roaring torrent of mass
struggle be unleashed? The only way is armed action.
The
necessity for the conscious role and active practice of the revolutionary
vanguard has not been weakened but strengthened precisely due to the increasing
significance of the conscious counter-revolutionary forces. At the present time
it is only through the most acute form of revolutionary action, that is,
through armed struggle, and the shaking of the colossal barrier that the
vanguard can show the masses the struggle which finds its course in history. It
must be shown that “the struggle has really started, and its progress requires
the support and active participation of the masses” (paraphrasing Regis Debray). It must be shown in practice that
anti-revolutionary violence can be conquered and that stability and security
are a force. It is in the course of this action that the masses’ historical
stamina, accumulated and dormant behind the colossal barrier of suppressive
power, is gradually released. And it is in this same course that the masses
gradually and in the heart of the armed struggle become conscious of
themselves, their historical mission, and their undefeatable
strength. It is at this point that some raise their voices against us, crying:
“These impatient, adventurous, leftist youths do not have the patience to wait
until the masses are ready for armed struggle, until the proletarian vanguard
organization (of course, along a society political line) prepares the masses
for armed struggle. They do not have the patience to wait until “the exploited
and oppressed masses realize that they will not be able to continue their
existence as before, and demand its change” and “the exploiters are unable to
live and rule, as in the past,” (Lenin,
Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder) to then take up the armed
struggle; they have mistaken the struggle against the political police and the
militia for political work, political struggle and persistent political
activity.”
Although
the forms of these accusations differ, their essence is the same as that of the
charges made against Lenin by the Russian opportunists. They said that there
was no need for the organization of professional revolutionaries and that,
“By
theoretical reasoning (not by the growth of party tasks, which grow together
with the party”) Iskra solved the problem of the
immediate transition of the struggle against
absolutism. In all probability it senses the difficulty of such a task
for the workers under the present state of affairs, but lacking the patience to
wait until the workers will have gathered sufficient forces for this struggle.”
And Lenin
responds:
“Yes, we
have indeed lost all “patience”, “waiting” for the blessed time, long promised
us by diverse “conciliators”, when the Economists will have stopped charging
the workers with their own backwardness and justifying their own lack of energy
with allegations that the workers lack strength.”*
The truth
is that if the struggle against despotism, at that time, was fundamentally
political, now the struggle against despotism is basically political-military.
If in Russia the true vanguard would come to the fore as a result of a series
of economic, political and ideological struggles, now in Iran, solely a
political-military struggle is able to create the true vanguard. Let us explain
further. What is the main task of the vanguard? Is not the historical task of
the revolutionary vanguard to make use of conscious revolutionary practice and
establish links with the masses to tap the historical power of the masses and
to bring that power to bear upon the decisive battlefield of the whole
struggle? Will this not be a decisive factor in the whole struggle? The more
complicated the conditions, the more powerful the suppressive forces of the
enemy and the more urgently the question of the revolution is posed, naturally
the more difficult will be this “tapping.” It is true that when the masses
become conscious, on the basis of their material conditions, they are
transformed into a tremendous material force, the only force capable of
transforming society. But the problem has always been to know how to convey
this consciousness to the masses; through what organizations, and by what
means. And in addition, through what forms of organization and what methods of
struggle can the revolutionary force of organization be guided in the correct
direction so as to bring about the victory of the revolution, the downfall of
reaction and the conquest of political power.
With the
increasing alertness of reaction, the growing reliance upon suppression as the
main instrument for rule, and along with the passage of revolution from the
West to the East, the role of the conscious vanguard and that of the militant
organization of vanguard revolutionaries have acquired a greater significance
every day. In the era of Marx and Engels, the
vanguard organization consisting of professional revolutionaries never had the
importance it attained in Lenin’s era.
If in
Furthermore,
the principle that if the call for the uprising and the proposal of a
particular slogan, e.g. “The rule of the soviets,” was put forth a little too
soon or too late, it would cause the defeat of insurrection was also proven.
Whereas, under the conditions of Russia, the historical vigour of the masses
took form through a series of fundamental economic and political struggles
gradually passing from potential to actuality and erupting into armed uprising,
in China, the revolutionary consciousness was being conveyed to them in the
midst of a prolonged armed struggle and as a result, it lacked that explosive
character.
In this
way, the armed urban insurrection is transformed into a prolonged armed
struggle and the revolutionary vigour of the masses gradually enters the
decisive forefront. Thus, the people’s army also becomes the “armed propaganda”
force. Actually, when the main base of the revolution is in the countryside;
when the rural masses subjected to imperialist and semi-feudal domination, and
whose material living conditions automatically disunite them (according to
Marx, they do not even constitute a class), and thus, when the rural masses
lack any possibility for organizing organs for classical economic-political
struggle (trade unions and syndicates), one sees that the only form of action
that can organize the peasantry is armed struggle, and the only organization
capable of giving it organization and unity is a political-military one.
To defeat
the reaction, the broad rural masses must be drawn to the struggle. To defeat
the reaction, the reactionary army must be smashed. To smash the reactionary
army, there must exist a people’s army. The only way to smash the reactionary
army and to build the people’s army is prolonged guerrilla struggle; a
guerrilla war is necessary not only in terms of military strategy for smashing
the powerful army, but also in terms of political strategy for mobilizing the
masses. The political and military factors are fused together in an inevitable
and organic way. On the one hand, the mobilization of the masses is the
condition for the victory of armed struggle both militarily and politically. On
the other hand, mobilization of the masses is the condition for the victory of
armed struggle both militarily and politically, yet, mobilization of the masses
is not possible without the armed struggle. This is the lesson taught by not
only the Cuban revolutionary war but also those of
Perhaps,
objections will be raised claiming that it was the Communist Party which
initiated the Chinese revolutionary war and this party initiated the Long March
only after years of fundamental political struggle and after resorting to urban
armed uprisings and gaining experience. Thus, we too only have the right to
turn to armed struggle after such a period. But, if in
“In the
period (1920-1927) Sun Yatsen was leading the Koumintang Party. The Communist Party, with its own
independent organization, functioned within the Koumintang
Party. We, the communists, had imposed some conditions on our participation in
the Koumintang organization: 1. Unity with
Sun Yatsen accepted the conditions, and on that basis, co-operation
was initiated between us. In 1924, our party decided to introduce its members
into the Koumintang. But, at that time, the Chinese
Communist Party, despite its considerable influence among the workers and
peasants, had no more than a hundred members. The participation of the
communist members and combatants in Koumintang
enabled the Communist Party to work better among the workers and peasants. In
this way, the Party directly worked among the workers, the peasants and the
students, and strengthened the unity of the workers. The Party succeeded,
through co-operation with the Koumintang, to extend
its activities among the country’s intellectuals, including the northern area
and united the students not only in the South but also in the North.
We assisted
Sun Yatsen in composing the revolutionary military
forces. We created the “Vampova” military school to
train the army’s leadership cadres i.e., the revolutionary officers. Comrade
Mao Tse-Tung became a member of Koumintang
Central Committee.” (Lessons From the
History of The Communist Party of
What can be
seen here is not only the democratic conditions of that period, but also the
direct participation of the Communist Party in state power created vast
possibilities for free activity not only among the workers and the students,
but also the peasants. This party was able to infiltrate even the army and
train communist military cadres. These conditions made it possible for the
process of worker-peasant unity to begin, not in the course of an armed struggle,
but by means of free political and organization activities, and to commence the
revolutionary war with an army. The point that the Communist Party, having only
a few hundred members, enjoyed a wide influence among the workers, the students
and even the peasants, displays how the Chinese Communist Party was able, to
some extent, under a favourable set of conditions, to rapidly transform itself
through unarmed experiences into a real vanguard force.
Should we
now sit and wait for such a favourable state of affairs so that we can then
become the real vanguards and prepare the conditions for armed struggle? The
real vanguard must itself come to the fore in the course of armed struggle and politco-military action. Should we wait until the Communist
Party is formed, and then initiate the revolutionary war on a large scale, for
example with an army? The answer is that the politico-military nucleus itself
can, by initiating guerrilla warfare and in the process of its development,
create the party, the people’s true vanguard politico-military organization and
the people’s army.
To depict
the differences between the democratic or semi-democratic conditions where
purely political activities are possible, and those of a vast and intensely
violent dictatorship where the urban masses and at their head the proletariat,
and foremost the peasantry lack any possibility for any form of organization,
we must turn to the situation in
If in
In
If in
Here,
today, the declaration of war is the war itself; the two are inseparable. The
moral significance of war depends on its material progress and its material
progress depends on its moral significance. The more numerous the blows dealt
to the enemy, the more it disintegrated; the more political force grows, the
more its moral significance and its appeal to the masses will increase. And
this causes the material strengthening of the politico-military force.9
Now we are
ready to examine Regis Debray’s “Revolution Within The Revolution?” and absorb the lessons of the
Cuban Revolution in depth. In this examination, we will find further
explanations and more objective evidence in approval and clarification of the
above mentioned ideas.
5
The Examination of Debray’s
“Revolution in The Revolution?”
As we said,
under the influence of a series of pre-judgements, we failed at a deep
understanding of the fundamental concepts that Debray
had presented in “Revolution in The
Revolution?” as the inner elements of the Cuban experience. In fact, we
rejected in practice these new concepts without understanding them.
We did not
say that the path shown by Debray was incompatible
with
It appeared
that Debray’s thesis denies the role of the
Marxist-Leninist party as the only force capable of giving an all-embracing
leadership to the revolution. It appeared that Debray’s
thesis underestimates the importance of the theory of Marxism-Leninism, i.e.
revolutionary theory as the guide to practice. It appeared that Debray had ignored the leading role of political matters
over military ones and had even assigned priority to military matters over
political matters. Debray quotes Castro: “Who will
make the revolution in
Debray then
asserts:
“Fidel
Castro simply says there is no revolution without a vanguard and that this
vanguard is not necessarily the Marxist-Leninist party. Those who want
revolution have the right and the duty to create a vanguard independently of
these parties…There is, then, no metaphysical equation in which vanguard =
Marxist-Leninist party. There are merely dialectical conjunctions between a
given function-that of the vanguard in history-and a given form of
organization-that of the Marxist-Leninist party. This combination arises out of
prior history and depends on it. Parties exist here on earth and are subject to
the rigours of terrestrial dialectics. If they were born, they can die and be
reborn in other forms.” (Debray, pp. 98-99)
These
assertions were celebrated by the liberal and the so-called anti-dogmatic
intellectuals since they understood in their own minds the refutation of the
authoritative and vanguard role of any Marxist-Leninist party. They want to
enjoy the title of revolutionary and leader, however, their liberalism does not
permit them to relinquish their ideological unscrupulousness and pseudo-Marxist
eclecticism. They can accept neither Marxist-Leninism as the only scientific
world outlook-the ideology that can guide a permanent revolution-nor the
discipline needed to work in a Marxist-Leninist organization. They thus abuse
Fidel and Regis Debray’s assertions although it is
evident throughout the book that the issue is not the denial of the leading
role of the proletariat and his ideology. The Marxist-Leninist party, here, is
viewed as a special form of organization. According to Debray,
if a party does not profoundly and radically change its peacetime organization
and does not forge a new organization appropriate to the responsibilities of a
real vanguard, then the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries have the right to
launch the revolution apart from this Marxist-Leninist party as a special form
of organization in order to bring into existence a new organization which can
fulfil the responsibilities of a true vanguard-a truly Marxist-Leninist
vanguard-and in practice become worthy of the name which the supposed
Marxist-Leninist parties have usurped.
In fact,
here we have a distinction between the form of the party and its content. The
content of the party is the task of the Marxist-Leninist vanguard in history, a
proletarian organization’s task in history; its form consists of those
organizations that are required to accomplish this historical task. Whereas the
content always remains the same, these organizational forms are subject to the
rigours of terrestrial dialectics. Thus the party can die and be reborn in a
new form. This is why we are faced with the “reconstruction of the party” (Debray, p. 102),
“ the rebirth of the party in a new form,” etc. Debray
himself rebuffs those petty-bourgeois intellectuals who want to abuse these
assertions in order to justify their liberalism. He resolutely says:
“Let us
speak clearly. The time has passed for believing that it suffices to be ‘in the
party’ to be a revolutionary. But the time has also come for putting an end to
the acrimonious, obsessive and sterile attitudes constituting two sides of the
same coin, basically identical. The Manichaeism of the Party (no revolution
outside the Party) finds its reflection in anti-party Manichaeism (no
revolution with the Party); both crave complacency. In Latin American today a
revolutionary is not defined by his formal relationship with the Party, whether
he is for or against it. The value of a revolutionary, like that of a party,
depends on his activity.” (Debray, p. 104, footnote)
When action
and particularly armed action is posed, these very same ivory tower
intellectuals step back and in order to justify their ivory tower idleness and
indeed in order to justify their own existence, say that revolution needs
theory and that it needs a comprehensive analysis of the
socio-economic-political conditions. Meanwhile, they ignore the fact that
exactly because of their “lack” of relations with this very armed action, these
parties have now fallen from their vanguard position. They ignore the fact that
the old organization of the Marxist-Leninist party has lost its proportionality
to a new historical task, that now a new Marxist-Leninist organization and a
more rigorous discipline than that of the previous organization are required
and that every person's relationship to the revolution will be determined by
his relationship to this new organization.
But before
we consider Debray’s principal idea, namely, the
relation between the party and the guerrillas and political military work, it
is appropriate to clarify the relationship between theory and practice from Debray’s point of view.
In “The
Errors of the Foco Theory,” Clea
Silva contends that Debray is attempting to destroy
the basic principle that “without revolutionary theory there is no
revolutionary movement” when he says “The best teacher of Marxism-Leninism is
the enemy, in face-to-face confrontation. Study and apprenticeship are
necessary but not decisive.”
In my
opinion Clea Silva’s deduction is not correct.
However, let us see what is meant by theory. Silva himself replies: “There is
revolutionary struggle only when we know how, against whom, and at which moment
we must struggle.” (Silva, p. 23) Does
Regis Debray consider these to be secondary,
unimportant, or unnecessary problems? I think this is not the case. Doesn’t Debray attempt to advance a theory and a series of
strategic achievements based on the experience of the Cuban revolution? Is his
book not basically an attempt to answer how and by what means the enemy should
be fought? Debray does not present a comprehensive
analysis of the Latin American socio-economic conditions in his book. Does this
indicate that he considers this problem unimportant and unnecessary? Why then
does he consider, for example, the lack of socio-economic analysis on the part
of the Latin American communist parties as a shortcoming? However, Debray’s illogical and excessive attention to the Cuban
revolution’s particular forms and particularities, indeed, to the exceptional
aspects of the Cuban experience, and his attempt to generalize them throughout
the Latin American cause a series of errors that should be mentioned.
Even if the
Cuban revolutionaries applied strategic principles unconsciously, should we too
start without awareness of the strategy, without a relatively clear understanding
of the general lines of action which lay ahead of us? If we want to initiate a
people’s war, should we not have a clear understanding of the strategy of the
peoples’ wars doing “as much harm as good” (emphasizing the dialectical
relation of theory and action) with such superficial and empiricist treatment
that therefore one should not study them or “one may well consider it a stroke
of good luck that Fidel had not read the military writings of Mao Tse-tung before disembarking on the coast of Orient.” If
the Cuban path is to be retraced step by step, which is unthinkable, and if we
wish to generalize every exceptional case, one should mention that the Cuban
revolutionaries themselves did not intend to undertake a protracted war at the
beginning, whereas for us the protractedness of war
is an established fact. (They wanted to overthrow Bastista’s
government by performing a series of combative shock operations concomitant
with urban insurrections. In the course of action this plan ended in failure
and a new path was adopted.)
In fact,
since revolution in all societies occurs under a series of general laws, and
even peoples’ wars encompass a series of general laws, all the past
revolutionary experiences provide lessons, which should be learned and for this
reason “do much good.” But if one considers that in the final analysis
revolutionary action enables one to discover the specific objective conditions
of each country and to correct and elaborate the revolutionary theory, then
undoubtedly mechanical generalizations “do harm”. Only with clear general lines
and a general strategy of action is it possible to establish an organic
relationship between experience and tactical principles; to draw lessons from
them; to correct and elaborate the tactical errors in relation to the general
strategy and thus even to correct and elaborate the general strategy itself and
determine with precision its pertinent special forms of action.
Debray says: “The
armed revolutionary struggle encounters specific conditions on each continent,
in each country, but these are neither ‘natural’ nor obvious. So true is this
that in each case years of sacrifice are necessary in order to discover and
acquire an awareness of them.” (Debray, p. 20) Is
it possible to understand the specific conditions without reference to the
general conditions? And are not the revolutionary experiences useful for
understanding the very same general experiences? The assertion that “In Latin
America a few years of experience in armed struggle of all kinds have done more
to reveal the particularity of objective conditions than preceding decades of
borrowed political theory”, (Debray, p. 23-24)
by no means lessens the importance of revolutionary theory; rather, it merely
implies that borrowed political theory cannot become the proper guideline for
revolutionary action. But only in connection with theory and the general
conditions and the analysis of the specific conditions can this experience be
the mainspring of a new theory and a new guideline for action. In brief, it is
action that finally determines the validity or invalidity of our theory.
Nonetheless, we are compelled to initiate our action by summing up previous
theories and experiences.
There are
those who contemplate a relatively long period-a period whose basic
characteristic is theoretical education and ideological struggle-for grasping
the theory of revolution and an all-embracing knowledge of the objective
conditions. They say that we need theoreticians similar to Lenin. Of course,
they do not mean the Lenin who was reared in the process of a prolonged and
active struggle, but rather someone who has a vast encyclopaedic theoretical
knowledge. Before we close this discussion, it is appropriate to mention one
point regarding their argument:
In the
history of the revolutionary experience and the international communist
movement of the current century, we encounter essentially three types of
struggle: ideological, economic, and political. If we consider the historical
succession of these experiences, we clearly observe how the role of the
theoretical and economic struggle has progressively diminished and how
political struggle has increasingly dominated the whole of the revolutionary
struggle. In order to comprehend the lessening of the importance of theory in
contrast to practical political struggle, it is sufficient to glance at the
documents of the communist movement: “Capital”,”
Anti-Duhring”,” What is to be Done?”,” On New
Democracy”, etc. In brief, in today’s international communist movement,
which is proceeding mainly in the subjugated countries, we seldom come across
theoretical works on the level with “Capital”,”
Anti-Duhring”, or “Materialism” and “Empirio-Criticism”.
Does this fact not indicate that the international communist movement, which in
general is engaged in direct revolutionary action, neither has the opportunity
nor the need to work on pure theory? Does this not imply that we increasingly
need practitioners rather than theoreticians?11
The
situation with regard to the economic struggle is the same. If we consider the
process of revolutionary struggle in each country where it has gained
importance, we will note that the economic struggle is more and more losing its
significance. This situation itself is also the consequence of the ever increasing
dominance of politics over economics, the consequence of the dominance of the
class enemy maintained by the most suppressive means of repression and terror,
the consequence of the imperialist global domination. In short, it is the consequence of imperialist
global domination passing through its period of decadence. In fact, the
development of the process of revolution on the global scale on the one hand,
has more than ever put on the order of the day the problem of how to seize
political power, the acute problems of how to make revolution and in what way
the revolution can crush imperialist domination, and in short, direct
revolutionary action. On the one hand, the very same process of revolution on
the global scale is a type of theoretical preparation for the present
revolution. Now the content of revolution is clearer than ever, while what
remains to be clarified, and what will be clarified only through direct
revolutionary action, is the specific forms this content assumes under specific
conditions. The difficulty of the task rests not in preparing the program of
revolution, determining the objectives of the revolution, or discerning the
forces of revolution and counter-revolution, but rather in determining the ways
and means to be applied in order to carry the revolution to victory.
6
Party and Guerrilla: Political Work and
Military Work
We used to
reject Debray’s views on the relationship between the
party and the guerrilla, and between political work and military work. On the
one hand, we were confronting Mao’s and Giap’s stress
on the guiding role of the communist party in popular armed struggle. On the
other hand, Debray was telling us that the vanguard
is not necessarily Marxist-Leninist. But
we showed in the previous lines that this is not so, and saw that the issue is
not over the denial of the role of the Marxist-Leninist vanguard. Rather, it is
over those forms of organization and revolutionary action that a vanguard must
employ in order to fulfil the tasks of the vanguard and transform itself into
the genuine vanguard of the people. But what is this new organization and new
action? And why have these new forms of organization and action become
necessary? Before anything else, one should note that Debray’s
thesis basically rests on the fact that the instrument of survival of imperialist domination is mainly the violent
and repressive military apparatus; his thesis also rests on the fact that the
methods of maintaining this dominance have rendered all forms of reformist
struggle not only insignificant but also impossible. Debray
believes that the development of the revolutionary movement has reached such a
stage that the main link of the present revolutionary struggles in Latin
America is the problem of seizing political power and crushing the backbone of
imperialist domination, i.e. the army. Thus he says:
“In
Thus, one
who does not truly envisage this problem, and evades its solution, even
though accepting armed struggle in
words, is not revolutionary. It is at this point Debray’s
fundamental thesis is put forth, a thesis that should receive our attention now
more than ever. What is the path of revolution? Is it the political party that
should initiate armed struggle; or is it armed struggle itself which in its
process of development and growth, in its process of increasing popularization,
creates an organ capable of giving comprehensive leadership to the
revolutionary struggle of the masses? Is it the Party that should prepare the
subjective conditions to come into existence during armed struggle? Should
efforts be directed towards creating or strengthening the party or towards the
practical preparation for armed struggle? Debray says
“These questions have been met with a standard response in the history of
Marxism and in history as such: A response so immutable that the mere asking of
it will seem a heresy to many. That
answer is that the Party must be strengthened first, for it is the creator and
the directing nucleus of the people’s army. Only the party of the working class
can create a true army of the people-as the guarantor of a scientifically based
political line-and win power in the interest of the workers.” (Debray, p. 95)
This is the
response of those who accept the necessity of armed struggle in a certain phase
and as a particular means. Of course, the words of reformists who question the
necessity of armed struggle no longer have any weight, nor is it an urgent
necessity to respond to them. But on what grounds does the argument of those
who believe in the antecedence of the party to armed struggle and of political
work to military work stand?
Debray presents
their argument in two parts:
“Theoretical Orthodoxy: It is not a
matter of destroying an army but of seizing state power in order to transform
the social structure. Bourgeois state power has its own superstructure
(political, judicial, constitutional, etc.) which is not to be confused with
its repressive apparatus.
It is the
representatives of the exploited classes and their vanguard, the working class,
to carry on this political fight up
to and including its armed form, revolutionary civil war. Now then, a class is
represented by a political party, not by a military apparatus. The proletariat
is represented by that party, which expresses its class ideology,
Marxism-Leninism. Only the leadership of this party can scientifically defend
its class interests.
To the
extent that it is a matter of intervening in the total social structure, it is
necessary to have scientific knowledge of society in all its complexity, at all
its levels (political, ideological, economic, etc.) and in its development.
This is the condition for carrying out a massive struggle at all levels; and
the military struggle, only one level among others, has meaning only within the
context of comprehensive intervention at all levels by the popular forces against
bourgeois society. Only the workers’ party, on the basis of a scientific
understanding of the social structure and of existing conditions, can decide
the slogans, the goals, and the alliances required at a given moment. In brief,
the party determines the political content and the goal to be pursued, and the
people’s army is merely an instrument
of implementation.” (Debray,
pp. 95-96)
As we
indicated, we encounter these statements precisely at a time when the
difficulty of the matter is not theoretical but practical, and the burning
issue at hand is not the understanding of the society but rather its change,
and in brief when the hub of the matter lies in finding those forms of action
and organization with which one must carry out the revolution. Does this not
indicate a fundamental fallacy in the perception between form and content, in
perceiving that the party-as a special form of organization- is itself an
instrument? Precisely at a time when the repressive army is the chief factor in
maintaining imperialist domination, is it not a kind of political retreat to
say that the principle problem is not to destroy the army but to conquer the
state power?12
In a
situation where one should be precisely determine what form of action and
organization ought to be selected, is not evading the definition of the
principal form of action a type of reformism? It is, of course, true that “the
main issue is the conquest of state power,” but in today’s conditions the
principal and necessary requirement for the conquest of state power is the
confrontation with and the annihilation of the army and repressive power of the
dominated state. The point is not that armed struggle is one form of many
various forms of struggle which under special conditions and with special
preparedness becomes necessary. Rather, the point is that armed struggle is
that form of struggle which constitutes the groundwork of an all encompassing
struggle, and only on such a basis do other various forms of struggle become
necessary and useful. The point is that the organ-or if we wish to call it the
party-of the proletariat’s class struggle, an organ which is truly a vanguard
of the people, an organ which is truly able to guide the manifold struggle of
the masses, can come into existence only through armed struggle.
Debray says:
“There is, then, no metaphysical equation in which vanguard = Marxist-Leninist
Party,” (Debray, p. 98) Here, the dispute is not over
the denial of the content of the vanguard Marxist-Leninist party, rather it is
over a specific form of action and organization. Thus, the equation
Marxist-Leninist party = vanguard, where form and appearance are shown on one
side and content on the other, is necessarily a concrete and historical
equation and not an immutable and everlasting one. It is only within specific
historical conditions that for a given content, specific forms are imperative.
Therefore, “…there are merely dialectical conjunctions between a given
function-that of the vanguard in history-and a given form of organization-that
of the Marxist-Leninist party. These conjunctions arise out of prior history
and depend on it. Parties exist here on earth and are subject to the rigours of
terrestrial dialectics.” (Debray. Pp. 98-99)
At this
point Debray sets out to refute historical orthodoxy,
an historical orthodoxy, which justifies theoretical orthodoxy with reliance on
the experiences of the peoples’ wars and the vanguard role of the political
party. Despite its reliance on the experiences of the peoples’ wars, this
orthodoxy as a whole results in a separation between political and military
work. At the beginning, this separation is temporal; that is, it is believed
that only a vanguard party can guide armed struggle and the people’s war, and
that this vanguard party will be formed not through armed struggle itself, but
rather through other forms of struggle which are mostly political, economic or
ideological. Actually, the reliance of this orthodoxy on a series of purely
formal phenomena in the experiences of the peoples’ wars not only creates a
real separation between the peoples’ wars and revolutionary practice, between
political work and military work, but also causes erroneous inferences from the
lessons of the peoples’ wars themselves. Neither peaceful struggle nor a purely
political and economic struggle, but special conditions permitted the communist
parties of
Debray asks: “In
what form can the historic vanguard appear?” He replies: “What is depends on
what was, what will be on what is. The question of parties, as what they are
today, is a question of history. To answer it, we must look to the past.” (Debray, p. 99) At
this point, Debray refers to the conditions of birth
and growth of the parties of
“A party is
marked by its conditions of birth, development, the class or alliance of
classes that it represents, and the social milieu in which it has developed.
Let us take the same counterexamples in order to discover what historic
conditions permit the application of the traditional formula for party
guerrilla relationships:
1) The
Chinese and Vietnamese parties were involved from the beginning with the
problem of establishing revolutionary power. This link was not theoretical but practical and manifested itself very
early in the form of a detrimental and tragic experience. The Chinese Party was
born in 1921, when Sun Yat-sen’s bourgeois
revolution…was growing stronger. From its inception it received direct aid from
the Soviet mission, including the military advisers led by Joffe
and later by Borodin. The latter, on his arrival, organized the training of
Chinese Communist officers at the
“The Vietnamese
Party came into being in 1930, immediately organized peasant insurrections in
the hinterland which were quickly repressed, and two years later defined its
line, under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, in its
first program of action: ‘The only path to liberation is that of armed mass
struggle.’ ‘Our party,’ wrote Giap, ‘came into being
when the Vietnamese revolutionary movement was at its peak. From the beginning
it led the peasants, encouraged them to rise up and establish soviet power.
Thus, at an early stage, it became aware of the problems of revolutionary power
and armed struggle.’ In brief, these parties transformed themselves, within a
few years of their funding, into vanguard parties, each one with its political
line, elaborated independently of international social forces, and each
profoundly linked to its people.
2) In the
course of their subsequent development, international contradictions were to
place these parties-like the Bolshevik Party some years earlier-at the head of
popular resistance to foreign imperialism…The class struggle took the form of a
patriotic war, and the establishment of socialism corresponded to the
restoration of national independence: the two are linked. These parties,
spearheading the war of the people against the foreigners, consolidated
themselves as the standard-bearers of the fatherland.
(3) The
circumstances of this same war of liberation led certain parties originally
composed of students and the best of the workers elite to withdraw to the
countryside to carry on a guerrilla war against the occupying forces. They then
merged with the agricultural workers and small farmers; the Red Army and the
Liberation Forces (Vietminh) were transformed into peasant armies under the
leadership of the party of the working class. They achieved in practice the alliance of the majority
class and the vanguard class: the worker-peasant alliance. The Communist Party,
in this case, was the result and the generative force of this alliance. So were
its leaders, not artificially appointed by a congress or co-opted in the
traditional fashion, but tested, molded, and tempered
by this terrible struggle which they led to victory…
Without
going into detail, historic circumstances have not permitted Latin American
Communist Parties, for the most part, to take root or develop the same way. The
conditions of their founding, their growth and their link with the exploited
classes are obviously different. Each one may have its own history but they are
alike in the opportunity they have not had, existing as they do in countries
winning power in the way the Chinese and Vietnamese parties have; they have not
had the opportunity, existing as they do in countries possessing formal
political independence, of leading a war of national liberation; and they have
therefore not been able to achieve the worker-peasant alliance-an interrelated
aggregation of limitations arising from shared historical condition.
The natural
result of this history is a certain structure of directive bodies and of the
parties themselves, adapted to the circumstances in which they were born and
grew. But, by definition, historic situations are not immutable. The Cuban
Revolution and the process it has set in motion throughout
What is the
task of Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries? If we put aside the revisionist and
reformist parties, parties, which essentially deny the necessity of armed
struggle, few paths will be set forth for discussion. If a party has accepted
the necessity of armed struggle as the decisive path, then it must profoundly
and fundamentally transform its peacetime organization. No longer is there any
room for armed action to be treated as a branch of party activity, or for the
guerrilla forces to be subordinated to a political force detached from military
and war problems.
If an
action is basically political-military, and if the fighting cadres are composed
of the political cadres of the past, this should fundamentally affect the
structure of leadership and organization. However, the important thing is that
the guerrilla force not be in the direction reformist goals and not as a branch
of party activity, but rather as a political-military action constituting the
basis and pivot of the struggle. But what path is open to revolutionary forces
facing a party with a reformist leadership? Should they expand their efforts
building a party (as a special form of organization and action) that in the
course of non-armed struggle transforms itself into a vanguard, isolates the
revisionist and reformist parties, and then prepares the conditions for armed
struggle? Or, should these very same tasks be fulfilled during armed struggle? Debray shows how adoption of a series of, in fact,
reformist tactics and incorrect comprehension of the new conditions; conditions
which make any kind of peaceful or merely political or ideological struggle
futile; conditions under which political parties have no deep ties with the
masses, mar revolutionary strategy and cast the matter of armed struggle to the
abyss of oblivion.
“Hence the
oft-repeated classic involution: a new revolutionary organization appears on
the scene. It aspires to legal existence and then to participation in ‘normal’
political life for a certain time, in order to consolidate and make a name for
itself and thus prepare the conditions for armed struggle. But, low and behold,
it is gradually absorbed, swallowed up by the routine of this public life,
which becomes the stage for its normal activities…
The
prospects of insurrectional struggle diminish, delayed first for a few months
then for years. Time passes, with its vicissitudes, and there is an increasing
tendency to view the opening of hostilities as a somewhat sacrilegious
temptation, a kind of adventurism, perennially ‘premature’…The militants must
understand that to enter into armed struggle at any given moment would be to
destroy the sacred unity of the organization, to sabotage its legality, to
provoke repression against its leaders. In short, the political organization
has become an end in itself. It will not pass over to armed struggle because it
must first wait until it establishes
itself solidly as the party of the vanguard, even though in reality it cannot
expect recognition of its vanguard status except through armed struggle. This
vicious circle has plagued the revolutionary struggle for years.
Consequently,
it is useless to create antibodies in the heart of existing political
organizations: the opportunist infection, far from being halted, will be
aggravated, exacerbated.” (Debray, pp. 120-121)
Under
conditions where, says Debray, “without armed
struggle there is no well-defined vanguard,” the time has passed for us to
recognize the revolutionaries by their verbal affiliations with the revolution
and Marxism-Leninism.
“…It is
necessary to avoid the diversion of efforts and resources toward ‘pure’
political or ‘pure’ ideological fronts…Inasmuch as the revolutionary movement
can only be activated by an insurrectional outlook, efforts must be
concentrated on political-military organization. Revolutionary politics, if they are not to be blocked, must be diverted
from politics as such. Political resources must be thrown into an
organization which is simultaneously
political and military, transcending all existing polemics.”* (Debray, p. 124)
Hence:
“Antibodies
must be created at the base, at the level of the masses by offering them a real
alternative within their reach. Only then will the existing political
leadership be changed. In most Latin American counties, it is only when armed
struggle has begun or is about to begin that the process of removing the
revolution from its ghetto, from the level of academic talk-fests, from a cast
of permanent globe-trotters, can get under way. In philosophical language, a
certain problematique
has vanished since the Cuban Revolution, that is to say, a certain way of
posing questions which governs the meaning of all possible answers. And it’s
not the answer that must be changed, but the questions themselves. These
‘Marxist-Leninist’ fractions or parties operate within the problematique
which is imposed by the bourgeoisie; instead of transforming it, they have
contributed to its further entrenchment. They are bogged down by false problems
and are accomplices of the opportunistic problematique,
quarrels over precedence or office holding in leftist organizations, electoral
fronts, trade union manoeuvres and blackmail against their own members. This is
what is called quite simply politicking. In order to escape it, there must be
change of terrain, in every sense of the word.”(Debray, pp. 121-122)
Therefore,
under the present circumstances, “The
principle stress must be laid on the development of guerrilla warfare and not
on the strengthening of existing parties or the creation of new
parties…Insurrectional activity is today the number one political activity.”
(Debray, p.
116)
“Under certain conditions, political and the
military are not separate, but form one organic whole, consisting of the
people’s army, whose nucleus is the guerrilla army. The vanguard can exist in
the form of the guerrilla force itself. The guerrilla force is the party in
embryo. “ (Debray,
p. 106)
What can be
learned from this experience? What lessons does it teach us? Before we
conclude, it is desirable to consider some of the criticisms addressed to this
thesis.
Clea Silva:
“The theory that armed force is the embryo of the party is based on the
assumption that all conditions are ripe and that there is no time to organize
on a party basis. In contrast to this, Lenin said that it is never too late to
organize.” (Silva, p. 20) Debray does not say that all conditions are ripe, rather, he
says that the necessary conditions to initiate armed struggle exist, and that
the sufficient conditions for expansion and popularization of the armed
struggle will develop in the course of action. Secondly, here the question is
not whether to organize, rather, it is the question of the creation of an
organization appropriate to the historical task of the vanguard. Clea Silva’s assertion shows that he has not correctly
understood Debray’s views. For example, he says: “If
we observe the countries of
“For
reasons of both emergency and principle the armed revolutionary front is a
must. Wherever the fighting has followed an ascending line, wherever the
popular forces have responded to the emergency, they have moved into the
magnetic field of unity. Elsewhere they are scattered and weak. Events would
seem to indicate the need to focus all efforts on the practical organization of
armed struggle with a view of achieving unity on the basis of Marxist-Leninist
principles.” (Debray,
p.126)
The same
misconception of the problem of organization is also seen in the case of the
Cuban comrades Simon Torres and Julio Aronde. In
It is
sufficient to consider his examination of “armed self-defense”
and “armed propaganda” to discover that from the beginning he has revolutionary
war in mind. In fact, the Cuban revolution, from the point of view of its inner
elements, could only show the beginning of a revolutionary popular war because
the unique and exceptional circumstances under which the revolution took place
allowed the revolution to achieve final victory before secure revolutionary
bases were completely formed and became a starting point for a new phase,
before the masses become involved in the war on a large scale and before the
popular army was created. Whereas now the increasing vigilance of the
repressive forces, direct imperialist intervention and other factors deny this
easily won victory to the armed struggle. It does not appear that Debray considers the Cuban experience the complete path that
every armed struggle should travel. Therefore, it cannot be said that he, from
the phase of “emergence of foco to the achievement of
the final victory, considers the military action as the only form of political
work.” As soon as the guerrilla force is established and can create
revolutionary support bases, or liberate some zones, all kinds of possibilities
for political education of the masses, training of cadres, and political
propaganda, etc., are conceivable. To cite Debray,
one can then deliver a hundred speeches, and they will be heard too. The
relation between political and military work constitutes one of the fundamental
points of Debray’s book. According to the view of
many people, one of Regis Derbray’s major errors is
the incorrect understanding of this relation. According to them, Regis Debray gives priority to military over political work. Debray’s understanding of this relation becomes
sufficiently clear in this statement: “Any line that claims to be revolutionary
must give a concrete answer to the question: How to overthrow the power of the
capitalist state? In other words, how to break its backbone, the army…?” (Debray, p. 24).
To Debray, since the revolutionary movement has
reached a state where armed warfare constitutes its main link, some political
concepts find expression in military matters. For example, Lenin confronted the
advocates of economism and spontaneous movements and
even Trotskyism (“What Is To Be Done?” and
“One Step Forward Two Steps Backward”)
over a professional, organized and disciplined revolutionary organization. Debray shows that on another level, this can find
expression in the confrontation between the advocates of an armed vanguard and
the advocates of armed self-defense. He says: “Just
as economism denies the vanguard role of the party,
self-defense denies the role of the armed unit, which
is organically separate from the civilian population. Just as reformism aims to
constitute a mass party without selection of its militants or disciplined
organization, self-defense aspires to integrate
everyone into the armed struggle, to create a mass guerrilla force…” (Debray, p. 29)
In order
for the relation between military and political matters to be illuminated, it
is fitting to examine Debray’s views regarding armed
propaganda. His view on armed propaganda and how it must take place after or
during direct military action against the enemy and not before, is based on a
series of concrete considerations, which one cannot interpret as disparaging
political work. The fact that Debray regards armed
propaganda as an imported political concept is due to the fact that one must
not confuse the political nature of the movement or the inherently political
work with a series of political and/or political-military tactics. Debray says that armed propaganda is based on this: “The
guerrilla struggle has political motives and goals. It must have the support of
the masses or disappear; before enlisting them directly, it must convince them
that there are valid reasons for its existence…In order to convince the masses,
it is necessary to address them…in brief, to carry on political work, ‘mass
work’. Hence, the first nucleus of fighters will be divided into small
propaganda patrols…Cells, public or underground, will be organized in the
village…The program of this Revolution will be reiterated again and again. It
is only at the end of this stage, having achieved active support by the masses,
a solid rearguard, regular provisioning, a broad intelligence network, rapid
mail service, and a recruiting center, that the
guerrillas can pass over to direct action against the enemy.” (Debray, p. 47)
It is
correct that guerrilla warfare has political motives and goals. It is correct
that the winning of the support of the masses constitutes the crucial problem
of war; and it is correct that for this purpose inherently political work must
be performed. But as to how this work is to be done (as to whether military
action should necessarily follow political propaganda, must speeches
necessarily be delivered from the outset, and prior to armed action should a
series of public and underground communication networks and cells be organized)
are matters which precisely depend on the conditions. And if we establish an
uninterrupted connection between these tactics and inherently political work,
we will have confused the goal with the means and the form with the content.
The danger arises that the impossibility of adopting a particular tactic might
be construed to mean that no grounds for action exist. Debray
says that if in
1. Because
of the high density of the peasant population and because the enemy is an
occupier, the revolutionary propagandists can easily mingle with the people
“like fish in water”. (cf. Debray, p. 50)
2. “The
propagandists are linked either with the bases of revolutionary support with a
people’s army capable of backing them up or protecting them in their
activities. Most important, they attest to the tangible and visible reality of
military victories. Village meetings and assemblies have a pragmatic and
serious content-no empty, programmatic lectures, no ‘fine words’ of the kind
the peasants so justly fear, but appeals to join up or give support to existing combat units…” (Debray, p. 50) But
what is the Latin American situation?
“(1) The
guerrilla focos,
when they first begin their activity, are located in regions of highly
dispersed and relatively spare populations. Nobody, no new arrival, goes
unnoticed…They [peasants] know very well that fine words cannot be eaten and
will not protect them from bombardment. The poor peasant believes, first of
all, in anyone who has certain power, beginning with the power to do what one says.
The system of oppression is subtle; it has existed from time immemorial; fixed,
entrenched and solid. The army the guardia rural…enjoy
a prestige all the greater of being subconscious. This prestige constitutes the
principle form of oppression: it immobilizes the discontented, silences them
and leads them to swallow affronts at the mere sight of a uniform. The
neo-colonial ideal is still to show force in order not to have to use it, but
to show it, is in effect to use it.
In other
words, the physical force of the police and army is considered to be
unassailable, and unassailability cannot be challenged by words but by showing
that a soldier and a policeman are no more bulletproof
than anyone else. The guerrillero, on the other hand, must use his
strength in order to show it, since he has little to show but his determination
and his ability to make use of his limited resources. He must make a show of
strength and at the same time demonstrate that the enemy’s strength is first
and foremost his bluster. In order to
destroy the idea of unassailability-that age-old accumulation of fear and
humility vis-à-vis… the policeman, the guardia rural-there
is nothing better than combat. Then, as Fidel tells us, unassailability
vanishes as rapidly as respect engendered by habit turns into ridicule…
(2) The
occupation and control of the rural areas by reaction or directly by
imperialism, their vigilance today greatly increased, should rid a given group
of armed propagandists all hope of remaining unnoticed…The armed unit and
people’s vanguard are not dealing with a foreign expeditionary force, with
limited manpower, but with a well-established system of local domination. They
themselves are the foreigners, lacking status, who at the beginning can offer
the populace nothing but bloodshed and pain….” (Debray, pp. 51-52)
“(3)
Lastly, the absence of organized regular or semi-regular forces. Armed
propaganda, at least if it is geared to combat, seeks precisely to organize
regular units or to expand existing units by means of ‘political recruiting.’
Thus, villages are ‘stormed’ to assemble the populace and hold propaganda
meetings. But in reality how have the inhabitants of these villages been helped
to rid themselves of their class enemies? In the course of these operations, few
arms have been acquired. Even if young peasants are spurred by enthusiasm to
join the guerrilleros,
with what will they be armed?
Many
comrades have concluded from these experiences that an ambush of a column of
reinforcements or some other blow levelled at the enemy in the vicinity would
have aroused more enthusiasm in a given village, attracted new recruits, given
a more profound moral and political lesson to the villagers, and – most
important of all-would have procured the arms so essential to a new guerrilla
unit.” (Debray,
p. 53)
“Does this
mean that armed propaganda or agitational activities
should be rejected? No. To judge from certain successful experiences, a
guerrilla unit leaves something-or at least someone-behind it, in the course of
its advance, behind its own lines if such exist, for the purpose of organizing
what is to become a base of solid support. But in this case the physical
security of the populace is assured by regular forces, capable of repulsing the
enemy. The base thus begins to organize itself as the embryo of the people’s
state. The work of agitation and propaganda-the effort to explain the new
organization to the populace and to bring about the transfer of zonal administration to mass organization-becomes
fundamental, and future combats depend on it. Propaganda then attests to the
liberating nature of combat and instills this message
in the minds of the masses…We can see that no present Latin American guerrilla
movements have reached the stage where these activities are on the order of the
day.
In other
words, armed propaganda follows military action but does not precede it…The
main point is that under present conditions the most important form of
propaganda is successful military action.” (Debray, pp. 55-56)
We observe
that the dispute is not over the political motives and goals of the movement,
or whether or not to do mass work; rather the question is this: through what
forms of action and organization can one address the masses and draw them to
the struggle? One should carefully note that depending upon different
conditions, inherently political work can assume a purely political form, can
be political-military work, or can even be purely military work.
7
Conclusion
What should
we do? What path lies ahead of the Iranian communist movement? How can the
communist movement transform itself into the genuine vanguard of the
anti-imperialist struggle of our people? How can it pull itself out of the
swamp of the intellectual milieu in which it is fundamentally trapped and establish
a profound link with the masses?
In both
theory and practice, the communist movement must and can give an objective
answer to this question. In what manner can we smash the tyrannical imperialist
dominance, which depends mainly on its armed repressive forces? How can we
unmask the myth of the “island of stability and security”? How can we show to
the masses the path of revolution, the path to the seizure of power for the
exploited and oppressed, and the path to victory; how can we draw them to the battlefield?
In our opinion, the communist movement can find this path. If it wants to
transform itself into the genuine vanguard and not tag along behind the masses,
it must in practice show this path to the masses. If armed struggle is the
people’s only path to salvation, and in our opinion the communist movement has
accepted this path, then procrastination is meaningless. Contemporary
revolutionary experience and our own experience shows us the general path, the
general strategy of revolution. These experiences have shown that neither with
peaceful work, nor with merely political work, nor with clandestine work can we
transform ourselves into the vanguard of the people and prepare the conditions
for the so-called mass armed struggle. Under the present conditions, any
political struggle must necessarily be organized on the basis of armed
struggle. Furthermore, only the armed small motor can set the big motor of the
masses into motion. The subjective conditions of the revolution shall fully
take form in the course of armed action. The genuine vanguard, the vanguard
that has a profound bond with the masses and is capable of extensively arousing
and guiding the masses, can come into existence only through the course of
armed action within the process of political-military work. Yes, at the
beginning, the bloodshed and affliction that the operations of the armed
vanguard causes the masses, the terror that the regime stirs up, may produce a
passive attitude among the masses who have close contact with the guerrilla
operations. But as soon as the armed vanguard is established and can strike
both political and military blows as well as material and moral blows against
the enemy, the path of the struggle gradually becomes clear for the masses, and
they depend on their support. To cite Debray, winning
the support of the masses is not very easy but as soon as it is won and
wherever it is won, it causes astonishment.
Che Guevara
states the experience of the peasants’ encounter with the guerrilla as follows:
“After our regrouping and the first clashes accompanied by the repressive
actions of the Batista army, there began terror and dread among the peasants
and they showed coldness toward our forces. The fundamental problem was this:
if they would see us, they would have to denounce us. If the army would learn
of our presence through other sources, then their lives would be endangered for
revolutionary justice acted swiftly.
In spite of
a terrorized or at least a neutralized and insecure peasantry choosing to avoid
this serious dilemma by leaving the Sierra, our army was entrenching itself
more and more…Little by little, as the peasants came to recognize the
invincibility of the guerrillas and the long duration of the struggle, they
began responding more logically, joining our army as fighters.” (Che Guevara, p.
197)
Because of
the long history of repression and suppression dominating the life of our
masses and because of the successive defeats of the movements of our people,
our masses, not only in the countryside but also in the city, have increasingly
tended to view their existing situation as unalterable. Here, that “age-old
accumulation of fear and humility” (Debray, p. 52) has seriously converted the faith of our
masses into “nothing can be done to confront this force”. Deeply rooted
religious beliefs, submission to existing conditions, and reliance on a
superior force, which initially grew out of human weakness before the forces of
nature, have all been strengthened because of the people’s weakness before the
ruling social forces. These rooted beliefs cannot be changed by speeches, and
the existing repressive force cannot be challenged by words. The masses cannot
be drawn into the struggle merely by political propaganda; they cannot be
convinced of their invincibility and of their decreed victory in this manner.
Only armed action can inflict a breach in the impasse faced by the masses; the
feasibility of the destruction of the repressive power must be shown in
practice. To convince the masses of its power, the armed vanguard must show its
strength. Does all this mean that the masses are no longer capable of any
perceptible spontaneous movement? No, this is not the case. At the point when
their patience reaches its limits, the masses too are set in motion,
confrontations occur; furthermore, due to the conditions of terror and
suffocation, these confrontations are accompanied more and more by armed
confrontations. But because of the very same conditions, these movements do not
find the opportunity to expand and are suppressed. When no possibility of any
kind of continuity in purely political peaceful work exists, when any kind of
bond between the vanguard and the masses does not exist, the main effect on
these movements will be further suppression of the people. The only line of
continual work that can acquire some strength from these movements together in
a larger context is continual political-military work.
Now, the
question is what methods of armed action are practical under the present
conditions? One thing is certain: the condition for the victory of the
revolution is the destruction of the counter-revolutionary armed forces, and
this task requires a people’s army. But how is a people’s army created?
Under the
present conditions of society, the people’s army is fundamentally engendered
through guerrilla struggle in the countryside, and this fact necessitates the
formation of guerrilla foco.
(When broad mass movements are absent, particularly in the countryside,
immediate arming of the masses is not the number one objective. Here, the
purpose of guerrilla foco
is only to initiate at the outset armed action on the countryside by armed
bands usually made up of the revolutionary vanguard.) But what preparations and
conditions guarantee the growing survival of the guerrilla foco or focos?
Can an armed group alone, in its course of development, become the motive of a
mass movement with the initiation of operations in a suitable region? The
experiences of guerrilla warfare in Latin America show that a guerrilla foco, when
politically isolated and militarily encircled without any profound link with
the urban movement, without effective support in the city, and without the
ability to broadly attract the minds of the masses, cannot last long and sooner
or later will be liquidated by the special forces of the enemy. Therefore, some
of the Latin American revolutionaries talk about the establishment of armed
struggle in the city. Even the Cuban experience contains certain lessons on
this subject. However, Debray, by ignoring and
belittling those methods and organizations of struggle which under all
circumstances are necessary for the survival and continuity of the decisive
struggle, does not lay the necessary stress on this aspect of the Cuban
experience; this is one of his errors. It is correct that in
It is
possible that some of those who, to quote Lenin, advocate “close organic
contact with the proletarian struggle” will tell us, “you want to create a mass
organization, while the objective of we, the Marxist-Leninists, should be the
creation of a proletarian organization whose ranks are filled mostly from the
proletariat.” The very same people were asking Lenin “If we undertake the
organization of a nation-wide exposure of the government, in what way will the
class character of our movement then be expressed?”
They in
fact want to justify their inability to be pioneers in the struggle, their fear
and despicable attitudes, and their lack of political courage. Lenin replied:
“We
Social-Democrats will organize these nation-wide exposures; all questions
raised by the agitation will be explained in the consistent Social-Democratic
spirit, without any concessions to deliberate or not deliberate the distortions
of Marxism. The all-round political agitation will be conducted by a party that
unites into one inseparable whole, the assault on the government in the name of
the entire people. The revolutionary training of the proletariat, and the
safeguarding of their political independence, the guidance of the economic
struggle of the working class, and the utilization of all its spontaneous
conflicts with its exploiters will rouse and bring into our camp increasing
numbers of the proletariat.”
And this is
our answer: The first condition for the proletarian and revolutionary
leadership in this movement is the pioneering of the Marxist-Leninist. It is we
who will become the precursor of this struggle; it is we who will have started
armed struggle. Under the present conditions, aren’t revolutionary armed action
and its objectives, based on a Marxist-Leninist line, the greatest
manifestation of communist practice and the most revolutionary method of
anti-imperialist struggle? If the prerequisite for drawing the masses,
including the proletariat, into the struggle is armed struggle itself, should
this armed struggle have only the proletariat as its goal or should it rely on
all the masses? Shouldn’t revolutionary action and propaganda start from their
most popular form? If the vanguard party comes into existence in the course of
the struggle, what is wrong with also creating formal links with the
proletariat in the process of armed movement? Is it not in armed struggle
itself in which the working class will assume its proper role in the
anti-imperialist struggle? The Cuban experience has a very instructive lesson
in this regard to which Simon Torres and Julio Arone
allude:
“From the
time Fidel went to
…Is it
necessary to add that the armed unit, superimposed on the other forms of
organization and leadership and also in the position an organizational
‘centre,’ fulfilled a double function: first, to maintain the cohesion and
functioning of one front of classes;
and second, within that front, strategically to guarantee the primacy of the
most revolutionary classes?” (Torres and Arone, pp. 54-55)
“…The broad
base of the Movement corresponded to the narrow social base of the Batista
government under the conditions of profound crisis within the traditional
political parties which permitted a regrouping of forces in a new way; and its
central armed nucleus corresponded to the form in which it was necessary to
liquidate the bourgeios-latifundista-imperialist
domination. Batista’s March 10 coup had closed all avenues to a reformist
way...” (Torres and Arone,
p. 59)
If armed
struggle can mobilize the masses and produce the overthrow of the ruling power,
then it is the duty of the Marxist-Leninist to become, with whatever
organizations, methods, and slogans necessary, the harbinger of such a
struggle. We should learn from experience. We have to ask ourselves why the
communist parties of the
Today the
peril exists that through inactivity the Marxist-Leninists will surrender the
leadership of the people’s anti-imperialist struggle into the hands of the
petit-bourgeoisie. The communist movement, if it is to assume the leadership of
the anti-imperialist struggle of the people, if it is to transform itself into
the real vanguard of the masses, must dare, must give both in theory and
practice, a concrete answer to the question of how to replace the imperialistic
ruling power and transfer power to the exploited. If the vanguard role of the
Marxist-Leninist in this protracted armed struggle falls to secure the
revolutionary proletarian leadership in this struggle, nothing else can.
The
Now we
should conclude:
The
experiences of the peoples of
Before
anything else, one should note the fundamental point that the armed struggle in
Thus this
fundamental principle is obtained: all revolutionary groups that have
recognized their revolutionary tasks must, by their military work, strike blows
against the enemy, disperse the forces of the enemy, expose the enemy, and
educate the masses in any way they can. The method each group adopts to this
end is determined with respect to a series of technical and tactical facts. For
instance, a group settled in
If we wish
to conclude, we can propose the following general line for the revolutionary
groups of