this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2026
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Someone told me today that acts of terror achieve nothing. I had to remind him that the whole reason we were having this conversation was because of a country that was built on acts of terror.

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[–] thefunkycomitatus@hexbear.net 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Look, you're the one playing devil's advocate for something that is clearly wrong. If people who are angry don't know the difference between adventurism and an organized militant vanguard, then that's a good reason why they shouldn't be directing people towards action. A person on the other side of this argument was saying we should set wildfires and induce factory accidents (in a nation famous for caring about workers' injuries) as direct action. That's the exact kind of silly shit defending adventurism gets you.

I don't even think you or OP understand the word. I think you all are under the impression that adventurism is just a funny word for doing cool stuff like shooting CEOs and becoming a meme. You should want to label yourself an adventurist as much as you want to label yourself a liberal or reactionary. Imagine someone making a thread "Reactionary time" and then arguing that nothing can be done but being a reactionary. That's why I'm arguing with you. It's that ridiculous.

This isn't about anger being valid or not. Of course people should be angry. Purposefully using that anger to meme adventurism or drive people towards opportunists is shitty.

[–] OrionsMask@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I am not playing "devil's advocate" - if you can't take what I'm saying in good faith, don't engage with me. I don't need to be spoken to condescendingly. What your post boils down to is the semantics of adventurism and once again, you people fail to understand people who feel the need to strike out and try to make a change (which is what we're talking about, regardless of which word you feel like using).

If people who are angry don't know the difference between adventurism and an organized militant vanguard...

https://hexbear.net/post/7235453

Here's a thread you might benefit from reading.

[–] thefunkycomitatus@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Devil's advocate is a perfectly applicable term for what you're doing. You're saying you're not an adventurist but that you understand them and see where they're coming from, then argue with people who disregard adventurism as a valid tactic. What else should I call it?

Here's some actual theory you might benefit from reading:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/jun/09.htm

"When Marxists say that certain groups, are adventurist, they have in mind the very definite and specific social and historical features of a phenomenon, one that every class-conscious worker should be familiar with."

The history of Russian Social-Democracy teems with tiny groups, which sprang up for an hour, for several months, with no roots whatever among the masses (and politics without the masses are adventurist politics), and with no serious and stable principles. In a petty-bourgeois country, which is passing through a historical period of bourgeois reconstruction, it is inevitable that a motley assortment of intellectuals should join the workers, and that these intellectuals should attempt to form all kinds of groups, adventurist in character in the sense referred to above.

"Workers who do not wish to be fooled should subject every group to the closest scrutiny and ascertain how serious its principles are, and what roots it has in the masses. Put no faith in words; subject everything to the closest scrutiny—such is the motto of the Marxist workers."

The term has a real historical meaning. This is like calling the distinction between communists and dem socs petty semantics. Lenin goes on to speak about the historical context. I encourage you to read it.

you people fail to understand people who feel the need to strike out and try to make a change

I'm a communist so, no, I don't fail to understand the need to strike out and make a change. It's why I'm a communist. Adventurism is not synonymous with communism. The thread you posted has nothing to do with what I'm saying. You saw the word "organized" in my post and assumed I'm being vague. Nope, I have posted specific texts explaining what I'm talking about. Just because you refuse to read them doesn't mean I'm being vague or evasive.

I'll post from this once again as it precisely explains this whole thread and attitude.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1902/sep/01.htm

There is no need, of course, to engage in a serious analysis of this theory of deviation from socialism (in the event of disputes proper). In our opinion, the crisis of socialism makes it incumbent upon any in the least serious socialists to devote redoubled attention to theory—to adopt more resolutely a strictly definite stand, to draw a sharper line of demarcation between themselves and wavering and unreliable elements. In the opinion of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, however, if such things as confusion and splits are possible “even among Germans,” then it is God’s will that we, Russians, should pride ourselves on our ignorance of whither we are drifting. In our opinion, the absence of theory deprives a revolutionary trend of the right to existence and inevitably condemns it, sooner or later, to political bankruptcy. In the opinion of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, however, the absence of theory is a most excellent thing, most favourable “for unity.”

If your goal is to reach and bring people who feel the "need to strike out and make a change" into the fold, then dropping theoretical rigor won't help you do that. It makes you weaker as a revolutionary. Even though Lenin is talking about a split between adventurists and communists, this applies to any crises. Revisit theory, use it to sharpen your analysis and place a nice thick divide between you and the elements that aren't dependable. In our case it's adventurism.

In their defence of terrorism, which the experience of the Russian revolutionary movement has so clearly proved to be ineffective, the Socialist-Revolutionaries are talking themselves blue in the face in asseverating that they recognise terrorism only in conjunction with work among the masses, and that therefore the arguments used by the Russian Social-Democrats to refute the efficacy of this method of struggle (and which have indeed been refuted for a long time to come) do not apply to them. Here something very similar to their attitude towards “criticism” is repeating itself. We are not opportunists, cry the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and at the same time they are shelving the dogma of proletarian socialism, for reason of sheer opportunist criticism and no other. We are not repeating the terrorists’ mistakes and are not diverting attention from work among the masses, the Socialist-Revolutionaries assure us, and at the same time enthusiastically recommend to the Party acts such as Balmashov’s assassination of Sipyagin, although everyone knows and sees perfectly well that this act was in no way connected with the masses and, moreover, could not have been by reason of the very way in which it was carried out—that the persons who committed this terrorist act neither counted on nor hoped for any definite action or support on the part of the masses.

We are going through something similar. Adventurists claiming that they are working as communists do, and in conjunction with mass organization. Meanwhile they want to disregard the dogma of communism as being too stuffy, too rigorous, too theoretical. They view adventurism as the more practical approach, which is exactly what people here are entertaining. This is not because the people here are bad or evil, they just lack understanding and rigor. That's why I'm posting these works from Lenin. Let's revisit the theory and reestablish our understanding of adventurism and why it doesn't work. Let's not disregard theory in favor of focusing on anger as if communists are not angry or focusing on pragmatic change as if communist are not pragmatic.

Lenin points to how the adventurists use an example of an assassination to prove they're helping the working class. But it's specious upon investigation and act itself was carried out in a way that could never be considered as working with the masses. This is people who bring up Luigi as proof that adventurism works.

In their naïveté, the Socialist-Revolutionaries do not realise that their predilection for terrorism is causally most intimately linked with the fact that, from the very outset, they have always kept, and still keep, aloof from the working-class movement, without even attempting to become a party of the revolutionary class which is waging its class struggle. Over-ardent protestations very often lead one to doubt and suspect the worth of whatever it is that requires such strong seasoning. Do not these protestations weary them?—I often think of these words, when I read assurances by the Socialist-Revolutionaries: “by terrorism we are not relegating work among the masses into the background."After all, these assurances come from the very people who have already drifted away from the Social-Democratic labour movement, which really rouses the masses; they come from people who are continuing to drift away from this movement, clutching at fragments of any kind of theory.

Adventurists claim they are not sidelining the main work of communism yet they stray further and further away from the cause. Why does this happen? Once again, they lack rigor and are ready to disregard theory in favor of their supposed pragmatic work. You can again see flavors of this in praise of Luigi. Disregard that Luigi himself has no communist principles and that he acted completely alone and isolated from other victims of the healthcare industry let alone its workers or workers of any kind. Don't focus on that. Just focus on the headlines that came after, use vibes to show that it changed something. No rigor, no investigation, no critical support. This becomes the norm among adventurists and they become decoupled from communism. Only a movement grounded in rigor and discipline can push the needle.

Just listen to what follows: “Every terrorist blow, as it were, takes away part of the strength of the autocracy and transfers [!] all this strength [!] to the side of the fighters for freedom.” “And if terrorism is practised systematically [!], it is obvious that the scales of the balance will finally weigh down on our side.” Yes, indeed, it is obvious to all that we have here in its grossest form one of the greatest prejudices of the terrorists: political assassination of itself “transfers strength”! Thus, on the one hand you have the theory of the transference of strength, and on the other— “not in place of, but together with”.... Do not these protestations weary them?

This is in reply to pamphlet from an adventurist party. He's quoting what is printed. The party is advocating for more assassinations. Lenin notes a problem with their logic. They claim to be working in tandem with, not in place of, mass organization by communists. Yet they then describe their assassinations as the means by which power is transferred. This means that they don't actually believe in communism. They don't view change as something of the masses or democratic. This is why words have meaning. Communism is something specific, that describes a science or revolution. The science relies on certain ideas from which all others follow. If you fundamentally contradict or disagree with those ideas, then you're not talking about communism. The adventurist, unwittingly or otherwise, do not take the fundamentals of communism to be true. They don't see a value to mass organization because one person with a gun can just as easily, if not more easily, affect change. All the social engagement stuff goes out the window.

[–] thefunkycomitatus@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago

But this is just the beginning. The real thing is yet to come. “Whom are we to strike down?” asks the party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and replies: the ministers, and not the tsar, for “the tsar will not allow matters to go to extremes” (!! How did they find that out??), and besides “it is also easier” (this is literally what they say!): “No minister can ensconce himself in a palace as in a fortress.” And this argument concludes with the following piece of reasoning, which deserves to be immortalised as a model of the “theory” of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. “Against the crowd the autocracy has its soldiers; against the revolutionary organisations its secret and uniformed police; but what will save it...” (what kind of “it” is this? The autocracy? The author has unwittingly identified the autocracy with a target in the person of a minister whom it is easier to strike down!) "... from individuals or small groups that are ceaselessly, and even in ignorance of one another [!!], preparing for attack, and are attacking? No force will be of avail against elusiveness. Hence, our task is clear: to remove every one of the autocracy’s brutal oppressors by the only means that has been left [!] us by the autocracy–death."

Here Lenin discovers more problems in the fundamental logic of adventurists. The argument is that small groups or individuals are better suited to take down the autocracy since it has soldiers to defend it from crowds and secret police to defend it from revolutionary orgs. So they're picking targets out of convenience rather than actual importance to the autocracy. Meaning it's a weaker strategy if you're attacking power. This is in contrast to communism which goes after the entire autocracy and systematically smashes it into pieces. It also wrongly identifies the individual parts of autocracy as the autocracy itself.

You can use Luigi as an example once again. Going after one CEO of one company (which has several other CEOs) because that happened to be the guy who takes morning walks with no security. Not because Brian Thompson was uniquely powerful or important to the healthcare industry.

No matter how many reams of paper the Socialist-Revolutionaries may fill with assurances that they are not relegating work among the masses into the background or disorganising it by their advocacy of terrorism—their spate of words cannot disprove the fact that the actual psychology of the modern terrorist is faithfully conveyed in the leaflet we have quoted. The theory of the transference of strength finds its natural complement in the theory of elusiveness, a theory which turns upside down, not only all past experience, but all common sense as well. That the only “hope” of the revolution is the “crowd”; that only a revolutionary organisation which leads this crowd (in deed and not in word) can fight against the police—all this is ABC. It is shameful to have to prove this. And only people who have forgotten everything and learned absolutely nothing could have decided “the other way about,” arriving at the fabulous, howling stupidity that the autocracy can be “saved” from the crowd by soldiers, and from the revolutionary organisations by the police, but that there is no salvation from individuals who hunt down ministers!!

Lenin here further dismantles the adventurists. Their actions and way of communicating their ideas reveal their true thoughts of revolution. The idea of power transference through terrorism is elusive and disregards all past experience and common sense. They fundamentally do not understand the role of people in revolution or how it works. That's why they think crowds and organizations can't harm the autocracy but disorganized individuals can.

This fabulous argument, which we are convinced is destined to become notorious, is by no means simply a curiosity. No, it is instructive because, through a sweeping reduction to an absurdity, it reveals the principal mistake of the terrorists, which they share with the “economists” (perhaps one might already say, with the former representatives of deceased “economism”?). This mistake, as we have already pointed out on numerous occasions, consists in the failure to understand the basic defect of our movement. Because of the extremely rapid growth of the movement, the leaders lagged behind the masses, the revolutionary organisations did not come up to the level of the revolutionary activity of the proletariat, were incapable of marching on in front and leading the masses. That a discrepancy of this sort exists cannot be doubted by any conscientious person who has even the slightest acquaintance with the movement. And if that is so, it is evident that the present-day terrorists are really “economists” turned inside out, going to the equally foolish but opposite extreme. At a time when the revolutionaries are short of the forces and means to lead the masses, who are already rising, an appeal to resort to such terrorist acts as the organisation of attempts on the lives of ministers by individuals and groups that are not known to one another means, not only thereby breaking off work among the masses, but also introducing downright disorganisation into that work.

The adventurists criticize communists for something they don't understand. Lenin and the communists understand the problem which he describes as the movement growing so quickly that leaders couldn't keep up with the expansion, and therefore lead the proletariat properly. Adventurists act as opportunists during such a time of strain on the movement, and lead it off course by encouraging unvetted rando groups to carry out assassinations. This screws up the work of communists.

It goes on but the point is not vague or elusive. I'm not pointing at some ill defined idea that adenturism doesn't work and giving unclear instruction. I'm saying that in times like this, when you're feeling angry and humiliated, when the reactionary forces seem to be winning, when you feel lost in the face of witnessing atrocity, return to theory. Steady yourself. Bolster your commitment and focus. If you find people who are lost, scared, angry, lead them to the same rigor and understanding. Do not disregard the principles of communism or theoretical rigor out of hopelessness. Do not suddenly become more lax and let in all sorts of reactionary ideas.