this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2026
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No power was gained by the working classes. We are not a step further in gaining socialism. The reason there was no follow-up is because it was an adventurist, disorganized act, and organization is fundamental to revolutionary change.
Sure, but that doesn't detract from the act itself.
How does it not? A random assassination isn't revolutionary, nor does it advance the worker struggle. Organizing does, it positions us in a better place for revolution.
I am not denying that organization is what allows revolutionary actions to be successful. But they don't have to be part of organized action to be revolutionary actions. Likewise, the organization itself, though necessary is not revolutionary in itself.
Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary practice. Random assassinations aren't revolutionary. Organizing in a revolutionary party is revolutionary because it advances the revolutionary position.
If a revolutionary party starts a series of actions designed to topple the system and a person with no theory knowledge and unorganized carries out the same type of action, then it is not a revolutionary action?
How can one person carry out revolutionary action? One person cannot create a revolution.
Let's put an extreme example. There is a regime that is very top heavy. The assassination of that person will destroy the regime and change it by something else. That would be a revolutionary act, since it would topple a whole political system and replace it by something else. Now let's assume a single person carried it out.
This example is a fantasy, though, and isn't how society works. This is why theory is necessary, not just vibes.
Similar things have happened, although I don't know if any by a single person but it is not unthinkable that they might, so the hypothetical remains valid.
No they have not. The hypothetical is invalid because it doesn't accurately portray reality.
there have been several assassinations of heads of state by individual people and several assassinations that have led to regime changes, so it is valid.
No? There was a hell of a lot more going on. Random assassinations are not revolutionary.
When was? And why random?
We are discussing the assassination of a CEO, and you're moving the goalposts to any and all assassination.
Didn't move the goalposts. You posited that an assassination by an individual cannot be a revolutionary action and I disagree. That is a more general case than I started with.
His assassination still wasn't random, but very specific for his goals and could have sparked further movement as was clear by the absolute panic by private insurers in the aftermath.
I never said that assassination can never be revolutionary. Individual, disconnected action is adventurist, and has never delivered regime change like you posit. Luigi's assassination was not revolutionary either. The fact that none of what you said could happen did happen is because it wasn't actually a revolutionary action, and your understanding of revolution is flawed.
So, from your words and trying to summarize what you have been saying:
Do I have that correctly? Please tell me if I got any of those points wrong.
Revolutionary action is action that advances the revolutionary struggle. A random individual acting alone is not advancing the revololutionary struggle.
Even if it is the same action that a revolutionary committee would dictate?
And please define what you mean by revolutionary struggle. I don't want to make assumptions.
You are trying to make the argument that the group planning doesn't matter, the action does. I am telling you that assassination can only ever be revolutionary if it fits in the context of a revolutionary movement, and isn't just sporadic violence. Lenin went over this a century ago and it's still nearly the same.
I am not making that argument at all. I saying that until action has taken place that effects a reaction, everything until that point is not revolutionary action. I never said it doesn't matter, or that it isn't necessary, just that making your backpack for a hike is not hiking, as necessary as it might be.
The second part, which you keep dodging is that any action "fitting the context of a revolutionary movement" can be labeled revolutionary even if carried out by a person outside of a revolutionary organization.
This is why I tried, unsuccessfully, to get you to define your words.
But we have to return to the original context of this, which is that you declared that only Luigi was revolutionary, and that existing revolutionary organizations that are preparing the basis for successful revolution are not. Luigi assassinating a CEO did absolutely nothing. It gained no worker power, which exists only in the form of organizing. Organizing is the means by which the working class can wield its strength against the capitalist class. A random act of assassination, disconnected from revolutionary practice, does nothing to organize the working class or weaken the capitalist state.
You claim you've been unsuccessful in getting me to define my words, but I've been tremendously clear. You're constantly shifting the goalposts and trying to avoid the very critical point that you said organizing is not revolutionary and that random assassination is.
I have never shifted a goalpost in this conversation. In fact, my original point is made regardless of the example you are focusing on, which is that no revolutionary actions are happening right now and therefore OP's hate on an pretty undefined but huge set of people is completely hypocritical and counterproductive.
Now for the example I put. Luigi's action is not revolutionary in the context of a complete regime change, but it can be taken as such within the private healthcare context. Sitting on the front in a bus didn't change the US government, but it was revolutionary in the civil rights context. Now if you disagree that a revolutionary act can happen at all outside a complete regime change, that's another topic.
Do you believe that the PSL, as an example, is doing less for the revolutionary movement than Luigi?
Again, there are actions important for a revolutionary movement that are not revolutionary in themselves. To put a historical example: Lenin's activities in London were vital for the Russian Revolution, they were not revolutionary actions, since all he did was legal in the UK at the time. So the answer is a clear no, the PSL is not doing less for the revolutionary movement. But the PSL is not, by my knowledge carrying out revolutionary actions. Perhaps you can point me to a specific action you consider revolutionary.
I think you're more concerned with labels than what work advances revolution and what work does not, which is my point.
It's not that I am more concerned with it, it's that the whole point of the post is to deride people for choosing voting over the revolution. So my answer was that right now nobody is carrying out revolutionary acts. You seem to think that they are and therefore the point focuses on what such an act is. It is not that I don't see value in other actions, just that they don't fall in the category of the car in the picture going straight.
People are organizing for revolution right now. That's practical work, and is necessary. Voting does not do that. Neither does random assassination. Simple as that.
"That’s practical work, and is necessary" 100% agree. Now let's say a natural disaster wipes one of the organizations out. Would any of their current actions have moved the revolutionary movement further? Or would it have disappeared along with the group? If their actions have moved the revolutionary work movement forward even if they stop existing right now, please point me to a specific instance. That's all I'm saying.
I'm saying these hypotheticals do not have a point beyond a semantic one.
In that case the whole discussion from the beginning is semantic, so that's all what the discussion has been about.
I disagree, but I guess we aren't going to agree.
When did these 'similar things' happen?
Throughout history, magnicides by individuals have happened. The US alone has had a couple with some extra tries. On the other hand magnicides leading to a regime change are less common, but Trujillo's assasination is one example, even with the failed follow through.