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Marxism and Terrorism

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... This collection of essays by one of the leading revolutionaries of the 20th century provides a much-needed critical perspective on terrorism. Not from a moralizing point of view, but to show that by relying on individual heroic acts of violence like assassinations of government leaders, terrorist tactics ignore and devalue the masses of people as the most important agent of their own liberation. Though his examples are drawn from Hapsburg Austria, Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany, when you read his words, you can easily see the relevance to liberation struggles taking place today from Palestine to Ireland to the Philippines. I especially like the way that Trotsky sympathizes with the hatred of the gross injustice that breeds terrorism, but at the same time explains that individual terrorist tactics are doomed to fail.

This collection of articles by Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky is an important contribution to the discussion on how to fight against an inhumane and brutal ruling order. It discusses the social roots of terrorism, and argues strongly that it is an obstacle to developing the organized leadership necessary for millions of toilers to take destiny in their own hands and transform society for the good of all humanity. Trotsky bases his observations on the long history of terror in Czarist Russia, and counterposes it to the successful mass revolutionary struggle led by the Bolsheviks that did topple the Czarist regime, established a workers and peasants government and overthrow capitalism.

This pamphlet also includes two articles from the 1930s. One explains why Trotsky and other revolutionary opponents of the Stalinist dictatorship that developed in the Soviet Union did not resort to terror. Another discusses Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish youth who assassinated a Nazi official in Paris in 1938. Trotsky identifies with the emotions that led to Grynzspans act and calls for workers protests to stop the French government from executing him. But he argues to all those capable of self-sacrifice in the struggle against despotism and bestiality: Seek another road! Not the lone revolutionary avenger but only a great revolutionary mass movement can free the oppressed.

Other valuable writings by Trotsky on this question include: How the Workers in Austria Should Fight Hitler, Individual Terror and Mass Terror, and A Revolutionary, not a Terrorist all from Writings of Leon Trotsky, 1935-36. See also, Their Morals and Ours and History of the Russian Revolution, by Trotsky, and The Changing Face of U.S. Politics, by Jack Barnes.

In this pamphlet Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky explains that the real sources of terror and violence in the world are the superrich and their governments : the market system and the police and military violence that back it up at home and overseas.When we go on strike or demonstrate for our rights,they [ will ] call the working people and youth "terrorists".Sound like the future? We will need to mobilize in our masses and eventually take action to defend ourselves including against fascist terror.Those who engage in frustrated acts of terror on behalf or workers and farmers or the oppressed anywhere ( NOT !) only give the capitalists an excuse to use more violence (e.g.WTC bombing->war in Mideast).To end all terror and violence requires a revolution to overthrow the system , he contends.Must reading in these days...
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Most people are concerned with finding eternal truths. Certainly preservation of the only form of intelligent life we know of is a noble aim, in other words the survival of our species. Yet something horrible happened in human history about six thousand years ago, and we became "a house divided against ourselves." And as long as society remains unjust, rebels who fight for freedom and equality will be defending ourselves against slanders of violence. Real revolutionaries abhor and denounce indiscriminant terrorism, because it is both immoral and counterproductive. September 11, 2001, was a classic case in point. Even though the choice of targets laid bare the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as monuments to ruthless avarice and violence, such acts do nothing whatsoever to unite or mobilize the exploited in their own liberation. But they DO however immediately mobilize the exploiters to deepen oppression and violence: Kabul was bombed that same night, and both Afghanistan and Iraq were devastated by wars, and the White House frantically scours for its next target. Trotsky denounced the grotesque hypocrisy of those who sermonize pacifism to the exploited while managing to not notice that the wealthy employ us to kill each other to protect their ownership of resources and manufacturing. Consider this book as a companion to Trotsky's pamphlet, Marxism and Terrorism, with a cogent explanation on why individual terrorism relegates workers to the role of spectators while opening their movement to provocation and victimization.

Title is misleading. Trotsky tries to point out how the state reacts to individual terrorism (political assasinations). His condemnation of terrorism by both the state and those who call themselves from the left is a wonderful reader.