p In their absolutisation of violence, the ideologists of the radical Left associate revolutionary methods for the transformation of society above all with "revolutionary war", that 184 takes the form of guerilla war. "Revolutionary war" is presented as the supreme form of the class struggle, the most uncompromising manifestation of the revolutionary spirit, and as the most effective (in modern conditions) form of struggle against imperialism, as the law of revolution.

p In his book Revolution in the Revolution? Regis Debray declares that any line or party which does not place its main stake on armed struggle is “non-revolutionary”. "In Latin America today a political line which, in terms of its consequences, is not susceptible to expression as a precise and consistent military line, cannot be considered revolutionary. Any line that claims to be revolutionary must give a concrete answer to the question. How to overthrow the power of the capitalist state?... The Cuban Revolution offers an answer to fraternal Latin American countries which has still to be studied in its historical details: by means of the more or less slow building up, through guerilla warfare carried out in suitably chosen rural zones, of a mobile strategic force, nucleus of a people’s army and of a future socialist state.”  [184•* 

p This appeal of Debray’s calling for the elevation of guerilla war to a law of revolutionary struggle met with enthusiastic support from the leaders of the European New Left (Rudi Dutschke and others) who called for the unleashing of guerilla warfare in the “jungles” of the cities.

p Marxists are a long way from seeing the radical supporters of revolutionary wars as enemies of peace (a mistake made by certain bourgeois liberals) or from explaining their appeal for armed violence as no more than youthful romanticism. In fact it may well be that the majority of the New Left is sincerely opposed to war as such. The New Left is far more interested in the socio-psychological and political aspects of armed struggle which it sees as the only catalyst of mass revolutionary consciousness and action, a factor promoting the mobilisation of the mass will, and a critical situation in which mass initiative is bound spontaneously to manifest itself. With reference to the American New Left Marcuse wrote: "This opposition to the system as such was set off first by the civil rights movement and then by the war in 185 Vietnam... . For these students the war revealed for the first time the essence of the established society... its innate need of expansion and aggression and the brutality of its fight against all liberation movements ... success of the Vietnamese liberation struggle could give the signal for the activation of such liberation movements in other parts of the world much closer to the metropolis.... If in this sense Vietnam is in no way just one more event of foreign policy but rather connected with the essence of the system, it is perhaps also a turning point in the development of the system, perhaps the beginning of the end.”  [185•* 

p In the minds of the radical Left of today the Vietnam war, if taken as a model and repeated many times over elsewhere, could provide a turning point in history, and herald the downfall of imperialism. This interpretation represented a whole conception of the development of the world revolutionary process today the essence of which consists in making war the motive force of world history.

p This conception is basically not a new one. Many decades ago it was actively propagated by the Trotskyites and in recent years (although with certain modifications) it has become an essential part of the Maoist ideological arsenal.

p Socio-historical experience, conditions in which attitudes have taken shape and the specific features of the socialisation of non-proletarian strata drawn into the revolutionary process by the march of history are now reflected in a specific way in the minds of the young militants, who are short of experience in political struggle and at the same time have as yet only scant knowledge of the history of the world revolutionary movement. This accounts for the fact that victory over the forces of aggression, anti-humanism and violence was consistently associated in their minds with guerilla warfare. Another factor of considerable importance in this connection is that the outlook of the rank and file of the radical Left in the sixties was shaped against a background of an insufficiently serious attitude towards a social phenomenon such as war. This attitude is connected with the fact that the overwhelming majority of the New Left rank and file has had no first hand experience of war or its social 186 consequences. The rank and file have not experienced fear in face of war which exerted an appreciable influence on, for example, the attitudes of those who have.

p This “light-heartedness” on the one hand frees consciousness of certain inhibitions, while on the other it leads to underestimation or belittling of the danger of a new world war, to "playing with fire”.

p This development is reflected in the criticism energetically levelled at peaceful coexistence between states with different social systems by “Left” revisionists and the ideologists of the radical Left.

p For them peaceful coexistence is the main factor undermining revolutionary consciousness and holding back social progress. Marcuse maintains that "... precisely this coexistence explains to a large extent the distortion of socialism in relation to its original idea and also the fundamental transformation of capitalism”.  [186•*  In the opinion of the theoreticians of the radical Left, coexistence serves to consolidate capitalism, and to “defer” or "hold back" socialism in the developed capitalist countries. In his Essay on Liberation Marcuse writes: "In important aspects this coexistence has contributed to the stabilization of capitalism: ’world communism’ has been the Enemy who would have to be invented if he did not exist—the Enemy whose strength justified the ’defense economy’ and the mobilization of the people in the national interest. Moreover, as the common Enemy of all capitalism, communism promoted the organization of a common interest superseding the intercapitalist differences and conflicts.”  [186•**  This approach to the question disorientates the New Left, fostering in its members’ minds the illusory idea that the revolutionary spirit is incompatible with support for the policy of peaceful coexistence, which supposedly cools revolutionary ardour and promotes the stabilisation of capitalism.

p Communists, as is well known, have stated quite clearly their stand on this issue, their views on the question of the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems, pointing out that peaceful coexistence is not simply a form 187 of competition between two world systems, it is a form of struggle between two antagonistic classes on a world scale— a struggle in which capitalism is subject to two pressures: external pressure from the world socialist system and internal pressure from the working class and other anti-capitalist forces. For this reason capitalism is obliged to make concessions which within the very fabric of capitalist society further the formation of the material prerequisites for the transition to socialism, prerequisites which at the period of the assumption of power by the working people will render the construction of a new society considerably easier.

p For capitalism peaceful coexistence represents a new form of competition in which it is not merely profit percentages that are at stake, but the very existence of the capitalist system. Endeavouring to hold its own in the struggle against world socialism, capitalism cannot but try as far as possible to concentrate its internal forces to bring under effective control internal competition if not clamp down on it. This explains the intensification of state intervention in the market economy and the attempt to establish state regulation of market mechanisms. Such undertakings are aimed directly at supporting capitalism, yet at the same time they represent a further step towards preparing conditions for socialist revolution that opens the path for socialist change once political power has been taken over by the proletariat and its allies.

p Finally, it is precisely peaceful coexistence that helps world socialism consolidate its position, and provides conditions favouring effective struggle waged by the peoples defending the cause of freedom against the imperialists. The radical Left had good reason to be inspired by the heroism of Vietnamese patriots. However, they regarded Vietnam as a localised phenomenon, linking the successes of its people to the mobilisation of mass determination and on these grounds concluding that it was possible in modern conditions to overcome the material strength of the imperialists relying on revolutionary resolve. They failed to realise that the effectiveness of the struggle waged by the people of Indochina against the American aggressor (just as the survival of revolutionary Cuba) was the result of a combination of the resolution of peoples under arms and the material force embodied both in the military and economic power of the Soviet Union 188 and the other socialist countries, and in the very fact of the existence of world socialism that serves to contain the ambitions of the aggressor.

p The above considerations in no way imply that Marxists, as opposed to the radical Left reject revolutionary wars in principle, demanding that they should be subordinated to the goal of peaceful coexistence. On the contrary, it is precisely Marxists who have always been the most persevering and consistent supporters and defenders of peoples who have taken up arms against national and social oppression. This stand was again reiterated at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties held in Moscow in 1969. "The policy of peaceful coexistence does not contradict the right of any oppressed people to fight for its liberation by any means it considers necessary—armed or peaceful. This policy in no way signifies support for reactionary regimes.

p “It is equally indisputable that every people has the inalienable right to take up arms in defence against encroachments by imperialist aggressors and to avail itself of the help of other peoples in its just cause. This is an integral part of the general anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples.”  [188•* 

p Yet while supporting those peoples engaged in armed struggle for their liberation Marxists come out against the absolutisation of armed violence, against advocacy of revolutionary war without reference to concrete, historical conditions. Revolutionary war has never been an absolute or exclusive method for the achievement of power by the working people. It possesses historical significance and true revolutionary relevance only when it emerges as inevitable or necessary.

p With reference to the experience of the international and Russian revolutionary movement Lenin introduced the conception of inevitable or necessary violence. "Under certain circumstances violence is both necessary and useful, but there are circumstances under which violence cannot produce results." Lenin goes on to note, "There have been cases, however, of not everyone appreciating this difference, so that it must be discussed.”  [188•** 

p Armed violence is necessary and useful when not only the masses are determined to take up the struggle (precisely the masses, not just individuals!) but when there also exist specific objective conditions making it possible for mass resolution to assume material form in revolutionary victory.  [189•*  The specific nature of these conditions that render violence necessary depend, of course, on the character of the country and region in question, on the conditions of the times, and therefore the solution of these questions cannot be provided a priori.

p However the radical Left ignores these conditions since, taking for granted that they have already matured and can therefore for his present purpuses be overlooked or assuming, with no preliminary sociological analysis, that these very conditions can be created in the process of the manifestation of collective resolution to engage in armed struggle. This is the stand adopted for instance by Regis Debray who maintains that throughout Latin America the question of revolution can only be solved by guerilla warfare which needs to engulf the whole continent and which will triumph if the will for struggle asserts itself.

p This was a subjectivist conclusion that can be traced to the existentialist interpretation of freedom which invites irresponsible political ventures. It was in precisely this light that Debray’s stand was evaluated by the communists of the Latin American countries. The Mexican Marxist Gerardo Unzueta wrote: "From the point of view of Regis Debray actual objective conditions do not—or at least not in Latin America—play any part in the movement towards the achievement of revolution: in his opinion the main stimulus for revolutionary action is revolutionary determination. We would not be mistaken in totally identifying Debray’s method •with that of Jean Paul Sartre both in relation to the demand that the past be ’dropped from the game’,  [189•**  and also in 190 relation to the plans of the concrete individual. If this conception is taken as the programme for some large organisation, then the method of action employed by that organisation will be voluntarism, and its distinctive characteristic irresponsibility, for, in the opinion of the authors of this conception, each man makes of history what he thinks fit and each social group moves forward without paying any attention to the past.”  [190•* 

p As the experience of a number of communist parties has shown, armed methods of struggle can be used on a limited scale in specific conditions even in the absence of an immediately revolutionary situation, provided, as the communists, after analysing experience of these situations, point out, such methods are born of mass activity and are implemented in accordance with the overall programme of a mass movement. Exceedingly important are efforts directed towards organising the working class, guiding it and educating it in a revolutionary spirit, because at such a period it is necessary to wage a struggle against both right-wing reformism and leftism.

p Engaging in armed struggle when the masses are not filled with revolutionary fervour can degenerate into tactics of petty provocation that can only complicate the preparation for revolution and consolidation of the masses. In any case attempts made by left-extremist groups in West Germany, Italy and France to implement in practice the slogan plugged by Rudi Dutschke, calling for guerilla war in the jungles of the cities, resulted in reckless political adventures which did not bring revolution a single step nearer.

p This point brings us to yet another fundamental difference between the Marxists and the radical Left. The radicals, as noted earlier, approach the masses with elitist condescension assuming that they can foist upon them methods and forms of struggle "from above", without taking into account one jot whether the masses are ready for such struggle or not. This all too familiar and highly risky method of "making the people happy" was sharply criticised by Lenin in the past. In such situations efforts to instigate violence against the oppressor end up with violence being perpetrated 191 against the people itself. Violence pure and simple does not as a rule achieve desired results. The “call” to violence is responded to only by isolated individuals of Utopian sympathies and reckless adventurers, who, when all is said and done, do not have popular support and who have no path open to them other than Blanquist tactics of conspiracy and palace revolutions.

p The fundamental difference between the Marxists and the radical Left also comes to the fore in their approach to the question of the correlation between theory and practice.

p The radicals’ plans for violent "reshaping of social material" bear an unmistakable stamp of irrationalism which is reflected in their disregard for the revolutionary experience of other peoples and generations embodied in revolutionary theory (what Regis Debray refers to as "freeing the present from the past"), in divorcing practice from theory and emphasising impulsive action “cleansed” from careful thought. "Act first—think afterwards" is essentially the creed of the radical ideologists to be found in Debray’s writings and also those of Sartre (viz. his advice to the students!). Revolutionary theory is dismissed by the advocates of revolt as a brake on “spontaneous” action, an obstacle on the path to “ nonreflective”, volitional acts.  [191•*  Theory born of experience amassed by previous generations of revolutionaries is regarded as dogma, as burden of the past from which the present should shake itself free.

Given this approach to revolutionary action, practice becomes quite “blind” and assumes the role of an elemental force within the movement, turning the social movement that is violence-orientated into revolt, as a clean break with the past that is not based on any clearly formulated programme and is therefore always fraught with dangerous consequences for the revolutionary cause.