Doesn't matter, same consequences. Germany is cracking down on the left and this will be another figleaf. A few cables got damaged, great. You can stroke yourself to small scale eco-terrorism, it leads nowhere, in this case as in others.
Way back with the Bolshevik party they knew individualist terrorism like this is in practical terms worthless, bomb a tsar a new one is born, bomb a factory they build it back up with insurance money and all the while the working class feels less unity with you because they are not radicalized yet and this just scares those who dont just ignore it.
Propaganda of the deed has never worked, I get that people may think "Oh this is cool though" but violence for its own sake or for the coolness of it is not revolutionary. If it doesnt serve a material effect, which in practical terms small scale terrorist actions like these don't, then it must serve as a message, but who receives the message?
The Bourgeoise already know that their actions will cause shit like this, they are not gonna grow particularly more afraid and cautious as a class because of this because there has always been small scale terrorism against them to one degree or another.
The message the proletariat receives is not "We are on your side, we are fighting for you", because the proletariat at large does not yet fight for this or have a conscious desire to fight for this, whatever long piece of theory you associate with your deed will be tainted by the fact that you are doing( to the eyes of the proletariat) random acts of violence for what seems to be your own individual desires. You cant go back afterwards and try to describe to the people why you are doing these acts of violence, the people first have to wish to do all this themselves and be ready to rise up, otherwise you're just some lunatics who set fire to a factory cause you were mad at Elon Musk.
Tbh I would in fact classify individualist terrorism like this or like the RAF or any such group as an ultimately reactionary response to failure or delays in the building and sustaining of a movement, I am personally experienced with the extreme frustrations of how weak the left is in the west and the equally extreme desire to just "do something, make a statement", but indulging in revolutionary daydreams of eating the bourgeoise and tearing down their system has never to my knowledge helped aid the left in any meaningful way, and has several times hurt it in the backlash.
This is pretty much the only tactic I can say I instantly will denounce from any leftist movement, others I will try to look at the viewpoint of the people performing the tactics and strategies but just violence for the message of violence is a tactic that has been dead for over a century and is to a large extent self indulgent.
Edit: Also wanna note that the closest the Bolsheviks came to doing similar acts to the propaganda of the deed people, which is robbing banks and cash transports for funding, they tried their hardest to keep a secret cause it would not only cause friction in their party itself, but waving around guns and grenades was very obviously understood to not be the look they wanted to represent them.
The strain of neo-luddism that ran through their statement also rubbed me the wrong way. I understand that green capitalism is still capitalism, but do they expect people in the imperial core to just willingly give up the benefits of industrialization and post-industrial technologies?
You have to make a case for why things like public transport and degrowth are actually materially good for people (or at least offer a palatable alternative), not just say "hey guys let's go back to living in wattle-and-daub hamlets because it's The Right Thing To Do."
Some of the language definitely read as really weird, in particular the line about "the unbroken belief and adherence of all previous market-dominated forms of society to technological progress", I typically try to avoid commenting on eco-ideology groups cause I usually subconsciously lump them all together as anprims but I am generally sceptical of any leftist ideology that decides to specifically put eco front and center in their name, it just has a tendency to signal weird and impractical ideas about technological progress at best, and at worst end up leading into social darwinism for chronically ill people and others who fundamentally rely on modern technology.
Word. While I do think anprims have a handful of good critiques of the "civilized" imperial core, the thing that always goes unsaid in all of their theory is the fact that scores of people, mostly disabled and elderly, would have to die pretty horrible deaths for their vision of society to come true.
To continue my Devil’s advocacy, your further comments lead me to question whether you are not being arrogant in thinking that you have THE exact perfect analysis (aka party line) that will allow you to know exactly when and how to act that will work perfectly to bring about successful communism. No matter how and when you act/don’t act, there will be critics who say “now is not the right time” or “that was not the right action/tactic/strategy to engage in.” Those critiques apply to organizing unions, strikes, protests, sabotage, assassination, or any other way people try to change things.
To continue your line of thinking about keeping things that are unpopular quiet (like the Bolsheviks robbing banks), every thing communists do is pretty unpopular in the countries benefiting the most from global capitalism, from unions to protests to radical education etc. All of those things are not what I would call universally popular.
And In fact communist groups have a terrible history of labeling every single thing that is not their plan as reactionary. And the Bolsheviks were able to claim that they were right about those they labeled reactionary because their strategy worked- for a while. Yet now that there system has fallen, they are susceptible to the same epithet.
None of us know what, if anything, will work (although we may know what won’t work) until it works. The bolsheviks did not know that what they did would work, and perhaps had they done some things differently, the USSR would not have weakened to the point of being able to be destroyed by the 1990s.
I get those arguments but I can see those exact same arguments being made against any revolutionary activity by reformists and social democrats.
And can even be used by revolutionaries looking for an excuse not to act against any action, from trying to organize a union to deciding to go on strike. “Oh the people don’t support this yet” etc etc.
How does any action that doesn’t lead to immediate and permanent total revolutionary communist liberation of the Entire world proletariat escape the critique you made?
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I generally agree with you but I am playing Devil’s advocate a bit in order to better understand my own inclination to agree with you.
I'm not like super educated on this but I'd say the big difference between this and something like organizing a strike or other similar actions is that with those actions you are approaching the working class directly and trying to educate and radicalize on a personal level, bringing in the participation of other workers rather than performing actions entirely separate from the working class, publishing a manifesto and relying on them disregarding gut feelings about violence/destruction to approach your manifesto on a good faith level and get radicalized from that.
Its definitely not a straight divide between self indulgent radicalism and using radical actions in the workplace to organize workers though, most cases need to be looked at a little closer and analysed. Tbh this case in particular I think suffers from not being destructive enough, if we are gonna look at the effects of it. Damaging a few power cables and publishing a manifesto will probably radiate more an aesthetic of young misguided rebels than a serious political action.
I agree, though i think you are assuming a lot by thinking the purpose of this action was to radicalize anyone through the manifesto. In fact i highly doubt that is the intention.
The strict Marxist idea would be that material conditions determine people’s revolutionary or reactionary nature, not radical education, nor some manifesto about an act of sabotage.
I don’t think radical education really works much at all to be honest. Material and social conditions radicalize people who have no Marxist education, and many bougie PMC losers can quote Marx to you all day long but would never actually try to change anything or engage in a revolution of the opportunity presented itself because if the class privilege they don’t want to lose.
The people who did this action were likely radicalized due to their lived conditions, and their manifesto is likely an attempt to reach out to others who have been similarly radicalized and tell them they are not alone. For many people, the time to act is now because they cannot stand to live in this world anymore without resisting capitalism. Regardless of whether you think you have the correct strategy of how, when, and what to do to create a successful communist revolution, until that plan starts to gain momentum and become a concrete hope for the hopeless, they will continue to act because the alternative to acting for them is likely suicide/heroin/alcoholism/etc.
there are millions of the oppressed who have always died waiting, and some who refuse to wait. Those people existed in pre-soviet Russia as well, and their un-strategic actions did not ultimately doom the revolution, and since the actions happened and the revolution happened, you could infer that they contributed somehow to that society taking that path.
I can’t fault those who act for acting even if it does not seem like it will be strategically helpful, because there is no powerful communist movement to give anyone any hope anyway. So you/we can think that we have all the perfect strategy and plan to get from here to communism, but until we can show people it can be implemented, i can’t blame people for not trusting that we know the correct path from here to communism. And to think that we do and condemn others who don’t listen to us is highly arrogant i think.
Doesn't matter, same consequences. Germany is cracking down on the left and this will be another figleaf. A few cables got damaged, great. You can stroke yourself to small scale eco-terrorism, it leads nowhere, in this case as in others.
Way back with the Bolshevik party they knew individualist terrorism like this is in practical terms worthless, bomb a tsar a new one is born, bomb a factory they build it back up with insurance money and all the while the working class feels less unity with you because they are not radicalized yet and this just scares those who dont just ignore it.
Propaganda of the deed has never worked, I get that people may think "Oh this is cool though" but violence for its own sake or for the coolness of it is not revolutionary. If it doesnt serve a material effect, which in practical terms small scale terrorist actions like these don't, then it must serve as a message, but who receives the message?
The Bourgeoise already know that their actions will cause shit like this, they are not gonna grow particularly more afraid and cautious as a class because of this because there has always been small scale terrorism against them to one degree or another.
The message the proletariat receives is not "We are on your side, we are fighting for you", because the proletariat at large does not yet fight for this or have a conscious desire to fight for this, whatever long piece of theory you associate with your deed will be tainted by the fact that you are doing( to the eyes of the proletariat) random acts of violence for what seems to be your own individual desires. You cant go back afterwards and try to describe to the people why you are doing these acts of violence, the people first have to wish to do all this themselves and be ready to rise up, otherwise you're just some lunatics who set fire to a factory cause you were mad at Elon Musk.
Tbh I would in fact classify individualist terrorism like this or like the RAF or any such group as an ultimately reactionary response to failure or delays in the building and sustaining of a movement, I am personally experienced with the extreme frustrations of how weak the left is in the west and the equally extreme desire to just "do something, make a statement", but indulging in revolutionary daydreams of eating the bourgeoise and tearing down their system has never to my knowledge helped aid the left in any meaningful way, and has several times hurt it in the backlash.
This is pretty much the only tactic I can say I instantly will denounce from any leftist movement, others I will try to look at the viewpoint of the people performing the tactics and strategies but just violence for the message of violence is a tactic that has been dead for over a century and is to a large extent self indulgent.
Edit: Also wanna note that the closest the Bolsheviks came to doing similar acts to the propaganda of the deed people, which is robbing banks and cash transports for funding, they tried their hardest to keep a secret cause it would not only cause friction in their party itself, but waving around guns and grenades was very obviously understood to not be the look they wanted to represent them.
Couldn't have put it better myself
The strain of neo-luddism that ran through their statement also rubbed me the wrong way. I understand that green capitalism is still capitalism, but do they expect people in the imperial core to just willingly give up the benefits of industrialization and post-industrial technologies?
You have to make a case for why things like public transport and degrowth are actually materially good for people (or at least offer a palatable alternative), not just say "hey guys let's go back to living in wattle-and-daub hamlets because it's The Right Thing To Do."
Some of the language definitely read as really weird, in particular the line about "the unbroken belief and adherence of all previous market-dominated forms of society to technological progress", I typically try to avoid commenting on eco-ideology groups cause I usually subconsciously lump them all together as anprims but I am generally sceptical of any leftist ideology that decides to specifically put eco front and center in their name, it just has a tendency to signal weird and impractical ideas about technological progress at best, and at worst end up leading into social darwinism for chronically ill people and others who fundamentally rely on modern technology.
Word. While I do think anprims have a handful of good critiques of the "civilized" imperial core, the thing that always goes unsaid in all of their theory is the fact that scores of people, mostly disabled and elderly, would have to die pretty horrible deaths for their vision of society to come true.
deleted by creator
To continue my Devil’s advocacy, your further comments lead me to question whether you are not being arrogant in thinking that you have THE exact perfect analysis (aka party line) that will allow you to know exactly when and how to act that will work perfectly to bring about successful communism. No matter how and when you act/don’t act, there will be critics who say “now is not the right time” or “that was not the right action/tactic/strategy to engage in.” Those critiques apply to organizing unions, strikes, protests, sabotage, assassination, or any other way people try to change things.
To continue your line of thinking about keeping things that are unpopular quiet (like the Bolsheviks robbing banks), every thing communists do is pretty unpopular in the countries benefiting the most from global capitalism, from unions to protests to radical education etc. All of those things are not what I would call universally popular.
And In fact communist groups have a terrible history of labeling every single thing that is not their plan as reactionary. And the Bolsheviks were able to claim that they were right about those they labeled reactionary because their strategy worked- for a while. Yet now that there system has fallen, they are susceptible to the same epithet.
None of us know what, if anything, will work (although we may know what won’t work) until it works. The bolsheviks did not know that what they did would work, and perhaps had they done some things differently, the USSR would not have weakened to the point of being able to be destroyed by the 1990s.
I get those arguments but I can see those exact same arguments being made against any revolutionary activity by reformists and social democrats.
And can even be used by revolutionaries looking for an excuse not to act against any action, from trying to organize a union to deciding to go on strike. “Oh the people don’t support this yet” etc etc.
How does any action that doesn’t lead to immediate and permanent total revolutionary communist liberation of the Entire world proletariat escape the critique you made?
—————
I generally agree with you but I am playing Devil’s advocate a bit in order to better understand my own inclination to agree with you.
I'm not like super educated on this but I'd say the big difference between this and something like organizing a strike or other similar actions is that with those actions you are approaching the working class directly and trying to educate and radicalize on a personal level, bringing in the participation of other workers rather than performing actions entirely separate from the working class, publishing a manifesto and relying on them disregarding gut feelings about violence/destruction to approach your manifesto on a good faith level and get radicalized from that.
Its definitely not a straight divide between self indulgent radicalism and using radical actions in the workplace to organize workers though, most cases need to be looked at a little closer and analysed. Tbh this case in particular I think suffers from not being destructive enough, if we are gonna look at the effects of it. Damaging a few power cables and publishing a manifesto will probably radiate more an aesthetic of young misguided rebels than a serious political action.
I agree, though i think you are assuming a lot by thinking the purpose of this action was to radicalize anyone through the manifesto. In fact i highly doubt that is the intention.
The strict Marxist idea would be that material conditions determine people’s revolutionary or reactionary nature, not radical education, nor some manifesto about an act of sabotage.
I don’t think radical education really works much at all to be honest. Material and social conditions radicalize people who have no Marxist education, and many bougie PMC losers can quote Marx to you all day long but would never actually try to change anything or engage in a revolution of the opportunity presented itself because if the class privilege they don’t want to lose.
The people who did this action were likely radicalized due to their lived conditions, and their manifesto is likely an attempt to reach out to others who have been similarly radicalized and tell them they are not alone. For many people, the time to act is now because they cannot stand to live in this world anymore without resisting capitalism. Regardless of whether you think you have the correct strategy of how, when, and what to do to create a successful communist revolution, until that plan starts to gain momentum and become a concrete hope for the hopeless, they will continue to act because the alternative to acting for them is likely suicide/heroin/alcoholism/etc.
there are millions of the oppressed who have always died waiting, and some who refuse to wait. Those people existed in pre-soviet Russia as well, and their un-strategic actions did not ultimately doom the revolution, and since the actions happened and the revolution happened, you could infer that they contributed somehow to that society taking that path.
I can’t fault those who act for acting even if it does not seem like it will be strategically helpful, because there is no powerful communist movement to give anyone any hope anyway. So you/we can think that we have all the perfect strategy and plan to get from here to communism, but until we can show people it can be implemented, i can’t blame people for not trusting that we know the correct path from here to communism. And to think that we do and condemn others who don’t listen to us is highly arrogant i think.
Capitalists never need an excuse to crack down on the left. Blaming resistance for repression only serves to excuse the actions of the oppressor.