The defensive is the death of every armed rising. . . . Surprise your antagonists while their forces are scattering, prepare new successes, however small, but daily keep up the moral ascendant which the first successfui rising has given to you; rally thus those vacillating elements to your side which always follow the strongest impulse and which always look out for the safer side; force your enemies to a retreat before they can collect their strehgth against you; in the words of Danton, the greatest master of revolutionary policy yet known:
de l'audace, de l'audace, encore de l'audace! " (See Karl Marx,
Historical Sketches, p. 95.)[68]
This is what Karl Marx, the greatest of Marxists, says.
As you see, in Marx 's opinion, whoever wants insurrection to triumph must take the path of the offensive. But we know that whoever takes the path of the
offensive must have arms, military knowledge and trained detachments. Without these an offensive is impossible. Bold offensive action, in Marx's opinion, is the flesh and blood of every uprising. N. H., however, ridicules everything: bold offensive action, the policy of offensive, organised detachments and the dissemination of military knowledge. All that is Blanquism, he says! It appears, then, that N. H. is a Marxist, but Marx is a Blanquist! Poor Marx! If only he could rise from his grave and hear N. H.'s prattle.
And what does Engels say about insurrection? In a passage in one of his pamphlets he refers to the Spanish uprising, and answering the Anarchists, he goes on to say:
page 247
"Nevertheless, the uprising, even if begun in a brainlesl way, would have had a good chance to succeed, if it had only been conducted with some intelligence, say in the manner of Spanish military revolts, in which the garrison of one town rises, marches on to the next, sweeps along with it that town's garrison that had been influenced beforehand and, growing into an avalanche, presses on to the capital, until a fortunate engagement or the coming over to their side of the troops sent against them decides the victory. This method was particularly practicable on that occasion. The insurgents
had long before been organised everywhere into volunteer battalions (do you hear, comrade, Engels talks about battalions!) whose discipline, while wretched, was surely not more wretched than that of the remnants of the old, and in the main disintegrated, Spanish army. The only dependable government troops were the gendarmes (guardias civiles
), and these were scattered all over the country. It was primarily a question of preventing a concentration of the gendarme detachments, and this could be brought about only by assuming the offensive and the hazard of open battle . . . (attention, comrades, attention!). For any one who sought victory, there was no other means. . . ." Engels then goes on to take to task the Bakuninists, who proclaimed as their principle that which could have been avoided: "the splitting up and isolation of the revolutionary forces, which permitted the same government troops to quell one uprising after another" (see Engels's
The Bakuninists at Work ).[69]
This is what the celebrated Marxist, Frederick Engels, says. . . .
Organised battalions, the policy of offensive, organsing insurrection, uniting the separate insurrection that, in Engels's opinion, is needed to ensure the victory of an insurrection.
It appears then that N. H. is a Marxist, but Engels is a Blanquist! Poor Engels!
As you see, N. H. is not familiar with the views of Marx and Engels on insurrection.
That would not be so bad. We declare that the tactics advocated by N. H. belittle and actually deny the importance of arming, of Red detachments, and of military knowledge. His are the tactics of unarmed insurrection. His tactics push us towards the "December defeat." Why did we have no arms, no detachments, no military knowledge and so forth in December? Because the tactics advocated by comrades like N. H. were widely accepted in the Party. . . .
But both Marxism and real life reject such unarmed tactics.
That is what the facts say.