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Armed Insurrection
This manual, crafted in 1928, serves as a practical guide for communist insurrections. It explores the role of armed uprising in Marxist-Leninist revolution theory, examines various insurrections to pinpoint victory conditions, and offers detailed street fighting tactics, from offensive-defensive strategies to barricade construction. Penned in Moscow under Comintern's guidance, it's a classic Third Period document. Its reissue aids in understanding early Soviet and Comintern history, crucial for shaping current revolutionary thought and action.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1928
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September 4, 2023
1928. aastal kirjutatud "käsiraamat", mille koostamisel aitasid kaasa paljud olulised revolutsioonilised tegelased, nagu Tuhhatševski, Ho Chi Minh ja teised kommunistlikud revolutsionäärid.
Selles analüüsitakse kolme relvastatud ülestõusu, sealhulgas 1924 Tallinnas toimunud "detsembrimässu". Teose eesmärgiks on analüüsida ja kaardistada ebaõnnestunud ülestõusude põhjuseid, luua seaduspärasid ning jagada näpunäiteid kõigile maailma kommunistlikele parteidele, kes peaksid leninismi järgides, lisaks parteitegevusele ja agiteerimisele, tegelema ka relvastatud ülestõusu plaanimise ning organiseerimisega. Näpunäited on väga praktilised ning ajaloolisi sündmusi analüüsides minnakse välja peensusteni, nagu üksuste organiseerimine, relvastuse hankimine ja ülestõusu jaoks oluliste asutuste hõivamise järjekord. Tollel ajal oligi see suunatud Saksa ja Prantsuse kommunistidele, kellelt oodati suuremat ülestõusu, mille kaudu oleks saanud revolutsiooni kanda ühiskondlikult lõhenenud, kuid majanduslikult võimekate Lääne-Euroopa riikideni.
100 aastat hiljem on olukord maailmas radikaalselt muutunud ning seetõttu on selle teose puhul tegu tänapäeval rohkem ajaloolise ülevaatega töölisülestõusudest, mida kodanlikus käsitluses ei puudutata, kui reaalselt rakendatavatest juhtnööridest relvastatud ülestõusu korraldamisel (pühendusega kapole).
Üldiselt hea ülevaade ning e-raamat on tasuta kättesaadav: https://files.libcom.org/files/A.%20N...
Selles analüüsitakse kolme relvastatud ülestõusu, sealhulgas 1924 Tallinnas toimunud "detsembrimässu". Teose eesmärgiks on analüüsida ja kaardistada ebaõnnestunud ülestõusude põhjuseid, luua seaduspärasid ning jagada näpunäiteid kõigile maailma kommunistlikele parteidele, kes peaksid leninismi järgides, lisaks parteitegevusele ja agiteerimisele, tegelema ka relvastatud ülestõusu plaanimise ning organiseerimisega. Näpunäited on väga praktilised ning ajaloolisi sündmusi analüüsides minnakse välja peensusteni, nagu üksuste organiseerimine, relvastuse hankimine ja ülestõusu jaoks oluliste asutuste hõivamise järjekord. Tollel ajal oligi see suunatud Saksa ja Prantsuse kommunistidele, kellelt oodati suuremat ülestõusu, mille kaudu oleks saanud revolutsiooni kanda ühiskondlikult lõhenenud, kuid majanduslikult võimekate Lääne-Euroopa riikideni.
100 aastat hiljem on olukord maailmas radikaalselt muutunud ning seetõttu on selle teose puhul tegu tänapäeval rohkem ajaloolise ülevaatega töölisülestõusudest, mida kodanlikus käsitluses ei puudutata, kui reaalselt rakendatavatest juhtnööridest relvastatud ülestõusu korraldamisel (pühendusega kapole).
Üldiselt hea ülevaade ning e-raamat on tasuta kättesaadav: https://files.libcom.org/files/A.%20N...
July 21, 2021
An extremely useful and unknown book - a long forgotten manual for armed insurrection by the Comintern. A manual for actual communist insurrection, not Guevarist "urban guerrilla" adventures and terrorism. Such a thing is unheard of because of how quickly the USSR degenerated, how quickly the Comintern turned to opportunism.
Not only does it have extremely detailed descriptions of insurrections that were published nowhere else (the 1923 Hamburg uprising, the 1924 Estonian putsch, the three Shanghai insurrections, the final one having set up the ill fated Shanghai Commune and finally the Canton revolt), but it's also the only manual I have found on all the components of insurrection - subversion of the troops, street fighting, barricades, weapons, organization, etc. The last chapter was written by a young Ho Chi Minh! How surprising. Less surprising if you know that information is that it concerns peasant work and guerrilla warfare - it's a very interesting essay that shows that at the time Ho Chi Minh was a more advanced military tactician than Mao ever was, as Ho here theorizes using the guerrilla peasant detachments in conjunction with the urban insurrections by the proletariat, as was possible in China before the decisive defeat of the proletariat in 27 and 28.
Of course, Ho Chi Minh himself became a Stalinist and what's more, crushed the urban insurrection of the revolutionary proletariat, in Saigon 1945, one of the last communist revolutions, with peasant detachments. So it's a good measurement of how much things changed in those 20 years.
Despite that, this was published in 1928, which is to say, at a time when the Comintern had already degenerated enormously - the usage of the extremely stupid epithet "social-fascism" alone taints this otherwise excellent book, however the book omits things of fundamental importance, in line with the policy of the Comintern bureaucracy to never blame itself. The two biggest examples:
-in the Hamburg insurrection chapter, it's acted like the uprising could go on, like it could succeed in any way, that it was "opportunist" to call it off when the uprising was totally isolated because the KPD had been too scared to call it on a national level after the SPD refused to call for a general strike, and indeed it only happened at all because the Left KPD leadership in Hamburg either ignored the orders to call it off or didn't get them in time. The correct take on this was already held by Trotsky, who rightfully claimed that the only way to know what would happen was to call the insurrection regardless, even if victory was not as assured without the SPD general strike, and that even if it failed it would still be preferable to what happened. A footnote mentions that Hugo Urbahns was no longer a member of the KPD as though that had anything to do with it instead of the very recently Stalinized leadership getting rid of most of the old KPD militants, and would go on to murder many of them (indeed they tried to kill the author of this chapter!)
-In the Shanghai insurrections chapter, the infamous coalition between the CPC and the Kuomintang is addressed, with the Chiang Kai-Shek massacre in the Shanghai Commune being blamed on the CPC, who did not separate itself from the Kuomintang and thus could not pose any adequate resistance against the Kuomintang entering the city, indeed they opened the doors for them - this is blamed on the CPC leadership, as though it wasn't imposed on the CPC by the Comintern against the wishes of its leadership no less!
This is a trick that the degenerated, bureaucratic Comintern used and it used it even going back to 1921, the beginning of this bureaucratic degeneration that would get much worse, due to March Action where they had to lie and blame Paul Levi (who had been right) to save Zinoviev's face (which allowed him to plan more catastrophic putsches, as the authors themselves say so in regards to the 24 Putsch in Estonia) - things that X or Y CP does is the fault of X or Y CP even though those directives were forced on it, sometimes against the wishes of the leadership, by the Comintern - another example, during the full blown Stalinist era, was the infamous 1935 putsch in Brazil. The Comintern said that the methods of a Tenentista coup did not fit a proletarian insurrection, that this was to blame on the inherent putschism of the military, etc etc - as though it hadn't approved the plan itself!
And in the appendix they even double down on it, writing:
"In the chapter on the Shanghai insurrection of April 1927, we find several incorrect formulations which might give the impression that in Neuberg's view the entry of the Chinese Communist Party into the Kuomintang was an error. As is well known, the Communist International decided at the time against the Chinese Party leaving the Kuomintang. The subsequent course of events fully confirmed the correctness of this stand. Neuberg should have shown how the Communist Party ought to have acted, while remaining in the Kuomintang; how it ought to have used its influence inside the latter to form a powerful revolutionary worker and peasant bloc, which, in Shanghai and clswhere, could have taken the leadership of a successful armed struggle of the masses to establish the revolutionary workers' and peasants' dictatorship.
"The chapters on the Canton and Shanghai insurrections therefore require particularly critical scrutiny."
Absolutely incredible inability to admit mistakes - which is what characterized the Comintern at this point. The Comintern did not fuck up, instead faces were saved from its officials and then, every 6 months or so, capitalism entered a "new phase" which required "new tactics", rather than admitting that the previous tactics failed because they were bad and wrong.
Still, this is an absolutely essential book that every single communist should study - but its flaws, an inevitable symptom of the Comintern's degeneration, do not allow me to say that it's flawless. Keep in mind these mistakes I mentioned here. But you will never see a book this complete on workers' insurrection, never.
Not only does it have extremely detailed descriptions of insurrections that were published nowhere else (the 1923 Hamburg uprising, the 1924 Estonian putsch, the three Shanghai insurrections, the final one having set up the ill fated Shanghai Commune and finally the Canton revolt), but it's also the only manual I have found on all the components of insurrection - subversion of the troops, street fighting, barricades, weapons, organization, etc. The last chapter was written by a young Ho Chi Minh! How surprising. Less surprising if you know that information is that it concerns peasant work and guerrilla warfare - it's a very interesting essay that shows that at the time Ho Chi Minh was a more advanced military tactician than Mao ever was, as Ho here theorizes using the guerrilla peasant detachments in conjunction with the urban insurrections by the proletariat, as was possible in China before the decisive defeat of the proletariat in 27 and 28.
Of course, Ho Chi Minh himself became a Stalinist and what's more, crushed the urban insurrection of the revolutionary proletariat, in Saigon 1945, one of the last communist revolutions, with peasant detachments. So it's a good measurement of how much things changed in those 20 years.
Despite that, this was published in 1928, which is to say, at a time when the Comintern had already degenerated enormously - the usage of the extremely stupid epithet "social-fascism" alone taints this otherwise excellent book, however the book omits things of fundamental importance, in line with the policy of the Comintern bureaucracy to never blame itself. The two biggest examples:
-in the Hamburg insurrection chapter, it's acted like the uprising could go on, like it could succeed in any way, that it was "opportunist" to call it off when the uprising was totally isolated because the KPD had been too scared to call it on a national level after the SPD refused to call for a general strike, and indeed it only happened at all because the Left KPD leadership in Hamburg either ignored the orders to call it off or didn't get them in time. The correct take on this was already held by Trotsky, who rightfully claimed that the only way to know what would happen was to call the insurrection regardless, even if victory was not as assured without the SPD general strike, and that even if it failed it would still be preferable to what happened. A footnote mentions that Hugo Urbahns was no longer a member of the KPD as though that had anything to do with it instead of the very recently Stalinized leadership getting rid of most of the old KPD militants, and would go on to murder many of them (indeed they tried to kill the author of this chapter!)
-In the Shanghai insurrections chapter, the infamous coalition between the CPC and the Kuomintang is addressed, with the Chiang Kai-Shek massacre in the Shanghai Commune being blamed on the CPC, who did not separate itself from the Kuomintang and thus could not pose any adequate resistance against the Kuomintang entering the city, indeed they opened the doors for them - this is blamed on the CPC leadership, as though it wasn't imposed on the CPC by the Comintern against the wishes of its leadership no less!
This is a trick that the degenerated, bureaucratic Comintern used and it used it even going back to 1921, the beginning of this bureaucratic degeneration that would get much worse, due to March Action where they had to lie and blame Paul Levi (who had been right) to save Zinoviev's face (which allowed him to plan more catastrophic putsches, as the authors themselves say so in regards to the 24 Putsch in Estonia) - things that X or Y CP does is the fault of X or Y CP even though those directives were forced on it, sometimes against the wishes of the leadership, by the Comintern - another example, during the full blown Stalinist era, was the infamous 1935 putsch in Brazil. The Comintern said that the methods of a Tenentista coup did not fit a proletarian insurrection, that this was to blame on the inherent putschism of the military, etc etc - as though it hadn't approved the plan itself!
And in the appendix they even double down on it, writing:
"In the chapter on the Shanghai insurrection of April 1927, we find several incorrect formulations which might give the impression that in Neuberg's view the entry of the Chinese Communist Party into the Kuomintang was an error. As is well known, the Communist International decided at the time against the Chinese Party leaving the Kuomintang. The subsequent course of events fully confirmed the correctness of this stand. Neuberg should have shown how the Communist Party ought to have acted, while remaining in the Kuomintang; how it ought to have used its influence inside the latter to form a powerful revolutionary worker and peasant bloc, which, in Shanghai and clswhere, could have taken the leadership of a successful armed struggle of the masses to establish the revolutionary workers' and peasants' dictatorship.
"The chapters on the Canton and Shanghai insurrections therefore require particularly critical scrutiny."
Absolutely incredible inability to admit mistakes - which is what characterized the Comintern at this point. The Comintern did not fuck up, instead faces were saved from its officials and then, every 6 months or so, capitalism entered a "new phase" which required "new tactics", rather than admitting that the previous tactics failed because they were bad and wrong.
Still, this is an absolutely essential book that every single communist should study - but its flaws, an inevitable symptom of the Comintern's degeneration, do not allow me to say that it's flawless. Keep in mind these mistakes I mentioned here. But you will never see a book this complete on workers' insurrection, never.
April 30, 2018
The "third period" Comintern manual for armed insurrection, published pseudonymously but written by a collective of authors including Marshal Tukhachevsky and Ho Chi Minh. The first two chapters are a rather poor exercise in theology disguised as theory - quotation mongering without context from Marx and Engels and Lenin designed to "prove" that armed insurrection by a vanguard of workers organised by a bolshevised communist party is the true politics of Marxism. The next four chapters are case studies of failed insurrections - Reval, Hamburg, Canton and Shanghai, which make depressing reading at the political and military incompetence of the respective party organisations, but also conceal as much as they reveal, especially about the actual role of Comintern operatives and Comintern instructions in these events. The second half of the book is Tukhachevsky's work and is pretty much a military field manual for street fighting in the 1920s. Interesting reading from the point of view of military history and the development of tactics. The last chapter by Ho is about peasant insurrections and is very revealing of the kind of thinking in the 1920s that led to the successful Vietnamese war of liberation against the French and against the US invasion. But what the book really reveals is the awful and quite idiotic state of Comintern policy in this era.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews