Terrorism not only threatens the lives, liberties, and livelihoods of the working masses but also serves as an imperialist tool wielded by ruling elites to subdue the populace through fear, manufactured threats, and promises of security. Nation-states often exploit terrorism to expand security apparatuses, eroding human dignity, freedom, and democratic rights. All forms of terrorism today weaken democracy, curtail citizenship rights, and undermine the economic well-being of the working class.
However, terrorism has become so deeply entwined with nation-states and religion that even communist and socialist parties, alongside secular political movements, increasingly align with narrow nationalist agendas, religious narratives, and Eurocentric cultural relativism in the name of opposing terrorism. In reality, all forms of terrorism obstruct class struggle, diverting attention from systemic exploitation to reactionary violence. A class-based analysis is crucial to expose how terrorism reinforces capitalist state power, advances imperialist hegemony, and suppresses proletarian emancipation. It is imperative to develop a working-class perspective that sharpens ideological clarity and aligns the struggle against terrorism with anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist political praxis, grounded in the fundamental aspirations of the working masses.
Many working people participate in terrorist and anti-terrorist organizations and operations in the name of country, culture, nationalism, or religion. In both cases, the working class ultimately faces off against one another, undermining their collective interests. In this violent cycle, working people not only annihilate each other but also weaken their class solidarity and consciousness. Consequently, both terrorist and anti-terrorist violence work against the fundamental interests of the working class, further obstructing their struggle for emancipation from lingering feudal, colonial, and imperialist agendas promoted by elites.
The phrase, -- "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," -- is a false dichotomy designed to fracture working-class unity and blur the distinction between the ruling class and the oppressed masses in maintaining a violence-driven status quo. Figures like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gandhi, Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh, Subhas Bose, Mao, Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X are revered as heroes by the working class across the world. The English and American working people never viewed them as terrorists; only the ruling class labeled them as such.
Conversely, Osama Bin Laden is globally recognized by working people as a terrorist—and as a tool of imperialist interests. The working-class masses of Afghanistan never embraced Bin Laden as a hero, nor do the working people of Pakistan celebrate Ajmal Kasab. Pakistani terrorists serve neither the interests of the Kashmiri people nor the working class of Pakistan. Instead, they advance the agendas of the military establishment, reactionary religious leaders, and their imperialist sponsors in London and Washington. These terrorists actively oppose working-class interests, reinforcing the power of local, regional, national, and international capitalist elites and the imperialist world order.
Revolutionary and nationalist movements have often resorted to violence to combat feudalism, colonialism, and imperialism. However, Marx strongly criticized the Fenians’ violent methods during the Irish freedom struggle, particularly the Clerkenwell explosion in London. Writing to Engels, he stated:
“The last exploit of the Fenians in Clerkenwell was a very stupid thing. The London masses, who have shown great sympathy for Ireland, will be made wild by it and be driven into the arms of the government party. One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour of the Fenian emissaries. There is always a kind of fatality about such a secret, melodramatic sort of conspiracy.”
Engels concurred, replying:
“The stupid affair in Clerkenwell was obviously the work of a few specialised fanatics; it is the misfortune of all conspiracies that they lead to such stupidities, because ‘after all something must happen, after all something must be done’.”
Despite their criticism, Marx and Engels defended Ireland's cause while acknowledging that terrorism and conspiratorial violence—when detached from mass political mobilization—tend to strengthen reactionary forces, depoliticize working-class consciousness, and weaken class struggle.
The Fenians did not intend to kill civilians in Clerkenwell; the deaths were unintended consequences of their conspiratorial actions seeking quick results. Nonetheless, Marx and Engels condemned the incident. Interestingly, Marx did not denounce violence against Tsarism in Russia, as it was rooted in mass mobilization against autocracy. Writing to his daughter Jenny, he defended the assassination of Alexander II:
“[Violence is] an inevitable means of action, as pointless to debate as the earthquake at Chios.”
Lenin echoed this skepticism, arguing that terrorism reflected
“an utter failure to understand the mass movement and a lack of faith in it.”
He dismissed terrorism’s efficacy:
“Without the working class, all bombs are powerless, patently powerless.”
Lenin further asserted that effective struggle requires mass movements:
“Only new forms of the mass movement or the awakening of new sections of the masses to independent struggle really rouse a spirit of struggle and courage in all. Single combat, however, inasmuch as it remains single combat, has the immediate effect of simply creating a short-lived sensation, while indirectly it even leads to apathy and passive waiting for the next bout.”
Similarly, Trotsky argued that terrorism arises
“from the absence of a revolutionary class, regenerated later by a lack of confidence in the revolutionary masses.”
He warned that terrorism
“belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes toward a great avenger and liberator who someday will come and accomplish his mission.”
Thus, terrorism not only undermines class consciousness but weakens the emancipatory struggles of the working masses.
Terrorism enslaves the working class, trapping them within elite-led narratives of security and fear. The fight against terrorism is inseparable from broader struggles against feudalism, capitalism, and imperialism. To defeat terrorism, we must challenge ruling-class definitions of violence, dismantling elite narratives that manufacture instability in the name of national and religious security. Working people must refrain from participating in both terrorist acts and counter-terrorist operations orchestrated by elites, as these only reinforce hegemony through coercion. The future of working-class politics depends on its ability to raise class consciousness, exposing terrorism as yet another mechanism of capitalist control.
Comments