Chapter 3 continues…

For example, Soviet Union played a role in the establishment of the Solidarite and Aide et Amitie terrorist network in Paris. This net work connected illegal groups, among them being the Popular Revolutionary Vanguard (VPR) in Brazil, the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MLR) in Uruguay and Chie, the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ), and the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, as the new Communist doctrine.

This doctrine was based on Marx’s other writings, and in the works of Lenin. Writing in 1906, Lenin had stated “no Marxist should consider partisan warfare (including political assassination) ... as abnormal and demoralizing.” On the contrary, “terrorist partisan acts against representatives of the violent regime, are recommended.” That is, terrorism was regarded by Lenin as a part of the “proletarian revolution,” although he wanted it to be employed only under the direction of “the Party.” On the other hand, Lenin condemned individual acts of terror i.e., outside Soviet control, as “infantile,” or “isolated” political violence.

From the first Marxist-Leninist revolution against Czarism— when more than a thousand terrorist acts were perpetrated in Transcaucasia alone—to August 1991, when the USSR pathetically unraveled, Moscow had controlled Soviet-assisted terrorist groups, and made them to follow a strict party-line. Even terrorist movements with less party discipline and control, including the New Left, and Trotskyists (working for the furtherance of inter- national Communism but generally hostile to the Soviet Union) received support when it destabilized Soviet-targeted societies.

Leon Trotsky unequivocally justified the resort to terrorism as a tactical tool of partisan warfare. While Trotsky had been disowned by Stalin, his endorsement of terror as an instrument of revolution remained embedded in Communist Party doctrine. The 2012- 2015 happenings in Nandigram, in West Bengal, confirmed that terror is an integral part of Communist mindset anywhere and everywhere, reformist or doctrinaire.

To be continued…