Strategy and Tactics of Proletarian Revolution

Thoughts about the global guidelines and tasks guiding the proletarian revolution and the means and methods for its concrete realization.

After the establishment of theory and programme, strategy and tactics are needed to serve their realization. In the writings of Marx and Engels there is no strict distinction between the two concepts of strategy and tactics, and the science of action, which guides the proletarian revolution politically, was commonly called tactics by them. Lenin for the first time distinguished strategy and tactics in his work “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder written in 1920 and made a thorough study in the light of the revolutionary practice of the proletariat. Stalin made a systematic exposition of the strategy and tactics of the proletarian revolution in theory: Strategy is the determination of the direction of the main blow of the proletariat at a given stage of the revolution, the elaboration of a corresponding plan for the disposition of the revolutionary forces (main and secondary reserves), the fight to carry out this plan throughout the given stage of the revolution. Tactics are the determination of the line of conduct of the proletariat in the comparatively short period of the flow or ebb of the movement, of the high or low tide of the revolution, the fight to carry out this line by means of replacing old forms of struggle and organization by new ones, old slogans by new ones, by combining these forms, etc.

The strategy of the proletarian revolution is the inquiry into the guiding laws of the revolutionary struggle as a whole, is the general goal formulated by the proletarian party within a certain revolutionary period and has a relative stability and guides the direction of the proletarian revolutionary struggle; the tactics of the proletarian revolutionary struggle is the inquiry into the guiding laws of the local revolutionary struggle, are the concrete methods formulated by the proletariat according to the concrete revolutionary situation within a relatively short period of time and have greater flexibility. The strategy of proletarian revolution guides the tactics of revolution, the tactics are a component part of the strategy, the strategy aims to win the victory as a whole, while the tactics are to win staged victories, thus ultimately ensure the realization of strategic tasks. The distinction between the strategy of the proletarian revolution and its tactics is relative and can be transformed into each other under certain conditions, that is, strategic tasks within a certain scope can be tactical tasks in another range; but within the same scope, the distinction between the two is definite.

When formulating a revolutionary strategy and tactics, the proletariat must soberly and extremely objectively estimate all class forces in its own country, its neighbors and all countries, that is, all classes on a world-wide scale, and estimate the experience of previous revolutionary movements, and uphold the fact that the proletarian movement is an independent movement of the vast majority of people and for the interests of the vast majority of people. Concretely speaking, firstly, we should distinguish the enemy, ourselves and our friends, persist in uniting all forces that can be united, establish a wide range of allies, develop progressive forces, strive for middle forces, isolate the die-hard forces and attack the most principal enemy. Secondly, we should uphold the interests of the entire proletariat in the struggle of different nationalities and represent the interests of the Communist movement throughout the world at all stages of development. Therefore, international interests and national interests, fundamental interests and immediate interests, long-term interests and short-term interests, overall interests and individual interests should be combined and the latter should be subordinated to the former. Thirdly, we should uphold the unity of firmness in principle and flexibility in tactics, the proletariat’s standpoint and fundamental interests must not be shaken. We must also choose flexible tactics of struggle according to the actual situation and deal with the two hands of the counter-revolution with the two hands of the revolution in order to achieve revolutionary victory. Thus, politics is a science, an art.

The strategy and tactics of proletarian revolution are guided by Marxist theories and programmes, formulated according to the features of the epoch and the reality of various countries, and formed and developed in practice, and used to guide the science of proletarian struggle. The victories of the Russian October Revolution and the Chinese Revolution have proved the correctness of Marxist strategy and tactics.