◆ SpookStack

& - Warfare," Collected | i 6] a 1fen--4 Tenin himself deals with ene aspect of the lumpenproletariat quite relevant at the : present moment, their tendency to engage in spontcnecus and disorganized armed struggle against the state and "expropriation" of state property, Lenin violently condcmns those Bolsheviks who disassociate themselves from this by " -oudly and smugly declaring ‘we are not anarchists, thieves, robbers, we ere superjor to all this, " ("Guerilla . s, X1, 220) We attacks "the usual appraisal" which secs this | ~*" chisty Blanquism, the old terrorism, the acts of individuals struggle as merely j isolated from the masses, which demoralise the workers, repel wide strata of the population, disorganise the movement and injure the revolution," (Works, ¥I, 216-17) Lenin draws the following keen lesson from the disorganized state of ‘this struggle: it fe not these "actions which disorganize the movement, but the weakness of a party which is incapable of taking such actions under its control." (p, 219) The Bolsheviks must organize these spontaneous acts and “must train and pi prepare their orgenis#tions to be really 2ble to act as a belligcrent side side which does not miss a single opportunity of inflicting damage on the enemy's forces, ces," (p. 223) Nao 6 analysis of the lumpenprolctariat and of their possible rolé in the revolution is very clear ang simple: Apart froin all these other classes , there is the fairly large Jumpen-proletariat, made up of peasants who have lost their land and handicra{tsmen who cannot get work, They lead the most precarious exisience of all, .., One of China's difficult problems is how to handle these people, Brave fighters but apt to be destructive, they can becoue a revolutionary force if given proper guidance, (analysis of the Classes in ese Societ : Although in Anericen society the lumpenproletariat consists of {ar more diverse groups than landless pecsante and unenployed handicraftsmen, Mao's final generalization would rceem to be as £ltting here as there, Unfortunately for us, however, Mao does not - give any detailed theory on working with this particular almost entirely urban class, Probably the most relevant, and certainly the most extensive, discussicn of the lumpen- proletariat by a Marxist theorist carn be found in Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. Fonon, writing principally abeut African colonics, sees the lumpenproletariat as made up almost exclusively of landless peasants (p. 90), This is the part of his analysis least relevant to the U.S., although, of course, all of the Black and part of the white lumpenproletariat has been driven from the land into the cities, Fanon ha. no illusions about the dangerous unreliability of this class, But he argues that, for three reasons, the revolution cannot succeed without these people: (1) They are the most ready to fight, (2) They therefore provide the way by which the revolutionary forces of the countryside enter the city, (3) If they are not fighting on the side of the revolution, they will be fighting against i€, Fanon gives many specific example of the counter-revolutionary role soretimes played by the lumpenproletariat, In Madagascar, the colonialists assisted in "the creation of a party cut of the unorganize elements of the Jumpen-proletariat't and then used "its distinctiy provocative actions" nas “the legak excuse to maintein order." (p, 93) In Angola, Algeria, anc the Conge, the colonialists were able to use eleneuts of the lumpenproletariat as soldicrs, agents laborers, aad counter-revolutionary demenstrators, Fanon concludes from this not that the lumpcnpreletariat should be ignored, but quite the contrary; the real danger lies in deperding cn its spontaneity: Colonialisu will also find in the lumpen-proletariat a cousidercble space for manoewering, For this reason auy movement for Freedom ought to give its fullest attention to this Jomper-proletariat, The peasant masses will alweys ansver the call to revellion, but if the rebeilion's leaders think it will be able Lo develop