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Rousedruminations
28th January 2010, 08:40
For those how are benign in their motives to rid the dysfunctional capitalist international market of the bourgeoisie and their motives , yet still speak of revolutionary outcomes of subversion i applaud my fellow comrades for their efforts. Yet a tougher revolutionary stance should be taken in my opinion, as i recently came across the following article about Sergey Nechayev who was born in 1869. Here it speaks of what a ' True Revolutionary' should be like. I also contend that possibly Stalin, Lenin or Mao would have came across Sergey's discussion of what constitutes a person to be a true ' Revolutionary' as they were utterly ruthless in the eyes of many of the bourgeoisie and to a lesser degree other comrades. However they were able to achieve so much with in 50 years of their rule and their legacy still lives on and will live on forever. In fact when Nikita Khurshev came into power, some who were close associates to Stalin during the revolution were either exiled or given a low profile post. One of those people was 'Vyacheslav Molotov', consequently he was in the 'old guard' resisting Khurshev and his reformist, appeasing and benign policies of peaceful co-existence. He died in 1989, but it must be noted that during his last years in the Soviet Union before its collapse he was quoted in saying to Stalin's daughter 'Sveltlana'

" Your father was a genius. There's no revolutionary spirit around nowadays, just opportunism everywhere. China's our only hope! Only they have kept alive the revolutionary spirit "


I believe that a purer, strict and inflexible revolutionary spirit, imbued the people of the soviet union when Stalin and Mao were alive.



Here i present the article: The Revolutionary Catechism

The Revolutionary Catechism

The Duties of the Revolutionary toward Himself

1.

The revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no personal interests, no business affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property, and no name. Everything in him is wholly absorbed in the single thought and the single passion for revolution.

2.

The revolutionary knows that in the very depths of his being, not only in words but also in deeds, he has broken all the bonds which tie him to the social order and the civilized world with all its laws, moralities, and customs, and with all its generally accepted conventions. He is their implacable enemy, and if he continues to live with them it is only in order to destroy them more speedily.

3.

The revolutionary despises all doctrines and refuses to accept the mundane sciences, leaving them for future generations. He knows only one science: the science of destruction. For this reason, but only for this reason, he will study mechanics, physics, chemistry, and perhaps medicine. But all day and all night he studies the vital science of human beings, their characteristics and circumstances, and all the phenomena of the present social order. The object is perpetually the same: the surest and quickest way of destroying the whole filthy order.

4.

The revolutionary despises public opinion. He despises and hates the existing social morality in all its manifestations. For him, morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way.

5.

The revolutionary is a dedicated man, merciless toward the State and toward the educated classes; and he can expect no mercy from them. Between him and them there exists, declared or concealed, a relentless and irreconcilable war to the death. He must accustom himself to torture.

6.

Tyrannical toward himself, he must be tyrannical toward others. All the gentle and enervating sentiments of kinship, love, friendship, gratitude, and even honor, must be suppressed in him and give place to the cold and single-minded passion for revolution. For him, there exists only one pleasure, on consolation, one reward, one satisfaction – the success of the revolution. Night and day he must have but one thought, one aim – merciless destruction. Striving cold-bloodedly and indefatigably toward this end, he must be prepared to destroy himself and to destroy with his own hands everything that stands in the path of the revolution.

7.

The nature of the true revolutionary excludes all sentimentality, romanticism, infatuation, and exaltation. All private hatred and revenge must also be excluded. Revolutionary passion, practiced at every moment of the day until it becomes a habit, is to be employed with cold calculation. At all times, and in all places, the revolutionary must obey not his personal impulses, but only those which serve the cause of the revolution.
The Relations of the Revolutionary toward his Comrades

8.

The revolutionary can have no friendship or attachment, except for those who have proved by their actions that they, like him, are dedicated to revolution. The degree of friendship, devotion and obligation toward such a comrade is determined solely by the degree of his usefulness to the cause of total revolutionary destruction.

9.

It is superfluous to speak of solidarity among revolutionaries. The whole strength of revolutionary work lies in this. Comrades who possess the same revolutionary passion and understanding should, as much as possible, deliberate all important matters together and come to unanimous conclusions. When the plan is finally decided upon, then the revolutionary must rely solely on himself. In carrying out acts of destruction, each one should act alone, never running to another for advice and assistance, except when these are necessary for the furtherance of the plan.

10.

All revolutionaries should have under them second- or third-degree revolutionaries – i.e., comrades who are not completely initiated. these should be regarded as part of the common revolutionary capital placed at his disposal. This capital should, of course, be spent as economically as possible in order to derive from it the greatest possible profit. The real revolutionary should regard himself as capital consecrated to the triumph of the revolution; however, he may not personally and alone dispose of that capital without the unanimous consent of the fully initiated comrades.

11.

When a comrade is in danger and the question arises whether he should be saved or not saved, the decision must not be arrived at on the basis of sentiment, but solely in the interests of the revolutionary cause. Therefore, it is necessary to weigh carefully the usefulness of the comrade against the expenditure of revolutionary forces necessary to save him, and the decision must be made accordingly.

The Relations of the Revolutionary toward Society

12.

The new member, having given proof of his loyalty not by words but by deeds, can be received into the society only by the unanimous agreement of all the members.

13.

The revolutionary enters the world of the State, of the privileged classes, of the so-called civilization, and he lives in this world only for the purpose of bringing about its speedy and total destruction. He is not a revolutionary if he has any sympathy for this world. He should not hesitate to destroy any position, any place, or any man in this world. He must hate everyone and everything in it with an equal hatred. All the worse for him if he has any relations with parents, friends, or lovers; he is no longer a revolutionary if he is swayed by these relationships.

14.

Aiming at implacable revolution, the revolutionary may and frequently must live within society will pretending to be completely different from what he really is, for he must penetrate everywhere, into all the higher and middle-classes, into the houses of commerce, the churches, and the palaces of the aristocracy, and into the worlds of the bureaucracy and literature and the military, and also into the Third Division and the Winter Palace of the Czar.

15.

This filthy social order can be split up into several categories. The first category comprises those who must be condemned to death without delay. Comrades should compile a list of those to be condemned according to the relative gravity of their crimes; and the executions should be carried out according to the prepared order.

16.

When a list of those who are condemned is made, and the order of execution is prepared, no private sense of outrage should be considered, nor is it necessary to pay attention to the hatred provoked by these people among the comrades or the people. Hatred and the sense of outrage may even be useful insofar as they incite the masses to revolt. It is necessary to be guided only by the relative usefulness of these executions for the sake of revolution. Above all, those who are especially inimical to the revolutionary organization must be destroyed; their violent and sudden deaths will produce the utmost panic in the government, depriving it of its will to action by removing the cleverest and most energetic supporters.

17.

The second group comprises those who will be spared for the time being in order that, by a series of monstrous acts, they may drive the people into inevitable revolt.

18.

The third category consists of a great many brutes in high positions, distinguished neither by their cleverness nor their energy, while enjoying riches, influence, power, and high positions by virtue of their rank. These must be exploited in every possible way; they must be implicated and embroiled in our affairs, their dirty secrets must be ferreted out, and they must be transformed into slaves. Their power, influence, and connections, their wealth and their energy, will form an inexhaustible treasure and a precious help in all our undertakings.

19.

The fourth category comprises ambitious office-holders and liberals of various shades of opinion. The revolutionary must pretend to collaborate with them, blindly following them, while at the same time, prying out their secrets until they are completely in his power. They must be so compromised that there is no way out for them, and then they can be used to create disorder in the State.

20.

The fifth category consists of those doctrinaires, conspirators, and revolutionists who cut a great figure on paper or in their cliques. They must be constantly driven on to make compromising declarations: as a result, the majority of them will be destroyed, while a minority will become genuine revolutionaries.

21.

The sixth category is especially important: women. They can be divided into three main groups. First, those frivolous, thoughtless, and vapid women, whom we shall use as we use the third and fourth category of men. Second, women who are ardent, capable, and devoted, but whom do not belong to us because they have not yet achieved a passionless and austere revolutionary understanding; these must be used like the men of the fifth category. Finally, there are the women who are completely on our side – i.e., those who are wholly dedicated and who have accepted our program in its entirety. We should regard these women as the most valuable or our treasures; without their help, we would never succeed.

The Attitude of the Society toward the People

22.

The Society has no aim other than the complete liberation and happiness of the masses – i.e., of the people who live by manual labor. Convinced that their emancipation and the achievement of this happiness can only come about as a result of an all-destroying popular revolt, the Society will use all its resources and energy toward increasing and intensifying the evils and miseries of the people until at last their patience is exhausted and they are driven to a general uprising.

23.

By a revolution, the Society does not mean an orderly revolt according to the classic western model – a revolt which always stops short of attacking the rights of property and the traditional social systems of so-called civilization and morality. Until now, such a revolution has always limited itself to the overthrow of one political form in order to replace it by another, thereby attempting to bring about a so-called revolutionary state. The only form of revolution beneficial to the people is one which destroys the entire State to the roots and exterminated all the state traditions, institutions, and classes in Russia.

24.

With this end in view, the Society therefore refuses to impose any new organization from above. Any future organization will doubtless work its way through the movement and life of the people; but this is a matter for future generations to decide. Our task is terrible, total, universal, and merciless destruction.

25.

Therefore, in drawing closer to the people, we must above all make common cause with those elements of the masses which, since the foundation of the state of Muscovy, have never ceased to protest, not only in words but in deeds, against everything directly or indirectly connected with the state: against the nobility, the bureaucracy, the clergy, the traders, and the parasitic kulaks. We must unite with the adventurous tribes of brigands, who are the only genuine revolutionaries in Russia.

26.

To weld the people into one single unconquerable and all-destructive force – this is our aim, our conspiracy, and our


Violence is a terrible necessity of course, i don't think a strict adherence to this article should be necessary as i'm still contemplating about its relevance now, but i think a general adherence with (MAYBE) a few exceptions should be at least consider and not negated.

The Feral Underclass
28th January 2010, 08:47
The guy was a self-motivated, lying, sexist, thieving, murderer, whose political allegiances were to nothing but himself and his "principles" extended to ratting out activists to the state. He was manipulative, divisive and cruel. What precisely is it about the ideas in this anti-workerist, misogynistic piece of reprehensible shite that you think is worth discussing?

Rousedruminations
28th January 2010, 08:56
Well who are you referring to Stalin or Sergey ?

If Stalin, yes all those are true and are probably despicable among modern moral standards, despite all that he protected the 'purity' of the revolution which is what it is about ?

I believe that as soon as he had died, and when Khurhsev came in thats wen the reformist, appeasement views were taken into consideration .. hardliners were outlawed when really they were needed like 'Vyacheslav Molotov', as he was consequently in the 'old guard' resisting Khurshev and his reformist, appeasing and benign policies of peaceful co-existence. He died in 1989, but it must be noted that during his last years in the Soviet Union before its collapse he was quoted in saying to Stalin's daughter 'Sveltlana'

" Your father was a genius. There's no revolutionary spirit around nowadays, just opportunism everywhere. China's our only hope! Only they have kept alive the revolutionary spirit "

He was only allowed to rejoin the communist party in 1987... He was not judging his character , which of course i despise but his revolutionary spirit !

The Feral Underclass
28th January 2010, 08:59
No...I was referring to Nechayev.

Rousedruminations
28th January 2010, 09:12
Well you are judging his character which we shouldn't be talking about, what we should be discussing is Revolutionary Catechism he had set the bar and standard higher for what constitutes for a person to be a true revolutionary... he /she marries or espouses the revolution itself, almost as if he nothing else matters in the world except for the revolution. Tremendous sacrifices have to be made... and that is what he was referring to , that is what mao, Stalin and possibly Che Guevara did.... Che left his family, wife and kids to start expand his revolutionary ambitions else where in Latin america precisely for communism, but Che and fidels ambitions at the time angered the kremlin who were try to be appease US and Soviet relations in East Germany.... i believe that when he was in bolivia fidel all that he could to convice soviet participation in reprisals against america's strangle hold on latin american countries ... that being said,you can see the soviets reluctance hence .. you can see the contrast in revolutionary spirit that ' che' had and perhaps the spirit that khurshev had.. after all he outlawed one of Stalin's close associates molotov. Stalin and Molotov.... Both these men greatly admired and respect each others dedication for the revolution

Kléber
28th January 2010, 09:45
If Stalin, yes all those are true and are probably despicable among modern moral standards, despite all that he protected the 'purity' of the revolution which is what it is about ?What "purity" did he preserve?

The purity of the works of Marx and Lenin? No, Marx and Lenin's collected works, Soviet editions, had some parts censored out during Stalin's rule because they contradicted the new official "Marxism-Leninism."

The purity of the principles of Marx and Lenin? That neither. In 1918 Lenin described the Soviet industrial economy of his time, where managers got paid 10 times as much as workers, and the factories were run like military camps with little to no workplace democracy, as "state capitalist." Lenin recognized the need to move forward from this stage toward socialism with democracy and relative wage equality. 20 years later, little had changed in the industrial economy in 1938, in terms of wages or workplace relations, yet Stalin declared the nation to have finished building "socialism." This declaration was an abandonment of the struggle for socialism, for democracy and equality. Without democracy and wage equality, the bureaucracy could only become more and more powerful... Stalin's revisionism enabled everything capitalistic that Khrushchev and his successors did.


Well you are judging his character which we shouldn't be talking about, what we should be discussing is Revolutionary Catechism he had set the bar and standard higher for what constitutes for a person to be a true revolutionary... he /she marries or espouses the revolution itself
Get your facts straight. Nechayev was a traitor.

black magick hustla
28th January 2010, 09:46
communism is not built upon the calcified bones of militants. the walls of the empire state building are already made of bones

The Feral Underclass
28th January 2010, 09:46
Well you are judging his character which we shouldn't be talking about, what we should be discussing is Revolutionary Catechism he had set the bar and standard higher for what constitutes for a person to be a true revolutionary

That document is informed by his character. I'm afraid you can't divorce one from the other. And can you please take a moment and look at what the document is. It essentially argues that working class people have no role to play; that secret revolutionaries should to anything they can to advance some inexplicable cause. Not to mention his attitude towrads women is disgustingly misogynistic.

You're defending a sexist, anti-workerist, who murdered activists, and ratted them out to the state.

Rousedruminations
28th January 2010, 10:27
Okay first of all my comrades i am a feminist, and the fact that he is a misogynist is something i treat with contempt. It is just a document that i came across, and so i am musingly questioning whether Stalin, or Mao had read this , and probably pursued it with the revolutionary spirit and stance that they did have ? because i think it may have profoundly influenced them ... and is this relevant today to any other revolutionary ? I merely think that we should strive for a purer and tougher revolutionary spirit yet some do not encompass that

narcomprom
31st January 2010, 03:24
Netchaiev's guide to the Obvious about being a Mindless Fanatic was quite popular amongst Russian conservatives of the day: a moralist caricature on the revolutionary written by an actual revolutionary murderer in exile was just what they wanted.
that was what inspired Dostoyevski's Demons with the scheming cynic Verkhovensky living out Netchaiev's well thought-out ideas.:lol:

Raúl Duke
2nd February 2010, 19:57
By the sound of the revolutionary catechism...if one were to follow it than they'll probably be a joyless fellow.

Interesting that you have a Che avatar...he didn't follow the catechism. He said that "love is what guides a revolutionary" while the catechism speaks of being a emotion-less distant dsyfunctional loser.

Rousedruminations
3rd February 2010, 16:20
yes indeed he did say ,

"At the risk of sounding ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by feelings of love " - Che Guevara

Revolutionary Catechism , should not be followed strictly thus not everything he says would be correct. Any matter should be critically analyzed. I did say at the start that it could be something worth looking over, where exemptions may be allowed for the seemingly absurd where a joyless and unsatisfying life could be pursued by revolutionary if strictly or scrupulously followed . However his view is simple that a potent, force should be in an individual who aspires for a revolution, where it raises or enriches their spirit for revolutionary consciousness .

There is obviously a contradiction between my avatar at the thread that i had posted, i was aware of this before i even contemplated about posting the thread. Yet in posting it, we should be aware of the actions in revolutionary catechism that it could impede our affectionate nature as human beings to console anyone. Revolutionary Catechism seems to breed heathenism as if we were to be barbaric animals to each other, and to those living beings around us for the simple preservation of the revolution. The point of this thread is to lift a person revolutionary consciousness to a higher level, even though with Nechayev's radicalism some points should be denounced.

A possible explanation of such a extremist outlook upon how a true revolutionary should be is to look at the following poem, suggested by Mikhail Bukunin (Anarchist) and his friend/collaborator Nikolai Ogarev.

Mikhail Bakunin and his friend and collaborator Nikolai Ogarev. Ogarev, on Bakunin's suggestion, dedicated a poem to Nechayev:

THE STUDENT (To my young friend Nechaev)
He was born to a wretched fate
And taught in a hard school,
And suffered interminable torments
In years of unceasing labor.
But as the years swept by
His love for the people grew stronger
And fiercer his thirst for the common good
The thirst to improve man's fate.

Using this thread, we can learn about his character, dissect his thoughts and views, omit some of his opinions that are irrelevant or conceivably absurd for what should constitute a true revolutionary.

The Ungovernable Farce
3rd February 2010, 18:28
Nechayev's vanguardist bullshit is a disgrace to the name of anarchism. So considering how anti-worker he was, then yeah, I suppose you can see a continuity with Stalin and Mao.

Incendiarism
3rd February 2010, 18:41
I thought the catechism contains some pretty bad ass quotes.

The Ungovernable Farce
3rd February 2010, 18:49
It does have some cool lines. Inglorious Basterds had some pretty cool lines as well, but I'd be extremely suspicious of anyone who thought it was a good guide to revolutionary strategy.

ls
3rd February 2010, 19:44
Ha the OP is excellent. Nechayev was nothing but an overemotional gung ho idiot, his unconcerned and rampant individualism caused the anarchist and even the socialist movement all kinds of trouble.