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Marta Harnecker (1937-2019) was a Chilean journalist and Marxist intellectual. Active during Salvador Allende's government in Chile, Harnecker also advised the government of Cuba and Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez.   

For issue #101 of The Internationalist, we bring to you the final part of our series featuring Harnecker's Estrategia y Táctica or Strategy and Tactics, co-written with Gabriela Uribe in 1973. This text was part of the volumes written by Harnecker and Uribe to promote socialist education.

In this section, Harnecker and Uribe explain how the art of revolutionary political leadership lies in determining the correct strategy and adapting tactics as situations evolve. Leaders must diagnose changes in the political landscape and mobilize the masses with clear, timely slogans that resonate with their immediate interests. 

This text has been translated from Spanish to English by Maria Inés Cuervo, Translations Coordinator at the Progressive International. Click here to read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.  

The art of revolutionary political leadership consists in correctly determining the general strategy of struggle and the concrete tactics to implement this general strategy. Since the situation is constantly changing, the political leadership must be flexible enough to register each of these changes, their impact on the correlation of forces and the new tasks that arise from them.

But the revolutionary political leadership must not limit itself to making a good diagnosis of the situation: it must be able to mobilise the masses according to the new conditions by launching effective, correct and timely calls to action. That is to say, it must be able to express its analysis of the situation in political slogans that will succeed in galvanising the action of the masses in a certain direction.

Political slogans are nothing more than short phrases that serve as ideas and forces in which the meaning and concrete orientation of action are synthesised.

What makes a slogan effective?

It is not enough that it follows from a correct diagnosis of the situation. It is necessary that the action indicated should be understood by the masses, that it should have an actual meaning which is felt by the masses. 

Lenin, for example, although he had very well diagnosed the bourgeois and imperialist character of the Kerensky government, insisted that the slogan "Down with the Provisional Government" could not be launched just like that, because at that time the masses believed that this government was a revolutionary government which would bring them the longed-for peace. Shortly afterwards, however, the government was unmasked as a one that was going to continue the war, and the masses stopped believing in it. It was only then that the time had come to launch this slogan.

Therefore, the same slogan can be just at one moment and not at another. 

On the other hand, one should not think that economic slogans are reformist and that only political slogans are revolutionary. 

"The problem depends on when, what a given slogan is related to and for what purpose it is launched. A truly revolutionary political party, always faithful to the final goal of the revolution, is capable, in one form or another, of leaving the revolutionary stamp on any slogan, as well as on any form of organisation or struggle. Even slogans and forms that carry the least amount of political colour can be considered as a necessary means of rallying the masses when the situation does not permit decisive revolutionary action.

It is necessary to distinguish between two types of slogans: propaganda slogans and action slogans. As an example of the former, we could cite the following: "to increase production is to make revolution"; "distribution is the task of the people"; "against bourgeois legalism: popular justice", etc. As an example of the latter, we can cite the following: "to prevent the lockout by making the factories produce"; "to form a Junta for each block"; "to strengthen the communal commands", etc.

One of the characteristics of ultra-left deviations is the use of slogans that have nothing to do with the political moment at hand. For example: "the slogan of the moment is to destroy parliament", when in fact it is known that there is not the strength to make this a reality; "insurrection or die", when there is nothing to suggest that insurrection is the order of the day; "no to the vote, yes to the gun", when the majority of the people believe in elections and want peace.

Throwing the masses into decisive combat prematurely or too late is always dangerous for the revolution. Only a party that has real contact with the masses, that knows their immediate interests, that correctly assesses their revolutionary potential, is able to achieve correct political leadership by making the masses recognise it as their vanguard.

Parties or political groups which have not had a real mass line tend to launch abstract slogans which may be correct from the strategic point of view, but which have no actual significance for the masses, since they do not appear in any way linked to their immediate interests.

The art of correct political leadership consists in knowing how to launch slogans which, starting from these interests, lead the masses towards the strategic objectives pursued. Lenin never posed socialism as an abstract slogan in itself — he linked it to the most immediate interests of the Russian masses: land, bread and peace — but he posed things in such a way that by fighting for these immediate interests the masses were at the same time fighting for socialism and developing their revolutionary consciousness through action.

Conclusion

The class struggle is a protracted war. The success of the revolutionary forces depends on the correct strategic and tactical direction of the struggle.

It is essential not to lose sight of the final objective and to know how to link each of the concrete steps to this objective.

It is essential not to lose sight of the final objective and to know how to link each of the concrete steps to this objective.

"It is necessary to be bold and resolute in working out new tasks and methods; it is necessary to be able to foresee, at least in the broadest outlines, the outcome of the next actions and all the possibilities of the development of the objective situation. In practice, the facts always reveal new factors and possibilities. It is necessary to know how to base oneself on them in order to modify and correct actions in time, and to work out new methods to ensure that the strategic and tactical direction always corresponds to the constantly changing situation. This is the only way to ensure that the struggle advances steadily, through small and big leaps forward, both in the movement and in the correlation of forces, until it reaches the great decisive leap that leads to the final victory.

"Lenin firmly opposed subjectivism and voluntarism, as well as manifestations of political passivity. Lenin demanded that the Communist parties should work out their policies and tactics on the basis of a combination of 'scientific serenity in the analysis of the objective situation of facts and its process of development, with the most resolute recognition of the significance of the revolutionary energy, the creative spirit and the revolutionary dynamism of the masses'. (Against the Boycott, Collected Works, t 13, p. 31, French edition).

"The revolution is not a 'coup d'état', much less the result of intrigues, but the work of the masses. Therefore, the mobilisation and rallying of the popular forces, the creation and development of the political army of the revolution, is the fundamental and decisive task. This task must be carried out constantly and on a long-term basis, through all periods, both when there is no revolutionary situation and when the revolutionary situation is emerging or mature. To do this, we must mix daily with the masses, work wherever they are, even in the enemy's organisations; we must be well aware of the enemy's situation and our own, assess with certainty their manoeuvres, activities and possibilities, correctly assess the changes in their ranks and, at the same time, know the mood, aspirations and possibilities of the masses. Then to launch adequate, effective and timely slogans of struggle, capable of mobilising and attracting them powerfully and broadly in order to wage upwardly developing struggles, and through this, to raise their political consciousness and develop the revolutionary contingent quantitatively and qualitatively.

"Before the seizure of power and for the seizure of power, the unique weapon of the revolution and of the masses is organisation. A characteristic of the revolutionary movement under the leadership of the working class is its high organisational level. The whole range of activities that must carry the masses forward, step by step towards the overthrow of the ruling classes can be summed up in organising, organising and organising. Propaganda and political agitation are also aimed at organising the masses. Only by organising them in one form or another will there be conditions for educating them and creating the great force of the revolution, because once the masses are organised, their strength increases a hundredfold. The masses must be organised to fight. However, it is also through struggle that their organisation and education, and the development of revolutionary forces are achieved. Therefore, propaganda, organisation and struggle must be closely linked, and all will be directed towards creating and developing the political contingent of the masses in preparation for the final qualitative leap.

"Organise and struggle, struggle and organise and struggle again. Out of one struggle comes another; and once the masses enter into it they will quickly raise their consciousness, and through their own experiences they will realise the truth and how they must fight."

Summary of the four parts

In this booklet we have analysed how the class struggle was posed as a real war for the control of political power. We have seen that in the face of the control of economic, ideological and political power in society by the ruling classes, the working class, together with the rest of the people, can only win this war if it organises itself in the perspective of taking the struggle to its conclusion.

Hence the need for the political vanguard to plan scientifically the road to the conquest of power. We saw how, on the basis of a study of the terrain and the correlation of forces, the partial strategic objectives which must be achieved in order to advance towards the final strategic objective: the establishment of socialism, are defined. We study this in relation to the strategy of the UP, to the way in which it proposes to create the conditions for socialism in Chile. We then highlight the importance of establishing the difference between the ideal and the real correlation of forces in order to change the existing correlation of forces at a given moment.

All these elements led us to stress the difference between the maximum programme or socialist programme, and the minimum programme, which defines the tasks to be accomplished more immediately. We saw that the minimum programme is precisely the programme of the UP, and that its fulfilment opens the way to realising the final objective of the maximum programme: socialism.

Finally, we put forward the need for a party to be able to match its analysis of the situation to the mobilisation of the masses. This consists of launching slogans that reflect the sentiments of the masses, that are timely, that put into action the revolutionary potential of the masses and develop their consciousness in order to advance to socialism.

Bibliography

Lenin: Draft Programme of Our Party. Collected Works, T. IV, Editorial Cartago, Buenos Aires, 1959.

Lenin: For the Revision of the Party Programme. Collected Works, Vol. XXVI, Editorial Cartago, Buenos Aires, 1969.

Mao Tse-Tung: Strategic Problems of the Revolutionary War in China. Selected Works, T. I. Foreign Language Edition, Beijing.

Mao Tse-Tung: Problems of War and Strategy. Selected Works, T. II. Foreign Language Edition, Beijing.

Le Duan: The Vietnamese Revolution. Camino de Victoria Series, Editorial Austral, Santiago de Chile, 1971.

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