INDIVIDUAL TERRORISM AND THE DANGEROUS FALLACY OF AN "EPSTEIN CLASS"
—There is no “Epstein Class”— It's the Capitalist Class
Today we observe the growth of two interrelated reactionary political phenomena: individual terrorism and conspiracy theories.
The shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was seized upon by sections of the middle-class left not as a warning, but as an inspiration.
In place of politics, they elevate the gunman and conspiracy theories; in place of strategy to organize millions of workers, they await rescue by individual “heroes” and an ‘enlightened’ wing of the capitalist class itself. This abandonment and even rejection of sustained mass struggle in favor of individual substitution is a mortal trap. What is presented as militancy is, in reality, self-defeating political impotence. This is the case with those who lift the banner of terrorism and a purported “Epstein Class.” Both undercut the struggle against capitalism.
Far from an isolated phenomenon this tendency to celebrate acts of individual terrorism is becoming normalized, as we saw with the assassination of the loathsome health insurance executive by the now celebrated Luigi Mangioni, the assassination of rightist Charlie Kirk, and many other such cases.
This outlook revives the old anarchist claim that isolated acts of violence can substitute for mass political struggle of millions. It rejects the difficult work of political education, organization, and mobilization of working people, and replaces it with futile gestures of desperation. All of which point away from building a working-class movement capable of transforming society.
Terrorism is classless in method. As Leon Trotsky explained, individual terror replaces social struggle with a “purely mechanical reaction,” accessible to anyone with a pistol, and “absolutely harmless as far as the social system goes.” It requires no organization, no mass participation. Therefore, it undermines class consciousness itself, and strengthens the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state.
Marxism has always rejected such substitutionism. As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels insisted, “the emancipation of the working class must be conquered by the working class itself.” Social transformation is not delivered by heroes, conspirators, or avengers, but by the conscious self-activity of millions.
For this reason, Vladimir Lenin and revolutionary Marxists since 1903 rejected terrorism as a method. Terrorism does not advance the movement—it disorganizes it and strengthens the repressive powers of the capitalist state.
In 1903 Lenin put forward the following succinct resolution which was adopted by the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party:
TERORRISM
“The Congress decisively rejects terrorism, i.e., the system of individual political assassinations, as being a method of political struggle which is most inexpedient at the present time, diverting the best forces from the urgent and imperatively necessary work of organisation and agitation, destroying contact between the revolutionaries and the masses of the revolutionary classes of the population, and spreading both among the revolutionaries themselves and the population in general utterly distorted ideas of the aims and methods of struggle against the autocracy.”
Leon Trotsky drew the political conclusion with clarity: individual terror “belittles the role of the masses… and turns their eyes… towards a great avenger.” If a pistol and a piece of lead is sufficient, why organize? Why build a movement? Why engage in the long and difficult work of developing class consciousness and collective power?
Unfortunately, the present vacuum of working-class leadership and mass mobilization produces precisely the conditions in which such illusions flourish. Middle-class layers cut off from collective struggle fall into pessimism and desperation. As Lenin observed, such tendencies attempt to “substitute noisy declarations” for the work of organizing and mobilizing the working class, mistaking isolated action for political strategy.
While in the past, certain tendencies—from anarchists to the Russian Narodniks (19th-century populist revolutionaries who promoted peasant-based socialism and embraced political assassination)—advanced a theory of individual terrorism, today such acts more often arise from isolation, frustration, and political disorientation by individuals. That does not make them less dangerous. On the contrary, it makes them more politically corrosive as their “deeds” are hailed by broader layers.
The absolutely worst possible response would be to lionize these individuals, which naturally encourages others to follow suit, to their own destruction, and the detriment of the causes they espouse.
These attacks strengthen the ability of the capitalist state to erode already besieged democratic rights, repel working people, and encourage passivity rather than sustained organization. Dejectedly waiting for deeds by “heroes” in single combat is the opposite of an OPTIMISTIC revolutionary perspective grounded in the mobilization of the working class in our millions.
Certainly, we should feel loathing and hatred toward the U.S. ruling class and their inhuman government for their crimes—killing and torturing tens of millions. But anger, if it is to be politically meaningful, must be directed toward ending the system that produces these crimes, not merely seeking “revenge” or “retribution” on individuals or a changing of the capitalist color guard, red to blue.
Only the organized and conscious working class in our tens of millions can bring about that change.
“Epstein Class” Danger
Individual terrorism and conspiracy theory are both forms of political substitutionism that arise when confidence in mass class struggle is rejected.
Conspiracy theories function as the ideological counterpart and substrate to terrorism. Both reduce the problem to individuals—“bad actors,” hidden cabals, secret manipulators—rather than confronting capitalism as a social system. Both imply that removing a few individuals can rectify the whole. In this sense, despite their apparently radical rhetoric, they are profoundly reformist: they leave the system itself untouched.
The present conspiratorial fever surrounding the Epstein scandal is driving some toward political irrationality, and potentially toward violence, especially among the middle class. That is one more reason to reject the framework of the so-called “Epstein Class.”
There is no “Epstein Class.” There is the capitalist ruling class.
Sexual abuse is simply part of what they brutally do as a ruling class on a daily basis.
As Marx and Engels noted:
“Our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal… take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.”
— The Communist Manifesto
The issue is not a hidden conspiracy, but an openly existing social order rooted in exploitation and the oppression of women.
I confess to having briefly adopted the language of an “Epstein Class,” hoping such revelations would expose the ruling class and the functioning of capitalism as a social system. That was a mistake. While such scandals may reveal elements of elite behavior, they do not produce class consciousness. More often, they are absorbed into conspiratorial narratives that obscure the social reality of a class society.
Those presently foaming at the mouth about the “Epstein Scandal” are not seeking justice for the victims but are cynically using those crimes merely for intra-capitalist maneuvering and partisan leverage (Democrats and Republicans, etc.), and to vomit antisemitic conspiracy theories. The victims of sexual abuse are merely footballs to be kicked around by the contending teams of capitalist parties seeking to score against their opponents. There is absolutely no move to prosecute the capitalist abusers. The capitalist state protects the capitalist ruling class. How could it be otherwise?
Capitalists do indeed lie, scheme, and conspire for advantage. But that is not the essence of capitalism. Capitalism does not operate primarily through hidden cabals. It operates openly, structurally, and daily before the eyes of billions. The political task is not to uncover secrets, but to recognize, understand and overturn capitalism as a SYSTEM.
Conspiratorial thinking is therefore not merely mistaken—it is dangerous. It serves the capitalist ruling class. It feeds directly into reactionary and fascist currents by replacing material analysis with myth and madness, and collective struggle with suspicion and hatred. Today the sewers of fascism are fed by rightist and liberal conspiracy theories. That should ring every alarm bell among Marxists. Incredibly those claiming to be Marxists and “progressive” are hailing their newfound repugnant alliance with the fascist right, as see with them parroting the “Epstein Class” and “anti-Zionist” narratives of the ultra-right and fascists.
In this light, the claim that Israel or its “lobby” controls U.S. imperialism or imposed a war against Iran is not radical, but reactionary. It absolves the American ruling class capitalists of responsibility and replaces a material analysis of imperialism with a conspiratorial antisemetic excuse for U.S. imperialism, and Wall Street cheers. Once again antisemitism rescues the capitalist rulers. These liberal antisemites converge with right-wing ideology under a nationalist patriotic “anti-Zionist” rhetorical cover—as we see with the blossoming liberal romance with the reactionary ilk of Tucker Carlson and Joe Kent, etc.
Working class Marxists must reject this mortal trap and instead reaffirm our perspective of the unbroken fight of the working class as an international reality.
While many may already be familiar with the Marxist position on individual terrorism, it is worth revisiting these arguments—not as historical curiosities, but as essential tools for political clarity in the present.
MARXISM AGAINST INDIVIDUAL TERRORISM
(Selected Quotations)
Leon Trotsky
“Individual terror replaces class struggle with a mechanical act—and leaves the system untouched.”
“The capitalist state does not base itself on government ministers and cannot be eliminated with them. The classes it serves will always find new people; the mechanism remains intact and continues to function.
But the disarray introduced into the ranks of the working masses themselves by a terrorist attempt is much deeper. If it is enough to arm oneself with a pistol in order to achieve one’s goal, why the efforts of the class struggle? If a thimbleful of gunpowder and a little chunk of lead is enough to shoot the enemy through the neck, what need is there for a class organisation? If it makes sense to terrify highly placed personages with the roar of explosions, where is the need for the party? Why meetings, mass agitation and elections if one can so easily take aim at the ministerial bench from the gallery of parliament?
In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission.
The anarchist prophets of the ‘propaganda of the deed’ can argue all they want about the elevating and stimulating influence of terrorist acts on the masses. Theoretical considerations and political experience prove otherwise. The more ‘effective’ the terrorist acts, the greater their impact, the more they reduce the interest of the masses in self-organisation and self-education.
But the smoke from the confusion clears away, the panic disappears, the successor of the murdered minister makes his appearance, life again settles into the old rut, the wheel of capitalist exploitation turns as before; only the police repression grows more savage and brazen. And as a result, in place of the kindled hopes and artificially aroused excitement comes disillusionment and apathy.”
Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1911/11/tia09.htm
Trotsky — On Revenge
“The task is not to extinguish anger—but to direct it against the system itself.”
“There is no need to belabour the point that Social Democracy has nothing in common with those bought-and-paid-for moralists who, in response to any terrorist act, make solemn declarations about the ‘absolute value’ of human life. These are the same people who, on other occasions, in the name of other absolute values—for example, the nation’s honour or the monarch’s prestige—are ready to shove millions of people into the hell of war.
Whatever the eunuchs and pharisees of morality may say, the feeling of revenge has its rights. It does the working class the greatest moral credit that it does not look with vacant indifference upon what is going on in this best of all possible worlds. Not to extinguish the proletariat’s unfulfilled feeling of revenge, but on the contrary to stir it up again and again, to deepen it, and to direct it against the real causes of all injustice and human baseness—that is the task of Social Democracy.”
Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1911/11/tia09.htm
Vladimir Lenin
“Without the working people, all bombs are powerless.”
“Balmashov’s assassination of Sipyagin… everyone knows and sees perfectly well that this act was in no way connected with the masses and, moreover, could not have been by reason of the very way in which it was carried out—that the persons who committed this terrorist act neither counted on nor hoped for any definite action or support on the part of the masses.
In their naïveté, the Socialist-Revolutionaries do not realise that their predilection for terrorism is causally most intimately linked with the fact that, from the very outset, they have always kept, and still keep, aloof from the working-class movement…
…the inefficacy of terrorism… for without the working people all bombs are powerless, patently powerless.”
Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1902/aug/01.htm
Lenin — On Mass Struggle vs. “Single Combat”
“Terrorism produces sensation—mass struggle produces power.”
“Only new forms of the mass movement or the awakening of new sections of the masses to independent struggle really rouses a spirit of struggle and courage in all.
Single combat however, inasmuch as it remains single combat… has the immediate effect of simply creating a short-lived sensation, while indirectly it even leads to apathy and passive waiting for the next bout.
…They demand… a ‘definite’ measure… that would bring about an immediate ‘transference of strength’… These people do not understand that this very promise to ‘transfer’ strength constitutes political adventurism…
We must bear in mind that a revolutionary party is worthy of its name only when it guides in deed the movement of a revolutionary class.”
Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1902/aug/01.htm
Lenin — Formal Resolution
“Terrorism destroys contact between revolutionaries and the masses.”
“The Congress decisively rejects terrorism… as being a method of political struggle which is most inexpedient… diverting the best forces from the urgent… work of organisation and agitation, destroying contact between the revolutionaries and the masses… and spreading… distorted ideas…”
Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1903/2ndcong/5.htm
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
“Conspiracies isolate themselves—and inevitably collapse into stupidity.”
“The last exploit of the Fenians in Clerkenwell was a very stupid thing. The London masses… will be made wild by it and be driven into the arms of the government party. One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up… There is always a kind of fatality about such a secret, melodramatic sort of conspiracy.”
“The stupid affair in Clerkenwell was obviously the work of a few specialised fanatics; it is the misfortune of all conspiracies that they lead to such stupidities, because ‘after all something must happen, after all something must be done’.”
“We cannot in any way make ourselves responsible for the stupidities which occur in every conspiracy. And they are certain to happen.”
Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/jenkins/2006/xx/terrorism.html
Marx — Fundamental Principle
“The working class must emancipate itself.”
“The emancipation of the working class must be conquered by the working class itself.”
Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/10/27.htm
Marx & Engels — On Bourgeois Social Relations
“Exploitation extends into every sphere of life.”
“Our bourgeois… not content with having the wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal… take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.”
Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
July 17 (30)-August 10 (23), 1903
5. Drafts of Minor Resolutions
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1903/2ndcong/5.htm
TERORRISM
“The Congress decisively rejects terrorism, i.e., the system of individual political assassinations, as being a method of political struggle which is most inexpedient at the present time, diverting the best forces from the urgent and imperatively necessary work of organisation and agitation, destroying contact between the revolutionaries and the masses of the revolutionary classes of the population, and spreading both among the revolutionaries themselves and the population in general utterly distorted ideas of the aims and methods of struggle against the autocracy.”
_________________
Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (1960)
“We sincerely believe that terrorism is negative, that in no way does it produce the desired effects, that it can turn people against a particular revolutionary movement, and that it brings a loss of life to its agents far greater than any benefit…”
…..
“A clear distinction must be made between sabotage, a revolutionary and highly effective method of
warfare, and terrorism, a measure that is generally ineffective and indiscriminate in its results, since it often makes victims of innocent people and destroys many lives that would be valuable to the revolution.”
_________________
Leon Trotsky
Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism
(November 1911)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1911/11/tia09.htm
Originally published in German in Der Kampf, November 1911.
____________________
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Revolutionary Adventurism
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1902/sep/01.htm
_____________________
[While I do not subscribe to this particular organization or its politics, this article does present a useful perspective on the historic position of Marxism vs. Individual Terrorism. - Aaron]
Gareth Jenkins
Marxism and terrorism
(Spring 2006)
From International Socialism 2 : 110, Spring 2006.
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/jenkins/2006/xx/terrorism.html
……
Thanks Aaron - a good reminder.
This is a Leninist -Trot definition of Anarchism. Anarchy means No Rulers, not terror.
Such a portrayal of Anarchism, while being historically, theoretically, and practically wrong also helps to hide the fact who the real anti-working class, peasant-haters and murderers truly are. The people who actually DID destroy the truly anarchist, grassroots, powerful workers organization in the revolutionary Russia—the Soviets.
It’s simply inconceivable to claim that the Bolsheviks who destroyed the Soviets (after USUNG them to gain ABSOLUTE power) are NOT the real terrorists. Yes, they did not employ individual psychopaths to kill politicians and kings, they employed mass murder and State terror instead.
Anarchist believe that the Nation State is a true capitalist tool of the organized political terror. The State has granted itself the right to murder its own citizens. No matter how much a Bolshevik is fluent in quoting and misinterpreting Marx, he is—is historically proven to be—a terrorist. While also being a real clinical psychopath. They became psychopaths in the original Czarists Siberian Gulag, and, upon ceasing power, reconstituted what they learned from the Emperor, by becoming the one themselves.