Context: Luigi Galleani was an Italian Anarchist, who advocated for ‘Propaganda of the Deed’ - radical, direct action (political assassinations, bombings, etc).
He was arrested and exiled numerous times for his insurrectionist and anti-war views. Eventually growing disillusioned with labour movements and unionism for their reformist approaches. His followers were known as Galleanisti and were responsible for acts such as poisoning hundreds of high profile industrial/finance/law figures at a banquet a la the Red Wedding, attempting to bomb John D. Rockefeller, fighting in the Mexican revolution, bombing Wall Street, among other notable acts of resistance.
Unfortunately it’s been proven that propaganda of the deed doesn’t work
How have you come to the conclusion that propaganda of the deed never works? I’m still on the fence about its effectiveness, especially in light of what happened after Charlie Kirk and Shinzo Abe were “styled upon”.
- Kirk’s gone, and the Right have not been able to rally around a propagandist as charismatic as him (yet).
- Abe was killed because of his connections to the Unification Church. Because of his assassination, the church lost their religious corporation status.
IMO, propaganda of the deed is not a substitute for organizing and social revolution, but… for people whose only language is terror, i.e. the tyrants, I’m not against terrorizing and assassinating these fuckers.
Not sure about Abe, but Kirk was just yet another inevitable example of right-on-right violence and thus doesn’t count.
I mean just because the shooter wasn’t a leftist doesn’t mean it wasn’t propaganda of the deed, right? Like clearly, Kirk was targeted (rightly
) because of what he said (otherwise, why not shoot anyone else at the event?), I guess from a right-wing perspective.
It certainly helped end a few monarchies.
But nothing works in isolation. Frankly it’s far more effective compared to black bloc property destruction.
Which monarchies were ended by propaganda of the deed?
Helped end, not directly ended. And every dead monarch helps towards that goal, Umberto I, Alexander II, Elisabeth, Franz, etc.
Like I said nothing works in isolation, but combined they all work towards the same goal and help to destabilise systems.
Ye I’m not sure I agree with that interpretation of history there. From what I’ve read it was a counter productive tactic as far as spreading anarchism was concerned
In many ways we’re still rehabilitating anarchism’s image from that era. I don’t think we should eliminate propaganda of the deed entirely, but we have to accept that it requires careful planning for how it will appear to the people when it’s enacted
Mangione shows that there can be strong public support for it.
The decider is who gets to do the messaging around.
Just hasn’t been accomplished at scale. 1mg of penicillin won’t cure an infection.
