Terrorism is not only a threat to the lives, liberties, and livelihoods of the working masses, but also serves as an imperialist tool used by ruling elites to subdue the populace through the propagation of fear, perceived threats, and the promise of security. Nation-states often exploit terrorism to expand the control mechanisms of a security-driven state, thereby undermining human life, dignity, and freedom. All forms of terrorism today erode democracy, citizenship rights, and the economic well-being of the working class.
However, terrorism has become so deeply intertwined with nation-states and religion that even communist and socialist parties, along with secular political movements, are increasingly aligning with narrow nationalist agendas, religious narratives, and Eurocentric cultural relativism under the guise of opposing terrorism. All forms of terrorism obstruct the class struggle by diverting consciousness and focus from systemic exploitation to reactionary violence. A class-based analysis is essential to expose how terrorism reinforces capitalist state power, imperialist hegemony, and suppresses proletarian emancipation. It is imperative to develop a working-class perspective that sharpens ideological clarity and aligns the struggle against terrorism with anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist political and economic praxis, in accordance with the fundamental needs and aspirations of the working masses.
Many working people participate in various forms of terrorist and anti-terrorist organisations and operations in the name of country, culture, nationalism, or religion. In both cases, it is the working class that ends up confronting and destroying one another, along with their shared interests. In such a violent process, working people annihilate each other and their working-class solidarity and class consciousness. Therefore, both terrorist and anti-terrorist violence ultimately work against the interests of the working class. Such violence undermines the struggle for the emancipation of working people from the lingering effects of feudal, colonial, and imperialist agendas and strategies promoted by both ruling and non-ruling elites.
The often-quoted phrase, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” is a false dichotomy designed to undermine working-class unity and obscure the distinction between the interests of the ruling and non-ruling classes in maintaining a violence-led status quo. Figures like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gandhi, Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh, Subhas Bose, Mao, Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X are heroes of the working class across the world. The English and American working people never viewed them as terrorists; it was only the ruling class that labelled them as terrorists.
In contrast, Osama Bin Laden is recognised by working people globally as a terrorist—and also as an agent of imperialist interests. The working-class people of Afghanistan never saw Bin Laden as a hero, nor do the working people of Pakistan celebrate Ajmal Kasab. Pakistani terrorists serve neither the interests of the Kashmiri people nor those of the working class in Pakistan. Instead, they advance the agendas of the military establishment, reactionary religious leaders, and their imperialist sponsors in London and Washington. These terrorists stand in opposition to the interests of the working class and function as agents to reinforce the power and interests of the local, regional, national, and international capitalist class and imperialist world order.
Many revolutionary and nationalist struggles have resorted to violence and terror as means to combat feudalism, colonialism, and imperialism. However, in response to the Fenians’ use of violence in London—specifically the Clerkenwell explosion, carried out as part of the Irish freedom struggle—Marx expressed strong criticism. Writing to Engels, he noted: “The last exploit of the Fenians in Clerkenwell was a very stupid thing. The London masses, who have shown great sympathy for Ireland, 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 in honour of the Fenian emissaries. There is always a kind of fatality about such a secret, melodramatic sort of conspiracy.” Engels replied, agreeing with Marx’s assessment, stating: “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”. While defending Irish cause and calling ‘‘the beastliness of the English” in Ireland, both Marx and Engels understood that acts of terror and violence—especially those detached from mass political mobilisation—tend to breed reactionary forces, depoliticise working-class consciousness, and ultimately weaken the class struggle.
The Fenians did not intend to kill civilians in Clerkenwell, London; the deaths were accidental, resulting from their conspiratorial actions aimed at achieving quick results. Nevertheless, both Marx and Engels criticised the incident. In contrast, Marx did not condemn the violence against Tsarism in Russia, as it was rooted in mass mobilization against the autocratic regime. In a letter to his daughter Jenny, Marx defended the assassination of Alexander II, describing violence as an “inevitable means of action, as pointless to debate as the earthquake at Chios.” He praised the Russian people as “excellent people through and through… simple, straightforward, heroic.” This contrast suggests that Marx’s view of violence as a tool for class struggle depended on the level of class consciousness among the working masses.
Lenin argued that the politics of terrorism reflects “an utter failure to understand the mass movement and a lack of faith in it.” He emphasised the inefficacy of terrorism, stating that “without the working class all bombs are powerless, patently powerless.” He further asserted that “only new forms of the mass movement or the awakening of new sections of the masses to independent struggle really rouse 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.” Through these observations, Lenin clearly outlines the limitations of terrorism and violence as methods of working-class struggle, underscoring the necessity of mass movements and collective action based on working class consciousness. Lenin goes further to criticise “Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder” for its flawed political strategy based on anarcho-syndicalist ideals. It is clear that Lenin firmly opposed terrorism as a method of revolutionary change.
Similarly, Trotsky, in his seminal work, clearly outlines the reasons ‘why Marxists oppose individual terrorism’. He further argued that “engendered by the absence of a revolutionary class, regenerated later by a lack of confidence in the revolutionary masses, terrorism can maintain itself only by exploiting the weakness and disorganisation of the masses, minimising their conquests and exaggerating their defeats.” He also criticised individual terror as “it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes toward a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission”. It is clear that terrorism and its associated violence undermine class consciousness and weakens the emancipatory struggles of the working people.
Terrorism enslaves the masses and their emancipatory politics. The struggle against terrorism is inseparable from the broader struggle against feudalism, capitalism, and imperialism. To truly defeat terrorism, it is essential to challenge and dismantle the ruling class’s narratives and definitions of terrorism and terrorist violence. Working people must refrain from participating in both terrorist acts and counter-terrorist operations orchestrated by ruling and non-ruling elites, as these serve to consolidate elite hegemony through fear, coercion, and manufactured instability in the name of protecting nation states and religions. The future of working class politics and success its struggle depends on its ability to raise class consciousness against different forms of terrorism and structurally embedded violent strategies of the ruling and non-ruling elites.