Marxism and Terrorism

The propertied classes have always laid the charge of "terrorism" on those leading the struggle against exploitation and oppression. But it has been the terror of the capitalist rulers against which an outraged majority eventually rises. Trotsky explains why the working class is the only social force capable of leading the toiling majority in overthrowing the capitalist exploiters and beginning the construction of a new society and why individual terrorism — whatever its intention — relegates the workers to the role of spectators and opens the workers movement to provocation and victimization.