This chapter reviews the panoply of political tactics practised or advocated by Marx, Engels, and their successors. It draws two important distinctions which have often led to confusion in past debates on the question of legal and illegal tactics: first, illegal tactics are not synonymous with violent tactics; second, every political tactic considered legal today became legal because it was practised when it was illegal. Thus, the distinction between legality and illegality is historically a constantly shifting line that cannot be determined a priori or from a purely theoretical position. However, falsely elevating the question of tactics to a theoretical level has led to the division of Marxist political theory into liberal-democratic, democratic-socialist, and revolutionary-communist approaches that confront each other as mutually exclusive positions.
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Front Matter
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Part I: MARX AND THE MARXIST TRADITION
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Part II: CONTEMPORARY MARXIST ANALYSIS OF LAW, RIGHTS, AND THE STATE
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Part III: FUTURE ORIENTATIONS OF MARXIST LEGAL ANALYSIS
