Eric: The Myth of 'Blueprint for Revolution' Must Be Broken

Previously, some people recommended this book, treating it as a bible to guide the Chinese resistance movement. I didn't want to pour cold water on it, and I even support some of its methodologies, because I have always advocated for combining peaceful struggle with armed struggle. Unexpectedly, a few individuals, with monotheistic arrogance, made a harsh and discordant noise: if the nonviolent movement fails, it is to be blamed on those who engage in violence.

Since that is the case, don't blame me for tearing off the mask of this myth.

As I have said before, violence and nonviolence—as can be seen from their names—show that nonviolence is strongly targeted at, negating, and hostile toward violence. Yet those who advocate nonviolence demonize violence to such an extent without realizing that the key to the success of their own advocacy—winning over the military and police to defect—is essentially seeking the support of violence. Yet they tell other resisters that it is inappropriate to possess violent power themselves because it is impossible, and it would only anger the enemy's violent apparatus and intensify the suppression... Is there any weaker logic of black humor than this?

The theory of nonviolence has been highly industrialized and politically corrected. All cooperating levels benefit from it: Western governments, corporations, and the financial backers behind various NGOs do not want to provoke China or other authoritarian regimes; they want to continue doing business. Meanwhile, the media, publishers, NGOs, and other organizations and individuals want a more beautiful moral narrative rather than a bloody struggle, which helps them win more fame and fortune.

The author of "Blueprint for Revolution," a man who specializes in peddling and training nonviolent theories and backbones, has such a strong demand to market his ideas that he does not hesitate to distort facts and make naive, already-bankrupt predictions.

Even he himself admits that his predictions of trends often fail; for example, when the iPhone first came out, he predicted that Apple would soon go bankrupt. In his book, he spends a lot of space talking about the bright prospects of nonviolent movements in Syria and Myanmar, and blames the advocacy of violence for making Assad make up his mind, which would make change impossible. But what are the facts? The former ultimately relied on armed struggle to overthrow Assad, while the latter entered an ongoing civil war.

His predictions have proven to be complete failures, and his real-life friends only ask for his opinion to get the opposite view—they know how off his judgment is. Yet our elites in China, who do not know him, want to revere what he peddles as a blueprint for revolution?

His claimed experience of overthrowing Milošević also reads like self-boasting. Anyone with a little historical common sense knows that Milošević's power base was thoroughly shaken long before by his military failures in conflicts with NATO. His stepping down stemmed from geopolitical and economic failures, which was the root cause.

As for the so-called classic examples and "authoritative data" cited in the book, they are all highly questionable.

For instance, regarding the downfall of Mubarak in Egypt, not to mention that the underlying reasons were a combination of multiple factors, just looking at the final street movements, they were accompanied by extremely violent conflicts: more than 800 people died, over 6,000 were injured, and over a hundred police stations were burned... As a result, promoters of nonviolent theory try their best to downplay or keep silent about this, and then credit everything to the success of nonviolence?

Take another example, the downfall of Marcos in the Philippines. Any serious historian admits that years of combat operations by tens of thousands of armed personnel of the left-wing guerrillas continuously weakened the resources and prestige of the Marcos regime. Without these, Aquino's subsequent massive demonstrations could not have achieved victory. But in the eyes of the nonviolent theory salesmen, these were unsurprisingly ignored.

I have said long ago that you cannot look closely or delve deeply into the so-called cases they use to glorify themselves, otherwise the truth will be exposed. And those data calculated by so-called models, such as the negative impact of violence on the success rate of nonviolence, which can be precise to two decimal places—it is truly too "scientific." Anyone who did not fabricate similar papers during college would probably be bluffed, right?

Clearly, the successful cases they revere as golden rules have all more or less relied on the role of violence or the deterrence of violence. Yet they turn around, burn the bridge after crossing it, and create a scapegoat for themselves: if we fail, the reason must be that someone engaged in violence and did not strictly abide by our discipline of nonviolence.

How is this any different from Lin Biao forcibly whitewashing Mao Zedong's mistakes back then? Failure was not because Chairman Mao's words were wrong, but precisely because you didn't listen to Chairman Mao! Or didn't listen well enough, and didn't execute it properly!

We have seen too much of this kind of political sophistry.

There is also the claim that democracy established through nonviolence is more stable and of higher quality, which is actually confusing cause and effect. The quality and stability of a democracy established by a country, including whether the method of establishment is violent or not, are determined by its own conditions and historical background, not by the method of establishment. Among the world's major democratic powers, how many were not established with the help of violence?

As for the decades of endless chatter—that the CCP is too powerful, armed struggle is completely impossible, it is impossible to establish similar underground organizations in China, you haven't fired a single shot or shell... We tried for less than two years, and haven't we established them and fired them? Has the authorities wiped us out yet?

The so-called impossibility, and the invincibility of the CCP, are both myths that can be shattered by people.

For many things, the answer lies in whether you dare to try. If you don't try, the probability of success is zero; if you try, the probability of success is not zero. Does such simple common sense still need to be repeated?

In the Algerian War of Independence, there were only five fighters at the beginning, which later grew to tens of thousands, successfully winning independence.

The Irish Republican Army also started with a group of only a few people, but in the end won Irish independence and Northern Irish autonomy.

The underground armed forces during the restoration of Israel started with only dozens of people, scattered insignificantly across the country, but gradually grew until they forced the British to retreat and established Israel.

We didn't have to waste thirty years in vain.

And that sword has been tempered in blood and fire for too long, just waiting for you to draw it out and stamp it with the mark of courage.

By this sign,

you shall conquer.