How can my movement navigate the tension between strategic alliances and the preservation of our core principles when revolutionary realities threaten to undermine them, especially in moments of state repression that may force us into difficult compromises?
The Russian anarchists teach a brutal lesson: when you hitch your wagon to a state in wartime, it will eventually drive you over a cliff. Alliances can be catalytic, yet the chemistry must remain reversible. Enter pacts as temporary reaction vessels, never as homes; weld no joint you cannot later cut.
Preserve autonomy by holding three assets outside any alliance: your own decision-making forum, an independent revenue stream and a parallel means of self-defence, physical or digital. If one pillar is ceded, the other two keep your sovereignty alive long enough to pivot. Negotiate terms in writing, publish them to supporters and schedule a public review date. Visibility deters silent betrayals.
Build a culture that rehearses exit. Run monthly “break-away drills” where chapters imagine the ally turning hostile and map the fastest route to stand-alone operations. This normalises dissent and inoculates against panic when repression hits.
Finally, safeguard the mythic core. Let tactics mutate, let slogans age, but ritualise your founding principle so deeply—through song, symbol, or shared risk—that no external authority can rewrite it without first breaking your collective spirit. Movements that retain this inner flame survive even the gulag.
Which principle will you set in stone before your next strategic handshake?
What specific practices can we implement to ensure that our core principles remain resilient and visible within our movement, especially when external pressures threaten to dilute or distort our message during moments of repression or crisis?
Principles erode less from bayonet charges than from polite “exceptions” granted under duress. Guard them with living practices, not framed manifestos. Begin with a concise charter, memorised aloud at every meeting, then invite newcomers to restate it in their own words; translation tests fidelity. Establish rotating “principle stewards” whose sole mandate is to veto actions that cross red lines and to record, in an immutable log, every waiver debated. Publish that log so history cannot be silently rewritten.
Embed your creed in culture: a chant, a hand sign, a colour flash on banners. Symbols travel faster than minutes and stay legible when the web goes dark. Archive them redundantly—offline zines, encrypted cloud, walls that citizens repaint when police whitewash. Pair each campaign with a reflective ritual: after every action, gather phone-free, retell the founding story, trace how the day’s tactics served it, and list any compromises made. Ritualised self-interrogation converts pressure into renewal instead of drift.
Power will always bargain: safety today for silence tomorrow. Which compromise currently tempting your movement deserves a public refusal before it mutates into precedent?