Going underground has been a successful tactic, where the structure and leadership are opaque but actions are still clear. We also just exist in a world of surveillance which has made the lessons from the Bolsheviks in this case almost irrelevant. Lenin sat on a train with someone hunting him and wasn’t caught. You gotta get 7 surgeries and wait 5 years to possibly pull that trick that he did by just not having known photographs spread far and wide.
Leadership goes underground and works at getting communication, training, and supplies set up.
Leadership trains individuals who then go out to areas to assess, agitate for, and run groups in an area. Those individuals now have access to communication networks and resources maintained by the underground leadership while the individuals operate mostly independently of the central leadership.
Think of it in the same way the Palestinian resistance works right now. There are independent military brigades that operate within an area but are not micromanaged by central leadership outside of the brigade’s area of operations. Central leadership will get updates on what the brigades are doing and give the brigades whatever intel they can along with directing supplies but at the end of the day the brigades are mostly left alone to pick their targets. Central leadership can be compromised and the brigades can still fight, any one brigade can be compromised without immediately hindering the other brigades ability to fight.
Lenin sat on a train with someone hunting him and wasn’t caught.
Obligatory reminder that Lenin was arrested in A-H for being a Russian spy and when pigs searched his house they completely ignored all the illegal party correspondence (presumably because it was just lying in the open and were written mostly in Russian and French which they couldn’t read) but confiscated the book about statistics because it had graphs and tables (meaning spying, no matter it was book about agriculture). And entire case was so ridiculous he was shortly released at the intervention of some socialdemocrats from Vienna.
Going underground has been a successful tactic, where the structure and leadership are opaque but actions are still clear. We also just exist in a world of surveillance which has made the lessons from the Bolsheviks in this case almost irrelevant. Lenin sat on a train with someone hunting him and wasn’t caught. You gotta get 7 surgeries and wait 5 years to possibly pull that trick that he did by just not having known photographs spread far and wide.
Only problem with going underground that I could see is it makes it more difficult to advertise and grow your membership.
For sure! But it makes protecting good leadership easier, I hope. Just gotta think of cool names, like Wool or Bronzer
Leadership goes underground and works at getting communication, training, and supplies set up.
Leadership trains individuals who then go out to areas to assess, agitate for, and run groups in an area. Those individuals now have access to communication networks and resources maintained by the underground leadership while the individuals operate mostly independently of the central leadership.
Think of it in the same way the Palestinian resistance works right now. There are independent military brigades that operate within an area but are not micromanaged by central leadership outside of the brigade’s area of operations. Central leadership will get updates on what the brigades are doing and give the brigades whatever intel they can along with directing supplies but at the end of the day the brigades are mostly left alone to pick their targets. Central leadership can be compromised and the brigades can still fight, any one brigade can be compromised without immediately hindering the other brigades ability to fight.
Obligatory reminder that Lenin was arrested in A-H for being a Russian spy and when pigs searched his house they completely ignored all the illegal party correspondence (presumably because it was just lying in the open and were written mostly in Russian and French which they couldn’t read) but confiscated the book about statistics because it had graphs and tables (meaning spying, no matter it was book about agriculture). And entire case was so ridiculous he was shortly released at the intervention of some socialdemocrats from Vienna.