FROM THE COMMUNIST PLAYBOOK-THE “SHARP KNIFE” OF AGITATION
By
Dr. Martin Scott Catino
May 2021
Spinning a particular grievance into an indictment of the entire society is an old communist trick
“What Is Agitation?”
The radical Left is again using its “sharp knife” of agitation to harm American unity and prosperity and to create a world of chaos ruled by autocratic elites. Taken directly from the Communist Playbook (its doctrinal and operational writings), agitators employ tactics that target Americans and compel them to hate their country by believing the millions of contacts between police and citizens each year often end with the death of a “person of color.” The high-profile cases of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Freddie Gray are more recent examples exploited by the Left through misinformation, mischaracterization, and misapplication.
The “evidence of systemic racism” is then used by the radical Left to attack and undermine the entire American political and legal system rather than encourage reform and application of civil liberties. The Playbook asserts to its cadre regarding this approach:
Too many patriotic Americans mistakenly attribute this demonization of the police to the “bias” of mainstream media and the Left rather than a strategic tactic from the Communist Playbook. As the initial quote in this article reveals, agitation involves taking a single issue like alleged “police brutality” against people of color and making it the single narrative to a broad number of people, in this case Americans. Agitators use propaganda relying on the tactics of focus, repetition, emotive media images, gross generalizations, and high visibility victims not to bring improvements to these communities but to “draw blood around it,” generating the hatred needed to channel violence against the state and its structures, to destabilize and polarize Americans, and thereby create the conditions where a radical elite can dominate.
“Drawing blood around” police-related grievances -- real and created -- is a tactic Communists have long used from their Playbook, boasting of the dire consequences that result. Referring to the Communist agitation surrounding the brutal death of Mexican-American Joe Torres in May 1977, and the subsequent Moody Park Riot a year later in Houston, the Playbook referenced in this article stated:
The post-George Floyd protests occurring from May 25 to July 31, 2020 demonstrated the same “bloodthirsty” agitation tactics in the Communist Playbook. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, “Report on the 2020 Protests and Civil Unrest” (October 2020), notes the violence was predominantly Left-wing; nationally coordinated; targeting major cities, the police, police vehicles, and property attacked by arson and looting; and carried out in most cases “by individuals or small groups that infiltrated the larger protests.”
Over 2000 police officers were injured in the line of duty in the short time span of 9 weeks during the Summer of 2020. In one case, protesters attempted to trap police officers between a fire created behind the line of law enforcement and a barricade placed in front of them, a tactic that “was extremely dangerous and presented a high risk of death or injury to officers.” In fact, the radical Left has been targeting the U.S. police for over half a century. [See W. Cleon Skousen, The Communist Attack on U.S. Police, 1996.]
Concerned Americans should be aware of the agitation tactics taken straight from the Communist Playbook, their deceptive nature, and their objective of destroying America. These agitation tactics target the police, but the strategic target is the state and everything patriots hold dearly as personal liberties.
The architects and operators of the agit-prop have given careful attention to popularizing it, prioritizing it, permanently and persistently applying it, nationalizing it, institutionalizing it, and championing its violent methods while repudiating peaceful approaches. These modern-day agitators are committed to making sure the sharp knife of agitation remains “a mighty and indispensable weapon in the Party’s revolutionary arsenal” (Marxist Internet Archive, “On the Role of Agitation and Propaganda”). Therefore, every responsible citizen should resist its influence.
________________________________________________
Dr. Scott Catino is an Assistant Professor at Liberty University Online, U.S. Fulbright Scholar, and member of the Anti-Communism Action Team (ACAT). He served in the United States, Bahrain, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the UAE in various research, supervisory, and advising posts for diverse entities including the Department of Defense, FBI, and private security programs. His research on civil unrest, terrorism, and insurgency has involved field studies around the world as well as numerous publications in scholarly and industry journals.
By
Dr. Martin Scott Catino
May 2021
Spinning a particular grievance into an indictment of the entire society is an old communist trick
“What Is Agitation?”
- “Agitation, whether spoken or written, generally focuses on one event, and one contradiction, and seeks to make a single idea powerfully clear to broad numbers of people. It is like a sharp knife seeking to expose and make raw a glaring contradiction and draw blood around it.”
Marxist Internet Archive, “On the Role of Agitation and Propaganda,” (original publication December 1978), https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-8/rcp-agit-prop.htm
The radical Left is again using its “sharp knife” of agitation to harm American unity and prosperity and to create a world of chaos ruled by autocratic elites. Taken directly from the Communist Playbook (its doctrinal and operational writings), agitators employ tactics that target Americans and compel them to hate their country by believing the millions of contacts between police and citizens each year often end with the death of a “person of color.” The high-profile cases of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Freddie Gray are more recent examples exploited by the Left through misinformation, mischaracterization, and misapplication.
The “evidence of systemic racism” is then used by the radical Left to attack and undermine the entire American political and legal system rather than encourage reform and application of civil liberties. The Playbook asserts to its cadre regarding this approach:
- Real agitation, by dealing with the particularity of contradiction, seeks to point forward to the broader picture. Its aim is not to leave things at the level of the particular. As Lenin put it, ‘we must make it our concern to direct the thoughts of those who are dissatisfied only with conditions at the university, or in the Zemstvo [town council], etc., to the idea that the entire political system is worthless.’
(What Is To Be Done? Section 3E). (Marxist Internet Archive, “On the Role of Agitation and Propaganda.”)
Too many patriotic Americans mistakenly attribute this demonization of the police to the “bias” of mainstream media and the Left rather than a strategic tactic from the Communist Playbook. As the initial quote in this article reveals, agitation involves taking a single issue like alleged “police brutality” against people of color and making it the single narrative to a broad number of people, in this case Americans. Agitators use propaganda relying on the tactics of focus, repetition, emotive media images, gross generalizations, and high visibility victims not to bring improvements to these communities but to “draw blood around it,” generating the hatred needed to channel violence against the state and its structures, to destabilize and polarize Americans, and thereby create the conditions where a radical elite can dominate.
“Drawing blood around” police-related grievances -- real and created -- is a tactic Communists have long used from their Playbook, boasting of the dire consequences that result. Referring to the Communist agitation surrounding the brutal death of Mexican-American Joe Torres in May 1977, and the subsequent Moody Park Riot a year later in Houston, the Playbook referenced in this article stated:
- Before the rebellion, there had been months of persistent agitation and action by the Party and other mass organizations, exposing and going straight up against the capitalists and cops around the murder of Joe Torres and combatting all sorts of reformist dead-end schemes advanced as a ‘solution’ to police terror. This had a major effect, especially in focusing the anger of the masses against the class enemy. So it was no accident that when the people rebelled on the night of Cinco de Mayo many took up the slogan ‘Joe Torres dead, Cops go Free, That’s what the rich call democracy’ as a battle-cry against the murdering cops.
(Marxist Internet Archive, “On the Role of Agitation and Propaganda.”)
The post-George Floyd protests occurring from May 25 to July 31, 2020 demonstrated the same “bloodthirsty” agitation tactics in the Communist Playbook. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, “Report on the 2020 Protests and Civil Unrest” (October 2020), notes the violence was predominantly Left-wing; nationally coordinated; targeting major cities, the police, police vehicles, and property attacked by arson and looting; and carried out in most cases “by individuals or small groups that infiltrated the larger protests.”
Over 2000 police officers were injured in the line of duty in the short time span of 9 weeks during the Summer of 2020. In one case, protesters attempted to trap police officers between a fire created behind the line of law enforcement and a barricade placed in front of them, a tactic that “was extremely dangerous and presented a high risk of death or injury to officers.” In fact, the radical Left has been targeting the U.S. police for over half a century. [See W. Cleon Skousen, The Communist Attack on U.S. Police, 1996.]
Concerned Americans should be aware of the agitation tactics taken straight from the Communist Playbook, their deceptive nature, and their objective of destroying America. These agitation tactics target the police, but the strategic target is the state and everything patriots hold dearly as personal liberties.
The architects and operators of the agit-prop have given careful attention to popularizing it, prioritizing it, permanently and persistently applying it, nationalizing it, institutionalizing it, and championing its violent methods while repudiating peaceful approaches. These modern-day agitators are committed to making sure the sharp knife of agitation remains “a mighty and indispensable weapon in the Party’s revolutionary arsenal” (Marxist Internet Archive, “On the Role of Agitation and Propaganda”). Therefore, every responsible citizen should resist its influence.
________________________________________________
Dr. Scott Catino is an Assistant Professor at Liberty University Online, U.S. Fulbright Scholar, and member of the Anti-Communism Action Team (ACAT). He served in the United States, Bahrain, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the UAE in various research, supervisory, and advising posts for diverse entities including the Department of Defense, FBI, and private security programs. His research on civil unrest, terrorism, and insurgency has involved field studies around the world as well as numerous publications in scholarly and industry journals.