Many American leftists are calling for radical direct action in the unfolding political moment. All sorts of “advanced” leftist activists, wielding revolutionary slogans, are calling for explicitly illegal actions and claiming that only these will advance the revolutionary cause. These militant supporters of the “social revolution”, can choose from a thousand arguments to justify immediate confrontation with the bourgeois state or an abstract ‘capitalism’.
Their logic is very simple: the task of the revolutionary is to make a revolution through revolutionary action. One who is afraid of “revolutionary action” – meaning anything from random killings, to spectacular confrontations with the police, to jumping on the bandwagon for the next disastrous “color revolution” or Maidan) – to them, this person is not a revolutionary comrade with real concerns, they are a coward and a gossip, using demagogy to slow down the development of a revolutionary situation.
Absolutely all such calls to a “revolutionary struggle” at the present time are the revelations of an adventurism which is disastrous for the real development of a revolutionary movement.
Let’s explore their position by examining the concept of “adventurism”, what the roots of adventurism are, and how Marxism-Leninism approaches this social phenomenon.
The Class Essence of Adventurism
Every social class has its own psychology, a uniquely acquired sense of morality. Such social and political scientists as Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin have demonstrated the failure of the concepts of a morality that is eternal, absolute, and suitable for all times or for all classes and cultures. In societies divided by class, morality and psychology develop a distinguished particular class character, which are mainly determined by the conditions of economic life. Economic relations, on which the social position of a class is based, underline, on one or another layer of their expression, the thoughts and actions of different class actors.
In this sense, we can say that adventurism exists as a practical manifestation of a particular psychology and morality, as a contextually relevant worldview, and that it also has a class character. What are the class roots of adventurism?
Adventurism is an integral element of petty-bourgeois psychology in the modern world; as a continuous social phenomenon, it stems directly from the economic situation of these people’s lives.
Circumstances for the petty bourgeoisie are the most unstable of the population of the capitalist countries, being in a “suspended state” between two main, contending classes — the proletariat and the bourgeoisie — desperately working to slow their descent into the working class, to recreate the current condition, while under constant pressure from the large monopolies whose position is advanced from those same conditions. This permanent economic instability (the very place of the petty bourgeoisie in the current system of social production) leaves a deep imprint on the similarly unstable psychology and ideology of the small-business tyrants in the suburbs.
One of the socio-psychological manifestations of this economic instability, the dual nature of the contradictory social situation between labor and capital, is characterized by emotional instability, building to the point of eruption.
Such a disordered cognitive process is an understandable psychological adaptation; constant hanging fear of their changing circumstances against the backdrop of growing capitalist and state power, against the onset of next great crisis, which cannot be comfortably explained and which they are powerless to stop; alienation from personal relationships among equals and senses of community; horror at the prospect of being cast into the mass of the desperately employed; fear of anything new heralding the collapse of their well-established conservative world. Self-deception is their tendency, which is reproduced to identify oneself with the higher ranks of society, lacking the rationality to respond to the ambiguous, half-seen challenges of the “outside world”. All this together contributes to the development of a deep pessimism, a cynical attitude to personal relationships, and despair or disbelief at the prospect of their dwindling future.
Most often, this social pessimism is manifested in “explosive” responses to the conditions, led by emotional panic and hyper-inflated social anxiety which permeates down to the self-conscious. The petty bourgeoisie is afraid of anyone or anything which could undermine its precarious social and economic position and derail its tranquil path — immigrants, criminals, Communists, foreign governments, corporate monopolies, the state or the decline in the exchange rate and the rise in lending rates. It is this deep-set sense of overwhelming terror which causes these people to act as an inexhaustible social reserve for any manner of bourgeois political games – but particularly for fascism.
Engels noted, in “Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany”, the enraptured panic of the petty bourgeoisie under the conditions of crisis. Petite-bourgeois strike out in impotent frenzy, cries of despair spilling into total capitulations to the challenges of the world. They are prone to radical shifts between passivity and ecstatic enthusiasm, and back. This enthusiasm builds to a boiling point which, however brief, brings about potentially dangerous consequences that may last long after the movement itself has died down.
At these moments, the belief in “individual resourcefulness”, which is the economic basis for the structure of their entrepreneurial class, applies to all questions of being. Any question posed by life can only be solved by some personal decision, any problem can be fixed with this action.
The petty bourgeois call for immediate “action”, seeking to solve all their problems that night. In doing so, they are ignoring the objective conditions by which situations change, not seeking to understand the forces governing certain phenomena that caused their emotional outburst. In moments of their greatest inspiration; impatience, militancy and disregard for the endangerment of themselves and others are characteristic features of their adventurist approach.
Accordingly, the ritual performer of this magical act is a kind of hero. He is capable, by his mere volition, of turning the tables in the right direction, no matter what obstacles. He is the model for the petty-bourgeois adventure.
Thus, we can conclude that adventurism is the active expression of desperation, impatience, misconceptions, delusions, and individualism. In short, it results from the practical engagement of the traits of petty-bourgeois class psychology. As one of the practical demonstrations of voluntarism; adventurism is an erroneous idealism towards the decisive nature of the individual will on a material reality.
Is it only these petite-bourgeoisie who hold faith in heroic figures waiting to take their hand at the wheel of destiny? Definitely not. Under the influence of ideologically-charged bourgeois media, which actively propagates misconceptions towards the role of the individual in history and society, and the domination of the petty-bourgeoisie in political activism, voluntarist and adventurous sentiments permeate the broadest mass of the working people.
Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, as a result of the disintegration of the Communist movement around the world, the working class is more exposed than ever to hostile ideological influence. The proletariat runs on the leash of petty-bourgeois and bourgeois propaganda, absorbs the elements of a hostile ideology, not knowing their own class philosophy, their own class point of view.
It cannot be otherwise. Lenin in What Is To Be Done? pointed out that, even while engaged in a fierce economic struggle against capitalists, the proletariat is unable to develop a truly liberatory consciousness. This consciousness, which includes an active awareness of their own position in society, their unique historical tasks, and also their own philosophy, must be brought into the working class from sources independent from bourgeois production, sources like their own revolutionary political party. Until then, the proletariat will continue to be held captive by the predominant bourgeois and petty-bourgeois illusions.
At present, in the complete absence of genuine Communist parties distributing class consciousness among the ranks of the workers, the ideological paralysis of the proletariat is quite logical, given their saturation with the cognitive and practical vices of bourgeois society.
The proletarianization and revolutionization of the broad mass of petty-bourgeoisie – those failing entrepreneurs and distressed intelligentsia – is another exacerbating factor for the spread of petty-bourgeois illusions within the working class. Stunned by the horrors of capitalism, the petty bourgeoisie raise an incredible ruckus, which the workers see and may be either alienated or attracted by.
In a parallel moment, the late 19th century developmental era of current class relations, the working class was enthralled by Anarchism. This typical petty-bourgeois ideology had its moment of greatest popularity thanks to the sudden proletarianization of evicted peasants and artisans, taking to the factory-houses their petty-bourgeois ideology.
Adventurism in political practice
Adventurism has practically manifested within countless movements of the ‘socialist’ Left. The Golden Age of this tendency was the 19th century heyday of anarchism and all manner of thrilling conspiracies. Mikhail Bakunin and Louis Blanqui are the prominent theorists and practitioners of left-wing adventurism. Their theses declare “the propaganda of the deed” and the conception that “history is made by an active minority”. With these conceptions they established an entire ecosystem of leftist thinkers, who were then free to base their doctrines on their own “revolutionary” petty-bourgeois adventurism.
Groups such as the infamous Russian “Narodnaya Volya”, who murdered the Tsar, the “Armenian Revolutionary Federation”, “The internal Macedonian-Odrin revolutionary organization” and “Socialist Revolutionary Party, el Che’s suicidal Ñancahuazú Guerrilla in Bolivia, and the Brazilian “National Liberation Action”, the West-German “Red Army Faction”, the Italian “Red Brigades” with their Years of Lead, “The Marxist Fedayi” In Iran, and the “Turkish People’s Liberation Party-Front”: all these and so many more (even those who called themselves Communists) were organizations built upon an unbridled pursuit of adventurism, which led them to their eventual and natural collapse.
What are the main principles put forward by such theorists and their followers today? Despite the incredible gulf of years, their national circumstances and particular goals, all of these principles can be reduced to the following statements:
I.” Heroes Make History”, violence is an indicator of revolution and an internal readiness of the masses for revolution
The belittlement of the mass’ central role and the exaltation of personalities are integral features of both the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois worldview, as associated with one of the ideological pillars of capitalism – individualism.
The cult of the “hero”, leading the gray and unthinking crowd, is an old bourgeois theory with its roots in Thomas Carlyle, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nikolay Mikhaylovsky and other reactionary philosophers of the modern time, who exalt “great people” as the heralds of “great ideas”. These masters of the world carry along the braying mass.
We can see the same approach among the groups of petty-bourgeois “socialists”, from Bakunists and Blanqists to the Guevaraist insurrectionists who repeat all as one the singular role of the “active minority”. For them it is the predominantly violent action which creates a situation of revolutionary energy electrifying broad sections of the populous with the fight for social revolution. Because, — as is implied by default, — in a capitalist society, the revolutionary potential of the masses is constantly on the verge of eruption, and a small external impulse will be enough to pull the masses into a state of spontaneous revolutionary activity.
History demonstrates the fallacy behind this approach. During the 19th and 20th centuries, dozens of left-wing groups and organizations have taken up arms in order to spur forward the development of popular revolutionary sentiment through their heroic performances. Impatient petty-bourgeois revolutionaries have achieved the death and total collapse of all their organizations. Moreover; without fulfilling a revolutionary role, these groups often exist in an uncoordinated state, revealing their counter-revolutionary role as provocateurs and schismatics who deny the “peaceful” development of the revolutionary process. Their requirements are for an immediate, armed “revolutionary” struggle, even under the threat of their complete defeat and future repression. We cannot absolutize war as the universal solution to our problems.
A relevant adventurist position was displayed during the discussion around the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This treaty was a consolation to Imperial Germany for a Russian withdrawal from World War One, a peace the Bolsheviks had promised to the Russian people. So-called “left Communists” demanded the continuation of the “revolutionary war” with Germany, despite the likely the destruction of the new Soviet experiment.
Trotsky and his followers took this position and fundamentally denied the struggle of the USSR for peace. They demanded the immediate instigation of proletarian revolution in all countries through direct military involvement, the immediate and total expropriation of the possessing classes, the forced socialization of private property everywhere, all without regard to real conditions or consequences.
The Maoists took the same position with their notorious ‘mania for rifles’; the desire to mechanically impose Communist-led war across the ‘Third World’ with a universal strategy of “Protracted People’s War”, which has led more than one Communist movement to its demise.
To be sure, the question of practical adventurism is not always directly linked to the question of violence. A “softer” strain of the petty-bourgeois revolutionism is more inclined toward liberal values, are “only” for “street” action, for noisy and fruitless scandal, for any protest event which attracts public attention.
The logic here is similar; only “action” changes things. This action is anticipated by revolutionary noise, inspiring a faceless mob who have waited so long for that brave hero to lead their great campaign against every injustice.
Marxism-Leninism has never been supportive of the theory of the “active minority”, (the eponymous theory of the American Three-Percenter fascist movement) which can supposedly command the course of history. Pointing to the particular role of the subjective factor (a revolutionary party) the Bolshevik Party emphasized its importance exclusively when coupled with an objective factor (a developing revolutionary situation). It was in connection with the emergence of a revolutionary situation that the Bolsheviks considered the possibility of using violence and the transition to direct offensive actions: to declare a full class war against the ruler’s White coalition.
Unlike anarchists, tramps, and the like, who perceive violence metaphysically as a permanently revolutionary factor, and seek, through terrorism and armed intervention, “to speed up” the maturation of the revolution, the Bolsheviks, through the mouth of Lenin, pointed-out that the revolution cannot be “done” (Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder). The revolution grows out of a severe social, economic and political crisis. It can be won only if there is a concentrated political organization of working people which has mastered every kind of political and cultural work (both legal and illegal), by which it encourages revolutionary consciousness among the masses, thus preparing the masses for active and conscious participation in the revolutionary struggle.
The conscious activity of the masses towards the conditions of the revolutionary crisis – not the spontaneous antics of some heroic lone wolves or cadres – is the condition for the political victory of the working classes, and this is the course of a genuine Communist revolution.
It is the masses — not individuals – who make history, when those masses become aware of their shared goals.
The same course was followed by the Bolsheviks on the question of revolutionary violence in the implementation of which the masses have a major role:
Without in the least denying violence and terrorism in principle, we demanded work for the preparation of such forms of violence as were calculated to bring about the direct participation of the masses and which guaranteed that participation.
Lenin, Revolutionary Adventurism
One of the highest manifestations of revolutionary violence is rebellion. Unlike ultra-left “ultra-revolutionaries”, who are ready for an armed rebellion at any time day or night, Lenin pointed to several factors at which (and only which) the party moves to the tactics of organizing an armed uprising:
To be successful, insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class. That is the first point. Insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people. That is the second point. Insurrection must rely upon that turning-point in the history of the growing revolution when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third point. And these three conditions for raising the question of insurrection distinguish Marxism from Blanquism.
Lenin, Marxism and Insurrection
Leninism assumes the same conditions for the so-called “guerrilla warfare” which is an intermediate stage between the uprising and the apotheosis of revolutionary violence – the civil war:
Guerrilla warfare is an inevitable form of struggle at a time when the mass movement has actually reached the point of an uprising and when fairly large intervals occur between the “big engagements” in the civil war.
Lenin, Guerilla Warfare
At the time when the revolutionary situation truly reaches its climax, Marxists must go directly to armed tactics. Lenin, who had previously opposed, strongly and persistently, the adventurist and terrorist antics of the anarchists and Revolutionary Socialist, in early 1906, in the wake of an acute revolutionary crisis, strongly demanded from the fighting brigades of the RSDLP more military initiative, because:
…we think it is wrong to put these operations on a par with the old type of terrorism. Terrorism consisted in acts of vengeance against individuals. Terrorism was a conspiracy by groups of intellectuals. Terrorism in no way reflected the temper of the masses. Terrorism never served to train fighting leaders of the masses. Terrorism was the result—and also the symptom and concomitant—of lack of faith in insurrection, of the absence of conditions for insurrection.
Guerrilla operations are not acts of vengeance, but military operations. (…) Guerrilla operations by fighting squads directly train fighting leaders of the masses. The guerrilla operations of the fighting squads today do not spring from lack of faith in insurrection, and are not conducted because insurrection is impossible; on the contrary, they are an essential component of the insurrection now in progress.
The fact is that in most of the purely Russian centres we have so far been suffering from the other extreme, namely, insufficient initiative among our fighting squads, lack of fighting experience, and insufficient determination in their activities. In this respect we have been outstripped by the Caucasus, Poland and the Baltic Provinces, i. e., the centres where the movement has left the old terrorism farthest of all behind, where preparations for insurrection have been made best, and where the proletarian struggle most clearly and vividly bears a mass character.
We must catch up with these centres. We must not restrain but encourage the guerrilla operations of the fighting squads if we want to prepare for insurrection not merely in words, and if we recognise that the proletariat is seriously ready for insurrection.
Lenin, The Present Situation in Russia and the Tactics of the Workers Party
However, petty-bourgeois adventurers have neither the strength nor the theoretical skills to conduct a qualitative materialistic analysis of social, political and economic conditions which is necessary to resolve the question of the transition to the tactics of direct revolutionary violence, therefore, most often they just mechanically apply certain schemes replacing theoretical analysis with loud revolutionary phraseology as did Bakunin, Blanqui, Trotsky, Mao Zedong and other energetic figures who were unfoundedly insistent about the constant willingness of the masses to revolution. Heart-rending screams and unusually high, but not reasonable “revolutionary enthusiasm” are characteristic of the petty-bourgeois personalities, however, it is not suitable for Marxists, what Dimitrov directly said in his final speech at the VII Congress of the Comintern:
We deliberately threw out loud phrases about revolutionary prospects from both the reports and the decisions of the Congress. But this is not because we would have reason to be less optimistic than before about the pace of revolutionary development, but because we want to rid our parties of any tendency to substitute revolutionary phrases for Bolshevik activity or fruitless disputes about the evaluation of prospects…
…Take things as they are, — Marx said, – that is, to defend the cause of revolution in this form which fits the changed circumstances”. That’s the point. This we must never forget.
Therefore, in contrast to the petty-bourgeois revolutionaries who absolutize one form of the revolutionary struggle – violence – Marxists consider it to be only one tactic of many for the victory of revolution, which can only be used under certain circumstances. In this regard, Marxists are against ‘revolutionary activists’ who incite active offensive action at any opportunity, and against moderate liberal opportunists which, under the guise of bourgeois pacifism, fundamentally deny any necessity of violence.
Historical experience shows that untimely violent actions from the warmest, most passionate and most popular revolutionaries do not always find a response in the masses. Without communication with the masses, without their participation, without their involvement in decisive actions, adventurers quickly degenerate into bickering factions which are not capable of carrying out their ideal of large-scale revolutionary violence. Bourgeois governments are quick to deal with these adventurers even when they pose no real danger to the capitalist system, simply to illustrate their power. That is the least of it. Most often, declaring their fight against “dangerous extremism” the state simultaneously deals with the rebellious workers and the Communist movements. By seizing upon the opportunity, they can prevent a real danger coming from organized and conscious masses of people.
II. “Propaganda of the Deed”
Another tactic of all sorts of adventurers comes from their faithful belief that bold and demonstrative actions, – for the most part, armed, but most importantly, startling public peace, – will lead to the growth of revolutionary consciousness; as if any eventful street performance accompanied by ‘revolutionary’ chants can serve as the awakening moment of the masses.
This is an old anarchist concept, the propaganda of the deed, which migrated to all sorts of petty-bourgeois ‘revolutionary’ movements all unanimously repeated about heroic actions of a certain “avant-garde” who can arouse in the masses the flames of revolutionary emotion, to poetically move the masses to war against The Man.
Petty-bourgeois adventurers arousing the absolute spontaneity of “crowds”, cannot understand that the masses gaining revolutionary consciousness and mobilizing for revolutionary struggle occurs only when they realize their own interests and not when they are watching from the outside for the activities of “heroes” or “avant-garde”.
No individual’s antics can instil the courage of a mass’ revolutionary consciousness.
We, however, are of the opinion that it is only such mass movements, in which mounting political consciousness and revolutionary activity are openly manifested to all by the working class, that deserve to be called genuinely revolutionary acts and are capable of really encouraging everyone who is fighting for the Russian revolution.
What we see here is not the much-vaunted “individual resistance,” whose only connection with the masses consists of verbal declarations, publication of sentences passed, etc. What we see is genuine resistance on the part of the crowd; and the lack of organisation, unpreparedness and spontaneity of this resistance remind us how unwise it is to exaggerate our revolutionary forces and how criminal it is to neglect the task of steadily improving the organisation and preparedness of this crowd, which is waging an actual struggle before our very eyes.
The only task worthy of a revolutionary is to learn to elaborate, utilize and make our own the material which Russian life furnishes in only too great sufficiency, rather than fire a few shots in order to create pretexts for stimulating the masses, and material for agitation and for political reflection. The Socialist-Revolutionaries cannot find enough praise of the great “agitational” effect of political assassinations, about which there is so much whispering both in the drawing-rooms of the liberals and in the taverns of the common people.
It is nothing to them (since they are free of all narrow dogmas on anything even approximating a definite socialist theory!) to stage a political sensation as a substitute (or, at least, as a supplement) for the political education of the proletariat. We, however, consider that the only events that can have a real and serious “agitational” (stimulating), and not only stimulating but also (and this is far more important) educational, effect are events in which the masses themselves are the actors, events which are born of the sentiments of the masses and not staged “for a special purpose” by one organisation or another.
We believe that even a hundred regicides can never produce so stimulating and educational an effect as this participation of tens of thousands of working people in meetings where their vital interests and the links between politics and these interests are discussed, and as this participation in a struggle, which really rouses ever new and “untapped” sections of the proletariat to greater political consciousness, to a broader revolutionary struggle.
Lenin, "New Events and Old Questions"
To prepare the masses to work through political theory in their own minds, to organize them, to reveal to the masses in practice, — through mass demonstration and action – the nature of their socio-economic system, to educate the masses to hate this system, and not to its individual representatives: this is the true path to a revolution, requiring painstakingly tedious work over long hours. Activists with a petty-bourgeois mindset shun such work – as it doesn’t stroke their heroic self-importance, as such work requires great patience and is largely a thankless job. The petty-bourgeois leaders choose the path of least resistance, and that it is the wrong way.
Acts of easy violence – attacks on politicians and entrepreneurs, arson and explosions, armed attacks and expropriation, street fights and media-grabbing demonstrations, – have nothing to do with the mass movement. These are executed during the decline of revolutionary unrest, and despite their commendable heroism, led and will lead to contrary results. As mentioned above, campaigns of impatient activists for social liberation are consistently utilized by the ruling class as a pretext for the active suppression of the mass revolutionary movement and, more broadly, the entire working class.
Secondly, replacing the conscious struggle of the masses with demonstrations of heroic feats contributes to the apathy of the working masses as they await new heroes who will solve their problems for them.
This encourages their already uneasy aloofness and apprehension at joining any kind of progressive struggle. These are the struggles in which — despite the desperate heroism of our revolutionaries, — the bourgeois state, with its monopoly on human and material resources, will always succeed.
Finally, the ability to perceive any protest as a priori revolutionary, regardless of its context or affect, creates an inexhaustible reserve of well-intentioned actors for bourgeois machinations.
As a result, the “revolutionary acts” of individual or group adventurers hoping to inflame a spark of revolution, form the basis for a showdown between rival groups within the bourgeoisie, in which the crazed fervour of activists are the extras; energetic but empty statistics, creating a beautiful background for the undercover struggle of agents working for the ruling class.
Striking examples for the use of “ultra-revolutionaries” by the capitalist ruling class are the so-called “colour revolutions”. These individual and often national struggles are all too common to us. Inspiring intense emotions against opponents of this or that dictatorship, they fodder for the media consumption of pseudo-revolutionaries. These conflicts are the perfect opportunity for “fighters of the system” to clown about for all to see, cheerleading “revolutionary crowds” into the entourage of a bourgeois performance.
Conclusion
To sum, we can state the following:
- That adventurism, as a product of petty-bourgeois class psychology (its hysteria, impatience, its misconceptions and desperation) is alien to the morality, social psychology and liberatory ideology of the working class. The working class must be armed with a scientific understanding of reality, revealing the observable patterns of economic-political being. This requires a sober approach to the evaluation of events and phenomena, and cannot go about like the grifters and alarmists who see in every movement of the masses, in every kind of crisis, the onset of a revolutionary moment which requires immediate pseudo-revolutionary direct action.
- The social psychology, morality and ideology of the working class is based in collectivism. A working class ideology denies the idea forced upon them that some “heroes” who only need the courage to challenge the world, are those who “make” history. The working class, based on its own self-determining ideology, says that decisive role in history is played by the masses of people, not by individuals, that history moves not through the activities of “heroes”, carrying with them the hypnotized crowd. The working class mentality can see through the movement of classes their own struggle, due to the awareness of the masses of their own shared interests and active work for their self-defense.
- The ideology of the working class does not downplay or exaggerate or absolutize any form of political or economic struggle. Unlike right and left-wing petty-bourgeois revolutionaries who insist on immediately gratifying and illegal methods of work, unlike the right-wing bourgeois deviators who insist on fundamentally “legal” forms of activity, the ideology of the working class indicates the need to master all those forms of struggle which may be applied adequately to the prevailing situation, neither mechanically nor whimsically, within a vulgarly dogmatic revolutionary scheme.
- In contrast to the petty-bourgeois adventurers, the heroic posse, which are united by their “love of humanity” and “hatred of injustice”, a working class ideology emphasizes that their revolution can only succeed through the leadership of a political party of its own; a new type of revolutionary party, guided in its struggle by the worker’s own conceptions and not retreating from the working class’ needs.
- The task of a genuine Communist, armed with the ideology of the working class, and pursuing the development of a substantial revolutionary movement, is to expose the errors of ill-timed calls to adventure. We must struggle against adventurism in theory and in practice because, despite compelling revolutionary language, adventurism and voluntarism inevitably led, lead and will lead the revolutionary movement to collapse. Poorly planned action will play into the hands of the ruling class, for the preservation and strengthening of their power.