James’s nonviolence strategy was a Marxist break from Stalinist orthodoxy, not a pacifist doctrine

Evidence

[A]s a result of the war, of revolutions and crises which had shaken contemporary society to its foundations for almost forty consecutive years, the bourgeoisie had lost its self-confidence in the face of a united mass movement… . [W]hen all is said and done the new political directive, breaking with the well-established ideas of the prewar period, is one of the great theoretical achievements of the present age, perhaps the first real break towards what the marxist movement requires today, the application of the traditional principles of marxism in complete independence of the Stalinist perversion. It is to be noted that the theory did not reject armed rebellion, but held it in reserve in the event that the political and moral pressure envisaged failed to influence British imperialism. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1281

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s study of the Black radical tradition’s decline — the adoption of nonviolence as a break, then its recovery by the petit bourgeoisie.