Leftists must transform during defeat rather than retreat or adapt

Evidence

To go back to the seeming certainties of older forms of militancy would be to consign oneself to irrelevance, obsolescence, to become an historical relic; but to accept the new situation, to adapt to it, would be to concede total defeat. The only possibility, Negri suggests, is to endure the time in the desert as a kind of religious trial: a moment of terrible and terrifying renewal, a transformation of the revolutionary subject happening at the very moment when revolution seems impossible and the forces of reaction control everything. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1561

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Lenin’s rejection of left opportunism was a tactical retreat amid revolutionary defeats — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1032; Left romanticism about glorious failure blocks institutional learning; Defeated political movements must choose between obsolescence and full capitulation. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1560 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Lenin’s rejection of left opportunism was a tactical retreat amid revolutionary defeats #qualifies (0.82) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1032
• Left romanticism about glorious failure blocks institutional learning #complicates (0.80)