Andreas Malm’s now famous book How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Verso, 2021) had its origins in the activist-author’s frustration with mainstream distortions concerning the history of working class struggles. But in challenging those who impose misleading nonviolent narratives upon the processes of social change – a task that I too sought to undertake in my own book On Nonviolence (2025) — Malm goes too far and ends up offering up his own problematic political shortcuts. [1] This much is apparent in his book’s title, but also in his concluding paragraph whereupon Malm romanticises violence as acting as a “cleansing force” for the human soul.

Last year the Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence published an enlightening “forum” which invited seven academics to review Malm’s influential text. Isak Svensson’s contribution “How to blow up chances for success” begins:

“Andreas Malm’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a well-articulated argument for more forceful action in the age of the escalating climate crisis. Pointing to decades of popular mobilisation that has evidently led to insufficient political action which is nowhere near the systematic change that is required to meet the challenges, Malm asks “At what point do we escalate?” Malm makes a strong case against climate fatalism and defeatism and also – at first glance – against the wisdom of the climate movement to commit to nonviolent discipline in their actions.”

Svensson observed how:

“From the empirical fact that most maximalist popular uprisings and revolutionary movements (that is, campaigns over regime change, territorial autonomy, or end of colonial rule) have included both violent and nonviolent components, Malm draws the conclusion that the violent component is not only a necessary component but also that it is this component that explains the outcome.”

This comment, while partly true, contains a major misrepresentation, as the primary argument made in Malm’s book is a debunking of the false belief that political campaigns must adopt purely nonviolent tactics if they are to succeed. That said, in making his case Malm does go too far in over-egging the emancipatory power of sabotage/violence. Yet at the same time Malm is clear that: “1.) non-violent mass mobilisation should (where possible) be the first resort, militant action the last; and 2.) no movement should ever voluntarily suspend the former, only give it appendages.” That much makes sense.

The second contribution to the forum discussion was Brian Martin’s “Sabotage is the wrong climate radicalism” – a review that came to a similar position as the previous author. Martin concluded: “Basically, Malm believes that when both violent and nonviolent methods were used in a successful campaign, violence was essential for success.” Again, Malm may well overstate the specific importance of violence to mass movements, but the primary argument he was making was that success never comes from a purely nonviolent approach to social change. This fact is evidently not understood by Martin who surmises that “Malm attributes the success of the Iranian revolution to sabotage, when there is contrary evidence.”

But the point that Malm made about........

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