ABSTRACT
The concept of 'confrontationism' was based on a theory of change stressing the need to delineate, through praxis, the contours of repression. Confrontationism and provocation tactics looked imitative, a revolutionary pose, and irresponsible and dangerous to many critics on the Left. A justification of provocation tactics resulting in repression was in terms of its 'radicalization' of movement recruits through such an experience. If the New Left (NL) analysis was correct, a growing radicalization of the movement, and a winning of new support should have been a reaction to the police repression. The nonviolent confrontation of repression in the earlier NL had indeed revealed the violence of the system because the system hit first - but when the demonstrators hit first it was much less clear. Confrontation designed to expose repressive tolerance cannot in itself expose the mechanisms of manipulation, only the forces of repression.
