"class war demands *only* those "tactics" that lead to victory for the working class. None of the torturing "national liberation movements" that James celebrated (in his original post) led to or could possibly lead to anything like victory for the working class--in reality. as in Algeria and South Africa, quite the contrary. Now, appealing to history against theory (not in itself at all wrong), all he can come up with is a litany of failed movements."
There are no *tactics* at all that lead to victory for the working class, only strategies, that might. Furthermore, victory is not an ideal moment outside of history. The movements in South Africa, Algeria and Ireland did indeed inflict real defeats on imperialism. But, surprise surprise, that did not bring history to an end, and those victors had to deal with the world as it is, not as they hoped it might be.
Ending apartheid was not a defeat for the working class in South Africa, nor was expelling the French occupiers a defeat for the Algerian liberation movement, and nor was exposing informers in the IRA a defeat for republicanism in northern Ireland.
One would not want to be like the beautiful soul whose ideals are so pure that it would be too terrible a compromise to try to put them into practise.