Opportunism

[[file:Theodoor Galle - Opportunity Seized, Opportunity Missed - WGA08445.jpg|thumb|right|300px|''Opportunity Seized, Opportunity Missed'', engraving by [[Theodoor Galle]], 1605]]

'''Opportunism''' is the practice of taking advantage of [[attendant circumstance|circumstance]]s — with little regard for [[principle]]s or with what the [[consequentialism|consequence]]s are for others. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by [[self-interest]]ed motives. The term can be applied to individual humans and living organisms, groups, organizations, styles, behaviors and trends.

Opportunism or "opportunistic behaviour" is an important concept in such fields of study as [[biology]], [[transaction cost economics]], [[game theory]], [[ethics]], [[psychology]], [[sociology]] and [[politics]].

== Etymology ==

In the early 19th century, the term "opportunist" as a noun or adjective was already known and used in several European languages, but initially, it rarely referred to political processes or to a political tendency. The English term "opportunism" is possibly borrowed originally from the Italian expression ''opportunismo''. In 19th-century Italian politics, it meant "exploiting the prevailing circumstances or opportunities to gain an immediate advantage for oneself or one's own group".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Salomone |first=A. William |date=October 1962 |title=The Risorgimento between Ideology and History: The Political Myth of rivoluzione mancata |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1847182 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=68 |issue=1 |pages=38–56 |doi=10.2307/1847182|jstor=1847182 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> However, it is more likely that the English expression was directly borrowed from the French term, when it began to refer specifically to the [[opportunist Republicans]], since the term first entered the English language in the early 1870s.<ref>According to the [[Grand Larousse encyclopédique]], opportunism was the name given to the cautious reformism and nationalism of French [[Republicanism|Republicans]], who advocated moderate policies to consolidate the [[French Third Republic]] after the eviction of the [[Monarchism|monarchist]]s. The French Opportunists did not call themselves by this name; rather, the term was used by French radicals to describe centrist and center-left politics in the country. Possibly, the term was originally popularized by [[Victor Henri Rochefort, Marquis de Rochefort-Luçay]], who used it in his criticisms of [[Léon Gambetta]].</ref> In this sense the meaning "opportunism" has mutated: from those who claimed to advocate a principle (in the original French case, an amnesty for the [[Communards]]) but said that the time was not yet "opportune", to what may be thought of as the opposite{{snd}}those who act without principle.<ref>{{cite book|title=The World That Never Was: A True Story of Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents|page=153|first=Alex|last=Butterworth|publisher=[[Vintage Press]]|date=2010|ISBN=9780099551928}}</ref>

== Marxism ==

From a [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] perspective, opportunism is a deviation from proletarian revolutionary politics that adapts Marxism to non-proletarian pressures. It can appear in two main forms: '''Right-opportunism''', which liquidates revolutionary politics in favor of reformism, class collaboration, and accommodation to bourgeois legality; and '''“Left”-opportunism''', which dresses itself in militant language but substitutes adventurism, sectarian purity, or refusal of necessary tactics for concrete revolutionary work among the masses. [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] treats both as deviations from [[Marxism]], but he repeatedly identifies Right-opportunism, [[Revisionism (Marxism)|revisionism]], and [[Social chauvinism|social-chauvinism]] as the principal danger inside the workers’ movement under imperialism.<ref>{{Cite web |title=“Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Lenin's What Is To Be Done?: The Spontaneity of the Masses and the Consciousness of the Social-Democrats |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ii.htm |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>

'''Right-opportunism''' is the tendency to revise [[Marxism]] in the direction of liberalism, parliamentarism, [[economism]], gradualism, or class compromise. In Lenin’s polemics, this means stripping Marxism of its revolutionary content while preserving its terminology. In ''[[The State and Revolution]]'', Lenin argues that bourgeois ideologists and opportunists “doctor” Marxism by obscuring its revolutionary side, especially Marx’s teaching on the state, revolution, and the dictatorship of the proletariat.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The State and Revolution |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref> Stalin’s ''[[Foundations of Leninism]]'' gives the same Marxist-Leninist reading of the Second International: its opportunists adapted themselves to the bourgeoisie, while even many “orthodox” Marxists adapted themselves to the opportunists for the sake of unity, allowing opportunism to dominate.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Foundations of Leninism |url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/ch02.htm |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref> In practice, Right-opportunism may support reforms, elections, unions, or legal struggle, but it treats these as substitutes for revolutionary struggle rather than subordinate forms of it.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lenin: Imperialism and the Split in Socialism |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/oct/x01.htm |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Foundations of Leninism |url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/ch02.htm |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Foundations of Leninism |url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/introduction.htm |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>

'''“Left”-opportunism''', by contrast, mistakes radical phraseology for revolutionary strategy. Lenin’s ''[["Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder|“Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder]]'' criticizes communists who refused participation in reactionary trade unions, rejected parliamentary work in all circumstances, or treated compromise as inherently treasonous. His point is not that communists should become moderate, but that revolutionary politics requires disciplined tactical flexibility and connection to the actual working masses.<ref>{{Cite web |title=“Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref> From the Marxist-Leninist standpoint, “Left” opportunists often leap over concrete conditions: they confuse subjective militancy with objective revolutionary possibility, isolate themselves from the proletariat, and replace patient organization with gestures of purity. Lenin therefore treats “Left” communism as a real error, though usually as a secondary danger compared with [[Mensheviks|Menshevism]], opportunism, and [[Social chauvinism|social-chauvinism]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Several Conclusions |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch10.htm |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Several Conclusions |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch10.htm |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=“Left-Wing” Communism in Great Britian |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch09.htm |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>

The [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] distinction is therefore not “moderate versus radical.” Both Right- and “Left”-opportunism are anti-Leninist because both break the unity of revolutionary theory and concrete practice. Right-opportunism tails existing bourgeois institutions and backward consciousness; “Left”-opportunism runs ahead of the masses and abandons the work needed to win them. [[Mao Zedong|Mao’s]] later Marxist-Leninist writings make a similar point by associating opportunism and adventurism with errors in the relation between knowledge and practice; in his framing, both dogmatism and empiricism can detach politics from concrete reality.<ref>{{Cite web |title=On Practice |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/uk.secondwave/practice.htm |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref> A Marxist-Leninist account therefore condemns Right-opportunism for surrendering the revolutionary goal, and “Left”-opportunism for sabotaging the revolutionary path through impatience, sectarianism, and abstract militancy.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ON PRACTICE |url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_16.htm |access-date=2026-05-05 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>

== Human behaviour ==

In human behavior, opportunism concerns the relationship between people's actions, and their basic principles when faced with opportunities and challenges. The opportunist seeks to gain a personal advantage when an opportunity presents itself, putting self-interest ahead of some other interest, in a way contrary either to a ''previously established'' principle or another principle that ought to have ''higher priority''. Hence opportunist behavior is usually regarded ''at least'' as questionable or dubious, and ''at most'' as unjustifiable or completely illegitimate. Opportunism is regarded as unhealthy, as a disorder or as a character deficiency, if selfishly pursuing an opportunity is blatantly [[anti-social behaviour|anti-social]] (involves disregard for the needs, wishes and interests of others). However, behavior can also be regarded as "opportunist" by scholars without any particular moral evaluation being made or implied (simply as a type of self-interested behavior).{{citation needed|date=August 2024}}

== Use of the term in specific areas ==

* {{annotated link|Intellectual opportunism}} * {{annotated link|Sexual opportunism}} * {{annotated link|Political opportunism}} * {{annotated link|Economic opportunism}} * {{annotated link|Legal opportunism}} * {{annotated link|Spiritual opportunism}}

== See also ==

* {{annotated link|Business opportunity}} * {{annotated link|Corruption}} * {{annotated link|Enlightened self-interest}} * {{annotated link|Individualism}} * {{annotated link|Jeitinho brasileiro}} * {{annotated link|Meritocracy}} * {{annotated link|Opportunity cost}} * {{annotated link|Positive accounting}}

== References == {{reflist|40em}}

[[category:opportunism| ]] [[category:human behavior]] [[category:political terminology]] [[category:psychological attitude]]