Page:Michael Velli - Manual For Revolutionary Leaders - 2nd Ed.djvu/141



neighborhood that had its own collections. The clear statement of this dilemma causes people to reflect, and the brief interval of silence is the militant's opportunity to bring the attentive and lively group out of what to her seems like a petty frame of reference.

"Comrades," she might say, "the tyrants have been struck down by the might of the working people. The people's victory has begun a new stage of human development. You are discussing garbage, comrades. All the former tyrants have been thrown into the garbage cans of history! This being the case, it is time to begin the next stage of the struggle, it is time for the working class to begin organizing its own activity. Comrades, Organization is the next order of the day. The time has come to write on our banners, 'All power to the people, All power to the Organization of the Working Class.'"

The group applauds enthusiastically, and while applauding they repeat 'All Power to the People, All Power to the Organization!' As she steps away from the wallposter and works her way out of the large circle of people, some individuals pat her on the back, others smile broadly as they shake her hand. But before she has reached the outer circumference of the crowd, people have already resumed the former discussion of city-wide versus neighborhood-wide garbage collections.

Although the militant of the revolutionary organization might be sympathetically received by the group in the railway station, and might even succeed in introducing to these people the slogans which express the revolutionary tasks of the next stage of struggle, from the standpoint of the organization's establishment of a power base the hypothetical scene is inconclusive. Neither the group's sympathy for the militant who in normal times was considered a dangerous extremist, nor their willingness to repeat the militant's slogans, definitively demonstrate that the ground is being laid for the organization's seizure of State power. In fact the hypothetical event suggests that, at least a group of people such as the one described in the station might revert to the problem of organizing garbage collections even after the important problem of the Organization of the Working Class has been clearly communicated to them. Such a