Page:Michael Velli - Manual For Revolutionary Leaders - 2nd Ed.djvu/56

 ''can't be just good guys who want to relate to people. You need a correct analysis. —There is a role for leadership, for those best able to foresee the course of events, to articulate the general principles of a movement. —The task of building a revolutionary alternative in the heart of the empire is not an easy one. It means the presentation of a clear alternative which can win the vast majority of the American people to our side. Part of that task is proving to them that we have a new life to offer and a new future to build. —We become increasingly the only people who have political, economic, social or human answers to the questions that are increasingly going to confront the great masses of students, the great mass of middle class and professional people, the mass of poor and working people. —The success of the revolution depends to a great degree upon the quality of the revolutionary leadership.''

''evolutionary theory is not spontaneously generated by political practice. Considerable human effort is required, particularly the efforts of those immediately involved in political work. Waiting for theory somehow to emerge from the grass roots (or descend from the heavens) amounts to little more than an antitheoretical copout.'' Administrative and ideological activities—organization and theory—are the modern forms of revolutionary activity, archetypes of political engagement, synonyms of radicalism and movement. —''The duty of the revolutionary historian is to keep alive a relevant revolutionary tradition, and to tell us what went wrong in the past so that old mistakes need not be repeated. —Revolutionary theory is not the source of truth, but an approximation of reality serving as a guide to action. This can be clarified by an analogy. A roadmap can be seen as an analytical description of a given historical reality—the transportation network in a given geographical area at a certain time. It also serves as a guide to action; you can use it to get from one place to another without getting lost. —There are times when the only protection available to a nascent revolutionary movement is the ability to stay one step ahead of its class enemy—through its understanding of the dialectics of its own development to foresee and thus hasten the transition to new forms of action.'' These tasks can no longer be left to spontaneity, to the undirected activity of independent individuals. The current historical tasks are the proper tasks of leadership, organization, ideology. —''An organizer's ability to sustain his work over seemingly unrewarding periods often rests on his having a developed ideological perspective. —If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their''