Page:Michael Velli - Manual For Revolutionary Leaders - 2nd Ed.djvu/72

 into practice. The ideological officials are not as efficient as they were thought to be. The ideological superstructure loses contact with its base. ''—One of the challenges to organizers is how the enormous energy and numbers of people who are opposed to the war can be directed towards building organization which has permanency, power and radical posture. —About majority support: We need to analyze comparatively the resistance movements which took power. —The next historical stage which develops in the next 5 to 10 years out of what will be a blossoming movement at that time is the necessity to move from a Protest to a new Political Party. A party that completely severs from the two capitalist parties and provides a socialist alternative to the American scene. At this point we should not just confine ourselves to talk of building a movement—but also of integrating this with our perspective of building a party which will give meaning and coherence to the grassroots organizing we must do day by day. It is important that we begin to talk in terms of 5, 10, 15 years because that is the time and energy it will take to build a revolutionary movement and socialist political party able to take power in America. —We have begun to reach a period when this can be done only with coordinated, national, cadre organization. —In such a movement, the hard, unromantic work of organizing people as radicals would become as important as periodic demonstrations. Members of this movement would define themselves as organizers—whether on the job, in schools, the army or communities. —Propaganda, therefore, needs not to rack its brain about the importance of each individual it enlightens, about his ability, achievements, and understanding of his character, while the organization has most carefully to collect from the masses of these elements those who really make possible the victory of the movement —In a sense, we are at the beginning of a new era; we are changing from a militant minority to a political force drawing its strength from a variety of social groups. —It is increasingly clear that to make the revolution we must share the socialist goal of developing a shared revolutionary consciousness and a sustained movement (organization) embodying that consciousness.''

''articipatory democracy is no solution for the problems of a large, complex society. Democratic assemblies are particularly ill-equipped to receive and utilize complex information in an efficient or even useful way. —While we oppose anarchism ideologically, and consider that, all in all, it does a disservice to the revolution and objectively aids the enemy, we are not alarmed by it It has picked up no base in the working class, so that its harm is minimized. And even in the student movement, most activists are past that stage, and are''