Page:Michael Velli - Manual For Revolutionary Leaders - 2nd Ed.djvu/73

 ''searching for concrete answers to what they recognize as the protracted nature of the struggle. The healthy development of the movement over the last decade indicates the growing capability to overcome error and, through struggle, achieve a more correct strategy and tactics, and a higher level of theory. —If the small and scattered movement of today can become a mass revolutionary party, unity between the best elements of Old and New Left is ultimately assured. —It is no surprise that there is a great deal of romantic anti-leadership sentiment, though the majority consistently vote for a national organization with a national program and leadership. —People have a pretty good idea of some of the things they want, but whether they are willing to work out the means to achieve their ends is another matter altogether, especially if it becomes apparent that they can be assisted by people more knowledgeable and experienced than themselves. —Hence the need for delegation, for the system in which delegates represent the mass and carry out its will. —Most people at most times are willing to delegate authority to someone who they believe shares their views and who is competent at putting them into practice. —The failure of the left in the last 100 years to unite the majority of the population in a successful struggle for socialism and the success of the capitalist class in maintaining its power and extending its ideological hegemony have been due to the errors of socialist leadership and to the powerful resources and cleverness of the ruling leadership. —The fact that we have often had irresponsible political leadership is not necessarily an adequate reason for attacking the idea of leadership itself. —The leadership is represented by the central committee (or steering committee) which is formed by electing one member of each cell to the committee. The Central Committee has two primary tasks: first, to function as a decision-making body in emergency situations and to serve as an information channeling center between cells. The coordinating function gives continuity to cell operation. In some cases, it may be the Central Committee's task to suggest things for cells to do, like catching up with other cells. The decision-making process within the cell structure would probably best be named participatory democratic centralism.''

''n a polemic against Proudhon, Louis Blanc asked whether it is possible for millions of human beings to carry on their affairs without accepting what the pettiest man of business finds necessary, the intermediation of representatives. He answered his own question by saying that one who declares direct action on this scale to be possible is a fool, and that one who denies its possibility need not be an ab solute opponent of the idea of the state. —If we took seriously the task of imagining how we, had we the power,''