Page:Michael Velli - Manual For Revolutionary Leaders - 2nd Ed.djvu/74

 ''would manufacture automobiles and settle priorities concerning allocation of resources and synthesize local and national decision-making, I believe it would help us find our way through current organizational dilemmas. And it might just help to persuade other Americans that we are capable of governing. —We are now a major campaign issue and we must see ourselves accordingly. —Leadership articulates the goals of the revolution, the methods by which those goals will be attained, while at the same time embodying the ideals of the revolution itself. —What would be the meaning of all leader genius and of all leader impetus unless the brainy theorist were to establish the goals for the human struggle? The combination of theorist, organizer, and leader in one person is the rarest thing to be found on this globe; this combination makes the great man. —A revolution cannot surpass the quality of its leadership. —The most sublime theoretical insight has no value and no purpose unless the leader moves the masses towards it. —Those upon whom the revolutionary leadership falls assume an awesome responsibility.'' The office of the leader is experienced as a personal power, particularly if the entire magnitude of the organization is personified by the leader. —The words and actions of the revolutionary leader must always advance the revolutionary consciousness and revolutionary effectiveness of the people. As the organization grows, its history becomes less the history of anarchic rebellion, and more the familiar history of the party and the leader. ''—To coin a phrase, 'our day will come.' But it will only come when a great amount of the population see us and themselves as part of a serious alternative to existing American institutions. That will be our second coming. One of the key problems of a revolutionary movement in a situation that at best is pre-revolutionary becomes that of our rhetoric versus the reality that we are nowhere near taking power anywhere. (Not to mention united goals, strategy and tactics.) —We speak as a new American left, committed to the achievement of political power in our time. We seek political power so that men may at last prevail over the arrangements of society in which a few control the destinies of all.''

''n organization of socialist intellectuals is historically incomplete. By right it should be a section of a party in alliance with other forces, including working-class organizations.'' The organization must represent not only the power of community, but also productive power, living creative energy. ''—Our base is so small that all working people must be considered potential allies. —Although there are individuals and groups in the United States playing a revolutionary role, there is no revolutionary party which actually has a''