Page:Michael Velli - Manual For Revolutionary Leaders - 2nd Ed.djvu/88

 ''world strategy for winning the revolution, builds a movement oriented toward power, and becomes one division of the International Liberation Army, while its battlefields are added to those which will dismember and dispose of U.S. imperialism. LONG LIVE THE VICTORY OF PEOPLE'S WAR!''

''t has been remarked that in the lower stages of civilization tyranny is dominant. Freedoms and privileges, and among these latter the privilege of taking part in the direction of public affairs, are at first restricted to the few. Democracy cannot come into existence until there is attained a subsequent and more highly developed stage of social life. Recent times have been characterized by the gradual extension of these privileges to a widening circle. This is what we know as the era of democracy. —Originally the chief is merely the servant of the mass: —'We are camels to be ridden upon by the people.' —The organization is based upon the absolute equality of all its members. At the outset, the attempt is made to depart as little as possible from pure democracy by subordinating the delegates altogether to the will of the mass, by tying them hand and foot: —'Why do you come to us? Why don't you ask the people? They're the ones that are making this movement. We can't speak for them.' —Nominally, and according to the letter of the rules, all the acts of the leaders are subject to the ever vigilant criticism of the rank and file: —'The revolutionary collective serves the working people: both their immediate and long term interests; it does this by linking up with them, learning from them, fighting in their ranks for better conditions or in resistance to an attack upon them.' —But in actual fact, as the organization increases in size, this control becomes purely fictitious. —In working with these guys, and with the workers as a whole, we try to keep in mind Mao's basic instruction on how to become one with the people without getting lost among them. —We may observe that as democracy continues to develop, a backwash sets in. With the advance of organization—by helping to develop a more advanced revolutionary theory for the advancement of the struggle to a higher stage—democracy tends to decline. Democratic evolution has a parabolic course. At the present time, at any rate as far as party life is concerned, democracy is in the descending phase. —To win a war with an enemy as highly organized and centralized as the imperialists requires a (clandestine) organization of revolutionaries, having also a unified 'general staff'; that is, combined with discipline under one centralized leadership. —Thus the leaders, who were at first no more than the executive organs of the collective will, soon emancipate themselves from the mass and become independent of its''