III. Siezure of State Power
Without revolutionary leadership, continually changing responses
to continually developing productive forces move toward chaos. Without revolutionary organization, attempts of individuals to realize their self powers to the level made possible by the productive forces move toward anarchy. Under what conditions can revolutionary leadership and organization be introduced into popular struggles? Under what conditions does an organization capable of seizing State power rise and succeed? Under what conditions might such an organization fail to rise? If it should fail, what alternatives would be left for the organizers who devoted their lives to this historical task? In the remarks and arguments that follow, I will attempt to find answers to these questions. In my desire to offer revolutionary leaders some humble testimony of my devotion, I have been unable to find anything which I hold so dear or esteem so highly as that knowledge of the deeds of great men which I have acquired through a long experience of modern events and a constant study of the past. With the utmost diligence I have long pondered and scrutinized the actions of the great, and now I offer the results. I have not sought to adorn my work with long phrases or high sounding words or any of those superficial attractions and ornaments with which many writers seek to embellish their material, as I desire no honor for my work but such as the novelty and gravity of this subject may justly deserve. Nor will it, I trust, be deemed presumptuous on the part of a man of humble and obscure condition to attempt to discuss revolutionary leadership; for in the same way that landscape painters station themselves in the valleys in order to draw mountains or high ground, and ascend an eminence in order to get a good view of the plains, so it is necessary to be a leader to know thoroughly the nature of the people, and one of the populace to know the nature of leaders. The present century is a period of successful seizures of State power by revolutionary leaders. A substantial part of the world's population is experiencing the social consequences of these successes. These historical successes have created the expectation that careful imitation of the deeds of the successful leaders can lead to similar results. It must be said at the outset that this expectation may be unfounded. It may happen that careful application of similar procedures does not lead to similar results. It may happen that devoted revolutionary organizers fail to realize their goal. Aspiring revolutionary leaders may find themselves faced with a situation in which almost all of the people whose interests are served by these goals, and who should be, or even are, sympathetic to revolution, neither understand the specific tasks involved in making a revolution nor participate in achieving them. History does not necessarily absolve all revolutionary leaders who aspire to seize State power. The fact is that the seizure of State power by a revolutionary organization may fail. In the face of the concrete possibility of failure, it becomes necessary for revolutionary leaders to rid themselves of illusions inherited from the past, and to determine with accuracy and care the real conditions for the successful seizure of State power. The assumptions of classical revolutionary theory* must be re examined in the light of contemporary practice. We must determine whether or not the conditions described by classical revolutionary theory are historically possible, whether or not they are necessary for the rise of a revolutionary organization, whether or not they suffice to assure the success of such an organization. *The fact that revolutionary theory is 'classical' is a peculiarity of our age. But this fact is not itself more peculiar than the fact that the main proponents of revolutionary theory are rulers, or the fact that the seizure of State power is the goal of revolutionary organizations, or the fact that leaders, officials, armies and States are revolutionary. The supreme condition for the seizure of State power by a revolutionary organization - a condition which has come to be regarded as self evident, as a sine qua non is a revolutionary situation, a revolution. According to classical revolutionary theory, such a situation is not synonymous with the rise to power of a revolutionary organization; such a situation is a precondition for the organization's rise to power. Before examining how such a situation creates the field out of which a revolutionary organization can seize power, we will examine what this situation consists of.