organizations do not reside in the mirage, but precisely in the desert sands from which the mirage diverts our attention. The fact is that working people engaged in independent creative activity as makers of history do not create the field for the rise of revolutionary organizations. The fact is that when working people even begin to engage in independent creative activity as makers of history, it is the seizure of State power that becomes a mirage. The fact is that the conditions for the seizure of State power reside in the sands of capitalist daily life, the sands which constitute the normal fabric of bourgeois society, and not in the mighty burst which transforms desert sands to soil and trees. The fact is that the seizure of State power precedes the mighty burst of independent creative activity because once such activity begins the conditions for the success of revolutionary organizations no longer exist.
Independent creative activity may indeed carry the seed of revolutionary organization, just as capitalism carries the seed of its overthrow—but that seed is not itself independence. Independent creative activity on the part of the working population cannot make its historical appearance without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air. It is this fact that creates the illusion that it is the independent activity that lays the ground for the seizure of State power. Yet even a superficial glance at the real situation would expose this illusion. If the revolutionary situation is realized by the initiative of millions creating democracy on their own, in their own way, if the revolutionary situation is the historical moment when the working population become makers of universal history, then where in the world is the variegated society where millions of imaginations daily create what is original, unexpected and new; where in the world are the populations who create the conditions of life on their own and in their own way? Did they renounce their independence the moment revolutionary organizations seized State power? But in this case it would not be the independence, but rather its renunciation, that paved the way to the seizure of State power. Or did the seizure of State power in fact take place before the entire working population began engaging in independent creative activity as makers of history? But in this case it could not be the independent creative activity that paved the way to the seizure of State power—since it had not yet begun.
If the conditions for the seizure of power exist only during the brief moment after the old order has been sprung into the air but before the working population sets free the elements of the new society, then serious revolutionary leaders had better be wary of the slogans on their banners. A re-examination of passages in which the classical revolutionary theory explicitly refers to the direct conditions for the seizure of power in fact reveals that all such passages refer to the moment before the population begins to engage in independent creative activity. Furthermore, such passages insist that the conditions for the restoration of the old order and the conditions for the seizure of State power exist only during this brief moment; they suggest that
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