of successful seizures of State power, this is something everyone knows.
The historical goal of revolutionary leaders is not some rigmarole, some slogans in a manifesto, some utopia which has never existed. The historically realized goal of the revolutionary organization is not independent creative activity by the population as agents of history. It is decision-making by the leader as head of State. It is to consolidate what we ourselves have won, what we ourselves have decreed, made law, discussed, planned—consolidate all this in stable forms of everyday labor discipline. This is the most difficult, but the most gratifying task. The goal and the most gratifying task of the revolutionary leader is to wield State power.
The wielding of State power requires the same preliminary condition as the seizure of State power. The wielding of the estranged power of community requires the renunciation, the estrangement of this power by the individuals who compose the community. The consolidation of State power requires everyday labor discipline; it requires a population under the iron sway of the mass psychology of dependence. The most gratifying task of the revolutionary leader requires a population characterized by iron discipline while at work, a working population distinguished by unquestioning obedience to the will of a single person, the leader, while at work.
The mass psychology of dependence is the means as well as the goal of the revolutionary leader. The means, as well as the goal, is socialist revolution with people as they are now, with people who cannot dispense with subordination, control and managers. The historical possibilities of people as they are now are precisely what they are now. These possibilities are realized in stable forms of everyday labor discipline characterized by subordination, control and managers. These possibilities are not discovered by working people engaged in independent creative activity as makers of history. The possibilities for making history with people as they are now are defined by what leaders can do in a situation of universal powerlessness.
Why, then, do the working people engaged in independent creative activity as makers of history remain on the banners of revolutionary organizations? The historical practice of revolutionary organizations answers this question. The historical seizure of State power by revolutionary organizations is the social practice that gives concrete meanings to the slogans on the banners; the seizure of State power becomes the historical form of the activity described by the slogans. Whatever may have been the rigmarole at the origin of the revolutionary slogans, the moment when the Leader of the Bolshevik Party becomes Head of State, all the revolutionary slogans become synonyms for the seizure of State power. Historical fact makes it
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