Page:Michael Velli - Manual For Revolutionary Leaders - 2nd Ed.djvu/220

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not inform the follower of the move of the leader. The phrases of the revolutionary ideology are understood differently, they have different meanings, for leaders and for followers.

The power to communicate double meanings was produced by the historical development of the modern revolutionary ideology. The socialist origin of the language is retained in the semantics of the revolutionary ideology, in the conventionally accepted meanings of the words. This socialist language does not directly refer to leaders or to aspirants to leadership; it refers to producers, and specifically to their reappropriation of the powers they estrange to Capital and the State. These semantic meanings are today reserved for followers. For leaders the language has an entirely different meaning, based on the historical experience of the revolutionary socialist movement. This historical experience is the seizure of State power by revolutionary leaders. A language which expressed collective determination to reappropriate estranged power has become an instrument for communicating the seizure of State power. The language of the withering away of the State has become the official ideology of the State. The original meanings of the socialist words are not discarded. On the contrary, the power of modern revolutionary ideology resides in the fact that the original meanings are scrupulously retained. Self-activity, independence and freedom, Marxism, socialism and communism, the dictatorship of the proletariat and even the withering away of the State have all become vehicles for the expression of double meanings. Each term simultaneously evokes a specific phenomenon and also its opposite. Each term refers simultaneously to a universal and a particular, a plural and a singular, many and one, the people and the leader, the community and the State. Each term simultaneously communicates a thesis and its negation. The power to communicate two contradictory thoughts with the same words is what makes this ideology dialectical. When the thesis and its negation are both communicated by the same term, the two become One; they fuse; the negation becomes the embodiment of the thesis. Thus the rule of the leader is not a means to the rule of all, nor is it a symbol of the rule of all. The rule of the leader IS the rule of all. The two are one. The dialectical revolutionary ideology stands bourgeois logic on its head. Workers control production when they seize State power. This follows from the historical experience of the revolutionary socialist movement. But workers can seize State power only when leaders seize State power. This follows from the definition of the State. Therefore workers control production when leaders seize State power. The seizure of State power by the leaders is not a means to workers' control of production; it IS workers' control. The two are one. The invocation of double thoughts is the key to revolutionary leadership and the heart of the historical experience of the revolutionary socialist movement.

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