Page:Michael Velli - Manual For Revolutionary Leaders - 2nd Ed.djvu/230

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highest available wage; they would be brokers who would sell workers for the sake of anti-imperialism and socialism. In this sense, revolutionary labor leaders would officially represent the negation of capitalist social relations.

Labor unions are important. But they are only one source of power for revolutionary leaders. Victims of capitalist repression are another source of power. Ideologically correct treatment of the fear of repression can transform this fear into a powerful instrument for the establishment of revolutionary leadership. This fear has been successfully used by revolutionary leaders in numerous ways. For example, aspiring leaders have taken temporary residence in communities where police harassment is frequent. By provoking the police, the aspiring leader secured his own arrest as well as the arrest of several members of the community. The leader's friends then organized repression conferences and campaigns to 'Free the Revolutionary 10,' on all occasions emphasizing the anti-imperialist ideology of the leader. The initial supporters of the conferences and campaigns are the relatives and friends of the arrested community members. Initially gathered together in response to the arrest of a friend or relative, they are soon lined up behind the slogan 'Free the Leader.' They are transformed into constituents. The leaders cease to be isolated. They acquire a mass mase. From this initial community they move to other victims of repression, to swell their ranks. The way to fight repression is to build a mass movement of support and legal defense for the 10 in jail or facing jail for contempt of court. Our responsibility in the immediate future is to increase our resistance and struggle—by any means necessary—against the government and the forces which dominate the country. We must do so in ways which will swell our ranks and broaden the support for all victims of repression, for the present movement is still too isolated. The constituents initially united to support the victims of repression become shock troops of the movement, the army of the organization. The aspiring leader ceases to be an isolated individual and becomes the spokesman of a constituency, the leader of a mass base. The leader becomes the representative of all victims of repression, the interpreter of all resistance to repression. The leader becomes a historical force.

None of the weapons in the capitalist arsenal must be overlooked. All the manipulative techniques used by the ruling class to control the underlying population can, with skill, be used against the ruling class to create constituencies, to enhance the power of the revolutionary organization, to establish the power of the leader. For the aspiring leader, that scenario is a whole interview in itself. It involves moving from strong local projects to regional structures to some kind of functional equivalent to a radical national party. The most difficult work is the organization of specific constituencies that can offer a community radical political education, power to combat

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