Page:Michael Velli - Manual For Revolutionary Leaders - 2nd Ed.djvu/253

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tion, the revolutionary vision of the future, is found by looking to capitalism. The task of the revolutionary guardians, who are today known as Marxist-Leninists or simply as Marxists, is to weed out the political ideas of workers' self-management and control, decentralism and local autonomy, opposition to the division of labor and all forms of hierarchy. Their expression has been an undercurrent within and without working class and socialist movements from the beginnings 150 to 200 years ago, but were particularly widespread, in a variety of forms, during the earlier stages of capitalist development. This is the clue to the class character of these trends, which Marxists have described as the reaction of petit-bourgeois craftsmen, artisans and peasants to the reorganization and growth of manufacturing at the beginning of the indsutrial revolution. In this sense, the demand for 'workers' control' or 'self-management' of this or that factory or workshop meant, in essence, 'give us back the ownership of our tools.' The demand for 'local autonomy' meant a return to the ex-

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