[lbo-talk] See!

[Carrol Cox]

Some day, one hopes, it will be possible to replace the earlier "leaders" of
a revolutionary upsurge without even ejecting them from the movement, let
alone executing or exiling them. There are reasons for that unfortunate
practice (which _does_ damage, though not necessarily fatally, the
movement). The early leaders, for the most part, are not only self-nominated
(which is the 'healthy'  practice) but for the most part actually
self-appointed: hence they are well known politicians, attorneys,
professors, etc. And they _always_ have a "theory" about the scope and
limits and content of the revolution. (This was characteristic also of
2d/3d/4th I parties.) Remember the weight the WWP threw around in the early
days of the anti-war movement a decade ago. Later leaders are not
self-appointed, they are self-nominated and emerge because what they have to
say makes sense in the actual conditions of the struggle. Of course there is
in such movements (nor could there be) any nice neat procedure for choosing
leaders. So it's a problem, too often solved messily, but messily or
sensibly, it will almost always occur. There simply does not exist an
abstract formula, good for all occasions, that can determine the practice of
a given mass movement. There are rules of thumb of course, that work pretty
good, as long as someone doesn't cast them into some theory.

Carrol