sists primarily in preventing the division of the attention of a people, and always in concentrating it on a single enemy. —This is both necessary and often helpful in developing a correct understanding of contested political problems within a mass organization. —The base-building approach argues that before militant action can be taken, lots of educational work and organizing should be done to get the majority on our side. Then we should hit hard. —The more uniformly the fighting wilt of a people is put into action, the greater will be the magnetic force of the movement and the more powerful the impetus of the blow.
Unless the movement seeks to elevate the political consciousness of the mass of its supporters, it faces the continual danger of the withering away of numbers when the moral basis of protest has been undermined. —If a movement has the intention of pulling down a world and of building a new one in its place, then there must be absolute clarity about the following points in the ranks of its own leaders: Every movement, at first, will have to divide the human material it has won into two great groups: into followers and members. —The central theoretical task of revolutionary collectives is to analyze the economic and political status of U.S. classes and their attitudes toward the revolution. —If a significant movement is to be built it must be around a coalition large enough, at least in theory, to contest for political power. Every group of potential allies should be explored. Programs of action should be developed to facilitate connections between the various components, including the poor, when they become sufficiently conscious to engage in explicitly political action. —The key to social change in America is a concrete examination of the forms of oppression which are specific to this country. —Because the goals of a socialist movement in advanced industrial capitalism are to redefine the purpose of production, to develop new social relations, they require deep understanding of the needs of various sectors of the proletariat.
The job of radicals is to find leaders, and help make them radical. —The task of propaganda is to attract followers; the task of organization to win members. —These should accept a collective discipline, carry out criticism and self-criticism of their political work, and apply the most advanced revolutionary concepts to all their common efforts. —A follower of a movement is one who declares himself in agreement with its aims; a member is one who fights for
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