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Republished from the US DoD’s Air University Review, March-April 1980
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1980/mar-apr/rejai.html

The Professional Revolutionary: A Profile

Dr. Mostafa Rejai

A UNIQUE phenomenon of the twentieth century, the professional revolutionary provides an endless source of fascination for both scholarly and popular imagination. Observers with a romantic outlook portray the professional revolutionary as pure, virtuous, and idealist–as a heroic fighter for humanity, freedom, and justice. Those with a cynical cast of mind see the professional revolutionary as fanatical, psychopathic, and criminal–as a failure in a society the complete destruction of which alone would yield proper revenge. As we shall see, however, neither view is valid.

The genesis of the concept of professional revolutionary is found in Lenin (What Is To Be Done? 1902), who was also the first to personify it. Lenin defined the primary need of a revolutionary movement in terms of a secret, small, tightly knit, highly disciplined organization of professional revolutionaries–that is, men who devote their entire life to revolution, who turn revolution into a calling, a vocation, a mission.

The nationalist and revolutionary movements of the twentieth century have catapulted into prominence a host of professional revolutionaries in addition to Lenin. What do these diverse men have in common, and why/how did they become professional revolutionaries?

This, treatment of the professional revolutionary derives from a much larger study of 64 prominent revolutionary leaders from 12 major revolutions of the past. These revolutions occurred in England (1640s), America (1776), France (1789), Mexico (1910), Russia (1917), China (1949), Bolivia (1952), North Vietnam (1954), Hungary (1956), Cuba (1959), Algeria (1962), and France (1968).

Among the 64 leaders are 14 individuals who meet the requirement for professional revolutionary. They are Nikolai Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, and Grigori Zinoviev of Russia; Chu Teh, Lui Shao-ch’i, Lin Piao, and Mao Tse-tung of China; Ho Chi Minh, Le Duan, Troung Chinh, and Vo Nguyen Giap of North Vietnam; Fidel Castro and Ernesto Guevara of Cuba. There are undoubtedly other professional revolutionaries, but these fourteen individuals are the basis for a composite profile in the pages that follow. It goes without saying that not every individual embraces every trait identified.

THE professional. revolutionary is born in an urban setting or, if born in a rural area, experiences early and sustained exposure to urban life. The impulse to revolution, in other words, originates in urban centers, though subsequently it may be “exported” to the countryside. The urban milieu introduces the professional revolutionary to a variety of radical ideologies in his late teens or early twenties. By the age of twenty-five, he is virtually certain to have taken actual part in revolutionary agitation and organization.

The professional revolutionary comes from a middle or lower class family with a relatively large number of siblings. Although probability considerations would dictate otherwise, he is more likely to be an oldest or a youngest rather than a middle child. He typically comes from the main ethnic and religious groupings in his society; on occasion, however, he may represent a minority group, most likely Jewish. As time passes, his religious affiliation–whatever its origins–takes a sharp turn to atheism.

The professional revolutionary is probably reasonably well educated. This education takes place in public institutions, which brings him into contact with a spectrum of population not found in private or parochial schools. He is almost certain to have gone through high school and quite likely to have had college experience or professional training in such fields as medicine, law, education, the military, or the ministry. Regardless of the nature and extent of his education, the professional revolutionary is likely to be a prolific writer, chiefly on matters of revolutionary theory and practice. As such, he can be labeled an “intellectual.”

While his education may qualify him for one of the established professions, the professional revolutionary does not take his occupation seriously. Thus, for example, Lenin obtained a law degree but hardly practiced law; Guevara was a physician who never practiced; and Mao, Ho, and Giap all taught school for only short periods of time. The only exception to this rule is the military profession, which is necessarily taken with utter seriousness. In fact, should he lack formal military training as a requisite component of his skills, the professional revolutionary acquires military experience in the course of the revolution in informal ways.

While there is some likelihood that he participates in established political institutions and processes–in order either to manipulate or subvert them–the professional revolutionary is irreversibly committed to radical organization and agitation. He is also quite likely to have a lengthy record of arrest, imprisonment, or exile.

The professional revolutionary is a cosmopolite: he travels widely, gaining extensive exposure to foreign cultures, values, traditions, and languages. This diversity of foreign exposure accounts, in part, for the eclectic nature and origin of the ideology to which the professional revolutionary subscribes. Building on the experiences of his predecessors and counterparts in other societies, synthesizing a variety of beliefs and values, the professional revolutionary adapts foreign ideologies to the conditions and needs of his own country. In general, he is most likely to fuse shades of Marxism (including Marxism-Leninism or communism) with forms of nationalism. When combined, these two doctrines have proved the most explosive revolutionary ideology of the twentieth century.

As a rule, the professional revolutionary is optimistic about the “nature of man.” He sees man as basically good and rational but oppressed by and alienated from the society in which he lives. Hence, revolution becomes an act of total liberation.

Similarly, the professional revolutionary maintains a highly positive attitude toward his own country, as his nationalist ideology virtually requires. On the other hand, his image of the international society is dualistic: he sees the world in terms of “friends” to be cultivated and “enemies” to be fought.

WHAT life experiences account for the emergence of the professional revolutionary?

He probably led a stormy childhood characterized by early rebelliousness, parental conflicts, or loss of one or both parents. He is likely to have been born to a large family, and he tends to be either the oldest or the youngest, son. What accounts for the preponderance of oldest and youngest children among professional revolutionaries? Recent findings in the field of child psychology cast some light on the subject.1

Oldest sons are typically held to strict standards of competence and achievement. As a result, they tend to attain eminence in their chosen endeavors, revolution included. Moreover, oldest sons are likely to experience intense feelings of anxiety over the loss of parental affection/attention once siblings begin to arrive. Coupled with this anxiety are intense feelings of guilt over the hostilities they exhibit toward their siblings. Externalizing and politicizing these feelings of anxiety, hostility, and guilt–even to the point of revolutionary action–may be a way of managing one’s psychic balance.

Youngest children are more striving and defiant toward their siblings–and probably toward the world in general. They are more competitive and more vigilant in an effort to maintain their status and possessions in the cruel world that a large family may represent. Their perception of relative parental neglect and deprivation may generate impulses toward rebellion. Being highly group-oriented, youngest children may see revolutionary movements as a means of maintaining and augmenting their sense of identity and belongingness.

In contrast to all this, middle children are not subjected to the strict parental codes and norms of behavior that are applied to the first-born. Middle children are better adjusted and satisfied with their lives than either the oldest or the youngest ones. Understandably, they do not seek radical social change.

The professional revolutionary carries the rebelliousness and conflicts of his childhood on to school, where processes of radicalization gain fresh momentum. Exposed to a variety of persons and views but associating mostly with his own kind, he has his horizons broadened, his consciousness enhanced, and his intellectual development gains pace. He is typically found in the forefront of agitation, boycotting classes, leading student strikes, and the like.

The radicalization of the professional revolutionary is completed in foreign travels. He becomes cosmopolitan in many ways: he gains exposure to a variety of cultures and ideologies, personally experiences or witnesses varying modes of oppression and exploitation, shares experiences with other revolutionaries, and develops a set of standards against which to judge his own society.

THE development of the professional revolutionary is also marked by the evolution of a set of psychological attributes. To begin with, the professional revolutionary is driven by a sense of justice/injustice and a corresponding attempt to set things right. This sense of justice/injustice may be personally rooted; it may be perceived in societal conditions, or it may be personally based and projected outward onto the larger society. Whatever form it may take, the sense of justice/injustice is present in a most conspicuous fashion.

The professional revolutionary is motivated by nationalism and patriotism. He may seek to maintain the independence and integrity of his nation. He may set but to free his nation from the oppression and exploitation of another nation. He may wish to improve the status, prosperity, and prestige of his country.

The professional revolutionary is vain, egotistical, ‘intent on gaining recognition of his personal superiority. He may have delusions of grandeur, seeing himself as an extraordinary man driven by sublime moral principles and called on by a higher order to bring liberty, equality, and fraternity to humankind. In undertaking all this, the professional revolutionary seeks symbolic immortality.2

The professional revolutionary is ascetic, austere, and puritanical. Self-discipline, self-reliance, self-denial, and relentless emphasis on hard work set him apart from ordinary beings. Accordingly, his demand for “virtue” is ceaseless, chronic, and compelling. Evil and corrupt as he finds the existing society, he feels called on to replace sin, greed, and lust with temperance, industry, and purity.

The professional revolutionary tends to be a marginal man in his society, that is, he may deviate in important ways from accepted social norms. This marginality may be physical, social, or psychological. The professional revolutionary may experience bitter personal humiliation, particularly in colonial contexts. He may be scolded in school for being a member of a minority group or coming from a peasant background. Similarly, he may be berated for physical disfigurement of various kinds: unusual features, scarred face, or short stature. In any event, frustrated and humiliated, the professional revolutionary compensates for his marginality by projecting his feelings of inferiority and low self-esteem outward onto the larger society.

The vain, ascetic, austere, marginal professional revolutionary has a gentle side as well: he probably possesses qualities of aestheticism and romanticism. He may be a lover of literature and philosophy (Trotsky, Ho, Guevara), or a lover of poetry (Guevara), or, indeed, he may be a poet in his own right (Mao). He may be a nature lover (Mao). He may have a passion for music (Lenin).

THE professional revolutionary is particularly adept at developing and deploying two elements that are crucial determinants of revolutionary success Of failure: ideology and organization.

Revolutionary ideology has three components: (1) a thorough-going critique of the existing order as inhuman and immoral; (2) a depiction of an alternative, superior order embodying positive values of liberty, equality, and fraternity; and (3) a statement of plans and programs intended to realize the alternative order.

Deploying such an ideology, the professional revolutionary undermines the confidence and morale of the ruling regime, rationalizes and legitimizes the need for revolution, politicizes and mobilizes the masses, enhances the followers’ sense of cohesion and solidarity, and elicits commitment and devotion. He does not adopt an inflexible or purist ideological posture but deliberately dilutes and soft-pedals ideology in order to maximize popular support and make room for maneuver and compromise. He is pragmatic and opportunistic.

Organization is a fundamental adjunct to ideology, the link between ideology and action. The professional revolutionary translates ideology into action thr9ugh the medium of organization. Ide910gy helps “reach” the masses; organization functions to tap their energies and channel them toward the realization of revolutionary objectives.

Deploying political, military, and paramilitary organizations, the professional revolutionary eventually launches an offensive on all fronts. He coordinates a program of: (1) maintaining close contacts with the masses; (2) continuing to politicize and mobilize them by means of distributing incentives or punishment, as appropriate; (3) recruiting, socializing, and training cadres and fighters; (4) fighting the battles that need to be fought; (5) gathering maximum intelligence about the enemy; and (6) unleashing a sustained policy of terror and violence that may eventually topple the existing regime.

WHILE the professional revolutionary is a definite personality type, he is neither uniformly noble nor uniformly evil. When combined, the romantic and the cynical views of the professional revolutionary hold a degree of validity. Alone, neither is capable of accounting for this unique phenomenon of our age. The professional revolutionary is a distinctive product of a set of circumstances, a variety of complex and sometimes contradictory attributes, a series of life experiences, a host of psychological dynamics, and an array of ideological and organizational skills.

The professional revolutionary is an outgrowth of increasing urbanization, rapid developments in communication and transportation, the trend toward universal education, and diffusion of revolutionary ideologies. In a word, ironical as it may be, the professional revolutionary is an inescapable by-product of the very modernity that has been a distinguishing mark of the twentieth century.

Miami University, Ohio

Notes

1. Cf. Lucille Forer and Henry Still, The Birth Order Factor (New York, 1976).

2. Cf. Robert J. Lifton, Revolutionary Immortality: Mao Tsetung and the Chinese Cultural Revolution (New York, 1968).

Contributor

Mostafa Rejai (Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles) is Professor of Political Science at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. He is author of The Comparative Study of Revolutionary Strategy (1977) and Leaders of Revolution (1979), and his articles and reviews have appeared in professional journals in the United States and Europe. Dr. Rejai is a fellow of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society and an associate editor of Journal of Political and Military Sociology.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

The term “private property” can serve an obfuscatory role, unfortunately. While Rothbard considered his radically anti-state version of Lockean property theory best, he also explicitly pointed to the usufruct ownership standard as superior to existing property relations under statism, which minarchists typically defend reflexively, in his essay “The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist’s View“.

My second political difference with Spooner-Tucker is on the land question, specifically on the question of property rights in land title. Here, however, I believe that the Tucker position is superior to that of current laissez-faire economists who either take no position on land or else blithely assume that all land titles must be protected simply because some government has declared them “private property”; and superior to the Henry Georgists, who recognize the existence of a land problem but who deny the justice of any private property in ground land. The thesis of the individualist anarchists, developed by Joshua K. Ingalls, was that private ownership of land should be recognized only in those who themselves are using the specific areas of land. Such a theory of property would automatically abolish all rent payments for land, since only the direct user of a piece of land would be recognized as its owner.

While I strongly disagree with this doctrine, it does supply a useful corrective to those libertarians and laissez-faire economists who refuse to consider the problem of land monopoly in the State’s arbitrary granting of land titles to its favorites, and therefore who fail completely to tackle what is probably the number one problem in the undeveloped countries today. It is not enough to call simply for defense of the “rights of private property”; there must be an adequate theory of justice in property rights, else any property that some State once decreed to be “private” must now be defended by Libertarians, no matter how unjust the procedure or how mischievous its consequences.

In my view, the proper theory of justice in landed property can be found in John Locke: that it first become private property by the use criterion. This rules out State sales of unused and unowned “public domain” to land speculators in advance of use, as conveying any valid title whatever. This much of the way I proceed with Ingalls and the anarchists. But once use and settlement convey proper title, it seems to me a complete violation of the Spooner-Tucker “law of
equal liberty” to prevent that legitimate owner from selling his land to someone else.

If property rights are the heart and soul of libertarianism, and I believe they are, then anarchists espousing usufruct are closer to our correct position than any Constitutionalist might be, despite their hostility to the term “private property” or our description of Rothbardian property theory as “private property”.

I’ve previously pointed out, and continue to, that Benjamin Tucker made a persuasive case that free market anarchism is best understood as a variety of socialism in his essay “State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree and Wherein They Differ“. I’ve also made the point that Tucker’s case is by no means contingent on the labor theory of value being a part of the particular formulation of market anarchist doctrine in question. Nor is it contingent upon his later rejection of natural rights for egoism or his use of Proudhon’s usufruct ownership standard (as opposed to modern Rothbardian property theory). Completely freeing markets of state granted privilege, subsidy and restraint of competition answers the social question. We’re socialists.

Additionally, I’ve pointed out how leading so-called “anarcho-capitalist” thinkers such as Hans Herman Hoppe acknowledge that the Marxist critique of the status quo is “essentially correct”. I’ve also explained numerous times in informal settings that this hostility of ours to the status quo can and ought to be described as opposing “capitalism” — because capitalism can be understood as state-driven monopolization of capital. Note carefully that it’s not that we only object to monopolization of capital when it’s state-driven. Rather, Rothbardian theory indicates that forming and maintaining an exploitative monopoly of any sort must be a state-driven process.

Now, some or all of these arguments are often rejected out of hand by my libertarian comrades. Verily, with horror. Or, rather, the various points of argument are seldom specifically rejected, let alone refuted — but the conclusion that they add up to, that we are socialists dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism, is dismissed on the basis that it’s incompatible with our existing narrative, rather than our body of theory. We’re used to thinking of ourselves as “capitalists” in the sense of advocacy of a completely free market economy. In this sense “capitalism” is held forth as an unrealized ideal fundamentally at odds with the oppressive status quo. The principal problem with this line of thinking is that the Cold War is over and we lost. When I say “we”, in this case, I mean “radical free market libertarians” rather than the Soviet communists. For an entire lifetime, American civilization was barraged with propaganda from both proponents and opponents of “capitalism” that the American status quo was “capitalism”. When attempting to explain a stateless free market as “capitalism”, besides everything else you need to persuade and convince people of you also face the additional burden of trying to convince people to reject the incredibly deeply ingrained notion that the status quo is “capitalism”. We lost the Cold War. Asserting that the US is not “capitalist” will be regarded as an absurdity.

Libertarian acceptance of the “we’re capitalists and statism is socialism” narrative can be seen as a tribalistic or ceremonial sharing of stories with those we have hoped to influence. A shared mythology makes a tribe. Libertarian theory advocates free markets and it’s irrefutable. On the other hand, libertarian mythology attempts to describe a particular vision of American history as a falling from “capitalist” grace into the burning, sulfurous pit of “socialism”. As a consequence, the more radical critiques of the status quo and history that libertarian theory enables tend to be de-emphasized in the interests of not merely making reformist political alliances, but implicitly appealing to a shared historical narrative to emphasize aspects of libertarianism that (it is hoped) will be found more convincing by those with a right wing mindset. The problem with that approach is that if we, as a movement, are to reject reformism as a strategy and turn toward revolution, we must recognize that the conservative temperament is ill-suited to joining a revolutionary cadre.

We talk about taxes when we should be talking about the revolutionary redistribution of property.

Anarchy is a system of law in which those who apply the law don’t have any specially privileged status to do things that would be crimes if other people did them.

For example, taxation is theft. War, as conventionally understood, is mass murder. Arrest for a “crime” with no actual victim is kidnapping.

The understanding of how such a system of law would be possible is that the business of applying law ought not be forcibly monopolized by any one single organizational entity. As a result, adjudicating disputes and providing non-aggressive security services could be carried out by a multitude of organizations.

It is not the provision of such services that demands hegemonic monopoly over a particular territory. Rather, it is the nature of forcible maintenance of a monopoly itself that requires hegemonic domination — and such actions are demonstrably criminal, as crime is best understood to mean violation of a person’s rights.

Ultimately, then, an authentically anarchist revolution would be the process of bootstrapping this polycentric system of stateless law and resulting suppression of the biggest criminal gang around — government itself.

See also:

• Wikipedia: Polycentric law
• Introduction to Natural Law
• Legislation and Law in a Free Society

A correspondent asks:

Can you lead me to info on where Ron Paul stands on the disabled and the poor? No hurry. I’m at the embryonic end of my journey on learning about Anarchism and its branches.

I don’t support electing Ron Paul or anybody else. There’s a similarity of message, though, in that he advocates less state power while I advocate abolishing the state.

Generally, without the predatory state forcibly transferring wealth from average people to the elite, people would be better able to take care of each other through non-governmental approaches (which can’t come about right now only because we’re all being bled dry to fund the empire, banks and so forth). In anti-state “leftist” language those non-governmental approaches are called “mutual aid”. In “conservative” language, the same basic concept is called “civil society”.

The basic understanding (you might agree or disagree) is that a professionalized welfare state bureaucracy demanding upper middle class salaries and implementing inflexible top-down programs is actually not all that effective at helping people, despite the advantage of tax funding.

But that’s just a general outline of thinking on the matter. I can’t speak for the man. I would suggest Googling him and getting in touch with either his campaign or his Congressional office.

I’m attempting to think through what a series of formal courses on market anarchist theory might look like in terms of material to be covered. The point of this would be that completion of the whole series would result in some sort of certification of proficiency in advocacy.

* “The Philosophy of Liberty” (Schoolland) and some introductory short material on free market econ (”I, Pencil”, some Bastiat, etc.)

* The Market for Liberty (Tannehill/Tannehill) and Chaos Theory (Murphy)

* What is Mutualism? (Swartz) & selected works by Carson such as “The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand” and “Austrian and Marxist Theories of Monopoly Capital”

* For a New Liberty (Rothbard)

* New Libertarian Manifesto / Agorist Class Theory / Agorist Primer (Konkin/Conger/Koman)

* selected left libertarian material on thick libertarianism, ambiguity of the terms “capitalism” and “socialism” and market anarchist theory as the foundation of a more intellectually rigorous “anarchism without adjectives”.

Feedback?

A correspondent asks:

“Does anyone else read support for direct action of this sort [in the workplace] as support for ‘the destruction of property as a legitimate part of the bargaining (collective in this case) process’?”

It can happen that way if the workers in question don’t know any better. Conversely, title to stolen loot can be uncritically accepted and a whole class of what would be ethically acceptable tactics can be foolishly disregarded.

The pertinent thing to keep in mind would seem to be the understanding that the more statist the economy, the less likely it might be that the property of any given business is legitimately held property in terms of libertarian theory.

But direct action in the workplace does not have to mean sabotage that destroys property. In a lot of cases, management is so dysfunctional and clueless that a stringent adherence by workers to the rules handed down amounts to “sabotage”. The normal order of affairs in many corporations is for incoherent and contradictory mandates to be pushed down by management more interested in CYA than production. Many of the decisions about which corners to cut and what priorities to set get pushed down to the lowest level. Think of it as limited worker self-management through the imposed terror of potential job loss. In such a (common) environment, “sabotage” can be as simple as stopping trying to make the bureaucratically hamstrung production process work. Or stopping trying to make intelligent decisions in situations where any choice made results in arbitrary punishment if it comes to the attention of management.

An astute observer might recognize a bit of Atlas Shrugging in such approaches to the workplace in an oligopsony job market:

“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

In other words, a lot (if not most) so-called “managers” out there aren’t managing squat. They go through the motions and find a scapegoat if their bosses find anything wrong. When the rules are incoherent, following them strictly can grind things to a freakin’ halt. Recognizing and exploiting this is not a new labor tactic. It’s called “work to rule”.

There have been some notable snowfalls this winter and plenty of people took the opportunity to say or imply that this disproves anthropogenic global warming theory (AGWT).

AGWT advocates have (correctly, in my opinion) responded that it does no such thing. Weather can be thought of as, basically, a heat-driven engine — so a globally warmer climate might result in more turbulent weather patterns. Thus, for example, an arctic air mass might be driven hundreds of miles further south than it normally would — bringing a good old-fashioned Saskatchewan blizzard to the mid-Atlantic states.

That’s a perfectly valid rebuttal on that narrow point. AGWT critics who point to a heavy snowfall or notable cold snap really are just being simple-minded.

But what AGWT advocates might neglect to point out is that simple-minded criticism has been invited by comparable simple-minded advocacy on their part.

For example:

Hat tip: that hydrocodone addict with a cigar.

So, let’s take a step back for a moment. What’s really going on here?

We have a scientific question being debated politically. The political process (as George Orwell noted, if I recall correctly) more or less consists of the scientific manipulation of hatred. With control of state policy as the prize, the brass ring to grab for, we can see the search for truth getting shunted aside by both groups of disputants — in favor of politically useful stupidity and dishonesty.

The climate debate, so far as I can discern, tells us little about climate change. It should tell you all you need to know about politics, though.

I got on a Jeff Foxworthy kick this morning…

If you think it’s ironic when other activists glorify the American Revolution but are horrified at the suggestion of protesting without a permit — you just might be an anarchist.

Regardless of whether you think global warming is real or not, if you think mainstream policy proposals to supposedly deal with it are all about big business, and that they have to be BECAUSE they’re mainstream policy proposals — you just might be an anarchist.

Leaving aside the word “property” for a moment… If you think the question of who rightfully owns what has little or nothing to do with what the government has to say about the matter — you just might be an anarchist.

If you put a cucumber in your pants in anticipation of a patdown at the airport — you may or may not be an anarchist, but you’ve got a great sense of humor. Especially if you’re a lady.

If you prefer the AK series to the AR-15 and variants because the charging handle of the AR-15 keeps getting hung up on your nose ring — you’re probably an anarchist.

UPDATES: I might post other riffs on this theme that I notice from others…

“If you go to a national or state park and catch yourself evaluating potential homestead locations, you might be an anarchist.” — K.B.

“If you think the most offensive phrase on money is not ‘in God we trust’, but ‘legal tender’, you might be an anarchist.” — K.B.

“If your investment in precious metals strategy includes lead, you might be an anarchist.” — K.B.

“If you stumble across a WWF wrestling match while channel surfing, and mistake it for election coverage, you might be an anarchist.” — K.B.

“If you imagine an Olympic games where individuals go to compete without being divided up into national teams… you might be an anarchist.” — B.W.

“If you have been punished by your teacher for sitting silently while all of the other children are reciting the pledge… you might be an anarchist.” — B.W.

It’s official… I will be speaking at NH Liberty Forum 2010.