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A Pragmatic Primer
for Realistic
Radicals
Saul D. Alinsky
RULES
FOR
RADICALS
A Practical Primer
for Realistic Radicals
SAUL D.
ALINSKY
VINTAGE BOOKS
A Division of Random House, Inc./New York
Prologue
PROLOGUE
xiv
tion just were not there. As the young looked at the society
around them, it was all, in their words, "materialistic,
decadent, bourgeois in its values, bankrupt and violent."
Is it any wonder that they rejected us in toto.
Today's generation is desperately trying to make some
sense out of their lives and out of the world. Most of them
are products of the middle class. They have rejected their
materialistic backgrounds, the goal of a well-paid job, suburban home, automobile, country club membership, firstclass travel, status, security, and everything that meant
success to their parents. They have had it. They watched
it lead their parents to tranquilizers, alcohol, long-termendurance marriages, or divorces, high blood pressure,
ulcers, frustration, and the disillusionment of "die good
life." They have seen the almost unbelievable idiocy of
our political leadershipin the past political leaders, ranging from the mayors to governors to the White House,
were regarded with respect and almost reverence; today
they are viewed with contempt. This negativism now
extends to all institutions, from the police and the courts
to "the system" itself. We are living in a world of mass
media which daily exposes society's innate hypocrisy, its
contradictions and the apparent failure of almost every
facet of our social and political life. The young have seen
their "activist" participatory democracy turn into its antithesisnihilistic bombing and murder. The political
panaceas of the past, such as the revolutions in Russia and
China, have become the same old stuff under a different
name. The search for freedom does not seem to have any
road or destination. The young are inundated with a barrage of information and facts so overwhelming that the
world has come to seem an utter bedlam, which has them
spinning in a frenzy, looking for what man has always
Prologue
PROLOGUE
Prologue
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PROLOGUE
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Prologue
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PROLOGUE
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Prologue
*xt
when the other side has all the guns. Lenin was a pragmatist; when he returned to what was then Petrograd from
exile, he said that the Bolsheviks stood for getting power
through the ballot but would reconsider after they got the
guns! Militant mouthings? Spouting quotes from Mao,
Castro, and Che Guevara, which are as germane to our
highly technological, computerized, cybernetic, nuclearpowered, mass media society as a stagecoach on a jet runway at Kennedy airport?
Let us in the name of radical pragmatism not forget
that in our system with all its repressions we can still speak
out and denounce the administration, attack its policies,
work to build an opposition political base. True, there is
government harassment, but there still is that relative
freedom to fight. I can attack my government, try to organize to change it. That's more than I can do in Moscow,
Peking, or Havana. Remember the reaction of the Red
Guard to the "cultural revolution" and the fate of the
Chinese college students. Just a few of the violent episodes
of bombings or a courtroom shootout that we have experienced here would have resulted in a sweeping purge and
mass executions in Russia, China, or Cuba. Let's keep some
perspective.
We will start with the system because there is no
other place to start from except political lunacy. It is most
important for those of us who want revolutionary change
to understand that revolution must be preceded by reformation. To assume that a political revolution can survive
without the supporting base of a popular reformation is to
ask for the impossible in politics.
Men don't like to step abruptly out of the security of
familiar experience; they need a bridge to cross from their
own experience to a new way. A revolutionary organizer
PROLOGUE
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Prologue
xxiii
9
how bad things are now, they are better than that.* So they
begin to turn back. They regress into acceptance of a coming massive repression in the name of "law and order."
In the midst of the gassing and violence by the Chicago Police and National Guard during the 1968 Democratic Convention many students asked me, "Do you still
believe we should try to work inside our system?"
These were students who had been with Eugene
McCarthy in New Hampshire and followed him across the
country. Some had been with Robert Kennedy when he
was killed in Los Angeles. Many of the tears that were
shed in Chicago were not from gas. "Mr. Alinsky, we
fought in primary after primary and the people voted no
on Vietnam. Look at that convention. They're not paying
any attention to the vote. Look at your police and the
army. You still want us to work in the system?"
It hurt me to see the American army with drawn
bayonets advancing on American boys and girls. But the
answer I gave the young radicals seemed to me the only
realistic one: "Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and
start bombingbut this will only swing people to the
right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build
power and at the next convention, you be the delegates."
Remember: once you organize people around something as commonly agreed upon as pollution, then an organized people is on the move. From there it's a short and
natural step to political pollution, to Pentagon pollution.
It is not enough just to elect your candidates. You
must keep the pressure on. Radicals should keep in mind
Franklin D. Roosevelt's response to a reform delegation,
"Okay, you've convinced me. Now go on out and bring
pressure on me!" Action comes from keeping the heat on.
PROLOGUE
Prologue
xx
PROLOGUE
xxvi
sponsibilities of citizenship and are resigned to lives determined by others. To lose your "identity" as a citizen of
democracy is but a step from losing your identity as a
person. People react to this frustration by not acting at all.
The separation of the people from the routine daily functions of citizenship is heartbreak in a democracy.
It is a grave situation when a people resign their
citizenship or when a resident of a great city, though he
may desire to take a hand, lacks the means to participate.
That citizen sinks further into apathy, anonymity, and depersonalization. The result is that he comes to depend on
public authority and a state of civic-sclerosis sets in.
From time to time there have been external enemies
at our gates; there has always been the enemy within, the
hidden and malignant inertia that foreshadows more certain destruction to our life and future than any nuclear
warhead. There can be no darker or more devastating
tragedy than the death of man's faith in himself and in his
power to direct his future.
I salute the present generation. Hang on to one of
your most precious parts of youth, laughterdon't lose it
as many of you seem to have done, you need it. Together
we may find some of what we're looking forlaughter,
beauty, love, and the chance to create.
SaulAlinsky
PURCHASEACOPY
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