Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 125

AGENDA SETTING

Conclusion
As military officers look out over the panorama of
competing insurgent, terrorist, and aggressive domestic
activist causes (including the organizations and techniques behind so-called “Color Revolutions”) across
the global spectrum, the lesson is that no politically
centered movement can long survive without being
led by a vanguard party and without control (or the
full sympathetic support) of at least one influential
medium to organize, propagandize, and agitate for the
cause. And, such movements are severely handicapped
unless they attain the proactive ability to preclude the
emergence of political opposition to them, or to stamp
out their political opponents if such do emerge, by
either force or harassment and ridicule.
Consequently, in authoritarian or nondemocratic unstable states, the closer a political movement
is to achieving the ideal character of being led by a
well-organized vanguard party that can influence
opinion leaders, that controls at least one influential
mass medium, and the greater its means to intimidate
(or even crush) political adversaries through violent
Cheka-like tactics, the greater the likelihood that
MILITARY REVIEW  November-December 2016

Supporters of the “Revolutionary Communist Party, USA” burn the
U.S. flag outside the gates of the Quicken Loans Arena 20 July 2016
in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Adrees Latif, Reuters)

that party will have effective control over the state.
Similarly, in stable nonauthoritarian political states,
the closer a political interest is to the ideal of maintaining collusion between a full-time vanguard party
of professional organizers and agitators to lobby and
agitate on its behalf and at least one major medium
(over which it has virtual control) together with the
means to intimidate or silence political competitors
using largely diverse tactics of intimidation and harassment, the greater the likelihood that it will be able
to dominate and dictate the domestic public agenda of
the community or state.
U.S. military officers and senior noncommissioned
officers should become familiar with the origin and
employment of Lenin’s principles and tactics of revolutionary activism as they are frequently employed today
by insurgents, authoritarian regimes, and many domestic lobbying and community organizing groups in
ways that pose a threat to national security. Moreover,
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