That's the classic Leninist doctrine. Capture political power any way you can - revolutions, through getting elected, lie, steal, kill - whatever works. After that, forget about stepping down - ever. From their point of view, this makes clear sense: If you are at the cutting edge of history, aligned with the progressive historical processes - WHY would you want to step down? To have history turn its tide back? makes no sense at all. So, you must suppress the opposition, kill'emall if you have to - but stay the course. Hold on to the power.
Lenin once made a big special study trying to understand the reasons for the failure of the French revolution. His conclusion was that it failed because the revolutionary government did not kill enough of the opposition. Dear ol' Robespierre failed to cut off enough heads. Vladimir Ilyich himself, when he had a chance, did not, of course, repeat the same mistake. |
