Dual Power - Strategy

Strategy

As the ideological monopoly of dominant institutions is broken and people increasingly rely on AIs, those who benefited from existing arrangements may seek to dismantle their upstart competitors. At the same time, those who seek fundamental changes in society or who find the alternative ways of organizing it valuable may seek to enlarge and strengthen the alternative infrastructure. Counter institutions (XIs) are created both to defend the AIs and to promote their growth. These work to challenge and attack the status quo while creating, defending, and securing space for opposition and alternative institutions. They do this with everything from political protests, to direct appropriation (of plantations, government buildings, factories, etc.) for the use of alternative institutions, to civil disobedience or armed resistance. The line between AIs and XIs is seldom entirely clear as many alternative institutions are also self-promoting or defending. Together the AIs and XIs form an alternative source of power in society which is "necessarily autonomous from, and competitive with, the dominant system, seeking to encroach upon the latter's domain, and, eventually, to replace it."

During the process of building the alternative institutions and the ideology that supports them, the advantage of dual power is the creation of real, and not merely political, momentum towards the revolutionary transformation of society. Actual changes are ongoing, rather than postponed to a revolutionary moment, so needs unmet by the pre-existing order are being met during the struggle and no sector of society is told that its concerns can only be dealt with after victory is achieved. That is, creation of AIs and the political space for them has intrinsic benefits, apart from the advancement of the revolutionary project. Over the course of building AIs, the society at large is empowered, committed to change, and skilled in running society. Simultaneously, the credibility of a revolutionary vision is increased immensely by putting it into practice and by refining and improving it over time. It is also conceivable that factional splits between revolutionaries and reformers (and all the shades in between) could be reduced by having a common project that both find useful. Those forces that would be sent to suppress a revolutionary movement find themselves confronting people who have taken control over their own lives, rather than armed cadre attempting to impose a vision on the country, potentially obviating military conflict or at least reducing its severity.

Successful dual power rebellions end with the acceptance of the new social forms by much of the populace and the realization by the old rulers that they are no longer capable of using their systems of force against the revolutionary movement. This can occur because noncooperation has crippled the old structures of power, because too few people remain loyal to the old rulers to enforce their will, or because the rulers themselves undergo an ideological conversion. At this point, there is not general confusion. The disappearance of old leaders and structures of power is accommodated by the expansion of the alternative system. The alleged "necessity" for a revolutionary vanguard to guide the revolutionary impulse is shown to have no basis: because the people have already learned how to govern their own affairs, they need no tutelage from above. The possibility of co-option is minimized: "When the people recognize their true power, it cannot be taken away by rhetoric or imposition."

Dual power is a strategy, rather than an ideology, and it could plausibly be used to advance a variety of forms of social change. However, the advantages of the strategy make it most compatible with perspectives that emphasize the exercise of power at the community level, that seek to make the revolutionary movement accountable to the people, that see the capability to revision and transform society as common rather than rare, and that seek decentralized forms of power. Call this version of the strategy grassroots dual power, the bottom-up transformation and replacement of the mechanisms of society.