Changes

When the Nazi-Soviet Pact came, though, and I refused to toe the party line and urged support for England and for American intervention in the war, the party turned on me tooth and nail. Chicago Reds plastered the Back of the Yards with big posters featuring a caricature of me with a snarling, slavering fanged mouth and wild eyes, labeled, "This is the face of a warmonger." But there were too many Poles, Czechs, Lithuanians and Latvians in the area for that tactic to go over very well. Actually, the greatest weakness of the party was its slavish parroting of the Moscow line. It could have been much more effective if it had adopted a relatively independent stance, like the western European parties do today. But all in all, and despite my own fights with them, I think the Communists of the Thirties deserve a lot of credit for the struggles they led or participated in. Today the party is just a shadow of the past, but in the Depiession it was a positive force for social change. A lot of its leaders and organizers were jerks, of course, but objectively the party in those days was on the right side and did considerable good.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20060720064250/http://www.progress.org/2003/alinsky11.htm Interview with Saul Alinsky, Part Ten]</ref></blockquote>

When the Nazi-Soviet Pact came, though, and I refused to toe the party line and urged support for England and for American intervention in the war, the party turned on me tooth and nail. Chicago Reds plastered the Back of the Yards with big posters featuring a caricature of me with a snarling, slavering fanged mouth and wild eyes, labeled, "This is the face of a warmonger." But there were too many Poles, Czechs, Lithuanians and Latvians in the area for that tactic to go over very well. Actually, the greatest weakness of the party was its slavish parroting of the Moscow line. It could have been much more effective if it had adopted a relatively independent stance, like the western European parties do today. But all in all, and despite my own fights with them, I think the Communists of the Thirties deserve a lot of credit for the struggles they led or participated in. Today the party is just a shadow of the past, but in the Depiession it was a positive force for social change. A lot of its leaders and organizers were jerks, of course, but objectively the party in those days was on the right side and did considerable good.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20060720064250/http://www.progress.org/2003/alinsky11.htm Interview with Saul Alinsky, Part Ten]</ref></blockquote>

 

==''Rules for Radicals''==

==''Rules for Radicals''==

{{main|Rules for Radicals}}

{{main|Rules for Radicals}}

In ''Rules for Radicals'', Alinsky wrote specifically to the 1960s generation of [[New Left]] radicals: ''"What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."''<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/weekinreview/23alinsky.html Know Thine Enemy], [[The New York Times]]</ref>

In ''Rules for Radicals'', Alinsky wrote specifically to the 1960s generation of [[New Left]] radicals: ''"What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."''<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/weekinreview/23alinsky.html Know Thine Enemy], [[The New York Times]]</ref>