No title {Reflections} Long Walk Original Manuscript (Image #595)

principles and tactics. The difficulty of holding meetings where the general membership would have the opportunity of making a critical examination of the work of the leadership and the activities of their colleagues must inevitably result in the abuse of authority, serious mistakes and the rise of parochialism, fractions, gossiping, inability to apply self criticism in examing our work and to all kinds of complications which retard progress. A general members meeting is something more than a mere gathering of friends for a common purpose. It is a theatre where surgical operations are performed, where diseased organs and malignanth growths are removed and all the poisonous material cleared away from the body. It is a mirror which enables us to see ourselves as others see us and which gives all of us the opportunity to make the necessary adjustments. Once a general members meeting disappears from our machinery and ceases to be part of our normal political work, grave problems are bound to arise. Otherwise upright men become vunerable to all sorts of temptations. This is one of the problems that faces political prisoners in a backward department of prisons, such as this country's prison system. This has been one of our main difficulties and most of the probelms we have had have stemmed from the inability to bring our men together to thrash out problems when they arise. (6) But all these men, including those who may have yielded to all the temptations mentioned above, are dedicated to the struggle and if need be would readily give up their lives if by so doing they would bring freedom day nearer. One of my greatest fortunes in life has been to count them as my comrades in arms. Throughout their incarceration They have been in high spirits and in spite of all the pin pricks they are experiencing they are oozing with hope that our cause will certianly