Osho,
You have been praising rebels, but it seems to me that so far rebellion has changed situations only for the worse. Is it not better simply to accept what is? Also it seems that whatever happens, the evil in the world becomes more powerful, more creative. Can you comment?

Rebellion has not happened yet. What has happened is revolution. And you are in a deep misunderstanding of the differences between the two.

Revolution certainly has made things worse, for the simple reason that revolution has to use the same tactics which the older society was using. Not only does it have to use the same tactics, it has to use them more powerfully; only then can it succeed.

For example, in the Russian revolution the czar was one of the greatest violent powers in the world. Now, to revolt against the czar you were compelled to be more violent than he was – the logic is simple. Hence the communist party trained itself in a far superior way, almost as militia. The czar and his regime could be destroyed because it was clashing with a bigger violent force.

You have to understand the whole extent of the logic of violence. The people who have come Into power through violence, as they did in Russia – once they are in power, do you think they will suddenly become nonviolent? Their whole training, their whole mind is full of violence, and that violence has been their success. You cannot drop it. Dropping it will mean betraying the revolution, losing the success that was yours.

Moreover, the people who have come into power through violence are bound to be violent against each other, because there will be a struggle for power in the inner circle of the communist party. Whoever proves to be more violent, more cunning, more inhuman, will become the most powerful man.

That’s how Joseph Stalin became the greatest dictator the world has ever known. He w as a nobody in violence as far as the revolution was concerned: he was not even a significant figure, not even a national leader. He belonged to a very backward part of Russia, the Caucasus. And he was not included among the ten most important people who ruled the party and the whole country; he was only the general secretary of the communist party’s organization. But he had seen how violence succeeds.

He had seen – before his eyes – the world’s greatest empire evaporating through violence. He had seen and realized that nothing works except violence, cunningness, cruelty. He learned a great lesson. And he started using the same things in the inner party circles.

It is a well-known fact – although there is no way to say whether it is true or not, but every possibility is that it is true – that Lenin was poisoned by Joseph Stalin. Stalin controlled the organization of the party, and he controlled the care that Lenin needed – Lenin was getting old, he was sick.