ABSTRACT
De Tocqueville was the first to detect the rise of the professional revolutionary. He describes the phenomenon, Melven Richter tells us, as
a new human type, formed by total revolution and destined to playa prominent role in the politics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The professional revolutionary promises to realize the doctrine of the movement in all its purity. The price he exacts is the absolute obedience of his followers and the exclusive right to speak in their name.
