An individual would persist forever and ever if it could, brooking no opposition to its persistence. Nonetheless, lacking resistance the anarchistic individual would not even exist as such; it would not be in-dividual or divided into megalomaniacal subject and resisting object. That is, the irrational root of violence is within and is the individual factor of the personal equation - a person is the free-willing individual socially conditioned.

Infants are natural-born revolutionaries. They feel omnipotent at first, and tend to revolt against restraints until they learn that total resistance is futile if not downright dangerous. Yet the omnipotent feeling persists throughout the social development of the individual, and, to one extent or another, the resulting person lives under a certain delusion of grandeur, believing at least secretly that the world is at his beck and call, that he is at least in part its savior. Of course the all-important person's delusion is one of persecution when he feels that the whole world is against him.

An "insane" or unwholesome delusion of grandeur may in certain "heroic" cases take on a "sane" or wholesome appearance, and become a popular illusion. A mirage of an oasis or a hero appears to thirsty or power-hungry travelers. A crowd of individuals, lacking the power of leadership, project their own native feeling of omnipotence or freedom onto an individual, recognizing him as a "great man" or "hero," the very man who can quench their thirst for power. Enamored by the illusion of absolute freedom, they eagerly forsake what remains of their own freedom as their idol sops up every drop.

Adolph Hitler, to take an egregious example, was sincerely perceived by the great majority of Germans as their Teutonic messiah. His ascent to power was quite easy; he had been building a shadowy state of disgruntled authoritarians within the purportedly democratic state all along.

Now every school child knows about the Beer Hall Putsch and how Hitler got off easily, with a short prison sentence, which provided him with a great opportunity to write about his reactionary struggle.  And we all know about the Red Scare the Nazis provoked with the February 27, 1933 Reichstag Fire. And of course the threat of Bolshevist terrorism among other emergencies called for the March 23, 1933 Enabling Act - the "Law for Removing the Distress of People and Reich" - which gave legislative power to the Reich cabinet and legalized in advance decrees that "might deviate from the Constitution." The July 14, 1933 decree made the Nazi party the only lawful party in the Fatherland:

"The National Socialist German Worker's Part constitutes the only political party in Germany. Whoever undertakes to maintain the organizational structure of another political party or to form a new political party will be punished with penal servitude up to three years or with imprisonment of from six months to three years, if the deed is no subject to a greater penalty according to other regulations."

Many of Hitler's storm troopers were disaffected workers who expected him to fulfil his promise of a social revolution and to militarize the SA. No way. There would be no liberal revolution or any other revolution for that matter,  not after Hitler's regressive revolution. Hitler needed industrialists and big businessmen. Unions had to be dissolved and workers virtually indentured to realize their true virtue - they were glad to have jobs and cheap recreation to boot. In fact, Hitler clearly stated on July 6, 1933, that revolution would not become a permanent state of affairs, that "good businessmen" were quite welcome under his regime even if they were not Nazis - and business prospered despite the enormous bureaucracy set up to rationalize his political economy and to collect bribes.

After President Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934, Hitler combined the offices of president and chancellor in himself, becoming the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor. On August 19, 1934, 95 percent of registered voters approved of Hitler's seizure of absolute power. Military personnel took a new oath:

"I swear by God this sacred oath, that I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fuehrer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and will be ready as a brave soldier to risk my life at any time for this oath."

A survivor of Hitler's egomaniacal reign of terror claimed that a little hitler exists in every body. The people are to be feared more than their leaders, and they maintain the leaders they deserve.