I was especially impressed by the first part of the book where Hyde takes the reader step by step though the process by which a young communist recruit is trained to be a leader of men. High expectations (you are joining an elite organization) and high purpose (you are going to make a difference in the lives of men) combine to get to form the foundation of dedication. The only apparent weakness of the book is it's "Britishness." The Brits do write in a style that is difficult for their American cousins to follow.
This book is transformational. Everything I have learned about leadership dove tails right into what Hyde is saying: The need for public witness, ministry before training, life application teaching, strict accountability, high expectations, beginning with felt needs, a commitment o excellence, are all themes common to great leadership.
This book grew out of a series of lectures he conducted that tried to explain the successes of Communism to a Christian audience and to answer the question "Is there anything in Communist methods that can be adapted to serve nobler causes?". The answer to that question is an emphatic yes. Hyde strips away the preconceptions of how Communists recruited and motivated party workers and how they developed them into leaders capable of developing other communist workers.
The main theme of the book is contained in the title. According to Hyde, dedication is a prerequisite for true leadership. The communists had a well defined purpose that every communist could understand and believe in: the hope of a Communist world. In pursuit of that goal, members were asked to make great sacrifices. Rather than driving people away, this demand draws out the idealistic element in them and inspires the sort of dedication needed.
Hyde develops this theme in a number of ways. He discusses how short term campaigns worked, how party education worked, how members were encouraged to excellence in other areas of their life in order to give the communist message credibility with non-Communists.
Looking at the state of communism today, one might question whether there is any value in this book after all. Indeed, Hyde faced the same question himself in the late 80s and refused a reprint of the book because he thought that communist commitment was no longer what was described in the book. In my opinion, the failure of communism was due to its successes proving its invalidity, not to the methods by which it had enjoyed those earlier successes. Militant Islam seems to be the ascendant ideology of our times, and to the limited degree that I am aware, it seems like the Islamists are employing similar techniques. If we are wise, we will choose to learn from them rather than dismissing them outright.
This is one of those rare books that demands the purchasing of multiple copies. You will want to keep one for yourself with all your underlinings and notes, and keep at least one to lend out. Any sort of organisation could benefit from the lessons to be learned here, but Hyde's message is chiefly to Christians. Any believer distressed about the weak impact his church is having should immediately read this book.
The long pilgrimage from Communism to Christ carried Douglas Hyde from complete commitment to Marxism, to a questioning uneasiness about Soviet Russia?s glaring contradictions of ideology and action, to a final rejection of the Party.
In Dedication and Leadership, he advances the theory that although the goals and aims of Communism are antithetical to human dignity and the rights of the individual, there is much to be learned from communist methods, cadres and psychological motivation. Hyde describes the Communist mechanics of instilling dedication, the first prerequisite for leadership. Here is the complete rationale of party technique: how to stimulate the willingness to sacrifice; the advisibility of making big demands to insure a big response; the inspirational indoctrination; and the subtle conversion methods.
In this small book, so large with implications, Douglas Hyde comments on both Communist and Catholic potential and their lack of maximum effectiveness. He advocates positive Catholic action, not just a negative anti-Communism, and he points out that the guidelines are now down for a decisive choice between total Communism and a total Christianity.
Here is a realistic approach to an acute problem uncolored by emotional propaganda, and here is a realistic answer on how to inspire dedication for leadership.
