"Rules for Radicals contains several Luciferian principles strewn throughout, such as "Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father; he who fears corruption fears life." On another occasion, Alinsky admiringly cites Lenin. "Lenin was a pragmatist," he writes. "When he returned to what was then Petrograd from exile, he said that the Bolsheviks stood for getting power through the ballot but would reconsider after they got the guns."16 What Alinsky meant by this is that activists should invoke principles like free speech and equality under the law in order to protect themselves, but once they come to power they can ignore those principles and not extend them to their opponents. Modern progressives in the Alinsky mode seem to have taken this lesson to heart."