III. Plot a Revolution
    7. This strategy is always popular among those who have no patience with the tedious workings of the democratic process or who believe that basic institutions can only be changed by force. It attracts some of the more active and idealistic young people of every generation. To them it offers a romantic appeal, usually symbolized by some dashing and charismatic figure. It has the even greater appeal of simplicity: "Since this society is hopelessly bad, let's smash it and build something better on the ruins."
    三、策划革命：
    7)这一战略在那些对民主进程单调沉闷的运转方式无法容忍或相信只有武力才能改变基本制度的人们中总是很有市场。它吸引着每一代青年中更为积极与具有理想主义的人。对他们来说这种战略具有浪漫的吸引力，通常以某个具有非凡魅力的风流人物为其象征。它的天真单纯还有着更为巨大的吸引力：“这个社会既然坏到了毫无希望的地步，那就让我们砸碎它，在它的废墟上建起好一些的东西来。”


    8. Some of my best friends have been revolutionists, and a few of them have led reasonably satisfying lives. These are the ones whose revolutions did not come off; they have been able to keep on cheerfully plotting their holocausts right into their senescence. Others died young, in prison or on the barricades. But the most unfortunate are those whose revolutions have succeeded. They lived, in bitter disillusionment, to see the establishment they had overthrown replaced by a new one, just as hard-faced and stuffy.
    8)我最好的朋友中有些是革命者，其中一些人生活得还相当满意。这部分人是那些自己的革命未能实现的人，他们可以继续不断地快活地策划他们的大屠杀，直到他们老朽期来临。别的人年纪轻轻就死了，或死在监狱里，或死在街垒旁。但最不幸的是那些自己的革命取得了成功的人，他们极度失望，亲眼看到取代他们所推翻的权力机构的新机构依旧是那样冷酷，那样死气沉沉。

    9. I am not, of course, suggesting that revolutions accomplish nothing. Some [the American Revolution, the French Revolution] clearly do change things for the better. My point is merely that the idealists who make the revolution are bound to be disappointed in either case. For at best their victory never dawns on the shining new world they had dreamed of, cleansed of all human meanness. Instead it dawns on a familiar, workaday place, still in need of groceries and sewage disposal. The revolutionary state, under whatever political label, has to be run -- not by violent romantics -- but by experts in marketing, sanitary engineering, and the management of bureaucracies.
   9)自然，我并不是说革命都一无所成，有些革命 (如美国革命、法国革命) 显然确实使事情有所改进。我只是想说无论是成是败干革命的理想主义者们注定会失望，因为即使在最好的情况下，他们胜利的曙光也从未照耀在他们梦寐以求的清除了人类一切卑劣自私的灿烂的新世界上，而是照在一个熟悉的平凡庸碌的地方，仍需要食品杂货和污水排放处理。无论在什么样的政治标签之下，革命的国家也得由市场销售、卫生工程及管理官僚机构的专家而不是由激烈的浪漫主义者们去治理。

10. For the idealists who are determined to remake society, but who seek a more practical method than armed revolution, there remains one more alternative.
10)对于决心要改造社会但想寻找一个比武装革命较为可行的方法的理想主义分子来说，还有另一种选择。