Fidel & Cuba

[Greg Montalbano]

All this discussion of noble revolutionaries & fascist, entrenched dictators
brings to mind an interesting bit of CONVENTIONAL WISDOM, as represented in
literature, movies, and the minds of the Great Unwashed (of which I am a
charter member & past chapter president):  the fact that the noblest, most
righteous revolutionaries, no matter how pure their motives, will, upon the
achievement of their goal, sooner or later BECOME the evil power they displaced.
These two forces are generally represented in TRP's novels as WE (the
grunts, the feebs, the counterforce) and THEY (near-absolute power, in all
it's forms, striving constantly to maintain & enlarge itself).  What I find
interesting is that I cannot, for the life of me, think of any examples of
characters in any of his novels who have CHANGED STATE from counterforce to
power-establishment (mildly evocative of the medieval society, where if
you're born a peasant, you stay a peasant;  if you're born royalty, you
remain royalty).
Pynchon's characters DO go through changes (animate to inanimate comes to
mind);  but can anybody give me an example of a character who ascends to
power through "revolutionary" means & is or is not corrupted?