In 1973, Muammar Qadhafi, the leader of the revolution, called for a popular uprising to set up People's Committees in all government departments, factories, communities, farms, schools and universities. His call for administrative revolution resulted in mass marches on all government establishments. In December 1976, Qadhafi called on the People's Committees to go further by initiating action to articulate the popular will instead of merely approving and supervising plans by the various ministries. A major national debate was inaugurated to determine the best political and constitutional arrangements for the realisation of popular power. In March 1977, the first General People's Conference of over 1,000 delegates from the People's Committees, professional associations, and unions, gathered to create a political system unlike any other in modern history.
Authority is for the people, and none else.
The people exercise their authority through the Basic People's Conferences, People's Committees, syndicates, unions, and professional associations, and the General People's Congress. Libyans realise that the fate of their revolution depends on finding the road through which the masses on every continent can overthrow capitalism once and for all. Muammar Qadhafi's Green Book is the highest product of this struggle. Setting out to perfect a Third Universal Theory, Colonel Qadhafi's three volume thesis declares that the solution to the problem of democracy is the absolute authority of the people. It begins with a bitter indictment of the fraud and hypocrisy of bourgeois representative government.