V. I. Lenin
Jane Degras, ed., The Communist International: 1919-1943 Documents
London: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd, 1971, Vol. 1, p. 78
"The right Independents and the followers of Longuet do not understand
and explain to the masses that the imperialist super-profits of the
advanced countries enabled and enable them to bribe the upper strata
of the proletariat, to throw them crumbs of these super-profits drawn
from the colonies and from the financial exploitation of weak countries,
to create a privileged section of skilled workers, etc.
"Without exposing this evil, without fighting not only against the trade
union bureaucracy but also against all petty-bourgeois manifestations of
the craft and labour aristocracy, without the ruthless expulsion of the
representatives of this attitude from the revolutionary party, without
calling in the lower strata, the broad masses, the real majority of the
exploited, there can be no talk of the dictatorship of the proletariat."
[MC5 adds: Lenin wrote the above and the COMINTERN accepted it in
1920. Lenin spoke again of this above quote in another context which we
reproduce below.]
"The question of replacing experienced reformist or 'Centrist' leaders
by novices is not a particular question, of concern to a single country
in special circumstances. It is a general question which arises in
every proletarian revolution, and as such it is formulated and quite
specifically answered in the resolution of the Second Congress of the
Communist International on "The Fundamental Tasks of the Communist
International". In point 8 we read: 'Preparation for the dictatorship
of the proletariat, not only entails explaining the bourgeois character
of all reformism; . . . it also entails replacing the old leaders by
Communists in proletarian organisations of absolutely every type--not only
political, but also trade union, cooperative, educational, etc. . . .
These representatives of the labour aristocracy, or the bourgeoisified
workers, should be eliminated from all their posts a hundred times
more boldly than hitherto, and replaced by workers, even if wholly
inexperienced, as long as they are connected with the exploited masses and
enjoy the latter's confidence in the struggle against the exploiters. The
dictatorship of the proletariat will require the appointment of such
inexperienced workers to the most responsible posts in the state."
[MC5 adds: Lenin added he was not happy with the verbal acceptance of this
fact by the Italians, because it was not true in practice. "On Struggle
Within the Italian Socialist Party," Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 388.]
