Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/179

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WORLD REVOLUTION
153

of the small countries, for the imperialists oppress not only the workers of their countries but also the bourgeoisie of the small nations. You know how we won over the wavering middle class within the advanced countries.

This absolute disintegration of our adversaries who were sure of their power, shows that they are but a handful of capitalist beasts at odds among themselves and absolutely powerless to fight us.

Here the Bolshevist chief discloses the secret of such "success" as he has been able to attain throughout the world: his propaganda has succeeded in deceiving not only a large number of workingmen but also considerable elements of the middle classes.

Taking up some remarks of Lenin's at the Tenth Congress of the Socialist Russian Party in March, 1921, the Bolshevist press of America, assisted by pro-Bolshevist "liberal" publications, by the yellow press, and by commercially directed newspapers blinded by short-sighted greed, all joined together to claim that he had abandoned world revolution together with communism and all the other foundations of Bolshevism. What Lenin actually said was: "Were we to suppose that presently we would get help in the form of a firmly established proletarian revolution, we would be lunatics," this speech being made in answer to a very small group of ultra-extremists who opposed trade agreements, not realizing that they were entirely consistent with the policy of world revolution. Lenin's words are very carefully chosen. He does not say that help from a proletarian revolution is not to be expected; he says only that early help from "a firmly established" proletarian revolution cannot be counted upon. In other