habits and traditions. In comparison with these truly gigantic problems, it becomes a childishly easy matter to establish, under the bourgeois dictatorship and in the bourgeois parliament, a real Communist Group of a real proletarian party.
If our "Left" comrades and anti-parliamentarians fail now to learn to overcome even such small difficulties, we man assert with confidence that they will prove incapable of realizing proletarian dictatorship, of dealing on a large scale with the problem of changing the bourgeois intellectuals and the bourgeois institutions. Alternatively, they will have to complete their education in a hurry; and his haste will render great harm to the cause of the proletariat, and will cause it to commit more errors than usual; and to manifest more weakness and inefficiency than usual.
So long as the bourgeoisie is not overthrown, and, subsequently, until small economy and small production have utterly disappeared—the bourgeois atmosphere, proprietary habits, middle-class traditions, will impair the proletarian work from without as well as from within the labor movement; not only in one sphere of parliamentary activity, but unavoidably in each and every sphere of social activity, in each and every branch of politics, culture and life, this bourgeois atmosphere will manifest itself. The attempt to brush aside, to do away with, one of the "unpleasant" problems or difficulties in one field of activity, is a profound mistake and one which will have to be paid for dearly. It is necessary to learn and to master every sphere of activity and work without exception, to overcome all difficulties and all bourgeois habits, customs, and traditions. To put the question in any other form is to refuse to treat it seriously, and is mere childishness.
May 12, 1920
