tionary movement. To reject party, from the view-point of Communism, means to leap from the eve of the capitalist overthrow (in Germany), not to the initial or middle stages of Communism, but to its highest phase. We in Russia, in the third year after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, are going through the first steps in the transition from capitalism to Socialism, that is to say, the lowest stage of Communism. Classes remain, and will remain for years, everywhere after the proletarian conquest of power. Perhaps in England, where there is no peasantry, the period will be shorter, but even there small owners, holders of property exist. To abolish classes means not only to get rid of landlords and capitalists—that we have accomplished with comparative ease—it means also to get rid of the small commodity producers, and they cannot be eliminated or suppressed. There must be an understanding with them, they can and should be regenerated, re-trained; but this requires a long, gradual, careful organization. They surround the proletariat on every side with a petit-bourgeois atmosphere, impregnating the proletariat with it, corrupting and demoralizing the proletariat, causing it to relapse into petit-bourgeois lack of character, disintegration, individualism, and alternation between moods of exaltation and dejection. To oppose this, it is necessary to have the strictest centralization and discipline within the political party of the proletariat. It is necessary, in order to carry on the organizing activities of the proletariat (and this is its principal role) correctly, successfully, victoriously. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a resolute persistent struggle, sanguinary and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative, against the forces and traditions of the old society. The force of habit of the millions and tens of millions is a formidable force. Without an iron party hardened in fight, without a party possessing the confidence of all that is honest in the given class, without a party capable of observing the disposition of the masses and of influencing it successfully to conduct such a struggle is impossible. To defeat the great, centralized bourgeoisie is a thousand times easier than to "defeat" millions and millions of small owners who in their daily, imperceptible, inconspicuous but demoralizing activities achieve the very results desired by the bourgeoisie, and restore the
