BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY AND PROLETARIAN
DICTATORSHIP
By Nikolai Lenin.
(The following Theses by Comrade Lenin, which formulate the theory underlying the attitude of the Communist International with respect to the problem of Bourgeois Democracy and Proletarian Dictatorship, were transmitted to the Bureau of the International with instructions to procure for them the widest possible publicity.)
I.
The development of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat in all countries has inspired the Bourgeoisie—and its agents in the labor organizations—to strenuous efforts in the discovery of idealistic political arguments in favor of the control now exercised by the exploiters. In these arguments special emphasis is laid upon the rejection of dictatorship and the safe-guarding of democracy. Yet the hypocritical and lying nature of such arguments, repeated in a thousand variations by the capitalist press, and by the Conference of the yellow International held in Berne during February 1919, must be obvious to anyone who does not contemplate the betrayal of the basic principles of Socialism.
II.
These arguments depend primarily upon the concepts of "essential democracy" and "essential dictatorship," never raising the question of the class implicated. Such a formulation of the problem, from a point of view apart from and above the class viewpoint and ostensibly valid for the population as a whole, is a direct. mockery of the basic principle of Socialism, namely, the principle of the class-struggle, a principle which is acknowledged in words but forgotten in deeds by those Socialists who have gone over to the camp of the bourgeoisie. For in no civilized capitalist country does "essential democracy" exist, but only a bourgeois democracy, and the question does not turn on "essential dictatorship" but on dictatorship by the oppressed class, i. e., the prole-
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