The dictatorship of the proletariat is consequently a form of government of the State which is most adapted to the carrying on of a war with the bourgeoisie, and to guarantee most rapidly the victory of the proletariat in such war.
Are there any grounds for presuming that such a war in Europe will be carried on in less acute forms? That the European bourgeoisie will submit with a lighter heart to the expropriation of its riches by the proletariat? Can any reasonable person build his tactics on the supposition that the European bourgeosie will not show all the resistance of which it is capable against the proletariat which has seized power? Can one presume that, entering into the fight against the proletariat in power, the European bourgeoisie will prove to be less armed, less capable of fighting, less united and less prudent than the bourgeoisie of Russia, Finland or Hungary? Can one imagine that it will stop at any means, beginning with a far-reaching union with the betrayers of Socialism from the camp of the Second International and ending with the bombardment of the workmen's quarters and the application of the latest technical methods for the suffocation of the enemy in war?
What under these conditions can be the meaning of a doubt in the inevitability of the methods of proletarian dictatorship, or a refusal to work, day in and day out, for the preparation of the proletariat to utilise all the methods of dictatorship in the coming struggle?
To move towards a seizure of power, not hoping to hold it, and not preparing the conditions for holding it, is simply foolhardiness; to recognise the necessity for the proletariat conquering power, and to doubt the necessity of a dictatorship of the proletariat, to refuse to instruct the workers in this direction—means consciously to prepare the betrayal of the cause of Socialism. Whoever does not recognise the necessity for the severest proletarian dictatorship during the traditional period from capitalism to Socialism; does not prepare the
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