The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 17, 1931, Page 10

fage Four LENIN Viadimir Tyich Lenin was not, of the Bolshevik | nly the leader Party which made the proletarian | revolution in Russia. He was also the builder of the Party, the teach-| § er of the entire world’s working class on how to build its Party. The Communist Party is the su- preme expression of the genius of Lenin. The fight of the working elass-<o | everthrow capitalism is a difficult and bitter struggle. It requires not only the break-up of the capi-! talist state power, but also its substitution by the proletarian dic- | tatorship — the workers’ govern- ment. Only through the leader- ship of the Communist Party is it possible for the working class to accomplish this aim. Lenin’s writings are a treasury of proleta- vian wisdom on this question. The dictatorship of the pro- letariat is a hard-fought fight against the forces and tradi- tions of the old society; a fight that is both bloody and blood- less; both violent and peaceful; both military and economic; both educational and administrative. The power of habit, ingrained in millions and tens of millions, is a terrible power. Without the Party, a party of iron which has been tempered in the strug- gle, a party that enjoys the con- fidence of all the straightfor- ward members of the working class, a party able to understand DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, 1931 } STALIN, LENIN AND KALININ _ By EARL BROWDER and to influence the psychology of the masses, success in such a struggle would be impossible.” (“Left Wing Commenism.”’) In.the early days of the Bolshe- viks (Communist Party) Lenin had to conduct a bitter and prolonged struggle against those who want- ed not a Party but a mere loose circle of “friends” of the working class, Outstanding among the early enemies of Len.in’s conception |of the Party were the Menshe- | Trotsky and others. Lenin fought | viks, led by Martoff, as well as’ against them relentlessly for many years, and built the Party in struggle against them. He ex- plained thc historical and class significance of building a disci- plined Party. “In days gone by our Party was not a formally organized whole, but the sum“of individual groups. Consequeutly, these groups could exercise no more than an ideological influence one upon the other. Today we have become an organized party; and organization signifies the estab- | | | { a lishment of power, signifies the transformation of the authority of ideas into~the authority of power, signifies the subordina- tion of the lower constituents of the Party to the higher.” (“One Step Forward.” — p. 442, Collected Works.) Lenin analyzed the opposition to | this idea of the Party as “aristo- | cratic anarchism.” His polemic} | against anarchism in the ranks of | | the working class applies with full} | force to the opponents of Party | discipline in the United States. Le-} nin said: “This aristocratic anarcaism is ,7culiar to the Russian nihil- ist. In his. eyes, the Party or- ganization appears as a mon- strous ‘factory.’ The subjection of the part to the whole, of the minority to the majority, seems to him a ‘slavery’. ... the apportionment of Party work ‘from and through the Party cen- ter drags from him tragi-comic wails about the transformation of men into ‘machines’. . . the very mention of Party rules elic- its a grimace, and the >emark that we can quite -ell do without rules.... It is abundantly clear that behind these complaints there lurks a spirit of discontent with the composition of the cen- tral organism. ... You are a bureaucrat because you have been elected to this or that post by the congress and against my "Lenin was extraordinarily simple in everything he did. When he spoke to the workers or peasants, his speech was not beyond the scope of the vocabllary of the mujhik | and the worker. He spoke a simple Janguage, without strain or affec- | tation, and it always seemed to the workers and peasants that Lenin guessed their thoughts, that he was speaking of that which they them- selves were thinking. “Wherein lies the secret of this tremendous influence over the workers and peasants? It lies in the fact that Lenin knew how to listen to the voice of the workers and: peasants. The Mensheviks have frequently remarked that Lenin knew how to issue very simple slo- gans which the people were capable of understanding. This, in fact, was one of Lenin’s strong points: he knew how to select a simple and comprehensible slogan which united millions of people, a comprehensible call for a clearly definite purpose. From conversation with individual workers, from chance talks with peasant men and peasant women, Lenin was able to guess, to sense what the people were thinking, what interested them and what troubled them. In order to un- * derstand such people he would sometimes speak for hours with the sixteen-year old son of the worker, Emelyanov, who was an anarchist, and regarded himself as being more “left than Lenin. From a conversa- tion with a Finnish peasant woman, who said that there was no need to fear a certain man with a rifle, because that man with the rifle was a Red Guard, Lenin sensed how the peasantry regarded the Red Guard. How often did workers and peasants come to Moscow in their great need! They knew that if they “got to Lenin.” if they wrote to him, Lenin would do something. He would listen to them and would help them. When Lenin spoke to the workers and peseents, they felt that he was speakig: from his heart, that he was ying before “them his intimate thoughts and ideas....This simplicity, combined \- with great modesty, his attentive- _mess to the needs of the comrades, his tremendous capacity for work, THE PARTY BUILDER { will; you are a formalist because you act in accordance with con- gress decisions and against my consent* you act mechanically because you follow the decisions of the majority and think little of my approval or my desire to be coopted; you are an autocrat because you will not hand over power and authority into the hands of our dear and trusted comrades. .. .” Collected Works, Vol. V, pp. 462-438.) The absolute necessity of Party discipline for the victory of the working class over capitalism, Le- nin formulated in the words: “He who weakens, no matter how little, the iron discipline of the Party of the proletariat (es- pecially during the period of dic- tatorship), effectually helps the bourgeoisie against the proleta- riat.” (“Left Wing Communism,”) Under these teachings of Lenin on the Party we have built the |world Party of the working class, the Communist International, the foremost section of which has con- quered one-sixth of tne earth of |the workers and is successfully |building a Socialist society. By strictly adhering to the policy of Lenin, we will achi¢éve the same results in the United Siates and the entire world. ‘The sParty is the |instrument, and th. only instru- ment, which makes poss vie for the working class to win victory over capitalism and establish a workers’ society. Memories of Lenin jduced strict discipline into the Party, made Lenin a man capable of victory. Therein lay the secret of his great influence upon us all. We knew that if Lenin wanted a thing, he would stick to it stub- bornly until he got it; he would use every argument, the whole force of his logic, he would cite every fact and take advantage of our own weaknesses in order to demonstrate his idea and compel us to admit its truth.” “LENIN,” by Yaroslavsky. * * * ..-“The question of bringing workers on to the committees was fraught with most greater conten- tign.. Vladimir Liyich. vigorously defended the idea of inclading workers. The people abroad, Bog- danov and the writers, were also in favor. The Komitetchiks were against. Both sides became very heated. The members of the com- mittees insisted that.no resolution be passed on the subject; indeed, it would have been impossible to pass a resolution that workers should not be brought on to the commit- tees! “In his speech in this discussion Vladimir Dyich said: “I think we should consider the question more broadly. To bring workers on to the committees is not only an educa- tional but also a political task. The workers have a class instinct, and even with little political experience they quite quickly become stead- fast Social» Democrats. I would very much like to see eight workers on our committees for every two intellectuals. If our written coun- sel, that as many workers as pos- sible should be brought on to the committees, proves imadequate, it would be as well to issue this advice in the name of the Congress. If you get a clear and definite instruc- tions from the Congress, you will have a radical means of. fighting demagogy; it will be the express will of the Congress.’ “Even before this occasion, Vlad- imir Ilyich had firmly championed the necessity of bringing the largest possible number of workers on to th: committees. He already wrote about this in 1903 in his ‘Letter to a Petersburg Comrade.’ Now in defending this standpoint at the Mikhailov (Postolovsky) said: ‘So in practical work very small de- mands are made of intellectuals, but extremely big demands are made of workers, Vladimir Llyich cried out: ‘That is absolutely true!’ His exclamation was drowned in a chorus of—‘Not true!’ from the Ko- mitetchiks. When Rumyantsev said: ‘There is only one worker on the Petersburg committee, although work has been going on there for fifteen years,’ Vladimir Ilyich shout- ed: ‘What a disgrace!’ “Afterwards, when the debates had ended, Ilyich said: ‘I could not sit still and listen to them saying that there were no workers suitable to be members of commit- tees. The question drags on, and it shows there is a malady in the Party. Workers must be brought on to the committees.’ If Ilyich was not very much concerned that his viewpoint met with such a re- buff at the Congress, it was simply because he knew that the approach- ing Revolution would itself radically cure the Party of this incapacity to make the committees working- class in composition.” “Memories,” by. Krupskaya. * * * ...“An atmosphere of the great- est tension filled the high, spacious Kremlin Hall where the flaming red of the Communist People’s House outshined the sparkle of the coldly ostentatious gold in the one- time Imperial Palace. Every nerve strained in attention, the hundreds of delegates, the closely packed list- eners, follow the proceedings. Lenin gets up to speak. speech is a masterpiece of eloqu- ence. No trace of rhetoric. ing, the inexorable logic of argu- | ment, the consistent, firfhly-held line. Like unhewn blocks of granite the sentences are thrown out and} fused into a unified whole. does not want to dazzle, to en- chant; he wants to convince. He convinces and enchants. Not by beautiful, sonorous words which in- toxicate, but by the luminous spirit | which, without self-deception, com- prehends the world of social phen- omena in its reality and which ‘sneaks out’ with cruel thruthful- ness, what is. Like lashes of a whip, like blows of a club, Lenin’s worlds fell on those ‘who make a sport of hunting the right,’ and do not understand what will lead us to victory. ‘Only if we get on our side in the struggle the majority of the working class, and not the majority of the workers alone, but the majority of the exploited and oppressed, only then shall we really triumph.’ Everyone feels that the decisive blow has been struck.” Ba * * “The revolution demands concen- tration, increase of forces. From the masses, from individuals. It cannot tolerate orgiastic conditions, such as are normal for the decadent heroes and heroines of D’Annunzio. Dissoluteness in sexual life is bour- geois, is a phenemenon of decay. Only | the weight-of clear thought work- | Lenin: RPE: oe — The proletariat is a rising class. The | It doesn’t need intoxication as a narcotic or a stimulus. -_ Intoxica- tion as little by sexual exaggerae tion as by alcohol. It must not land shall not forget, the shame, ithe filth, the savagery of | capitalism. It receives the stronge es. urge to fight from’ a class situa- tion, from the Communist ideal. ;J5 needs clarity, clarity anc again clarity. And so I repeat, no weak- ening, no=waste, no destruction of forces. Self control, self-discipline is not slavery, not even in love. But | forgive me, Klara; I have wandered far from the starting point of our conversation. Why didn’t you call me to order? My tongue has run away with me.’ I am deeply con- cerned about the future of our |youth. It is a part of the revolue tion. And if harmful. tendencies are appearing, creeping over from bourgeois society ito the world of revolution—as thé roots, of many weeds spread—it is bettcr tc come bat them early. Such questions are part of the women ques’!on.” ~ “Lenin had spoken with great dnimation and fervor. I fclt that every word came from his heart, jand the expression of his features | reinforced that feeling. Sometimes la vigorous movement of thg hand emphasized an idea. I miérvelled that Lenin, confronted by urgent and great political probicms, de- voted such attention to secondary matters and analyzed -them. And not only as they appeared in Soviet Russia, but in the <¢ “capitalist | States. Like the excellcut Marxist that he was, he compreher.ced the particular in whatever form it manifested itself, in its relation to the ger fu, and in its sicnificance for the whole. Undeviating, un- Shakable as an irresistible “natural force, his life will, Mis life aim was directed ta one thing: to hasten the work of the masses towards rev- olution. So he evaluated ever) thing by its effects on the conscio’'s driv- ing forces of revolution. ational as well as international, for, with a full regard for historicaily de- termined peculiarities. in s2parate countries and the varied stages of development, there stood | always before eyes the one iiidivisible Mart =P, 4 |! fy eee ee a olution. HNtsCRNCES oF! LENIN’! Ea Klara ce Kin * Uibiast t .)» Inis endurance and fidelity to prin-| Congress, he became very’ heated, |’ ' @iple, and the fact that he intro- end even made interruptions. When jee