Page:Building Up Socialism - Nikolai Bukharin (1926).pdf/61

 Rh "tendencies" and "groups" who consider that (as the peasantry represents the overwhelming majority of the population) with such a combination of social forces we are inevitably doomed to destruction or to degeneration. The Leninist position is a denial of that position along the whole front. Lenin's thesis concerning the possibility of constructing complete Socialism is at the same time a reply to the question of the character of the Russian Revolution. It is a reply to the question of whether it is possible or impossible, for internal reasons, to build and complete the construction of Socialism, and that reply is a reply in the affirmative. But that is not the whole reply. Simultaneously, Lenin reminds us that we do not live alone in the wide world. In addition to the internal combination of forces in our country, there is also an international situation; this situation is fraught with various dangers: war, intervention, blockades, etc. It is bound up with our international unity to further the international revolution. Therefore, we have no guarantee in our pockets that we shall succeed in completing the construction of Socialism, that we shall conduct the revolution to the end, i.e., achieve complete Socialist society, without the aid of the Western European proletariat.

Hence, when Lenin says that the final victory of Socialism is impossible in a single country, he wishes to say: Do not forget that we are in an international environment; there is no need to worry about our being unable to construct Socialism owing to our technico-economic backwardness, for we possess all that is necessary for the construction of Socialism; but do not forget that we do not live alone in the world, do not forget that we live in an international environment and that from that side the enormous forces of international