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Probably almost everyone can see now that the Bolsheviks could not have maintained themselves in power for two and a half years, nor even for two and a half months, without the most stringent, I may say iron, discipline in our party, and without the fullest and unreserved support rendered it by the working class, that is, by that part of it which is sensible, honest, devoted, influential, capable of leading and of inspiring the backward masses with enthusiasm.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is the fiercest and most merciless war of the new class against its more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie, whose power of resistance increases tenfold after its overthrow, even though overthrown in only one country. The power of the bourgeoisie rests not alone upon international capital, upon its strong international connections, but also upon the force of habit, on the force of small industry of which, unfortunately, there is plenty left, and which daily, hourly, gives birth to capitalism and bourgeoisie, spontaneously and on a large scale. Because of all this, the dictatorship of the proletariat is indispensable. Victory over the bourgeoisie is impossible without a long, persistent, desperate, life and death struggle: a struggle which requires persistence, discipline, firmness, inflexibility and concerted will-power.

I repeat, the experience of the triumphant dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia has furnished an object-lesson to those who are incapable of reasoning or who have had no opportunity to reason on this question. It proves that unqualified centralization and the strictest discipline of the proletariat