Page:Lenin - The Proletarian Revolution and Kautsky the Renegade (1920).pdf/49

 is the advance guard, the organizer and the leader of the oppressed masses, must not become a State organization!

From a practical point of view, the idea that the Soviets are necessary as fighting organizations, but must not become State institutions, is even more absurd than it is in the theoretical respect. Even in peaceful times, when the situation is not revolutionary, the mass struggle of the workers against the capitalists—for instance, a mass strike—causes passion to run very high on either side, provokes great bitterness and rage, the bourgeoisie constantly insisting that it must remain "master in its own house," etc. But in the time of revolution, when political life reaches, one may say, the boiling point, an organization like the Soviets, which embraces all workers, all industries, and ultimately also all soldiers, and the entire laboring and poor population of the villages, must inevitably, in the course of the struggle, and by the mere logic of attack and defence, bring the questions of power to a direct issue. All attempts to take up a middle position and to "reconcile" the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, appear then as acts of imbecility and prove a miserable failure. Such has been the fate of the efforts of Martoff and his friends in Russia, and such will inevitably also be the fate of similar attempts in Germany and other countries, if the Soviets should succeed in striking root), in gaining strength, and in linking up with one another. To tell the Soviets: fight, but do not take over the entire State authority, do not become State institutions, its tantamount to preaching the co-operation of classes and "social peace" between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The bare idea is preposterous that such a position amid passionate strife could lead to anything else than a disgraceful collapse. It is, however, the eternal fate of Kautsky to sit between two stools. He puts on an air as if he did not agree with the opportunists on any theoretical question, but in practice he agrees with them on everything that is essential (i. e., on everything that pertains to the revolution).