Page:Lenin - The State and Revolution.pdf/96

 and Mensheviks). "One must only think of the destruction of the old machinery of government; never mind searching for concrete lessons in earlier proletarian revolutionary movements, or analyzing by what and how to replace what has been destroyed"—thus argues the Anarchist: that is, the best of the Anarchists, not those who follow, with Kropotkin & Co., in the train of the bourgeoisie; and consequently the tactics of despair instead of a revolutionary grappling with concrete problems—ruthless, courageous, and, at the same time, cognizant of the conditions under which the masses progress.

Marx teaches us to avoid both classes of error. He teaches us dauntless courage to destroy the old machinery of government, and at the same time shows us how to put the question concretely: The Commune was able, within a few weeks, to start the building of a new proletarian State machinery by introducing the measures indicated above to secure a wider democracy, in which bureaucracy should be uprooted. Let us learn revolutionary courage from the Communards. In their practical measures we can see an indication of practical every-day and immediately possible measures; it is along such a path that we shall arrive at the complete destruction of bureaucracy.

It can be destroyed. When Socialism has shortened the working day, raised the masses to a new life, created such conditions for the majority of the population as to enable everybody, without exception, to perform the functions of government, then every form of the State will completely wither away.

"To destroy the State [Kautsky wrote] can never be the object of a general strike, but only to wring concessions from the Government on some particular question, or to replace a hostile Government by one willing to meet the proletariat half way. … But never, under no conditions, can it [a proletarian victory over a hostile Government] lead to the destruction of the State. It can only lead to a certain rearrangement (Verschiebung) of forces within the State. … The aim of our political struggle remains as before, the conquest of power within the State by the gaining of a majority in Parliament, and the conversion of Parliament into the master of the Government" (pp. 726, 727, 732).

This is nothing but the most vulgar Opportunism, a repudiation of revolution in deeds, whilst upholding it in words. Kautsky's imagination goes no further than a "Government willing to meet the proletariat half way"—further backwards towards philistinism than we were since 1847, when the Communist Manifesto proclaimed "the organization of the proletariat as the ruling