Page:Nikolai Lenin - On the Road to Insurrection (1926).pdf/137

 is only a branch of the firm of "Riabouchinsky, Miliukov & Co." Capital buys up the Miliukovs, &c., on the one hand, and on the other the ultra-reactionaries.

There is no other method than by the victory of the working class to put an end to the scandalous poisoning of the public mind by the reactionary press.

And why should we be astonished if the war-weary and war-shattered people are eagerly absorbing reactionary poison? Is it possible that, in capitalist society on the verge of bankruptcy, despair should not be spread abroad amongst the oppressed masses? And cannot the despair of the masses, amongst whom unthinking elements are numerous, find a form of expression in the steady consumption of all kinds of poison?

The position of those who, in speaking of the state of mind of the masses, invest these latter with their own weakness is untenable. The masses are divided into conscious elements awaiting their time and unthinking elements ready to fall into despair; but the masses of the oppressed and starving are not hesitant and weak.

"… Moreover, a Marxist party should not reduce the question of insurrection to the level of a military plot…"

Marxism is an extremely profound and complex doctrine. Consequently it is not astonishing to meet constantly, amongst those who are breaking away from Marxism, with quotations from Marx which seem to confirm their arguments—especially if these quotations are made in bad faith.

A military plot is pure Blanquism, if it is not organised by the party of a determined class; if the organisers of it have not justly estimated the correct moment in general and the international situation in particular; if they have not on their side the sympathy (proved by deeds) of the majority of the people; if the course of the revolution has not destroyed the illusions and the hopes of the petty bourgeoisie in the possibility and the efficacy of the method of conciliation; if the organisers of the "plot" have not conquered the majority of the organs of revolutionary struggle recognised as "plenipotentiary" organs, or occupying, like the soviets, an important place in the life of the nation; if in the army (when the thing happens in war-time) there is not a determined hostility against a government prolonging an unjust war against the will of