Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/156

 be brought into life over the dead bodies of the former leaders, over the dead body of the old party, over the ruins of that party.

The counter-revolutionary philistine naturally will shout: anarchy, as the opportunist Ed. Davis did when alluding to Liebknecht. The only German Socialist leaders who have any decency left are those whom the opportunists are branding as anarchists.

Consider the army of today. There is one of the most perfect examples of organization. And that organization is perfect for the simple reason that it is flexible and knows how to inspire one single desire to the millions of which it consists. Today those millions of people are sitting in their homes, in various parts of the country, tomorrow the mobilization orders are sent out, and they all gather at the points designated to them. They stand in the trenches, perhaps months at a time. They charge the enemy. They do wonders under a hail of bullets and shrapnel. Their advanced troops may sink mines into the ground. They may rush ahead several miles under the direction of their flyers.

This is real organization, through which millions of men, lured to the same goal, moved by one single will, change their form of association and of action, change the scene and the objects of their activity, change their tools and their weapons as the changing necescities of warfare may require.

This is the way the working class should fight the bourgeois. To-day there may not be a situation favorable to a revolution, we may not see the conditions that would leaven up the masses and increase their activities. To-day they may give you a ballot at the polls. Cast it so as to beat your enemies and not to secure a nice little job in parliament for some coward afraid of going to jail. Tomorrow they may take that ballot away from you, give you arms and a big quick firing gun of the latest type. … Take those instruments of death and destruction, and don't listen to sentimentalists who are afraid of war. There are too many things left on earth which should be destroyed by fire and steel before the working class can be emancipated. And if bitterness and desperation grow among the masses, if a really revolutionary crisis arises, then be ready to organize in a new way and to use the instruments of death and destruction against your own government and your own bourgeoisie. This is not an easy task. This requires difficult preparations. This requires heavy sacrifices. This is the new view of organization and struggle which we must all take. But we shall not acquire this new point of view without committing