Page:Theses Presented to the Second World Congress of the Communist International (1920).pdf/100

 Socialist consciousness, firm Socialist convictions and character under the conditions of capitalist enslavement, under the yoke of the bourgeoisie, which assumes an endless variety of forms—the more refined and at the same time the more cruel and pitiless, the more cultured the given capitalist nation. In reality it is only when the vanguard of the proletariat, supported by the whole class as the only revolutionary one; or a majority of the same, will have overthrown the exploiters, crushed them, freed all the exploited from their position of slaves, improved their conditions of life immediately at the expense of the expropriated capitalists—only after that, and during the very course of the acute class struggle. will it be possible to realise the enlightenment, education and organisation of the widest masses of workers and exploited around the proletariat, under its influence and direction, to cure them of their egotism, their non-solidarity, their vices and weaknesses engendered by private ownership, and to transform them into free workers.

4. For the success of the victory over capitalism a correct correlation between the leading Communist Party—the revolutionary class, the proletariat—and the masses, i. e. the whole mass of workers and exploited, is essential. Only the Communist Party, if it Is really the vanguard of the revolutionary class, if it Includes the best representatives of the class, if