Page:Theses Presented to the Second World Congress of the Communist International (1920).pdf/105

 7. In particular one cannot stop at the usual doctrinary refutation of all "collaboration" between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

The simple defense of "liberty and equality" under the condition of preserving the right of private ownership of the means of production, becomes transformed under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat—which will never be able to suppress completely all private ownership—into a "collaboration" with the bourgeoisie, which undermines directly the power of the working class. The dictatorship of the proletariat means the strengthening and defense, by means of the ruling power of the State, of the "non-liberty" of the exploiter to continue his work of oppressio n and exploitation, of the "inequality" of the proprietor (i. e. of the person who has taken for himself personally the means of production created by public labour) and the proletariat. That which before the victory of the proletariat seems but a theoretical difference of opinion on the question of "democracy", becomes inevitably on the morrow, after the victory, a question which can only be decided by force of arms. Consequently, without a radical modification of the whole nature of the struggle against the "centrists" and "defenders of democracy", even a preliminary preparation of the mass for the realisation of a dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible.