Page:Theses Presented to the Second World Congress of the Communist International (1920).pdf/97

 especially on the basis of the already acquired practical experience the meaning of the terms: "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and "Soviet Power"; and (2) to point out in what could and should consist in all countries the immediate and systematic preparatory work to realising these formulas; and (3) to indicate the ways and means of freeing our movement from Its defects.

2. The victory of Socialism (as the first step of Communism) over capitalism demands the accomplishment of the three following tasks by the proletariat, as the only really revolutionary class:

The first is to lay low the exploiters, and first of all the bourgeoisie as their chief economic and political representative, to completely defeat them, to crush their resistance, to render impossible any attempts on their part to reinstate the yoke of capitalism and wage slavery.

The second is to inspire and lead in the footsteps of the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat, its Communist party—not only the whole proletariat or its larger majority, but the entire mass of workers and exploited by capital, to enlighten, organise, instruct, and discipline them during the course of the bold and mercilessly firm struggle against the exploiters;