Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

130V. I. LENINIdeas become a power when they grip the people. Andprecisely at the present time the Bolsheviks, i.e., therepresentatives of revolutionary proletarian internationalism,have embodied in their policy the idea that is motivatingcountless working people all over the world.Justice alone, the mere anger of the people against exploitation,would never have brought them on to the truepath of socialism. But now that, thanks to capitalism, thematerial apparatus of the big banks, syndicates, railways,and so forth, has grown, now that the immense experience ofthe advanced countries has accumulated a stock of engineeringmarvels, the employment of which is being hindered bycapitalism, now that the class-conscious workers have builtup a party of a quarter of a million members to systematicallylay hold of this apparatus and set it in motion with thesupport of all the working and exploited people—now thatthese conditions exist, no power on earth can prevent theBolsheviks, if they do not allow themselves to be scared andif they succeed in taking power, from retaining it until thetriumph of the world socialist revolution.