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

212V. I. LENINIs it any wonder that the crowd, tired out and madewretched by hunger and the prolongation of the war, clutchesat the Black-Hundred poison? Can one imagine a capitalistsociety on the eve of collapse in which the oppressed massesare not desperate? Is there any doubt that the desperationof the masses, a large part of whom are still ignorant, willexpress itself in the increased consumption of all sorts ofpoison?Those who, in arguing about the mood of the masses,blame the masses for their own personal spinelessness, arein a hopeless position. The masses are divided into thosewho are consciously biding their time and those who unconsciouslyare ready to sink into despair; but the masses of theoppressed and the hungry are not spineless.“On the other hand, the Marxist party cannot reduce the questionof an uprising to that of a military conspiracy....”Marxism is an extremely profound and many-sided doctrine.It is, therefore, no wonder that scraps of quotationsfrom Marx—especially when the quotations are made inappropriately—canalways be found among the “arguments”of those who break with Marxism. Military conspiracy isBlanquism, if it is organised not by a party of a definiteclass, if its organisers have not analysed the political momentin general and the international situation in particular, ifthe party has not on its side the sympathy of the majorityof the people, as proved by objective facts, if the developmentof revolutionary events has not brought about a practicalrefutation of the conciliatory illusions of the pettybourgeoisie, if the majority of the Soviet-type organs ofrevolutionary struggle that have been recognised as authoritativeor have shown themselves to be such in practice havenot been won over, if there has not matured a sentiment in thearmy (if in war-time) against the government that protractsthe unjust war against the will of the whole people, if theslogans of the uprising (like “All power to the Soviets”,“Land to the peasants”, or “Immediate offer of a democraticpeace to all the belligerent nations, with an immediateabrogation of all secret treaties and secret diplomacy”, etc.)have not become widely known and popular, if the advanced