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

SPEECH ON THE NATIONALISATION OF THE BANKS389the Council makes decisions they declare that they agreewith us, but only in principle. This is the way of the bourgeoisintelligentsia, of all conciliators, who ruin everythingwith their constant agreement in principle and disagreementin practice.If you know so much about all these things and have theexperience, why don’t you help us, why do we meet withnothing but sabotage from you in our difficult task?You proceed from a correct scientific theory, but for ustheory forms the basis of actions to be undertaken, it givesus confidence in those actions and does not scare the lifeout of us. Of course it is difficult to make a beginning andwe often come up against fragile things; nevertheless we havecoped with them, are coping with them and shall continueto cope with them.If book-learning were to serve no other purpose than that ofhampering every new step and instilling eternal fear of thenew, it would be useless.Nobody, with the exception of the utopian socialists, hasever asserted that victory is possible without resistance,without the dictatorship of the proletariat and without seizingthe old world in an iron grip.You accepted this dictatorship in principle, but whenthat word is translated into Russian, called an “iron grip”and applied in practice, you warn us of the fragility andinvolved nature of the matter.You stubbornly refuse to see that the iron hand thatdestroys also creates. It is an undoubted advantage to usto go over from principles to deeds.To effect control we have called upon the bankers andtogether with them have elaborated measures that theyagreed to, so that loans could be obtained under full controland properly accounted for. But there are people among thebank employees who have the interests of the people atheart and who have told us: “They are deceiving you, makehaste and check their criminal activity that is directlyharmful to you.” And we did make haste.We realise that this is an involved measure. None of us,even those who are trained economists, will undertake tocarry it out. We shall invite the specialists who are engagedin that work, but only when we have the keys in our own