Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

164V. I. LENINsocialism, the “defenders of the fatherland” in the presentwar, and with an earnest desire to wipe out the corrodinginfluence of chauvinism and opportunism in the internationallabour movement.Of course, the youth organ still lacks theoretical clarityand consistency. Perhaps it may never acquire them, preciselybecause it is the organ of seething, turbulent, inquiringyouth. However, our attitude towards the lack of theoreticalclarity on the part of such people must be entirelydifferent from what our attitude is and should be towards thetheoretical muddle in the heads, and the lack of revolutionaryconsistency in the hearts, of our “O.C.-ists”, “Socialist-Revolutionaries”, 75 Tolstoyans, anarchists, the EuropeanKautskyites (“Centre”), etc. Adults who lay claim to leadand teach the proletariat, but actually mislead it, are onething: against such people a ruthless struggle must be waged.Organisations of youth, however, which openly declare thatthey are still learning, that their main task is to train partyworkers for the socialist parties, are quite another thing.Such people must be given every assistance. We must bepatient with their faults and strive to correct them gradually,mainly by persuasion, and not by fighting them. The middleagedand the aged often do not know how to approach theyouth, for the youth must of necessity advance to socialismin a different way, by other paths, in other forms, in othercircumstances than their fathers. Incidentally, that is whywe must decidedly favour organisational independence ofthe Youth League, not only because the opportunists fearsuch independence, but because of the very nature of thecase. For unless they have complete independence, the youthwill be unable either to train good socialists from their midstor prepare themselves to lead socialism forward.We stand for the complete independence of the YouthLeagues, but also for complete freedom of comradely criticismof their errors! We must not flatter the youth.Of the errors to be noted in this excellent magazine,reference must first of all be made to the following three:1) The incorrect position on the question of disarmament(or “disarming”), which we criticised in a preceding article.** See pp. 94-104 in this volume.—Ed.