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

REPLY TO P. KIEVSKY (Y. PYATAKOV)25talism engenders democratic aspirations in the masses,creates democratic institutions, aggravates the antagonismbetween imperialism’s denial of democracy and the mass strivingfor democracy. Capitalism and imperialism can be overthrownonly by economic revolution. They cannot be overthrownby democratic transformations, even the most “ideal”.But a proletariat not schooled in the struggle for democracyis incapable of performing an economic revolution. Capitalismcannot be vanquished without taking over the banks,without repealing private ownership of the means of production.These revolutionary measures, however, cannot beimplemented without organising the entire people for democraticadministration of the means of production capturedfrom the bourgeoisie, without enlisting the entire mass ofthe working people, the proletarians, semi-proletarians andsmall peasants, for the democratic organisation of theirranks, their forces, their participation in state affairs.Imperialist war may be said to be a triple negation of democracy(a. every war replaces “rights” by violence; b. imperialismas such is the negation of democracy; c. imperialistwar fully equates the republic with the monarchy), but theawakening and growth of socialist revolt against imperialismare indissolubly linked with the growth of democraticresistance and unrest. Socialism leads to the withering awayof every state, consequently also of every democracy, butsocialism can be implemented only through the dictatorshipof the proletariat, which combines violence against thebourgeoisie, i.e., the minority of the population, with fulldevelopment of democracy, i.e., the genuinely equal andgenuinely universal participation of the entire mass of thepopulation in all state affairs and in all the complex problemsof abolishing capitalism.It is in these “contradictions” that Kievsky, having forgottenthe Marxist teaching on democracy, got himself confused.Figuratively speaking, the war has so oppressed histhinking that he uses the agitational slogan “break out ofimperialism” to replace all thinking, just as the cry “get outof the colonies” is used to replace analysis of what,properly speaking, is the meaning—economically andpolitically—of the civilised nations “getting out of thecolonies”.