Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION121guarantee of the proletariat’s invincibility. The bourgeoisiefirst began to take shape as a class, as a united andconscious political force during our revolution. All the moreeffectively will the workers organise into a united classall over Russia. And the wider the gulf between the worldof capital and the world of labour, the clearer will be thesocialist consciousness of the workers. Socialist agitationamong the proletariat, enriched by the experience of therevolution, will become more definite. The political organisationof the bourgeoisie is the best stimulus to the definitiveshaping of a socialist workers’ party.The aims of this party in the struggle for democracycan henceforth be considered controversial only among the“sympathising” intellectuals, who are making ready to goover to the liberals. For the mass of the workers these aimshave been made tangibly clear in the fire of revolution.The proletariat knows from experience that the peasantmasses are the basis and the only basis of bourgeois democracyas a historical force in Russia. On a national scale theproletariat has already acted as leader of this mass in thestruggle against the semi-feudal landlords and the autocracyand no power can now deflect the workers’ party fromits right path. The role of the liberal Party of the Cadets,who, under the flag of democracy, guided the peasantry underthe wing of Octobrism, is now played out, and the Social-Democrats, in spite of individual whiners, will continuetheir work of explaining this bankruptcy of the liberals tothe masses, explaining that bourgeois democrats cannot dowhat they want to do unless they disentangle themselvesonce for all from their alliance with the lackeys of Octobrism.No one at this stage can tell what forms bourgeois democracyin Russia will assume in the future. Possibly, thebankruptcy of the Cadets may lead to the formation of apeasant democratic party, a truly mass party, and not anorganisation of terrorists such as the Socialist-Revolutionarieshave been and still are. It is also possible that theobjective difficulties of achieving political unity amongthe petty bourgeoisie will prevent such a party from beingformed and, for a long time to come, will keep the peasantdemocracy in its present state as a loose, amorphous, jellylikeTrudovik mass. In either case our line is one: to hammer