This class would, of course, be a genuinely proletarian
class, and its interests would be identical with those of the industrial
proletariat. Until that time came it would be dangerous to rely upon the
peasants, he urged, because their instincts are bourgeois rather than
proletarian. Naturally, he has looked askance at the peasant Socialist
movements, denying that they were truly Socialist at all. They could not be
Socialist movements in the true sense, he contended, because they lacked
the essential quality of true Socialists, namely, proletarian class
consciousness.
Naturally, too, Lenine and his followers have always regarded movements
which aimed to divide the land among the peasants, and so tend to give
permanence to a class of petty agriculturists, as essentially reactionary.
The exigencies of the struggle have forced them into some compromises, of
course. For example, at first they were not willing to admit that the
peasants could be admitted into their group at all, but later on they
admitted some who belonged to the poorest class of peasants. Throughout,
however, they have insisted that the peasant class as a whole was a class
of petty bourgeoisie and that its instincts and interests would inevitably
lead it to side with the bourgeoisie as against the proletariat.
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