It represents fairly
prosperous peasants and working-men, petty traders, many small and
some even fairly large capitalists, and a certain number of real
but gullible proletarians who have been caught in the bourgeois
net.[36]
It is clear from this criticism that Lenine does not believe that a genuine
Socialist party--and, presumably, therefore, the same must apply to a
Socialist government--can represent "fairly prosperous peasants and
working-men." We now know how to appraise the Soviet government. The
constitution of Russia under the rule of the Bolsheviki is required by law
to be posted in all public places in Russia. In Article II, Chapter V,
paragraph 9, of this document it is set forth that "the Constitution of the
Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic involves, in view of the
present transition period, the establishment of a dictatorship of the urban
and rural proletariat and the poorest peasantry in the form of a powerful
All-Russian Soviet authority." Attention is called to this passage here,
not for the sake of pointing out the obvious need for some exact definition
of the loose expression, "the poorest peasantry," nor for the sake of any
captious criticism, but solely to point out the important fact that Lenine
only admits a part of the peasantry--the poorest--to share in the
dictatorship of the proletariat.
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