[71]
This dictatorship is to be no light affair, no purely nominal force, but a
relentless iron-hand rule. Lenine is afraid that the proletariat is too
soft-hearted and lenient. He says:
But "dictatorship" is a great word. And great words must not be
used in vain. A dictatorship is an iron rule, with revolutionary
daring and swift and merciless in the suppression of the
exploiters as well as of the thugs (hooligans). And our rule is
too mild, quite frequently resembling jam rather than iron.[72]
And so the dictatorship of the proletariat becomes the _dictatorship of a
single person_, a super-boss and industrial autocrat: We must learn to
combine the stormy, energetic breaking of all restraint on the part of the
toiling masses _with iron discipline during work, with absolute submission
to the will of one person, the Soviet director, during work_.[73]
As I copy these words from Lenine's book my memory recalls the days, more
than twenty years ago, when as a workman in England and as shop steward of
my union I joined with my comrades in breaking down the very things Lenine
here proposes to set up in the name of Socialism. "Absolute submission to
the will of one person" is not a state toward which free men will strive.
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