COMMUNISM AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

savage Hottentots. The Hottentot says: “When I steal my neighbour’s wife, it is good; when he steals my wife, it is bad.” The bolsheviks, it is contended, resemble these savages, for they say: “When the bourgeoisie uses force to crush the proletariat, it is bad; but when the proletariat uses force to crush the bourgeoisie, it is good.” Those who argue thus, do not know what they are talking about. In the case of the Hottentots we are concerned with two equal individuals who are stealing one another’s wives for identical reasons. But the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are not on equal terms. Proletarians comprise an enormous class, bourgeois form a comparatively small group. The proletariat is fighting for the liberation of all mankind; but the bourgeoisie is fighting for the maintenance of oppression, wars, exploitation. The proletariat is fighting for communism, the bourgeoisie for the preservation of capitalism. If capitalism and communism were one and the same thing, then the bourgeoisie and the proletariat could be compared to the two Hottentots. The proletariat is fighting solely on behalf of the new social order. Whatever helps in the struggle is good; whatever hinders, is bad.