53. The leading Role of the Proletariat.
In our revolution, which is a communist revolution, the principal role, the role of leader, has been assigned to the proletariat. The proletariat is the most united and the best organised class. The proletariat is the only class whose conditions of life in capitalist society have been such as to lead to the acquirement of sound communist views; to it alone have these conditions disclosed the true goal and the right way of attaining it. Naturally, therefore, the proletariat has led the van in this revolution. The peasants (the middle peasants and even some of the poor peasants) were far from steadfast. They were only successful when they joined forces with the proletariat. Conversely, whenever the peasants took a different line from the proletarians, they were inevitably enslaved by Denikin, Kolchak, or some other representative of the landlords, the capitalists, or the military caste.
This leading role, this dominant mission of the proletariat, finds expression in the soviet constitution. Our laws grant the proletariat certain preferential political rights. For example, the electoral arrangements of the Congresses of Soviets are of such a nature, that, proportionally to their numbers, the urban workers have more delegates than the peasants.
Here are the relevant paragraphs of the constitution.
“The All-Russian Congress of Soviets consists of representatives of the Town Soviets, which are entitled to send one delegate for every 25,000 electors, and of representatives of the Provincial Soviets, which are entitled to send one delegate for every 125,000 inhabitants.” (Part III, Chapter 5, Par. 25.)