Quotes from book
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

Vladimir Lenin

"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder is a work by Vladimir Lenin attacking assorted critics of the Bolsheviks who claimed positions to their left. Most of these critics were proponents of ideologies later described as left communism. The book was written in 1920 and published in Russian, German, English and French later in the year. A copy was then distributed to each delegate at the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern, several of whom were mentioned by Lenin in the work. The book is divided into ten chapters and an appendix.

Vladimir Lenin photo

“The Party is carried on though the Soviets, which embrace the working masses, irrespective of occupation. The district congresses of Soviet are democratic institutions, the like of which even the best of the democratic republics of the bourgeois world have never known; through these con tresses, as well as by continually appointing class-conscious workers to various posts in the rural districts, the proletariat exercises its role of leader of the peasantry, gives effect to the dictatorship of the urban proletariat, wages, a systematic struggle against the rich, bourgeois, exploiting and profiteering peasantry, etc.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

CH 5, "Left Wing Communism in Germany. The Leaders, the Party, the Class, the Mass"
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Vladimir Lenin photo

“For any truth, if overdone (as Dietzgen Senior put it), if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its applicability, can be reduced to absurdity.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Vladimir Lenin photo

“It is I think, almost universally realized at present that the Bolsheviks could not have retained power for two and a half month, let alone two and a half years, without the most rigorous and truly iron discipline in our Party, or without the fullest unreserved support from the entire mass of the working class, that is, from all thinking, honest, devoted and influential elements in it, capable of leading the backward strata or carrying the latter along with them.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

Source: "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920), CH. 2 An Essential Condition of the Bolsheviks' Success

Vladimir Lenin photo

“Repudiation of the Party principle and of Party discipline - that is what the opposition has arrived at. And this is tantamount to completely disarming the proletariat in the interests of the bourgeoisie It all ads up to that petty-bourgeois diffuseness and instability, that incapacity for sustained effort, unity and organized actions, which, if encouraged, must inevitably destroy any proletarian revolutionary movement.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

CH 5, "Left Wing Communism in Germany. The Leaders, the Party, the Class, the Mass"
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Vladimir Lenin photo

“Classes still remain, and will remain everywhere for years after the proletariat's conquest of power.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

CH 5, "Left Wing Communism in Germany. The Leaders, the Party, the Class, the Mass"
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Vladimir Lenin photo

“We are waging a struggle against the "labour aristocracy" in the name of the masses of the workers and in order to win them over to our side; we are waging struggle against he opportunist and social chauvinist leaders in order to win the working class over to our side.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

CH 5, "Left Wing Communism in Germany. The Leaders, the Party, the Class, the Mass"
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Vladimir Lenin photo

“I repeat: the experience of the notorious dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia has clearly shown even to those who are incapable of thinking or have had no occasion to give thought to the matter that absolute centralisation and rigorous discipline in the proletariat are an essential condition of victory over the bourgeoisie.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

Source: "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920), CH. 2 An Essential Condition of the Bolsheviks' Success

Vladimir Lenin photo

“The bourgeoisie sees practically one one aspect of Bolshevism - insurrection, violence, and terror; it therefore strives to prepare itself for resistance and opposition primarily in this field. It is possible that, in certain instances, in certain countries, and for certain brief periods, it will succeed in this. We must reckon with such an eventuality, and we have absolutely nothing to fear if it does succeed. Communism is emerging in positively every sphere of public life; its beginnings are to be seen literally on all sides.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

CH 10, The Lenin Anthology
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Vladimir Lenin photo

“One will readily agree that any army which does not train to use all the weapons, all the means and methods of warfare that the enemy possesses, or may posses, is behaving in an unwise or even criminal manner. This applies to politics even more than it does to the art of war.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

CH 10
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Vladimir Lenin photo

“The abolition of classes means, not merely ousting the landowners and the capitalists - that is something we accomplished with comparative ease; it also means abolishing the small commodity producers, and they cannot be ousted, or crushed; we must learn to live with them.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

CH 5, "Left Wing Communism in Germany. The Leaders, the Party, the Class, the Mass"
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

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