The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-01-17
CONTINUED from last Saturday,
THE REVISION OF LENINlsM UN-
DER THE FLAG OF LENfN.

reVlSe-Of even directly 10 Hquldate-
the foundation of Leninism. 1t will re-
quire only a short time and this
will be plain to the whole of
our party and to the whole Inter
national. The novelty" in this at
tempt consists in the fact that, out of
"strategical" considerations, it is at
temped to carry out this revision in
the name of Lenin.
We experienced something similar
at the beginning Of the campaign Of
Bernstein and his followers, when
they began the revision" Of the foun-
dation Of Marxism. The ideas of Marx
were already SO generally recognized
in the international labor movement,
that even their revision, at least at
the beginning, had to be undertaken
in the name of Marx. A quarter Of a
century was necessary before the
revisionists could finally throw aside
their mask and openly pronounce that,
in the field of theory, they had entirely
broken away from Marx. This took
place in most open manner, in liter
AZURE, only in the year 1924 in the
recently published collection of ar
ticles devoted to the 10th birthday of
Kautsky.
The ideas of Leninism at present
predominant to such an extent in our
country-that the critics" of Lenin-
ism consider it necessary to have re-
course to similar methods. They un-
dertake the revision of Leninism "in
the name of Lenin," citing Lenin. en-
phasiziAg their fidelity to the prin-
ciples Of Leninism. This strategy"
however does not help. 1t is already
seen through by the feminist party.
1t only needs a few weeks and all
the sparrows on the house-tops will
be twittering over the collapse Of this
remarkable strategy. Comrade Trotz-
ky has overlooked one trifie: that our
party is SO feminist and so mature that
it is capable OF distinguishing Lenin-
ism from Trotzkyism.
The attack Of Comrade Trotzlsy is
an attack with Inadequate means.
Nobody will succeed in liquidating the
foundations of Leninism, or carrying
out even partial revision of the prin-
ciples Of Leninism, or even succeed in
getting Trotzkyism recognized as a
''justifable tendency" within Lenin-
ism. Nobody will succeed in convinc-
ing the party that we now need some
sort of synthesis Of Leninism and
Trotskyism. Trotskyism is as fit to be
constituent part of Leninism as
spoonful of tar can be constituent
part of vat of honey.
What is Leninism? Leninism is the
Marxism of the epoch of the imperial
fist wars in the world revolution, which.
began in a country where the peasan-
try preponderate. Lenin was from
head to foot a proletarian revolution
airy. But he knew at the same time
that he had to work in a country in
which the peasantry predominated,
and in which the proletariat therefore
can only be victorious when it adopts
a correct attitude towards the peas
antry. After Lenin already in the
revolution of 1906 had issued the
slogan Of "the democratic Dictator
ship Of the proletariat and of the
peasantry," he did not cease for
single moment to be a proletarian re-
evolutionary; he made no concessions
to burgeois democracy (the menshevi-
XII. among them comrade Trotzky, ac-
cused Comrade Lenin at that time that
he. who called himself a Marxist, was
an ideologist of bourgeois democracy,
but he was the only one who, not with
mere words, but by deeds, prepared
the way for the socialist revolution in
a situation when bourgeois democracy
was still a force and was capable OF
shattering czarist despotism.
Lenin felt himself at that time to be
the recognized leader of the proIe-
tartan REVOLUTIONARY this he was in
fact. He knew and believed that tahe