The daily worker., 1926-01-16
THE GREAT REBEL
BY L. KAMENEv.

tory OF the WOrlu5 anu ledu Ihem lnlo
the struggle.
He was born on the shores Of the
Volga, at the border between Europe
and Asia. AS if foreseeing this epoch
of the greatest upheavals, decades of
wars and revolutions, history created
this leader who was the incarnation
of all the glowing revolutionary pas
sion and the answering determina-
ton of a class which "has nothing to
lose but its chains" and which is de-
stined to conquer the world
History equipped him with the high
est achievement of world culture, a
weapon forged by the greatest genius
es of mankind-the weapon OF sclen-
tific socialism, Marxism.
And history saturated him with the
feeling of upheaval, rebellion, revolt;
the passionate feeling of discomfort
and revolution which for centuries
had been accommodating in the lower
regions" of mankind, in the alleys OF
industrial towns, among the colonial
slaves, was alive in his breast and di-
rected his iron will.
From the depths of history they
come, these surges of mutiny and up
heaval which shake the world. Thru
these the suppressed masses of slaves
made themselves known to their mas
ters, slaves for whom history up to
that time had been only changes in
the forms Of slavery.
The long chain of volcanic revolu-
tionary eruptions which light the path
of mankind was the red thread in his
development. For Lenin these were
never mere objects for historical re-
search, as for Kautsky or Plechanov.
No. After the Paris Commune it was
Lenin and only Lenin who-as if with
the silent consent of the suppressed
millions-took up and continued in
theory and practice this red thread of
world history.
Without neglecting the smallest de-
tail, without refusing the humblest
everyday task, able to wait when it
was expedient and to take risk when
the situation demanded it, Lenin pre-
pared Systematically, perseveringly,
increasingly, the upheaval of the mil
lions against the world of suppression
and violence.
But he not only continued the work
of the great rebels.
Together with the proletariat Lenin
prepared the rebellion with the pur-
pose of. the seizure of power by the
proletariat.
To rise with the purpose to con-
quer; to conquer with the purpose of
seizing power, to seize power in order
to begin to recreate the world with
the mighty proletarian iron hand in
union with all suppressed. This is
the thought of every worker So thot
Lenin; for this he lived, for this he
worked, and in this work he died.
Revolt must be made secure thru
dictatorship; without securing the
gains by the dictatorship of, the mass
es even a successful uprising is not
victory but at best only a step toward
victory-this fact was hammered into
Lenin by all the past history, by the
fruitless attempts of toiling mankind
to liberate itself from its masters;
against the dictatorship of the minor
ity the dictatorship of the majority;
against the dictatorship of the up
pers" the dictatorship of the "lowly,"
all other theories are misleading of
the people, treachery, a weakness OF
thot or weakness of will, "priestll-
ness" or "Tolstoyism," this was the
theory Of Lenin, and this theory was
only the formulation of the hard his
torical experiences, bought at an i'm
mensely high price, of millions and
again millions of men.