The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-01-21
Continued from Page Onel

(Continued from Page One)
Lenin insistently impressed upon the
delegates:
"tirst of all, don't be carried away
by victory and don't be proud;
secondly, clinch the victory; thirdly,
despatch the enemy for he is merely
vanquished, but far from being dead.
He caustically ridiculed those dele-
gates who thoughUlessly asserted
that "Now It's all over with the
Mensheviks." 1t was not difficult for
him to prove that the Menshevills still
had roots in the labor movement, thai
it was necessary to struggle with
them understandingly, in every way
avoiding an generalization OF our
strength and especially an under
valuation of the strength of the
enemy.
Don't allow victory to turn your
head" This is the peculiarly in the
character of Lenin which helped him
to judge soundly the strength of the
enemy and insure the party against
possible surprises.
Stern Adherence to Principle.
I EADERS of a party must not fail
u to esteem the opinion of the ma
jority of their party. The majority is
strength with which the leaders
cannot afford not to reckon. Lenin
understood this no less than every
other leader of the party. But Lenin
never became a slave to the majority,
especially when that majority was
not based upon principle. There were
times in the history of our party when
the opinion OF the majority or the
mementary interests of the party came
into the conflict with the fundamental
interests of the proletariat. In such
cases Lenin, without hesitation, stood
resolutely for principle against the
majority of the party. Moreover, he
did not fear in such case to come
forth literally alone against all the
rest, relying on the fact that, as he
often expressed it, "the policy of
stern adherence to principle is the
truest policy
The following two illustrations are
especially characteristic of this at
titude:
/. In the period of 1909 to 1911,
the party, shattered by the counter
revolution, passed through a period of
complete disintegration.
This was period of lack of conf
dence in the party; an epidemic of
desertion not only on the part of the
intellectuals, but also to some extent
Of the workers; a period of renounce-
ment of underground work; a period
of liquidationism and decomposition.
Not only the Mensheviks, but the
Bolsheviks as well, produced a whole
series of fractions and tendencies,
broken away to a large extent from
the labor movement.
You all know that Il was during
) this period that the idea arose of
complete liquidation of underground
work and of the organization of
workers into a legal liberal Stolypin
party. Lenin was then the only one
who did not succumb to the general
contagion and held aloft the banner
of our party organization, rallying
the dissipated and shattered forces of
the party with marvellous patience
and with unheard of tenacity, fight
ing against any and every anti-party
tendency within the labor movement,
defending the party principle with
unequalled valor and perseverance.
We all know that in this struggle
for the party principle, Lenin after
ward proved himself the victor.
2. The period from 1914 to 1917,
the period of the heat of the I'M
perialist war, when all or nearly all
social democratic and socialist parties