communistquotes/quotes/Vladimir Lenin/Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.csv

1	author,linktitle,link,quote
2	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch02.htm`,`Bolshevism went through fifteen years of practical history (1903-17) unequalled anywhere in the world in its wealth of experience. During those fifteen years, no other country knew anything even approximating to that revolutionary experience, that rapid and varied succession of different forms of the movement—legal and illegal, peaceful and stormy, underground and open, local circles and mass movements, and parliamentary and terrorist forms.`
3	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch02.htm`,`How is the discipline of the proletariat’s revolutionary party maintained? How is it tested? How is it reinforced? First, by the class-consciousness of the proletarian vanguard and by its devotion to the revolution, by its tenacity, self-sacrifice and heroism. Second, by its ability to link up, maintain the closest contact, and—if you wish—merge, in certain measure, with the broadest masses of the working people—primarily with the proletariat, but also with the non-proletarian masses of working people. Third, by the correctness of the political leadership exercised by this vanguard, by the correctness of its political strategy and tactics, provided the broad masses have seen, from their own experience, that they are correct.`
4	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch02.htm`,`Russia achieved Marxism—the only correct revolutionary theory—through the agony she experienced in the course of half a century of unparalleled torment and sacrifice, of unparalleled revolutionary heroism, incredible energy, devoted searching, study, practical trial, disappointment, verification, and comparison with European experience.`
5	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch02.htm`,`Thanks to the political emigration caused by tsarism, revolutionary Russia acquired a wealth of international links and excellent information on the forms and theories of the world revolutionary movement, such as no other country possessed.`
6	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch02.htm`,`The Bolsheviks could not have retained power for two and a half months, let alone two and a half years, without the most rigorous and truly iron discipline in our Party.`
7	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch03.htm`,`Experience has proved that, on certain very important questions of the proletarian revolution, all countries will inevitably have to do what Russia has done.`
8	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch03.htm`,`It is at moments of need that one learns who one’s friends are. Defeated armies learn their lesson.`
9	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch03.htm`,`Without such thorough, circumspect and long preparations [since 1903], we could not have achieved victory in October 1917, or have consolidated that victory.`
10	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch04.htm`,`To reject compromises “on principle,” to reject the permissibility of compromises in general, no matter of what kind, is childishness. A political leader who desires to be useful to the revolutionary proletariat must be able to distinguish concrete cases of compromises that are inexcusable and are an expression of opportunism and treachery.`
11	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch05.htm`,`In 1912 the agent provocateur Malinovsky got into the Bolshevik Central Committee. He betrayed scores and scores of the best and most loyal comrades; he was obliged, with the other, to assist in the education of scores and scores of thousands of new Bolsheviks through the medium of the legal press.`
12	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch06.htm`,`If you want to help the “masses” and win the sympathy and support of the “masses,” you should not fear difficulties, or pinpricks, chicanery, insults and persecution from the “leaders,” but must absolutely work wherever the masses are to be found.`
13	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm`,`Criticism – the most keen, ruthless and uncompromising criticism – should be directed, not against parliamentarianism or parliamentary activities, but against those leaders who are unable – and still more against those who are unwilling – to utilise parliamentary elections and the parliamentary rostrum in a revolutionary and communist manner. Only such criticism – combined, of course, with the dismissal of incapable leaders and their replacement by capable ones – will constitute useful and fruitful revolutionary work that will simultaneously train the “leaders” to be worthy of the working class and of all working people, and train the masses to be able properly to understand the political situation and the often very complicated and intricate tasks that spring from that situation.`
14	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch10.htm`,`All efforts and all attention should now be concentrated on the next step — the search after forms of the transition or the em>approach to the proletarian revolution.`
15	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch10.htm`,`any army which does not train to use all the weapons, all the means and methods of warfare that the enemy possesses, or may possess, is behaving in an unwise or even criminal manner. This applies to politics even more than it does to the art of war.`
16	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch10.htm`,`It is not difficult to be a revolutionary when revolution has already broken out and is in spate, when all people are joining the revolution just because they are carried away, because it is the vogue, and sometimes even from careerist motives. It is far more difficult—and far more precious—to be a revolutionary when the conditions for direct, open, really mass and really revolutionary struggle do not yet exist.`
17	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch10.htm`,`One must not count in thousands, like the propagandist belonging to a small group that has not yet given leadership to the masses; in these circumstances one must count in millions and tens of millions.`
18	`V. I. Lenin`,`Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder (1920)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm`,`It is folly, not revolutionism, to deprive ourselves in advance of any freedom of action, openly to inform an enemy who is at present better armed than we are whether we shall fight him, and when. To accept battle at a time when it is obviously advantageous to the enemy, but not to us, is criminal; political leaders of the revolutionary class are absolutely useless if they are incapable of “changing tack, or offering conciliation and compromise” in order to take evasive action in a patently disadvantageous battle.`