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But there is a difference between a belief based upon old wives' tales (or old men's tales), and a belief based upon the inductions of proletarian science.
The Goal
Modern communism, however, has not only a method; it has also an aim. Lecturing in February, 1921, upon "Communism and Guild Socialism," G. D. H. Cole declared that the main distinction between the communists and the revolutionary wing of the guild socialists was that the communists tended to concentrate upon the immediate objective of revolution, whereas the guild socialists wanted to have a clear picture of the future society which the revolution would rebuild. The section of guildsmen to which he belonged, now the majority, was ready to turn to the left; but whereas the communists were prepared to rush in a body round the first leftward turning that offered, the guildsmen were inclined to think it might be better to wait, for the second or third turning.
It is perfectly true that a revolution cannot be "made" when the historic conditions are not yet ripe. Those who try to "make" a revolution prematurely will achieve nothing more than a "Putsch" or ineffective revolt, and will be shot down in their blind alley. Revolutionary economic conditions and a revolutionary mass psychology must, be the foundations of a successful revolution. But to the mensheviks, the Kerenskyites, the Kautskyites, the Macdonaldites, the historic conditions are never ripe for revolution! You cannot be certain beforehand that your revolution will come off. You may stand eternally hesitant, letting I dare not wait upon I would. Had the bolsheviks been thus hesitant in November, 1917, there would have been no Soviet Revolution. The revolutionist's faith is not passive like that of the millenarian who awaits Christ's coming at the hour chosen by divine will. The communist's faith is active; it is a faith in creative revolution.
As to aim, the communists, while perforce cautious in picturing the details of the new society, have none the less a sufficiently clear mental image of the community they hope to rebuild. As far as the immediate future is concerned the conditions of the class struggle, and the mentality which life in the bourgeois State has engendered in the average human being, will necessitate the use of force. "We are not Utopians," writes Lenin; "we do not indulge in dreams of how best to do away immediately with all management, with all subordination; these are anarchist dreams based upon a want of understanding of the tasks of proletarian dictatorship. … There must be submission to the armed vanguard of all the exploited and labouring classes—to the proletariat." But, with Lenin, the communists look beyond, to an integrated society wherein "there will vanish all need for force, for the subjection of one man to another, of one section of society to another, since people will grow accustomed to observing the elementary conditions of social existence without force and without subjection."
