the whole of society and to have within its ranks forces able to solve the most complex problems of the period of construction. Bogdanov and Bazarov fail to understand the difference in principle between proletarian and bourgeois revolutions, between the ripening of capitalism within the feudal system and the ripening of Socialism with the capitalist system. In this connection we have written:
"Within the capitalist system the proletariat reveals remarkable symptoms of future culture, remarkable possibilities of th future cultural development of humanity: but within this system the proletariat—the culturally oppressed class—cannot develop these symptoms sufficiently to prepare itself for the organisation of the whole of society.
"It will manage to prepare itself for the 'destruction of the old world.' It will 'change its nature and ripen as the organiser of industry' only in the period of its dictatorship."[1]
Consequently, the Bogdanov-Bazarov theory is wrong also, because it calls for far too much before the capture of power and because it fails to understand that the period of transition is a period of the cultural ripening of the proletariat. If the principles of Bogdanov's theory were correct, the problem of the proletarian revolution would be as insoluble as the problem of squaring the circle or of "perpetual motion."
- ↑ N. Bukharin: "Bourgeois Revolution and Proletarian Revolution," in Collection of Essays "Ataka," p. 232, first edition.
