Page:Building Up Socialism - Nikolai Bukharin (1926).pdf/46

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38
BUILDING UP SOCIALISM
"If the bourgeois democratic revolution is finished then this bloc [between the working class and the petty bourgeoisie—N.B.] cannot exist and no definite tasks will confront them, the proletariat will carry on a revolutionary struggle against the petty bourgeois bloc. Joint work from that moment is absolutely impossible. However, we recognise the Soviets as the centres of the organisation of forces; consequently, we recognise that there are tasks which can be fulfilled by the alliance between the workers and peasants. Consequently, the bourgeois revolution is not finished, has not yet outlived itself, and 1 think that all of you must admit that if this revolution was completely finished, power would really pass into the hands of the proletariat. Then the moment would have arrived for a break in the alliance between the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie and for the independent fulfilment of proletarian aims by the proletariat, itself. I think we must adopt one of two tactics: either the proletariat is confronted by tasks which can be fulfilled only by the proletariat and no other social group can aid it in that—and then we must break the alliance and proceed to the fulfilment of these ideas which must be fulfilled by the proletariat; or we consider that by virtue of the conditions of the moment the bloc is practical and has a future before it—then we take part in the bloc and formulate our tactics so that the alliance shall not be broken. Hence, I say that the proletarian Party must stand out separately in this bloc and clearly and precisely define its own purely Socialist international aims. We will march with the bloc and can still do several paces jointly with