procedure. Unconditional overthrow of the bourgeoisie, in order to establish the proletarian class dictatorship for the realization of Socialism, that is the only possible method. . . ."
"There the dictatorship of the leaders, here the dictatorship of the mass—such is our slogan."
These are the essential points characterizing the views of the Opposition in the German Communist Party.
Any Bolshevik who has consciously participated in, or watched closely, the developments of his party since 1903 will at once say, after reading these arguments, "What old and well-known rubbish! What 'left' childishness!"
But let us look at these arguments a little more closely. The very question, "Dictatorship of the party or dictatorship of the class, dictatorship of the leaders or dictatorship of the masses" bears witness to an amazing and hopeless confusion of mind. People bend every effort to elaborate something extraordinary, and in their zeal to be intellectual they become ridiculous. It is common knowledge that the masses are divided into classes; that to contrast masses with classes is possible only when we contrast the largest general majority, undivided in respect of its position in the social scale with categories occupying a definite position in the social scale; that the classes are usually and in most cases led by political parties, at least in modern civilized countries; that political parties, as a general rule, are led by more or less stable groups of the more influential, authoritative, experienced members, elected to the most responsible positions, and called leaders. All this is elementary. It is simple and plain. Why then all this rigmarole, this new Volapuk?
On the one hand, men who were confronted with great difficulties, when the rapid alternation between legal to illegal existence interrupted the usual normal, simple relations between leaders, parties and classes, apparently lost their head. In Germany, as in other European countries, people had become much used to over legality, to the free and normal election of their "leaders" at the regular party conventions, to convenient methods of testing the class composition of the
