The most recent delegation to Moscow was that of the Spanish Socialists. Upon his return to Spain, Rois, one of the two delegates, a member of the last Spanish Parliament, reported as follows:
Any one who analyzes the curious state of mind in which the Russian leaders find themselves cannot fail to note that it is due to the contempt in which the notions of liberty and democracy are held. We pointed out to Comrade Kobetsky that the Spanish party was accustomed to refer policies to a referendum. "That," he said, "is playing democracy."
"How and when," we asked Lenin in our interview with him, "can we get out of this period of the dictatorship of the proletariat—which you call a period of transition—and arrive at a regime of freedom for labor unions, press, and individuals?"
"We ourselves," Lenin replied, "have never talked of liberty. All we have said is 'dictatorship of the proletariat.' That dictatorship we are exercising here from the seat of power in behalf of the proletariat. In Russia the working class, properly so-called, is in a minority. That minority is imposing its will and will continue to do so as long as other elements in society resist the economic conditions that Communism lays down. The peasants and the country people do not think readily in our terms. They have the mentality of shopkeepers, petty bourgeois. That is why Denikin, Kolchak, and Wrangel have found some support among them. …
"However, to come back to your question: The period of transition will be a long one with us—I should say from forty to fifty years. Other countries, such as England and Germany, where industry is better organized than here, will recover from the proletarian dictatorship much sooner, though the development of revolution in those countries is taking longer than we had hoped."
