The problems connected with the creation of the armed forces of the revolution are of immense importance for the Communist Parties of all countries. Disregard of these problems, or, even worse, a negative attitude towards them, hidden behind humanitarian pacifist phraseology, is really criminal. Arguments to the effect that all violence, including revolutionary violence, is evil and that Communists therefore ought not to engage in ‘glorification’ of armed struggle and the revolutionary army, amount to a philosophy worthy of Quakers, Dukhobors [A Russian Christian sect who refused to perform military service. To escape persecution many emigrated to Canada at the end of the nineteenth century] and the old maids of the Salvation Army. Permitting such propaganda in a Communist Party is like permitting Tolstoyan propaganda in the garrison of a besieged fortress. He who desires the end must desire the means. The means for emancipating the working people is revolutionary violence. From the moment of the conquest of power, revolutionary violence takes the form of an organized army. The heroism of the young worker who dies on the first barricade of the revolution when this is beginning differs in no way from the heroism of the Red soldier who dies on one of the fronts of the revolution after state power has been taken. Only sentimental fools can suppose that the proletariat of the capitalist countries is in danger of exaggerating the role of revolutionary violence and showing excessive admiration for the methods of revolutionary terrorism. On the contrary, what the proletariat lacks is, precisely, understanding of the liberatory role of revolutionary violence. That is the very reason why the proletariat still remains in slavery. Pacifist propaganda among the workers leads only to weakening the will of the proletariat, and helps counter-revolutionary violence, armed to the teeth, to continue.
