We are partisans of the dictatorship of the proletariat. There, too, there’s no disagreement in principle. We so much support it that we’ve even put the idea and theory of it into an electoral program. Thus we have fear neither of the word, nor of the thing. I add that, for my part, I do not think that the dictatorship of the proletariat must retain a democratic form – even though Marx and, more recently, Morris Hillquit said so. I think it impossible, first of all, to conceive in advance precisely what form such a dictatorship would take, for the essence of a dictatorship is the elimination of all previous forms and all constitutional prescriptions. Dictatorship is an arbitrary power given to one or several men to take whatever measures a given situation demands. As a result, it is impossible, and also completely contradictory, to determine in advance what form the dictatorship of the proletariat will take. Where then is the disagreement? Neither is it over the issue of whether the dictatorship of the proletariat may be exercised by a Party. In fact, in Russia the dictatorship is exercised not by the soviets, but by the Communist party itself. We’ve always thought in France that the future dictatorship of the proletariat would be exercised by the groups of the Socialist party itself becoming, by virtue of a fiction which we all accept, the representative of the whole proletariat. The difference comes, as I have told you, from our divergence in opinion over organization and the conception of revolution. Dictatorship exercised by the Party, yes, but by a Party organized like ours, and not like yours.