V. I.

Lenin

320

To:   I. I. SKVORTSOV-STEPANOV

Dear Ivan Ivanovich, I have read your article about specialists. [2]

I don’t agree. Two points.

The first is at the beginning (the third column from the
beginning): “The proletarian dictatorship will collapse if,
in the first place... [1]

”

(this is correct) “and secondly, if these specialists are not our own specialists, such as see their aim to be the consolidation and development of the dictatorship of the proletariat .”

What I have underlined is incorrect. We shall not have such specialists for a long time, until the bourgeois
specialists, the petty-bourgeois specialists have disappeared, until
all the specialists have become Communists . Yet the proletarian dictatorship must certainly not “ collapse ” in the
meantime. A lesser condition will be enough—namely, the
first . The second does not imperil our existence. It is
sufficient to “have at our disposal”.

For a long time yet there will be doubts, uncertainty, intrigues, betrayals, etc. The second condition will last
until the end of the dictatorship, and therefore is not a condition of the dictatorship.

Now the second point, at the end of the article, the third
and second paragraphs from the end .

“ The class struggle ... no more abnormal than the relations which it
expresses.” [3]

Untrue, It is untrue , and not merely abnormal. It is worse
than abnormal: it is scientifically untrue . This is not the
class struggle.

Further. “The scientific laboratory is a united collective,
acting co-ordinately, concertedly and consciously in all its
elements.”

Untrue. This cannot be the case before the abolition of classes.

This is not scientific but sentimental: before classes have
been abolished, “ share and share alike ” in everything.
Wrong. It will degenerate into the practices of 1918: medical
assistants demand that doctors should “share and share alike” in everything ( scientific ).

This is both wrong and practically harmful.

An example: the Political Bureau and its girl secretaries .
“Share and share alike” in everything ( scientific )! You
yourself will not insist on that. You have been carried away.

Best greetings!

Yours, Lenin