Comrade Nobs, editor of the left-socialist Swiss newspaper "Volksrecht" (People's Right) in Zurich{160}, recently published a letter from Zinoviev on the necessity of a break with opportunists and his own lengthy response to this letter. Nobs's response amounts to this: to the question of accepting the 21st condition and of joining the Communist International, a decisively negative answer is given – in the name of "freedom," of course, freedom of criticism, freedom from excessive demands or from the dictatorship of Moscow (I have not kept Nobs's article and am forced to quote from memory, vouching for the sense, not for this or that particular expression).

Comrade Nobs, incidentally, enlists as his ally Comrade Serrati, who, as is well known, is also dissatisfied with "Moscow," that is, in particular with the Russian members of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, and also complains of Moscow's violation of the "freedom" of the constituent parts, individual parties and individual members of the Comintern. It will therefore be useful to say a few words on the subject of "freedom."

Having lived through three years of the dictatorship of the proletariat, we have the right to say that the most popular and widely circulated objection to it throughout the world is the invocation of the violation of freedom and equality. The entire bourgeois press of all countries, down to the press of petty-bourgeois democrats, that is, social-democrats and socialists, including Kautsky, Hilferding, Martov, Chernov, Longuet, and so forth and so on, thunders against the Bolsheviks precisely for the violation of freedom and equality. From the theoretical point of view, this is completely understandable. Let the reader recall the famous words full of sarcasm in Marx's *Capital*:

"The sphere of circulation or of commodity exchange, within which the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the inborn rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham" (*Capital*, Vol. I, Part II, end of Chapter Four, Russian edition 1920, p. 152){161}.

These words, full of sarcasm, are full of the deepest historical-philosophical content. They must be compared with Engels's popular explanations of the same question in his *Anti-Dühring*, particularly with Engels's words that equality is a prejudice or stupidity, inasmuch as this concept is not reduced to the elimination of classes{162}.

The elimination of feudalism and its vestiges, the introduction of the foundations of bourgeois (one can with full justice say: bourgeois-democratic) order took up an entire epoch of world history. And the slogans of this world-historical epoch were inevitably freedom, equality, property, and Bentham. The elimination of capitalism and its vestiges, the introduction of the foundations of communist order constitutes the content of the new epoch of world history that has now begun. And the slogans of our epoch are inevitably and must be: the elimination of classes; the dictatorship of the proletariat for the realization of this goal; the pitiless exposure of petty-bourgeois democratic prejudices concerning freedom and equality, pitiless struggle against these prejudices. Whoever has not understood this has understood nothing about the dictatorship of the proletariat, about Soviet power, about the fundamental foundations of the Communist International.

As long as classes have not been eliminated, all talk of freedom and equality in general is either self-deception or a deception of the workers, as well as of all the laboring and exploited masses; in any case, it is a defense of the interests of the bourgeoisie. As long as classes have not been eliminated, whenever freedom and equality are discussed, the question must be posed: freedom for which class? and for what precisely? equality of which class with which? and in what precisely respect? The evasion of these questions, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, is inevitably a defense of the interests of the bourgeoisie, the interests of capital, the interests of the exploiters. The slogan of freedom and equality, with silence on these questions, on private property in the means of production, is the lie and hypocrisy of bourgeois society, which by formal recognition of freedom and equality conceals the actual, economic unfreedom and inequality for workers, for all the laboring and exploited masses – that is, for the vast majority of the population in all capitalist countries.

In Russia now, thanks to the fact that the dictatorship of the proletariat has practically raised the fundamental, ultimate questions of capitalism, it is visible with particular clarity to whom speeches about freedom and equality in general serve (cui prodest? "to whose benefit?"). When the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, the Chernovs and Martovs, present us with disquisitions on the theme of freedom and equality within the bounds of "labor democracy" – for they, you see, are not at all guilty of disquisitions on freedom and equality in general! they do not at all forget Marx! – then we ask them: what about the distinction between the class of wage laborers and the class of small proprietor-owners in the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat?

Freedom and equality within the bounds of labor democracy is freedom for the small farmer-proprietor (even if conducting his economy on nationalized land) to sell surplus grain at speculative prices, that is, to exploit the worker. Anyone who speaks of freedom and equality within the bounds of labor democracy – on the condition that the capitalists have been overthrown but private property and freedom of trade still remain – is a defender of exploiters. And with such a defender, the proletariat, exercising its dictatorship, must deal as with an exploiter, even if this defender calls himself a social-democrat, a socialist, or even someone who has recognized the rottenness of the Second International and so forth and so on.

As long as private property in the means of production remains (for instance, in agricultural implements and livestock, even if private property in land is abolished) and free trade remains, so long there remains the economic basis of capitalism. And the dictatorship of the proletariat is the only means of victorious struggle against this basis, the only path to the elimination of classes (without which there can be no question of real freedom for the human personality – not for the property owner – of real equality in the socio-political respect between human and human – not the hypocritical equality of property owner and pauper, of the satiated and the hungry, of exploiter and exploited). The dictatorship of the proletariat leads to the elimination of classes, leads to this through the overthrow of exploiters and the suppression of their resistance, on the one hand; leads to this, on the other hand, through the neutralization, the disarming of the waverings of the small proprietor between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

The falsity of the speeches of Comrades Nobs and Serrati consists, of course, not in them being false, insincere. Nothing of the sort. They are entirely sincere, and there is no subjective falsity in their speeches. But objectively, in their content, their speeches are false, because they consist in the defense of the prejudices of petty-bourgeois democracy, because they amount to a defense of the bourgeoisie.

The Comintern in no case can recognize freedom and equality for all who wish to sign certain declarations, irrespective of their political conduct. This would be such a theoretical and practically-political suicide for communists as the recognition of freedom and equality "within the bounds of labor democracy," and so forth. For anyone who knows how to read and who wishes to understand what he reads, it cannot but be clear that all the decisions, theses, resolutions, decrees, and conditions of the Communist International recognize "freedom and equality" for those wishing to join the Comintern not unconditionally.

In what then does the condition consist for our recognition of "freedom and equality"? of freedom and equality of members of the Comintern?

In this: that opportunists and "centrists," like the well-known representatives of the right wing of the Swiss and Italian socialist parties, cannot enter into the ranks of members. Because these opportunists and "centrists," no matter how much they profess their recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat, remain in fact preachers and defenders of the prejudices, weaknesses, and waverings of petty-bourgeois democracy.

First – a break with these prejudices, weaknesses, and waverings; with people who preach, defend, and embody in practice these views and characteristics. Then and only on this condition – "freedom" of joining the Comintern, "equality" of the communist in fact (not the communist in words) with any other communist, a member of the Comintern.

You are "free," Comrade Nobs, to defend the views which you defend. But we are also "free" to declare these views petty-bourgeois prejudices, harmful to the cause of the proletariat, useful to capital; we are also "free" to refuse to enter into a union or association with people who defend these views or the corresponding policy. And we have already condemned this policy and these views in the name of the entire Second Congress of the Communist International. We have already said that we require unconditionally and as a preliminary condition a break with the opportunists.

Do not speak in general of freedom and equality, Comrade Nobs and Comrade Serrati! Speak of freedom not to carry out the decisions of the Comintern concerning the unconditional obligation of a break with opportunists and "centrists" (who cannot help undermining, cannot help sabotaging the dictatorship of the proletariat). Speak of the equality of opportunists and "centrists" with communists. Such freedom and such equality we cannot recognize for the Communist International; any other freedom and equality – as much as you like.

The most important and fundamental condition for success at the moment on the eve of the proletarian revolution is the liberation, is the freedom of the parties of the revolutionary proletariat from opportunists and "centrists," from their influence, from their prejudices, weaknesses, and waverings.

11. XII. 1920.