All revolutionary struggles throughout the world are aimed at seizing and consolidating state power. Likewise, counter-revolutionaries fight to the death against the revolutionary forces solely in order to preserve their own rule.

The revolutionary class—the working people and the peasantry—uses the Soviet as a weapon to combat all counter-revolutionaries, both at home and abroad. This is the primary function of the Soviet. For only by defeating these counter-revolutionaries can the class become the ruling class and the state power become a ruling state power.

(“This Year’s Elections,” Red China, No. 108, September 6, 1933)