Author’s Note: When a Red Army soldier ‘Stands Guard’- he or she is inwardly calm and outwardly strong. Such an individual ‘projects’ both boundless ‘strength’ and infinite ‘confidence’. There is no malice. The Red Army soldier is ‘disciplined’ and absolutely ‘still’ – whilst remaining fully ‘alert’ and ready to correctly ‘spring’ into ‘action’! ACW (21.11.2020)
‘It goes without saying that this new apparatus is bound to make mistakes in taking its first steps. But did not the peasants make mistakes when they emerged from serfdom and began to manage their own affairs? Is there any way other than practice by which the people can learn to govern themselves and to avoid mistakes? Is there any way other than by proceeding immediately to genuine self-government by the people? The chief thing now is to abandon the prejudiced bourgeois-intellectualist view that only special officials, who by their very social position are entirely dependent upon capital, can administer the state. The chief thing is to put an end to the state of affairs in which bourgeois officials and “socialist” ministers are trying to govern in the old way but are incapable of doing so and, after seven months, are faced with a peasant revolt in a peasant country! The chief thing is to imbue the oppressed and working people with confidence in their own strength, to prove to them in practice that they can and must themselves undertake the proper, most strictly regulated and organised distribution of bread, all kinds of food, milk, clothing, housing, etc. In the interests of the poor.’
VI Lenin: September-October 1 (14) – 1917 – Collected Works, Vol. 25
THE SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 