LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
Lenin taught that the Communist Party is not only 
an instrument for bringing about the dictatorship 
of the proletariat, but also an instrument for retain- 
ing, strengthening, and extending this dictatorship. 
It is the general staff of the proletarian revolution. 
Unless such an organizing and leading staff exists, 
the victory of the proletariat and the maintenance 
of power is impossible. Hence, the enormous im- 
portance of Party organization, of unity of view and 
singleness of will, the strictest Party discipline, and 
the expulsion from its ranks of all opportunist and 
alien elements. 
The Bolshevik Party became a ruling Party and 
began to attract to itself elements alien to it. This 
became particularly dangerous at the time of the 
transition to N. E. P., when the civil war had come 
to an end. Lenin then raised the question of purging 
the Party and proposed that 999, of the ex-Menshe- 
viks be expelled. Of course this was not meant 
to be taken literally. In suggesting this, Lenin had 
in mind principally, the intellectuals, who joined the 
Bolshevik Party after the victory of the October 
Revolution. He suggested that special attention 
should be paid to these, to see whether they did not 
come into the Party in pursuit of selfish aims, and 
whether they had not brought with them corrupting 
elements, or deviations alien to a Bolshevik Party. 
Such elements must be ruthlessly driven from the 
Party. Lenin’s motto was: “Little and Good.” 
Lenin taught that in the period of transition from 
capitalism to Communism the proletariat can retain 
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