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 retaining,
 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 importance
 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-Mensheviks
 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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