Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Childhood disease "leftism" in communism (№ 396062)

Obviously, the "left" in Germany took their desire, their ideological-political attitude, for objective reality. This is the most dangerous mistake for revolutionaries. In Russia, where a purely wild and ferocious oppression of the tsarist particularly long and in particularly varied forms gave rise to revolutionaries of different persuasions, revolutionaries astonishing devotion, enthusiasm, heroism, will power, in Russia, this mistake of the revolutionaries we are especially closely watched especially carefully studied, especially because we know it is especially clearly visible on the other. For the Communists in Germany parliamentarism, of course, is "politically obsolete", but the point is not to accept obsolete for us obsolete for the class, for obsolete for the masses. Just here we again see that the "left" can't talk, can't behave as the party class, the party of the masses. You must not stoop to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. No doubt about it. You must tell them the bitter truth. You must call their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices prejudice. However, you must soberly follow the actual state of consciousness and preparedness of the class (not only its Communist vanguard), of the entire toiling masses (not only of its advanced people).
If "millions" and "legions", but just a fairly significant minority of industrial workers is for Catholic priests, rural workers the landlords and kulaks (Grossbauern) - it is already here with certainty it follows that parliamentarism in Germany is not yet politically obsolete, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory for the party of the revolutionary proletariat precisely for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its class, for the purposes of awakening and enlightenment to the poor, downtrodden, dark village mass. While you are unable to disperse the bourgeois Parliament and any reactionary institutions of a different type, you must work inside them precisely because there are more workers, duped by the priests and village corners, otherwise you risk becoming just windbags.