Note 9 — Chapter V

Lenine is not quite accurate in his statement of Marx's views nor quite fair in stating the position of the "opportunists." The argument of Marx in The Civil War in France is not that the proletariat must "break down" the governmental machinery, but that it must modify it and adapt it to the class needs. This is something quite different, of course. Moreover, it is the basis of the policy of the "opportunists." The Mensheviki and other moderate Socialists in Russia were trying to modify and adapt the political state.