Mass Line Quotes

“Parliamentarism, of course, is “politically obsolete” for the Communists in Germany; but—and that is the whole point—we must not regard what is obsolete for us as being obsolete for the class, as being obsolete for the masses. Here again we find that the “Lefts” do not know how to reason, do not know how to act as the party of the class, as the party of the masses. You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable. You must tell them the bitter truth. You must call their bourgeois democratic and parliamentary prejudices prejudices. But at the same time you must soberly follow the actual state of class consciousness and preparedness of the whole class (not only of its Communist vanguard), of all the toiling masses (not only of their advanced elements).”
― Vladimir Lenin, Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder: A Popular Essay in Marxian Strategy and Tactics