“In the same vein, Chairman Mao’s point of departure that ‘all Communists must understand this truth that political power grows from the barrel of a gun,’ establishing that ‘ . . . in class societies revolutions and revolutionary war are inevitable. Without them there would be no leaps in social development, and the dominant reactionary classes could not be overthrown nor could the people conquer political power… The central task and superior form of a revolution is the seizure of power through arms, the solution of the problem through war. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution has universal validity, both in China as well as in other countries.” And ”the experience of class struggle in the era of imperialism teaches us that only through the power of guns can the working class and the working masses overthrow the bourgeoisie and the armed landlords. In this sense, we can say that only through arms can the entire world be transformed.’ With respect to the parliamentary cretinism condemned by Marx, Lenin was powerfully clear: ‘the followers of Bernstein accepted and continue to accept Marxism with the exception of its directly revolutionary aspect. They see parliamentary struggle not as one of the methods of struggle that is used particularly in some periods of history, but as the principal and almost exclusive form of struggle, which makes ‘violence’, the ‘seizure of power’ and ‘dictatorship’ unnecessary.’ And: ’only the knaves and fools can believe that the proletariat should first win a majority of votes in elections realized under the yoke of the bourgeoisie, under the yoke of wage slavery, and that only after this should they conquer power. This is the height of silliness or hypocrisy. This substitution of the class struggle and revolution for elections under the old regime, under the old power.’ And: ‘This is now the most pure and vile form of opportunism. It is to renounce the act of revolution while revering it in words.’”