p The class struggle in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism is inevitable. The overthrown bourgeoisie will not reconcile itself to its loss of power to the working men it has exploited for decades; the bourgeoisie will not forgive these people for having encroached on its holy of holies, private property. The bourgeoisie simply cannot believe that an end has come to its idle, carefree life which seemed eternal and inviolable, to its wealth, privileges and unlimited rule. That is why it resists the new, proletarian power so frenziedly and with such fanatical obstinacy.

p In this period the bourgeoisie employs every means in the struggle against the proletariat. Making use of its economic positions, former ties with the top intellectuals, civil servants and army leaders, it tries to disrupt the country’s economy, the functioning of state institutions and’ the defence. It also strives to influence the minds of the people. Lastly, in order to restore capitalism, it launches an overt armed struggle against the working people, placing its main hopes on the help of international capital. History (the campaign of fourteen imperialist powers against the young Soviet Republic, the intervention of the imperialists in Korea, the events in Hungary in October 1956, etc.) shows that the victorious proletariat is compelled to wage a bitter struggle not only against the capitalists of its own country but also against -the reactionary international bourgeoisie.

p In other words, the dictatorship of the proletariat does not eliminate the class struggle which continues in the transition period as well. But this struggle is waged in conditions when the proletariat has political power and controls key positions in the economy. The forms of the class struggle change correspondingly. “The dictatorship of the proletariat,” Lenin wrote, “is not the end of the class struggle but its continuation in new forms. The dictatorship of the proletariat is class struggle waged by a proletariat that is victorious and has taken political power into its hands against a bourgeoisie that has been defeated but not destroyed, a bourgeoisie that has not vanished, not ceased to offer resistance 255 but that has intensified its resistance.”  [255•* 

The new forms of the class struggle in the period of transition from capitalism- to socialism are: suppression of the resistance of the exploiters and this does not exclude the use of force, struggle to emancipate the peasant from the influence of the bourgeoisie and draw him into socialist construction, enrollment of bourgeois specialists to work in the national economy, and educating the people in the spirit of socialist discipline.