"The Western bourgeoisie has decayed and is already being confronted
by its grave-diggers--the proletariat. But in Asia there <I> still </I>
exists a bourgeoisie capable of representing sincere, militant,
consistent democracy, a worthy companion of the great preachers and
great public men of the end of the eighteenth century in France."

"The chief representative or the main social support of this
Asiatic bourgeoisie, which is still capable of performing
historically progressive deeds, is the peasant."

V.I. Lenin, 1912, "Democracy and Narodism in China"
republished in <I>Lenin on the National Liberation Movement</I>
(Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1960).