The International Position and the Tasks of the Communist International.

Finally I must make mention of the rather original form, we find in Austria, the form, if I may say so, of a municipal capitalism. I have in mind the municipal enterprises in which the Social Democratic Party has so great an influence. These are the main types of this internal economic reorganisation, such as is in progress in the capitalist organisms of the most important countries.

Thus we have on the one hand a growth of the differences among the various capitalist States. On the other hand we see the further process of an organisation of capitalist forces within the countries, expressed in a tendency towards State capitalism. It is altogether absurd to draw the conclusion drawn by Hilferding, who completely exaggerates the process of the so‑called organisation of capitalism within the countries and in doing so forgets the most important thing, viz. the class character of this process. He argues that the above-mentioned tendency is the transition to a state of capitalism devoid of all wars, etc. Just the opposite is the case. If the outer complications and conflicts favour this tendency towards the concentration of capitalist forces within the country, the comprehension of all capitalist forces in its turn will sharpen the conflicts among the capitalist States, since this development is naturally followed by increased competition and since it is accompanied by a growth of antagonisms in the establishment of adequate customs tariffs and so forth. Such an organisatory tendency brings with it not peace but a sword.

This is not the expression of a peaceful ultra-imperialism, which places on its head the peaceful nightcap of the League of Nations, but rather the expression of an aggravation of conflicts, leading inevitably to a catastrophe, the name of which is the second round of war. The market problems are becoming more acute; likewise the problem of a fight against the Soviet Union. The pressure on the workers is increased. The danger of war was never so great as it is now. The State capitalist tendencies do not solve this problem but aggravate it. Conferences such as the disarmament conference are a pacifist fraud on the part of the Imperialists and Social Democrats. It is not worth our while to speak about it at our Party Congress. We have the prospect of further wars clearly before us. Such are the most characteristic traits of the new, or partly new facts which we have to record in regard to the relations of the capitalist States among themselves and of these States to the Soviet Union.

II. The Position of the Working Class.

How does this development affect the position of the working class and how is it reflected therein?

If we take the level of wages as a criterion, we shall see that, except in the United States and some of her oversea countries, the pre-war wage level has nowhere been reached. The position is as follows:

In Germany the real wages paid a skilled worker in July 1927 were 93 per cent of pre-war, while the wages for unskilled labour were 100 per cent of pre-war. According to other indications, the nominal wages for skilled labour in April 1927 stood at 135.8 per cent and the index of prices at 146.4 per cent, so that from the standpoint of real wages there was a deficit.

In Great Britain the average wage is not more than 90 per cent of the pre-war real wage. The loss is particularly great in the main industrial branches — textiles, coal, iron — with the prospect of a further decrease of wages. As regards France, in Paris wages at the end of 1926 were only in the case of compositors higher than in pre-war times, ranging in all other professions from 65 to 87 per cent. In Italy the workers are now in receipt of from 70 to 75 per cent, of the pre-war wages. In the United States there has been an average rise of wages of 30 per cent, for, as I already remarked, it is only in the oversea countries, and not in all of them either, that an increase in wages can be observed. But in the face of this average of 30 per cent, there are some tremendous discrepancies between various branches of production and various regions.

As to the attitude of the European capitalists, even where the pre-war wage level has not been regained, the present situation is considered altogether untenable and the necessity of a further reduction of the wage level is contemplated. There are, indeed, many learned economists, who openly advocate a further pressure on the working class.

Thus Professor Cassel gives utterance to a theory which is notorious for its insolence. He calls our age the age of monopolies. A monopoly, he says, is a very harmful thing, for it is only the free movement of men, money, and goods that can guarantee the greatest possible increase Of productive forces. But now we have monopolies, and what monopolies too. We have employers' monopolies, says Cassel, which is very bad; but we have also monopolies of workers (trade unions), which is still worse. Now the trade unions, i. e. monopolies of the working class, are much stronger than the trusts, syndicates, etc., which represent the monopolies of the employers. Therefore, says this learned man, there is such a use of violence on the part of the working class and therefore wages are now so high as to entail all sorts of suffering and hardship. The main reason for unemployment, crises and the like, lies in Cassel's opinion in the high rate of wages! Hence unemployment. If lower wages were paid, more workers could be employed. And he suggests the destruction of the inordinately great monopoly of the working class and of the excessive wages.

This means: suppress and destroy those trade unions which exist; press yet harder on the wages and on the working day, without regard for such achievements as have been gained by the capitalist world in this respect.

The conclusion may therefore be drawn that a partial stabilisation of capitalism is in progress on the basis of greater exploitation of the workers; its champion is the trust form of capital; it rests on the presumption of the destruction of the workers' organisations. It is a significant fact that the formation of trusts and cartels is always accompanied by the creation of anti-strike funds.

Thus, in his book on the steel trust, Ufermann reports that in the course of a year 176 million marks pass through the hands of the European Steel Trust and that, according to paragraph 7 of the statutes, 4 dollars are paid for every ton of steel produced short of the stipulated quota, even in the case of a shortening of production by reason of a strike.

The report of a correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt, a Liberal bourgeois witness, on the conditions in the Leuna works confirms our conclusion that capitalist stabilisation and rationalisation really ensue at the cost of the working class by reason of its merciless exploitation.

It must be admitted, however, that German capital has succeeded in absorbing the unemployed to a considerable degree. This must be recognised. Unemployment was enormous in Germany. Not very long time ago it amounted to millions, some while back sunk to 700,000; at present it is well below that figure. The development of German industry has led to a sharp reduction of unemployment. In this respect there is vast difference between Germany and Great Britain, where unemployment has become stabilised and has remained at the level of more than one million, in which connection it should be pointed out that this total represents only industrial workers and not newcomers from the open country.

III. The Composition of the Working Class and the Types of the Labour Movement.

By reason of the manifold nature of the present situation of capitalism in the various countries, we may observe different types of the labour movement and distinguish various methods employed by the bourgeoisie in order to control it. I should therefore like to say a few words as to the attempts made to Americanise the labour movement.

We have at present a virtual monopoly position of the United States in international economy, a position perhaps of greater significance than Great Britain ever occupied. Therefore the working class of the United States is still immeasurably more bound up with the American bourgeoisie than was formerly the case in Great Britain.

A glance at any small survey of wages will immediately show us what is here at issue. If we put the average real wages paid in London in 1925 at 100, we shall get the following figures for other important towns: Philadelphia 221, Paris 71, Rome 48, Warsaw 47, Prague 58, Brussels 57; Vienna 47 (Woitinsky: The World in Figures). The European average is thus between 40 and 50, the average in America 220! That is the proportion between this aristocracy of the international working class and the broad masses of the European workers. And if we take the wages of the Chinese coolie or of the worker in the African diamond fields, or any other colonial group of workers, it is obvious what a tremendous difference we should find between a coolie and an American worker. But even in America itself there are, as I have already remarked, different classes of the American proletariat, even official sources showing the difference, at times a very considerable one, between these individual groups.

On the one hand there is therefore within the proletariat of the United States a labour aristocracy and on the other hand the lowest grades of the working class, people who have become blunted and indifferent and are more or less in the condition of slaves. But these lowest grades of the working class consist of negroes and immigrants who were yet worse off in other countries before coming to America. As regards the negroes, they are even within the limits of the working class considered as second-rate citizens. The entire organisation of the working class is such, that the capitalists keep the workers in hand with the aid of certain groups among them.

The organised forces of the working class are so built up as to be opposed to any form of revolution, The total number of workers, without the employees, is about 25 millions, of whom 3 or 4 millions are organised. Of the total number of these organised workers, about 75 per cent are members of the aristocratic American Federation of Labour, so that every labour union organisation in the working class has a purely upper-class character. The American Federation of Labour comprises the aristocratic strata of workers. Its leadership is in the hands of labour union bureaucrats of a type which lies beyond the comprehension of our working class. I do not intend to speak of the methods of theft, corruption, bribery, the embezzlement of funds of the labour unions, and the like. But what salaries do these leading bureaucrats receive?

Stone, chairman of the engine-drivers' union, gets 25,000 dollars pay plus another 25,000 for representative purposes, hence a totale income of 50,000 dollars or 100,000 roubles (Sensation among the Audience). This means an average of 8300 roubles monthly. And that is a labour-union leader.

But besides this organisation there is another form of organisation in America, the so-called company unions, a sort of common body uniting employers and workers of the same enterprise. The object of these bodies is what is known as industrial peace, the elimination of class differences; they work most jealously and have succeeded in subjecting certain sections of the working class to the influence of the capitalists. Let me cite a well-known example. On the Baltimore-Ohio Railway there is a sort of company union. By recruiting the workers to economic co-operation and subjecting them to the capitalists, it was found possible between 1924 and 1926 to double the dividends of this company.

What then are the organisatory principles of these company unions? The organisation only exists within the limits of the enterprise. It is supported by the employers, who in return secure a double dividend. In these enterprises all other forms of labour unions and all class struggle organisations are strictly forbidden.

The energy of the working class is employed for the purpose of creating surplus values, for inventions and other mental labour in favour of capitalist exploitation.

Another type of organisation is to be found in the shape of the labour banks. The workers carry their savings to the labour banks, which invest this money in shares of various enterprises, companies, or trusts. In this way the workers contribute their hard-earned savings, which, when accumulated supply the bourgeoisie with a very considerable amount of additional circulating capital. At present there are about 37 such labour banks, all of which dovetail into the total mechanism of capitalist society.

On this basis a complete theory is built up. The well-known bourgeois economist T. N. Carver has published a complete book called The Current Economic Revolution in the United States (Boston, 1925). There is much talk, he says, of various revolutions, but they do not amount to anything. There have been political revolutions in Germany, Austria, etc., but the real revolution is the economic revolution which is to be found in one country only, in the United States. Carver argues as follows:

The only economic revolution in the world is that now progressing in the United States. It is a revolution which is doing away with the barrier between workers and capitalists by making the workers independent capitalists and the majority of the capitalists workers in one form or another for the very reason that they are not able to live on their capital. This is something altogether new in the economic history of the world. (P. 9-10.)

The channels of this revolution, according to Carver, are the following:

Firstly, the rapid growth of investments, secondly, the capital investment of the workers by the purchase of shares in the trusts, and thirdly, the increase in the number of labour banks. (P. 11.)

In its essential points, this ideology of Carver is the same ideology on the basis of which stands the whole international Social Democracy. There is no fundamental difference between the two.

What is it, therefore, that we see in America? The lower strata of the working class are foreigners and negroes. Their fighting methods are often very revolutionary and the fight they put up is brutally suppressed. On the other hand a large section of the American working class is an aristocracy of labour. This organisation is embodied in the American Federation of Labour. Then there are the company unions, the labour banks, and so forth. Over all these we have the capitalist organisations, the powerful employers' associations, the banks, industrial concerns and trusts. By means of the intermediate organisations they have the entire working class in their hands

These methods of the American bourgeoisie the international Social Democracy and the leaders of the reformist trade unions would gladly transfer to Europe, though they forget that while in America these methods have a certain foundation in the monopolist position of the country, they are without any such basis in Europe. In certain countries they would be altogether ridiculous,

Let us take Great Britain, for instance. Its predominant position has disappeared, although in regard to the colonies the British Government manoeuvres, makes concessions, and gains a certain respite, postponing the hour of its downfall. But the main tendency is downhill, which may be seen in the first place by the tremendous chronic unemployment. A further offensive of capital evokes such events as a march of the miners on London. The revolution in China and the revolution in other colonial countries shakes the entire British Empire, The lower strata rise; there are strikes and lock-outs. Therefore American methods can find no employment here. Nevertheless, the capitalists are attempting, with the aid of the Labour Party leaders and the trade unions, to introduce the notorious industrial peace here too. Thus Spencer has founded a company union on American lines among the miners.

In Germany too it is difficult to find any basis for the American methods. The German bourgeoisie, however, endeavours to promote anything leading in this direction.

The attitude of the Social Democrats and trade union leaders is quite in keeping with Carver's philosophy, Though they pretend to be opposed to the founding of company unions, they themselves work in the same direction ideologically, and politically. The Social Democrat Erdmann has openly declared that the trade unions are an element in capitalist economy. And their entire directives consist in permitting as few strikes as possible, though under the pressure of the masses they are forced at times to conduct such strikes. But they, too, are fully taken up with the idea of industrial peace.

But though the American methods are greatly favoured by the social democratic and trade union leaders, and although these leaders are striving so that stabilisation and its further development in Europe shall proceed without any great social conflicts, the whole idea, in the case of Europe, is a bourgeois-reformist illusion, especially for such a country as Great Britain, since for the introduction of the American methods one trifle is wanting, the transfer of the American economy to Europe, an operation which would prove very difficult to say the least of it.

As regards the colonial periphery of the capitalist world, we must record the awakening of the working class as an independent force. Naturally, in the colonies too, every possible contemptible method is employed, such as the yellow organisations of Chang-Kai-Shek, the Union of Mechanics in Canton, attempts of the British reformists to keep the trade union movement in India in check, and so forth. In general, however, we can say when speaking of the type of movement to be found in the colonial countries, we are for the first time entering upon an epoch in which the working class is becoming conscious of itself as an independent force in the movement, and in which it is not infrequently the main basis of the revolutionary movement. Such a state of affairs we have never had before. Very naturally it is extremely difficult for the bourgeoisie to employ the method of corrupting the working class, seeing that there is absolutely no basis for such an attempt.

IV. The Accentuation of the Class Struggle In Europe.

If we regard the events of the most recent times from the social class standpoint, we see in the first place the continuation of the offensive against the working class, i. e. Fascism in Italy and Poland and the germs of Fascism in England. We see a very cruel and systematised policy of white terrorism, which keeps down the proletariat by the destruction of the labour organisations. We have the unexampledly cruel rule of white terrorism in the Balkans; Italy, where regular man-hunts have been organised of late and thousands of workers arrested for the purpose of fishing out two or three Communists; then similar circumstances in Poland, and so on. We see a policy of destruction, and that even of the docile trade union associations. The history of the British Bill against the trade unions is well known. We have here a continuation of the attack of capital on wages and working hours along the whole line. Obviously there is in Europe a certain combination of Fascism on the one hand and the attempts on the other to transplant to Europe the American methods.

But at the same time, and partially on the basis of stabilisation itself, which is the decisive moment for the entire European position, we may see that the working class of Central Europe is rising again after serious defeats. There is an incipient revival of the labour movement, an accentuation of the class struggle on the part of the proletariat. We are experiencing a certain redistribution in the proportion of class forces, an undeniable inclination to the Left, the revolutionising of the proletariat in the main centres of European capitalism.

This process is developing in various directions.

In the first place we witness a growth of the Communist votes at elections in the great and decisive centres of the European continent. This increase in the influence of the Communist Party reflects far-reaching processes, which we may sum up under the head of a turn to the Left.

The second symptom is the influence of the Communists in the trade unions. There is doubtless a growth of the influence of the Communists and of the revolutionary trade union opposition in a number of countries, e. g. Germany (particularly in Berlin, Hamburg, Halle, and other large towns). In Italy, despite the destruction of the trade unions and despite the raging of the white terror, the Party is fighting successfully for the restoration of the trade union organisations. In Czechoslovakia we have also an increase, albeit not very large, of Communist influence in the trade unions.

A third phenomenon is the open stand made by the proletariat. Under this head we have, in part at least, the great British strike, then the rinsing of the Vienna workers, which is of great importance as a characteristic of the situation in Europe. Mention should finally also be made of the resounding echo awakened in all the world by the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.

Lastly we have also an undoubted revival of the strike movement in a number of countries. After a series of lost defensive fights, there is a certain upward curve of the strike wave in Germany, France, Czechoslovakia, Italy, and other countries.

Besides all this, there are a number of other symptoms, which may also be enumerated among the open actions of the working class. The Toulon mutiny of the French sailors, the unrest among the naval reserves in those parts, the great anti-Fascist street demonstrations in France and Germany, a series of street demonstrations in various countries in connection with the attacks on the Soviet Union, thus in France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland (in regard to which country special mention should be made of the great demonstration in connection with the murder of Comrade Voykov), then the Red Front-Fighters Day in Germany, and so on.

We must be quite clear as to the character of these phenomena.

They are not the remnants of the defensive fight put up in answer to the offensive of the capitalists.

They are not the gradually abating last resistance in connection with the fights formerly waged by the working class.

No, they mark the beginning of a new period, based on the fact that the working class has got over the worst part of the depression following on its former defeats, that it is newly recruiting its forces, and that, in view of the increasing differences accompanying stabilisation, it is preparing for a renewed and increased class struggle.

I do not wish to say that we are already faced with an immediate revolutionary situation in Europe. Things have not yet progressed that far.

Matters have, however, so far developed that, after a certain interruption and depression in the labour movement, we are faced with a decided turn in the direction of a mobilisation of the forces of the proletariat and with a reversion to active struggle.

The worst time is over, the working class is reviving, it is beginning to mobilise its forces, it is entering into the struggle afresh. There is undeniably an intensification of the class struggle on the basis of the development of internal contradictions arising from stabilisation.

V. Americanism, the Social Democrats, and Amsterdam.

In examining the inner life of the European countries, we must register this fact as decisive for our entire estimation of the approaching period.

The task of the Communists, as the vanguard of the working class, lies in giving all-round support to this same process. It is up to us to place ourselves at its head and to elaborate the- proper tactics to be adopted in these new circumstances of an accentuated class struggle. In this fight for the working masses, in this fight for the leadership of the working masses, in this fight for the accentuation of class action, we encounter in the first place the Social Democracy and Amsterdam.

The danger of international conflicts, the increasing menace of war between the capitalist world and the Soviet Union the swing to the Left on the part of the lower strata, of the working class in Europe, the colonial revolutions on the one hand and the mobilisation of the forces of capitalism on the other — all these facts are accompanied by a pronounced swing to the Right on the part of the heads of the Second International and of the International Federation of, Trade Unions. I believe that since the inception of the Social Democratic parties and of trade unionism there has never before been such a consolidation of the theory and practice of the Social Democratic parties on the basis of a complete capitulation to bourgeois ideology.

The train of thought followed by the reformist leaders may be summed up as follows: We must transform the present factories into constitutional factories and democratise the factory conditions in a peaceful way. Karl Renner, one of the most prominent ideologists of the Social Democracy, calls the tariff-contracts concluded between employers and workers a socialisation of wages. Hilferding writes in one of his articles that, without being aware of it themselves, the magnates of capital are really accomplishing a Marxist work by developing in the direction of organised economy and thus preparing the way for Socialism. The Social Democratic theorists have issued as the main slogan the slogan of economy democracy. At the same time an attempt is made to console the workers by the statement that this process must last for centuries, as Karl Zwing also points out in his book on the sociology of the trade union movement.

Hilferding recently set up the thesis that it was impossible to speak of the prevalence of a bourgeois democracy in Germany, Austria, and certain other countries. In his opinion it is stupid to speak of a bourgeois democracy. There is merely a democracy pure and simple, and by means of it the working class is democratising the entire State. This theory was too much even for Hilferding's colleague, Max Adler. But the whole Social Democracy accepted it with vociferous applause. This theoretic and practical attitude goes yet further. If it is possible peaceably to democratise the factories, the banks, the trusts, and even individual States, it will and must be possible also to democratise the League of Nations. This task of democratising the League of Nations is therefore represented as the main objective of foreign politics, whereby the last touch is put to the American idea of a class working community. A highly characteristic utterance was made in this connection by Albert Thomas in the periodical The Employer. He writes in praise of the idea of a mutual approach between employers and workers, and even goes so far as to applaud Mussolini for being anxious to bring about an understanding between labour and capital.

A favourable attitude towards the trusts, towards the constructional development of capitalism, towards the banks, towards the State, and towards the League of Nations, accompanied by a timid and at the same time deceptive advocacy of a peaceful democratisation of the apparatus in the hands of the deadly enemies of the working class — that is the programme of the Social Democracy of to-day.

I may still mention that of late various great Social Democratic parties have zealously engaged in the question of an agrarian programme, by making use of the Russian experiences in their own way. A whole series of parties accepted new agrarian programmes. The essential point about all these programmes is the introduction of the peasants into the general process of the development of capitalism, within the limits of an apology of the capitalist order in its entirety.

It is obvious that this positive attitude in relation to capitalist rationalisation, the capitalist enterprises, the capitalist States, and the League of Nations must undoubtedly lead to a positive attitude not only in the small daily questions of the class struggle, but also in the big questions of the present day, particularly the question of war.

VI. The Question of War and the Distribution of the Labour Movement, the Social Democracy and Amsterdam.

Thanks to the aggravation of the class struggle and the undoubted growth of sympathy for the Soviet Union, the radicalisation of the working class, the accentuation of colonial problems and the force of the pressure brought to bear by the broad working masses on the social democratic leaders, the latter find themselves under the necessity of manoeuvring, Of late we have noticed on the one hand a very definite and constantly growing orientation to the Right in the circles of the Amsterdam International and the Second International and at the same time an obvious Left manoeuvre in the operations of the Social Democracy against ourselves. One of the theses employed against us in this connection by the Social Democrats is somewhat as follows: Not against the Soviet Union, but against the Communists. What does that mean? In reality it means nothing but a social democratic reproduction of the policy now pursued by Chamberlain. Chamberlain tells us: We have no objection to doing business with you, but be so kind as to close down the Comintern. The Social Democrats say, Pardon us, we were at all times in favour of your magnificent attempt to build up Socialism. But have the kindness not to spread the infection of your Communist and despotist methods to our countries.

What does this mean? Either give your Communist Parties instructions to cease their work, or else, make an immediate end with the Comintern. That is what it all amounts to. It is now difficult to rail openly against the Soviet Union, since the broad masses will not stand for that. Therefore they coquette with the Soviet Union. At the same time, however, they attack Communism with all their force. In this way the sense of the manoeuvre is only too obvious.

There is another highly interesting factor. Of late the Social Democrats even attempted to seduce the Comintern. We received a letter from the Independent Labour Party of Great Britain, containing a query as to the possibility of combining the Second and containing Internationals. These people want to pretend not to be aware of the fact that the Communists would never agree to a union with the traitors. The President of the German Reichstag, the Social Democrat Lobe, recently made a declaration containing much the same statement as that published by the Vorwärts, to the effect that the Soviet Union is a Socialist attempt which the German workers would also undertake, though with different methods. In Austria, Otto Bauer made a speech in a similar sense.

It is a matter of course that the Communist Party can but answer to such manoeuvres with a strengthening of its counter-attacks on the Social Democracy, for, I may repeat, the main point about this manoeuvre lies in the fact that it is a repetition of the capitalist manoeuvre. This is all the more necessary, since they also spread abroad the most shameless lies in regard to the Soviet Union, their sympathies for which are feigned from beginning to end.

Let us imagine that in the case of a war Germany were to side with our enemies, which is the more probable eventuality. What will the German Social Democracy do then? Does it not result from its entire attitude that it will feel called upon to defend the democracy of Hindenburg against the despotic methods of the Bolshevists? That is as clear as daylight. Seen from this standpoint, all talk of sympathy for the Soviet Union is an open and malicious deception of the broad masses. In the matter of war, the heads of the Social Democracy will in all probability employ all sorts of democratic theories in excuse of the fact that they are engaged in a policy directed against us. They will say: There is an international organisation called the League of Nations, which certainly possesses various shortcomings; it is not any too democratic and we might very well make it more so; at the same time if embodies the love of peace of all nations: on the other hand that despotic Asiatic oligarchy of the Bolshevists, which, as Trotzky, Smilga, and Zinoviev themselves affirm is decayed and corrupted, will not submit to the League of Nations. Whom shall we support? The peace of the world known as the League of Nations, or that corrupt oligarchy, the Soviet Union?

Thus they will be able to go against us with a clean conscience. There can be no doubt but that in so doing they will meet with resistance on the part of their workers. But their entire attitude towards the capitalist State is a weapon of the counter-revolution against Socialism both within the country and in international politics. This line of action is now more and more decidedly opposed to the attitude of the working class itself, for never were the sympathies enjoyed by the Soviet Union so great ac they are now and never before was the idea of a defence of the Soviet Union so popular.

At its last plenary session, the Communist International raised the question of a possible war with considerable emphasis and elaborated various definite theses in this connection. The main principle set up for the moment was not the principle of peace but rather that of the defence of the Soviet Union and the defence of the Russian and Chinese revolutions. No abstract pacifist peace catchwords, but very concrete slogans of bellicose activity. Our slogan for the soldiers of the imperialist armies does not limit itself to embodying a spirit of defaitism in regard to their own native country, but rather sets up the principle of a direct desertion of the imperialist ranks in favour of those of the Red Army, seeing that the fight at issue would be one between the imperialist States and the Soviet Union in its character of a dictatorship of the working class. We set up explicit directives for the work of the Communist Parties in this connection, and we are certain the Communist Parties will succeed this time in placing themselves at the head of great masses of the working class, if the bourgeoisie should risk an attack on the Soviet Union. Ant just in this question of a preparation for action, a preparation which must be started at once, which has indeed already been started, which is going steadily forwards and must be continued, in this question, I say, there have been and will still be serious conflicts with the Social Democrats, whose whole attitude, theory and practice are in the service of the capitalist regime and represent the greatest obstacles we have to overcome.

VII. The Fight for the Masses and the United-Front Tactics.

Of late a redistribution has taken place in the European working class, with the result that both we and the Social Democracy have grown.

Where are the roots of Social Democratic influence to be found? They are to be found in the stabilisation of capitalism, in the circles of employees, in the labour aristocracy (particularly in the trustified industries), in the periodically recurring hopes of expansion and prosperity on the part of their own national industries, in the pacifist hypocrisy of the Social Democracy, and finally in the Social Democratic play at oppositions.

The roots of Communist influence, on the other hand, lie in the contradictions of stabilisation, in the danger of coming wars in general and of the war against the Soviet Union in particular, and finally in the rightward development of the Social Democratic leaders.

This process places us in front of the inexorable problem: Shall we continue the united-front tactics just as they are at present, without changing them by so much as an iota? Shall we employ these tactics in exactly the same way as two years ago? Or shall we make any new additions to them, transfer the emphasis to other paints, and draw definite conclusions from the various alterations in the objective position and out of the various changes in the working class? We are of opinion that it has become necessary to effect some such change of emphasis, and these changes lie in the direction of a more intensive fight against the Social Democratic leaders and the Amsterdam International.

Thus the peculiarity of united-front tactics at the present moment lies in the decided necessity of employing them, so to say, from the bottom upwards. It is there that the main emphasis must be applied. The basis is now provided by the labour movement; for combinations among the leaders there is now far less occasion than heretofore, since these leaders are, notwithstanding certain antics towards the Left, actually tending more and more towards the Right. The general line to be observed in united-front tactics, however, must be more than hitherto a reliance on the broad masses of the membership, towards whom our tactics must be directed.

United-front tactics must and will develop in various directions in the matter of a fight against the danger of, war, they must take the form of a more vigorous struggle against the Social Democracy of a struggle against pacifism, which is a serious menace and which unfortunately has a strong hold on the working class; furthermore, of a development of the campaign for the support of the Soviet Union, of propaganda in non-party mass organisations of every kind, making use of the successes of the recent Congress of the Friends of the Soviet Union, work in such organisations as the Anti-Imperialist League, the institution of congresses in individual districts in favour of defence and of the protection of the Soviet Union; then of an exploitation of the recent diplomatic step taken by the Soviet Union at Geneva. This is our foremost task. The organisation of non-party mass-meetings, congresses, committees, wherever the situation makes it advisable — all this must be part of the great programme of our united-front tactics.

In the first place we must lay down a line of action for our work in the trade unions. You will know that in a number of Communist Parties we have not only been obliged to admit that we are wing little of no work in the trade unions, but that there is alien the added disadvantage that our comrades are unaware of how Communist activity ought to be carried on in me trade unions, of what points merit the most attention, and what should be made the main object of tins work in the reactionary trade unions.

It appears to me, comrades that what I have just said shows quite definitely that the Communist attitude must be directed against the idea of class harmony and against the entire counter-revolutionary Social Democratic ideal, the policy of industrial peace.

Our attitude is one of intensified class struggle, against trust capital, against all co-operation with capital, against a policy of the factory councils, which take part themselves, and thereby involve the working class, in the task of building up capitalism, against enforced arbitration agreements, and against everything that binds the hands of the workers; at the same time it is in favour of strikes, in favour of an extension of the class struggle, in favour of an inexorable determination as regards the wage question, in favour of a vigorous policy in the question of unemployment, in favour of a definite stand in the question of the working day, in favour of an intensification of strikes, against all tendencies of industrial peace, and against all slogans which would hint that we are following in the wake of the Social Democracy.

At the same time I may remark that it is altogether wrong that certain comrades — it is not a question of very many — should now raise the question of a control of production as a matter exhausting our entire trade union activity. That is a wrong attitude. In a revolutionary situation the demand for the control of production by the workers is correct if it is also a demand for the occupation of the factories and the like; but if there is no, immediate revolutionary situation, any such proposal has an air of being borrowed from a musical comedy on economic democracy or from an opera on the evolutionary seizure of the works. That is wrong. Neither nationalisation for the capitalist countries, nor municipalisation, nor yet a transition from the hands of private capital to those of the State, neither a programme of control on the part of the workers, nor the entire complex of State-capitalistic programmes is immediately acceptable from the standpoint of the Comintern. That is how the problem was expressed by the 3rd Congress under the immediate guidance of Lenin. We must not strike such notes as these.

From an organisatory standpoint, the aspect of our Parties must be such, that in the face of the development of powerful capitalist organisations we must demand in the first place the combination of trade unions according to spheres of production and their comprehension in adequate trade-union cartels. In this connection we must also pay attention to a decided augmentation of the work in the trade unions, for these are the strongholds and at the same time the main transmission bands of the Social Democracy. We must direct our attention towards strengthening our own organisations, the Red Trade Unions, wherever they exist. We must direct our attention to organising the unorganised and to working among such of the working class as are not included in the trade unions. Even in such countries as France there are very many of this kind. They are a yet untouched reservoir for purposes of propaganda. In such a country as Czechoslovakia there are very many such workers, as there are, too, in such a country as Germany. Here we must increase our efforts to the utmost.

Similarly, we must increase the struggle for international unity of the trade union movement. H is our duty to aid the work of the Red International of Labour Unions and to regulate the relations between A. U. C. T. U. and the R. I. L. U. We must keep in mind that we have certain experiences in this relation at our disposal and that we can attain a number of results.

The British opportunists have dissolved the Anglo-Russian Committee. In this connection Comrade Kamenev said to us: The Anglo-Russian Committee died a miserable death, which is solely owing to you. Well, and if we had destroyed it during the British strike, would its death have been more honourable? I cannot understand that. That would also have been a miserable end (for the British opportunists). If we reason after the manner of Kamenev, it means starting on the basis of the hopes entertained by Zinoviev, according to which we might have got the better of reformism in Europe by the aid of the A. R. C.

We must put our own hands and all the levers we can into operation. We must use all means for the purpose of strengthening the R. I. L. U. and intensifying the work of the Soviet trade unions so that they in their turn may work, both inside and outside the R. I. L. U. and contribute to strengthening its position.

We must conclude political friendship treaties with other trade unions, remembering all the while that the chief weight must attach to the work of comprehending the broad masses.

In a whole series of countries we have unity groups, but they are not connected with one another, nor are they subject to a central leadership, since each works for itself. 1 hat is not the right state of affairs and it must be altered. We have now got into touch with a whole series of trade unions in Eastern countries. The accentuation of the international fight in the direction of trade-union work is the result of the present position. Before all, it is an outcome of the international position, and the Party Congress must pay special attention to this circumstance.

Finally, comrades, we must draw certain conclusions for the approaching election fights.

As I already pointed out, we are now faced with a series of election campaigns, in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Poland. Here it is a question of a fight for the united front. Must any changes be made in our attitude towards the Left bourgeois and Socialist parties in view of the international position and of the particular circumstances of the present moment? The idea might very well arise that, in view of the complicated international, position of the Soviet Union, we should show greater leniency in our relations with the Social Democratic Parties. But the entire analysis of the position, as rendered above, points in the direction, that our electional campaign must be exploited for the purpose of showing the workers that the Communist Party is the one and only revolutionary party of the working class.

Let us take Great Britain as an example. There the Conservatives are fighting with desperate obstinacy. A bloc between the Liberals and the opportunist Labour Party is not inconceivable. In a whole series of important questions the Labour Party has capitulated to its bourgeois partners.

Some British comrades argue that in his Infantile Sicknesses Lenin spoke of the necessity of helping the Labour Party to power. In this connection I may point out that it is a great mistake to assume that Lenin imagined it would be sufficient to vote for the Labour Party and nothing more. On the contrary, he suggested a compromise, a division of seats, etc. But now it would not do to make use of these arguments of Lenin, seeing that the situation is now quite different. It can now hardly be said that we must push the Labour Party to a position of power, since the Labour Party has been already in power. When Lenin wrote those words, he had in mind the possibility of unmasking the Labour Party. But we must not pass over facts which belong to the past. On the contrary.

We must do our best to expose the leaders of the Labour Party on account of their treacherous attitude in such questions as the struggle of the miners, the Chinese revolution, the question of the Soviet Union, and the Trade Union Bill. Applying the principles and tactical directives belonging to a past age to a fundamentally different situation does not mean realising Lenin's testament, but merely indicates a lack of understanding in regard to his tactics. We must now so arrange our tactical position that we can confront the candidates of the Labour Party with candidates of our own in a number of places and thus appear as an independent party with an aspect of its own. We must do our utmost to expose the leaders of the Labour Party.

In France it is a question of life or death for the Poincaré Cabinet. Here, too, it might be argued that we should support the Left cartel, seeing that a Conservative regime would be a menace to the Soviet Union. Such an orientation would be wrong.

We must rather prepare our French Party for a decided fight. It has never been under fire, but it will soon be under fire. It is faced with the prospect of a hard fight, and we must so conduct this election campaign in France that the French Communist Party can show the entire working class of France that it is a fight between the bourgeoisie and its Social Democratic henchmen on the one hand and the Communist Party, the only revolutionary party of the working class, on the other.

It is obvious that this does not preclude suggestions for the formation of a united front and in some cases for the support of a Socialist candidate if there is the danger of the reactionary candidate winning the seat. But it would be a mistake, for example, to vote for the Left bourgeoisie. That cannot be permitted.

In Germany we shall have to unmask the Social Democrats who are even now preparing for the great coalition.

In Poland we must not approach the leaders of the Polish Socialist Party with suggestions of a united front. I am of opinion that there should be no question at all of applying to those depraved adherents of Pilsudski, in whose souls there is not an atom of anything proletarian left. We must rather address ourselves to the broad masses of the Polish Socialist Party members.

In our efforts for a united front we must therefore transfer our attention to the broad membership, increasing our struggle against the Social Democrats in general and against the so-called Left Social Democratic leaders in particular. We must direct all our agitation towards linking up the everyday demands of the working class with the great political issues, especially the question of war and towards bringing the masses closer to the main principle, that of the dictatorship of the working class.

VIII. The Colonial Question and the Comintern.

If the capitalist world is at present experiencing an urgent want of markets and if the question of a redistribution of colonies has again become acute, this means that the crisis of the entire capitalist economy is centring at the moment upon the colonies. A whole series of colonial risings, the revolt in Syria, the movement in Egypt, the revolt in Morocco, the great rising in the Dutch East-Indies, the ceaseless unrest in India, and finally the great Chinese revolution, all these events bring the capitalist world face to face with the colonial question.

Under this head we should also mention a whole series of conflicts and antagonisms between the powerful capitalist countries and those semi-colonial countries which form an object of their colonial policy. In particular there has of late been a series of such differences between the United States on the one hand and Mexico, Nicaragua, and other Latin-American countries on the other hand. Coolidge has considered it opportune to point out the particularly pacific rôle of the United States, which consists in the fact that, both by force of arms and by other means, the United States suppress all emancipatory movements in the countries of Central and South America.

Already at the time of the war, certain of our comrades, particularly such as had joined our Party from other camps, suggested, in opposition to Lenin, that in countries subjected to colonial oppression on the part of imperialism our policy should be the same as in the imperialist countries themselves.

During the war, Radek published an article on the rising in Ireland, in which he pointed out that at the head of this movement there was not the proletariat, but part of the Irish bourgeoisie, so that the entire movement was a matter of little interest to us. Lenin most vehemently attacked this standpoint, declaring that a renunciation of the support of such national emancipation-movements represented an assistance of the imperialism of the dominant nations. As a matter of fact, the attitude of Radek was neither more nor less than a Social Democratic deviation in a national question, since it is just the standpoint of the Social Democrats to refuse to support national-revolutionary and colonial movements under the pretext that very frequently, and especially in their early stages, such movements are not under the leadership of the working class, and that therefore proletarian revolutionaries should have nothing, to do with these national bourgeois movements.

In his polemic against Piatakov, who at that time wrote under the nom de plume of Kiyevsky, Lenin cites a whole string of arguments against the principles advanced by the former, who had declared that in the epoch of imperialism there could be no question anywhere of national community, that the cry for national self-determination was tantamount to a recognition of the right of defending national frontiers, that the standpoint set up by Lenin was nothing but the realisation of a national bloc between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and that this standpoint must inevitably lead to social patriotism.

Piatakov was of the opinion that we ought never to make common cause with the bourgeoisie, that we should never support a comprehensive national bloc, that this would mean the arousing of national hatred as distinct from class hatred, and that it would never do to pursue one policy in the imperialist countries and another policy in the oppressed countries, since this would be in contradiction to what he called the monism (i. e. uniformity) of our policy. This standpoint Lenin opposed in the following terms:

If national risings are impossible in an imperialist epoch, Kiyevsky makes a mistake in mentioning them at all. If, they are possible, there is no foundation in all his remarks about 'monism' or in the assertion that we 'invent' instances of self-determination under imperialist rule. Kiyevsky is defeating himself.

This; means that the Party is a blackmailer, and that according to the penal code it should be indicted, whereas the Opposition is perfectly justified in deceiving the Party, since they allegedly acted under a threat. Of no less interest is the estimation of the Party altogether. The Party, writes Souvarine, is no party, but a mob. ... The degeneration we foretold in 1924 is taking its course. This is how we are characterised by this ultra-right renegade, who hobnobs with our professedly left Opposition.

A few words about the English section. The English section, like the French, has done some good anti-militarist work. The work among the soldiers, the sailors, and especially the expeditionary forces sent to. China, was very well performed by the Communist Party, when regard is had to its small strength and slight opportunities. This is work of an openly revolutionary and very dangerous nature. But at the same time and alongside of this good anti-militarist work, the party leaders and certain party members continue to commit pronouncedly opportunist blunders. When the A. U. C. T. U. scathingly attacked the T. U. C. in its manifesto, many of the British comrades were of opinion that our criticism was too severe, and failed to agree with the manifesto of the A. U. C.T. U. Now that the Comintern discusses they electioneering tactics of the Communist Party of Great Britain, there are certain misgivings within the Party as to, whether these tactics are right, as to whether the turn to the left is not too pronounced, and so on. We may here, again witness such a paradoxical situation of a party fighting with determination and fighting well, but at the same time committing, substantial mistakes in a right direction. Nor were the tactics of the representatives of the Party at the British Trade Union Congress entirely, satisfactory. The line of action was not pronounced enough, the criticism of the trade union and Labour Party leaders was weak, there was too much loyalty towards these leaders, and the like. Such vacillations, which were in connection with the tremendous pressure exercised of late by all enemies of the Party and with a certain psychological depression among the workers, were also apparent on the occasion of the recent Party Congress. It is for the Comintern to correct all these mistakes and to ensure a greater stability of the Party's political directives.

As regards the Communist Party of Germany, the reason of its weakness is still the lack of adequate connection with the masses, although a series of achievements may be recorded in this direction. The internal life of the German Communist Party is experiencing a consolidation. The so-called Right group has now less influence than was formerly the case. It is significant that at the Conference of Communist Trade Unionists recently held, there was only a single vote in favour of a mitigation in the policy to be observed towards the Social Democrats, especially in the trade unions. This attitude was isolated and called forth a decided refusal on the part of all the other participants. Neither did certain suggestions regarding the control of production, which smacked of a deviation to the right, meet with any amount of sympathy, in the ranks of the German Communist Party, but rather with decided rejection.

As to the so-called ultra-left opposition, that part of it which is outside our German Party forms the nucleus of a new party which is neither more nor less than a branch of our Trotzkyist Opposition. I shall not enter into this matter any further, seeing that you have already been inundated with quotations in this connection culled from the writings of Katz, Maslow, Korsch, and Ruth Fischer. But I should yet like to cite one passage from the last issue of the Maslow publication, which is at the same time the central organ of our Trotzkyist Opposition. I do not quote this passage in connection with the well-known phrase regarding degeneration or Bonapartism, since you all know that any amount of such counter-revolutionary phrases may be found in every issue of the said publication. At one of the last plenary sessions of the Central Committee I had occasion to state that the organ of Trotzky and Maslow had not shrunk from denouncing illegal collaborators of the Comintern. Although Zinoviev justified this action by stating that not a hair of any of these comrades had been touched, that is by no means the merit of Comrade Zinoviev.

In the latest issue of this publication there is a criticism of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. Under the guidance of Lenin we once made the suggestion of a general disarmament. You all know that in this respect our policy is no new departure but the consistent continuation of a direction pursued in the lifetime of Lenin. But do you know what Messrs. Maslow, Trotzky, and Company write about Litvinov's action in Geneva? Listen to this.

These quack suggestions have nothing whatever to do with Marxism. The silly assertion that this is a way to unmask imperialism at a time of feverish armaments is not only stupid but downright treacherous. ("Fahne des Kommunismus, 1927, No. 38.)

That is how the main organ of the Trotzkyites writes about the action of Litvinov in Geneva. I ask you, is this stupidity? No. It is much more than mere stupidity. It is the other side of the same tactics that were preached in Moscow in regard to the war by Dr. Rakovsky and at Prague by the defaitist Pollack. It is part and parcel of the clever strategy of these miserable generals who have already got into a blind alley but are ready to ruin their heads against the stone walls of our Party, only so as to be in a position to lead our proletarian country into the same blind alley and thereby to secure it a military defeat, which in their own translation means a brilliant victory. (Laughter.) That is the platform with which the Opposition desires to render the working class happy.

I shall not here enter upon the subject of the Communist Party of China, since I have partially dealt with this subject, which is, moreover, sufficiently well known to you all from all that has been published in this regard. Throughout the period of discussion it has continued to play an important part.

I must, however, say a few words about the Communist parties of Japan and Poland respectively.

The Japanese Party is very small, although the situation in Japan affords all the premises for our work and for the formation of a proper Communist mass-party, and that despite the cruel persecution which the police has of late exercised against the Communists in Japan. In this Party, which has to work under very difficult conditions, it may be seen what troublesome problems plague the minds of the Communists. It may likewise be seen that a number of ideological products introduced from the West have given rise in some cases to quite extraordinary theories, which act as obstacles to the development of the movement. For example the theory of Comrade K., who was for a time at the head of the Party. This theory may be summed up as follows;

According to Hegel, we must assume the standpoint of a self-developing subject, in this case the proletariat, but it must necessarily develop subject to contradictions. That is to say, it must divide and reunite. Therefore it is our task constantly to divide with the object of reunion. On the other hand, Lenin stated in his book What is to be Done? that the working class itself could not work out a Socialist ideology, and that in the early stages it was for the intellectuals to provide the proletariat with such an ideology, as also that it was essential to have an organisation of professional revolutionaries, i. e. revolutionary intellectuals. Therefore, intellectual Marxist groups should be formed in Japan and the doctrine should not yet be carried among the masses, although there is already a mass-movement in Japan!! This is how Comrade K., who has meanwhile come to abandon not only the propaganda of his opinions but even these opinions themselves, put together a sectarian law out of Hegel and Lenin, which law long continued to impede the development of the Party.

On the other hand, the working class portion of the Communist Party of Japan felt instinctively that this theoretic abracadabra was by no means commensurate with the actual needs of the mass movement. And therefore the working part of the Party instinctively protested, but encumbered as it was with the self-developing subject and similar matters, it could not formulate its own `theory, so that some groups resorted to the other extreme and very nearly deduced the necessity of a liquidation of the Communist Party as an independent party of the Japanese proletariat.

The Comintern helped our Japanese comrades to overcome their ideological and political distortions and to lay down the right line of action. If it is possible to realise this line of procedure, we may look for important and satisfactory developments. For Japan affords the premises both for an agrarian and for a proletarian revolution. The masses are already beginning to mobilise; the mass organisations of the peasants and workers are on the increase. Thus we have the presumption for a development of the Communist Party of Japan into a revolutionary mass-party of the proletariat.

The Communist International has made tremendous efforts in order to overcome the internal dissensions in the Polish Party. You will remember that the Communist Party of Poland with all its groups and fractions made a great opportunist mistake at the time of the Pilsudski coup and ended by siding with Pilsudski, not from any desire to see him victorious, but because it had failed immediately to oppose him, at the time when it was necessary to do so. I shall not weary you with all the conceptions which arose in connection with the discussion of this fact. In its general import, this mistake has now been made good, in the consciousness both of the broad masses of party members and of the party leaders. The Executive Committee of the Comintern had to employ much effort to attain the restoration of a certain degree of satisfaction within the Polish Communist Party, as also for the purpose of drawing the attention of the Party to the solution of the most urgent questions worthy of a party occupying one of the most exposed and important positions as can well be imagined. The last Party Congress turned the political line of the Party in the right direction, and, in spite of the resistance of the right and left fractions of the Party, it set a limit to the differences of opinion then and even now existing within the Polish Party.

It is to be hoped that in time the internal struggle within the Communist Party will be overcome, particularly in connection with the tremendous events approaching and the colossal tasks confronting the Polish Communist Party.

A survey of the work achieved will show an undoubted growth of the political influence of the Comintern and its individual sections, a growth of the most important European sections of the Comintern, and their ideological consolidation. If we ask ourselves what are the prospects for the development of the Communist parties, we can reply with absolute certainty that the objective basis exists for a further expansion of these parties. In Europe this basis consists of the radicalisation of the working class and in the undeniable accentuation of the class struggle. In the East, too, there is a basis for further development. It lies before all in the rise and intensification of the great Chinese revolution, the development and intensification of class differences and the fight against British imperialism in India, and the rise of revolutionary movements in other colonial or semi-colonial countries.

We can reckon with the fact that the basis for the development of the Communist parties, as also for a further expansion of our political influence, will continue to grow and that therefore the question of the defence of the Soviet Union will now come radically to the fore. Therefore the well-known thesis of the Trotzky Opposition in regard to a shrinkage of the labour movement is just as little in keeping with real facts as their thesis concerning the approaching decline of the Soviet Union. Beaten and destroyed by our Party and repelled by the broad masses of the workers of the Soviet Union, the oppositional leaders tend more and more to the West and indiscriminately rally around them all elements that are opposed to the real Leninist programme. They are now carrying on a campaign against the Soviet Union, against the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and against the leaders of the Comintern, a campaign which is yet more desperate and obstinate than that waged against us by the Social Democrats. There is no baseness that these emissaries of a bellicose Trotzkyism, who are ready to ally themselves with any anti-Bolshevist stranger or adventurer, are not capable of publishing against the Comintern and against our Party.

The party of Trotzky is undoubtedly fashioning its own International, for which Zinoviev has already prepared his 21 conditions by remodelling, according to the example of Trotzky, the conditions elaborated by Lenin. The party of Trotzky rallies around it elements that have far more to do with Buddhism and with the Pope than with the teachings of Lenin. Because of our fight against the Opposition, Henriette Roland-Holst recently quitted the Communist Party of Holland; some time ago she wrote to her Russian colleagues, imploring them to safeguard the liberty of our Opposition and to defend all its tenets, since the fight for truth was the most important matter in the world. There followed a very remarkable argument:

For the truth of Communism is its justice and humanity, and that truth no Marx, no Lenin, no Christ, and no God can tell us. It lies hidden in the balance of human passion and human ideals. (Laughter:)

That is how one of the most honest adherents of Trotzkyism writes! She puts Marx and Christ, God and Lenin on one level; she seeks the truth of Communism not in the Marxian analysis of social development, but in the balance of human passions, and thus attempts to defend Trotzkyism. Isn't that just too rich! It certainly deserves a place in the platform of the Bolshevist-Leninists! Perhaps Dr. Pollack models his tactics of offensive war out of the balance of human passions?

The same writer, Roland-Holst, in collaboration with her colleague Mannuri, is responsible for the following sentence: We greet you in the name of the departed, we love you in the name of the living, and we appeal to you in the name of the yet unborn. (Laughter.)

This sticky-sentimental phraseology, which is foreign and repulsive to the spirit of Marxism, reminds us surprisingly of the old German pure Socialism which Marx and Engels called the ideology of old women. These sentimentalists, however, are not altogether innocent. On July lathe 1927, the very same Mannuri, wrote us a declaration, which was communicated to the Party Conference with the consent of the Central Committee of the Dutch Party. In this declaration he writes as follows:

The executions carried out in Moscow in consequence of the murder of our lamented comrade Voykov seem in my opinion to surpass those limits which divide the right to existence of human society from the right to existence of an individual personality:

I am fully aware of the consequences of such a procedure, but I am of opinion that even in the thick of the fight we should not forget the ideals for which we are fighting.

Here you see the practical political conclusions. One step further and we shall be counted to the barbarians, to the enemies of truth, justice, and humanity.

It will hardly do harm to remember in this connection that at the same time, obviously inspired by a balance of passions, Roland-Holst suggested a union with the Second International. This gives us a charming picture: Maslow and Co. accuse the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Comintern of Bonapartism and treachery; Pollack calls upon us to plunge into an aggressive war; Souvarine defends the freedom of thought and the freedom of lies and calumnies; Roland-Holst and Mannuri accuse us of breaking the laws of humanity and justice and demand union with the Second International: Trotzky and Co. libel us by declaring that we are inclined to comply with the wishes of this very Christian Dutch lady, and all these together are united under the cloak of Trotzkyism. A happy family. A fine Fourth Trotzky International. And yet we must admit that these versatile people represent a serious danger.

That may be seen by the article in the Vorwärts on the Opposition platform. This is what the central organ of Noske, Scheidemann and Co. finds to say about that platform:

The platform of the Russian Opposition, which has appeared in print in the Fahne des Kommunismus, is an appalling document, showing up the state of affairs in Russia. The reader thinks, especially in regard to the passages describing the situation of the agricultural workers, that he is perusing the description (as given in the English blue-books and also furnished by Marx) of the inhuman lot of the workers at the time of the first wild upgrowth of capitalism.

That is an appalling document, which is supposed to unmask the whole Soviet Union, which as an exploiter of the working class — only think — even surpasses the abominable regime in England in the last century.

Do you understand now, comrades, how the Opposition defends the country of proletarian dictatorship? The Opposition is the chief source of the most disgusting calumny in regard to the Soviet Union and, the Party. It has become the court purveyor of these high-class calumnies, working to the social orders of the international Social Democracy and its masters.

As regards the international connections of the Opposition, they were formed with a whole series of different groups Which were never in the ranks of the Communist International.

Thus, e. g., the Dutch N. A. S. group and the semi-anarchistic elements among the Italian emigrants. All sorts and conditions of men that can in any way harm us flock, to the standard of the Opposition, and I must say that our Opposition really does harm the cause of our defence. For it is no matter for joking if the former leaders of the Communist Party start copying the lies of the Menshevists. (The Socialist Messenger declares in No. 23 quite openly: A truthful picture, which loses nothing by the fact that it repeats the words of the Socialist Messenger verbatim. That is where they have got to.) I may add that foreign members of the Friends of the Soviets Union, some of them outside the Party, have told me that there is no more harmful anti-Soviet force at work than the Opposition, with its revelations'' and sensations. And the Party Congress was fully right in maintaining that such a defence of the Soviet Union is incompatible with membership of the Party. (Applause.)