Page:Boris Souvarine - The Third International.djvu/24

 The Communist parties should endeavour to create that proletarian democracy which would abolish classes in abolishing economic privileges; their political expression must be Soviets, that is to say Workers' and Soldiers' Councils, a new type of proletarian organisation which will be self-governing. These Soviets represent political power: the organisations of industry and of production being vested in professional syndicates that are in direct touch with the technical organs of power of the Soviets. Such are the principal outlines of the Communist International defined in detail by the voted resolutions.

In short, these are the terms of the Manifesto itself: "if the war of 1870 dealt a blow to the First International by the revelation that behind its revolutionary and social programme there was no organised force of the masses, the war of 1914 has killed the Second International by demonstrating that over and above the powerful administration of the workers were parties subservient to bourgeois control."

"If the First International foresaw and prepared the way for approaching developments, if the Second International collected and organised the proletarian millions, the Third International is the International of the action of the masses and of revolutionary realisation."

The principles, the programme and the appeals of the Communist International have been systematically hidden from the masses by bourgeois speakers and their press and by social opportunists.

In France the facts are still unknown to the masses, and the prominence of the opportunists is due to this ignorance. But where facts were known and advertised the Socialist workers' organisations joined the Third International which gathered together the élite of the proletariat of the world.

The following is a list of the affiliated organisations:

In Russia, in Finland, in Esthonia, in Lettonia, in Lithuania, in White Russia, in Ukrainia, in Armenia, the Communist Parties.

In Poland, The Communist Labour Party composed of the fusion of the former Social Democratic Party with the Left Polish Social Party, holding a majority in the Workers' Councils.