Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Report of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (1921).pdf/11

 people would swallow everything, if they could only get into the Communist International and sabotage it from within. For that reason we drew up the 21 points. These decisions influenced all our activities. After the Second Congress the situation in Germany was such that only the Spartacus Bund belonged to the Communist International, an organisation with a glorious past, but which, at that time, had not yet become a mass party. Then there was the U.S.P. (Independent Socialist Party of Germany) with its left wing. The task imposed upon us by the Second Congress was to draw in the best, really Communist elements of the U.S.P. and unite them with the Spartacists.

We had a similar task imposed upon us with regard to other countries.

Now, comrades, when, after a year of activity, we look back to the decisions of the Second Congress, we ask ourselves: Who was right in the disputes with our "left" friends and our "right" enemies? Let us take for example the question of the participation of the English Communists in the Labour Party. As you know, the Labour Party, at the behest of Henderson and Macdonald, decided, of its own accord, to refuse our comrades admission. I believe that that is the best evidence that we were right, and not our English comrades, who feared that they would lose their Communist innocence in joining the Labour Party. The opportunists felt this danger immediately, they realised immediately that, if the Communists organised within the Labour Party and attempted to exercise influence from within, it would mean a great danger to the Labour Party.

Serati, about whom we will have more to say later on, supported the "lefts" in this question. He asked, "How is it possible to join a Labour Party?" He wrote an article: "Behold the inconsistency of the Communist International! In Italy it demands the exclusion of Turati, whereas, in England, it demands