Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Report of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (1921).pdf/37

 entire Congress. We must have patience with them. The sooner we expose Serati before the whole world the sooner shall we achieve our aim. (Loud approval)

To my mind the Italian case is of fundamental importance for the whole situation within the International and the general political situation. I have already mentioned that immediately after the close of the Second Congress, there arose a grand movement in Italy which brought about the seizure of the factories by the workers. It was a new form of the proletarian struggle. In some places the workers held out two weeks. The organisation of a Red Army was started. The Confederation of Labour then came, stuck a dagger in the back of the workers and betrayed the movement. Then Serati came and declared in reply to Lenin's open letter that it was not a revolutionary but simply a trade-union movement, and that therefore the "seizure of the factories could not be regarded as a revolutionary upheaval." He claimed that it was more of the nature of a broad and deep trade-union movement which, with a few exceptions, "was proceeding in an entirely peaceful way" This was the traitor act of Serati. It is clear to everybody that this was not a peaceful trade-union movement, but the beginning of a really revolutionary struggle. The Party, under the leadership of Serati, has done all in its power to smash the movement on the rocks and throw the working class helplessly into the clutches of the bourgeoisie, which did not fail to take advantage of the situation. We must never forget this lesson. We must not start an offensive unprepared, but we cannot afford to lose a single chance for a possible offensive. But the opportunity was not used in Italy, and the movement has now been thrown back for years. The working class will have to suffer much more end make greater sacrifices; and this only because the leaders did not stand up on the side of the working class, but hampered the workers in this movement. These treach-