Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Report of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (1921).pdf/43

 That is why we had to interfere in this question: and we ask the Congress to tell us frankly whether it was a mistake on our part, so that the Communist International might profit by our mistakes, If it was a mistake on the part of the comrades who had withdrawn from the Committee, let them also openly acknowledge it, so that the Communist International should know it that we might at last begin to feel we are an International party.

The March action will be dealt with in a special report. I will touch upon it rather briefly. When we received the first news of it, Comrades Brass, Geyer, and Kenen were already here. After we got the first information we all felt that something had started at last in Germany; we felt a whiff of fresh air. When we wrote our first appeal after the defeat, Comrades Brass and Geyer concurred with us in the matter. (Radek—"Hear, hear.") We dictated the appeal to Comrade Kurt Geyer. (Cries—Hear, hear.) He acted as stenographer. Not a single amendment had been proposed by them. Why? Because, being revolutionaries, they said to themselves—We had fought a fight which was forced on us, the battle was lost; but we have no right to deal the workers a blow from behind.

They took a practical attitude to the question at the time. This was the reason why we issued our first appeal in which we defended the action. I am saying this quite officially, and trust that both comrades will bear me out on that. You read our theses on tactics; you saw that we do not indulge in official self-eulogy, that we speak of our faults openly and clearly. The Congress is not a mutual admiration society.

Much has been said about the theory of a revolutionary offensive. God save us from a repetition of such unanities. We are quite agreed with what Comrade Brandler said in his pamphlet: "It was no offensive, it was at best a defensive fight." The