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 that this question also received an international significance.

At the Second Congress we made concessions to this party. We have also allowed it to put its point of view before this international tribune. But the respective representatives of the party thought it wiser to take their departure in good time. This is what Herr Otto Ruehle had done, who, as you are aware, has already travelled pretty far backwards, and has landed in the counter-reyolutionary camp, although he still claims to belong to the Left wing.

In Halle and after Halle we had many conferences with the comrades of the V.K.P.D. (United Communist Party of Germany). Almost every one of them was of the opinion that the K.A.P.D. (Communist Labour Party of Germany) should not be admitted, even as a sympathising party, into the Communist International. The Executive took a different view. I have, in the name of the Executive, informed the comrades in Berlin to that effect. I can assure you that it was very unpleasant to have to act in a purely German question, against the decision of the Party. Nevertheless, comrades, formally as well as morally and politically, it was within the rights of the Executive to take such action when the occasion arose.

We were of the opinion that the K.A.P.D. must be admitted as a sympathising party for the following reasons:—(1) because we thought that nothing must be left undone in order to educate and to win over the truly revolutionary proletarian elements in this party; (2) because we thought that the past record of our German party—whose very passive policy, her great errors (as for instance at the Kapp-Putsch) would serve as a rearing ground for K.A.P.D.; (3) because we thought that it would be easiest to cure through international influence the malady afflicting the K.A.P.D.; (4) because we thought that, in spite of the fact of the smallness of the party, of its being