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108 "In order further to gain the sympathy of the proletarian masses in favor of Communism, a state of things under which political freedom can be fully utilized and under which bourgeois democracy could in no case manifest itself as a dictatorship of capital—such a state of things is of great importance from the point of view of the development of proletarian dictatorship. .. .. .."

Such a state of things is an impossibility. Petit bourgeois leaders, the German Hendersons and Snowdens (Scheidemann and Crispien) cannot possibly abandon bourgeois democracy, which in its turn cannot but be a capitalist dictatorship. From the point of view of the attainment of practical results, as correctly pursued by the Central Committee of the Party, there was no necessity at all to write such a statement, incorrect in principle and politically harmful. If one wishes to indulge in parliamentary language, it is sufficient to say "So long as the majority of the town workers follow the Independents, we Communists cannot possibly interfere with the workers in their desire to live out their last illusions of middle class democracy (consequently, also bourgeois-capitalist illusions) in practical experience with their own governments." This is sufficient for the justification of the compromise, for which there is a real necessity, and which means that, for a certain period, all attempts at a violent overthrow of the government which enjoys the confidence of a majority of the town workers must be abandoned. In every-day mass agitation, unconnected with any form of officialdom or Parliamentary politeness, it is, of course, quite possible to add: "Let such knaves and fools as the Scheidemanns and the Kautsky-Crispiens actually reveal the full extent to which they are themselves deceived and to which they deceive the workers; their 'pure' government will itself make the 'cleanest' possible sweep of the Augean stables of Socialism, Social Democracy and all other forms of social treason."

There is no foundation for the statement that the present leaders of the German Independent Social-Democratic Party have lost all influence; in reality, they are more dangerous to the proletariat than the Hungarian Social Democrats, who styled themselves Communists and promised to "support" the