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54. The village proletarians produce legions of counter-revolutionary troops." (p. 3).

Everything shows that this is said in much too off-hand and exaggerated a manner. But the fact here stated is fundamentally correct, and its acknowledgement by the "Left" goes to prove their mistake with particular clearness. How is it possible to say that "parliamentarism is politically worn-out" when "millions" and "legions" of proletarians not only stand up for parliamentarism generally, but are directly counter-revolutionary? It is clear, then, that parliamentarism in Germany is not worn-out politically as yet. It is evident that the "Left" in Germany have mistaken their desire, their ideopolitical attitude, for objective reality. This is the most dangerous error which can be made by revolutionaries. In Russia, where the fierce and savage yoke of Tsarism, extending over a long period, had created an extraordinarily great variety of revolutionaries of every creed, remarkable for their wonderful devotion, enthusiasm, strength of mind, and heroism, we watched this mistake particularly closely; and it is because we studied it with particular attention that this mistake is especially familiar to us, and especially apparent to our eyes when revolutionaries in other countries fall into it. For the Communists in Germany parliamentarism is, of course, "politically out-worn"; but—and this is the whole point—we must not deem that that which is outworn for us is necessarily outworn for the class, the masses. Here, again, we see that the "Left" do not know how to argue, do not know how to behave as a class, as a party of the masses. True, it is our duty not to sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. This is incontestable. It is our duty to tell them the bitter truth. It is our duty to call their bourgeois democratic and parliamentary prejudices by their right name. But, at the same time, it is our duty to watch soberly the actual state of consciousness and preparedness of the whole class, and not of the Communist vanguard alone; of the whole laboring mass, and not merely of its foremost men.

If, not "millions" and "legions," but merely a considerable minority of industrial workers follow the Catholic priests, and if a considerable minority of village workers follow the