Page:Lenin - The Collapse of the Second International - tr. Sirnis (1919).pdf/9

7 The decision of the I.L.P. representatives to adhere to parliamentary constitutionalism and moribund craft organisation on the industrial field proves that party to be still wrapped up in the bourgeois opportunist policy which has been characteristic of the I.L.P. since its inception—a policy which has been largely responsible for the creation of the reactionary Labour Party and providing one of the strongest bulwarks in this country against revolutionary Socialism.

Such a policy of “Evolutionary Socialism” is easily understood, especially where no effort is made to encourage Bolshevism, either at home or abroad. But what reason, we ask, is there for the continued existence of an entity like the B.S.P., whose policy, as stated at the Unity Conference, notwithstanding its pose as being Bolshevic, is identical with the Independent Labour Party?

The Socialist Labour Party has perceived for some time now that “Socialism in Europe has entered the stage of revolutionary action; and that it is high time that complete rupture with opportunism be effected and the latter turned out of the workers’ parties.”

Such indeed was the spirit in which we entered the discussion upon unity. We have found both the I.L.P. and the B.S.P. are still in “bondage” to bourgeois opportunism and wallowing in the slough of ministerial parliamentarism. We had hoped to create a movement which would be capable of releasing the forces of revo­lution in this country while building up the machinery of fulfilment. We now know that so far as the “leaders” of these parties are concerned that that time is not yet.

Nevertheless we have faith in the disturbing periods which lie before us that the very intensity of the