Page:Resolutions and Decisions of the Third Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions (1924).pdf/5

 state of world capitalism given by the first and second congresses of the R. I. L. U. is still correct.

However, the revolutionary labor movement is interested not only to know that capitalism falls to pieces, but to know HOW, IN WHAT MANNER this process of decay proceeds, to know to what extent the conscious activity of the bourgeoisie may retard this process, what it has done in this respect, and what we must do in order to intensify the process of disintegration and widen the schisms in capitalist society. If we view the present world economic situation from this angle, we would find that the disintegration of the capitalist system is now proceeding at a slower rate, that some industries have been partially rehabilitated, that attempts are being made to solve the insoluble reparations problem, and that there is a tendency to stabilize the capitalist world by the re-establishment of commercial and economic relations with Soviet Russia.

The labor movement has become considerably more active than it was in 1922 and 1923; instead of a general retreat, we observe in some countries and in some industries counter-offensives, earnest defensive battles, while at the same time the offensive of the employers continues. The situation has become more intricate; the picture of the international labor movement has become more diverse, but it is more favorable than it was in 1922–1923, provided, however, that we take the world labor movement as a whole rather than individual sections which have suffered defeat.

International reformism, in spite of a series of outward victories, (the MacDonald government, the Left Bloc in France, the Social-Democratic government in Denmark, etc.), continues steadily to decline. When the German Social Democrats were in power, they explained their impotence by the Entente policies; now reformism is in power in the mightiest country in the world. Yet socially, it is just as much the servant of the bourgeoisie and is just as powerless and futile as the German social democracy. The British proletariat needs this object lesson of democratic parliamentarism to become convinced of the illusory character of bourgeois democracy. The second youth of reformism thus coincides with the growth of the revolutionary movement, particularly noticeable in England. The Second and Amsterdam Internationals have never been Internationals in the true sense of the word. They have represented merely a sum of national organizations; this is why the Versailles Treaty, the occupation of the Ruhr and the struggle around the reparations questions have led to the intensification of nationalist friction within these organizations and manifested their helplessness, which facts could not fail to impress the masses. The Vienna Congress of the Amsterdam International did not even attempt to make clear to itself the crisis which international reformism is undergoing. All the leaders of the Amsterdam International believed that it is possible to cover up by unanimous resolutions, the deep and daily widening gulf between the working class and the labor bureaucracy.

The discontent of the masses with the reformist policies found an expression, incomplete and unclear though it may be, in the left wing of the Amsterdam International. This left wing, which is still extremely