Page:Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (1922).djvu/35

 in Czecho-Slovakia, in Hungary, in nearly all the Balkan countries, in Poland, in Germany (Bavaria), in Austria and America, and even in countries like Norway. Fascism in one form or another is not altogether impossible even in countries like France and England.

One of the most important tasks of the Communist parties is to organise the resistance to International Fascism, to take the lead in the struggle of all the workers against the Fascist bands, and vigorously to carry the tactics of the United Front into this field of activity, where the methods of illegal organisation are an absolute necessity.

The Fascist organisation is the last card of the bourgeoisie. The unbridled fury of the white guards is directed also against the foundations of bourgeois democracy as a whole. This fact brings home to the working masses the conviction that the domination of the bourgeoisie cannot be maintained otherwise than by undisguised dictatorship over the proletariat.

'''VI. The Possibility of New Pacifist Illusions.'''

The international political situation of the present moment is characterised by Fascism, martial law and the rising tide of white terror against the working class. This, however, by no means precludes the possibility of the bourgeois reaction making the attempt in the near future, to assume the pose of "democratic pacifism" in the more important countries. Such a transitional form of "democratic pacifism" is likely to occur in England (strengthening of the Labour Party at the last elections), in France (the inevitable period of the so-called "Left Bloc"), and there is also a possibility of a revival of pacifist hopes in bourgeois and social-democratic Germany. Between the present period of the domination of undisguised bourgeois reaction and the complete victory of the revolutionary proletariat over the bourgeoisie, there is a possibility of various intervening stages and transitional episodes. The Communist International and its sections must bear in mind such eventualities, and prepare for the defence of the revolutionary positions under all circumstances.

'''VII. The Situation within the Labour Movement.'''

During this period, when the working class is put on the defensive against capital, we see the rapprochement and the eventual amalgamation of the centrist parties (Independents) with the undisguised social-traitors (Social-Democrats). During the revolutionary upheaval the Centrists, under pressure of the masses, were constrained to shout for the proletarian dictatorship and to seek the way to the Third International. With the temporary receding tide of the revolution, the Centrists fell back again into the social-democratic ranks, from which they never really departed. Having always maintained a hesitating and wavering attitude in times of revolutionary mass struggles, they now desert the workers in the defensive struggle and betake themselves again to the Second Inter-