Page:Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (1922).djvu/39

 the workers' government is the most important only in those countries where the bourgeois society is particularly very unstable and where the balance of power between the workers' parties and the bourgeoisie makes the decision on the question of government a practical necessity. In those countries the watchword of the workers’ government is an unavoidable consequence of the United Front tactics.

The parties of the Second International in these countries endeavour to "save" the situation by propagating and bringing about coalition between the bourgeoisie and the social-democrats. The recent attempts of some of the parties of the Second International (for instance in Germany) to refuse to participate openly in such coalition government, and at the same time tacitly carry on a coalition policy, are nothing but a manœuvre to keep the indignant masses quiet and to deceive them in the most cunning and shameful way. To such an open or disguised bourgeois social-democratic coalition, the Communists oppose a United. Front of the workers, a coalition of all the workers' parties on the economic and political field for the struggle against the bourgeois power and for the ultimate overthrow of the latter. Through the united struggle of all the workers against the bourgeoisie, the entire State machinery is to get into the hands of the workers' government, thus consolidating the chief fortifications of the working class.

The most elementary tasks of a workers' government must consist in arming the proletariat, in disarming the bourgeois counter-revolutionary organisations, in introducing control of production, in putting the chief burden of taxation on the shoulders of the rich and in breaking down the resistance of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.

Such a workers' government is only possible if it arises out of the struggle of the masses, and if it is based on the support of active workers' organisations involving the lowest strata of the oppressed working masses. A workers' government which is the outcome of parliamentary groupings, that is to say, which is of a purely parliamentary origin, may likewise become the cause of a revival of the revolutionary labour movement. It is self-evident that the formation of a real workers' government and the continued existence of such a government whose policy is revolutionary, must lead to a bitter struggle and eventually to civil war with the bourgeoisie. The very attempt of the proletariat to establish such a government is bound to meet immediately with the most stubborn resistance on the part of the bourgeoisie. Therefore the watchword of the workers' government is likely to unite the proletariat and initiate revolutionary struggles.

Under certain circumstances the Communists must be prepared to form a government jointly with the non-Communist workers' parties.and organisations. But, they can do this only in case there is the assurance that this workers' govern-