Page:Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (1922).djvu/40

 ment will in good earnest carry on the struggle against the bourgeoisie in the above mentioned sense. Moreover, the Communists can participate in such a government only on the following conditions:—

(1) That participation in such a government must first have the consent of the Comintern.

(2) That the Communist representatives participating in such a government be under strict control of their party.

(3) That the said Communist members of the workers' government be in close contact with the revolutionary organisations of the working masses.

(4) That the Communist party maintains its own character and complete independence in its agitational work.

With all its advantages, the watchword of the workers' government has its perils just as that of the United Front. In order to avoid such perils the Communist parties must bear in mind that every bourgeois government is at the same time a capitalist government, but that not every workers' government is a really proletarian, i.e, a revolutionary instrument of the proletarian power.

The Communist International must anticipate the following possibilities:—

(1) A Liberal Workers' Government, such as existed in Australia, and likely to be formed in Great Britain in the near future.

(2) A Social-Democratic "workers' government" (Germany).

(3) A Workers' and Peasants' government—such a possibility exists in the Balkans, in Czecho-Slovakia, etc.

(4) A Workers' government in which Communists participate.

(5) A real proletarian Workers' government which the Communist Party alone can embody in a pure form.

The first two types are not revolutionary workers' government, but a disguised coalition between the bourgeoisie and anti-revolutionary groups. Such workers' governments are tolerated, at critical moments, by the weakened bourgeoisie, in order to dupe the workers as to the true class character of the State, or with the-aid of the corrupt leaders to divert the revolutionary onslaught of the proletariat, and to gain time.

The Communists cannot take part in such governments. On the contrary, they must ruthlessly expose their true character to the masses. In this period of capitalist decline, when the main task is to win the majority of the proletarians for the proletarian revolution, such governments may serve as means to precipitate the destruction of bourgeois power.

The Communists are willing to make common cause also with those workers who have not yet recognised the necessity for proletarian dictatorship, with Social-Democrats, Christian Socialists, non-party and Syndicalist workers. Thus, the Communists are prepared, under certain conditions and with cer-