Page:Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (1922).djvu/44

 sent circumstances in which the working-class movement finds itself, every serious mass advance, even if beginning only with partial slogans, inevitably involves in its course the more general root questions of revolution. The Communist vanguard can conquer only if the new strata of workers convince themselves from their own personal experience of the illusory nature of reformism and of the evils of class peace.

The Revolutionary Protest.

5. At the first beginning of the development of a conscious and organised protest against the treachery of the leaders of the Second International, the latter held in their hands the whole apparatus of working class organisation. They used the principle of unity and proletarian discipline in order mercilessly to gag the voice of revolutionary proletarian protest and to hand over without opposition all the power of the workers' organisations to the service of national imperialism. Under these conditions the revolutionary wing had to win for itself at all costs freedom of agitation and propaganda, i.e., freedom to explain to the masses the unparalleled historical betrayal which the parties and trade unions, called into being by the workers themselves, have been and are still perpetrating.

New Form of Old Treachery.

6. Complete liberty of action having been secured in respect of organisation to ensure agitation by ideas amongst the workers, Communists in all countries are now seeking to secure widespread and integral unity of action amongst the workers. The heroes of the Second and Amsterdam Internationals preach unity in words, but in fact act to the contrary. The social-peace reformists of Amsterdam, having failed to suppress by their organisation the voice of protest, criticism and revolutionary appeal, are now trying to get out of the blind alley into which they have brought themselves by introducing splits, disorganisations and organised sabotage into the struggle of the working masses. One of the most important tasks for Communists at the present time lies in exposing by deeds this new form of the old treachery.

Reformist Treachery to Unity.

7. Deep-seated internal processes, which owe their inception to the general economic position of the working class in Europe and America, have lately, however, in turn forced the diplomats and leaders of the Second, Two-and-a-Half and Amsterdam Internationals to emphasise the question of unity on their part as well. But while for those strata of the workers who are newly awakening to conscious life and are still little tried, the cry of the United Front is the expression of a genuine and sincere desire to combine the forces of the oppressed classes against the assault of the capitalist class; on the other hand, for the leaders and diplomats of the Second, Two-and-a-Half and Amsterdam Internationals the proclamation of this motto is only a new attempt to dupe the workers and to in-