Page:Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (1922).djvu/82

 labour movement always in the name of the same notorious independence and autonomy.

14. This struggle against "politics" and political parties has for its result the limiting of the scope of the labour movement and of labour organisations, and is directed against Communism, which is the concentrated consciousness of the working class. Independence, in all its forms, whether purely Anarchistic or Anarcho-Syndicalistic, is an anti-Communist theory, and must be met with most decisive resistance, for at best it leads to independence from Communism, and to the setting up of labour unions against Communist Parties, and, in the worst case, it leads to bitter struggles of labour union organisations against Communist Parties, against Communism, and against social revolution.

15. The theory of independence as it is advocated by the French, Italian, and Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalists, is essentially the battle-cry of Anarchism against Communism. The Communists in the labour union movement must engage in decisive debate and polemics against this attempt to smuggle in Anarchist merchandise under cover of the flag of independence, and to split the united Labour movement into antagonistic forms which cannot but hinder and retard the triumph of the working class.

V. Syndicalism and Communism.

16. The Anarcho-Syndicalists are confounding Syndicates (unions) with Syndicalism, presenting their Anarcho-Syndicalist Party for the only revolutionary organisation which will attain the general class goal of the proletariat. A labour union is a non-partisan organisation of the masses which unites the workers of all tendencies, while Syndicalism is one of the political currents within such an organisation. Syndicalism, being a great step forward in comparison with the trade unionist conception, has nevertheless a number of extremely harmful features and tendencies, which must be most decisively combated in point of principle.

17. The Communists cannot and must not, in the name of abstract Anarcho-Syndicalist principles, surrender their right to organise their nuclei and groups within all labour union organisations, whatever their tendencies. This is the right of the Communists, and nobody can take it away from them. It goes without saying that the Communists working within Syndicalist organisations must co-ordinate their activity, and work with that part of the Syndicalists who have learned the lesson of the war and revolution.

18. The Communists must take upon themselves the initiative of forming in labour unions a bloc with revolutionary workers of other tendencies. The nearest to Communists in the labour union movement are the Communist Syndicalists, who recognise the necessity for the dictatorship of the Proletariat, and who are on the defensive against Anarcho