Page:Strategy of the Communists - A letter from the Communist International to the Mexican Communist Party.pdf/12

 The first task of the Party must be to state clearly and plainly what the situation is and how it will develop. Secondly, it must be clearly realized that it is not a matter of indifference for the revolutionary labor movement whether Calles or De La Huerta betray the working classes, even though both will end in the same results. The whole situation is not a comedy, as it might appear, but a real fight. It is an attempt on the part of petty-bourgeois democracy to keep its head above water, and it can do that only by possessing political power. The interests of the working class are also involved in this struggle, for the only allies on which the petty-bourgeoisie can rely, are the working class and the peasantry. Calles must therefore make concessions to these classes. It is already apparent that the overwhelming majority of the workers and peasants will support the candidature of Calles. If the whole working class participates m this struggle, the Communist Party must not stand aside and look on; it must fight with the others, for Calles today means protection for the masses from reaction and clerical domination. But it is the duty of the communists to combat the illusions of the masses as to the ability of the Calles Government actually to give this protection. Throughout the period of Obregon's regime, Calles silently participated in the attacks of the Government on the working class. Calles will behave on a national scale just as Felipe Carrillo behaved on a local scale in Yucatan. He will suppress the trade unions opposed to him and persecute the communists; he will not hesitate to shoot them down if necessary. In spite of this, the Communist Party must participate in the elections on behalf of Calles. Certainly not as enthusiastic followers of the coming government. This tactic is merely a necessary halting place on the road to the Workers' and Peasants' Government, on the road to the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The result developing from the Calles Government will open the eyes of the Mexican proletariat to the impotency of reformism, to the powerlessness and corruptibility of opportunistic and petty-bourgeois anarchist phraseology. The Mexican workers and peasants will recognize that there exist but two kinds of politics; the one that leads to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and the one that leads to the domination of the proletariat, and which is represented by the slogan: All power to the workers and peasants. Many honest workers will say to the communists: If you are already prophesying the treachery of Calles, then your participation in the fight is nothing but a manoeuvre to compromise Calles. But such a statement of the question is incorrect and undialectical. That Calles will com-