Page:The Lessons of the German Events (1924).djvu/47

 precisely during this epoch of revolution, that they have become Fascists. What is the Italian Social-Democracy? It is a wing of the Fascists. Turati is a Fascist Social-Democrat. Could we have said this five years ago? No. Do you remember the group of academicians who gradually developed into a bourgeois force, the Italian Social-Democrats, now are a Fascist Social-Democracy. Take Turati, d’Arragona, or the present Bulgarian governmental Socialists. Ten years ago we had opportunists, but could we say then that they were Fascist Social-Democrats? No. It would have been absurd to say that them. Now, however, they are Fascists. They keep repeating: we are from the Second International, we are Social-Democrats. We must understand what is taking place. It is not enough to abuse the Social-Democrats. On the one hand we have MacDonald, chairman of the Second International. coming into power. The British bourgeoisie politely invite him to rule. Of course, it is evidence of the weakness of the bourgeoisie; the working class is growing; it became a factor, but it also shows what has become of the Social-Democrats. The British bourgeois places the president of the Second International in the saddle.

We can abuse MacDonald, we may call him traitor and accomplice of the bourgeoisie, but we must understand in what period we are living. The international Social-Democracy has now become a wing of Fascism. This we must explain to the German workers. But this is quite a different view. It will mark a new starting point in policy and agitation and throws a completely new light on the subject.

Here we must place a new construction on the subject. The first was incorrect. I could never defend it on the International. When the International takes up this work objectively and closely scrutinises it, its verdict will be: incorrect. It is a Radek article, and not a Party resolution.

I have written an article on Koltchak, which, to my mind, is far more correct than the Radek article which you have brought up for discussion.

What has the Editorial Board of your Executive Committee done? It published a commentary, which in fact is another Radek article. You have a perfect right to do this, but you have no right to ask where is the Right, where are the nuances? The Right are those who wrote the commentary.

However, it is in the minority. After the International has made its decision it will be in a still smaller minority. Take the Leipsic decision, the clamour over the pseudonym, the resolution of the National Committee, the policy in Saxony, and the Radek article, which you have printed as a commentary of the Editorial Board, it is sufficient to convince any political leader that the system is incorrect.

(: It is a system then, even if incorrect?)

It is a Menshevist system. What is Menshevism? It is often