Page:Theses Presented to the Second World Congress of the Communist International (1920).pdf/8

 the working class, but to raise the whole of it to the level of the Communist advance guard. The confounding of these two conceptions can only lead to the greatest mistakes and confusion. Thus, for instance, it is clear that notwithstanding the frame of mind or prejudices of a certain part of the working masses during the imperialistic war, the workers' party was forced to act against such prejudices in defending the interests of the workers, which demanded from the workers’ party a declaration of war against war.

Thus in the beginning of the Imperialistic war of 1914, the social-traitor parties of all countries, while upholding the capitalists of their „own“ countries, unanimously declared that such was the will of the people. They forgot at the same time that even if this were so, the duty of the workers' party would have, been to go against such a frame of mind of the majority of the workers, and to defend the interests of the workers at whatever cost. At the very beginning of the XXth century the Russian Mensheviks (minimalists) of the time (the so-called "economists"), denied the possibility of an open political struggle against Tsarism, on the ground that the working class in general was not capable of understanding the meaning of a political struggle.

4. The Communist International is firmly convinced that the collapse of the old "Social Democratic" parties of the Second International