V. I. Lenin

KOMMUNISMUS

Journal of the Communist International

For the Countries of South-Eastern Europe (in German), Vienna, No. 1-2 (February 1, 1920) To No. 18 (May 8, 1920)

This excellent journal, which is published in
Vienna under the above title, contains a great deal of highly
interesting material on the growth of the communist movement in
Austria, Poland and other countries, together with a chronicle of
the international movement, and articles on Hungary and Germany,
on general tasks and tactics, etc. A shortcoming that strikes the
eye even at a cursory examination cannot, however, be disregarded—the indubitable symptoms of the “infantile
disorder of Left-wing Communism” that has affected the journal, a subject on which I have written a short pamphlet that
has just appeared in Petrograd.

The excellent journal Kommunismas reveals three symptoms of this malady, which I would like at once to deal with
briefly. No. 6 (March 4, 1920) contains an article by Comrade G.L. entitled “On the Question of
Parliamentarianism”, which the editors designate as controversial, and from which Comrade B. K. , the author of an article entitled “On the
Question of the Parliamentary Boycott” (No. 18, May 8, 1920), directly dissociates himself (fortunately), i.e., declares
that he is in disagreement with it.

G. L.’s article is very Left-wing, and very poor. Its
Marxism is purely verbal; its distinction between “defensive” and “offensive” tactics is
artificial; it gives no concrete analysis of precise and definite
historical situations; it takes no account of what is most
essential (the need to take over and to learn to take over, all
fields of work and all institutions in which the bourgeoisie
exerts its influence over the masses, etc.).

No. 14 (April 17, 1920), carries an article by Comrade B. K.,
entitled “The Events in Germany", in which he criticises a
statement made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
Germany on March 21, 1920, which statement I too criticised in the
pamphlet mentioned above. However, our criticisms differ radically
in character. Comrade B. K. criticises on the basis of quotations
from Marx, which refer to a situation unlike the present one; he
wholly rejects the tactics of the German Communist Party’s
Central Committee and absolutely evades what is most important,
that which constitutes the very gist, the living soul, of
Marxism-a concrete analysis of a concrete situation. Since most of
the urban workers have abandoned the Scheidemannites for the
Kautskyites, and since, within the Kautskian party (a party
“independent” of correct revolutionary tactics) they are continuing to abandon its Right wing in favour of the Left,
i.e., in fact, of communism-since that is the case, is it
permissible to take no account of the transitional and compromise
measures to be adopted with regard to such workers? Is it
permissible to disregard and to gloss over the experience of the
Bolsheviks, who, in April and May 1917, pursued what was in fact a
policy of compromise, when they declared that the Provisional
Government (Lvov, Milyukov, Kerensky and the rest) could not be
overthrown at once, since in the Soviets, they still had the
backing of the workers and it was first of all necessary to bring
about a change in views in the majority, or a considerable part, of those workers?

I consider that impermissible.

Lastly, Comrade B. K. ’s article in Kommunisnuts
No. 18, which I have mentioned, very vividly, strikingly and
effectively reveals his error in sympathising with the tactics of
boycotting parliaments in present-day Europe. When the author
dissociates himself from the “syndicalist boycott” and the “passive” boycott, but at the same time invents a
special kind of “active” (Au, how “Left”!
...) boycott, the full extent of the errors in his argument is
brought out very strikingly.

“An active boycott,” the author writes, “means that the Communist Party does not confine itself to
disseminating the slogan advocating non-participation in
elections, but, in the interests of the boycott, engages in
revolutionary agitation just as extensively as f it wore
participating in the elections and as if its agitation and action
were designed to secure the greatest possible number of
proletarian votes.” (P. 552).

This is a gem. This demolishes the anti-parliamentarians better
than any criticism could. An “active” boycott is devised “as though” we were participating in
elections!! The mass of unenlightened and semi-enlightened workers
and peasants take a serious part in elections, for they still
entertain bourgeois-democratic prejudices, are still under the
sway of those prejudices. And instead of helping the unenlightened
(although at times “highly-cultured”) petty bourgeois to get rid of their prejudices by their own experience, we are to
hold aloof from taking part in parliaments and to amuse ourselves
by inventing tactics free of all commonplace and bourgeois contamination!!

Bravo, bravo, Comrade B. K.! By your defence of antiparliamentarianism you will help us to destroy this folly much
sooner than I can through my criticism.

N. Lenin

12.6. 1920