While the publishing houses in our country – which the imperialists of the whole world have robbed, taking vengeance for the proletarian revolution, and continue to rob and blockade, despite all their promises to their workers – while our publishing houses were dealing with the task of publishing my pamphlet, supplementary material arrived from abroad. Not claiming in my pamphlet anything more than the hasty notes of a publicist, I shall touch briefly upon several points.

I. The Split Among German Communists

The split among communists in Germany has become a fact. The "Left" or "principled opposition" have formed a separate "Communist Workers' Party" in distinction from the "Communist Party." In Italy, the matter, apparently, is also moving toward a split – I say apparently, because I have only supplementary issues (Nos. 7 and 8) of the Left newspaper "Il Soviet" ("II Soviet"), where the possibility and necessity of a split is discussed openly, and the matter also concerns a congress of the faction of "abstentionists" (or boycottists, i.e., opponents of participation in parliament), which faction has hitherto been part of the Italian Socialist Party.

One may fear that a split with the "Left," anti-parliamentarians (partly also anti-politicians, opponents of a political party and work in trade unions) will become an international phenomenon, similar to the split with the "centrists" (or Kautskyans, Longuetists, "Independents," and the like). Let it be so. A split is still better than confusion, which hinders both the ideological, theoretical, revolutionary growth and maturation of the party and its cohesive, truly organized, truly preparing-for-the-dictatorship-of-the-proletariat practical work.

Let the "Left" test themselves in action, on a national and international scale; let them try to prepare (and then implement) the dictatorship of the proletariat without a strictly centralized party with iron discipline, without the ability to master all fields, branches, and varieties of political and cultural work. Practical experience will quickly teach them. We must make every effort only to ensure that the split with the "Left" does not hinder, or hinders as little as possible, the inevitable fusion in the near future into a single party of all participants in the workers' movement who genuinely and conscientiously stand for Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat. In Russia, a particular stroke of good fortune for the Bolsheviks was that they had 15 years for systematic and thoroughly carried-through struggle both against the Mensheviks (i.e., opportunists and "centrists") and against the "Left" long before the direct mass struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. In Europe and America, this same work must now be done in "forced marches." Individual persons, especially from among unsuccessful pretenders to leadership, may (if they lack proletarian discipline and "honesty with themselves") stubbornly cling to their errors for a long time, but the working masses will easily and quickly, when the moment ripens, unite themselves and unite all sincere communists in a single party capable of implementing the Soviet system and the dictatorship of the proletariat[14].

II. Communists and Independents in Germany

I expressed the opinion in the pamphlet that a compromise between communists and the Left wing of the Independents is necessary and useful for communism, but that implementing it will not be easy. The newspapers I received afterwards confirmed both points. In No. 32 of "The Red Flag," the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany ("Die Rote Fahne"{44}, Zentralorgan der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands, Spartakusbund, from March 26, 1920), there appeared a "statement" of this Central Committee concerning the military "putsch" (conspiracy, adventure) of Kapp–Lüttwitz and the "socialist government." This statement is entirely correct both from the standpoint of its basic premise and from the standpoint of its practical conclusion. The basic premise amounts to this: that there is no "objective basis" for the dictatorship of the proletariat at the given moment, because the "majority of urban workers" stands for the Independents. Conclusion: the promise of "loyal opposition" (i.e., refusal to prepare for "violent overthrow") to a "socialist" government "excluding bourgeois-capitalist parties." The tactic is undoubtedly correct in its essentials. But if one should not dwell on minor inaccuracies of formulation, one still cannot pass over in silence the fact that one cannot call a government of social traitors "socialist" (in the official statement of the communist party), that one cannot speak of the exclusion of "bourgeois-capitalist parties" when the parties of both the Scheidemanns and the Messrs. Kautskyans–Crispins are petty bourgeois-democratic, that one cannot write such things as paragraph 4 of the statement, which reads:

"…For the further conquest of the proletarian masses to the side of communism, from the standpoint of the development of proletarian dictatorship, a state of affairs is of tremendous importance in which political freedom could be utilized without limitation and where bourgeois democracy could not appear as the dictatorship of capital…"

Such a state of affairs is impossible. The petty bourgeois leaders, the German Hendersons (Scheidemanns) and Snowdens (Crispins), do not go beyond and cannot go beyond the bounds of bourgeois democracy, which, in turn, cannot but be the dictatorship of capital. These principally incorrect and politically harmful things need not have been written at all from the standpoint of achieving the practical result, which the Communist Party's Central Committee was entirely correct in pursuing. For this, it would have sufficed to say (if one wishes to be parliamentarily polite): so long as the majority of urban workers follow the Independents, we communists cannot hinder these workers from exhausting their last petty bourgeois-democratic (i.e., also "bourgeois-capitalist") illusions on the experience of "their" government. This is sufficient for the foundation of a compromise, which is indeed necessary and which should consist in a refusal for a certain time to attempt the violent overthrow of a government to which the majority of urban workers gives its trust. And in everyday, mass agitation, not bound by the framework of official, parliamentary politeness, one could of course add: let such scoundrels as the Scheidemanns and such philistines as the Kautskyans–Crispins expose themselves in deed, showing how much they themselves are fooled and how much they fool the workers; their "pure" government will do most "purely" the work of "cleansing" the Augean stables of socialism, social-democracy, and all other varieties of social betrayal.

The true nature of the present leaders of the "Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany" (those leaders of whom falsehoods are spread, that they have already lost all influence and who are in reality even more dangerous to the proletariat than the Hungarian social-democrats, who renamed themselves communists and promised "support" to the dictatorship of the proletariat) revealed itself once again and again during the German Bonapartism, i.e., the coup d'état of Messrs. Kapp and Lüttwitz[15]. A small but instructive illustration is provided by the articles of Karl Kautsky: "The Decisive Hours" ("Entscheidende Stunden") in "Freiheit" (organ of the Independents, "Freedom"){45} from March 30, 1920 and Arthur Crispin: "On the Political Situation" (April 14, 1920, ibid.). These gentlemen are absolutely incapable of thinking and reasoning as revolutionaries. They are whining petty bourgeois democrats, who are a thousand times more dangerous to the proletariat if they declare themselves supporters of Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat, for in reality at every difficult and dangerous moment they will inevitably commit betrayal…while remaining in "the sincerest" conviction that they are helping the proletariat! After all, the Hungarian social-democrats, who converted themselves into communists, also wanted to "help" the proletariat when out of cowardice and lack of character they believed the position of Soviet power in Hungary to be hopeless and began to whine before the agents of the Entente capitalists and Entente executioners.

III. Turati and Company in Italy

The issues of the Italian newspaper "Il Soviet" indicated above fully confirm what I said in the pamphlet about the error of the Italian Socialist Party, which tolerates in its ranks such members and even such a group of parliamentarians. This is even more confirmed by such a witness from outside as the Rome correspondent of the English bourgeois-liberal newspaper "The Manchester Guardian," who in the issue of March 12, 1920 published his interview with Turati.

"…Signor Turati," writes this correspondent, "believes that the revolutionary danger is not such as to occasion unfounded alarm in Italy. The Maximalists are playing with fire regarding soviet theories only in order to keep the masses excited and agitated. These theories, however, are purely legendary notions, immature programs which are unsuitable for practical use. They are good only for keeping the working classes in a state of expectation. Those very same people who use them as bait to blind proletarian eyes find themselves compelled to conduct everyday struggle for the conquest of certain, often trifling economic improvements, so as to postpone the moment when the working classes lose their illusions and faith in their favorite myths. Hence – a long series of strikes of all kinds and on all pretexts down to the most recent strikes in the postal and railway services – strikes which make the already difficult situation of the country even more difficult. The country is irritated because of difficulties connected with its Adriatic problem, depressed by its external debt, its immoderate issue of paper money, and yet the country is far from yet realizing the necessity of adopting that labor discipline which alone can restore order and prosperity…"

Clear as day is it that the English correspondent has blurted out the truth, which Turati himself probably covers up and embellishes, and which his bourgeois defenders, accomplices, and instigators in Italy cover up and embellish. This truth is that the ideas and political work of Messrs. Turati, Treves, Modigliani, Dugoni and Company are indeed exactly such as the English correspondent depicts them. It is sheer social betrayal. What is the worth of one defense of order and discipline for workers, who consist of hired slaves working for the profit of capitalists! And how familiar to us Russians are all these Menshevik speeches! How valuable the confession that the masses stand for Soviet power! How stupidly and vulgarly bourgeois-petty the failure to understand the revolutionary role of spontaneously growing strikes! Yes, yes, the English correspondent of the bourgeois-liberal newspaper did a disservice to Messrs. Turati and Company and splendidly confirmed the correctness of the demand of Comrade Bordiga and his friends from the newspaper "Il Soviet," demanding that the Italian Socialist Party, if it wishes truly to stand for the Third International, expel Messrs. Turati and Company with shame from its ranks and become a communist party both in name and in deed.

IV. Incorrect Conclusions from Correct Premises

But Comrade Bordiga and his "Left" friends draw from their correct criticism of Messrs. Turati and Company the incorrect conclusion that participation in parliament is harmful in general. Not the slightest trace of serious arguments in defense of this view can the Italian "Left" put forward. They simply do not know (or try to forget) the international examples of genuinely revolutionary and communist use of bourgeois parliaments, which is unquestionably useful for the preparation of proletarian revolution. They simply do not imagine the "new" and cry out endlessly, repeating themselves, about the "old," non-Bolshevik use of parliamentarism.

This is their fundamental error. Not only on the parliamentary field, but in all spheres of communist activity, communism must introduce (and without long, persistent, stubborn work it will not be able to introduce) something fundamentally new, radically breaking with the traditions of the Second International (while simultaneously preserving and developing what was good in it).

Let us take, for instance, journalistic work. Newspapers, pamphlets, proclamations perform necessary work of propaganda, agitation, and organization. No mass movement in any somewhat civilized country can do without a journalistic apparatus. And no outcries against "leaders," no solemn promises to preserve the purity of the masses from the influence of leaders will free us from the necessity of using, for this work, persons from the bourgeois-intellectual milieu, will not free us from the bourgeois-democratic, "property-owning" atmosphere and conditions in which this work takes place under capitalism. Even two and a half years after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, after the conquest of political power by the proletariat, we see around us this atmosphere, these conditions of mass (peasant, artisan) bourgeois-democratic, property-owning relations.

Parliamentarism is one form of work, journalism is another. The content can be communist in both and must be communist if the workers in both fields are true communists, true members of the proletarian, mass party. But in both – and in any sphere of work under capitalism and during the transition from capitalism to socialism – one cannot avoid those difficulties, those peculiar tasks which the proletariat must overcome and solve in order to use for its own purposes persons from the bourgeois milieu, to triumph over bourgeois-intellectual prejudices and influences, to weaken the resistance of (and later completely remake) the petty bourgeois environment.

Before the war of 1914–1918, did we not see in all countries an extraordinary abundance of examples when very "Left" anarchists, syndicalists, and others thundered against parliamentarism, mocked bourgeois-corrupted socialist parliamentarians, lashed their careerism and so forth and so on – and themselves through journalism, through work in syndicates (trade unions) pursued the very same bourgeois career? Are not the examples of Messrs. Jouhaux and Merrheim, if we confine ourselves to France, typical?

This is where the puerility of "rejecting" participation in parliamentarism lies – in the thought that by such a "simple," "easy," allegedly revolutionary method one can "solve" the difficult task of struggling against bourgeois-democratic influences within the workers' movement, while in reality one only runs from one's own shadow, only closes one's eyes to the difficulty, only gets rid of it in words. Shameless careerism, bourgeois use of parliamentary places, glaring reformist distortion of parliamentary work, vulgar petty bourgeois routine – there is no doubt that all this represents the usual and predominant characteristic features that capitalism produces everywhere and not only outside but also within the workers' movement. But capitalism and the bourgeois environment it creates (disappearing even after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie very slowly, because the peasantry constantly regenerates the bourgeoisie) decisively in all spheres of work and life produce such essentially identical, differing only in insignificant variations, bourgeois careerism, national chauvinism, petty bourgeois corruption, and so forth.

You seem to yourselves terribly revolutionary, dear boycottists and anti-parliamentarians, but in reality you have been frightened by relatively small difficulties of the struggle against bourgeois influences from within the workers' movement, while your victory, i.e., the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the conquest of political power by the proletariat, will create these very same difficulties on an even larger, an immeasurably larger scale. You have childishly feared a small difficulty that awaits you today, not understanding that tomorrow and the day after you will in any case have to learn, to finish learning to overcome these same difficulties on a scale immeasurably more significant.

Under Soviet power, even more bourgeois-intellectual persons will crawl into your and our, proletarian, party. They will crawl into the Soviets, the courts, and the administration, for one cannot build communism except from the human material created by capitalism, for one cannot expel and destroy the bourgeois intelligentsia; one must triumph over it, remake it, assimilate it, re-educate it – just as the proletariat itself must be re-educated in a prolonged struggle, on the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat, ridding itself of its own petty bourgeois prejudices not suddenly, not as a miracle, not by the command of the Mother of God, not by the command of a slogan, resolution, or decree, but only in long and difficult mass struggle against mass petty bourgeois influences. Under Soviet power those very same tasks which now so proudly, so arrogantly, so frivolously, so childishly the anti-parliamentarian brushes aside with a wave of his hand – those very same tasks are reborn within the Soviets, within the Soviet administration, within the Soviet "legal counselors" (we destroyed in Russia, and rightly destroyed, the bourgeois legal profession, but it is regenerating among us under the cover of "Soviet" "legal counselors"{46}). Within the Soviet engineers, within the Soviet teachers, within the privileged, i.e., most qualified and best situated, workers at Soviet factories we see the constant regeneration of absolutely all those negative features inherent in bourgeois parliamentarism, and only through repeated, tireless, prolonged, persistent struggle of proletarian organization and discipline do we overcome – gradually – this evil.

Of course, under the domination of the bourgeoisie it is very "difficult" to overcome bourgeois habits in one's own, i.e., the working class, party: it is "difficult" to expel from the party habitual, hopelessly corrupted by bourgeois prejudices parliamentary leaders, "difficult" to subject absolutely necessary (in a certain, even if very limited, number) persons from the bourgeoisie to proletarian discipline, "difficult" to create a communist fraction in the bourgeois parliament fully worthy of the working class, "difficult" to achieve that communist parliamentarians do not play bourgeois-parliamentary games but engage in the most essential work of propaganda, agitation, and organization among the masses. All this is "difficult," no doubt about it; it was difficult in Russia, incomparably more difficult in Western Europe and America, where the bourgeoisie is much stronger, the bourgeois-democratic tradition is stronger, and so forth.

But all these "difficulties" are positively childish difficulties in comparison with tasks of exactly the same kind, which the proletariat will in any case inevitably have to solve both for its victory and during the proletarian revolution and after the proletariat takes power. In comparison with these truly gigantic tasks, when it will be necessary under the dictatorship of the proletariat to re-educate millions of peasants and petty proprietors, hundreds of thousands of employees, officials, bourgeois intellectuals, to subject all of them to the proletarian state and proletarian leadership, to overcome in them bourgeois habits and traditions – in comparison with these gigantic tasks it is a matter of childish ease to create under the domination of the bourgeoisie, in the bourgeois parliament, a truly communist fraction of a genuine proletarian party.

If the "Left" comrades and anti-parliamentarians do not learn to overcome even such a small difficulty now, one can say with certainty that they will either prove incapable of implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat, will not be able on a broad scale to subjugate and remake the bourgeois intellectuals and bourgeois institutions, or will have to hastily catch up their studies, and such haste will cause tremendous harm to the proletarian cause, will result in more than the usual number of mistakes, will reveal more than average weakness and incapacity and so forth and so on.

So long as the bourgeoisie has not been overthrown and so long as small-scale economy and small-scale commodity production have not completely disappeared, the bourgeois environment, property-owning habits, petty bourgeois traditions will corrupt proletarian work both from without and from within the workers' movement, not in the parliamentary sphere alone, but inevitably in all and every sphere of public activity, in all, without exception, cultural and political fields. And the deepest error, for which one will inevitably have to pay later, is the attempt to wave away, to fence oneself off from one of the "unpleasant" tasks or difficulties in one sphere of work. One must learn and learn to master absolutely all spheres of work and activity, overcome all difficulties and all bourgeois habits, traditions, and customs everywhere and always. Any other way of posing the question is simply not serious, simply puerile.

May 12, 1920.

V

In the Russian edition of this book I somewhat incorrectly illuminated the conduct of the Dutch Communist Party as a whole in the sphere of international revolutionary policy. Therefore I take this opportunity to publish the letter of our Dutch comrades reproduced below on this question and then to correct the expression "Dutch tribunal-ists," which I used in the Russian text, replacing it with the words "certain members of the Dutch Communist Party"{47}.