Proletarians of the Whole World, Your Interests are Today Decided in Germany

Manifesto of the Left Fraction of the Communist Party of Italy

PROLETARIANS!

For years our fraction has been raising before you the vision of reality, of the threat that weighed on the working class, of the precipice that was opening for the world proletariat. The alarm we had sounded has not been heeded: as with the socialist parties of before the war, the left fraction has found itself unable to effect a reversal of the situation in the direction that resulted from the evolution of the contradictions on which the capitalist regime is based. The fractions had against them an adversary which – having taken over the organization of the party of the revolution – could fulfill – in the interests of the capitalist enemy – its function of depriving the masses of that guidance which was indispensable for their struggle.

Today the facts speak the brutal language of an enemy who has already carried out a large part of his plan.

The proletariat of Germany was not able, in 1919, to destroy capitalist domination, to establish its revolutionary dictatorship: the traitors of 1914 saved the regime of the bourgeoisie by massacring thousands and thousands of proletarians, by assassinating the Spartacist leaders. The Weimar Republic was founded and millions of workers believed that a guarantee against hunger and terror was finally realized. In 1923 the revolutionary movements, instead of finding a party that would launch the call of the Bolsheviks of 1917 to unleash the insurrection, found a general staff blinded in a coalition with the traitors of 1914, with the executioners of 1919: not leaders who want to direct the masses to the assault of the weapon depots, but communist ministers who make the workers believe that the revolution is the business of porters to whom the bourgeoisie hands over the keys of the arsenals.

After the defeat of 1923, with the change of economic situations, and after the outbreak of the economic crisis, German capitalism could only defend its regime by crushing any possibility of workers resisting the conditions that have left six million hungry and unemployed, the conditions of misery and decimated wages.

When this new situation presented itself, what became the promises, the illusions, the hopes of the slaves of the capitalist regime?

The expectation of a better life as a consequence of the development of the technique of production: nothing.

The organization of millions of proletarians in trade unions, in factory councils: nothing.

The Weimar constitution, the republic, the direction of the state apparatus entrusted to exponents of the socialist party: nothing.

A Communist Party that extended its influence over millions and millions of proletarians: nothing.

A Communist International that has in its bosom a party that governs a sixth of the world, Russia: nothing.

Fascism is installed in power and the executioners of the German proletariat can raise their grins stained with proletarian blood, they can pile up the ruins of proletarian institutions, they can dishonor the memory of Karl Liebknecht by installing the political police in the house that bore his name, they can devastate the home of the founder of scientific communism, Karl Marx, the proletarians do not resist the settling of fascism and, in other countries, there is no protest movement, no solidarity struggle.

Without a class party, the proletariat is nothing; the present weakness of the fractions of the communist left and of their influence explains the passivity of the masses in the face of the present terrible situation.PROLETARIANS!

To crash the Italian proletariat, three years of civil war, in which step by step the workers defended their lives and their organizations that the enemy could only attack with arms, could only destroy with machine guns and artillery.

But in 1921-22 the Italian proletariat had a communist party and the international proletariat had a Communist International. These bodies, faced with the attack of the enemy, called the masses to the struggle, indicated to the working class the plan on which, with arms in hand, it was necessary to oppose the violence of fascism.

The Italian proletariat was beaten, but hundreds and hundreds of revolutionary proletarians defended with their lives the flag of international communism. The proletarians of Germany have waited in vain for the call to fight from the party to which they showed their confidence, the Communist Party. This party had lost the ability to lead the working class, to mobilize it against the attack of the enemy: a political current alien to the revolutionary proletariat had established as a new condition for joining the communist parties that of fighting against the principles on which the Russian proletariat had erected its power, and of expelling from the ranks of the party, of deporting, of exiling the militants who remained faithful to these principles.

This transformation of the party and the International is what allowed the terrible defeat suffered by the international proletariat in Germany.PROLETARIANS!

In the imperialist phase of the capitalist economy, no intermediate solution is possible: either the situation goes towards revolution, or the opposite, the situation goes towards war.

Moscow, in spite of mistakes and defeats, represented the pole of concentration of the world proletariat for the revolution until the triumph of the new program of socialism in one country. Then Moscow openly renounced this function: it proclaimed the break with the international proletariat and the construction of socialism in Russia alone. The events developed in consequence: on the one hand the progress of industrialization in Russia obtained mainly at the expense of the living conditions of the Russian proletariat, on the other hand the regression of the communist parties in all countries.

In order to wage war capitalism must annihilate the party of the revolution or leave it in shreds without influence. It must break it up where the economic conditions no longer leave room for the deceptions of democracy, it can leave standing disconnected sections of it which are fundamentally incapable of defeating the enemy positions which capitalism holds in the proletarian movement, through the influence of social democracy.

The victory of fascism in Germany meant the realization of the premises for the unleashing of tomorrow’s war.But all is not lost

The successes of the enemy, although they are already enormous, the conditions of defense of the international proletariat already desperate, capitalism has not managed to extinguish the will of the masses to fight. The economic crisis is hopeless; those who speak of recovery of the economic situation are deceiving you. Millions of proletarians are today threatened with wage reductions, with cuts in unemployment benefits. And they will be again tomorrow. Powerful energies will be pushed into struggle and the German proletariat itself – after the first moment of astonishment – will try to reorganize itself to beat the enemy.PROLETARIANS!

In order to make use of the already meager possibilities left to us, we need a very clear view of the terrible events of the present tragic situation.

The traitors of 1914, the executioners of 1919 still dare to take the initiative of the united front for the struggle against fascism. They talk about it in order to fulfill, once again, their function of servants of capitalism, they prepare the flag that capitalism will raise in France and Belgium, to chain the proletariat to the war.

Centrism has gone so far as to abdicate in the face of this maneuver of social democracy, so far as to sacrifice the communist parties that they even renounce criticizing the “social-fascists” of yesterday. But what is much more serious is that, in the face of the success of international capitalism in Germany, not a word has come to the world proletariat from the Communist International.

Not one more minute to lose, not one more thousandth of confidence in the forces that have brought us to the brink of the abyss: these are the conditions of the resumption of the struggle, of victory.PPROLETARIANS!

In your class organizations, in the trade unions, where workers of all parties are militating, the conditions exist for establishing the united front, the unity of the struggle, the blockade of the working class to defend itself against the enemy.

Everywhere you must demand that your class organizations fight for your immediate interests and to unleash a movement of solidarity with the German proletariat.COMMUNIST WORKERS!

Centrism threatens to lead the communist parties on the path of open betrayal of the interests of the world proletariat, but these parties can still be saved.

The Russia of the Soviets, which has deliberately isolated itself from the international proletariat, is directly threatened by the danger of being dragged tomorrow into the war on the side of imperialism. But the class bases of the Soviet regime have not been undermined.

In order to save the communist parties and Soviet Russia, there is only one way: the return to the struggle programs of international communism, and for this purpose the indispensable organism are the left fractions.

And, if the stubborn struggle of the proletarians of the left fractions should fail, tomorrow, when the hour of war is struck, the organizations for which you have kept your confidence will be worth nothing.

The hour has not come to build new parties, and the proletarians of the left, conscious of their responsibilities, do not launch themselves into adventures which would compromise any possibility of action for the present situation and for the future.PROLETARIANS!

Break every hesitation and every delay.

     Demand a plan of struggle for your wages, for the unemployed, in solidarity with the German and Italian proletariat, from your trade union organizations.
     Impose on centrism the return of left-wing fractions in the communist parties of all countries.
     Long live the struggle of the world proletariat against fascism.
     Long live the struggle for communist revolution!
     Down with the traitors of yesterday, today and tomorrow!
     Long live the fractions of the communist left!
 

THE LEFT FRACTION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF ITALY