The Tactics of the Communist International

Presentation in “Comunismo” Nr. 8, 1982

The text here published demonstrate the incompatibility of any kind of common ground between verbally revolutionary maximalism and communism. It was not actually three currents (reformism, maximalism, and communism) that confronted one another at Leghorn, as some would have us believe. The clash was between the social democratic current, led by Turati, and the communist fraction based on the Marxist program and the programmatic theses of the Third International.

As social democracy performs the function of the long arm of the bourgeoisie within the working class, so maximalism, revolutionary only in word, was none other than a social democratic instrument whose purpose, as Turati was honest enough to admit, was to penetrate inside the Moscow International to weaken the program and soften its revolutionary objectives to the point of atrophy.

As usual, the proof of this lies in the facts; reformists and maximalists were unanimous in aiming their guns at the common enemy: revolutionary communism.

The tactics of the Communist International were published in Ordine Nuovo on 12 and 31 January 1922, between the meeting of the Executive of the C.I. in December 1921 and the Congress of Rome in March 1922. This text outlined the positions of the Italian section of the International on all the complex international tactical questions facing the proletariat, including the correct position of the Left regarding the tactic of the united front. It helps once again to recall how the Communist Party of Italy (PCd’I) was the first communist party to advocate the tactic of the united front, by virtue of which it significantly extended its influence at the heart of the Italian proletariat.

The theses on the united front approved by the Executive Committee of the CI (ECCI) communicated a worrying shift in the tactics of the International, in effect challenging the position taken up to then in relation to the social democrats, and even to parliamentary democracy; hence the PCd’I’s preoccupation with alerting the global communist movement to the dangers that lay ahead. Indeed, the Rome Theses were the Italian section’s contribution to solving the far from easy question of tactics.

Nevertheless, the party strenuously defended the international’s tactic in the face of socialist vilification, ready now to smear, now to exult at its involvement in the politics of the Comintern. But while in the natural setting of the national and international congresses it continued to reconfirm its exemplary discipline towards the directives emanating from Moscow, it simultaneously expounded with dialectical clarity the dangers which, given the objective exhaustion of revolutionary fervor, threatened to undo the marvelous historical work accomplished in the historical battles of the global proletariat during these years.

Unfortunately the alarm sounded by the Left proved valid: from the exception made for the entry of the English communist party into the Labour Party, to mergers with other parties or wings of parties becoming the norm, through to the scandalous dissolution of the Chinese Communist Party in the bourgeois-democratic Kuomintang; from the parliamentary support, also considered an exception, for a social democratic ministry, such as that of Branting’s in Sweden, to the formation of a dubious “government of workers and peasants” in Germany together with professional traitors of the revolutionary proletariat, and finally to the support given to openly bourgeois governments.

I

A lively interest is manifesting itself in many quarters in the tactical direction that the international communist movement is assuming in the current phase of the world crisis, and it is no bad thing to clarify this question both to reassure comrades who seem to be preoccupied with the symptoms of a supposedly “new” stance taken by the International, and to refute, and this is very easy, adversaries who are attempting to speculate on a revision of methods which reconciles the methods of the communists with those, harshly stigmatized and fought against, of opportunists of every type. Let us therefore present on the one hand the current status of the question as expounded in the debates and in international preparation, together with the true meaning of the tactical proposals which have been articulated, and on the other hand our party’s point of view on the subject.

It will be useful to state in advance that the decision on the issue is, from the international perspective, currently under review and discussion, and that any decision is reserved for the meeting of the enlarged Executive Committee, which will take place in Moscow on February 12, and that the opinions of the central committee of our party can be deduced from the text of the theses on tactics adopted by it, which contain the elements of an organic contribution to the solution of the current tactical issue. It cannot be ruled out that the point of view of the Italian party may be different from that of other communist parties, but this does not mean to say that the aforementioned idiocies of the opportunists cannot and should not be rebutted, by showing how their ignorance and lack of sincerity appears even more ridiculous when applied in a risible display of artificial puritanism, or when they misinterpret the results of the magnificent, superior experience of the communist movement as renewed respect for the nonsense they have been rambling on about for so long, all of it characteristic of their incapacity and impotence, and of their sorry profession as publicity agents for the slanders contrived in counter-revolutionary circles.

The Third Congress of the Communist International has not pronounced on the tactical issue of the proposals for the proletarian “united front” by the communist parties based on the platform of immediate and contingent demands. The Congress’s internal discussion on tactics was characterized from a rather negative perspective: the critique of the March Action in Germany and of the so‑called tactic of the offensive. Based on its judgment of this action and its result the Congress came to a series of conclusions concerning the relationships between the communist party and the proletarian masses, which in their guiding spirit are the common patrimony of all Marxist communists, when applied in a healthy and faithful manner. “To the masses” is the watchword of the Third Congress, and it signifies a rebuttal of all the insinuations of the opportunists; since the magnificently realistic point of view of the Third International has nothing in common with a revolutionary sleight of hand that would entrust the transformation of society to the voluntaristic and romantic mission by an elect legion of trailblazers and martyrs. The Communist Party will become the General Staff of the revolution when it knows how to gather around itself the proletarian army, driven by the real developments of the situation into a general struggle against the present regime. The Communist Party must have the largest part of the proletariat behind it.

Entrust these ideas to elements who do not possess the profound critical dialectics and true application of Marxism – elements who may also be in the ranks of the Communist International, but who are certainly not among its leaders even if some stupidly accuse them of being right‑wing – and you will see how erroneous conclusions are drawn, which truly deserve to be spoken of as steps to the right, or as retreats into outmoded attitudes. It is necessary to have the masses and it is necessary to have the Communist Party, resolute and adapted to the revolutionary struggle, free from social-democratic and centrist degeneration: these two conditions are perhaps, or indeed certainly, difficult to achieve because it is tremendouslydifficult to resolve the problems from which the transformation of the world will arise, but they are not two mutually exclusive conditions, so it would be sheer folly to make a simple democratic interpretation of Lenin’s expression “we must have the majority of the proletariat”, an interpretation that would shift the bases of the Communist Party and alter its character and function, because only is it thus possible to include the majority of the masses.

The undeniably Marxist content of the International’s thinking is precisely the opposite, that the conquest of the masses and the formation of authentically communist parties are the two conditions which, far from being mutually exclusive, combine perfectly, so that by developing its tactics towards organizing large proletarian strata the Communist International does not renounce, but rationally develops and employs its own work towards breaking the proletarian political movement away from traitors and incompetents.

A further fundamental concept brought to light by the Third Congress also refers to the most authentic sources of our Marxist thinking and our revolutionary experience, and it can only be regarded as a novelty by those who understand revolutionism in the sense that there is only one certain means to protect oneself from venereal diseases, which is masturbation, and in order to protect the species’ reproductive organs one must renounce their function and reason for existence. We would say instead that the revolutionary party must participate in the movements of working-class groups in pursuit of their temporary interests. The task of the party is to synthesize these initial impulses with the general and supreme action for revolutionary victory: this is achieved not by despising and childishly denying these initial stimuli towards action, but by supporting and developing them in the logical reality of their process, harmonizing them in their confluence with general revolutionary action. It is in these problems that the dialectical content of our method shines forth; it resolves the apparent contradictions of the successive phases of a process as it comes to fruition, and, in discerning in its life and in its dynamics the historical course of the revolution, it has no fear of declaring that while tomorrow will negate today, it does not cease to be its progeny; which means more than simply being its successor. The dangers of such work are obvious: communists are unanimous in considering that in order to overcome them it was necessary to constitute genuine revolutionary parties free from every opportunist vice. The formula with which the Communist International will crush reformism goes far beyond a dignified refusal to place its feet on the territory trodden by reformism. “Do you have this recipe?” the amusing champions of the “intransigent” left of the Italian reformist party seem to be asking. We may well reply that we are developing it, having discovered the first and most important ingredient: the liquidation of centrist and Serratist equivocation.

All of the elements of this kind of discussion, and the proof that on these fundamental tactical cornerstones there is nothing that the most orthodox and extremist amongst us cannot subscribe to, will emerge more and more clearly in the preparation for the debates on the question of tactics at our Congress.

Turning now to the current execution of the tactics of the International, let us remember that the previously mentioned tactic of the united front, although it has not been sanctioned by the Third Congress, was nevertheless previously broached in the well‑known “Open Letter” from the German Communist Party to all the political and economic organizations of the proletariat, calling for common action for the realization of a series of postulates reflecting problems of immediate interest to the masses. Today, the German party seems willing to go further, raising the question in the field of government policy and presenting its position with regard to the constitution of a parliamentary-based proletarian government, which we will discuss in the following discourse.

However, while we await the decisions to be taken by the Communist International, which will no doubt correctly specify the meaning and terms of this, and before indicating in what sense we view this solution, and having also, we may say, tried it out in our party’s practical activity, we would like to make use of the text of the speech that Comrade Zinoviev gave at a meeting of the executive of the International on December 4, 1921, on the subject at hand, to draw from this same speech by the president of the International the proof that it is impossible to speak about any reason for an attenuation or correction, or even a slight contradiction between the current direction and the glorious global communist tradition.

Comrade Zinoviev first examines the state of the issue within the various parties of the International and thus explains the meaning of the united front formula in relation to aspects of the current situation around the world, in order to establish the basis for an international application of such tactics.

It is clear from Zinoviev’s statements that all of the tactical considerations being developed at present are based on the platform of the fundamental assertions of communism, which is the basis for the renewal of the International.

Today more than ever communist militants maintain the necessity of having a centralized and homogeneous communist party as the organ of struggle, and are ready to embrace the most severe disciplinary measures to achieve this objective; more than ever they maintain that only the revolutionary armed struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat are the paths to revolution; more than ever they are convinced that we are experiencing a revolutionary crisis in capitalist society. The question is how we influence this development through the action of the Communist Party in the struggle for dictatorship. We can find and propose various solutions to this problem, but it remains for all of us the one direct objective of our efforts.

Whatever tactic we propose – says Zinoviev – the first condition for its useful application is safeguarding the absolute independence of our party. For this reason, we do not propose mergers. And as we will see, we do not propose blocs or alliances either. It is a matter of patiently pruning away at the simplicity of certain opinions and highlighting cases in which such simplicity hides a guilty and insidious duplicity, counterposing the honest complexity of our methods to their games of means and ends.

Zinoviev goes further, responding directly to the opportunists’ speculations regarding some of our fundamental assertions. Far from rejecting previous splits, we are also prepared for further splits if necessary, since these have only ever increased our freedom of action, allowing us to ride out a situation’s most difficult twists and turns, without ever losing sight of our revolutionary goal, which the opportunists have bartered away a thousand times to the bourgeoisie in exchange for services rendered, even if under cover of the most extreme demagogic proclamations of independence and rectitude.

Far from modifying the communist point of view concerning the use of armed military force in the revolutionary battle, our comrade’s writing claims the German March Action as being an authentic revolutionary action bearing good results. All of the considerations and conclusions that he advances as possible consequences of the March Action are guided by the concept that it is a matter of developing and accelerating and the preparation of the final struggle for the proletarian dictatorship, and that using for this purpose the spontaneous movement of that greater part of the workers, who still do not clearly distinguish the ultimate objective, does not imply a refusal to denounce those who peddle the illusion that the emancipation of workers can be achieved in other ways as traitors to the proletariat. We continue, says Zinoviev, with the work of crystallizing our parties, in which the social-democratic lie is denied citizenship, and not even in our dreams do we renounce criticism of the opportunists of the various yellow internationals. He also clearly states that our view of the present situation, characterized by the capitalist offensive, is that it presents obvious revolutionary tendencies, such that the proposal of a defensive tactic for the whole proletariat makes no sense at all: this would amount to the renunciation of the revolutionary struggle, to be satisfied with maintaining the present condition of the proletariat; whereas on the contrary, to address this immediate problem we consider it necessary to introduce a counteroffensive by the masses, placing them on the path of action, always supported by the communist parties, and only by them. It is no coincidence that the reformist, gradualist and pro‑unity gentlemen are today opposed to our modest “immediate demands” and sabotage the united front of the masses. They know that we want all this because in this way we extend our program’s development by crushing their methods and their defenseless and defeatist organization.

But it is not enough to show that Zinoviev declares his adherence to those positions we hold in common; we can and must (and this will be the subject of a subsequent article) show how he has the right to declare the deductions he has drawn from them to be both coherent and logical, even if we are proposing differences in the details of their application.

II

In the preceding article we insisted that the tactical initiatives supported by the Communist International today, which are summed up in the formula of the proletarian united front, do not imply any renunciation by their proponents of the fundamental directives of the communist movement, which have been affirmed and in particular have been opposed to the equivocal maneuvers of the social democrats.

We have proved this with Zinoviev’s own words. And it would not be difficult to do the same with the explicit statements of those comrades who have put forward proposals that seem more risky, such as those from the headquarters of the German party and from Rote Fahne.

However, our adversaries may object that such verbal declarations of fidelity to principles have no other purpose than to disguise a conversion to the right, while the tactical proposals with which we are concerned contain in themselves a contradiction with the directive followed until now by the Communist International, and with its previous position towards the social-democratic parties. But this is not true, and even if one believes, from the communist point of view and within our own camp, that these proposals, or at least some of the ways in which they are applied, are reprehensible, no one has the right to maintain that we are facing a crisis of principle within the world communist movement, or that we need to recognize substantial errors in the method we have so far supported.

With the enormous sum of theoretical and practical elaborations, of which the Third International is proud, the revolutionary method has passed forever from the initial and embryonic stage of abstract declarations and simplifications to face the test of the real world in all its formidable complexity.

Tactical problems are now understood in a more concrete sense. Whereas previously the positions to be assumed were chosen solely on the basis of their propaganda and educational effect on the masses, today it is a question of having a direct impact on events, and the degree of influence of tactical positions requires the sophistication and capacity to overcome apparent contradictions, which was already perfectly contained in the dialectics of the Marxist method.

The simple critique of reality is completed in its actual demolition; yesterday, adapting to it was tantamount to renouncing the one activity we could engage in to overcome it, today, it could mean seizing reality to subdue and conquer it. The powerful beam of a lighthouse cuts through the darkness in a magnificent straight line, but can be stopped by the most fragile of screens; the flame of the blowtorch licks docilely at metal, but only to soften and melt it, passing victoriously to the other side…

There is no Marxist who does not stand by Lenin in denouncing as an infantile disorder a criterion for action which excludes certain possible initiatives based simply on the consideration that they are not sufficiently straight and aligned within the formal schema of our ideas, with which they clash and create unsightly deformations. That the means can have aspects which are contrary to the ends for which we adopt them lies at the heart of our critical thinking: for an end that is superior, noble and seductive the means may appear wretched, tortuous and vulgar: what matters is being able to calculate their effectiveness, and whoever does so simply on the basis of appearances sinks to the level of a subjective and idealistic view of historical causalities, which is somewhat Quakerish; it ignores the superior resources of our critique, which is today becoming a strategy, and which is brought alive by the brilliant realistic understanding of Marx’s materialism

Are we not the ones who know how dictatorship, violence and terror serve as specific means for the triumph of a social regime of peace and freedom, and are we not the ones who cleared the field of ridiculous liberal and libertarian objections, which only attribute to our method the capacity to establish dark and bloodthirsty oligarchies, because it is conditioned by the outward characteristics of the methods adopted?

As there is no serious argument that can rule out the utility of adopting the bourgeoisie’s own methods to defeat the bourgeoisie, so it is not possible to deny a priori that the adoption of the tactics of the social democrats cannot defeat the social democrats.

We do not want to be misunderstood and we will postpone an explanation of our thinking until later on, and those who want to understand its main outlines in any case only need to study our theses on tactics. When we say that the field of possible and admissible tactics cannot be restricted by considerations dictated by a falsely doctrinal over-simplification, metaphysically dedicated to formal comparisons and preoccupied with purity and rectitude as ends in themselves, we do not mean that the field of tactics should remain boundless and that all methods are good to achieve our purposes. It would be an error to entrust the difficult resolution of the search for suitable methods to the simple consideration that there is an intention to use them to achieve communist objectives. You would only be repeating the mistake which consists in rendering an objective problem subjective, having contented yourself with the fact that if you choose, prepare and direct initiatives, you have decided to struggle for communist outcomes and allow yourself to be guided by the latter.

There exists, and therefore it can always be elaborated better, a criterion that is profoundly Marxist and anything but infantile, which sets the limits to tactical initiatives. It has nothing to do with the preconceptions and prejudices of a mistaken extremism, but is a criterion which arrives by another path at a useful forecast of the otherwise complex links connecting the tactical expedients we apply to the results we expect from them.

Zinoviev says that precisely because we have strong parties that are independent of opportunist influences, we can risk applying tactics that would be dangerous if our preparation and maturity were weaker. It is true that the fact that a tactic is dangerous is insufficient reason to condemn it: it is just one of the considerations that must be applied to assess it; it is really a question of judging the element of risk in relation to the possible benefits. On the other hand, as the revolutionary party’s ability to take the initiative grows, the maturing situation tends in general to carry its effort forward in an increasingly precise direction, making the outcome of any action more clearly apparent.

In short, in the analysis of the tactical proposals that are presented today, it is necessary to avoid hasty oversimplification. This alone can lead one to say that the German Communist Party, by proposing joint action with the independent and majority social democrats, repudiates the reason for its formation through splits from the one and the other. As soon as you consider the matter, you identify an infinite number of differences and new perspectives, which are in fact more important than any formal reconciliation.

First of all, Zinoviev usefully observes that an alliance is not the same thing as a merger. The organizational split from certain political elements can make it less difficult to do some work with them.

Then there is this: that proposing a united front is not the same thing as proposing an alliance. We know what is meant by a political alliance in the vulgar sense: you sacrifice or keep quiet about certain parts of your own program in order to meet halfway. But the tactic of the united front as understood by us communists does not contain these elements of renunciation on our part. They remain only as a potential danger: which we believe becomes preponderant if the base of the united front is removed from the field of direct proletarian action and trade union organization and encroaches on that of parliament and government; and we will say for what reasons, connected to the logical development of the latter tactic.

The proletarian united front is not about a banal joint committee of representatives of various organizations, in favor of which communists relinquish their independence and freedom of action, bartering it for a degree of influence over the movements of a larger mass than would follow it if they acted alone. It is something completely different.

We propose the united front because we feel certain the situation is such that the joint movements of the proletariat as a whole, when they pose problems which are not of interest to just one category or locality, but to all of them, can only achieve their aims by taking the communist road, that is to say, the road we would take them down if it depended on us to guide the entire proletariat. We propose the defense of immediate interests and of the existing conditions of the proletariat against the bosses’ attacks, because this defense, which has never been at odds with our revolutionary principles, can be made only by preparing for and launching the offensive in all its revolutionary ramifications, just as we intend to do.

In such a situation (and we won’t repeat here the considerations that would be required to demonstrate that it had reached this point of maturation, relating to the economic and political manifestations of the capitalist offensive) we can offer an agreement whereby we do not demand that the other parties accept, for example, the method of armed action or struggle for the proletarian dictatorship; but if we do not demand this, it is not because we think that it is better for the moment to renounce it all, and be satisfied with less, but because it is useless to formulate such proposals when we know that carrying them out would be constrained simply by having agreed to defend the modest objectives of the demands that would serve as a platform for the united front.

As soon as our understanding of the dialectical basis of this situation is deepened, we see that all of the intransigently simplistic objections completely collapse. “An alliance with the defeatists and those who betray the revolution, to support the revolution?” exclaims the appalled communist of the Fourth International stamp, or the centrist bootlicker of the type between the Second and the Third. But let us not dwell on this terminological exercise, or even say that we are infallible communists, we know what we are doing, everything we do is assuredly inspired by its revolutionary purpose, and we can even negotiate with the devil. On the contrary let us we respond with a critical examination of the situation and the developments that may arise from it, which will soothe our fears that things will go as… the devil wants.

The Marxist left current always supported intransigence, and had a thousand reasons to do so when the reformists proposed alliances with particular bourgeois parties. Such alliances would in fact have had the certain effect of paralyzing the organic development of a party capable of revolutionary propaganda and, in subsequent situations, of revolutionary preparation and action, while its results would have effectively marked out a path for the proletariat which, being just a blind alley, simply used up its energies in supporting bourgeois order. There is no question of renouncing this intransigence today. In the first place, collaborating with bourgeois parties and collaborating with parties whose members are recruited from the proletariat, with the implicit condition that they renounce the bourgeois bloc, is not even formally the same thing. And it is not even a collaboration that one wants to establish with such parties, but a very different kind of relationship, on the basis of which the Communist Party does not divert its attention and effort away from its own revolutionary objectives to focus on lesser ones, hoping that the social-democratic counter-revolutionaries can embrace this goal with a turn to the left, half reformist and half revolutionary; rather, it is based on the conviction that we must continue to fight for the communist program, and that the opportunists will continue to work for the counter-revolution, the purpose being to generate a situation from which there will emerge a struggle in which the entire proletariat is behind the communist line, after which the opportunists will have been definitively unmasked, having been brought face to face with their own promises of gradual and peaceful conquests.

The definition of the precise terms of the united front tactic is therefore a delicate issue for communists. It is necessary to be able to translate it into practice, and it is necessary to guarantee that it does not deviate from those characteristics that not only make it compatible with our objectives, but is also shown to be working towards them in a situation like today’s.

All this can and must be discussed, having done justice to the fears of certain puritan old maids, as well as the bland complacency of highly experienced prostitutes, who predict for others the same downfall as their own.

III

Before we proceed to the final part of this treatise, where we will express our own point of view, we do not want to pass over expositions on this subject made by other comrades and organizations of the Communist International, before commenting further on the spirit that animates some other documents that appeared later on. A new article by Radek, “The Immediate Tasks of the Communist International”, which completes his other paper, “Before the New Struggles”, and also two official documents: the manifesto of the workers of all countries, by the Communist International and the International of Red Trade Unions, and the theses adopted by the Executive Committee in the session of December 18, which will be published in our newspapers in full.

Again, the basis for all discussions and decisions regarding the tactics to be followed is not at all a retreat from the positions on which the International fights. More than ever, it is a case of opening the road to the victory of the proletarian revolution on the only path it can take: the violent overthrow of bourgeois power and the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship.

The problem consists in bringing forces able prevail over the defensive and counter-revolutionary resources of the world bourgeoisie onto the terrain of the struggle for the dictatorship. These forces can only be drawn from the ranks of the working class. But in order to defeat the capitalist adversary, it is necessary to concentrate the efforts of the entire proletariat on revolutionary terrain. This has always been the fundamental role of the class party, according to the Marxist point of view. This means achieving real, not merely mechanical, unity; it means having unity for the revolution, not unity for itself. This objective is achieved by following the path embarked on so resolutely by the Third International after the war: concentrating in the ranks of the communist parties the elements that have a conception of the revolutionary necessity of the struggle, that do not allow themselves to be diverted by the attainment of partial and limited ends, that do not want to collaborate in any situation with fractions of the bourgeoisie. Based on this initial platform, and having passed judgment on the whole range of degenerations within the movement, these elements constitute the nucleus around which the effective unity of the masses is achieved in a progressive process whose speed and ease depend on the objective situation and the tactical capabilities of the communists.

In his articles, Radek does not even remotely put any of this in doubt. The tactical resources he puts forward are those that he says may be needed (given the current situation) to push broad battalions of the proletariat into the struggle for revolutionary dictatorship.

We have seen how the general situation is characterized by the capitalist offensive against the conditions of life of the proletariat, because capitalism feels that it cannot avoid catastrophe without stepping up the exploitation of the workers. At the same time that capitalism depresses the masses economically by means of economic and political offensives, it takes the opportunity to pursue its own reorganization; but equally, by accentuating the character of industrial imperialism, it moves towards the abyss of another war. This is the unanimous communist judgment of the situation, the consequence of which is the urgent need for the proletariat to respond with a revolutionary counter-attack, and to speed this up, and to speed this up, it is necessary to identify the ways in which the developments of such a situation can be used for revolutionary ends. From this it follows, as we have seen, that even a purely defensive economic struggle of the proletariat poses the problem of revolutionary action and the crushing of capitalism. Why was it not revolutionary to demand a significant increase in wages in the past, whereas today it is revolutionary to demand that they are not reduced? Because the first action could be pursued by limited local and professional groups of workers, in a haphazard way, whereas the second action, which has become necessary today, and which is the only one possible unless the proletariat renounces all forms of association and organization, requires all of the workers’ forces to take to the field, beyond sectoral and local divisions, and indeed on a worldwide scale.

The old formal and federalist unity of traditional social democracy, which barely disguised the divisions in groups of interests and separate movements under the cloak of empty rhetoric, including division into national proletarian parties, is yielding its position in this decisive period of capitalist evolution to the true unity of the working class, which is irresistibly leading to a harmonious centralization of the world proletarian movement. The Communist International has already given this movement the skeleton of unitary organization as well as the soul of revolutionary theoretical consciousness. The proletariat is still divided as regards ideas and political opinions, but there will be unity in action. Do we claim that unity of doctrine and political faith must, according to who knows what abstract criterion, precede unity of action? No, because that would be to turn on its head the Marxist method, which we staunchly support, and which tells us how, from the effective unity of the movement created by the dissolution of capitalism, there must necessarily arise a unity of consciousness and political doctrine.

This realistic approach to the unity of all workers in concrete action will also win their unity in the profession of their political faith, based on communist political faith, and not simply on a shapeless jumble of current political trends. That is to say, we will gain unity of action by means of the revolutionary postulates of communism.

All of us are willing to make whatever sacrifices are needed to move things forward at this favorable juncture. It is a question of having understood the situation well and of taking into account that its later phases will involve a long road ahead. Radek proposes the united front of the proletariat not only to address the problems of resistance to the capitalist offensive, but also to address the question of government. He is referring to the situation confronting the German proletariat. In Germany there is a special economic situation, not because a barrier separates it from the rest of the world, but because the process that characterizes the global crisis finds its focus in what is happening in the German-speaking countries.

Let’s speak of the formidable problem of the reparations that must be paid to the victors. The German productive class is making an incalculable effort to pile up products destined for foreign markets in order to realize the value of war reparations that must be paid to the Entente. But this is only achieved by means of the most shameless exploitation of the proletariat. The German Government, whoever it is, must concern itself with this supreme problem: where to find the billions needed to pay reparations. The entire fragile edifice of the attempted capitalist reconstruction rests on the solution to this problem. Radek appears to be convinced that if a workers’ government were formed on the basis that it is German capitalists who must pay, rather than workers and other poorer social strata, this would bring about a situation in which the only outcome would be the struggle of the German proletariat for the dictatorship and the sabotage of the bourgeois world program.

This necessity is felt by the German proletariat only in a superficial sense, at least by the part of it that identifies with the social-democratic parties, who are strong in parliament. Therefore the proletariat pushes them into power. If they take it, the problem of civil war will arise. If they do not, the masses will abandon them. But they could find a way to save their opportunism with the following argument: that the communists are preventing them from making this bold gesture, thereby creating an alibi for collaboration with the bourgeoisie. Radek believes it would be good to take away this alibi. We grant him his opinion, but we insist on the fact that even the German comrades who act in this way have not lost sight of the directives for the maximum communist goals, and, what is more, by remaining insistent on this point, we are setting another goal: that of encouraging many of our comrades, especially the young and the audacious, to despise the simplistic laziness that can take refuge behind a preconception or a cliché, without penetrating the complexity of the tactical arguments arising from an analysis of the current circumstances; thus depriving themselves of the most effective means of intervening in a debate of this type and engaging in the enormous work of preparation that is needed to avoid falling into the ever-present trap of opportunism.

Finally, with respect to the official documents of the International, we shall restrict ourselves to pointing out that the manifesto is addressed neither to the parties nor to the trade union organs of the other Internationals, but to the proletariat of all countries. The very fact that workers adhering to Christian and liberal unions are invited to join the united front demonstrates the difference between the two concepts: nobody would think of a united front with Christian and liberal parties.

And if, on the other hand, the theses of the Executive Committee for now avoid making a general theoretical framework for the question, they establish some very important points, such as the organizational independence of our communist parties, and not only that, but also their absolute freedom, as they embark on the united front initiative, to criticize and take issue with the parties and the organizations of the Second International and the Second-and-a-Half International: freedom to act “on the field of ideas”, for our very specific program; unity of action of the entire proletarian front.

This apparent contradiction or change of position is neither a novelty, nor an unusual conclusion. The party’s view of it must be robust and all‑encompassing: among the masses, it must be conducted with infinite precaution and a sense of perspective, by propagandizing its most salient aspects and gradually developing its mechanism, which will be laid bare by the facts themselves.

It is inevitable that the masses, setting out with this superficial notion (of either moving towards a split or towards unity) imagine that the two directions are opposed to one another. But in reality it is not like that. Unity of the workers and separation from degenerate elements and especially from treasonable leaders are, on the contrary, two parallel victories; we have known this for a long time and the masses will only see it at the end of the exercise. What is essential is that this should be understood in the sense of the struggle, of resistance against capitalist impositions.

Freedom and independence of organization and internal discipline, of propaganda, of criticism; unity in action: this is what the communist parties must put forward and achieve in order to win.

The formal juxtaposition is no more than what has always been expressed by our slogan: workers of the world, unite. Thanks to this, we unmasked as traitors those who divided the proletariat during the war, who divide it in the day‑to‑day activity of the trade unions by preventing the thousands of disputes and struggles that are currently taking place from merging into one. This juxtaposition is not only the reason we are in favor of more severe political selection, but also the reason we are for the unity of union organization, a conception and tactic that the party can verify through day‑to‑day results, since the positive progress of our struggle against Italian reformist opportunism is the result of our tactical position, according to which after the political split of Livorno we were determined to remain in the trade union organizations, in spite of them being directed by the reformists from whom we had separated; and we stayed there to combat them effectively.

The problem, therefore, must be considered on two levels. The Communist International does not return to yesterday’s work, but reaps its rewards on this path that leads to the double result of having a revolutionary political movement at the head of the proletariat, and having the entire proletariat rallying around its banner.

IV

In the preceding articles we set ourselves an explanatory purpose, to describe the current status of the question of the “united front” in the presently much debated official documents of the Communist International and statements of certain communist parties and comrades. At the same time we have sought to get our readers to identify with the method which, in order to deliberate on such questions, must be adopted if we wish to live up to the historical and tactical experience of the Communist International, and permanently rise above the mental laziness of over-simplification, and the practical sterility of actions driven by a phobia of formal preconceptions. And through this exposition we have wished to reclaim the right of these comrades of ours to develop their tactical plans so that we are judged to have adopted a very different stance to the highly despicable one adopted by the opportunists, who wait in vain for communists to give up the firm and solidly revolutionary content of their thinking and their action.

We will now briefly express our thinking, which is rather more than in a personal capacity, since we will be referring to the exhaustive discussions which have taken place on the subject in the Executive Committee of our party to provide the mandate to the comrades who will represent it at the forthcoming meeting in Moscow. It will be no mystery to anyone that the thesis defended by the Italian Communists will be somewhat different, or if we want to use the old expression, further “left” than that represented, for example, by Radek and supported by comrades in Germany; let us indicate to all comrades, and especially the young and generically “extremist”, how much greater the weight of our party’s contribution to the discussions about such a difficult problem will be if we show that our divergence is not born of particular misunderstandings, but of an examination of the question conducted with perfect consciousness of its limitations, taking into account all the elements from which other comrades’ thinking is deduced without entrenching ourselves in absurd denials of certain conclusions, which would convince no‑one. And we reaffirm this incontrovertible fact before all: there is no danger of the Communist International abandoning, albeit minimally, the platform of revolutionary Marxism, from which it has issued its war cry to the masses of the world proletariat against the capitalist regime and all of its supporters and accomplices, great and small.

We refer comrades to that analysis of the present situation, on which we all undoubtedly agree, which summarizes the diagnosis of the bourgeois offensive as a result of this phase in the crisis of capitalism. We also say that we definitively accept, insofar as our tactical conclusions are based on the Marxist method, the thesis that agitation and revolutionary preparation is mainly done in the field of the proletariat’s struggles for economic demands. This realistic view explains the tactic of trade union unity, which is fundamental for us communists, to the same degree as our ruthless distancing ourselves from any hint of opportunism in the political field. In the same way, the tactical position that our party upholds today in Italy, with the campaign for the united front of all workers against the bosses’ offensive, is timely and very successful. In this instance the united front means common action by all labor categories, all local and regional groups of workers, all national trade union organizations of the proletariat; and far from signifying a muddle of different political methods, it goes hand‑in‑hand with the most effective way of winning the masses over to the one political method that shows them the path to their emancipation: the communist method. Doctrine and practice converge in confirming that no obstacle or opposition is found in the fact that, as a platform of mass agitation, concrete and momentary economic demands are formulated, and as a form of action a movement of the proletariat as a whole is proposed in the field of direct action, guided by their class organizations, the trade unions. The direct result of all this is an intensification of the ideological and material training of the proletariat for the struggle against the bourgeois State, together with the campaign against the false counselors of opportunism of every hue.

With tactics delineated in this way, leaving aside the varieties of application that can be thought of as dependent on the various situations in the various countries of proletarian parties and trade union organizations, we find nothing that would compromise the two fundamental and parallel conditions of the revolutionary process; that is to say, on the one hand the existence and consolidation of a solid political party founded on a clear consciousness of the path to revolution, and on the other hand the growing combination of the great masses, impelled instinctively to action by the economic situation, in the struggle against capitalism, a struggle in which the party provides direction and a general staff.

When we wish instead to examine the influence on our common objectives (to facilitate and accelerate the victory of the proletariat in the struggle to overthrow bourgeois power and institute the dictatorship) of other tactical approaches, such as the one proposed by the Communist Party in Germany and set out in articles by Karl Radek, approaches which entail a plan of action for the proletariat to intervene in the political mechanism of the democratic State, it must be noted that the characteristics of the problem, and therefore the conclusions to be reached, change radically.

The picture presented by Radek is based on clear analogies with that of the situation of capitalist offensive from which we set out to define our tactic of the single trade union front. We have the proletariat, which sees its exploitation being massively intensified by the employers, owing to the irresistible influence of the general situation on the latter’s action and the pressure it exerts. We communists, and the comrades who are with us, know perfectly well that the only way out is through the violent overthrow of bourgeois power; but the masses, because of their limited degree of political consciousness and because their mood is still influenced by the social‑democratic leaders, do not see it as an immediate way out and are not taking to this revolutionary path, even if the Communist Party wants to set them an example. The masses think and believe that some kind of intervention by the State authorities could solve the acute economic problem. Therefore they want a government which, as in Germany, decides that the burden of war reparations must fall on the class of the great industrialists and business owners, or else expects the State to implement a law on working hours, on unemployment, on workers’ control. As with the case of demands to be obtained by trade union action, the Communist Party should embrace this attitude and initial impulse of the masses and join with the other forces that propose or talk about winning advantages by means of the peaceful conquest of parliamentary government, and setting in motion the proletariat on the path of this experiment in order to profit from its inevitable failure, with a view to provoking the proletarian struggle on the basis of overthrowing bourgeois power and the victory of the dictatorship.

We believe that such a plan is based on a contradiction and in practice contains the elements of an inevitable failure. There is no doubt that the Communist Party must also resolve to utilize the non‑conscious moods of the broad masses, and cannot restrict itself to negative, purely theoretical preaching when it is faced with a general tendency towards other paths of action that are not specific to its own doctrine and praxis. But this utilization can only be productive if, by placing itself on the terrain on which the broad masses move, and thus working at one of the two factors essential for revolutionary success, we are sure that we are not compromising the other no less indispensable factor, which consists of the existence and progressive strengthening of the party, together with the organization of the part of the proletariat that has already been brought onto the terrain where the party’s slogans are having an effect.

In considering whether this danger does or does not exist, it should be borne in mind that, as long and painful historical experience teaches, the party as an organism and the degree of its political influence are not inviolable, but are subject to all of the influences of events as the unfold.

If one day, after a more or less prolonged period of struggles and incidents, the working masses should finally arrive at the vague realization that any attempted counter-attack is useless unless it fights back against the bourgeois State apparatus itself, but in the earlier stages of the struggle the organization of the Communist Party and those of the movements on its flanks (such as the trade union and the military organization) had been seriously compromised, the proletariat would find itself deprived of the very weapons it needs for its struggle, the indispensable contribution of the minority that possesses a clear vision of the tasks that need to be carried out, and which, by holding onto this vision over a long period, had undertaken the indispensable training, and equipped itself with the indispensable weaponry, in the broad sense of the term, that is needed to ensure the victory of the broad masses.

We think that this would happen, demonstrating the sterility of all tactical plans like those we are examining, if the Communist Party overwhelmingly and blatantly assumed a political stance that annulled and invalidated its inviolable character as the party of opposition in relation to the State and other political parties.

We believe we are able to demonstrate, from both critical and practical perspectives, that this thesis has nothing abstract about it, nor does it derive from the desire, in the context of this complex argument, to create arbitrary schemas. Rather, it responds to a concrete and exhaustive assessment of the subject.

The Communist Party’s stance of active political opposition is not a doctrinal luxury but, as we will see, a concrete condition of the revolutionary process.

In fact, active opposition means constant preaching of our theses on the inadequacy of all action directed towards conquering power by democratic means and of all political struggle that would like to remain on legal and peaceful terrain, fidelity to this stance being exercised through constant criticism of the work of governments and legal parties while avoiding any joint responsibility for it; and through the creation, drilling and training of the organs of struggle that only an anti‑legalist party such as ours can build, outside and against the mechanism that is solely there for the defense of the bourgeoisie.

This method is theoretical insofar as it is indispensable that a leading minority should possess theoretical consciousness, and is organizational insofar as, while the majority of the proletariat is not mature for a revolutionary struggle, it provides for the constitution and education of cadres of the revolutionary army.

In this respect, loyal as we are to the radiant tradition of the Communist International, we do not apply to the political parties the same criterion we do to the trade union economic organisms, that is to say, we judge them not on the basis of their recruitment of members and the class terrain on which they recruit, but on the basis of their attitude towards the State and its representative machinery. A party that voluntarily remains within the confines of the law, or can conceive of no other political action than that which can be developed without the use of violence against the civil institutions of the bourgeois democratic constitution, is not a proletarian party but rather a bourgeois party; and in a certain sense, the mere fact that a political movement, even those that place themselves outside the boundaries of the law (like syndicalist and anarchist movements), refuses to accept the concept of the State organization of the proletarian revolutionary power, i.e. the dictatorship, is enough for us to deliver this negative judgment.

At this point we can only state the platform defended by our party: proletarian trade union united front, unceasing political opposition towards the bourgeois government and all the legal parties.

We will cover developments within our organization in the next article.

We do not however want to omit to mention that if parliamentary and governmental collaboration are completely excluded from the moment that we adopt such a platform, we nevertheless do not renounce, as we will show, a much better and less risky use of those demands that the masses are led to make in the form of requests to the State authorities or to other parties, in so far as they can be supported independently as outcomes to be achieved by means of direct action, external pressure and criticism of the policies of government by all the other parties.

V

We wish to conclude these notes of ours, written during the discussion of the problem at hand and taking into account factors that were only just emerging, with a presentation of the arguments that support the position assumed by our Party’s Executive Committee, according to which the proletariat’s unity of action must be pursued and carried out on the basis of the policy of opposition to the bourgeois State and the legalitarian parties, a position which the Communist Party must develop ceaselessly. If the repetition of some essential points has not helped in setting out our position, they in no way harm the intended purpose: to draw comrades’ full attention to the delicate and complex terms of the problem under discussion.

We would like to point out that there is a useful distinction to be made between the subjective and objective conditions for the revolution. The objective conditions consist of the economic situation and the direct pressure it exerts on the proletarian masses; the subjective ones refer to the degree of consciousness and combativeness of the proletariat and, above all, of its vanguard, the Communist Party.

An indispensable objective condition is the participation in the struggle of the broadest layer of the masses, directly spurred on by economic motives, even if for the most part they have no consciousness of the development of the struggle in its entirety; a subjective condition is the existence, in an increasingly numerous minority, of a clear vision of the needs of the movement going forward, accompanied by a readiness to support and direct the final phases of the struggle. Let us admit that it would be anti‑Marxist not only to pretend that all workers involved in the struggle had a clear awareness of its development and a strong-willed orientation towards its aims, but equally anti‑Marxist to seek such a “state of perfection” in every Communist Party militant, when the subjective conditions for revolutionary action reside in the formation of a collective organ, the Party, which is at one and the same time a school (in the sense of a theoretical tendency) and an army with the corresponding hierarchy and relevant training.

But we believe that it would fall into a subjectivism no less anti‑Marxist, because it is voluntaristic in the bourgeois sense, if the subjective conditions were condensed into the enlightened will of a group of leaders, who could take the forces of the Party and of others over which it exerts an influence down the most complex tactical paths, regardless of the influence exerted on these forces by the development of the action itself and the method chosen to take it forward.

This is because the Party is not the invariable and incorruptible “subject”, the “enactor”, of abstruse philosophies, but is in its turn an objective element of the situation. The solution to the very difficult problem of party tactics is not yet analogous to problems of a military nature; in politics you can adjust, but you cannot manipulate the situation to your liking: the facts governing the problem are not our army and the enemy’s army, but the formation of the army, from indifferent strata and from the ranks of the enemy itself (and as much on one side as on the other) while hostilities are taking place.

The best use of the objective revolutionary conditions, without any danger of ignoring the subjective ones, indeed with the certainty of developing them brilliantly, arises from taking part in and spurring on the mass actions around economic and defensive demands, which are prompted by the bosses’ offensive in the current state of the capitalist crisis, as we have already said. Thus, by supporting the masses in following the impulses they already feel in a clear and powerful way, we lead them along the revolutionary path that we have marked out, certain that we will overcome the subjective conditions ranged against us, and that the masses will be faced with the need to fight for the revolution in general, for which our party will provide them with a theoretical and technical toolset, which the struggle itself will improve and enhance. Our party’s independent political position will allow it to carry out, in the course of action, the ideal and material revolutionary preparation which has been lacking in other situations (even if they also impelled the masses into struggle) because of, among other reasons, the absence of a minority, differentiated with regard to revolutionary consciousness and preparation for the decisive forms of struggle.

The bourgeoisie’s defensive strategy is to oppose the proletarian revolution with subjective counter-conditions, offsetting the objective revolutionary pressure born of the difficulties and obstacles of the world crisis with the resources of a political and ideological monopoly over the proletariat’s activity, through which the ruling class attempts to mobilize the hierarchy of proletarian leadership.

Through the organizations of the social-democratic parties, a vast section of the proletariat is trapped by bourgeois ideology the lack of a revolutionary ideology, and we refer here not so much to the ideological conceptions of individuals but rather to the tendency to act collectively on the basis of a firm line and an organization of struggle in the political field. The bourgeoisie and its allies work within the proletariat to spread the conviction that violent methods are not required in its struggle to improve its standard of living, and that the peaceful employment of the democratic representative apparatus within the orbit of legal institutions are the weapons it should use. Such illusions severely undermine the chances of revolution because at a certain point they are bound to fail, but at the same time such a failure will not cause the masses to lend their support to the struggle against the bourgeois legal and State apparatus by means of the revolutionary war, nor proclaim and support the class dictatorship, the sole means of crushing the enemy class. The proletariat’s reluctance and inexperience in the use these crucial weapons will be entirely to the bourgeoisie’s advantage. Thus the task of the Communist Party is to destroy, among as many proletarians as possible, this subjective repugnance towards delivering the decisive blow against the enemy, and to prepare it for what will be required in order to take such action.

Although it is fanciful to pursue this task by means of the ideological preparation and drilling in class warfare of every single proletarian, it is nevertheless indispensable to ensure it by developing and consolidating a collective organism whose work and behavior in this sphere represents an appeal to the largest possible part of the working class, so that by possessing a point of reference and support the inevitable disillusionment which will eventually dispel the democratic lies will be followed by an effective conversion to the methods of revolutionary struggle. In this sense we cannot win without the majority of the proletariat, that is, while the majority of the proletariat is still on the political platform of legality and social democracy; the Third Congress stated as much, and it was right. But this is precisely why we must make sure that these tactics are adopted in such a way that, within the movements of the masses, which are provoked by objective economic conditions, there is a progressive increase in the number of adherents within this minority who, having the Communist Party as a nucleus, have based their action and preparation on anti-legalist terrain.

From the critical point of view and from that of the real practical experiences that we possess, nothing stands in the way of a transition from the action of the broad masses for demands that capitalism neither wants to, nor is able to, concede and against which it will deploy the open reaction of both regular and irregular forces, to the action for the total emancipation of the working class, because both the one and the other have become impossible without the overthrow of the bourgeois politico-military control apparatus, against which the workers are led, whereas the Communist Party had already organized itself for the struggle against it, bringing together a section of the masses; a party which has never in the course of the struggle concealed the reality that we must struggle against forces of this nature, and has taken upon itself the first phase of the battle by means of guerrilla class warfare, through direct action, through revolutionary conspiracy.

On the other hand everything leads us to condemn, as something very different and with an opposite effect, the attempt to transfer the front of the broad masses from an action which, even though it has objective demands that are immediate and accessible to the masses, takes place on the political platform of legal democracy, to an action that is anti-legalitarian and for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Here it is not about changes in objectives, but about changes in the plan of action, of its organization, of its methods. Such a tactical conversion is only possible, in our opinion, in the minds of condottieri who have forgotten the equilibrium of Marxist dialectics and imagine they are already working with an army of perfectly drilled and trained automatons rather than with tendencies and capacities that are still in the course of being developed among elements who need to be organized but who are always prone to relapsing into the inconsistencies of individual and decentralized actions.

The path of the revolution becomes a blind alley if the proletariat, in order to realize that the multi‑colored façade of liberal and popular democracy conceals the iron bastions of the class State, were to proceed to the bitter end without thinking to equip itself with the appropriate means of demolishing the last decisive obstacle, until the point when the ferocious forces of reaction, armed to the teeth, emerge from the fortress of bourgeois domination and throw themselves against it. The Party is necessary to the revolutionary victory inasmuch as it is necessary that, well before it, a minority of the proletariat starts shouting incessantly at the rest that they must take up arms for the final battle, equipping and training themselves for the inevitable struggle. This is precisely why the Party, in order to accomplish its specific task, must not only preach and show through reasoned arguments that the peaceful and legal path is an insidious one, but must prevent the most advanced section of the proletariat from being lulled to sleep by democratic illusions, and assign it to formations which, on the one hand, begin to ready themselves for the technical requirements of the struggle by confronting the sporadic actions of bourgeois reaction, and on the other hand get themselves, and a large section of the masses close to them, used to the political and ideological requirements of decisive action through unremitting criticism of the social democratic parties and fighting against them inside the trade unions.

The social-democratic experiment is bound to happen in certain situations and it should be utilized by communists, but one shouldn’t think of this “utilization” as an abrupt act which happens at the end of the experiment, but rather as the result of an incessant critique, which would have been carried out by the Communist Party, and for which a clear separation of responsibility is indispensable.

Hence our idea that the Communist Party can never abandon its position of political opposition to the State and to the other parties, since we consider this to be a part of its work of constructing the subjective conditions for the revolution, its very raison d’être.

A communist party confused with the pacifist and legalistic parties of social democracy, in a political, parliamentary or governmental campaign, no longer absolves the function of the Communist Party. At the end of such a phase, objective conditions will present the fatal predicament of the revolutionary war, the imperative of assaulting and destroying the capitalist State machine; subjectively any hopes placed by the proletariat in bloodless and legal methods will have been disappointed, but it will lack the synthesis of objective and subjective conditions which the independent preparation of the Communist Party and of the minority that it had managed to gather around itself would have supplied. A situation will arise no different in practice from that which the Italian Socialist Party experienced on many occasions when it consisted of opposing tendencies; the masses disappointed by the failure of reformist methods expect a slogan that never arrives because the extreme elements do not have an independent organization, do not know their strength, are sharing responsibility with the various reformists in the face of general distrust while no‑one has thought of charting the features of an organization that can function, struggle and wage war, just as the implacable prospect of civil war looms large.

For all these reasons, our party states that there should be no talk of alliances on the political front with other parties, even if they do call themselves “proletarian”, nor of subscribing to programs which imply a participation by the Communist Party in the democratic conquest of the State. This does not exclude the possibility of proposing and backing claims, achievable through proletarian pressure, which would be enacted by means of decisions of the political power of the State, and which the social democrats say they want to and can achieve through the latter, since such action does not reduce the level of initiative which the proletariat has achieved by direct struggle.

For example, one of our demands for the united front to be supported with the national general strike is assistance for the unemployed by the industrialist class and by the State, but we refuse any complicity with the cheap trickery of the “concrete” programs of State policy proposed by the socialist party and the reformist trade union bosses, even if they were to agree to propose them as the program of a “worker’s” government instead of the one they dream of in a respectable and fraternal collusion with the parties of the ruling class.

There is a great difference between supporting a measure (which we could call “reform” in a parody of old debates) from inside or from outside the State, a difference which is determined by how situations evolve. With direct action by the masses from the outside, if the State is unable or unwilling to give way, you arrive at the struggle to overthrow it; if it does give way, even partially, the method of anti‑legalist means of action will be valorized and practiced; whereas with the method of conquering from within, if that fails, like the plan that is being advocated today, it is no longer possible to count on forces capable of attacking the State machine, their process of aggregation around an independent nucleus having been interrupted.

The action of the broad masses in the united front therefore can only be achieved in the context of direct action and co‑operation with the trade unions in all places and of whatever category and tendency, and it is up to the Communist Party to initiate this agitation, since the other parties, by supporting the inaction of the masses in the face of the provocations of the ruling and exploiting class and by diverting it onto the legal and democratic terrain of the State, have shown that they have deserted the proletarian cause, allowing us to push to the maximum the struggle to lead the proletariat into action with communist directives and with communist methods, upheld alongside the humblest section of the exploited, who just want a crust of bread or are defending it against the insatiable greed of the bosses, but against the mechanism of the current institutions and against whoever places themselves on their terrain.