ON THE EVE OF THE ELECTIONS

Il Comunista, May 15, 1921

Italian proletarians !

On the eve of the conclusion of the electoral struggle, the Communist Party, which presents its lists for your suffrage, wants and must address one more word to you.

Our steadfast consistency with the truth of our doctrines and the honour of our flag, even and above all amidst the adversities of the present period, was reaffirmed in the manifestos launched by our Party at the beginning of the electoral struggle and on the occasion of May Day, and the Communist International, of which our Party is an integral part, has also addressed its appeal to you on both occasions.

So you know that we are taking up the struggle, that we are also taking up this episode in the class struggle, which the elections represent, with the entire unchanged baggage of our revolutionary programme, of our faith in the advent of communism.

We ask you to place the communist ballot in the ballot box to reaffirm that in Italy an immense number of exploited, of rebels, are in solidarity with the thought and work of the world communist revolution, whose flag is planted victoriously in Moscow, whose phalanxes fight in all the countries of the world against the same enemy: capitalism.

We affirm, with the Third International, and put into action, the need for the voice of communist propaganda and revolutionary incitement to be carried at election rallies and in bourgeois parliaments by representatives of the proletariat, chosen and strictly disciplined by its class party, the Communist Party.

At the same time we affirm that neither the ballot paper nor action in parliament will ever be able to give you, not just the achievements of economic, political and moral emancipation from the bourgeois yoke, but not even victory against the reactionary counteroffensive that the ruling class has unleashed against you today, or the alleviation of the storm of violence that is raging against your class institutions. We affirm that, by casting your communist ballot in the ballot box, you will not have made use of a decisive weapon that can defeat your adversary, but only affirmed and cemented, in the moral strength of a unanimous collective affirmation of the proletarian multitudes, your intention to follow in revolutionary action on the same terrain, with the same weapons, those much more offensive weapons that your adversary wields against you.

Neither electoral action nor parliamentary action will give you the means to change the exploitative conditions in which the bourgeois regime holds you, to begin in the slightest a work of reconstruction amidst the ruins with which it has sown the world. The struggle against bourgeois reaction, the work of reconstruction of economic life can only be undertaken on the basis of the organisation of proletarian force with the aim of overthrowing the power of the capitalist class, first defeating its regular and irregular armed forces, then breaking the very apparatus of the lying parliamentary democracy to establish the dictatorship of the proletarian councils. Voting for the communists means joining the phalanxes of the revolutionary army that will mobilise its forces tomorrow for this holy war of proletarian emancipation.

Workers!

Those who call you to the polls with other intentions, presenting your participation in them as the means to definitively emerge from the harshness of the situation, are deceiving you; and more culpable is the deception if it comes, rather than from the bourgeois parties, from the socialist party, which pretends to represent the interests of your class.

The electionism of the socialist party is only worthwhile to numb the revolutionary impulse in you, and will result in the bourgeoisie’s benefit, i.e. in the betrayal of your cause.

The Communist Party’s participation in the elections tends to awaken the revolutionary masses in Italy, to incite them to the imminent battle, with which they will take up the challenge and repulse the adversary provocation; it is the sound of a reveille that tells the class enemy how foolish is his illusion that he has eradicated the working class, that he can extinguish the flame of the revolutionary will in it.

After the elections, in parliament, but above all outside parliament, the communists will continue the class battle without a moment’s pause, in intimate contact with the proletarian phalanx.

Workers and peasants of Italy!

Demonstrate on the 15th of May that the army of the revolution is still standing, and that its numbers and faith are increasing every day. Come to the polls, and let this be your cry:

Down with bourgeois parliamentarianism! 

Down with the arrogance of reaction! 

Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Italian Republic of the Councils!