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    In a number of countries, Germany in particular, these imperialist circles have succeeded, before the masses have decisively turned toward revolution, in inflicting defeat on the proletariat and establishing a fascist dictatorship.

    But it is characteristic of the victory of fascism that this victory, on the one hand, bears witness to the weakness of the proletariat, disorganized and paralyzed by the disruptive Social-Democratic policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and, on the other, expresses the weakness of the bourgeoisie itself, afraid of the realization of a united struggle of the working class, afraid of revolution, and no longer in a position to maintain its dictatorship over the masses by the old methods of bourgeois democracy and parliamentarism.

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ism, though it has nothing in common with socialism. Hitler fascism is not only bourgeois nationalism, it is bestial chauvinism. It is a government system of political gangsterism, a system of provocation and torture practiced upon the working class and the revolutionary elements of the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. It is medieval barbarity and bestiality, it is unbridled aggression in relation to other nations and countries.

    German fascism is acting as the spearhead of international counter-revolution, as the chief instigator of imperialist war, as the initiator of a crusade against the Soviet Union, the great fatherland of the toilers of the whole world.

    Fascism is not a form of state power "standing above both classes -- the proletariat and the bourgeoisie," as Otto Bauer, for instance, has asserted. It is not "the revolt of the petty bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state," as the British Socialist Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not super-class government, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpenproletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its crudest form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.

    This, the true character of fascism, must be particularly stressed; because in a number of countries, under cover of social demagogy, fascism has managed to gain the following of the mass of the petty bourgeoisie that has been driven out of its course by the crisis, and even of certain sections of the most backward strata of the proletariat. These would never have supported fascism if they had understood its real class character and its true nature.

    The development of fascism, and the fascist dictatorship itself, assume different forms in different countries, according to historical, social and economic conditions and to the national peculiarities and the international position of the given country. In certain countries, principally those in which fascism

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has no extensive mass basis and in which the struggle of the various groups within the camp of the fascist bourgeoisie itself is fairly acute, fascism does not immediately venture to abolish parliament, but allows the other bourgeois parties, as well as the Social-Democratic Parties, to retain a certain degree of legality. In other countries, where the ruling bourgeoisie fears an early outbreak of revolution, fascism establishes its unrestricted political monopoly, either immediately or by intensifying its reign of terror against and persecution of all competing parties and groups. This does not prevent fascism, when its position becomes particularly acute, from trying to extend its basis and, without altering its class nature, trying to combine open terrorist dictatorship with a crude sham of parliamentarism.

    The accession to power of fascism is not an ordinary succession of one bourgeois government by another, but a substitution of one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie -- bourgeois democracy -- by another form -- open terrorist dictatorship. It would be a serious mistake to ignore this distinction, a mistake which would prevent the revolutionary proletariat from mobilizing the widest strata of the working people of town and country for the struggle against the menace of the seizure of power by the fascists, and from taking advantage of the contradictions which exist in the camp of the bourgeoisie itself. But it is a mistake, no less serious and dangerous, to underrate the importance, in establishing the fascist dictatorship, of the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie which are at present increasingly developing in bourgeois-democratic countries -- measures which suppress the democratic liberties of the working people, falsify and curtail the rights of parliament and intensify the repression of the revolutionary movement.

    Comrades, the accession to power of fascism must not be conceived of in so simplified and smooth a form, as though some committee or other of finance capital decided on a certain date to set up a fascist dictatorship. In reality, fascism usually comes to power in the course of a mutual, and at times

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severe, struggle against the old bourgeois parties, or a definite section of these parties, in the course of a struggle even within the fascist camp itself -- a struggle which at times leads to armed clashes, as we have witnessed in the case of Germany, Austria and other countries. All this, however, does not make less important the fact that, before the establishment of a fascist dictatorship, bourgeois governments usually pass through a number of preliminary stages and adopt a number of reactionary measures which directly facilitate the accession to power of fascism. Whoever does not fight the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie and the growth of fascism at these preparatory stages is not in a position to prevent the victory of fascism, but, on the contrary, facilitates that victory.

    The Social-Democratic leaders glossed over and concealed from the masses the true class nature of fascism, and did not call them to the struggle against the increasingly reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie. They bear great historical responsibility for the fact that, at the decisive moment of the fascist offensive, a large section of the working people of Germany and of a number of other fascist countries failed to recognize in fascism the most bloodthirsty monster of finance, their most vicious enemy, and that these masses were not prepared to resist it.

    What is the source of the influence of fascism over the masses? Fascism is able to attract the masses because it demagogically appeals to their most urgent needs and demands. Fascism not only inflames prejudices that are deeply ingrained in the masses, but also plays on the better sentiments of the masses, on their sense of justice, and sometimes even on their revolutionary traditions. Why do the German fascists, those lackeys of the big bourgeoisie and mortal enemies of socialism, represent themselves to the masses as "Socialists," and depict their accession to power as a "revolution"? Because they try to exploit the faith in revolution and urge toward socialism that lives in the hearts of the mass of working people in Germany.

    Fascism acts in the interests of the extreme imperialists, but

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it presents itself to the masses in the guise of champion of an ill-treated nation, and appeals to outraged national sentiments, as German fascism did, for instance, when it won the support of the masses by the slogan "Against the Versailles Treaty!"

    Fascism aims at the most unbridled exploitation of the masses, but it approaches them with the most artful anti-capitalist demagogy, taking advantage of the deep hatred of the working people against the plundering bourgeoisie, the banks, trusts and financial magnates, and advancing those slogans which at the given moment are most alluring to the politically immature masses. In Germany -- "The general welfare is higher than the welfare of the individual"; in Italy -- "Our state is not a capitalist, but a corporate state; in Japan -- "For Japan, without exploitation"; in the United States -- "Share the wealth," and so forth.

    Fascism delivers up the people to be devoured by the most corrupt and venal elements, but comes before them with the demand for "an honest and incorruptible government." Speculating on the profound disillusionment of the masses in bourgeois-democratic governments, fascism hypocritically denounces corruption (for instance, the Barmat and Sklarek affairs in Germany, the Stavisky affair in France, and numerous others).

    It is in the interests of the most reactionary circles of the bourgeoisie that fascism intercepts the disappointed masses who desert the old bourgeois parties. But it impresses these masses by the severity of its attacks on the bourgeois governments and its irreconcilable attitude to the old bourgeois parties.

    Surpassing in its cynicism and hypocrisy all other varieties of bourgeois reaction, fascism adapts its demagogy to the national peculiarities of each country, and even to the peculiarities of the various social strata in one and the same country. And the mass of the petty-bourgeoisie and even a section of the workers, reduced to despair by want, unemployment and the insecurity of their existence, fall victim to the social and chauvinist demagogy of fascism.

    Fascism comes to power as a party of attack on the revolu-

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tionary movement of the proletariat, on the mass of the people who are in a state of unrest; yet it stages its accession to power as a "revolutionary" movement against the bourgeoisie on behalf of "the whole nation" and for the "salvation" of the nation. (One recalls Mussolini's "march" on Rome, Pilsudski's "march" on Warsaw, Hitler's National-Socialist "revolution" in Germany, and so forth.)

    But whatever the masks which fascism adopts, whatever the forms in which it presents itself, whatever the ways by which it comes to power --

    Fascism is a most ferocious attack by capital on the mass of the working people ;

    Fascism is unbridled chauvinism and annexationist war ;

    Fascism is rabid reaction and counter-revolution ;

    Fascism is the most vicious enemy of the working class and of all working people!

    Fascism promised the workers "a fair wage," but actually it has brought them an even lower, a pauper standard of living. It promised work for the unemployed, but actually it has brought them even more painful torments of starvation and forced servile labor. In practice it converts the workers and unemployed into pariahs of capitalist society stripped of rights; destroys their trade unions; deprives them of the right to strike and to have their working class press, forces them into fascist organizations, plunders their social insurance funds and transforms the mills and factories into barracks where the unbridled arbitrary rule of the capitalist reigns.

    Fascism promised the working youth a broad highway to a brilliant future. But actually it has brought wholesale dismissals of young workers, labor camps and incessant military drilling for a war of conquest.

    Fascism promised to guarantee office workers, petty officials and intellectuals security of existence, to destroy the omnipo-

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tence of the trusts and wipe out profiteering by bank capital. But actually it has brought them an ever greater degree of despair and uncertainty as to the morrow; it is subjecting them to a new bureaucracy made up of the most submissive of its followers, it is setting up an intolerable dictatorship of the trusts and spreading corruption and degeneration to an unprecedented extent.

    Fascism promised the ruined and impoverished peasants to put an end to debt bondage, to abolish rent and even to expropriate the landed estates without compensation, in the interests of the landless and ruined peasants. But actually it is placing the toiling peasants in a state of unprecedented servitude to the trusts and the fascist state apparatus, and pushes to the utmost limit the exploitation of the great mass of the peasantry by the big landowners, the banks and the usurers.

    "Germany will be a peasant country, or will not be at all," Hitler solemnly declared. And what did the peasants of Germany get under Hitler? The moratorium, which has already been canceled? Or the law on the inheritance of peasant property, which leads to millions of sons and daughters of peasants being squeezed out of the villages and reduced to paupers? Farm laborers have been transformed into semi-serfs, deprived even of the elementary right of free movement. The working peasants have been deprived of the opportunity of selling the produce of their farms in the market.

    And in Poland?

    The Polish peasant -- says the Polish newspaper Czas -- employs methods and means which were used perhaps only in the Middle Ages; he nurses the fire in his stove and lends it to his neighbor; he splits matches into several parts; he lends dirty soap-water to others; he boils herring barrels in order to obtain salt water. This is not a fable, but the actual state of affairs in the countryside, of the truth of which anybody may convince himself.

    And it is not Communists who write this, comrades, but a Polish reactionary newspaper!

    But this is by no means all.

    Every day, in the concentration camps of fascist Germany,

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in the cellars of the Gestapo (German secret police), in the torture chambers of Poland, in the cells of the Bulgarian and Finnish secret police, in the "Glavnyacha" in Belgrade, in the Rumanian "Siguranza" and on the Italian islands, some of the best sons of the working class, revolutionary peasants, fighters for the splendid future of mankind, are being subjected to revolting tortures and indignities, before which pale the most abominable acts of the tsarist secret police. The black-guardly German fascists beat husbands to a bloody pulp in the presence of their wives, and send the ashes of murdered sons by parcel post to their mothers. Sterilization has been made a method of political warfare. In the torture chambers, imprisoned anti-fascists are given injections of poison, their arms are broken, their eyes gouged out; they are strung up and have water pumped into them; the fascist swastika is carved in their living flesh.

    I have before me a statistical summary drawn up by the International Red Aid -- the international organization for aid to revolutionary fighters regarding the number of killed, wounded, arrested, maimed and tortured to death in Germany, Poland, Italy, Austria, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. In Germany alone, since the National-Socialists came to power, over 4,200 anti-fascist workers, peasants, employees, intellectuals -- Communists, Social-Democrats and members of opposition Christian organizations -- have been murdered, 317,800 arrested, 218,600 injured and subjected to torture. In Austria, since the battles of February last year, the "Christian" fascist government has murdered 1,900 revolutionary workers, maimed and injured 10,000 and arrested 40,000. And this summary, comrades, is far from complete.

    Words fail me in describing the indignation which seizes us at the thought of the torments which the working people are now undergoing in a number of fascist countries. The facts and figures we quote do not reflect one-hundredth part of the true picture of the exploitation and tortures inflicted by the White terror and forming part of the daily life of the working class in many capitalist countries. Volumes cannot give a

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just picture of the countless brutalities inflicted by fascism on the working people.

    With feelings of profound emotion and hatred for the fascist butchers, we dip the banners of the Communist International before the unforgettable memory of John Scheer, Fiete Schulz and Luttgens in Germany, Koloman Wallisch and Munichreiter in Austria, Sallai and Furst in Hungary, Kofardzhiev, Lutbrisky and Voikov in Bulgaria -- before the memory of thousands and thousands of Communists, Social-Democrats and no-party workers, peasants and representatives of the progressive intelligentsia who have laid down their lives in the struggle against fascism.

    From this platform we greet the leader of the German proletariat and the honorary chairman of our Congress -- Comrade Thaelmann. We greet Comrades Rakosi, Gramsci, Antikainen and Yonko Panov. We greet the leader of the Spanish Socialists, Caballero, imprisoned by the counter-revolutionaries; Tom Mooney, who has been languishing in prison for eighteen years, and the thousands of other prisoners of capitalism and fascism and we say to them: "Brothers in the fight, brothers in arms, you are not forgotten. We are with you. We shall give every hour of our lives, every drop of our blood, for your liberation, and for the liberation of all toilers from the shameful regime of fascism."

    Comrades, it was Lenin who warned us that the bourgeoisie may succeed in overwhelming the toilers by savage terror, in checking the growing forces of revolution for brief periods of time, but that, nevertheless, this would not save it from its doom.

    Life will assert itself -- Lenin wrote -- Let the bourgeoisie rave, work itself into a frenzy, overdo things, commit stupidities, take vengeance on the Bolsheviks in advance and endeavor to kill off (in India, Hungary, Germany, etc.) hundreds, thousands and hundreds of thousands more of yesterday's and tomorrow's Bolsheviks. Acting thus, the bourgeoisie acts as all classes doomed by history have acted. Communists should know that the future, at any rate, belongs to them; therefore, we can, and must, combine the most intense passion in the

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of the landlords, the church and the monasteries in favor of the peasants in order to win over the latter to the side of the revolution? Did they attempt to fight for national self-determination for the Catalonians and the Basques, and for the liberation of Morocco? Did they purge the army of monarchist and fascist elements and prepare it for passing over to the side of the workers and peasants? Did they dissolve the Civil Guard, so detested by the people, the executioner of every movement of the people? Did they strike at the fascist party of Gil Robles and at the might of the Catholic church? No, they did none of these things. They rejected the frequent proposals of the Communists for united action against the offensive of the bourgeois-landlord reaction and fascism; they passed election laws which enabled the reactionaries to gain a majority in the Cortes (parliament), laws which penalized popular movements, laws under which the heroic miners of Asturias are now being tried. They had peasants who were fighting for land shot by the Civil Guard, and so on.

    This is the way in which the Social-Democrats, by disorganizing and splitting the ranks of the working class, cleared the path to power for fascism in Germany, Austria and Spain.

    Comrades, fascism also triumphed for the reason that the proletariat found itself isolated from its natural allies. Fascism triumphed because it was able to win over large masses of the peasantry, owing to the fact that the Social-Democrats, in the name of the working class, pursued what was in fact an anti-peasant policy. The peasant saw in power a number of Social-Democratic governments, which in his eyes were an embodiment of the power of the working class, but not one of them put an end to peasant want, none of them gave land to the peasantry. In Germany, the Social-Democrats did not touch the landlords; they combated the strikes of the agricultural workers, with the result that long before Hitler came to power the agricultural workers of Germany were deserting the reformist trade unions and in the majority of cases were going over to the Stahlhelm and to the National-Socialists.

    Fascism also triumphed for the reason that it was able to

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penetrate the ranks of the youth, whereas the Social-Democrats diverted the working class youth from the class struggle, while the revolutionary proletariat did not develop the necessary educational work among the youth and did not pay enough attention to the struggle for its specific interests and demands. Fascism grasped the very acute need of the youth for militant activity, and enticed a considerable section of the youth into its fighting detachments. The new generation of young men and women has not experienced the horrors of war. They have felt the full weight of the economic crisis, unemployment and the disintegration of bourgeois democracy. But, seeing no prospects for the future, large sections of the youth proved to be particularly receptive to fascist demagogy, which depicted for them an alluring future should fascism succeed.

    In this connection, we cannot avoid referring also to a number of mistakes committed by the Communist Parties, mistakes that hampered our struggle against fascism.

    In our ranks there was an impermissible underestimation of the fascist danger, a tendency which to this day has not everywhere been overcome. Of this nature was the opinion formerly to be met with in our Parties to the effect that "Germany is not Italy," meaning that fascism may have succeeded in Italy, but that its success in Germany was out of the question, because the latter is an industrially and culturally highly developed country, with forty years of traditions of the working class movement, in which fascism was impossible. Or the kind of opinion which is to be met with nowadays, to the effect that in countries of "classical" bourgeois democracy the soil for fascism does not exist. Such opinions have served and may serve to relax vigilance toward the fascist danger, and to render the mobilization of the proletariat in the struggle against fascism more difficult.

    One might also cite not a few instances where Communists were taken unawares by the fascist coup. Remember Bulgaria, where the leadership of our Party took up a "neutral," but in fact opportunist, position with regard to the coup d'état of June 9,1923; Poland, where, in May, 1926, the leadership

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of the Communist Party, making a wrong estimate of the motive forces of the Polish revolution, did not realize the fascist nature of Pilsudski's coup, and trailed in the rear of events; Finland, where our Party based itself on a false conception of slow and gradual fascization and overlooked the fascist coup which was being prepared by the leading group of the bourgeoisie and which took the Party and the working class unawares.

    When National-Socialism had already become a menacing mass movement in Germany, there were comrades who regarded the Bruening government as already a government of fascist dictatorship, and who boastfully declared: "If Hitler's Third Reich ever comes about, it will be six feet underground, and above it will be the victorious power of the workers."

    Our comrades in Germany for a long time failed to reckon with the wounded national sentiments and the indignation of the masses against the Versailles Treaty; they treated as of little account the waverings of the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie; they were late in drawing up their program of social and national emancipation, and when they did put it forward they were unable to adapt it to the concrete demands of the level of the masses. They were even unable to popularize it widely among the masses.

    In a number of countries the necessary development of a mass fight against fascism was replaced by barren hair-splitting as to the nature of fascism "in general" and by a narrow sectarian attitude in formulating and solving the immediate political tasks of the Party.

    Comrades, it is not simply because we want to dig up the past that we speak of the causes of the victory of fascism, that we point to the historical responsibility of the Social-Democrats for the defeat of the working class, and that we also point out our own mistakes in the fight against fascism. We are not historians divorced from living reality; we, active fighters of the working class, are obliged to answer the question that is tormenting millions of workers: Can the victory of fascism be prevented, and how? And we reply to these millions

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of workers: Yes, comrades, the road in the way of fascism can be blocked. It is quite possible. It depends on ourselves on the workers, the peasants and all working people!

    Whether the victory of fascism can be prevented depends first and foremost on the militant activity of the working class itself, on whether its forces are welded into a single militant army combating the offensive of capitalism and fascism. By establishing its fighting unity, the proletariat would paralyze the influence of fascism over the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie of the towns, the youth and the intelligentsia, and would be able to neutralize one section of them and win over another section.

    Second, it depends on the existence of a strong revolutionary party, correctly leading the struggle of the working people against fascism. A party which systematically calls on the workers to retreat in the face of fascism and permits the fascist bourgeoisie to strengthen its positions will inevitably lead the workers to defeat.

    Third, it depends on a correct policy of the working class toward the peasantry and the petty-bourgeois masses of the towns. These masses must be taken as they are, and not as we should like to have them. It is only in the process of the struggle that they will overcome their doubts and waverings. It is only by a patient attitude toward their inevitable waverings, it is only by the political help of the proletariat, that they will be able to rise to a higher level of revolutionary consciousness and activity.

    Fourth, it depends on the vigilance and timely action of the revolutionary proletariat. The latter must not allow fascism to take it unawares, it must not surrender the initiative to fascism, but must inflict decisive blows on it before it can gather its forces, it must not allow fascism to consolidate its position, it must repel fascism wherever and whenever it rears its head, it must not allow fascism to gain new positions. This is what the French proletariat is so successfully trying to do.

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    These are the main conditions for preventing the growth of fascism and its accession to power.

    What are the chief causes of the instability of the fascist dictatorship?

    Fascism undertakes to overcome the disharmonies and antagonisms within the bourgeois camp, but it makes these antagonisms even more acute. Fascism tries to establish its political monopoly by violently destroying other political parties. But the existence of the capitalist system, the existence of various classes and the accentuation of class contradictions inevitably tend to undermine and explode the political monopoly of fascism. This is not the case of a Soviet country, where the dictatorship of the proletariat is also realized by a party with a political monopoly, but where this political monopoly accords with the interests of millions of working people and is increasingly being based on the construction of a classless society. In a fascist country the party of the fascists cannot preserve its monopoly for long, because it cannot set itself the aim of abolishing classes and class contradictions. It puts an end to the legal existence of bourgeois parties. But a number of them continue to maintain an illegal existence, while the Communist Party even in conditions of illegality continues to make progress, becomes steeled and tempered and leads the struggle of the proletariat against the fascist dictatorship. Hence, under the blows of class contradictions, the political monopoly of fascism is bound to explode.

    Another reason for the instability of the fascist dictatorship is that the contrast between the anti-capitalist demagogy of fascism and its policy of enriching the monopolist bourgeoisie in the most piratical fashion makes it easier to expose the

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class nature of fascism and tends to shake and narrow its mass basis.

    Furthermore, the victory of fascism arouses the deep hatred and indignation of the masses, helps to revolutionize them, and provides a powerful stimulus for a united front of the proletariat against fascism.

    By conducting a policy of economic nationalism (autarchy) and by seizing the greater part of the national income for the purpose of preparing for war, fascism undermines the whole economic life of the country and accentuates the economic war between the capitalist states. To the conflicts that arise among the bourgeoisie it lends the character of sharp and at times bloody collisions that undermine the stability of the fascist state power in the eyes of the people. A government which murders its own followers, as happened in Germany on June 30 of last year, a fascist government against which another section of the fascist bourgeoisie is conducting an armed fight (the National-Socialist putsch in Austria and the violent attacks of individual fascist groups on the fascist governments in Poland, Bulgaria, Finland and other countries) -- a government of this character cannot for long maintain its authority in the eyes of the broad mass of the petty bourgeoisie.

    The working class must be able to take advantage of the antagonisms and conflicts within the bourgeois camp, but it must not cherish the illusion that fascism will exhaust itself of its own accord. Fascism will not collapse automatically. It is only the revolutionary activity of the working class which can help to take advantage of the conflicts which inevitably arise within the bourgeois camp in order to undermine the fascist dictatorship and to overthrow it.

    By destroying the relics of bourgeois democracy, by elevating open violence to a system of government, fascism shakes democratic illusions and undermines the authority of the law in the eyes of the working people. This is particularly the case in countries such as Austria and Spain, where the workers have taken up arms against fascism. In Austria, the heroic

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struggle of the Schutzbund and the Communists, in spite of their defeat, shook the stability of the fascist dictatorship from the very outset. In Spain, the bourgeoisie did not succeed in putting the fascist muzzle on the working people. The armed struggles in Austria and Spain have resulted in ever wider masses of the working class coming to realize the necessity for a revolutionary class struggle.

    Only such monstrous philistines, such lackeys of the bourgeoisie, as the superannuated theoretician of the Second International, Karl Kautsky, are capable of casting reproaches at the workers, to the effect that they should not have taken up arms in Austria and Spain. What would the working class movement in Austria and Spain look like today if the working class of these countries were guided by the treacherous counsels of the Kautskys? The working class would be experiencing profound demoralization in its ranks.

    Comrades, millions of workers and toilers of the capitalist countries ask the question: How can fascism be prevented from coming to power and how can fascism be overthrown after it has been victorious? To this the Communist International replies: The first thing that must be done, the thing with which to begin, is to form a united front, to establish unity of action of the workers in every factory, in every district, in

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every region, in every country, all over the world. Unity of action of the proletariat on a national and international scale is the mighty weapon which renders the working class capable not only of successful defense but also of successful counter-attack against fascism, against the class enemy.

    Is it not clear that joint action by the supporters of the parties and organizations of the two Internationals, the Communist and the Second International, would make it easier for the masses to repulse the fascist onslaught, and would heighten the political importance of the working class?

    Joint action by the parties of both Internationals against fascism, however, would not be confined in its effects to influencing their present adherents, the Communists and Social-Democrats; it would also exert a powerful influence on the ranks of the Catholic, Anarchist and unorganized workers, even upon those who had temporarily become the victims of fascist demagogy.

    Moreover, a powerful united front of the proletariat would exert tremendous influence on all other strata of the working people, on the peasantry, on the urban petty bourgeoisie, on the intelligentsia. A united front would inspire the wavering groups with faith in the strength of the working class.

    But even this is not all. The proletariat of the imperialist countries has possible allies not only in the toilers of its own countries but also in the oppressed nations of the colonies and semi-colonies. Inasmuch as the proletariat is split both nationally and internationally, inasmuch as one of its parts supports the policy of collaboration with the bourgeoisie, in particular its system of oppression in the colonies and semi-colonies, a barrier is put between the working class and the oppressed peoples of the colonies and semi-colonies, and the world anti-imperialist front is weakened. Every step on the road to unity of action in the direction of supporting the struggle for the liberation of the colonial peoples by the proletariat of the

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imperialist countries means transforming the colonies and semi-colonies into one of the most important reserves of the world proletariat.

    If, finally, we bear in mind that international unity of action by the proletariat relies on the steadily growing strength of the proletarian state, the land of socialism, the Soviet Union, we see what broad perspectives are revealed by the realization of proletarian unity of action on a national and international scale.

    The establishment of unity of action by all sections of the working class, irrespective of the party or organization to which they belong, is necessary even before the majority of the working class is united in the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the victory of the proletarian revolution.

    Is it possible to realize this unity of action of the proletariat in the individual countries and throughout the whole world? Yes, it is. And it is possible at this very moment. The Communist International puts no conditions for unity of action except one, and that an elementary condition acceptable for all workers, viz., that the unity of action be directed against fascism, against the offensive of capital, against the threat of war, against the class enemy. This is our condition.

    What objections can the opponents of the united front have and how do they voice their objections?

    Some say: "To the Communists the slogan of the united front is merely a maneuver." But if it is a maneuver, we reply, why don't you expose the "Communist maneuver" by your honest participation in the united front? We declare frankly: We want unity of action by the working class, so that the proletariat may grow strong in its struggle against the bourgeoisie, in order that while defending today its current interests against attacking capital, against fascism, the proletariat

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may reach a position tomorrow to create the preliminary conditions for its final emancipation.

    "The Communists attack us," say others. But listen, we have repeatedly declared: We shall not attack anyone, whether persons, organizations or parties, standing for the united front of the working class against the class enemy. But at the same time it is our duty, in the interests of the proletariat and its cause, to criticize those persons, organizations and parties that hinder unity of action by the workers.

    "We cannot form a united front with the Communists, since they have a different program," says a third group. But you yourselves say that your program differs from the program of the bourgeois parties, and yet this did not and does not prevent you from entering into coalitions with these parties.

    "The bourgeois-democratic parties are better allies against fascism than the Communists," say the opponents of the united front and the advocates of coalition with the bourgeoisie. But what does Germany's experience teach? Did not the Social-Democrats form a bloc with those "better" allies? And what were the results?

    "If we establish a united front with the Communists, the petty bourgeoisie will take fright at the 'Red danger' and will desert to the fascists," we hear it said quite frequently. But does the united front represent a threat to the peasants, small traders, artisans, working intellectuals? No, the united front is a threat to the big bourgeoisie, the financial magnates, the Junkers and other exploiters, whose regime brings complete ruin to all these strata.

    "Social-Democracy is for democracy, the Communists are for dictatorship; therefore we cannot form a united front with the Communists," say some of the Social-Democratic leaders. But are we offering you now a united front for the purpose of proclaiming the dictatorship of the proletariat? We make no such proposal now.

    "Let the Communists recognize democracy, let them come out in its defense, then we shall be ready for a united front."

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To this we reply: We are adherents of Soviet democracy, the democracy of the toilers, the most consistent democracy in the world. But in the capitalist countries we defend and shall continue to defend every inch of bourgeois-democratic liberties, which are being attacked by fascism and bourgeois reaction, because the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat so dictate.

    "But the tiny Communist Parties do not add anything by participating in the united front brought about by the Labor Party," say, for instance, the Labor leaders of Great Britain. Recall how the Austrian Social-Democratic leaders said the same things with reference to the small Austrian Communist Party. And what have events shown? It was not the Austrian Social-Democratic Party headed by Otto Bauer and Karl Renner that proved right, but the tiny Austrian Communist Party which at the right moment signaled the fascist danger in Austria and called upon the workers to struggle. The whole experience of the labor movement has shown that the Communists, with all their relative insignificance in numbers, are the motive power of the militant activity of the proletariat. Besides this, it must not be forgotten that the Communist Parties of Austria or Great Britain are not only the tens of thousands of workers who are adherents of the Party, but are parts of the world Communist movement, are Sections of the Communist International, the leading Party of which is the Party of a proletariat which has already achieved victory and rules over one-sixth of the globe.

    "But the united front did not prevent fascism from being victorious in the Saar," is another objection advanced by the opponents of the united front. Strange is the logic of these gentlemen! First they leave no stone unturned to ensure the victory of fascism and then they rejoice with malicious glee because the united front which they entered into only at the last moment did not lead to the victory of the workers.

    "If we were to form a united front with the Communists, we should have to withdraw from the coalition, and reactionary and fascist parties would enter the government," say the

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Social-Democratic leaders holding cabinet posts in various countries. Very well. Was not the German Social-Democratic Party in a coalition government? It was. Was not the Austrian Social-Democratic Party in office? It was. Were not the Spanish Socialists in the same government as the bourgeoisie? They were, too. Did the participation of the Social-Democratic Parties in the bourgeois coalition governments in these countries prevent fascism from attacking the proletariat? It did not. Consequently it is as clear as daylight that participation of Social-Democratic ministers in bourgeois governments is not a barrier to fascism.

    "The Communists act like dictators, they want to prescribe and dictate everything to us." No. We prescribe nothing and dictate nothing. We only put forward our proposals, being convinced that if realized they will meet the interests of the working people. This is not only the right but the duty of all those acting in the name of the workers. You are afraid of the "dictatorship" of the Communists? Let us jointly submit all proposals to the workers, both yours and ours, jointly discuss them together with all the workers, and choose those proposals which are most useful to the cause of the working class.

    Thus all these arguments against the united front will not stand the slightest criticism. They are rather the flimsy excuses of the reactionary leaders of Social-Democracy, who prefer their united front with the bourgeoisie to the united front of the proletariat.

    No. These excuses will not hold water. The international proletariat has experienced the suffering caused by the split in the working class, and becomes more and more convinced that the united front, the unity of action of the proletariat on a national and international scale, is at once necessary and perfectly possible.

    What is and ought to be the basic content of the united front at the present stage? The defense of the immediate eco-

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nomic and political interests of the working class, the defense of the working class against fascism, must form the starting point and main content of the united front in all capitalist countries.

    We must not confine ourselves to bare appeals to struggle for the proletarian dictatorship. We must also find and advance those slogans and forms of struggle which arise from the vital needs of the masses, from the level of their fighting capacity at the present stage of development.

    We must point out to the masses what they must do today to defend themselves against capitalist spoliation and fascist barbarity.

    We must strive to establish the widest united front with the aid of joint action by workers' organizations of different trends for the defense of the vital interests of the toiling masses. This means:

    First, joint struggle really to shift the burden of the consequences of the crisis onto the shoulders of the ruling classes, the shoulders of the capitalists, landlords -- in a word, to the shoulders of the rich.

    Second, joint struggle against all forms of the fascist offensive, in defense of the gains and the rights of the toilers, against the destruction of bourgeois-democratic liberties.

    Third, joint struggle against the approaching danger of imperialist war, a struggle that will make the preparation of such a war more difficult.

    We must tirelessly prepare the working class for a rapid change in forms and methods of struggle when there is a change in the situation. As the movement grows and the unity of the working class strengthens, we must go further, and prepare the transition from the defensive to the offensive against capital, steering toward the organization of a mass political, strike. It must be an absolute condition of such a strike to draw into it the main trade unions of the countries concerned.

    Communists, of course, cannot and must not for a moment abandon their own independent work of Communist education,

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organization and mobilization of the masses. However, to ensure that the workers find the road of unity of action, it is necessary to strive at the same time both for short-term and for long-term agreements that provide for joint action with Social-Democratic Parties, reformist trade unions and other organizations of the toilers against the class enemies of the proletariat. The chief stress in all this must be laid on developing mass action locally, to be carried out by the local organizations through local agreements.

    While loyally carrying out the conditions of all agreements made with them, we shall mercilessly expose all sabotage of joint action on the part of persons and organizations participating in the united front. To any attempt to wreck the agreements -- and such attempts may possibly be made -- we shall reply by appealing to the masses while continuing untiringly to struggle for restoration of the broken unity of action.

    It goes without saying that the practical realization of the united front will take various forms in various countries, depending upon the condition and character of the workers' organizations and their political level, upon the situation in the particular country, upon the changes in progress in the international labor movement, etc.

    These forms may include, for instance: coordinated joint action of the workers to be agreed upon from case to case on definite occasions, on individual demands or on the basis of a common platform; coordinated actions in individual enterprises or by whole industries ; coordinated actions on a local, regional, national or international scale ; coordinated actions for the organization of the economic struggle of the workers, carrying out of mass political actions, for the organization of joint self-defense against fascist attacks; coordinated action in rendering aid to political prisoners and their families, in the field of struggle against social reaction ; joint actions in the defense of the interests of the youth and women, in the field of the cooperative movement, cultural activity, sport, etc.

    It would be insufficient to rest content with the conclusion of a pact providing for joint action and the formation of contact

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committees from the parties and organizations participating in the united front, like those we have in France, for instance. That is only the first step. The pact is an auxiliary means for obtaining joint action, but by itself it does not constitute a united front. A contact commission between the leaders of the Communist and Socialist Parties is necessary to facilitate the carrying out of joint action, but by itself it is far from adequate for a real development of the united front, for drawing the widest masses into the struggle against fascism.

    The Communists and all revolutionary workers must strive for the formation of elected (and in the countries of fascist dictatorship -- selected from the most authoritative participants in the united front movement) class bodies of the united front chosen irrespective of party, at the factories, among the unemployed, in the working class districts, among the small townsfolk and in the villages. Only such bodies will be able to include also in the united front movement the vast masses of unorganized toilers, and will be able to assist in developing mass initiative in the struggle against the capitalist offensive of fascism and reaction, and on this basis create the necessary broad active rank and file of the united front and train hundreds and thousands of non-Party Bolsheviks in the capitalist countries.

    Joint action of the organized workers is the beginning, the foundation. But we must not lose sight of the fact that the unorganized masses constitute the vast majority of workers. Thus, in France the number of organized workers -- Communists, Socialists, trade union members of various trends -- is altogether about one million, while the total number of workers is eleven million. In Great Britain there are approximately five million members of trade unions and parties of various trades. At the same time the total number of workers is fourteen million. In the United States of America about five million workers are organized, while altogether there are thirty-eight million workers in that country. About the same ratio holds good for a number of other countries. In "normal" times this mass in the main does not participate in political life.

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But now this gigantic mass is getting into motion more and more, is being brought into political life, comes out in the political arena.

    The creation of non-partisan class bodies is the best form for carrying out, extending and strengthening the united front among the rank and file of the masses. These bodies will likewise be the best bulwark against any attempt of the opponents of the united front to disrupt the established unity of action of the working class.

    In mobilizing the mass of working people for the struggle against fascism, the formation of a wide, popular anti-fascist front on the basis of the proletarian united front is a particularly important task. The success of the whole struggle of the proletariat is closely bound up with establishing a fighting alliance between the proletariat on the one hand, and the toiling peasantry and basic mass of the urban petty bourgeoisie, who together form the majority of the population even in industrially developed countries, on the other.

    In its agitation, fascism, desirous of winning these masses to its own side, tries to set the mass of working people in town and countryside against the revolutionary proletariat, frightening the petty bourgeoisie with the bogey of the "Red peril." We must turn this weapon against those who wield it and show the working peasants, artisans and intellectuals whence the real danger threatens. We must show concretely who it is that piles the burden of taxes and imposts on to the peasant and squeezes usurious interest out of him; who it is that, while owning the best land and every form of wealth, drives the peasant and his family from his plot of land and dooms him to unemployment and poverty. We must explain concretely, patiently and persistently who it is that ruins the artisans and handicraftsmen with taxes, imposts, high rents and competition impossible for them to withstand; who it is that throws

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into the street and deprives of employment the wide masses of the working intelligentsia.

    But this is not enough.

    The fundamental, the most decisive thing in establishing the anti-fascist People's Front is resolute action of the revolutionary proletariat in defense of the demands of these sections of the people, particularly the working peasantry -- demands in line with the basic interests of the proletariat -- and in the process of struggle combining the demands of the working class with these demands.

    In forming the anti-fascist People's Front, a correct approach to those organizations and parties which have in them a considerable number of the working peasantry and the mass of the urban petty bourgeoisie is of great importance.

    In the capitalist counties the majority of these parties and organizations, political as well as economic, are still under the influence of the bourgeoisie and follow it. The social composition of these parties and organizations is heterogeneous. They include big kulaks (rich peasants) side by side with landless peasants, big business men alongside of petty shopkeepers; but control is in the hands of the former, the agents of big capital. This obliges us to approach the different organizations in different ways, taking into consideration that not infrequently the bulk of the membership does not know anything about the real political character of its leadership. Under certain conditions, we can and must try to draw these parties and organizations or certain sections of them to the side of the anti-fascist People's Front, despite their bourgeois leadership. Such, for instance, is today the situation in France with the Radical Party, in the United States with various farmers' organizations, in Poland with the "Stronnictwo Ludowe," in Yugoslavia with the Croatian Peasants' Party, in Bulgaria with the Agrarian League, in Greece with the Agrarians, etc. But regardless of whether or not there is any chance of attracting these parties and organizations as a whole to the People's Front, our tactics must under all circumstances be directed toward drawing the small peasants, artisans, handi-

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craftsmen, etc., among their members into the anti-fascist People's Front.

    Hence, you see that in this field we must all along the line put an end to what frequently occurs in our practical work -- neglect or contempt of the various organizations and parties of the peasants, artisans and the mass of petty bourgeoisie in the towns.

    There are in every country certain key questions which at the present stage are agitating vast masses of the population and around which the struggle for the establishment of the united front must be developed. If these key points, or key questions, are properly grasped, it will ensure and accelerate the establishment of the united front.

    Let us take, for example, so important a country in the capitalist world as the United States of America. There millions of people have been set into motion by the crisis. The program for the recovery of capitalism has collapsed. Vast masses are beginning to abandon the bourgeois parties and are at present at the crossroads.

    Embryo American fascism is trying to direct the disillusionment and discontent of these masses into reactionary fascist channels. It is a peculiarity of the development of American fascism that at the present stage this fascism comes forward principally in the guise of an opposition to fascism, which it accuses of being an "un-American" tendency imported from abroad. In contradistinction to German fascism, which acts under anti-constitutional slogans, American fascism tries to portray itself as the custodian of the Constitution and "American democracy." It does not yet represent a directly menacing force. But if it succeeds in penetrating to the wide masses who

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have become disillusioned with the old bourgeois parties it may become a serious menace in the very near future.

    And what would the success of fascism in the United States involve? For the mass of working people it would, of course, involve the unrestrained strengthening of the regime of exploitation and the destruction of the working-class movement. And what would be the international significance of this success of fascism? As we know, the United States is not Hungary, or Finland, or Bulgaria, or Latvia. The success of fascism in the United States would vitally change the whole international situation.

    Under these circumstances, can the American proletariat content itself with organizing only its class-conscious vanguard, which is prepared to follow the revolutionary path? No.

    It is perfectly obvious that the interests of the American proletariat demand that all its forces dissociate themselves from the capitalist parties without delay. It must find in good time ways and suitable forms to prevent fascism from winning over the wide mass of discontented working people. And here it must be said that under American conditions the creation of a mass party of working people, a "Workers' and Farmers' Party," might serve as such a suitable form. Such a party would be a specific form of the mass People's Front in America and should be put in opposition to the parties of the trusts and the banks, and likewise to growing fascism. Such a party, of course, will be neither Socialist nor Communist. But it must be an anti-fascist party and must not be an anti-Communist Party. The program of this party must be directed against the banks, trusts and monopolies, against the principal enemies of the people, who are gambling on the woes of the latter. Such a party will correspond to its name only if it defends the urgent demands of the working class, only if it fights for genuine social legislation, for unemployment insurance; only if it fights for land for the white and black sharecroppers and for their liberation from debt burdens; only if it tries to secure the cancellation of the farmers' indebtedness; only if it fights for equal status for Negroes; only if it defends the demands

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of the war veterans and the interests of members of the liberal professions, small businessmen and artisans. And so on.

    It goes without saying that such a party will fight for the election of its own candidates to local government, to the state legislatures, to the House of Representatives and the Senate.

    Our comrades in the United States acted rightly in taking the initiative for the creation of such a party. But they still have to take effective measures in order to make the creation of such a party the cause of the masses themselves. The question of forming a "Workers' and Farmers' Party," and its program, should be discussed at mass meetings of the people. We should develop the most widespread movement for the creation of such a party, and take the lead in it. In no case must the initiative of organizing the party be allowed to pass to elements desirous of utilizing the discontent of the millions who have become disillusioned in both the bourgeois parties, Democratic and Republican, in order to create a "third party" in the United States, as an anti-Communist party, a party directed against the revolutionary movement.

    In Great Britain, as a result of the mass action of the British workers, Mosley's fascist organization has for the time being been pushed into the background. But we must not close our eyes to the fact that the so-called "National Government" is passing a number of reactionary measures directed against the working class, as a result of which conditions are being created in Great Britain, too, which will make it easier for the bourgeoisie, if necessary, to pass to a fascist regime. At the present stage, fighting the fascist danger in Great Britain means primarily fighting the "National Government" and its reactionary measures, fighting the offensive of capital, fighting for the demands of the unemployed, fighting against wage reductions and for the repeal of all those laws with the help of which the British bourgeoisie is lowering the standard of living of the masses.

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    But the growing hatred of the working class for the "National Government" is uniting increasingly large numbers under the slogan of the formation of a new Labor government in Great Britain. Can the Communists ignore this frame of mind of the masses, who still retain faith in a Labor government? No, comrades. We must find a way of approaching these masses. We tell them openly, as did the Thirteenth Congress of the British Communist Party, that we Communists are in favor of a Soviet government as the only form of government capable of emancipating the workers from the yoke of capital. But you want a Labor government? Very well. We have been and are fighting hand in hand with you for the defeat of the "National Government." We are prepared to support your fight for the formation of a new Labor government, in spite of the fact that both the previous Labor governments failed to fulfill the promises made to the working class by the Labor Party. We do not expect this government to carry out socialist measures. But we shall present it with the demand, in the name of millions of workers, that it defend the most essential economic and political interests of the working class and of all working people. Let us jointly discuss a common program of such demands, and let us achieve that unity of action which the proletariat requires in order to repel the reactionary offensive of the "National Government," the attack of capital and fascism and the preparations for a new war. On this basis, the British comrades are prepared at the forthcoming parliamentary elections to cooperate with branches of the Labor Party against the "National Government," and also against Lloyd George, who is trying in his own way in the interests of the British bourgeoisie to lure the masses into following him against the cause of the working class.

    This position of the British Communists is a correct one. It will help them to set up a militant united front with the millions of members of the British trade unions and Labor Party.

    While always remaining in the front ranks of the fighting proletariat, and pointing out to the masses the only right path -- the path of struggle for the revolutionary overthrow of the

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rule of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of a Soviet government -- the Communists, in defining their immediate political aims, must not attempt to leap over those necessary stages of the mass movement in the course of which the working class by its own experience outlives its illusions and passes over to Communism.

    France, as we know, is a country in which the working class is setting an example to the whole international proletariat of how to fight fascism. The French Communist Party is setting an example to all the sections of the Comintern of how the tactics of the united front should be applied; the Socialist workers are setting an example of what the Social-Democratic workers of other capitalist countries should now be doing in the fight against fascism. The significance of the anti-fascist demonstration attended by half a million people in Paris on July 14 of this year, and of the numerous demonstrations in other French cities, is tremendous. This is not merely a movement of a united working class front; it is the beginning of a wide general front of the people against fascism in France.

    This united front movement enhances the confidence of the working class in its own forces; it strengthens its consciousness of the leading role it is playing in relation to the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie of the towns and the intelligentsia; it extends the influence of the Communist Party among the mass of the working class and therefore makes the proletariat stronger in the fight against fascism. It is arousing in good time the vigilance of the masses in regard to the fascist danger. And it will serve as an infectious example for the development of the anti-fascist struggle in other capitalist countries, and will exercise a heartening influence on the proletarians of Germany, pressed down by the fascist dictatorship.

    The victory, needless to say, is a big one, but still it does not decide the issue of the anti-fascist struggle. The overwhelming majority of the French people are undoubtedly opposed to fascism. But the bourgeoisie is able by armed force to violate

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the popular will. The fascist movement is continuing to develop absolutely freely, with the active support of monopoly capital, the state apparatus of the bourgeoisie, the general staff of the French army and the reactionary leaders of the Catholic church -- that stronghold of all reaction. The most powerful fascist organization, the Croix de Feu, now commands 300,000 armed men, the backbone of which consists of 60,000 officers of the reserve. It holds strong positions in the police, the gendarmerie, the army, the air force and in all government offices. The recent municipal elections have shown that in France it is not only the revolutionary forces that are growing, but also the forces of fascism. If fascism succeeds in penetrating widely among the peasantry, and in securing the support of one section of the army, while the other section remains neutral, the masses of the French working people will not be able to prevent the fascists from coming to power. Comrades, do not forget the organizational weakness of the French labor movement, which makes easier the success of the fascist attack. The working class and all anti-fascists in France have no grounds for resting content with the results already achieved.

    What are the tasks facing the working class in France?

    First, to establish the united front not only in the political sphere, but also in the economic sphere in order to organize the struggle against the capitalist offensive, and by its pressure to smash the resistance offered to the united front by the leaders of the reformist Confederation of Labor.

    Second, to achieve trade union unity in France -- united trade unions based on the class struggle.

    Third, to enlist in the anti-fascist movement the wide mass of the peasants and petty bourgeoisie, devoting special attention in the program of the anti-fascist People's Front to their urgent demands.

    Fourth, to strengthen organizationally and extend further the anti-fascist movement which has already developed, by the widespread creation of elected bodies of the anti-fascist People's Front, elected irrespective of parties and whose influence will

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extend to wider masses than those in the present parties and organizations of working people in France.

    Fifth, to force the disbanding and disarming of the fascist organizations, as being organizations of conspirators against the republic and agents of Hitler in France.

    Sixth, to secure that the state apparatus, army and police shall be purged of the conspirators who are preparing a fascist coup.

    Seventh, to develop the struggle against the leaders of the reactionary cliques of the Catholic church, as one of the most important strongholds of French fascism.

    Eighth, to link up the army with the anti-fascist movement by creating in its ranks committees for the defense of the republic and the constitution, directed against those who want to utilize the army for an anti-constitutional coup d'état ; not to allow the reactionary forces in France to wreck the Franco-Soviet pact, which defends the cause of peace against the aggression of German fascism.

    And if in France the anti-fascist movement leads to the formation of a government which will carry on a real struggle against French fascism -- not in words but in deeds -- and which will carry out the program of demands of the anti-fascist People's Front, the Communists, while remaining the irreconcilable foes of every bourgeois government and supporters of a Soviet government, will, nevertheless, in face of the growing fascist danger, be prepared to support such a government.

    Comrades, the fight for the establishment of the united front in countries where the fascists are in power is perhaps the most important problem facing us. In such countries, of course, the fight is carried on under far more difficult conditions than in countries with legal labor movements. Nevertheless, all the conditions exist in fascist countries for the development of a real anti-fascist People's Front in the struggle against the fascist dictatorship, since the Social-Democratic, Catholic and other

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workers, in Germany, for instance, are able to realize more directly the need for a joint struggle with the Communists against the fascist dictatorship. Wide strata of the petty bourgeoisie and peasantry, having already tasted the bitter fruits of fascist rule, are growing increasingly discontented and disillusioned, which makes it easier to enlist them in the anti-fascist People's Front.

    But the principal task in fascist countries, particularly in Germany and Italy, where fascism has managed to gain a mass basis and has forced the workers and other toilers into its organizations, consists in skillfully combining the fight against the fascist dictatorship from without with its undermining from within, inside the fascist mass organizations and bodies. Special methods and means of approach, suited to the concrete conditions prevailing in these countries must be learned, mastered and applied, so as to facilitate the rapid disintegration of the mass basis of fascism and to prepare the way for the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship. We must learn, master and apply this, and not only shout "Down with Hitler!" and "Down with Mussolini!" Yes, learn, master and apply.

    This is a difficult and complex task. It is all the more difficult because our experience in successfully combating fascist dictatorship is extremely limited. Our Italian comrades, for instance, have already been fighting under the conditions of a fascist dictatorship for about thirteen years. Nevertheless, they have not yet succeeded in developing a real mass struggle against fascism, and therefore they have unfortunately been little able in this respect to help the Communist Parties in other fascist countries by their positive experience.

    The German and Italian Communists, and the Communists in other fascist countries, as well as the Communist youth, have displayed prodigious valor; they have made and are daily making tremendous sacrifices. We all bow our heads in honor of such heroism and sacrifices. But heroism alone is not enough. Heroism must be combined with day-to-day work among the masses, with concrete struggle against fascism, so as to achieve the most tangible results in this sphere. In our struggle against

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fascist dictatorship it is particularly dangerous to confuse the wish with the fact. We must base ourselves on the facts, on the actual concrete situation.

    What is now the actual situation in Germany, for instance?

    The masses are becoming increasingly discontented and disillusioned with the policy of the fascist dictatorship, and this even assumes the form of partial strikes and other actions. In spite of all its efforts, fascism has failed to win over politically the basic masses of the workers; it is losing even its former supporters, and will lose them more and more in the future. Nevertheless, we must realize that the workers who are convinced of the possibility of overthrowing the fascist dictatorship, and who are already prepared to fight for it actively, are still in the minority -- they consist of us, the Communists, and the revolutionary section of the Social-Democratic workers. But the majority of the toilers have not yet become aware of the real, concrete possibilities and methods of overthrowing this dictatorship and still have a waiting attitude. This we must bear in mind when we outline our tasks in the struggle against fascism in Germany, and when we seek, study and apply special methods of approach for the undermining and overthrow of the fascist dictatorship in Germany.

    In order to be able to strike a telling blow at the fascist dictatorship, we must first find out what is its most vulnerable point. What is the Achilles' heel of the fascist dictatorship? Its social basis. The latter is extremely heterogeneous. It is made up of various classes and various strata of society. Fascism has proclaimed itself the sole representative of all classes and strata of the population: the manufacturer and the worker, the millionaire and the unemployed, the Junker and the small peasant, the big capitalist and the artisan. It pretends to defend the interests of all these strata, the interests of the nation, But since it is a dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie, fascism must inevitably come into conflict with its mass social basis, all the more since, under the fascist dictatorship, the class contradictions between the pack of financial magnates and the

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overwhelming majority of the people are brought out in greatest relief.

    We can lead the masses to a decisive struggle for the over throw of the fascist dictatorship only by getting the workers who have been forced into the fascist organizations, or have joined them through ignorance, to take part in the most elementary movements for the defense of their economic, political and cultural interests. It is for this reason that the Communists must work in these organizations, as the best champions of the day-to-day interests of the mass of members, bearing in mind that as the workers belonging to these organizations begin more and more frequently to demand their rights and defend their interests, they inevitably come into conflict with the fascist dictatorship.

    In defending the urgent and, at first, the most elementary interests of the working people in town and countryside, it is comparatively easier to find a common language not only with the conscious anti-fascists, but also with those of the working people who are still supporters of fascism, but are disillusioned and dissatisfied with its policy, and are grumbling and seeking an occasion for expressing their discontent. In general we must realize that all our tactics in countries with a fascist dictatorship must be of such a character as not to repulse the rank-and-file supporters of fascism, not to throw them once more into the arms of fascism, but to deepen the gulf between the fascist leaders and the mass of disillusioned rank-and-file followers of fascism drawn from the working sections of society.

    We need not be dismayed, comrades, if the people mobilized around these day-to-day interests consider themselves either indifferent to politics or even followers of fascism. The important thing for us is to draw them into the movement, which, although it may not at first proceed openly under the slogans of the struggle against fascism, is already objectively an anti-fascist movement putting these masses into opposition to the fascist dictatorship.

    Experience teaches us that the view that it is generally impossible, in countries with a fascist dictatorship, to come out

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legally or semi-legally, is harmful and incorrect. To insist on this point of view means to fall into passivity, and to renounce real mass work altogether. True, under the conditions of a fascist dictatorship, to find forms and methods of legal or semi-legal action is a difficult and complex problem. But, as in many other questions, the path is indicated by life itself and by the initiative of the masses themselves, which have already provided us with a number of examples that must be generalized and applied in an organized and effective manner.

    We must very resolutely put an end to the tendency to underestimate work in the fascist mass organizations. In Italy, in Germany and in a number of other fascist countries, our comrades concealed their passivity, and frequently even their direct refusal to work in the fascist mass organizations, by putting forward work in the factories as against work in the fascist mass organizations. In reality, however, it was just this mechanical distinction which led to work being conducted very feebly, and sometimes not at all, both in the fascist mass organizations and in the factories.

    Yet it is particularly important that Communists in the fascist countries should be wherever the masses are to be found. Fascism has deprived the workers of their own legal organizations. It has forced the fascist organizations upon them, and it is there that the masses are -- by compulsion, or to some extent voluntarily. These mass fascist organizations can and must be made our legal or semi-legal field of action, where we can meet the masses. They can and must be made our legal or semi-legal starting point for the defense of the day-to-day interests of the masses. To utilize these possibilities, Communists must win elected positions in the fascist mass organizations, for contact with the masses, and must rid themselves once and for all of the prejudice that such activity is unseemly and unworthy of a revolutionary worker.

    In Germany, for instance, there is a system of so-called "shop delegates." But where is it stated that we must leave the fascists a monopoly in these organizations? Cannot we try to unite the Communist, Social-Democratic, Catholic and other

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anti-fascist workers in the factories so that when the list of "shop delegates" is voted upon, the known agents of the employers may be struck off and other candidates, enjoying the confidence of the workers, inserted in their stead? Practice has already shown that this is possible.

    And does not practice also go to show that it is possible, jointly with the Social-Democratic and other discontented workers, to demand that the "shop delegates" really defend the interests of the workers?

    Take the "Labor Front" in Germany, or the fascist trade unions in Italy. Is it not possible to demand that the functionaries of the "Labor Front" be elected, and not appointed; to insist that the leading bodies of the local groups report to meetings of the members of the organizations; to address these demands, following a decision by the group, to the employer, to the "guardian of labor," to higher bodies of the "Labor Front"? This is possible, provided the revolutionary workers actually work within the "Labor Front" and try to obtain posts in it.

    Similar methods of work are possible and essential in other mass fascist organizations also -- in the Hitler Youth Leagues, in the sports organizations, in the Kraft durch Freude organizations, in the Doppo Lavoro in Italy, in the cooperatives and so forth.

    Comrades, you remember the ancient tale of the capture of Troy. Troy was inaccessible to the armies attacking her, thanks to her impregnable walls. And the attacking army, after suffering many sacrifices, was unable to achieve victory until with the aid of the famous Trojan horse it managed to penetrate to the very heart of the enemy's camp.

    We revolutionary workers, it appears to me, should not be shy about using the same tactics with regard to our fascist foe, who is defending himself against the people with the help of a living wall of his cutthroats.

    He who fails to understand the necessity of using such tactics in the case of fascism, he who regards such an approach as "humiliating," may be a most excellent comrade, but if you

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will allow me to say so, he is a windbag and not a revolutionary, he will be unable to lead the masses to the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship.

    The mass movement for a united front, starting with defense of the most elementary needs, and changing its forms and watchwords of the struggle as the latter extends and grows, is growing up outside and inside the fascist organizations in Germany, Italy and the other countries in which fascism possesses a mass basis. It will be the battering ram which will shatter the fortress of the fascist dictatorship that at present seems impregnable to many.

    The struggle for the establishment of the united front raises also another very important problem, the problem of the united front in countries where Social-Democratic governments, or coalition governments in which Socialists participate, are in power, as, for instance, in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Belgium.

    Our attitude of absolute opposition to Social-Democratic governments, which are governments of compromise with the bourgeoisie, is well known. But this notwithstanding, we do not regard the existence of a Social-Democratic government or a coalition government formed by a Social-Democratic party with bourgeois parties as an insurmountable obstacle for establishing a united front with the Social-Democrats on definite issues. We believe that in such a case too a united front for the defense of the vital interests of the toiling people and in the struggle against fascism is quite possible and necessary. It stands to reason that in countries where representatives of Social-Democratic parties take part in the government, the Social-Democratic leadership offers the strongest resistance to the proletarian united front. This is quite comprehensible. After all, they want to show the bourgeoisie that they, better and more skillfully than anyone else, can keep the discontented

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working masses under control and prevent them from falling under the influence of Communism. The fact, however, that Social-Democratic ministers are opposed to the proletarian united front can by no means justify a situation in which the Communists do nothing to establish a united front with the proletariat.

    Our comrades in the Scandinavian countries often follow the line of least resistance, confining themselves to propaganda exposing the Social-Democratic governments. This is a mistake. In Denmark, for example, the Social-Democratic leaders have been in the government for the past ten years, and for ten years day in and day out the Communists have been reiterating that it is a bourgeois capitalist government. We have to assume that the Danish workers are acquainted with this propaganda. The fact that a considerable majority nevertheless vote for the Social-Democratic government party only goes to show that the Communists' exposure of the government by means of propaganda is insufficient. It does not prove, however, that these hundreds of thousands of workers are satisfied with all the government measures of the Social-Democratic ministers. No, they are not satisfied with the fact that by its so-called crisis "agreement" the Social-Democratic government assists the big capitalists and landlords and not the workers and poor peasants. They are not satisfied with the decree issued by the government in January, 1933, which deprived the workers of the right to strike. They are not satisfied with the project of the Social-Democratic leadership for a dangerous anti-democratic electoral reform (which would considerably reduce the number of deputies). I shall hardly be in error, comrades, if I state that 99 per cent of the Danish workers do not approve of these political steps taken by the Social-Democratic leaders and ministers.

    Is it not possible for the Communists to call upon the trade unions and Social-Democratic organizations of Denmark to discuss some of these burning issues, to express their opinions on them and jointly come out for a proletarian united front with the object of obtaining the workers' demands? In October

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of last year, when our Danish comrades appealed to the trade unions to act against the reduction of unemployment relief and for the democratic rights of the trade unions, about 100 local trade union organizations joined the united front.

    In Sweden a Social-Democratic government is in power for the third time, but the Swedish Communists have for a long time refused to apply the united front tactics in practice. Why? Was it because they were opposed to the united front? Not, in principle, of course; they were for united front, for a united front in general, but they failed to understand in what circumstances, on what questions, in defense of what demands a proletarian united front could be successfully established, where and how to "hook on." A few months before the formation of the Social-Democratic government, the Social-Democratic Party advanced during the elections a platform containing a number of demands which would have been the very thing to include in the platform of the proletarian united front. For example, the slogans, "Against customs duties," "Against militarization," "Put an end to the policy of delay in the question of unemployment insurance," "Grant adequate old age pensions," "Prohibit organizations like the 'Munch' corps " (a fascist organization), "Down with class legislation against the unions demanded by the bourgeois parties."

    Over a million of the working people of Sweden voted in 1932 for these demands advanced by the Social-Democrats, and welcomed in 1933 the formation of a Social-Democratic government in the hope that now these demands would be realized. What could have been more natural in such a situation and what would have better suited the mass of the workers than an appeal of the Communist Party to all Social-Democratic and trade union organizations to take joint action to secure these demands advanced by the Social-Democratic Party?

    If we had succeeded in really mobilizing wide masses and in welding the Social-Democratic and Communist workers' organizations into a united front to secure these demands of the Social-Democrats themselves, there is no doubt that the

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working class of Sweden would have gained thereby. The Social-Democratic ministers of Sweden, of course, would not have been very happy over it, for in that case the government would have been compelled to meet at least some of these demands. At any rate, what has happened now, when the government instead of abolishing has raised some of the duties, instead of restricting militarism has enlarged the military budget, and instead of rejecting any legislation directed against the trade unions has itself introduced such a bill in Parliament, would not have happened. True, on the last issue the Communist Party of Sweden carried through a good mass campaign in the spirit of the proletarian united front with the result that in the end even the Social-Democratic parliamentary fraction felt constrained to vote against the government bill, and for the time it has fallen through.

    The Norwegian Communists were right in calling upon the organizations of the Labor Party to organize joint May Day demonstrations and in putting forward a number of demands which in the main coincide with the demands contained in the election platform of the Norwegian Labor Party. Although this step in favor of a united front was poorly prepared and the leadership of the Norwegian Labor Party opposed it, united front demonstrations took place in thirty localities.

    Formerly many Communists used to be afraid that it would be opportunism on their part if they did not counter every partial demand of the Social-Democrats by demands of their own which were twice as radical. That was a naïve mistake. If Social-Democrats, for instance, demanded the dissolution of the fascist organizations, there was no reason why we should add: "and the disbanding of the state police" (a demand which would be expedient under different circumstances). We should rather tell the Social-Democratic workers: We are ready to accept these demands of your Party as demands of the proletarian united front and are ready to fight to the end for their realization. Let us join hands for the battle.

    In Czechoslovakia also certain demands advanced by the Czech and German Social-Democrats, and by the reformist

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trade unions, can and should be utilized for establishing a united front of the working class. When the Social-Democrats, for instance, demand work for the unemployed, or the abolition of the laws restricting municipal self-government, as they have done ever since 1927, these demands should be made concrete in each locality, in each district, and a fight should be carried on hand in hand with the Social-Democratic organizations for their actual realization. Or, when the Social-Democratic Parties thunder "in general terms" against the agents of fascism in the state apparatus, the proper thing to do is in each particular district to drag into the light of day the particular local fascist spokesmen, and together with the Social-Democratic workers demand their removal from government employ.

    In Belgium the leaders of the Socialist Party, with Emile Vandervelde at their head, have entered a coalition government. This "success" they have achieved thanks to their lengthy and extensive campaigns for two main demands: (1) the abolition of the emergency decree, and (2) the realization of the de Man plan. The first issue is very important. The preceding government issued 150 reactionary emergency decrees, which are an extremely heavy burden on the working people. It was proposed to repeal them at once. Such was the demand of the Socialist Party. But have many of these emergency decrees been repealed by the new government? It has not rescinded a single one. It has only mollified somewhat a few of the emergency decrees in order to make a sort of "token payment" in settlement of the generous promises of the Belgian Socialist leaders (like that "token dollar" which some European powers proffered the U.S.A. in payment of the millions due as war debts).

    As regards the realization of the widely advertised de Man plan, the matter has taken a turn quite unexpected by the Social-Democratic masses. The Socialist ministers announced that the economic crisis must be overcome first, and only those provisions of the de Man plan should be carried into effect which improve the position of the industrial capitalists and

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the banks; only thereafter would it be possible to adopt measures to improve the conditions of the workers. But how long must the workers wait for their share in the "benefits" promised them in the de Man plan? The Belgian bankers have already had their veritable shower of gold. The Belgian franc has been devaluated 28 per cent; by this manipulation the bankers were able to pocket 4,500,000,000 francs as their spoils at the expense of the wage earners and the savings of the small depositors. But how does this tally with the contents of the de Man plan? Why, if we are to believe the letter of the plan, it promises to "prosecute monopolist abuses and speculative manipulations."

    On the basis of the de Man plan, the government has appointed a commission to supervise the banks. But the commission consists of bankers who can now gaily and light-heartedly supervise themselves.

    The de Man plan also promises a number of other good things, such as a "shortening of the working day," "standardization of wages," "a minimum wage," "organization of an all-embracing system of social insurance," "greater convenience in living conditions through new housing construction" and so forth. These are all demands which we Communists can support. We should go to the labor organizations of Belgium and say to them: The capitalists have already received enough and even too much. Let us demand that the Social-Democratic ministers now carry out the promises they made to the workers. Let us get together in a united front for the successful defense of our interests. Minister Vandervelde, we support the demands on behalf of the workers contained in your platform; but we tell you frankly that we take these demands seriously, that we want action and not empty words, and therefore are uniting hundreds of thousands of workers to struggle for these demands!

    Thus, in countries having Social-Democratic governments, the Communists, by utilizing suitable individual demands taken from the platforms of the Social-Democratic Parties themselves and from the election promises of the Social-Democratic

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ministers as the starting point for achieving joint action with the Social-Democratic Parties and organizations, can afterwards more easily develop a campaign for the establishment of a united front on the basis of other mass demands in the struggle against the capitalist offensive, against fascism and the threat of war.

    It must further be borne in mind that in general joint action with the Social-Democratic Parties and organizations requires from Communists serious and substantiated criticism of Social-Democracy as the ideology and practice of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and untiring, comradely explanation for the Social-Democratic workers of the program and slogans of Communism. In countries having Social-Democratic governments this task is of particular importance in the struggle for the united front.

    Comrades, a most important stage in the consolidation of the united front must be the establishment of national and international trade union unity.

    As you know, the splitting tactics of the reformist leaders were applied most virulently in the trade unions. The reason for this is clear. Here their policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie found its practical culmination directly in the factories, to the detriment of the vital interests of the working class. This, of course, gave rise to sharp criticism and resistance on the part of the revolutionary workers under the leadership of the Communists. That is why the struggle between Communism and reformism raged most fiercely in the trade unions.

    The more difficult and complicated the situation became for capitalism, the more reactionary was the policy of the leaders of the Amsterdam unions* and the more aggressive their measures against all opposition elements within the trade

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unions. Even the establishment of the fascist dictatorship in Germany and the intensified capitalist offensive in all capitalist countries failed to diminish this aggressiveness. Is it not a characteristic fact that in 1933 alone, most disgraceful circulars were issued in Great Britain, Holland, Belgium and Sweden, for the expulsion of Communists and revolutionary workers from the trade unions?

    In Great Britain in 1933 a circular was issued prohibiting the local branches of the trade unions from joining the anti-war or other revolutionary organizations. That was a prelude to the notorious "Black Circular" of the Trade Union Congress General Council, which outlawed any Trades Council admitting delegates "directly or indirectly associated with Communist organizations." What is there left to be said of the leadership of the German trade unions, which applied unprecedented repressive measures against the revolutionary elements in the trade unions?

    Yet we must base our tactics, not on the behavior of individual leaders of the Amsterdam unions, no matter what difficulties their behavior may cause the class struggle, but primarily on the question of where the masses of workers are to be found. And here we must openly declare that work in the trade unions is the weakest spot in the work of all Communist Parties. We must bring about a real change for the better in trade union work and make the question of struggle for trade union unity the central issue.

    "What constitutes the strength of Social-Democracy in the West?" asked Comrade Stalin ten years ago. Answering this question, he said:

    The fact that it has its support in the trade unions.
    What constitutes the weakness of our Communist Parties in the West?
    The fact that they are not yet linked with the trade unions, and that certain elements within the Communist Parties do not wish to be linked with them.
    Hence, the main task of the Communist Parties of the West at the present time is to develop the campaign for unity in the trade union movement and to bring it to its consummation; to see to it that all

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By the very fact of building at the present time its class organizations and consolidating its positions, by the very fact of defending democratic rights and liberties against fascism, by the very fact of fighting for the overthrow of capitalism, the working class is fighting for the future of the nation.

    The revolutionary proletariat is fighting to save the culture of the people, to liberate it from the shackles of decaying monopoly capitalism, from barbarous fascism, which is laying violent hands on it. Only the proletarian revolution can avert the destruction of culture and raise it to its highest flowering as a truly national culture national in form and socialist in content -- which, under Stalin's leadership, is being realized in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics before our very eyes.

    Proletarian internationalism not only is not in contradiction to this struggle of the working people of the individual countries for national, social and cultural freedom, but, thanks to international proletarian solidarity and fighting unity, assures the support that is necessary for victory in this struggle. The working class in the capitalist countries can triumph only in closest alliance with the victorious proletariat of the great Soviet Union. Only by struggling hand in hand with the proletariat of the imperialist countries can the colonial peoples and oppressed national minorities achieve their freedom. The sole road to victory for the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries lies through the revolutionary alliance of the working class of the imperialist countries with the national liberation movement in the colonies and dependent countries, because, as Marx taught us, "no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations."

    Communists belonging to an oppressed, dependent nation cannot combat chauvinism successfully among the people of their own nation if they do not at the same time show in practice, in the mass movement, that they actually struggle for the liberation of their nation from the alien yoke. And again, on the other hand, the Communists of an oppressing nation can not do what is necessary to educate the toiling masses of their nation in the spirit of internationalism without waging a reso-

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lute struggle against the oppressor policy of their "own" bourgeoisie, for the right of complete self-determination for the nations kept in bondage by it. If they do not do this, they likewise do not make it easier for the toilers of the oppressed nation to overcome their nationalist prejudices.

    If we act in this spirit, if in all our mass work we prove convincingly that we are free of both national nihilism and bourgeois nationalism, then and only then shall we be able to wage a really successful struggle against the jingo demagogy of the fascists.

    That is the reason why a correct and practical application of the Leninist-Stalinist national policy is of such paramount importance. It is unquestionably an essential preliminary condition for a successful struggle against chauvinism -- this main instrument of ideological influence of the fascists upon the masses.

    In the period between the Sixth and Seventh Congresses, our Parties in the capitalist countries have undoubtedly grown

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in stature and have been considerably steeled. But it would be a most dangerous mistake to rest content with this achievement. The more the united front of the working class extends, the more will new, complex problems rise before us and the more will it be necessary for us to work on the political and organizational consolidation of our Parties. The united front of the proletariat brings to the fore an army of workers who will be able to carry out their mission if this army is headed by a leading force which will point out its aims and paths. This leading force can only be a strong proletarian, revolutionary party.

    If we Communists exert every effort to establish a united front, we do this not for the narrow purpose of recruiting new members for the Communist Parties. But we must strengthen the Communist Parties in every way and increase their membership for the very reason that we seriously want to strengthen the united front. The strengthening of the Communist Parties is not a narrow Party concern but the concern of the entire working class.

    The unity, revolutionary solidarity and fighting preparedness of the Communist Parties constitute most valuable capital which belongs not only to us but to the whole working class. We have combined and shall continue to combine our readiness to march jointly with the Social-Democratic Parties and organizations to the struggle against fascism with an irreconcilable struggle against Social-Democracy as the ideology and practice of compromise with the bourgeoisie, and consequently also against any penetration of this ideology into our own ranks.

    In boldly and resolutely carrying out the policy of the united front, we meet in our own ranks with obstacles which we must remove at all costs in the shortest possible time.

    After the Sixth Congress of the Comintern, a successful struggle was waged in all Communist Parties of the capitalist countries against any tendency toward an opportunist adaptation to the conditions of capitalist stabilization and against any infection with reformist and legalist illusions. Our Parties

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purged their ranks of various kinds of Right opportunists, thus strengthening their Bolshevik unity and fighting capacity. Less successful, and frequently entirely lacking, was the fight against sectarianism. Sectarianism manifested itself no longer in primitive, open forms, as in the first years of the existence of the Communist International, but, under cover of a formal recognition of the Bolshevik theses, hindered the development of a Bolshevik mass policy. In our day this is often no longer an "infantile disorder," as Lenin wrote, but a deeply rooted vice, which must be shaken off or it will be impossible to solve the problem of establishing the united front of the proletariat and of leading the masses from the positions of reformism to the side of revolution.

    In the present situation sectarianism, self-satisfied sectarianism, as we designate it in the draft resolution, more than anything else impedes our struggle for the realization of the united front: sectarianism, satisfied with its doctrinaire narrowness, its divorce from the real life of the masses; satisfied with its simplified methods of solving the most complex problems of the working class movement on the basis of stereotyped schemes; sectarianism, which professes to know all and considers it superfluous to learn from the masses, from the lessons of the labor movement. In short, sectarianism, to which, as they say, mountains are mere stepping-stones.

    Self-satisfied sectarianism will not and cannot understand that the leadership of the working class by the Communist Party does not come of itself. The leading role of the Communist Party in the struggles of the working class must be won. For this purpose it is necessary, not to rant about the leading role of the Communists, but to merit and win the confidence of the working masses by everyday mass work and correct policy. This will be possible only if in our political work we Communists seriously take into account the actual level of the class consciousness of the masses, the degree to which they have become revolutionized, if we soberly appraise the actual situation, not on the basis of our wishes but on the basis of the actual state of affairs. Patiently, step by step, we must make

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it easier for the broad masses to come over to the Communist position. We ought never to forget the words of Lenin, who warns us as strongly as possible:

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nected with the masses, enjoying the confidence of the masses, cadres whose revolutionary mettle have been tried and tested in class battles, cadres capable of combining the practical experience of mass work with the staunchness of principle of a Bolshevik.

    Thus sectarianism has to a considerable extent retarded the growth of the Communist Parties, made it difficult to carry out a real mass policy, prevented our taking advantage of the difficulties of the class enemy to strengthen the positions of the revolutionary movement, and hindered the winning over of the wide mass of the proletariat to the side of the Communist Parties.

    While fighting most resolutely to overcome and exterminate the last remnants of self-satisfied sectarianism, we must increase in every way our vigilance toward Right opportunism and the struggle against it and against every one of its concrete manifestations, bearing in mind that the danger of Right opportunism will increase in proportion as the wide united front develops. Already there are tendencies to reduce the role of the Communist Party in the ranks of the united front and to effect a reconciliation with Social-Democratic ideology. Nor must the fact be lost sight of that the tactics of the united front are a method of clearly convincing the Social-Democratic workers of the correctness of the Communist policy and the incorrectness of the reformist policy, and that they are not a reconciliation with Social-Democratic ideology and practice. A successful struggle to establish the united front imperatively demands constant struggle in our ranks against tendencies to depreciate the role of the Party, against legalist illusions, against reliance on spontaneity and automatism, both in liquidating fascism and in conducting the united front against the slightest vacillation at the moment of decisive action.

    It is necessary -- Stalin teaches us -- that the Party be able to combine in its work the greatest adhesion to principle (not to be confused with sectarianism!) with a maximum of contacts and connections with the masses (not to be confused with "tailism"!), without which it is not only impossible for the Party to teach the masses but also to learn

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from them, not only to lead the masses and raise them to the level of the Party, but to listen to the voice of the masses and divine their sorest needs. (Joseph Stalin, "The Perspective of the Communist Party of Germany and Bolshevization," Pravda, No. 27, February 3, 1926.)

    Comrades, the development of the united front of joint struggle of the Communist and Social-Democratic workers against fascism and the offensive of capital likewise brings to the fore the question of political unity, of a single political mass party of the working class. The Social-Democratic workers are becoming more and more convinced by experience that the struggle against the class enemy demands unity of political leadership, inasmuch as duality in leadership impedes the further development and reinforcement of the joint struggle of the working class.

    The interests of the class struggle of the proletariat and the success of the proletarian revolution make it imperative that there be a single party of the proletariat in each country. Of course, it is not so easy or simple to achieve this. It requires stubborn work and struggle and will of necessity be a more or less lengthy process. The Communist Parties, basing themselves on the growing urge of the workers for a unification of the Social-Democratic Parties or of individual organizations with the Communist Parties, must firmly and confidently take the initiative in this unification. The cause of amalgamating the forces of the working class in a single revolutionary proletarian party, at the time when the international labor movement is entering the period of closing the split in its ranks, is our cause, is the cause of the Communist International.

    But while it is sufficient for the establishment of the united front of the Communist and Social-Democratic Parties to have an agreement to struggle against fascism, the offensive of capital and war, the achievement of political unity is possible only on the basis of a number of definite conditions involving principles.

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    This unification is possible only:

    First, on condition of complete independence from the bourgeoisie and complete rupture of the bloc of Social-Democracy with the bourgeoisie ;

    Second, on condition that unity of action be first brought about;

    Third, on condition that the necessity of the revolutionary overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of Soviets be recognized ;

    Fourth, on condition that support of one's own bourgeoisie in imperialist war be rejected;

    Fifth, on condition that the party be constructed on the basis of democratic centralism, which ensures unity of will and action, and which has been tested by the experience of the Russian Bolsheviks.

    We must explain to the Social-Democratic workers, patiently and in comradely fashion, why political unity of the working class is impossible without these conditions. We must discuss together with them the sense and significance of these conditions.

    Why is it necessary for the realization of the political unity of the proletariat that there be complete independence of the bourgeoisie and a rupture of the bloc of Social-Democrats with the bourgeoisie?

    Because the whole experience of the labor movement, particularly the experience of the fifteen years of coalition policy in Germany, has shown that the policy of class collaboration, the policy of dependence on the bourgeoisie, leads to the defeat of the working class and to the victory of fascism. And only the road of irreconcilable class struggle against the bourgeoisie, the road of the Bolsheviks, is the true road to victory.

    Why must unity of action be first established as a preliminary condition of political unity?

    Because unity of action to repel the offensive of capital and of fascism is possible and necessary even before the majority of the workers are united on a common political platform for

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the overthrow of capitalism, while the working out of unity of views on the main lines and aims of the struggle of the proletariat, without which a unification of the parties is impossible, requires a more or less extended period of time. And unity of views is worked out best of all in joint struggle against the class enemy even today. To propose to unite at once instead of forming a united front means to place the cart before the horse and to imagine that the cart will then move ahead. Precisely for the reason that for us the question of political unity is not a maneuver, as it is for many Social-Democratic leaders, we insist on the realization of unity of action as one of the most important stages in the struggle for political unity.

    Why is it necessary to recognize the necessity of the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of Soviet power?

    Because the experience of the victory of the great October Revolution on the one hand, and, on the other, the bitter lessons learned in Germany, Austria and Spain during the entire post-war period, have confirmed once more that the victory of the proletariat is possible only by means of the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and that the bourgeoisie would rather drown the labor movement in a sea of blood than allow the proletariat to establish socialism by peaceful means. The experience of the October Revolution has demonstrated patently that the basic content of the proletarian revolution is the question of the proletarian dictatorship, which is called upon to crush the resistance of the overthrown exploiters, to arm the revolution for the struggle against imperialism and to lead the revolution to the complete victory of socialism. To achieve the dictatorship of the proletariat as the dictatorship of the vast majority over an insignificant minority, over the exploiters -- and only as such can it be brought about -- for this Soviets are needed embracing all sections of the working class, the basic masses of the peasantry and the rest of the toilers, without whose awakening, without whose inclusion in the front of the revolutionary struggle, the victory of the proletariat cannot be consolidated.

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    Why is the refusal of support to the bourgeoisie in an imperialist war a condition of political unity?

    Because the bourgeoisie wages imperialist war for its predatory purposes, against the interests of the vast majority of the peoples, under whatever guise this war may be waged. Because all imperialists combine their feverish preparations for war with extremely intensified exploitation and oppression of the working people in their own country. Support of the bourgeoisie in such a war means treason to the country and the international working class.

    Why, finally, is the building of the party on the basis of democratic centralism a condition of unity?

    Because only a party built on the basis of democratic centralism can ensure unity of will and action, can lead the proletariat to victory over the bourgeoisie, which has at its disposal so powerful a weapon as the centralized state apparatus. The application of the principle of democratic centralism has stood the splendid historical test of the experience of the Russian Bolshevik Party, the Party of Lenin and Stalin.

    Yes, we are for a single mass political party of the working class. But this party must be, in the words of Comrade Stalin,

    ". . . a militant party, a revolutionary party, bold enough to lead the proletarians to the struggle for power, with sufficient experience to be able to orientate itself in the complicated problems that arise in a revolutionary situation, and sufficiently flexible to steer clear of any submerged rocks on the way to its goal."

    This explains why it is necessary to strive for political unity on the basis of the conditions indicated.

    We are for the political unity of the working class. Therefore we are ready to collaborate most closely with all Social-Democrats who are for the united front and sincerely support unity on the above-mentioned principles. But precisely because we are for unity, we shall struggle resolutely against all "Left" demagogues who try to make use of the disillusionment of the Social-Democratic workers to create new Socialist Parties or Internationals directed against the Communist movement, and thus keep deepening the split in the working class.

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    We welcome the growing efforts among Social-Democratic workers for a united front with the Communists. In this fact we see a growth of their revolutionary consciousness and a beginning of the healing of the split in the working class. Being of the opinion that unity of action is a pressing necessity and the truest road to the establishment of the political unity of the proletariat as well, we declare that the Communist International and its sections are ready to enter into negotiations with the Second International and its sections for the establishment of the unity of the working class in the struggle against the offensive of capital, against fascism and the menace of imperialist war.

    Comrades, I am concluding my report. As you see, taking into account the change in the situation since the Sixth Congress and the lessons of our struggle, and relying on the degree of consolidation in our ranks already achieved, we are raising a number of questions today in a new way, primarily the question of the united front and of the approach to Social-Democracy, the reformist trade unions and other mass organizations.

    There are wiseacres who will sense in all this a digression from our basic positions, some sort of turn to the Right of the straight line of Bolshevism. Well, in my country, Bulgaria, they say that a hungry chicken always dreams of millet. Let those political chickens think so.

    This interests us little. For us it is important that our own Parties and the wide masses throughout the world should correctly understand what we are striving for.

    We would not be revolutionary Marxists, Leninists, worthy pupils of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, if we did not suitably reconstruct our policies and tactics in accordance with the changing situation and the changes occurring in the world labor movement.

    We would not be real revolutionaries if we did not learn from our own experience and the experience of the masses.

    We want our Parties -- in the capitalist countries to come out

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and act as real political parties of the working class, to become in actual fact a political factor in the life of their countries, to pursue at all times an active Bolshevik mass policy and not confine themselves to propaganda and criticism, and bare appeals to struggle for proletarian dictatorship.

    We are enemies of all cut-and-dried schemes. We want to take into account the concrete situation at each moment, in each place, and not act according to a fixed, stereotyped form anywhere and everywhere; not to forget that in varying circumstances the position of the Communists cannot be identical.

    We want soberly to take into account all stages in the development of the class struggle and in the growth of the class-consciousness of the masses themselves, to be able to locate and solve at each stage the concrete problems of the revolutionary movement corresponding to this stage.

    We want to find a common language with the broadest masses for the purpose of struggling against the class enemy, to find ways of finally overcoming the isolation of the revolutionary vanguard from the masses of the proletariat and all other toilers, as well as of overcoming the fatal isolation of the working class itself from its natural allies in the struggle against the bourgeoisie, against fascism.

    We want to draw increasingly wide masses into the revolutionary class struggle and lead them to the proletarian revolution, proceeding from their vital interests and needs as the starting point, and their own experience as the basis.

    Following the example of our glorious Russian Bolsheviks, the example of the leading Party of the Communist International, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, we want to combine the revolutionary heroism of the German, the Spanish, the Austrian and other Communists with genuine revolutionary realism, and put an end to the last remnants of scholastic tinkering with serious political questions.

    We want to equip our Parties from every angle for the solution of the highly complex political problems confronting them. For this purpose we want to raise ever higher their

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theoretical level, to train them in the spirit of living Marxism-Leninism and not dead doctrinairism.

    We want to eradicate from our ranks all self-satisfied sectarianism, which above all blocks our road to the masses and impedes the carrying out of a truly Bolshevik mass policy. We want to intensify in every way the struggle against all concrete manifestations of Right opportunism, realizing that the danger from this side will increase precisely in the practice of carrying out our mass policy and struggle.

    We want the Communists of each country promptly to draw and apply all the lessons that can be drawn from their own experience as the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat. We want them as quickly as possible to learn how to sail on the turbulent waters of the class struggle, and not to remain on the shore as observers and registrars of the surging waves in the expectation of fine weather.

    This is what we want!

    And we want all this because only in this way will the working class at the head of all the toilers, welded into a million strong revolutionary army, led by the Communist International and possessed of so great and wise a pilot as our leader Comrade Stalin, be able to fulfill its historical mission with certainty -- to sweep fascism off the face of the earth and, together with it, capitalism!

    (At the close of the report all delegates joined in a lengthy ovation, cheering enthusiastically and singing the revolutionary songs of their countries.)

Main Report Delivered at the Seventh World Congress of the   Communist International, August 2, 1935.

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COMRADES, the very full discussion on my report bears witness to the immense interest taken by the Congress in the fundamental tactical problems and tasks of the struggle of the working class against the offensive of capital and fascism, and against the threat of imperialist war.

    Summing up the eight-day discussion, we can state that all the principal propositions contained in the report have met with the unanimous approval of the Congress. None of the speakers objected to the tactical line we have proposed or to the resolution which has been submitted.

    I venture to say that at none of the previous Congresses of the Communist International has such ideological and political solidarity been revealed as at the present Congress. The complete unanimity displayed at the Congress indicates that the necessity of revising our policy and tactics in accordance with the changed conditions and on the basis of the extremely abundant and instructive experience of the past few years, has come to be fully recognized in our ranks.

    This unanimity may undoubtedly be regarded as one of the most important conditions for success in solving the paramount immediate problem of the international proletarian movement, namely, establishing unity of action of all sections of the working class in the struggle against fascism.

    The successful solution of this problem requires, first, that Communists skillfully wield the weapon of Marxist-Leninist analysis, while carefully studying the actual situation and the alignment of class forces as these develop, and that they plan their activity and struggle accordingly. We must mercilessly

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root out the weakness, not infrequently observed in our comrades, for cut-and-dried schemes, lifeless formulas and ready made patterns. We must put an end to the state of affairs in which Communists, when lacking the knowledge or ability for Marxist-Leninist analysis, substitute for it general phrases and slogans such as "the revolutionary way out of the crisis," without making the slightest serious attempt to explain what must be the conditions, the relationship of class forces, the degree of revolutionary maturity of the proletariat and mass of working people, and the level of influence of the Communist Party for making possible such a revolutionary way out of the crisis. Without such an analysis all these catchwords be come "dud" shells, empty phrases which only obscure our tasks of the day.

    Without a concrete Marxist-Leninist analysis we shall never be able correctly to present and solve the problem of fascism, the problems of the proletarian front and the general People's Front, the problem of our attitude toward bourgeois democracy, the problem of a united front government, the problem of the processes going on within the working class particularly among the Social-Democratic workers, or any of the numerous other new and complex problems with which life itself and the development of the class struggle confronts us now and will confront us in the future.

    Second, we need live people -- people who have grown up from the masses of the workers, have sprung from their every day struggle, people of militant action, whole-heartedly de voted to the cause of the proletariat, people whose brains and hands will give effect to the decisions of our Congress. Without Bolshevik, Leninist-Stalinist cadres we shall be unable to solve the enormous problems that confront the toilers in the fight against fascism.

    Third, we need people equipped with the compass of Marxist-Leninist theory, for people who are unable to make skillful use of this instrument slip into narrow, makeshift politics, are unable to look ahead, take decisions only from case to case, and lose the broad perspective of the struggle which

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shows the masses where we are going and whither we are leading the toilers.

    Fourth, we need the organization of the masses in order to put our decisions into practice. Our ideological and political influence alone is not enough. We must put a stop to reliance on the hope that the movement will develop of its own accord, which is one of our fundamental weaknesses. We must remember that without persistent, prolonged, patient, and sometimes apparently thankless organizational work on our part, the masses will never make for the Communist shore. In order to be able to organize the masses we must acquire Lenin's and Stalin's art of making our decisions the property not only of the Communists but also of the widest masses of working people. We must learn to talk to the masses, not in the language of book formulas, but in the language of fighters for the cause of the masses, whose every word, whose every idea reflects the innermost thoughts and sentiments of millions.

    It is primarily with these problems that I should like to deal in my closing speech.

    Comrades, the Congress has welcomed the new tactical lines with great enthusiasm and unanimity. Enthusiasm and unanimity are excellent things of course; but it is still better when these are combined with a deeply considered and critical approach to the tasks that confront us, with a proper mastery of the decisions adopted and a real understanding of the means and methods by which these decisions are to be applied to the particular circumstances of each country.

    After all, we have unanimously adopted good resolutions before now, but the trouble was that we not infrequently adopted these decisions in a formal manner and we at best made them the property of only the small vanguard of the working class. Our decisions did not become flesh and blood for the wide masses; they did not become a guide to the action of millions of people.

    Can we assert that we have already finally abandoned this formal approach to adopted decisions? No. It must be said

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that even at this Congress the speeches of some of the comrades gave indication of remnants of formalism; a desire made itself felt at times to substitute for the concrete analysis of reality and living experience some sort of new scheme, some sort of new, over-simplified lifeless formula, to represent as actually existing what we desire, but does not yet exist.

    No general characterization of fascism, however correct in itself, can relieve us of the need to study and take into account the special features of the development of fascism and the various forms of fascist dictatorship in the individual countries and at its various stages. It is necessary in each country to investigate, study and ascertain the national peculiarities, the specific national features of fascism and map out accordingly effective methods and forms of struggle against fascism.

    Lenin persistently warned us against "stereotyped methods and mechanical leveling, against rendering tactical rules, rules of struggle, identical." This warning is particularly to the point when it is a question of fighting an enemy who so subtly and Jesuitically exploits the national sentiments and prejudices of the masses and their anti-capitalist inclinations in the interests of big capital. Such an enemy must be known to perfection, from every angle. We must, without any delay what ever, react to his various maneuvers, discover his hidden moves, be prepared to repel him in any arena and at any moment. We must not hesitate even to learn from the enemy if that will help us more quickly and more effectively to wring his neck.

    It would be a gross mistake to lay down any sort of universal scheme of the development of fascism, to cover all countries and all peoples. Such a scheme would not help but would hamper us in carrying on a real struggle. Apart from everything else, such a rule would result in indiscriminately thrusting into the camp of fascism those sections of the population which, if properly approached, could, at a certain stage of develop-

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ment, be brought into the struggle against fascism, or could at least be neutralized.

    Let us take, for example, the development of fascism in France and in Germany. Some comrades believe that, generally speaking, fascism cannot develop as easily in France as in Germany. What is true and what is false in this contention? It is true that there were no such deep-seated democratic traditions in Germany as there are in France, which went through several revolutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is true that France is a country which won the war and imposed the Versailles system on other countries, that the national sentiments of the French people have not been hurt as they have been in Germany where this factor played such a great part. It is true that in France the basic masses of the peasantry are pro-republic and anti-fascist, especially in the south, in contrast with Germany, where even before fascism came to power a considerable section of the peasantry was under the influence of reactionary parties.

    But, comrades, notwithstanding the existing differences in the development of the fascist movement in France and in Germany, notwithstanding the factors which impede the onslaught of fascism in France, it would be shortsighted not to notice the uninterrupted growth there of the fascist peril or to underestimate the possibility of a fascist coup d'état. Moreover, a number of factors in France favor the development of fascism. One must not forget that the economic crisis, which began later in France than in other capitalist countries, continues to become deeper and more acute and this greatly encourages the orgy of fascist demagogy. French fascism holds strong positions in the army, among the officers, such as the Nationalist-Socialists did not have in the Reichswehr before their advent to power. Furthermore, in no other country, perhaps, has the parliamentary regime been corrupted to such an enormous extent and caused such indignation among the masses as in France. Nor must it be forgotten that the development of fascism is furthered by the French bourgeoisie's keen fear of losing its political and military hegemony in Europe.

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    Hence it follows that the successes scored by the anti-fascist movement in France, of which Comrades Thorez and Cachin have spoken here and over which we so heartily rejoice, are still far from indicating that the toiling masses have definitely succeeded in blocking the road to fascism. I must emphatically stress once more the full importance of the tasks of the French working class in the struggle against fascism, of which I already spoke in my report.

    It would likewise be dangerous to cherish illusions regarding the weakness of fascism in other countries where it does not have a broad mass base. We have the example of such countries as Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Finland, where fascism, although it had no broad base, came to power, relying on the armed forces of the state, and then sought to broaden its base by making use of the state apparatus.

    Comrade Dutt was right in his contention that there was a tendency among us to contemplate fascism in general, without taking into account the specific features of the fascist movement in the various countries, erroneously classifying all reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie as fascism and going as far as calling the entire non-Communist camp fascist. The struggle against fascism was not strengthened but rather weakened in consequence.

    Even now we still have survivals of a stereotyped approach to the question of fascism. When some comrades assert that Roosevelt's "New Deal" represents an even clearer and more pronounced form of the development of the bourgeoisie toward fascism than the "National Government" in Great Britain, for example, is this not a manifestation of such a stereotyped approach to the question? One must be very partial to hackneyed schemes not to see that the most reactionary circles of American finance capital, which are attacking Roosevelt, are above all the very force which is stimulating and organizing the fascist movement in the United States. Not to see the beginnings of real fascism in the United States behind the hypocritical outpourings of these circles "in defense of the democratic rights of the American citizen" is tantamount to

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misleading the working class in the struggle against its worst enemy.

    In the colonial and semi-colonial countries also, as was mentioned in the discussion, certain fascist groups are developing but, of course, there can be no question of the kind of fascism that we are accustomed to see in Germany, Italy and other capitalist countries. Here we must study and take into account the quite special economic, political and historical conditions, in accordance with which fascism is assuming, and will continue to assume, peculiar forms of its own.

    Unable to approach the phenomena of real life concretely, some comrades who suffer from mental laziness substitute general, noncommittal formulas for a careful and concrete study of the actual situation and the relationship of class forces. They remind us, not of sharpshooters who shoot with unerring aim, but of those "crack" riflemen who regularly and unfailingly miss the target, shooting either too high or too low, too near or too far. But we, comrades, as Communists, active in the labor movement, as the revolutionary vanguard of the working class, want to be sharpshooters who unfailingly hit the target.

    Some comrades are quite needlessly racking their brains over the problem of what to begin with -- the united proletarian front or the anti-fascist People's Front.

    Some say that we cannot start forming the anti-fascist People's Front until we have organized a solid united front of the proletariat.

    Others argue that, since the establishment of the united proletarian front meets in a number of countries with the resistance of the reactionary part of Social-Democracy, it is better to start at once with building up the People's Front, and then develop the united working class front on this basis.

    Evidently both groups fail to understand that the united

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proletarian front and the anti-fascist People's Front are connected by the living dialectics of struggle ; that they are interwoven, the one passing into the other in the process of the practical struggle against fascism, and that there is certainly no Chinese wall to keep them apart.

    For it cannot be seriously supposed that it is possible to establish a genuine anti-fascist People's Front without securing the unity of action of the working class itself, the guiding force of this anti-fascist People's Front. At the same time, the further development of the united proletarian front depends, to a considerable degree, upon its transformation into a People's Front against fascism.

    Comrades ! Just picture to yourselves a devotee of cut-and-dried theories of this kind, gazing upon our resolution and contriving his pet scheme with the zeal of a true pedant:

    First, local united proletarian front from below;

    Then, regional united front from below;

    Thereafter, united front from above, passing through the same stages;

    Then, unity in the trade union movement;

    After that, the enlistment of other anti-fascist parties;

    This to be followed by the extended People's Front, from above and from below;

    After which the movement must be raised to a higher level, politicalized, revolutionized, and so on and so forth.

    You will say, comrades, that this is sheer nonsense. I agree with you. But the unfortunate thing is that in some form or other this kind of sectarian nonsense is still to be found quite frequently in our ranks.

    How does the matter really stand? Of course, we must strive everywhere for a wide People's Front of struggle against fascism. But in a number of countries we shall not get beyond general talk about the People's Front unless we succeed in mobilizing the mass of the workers for the purpose of breaking down the resistance of the reactionary section of Social-Democracy to the proletarian united front of struggle. Above all, this is how the matter stands in Great Britain, where the

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working class comprises the majority of the population and where the bulk of the working class follows the lead of the trade unions and the Labor Party. That is how matters stand in Belgium and in the Scandinavian countries, where the numerically small Communist Parties must face strong mass trade unions and numerically large Social-Democratic Parties.

    In these countries the Communists would commit a very serious political mistake if they shirked the struggle to establish a united proletarian front, under cover of general talk about the People's Front, which cannot be formed without the participation of the mass working class organizations. In order to bring about a genuine People's Front in these countries, the Communists must carry out an enormous amount of political and organizational work among the mass of the workers. They must overcome the preconceived ideas of these masses who regard their mass reformist organizations as already the embodiment of proletarian unity. They must convince these masses &t the establishment of a united front with the Communists mean a shift on the part of those masses to the position of the class struggle, and that this shift alone will guarantee success in the struggle against the offensive of capital and fascism. We shall not overcome our difficulties by setting ourselves much wider tasks here. On the contrary, in fighting to remove these difficulties we shall, in fact and not in words alone, prepare the ground for the creation of a genuine People's Front of battle against fascism, against the capitalist offensive and against the threat of imperialist war.

    The problem is different in countries like Poland, where a strong peasant movement is developing alongside the labor movement, where the peasant masses have their own organizations which are becoming radicalized as a result of the agrarian crisis, and where national oppression evokes indignation among the national minorities. Here the development of the general People's Front of struggle will proceed parallel with the development of the united proletarian front, and at times in this type of country the movement for a general People's Front may even outstrip the movement for a working class front.

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    Take a country like Spain, which is in the process of a bourgeois-democratic revolution. Can it be said that, because the proletariat is split up into numerous small organizations, complete fighting unity of the working class must first be established here before a workers' and peasants' front against Lerroux and Gil Robles is created? By tackling the question in this way we would isolate the proletariat from the peasantry, we would in effect be withdrawing the slogan of the agrarian revolution, and we would make it easier for the enemies of the people to disunite the proletariat and the peasantry and set the peasantry in opposition to the working class. Yet this, comrades, as is well known, was one of the main reasons why the working class was defeated in the October events of 1934.

    However, one thing must not be forgotten: in all countries where the proletariat is comparatively small in numbers, where the peasantry and the urban petty-bourgeois strata predominate, it is all the more necessary to make every effort to set up a firm united front of the working class itself, so that it may be able to take its place as the leading factor in relation to all the toilers.

    Thus, comrades, in attacking the problem of the proletarian front and the People's Front, there can be no general panacea suitable for all cases, all countries, all peoples. In this matter universalism, the application of one and the same recipe to all countries, is equivalent, if you will allow me to say so, to ignorance; and ignorance should be flogged, even when it stalks about, nay, particularly when it stalks about, in the cloak of universal cut-and-dried schemes.

    Comrades, in view of the tactical problems confronting us, it is very important to give a correct reply to the question of whether Social-Democracy at the present time is still the principal bulwark of the bourgeoisie, and if so, where?

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    Some of the comrades who participated in the discussion (Comrades Florin, Dutt) touched upon this question, but in view of its importance a fuller reply must be given to it, for it is a question which workers of all trends, particularly Social-Democratic workers, are asking and cannot help asking.

    It must be borne in mind that in a number of countries the position of Social-Democracy in the bourgeois state, and its attitude toward the bourgeoisie, have been undergoing a change.

    In the first place, the crisis has severely shaken the position of even the most secure sections of the working class, the so-called aristocracy of labor, which, as we know, is the main support of Social-Democracy. These sections, too, are beginning more and more to revise their views as to the expediency of the policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie.

    Second, as I pointed out in my report, the bourgeoisie in a number of countries is itself compelled to abandon bourgeois democracy and resort to the terroristic form of dictatorship, depriving Social-Democracy not only of its previous position in the state system of finance capital, but also, under certain conditions, of its legal status, persecuting and even suppressing it.

    Third, under the influence of the lessons learned from the defeat of the workers in Germany, Austria and Spain, a defeat which was largely the result of the Social-Democratic policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and, on the other hand, under the influence of the victory of socialism in the Soviet Union as a result of Bolshevik policy and the application of revolutionary Marxism, the Social Democratic workers are becoming revolutionized and are beginning to turn to the class struggle against the bourgeoisie.

    The combined effect of all these things has been to make it increasingly difficult, and in some countries actually impossible, for Social-Democracy to preserve its former role of bulwark of the bourgeoisie.

    Failure to understand this is particularly harmful in those countries in which the fascist dictatorship has deprived

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Social-Democracy of its legal status. From this point of view the self-criticism of those German comrades, who in their speeches mentioned the necessity of ceasing to cling to the letter of obsolete formulas and decisions concerning Social-Democracy, of ceasing to ignore the changes that have taken place in its position, was correct. It is clear that if we ignore these changes, it will lead to a distortion of our policy for bringing about the unity of the working class, and will make it easier for the reactionary elements of the Social-Democratic Parties to sabotage the united front.

    The process of revolutionization in the ranks of the Social-Democratic Parties, now going on in all countries, is developing unevenly. It must not be imagined that the Social-Democratic workers who are becoming revolutionized will at once and on a mass scale pass over to the position of consistent class struggle, and will straightway unite with the Communists without any intermediate stages. In a number of countries this will be a more or less difficult, complicated and prolonged process, essentially dependent, at any rate, on the correctness of our policy and tactics. We must even reckon with the possibility that, in passing from the position of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie to the position of class struggle against the bourgeoisie, some Social-Democratic Parties and organizations will continue to exist for a time as independent organizations or parties. In such event there can, of course, be no thought of such Social-Democratic organizations or parties being regarded as a bulwark of the bourgeoisie.

    It cannot be expected that those Social-Democratic workers who are under the influence of the ideology of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, which has been instilled in them for decades, will break with this ideology of their own accord, by the action of objective causes alone. No. It is our business, the business of Communists, to help them free themselves from the hold of reformist ideology. The work of explaining the principles and program of Communism must be carried on patiently, in a comradely fashion, and must be adapted to the degree of development of the individual Social-Democratic

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workers. Our criticism of Social-Democracy must become more concrete and systematic, and must be based on the experience of the Social-Democratic masses themselves.

    It must be borne in mind that primarily by utilizing their experience in the joint struggle with the Communists against the class enemy will it be possible and necessary to facilitate and accelerate the revolutionary development of the Social-Democratic workers. There is no more effective way for the Social-Democratic workers to outlive their doubts and hesitations than by participating in the proletarian united front.

    We shall do all in our power to make it easier, not only for the Social-Democratic workers, but also for those leading members of the Social-Democratic Parties and organizations who sincerely desire to adopt the revolutionary class position, to work and fight with us against the class enemy. At the same time we declare that any Social-Democratic functionary, lower official or worker who continues to uphold the disruptive tactics of the reactionary Social-Democratic leaders, who comes out against the united front and thus directly or indirectly aids the class enemy, will thereby incur at least equal guilt before the working class as those who are historically responsible for having supported the Social-Democratic policy of class collaboration, the policy which in a number of European countries doomed the revolution in 1918 and cleared the way for fascism.

    The attitude to the united front marks the dividing line between the reactionary sections of Social-Democracy and the sections that are becoming revolutionary. Our assistance to the latter will be the more effective the more we intensify our fight against the reactionary camp of Social-Democracy that takes part in a bloc with the bourgeoisie. And within the Left camp the self-determination of its various elements will take place the sooner, the more determinedly the Communists fight for a united front with the Social-Democratic Parties. The experience of the class struggle and the participation of the Social-Democrats in the united front movement will show who

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in that camp will prove to be "Left" in words and who is really Left.

    While the attitude of Social-Democracy toward the practical realization of the proletarian united front is, generally speaking, the chief sign in every country of whether the previous role in the bourgeois state of the Social-Democratic Party or of its individual parts has changed, and if so, to what extent, -- the attitude of the Social-Democrats on the issue of a united front government will be a particularly clear test.

    When a situation arises in which the question of creating a united front government becomes an immediate practical problem, this issue will become a decisive test of the policy of Social-Democracy in the given country: either jointly with the bourgeoisie, that is moving toward fascism, against the working class; or jointly with the revolutionary proletariat against fascism and reaction, not merely in words but in deeds. That is how the question will inevitably present itself at the time the united front government is formed as well as while it is in power.

    With regard to the character and conditions of formation of the united front government or anti-fascist People's Front government, I think that my report gave what was necessary for general tactical direction. To expect us over and above this to indicate all possible forms and all conditions under which such governments may be formed would mean to lose oneself in barren conjecture.

    I would like to utter a note of warning against oversimplification or the application of cut-and-dried schemes in this question. Life is more complex than any scheme. For example, it would be wrong to imagine that the united front government is an indispensable stage on the road to the establishment of proletarian dictatorship. That is just as wrong as the former assertion that there will be no intermediary stages in the fascist countries and that fascist dictatorship is certain to be immediately superseded by proletarian dictatorship.

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    The whole question boils down to this: Will the proletariat itself be prepared at the decisive moment for the direct overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of its own power, and will it be able in that event to ensure the support of its allies? Or, will the movement of the united proletarian front and the anti-fascist People's Front at the particular stage be in a position only to suppress or overthrow fascism, without directly proceeding to abolish the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie? In the latter case it would be an intolerable piece of political short-sightedness, and not serious revolutionary politics, on this ground alone to refuse to create and support a united front or a People's Front government.

    It is likewise not difficult to understand that the establishment of a united front government in countries where fascism is not yet in power is something different from the creation of such a government in countries where the fascist dictatorship holds sway. In the latter countries a united front government can be created only in the process of overthrowing fascist rule. In countries where the bourgeois-democratic revolution is developing, a People's Front government may become the government of the democratic dictatorship of the working class and the peasantry.

    As I have already pointed out in my report, the Communists will do all in their power to support a united front government to the extent that the latter will really fight against the enemies of the people and grant freedom of action to the Communist Party and to the working class. The question of whether Communists will take part in the government will be determined entirely by the actual situation prevailing at the time. Such questions will be settled as they arise. No ready-made recipes can be prescribed in advance.

    Here it was shown that "while mobilizing the masses to repel the onslaught of fascism against the rights of the toilers, the Polish Party at the same time had its misgivings about for-

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mulating positive democratic demands in order not to create democratic illusions among the masses." The Polish Party is, of course, not the only one in which such fear of formulating positive democratic demands exists in one way or another.

    Where does that fear come from, comrades? It comes from an incorrect, non-dialectical conception of our attitude toward bourgeois democracy. We Communists are unswerving upholders of Soviet democracy, the great example of which is the proletarian dictatorship in the Soviet Union, where the introduction of equal suffrage, and the direct and secret ballot has been proclaimed by resolution of the Seventh Congress of Soviets, at the very time that the last relics of bourgeois democracy are being wiped out in the capitalist countries. This Soviet democracy presupposes the victory of the proletarian revolution, the conversion of private property in the means of production into public property, the adoption by the overwhelming majority of the people of the road to socialism. This democracy does not represent a final form; it develops and will continue to develop in proportion as further progress is made in socialist construction, in the creation of classless society and in the overcoming of the survivals of capitalism in economic life and in the minds of the people.

    But today the millions of toilers living under capitalism are faced with the necessity of deciding their attitude to those forms in which the rule of the bourgeoisie is clad in the various countries. We are not Anarchists and it is not at all a matter of indifference to us what kind of political regime exists in any given country: whether a bourgeois dictatorship in the form of bourgeois democracy, even with democratic rights and liberties greatly curtailed, or a bourgeois dictatorship in its open, fascist form. While being upholders of Soviet democracy, we shall defend every inch of the democratic gains which the working class has wrested in the course of years of stubborn struggle, and shall resolutely fight to extend these gains.

    How great were the sacrifices of the British working class before it secured the right to strike, a legal status for its trade unions, the right of assembly and freedom of the press, exten-

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sion of the franchise, and other rights! How many tens of thousands of workers gave their lives in the revolutionary battles fought in France in the nineteenth century to obtain the elementary rights and the lawful opportunity of organizing their forces for the struggle against the exploiters! The proletariat of all countries has shed much of its blood to win bourgeois democratic liberties, and will naturally fight with all its strength to retain them.

    Our attitude to bourgeois democracy is not the same under all conditions. For instance, at the time of the October Revolution, the Russian Bolsheviks engaged in a life-and-death struggle against all political parties which, under the slogan of the defense of bourgeois democracy, opposed the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship. The Bolsheviks fought these parties because the banner of bourgeois democracy had at that time become the standard around which all counter-revolutionary forces mobilized to challenge the victory of the proletariat. The situation is quite different in the capitalist countries at present. Now the fascist counter-revolution is attacking bourgeois democracy in an effort to establish the most barbaric regime of exploitation and suppression of the toiling masses. Now the toiling masses in a number of capitalist countries are faced with the necessity of making a definite choice, and of making it today, not between proletarian dictatorship and bourgeois democracy, but between bourgeois democracy and fascism.

    Besides, we have now a situation which differs from that which existed, for example, in the epoch of capitalist stabilization. At that time the fascist danger was not as acute as it is today. At that time it was bourgeois dictatorship in the form of bourgeois democracy that the revolutionary workers were facing in a number of countries and it was against bourgeois democracy that they were concentrating their fire. In Germany, they fought against the Weimar Republic, not because it was a republic, but because it was a bourgeois republic that was engaged in crushing the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, especially in 1918-20 and in 1925.

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    But could the Communists retain the same position also when the fascist movement began to raise its head, when, for instance, in 1932, the fascists in Germany were organizing and arming hundreds of thousands of storm troopers against the working class? Of course not. It was the mistake of the Communists in a number of countries, particularly in Germany, that they failed to take account of the changes that had taken place, but continued to repeat the slogans and maintain the tactical positions that had been correct a few years before, especially when the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship was an immediate issue, and when the entire German counter-revolution was rallying under the banner of the Weimar Republic, as it did in 1918-20.

    And the circumstance that even today we must still make reference to fear, in our ranks, of launching positive democratic slogans indicates how little our comrades have mastered the Marxist-Leninist method of approaching such important problems of our tactics. Some say that the struggle for democratic rights may divert the workers from the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship. It may not be amiss to recall what Lenin said on this question:

    It would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the struggle for democracy can divert the proletariat from the socialist revolution, or obscure, or overshadow it, etc. On the contrary, just as socialism can not be victorious unless it introduces complete democracy, so the proletariat will be unable to prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie unless it wages a many-sided, consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy.*

    These words should be firmly fixed in the memories of all our comrades, bearing in mind that in history great revolutions have grown out of small movements for the defense of the elementary rights of the working class. But in order to be able to link up the struggle for democratic rights with the struggle of the working class for socialism, it is necessary first and foremost to discard any cut-and-dried approach to the question of defense of bourgeois democracy.

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    Comrades, it is clear, of course, that for the Communist International and each of its sections, the fundamental thing is to work out a correct line. But a correct line alone is not enough for concrete leadership in the class struggle.

    For that, a number of conditions must be fulfilled, above all the following:

    First, organizational guarantees that adopted decisions will be carried out in practice and that all obstacles in the way will be resolutely overcome. What Comrade Stalin said at the Seventeenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union about the conditions necessary to carry out the line of the Party can and should be applied also, in its entirety, to the decisions which our Congress adopts. Comrade Stalin said:

    Some people think that it is sufficient to draw up a correct Party line, proclaim it from the housetops, enunciate it in the form of general theses and resolutions and carry them unanimously in order to make victory come of itself, automatically, so to speak. This, of course, is wrong. Those who think like that are greatly mistaken. Only incorrigible bureaucrats and office rats can think that. As a matter of fact, these successes and victories were obtained, not automatically, but as a result of a fierce struggle to carry out the Party line. Victory never comes by itself -- it has to be dragged by the hand. Good resolutions and declarations in favor of the general line of the Party are only a beginning; they merely express the desire to win, but it is not victory. After the correct line has been given, after a correct solution of the problem has been found, success depends on the manner in which the work is organized, on the organization of the struggle for the application of the line of the Party, on the proper selection of workers, on supervising the fulfillment of the decisions of the leading organs. Without this the correct line of the Party and the correct solutions are in danger of being severely damaged. More than that, after the correct political line has been given, the organizational work decides everything, including the fate of the political line itself, i.e., whether it is fulfilled or not.*

    It is hardly necessary to add anything to these striking words of Comrade Stalin, which must become a guiding principle in all the work of our Parties.

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    Another condition is the ability to convert decisions of the Communist International and its sections into decisions of the widest masses themselves. This is all the more necessary now, when we are faced with the task of organizing a united front of the proletariat and drawing very wide masses of the people into an anti-fascist People's Front. The political and tactical genius of Lenin and Stalin stands out most clearly and vividly in their masterly ability to get the masses to understand the correct line and the slogans of the Party through their own experience. If we trace the history of Bolshevism, that greatest of treasure houses of the political strategy and tactics of the revolutionary labor movement, we can see for ourselves that the Bolsheviks never substituted methods of leading the Party for methods of leading the masses.

    Comrade Stalin pointed out that one of the peculiarities of the tactics of the Russian Bolsheviks in the period of preparation for the October Revolution consisted in their ability correctly to determine the path and the turns which naturally lead the masses to the slogans of the Party, to the very "threshold of the revolution," helping them to sense, to test and to realize from their own experience the correctness of these slogans. They did not confuse leadership of the Party with leadership of the masses, but clearly saw the difference between leadership of the first kind and leadership of the second kind. In this way they worked out tactics as the science not only of Party leadership, but also of the leadership of the millions of toilers.

    Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that the masses cannot assimilate our decisions unless we learn to speak the language which the masses understand. We do not always know how to speak simply, concretely, in images which are familiar and intelligible to the masses. We are still unable to refrain from abstract formulas which we have learnt by rote. As a matter of fact, if you look through our leaflets, newspapers, resolutions and theses, you will find that they are often written in a language and style so heavy that they are difficult for even our Party functionaries to understand, let alone the rank-and-file workers.

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    If we reflect, comrades, that workers, especially in fascist countries, who distribute or only read these leaflets risk their very lives by doing so, we shall realize still more clearly the need of writing for the masses in a language which they understand, so that the sacrifices made shall not have been in vain.

    The same applies in no less degree to our oral agitation and propaganda. We must admit quite frankly that in this respect the fascists have often proven more dexterous and flexible than many of our comrades.

    I recall, for example, a meeting of unemployed in Berlin before Hitler's accession to power. It was at the time of the trial of those notorious swindlers and speculators, the Sklarek brothers, which dragged on for several months. A National-Socialist speaker in addressing the meeting made demagogic use of that trial to further his own ends. He referred to the swindles, the bribery and other crimes committed by the Sklarek brothers, emphasized that the trial had been dragging for months and figured out how many hundreds of thousands of marks it had already cost the German people. To the accompaniment of loud applause the speaker declared that such bandits as the Sklarek brothers should have been shot without any ado, and the money wasted on the trial should have gone to the unemployed.

    A Communist rose and asked for the floor. The chairman at first refused but under the pressure of the audience which wanted to hear a Communist he had to let him speak. When the Communist got up on the platform, everybody awaited with tense expectation what the Communist speaker would have to say. Well, what did he say?

    "Comrades," he began in a loud and strong voice, "the Plenum of the Communist International has just closed. It showed the way to the salvation of the working class. The chief task it puts before you, comrades, is 'to win the majority of the working classes .' . . . The Plenum pointed out that the unemployed movement must be 'politicalized.' The Plenum calls on us to raise it to a higher level." He went on in the same

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strain, evidently under the impression that he was "explaining" authentic decisions of the Plenum.

    Could such a speech appeal to the unemployed? Could they find any satisfaction in the fact that first we intended to politicalize, then revolutionize, and finally mobilize them in order to raise their movement to a higher level?

    Sitting in a corner of the hall, I observed with chagrin how the unemployed, who had been so eager to hear a Communist in order to find out from him what to do concretely, began to yawn and display unmistakable signs of disappointment. And I was not at all surprised when toward the end the chairman rudely cut our speaker short without any protest from the meeting.

    This, unfortunately, is not the only case of its kind in our agitational work. Nor were such cases confined to Germany. To agitate in such fashion means to agitate against one's own cause. It is high time to put an end once and for all to these, to say the least, childish methods of agitation.

    During my report, the chairman, Comrade Kuusinen, received a characteristic letter from the floor of the Congress addressed to me. Let me read it:

    In your speech at the Congress, please take up the following question, namely, that all resolutions and decisions adopted in the future by the Communist International be written so that not only trained Communists can get the meaning, but that any working man reading the material of the Comintern might without any preliminary training be able to see at once what the Communists want, and of what service Communism is to mankind. Some Party leaders forget this. They must be reminded of it and very strongly, too. Also that agitation for Communism be conducted in understandable language.

    I do not know exactly who is the author of this letter, but I have no doubt that this comrade voiced in his letter the opinion and desire of millions of workers. Many of our comrades think that the more high-sounding words, and the more formulas and theses unintelligible to the masses they use, the better their agitation and propaganda, forgetting that the greatest leaders and theoreticians of the working class of our epoch, Lenin and

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Stalin, have always spoken and written in highly popular language, readily understood by the masses.

    Every one of us must make this a law, a Bolshevik law, an elementary rule:

    When writing or speaking always have in mind the rank and-file worker who must understand you, must believe in your appeal and be ready to follow you! You must have in mind those for whom you write, to whom you speak.

    Comrades, our best resolutions will remain scraps of paper if we lack the people who can put them into effect. Unfortunately, however, I must state that the problem of cadres, one of the most important questions facing us, received almost no attention at this Congress. The report of the Executive Committee of the Communist International was discussed for seven days, there were many speakers from various countries, but only a few, and they only in passing, discussed this question, so extremely vital for the Communist Parties and the labor movement. In their practical work our Parties have not yet realized by far that people, cadres, decide everything. They are unable to do what Comrade Stalin is teaching us to do, namely, to cultivate cadres "as a gardener cultivates his favorite fruit tree," "to appreciate people, to appreciate cadres, to appreciate every worker who can be of use to our common cause."

    A negligent attitude to the problem of cadres is all the more impermissible for the reason that we are constantly losing some of the most valuable of our cadres in the struggle. For we are not a learned society but a militant movement which is constantly in the firing line. Our most energetic, most courageous and most class-conscious elements are in the front ranks. It is precisely these front-line men that the enemy hunts down, murders, throws into jail, puts in the concentration camps and subjects to excruciating torture, particularly in fascist countries. This gives rise to the urgent necessity of constantly re-

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plenishing the ranks, cultivating and training new cadres as well as carefully preserving the existing cadres.

    The problem of cadres is of particular urgency for the additional reason that under our influence the mass united front movement is gaining momentum and bringing forward many thousands of new working class militants. Moreover, it is not only young revolutionary elements, not only workers just becoming revolutionary, who have never before participated in a political movement, that stream into our ranks. Very often former members and militants of the Social-Democratic Parties also join us. These new cadres require special attention, particularly in the illegal Communist Parties, the more so because in their practical work these cadres with their poor theoretical training frequently come up against very serious political problems which they have to solve for themselves.

    The problem of what shall be the correct policy with regard to cadres is a very serious one for our Parties, as well as for the Young Communist Leagues and for all other mass organizations -- for the entire revolutionary labor movement.

    What does a correct policy with regard to cadres imply?

    First, knowing one's people. As a rule there is no systematic study of cadres in our Parties. Only recently have the Communist Parties of France and Poland and, in the East, the Communist Party of China, achieved certain successes in this direction. The Communist Party of Germany, before its underground period, had also undertaken a study of its cadres. The experience of these Parties has shown that as soon as they began to study their people, Party workers were discovered who had remained unnoticed before. On the other hand, the Parties began to be purged of alien elements who were ideologically and politically harmful. It is sufficient to point to the example of Célor and Barbé in France who, when put under the Bolshevik microscope, turned out to be agents of the class enemy and were thrown out of the Party. In Poland and in Hungary the verification of cadres made it easier to discover nests of provocateurs, agents of the enemy, who had sedulously concealed their identity.

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    Second, proper promotion of cadres. Promotion should not be something casual but one of the normal functions of the Party. It is bad when promotion is made exclusively and on the basis of narrow Party considerations, without regard to whether the Communist promoted has contact with the masses or not. Promotion should take place on the basis of the ability of the various Party workers to discharge particular functions, and of their popularity among the masses. We have examples in our Parties of promotions which have produced excellent results. For instance, we have a Spanish woman Communist, sitting in the Presidium of this Congress, Comrade Dolores. Two years ago she was still a rank-and-file Party worker. But in the very first clashes with the class enemy she proved to be an excellent agitator and fighter. Subsequently promoted to the leading body of the Party she has proved herself a most worthy member of that body.

    I could point to a number of similar cases in several other countries, but in the majority of cases promotions are made in an unorganized and haphazard manner, and therefore are not always fortunate. Sometimes moralizers, phrasemongers and chatterboxes who actually harm the cause are promoted to leading positions.

    Third, the ability to use people to best advantage. We must be able to ascertain and utilize the valuable qualities of every single active member. There are no ideal people; we must take them as they are and correct their weaknesses and shortcomings. We know of glaring examples in our Parties of the wrong utilization of good, honest Communists who might have been very useful had they been given work that they were better fit to do.

    Fourth, proper distribution of cadres. First of all, we must see to it that the main links of the movement are in the charge of strong people who have contacts with the masses, have sprung from the very depths of the masses, who have initiative and are staunch. The more important districts should have an appropriate number of such militants. In capitalist countries it is not an easy matter to transfer cadres from one

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place to another. Such a task encounters a number of obstacles and difficulties, including lack of funds, family considerations, etc., difficulties which must be taken into account and properly overcome. But usually we neglect to do this altogether.

    Fifth, systematic assistance to cadres. This assistance should take the form of careful instruction, comradely control, rectification of shortcomings and mistakes and concrete, everyday guidance.

    Sixth, proper care for the preservation of cadres. We must learn promptly to withdraw Party workers to the rear when ever circumstances so require, and replace them by others. We must demand that the Party leadership, particularly in countries where the Parties are illegal, assume paramount responsibility for the preservation of cadres. The proper preservation of cadres also pre-supposes highly efficient organization of secrecy in the Party. In certain of our Parties many comrades think that the Parties are already prepared for underground existence even though they have reorganized themselves only formally, according to readymade rules. We had to pay very dearly for having started the real work of reorganization only after the Party had gone underground, under the direct heavy blows of the enemy. Remember the severe losses the Communist Party of Germany suffered during its transition to underground conditions! Its experience should serve as a serious warning to those of our Parties which today are still legal but may lose their legal status tomorrow.

    Only a correct policy in regard to cadres will enable our Parties to develop and utilize all available forces to the utmost, and obtain from the enormous reservoir of the mass movement ever fresh reinforcements of new and better active workers.

    What should be our main criteria in selecting cadres?

    First, absolute devotion to the cause of the working class, loyalty to the Party, tested in face of the enemy -- in battle, in prison, in court.

    Second, the closest possible contact with the masses. The comrades concerned must be wholly absorbed in the interests

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of the masses, feel the life pulse of the masses, know their sentiments and requirements. The prestige of the leaders of our Party organization should be based, first of all, on the fact that the masses regard them as their leaders, and are convinced through their own experience of their ability as leaders, and of their determination and self-sacrifice in struggle.

    Third, ability independently to find one's bearings and not to be afraid of assuming responsibility in making decisions. He who fears to take responsibility is not a leader. He who is unable to display initiative, who says: "I will do only what I am told," is not a Bolshevik. Only he is a real Bolshevik leader who does not lose his head at moments of defeat, who does not get a swelled head at moments of success, who displays indomitable firmness in carrying out decisions. Cadres develop and grow best when they are placed in the position of having to solve concrete problems of the struggle independently, and are aware that they are fully responsible for their decisions.

    Fourth, discipline and Bolshevik hardening in the struggle against the class enemy as well as in their irreconcilable opposition to all deviations from the Bolshevik line.

    We must place all the more emphasis on these conditions which determine the correct selection of cadres, because in practice preference is very often given to a comrade who, for example, is able to write well and is a good speaker but is not a man or woman of action, and is not as suited for the struggle as some other comrade who perhaps may not be able to write or speak so well, but is a staunch comrade, possessing initiative and contacts with the masses, and is capable of going into battle and leading others into battle. Have there not been many cases of sectarians, doctrinaires or moralizers crowding out loyal mass workers, genuine working class leaders?

    Our leading cadres should combine the knowledge of what they must do -- with Bolshevik stamina, revolutionary strength of character and the will power to carry it through.

    In connection with the question of cadres, permit me, comrades, to dwell also on the very great part which the International Labor Defense is called upon to play in relation to the

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cadres of the labor movement. The material and moral assistance which the I.L.D. organizations render to our prisoners and their families, to political emigrants, to prosecuted revolutionaries and anti-fascists, has saved the lives and preserved the strength and fighting capacity of thousands upon thousands of most valuable fighters of the working class in many countries. Those of us who have been in jail have found out directly through our own experience the enormous significance of the activity of the I.L.D.

    By its activity the I.L.D. has won the affection, devotion and deep gratitude of hundreds of thousands of proletarians and of revolutionary elements among the peasantry and intellectuals.

    Under present conditions, when bourgeois reaction is growing, when fascism is raging and the class struggle is becoming more acute, the role of the I.L.D. is increasing immensely. The task now before the I.L.D. is to become a genuine mass organization of the toilers in all capitalist countries (particularly in fascist countries where it must adapt itself to the special conditions prevailing there). It must become, so to speak, a sort of "Red Cross" of the united front of the proletariat and the anti-fascist People's Front, embracing millions of working people the "Red Cross" of the army of the toiling classes embattled against fascism, fighting for peace and socialism. If the I.L.D. is to perform its part successfully, it must train thousands of its own active militants, a multitude of I.L.D. workers of its own, answering in their character and capacity the special purposes of this extremely important organization.

    And here I must say as categorically and as sharply as possible that while a bureaucratic approach and a soulless attitude toward people is despicable in the labor movement taken in general, in the sphere of activity of the I.L.D. such an attitude is an evil bordering on the criminal. The fighters of the working class, the victims of reaction and fascism who are suffering agony in torture chambers and concentration camps, political emigrants and their families, should all meet with

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the most sympathetic care and solicitude on the part of the organizations and functionaries of the I.L.D.

    The I.L.D. must still better appreciate and discharge its duty of assisting the fighters in the proletarian and anti-fascist movement, particularly in physically and morally preserving the cadres of the labor movement. The Communists and revolutionary workers who are active in the I.L.D. organizations must realize at every step the enormous responsibility they bear before the working class and the Communist International for the successful fulfillment of the role and tasks of the I.L.D.

    Comrades, as you know, cadres receive their best training in the process of struggle, in surmounting difficulties and with standing tests, and also from favorable and unfavorable examples of conduct. We have hundreds of examples of splendid conduct in times of strikes, during demonstrations, in jail, in court. We have thousands of instances of heroism, but unfortunately also not a few cases of pigeon-heartedness, lack of firmness and even desertion. We often forget these examples, both good and bad. We do not teach people to benefit by these examples. We do not show them what should be emulated and what rejected. We must study the conduct of our comrades and militant workers during class conflicts, under police interrogation, in the jails and concentration camps, in court, etc. The good examples should be brought to light and held up as models to be followed, and all that is rotten, non-Bolshevik and philistine should be cast aside.

    Since the Leipzig trial we have had quite a number of our comrades whose statements before bourgeois and fascist courts have shown that numerous cadres are growing up with an excellent understanding of what really constitutes Bolshevik conduct in court.

    But how many even of you delegates to the Congress know the details of the trial of the railwaymen in Rumania, know about the trial of Fiete Schulz who was subsequently beheaded by the fascists in Germany, the trial of our valiant Japanese comrade Itikawa, the trial of the Bulgarian revolutionary sol-

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diers, and many other trials at which admirable examples of proletarian heroism were displayed?

    Such worthy examples of proletarian heroism must be popularized, must be contrasted with the manifestations of faintheartedness, philistinism, and every kind of rottenness and frailty in our ranks and the ranks of the working class. These examples must be used most extensively in educating the cadres of the labor movement.

    Comrades: Our Party leaders often complain that there are no people ; that they are short of people for agitational and propaganda work, for the newspapers, the trade unions, for work among the youth, among women. Not enough, not enough -- that is the cry. We simply haven't got the people. To this we could reply in the old yet eternally new words of Lenin:

    There are no people -- yet there are enormous numbers of people. There are enormous numbers of people, because the working class and the most diverse strata of society, year after year, advance from their ranks an increasing number of discontented people who desire to protest, who are ready to render all the assistance they can in the fight against absolutism, the intolerableness of which is not yet recognized by all, but is nevertheless more and more acutely sensed by increasing masses of the people. At the same time we have no people, because we have no leaders, no political leaders, we have no talented organizers capable of organizing extensive and at the same time uniform and harmonious work that would give employment to all forces, even the most inconsiderable.*

    These words of Lenin must be thoroughly grasped by our Parties and applied by them as a guide in their everyday work. There are plenty of people. They need only be discovered in our own organizations, during strikes and demonstrations, in various mass organizations of the workers, in united front bodies. They must be helped to grow in the course of their work and struggle; they must be put in a situation where they can really be useful to the workers' cause.

    Comrades, we Communists are people of action. Ours is the

COMRADES, the work of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, the Congress of the Communists of all countries, of all continents of the world, is coming to a close.

    What are the results of this Congress, what is its significance for our movement, for the working class of the world, for the working people of every country?

    It has been the Congress of the complete triumph of unity between the proletariat of the country of victorious socialism, the Soviet Union and the proletariat of the capitalist countries which is still fighting for its liberation. The victory of socialism in the Soviet Union -- a victory of world-historic significance -- gives rise in all capitalist countries to a powerful movement toward socialism. This victory strengthens the cause of peace among peoples, enhancing as it does the international importance of the Soviet Union and its role as the mighty bulwark of the toilers in their struggle against capital, against reaction and fascism. It strengthens the Soviet Union as the base of the world proletarian revolution. It sets in motion throughout the whole world not only the workers, who are turning more and more to Communism, but also millions of peasants and farmers, of hard-working small townsfolk, a considerable proportion of the intellectuals and the enslaved peoples of the colonies. It inspires them to struggle, increases their devotion to the great fatherland of all the toilers and strengthens their determination to support and defend the proletarian state against all its enemies.

    This victory of socialism increases the confidence of the

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international proletariat in its own forces and in the real possibility of its own victory, a confidence which is itself becoming a tremendously effective force against the rule of the bourgeoisie.

    The union of forces of the proletariat of the Soviet Union and of the militant proletariat and masses of working people in the capitalist countries holds out the great perspective of the oncoming collapse of capitalism and the guarantee of the victory of socialism throughout the whole world.

    Our Congress has laid the foundations for such a wide mobilization of the forces of all toilers against capitalism as has never before existed in the history of the working class struggle.

    Our Congress has set before the international proletariat, as its most important immediate task, that of consolidating its forces politically and organizationally, of putting an end to the isolation to which it had been reduced by the Social-Democratic policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, of rallying the working people around the working class in a wide People's Front against the offensive of capital and reaction, against fascism and the threat of war in each individual country and in the international arena.

    We have not invented this task. It has been prompted by the experience of the world labor movement itself, above all, the experience of the proletariat of France. The great merit of the French Communist Party is that it grasped the need of the ho?l,r, that it paid no heed to the sectarians who tried to hold back the Party and hamper the realization of the united front of struggle against fascism, but acted boldly and in a Bolshevik fashion, and, by its pact with the Socialist Party providing for joint action, prepared the united front of the proletariat as the basis for the anti-fascist People's Front now in the making. By this action, which accords with the vital interests of all the working people, the French workers, both Communists and Socialists, have once more advanced the French labor movement to first place, to a leading position in capitalist Europe, and have shown that they are worthy suc-

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cessors of the Communards, worthy inheritors of the glorious legacy of the Paris Commune.

    It is the great service of the French Communist Party and the French proletariat that by their fighting against fascism in a united proletarian front they helped to prepare the decisions of our Congress, which are of such tremendous importance for the workers of all countries.

    But what has been done in France constitutes only initial steps. Our Congress, in mapping out the tactical line for the years immediately ahead, could not confine itself to merely recording this experience. It went further.

    We Communists are a class party, a proletarian party. But as the vanguard of the proletariat we are ready to organize joint actions between the proletariat and the other sections of the working people interested in the fight against fascism. We Communists are a revolutionary party; but we are ready to undertake joint action with other parties fighting against fascism.

    We Communists have other ultimate aims than these classes and parties, but in struggling for our aims we are ready to fight jointly for any immediate tasks which when realized will weaken the position of fascism and strengthen the position of the proletariat.

    We Communists employ methods of struggle which differ from those of the other parties; but, while using our own methods in combating fascism, we Communists will also support the methods of struggle used by other parties, however inadequate they may seem, if these methods are really directed against fascism.

    We are ready to do all this because, in countries of bourgeois democracy, we want to block the way of reaction and the offensive of capital and fascism, prevent the abolition of bourgeois-democratic liberties, forestall fascism's terrorist vengeance upon the proletariat and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intellectuals, and save the young generation from physical and spiritual degeneracy.

    We are ready to do all this because in the fascist countries

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we want to prepare and hasten the overthrow of fascist dictatorship.

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Communist Party, the Communist International. Today the bulk of the Social-Democratic workers are turning to the Soviet Union, to its policy of peace, to a united front with the Communists. Today the peoples of the colonial and semi-colonial countries do not regard their liberation as a hopeless cause. On the contrary, they are passing on more and more to determined struggle against the imperialist enslavers. The best evidence of this is the Soviet revolution in China and the heroic exploits of the Red Army of the Chinese people.

    The peoples' hatred of war is constantly gaining in depth and intensity. In pushing the toilers into the abyss of imperialist wars, the bourgeoisie is staking its head. Today not only the working class, the peasantry and other working people champion the cause of the preservation of peace, but also the oppressed nations and the weak peoples whose independence is menaced by new wars. Even some of the big capitalist states, afraid of losing in a new redivision of the world, are at the present stage interested in avoiding war.

    This gives rise to the possibility of forming a very wide front of the working class, all working people and whole nations against the threat of imperialist war. Relying on the peace policy of the Soviet Union and the will for peace of millions upon millions of working people, our Congress has opened up the perspective of developing a wide anti-war front not only for the Communist vanguard but for the working class of the whole world, and for the peoples of every land. The extent to which this worldwide front is realized and comes into operation will determine whether the fascist and other imperialist instigators of war will be able in the near future to kindle a new imperialist war, or whether their fiendish hands will be hacked off by the ax of a powerful anti-war front.

    Ours is the Congress of the unity of the working class, the Congress of struggle for a united proletarian front.

    We entertain no illusions on the subject of the difficulties which the reactionary portion of the Social-Democratic leaders will place in the path of realizing a united proletarian front. But we do not fear these difficulties. For we reflect the will of

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millions of workers; for we serve the interests of the proletariat best by fighting for a united front; for the united front is the surest road to the overthrow of fascism and the capitalist order of society, to the prevention of imperialist war.

    At this Congress we have raised on high the banner of trade union unity. Communists do not insist on the independent existence of the Red trade unions at all costs. But Communists want trade union unity based on the class struggle and on putting an end, once and for all, to a situation in which the most consistent and determined advocates of trade union unity and of the class struggle are expelled from the trade unions of the Amsterdam International.

    We know that not all those working in the trade unions affiliated to the Red International of Labor Unions have understood and assimilated this line of the Congress. Among these workers there are still remnants of secretarian self-satisfaction which must be overcome if the line of the Congress is to be carried out firmly. But we shall carry out this line whatever the cost, and shall find a common language with our class brothers, our comrades in the struggle, the workers at present affiliated to the Amsterdam International.

    At this Congress we have adopted a course for the formation of a single mass political party of the working class, for putting an end to the political split in the ranks of the proletariat, a split caused by the class collaboration policy of the Social-Democratic Parties. For us the political unity of the working class is not a maneuver but a question of the future fate of the entire labor movement. Should there be any people in our midst who approach the question of the political unity of the working class as a maneuver, we shall fight them as people bringing harm to the working class. Precisely because our attitude on this question is one of absolute seriousness and sincerity, dictated by the interests of the proletariat, we lay down definite fundamental conditions to serve as the basis for such unity. We have not invented these fundamental conditions. They are the result of the experience gained from the sufferings of the proletariat in the course of its struggle; they are also in accord-

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ance with the will of millions of Social-Democratic workers, a will engendered by the lessons of the defeats suffered. These fundamental conditions have been tested by the experience of the entire revolutionary labor movement.

    Since proletarian unity has been the keynote of our Congress, it has been not only a Congress of the Communist vanguard, but a Congress of the entire international working class thirsting for militant trade union and political unity.

    Though our Congress was not attended by delegates of the Social-Democratic workers nor by non-party delegates, and though the workers forced into the fascist organizations were not represented, the Congress has spoken not only for the Communists but also for these millions of workers. It has expressed the thoughts and feelings of the overwhelming majority of the working class. If the labor organizations of various trends were to hold a really free discussion of our decisions among the workers of the whole world, there is no doubt in our minds but that they would support the decisions for which you, comrades, have voted with such unanimity.

    So much the more is it our duty as Communists to make the decisions of our Congress in actual fact the property of the whole working class. To have voted for these decisions is not enough. Nor is it enough to popularize them among the members of the Communist Parties. We want the workers belonging to the parties of the Second International and the Amsterdam International Federation of Trade Unions as well as the workers belonging to organizations of other political trends to discuss these decisions jointly with us, to bring in their amendments and make practical proposals; we want them to deliberate jointly with us as to how decisions can best be carried into effect, how they, jointly with us, hand in hand, can best realize these decisions in practice.

    Ours has been a Congress of a new tactical orientation for the Communist International.

    Standing firmly on the impregnable position of Marxism-Leninism, which has been confirmed by the whole experience of the international labor movement, and above all by the victories

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of the great October Revolution, our Congress, acting in the spirit and guided by the method of living Marxism-Leninism, has reshaped the tactical lines of the Communist International to meet the changed world situation.

    The Congress has taken a firm decision that the united front tactics must be applied in a new way. The Congress emphatically demands that Communists shall not content themselves with propagating general slogans about proletarian dictatorship and Soviet power, but that they shall pursue a definite, active, Bolshevik policy on all internal and foreign political questions arising in their country, on all urgent problems that affect the vital interests of the working class, their own nation and the international labor movement. The Congress insists most emphatically that all tactical steps taken by the Communist Parties be based on a sober analysis of actual conditions, on a consideration of the relation of class forces, and of the political level of the widest masses. The Congress demands that every relic of sectarianism be abolished from the practice of the Communist movement, as this represents at present the greatest obstacle in the way of the Communist Parties carrying out a really mass, really Bolshevik policy.

    While inspired by the determination to carry out this tactical line and by conviction that this road will lead our Parties to big successes, the Congress has at the same time taken into account the possibility that the carrying out of this Bolshevik line may not always be smooth sailing, may not always proceed without mistakes, without deviations here and there to the Right or to the "Left" -- deviations either in the direction of adaptation and trailing behind events, or in the direction of sectarian self-isolation. Which of these constitutes, "speaking generally," the main danger is a dispute in which only scholastics can engage. The greater and worse danger is that which at any given moment and in any given country represents the greater obstacle to the carrying out of the line of our Congress, to the development of the correct mass policy of the Communist Parties.

    The cause of Communism demands, not abstract, but con-

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crete struggle against deviations ; prompt and determined rebuff to all harmful tendencies as they arise, and the timely rectification of mistakes. To replace the necessary concrete struggle against deviations by a peculiar sport -- hunting imaginary deviations or deviators -- is an intolerably harmful distortion. In our Party practice every encouragement must be given to develop initiative in formulating new questions. We must assist in having the questions concerning the activity of the Party discussed from every angle, and not hastily set down as some deviation every doubt or critical remark of a Party member concerning the practical problems of the movement. A comrade who has committed an error must be given an opportunity to correct it in practice, and only those who stubbornly persist in their mistakes and those who disorganize the Party are to be flayed without mercy.

    Championing, as we do, working class unity, we shall with so much the more energy and irreconcilability fight for unity within our Parties. There can be no room in our Parties for factions, or for attempts at factionalism. Anyone who tries to break the iron unity of our ranks by any kind of factionalism will be made to feel what is meant by the Bolshevik discipline that Lenin and Stalin have always taught us. Let this be a warning to those few elements in individual Parties who think that they can take advantage of the difficulties of their Party, the wounds of defeat or the blows of the raging enemy, to carry out their factional plans, and to further their own group interests. The Party is above everything else! To guard the Bolshevik unity of the Party as the apple of one's eye is the first and highest law of Bolshevism!

    Ours is a Congress of Bolshevik self-criticism and of the strengthening of the leadership of the Communist International and its Sections.

    We are not afraid of pointing out openly mistakes, weaknesses and shortcomings in our ranks, for we are a revolutionary Party which knows that it can develop, grow and accomplish its tasks only if it discards everything hindering its development as a revolutionary Party.

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    And the work which the Congress has accomplished by its merciless criticism of self-satisfied sectarianism, cut-and-dried schemes and stereotyped practices, laziness of thought, substitution of the methods of leading a Party for the methods of leading masses -- all this work must be continued in an appropriate manner in all Parties, locally, in all links of our movement, as this is one of the most essential preconditions for correctly carrying into life the decisions of the Congress.

    In its resolution on the report of the Executive Committee, the Congress resolved to concentrate the day-to-day leadership of our movement in the sections themselves. This makes it our duty to intensify in every way the work of forming and training cadres and of reinforcing the Communist Parties with genuine Bolshevik leaders, so that at abrupt turns of events the Parties can quickly and independently find correct solutions for the political and tactical problems of the Communist movement, on the basis of the decisions of the Congresses of the Communist International and the Plenums of its Executive Committee. The Congress, when electing the leading bodies of the Communist International, strove to constitute its leadership of such people as accept the new lines and decisions of the Congress and are ready and able firmly to carry them into life, not from a sense of discipline, but out of deep conviction.

    It is likewise necessary in each country to ensure the correct application of the decisions adopted by the Congress. This will depend primarily on appropriately testing, distributing and directing the cadres. We know that this is not an easy task. It must be borne in mind that some of our cadres did not go through the experience of Bolshevik mass policy, but were brought up largely along the lines of general propaganda. We must do everything to help our cadres reorganize, to be retrained in a new spirit, in the spirit of the decisions of this Congress. But where the old bottles prove unsuited for the new wine, the necessary conclusions must be drawn -- not to spill the new wine or spoil it by pouring it into the old bottles, but to replace the old bottles by new ones.

    We intentionally excluded from the reports as well as from

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the decisions of the Congress high-sounding phrases on the revolutionary perspective. We did this not because we have any ground for appraising the tempo of revolutionary development less optimistically than before, but because we want to rid our Parties of any inclination to replace Bolshevik activity by revolutionary phrase mongering or barren disputes about the appraisal of the perspective. Waging a decisive struggle against any reliance on spontaneity, we take account of the process of development of the revolution not as passive observers, but as active participants in this process. As a Party of revolutionary action -- fulfilling at every stage of the movement the tasks that are in the interest of the revolution, the tasks that correspond to the specific conditions of the given stage, and soberly taking into consideration the political level of the wide mass of working people we accelerate, more than in any other way, the creation of the subjective preconditions necessary for the victory of the proletarian revolution.

    Marx said:

    We must take things as we find them, that is, we must utilize revolutionary sentiments in a manner corresponding to the changed circumstances.

    This is the gist of the matter. This we must never forget.

    Comrades: The decisions of the World Congress must be brought home to the masses, must be explained to the masses, must be applied as a guide for the action of the masses, in short, must be made the flesh and blood of millions of toilers!

    It is necessary to encourage everywhere as much as possible the initiative of the workers in their respective localities, the initiative displayed by the lower organizations of the Communist Parties and the labor movement in carrying out these decisions.

    When leaving here, the representatives of the revolutionary proletariat must bring to their respective countries the firm conviction that we Communists bear responsibility for the fate of the working class, of the labor movement, responsibility

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for the fate of our own nation, for the fate of all toiling humanity.

    To us, the workers, and not the social parasites and idlers, belongs the world -- a world built by the hands of the workers. The present rulers of the capitalist world are but temporary rulers.

    The proletariat is the real master, tomorrow's master of the world. And it must enter upon its historical rights, take into its hands the reins of government in every country all over the world.

    We are disciples of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Stalin. We should be worthy of our great leaders.

    With Stalin at their head the millions of our political army, overcoming all difficulties and courageously breaking through all barriers, must and will level to the ground the fortress of capitalism and achieve the victory of socialism throughout the whole world!

    Long live the unity of the working class! Long live the Seventh Congress of the Communist International!

    (In a lengthy ovation, Stalin and Dimitroff were greeted as the leaders of the world Communist movement.)

Speech Delivered at the Close of the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International, August 20, 1935.

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COMRADES, you have come from capitalist countries to the land of the proletarian dictatorship -- the Soviet Union -- which is the first but not the last state of the world proletariat.

    You have the opportunity, and you will continue to have this opportunity, to see with your own eyes the tremendous difference between the conditions of the working class there, where capital and fascism rule, and here, where the working class, having overthrown the bourgeoisie, is now victoriously building socialism under the leadership of the glorious Bolshevik Party, at the head of which stands Comrade Stalin, the great leader of the world proletariat.

    The Red Flag of the proletarian revolution waves victoriously over one-sixth of the earth. Over one-sixth of the globe workers and peasants, and not capitalists and landlords, are in power. Millions of Soviet men and women, workers and collective farmers of this great and immense Soviet fatherland are transforming the old, dark, backward tsarist-landlord Russia into a land of the latest technique, mechanization and industrialization, into a land of socialism.

    You see with your own eyes what the working class has been able to achieve once it has taken power. You saw on the Red Square on May First the powerful armed forces of the Soviet Union our glorious Red Army -- the strength of the working class, the strength of the land of the Soviets.

    When you were with us on the Red Square and we watched the tanks filing past us, and the airplanes flying over us -- we saw not only the armed power of the working class of the Soviet Union, but also the strength and power of the revolutionary proletariat throughout the world.

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    Comrades, the Soviet state is the state of the proletariat, and the Soviet state defends the interests of the workers, toilers and oppressed peoples of the whole world. The interests of the Soviet state are the interests of the world proletariat.

    When our Russian brothers and sisters build socialism through socialist emulation and shock-work, through persistent, creative work, they are working and creating not only for their own country, but also for the world proletariat.

    When they strengthen the fighting power of the Red Army, they strengthen not only the power of the Soviet Union, but also the power of the world proletariat.

    The Soviet Union and its Red Army are strongholds for peace among the peoples. The Soviet Union is the citadel of the world proletarian revolution.

    When the reactionary Social-Democratic leaders say and write: "We do not want to enter into a united front with the Communists because we do not want to receive orders from Moscow," they only prove that they are against the state of the proletariat. They prove thereby that they have connections with the bourgeoisie, that they support the policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie and that they are ready to aid the class enemy of the proletariat.

    To every sincere worker in France or England, America or Australia, Germany or Spain, China or Japan, the Balkan countries or the Canary Islands -- to every sincere worker, Moscow is his own Moscow. The Soviet Union is his own state. Our opponents very often set up a howl about "Orders from Moscow." Moscow of course does not issue any orders. To receive "orders" from Moscow, i.e., to follow the example of the great Lenin and the great Stalin means salvation to the world proletariat.

    If you, while you are here in our great fatherland, take a look at the world working class movement as a whole, you will see two basic and outstanding directions or currents in this world working class movement.

    On the one hand, there is the revolutionary section of the proletariat which has already been established in its own state

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-- the Soviet Union. The Communists and the revolutionary workers of all countries feel themselves connected with the Soviet proletariat, with the Soviet state, by the ties of a united militant front throughout the world.

    On the other hand, there is another direction, another current in the labor movement. This is the so-called reformist current, the direction which is still dominant in the Second International. There is no proletarian state, no Soviet power, no Red Army, no fighting power of the world proletariat there. But there, for example, Vandervelde and other leaders who collaborate with the capitalists sit in the governments together with the bourgeois parties. They are connected with their national bourgeoisie and support the policy of "their" bourgeoisie. In this camp there is no unity, no international discipline.

    In the revolutionary section of the world proletariat a common international discipline prevails. The actions of the Bolshevik Party of the Soviet Union correspond to the interests of the toilers of France, as well as of Germany, America and the other countries. And what the French, English, American, Japanese or Chinese Communists undertake to do is never in contradiction to the interests of the Soviet Union.

    Here, in the revolutionary section of the world proletariat, leadership is in the hands of the Communist International, which unites the millions of proletarians of the whole world who are linked together by a powerful common idea, by a single will, by a common leadership, a common discipline.

    There -- you have a many-tongued babel of confusion.

    But, comrades, a process of differentiation and revolutionization of the working masses is going on in the ranks of the Social-Democratic Parties. The number of those who are for a united front with the Communists is growing.

    At the present time, when we are face to face with the menace of fascism and war, the basic task facing all toilers is to establish a united proletarian front, united action of the working class against their class enemy.

    Comrades ! Remember how for three months during the

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Leipzig trial frame-up a struggle was waged between Communism and fascism. A united front was created on a world-wide scale in connection with the Leipzig trial, in defense of the innocent Communists, although formally no pact had been concluded. Communists, Social-Democrats, Anarchists and non-party toilers came out against German fascism. Millions and millions of working men and working women followed the struggle at Leipzig day in and day out. Millions and millions of the petty bourgeoisie, peasantry and intellectuals were on the side of the united anti-fascist front. Even the bourgeois newspapers, conservative hostile newspapers, did not dare to write against us and our speeches at the trial. At this time German fascism was isolated. Hitler, Goering and Goebbels could not find moral support in Germany or in any other country.

    The united front movement has made further progress since the Leipzig trial. We now have a formal agreement between the French Communist Party and the French Socialist Party for united action, an agreement between the Italian Communists and the Italian Socialists, and agreements concluded by a number of Communist Parties with Socialist organizations, as well as with a number of anti-fascist organizations.

    The united proletarian front is advancing, is gathering ever greater strength, but on its path it encounters tremendous difficulties and the resistance of its enemies. All who are connected with the bourgeoisie and do not want to give up these connections are enemies of the united front.

    Comrades! As soon as the resistance of these reactionary Social-Democratic leaders has been broken, and the united front of the working class established, from that moment an indestructible barrier will have been created against the capitalist offensive, against the offensive of reaction and fascism.

    The working class will be able to display all its strength only if it brings about unity of action.

    The economic, social, cultural and political interests of the workers of all the various political tendencies -- be they Communist workers, Social-Democratic workers or Anarchist work-

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ers -- are the same. On this basis, therefore, it is necessary and possible to establish the united front.

    Who is hindering this?

    The united front of the proletariat is hindered by the reactionary leaders of Social-Democracy, by Social-Democratic ideology and the Social-Democratic policy of class-collaboration with the bourgeoisie. This stumblingblock must be eliminated. We Communists know that this is a difficult task, that it is not so easy to do away with these obstacles. But we are convinced that by means of daily struggle and persistent work the united proletarian front, the unity of the class trade unions and the united revolutionary party of the proletariat will ultimately be created in all countries.

    Comrades! When you, as the delegation of workers from capitalist countries, have been convinced, by what you have seen with your own eyes, of the correctness of the Leninist-Stalinist path, of the path followed by the Communist International, you will not fail to tell your brothers and sisters in the capitalist countries the whole truth about the Soviet Union, and to struggle persistently and continuously in defense of the proletarian fatherland and for the final establishment of the united proletarian front. Convey to the toilers of your countries our warm revolutionary, Bolshevik greetings, and tell all the Social-Democratic workers that anyone who does not support the united front now, who does not struggle for united action by the working class, who tolerates a campaign against the Soviet Union, against the fatherland of the world proletariat, anyone who supports the policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie is an enemy of the interests of the working class, an accomplice of reaction and fascism and an assistant to the firebrands of imperialist war.

    Let us all, Communists, Social-Democrats and all other workers, in full harmony, hand in hand, struggle together against fascism, and for the liberation of the thousands and thousands of prisoners held by capital and fascism, for the liberation of Thaelmann, Rakosi, Tom Mooney and of all

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revolutionary anti-fascists who are languishing in prisons and concentration camps in the capitalist countries.

    Let us struggle together against the enemies of united action by the working class!

    Let us struggle together for the final victory of socialism throughout the world!

    Long live united action by the working class in every country and on an international scale!

    Long live the victory of the world proletarian revolution!

Abridged Stenographic Report of Speech Delivered at the Hall of Columns of the House of Trade Unions, Moscow, Before the May First Delegation of Foreign Workers, 1935.

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COMRADES, I am bringing you warm greetings from the Executive Committee of the Communist International.

    The remarkable words of the great leader and teacher of the proletariat and of all the oppressed of the world, Comrade Stalin, that "internationalism is the fundamental idea that permeates the activity of the Young Communist League," find their living embodiment in you.

    No dangers that beset your long and arduous road, no fascist or police cordons were able to prevent you from gathering in the Red proletarian capital for the purpose of discussing, in a friendly and amicable way, like the international family that you are, the tasks of uniting the forces of the young generation of toilers.

    You are a congress of the revolutionary youth, a congress of strength and courage. How many of the best and most exemplary fighters in the cause of the working youth have assembled at your congress!

    It is with pride and affection that I welcome, through you, in the name of the older revolutionary generation, the glorious young guard of the working people of the whole world.

    Comrades, a month ago the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International completed its work in this hall where you are assembled today.

    The Congress of the Comintern, led by the brilliant teaching of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, thoroughly discussed all the main problems of the international labor movement and mapped out the road that must be taken to overcome the split in this movement, and to weld together the forces of the toilers in the struggle against exploiters and oppressors, against fas

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cism and war. The Congress of the Communist International paid particular attention to the youth movement as one of the principal problems of the international revolutionary movement, understanding full well that the victory of the class struggle of the working people depends upon the correct and successful development of the youth movement, upon its assuming a sweeping mass character.

    Fascism has wreaked bestial vengeance upon the best fighters of the revolutionary youth. At the same time it is making every effort to adapt its putrid demagogy to the moods of the wide mass of the youth, and to take advantage of the growing militant activity of the youth for its own reactionary ends, in order to convert it into a prop of dying capitalism.

    Depriving the young generation of working people of all rights, the fascist governments militarize the entire youth, and try to train from their ranks obedient slaves of finance capital in civil as well as imperialist war.

    What can we place in opposition to fascism and the threat of imperialist war, which has become particularly acute in view of the preparations being made by Italian fascism to attack Ethiopia and the growing aggression of German fascism?

    We can and must place in opposition to it the union of all anti-fascist forces and, first and foremost, the union of all the forces of the young generation of working people, at the same time enhancing a thousandfold the role and activity of the youth in the struggle of the working class for its own interests, for its own cause.

    Let the entire activity of the Congress of the Young Communist International be devoted to the attainment of this immediate and principal goal.

    On the basis of the experience you already have gained, and the decisions of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, we expect you to be able to find the proper ways and means of accomplishing the most important task of your movement, the task of uniting the forces of the entire non-fascist

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youth, and, first and foremost, of the working class youth, the task of achieving unity with the socialist youth.

    This, however, cannot be achieved if the Young Communist Leagues keep on trying, as they have done hitherto, to construct their organizations as if they were Communist Parties of the youth; nor will this be possible if they are content, as heretofore, to lead the secluded life of sectarians, isolated from the masses.

    The whole anti-fascist youth is interested in uniting and organizing its forces. Therefore you, comrades, must find such ways, forms and methods of work as will assure the formation, in the capitalist countries, of a new type of mass youth organizations, to which no vital interest of the working youth will be alien, organizations which, without copying the Party, will fight for all the interests of the youth and will bring up the youth in the spirit of the class struggle and proletarian internationalism, in the spirit of Marxism-Leninism.

    This requires that the Congress should very seriously check up and reappraise the work of the Young Communist Leagues, for the purpose of actually achieving their reorganization and the fearless removal of everything that obstructs the development of mass work and establishment of the united front and unity of the youth.

    We expect the Young Communist International to build up its activity in such a manner as to weld and unite all trade union, cultural, educational and sports organizations of the working youth, all revolutionary, national-revolutionary, national-liberation and anti-fascist youth organizations, for the struggle against fascism and war, for the rights of the young generation.

    We note with great pleasure that our young comrades in France and the United States have actively joined the mass movement for a united front of the youth which is so successfully developing, and have already achieved in this sphere successes which hold out great promises. All sections of the Young Communist International should profit by this experience of the French and American comrades.

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    In many countries the Communist and Socialist youth are coming closer and closer together. A striking example of this is the presence, at this Congress of the Young Communist International, of representatives of not only the Communist but also the Socialist youth of Spain.

    Therefore, comrades, follow boldly the course of uniting with the Socialist youth and of forming joint and united organizations with it. Follow boldly the course of uniting all forces of the anti-fascist youth!

    The Executive Committee of the Communist International will encourage and support in every way your initiative and activity in the fight for unity and for all the vital interests of the working youth.

    The millions of young men and women for whom capitalist society has created impossible conditions of existence, who are either outside any organization at all or are in organizations led by the class enemy, are your brothers and sisters, whom you can and must win over to the side of socialism by your persistent work.

    Don't wait until unity between the Communist and Social-Democratic Parties and other organizations of the working class has been reached.

    Be bold, independent and full of initiative!

    You are the Congress of the most active, the most self-sacrificing section of the young generation of today. You cannot stand aside from the movement in favor of unity which is growing and strengthening in the ranks of the working class. You do not have to wait like the Socialist Youth International for permission "from above" before you can support the united front movement and the union of the toiling youth in one organization.

    In the name of the Executive Committee of the Communist International I declare that the youth united in the ranks of the Young Communist International enjoys and will continue to enjoy every opportunity of independently developing its revolutionary movement and solving the problems of this movement.

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    Communists in youth organizations must be able to work in such a way as to influence the decisions of these organizations by convincing their members, and not by issuing orders in the name of the Party.

    I call to mind the words of the great Lenin which form the basis for the relations between the Communist International and the youth and its organizations:

    Frequently the middle-aged and the aged do not know how to approach the youth in the proper way, for, necessarily, the youth must come to socialism in a different way, by other paths, in other forms, in other circumstances then their fathers. Incidentally, this is why we must be decidedly in favor of the organisational independence of the Youth League, not only because the opportunists fear this independence, but because of the very nature of the case; for unless they have complete independence, the youth will be unable either to train good Socialists from their midst or prepare themselves to lead socialism forward.

    Comrades, you must study, study while you fight.

    Combine your day-to-day practical activities with a profound study of the original sources of Marxism-Leninism, for without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary practice.

    Be exemplary, staunch and valiant fighters against fascism, against capitalism.

    Hold aloft the banner of the liberation of humanity from capitalist slavery, the banner of the Communist International.

    Rally the young generation of working people of the whole world around this banner. This emblem of stupendous victories already waves over one-sixth part of the globe and it will conquer throughout the world! It is the flag of the great leader of the world proletariat, Comrade Stalin!

Speech at the Opening of the Sixth Congress of the Young Communist International, September 25, 1935.