The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 2, 1924, Page 5

“The idea becomes power when it pene- trates the masses.— Karl Marx. By JOHN PEPPER TS Communist Party. of Ttaly:| called upon the Communist deputy Bombacci to resign his place, and de- clared that Bombacci is no longer worthy of the cénfidence of the Party and of the working class. The Communist Party of Bulgaria expelled the Communist deputy, Dr. Nikola Sakaroff from the Party and called upon him to resign his place. These two recent events within the Comunist International bring up again the question of Parliamentar- ism. The opponents of participation in the bourgeois parliaments will try again to find arguments against the tactics of the Communist Interna- tional. - They will tell how Bombacci behaved as a lackey in parliament and not as a revolutionary, that at the occasion of the discussion on trade relations between Italy and Russia, he praised Mussolini and forgot all proletarian pride. The opponents of participation in parliaments will tell with anger how Nikola Sakaroff in the parliament of the counter revolution in Bulgaria showed himself a rene- gade, that he slandered shamefully the heroic September uprising of the Bulgarian workers and peasants. * One swallow doesn’t make a sum- mer. One or two renegades do not make a winter, do not necessitate the revision of the tactics of the Com- munist International. New Communist Experiences The Communist International. has always madé a sharp division between opportunist parliamentarism and re- volutionary parliamentarism. It cri- ticized the opportunist parliamentar- ism of the Social Democrats and at the same time it built up the tactic of revolutionary parliamentarism. Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviki were the first party which exposed and showed their contempt for the practice of opportunist parliamentarism, but at the same time they waged the first | fight against all Syndicalist, I. W. W. | and so-called left Communist éle- ments which rejected parliamentarism as a matter of principle, The situation in the Communist In- ternational today is such that all the great Communist parties participate in the various election’ fights and in the various parliaments. The Ger- ' man, the French, the Cheko-Slovak, . the Italian, the Bulgarian, the: Polish . Communist Parties—tlegal or illegal, _ and the countries which are at greatly varying stages of development ail have their Communist fractions in parliament. The French Communists have proven that they have under- stood how to use their places in parlia- ment’ against imperialism and the Ruhr invasion for practical anti-mili- tarism. The Polish Communist frac- tion in parliament has become one of tht most important legal expressions of the illegal party. The German Communist-fraction of Parliament at _ the moment of dissolution of the Com- munist Party issued its declaration in the Reichstag, the real revolutionary slogan: “The Communist Reichstag fraction calls upon the workers to pre- pare for the decisive struggle. The uprising of the working class is the only deed that can save the German people. In the struggle against mili- tary dictatorship we. will prepare the armed ® ing, and the victory of the proletarian dictatorship.” The various Congresses’ of the Com- munist International and the implac- able fight of ee his oo writings inst revolutionary phvase and for lutionary realism have clarified theoretically the question of _. The practice of * ey | Oe NOOR OB Me em eT a proves | and Special Magazine Supplement THE DAILY WORKER. PARLIAMENTARISM parties are today free from both, from parliamentary cretinism and anti-parliamentary cretinism. The Historical Role of Parliament. What is the Communist conception parliamentarism? We all know today that the par- liament in all lands is a tool of the capitalist class. The parliaments were revolutionary institutions as long as the botrgeoisie itself was re- volutionary. Cromwell's parliament, the Federal Congress and Constitu- tional Convention of the American revolution, the French Convention, were “institutions of “the young, revolutionary bourgeoisie against feudalism and monarchy. The capi- talist development itself has turned the bourgeoisie from a revolutionary class to a reactionary class and has thereby transformed the bourgeois parliaments from tools of suppres- sion of feudalism into tools of ‘op- pression of the working class. Professor Charles A. Beard in his historical. studies denotnces the “Fathers of the American Constitu- tion” because there was ne worker or poor farmer among them, but they were the representatives of the rich and the capitalists. Professor Beard frage and democracy as being in reality only the cloak which hides the rule of the finance oligarchy. We must make it clear to the masses that when they elect the’Sen- ators democratically they put the power into the hands of the trusts, that when they elect Coolidge presi- dent thru universal suffrage they only set up the dictatorship of J Pierpont Morgan. But it is not enough to show the masses that Congresses and parlia- ments are nothing but tools of mass oppression and mass deceit, but we must also show that the workers and working farmers can néver attain to rulership thru parliamentary strug- gles, and that the rulé of the labor- ing masses must construct new politi- cal institutions. The political form of rule of the workers and farmers is not Congress, but workers’ and farm- ers’. councils. The bourgeois method is elections based upon geographical divisions; the pro'etarian method of election has its basis in economic or- ganization, the factories, mines, mills and farms. ‘The historical task of the Com- munists is to help to destroy. the poli- tical tool of the capitalists, the par- « SECOND SECTION February 2, 1924. This magazine supplement will appear every Saturday in The Daily Worker. ‘By JOHN PEPPER product of historical development, and as it was built up on the one hand by Socialist elements which abandoned the Second International and on the other hand by former Syndicalists, I. W. W’s. and anarch- ists it was inevitable that both mis- takes, the leftist and opportunist are again being committed within the Communist International. Against anti-parliamentary as well as against parliamentary cretinism, the only tweapon is revolutionary Marxism, which reckons with the illusions of the masses, but does not become a victim of the illusions of the masses. Revolutionary Marxism has estab- lished the tactic that we must partici- pate in parliaments because that is the best method to expose the par- liaments and to destroy the illusions of the masses concerning them. This Marxist, realistic method has separ- ated the small leftist. groups of rev- olutionary phrase in Germany, Eng- land, Holland, Bulgaria, from the Communist International. But, the same ruthless. Marxian’ method eli- mininated the opportunists of par- liamentarism from the Communist International, those who tried to adapt themselves to their capitalist is right. But he is wrong when he liament, and to build up the Political colleagues, as for instance Frossard . The Bosses’ Idea of a “Good American” The Kind of Worker Who Is Never Called “A Red.” does not understand that in the period of the American revolution it was not the workirg class which had not yet come into existence or the fackward provincial farmers, but the capitalists, who economically and politically represented the real rev- olutionary class. Ts our present period, in the period of the decay of capitalism turned in- to imperialism, the parliaments are everywhere the outspoken tools of the worst counter-revolution. The House. of Commons, the French Chamber of Deputies, the German Reichstag and the American Congress are in equal measure noth- ing else than enemies of the workers working farmers. All these par- liaments are so much the more dan- gerous enemies of the oppressed and exploited because they a: r in the mask of democracy, universal suf- frage and they awaken in this way the | illusion among the workers and rs that they re- ’ parliaments, as the worst and pr on enemies of the work- ers. We must expose universal aa tool of the workers, the Soviets. Anti-Parliamentary and Parlia- mentary Cretinism The question now is, how can we attain this aim? We find two great obstacles before us. First the government organiza- tion of the capitalist class, which de- fends parliamentarism with force of arms. Second the illusion of the masses which consider parliaments as organs of democracy. | In the working out of the correct proletarian tactic on attitude toward parliamentarism two mistakes are possible. The first mistake (and (this mistake has been made by the leftist Communists and the I. W. W.) cott the mistake is (and this mistake was made and is made today by the So- cialists) that we share the illusions of the masses, that we consider the par- liaments as tools of real democracy and we content ourselves with work- ing in the parliaments for reforms within capitalism. As the Commun- ist International was not born com- plete and thru one act, but as it is a is that we do not reckon with the |The American Federation of Labor illusions of the masses and we boy-|is in France, Bombacci in Italy, Sakar- off in Bulgaria, Anti-Political Tradition in the United States Here in the United States we are facing a more complicated and dif- ficult situation in the question of parliamentarism than in the other countries, The greatest mass organization of the workers, the American Federation of Labor has been preaching for forty years an anti-political ideology. to masses. Its slogan is that Congress and the government should not interfere in the affairs of the workers and the workers shall take part ag little as possible in polities. an opponent in principle of every independent Labor Party because it claims that the Labor Party would subdue the trade unions. The I. W. W. has in fact the same jattitude towards politics as the Amer- ican. Federation of Labor, except, that it translates Gompers’ words into a revolutionary language. Gompers /sets all his hopes on the direct econ- omic opportunist action of the trade unions in collaboration with the capi- (Continued on page 8.)