In France the syndicalist group of Comrade Pericat forms the heart of the Communist Party; in America and also to some extent in England, the fight for Soviets is led by such organizations as the I. W. W. (Industrial Workers of the World). These groups and tendencies have always actively opposed the parliamentary methods of fighting.

On the other hand, the elements of the Communist Party that are derived from the Socialist parties are, for the most part, inclined to recognize action in Parliament, too. (The Loriot group in France, the members of the A. S. P. in America, possibly meaning the American Socialist Party, the Independent Labor Party in England, etc.). All these tendencies, which ought to be united as soon as possible in the Communist Party at all cost, need uniform tactics. Consequently, the question must be decided on a broad scale and as a general measure, and the Executive Committee of the Communist International turns to all the affiliated parties with the present circular letter, which is especially dedicated to this question.

The universal unifying program is at the present moment the recognition of the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of the Soviet power. History has so placed the question that it is right on this question that the line is drawn. between the revolutionary proletariat and the opportunists, between the Communists and the social traitors of every brand. The so-called Centre (Kautsky in Germany, Longuet in France, the I. L. P. and some elements of the B. S. P. in England. Hillquit in America), is, in spite of its protestations, an objectively anti-Socialist tendency, because it cannot, and does not wish to, lead the struggle for the Soviet power of the proletariat.

On the contrary, those groups and parties which formerly rejected any kind of political struggles (for example, some anarchist groups) have, by recognizing the Soviet power, the dictatorship of the proletariat, really abandoned their old standpoint as to political action, because they have recognized the idea of the seizure of power by the working class, the power that is necessary for the suppression of the opposing bourgeoisie. This, we repeat, a common program for the struggle of the Soviet dictatorship has been found.

The old divisions in the international labor movement have plainly outlived their time. The war has caused a regrouping. Many of the anarchists or syndicalists, who rejected parliamen

tarism, conducted themselves just as despicably and treasonably during the five years of the war as did the old leaders of the Social Democracy who always have the name of Marx on their lips. The unification of forces is being affected in a new manner: some are for the proletarian revolution, for the Soviets, for the dictatorship, for mass action, even up to armed uprisingsthe others are against this plan. This is the principal question of today. This is the main criterion. The new combinations will be formed according to these labels, and are being so formed already.

In what relation does the recognition of the Soviet idea stand to parliamentarism? Right here a sharp dividing line must be drawn between two questions which logically have nothing to do with each other: The question of parliamentarism as a desired form of the organization of the State and the question of the exploitation of parliamentarism for the development of the revolution. The comrades often confuse these two questions something which has an extraordinary injurious effect upon the entire practical struggle. We wish to discuss each of these questions in its order and draw all the necessary deductions.

What is the form of the proletarian dictatorship? We reply: The Soviets. This has been demonstrated by an experience that has a world-wide significance. Can the Soviet power be combined with parliamentarism? No, and yet again, no. It is absolutely incompatible with the existing parliaments, because the parliamentary machine embodies the concentrated power of the bourgeoisie. The Deputies, the Chambers of Deputies, their newspapers, the system of bribery, the secret connections of the parliamentarians with the leaders of the banks, the connection with all the apparatuses of the bourgeois state all these are fetters for the working class. They must be burst. The governmental machine of the bourgeoisie, consequently also the bourgeois parliaments, are to be broken, disrupted, destroyed, and upon their ruins is to be organized a new power, the power of the union of the working class, the workers' " Parliaments," i. e., the Soviets.

Only the betrayers of the workers can deceive the workers with the hope of a "peaceful" social revolution, along the lines. of parliamentary reforms. Such persons are the worst enemies of the working class, and a most pitiless struggle must be waged against them; no compromise with them is permissible. There

fore, our slogan for any bourgeois country you may choose is: "Down with the Parliament! Long live the power of the

Soviets!"

Nevertheless, a person may put the question this way: "Very well, you deny the power of the present bourgeois parliaments; then why don't you organize new, more democratic parliaments on the basis of a real universal suffrage?" During the Socialist revolution the struggle has become so acute that the working class must act quickly and resolutely, without allowing its class enemies to enter into its camp, into its organization of power. Such qualities are only found in the Soviets of workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants, elected in the factories and shops, in the country and in the barracks. So the question of form of the proletarian power is put this way. Now the government is to be overthrown: Kings, Presidents, Parliaments, Chambers of Deputies, National Assemblies; all these institutions are our sworn enemies, they must be destroyed.

Now we take up the second basic question: Can the bourgeois parliaments be fully utilized for the purpose of developing the revolutionary class struggle? Logically, as we just remarked, this question is by no means related to the first question. In fact: A person surely can be trying to destroy any kind of an organization by joining it and by "utilizing" it. This is also perfectly understood by our class enemies when they exploit the official Social Democratic parties, the trade unions and the like for their purposes.

Let us take the extreme example: The Russian Communists, the Bolsheviki, voted in the election for the Constituent Assembly. They met in the hall. But they came there to break up this Constituent within twenty-four hours and fully to realize the Soviet power. The party of the Bolsheviki also had its deputies in the Czar's Imperial Duma. Did the party at that time. recognize the Duma as an ideal, or at least, an endurable form of government? It would be lunacy to assume that. It sent its representatives there so as to proceed against the apparatus of the Czarist power from that side, too, and to contribute to the destruction of that same Duma. It was not for nothing that the Czarist government condemned the Bolsheviks' "parliamentarians" to prison for "high treason." The Bolshevist leaders were also carrying on all illegal work, and though they temporarily made use of their inviolability' in welding together the masses for the drive against Czarism.

But Russia was not the only place where that kind of “parliamentary activity was carried on. Look at Germany and the activities of Liebknecht. The murdered comrade was the perfect type of a revolutionist, and so was there then something nonrevolutionary in the fact that he, from the tribune of the cursed Prussian Landtag, called upon the soldiers to rise against the Landtag? On the contrary. Here, too, we see the complete admissibility and usefulness of his exploitation of the situation. If Liebknecht had not been a deputy he would never have been able to accomplish such an act; his speeches would have had no such an echo. The example of the Swedish Communists in Parliament also convince us of this. In Sweden Comrade Hoglund played, and plays, the same role as Liebknecht did in Germany. Making use of his position as a deputy, he assists in destroying the bourgeois parliamentary system; none else in Sweden has done as much for the cause of the revolution and the struggle against the war as our friend.

In Bulgaria we see the same thing. The Bulgarian Communists have successfully exploited the tribune of Parliament for revolutionary purposes. At the recent elections they won seats for forty-seven deputies. Comrades Blagoief, Kirkof, Kolarov, and other leaders of the Bulgarian Communist Party understand how to exploit the parliamentary tribune in the service of the proletarian revolution. Such "parliamentary work" demands peculiar daring and a special revolutionary spirit; the men there are occupying especially dangerous positions; they are laying mines under the enemy while in the enemy's camp. They enter Parliament for the purpose of getting this machine in their hands in order to assist the masses behind the walls of the Parliament in the work of blowing it up.

Are we for the maintenance of the bourgeois "democratic " parliaments as the form of the administration of the State? No, not in any case. We are for the Soviets.

But are we for the full utilization of these parliaments for our Communist work as long as we are not yet strong enough to overthrow the Parliament?

Yes, we are for this in consideration of a whole list of conditions. We know very well that in France, America, and England no such parliamentarians have yet arisen from the masses of the workers. In those countries we have up to now observed a picture of parliamentary betrayal. But this is no

proof of the incorrectness of the tactics that we regard as correct! It is only a matter of their being revolutionary_parties there like the Bolsheviki or the German Spartacides. If there is such a party then everything can become quite different. It is particularly necessary: (1) That the deciding center of the struggle lies outside Parliament (strikes, uprisings and other kinds of mass action); (2) that the activities in Parliament be combined with this struggle: (3) that the deputies also perform illegal work: (4) that they act for the Central Committee and subject to its orders: (5) that they do not heed the parliamen tary forms in their acts (have no fear of direct clashes with the bourgeois majority, "talk past it," etc.)

The matter of taking part in the election at a given time, during a given electoral campaign, depends upon a whole string of concrete circumstances which, in each country, must be particularly considered at each given time. The Russian Bolsheviki were for boycotting the elections for the first Imperial Duma in 1906. And these same persons were for taking part in the elections of the second Imperial Duma, when it had been shown that the bourgeois agrarian power would still rule in Russia for many a year. In the year 1918, before the election for the German National Assembly, one section of the Spartacides was for taking part in the elections, the other section was against it. But the party of the Spartacides remained a unified Communist Party.

In principle we cannot renounce the utilization of the parliamentarism. The party of the Russian Bolshevik declared, in the spring of 1918, at its seventh congress, when it was already in power, in a special resolution, that the Russian Communists, in case the bourgeois democracy in Russia, through a peculiar combination of circumstances, should once more get the upper hand, could be compelled to return to the utilization of bourgeois parliamentarism. Room for manœuvring is also to be allowed in this respect.

The comrades' principle efforts are to consist in the work of mobilizing the masses; establishing the party, organizing their own groups in the unions and capturing them; organizing Soviets in the course of the struggle; leading the mass struggle; agitation for the revolution among the masses all this is of first line importance; parliamentary action and participation in electoral campaigns only as one of the helps in this work - no more.