The toiler. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1919-1922, 1921-04-16
(6th Installment.)
RESOLUTION ON THE ROLE OF THE COM
MUNIST PARTY IN THE PROLETARIAN
REVOLUTION"

battles. We are living through an epoch of direct
civil wars But the decisive hour is near In almost
all the countries where there is considerable labor
movement the working class will have before it in
the immediate future series of fierce armed en-
counters.
Now more than ever does the working class need
solidified organization. The working class must
prepare ceaselessly for the coming decisive strug
gle without losing a single hour of the precious
time that remains.
If at the time of the Paris Commune QS71) the
working class had had united, even if a small
Communist Party, the first heroic uprising of the
French proletariat would have been much more
powerful and thousands of mistakes and weak
anesses would have been avoided.
81 The struggle which is before the proetariat now
that historic conditions have changed will have
much greater influence on the historic fates of the
working class than in 1871. In view of all this the
End World Congress of the Communist Internatio-
nal calls upon the revolutionary workmen of the
whole world to turn their attention upon the fol-
lowing:
l. The Communist Party is part of the working
class precisely its most advanced, most conscious
and therefore most revolutionary part. The Com
munist Party springs into being through natural
setcCtlOH VI UtSt tHe lnOSI CONSCIOUS, HUnt
self-sacrificing, and far-seeing workmen The Com
munist Party has no interests different from the
interests of the working class. The Communist
Party differs from the whole mass of the working
class in that it contemplates the historic path of
the working class in its entirety, and strives at
every turn of that path to defend the interests,
not of the separate groups, not of various trades
and professions. but the interests of the working
class as whole. The Communist Party is that lever
of political organization by means of which the
most advanced part of the working class directs
the mass aof the proetarat and semiproletarat
along the right road.
2. As long as the governmental authority has not
been conquered by the proletariat as long as the
proletariat has not established it's rule once for all
and has not guaranteed the working class from
the possibility of bourgeois restoration, long
will the Communist Party by right have in its
organized ranks only the minority of the workmen.
Up to the time of the seizure of governmental
authority and during the period of transition the
Communist Party may, in favorable circumstances,
exercise undivided theological and political influence
upon all the proetarian and semiproletarian strata
of population, but it can not bring them together
in its ranks in an organized manner Only after
the proletarian dictatorship will have deprived the
-keurzesis of such powerful weaRonss Of defective
influence as the press, the school, the parliament
the church. the administrative apparatus etc, only
after the final defeat of the bourgeois social order
will have become evident for everybody, only then
will all or practically all the workmen begin to
enter the ranks of the Communist Party.
8. The idea of party should be strictly diff
ferentiated from the idea of the class The members
IL
unions in Germany. Great Britain and other cOun-
class. The more or less considerable circles in the
tries undoubtedly constitute part of the working
working class which still follow Schedemann, Com
pers and Company undoubtedly constitute part
of the working class. In the presence Of definite
historic factors there possible in the working
class very numerous reactionary strata. The pro-
blem Of Communism does not consist in adapting
itself to these retrograde parts of the working
class, but in raising the whole working class TO
the level of its communistc vanguard. The mingling
Of these two conceptions, the idea of the party
and the idea of the class, may lead to the greatest
of mistakes and confusions. For example, it is
clear that in spite Of the tendencies the preju
dices of part of the working masses during the
imperialistic war, Labor Party should without
fail have come out against these tendencies pre-
judces and in defense of the historic interests of
the proletariat. which demanded the part of Il
proletarian party declaration of war against war.
For example at the beginning of the imperialistic
war of 1914 the Socialist Traitor Parties of all the
countries, supporting the bourgeosie of their
own" country, invariably asserted that such was
the will of the working class. And they forgot
entirely that even If this were so the aim of
proetarian party under such circumstances should
have been 10 fight against the moods and tendencies
Of the majority o, the workmen, and to defend the
historic interests of the proetariat in spite of
everything. So on the threshold Of the twentieth
century. the Russian Mensheyiks of that time (the
so-called "economistsD rejected an open political
struggle against Tsarism on the ground that as
they alleged, the working class as a whole had not
as yet matured sufficiently to understand political
struggle.
In the same manner in Germany the Right In
dependents, whenever they make their halfway
steps aege that they represent the desires of the
masses, not realizing that party exists precisely
for the purpose Of marching in front of the mass
and Of showing the mass the road II is to follow
4. The Communist International is absolutely
certain that the bankruptcy Of the old Social-De-
mocratic Parties Of the II International can not
under any circumstances be represented as the bank
ruptcy Of the proletsrian party system In general
The epoch, Of the direct struggle for the dictator.
ship Of The proletariat brings forth new party
Of the proletariafy the Communist Party.