The toiler. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1919-1922, 1921-05-14
rpo ur SECOND CONGRESS PUBLISHED
fAo 80 ~ RUSSIAN DIVISION DEP ARTMENT OF STATE

activities in the Bulgarian Communist Party
indicates that revolutionary activity in par
lament is possible and expedient.
The floor is then taken by a second Eng
lish representative of labor Comrade Muir
ply, who in the most decisive and determin-
ed manner defends the theses of Bukharin.
Hostility toward reformatory parliament
arism," he says, "can not serve as a reason
on principle for cbjecting to revolutionary
Communistic parliamentarism."
The floor is then given to Comrade Lenin
SPEECH OF COMRADE LENIN.
Comrade Lenin, replying to Comrade Bor-
diga shows that the reactionary role of par
lament by no means obviates the necessity
of carrying on revolutionary work in that
parliament: During the Kerensky period the
revolutionary significance of the Soviets was
not worth broken penny but no one for a
moment doubts the necessity of the work Of
the Soviets. Parliaments, like Soviets, are NOV
casual institutions, artificially created. They
reflect the real relations Of life. Every par
liamentary crisis is essentially reflection
of crises that are real, nascent or already ac-
complished in actual social life"
"You speak of the necessity of abolishing,
and not utilizing parliament. The Russian
Communist Party can refer to the work
which it did, We dispersed our Constituent
Assembly; we already had no parliament, but
we did this after the conquest of authority,
after the victory over the bourgeoisie, and
after the peasants and backward workmen,
who were formerly represented in parliament
and believed in it, had come over to our side
because of our agitation from within and be
cause we destroyed that belief. You speak OF
the working class being organized into syn.
dicates, and say that these syndcates shoulc
be the arena of agitation and propaganda
But where will you organize and agitatt
among the peasants, clerks, and retrogradt
| workmen who do not join syndicates 1t mus
| be frankly admitted that in this sense par
lament can not be replaced, and that no
only syndicates but even Soviets can not taxi
the place of pariaments at certain stage O.
development of the revolution.
"Comrade Sukhi says that parliament viii
cost us very dearly 1t may be that you ar
too weak Perhaps you fear that you will no
have sufficient means or people; that tn
chosen delegates will not be submissive t
you; that you will not gather a sufficien
number of these electors together, etc. Blu
! if you are so weak, how then can you spea
of dictatorship of the proletariat, of viz
tory over the bourgeoisie, of the organizatio
of production, and of the other problems c
| any Communist party, which problems d'
2 pend for their realization first of all on dis
E cipline, power, and means The CONSCIOUSNESS
of weakness or the fact of this weakness
: a poor argument in the working out of gui'
: ing principles. You must work. You mus
Y work for the increase of your powers, for IL
f organization of wide masses of toilers, al
: for their unification by means Of iron di
cipline in organization"
It The concluding words were spoken by Cor
d rade Bukharin, who defended tAe theses pr
v sented by him.