Grigory Zinoviev

“ The proletariat becomes a truly revolutionary class, truly Socialist in its actions, only by acting as the vanguard of all those who work and are being exploited, as their leader in the struggle for the overthrow of the oppressors; and this cannot be achieved without carrying the class struggle into the country, without making the labouring masses of the country all gather around the Communist Party of the town proletariat, without the peasants being educated by the town proletariat. ”

“ On the other hand, it is the same disguising of capitalism and bourgeois democracy, the same deceiving of the workmen, when the old parties and old leaders of the Second International admit the idea that the majority of the workers and exploited will be able to acquire a clear Socialist consciousness, firm Socialist convictions and character under the conditions of capitalist enslavement, under the yoke of the bourgeoisie, which assumes an endless variety of forms—the more refined and at the same time the more cruel and pitiless, the more cultured the given capitalist nation. ”

“ And as any attempt on the part of the workmen to exercise a control over the supplying of the factories with raw material, or to control the financial operations of the factory owners, will meet with the most energetic measures against the working class on the part of the bourgeoisie and the capitalist government, the struggle for workers' control over production must lead to the struggle for a seizure of power by the working class. ”

“ Soviets without a revolution are impossible. Soviets without a proletarian revolution inevitably become a parody of Soviets. The authentic Soviets of the masses are the historically revealed form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. All sincere and serious partisans of the power of Soviets should deal cautiously with the idea of Soviets, and while indefatigably propagating it among the masses, proceed to the direct realisation of such Soviets only under the conditions mentioned above. ”

“ During twenty years in Russia—thirteen years in Germany—the Communist Party, in its struggle not only against the bourgeoisie, but also against those Socialists who are the transmitters of bourgeois ideas among the proletariat, has enrolled in its ranks the staunchest, most farseeing and most advanced fighters of the working class. Only by having such a closely united organisation of the best part of the working class was it possible for the party to overcome all the difficulties which arose before the proletarian dictatorship in the days following the victory. ”

“ The economic struggle of the proletariat In all countries is daily becoming more and more a revolutionary struggle. Therefore the labour unions must consciously use their forces for the support of all revolutionary struggles in their own and in other countries. For this purpose they must not only, in all other countries, strive to attain, as great as possible, centralisation of their struggle, but they must do so on an international scale by joining the Communist International and uniting into one army the different parts of which shall carry on the struggle conjointly, supporting one another. ”

“ For the success of their economic struggle, the larger masses of workers who up to this time have stood apart from the labour unions, are now flowing into their ranks in a powerful stream. In all capitalist countries a tremendous development of the labour unions is to be noticed, which now become organisations of the chief masses of the proletariat, not only of its advanced parts. Flowing into the labour unions, these masses strive to make them their weapons of battle. ”

“ In every Soviet of Workers' Deputies, in every labour union, every cooperative institution, workshop, house committee, in every government institution, everywhere, even though there may be only three people sympathising with Communism, a Communist nucleus must be immediately organised. It is only the power of organisation of the Communists that enables the advance guard of the working class to be the leader of the whole class. ”

“ On the pages of the newspapers, at popular meetings, in the labour unions, in the cooperatives, in every place to which the partisans of the Third International have access, they must denounce not only the bourgeoisie, but its assistants, the reformists of all shades and colours. ”

“ As long as the governing power is not in the hands of the workers, as long as the proletariat has not consolidated its rule once for all and guaranteed the working classes from a return of the capitalist order, so long will the Communist Party as a rule have only a minority of the workmen in its ranks. Up to the time when the power will be in its grasp, and during the period of transition, the Communist Party may under favourable conditions enjoy an undisputed political influence over the working masses and the semi-proletarian class of the population ”

“ Where a split between the opportunists and the revolutionary labour movement has already taken place before, where, as in America, alongside of the opportunist labour unions, there are unions with revolutionary tendencies—although not Communist ones—there the Communists are bound to support such revolutionary labour unions, to persuade them to abandon Syndicalist prejudices, and to side with the Communist Party, which alone is able to serve as a trustworthy compass in the complicated question of the economic struggle. ”

“ Every party desirous of joining the Third International is bound to denounce not only open social patriotism, but also the falsehood and hypocrisy of social-pacifism: it must systematically demonstrate to the workmen that without a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism no international arbitration, no talk of disarmament, no democratic reorganization of the League of Nations will be able to save mankind from new imperialist wars. ”

“ If the center of gravity lies in a struggle for the power outside the parliament, then naturally the question of a proletarian dictatorship and a fight in masses for it is immeasurably greater than the secondary one of using the parliament. ”

“ Each party desirous of belonging to the Third International shall be bound to denounce without any mercy all the tricks of "its own" imperialists in the colonies, supporting not in words only, but in deeds, all liberation movements in the colonies. It must demand the expulsion of its own imperialists from such colonies, and cultivate in the hearts of the workmen of its own country a truly fraternal attitude towards the worker population of the colonies and oppressed nationalities, and carry on a systematic agitation in its own army against any oppression of the colonial population. ”

“ The Communist delegates, even though there should be only one or two of them in the parliament, should by their whole conduct challenge capitalism, and never forget that only such are worthy of the name of Communists—who not in words only but in deeds are the mortal enemy of the bourgeois order and its social-patriotic flunkeys. ”

“ The economic crisis, embracing one country after another in ever-increasing proportions, is showing to even unenlightened workmen that It Is not enough to demand an increase of wages and a shortening of the work-hours, that the capitalist class is less capable every day of reestablishing the normal conditions of public economy, and of guaranteeing to the workers at least those conditions of life which it gave them before the world war. ”

“ The absolute necessity principle of illegal and lawful work is determined not only by the total aggregate of all the peculiarites of the given moment, on the very eve of a proletarian dictatorship, but by the necessity of proving to the bourgeoisie. ”

“ No one but the city industrial proletariat, led by the Communist Party. can save the labouring masses in the country from the pressure of capital and landlordism, from dissolution and from imperialistic wars, ever inevitable as long as the capitalist régime endures. There is no salvation for the peasants except to join the Communist proletariat, to support with heart and soul its revolutionary struggle to throw off the yoke of the landlords and the bourgeoisie. ”

“ This struggle is such, that at any moment it may replace and has replaced, as experience has proved, the weapon of criticism by the criticism of the weapon. The least non-consecutiveness or weakness in the denunciation of those who show themselves to be reformists or "centrists", means a direct increase of the danger of the power of the proletariat being overthrown by the bourgeoisie, which will on the morrow utilise in favour of the counter-revolution all that which to short-sighted people appears only as a "theoretical difference of opinion" to-day. ”

“ The duty of the Communist Parties is to struggle for control over production on the ground of the most insistent questions of the day, the lack of fuel, the transport crisis—to unite the different groups of proletariat and to attract wide circles of the petty bourgeoisie, which is becoming more and more proletarized day by day, and is really suffering extremely from the economic crisis. ”

“ The same class struggle demands that the general guidance of the various forms of the workers' movement be united in one central organisation. (Labour unions, cooperative associations, cultural-educational work, elections, etc.) . Only a political party can be such a unifying and guiding centre. To refuse to create and strengthen such a party and submit to its dictates, would mean to abandon the idea of unity in the guidance of the separate proletarian groups operating on the different arenas of the fight. ”