Grigory Zinoviev

“ This stratum of the labour aristocracy and bureaucracy is the soil upon which Menshevism was reared in Russia, and social democracy and the Right Independent Party in Germany. This sickly flower sprung up on putrid marshy soil. These labour aristocrats, reared by the bourgeoisie, are now the mainstay of capitalism. A number of countries are now on the very threshold of revolution, but the social democrats prevent them from advancing. The workers cannot get over the last difficulty, which has grown from within. ”

“ Poor deluded workers! When will the day come when all the workers will know their traitor "leaders"! When shall we at last reach a period when men like Crispien, Hilferding, Dittmann and others will no longer be able to gather a whole party in the course of a few weeks by means of an obvious and systematic deception of the workers? Under such circumstances our task was to force a discussion by all manner of means, be it even at the party congress, on the fundamental questions of principle—the programme and tactics of the Third International. ”

“ Germany naturally tries to conceal everything from the Allies: arms, cows, motors, ships. And, therefore, the victors have sent a host of their own officials to unearth the hidden treasures. Now in Berlin and in all the German towns there are thousands of Allied officers, spies and all kinds of individuals sent from France and England to "control." They bribe many Germans in order to obtain secrets from them, to get to know where various things are stored, in order to lay their hands on them. They insult the German people and even the German capitalists in a most shameless manner. ”

“ We cannot say that the German workers lack organisation. They have organisation. The German trade unions are the biggest, numbering some ten millions of members. There is no German worker who is not a member of a trade union. What is lacking is a clear revolutionary standpoint on the part of the working class. Working class organisation does not yet know what it wants. It does not yet possess such leaders who wish to vanquish the bourgeoisie. Those leaders only wish to flatter that bourgeoisie, to hobnob with it, to compromise with it. The workers possess the physical force. ”

“ There races up a thoroughbred; the carriage is occupied by a bourgeoisie who is leading a fast life. Here in the streets we notice the stolid faces of fat merchants, wearing bowler hats. They walk along and talk to each other with an air of dullness and apathy. One of them stops and draws out a huge gold watch the size of a cobble stone. Read through a dozen bourgeois papers, which spread their lies throughout Germany and poison the atmosphere with their putrid ideas. Listen to the conversations of merchants and profiteers in railway carriages. ”

“ When we look closer at it, when we observe how this labour bureaucracy is strangling the working class, when we see how everything is made to serve the ends of capital—the very blood rushes to our head in an outburst of irrepressible indignation. ”

“ They are well acquainted with the labour circles, they themselves once took part in them, they know our weak as well as our strong points, they know what ails us, for they are practical men, not idle theoreticians. It is precisely for that reason that they are of special value to the bourgeoisie. Their numbers are not great, but their significance is enormous. People trust them by habit; they know the Trade Union routine, they are well read, clever, and evasive. That is why they are so dangerous. They are the chief and the last enemy of the labour revolution in Germany. ”

“ They cannot accept battle with the Communist International on points of principle. The overwhelming majority of the German workers are on the side of the Russian Revolution, on the side of the Soviet Government, on the side of the Communist International. To tell the workers openly that they are against Soviet Russia, against the dictatorship of the proletariat, against the programme of the Communist International—means to lose nearly all support from the rank and file of the workers. ”

“ At the Kiel station this crowd of 20,000 men literally carried Herr Noske shoulder high. We cannot help recalling the familiar features of the first months of our March revolution when the workers' and soldiers' masses were doing likewise to Kerensky, the counter-revolutionary babbler and humbug. The soul of the popular masses, which awakens in days of revolution, is like the soul of a child. ”

“ But we have hardly ever met any of them who were working men by origin. There was a time in Russia when the whole working class followed the Mensheviks; at the beginning of the revolution the whole working class made this big blunder. But as soon as its eyes were opened the whole class at once and unreservedly turned their backs on the Mensheviks—the moment the workers saw that they were traitors. ”

“ This is the last obstacle which we must remove in order to come to close quarters with the small handful of capitalists, and simply crush them by the weight of our numbers. The working class has no greater enemy than the handful of ex-working men who have sold themselves outright to the bourgeoisie, and are led in political matters by Scheidemann, Noske, Hilferding, Renaudel and Co., and the Trade Unions by Legien and Dissmann, Mot, Gompers, and the rest of the counter-revolutionary "labour" rabble. ”

“ As to Legien, he is the biggest of the big guns of the counter-revolutionary trade union officials in Germany. But in fact Dissmann is already Legien's right hand. He is the rising star and hope of the whole counter-revolutionary trade union bureaucracy of Germany. Legien is too old. His star is on the decline. Someone more energetic, more persistent and younger is needed, and Dissmann is the right, man. His recent playing up to the "Left" can only enhance his opportunities. In the eyes of the wide masses of workers he has compromised himself less than the others, he is a more suitable person. ”

“ The workers of all countries, including those of Germany, do not allow anyone at their meetings to speak against Soviet Russia. The workers are firmly on our side. Whosoever wishes to win the least confidence from the German workers must at least pretend that he is a friend of Soviet Russia. Even the Scheidemannists pretend to be friends of Soviet Russia. The Right Independents, whose chief watchword is 'keep your nose to the wind," had of course to pretend that they, in spite of everything, are in favour of Soviet Russia. ”

“ When, oh when, will the giant, the German proletariat rouse up and shake off the bourgeois gang and their hirelings from the top of the social ladder? Thrice cursed be the so-called civilised capitalist world, a world that stifles the human soul, and turns millions of men into slaves! ”

“ When you let me in many of you bourgeois thought that my presence would hasten the split of the Independent Party, and the bourgeoisie is stupid enough to imagine that any split is likely to be to its advantage. I explained to the German bourgeois, as plainly as possible, that not every split will work to their advantage; there are splits which are advantageous to us. ”

“ If the German bourgeoisie says, "Martov is our man, let us embrace him," they surely know what they are about. And, indeed, the Mensheviks are bound to fall on the neck of the European bourgeoisie. A bird will always espy his mate at a distance. ”

“ But there are even more glaring instances of this absence of uniformity; not only various parts of Germany but even of individual towns are totally unlike each other with regard to political conditions. The present bourgeois Menshevik government is to a certain extent only a blind, whereas power in each individual town is wielded by those who have succeeded in getting hold of it. There are isolated spots in Germany where even up to the present day the actual power is in the hands of the workers. ”

“ If the Right Wing was unable to find a more worthy representative than Dittmann, so much the worse for the Right Wing...
We take our seats next to comrade Adolf Hoffman and the other leaders of the Left section of the congress. We look around and gradually acquaint ourselves with the composition of the two sections of the congress. What a familiar sight! We saw exactly the same picture some 10 years ago and earlier at our congresses at which the Mensheviks participated. On one side workers only, on the other, an overwhelming majority of intellectuals. ”

“ The victorious Allies continue to rob Germany every day. And the most hopeless thing about the state of Germany is that she is not aware as yet how much precisely she owes to the Allies. The French and English bourgeois are still unwilling to state definitely how far they want to skin Germany. In this sense the peace of Versailles is far worse than that of Brest. The Brest treaty stated definitely the amount of the contribution we had to pay. But the French and English bourgeoisie do not wish as yet to tell the Germans how much they must pay. ”

“ If the capitalists allowed such "leaders" to shake hands with them and offered two fingers only, if the manager of a factory smiled to them and gave them a seat of honour, they would be prepared to sell the whole working class, they would employ every subterfuge in order to help the bougeoisie perpetuate its oppression over the working class. ”

“ We answered that Terror is only the most extreme form of "Violence," just as civil war is the most extreme form of the class struggle. Further, we adduced instances from the Russian and the Finnish revolutions. We reminded them of that rosy dawn of the workers' revolution in Russia—the first days of the October revolution—when we liberated Krassnov from the Smolny upon his word of honour, when we released Kerensky's minister's who afterwards organised civil war against us which cost us the lives of ten of thousands of our comrades. ”

“ The strong point of the German revolution consists in the fact that Germany, as is commonly known, is an industrial country; the urban population in Germany greatly exceeds the rural population. In Germany the bulk of the population lives in towns, where the workers can better organise themselves. In Berlin, Hambourg, Leipzig, and especially in the coal districts, the workers form a majority. They have sheer physical preponderances on their side, and everything depends on them. Under such circumstances the working class of Germany can hope to obtain the best from the future. ”

“ I shall give the French capitalists 3⁄4 of what I have robbed in the course of the many years of my bossing, but 1⁄4 I will leave to myself and continue to exploit the German workers. The German capitalists are thus doing their best to be friendly with the Allies, and to come to terms with them. As to the working men, they hate the Allies and the German bourgeoisie alike, the latter for reducing the country to such a state and for selling itself to the Allies. ”

“ Wild luxury reigns in the streets, excellent shops, packed with goods but where no working man can afford to buy anything. Free trade and profiteering also flourishes in the working men’s districts, but there are no respectable shops there, and a whole street possesses only one wretched miserable shop. This is easily explained—in workers' districts there is no one who can afford to buy things. ”

“ If you throw out the 200 self-seekers, you may at first imagine that the "split" would be disadvantageous, as there are now apparently fewer men. But in fact 800 real fighters will constitute a much stronger force than 1,000 men of whom 200 were cowards, who spread panic at the decisive moment. The same may be said of the German party. If we throw out the reformists, cowards, good-for-nothings, self-seekers, in a word the Mensheviks, shall we become weaker on that account? No, we shall grow stronger. ”

“ The chief purpose of my speech was to prove that, the Right does not believe, does not wish to believe in a proletarian world revolution, holding a reformist view on evolution, and frames its tactics accordingly. "You disagree with us not because 21 conditions have been substituted for 18, but because we are revolutionists and you are reformists!" ”

“ He is a thorough sceptic; he is convinced that the high tide of revolution is over, and that at the present time Germany and the whole of Europe is passing through the last convulsions of the revolutionary upheaval. ”

“ They know that the bourgeois press is lying about Soviet Russia. But still we must, not delude ourselves. The bourgeoisie is most adept and even talented in using the "liberty of the press," that principal weapon which still remains in its hands. One of our chief tasks abroad must be to organise a daily and methodical means of information to keep the workers in touch with everything that is taking place in Russia.
After a couple of days the session of the German Reichstag was opened. The Right Independents made an interpellation concerning the expulsion of myself and Comrade Losovsky. ”

“ Only when the working class shall have crushed under its heavy boot the head of this treacherous reptile will their hands be freed to take the field in a final battle against the capitalists, whom the "labour" lieutenants, hired by them, have served so loyally up till now. ”

“ The question of terror plays quite an important part in Germany. It is not a mere difference of opinion on one of the many points of tactics. It is a question which goes to the very roots of the whole proletarian revolution. As is well known, the German bourgeoisie, during the two years of the German revolution distinguished itself from the bourgeoisie of other countries by the exceptionally cruel and ruthless White terror which it applied to its "workers." ”