On the Question of Parliamentarism

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of On the Question of Parliamentarism has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the edition published in The Communist International in Lenin's Time, Volume 1, Pathfinder, New York, 1991.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is a speech delivered by Comrade Jakob Herzog at the Tenth Session of the Second World Congress of the Communist Third International in Moscow, Russia, in the evening of the 2nd of August, 1920. It was first published in the Minutes of the Congress.

In this speech, Comrade Herzog defended the standpoint of the Communist Party of Switzerland on the tactic of electoral boycott in sharp struggle against the opportunist N.I. Buharin, who sought to impose the line of revolutionary parliamentarism on all sections of the Communist International, regardless of the local conditions in the different countries. In doing so, Comrade Herzog at the same time made an important exposition of the Party's standpoint on the electoral question. In the end, however, the anti-parliamentarians lost the vote on the matter, and the Swiss Party subjected itself to the discipline of the International. Nonetheless, the Swiss Communists continued to apply revolutionary parliamentarism in the actual sense of the term, unlike in certain other countries, until the March 1921 usurpation of the Party leadership by the Left-wing Social-Democrats under the influence of Buharin and his Swiss lackey, Jules Humbert-Droz.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#ON THE QUESTION OF PARLIAMENTARISM

#SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE SECOND WORLD CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST THIRD INTERNATIONAL

#Jakob Herzog

#2nd of August, 1920

#★

Comrades, an attempt is being made here to push through a resolution that Communist Parties must practise revolutionary parliamentarism in those countries where, as Comrade Buharin told us, there has previously been no revolutionary activity in parliament on the Russian model, even though the economic development of these countries — such as France, Britain, and Switzerland, for example — has long made them ripe for proletarian revolution.

What is the reason that the proletariat of these countries lags so far behind in revolutionary tactics? Precisely because, in these republics and democracies, the opportunity existed to make improvements in the standard of living of the proletariat through parliamentarism. And because that was possible, it is understandable that no revolutionary activity could emerge. That is the reason why workers in these countries are making such slow progress toward revolution and have such difficulty acquiring the revolutionary vigour of the Russians.

It was quite different in Russia. The proletariat could not work openly. It could not force through reforms and improve its conditions. It had to take to the streets and carry out revolutionary actions. And that is why parliamentarism could not develop here in Russia as it did in the Western European countries.

Now our Russian comrades come and say: «Now things will be different in Western Europe from what they were before. Until now, it was not possible to carry out revolutionary activity in parliament. But now the situation is different, and it is possible in both Western Europe and North America. We will give all Communist Parties clear directives. We will tell the parliamentary groups how to work, and then revolutionary work will be done there, too.»

But I do not think that is possible — first of all, simply because the directives still leave the door open to opportunist functioning by the Communist Parties. In the commission, we had a long discussion about how Communist representatives on municipal councils should conduct themselves, about what they should do when they are in the majority. Comrade Buharin said there: «When they have a majority, they must try to improve the workers' conditions in order to heighten the contradiction between the Communist municipal council and the State.» That is exactly what the opportunists also tell us when they go into parliament. They say: «We enter parliament in order to use this platform to exacerbate the conflicts between the proletariat and the State. We want to advocate improvements, but our sole aim in this is to sharpen the conflict between capital and labour.»

This gives an opening precisely to the opportunist elements already in the Communist International to continue to function opportunistically as Communist Parties and to steer parliamentarism onto this slippery slope. The Communist International's new policy of admitting every «revolutionary» political party into the Communist International offers them a second opening. Before long, the majority of the Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany and the French Socialist Party will also be in the Communist International. Of course, the majorities of the small Social-Democratic Parties will have to come to Moscow, too. Platten has already been sent to Switzerland with this mission. In this way, many more opportunist elements, who will not become revolutionary Communists overnight, will get into the Communist International. They will pursue exactly the same policies inside the Communist International that they have been pursuing up to now in the Second International. That is the danger we see, and it makes us realize that parliamentarism, in the form presented here, really cannot be applied to Western countries.

Here is an example of this in practice. We heard today that the Communist Party of Bulgaria is a model of revolutionary parliamentarism; its parliamentary group works splendidly. Recently, I read an article that said the exact opposite. I also had occasion to speak with a Bulgarian comrade who went from Moscow to Bulgaria as a firm supporter of parliamentarism. But when he saw how the Bulgarian Communist parliamentary group functioned, he became an adherent of anti-parliamentarism and returned as one. That shows that parliamentarism cannot be developed in every country in the same way that Communists used to practise it in Russia.

The Social-Democrats in Germany — Bebel and old Wilhelm Liebknecht — also said: «We go into parliament only in order to exploit this platform for revolutionary ends.» Because that possibility existed, however, this revolutionary activity soon turned into opportunism and reformism, and now the Social-Democratic Party is openly a political party of social-traitors.

Of course, you can decide that the Communist Parties must carry out parliamentarism. We are not such dogmatic anti-parliamentarians as to say that we will not comply with the Communist International's decision. We can try the experiment for a while. But we are convinced that it will not succeed, and that, in a year or two, at the next Congress, on the basis of practice and experience, it will be said: «It would have been better had we stayed away from this and put all of our forces into the factories, the army, and among the farmers. That would have been more advantageous for the development of the revolution and for the Communist International.»