France.
10. In France the Communist Party contains the majority of the politically organised workers. This makes the question of the united front different in France from other countries, but the policy is essential here also in order that all responsibility for splitting the united working-class camp shall rest. with our opponents. The French revolutionary trade unionists are quite justified in their stand against the dismemberment of the trade unionists—that is to say, in the fight for the unity of the workers in their economic struggle against the bourgeoisie. But the struggle of the workers does not end in the factory; unity is also necessary in the stand against the increase in the cost of living, against growing reaction, against imperialist politics, etc. The policy of reformists and centrists has, on the other hand, ended in a split in the party, and now threatens the unity of the trade union movement, which merely shows that Jouhaux, just as Longuet, is actually serving the bourgeoisie. The watchword of working-class unity, in the political fight, just as in the economic struggles against the bourgeoisie, remains the best method of nailing all plans for dismemberment to the pillory. Though the reformist Confederation Generale du Travail, led by Jouhaux, Merrheim and company, will betray the interests of the French working class at every step, it is nevertheless necessary that French Communists and the revolutionary elements of the French working class in general, at the beginning of each mass strike or revolutionary demonstration or other immediate activity on the part of the masses, should propose participation of the reformists in support of the workers' attack and systematically expose them when they refuse to assist in the revolutionary struggle of the workers. In this way we shall most easily win over the masses of non-party workers. Of course, this must not under any circumstances induce the French Communist Party to weaken its independence, as, for instance, by supporting any sort of "Left bloc" during election campaigns, or by adopting a lenient attitude to those wavering "Communists" who are still bewailing the split with the social-patriots.
England.
11. In England the reformist Labour Party has refused to accept the affiliation of the Communist Party on the same basis as that of other working-class organisations. Influenced by the growth of the tendency amongst the workers already referred to, the London Labour Party recently adopted a resolution in favour of the affiliation of the British Communist Party to the Labour Party. Of course England occupies an exceptional position in this matter, for under its peculiar conditions the Labour Party appears in the guise of a general unification of Labour forces. The task of the English Communists is to carry on an energetic campaign for affiliation.
39
