— 7 —
cannot be represented as the collapse of the proletarian party organisations in general. The period of the open struggle for the dictatorship of the workers has created a new party—the Communists.
5. The Communist International emphatically rejects the opinion that the workers could carry out a revolution without having an independent political party of their own. All class. struggles are political ones. The object of such a struggle, which inevitably turns into a civil war, is the obtaining of political power. However, such a power cannot be acquired, organised and directed otherwise than by means of some political party. Only in case the workers have for their leader an organized and experienced party, with strictly defined objects, and a practically drawn up program of immediate action, both in internal and foreign policy—then only will the acquisition of political power cease to be a casual episode, but it will serve as starting point for a lasting Communist organisation of the workers.
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
