Theses Presented to the Second World Congress of the Communist International/Chapter 6
Draft of Instruction to the Communist Members
of the Bourgeois Parliaments and to the Central
Committees of Communist Parties, Whose Duty
It Is to Direct the Communist Factions of the
Bourgeois Parliaments.
Annex to Theses on Parliamentarism.
The opposition to the Communists entering the bourgeois parliaments is sustained mostly by the remembrance of Social Democratic parliamentarism during the epoch of the Second International. The conduct of the majority of the Social Democratic members in the bourgeois parliament was really so unprincipled and frequently treacherous, that this bitter experience cannot be forgotten by the working class.
That is why it is necessary for the Communist International, which has in the interests of the revolution advocated the utilisatlon of the parliamentary tribune by the Communists, to observe very strictly the activity of the Communist members and to take all measures to create a new type of revolutionary parliamentarian-Communist warrior.
To this end it is necessary that:
1. The Communist Party in general and its Central Committee should during the preparatory stage, before the parliamentary elections—inspect very carefully the quality of the personnel of the parliamentary factions. The Central Committee should be responsible for the parliamentary faction of Communists. The Central Committee shall have the undeniable right to reject any candidate of any organisation, If it is not perfectly convinced that such candidate will carry on a real Communist policy when in parliament.
The Communist Parties must desist from the old Social Democratic habit of electing as delegates only the so-called "experienced" parliamentarians, chiefly lawyers and so on. As a rule workmen should be put forward as candidates, without troubling about the fact that they may sometimes be simple rank-and-file workmen without much parliamentary experience. The Communist Party must treat with merciless contempt all elements who try to make a career by joining the party just before the elections in order to get into parliament. The Central Committees of Communist Parties must sanction the candidature of only such men who by long years of work have proved their unwavering loyalty to the working class.
2. When the elections are over, the organisations of the parliamentary factions must be wholly in the hands of the Central Committee of the Communist Party—whether the party in general is a lawful or illegal one at the given moment. The chairman and the presidium of the parliamentary faction of Communists must be confirmed in their functions by the Central Committee of the Party. The Central Committee of the Party must have its permanent representative in the parliamentary faction with the right of veto. On all important political questions the parliamentary faction shall ask for preliminary instructions from the Central Committee of the Party.
At each forthcoming important debate of the Communists in the parliament the Central Committee shall be entitled and bound to appoint or reject the orator of the faction, to demand that he submit previously the theses of his speech or the text, for confirmation by the Central Committee, etc. Each candidate, entered in the list of the Communists, must sign a paper to the effect that at the first request of the Central Committee of the Party, he shall be bound to give up his mandate, so that the party might obtain re-elections.
3. In countries where reformist, semi-reformist or simply career-seeking elements have managed to penetrate into the parliamentary faction of the Communists (as this has already happened in several places) the Central Committees of the Communist Parties are bound to radically weed out the personnel of the factions, on the principle that it is better for the cause of the working class to have a small but truly Communist faction, than a numerous one without a regular Communist line of conduct.
4. A Communist delegate by decision of the Central Committee is bound to combine lawful work with illegal work. In countries where the Communist delegate enjoys a certain Inviolability, this must be utilised by way of rendering assistance to the illegal organisation and for the propaganda of the Party.
5. The Communist members shall make all their parliamentary work dependent on the work of the Party outside the parliament. The regular proposal of demonstrative law-projects, not for them to be passed by the bourgeois majority, but for the purposes of propaganda, agitation and organisation, must be carried on under the directions of the Party and its Central Committee.
6. In the event of labour demonstrations in the streets or other revolutionary movements, the Communist members must occupy the most conspicuous placeat the head of the proletarian masses.
7. The Communist members must enter into relations (under the control of the Party), either by writing or otherwise, with the revolutionary workmen, peasants and other workers, and not resemble in this respect the Social Democratic members, who try to enter into business relations with their constituents.
8. Each Communist member must remember that he is not a „legislator“, who Is bound to seek agreements with the other legislators, but an agitator of the Party, detailed into the enemy's camp In order to carry out the orders of the Party there. The Communist member is answerable not to the dispersed mass of his constituents, but to his own Communist Party—whether lawful or illegal.
9. The Communist members must speak in parliament in such a way as to be understood by every workman, peasant, washerwoman. shepherd; so that the Party might publish his speeches on sheets of paper and spread them in the most remote villages of the country.
10. The rank and file worker Communists must not be shy of speaking in the bourgeois parliaments, and not give way to the so-called experienced parliamentarians, even if such workmen are novices in parliamentary methods. In case of need the workmen members may read their speeches from notes, in order that the speech might be printed afterwards in the papers or on sheets.
11. The Communist members must make use of the parliamentary tribune to denounce not only the bourgeoisie and its hangers-on, but also for the denunciation of the social-patriots, reformists, the half-and-half politicians of the centre and other opponents of Communism, and for the propagation of the ideas of the Third International.
12. 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.