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with the masses, that they should not hold aloof, that they should not become a sect, but throw themselves into the movement of the masses.
The second task was this: Wherever it was fashionable to belong to the Third International, the Executive had to do everything possible to unmask all those over-wise diplomats of the Centrist camp, to whip them in front of the masses to detach from them their best elements and draw the. latter into the Communist fold. These were the great political tasks and also very important problems of organisation. These were the tasks given to us by the Second Congress, and it is for us here to-day to judge as to how far we have fulfilled these tasks under the given circumstances.
To take events in their chronological order, the Party conference of the German Independents at Halle has marked the most important mile stone in the development during the past year. But politically the German situation was not quite so trying to the Communist International as was the Italian situation with regard to the difficulties, which we experienced during this year, as also with regard to the indications of a certain crisis in the Communist International. I will, therefore, deal at greater length with the Italian question.
THE ITALIAN QUESTION.
I have already explained that when the Italian Delegation came to Moscow the means of communication were so imperfect that we didn't know that reformists had come with the Delegation. We had complete confidence in Serati and also in the men that he had brought along with him. We had a notion, to be sure, that these were not quite clear-cut elements, but we thought that they were honestly for the Proletarian Revolution. And it was in this respect that we have met with a shocking disappoint-
