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That was written in October, 1920. Now, what does this mean? It is the same that has been said by Dittmann and Crispien: "We are afraid to take the power into our hands even there where we could do it, because we cannot assume the responsibility for the ruinous economic conditions caused by the war." The conclusion to be drawn from the above would be to wait until the economic conditions improve and capitalism has again become strong at our expense, and only then make a revolution. Up to now this has been advocated only by Kautsky. His point of view was: First, the improvement of production, and then the fight for power, otherwise we would have only a socialism of consumers. This is the attitude openly taken by the "Communist" Serati in October, 1920.
Comrades, the real substance of the question is this. At the time of the Second Congress it was the general opinion that Italy had made the nearest approach to a proletarian revolution. This was admitted by Serati himself. If ever history gave us an example of how a party missed its opportunity, to the great detriment of the movement, it is the example of Italy. Never has such a good opportunity been lost as in the case of Italy. A year ago the working class of Italy was enthusiastic, ready to fight, and better organised than in any other country. The bourgeoisie was hard pressed. A very considerable part of the army, as well as of the peasantry, sided with us.
Then came the splendid movement in September, when the Italian workers demonstrated a new method of fighting by the seizure of the factories. The bourgeoisie was completely disorganised.
Giolitti himself said that he had not been able to do anything in September. When he was asked why he had not sent soldiers in September to clear the factories, he replied: "I had not the power to do it, I had to apply homoeopathic measures at first and resort to surgical operations only later on." With
