Parliament is "politically worn-out?" This is quite another matter. If this were true, the position of the "Left" would be strong. Whether it is actually true must be proved by the most searching analysis; the "Left" do not even know how to tackle the problem. In the "theses on Parliamentarism," published in No. 1 of the Bulletin of the Provisional Amsterdam Bureau of the Communist International, February, 1920, which obviously expresses Dutch-Left (or Left-Dutch) views, we shall see that the analysis, too, is very poor.
In the first place, the German "Left," as is known, considered parliamentarism "politically worn-out" as far back as January, 1919, contrary to the opinion of such eminent political leaders as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. It has now been seen that the "Left" made a mistake. This alone radically destroys the proposition that "parliamentarism is politically worn-out." It is incumbent upon the "Left" to prove that their mistake at that time has now ceased to be a mistake. They do not, and cannot, give even the shadow of a proof of their proposition. The attitude of a political party towards its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest criteria of the seriousness of the party, and of how it fulfils in practice its obligations towards its class and towards the laboring masses. To admit a mistake openly, to disclose its reasons, to analyse the surroundings which created it, to study attentively the means of correcting it—these are the signs of a serious party; this means the performance of its duties; this means educating and training the class, and, subsequently, the masses. By neglecting this, by failing to proceed with the utmost care, attention and prudence to investigate their self-evident mistake, the "Left" in Germany (and some in Holland) proved themselves thereby to be not a class party, but a circle, not a party of the masses, but a group of intellectuals, and a handful of workers who imitate the worst characteristics of the intellectuals.
Secondly, in the same pamphlet of the Frankfurt group of "Left Wingers," from which we have already cited in detail, we read: "Millions of workmen, still following the policy of the center" (the Catholic "Center" Party) "are counter-revo-
