Page:Left-Wing Communism.djvu/87

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we shall make more concessions so long as the Hendersons, and especially their new friends (or should it be their new masters?) the Liberals, who have gone over to the Independent Labor Party—are keenest on this. We are the gainers, for we shall carry our propaganda into the masses at the very moment when Lloyd George himself has thrown the Labor Party a challenge; and we shall help, not only the Labor Party to form its Government the more speedily, but also the masses the sooner to understand our Communist propaganda, which we shall carry on ceaselessly against the Hendersons, overlooking nothing.

If the Hendersons and Snowdens reject a bloc on these conditions, we shall gain still more. For we have at once thus shown to the masses that the Hendersons prefer their own nearness to the capitalists to the unification of all the workers. In this connection it is to be noticed that even in purely Menshevik circles—i. e., the entirely opportunist independent Labor Party—the rank and file are for Soviets. We have at once gained in the eyes of the masses; they, after the highly accurate exposure of Lloyd George—highly useful for Communists—will sympathize with unification of all workers against the coalition of Lloyd George and Churchill. We score again in demonstrating that the Hendersons and Snowdens are afraid to defeat Lloyd George, are afraid to take the power alone, and are striving secretly to gain the support of Lloyd George, who is openly stretching a hand to Churchill against the Labor Party.

It should be noted that in Russia, after the revolution of February 27, 1917 (old style), the propaganda of the Bolsheviks against the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries (i. e., the Russian Hendersons and Snowdens) gained on account of precisely similar circumstances. We said to the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries: "Take the whole power without the bourgeoisie, for you have a majority in the Soviets." (At the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets, in June, 1917, the Bolsheviks had only 13 per cent. of the votes.) But the Russian Hendersons and Snowdens feared to take the power without the bourgeoisie. Consequently, when the latter kept delaying the elections to the Constituent Assembly