“How Parliament Can Play a Revolutionary Part in the Transition to Socialism and the Role of the Popular Masses”

By Jan Kozak,
Member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia

Published by the Independent Information Centre,
4, Holland Road, London, W.14 (G.B.), 1961.

The classics of Marxism-Leninism never ceased to point out that the inexorable revolutionary transformation of capitalist society into a socialist one does not preclude, but even presupposes, the possibility of various forms and roads of the proletarian revolution. V. I. Lenin in particular illuminated this serious question thoroughly and systematically. In his lifetime the proletarian revolution became an immediate question of the day. In his theoretical works and concretely in his practical activity he started from the principle that the forms of transition to socialism are dependent on the concrete balance of international and internal class forces, on the degree of organization of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, on the ability to gain allies, the level of the economic structure and on the political traditions and forms of the organizations.

From the moment the Great Socialist October Revolution broke the chains of imperialism and gave power to the relatively weak proletariat of the nations of backward Russia, profound objective and subjective changes began to take place in the world. The present fruit of the Socialist October Revolution is the new historical era, the characteristic feature of which lies in the origin and consolidation of the socialist global constellation. This constellation now embraces 17 countries with the U.S.S.R and China at its head; it comprises over 25 per cent of the whole world; 35 per cent of the world’s population lives in it and about 30 per cent of the world’s industrial output is produced by it.

The second characteristic feature of this new historical era is the collapse of the colonial system as a world factor. Important Asian and African countries such as India, Indonesia, Burma, Egypt and others have cast off the shackles of imperialism. In the interest of their further development they are obliged to co-operate with the socialist camp and thus to strike new blows at world capitalism.

Both these main characteristics of the new historical era – the origin of the socialist constellation and the collapse of the colonial system – have profoundly changed the objective structure of the world. These profound changes in the objective structure of the world are necessarily accompanied also by profound subjective changes – changes in the thinking, views, political and practical orientation of the broad popular masses. The aggravated conflicts in the weakened capitalist constellation compel the imperialists to resort to harsher oppression, exploitation, suppression of national rights, interfering with democracy and preparations for a new war. By this, however, they cause broader and broader oppressed and dissatisfied social sections to rally against them, sections which are fighting against national suppression, for democracy and peace. In this struggle for national and democratic interests the individual trends and currents of the anti-imperialist battle are forming their ranks. These trends, which are the result and the product of the new subjective processes in society are, however, dispersed, isolated and constantly weakened by the propaganda of the ruling bourgeoisie and by the ideology and practice of reformism. In a number of capitalist and dependent countries there still slumbers the enormous, but still dispersed force of the broad popular masses. In this situation the workers’ class in these countries is faced with the task of firmly taking a stand at the head of the struggle for the national and democratic interests of its respective nations, of uniting in its fight for socialism and of creating, under its leadership a united and mighty anti-imperialist popular movement.

The new historical era and its tasks have created most favourable conditions for the workers’ class in this way for gaining new allies. The old tenets about the allies of the workers’ class which corresponded to old historical conditions are undergoing a change and are widening. Along with the changed conditions for the struggle for national democratic and peace interests the conditions for the struggle of the workers’ class for socialism are also changing. In the fight against imperialism, which endeavours to overcome its conflicts by completely ignoring the interests of the nations and which strives to liquidate their independence as states, the national role of the workers’ class is growing and it is placed in the forefront of all patriotic and democratic forces.

“Patriotism”, V. I. Lenin proclaimed, “is one of the deepest feelings firmly rooted in the hearts of people for hundreds and thousands of years from the moment their separate fatherlands began to exist. It has been one of the greatest, one can say, exceptional difficulties of our proletarian revolution that it had to pass through a period of sharpest conflict with patriotism during the time of the Brest-Litovsk peace”. (V. I. Lenin, “Spisy” – (Works) Vol. 28, Czech edition 1955, p. 187).

It is a great, one may say, exceptionally favourable circumstance for the socialist revolution in the present situation that patriotism, “one of the feelings most deeply rooted in people”, leans on and needs socialism in the struggle against imperialism for national interests. In this way patriotism and democracy have become mighty weapons of the workers’ class in present times and, step by step, they bring masses of new allies to the workers’ class.

The new conditions which are the consequence of the profound objective and subjective changes in the world create also new opportunities and prospects for the socialist revolution, new avenues as far as the forms of transition to socialism are concerned. In a number of countries which are particularly weakened by the conflicts within the capitalist order, the opportunity has arisen for the workers’ class to place itself firmly at the head of great popular movements for national independence, democracy, peace and socialism, to defeat the reactionary anti-people forces striving for the maintenance, and aggravation of national oppression and exploitation, to win a decisive majority in Parliament and to change it from all organ of the bourgeois democracy into an organ of power for the democracy of working people, into a direct instrument of power for the peaceful development of the socialist revolution.

Also, our experience provides notable and practical proof that it is possible to transform parliament from an instrument of the bourgeoisie into an instrument of the revolutionary democratic will of the people and into an instrument for the development of the socialist revolution.

When the German imperialist occupiers, aided by the treacherous bourgeoisie at home and with the consent of the Western imperialist powers, destroyed the national liberty and the independence of the Czechoslovak republic in 1938 and 1939, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (further only C.P.C.S.) placed itself at the head of the struggle for national liberation by the Czech and Slovak people. Following up the policy of the Popular Front originating from the time of the defence of the republic against fascism at home and abroad, it formed, in the course of a heavy fight against the occupiers requiring many sacrifices, a broad National Front, in which stood, under the leadership of the workers’ class, and side by side with it, peasants, tradesmen, the intelligentsia and part of the Czech and Slovak bourgeoisie. This broad National Front, embracing all patriotic and democratic forces of the country, was led by the working class into the national and democratic revolution.

Thanks to the fact that Hiller’s Germany was crushed by the armies of the Soviet Union and that our country was directly liberated by the Soviet army, national and democratic revolution conquered. As a consequence the occupation power of the German imperialists and of their domestic helpmates – the treacherous financial, industrial and agrarian upper bourgeoisie – was swept away, national unity and independence as a state was revived and a far-reaching democratization of the country was carried out. Furthermore, the sovereignty and independence of Czechoslovakia was renewed in the form of a new, people’s democratic order.

In this struggle the working class, led by the C.P.C.S., became the recognized driving force of the nation, its action-unity was consolidated and the influence of reformism which had splintered it in the years of the pre-Munich republic was weakened. The victory of the national and democratic revolution meant for the working class, which had relied in this struggle on all patriotic and democratic forces – the peasants, tradesmen, the intelligentsia and part of the Czech and Slovak bourgeoisie, its access to power.

The working class was the main force in the new revolutionary democratic government (the so-called Kosice Government) and in the national committees – the new organs of the state power created from below by the revolutionary masses. The programme for the building of the liberated republic, which had been elaborated and submitted by the Communists and which became the programme of the government was quickly implemented by the revolutionary activity of the popular masses. Its implementation gave rise to far-reaching political, economic, social and cultural changes in the country. Of the political points in this programme these were the most important; the breaking up of the basic members of the old oppressive bourgeois state apparatus and assumption of power by the national committees, the formation of a new people’s security system and army, the prohibition of the revival of the political parties which had represented the treacherous upper bourgeoisie, a systematic purge of the entire political, economic and cultural life of the country, the settlement of the relations between the Czech and Slovak nations on the principle of equality, the expulsion of the German minority etc.

Of the economic measures the following were the most important: the transfer of all enemy property, of that of the treacherous upper bourgeoisie and of other traitors, under the national administration of the new people’s authorities, the transfer of the land belonging to these enemies and traitors into the ownership of landless persons, tenants and working smallholders.

The principal foreign policy task was the unequivocal alliance with the Soviet Union, safeguarding national liberty and independence as a state and further undisturbed, peaceful development for the nations of Czechoslovakia.

All these measures, aiming at far-reaching changes in the social structure of the country, emanated directly from the conditions and tasks of the anti-fascist, national and democratic fight for liberation and arose from the old democratic traditions and longing of our people and they, furthermore, deepened and safeguarded that democracy. One of the tasks the Czechoslovak working class set itself in the struggle for the national and democratic interests of the people, was also, therefore, the re-establishment of the institution of Parliament which the occupiers had abolished, aided by the treacherous domestic upper bourgeoisie, and traditions which had deep roots among the people. As early as the end of the summer of 1945, after agreement had been reached between the political parties forming the National Front, the Provisional National Assembly was elected (on the principle of parity representation) and in May 1946 the Constituent National Assembly in general, secret, direct and fair elections. The composition of Parliament was strongly influenced by the results of the revolution, by the practical schooling of the working masses in the course of the victorious revolution. Of the eight political parties which were part of the National Front of Czechs and Slovaks at the time of the elections the Communist Party emerged as by far the strongest. It gained over 40 per cent of the votes in the Czech lands and, with the Communist Party of Slovakia, 38 per cent of the votes cast in the state as a whole. Parliament and, along with it, the fight between the working class and the bourgeoisie about its role and content entered the history of the people’s democratic development of Czechoslovakia. The working class, whose struggle had made it possible that this institution could be re-established, strove for parliament, as one of the most prominent political traditions and form of the past, to change its character (lit.: content; Tr.), to change from the instrument of the working class into one of the levers actuating the further development and consolidation of the revolution, into a direct instrument for the socialist building of the country. The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, strove for parliament to be revised with its old content – bourgeois parliamentarianism, and tried to use it for the stopping of the revolution, for the demolition of its achievements, for the consolidation and widening of its former political and economic power positions, for the preparation of the restoration of its former rule and dictatorship.

This struggle took place during the period 1946 – 1948. In the course of these years the working class, led by the Communists, made effective use of all its old forms of fighting, employed by the revolutionary workers’ parties in parliament, adjusted however to the new conditions, and found new ones. Helped by parliament, which was used by the working class for deepening the revolution and for the gradual, peaceful and bloodless change of the national and democratic revolution into a socialist one as “pressure from above” and by its effect on the growth of the “pressure from below” the bourgeoisie was pushed step by step from its share in the power. This gradual and bloodless driving of the bourgeoisie from power and the quite legitimate constitutional expansion of the power of the working class and of the working people was completed in February 1948 by the parliamentary settlement of the government crisis engineered by the bourgeoisie. The scope of power was definitely settled in favour of the working class, and Parliament, as one of the instruments of its power, immediately began to serve the socialist transformation of the country.

Parliament, which had played an important role in pre-Munich, capitalist Czechoslovakia in the political, economic, cultural and social life of the country, which had awakened and created a number of bourgeois, democratic, parliamentary traditions among broad sections of the population, underwent a change. The form remained but the content was different. Our working people, led by the Communists, provided practical proof during the years 1945-1948 that it was possible to transform parliament from an organ of the bourgeoisie into an instrument developing democratic measures of consequence, leading to the gradual change of the social structure, and into a direct instrument for the victory of the socialist revolution.

This fact, coupled with similar experiences gained by the other Communist and workers’ parties, led to the possibility being envisaged of the transition of some countries from capitalism to socialism by revolutionary use of parliament. This road which was most clearly illuminated and generalized at the 20th Congress of the C.P.S.U. shows, at the present time, the real possibility of forming a government of broad democratic forces grouped round the working class, relying on the revolutionary activity of the masses. Such a government can be set up without armed battle, by peaceful means. Its installation would be practically tantamount to the establishment of the democratic revolutionary power of the people. (Therefore, about the same would be achieved as was attained in our country by the armed, bloody battle of the national and democratic revolution). The purpose to which this new power, the nucleus of which would be formed by the working class, should be put thereafter would be using parliament for the consolidation and deepening of the real democratic rights and to a more or less speedy unfolding of the socialist revolution. (About our tasks during the years 1945-1948). The use of parliament itself for the transfer of all power into the hands of the working class, the speed of progress and the order of its revolutionary tasks would be, however, the same as the methods of the struggle, variegated, and would always correspond with the specific class and historical conditions.

Despite these differences there are in existence fundamental, generally valid, conditions for the possibility of a revolutionary use of parliament on the road to socialism, the substance of which is revolutionary and which are to be clearly distinguished from the reformist conception of the aim and use of Parliament. Our own Czechoslovak experience has also contributed to the generalization and practical proof of the validity of these principles.

The most important of these lies in the necessity of combining the revolutionary activity of parliament with a systematic development and the organization of revolutionary actions on the part of broad popular masses.

I.

The Combination of “Pressure From Above” and that “From Below” – One of the Elementary Conditions for the Revolutionary Use of Parliament.

A preliminary condition for carrying out fundamental social changes and for making it possible that parliament be made use of for the purpose of transforming a capitalist society into a socialist one, is: (a) to fight for a firm Parliamentary majority which would ensure and develop a strong pressure from “above”, and (b) to see to it that this firm parliamentary majority should rely on the revolutionary activity of the broad working masses exerting pressure “from below”. The elementary condition for success consists of, therefore, a combination of pressure from “above” with that from “below” and its joint effect on the unfolding and strength of the revolution. This connection of the form of fighting from “above” with that from “below” emanates from the principle that questions regarding the class struggle (and, all the more, the social revolution) are decided and can be decided by strength alone. The pressure from “above” is a combination of preparations of the conditions for the creation and organization of the strength of the revolution, for its aggressiveness and its drive

II.

(a) Regarding Questions of Using Pressure from “Above”.

The possibility and necessity of using tactical pressure from above in the stage of the democratic revolution was emphasized by the classics of Marxism-Leninism. In 1873, F. Engels criticized the Spanish nihilists (lit.: Bakunin-ists; Tr.) for not making use of pressure from above for the development of the democratic revolution. In 1905, V. I. Lenin proclaimed:

I. “To restrict, as a principle, revolutionary actions to pressure from below and to forgo pressure from above, is anarchism.

2. Whoever cannot grasp the new tasks in the era of revolution, the tasks of actions from above, whoever cannot state the conditions for and the programme of such actions, that person has no idea of the tasks of the proletariat in any democratic revolution.

3. The principle that it is not admissible for social democracy (i.e. the revolutionary party of the proletariat) to take part, jointly with the bourgeoisie, in a provisional revolutionary government, that every such participation should rate as betrayal of the workers’ class, is a principle of anarchism”. (V. I. Lenin, Spisy, Vol. 8, Czech edition 1954, p. 477). The Bolsheviks were to have participated in the envisaged provisional revolutionary government in the bourgeois democratic revolution in Russia in 1905, with this aim: to lead a heedless fight against all counter-revolutionary efforts and to protect the independent interests of the workers’ class. The overall character of the participation in this government was: not to lose from sight, even for a moment, the carrying out of a complete socialist coup.

Pressure from “above” is, therefore, the pressure of a revolutionary government, parliament and the other organs of power in the state apparatus or its part and it has, in substance a dual effect – the direct suppression by power of the counter-revolution and its machinations and, at the same time, exerting pressure on the citizens inciting and organizing them for the struggle for a further development of the revolution. A most important lesson for the whole of the international workers’ movement (and by this for our Party as well) was learned from the experience gained during the era of the Popular Front in Spain and France. In particular the example of Spain showed that as a result of the weakness of the Communists who did not stand at the head of the whole movement, the pressure from “above” was weakened. The Republican government, whose leading force were the Liberals, refused to meet the demands of the Communists who pressed for a purge of the army from fascist generals, so that the army was preserved for the counter-revolution, the army which later became the main force of the victorious counterrevolutionary uprising.

Our workers’ class and the C.P.C.S. gained valuable experience from the course of the struggle from “above” and the various forms of application in the new conditions. What were the principal forms of pressure “from above” applied in the period of the transformation of our national and democratic revolution into a socialist one?

THE FIRST DIRECTION given to the pressure “from above”, which our working class applied from its position of power in the organs and newly forming links of the apparatus of the peoples’ democratic state, was a systematic fight against enemies, traitors and collaborators. Gradually, as the national and democratic revolution changed into a socialist one the pressure “from above” was applied in an ever-increasing measure for the direct suppression and destruction of the counter-revolutionary machinations of the bourgeoisie. Let us recall the signal role played in the development and extension of that pressure by the Ministry of the Interior, for instance, which was led by the Communists and the units of State Security directed by them.

But also other organs of the state and of the state apparatus controlled by the Communists served for the direct suppression of bourgeois sabotage and obstructionism. So, for instance, the Ministry of Agriculture quickly completed by means of so-called “roving commissions” (lit.: flying commissions – Tr.) the confiscation of the land of enemies and traitors, in the autumn of 1946 sabotaged by the bourgeoisie. The national committees organized in autumn 1947 the “Special Food Commissions” which uncovered the hidden stores of landowners and kulaks and contributed greatly in this way to their isolation. In December 1947 organs of the Ministry of Internal Trade, controlled by the Communists, uncovered an extensive black market in the textile trade organized by the bourgeoisie, and liquidated for all practical purposes the private capitalist textile wholesale business by the setting up of state textile distribution centres.

The organs holding powers and the components of the state controlled by Communists in this way became unusually effective levers for the defence of the revolutionary achievements of the people and for the further advancement of the revolution. They made it possible to suppress directly bourgeois counter-revolutionary elements (to render harmless their sabotage and subversion). They made an outstanding contribution to the isolation of the bourgeoisie. They gave impetus to the revolutionary determination and self-confidence of the working masses. And so they formed a mighty support and force furthering the revolution.

THE SECOND PRONG of the pressure “from above” successfully employed by our working class was the use made of the organs holding powers (the government, parliament, national committees) for bringing about a wide popularisation of revolutionary demands and slogans. So, for instance, the government approved the “Programme of Building” elaborated by the Communists, which, in its substance was a programme for the further transformation of the democratic revolution into a socialist one. Its passage was of immense importance since the programme of the next economic-political measures for advancing the revolution, elaborated by the Communists, became the programme of the entire government. This enabled the working class afterwards to uncover all attempts made by the bourgeoisie at thwarting it as evidence of the anti-people, treacherous policy of the bourgeoisie and to isolate its political exponents. At the same time, because of the fact that revolutionary demands and recommendations were sponsored directly by organs of the state they gave an unusually effective incentive for the revolutionary initiative of the masses. Examples of the far-reaching results in closing the ranks of the working masses round the slogans of the Party were, e.g. the proposal of the Communists in the government recommending the introduction of the Millionaires’ Levy, the draft proposals of the Agricultural Laws elaborated by the Communist-controlled Ministry of Agriculture and submitted to the working peasants for comment, and other things. The fact that such demands and recommendations emanated directly from the highest state organs had a strong influence on their popularisation and gave an exceptionally strong impetus to the revolutionary elan of the masses who pressed for their implementation. (So, e.g. the notice for the preliminary registration of all land exceeding 50 hectares, (ha) issued by the Ministry of Agriculture in the course of the struggle for the implementation of the third phase of the people’s democratic land reform, had the effect of the working peasants in all villages realizing, when the registration was carried out, what land was beyond their reach and how much of it there was, of their visualizing the possibility of getting hold of it soon and therefore the effect of an increasingly more determined and decisive stand being taken in favour of carrying out the proposed reform.)

This direction given to the pressure “from above”, therefore, served particularly the wide popularisation of the demands and slogans of the policy of the Communists designed for a speedy progress of the revolution. It served as a means for the revolutionary education and organisation of the popular masses.

THE THIRD MEASURE. A particularly important and exceptionally effective way of the struggle “from above” lay in the utilisation of economic political power positions, especially the nationalisation of the banks, of banking, of key and big industries.

The economic power positions of the working class, represented by the nationalised sector of the country’s economy, were a mighty lever for the development of pressure “from above”. It enabled the suppression and, to a considerable extent, the paralysing of bourgeois counter-revolutionary intrigues aimed at economic decline and chaos. On the other hand, these positions enabled the exerting of “pressure” on the citizens and broad masses of the working people. The fast expansion of nationalised production and the resulting rise in the standard of living of working people presented examples in point showing the advantages of a nationalised and, in its substance, working-class-controlled and directed production; gave rise to revolutionary self-confidence and determination on the part of the working people and thus contributed to a still further isolation of the bourgeoisie.

This method of pressure “from above” was, therefore, a mighty pillar and force of the progressing (lit. deepening – Tr.) revolution.

THE FOURTH DIRECTION given to the pressure “from above” existed in the utilisation of the organs holding power for the direct uncovering of the anti-people policy of the bourgeoisie, for the isolation of the reactionary bourgeois leadership of the other parties of the National Front.

All organs vested with powers (the national committees, Parliament, the government) became places for the working class in which the anti-people policy of the bourgeoisie and of its parties was being uncovered. The Communists made use of these organs for sharp criticism levelled against the other parties and their representatives on the grounds of inconsistency and obstructionism regarding the fulfilment of the tasks accepted in the programme (in parliament, for instance, the criticism and uncovering of the anti-people activity of the Ministry of Justice which was controlled by the National Socialist Party, the uncovering of the obstructionist inactivity of the Ministry of Food controlled by the rightist Social Democrat Majer, etc.). At the same time these organs holding power were used for tabling further demands and proposals in favour of the working people and in this way the bourgeoisie and its minions were forced either to their acceptance or to an open showing of their anti-people’s face. (How important for the isolation of the bourgeois leadership of the other parties of the National Front was the proposal of the Millionaires’ Levy alone, tabled in the government by the Communists in 1947 and at first rejected by its majority.).

These disclosures were especially tilted at those parties which professed to be socialist by their name and slogans, particularly at the National Socialist Party and the right wing of the Social Democratic Party. Their lying slogans and bourgeois conception of socialism were uncovered on the hand of their concrete activity within the organs and their “socialist cloak” was torn from them before the eyes of the working people.

All the basic forms and actions involving pressure “from above” employed by our working class in the years 1945-1948 conformed, in the new circumstances, with the tasks allotted to the pressure “from above” as predicted by Lenin – a fight without quarter against all counter-revolutionary attempts and the defence of the independent interests of the working class. By using these methods this principle was fulfilled in practice: not to lose sight for a single moment of the aim of a complete socialist overthrow.

The individual forms and actions of the struggle “from above” carried out by our working class in the years 1945-1948 meant making use of the positions held by the working class in the organs vested with powers and in the entire state and economic apparatus for strengthening the people’s democratic power, for weakening and isolating the bourgeoisie, for conquering its positions by the working class and for the consolidation of the revolutionary democratic people’s power in the dictatorship of the proletariat.

These forms and actions of the struggle “from above” – always serving the release, the mobilisation and organisation of the revolutionary forces of the popular masses – greatly enriched the tactical armament and experience of the international workers’ movement.

Our practice and successes in the struggle “from above” made a trenchant contribution to the generalisation of the experience gained and for outlining the possibilities of a revolutionary use of parliament during transition to socialism.

III.

(b) Questions of Utilising Pressure “From Below”.

To bring about a parliament which would cease to be a “soft-soap factory” and would become a revolutionary assembly of working people requires, however, a force constituting, maintaining it and actively assisting its revolutionary activity. This force, necessary for breaking the resistance of the reactionary bourgeoisie, exists in the pressure by the popular masses “from below”. Whereas pressure “from above” is the pressure exerted by the organs of the state and of the state apparatus, for the direct suppression, by power, of the counter-revolution which helps, at the same time, to rally and organise the popular masses for the fight for further progress of the revolution, pressure “from below” is the pressure exerted by the popular masses on the government, on parliament and on other organs holding power. This pressure takes effect mainly in three directions:

(a) It systematically supports the revolutionaries in the organs of power, enhances their strength and makes up for numerical weakness;
(b) It has a direct effect on limiting the influence and positions of waverers and enemies standing in the path of further progress of revolution;
(c) It awakens the forces of the people dormant for many years, its energy and self-confidence; it breaks through the onerous circle of intimidation and spiritual terror of the old institutions, the Church, etc.

The pressure “from below”, the revolutionary emergence of the popular masses is, therefore, essential for the success of every revolution. In the February revolution in France in 1848 the provisional government, in which there were only two representatives of the workers, refused to declare the republic. However, it was forced to do so by the threat of the armed proletariat. The pressure “from below” prompted the provisional government to act. When, however, the Paris proletariat came out in unreserved support of the provisional government in the March demonstrations it was defeated from the beginning.

“It consolidated the position of the provisional government instead of subordinating it” (K. Marx, “The Class Struggle in France”. K. Marx – E. Engels, Czech edition, Selected Writings, I, page 156.).

When Lenin clarified the possibility of and conditions for the participation of the revolutionary workers’ party in the provisional revolutionary government in 1905, at the height of the bourgeois democratic revolution in Russia, he sharply stressed: “We are obliged to influence the provisional revolutionary government from below in any event” (V. I. Lenin. Selected Writings, I, page 456).

In 1936, when the Seventh Congress of the Communist International elaborated the line of a united and popular front and the government possibilities of a united or popular front, the necessity of pressure brought to bear on such a government by the revolutionary masses was stressed:

“Since this movement of a united front is a militant movement against fascism and the reactionaries, it will be a constant movable force driving against the reactionary bourgeoisie. . . And the better this mass movement is organized from below, the broader the network of supra-party class organs of the united front in the factories, among the unemployed in the labour districts, among the little men in towns and villages, the more guarantees will exist against a possible rejection of the policy of the government of the united front”. (G. Dimitrov, Digest from Speeches and Articles 1950, page 103).

REAFFIRMED BY THE 20th CONGRESS C.P.S.U.: The principle and the necessity of using pressure from below by the popular masses, forming one of the fundamental possibilities of making revolutionary use of Parliament, as mentioned at the 20th Congress of the C.P.S.U., ties in fully with the old practice of the revolutionary workers’ classes in Parliament also in the new conditions. Therefore, the revolutionary workers’ movement must bring pressure from below to bear on Parliament and the government, whenever it wishes to protect, consolidate and extend the achievements of the revolution. It is in this pressure of the revolutionary masses, purposefully led by the revolutionary workers’ party that there exists a source of strength, power, courage and energy of the revolutionary Parliament, breaking the resistance of the reactionary forces, that there exists an instrument of the real will of the people which is capable of playing an exceptional part in the “peaceful” transformation of the capitalist society into a socialist one. And it is this principle of utilizing, purposeful development and organization of pressure “from below” referred to at the 20th Congress of the C.P.S.U., which stands out in the sharpest contrast with the old reformist theory and practice of the “Parliamentary road”, which isolates and forgoes the pressure of the popular masses.

Our workers’ class and the C.P.C.S. gained valuable experience also from the waging of the fight “from below” and the various forms of its application. Of particular importance is the experience with the great variety of forms of directing the pressure “from below” guaranteeing for the C.P.C.S. the leadership of the workers’ class and of the broad popular masses.

The very conception of the existing broad National Front contributed to attaining this end. It consisted not only of the political parties but also broad united national mass organisations, the establishment of which the C.P.C.S. achieved with the help of the revolutionary activity of the masses. These organisations comprised broader masses than the political parties, they fortified the unity of the people and, at the same time, they considerably reinforced the positions of the workers’ class and the positions of left progressive democratic forces in the other parties of the National Front. The united mass organisations which were led and influenced to a large extent by the Communists, represented in this way virtually the direct reserves of the Party. Through them the strong influence of the policy of the Communists penetrated also into the other political parties and so the unity of the National Front was strengthened from below over the heads of the leaders.

TRADE UNIONS: Of quite exceptional importance was the origin of the United Revolutionary Trade Union Movement (ROH). ROH, as a class and socialist organisation, consolidated the unity of the workers’ class; it enhanced its revolutionary strength and weight and, under the leadership of the Communist Party it used this strength most effectively for the fortification of the people’s democratic power and for the advancement of the socialist revolution.

Other means for influencing and guiding the working masses were in particular: The United Association of Czech Peasantry, the Association of Liberated Political Prisoners, the Association of Friends of the Soviet Union, the C.S. Youth Federation, etc. A great help for the guidance and organisation of the revolutionary fight of the peasants were the so-called “Peasants’ Commissions” whose members could be only farm hands, tenant farmers and small and medium farmers from the ranks of applicants for land.

This network of broad national mass organisations was used by the Communists for the popularisation of their policy and slogans and for engendering and organising the initiative of the masses and for using the various forms and actions of the pressure “from below” for the purpose of implementing that policy.

The second experience gained in the struggle “from below” is the many sided use of the forms proper of pressure exerted by the popular masses, These forms corresponded to the complicated class situation in, the conditions prevailing under the people’s democratic order, when the workers’ class assumed power but the bourgeoisie still kept part of the power. On the one side all the old proven forms of the struggle of the popular masses were employed, the forms which were in keeping with the revolutionary initiative and determination of the workers and matched the degree of resistance shown by the bourgeoisie: calling of protest meetings, passing of resolutions, sending of delegations, organised mass demonstrations and eventually also using strikes including general strikes (when finally the open political clash with the bourgeoisie was brought about in February 1948).

The strength and striking power of the individual actions of the pressure “from below” was constantly increased as need arose and safeguarded by exceptional organisational forms. An especially prominent role was played in this by the “Congresses of Factory Councils” and the “Congresses of Peasants’ Commissions” (when the political crisis was resolved in Slovakia in autumn 1947, in the struggle for the nationalisation of private capitalist enterprises with over 50 employees and the entire domestic and foreign wholesale business, when the demand was presses home for land reform above 50 hectares and when the political crisis was settled in February 1948).

On the other side the Communists, aided by the network of national mass organisations (and by the pressure “from above” exerted by the organs holding powers, especially the national committees and the government), developed new forms of pressure “from below” meeting the situation when the workers’ class was proceeding with the assumption of power. These forms must be particularly noted. They are the organisation of a broad building movement on the basis of voluntary brigades (coal, harvest, machine, etc.) and the advancement of competition in production within the factory and on a state-wide scale. These “constructive” forms of pressure “from below” fortified the overall position of the people’s democratic state, paralysed the efforts of the bourgeoisie at bringing about an economic and political upheaval and through their results (fast economic consolidation of the country and a rising standard of living of the working people) permanently entrenched and reinforced the power positions of the workers’ class in the country.

This third most valuable experience gained by our workers’ class is the creative application of the principal condition for pressure “from below”, much emphasised by Lenin, that is to say arming the proletariat. (V. I. Lenin stressed, in his work “Two Tactics”), two principal conditions for the pressure from below: the proletariat must be armed because the threat exists of a civil war and the proletariat must be led by a revolutionary workers’ Party).

The workers’ class armed itself in the course of the national and democratic revolution. Even after the victory of that revolution it retained its arms, however. One part of it from the ranks of the partisans, barricade-fighters and from the units of the C.S. corps formed in the Soviet Union, became the nucleus of a new armed state apparatus, especially the security apparatus under the control of the Ministry of the Interior which was in the hands of the Communists.

The second part permanently secured the safety of the works, the so-called Factory Guards. In case of danger of an attack by the counterrevolution individual parts of the workers’ class were armed: in the summer of 1947 the former partisans were armed for the liquidation of the Bender groups in Slovakia and in February 1948, when the preparations for a counter-revolutionary conspiracy by the bourgeoisie were uncovered, strong armed people’s militias were formed. In the last instance it was the arming of the workers’ class which took away the bourgeoisie’s liking for an armed conflict, which prevented bloodshed and ensured the undisturbed course of the revolution. (The necessity of arming the most mature part of the workers’ class for repulsing the counter-revolutionary machinations of the bourgeoisie and for ensuring the undisturbed building of socialism has been proved, incidentally, again by the later formation of the workers’ militias in people’s democratic Hungary and Poland.)

The armed parts of the workers’ class thus represented a very real and concrete form of the pressure “from below” directed against the counter-revolution and a very concrete and effective support for the workers’ forces in the organs of the state.

Of great importance for the international workers’ movement are not only the experience gained in the individual forms and actions of the pressure “from below” (corresponding to the concrete historical conditions) but also the absolute necessity of such a pressure as proved again by the actual practice which ended in victory. The pressure of the popular masses “from below” (in the totality of all its forms and concrete actions) made it impossible for the representatives of the other parties of the National Front, controlled by the bourgeoisie, which had numerical superiority in the decisive organs endowed with power, to isolate the Communists and to stop the revolution. Thus it (the pressure . . . ; Tr.) made up for the numerical weakness of the revolutionary representatives of the workers’ class in these organs and enhanced their strength, it contributed in a decisive manner to the acceptance of further revolutionary measures weakening the bourgeoisie and fortifying the power of the workers’ class. This experience, that pressure “from below” is absolutely essential for the undisturbed unfolding of the socialist revolution, is also reflected, in full measure, in the theory about the possibility of the revolutionary utilisation of parliament in connection with the road to socialism.

The combination of the pressure “from above” with that “from below” – the path toward the progressive undisturbed breaking of the resistance of the bourgeoisie, toward the gradual limitation and making impossible of a show of force by the bourgeoisie. The real possibility of the revolutionary utilisation of Parliament for the road to socialism lies, therefore, in the combined mass strength of the revolutionary acting people supporting parliament as a revolutionarily active assembly which fights for the systematic fulfilment of the demands of the working people. This co-ordination of actions by the broad popular masses and the revolutionary forces in parliament, in the government and in the local organs of power, mutually germinates their strength, drives the revolution ahead and infuses it with attacking and penetrating power.

Can this force really render impossible or reduce to a minimum armed violence on the part of the bourgeoisie, however? This question is very topical and it is discussed especially among the comrades of those Communist Parties who have orientated themselves toward a peaceful transition toward the socialist revolution. Let us take an example from France, where, after the 20th Congress of the C.P.S.U., a controversy developed in the periodical France Nouvelle between comrades H. Iannucci and Florimont Bonte.

“When reading F. Bonte’s article”, comrade Iannucci writes, “we gain the impression that the bourgeois state consists of parliament alone and not also of a powerful bureaucratic, military and police apparatus which has grown substantially under imperialism. In our social order great political problems are settled behind the scenes, or in administrative bodies rather than in parliament. . .

Is it at all possible to imagine that in a country such as France, which has a strong and most dextrous bourgeoisie, which has a model administration and possesses, thanks to colonial wars and the suppression of internal disorders, strong armed and police forces – why, could one imagine that the bourgeoisie here would ‘resign’ because of a mere ‘decree of Parliament’ or without ‘civil war’, without an ‘armed uprising’?” (France Nouvelle, 1956, No. 542.)

Comrade F. Bonte replied to the doubts expressed by comrade Iannucci and attempted to disperse them, referring to Engels’s idea that as  soon as the workers’ class gains the support of the masses of the working peasantry and of other exploited sections it will become “the decisive force, to which all the other forces will have to submit willy nilly,”

Let us try to imbue this theory with the life of our practice and to render it clearer and more convincing in this way. Let us take, however, a concrete instance first of how the pressure from “above” was combined with that “from below” in a situation in which parliament had already played a powerful role in our development.

LIQUIDATION OF FARMERS: In accordance with the Kosice government programme the first big transfer of land was affected in people’s democratic Czechoslovakia. 2,946,395 hectares (ha) of land belonging to big holders, enemies and traitors was confiscated and allotted, on the basis of decrees, to 305,148 families of agricultural workers, tenants and small-holders, put partly under the administration of the co-operatives, national committees and the state. This land reform resulted in the almost complete liquidation of big holdings of land in the border regions, but the central parts of the country were affected by these decrees to only an insignificant measure. Big land-owners, holding above 50 ha of land, and the Church still retained some 1,400,000 ha of agricultural land, which means almost a fifth of the entire land. An economically and numerically strong section of kulaks still represented a very important force of the bourgeoisie in the countryside and the bourgeoisie was still most influential with the medium farmers as well.

The possibility of a further successful advance of the revolution depended on the reinforcement of the influence of the workers’ class and of the C.P.C.S. in the countryside, on a further strengthening and widening of the bond between the workers’ class and the working peasantry. The road for this was the struggle for further demands of the peasants (especially the still unquenched thirst for land,) a more intensive campaign for uncovering the face of the bourgeoisie and further subversion of the biggest bastion of the bourgeoisie in the countryside – the landholders’ ownership of the land.

In the summer of 1946 the Communists began the fight for handing over more land to the working peasantry (simultaneously with the demands that the allotted land should be speedily registered in the land rolls, that hunting rights should be democratized, boundary adjustments should be effected and the splitting up of agricultural land should be prevented and that the agricultural production plan should be safeguarded.) They made the demand for a revision of the land reform of 1919 the bourgeoisie had carried out in the pre-Munich republic. The revision affected a total of 1,027,529 ha of land and its materialisation would mean the complete liquidation of the group of big land-owners with over 150 ha of arable or 250 ha of agricultural land, the group of the so-called “rest-estate holders” and land speculators.

The demand for the revision of the first land reform of 1919 was pressed home by the Communists in the programme of the new government after the elections in May 1946 (“The Building Programme”). In the autumn of 1946 the Ministry of Agriculture, controlled by the Communists, submitted this demand (along with others) as a draft bill to the working peasantry for their comments (the so-called six Duris Acts.) The fight proper for carrying out a revision of the first land reform was, therefore; started by pressure from above.

The acceptance of the demand for a revision was bound to affect severely the big land-owners and the countryside bourgeoisie and, by this, the bourgeoisie as a whole. The bourgeoisie, making use of its positions in the leadership of the other parties of the National Front, in parliament and in the government, therefore, started to put up resistance against it immediately. It tried to prevent the acceptance of this law or to clip it and to retain big land-ownership in this way. A sharp class fight with the bourgeoisie developed over the acceptance of this law.

The pressure “from above” exerted by the Ministry of Agriculture (i.e. emanating directly from the supreme organ of the state – the government) by coming out with the draft law and openly inviting the working peasantry to comment on and to support it, triggered off, at the same time, a strong pressure “from below”.

The peasants discussed the draft proposals of the law at their meetings and their overwhelming majority demanded its acceptance. In the villages in which there was land subject to revision, “Peasants’ Commissions” were set up as the organs of the land-less, small and medium farmers-applicants for land. The demand for the revision was backed up more strongly by the local national committees (representing pressure from below vis-a-vis the higher administrative organs, Parliament and the leadership of the other parties of the National Front), by the United Association of Czech Peasantry and by the local organisations of the other political parties.

To increase the effectiveness of the pressure “from above” and “from below” against the bourgeoisie the Communists proclaimed (on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture) additional far-reaching demands for the working peasantry, the so-called “Hradec Program”. Its basic demand was the division into lots of all big estates of over 50 ha and the complete liquidation of land held for the purpose of investment (lit.: speculation; Tr.) (Furthermore, the introduction of peasants’ insurance, grants of agricultural credits and protection to peasants, the introduction of a uniform agricultural tax graded in accordance with production areas, the size of farms, the number of dependants etc., a speedy mechanisation of agriculture aided by the state, especially the establishment of State Tractor and Machine Stations.)

The area of land subject to division according to this demand amounted to 432,905 ha, situated in 9,540 parishes, i.e. in two thirds of all the parishes in the whole state. This meant that additional masses of small and medium farmers were drawn into the decisive fight for the liquidation of big estate ownership (and the other demands.) The struggle for the revision of the first land reform entered the next, decisive stage. In the summer the proposal of the law was debated by Parliament. The Communists used these debates for uncovering the bourgeois leadership of the National Socialist, the Popular and the Democratic parties, and proved them to be furious defenders of the land owners and enemies of the working peasantry. Every attempt of the bourgeoisie at thwarting, delaying or limiting the proposed law was brought out into the open by the Communists in Parliament and pilloried. On June 9 and 10 alone the central organ of the Party, “Rude Pravo”, published a number of such disclosures made on the floor of Parliament (“The Representatives of the Big Land-Owners in Parliament Against the Peasants,” “They Wanted to Give the Big Land-Owners and Rest-Estate Holders Millions of Hectares of Forestry Land,” “The Secretary General of the National Socialist Party, Dr. Krajina, Threw the Peasants out of the Lobby of National Socialist National Assembly Members” etc.)

The Communist pressure in the government and in Parliament (the pressure “from above”) engendered more and more decisively the pressure “from below”. Thousands of resolutions from meetings of peasants demanding the immediate acceptance of these laws were submitted to parliament and the government. This was said in the resolutions, which were signed also by the village organistions of the National Socialist, Popular and Democratic parties: “ . . . we now recognise who is with us and who is against.” Dozens of Peasants’ Commissions, composed of members of all the political parties, came to parliament and stormily warned the leadership of the bourgeois parties not to obstruct their demands, claiming their immediate implementation. (For instance, the largest of these delegations was composed of 57 members of the National Socialist party, 35 members of the Popular party, 38 Social Democrats, 153 Communists, 15 members without political allegiance and 48 members who did not state to which party they belonged.)

On July 11 the pressure from “above” and from “below” closed like the claws of a pair of pincers. The bourgeoisie whose political positions were perceptibly shaken had to give way. The bill on revision of the first agricultural reform was passed by the parliament. The consequences of this victory were: the liquidation of more of the economic positions of the bourgeoisie in the village, a big political defeat of the bourgeoisie (its increasing isolation), a considerable strengthening and broadening of the bond between the workers’ class and the working peasantry. The peasants recognized that given direct political, organisational and material help of the workers’ class they could lead a successful fight against their arch-enemy, the land-owner and his helpers. Increasingly wider masses of peasants were coming over to Party positions and supported its political line aiming at further deepening of the revolution.

V.

NATIONALISATION OF INDUSTRY: By a similar method the claws of the pincers were being closed by pressure from “above” and from “below” in the years 1945-1948, penetrating deeper and deeper into the flesh of the bourgeoisie. Thus when the liquidation of the political and economic positions of the occupiers and of the treacherous native grand-bourgeoisie was completed in the course of the national and democratic revolution on the basis of the Kosice program, further groups of the bourgeoisie were gradually annihilated as the revolution progressed. Nationalisation in October 1945 liquidated particularly the economic power of the financial bourgeoisie, the group of industrialists dominating until then the key industries and the basic sources of raw material and the group of factory owners employing over 500 employees,

Apart from the 62 per cent of the industry already nationalised another 13 per cent of the “small confiscates” were torn from the hands of private enterprisers in spring 1947. The revision of the first land reform signified the liquidation of the group of big landowners owning over 150 hectares of arable or 250 hectares of agricultural land, and the liquidation of the owners of “residue” farms. In the autumn of 1947 these “pincers” helped to carry out the “millionaires’ levy” and to solve the political crisis in Slovakia caused by the sabotage and counter-revolutionary activity of the strongest Slovak political party, the democrats.

All these class clashes with the bourgeoisie had far-reaching political consequences. The influence and strength of the bourgeoisie was collapsing, the broad masses gathered with growing resolution around the CPCS and its policy.

VI.

DISINTEGRATION OF POLITICAL OPPONENTS: At the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1948 an actual disintegration of the national socialist, the people’s and the democratic parties, took place. Honest members of these parties were parting with their bourgeois leadership and were coming over to the ranks of the CPCS and the Slovak CP (already in November 1947 when the Communists gained from the beginning of the year 237,384 new members the CPCS was stronger than all other political parties taken together), or created opposition groups within their own parties. The isolation of the bourgeoisie within the parties of the National Front was proceeding not only from the outside through the turning away of the broad masses from parties ruled by the bourgeoisie but also from within through the growth of democratic and socialist forces in these parties; through the growth of progressive opposition seeking the maintenance and strengthening of people’s democratic freedoms and rights and therefore endeavouring to co-operate with the Communists. From the bottom and over the heads of reactionary leaders of the other political parties the National Front grew constantly stronger as a class and social unity of the working people recognizing the CSCP as its leader, the Party which worked toward a total socialist reconstruction of the country.

The progress of the class struggle confirmed that the CSCP would gain in the forthcoming elections a decisive majority and would achieve the fulfilment of its other demands with the help of a democratically manifested will of the people. It demanded the liquidation of all private capitalist enterprises employing over 50 people, a total liquidation of the group of local and foreign merchants and a total liquidation of land-owners owning over 50 hectares of land.

Thus the situation of the bourgeoisie was, at the beginning of 1948, on the eve of the new parliamentary elections, substantially different from that in 1946. While prior to the elections in 1946, the bourgeoisie had a relatively strong mass basis, a short time of under two years of people’s democratic government was sufficient for the disintegration of the political army upon which it could formerly count. The broad masses of the people, especially working peasants, lost their illusions as regards the bourgeoisie and went over to the side of the workers’ class in order to place the bourgeoisie and its anti-popular and treacherous policy in the right light in the eyes of our nations.* In 1948 when the decisive fight between the workers’ class and the bourgeoisie drew closer the bourgeoisie had only a shade of the power and influence that it used to have in 1945. In this situation the bourgeoisie, frightened by this peaceful progress of the revolution which kept removing and destroying its economic and political positions one after another and which threatened their complete annihilation within a short time, decided to violate the lawful ways and to achieve its counter-revolutionary aims through a coup. It was signalled by a government crisis provoked by the resignation of 12 ministers. But by this the bourgeoisie only offered another new and open evidence of its spirit of disruption; it achieved its own isolation and complete defeat. After five days of government crisis the people settled its accounts with bourgeoisie reaction, legally and constitutionally (under consistent use of all forms of pressure from “above” and from “below”).

The representatives of the bourgeoisie and their agents were replaced in the government, absolutely legally and in accordance with the constitution valid since pre-Munich days (1920), by new representatives faithful to the people, selected from the ranks of the reconstituted National Front and recognising the leading role of the Communists in the state; the government was nominated by the President of the Republic and was unanimously approved by parliament.

As evidence of the fact that this form of transition of political power into the hands of the working class was absolutely legal and constitutional (and this point has an extraordinary political importance) we shall use a spontaneous and very valuable opinion of an important bourgeois émigré, the former chief of the office of the president of the republic, Jaromir Smutny.

“In their calculation they (i.e. the representatives of the bourgeois parties who submitted their resignation – J. K.) failed to take into consideration other fundamental circumstances:

(a) that the Government is not ‘ipso facto’ dissolved if a minority of its members resigns (according to the Constitution the Government was able to pass decisions if more than half of its members were present, not counting the Premier. In the case of the February Government, 13 members made up an absolute majority):
(b) that the Premier could not be forced into resignation with the rest of his ministers unless given a vote of non-confidence by Parliament;
(c) that the President of the Republic had no constitutional right to make the Premier resign when only part of his Ministers left the government, even if the character of the Government was substantionally changed:
(d) that only the National Assembly had the power to force Gottwald to resign”.

Yes. “The irony of world history puts everything upside down. With us ‘revolutionaries’ and ‘rebels’ legal methods agree much more than illegal ones or than a coup. The parties of order, as they call themselves, die by the legal state which they created”. (F. Engles, foreword to Marx’ work “Class struggles in France”, K. Marx – F. Engels: Selected Works, volume 1, 1950, p. 133).

And now let us return to the fears of Comrade Iannucci. Quite rightly he draws attention to the fact that a bourgeois state is not just Parliament but also an enormous bureaucratic, military and police apparatus and he asks in the light of this warning: “Is it possible to believe that the bourgeoisie would ‘yield’ by a simple ‘act of Parliament’ or without a civil war, without an ‘armed uprising?’.”

No, the bourgeoisie has never yielded its power by a simple “act of Parliament”. But it may be deprived of its power at an opportune moment without an armed uprising and civil war – by the force of consistently acting revolutionary masses led by the revolutionary workers’ party, supporting their representatives in the Parliament and transforming the Parliament into an active revolutionary assembly.

In the fight for the direct national, democratic, peaceful, economic and social demands of the people, by a combined pressure from “above” and from “below”, the position of the bourgeoisie in the organs of power and in the state apparatus may be weakened step by step, and so may its economic positions, and thus the working class heading the popular masses may be given step by step conditions more favourable for its fight for socialism. (Naturally, these demands will always be founded upon the concrete situation prevailing in the country concerned and will greatly differ. For example, defence of national interests by cancellation of all agreements and treaties with the United States of America damaging to the interests of the nation; prohibition of all war propaganda, punishment of warmongers and active support of the policy of collective security; abolition of all forms of racial, religious and national discrimination; fight against the monopolies, and their nationalisation; carrying out of a land reform, introduction of a general system of social security: abolition of every kind of economic, social and legal inequality of women, separation of Church and state; etc.). In the course of the fight for these national, social, economic and political demands of broad masses of the working people the following may and must be carried out successfully: a broadly founded democratisation and reorganisation of the organs of power (for instance, the principle that all the organs of state power from top to bottom are elected by the people, the abolition of the senate and concentration of all power in the hands of Parliament, a democratisation and reorganisation of the state apparatus – courts, police, army, etc.). This broad democratisation is in principle carried out by the gradual destruction of the bourgeois state apparatus and its transformation into an instrument and source of power of the new democratic might. (Therefore the eighth congress of the Italian Communist Party, which worked out the Italian line to be taken on the road to socialism, emphasised that Parliament may and must carry out its active function both in the interests of a democratic and socialist transformation of the country and in the new socialist society.)

“It must be stated that the fundamental condition for its fulfilling this function is that it must take its initiative, impulses and inspiration for its regenerative activity from the new political and administrative system in the state – towns, provinces and regions – as defined by the constitution and the forms of directing democracy which are materialised through the participation of the working classes in the political-economic direction of the state”. (Political resolution of the eighth congress of the Italian Communist Party, Information Bulletin, International Political Questions, No. 1-2, p. 87.)

All these measures and their consequences (a systematic strengthening of the positions of power of the working class and the gradual weakening and destruction of the economic-political supports of the bourgeoisie) are in their entirety the actual way toward a limitation and perhaps exclusion of any violence of the bourgeoisie against the people and thus toward prevention of civil war. In this case in the course of the fight for a complete take-over of all power by the working class no notice can be taken of the present relationship between class forces; it must be considered what this relationship will be during the time of government of the revolutionary democratic might. Thus at the moment when the bourgeoisie is in danger that all power is about to be taken over by the working class it will be by far not so powerful and its main supports will be undermined.

Progress toward socialism may take, under these circumstances, a democratic and constitutional course. Parliament, which will be an active revolutionary assembly relying upon the revolutionary mass movement of the working class and its allies, will turn into an instrument of the working class on its way to power, into an instrument of the transformation of the whole state and its machinery. Under these circumstances all the changes which in their entirety represent a revolutionary transformation of capitalist society into a socialist one will proceed absolutely legally. Parliament may pass in a democratic and legal way and in the name of the nation a new constitutional codifying and making possible a socialist transformation of the country. (Within less than three months following the crushing of the attempt of the bourgeoisie at a coup the Parliament of the Czechoslovak Republic approved a new constitution which safeguarded all the progress so far made and ensured the sovereignty of the working people in the state, the popularisation of the state apparatus and the liquidation of the remnants of the bureaucratic police state apparatus, anchored nationalisation as a firm economic basis of the people’s democratic state and, in its totality, strengthened and ensured the transition of the country to socialism.)

Thus, progress toward socialism, with the help of Parliament and without a bloody civil war, is a real possibility. However, this possibility must not raise false illusions among the working class which must not be in the least morally disarmed through doubts as to its right to take to arms in every case when forced to do so by the resistance of the bourgeoisie. Therefore the 20th congress of the Soviet Communist Party proclaimed with absolute frankness: “There can be no doubt that for a number of capitalist countries a violent downthrow of the bourgeois dictatorship and, with it, a connected vehement acceleration of the class struggle is inevitable”.

Thus the 20th congress of the Soviet C.P. proclaims in full harmony with the spirit of Marxism-Leninism that at the present historical stage in the development of society the possibility to break the resistance of the bourgeoisie against socialist transformation of society by non-violent means, without recourse to revolutionary violence, has matured or will mature in many countries. But the working class and working people will not renounce armed right and revolutionary violence where it is inevitable in order to break the resistance of the exploiting classes. Thus it uses Lenin’s paraphrase: “A delivery may be difficult or easy. Naturally we are all for an easy and painless delivery. Conditions for such a delivery are now favourable. But if necessary we are ready to undergo a difficult and painful delivery to see the child born”.