The Third International

Maoriland Worker, Volume 11, Issue 135, 30 June 1920, Page 3

The Third International

BY TOM MAXN,

In the struggle of ideas respecting the merits of what are new termed the Second International and the Third International, I stand emphatically and definitely for the Third. Unable to believe that the revolution is to be brought about by Parliamentary action, and believing thoroughly in direct action, I have no alternative but to identify myself with Communists, Bolshevists, Spartacists, and Syndicalists. , As a thorough believer m works committees and Shop Stewards' movement, expecting to see the.se develop eommensurably with the growth of class consciousness, and the recognition of the foolishness of relying upon bourgeois institutions to achieve the industrial and social changes that will constitute the revolution, naturally and necessarily I am in full accord with those who arc clearly alive lo the impossibility of our functioning" as a working class through the institutions of the governing class.

"All power to the Soviets" is the lesson for us in England; "All power to the workers' councils" must be our slogan;-the growth of these.,councils must be helped in every way, though we shall function when the day for definite and determined action shall have arrived.

The Trade Union movement as yet is largely concerned in trying to ameliorate' the misery continually being created by the capitalist system of industry, but this is rapidly changing, and the unions will soon give evidence of their efficacy in the great revolutionary struggle. Not by Parliament will the change be made, but by the workers resorting to whatever action may prove to be necessary on the industrial field, and elsewhere. Not by a silly pretence that we are all brethren irrespective of class and that all interests are identical, but by a clear knowledge that the dominant class has created, the evil conditions that curse pur lives, and we have to save ourselves as a class—not with their aid, but in spite of them.