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First of all, Bolshevism represents revolution and the revolutionary struggle. All other political parties depend on parliamentary means, on petitions, telegrams to Senators, mass meetings at which important and distinguished politicians speak. Bolshevism does not disdain parliamentary means. But fundamentally it relies upon mass action mass demonstrations of workers, strikes, picketing, mobilizing workers in order to bring the pressure of organized labor and its allies upon the capitalist states. Let us illustrate the difference by an example. In the years before World War I, the Bolsheviks elected about half a dozen members to the Duma the Russian Parliament. These elected representatives at once became very active about bills, the budget, parliamentary procedure, etc. They went for advice to Lenin, who was living in exile. Lenin laughed heartily and told them what amounted to this:
Dont bother about their bills and their budget and their parliamentary procedure. When you turn comes stand up and tell them about the lives of the workers, tell them about all the exploitation and oppression by the classes they represent and then tell them that it would not be long before the workers will rise in their revolutionary wrath and sweep capitalism and its dishonest thieving parliaments into the dustbin.
Something at once becomes clear. The Bolshvik deputies were not begging the capitalist politicians and the capitalist state for anything. They were not even speaking to the parliamentarians. They were speaking to the workers outside. They were using the Parliament as a forum to make revolutionary propaganda, to force the attention of the more backward workers, to make the middle classes listen, to expose the fraud of parliamentarism.
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Naturally the revolutionary party holds its own meetings, etc. But its main interest in the capitalist Parliament was to use it for mobilizing the workers against capitalism and all its works.
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this been the policy of Ben Davis, for example, the Communist Party member on the New York City Council? One year he is supporting Leham and Mead. Then comes an upheaval in the Communist Party. Browder is thrown out. Foster comes in, a new policy is announced and Ben Davis supports Mead and Lehman! A genuine Bolshevik is distinguished by the consistency of his opposition to all aspects of the capitalist system. He votes for or supports only those specific things which benefit the workers and the oppressed and he opposes everything else . Now it seems to us that a Negro community like Harlem would create a stir that would be felt in all parts of the country if it demanded of its candidate that his main task in and out of Congress or municipality was to denounce the system and use parliamentary forms and practices as a tribune for the education of the people. The great crime of the Communist Party is that it has prostituted the very name of Bolshevism in the service of Moscow, The American capitalist class is out to break these Stalinists. Negroes cannot stand aside and see this happen without protest. It is an invasion [sic] of democratic rights. But our way of defeating these corrupting rats is to put forward labor and Negro candidates who, by a genuinely revolutionary policy, will educate the people both as to the crimes of American imperialism and the betrayals of the Moscow stooges.
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