49. Having abandoned a principled line on the war question, the Third International vacillates between defeatism and social patriotism. In Germany the struggle against fascism was transformed into a market competition on a nationalistic basis. The slogan of “national liberation,” advanced side by side with the slogan of “social liberation,” grossly distorts the revolutionary perspective and leaves no place whatever for defeatism. On the Saar question, the Communist Party began by a cringing subservience to the ideology of National Socialism and moved away from this only through inner splits.
What slogan will the German section of the Third International advance in time of war: “the defeat of Hitler is the lesser evil”? But if the slogan of national liberation was correct under the “fascists” Müller and Brüning, how could it lose its efficacy under Hitler? Or are nationalist slogans good only for time of peace and not of war? Truly, the epigones of Leninism did everything to confuse themselves and the working class to the very end.
50. The impotent revolutionism of the Third International is a direct result of its fatal policy. After the German catastrophe, the political insignificance of the so-called Communist Parties was revealed in all countries where they were subjected to any test at all. The French section, which showed itself absolutely incapable of rousing even a few tens of thousands of workers against the colonial robbery in Africa, will undoubtedly prove even more its bankruptcy in the moment of so-called national danger.
51. The struggle against war, unthinkable without the revolutionary mobilization of the wide working masses of the city and village, demands at the same time direct influence on the army and navy, on the one hand, and on transport, on the other. But it is impossible to influence soldiers without influencing the worker and peasant youth. Influence in the sphere of transport presupposes a strong foothold in the trade unions.
Whereas, meanwhile, with the aid of the Profintern, the Third International has lost all positions in the trade-union movement and has cut itself off from all access to the working youth. Under these conditions, to talk of a struggle against war is like blowing soap bubbles. There must be no room for illusions: in case of an imperialist attack on the USSR, the Third International will show itself a complete zero.