Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 16 - From Marx to Mao

278V. I. LENINthe Belgians and the Germans, vastly to the disadvantageof the latter. At any rate the Belgians pursued a proletarianline, although not quite consistently, not quite distinctly.Elm came out as an opportunist of the first water (especiallyin the subcommission, of which more later). Naturally,the leading role belonged to the Belgians. The Austrianswere sympathetically disposed to them and at the end of thecommission’s deliberations an Austro-Belgian resolutionwas read, while Elm, who submitted the German resolution,declared forthright that he thought it would be quite possibleto make it agree with Jaurès’s draft. Since among theFrench there was a strong minority against Jaurès (therewere 202 mandates for his point of view and 142 for Guesde’s)while among the Germans there would have been ano less strong minority against Elm (if the question of thetwo points of view had come up clearly and sharply), theAustro-Belgian alliance had real chances of victory. Andit was not so much a question of “victory” in the narrowsense of the word as of consistently upholding the proletarianpoint of view on the co-operative societies. Due tothe excessive concessions which the subcommission madeto Jaurès and Elm, this consistency was not attained.As for us, the Russian Social-Democrats, we tried to supportthe Austro-Belgian line in the commission and withthis aim in view, before the reading of the Austro-Belgianconciliatory draft, we submitted a draft resolution of our own,as follows:“DRAFT RESOLUTIONOF THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC DELEGATION OF RUSSIA“The Congress is of the opinion:“1) That proletarian consumers’ societies improve the situationof the working class in that they reduce the amount of exploitationby all kinds of commercial middlemen, influence the labour conditionsof the workers employed by the supplying firms and improvethe situation of their own employees.“2) That these societies can assume great importance for the economicand political mass struggle of the proletariat by supportingthe workers during strikes, lock-outs, political persecution, etc.On the other hand the Congress points out:“1) that the improvements that can be achieved with the helpof the consumers’ societies can only be very inconsiderable as long