Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

146V. I. LENIN25. An intensified principled struggle must be wagedagainst the Grütli-Verein 71 as a glaring manifestation onSwiss soil of the tendencies of bourgeois labour politics,namely, opportunism, reformism, social-patriotism and corruptionof the masses by bourgeois-democratic illusions.The mistaken and pernicious character of social-patriotand “Centre” policies must be explained to the masses, usingthe concrete activities of the Grütli-Verein as an example.26. Preparations must be immediately started for theelections to the February (1917) Party Congress in Berne toensure that they are held only after every Party organisationhas discussed the principles and concrete policies setforth in the various platforms. The platform outlined hereshou]d serve as the platform of the consistent, revolutionary, internationalistSocial-Democrats.The election of all leading Party officials, to the PressCommission, to all representative bodies, to all managementcommittees, etc., must take place only on the basisof such a discussion of platforms.Every local organisation must carefully control thelocal Party press organ to ensure that it pursues the viewsand the tactics, not merely of Social-Democracy in general,but of a precisely defined platform of Social-Democraticpolicy.V. INTERNATIONAL TASKSOF THE SWISS SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS27. In order that acceptance of internationalism bythe Swiss Social-Democrats shall not remain an empty andnon-committal phrase—to which the adherents of the “Centre”,and Social-Democrats of the epoch of the Second Internationalgenerally, always confine themselves—it is necessary,first, consistently and unswervingly to fight for organisationalrapprochement between foreign and Swiss workersbringing them together in the same unions, and for theircomplete equality (civic and political). The specific featureof imperialism in Switzerland is precisely the increasingexploitation of disfranchised foreign workers by theSwiss bourgeoisie, which bases its hopes on estrangementbetween these two categories of workers.