Socialism and Democracy in EuropeOrth, Samuel Peter
History
Socialism and Democracy in Europe
Orth, Samuel Peter
Democracy; Socialism
The representatives of the various Socialistic organizations of
France: the revolutionary Socialist Labor Party, the Socialist Party
of France, the French Socialist Party, the independent federations of
Bouches-du-Rhône, of Bretagne, of Hérault, of the Somme, and of
l'Yonne, commanded by their respective parties and federations to form
a union upon the basis indicated by the International Congress of
Amsterdam, declare that the action of a unified party should be based
upon the principles established by the International Congress,
especially those held in France in 1900 and Amsterdam in 1904.
The divergence of views and the various interpretations of the tactics
of the Socialists which have prevailed up to the present moment have
been due to circumstances peculiar to France and to the absence of a
general party organization.
The delegates declare their common desire to form a party based upon
the class war which, at the same time, will utilize to its profit the
struggles of the laboring classes and unite their action with that of
a political party organized for the defense of the rights of the
proletariat, whose interests will always rest in a party fundamentally
and irreconcilably opposed to all the bourgeois classes and to the
state which is their instrument.
Therefore the delegates declare that their respective organizations
are prepared to collaborate immediately in this work of the
unification of all the Socialistic forces in France, upon the
following basis, unanimously adopted:
1. The Socialist Party is a class party which has for its aim the
socialization of the means of production and exchange, that is to say,
to transform the present capitalistic society into a collective or
communistic society by means of the political and economic
organization of the proletariat. By its aims, by its ideals, by the
power which it employs, the Socialist Party, always seeking to realize
the immediate reforms demanded by the working class, is not a party of
reforms, but a party of class war and revolution.
2. The members of Parliament elected by the party form a unique group
opposed to all the factions of the bourgeois parties. The Socialist
group in Parliament must refuse to sustain all of those means which
assure the domination of the bourgeoisie in government and their
maintenance in power: must therefore refuse to vote for military
appropriations, appropriations for colonial conquest, secret funds,
and the budget.
Even in the most exceptional circumstances the Socialist members must
not pledge the party without its consent.
In Parliament the Socialist group must consecrate itself to defending
and extending the political liberties and rights of the working
classes and to the realization of those reforms which ameliorate the
conditions of life in the struggle for existence of the working class.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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