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leaders of the Independents vividly reminds us of the Roman augurs, who could not face each other without laughing. A day will come when an "Independent" Noske (e.g., Dissmann) will frankly relate how the Right leaders cheated their faction at Halle!
Poor deluded workers! When will the day come when all the workers will know their traitor "leaders"! When shall we at last reach a period when men like Crispien, Hilferding, Dittmann and others will no longer be able to gather a whole party in the course of a few weeks by means of an obvious and systematic deception of the workers? Under such circumstances our task was to force a discussion by all manner of means, be it even at the party congress, on the fundamental questions of principle—the programme and tactics of the Third International. We at once fell in with the views of the leaders of the Left Independents. Our programme was drafted. The next morning at 9 a.m. we were already on the field of battle, in the hall where the congress was to take place.
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At the beginning of the congress the Lefts had a majority of 50. Towards the end of the congress, at the time of the principal division this majority grew to over 80, and the chief motion concerning the acceptance of the twenty-one conditions of admission to the Third International was carried by a nearly two to one majority.
The Right leaders, as is well known, were trying to rush the congress, in spite of the protests on the part of the Lefts and the Executive Committee of the Third International. The wire pullers of the Right Wing were in a hurry, and called together a congress in the course of some four or five weeks. They reckoned on taking the German workers unawares. Most of the papers and the whole party machine were in the hands of the Rights. The Rights used their fifty dailies to open a fierce campaign of lies and calumny against "Moscow," against the Third International, against their own comrades of the Left; "Freiheit," edited by Herr Hilferding, was especially active in this respect. In Moscow we pointed out to Crispien and Dittmann that "Freiheit" is a counter-revolutionary periodical after the taste of Kautsky. They replied, however, that
