MOSCOW'S ATTITUDE 163
On the same page is a report on conditions in another
bourgeois country in the shape of an account of the trial of
fifty-six Communists at Lutsk (Polish Volhynia), who are
alleged to have been beaten and otherwise maltreated. The
leading article, entitled "Vienna, Paris and London," contains
the following significant passages: "Despite the different
conditions prevailing in Austria, France and England, there
is a close connection between the revolutionary events in these
three countries. The widest proletarian masses are in ferment
there; the idea of revolt is ripening in their consciousness.
Recent events (the demonstrations by the unemployed in
London) have shown that the masses regard with distrust the
agitation of the Labour Party and are commencing to adopt
the platform of the revolutionary struggle. The Communist
Party in England is not very numerous; still it numbers some
hundreds of thousands and is setting itself the task of exerting
an organized influence. In England, too, the proletarian
struggle is beginning to grow."
The celebrations in commemoration of the fifteenth anni-
versary of the Komintern in March 1934 showed the aims
pursued by Stalin and the Third International in supporting
and organizing revolutionary movements abroad. At that time
the Soviet press published an article by M. Sorkis, bearing the
significant heading "Laws of History and Laws of Artillery,"
and having the underlying idea that the masses everywhere
in the world can follow one path only, that of bloody and
resolute fighting, of revolutionary assault, of battle on behalf
of the Soviet power. According to Sorkis this fight should be
directed equally against "Social Democrats and opportunists
within our own ranks"; for this fight against opportunism is
like that between proletariat and bourgeoisie—a necessary
stage in the development of the bourgeois State. Hence the
task is everywhere "uncompromisingly and consistently** to
prepare the outbreak of revolution.
Now what guarantee does Sorkis imagine to exist for the