Honor The 92nd Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International March, 1919)- Honor The 90th Anniversary Of The Historic Third World Congress Of The CI (1921)
Markin comment:
Some anniversaries, like those marking the publication of a book, play or poem, are worthy of remembrance every five, ten, or twenty-five years. Other more world historic events like the remembrance of the Paris Commune of 1871, the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1917, and, as here, the founding of the Communist International (also known as the Third International, Comintern, and CI) in 1919 are worthy of yearly attention. Why is that so in the case of the long departed (1943, by Stalin fiat) and, at the end unlamented, Comintern? That is what this year’s remembrance, through CI documentation and other commentary, will attempt to impart on those leftist militants who are serious about studying the lessons of our revolutionary, our communist revolutionary past.
No question that the old injunction of Marx and Engels as early as the Communist Manifesto that the workers of the world needed to unite would have been hollow, and reduced to hortatory holiday speechifying (there was enough of that, as it was) without an organization expression. And they, Marx and Engels, fitfully made their efforts with the all-encompassing pan-working class First International. Later the less all encompassing but still party of the whole class-oriented socialist Second International made important, if limited, contributions to fulfilling that slogan before the advent of world imperialism left its outlook wanting, very wanting.
The Third International thus was created, as mentioned in one of the commentaries in this series, to pick up the fallen banner of international socialism after the betrayals of the Second International. More importantly, it was the first international organization that took upon itself in its early, heroic revolutionary days, at least, the strategic question of how to make, and win, a revolution in the age of world imperialism. The Trotsky-led effort of creating a Fourth International in the 1930s, somewhat stillborn as it turned out to be, nevertheless based itself, correctly, on those early days of the Comintern. So in some of the specific details of the posts in this year’s series, highlighting the 90th anniversary of the Third World Congress this is “just” history, but right underneath, and not far underneath at that, are rich lessons for us to ponder today.
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Third Congress of the Communist International
The March Events and the United Communist Party of Germany
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Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
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9 July 1921
The Third World Congress notes with satisfaction that all its important resolutions, including the hotly-debated section of the resolution on tactics which dealt with the March Action, were passed unanimously, and that even the proposal put forward by the representatives of the German opposition expressed what was essentially the position of the Congress. Congress sees this as proof that co-ordinated and joint work on the basis of the decisions of the III Congress should and can be undertaken within the United Communist Party of Germany. Congress views any further atomisation of forces within the VKPD, any formation of sects – not to mention splits – as a great threat to the whole movement.
Congress expects the CC and the majority of the United Communist Party of Germany to take a tolerant attitude to the opposition, provided it carries out the decisions of the III Congress in a loyal fashion, and is confident that the EC will do everything possible to unify the Party’s forces. Congress demands that the former opposition immediately dissolve all fractional organisations without exception, fully and absolutely subordinate itself to the parliamentary fraction of the CC of the Party, put its press under the control of the relevant Party bodies and immediately cease any political co-operation with persons expelled from the Party and the Communist International (co-operation in their publications, etc.).
Congress charges the Executive Committee to follow carefully the further development of the German movement, and immediately to take the most energetic measures to deal with the slightest violation of discipline.
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Third Congress of the Communist International
The March Events and the United Communist Party of Germany
Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
9 July 1921
The Third World Congress notes with satisfaction that all its important resolutions, including the hotly-debated section of the resolution on tactics which dealt with the March Action, were passed unanimously, and that even the proposal put forward by the representatives of the German opposition expressed what was essentially the position of the Congress. Congress sees this as proof that co-ordinated and joint work on the basis of the decisions of the III Congress should and can be undertaken within the United Communist Party of Germany. Congress views any further atomisation of forces within the VKPD, any formation of sects – not to mention splits – as a great threat to the whole movement.
Congress expects the CC and the majority of the United Communist Party of Germany to take a tolerant attitude to the opposition, provided it carries out the decisions of the III Congress in a loyal fashion, and is confident that the EC will do everything possible to unify the Party’s forces. Congress demands that the former opposition immediately dissolve all fractional organisations without exception, fully and absolutely subordinate itself to the parliamentary fraction of the CC of the Party, put its press under the control of the relevant Party bodies and immediately cease any political co-operation with persons expelled from the Party and the Communist International (co-operation in their publications, etc.).
Congress charges the Executive Committee to follow carefully the further development of the German movement, and immediately to take the most energetic measures to deal with the slightest violation of discipline.
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