Vladimir Lenin On The Duty Of Socialists To Defend Smaller States Against Imperialist Attack- "The Attitude of Socialists Towards Wars"- Today- Defend Libya Against The American-Led Coalition

V. I. Lenin

Socialism and War

The Attitude of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party Towards the War

Chapter I

The Principles of Socialism and the War of 1914–1915

The Attitude of Socialists Towards Wars

Socialists have always condemned war between nations as barbarous and brutal. But our attitude towards war is fundamentally different from that of the bourgeois pacifists (supporters and advocates of peace) and of the Anarchists. We differ froth the former in that we understand the inevitable connection between wars and the class struggle within the country; we understand that war cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished and Socialism is created; and we also differ in that we fully regard civil wars, i.e., wars waged by the oppressed class against the oppressing class, slaves against slave-owners, serfs against land-owners, and wage-workers against the bourgeoisie, as legitimate, progressive and necessary. We Marxists differ from both the pacifists and the Anarchists in that we deem it necessary historically (from the standpoint of Marx’s dialectical materialism) to study each war separately. In history there have been numerous wars which, in spite of all the horrors, atrocities, distress and suffering that inevitably accompany alt wars, were progressive, i.e., benefited the development of mankind by helping to destroy the exceptionally harmful and reactionary institutions (for example, autocracy or serfdom), the most barbarous despotisms in Europe (Turkish and Russian). Therefore, it is necessary to examine the historically specific features of precisely the present war.

Historical Types of Wars in Modern Times

The Great French Revolution ushered in a new epoch in the history of mankind. From that time to the Paris Commune, from 1789 to 1871, one of the types of wars were wars of a bourgeois-progressive, national-liberating character. In other words, the chief content and historical significance of these wars were the overthrow of absolutism and feudalism, the undermining of these institutions, the overthrow of alien oppression. Therefore, those were progressive wars, and during such wars, all honest, revolutionary democrats, and also all Socialists, always sympathised with the success of that country (i.e., with that bourgeoisie), which had helped to overthrow, or sap, the most dangerous foundation of feudalism, absolutism and the oppression of other nations. For example, the revolutionary wars waged by France contained an element of plunder and conquest of alien territory by the French, but this does not in the least alter the fundamental historical significance of these wars, which destroyed and shattered feudalism and absolutism in the whole of old, serf-ridden Europe. In the Franco-Prussian war, Germany plundered France, but this does not alter the fundamental historical significance of this war, which liberated tens of millions of German people from feudal disintegration and from the oppression of two despots, the Russian tsar and Napoleon III.

The Difference Between Aggressive and Defensive War

The epoch of 1789-1871 left deep tracts and revolutionary memories. Before feudalism, absolutism and alien oppression were overthrown, the development of the proletarian struggle for Socialism was out of the question. When speaking of the legitimacy of “defensive” war in relation to the wars of such an epoch, Socialists always had in mind precisely these objects, which amounted to revolution against medievalism and serfdom. By “defensive” war Socialists always meant a “just” war in this sense (W. Liebknecht once expressed himself precisely in this way). Only in this sense have Socialists regarded, and now regard, wars “for the defence of the fatherland”, or “defensive” wars, as legitimate, progressive and just. For example, if tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, India on England, Persia or China on Russia, and so forth, those would be “just”, “defensive” wars, irrespective of who attacked first; and every Socialist would sympathise with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slaveowning, predatory “great” powers.


But picture to yourselves a slave-owner who owned 100 slaves warring against a slave-owner who owned 200 slaves for a more “just” distribution of slaves. Clearly, the application of the term “defensive” war, or war “for the defence of the fatherland” in such a case would be historically false, and in practice would be sheer deception of the common people, of philistines, of ignorant people, by the astute slaveowners. Precisely in this way are the present-day imperialist bourgeoisie deceiving the peoples by means of “national ideology and the term “defence of the fatherland in the present war between slave-owners for fortifying and strengthening slavery.

The Present War is An Imperialist War

Nearly everybody admits that the present war is an imperialist war, but in most cases this term is distorted or applied to one side, or a loophole is left for the assertion that this war may, after all, have a bourgeois-progressive, national-liberating significance. Imperialism is the highest stage in the development of capitalism, reached only in the twentieth century. Capitalism now finds the old national states, without the formation of which it could not have overthrown feudalism, too tight for it. Capitalism has developed concentration to such a degree that whole branches of industry have been seized by syndicates, trusts and associations of capitalist billionaires, and almost the entire globe has been divided up among the “lords of capital, either in the form of colonies, or by enmeshing other countries in thousands of threads of financial exploitation. Free trade and competition have been superseded by the striving for monopoly, for the seizure of territory for the investment of capital, for the export of raw materials from them, and so forth. From the liberator of nations that capitalism was in the struggle against feudalism, imperialist capitalism has become the greatest oppressor of nations. Formerly progressive, capitalism has become reactionary; it has developed the forces of production to such a degree that mankind is faced with the alternative of going over to Socialism or of suffering years and even decades of armed struggle between the “great powers for the artificial preservation of capitalism by means of colonies, monopolies, privileges and national oppression of every kind.

War Between the Biggest Slave-Owners for Preserving and Fortifying Slavery

To explain the significance of imperialism, we will quote exact figures showing the division of the world among the so-called “great” (i.e., successful in great plunder) powers:

Division of the World Among the “Great” Slave-owning Powers
Colonies Metropolises Total
1876 1914 1914
“Great” Powers Square kilo-
metres Inhab-
itants Square kilo-
metres Inhab-
itants Square kilo-
metres Inhab-
itants Square kilo-
metres Inhab-
itants
millions millions millions millions
England 22.5 251.9 33.5 393.5 0.3 46.5 33.8 440.0
Russia 17.0 15.9 17.4 33.2 5.4 136.2 22.8 169.4
France 0.9 6.0 10.6 55.5 0.5 39.6 11.1 95.1
Germany – – 2.9 12.3 0.5 64.9 3.4 77.2
Japan – – 0.3 19.2 0.4 53.0 0.7 72.2
United States
of America – – 0.3 9.7 9.4 97.0 9.7 106.7
Six “great”
powers 40.4 273.8 65.0 523.4 16.5 437.2 81.5 960.6
Colonies belonging not to great powers (but
to Belgium, Holland and other states) 9.9 45.3 9.9 45.3
Three “semi-colonial” countries
(Turkey, China and Persia) 14.5 361.2
Total 105.9 1,367.1
Other states and countries 28.0 289.9
Entire globe (without Polar regions) 133.9 1,657.0

From this it is seen how most of the nations which fought at the head of others for freedom in 1798-1871, have now, after 1876. on the basis of highly developed and “overripe” capitalism, become the oppressors and enslavers of the majority of the populations and nations of the globe. From 1876 to 1914, six “great” powers grabbed 25 million sq. kilometres, i.e., an area two and a half times that of Europe! Six powers are enslaving over half a billion (521 million) inhabitants of colonies. For every four inhabitants of the “great” powers there are five inhabitants of “their” colonies. And everybody knows that colonies are conquered by fire and sword, that the populations of colonies are brutally treated, that they are exploited in a thousand ways (by exporting capital, concessions, etc., cheating when selling them goods, subordination to the authorities of the “ruling” nation, and so on and so forth). he Anglo-French bourgeoisie are deceiving the people when they say that they are waging war for the freedom of nations and for Belgium; actually they are waging war for the purpose of retaining the colonies they have inordinately grabbed. The German imperialists would free Belgium, etc., at once if the British and French would agree “fairly” to share their colonies with them. The peculiarity of the situation lies in that in this war the fate of the colonies is being decided by war on the Continent. From the standpoint of bourgeois justice and national freedom (or the right of nations to existence), Germany would be absolutely right as against England and France, for she has been “done out” of colonies, her enemies are oppressing an immeasurably far larger number of nations than she is, and the Slays who are oppressed by her ally Austria undoubtedly enjoy far more freedom than those in tsarist Russia, that real “prison of nations”. But Germany is fighting not for the liberation, but for the oppression of nations. It is not the business of Socialists to help the younger and stronger robber (Germany) to rob the older and overgorged robbers. Socialists must take advantage of the struggle between the robbers to overthrow them all. To be able to do this, the Socialists must first of all tell the people the truth, namely, that this war is in a treble sense a war between slave-owners to fortify slavery. This is a war firstly, to fortify the enslavement of the colonies by means of a “fairer” distribution and subsequent more “concerted exploitation of them; secondly, to fortify the oppression of other nations within the “great” powers, for both Austria and Russia (Russia more and much worse than Austria) maintain their rule only by such oppression, intensifying it by means of war; and thirdly, to fortify and prolong wage slavery, for the proletariat is split up and suppressed, while the capitalists gain, making fortunes out of the war, aggravating national prejudices and intensifying reaction, which has raised its head in all countries. even in the freest and most republican.

“War is the Continuation of Politics by Other” (i.e., Violent) “Means”[1]
This famous aphorism was uttered by one of the profoundest writers on the problems of war, Clausewitz. Marxists have always rightly regarded this thesis as the theoretical basis of views concerning the significance of every given war. It was precisely from this viewpoint that Marx and Engels always regarded different wars.

Apply this view to the present war. You will see that for decades, for almost half a century, the governments and the ruling classes of England, and France, and Germany, and Italy, and Austria, and Russia, pursued a policy of, plundering colonies, of oppressing other nations, of suppressing the working-class movement. It is this, and only this policy that is being continued in the present war. In particular, the policy of both Austria and Russia peace-time as well as in war, is a policy of enslaving and not of liberating nations. In China, Persia. India and other dependent countries, on the contrary, we have seen during the past decades a policy of rousing tens and hundreds of millions of people to national life, of liberating them from the oppression of the reactionary “great” powers. A war on such a historical ground can even today be a bourgeois-progressive, national-liberation war.

It is sufficient to glance at the present war from the viewpoint that it is a continuation of the politics of the great powers, and of the principal classes within them, to see at once the howling anti-historicalness, falsity and hypocrisy of the view that the “defence of the fatherland” idea can be justified in the present war.

The Example of Belgium

The favourite plea of the social-chauvinist triple (now quadruple) entente[2] (in Russia. Plekhanov and Co.), is the example of Belgium. But this example goes against them. The German imperialists shamelessly violated the neutrality of Belgium, as belligerent states have done always and everywhere, trampling upon all treaties and obligations if necessary. Let us suppose that all the states interested in the observation of international treaties declared war on Germany with the demand for the liberation and indemnification of Belgium. In such a case, the sympathies of Socialists would, of course, be on the side of Germany’s enemies. But the whole point is that the “triple (and quadruple) entente” is waging war not over Belgium this is perfectly well known, and only hypocrites conceal this. England is grabbing Germany’s colonies and Turkey; Russia is grabbing Galicia and Turkey, France wants Alsace-Lorraine and even the left hank of the Rhine; a treaty has been concluded with Italy for the division of the spoils (Albania, Asia Minor); bargaining is going on with Bulgaria and Rumania, also for the division of the spoils. In the present war waged by the present governments it is impossible to help Belgium without helping to strangle Austria or Turkey, etc.! How does “defence of the fatherland” come in here? Herein, precisely, lies the specific feature of imperialist war, war between reactionary-bourgeois, historically obsolete governments, waged for the purpose of oppressing other nations. Whoever justifies participation in the present war perpetuates imperialist oppression of nations. Whoever advocates taking advantage of the present embarrassments of the governments to fight for the social revolution champions the real freedom of really all nations, which is possible only under Socialism.

What is Russia Fighting For?
In Russia, capitalist imperialism of the latest type has fully revealed itself in the policy of tsarism towards Persia, Manchuria and Mongolia; but, in general, military and feudal imperialism predominates in Russia. In no country in the world is the majority of the population oppressed so much as it is in Russia; Great Russians constitute only 43 per cent of the population, he., less than half; all the rest are denied rights as aliens, Of the 170 million inhabitants of Russia, about 100 million are oppressed and denied rights. Tsarism is waging war to seize Galicia and finally to crush the liberties of the Ukrainians, to seize Armenia, Constantinople, etc. Tsarism regards the war as a means of diverting attention from the growth of discontent within the country and of suppressing the growing revolutionary movement. At the present time, for every two Great Russians in Russia there are from two to three rightless “aliens”: tsarism is striving by means of the war to increase the number of nations oppressed by Russia, to perpetuate this oppression and thereby undermine the struggle for freedom which the Great Russians themselves are waging. The possibility of oppressing and robbing other nations perpetuates economic stagnation, because, often, the source of income is not the development of productive forces, but the semi-feudal exploitation of “aliens”. Thus, on the part of Russia, the war is distinguished for its profoundly reactionary and anti-liberating character.

What is Social-Chauvinism?

Social-chauvinism is advocacy of the idea of “defence of the fatherland” in the present war. Further, this idea logically leads to the abandonment of the class struggle during the war, to voting war credits, etc. Actually, the social-chauvinists are pursuing an anti-proletarian, bourgeois policy; for actually, they are championing not “defence of the fatherland” in the sense of fighting foreign oppression, but the “right” of one or other of the “great” powers to plunder colonies and to oppress other nations. The social-chauvinists repeat the bourgeois deception of the people that the war is being waged to protect the freedom and existence of nations, and thereby they go over to the side of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. In the category of social-chauvinists are those who justify and embellish the governments and bourgeoisie of one of the belligerent groups of powers, as well as those who, like Kautsky, argue that the Socialists of all the belligerent powers have an equal right to “defend the fatherland”. Social-chauvinism, being actually defence of the privileges, advantages, robbery and violence of one’s “own” (or every) imperialist bourgeoisie, is the utter betrayal of all socialist convictions and of the decision of the Basle International Socialist Congress.

The Basle Manifesto[3]
The manifesto on war that was unanimously adopted in Basle in 1911 had in view the very war between England and Germany and their present allies that broke out in 1914 The manifesto openly declares that no plea of the interests of the people can justify such a war, waged “for the sake of the profits of the capitalists” and “the ambitions of dynasties” on the basis of the imperialist, predatory policy of the great powers. The manifesto openly declares that war is dangerous “for the governments” (all without exception), notes their fear of “a proletarian revolution”, and very definitely points to the example of the Commune of 1871, and of October-December 1905, i.e., to the examples of revolution and civil war. Thus, the Basle Manifesto lays down, precisely for the present war, the tactics of revolutionary struggle by the workers on an international scale against their governments, the tactics of proletarian revolution. The Basle Manifesto repeats the statement in the Stuttgart resolution that, in the event of war breaking out, Socialists must take advantage of the “economic and political crisis” it will cause, to “hasten the downfall of capitalism”, i.e., to take advantage of the governments’ embarrassments and the anger of the masses, caused by the war, for the socialist revolution.

The policy of the social-chauvinists, their justification of the war from the bourgeois-liberation standpoint, their sanctioning of “defence of the fatherland”, voting credits, entering cabinets, and so on and so forth, is downright treachery to Socialism, which can be explained only, as we wilt see lower down, by the victory of opportunism and of the national-liberal labour policy in the majority of European parties.

False References to Marx and Engels
The Russian social-chauvinists (headed by Plekhanov), refer to Marx’s tactics in the war of 1870; the German (of the type of Lensch, David and Co.) to Engels’ statement in 1891 that in the event of war against Russia and France together, it would be the duty of the German Socialists to defend their fatherland; and lastly, the social-chauvinists of the Kautsky type, who want to reconcile and legitimatize international chauvinism, refer to the fact that Marx and Engels, while condemning war, nevertheless, constantly, from to 1870-1871 and 1876-1877, took the side of one or another belligerent state once war had broken out

All these references are outrageous distortions of the views of Marx and Engels in the interest of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, in just the same way as the writings of the Anarchists Guillaume and Co. distort the views of Marx and Engels in justification of anarchism. The war of 1870-1871 was a historically progressive war on the part of Germany until Napoleon III was defeated; for the latter, together with the tsar, had oppressed Germany for many years, keeping her in a state of feudal disintegration. But as soon as the war developed into the plunder of France (the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine), Marx and Engels emphatically condemned the Germans. And even at the beginning of that war Marx and Engels approved of the refusal of Bebel and Liebknecht to vote for credits and advised the Social-Democrats not to merge with the bourgeoisie, but to uphold the independent class interests of the proletariat. To apply the appraisal of this bourgeois-progressive and national-liberating war to the present imperialist war means mocking at truth. The same applies with still greater force to the war of 1854-1855, and to all the wars of the nineteenth century, when there was no modern imperialism, no ripe objective conditions f or Socialism, and no mass Socialist parties in any of the belligerent countries, i.e., none of the conditions from which the Basle Manifesto deduced the tactics of “proletarian revolution” in connection with a war between the great powers.

Whoever refers today to Marx’s attitude towards the wars of the epoch of the progressive bourgeoisie and forgets Man’s statement that “the workers have no fatherland”, a statement that applies precisely to the epoch of the reactionary, obsolete bourgeoisie, to the epoch of the socialist revolution. shamelessly distorts Marx and substitute, the bourgeois for the socialist point of view.

The Collapse of the Second International

The Socialists of all the world solemnly declared in Basle, in 1912, that they regarded the impending war in Europe as the “criminal” and most reactionary affair of all the governments, which must hasten the downfall of capitalism by inevitably calling forth a revolution against it. The war came, the crisis came. Instead of revolutionary tactics, the majority of the Social-Democratic parties conducted reactionary tactics, went over to the side of their respective governments and bourgeoisie. This betrayal of Socialism signifies the collapse of the Second (1889-1914) International, and we must understand what caused this collapse, what brought social-chauvinism into being what gave it strength.

Social-Chauvinism is Consummated Opportunism
During the whole epoch of the Second International, a struggle raged everywhere in the Social-Democratic parties between the revolutionary and the opportunist wings. In a number of countries a split has taken place along this line (England, Italy, Holland, Bulgaria). Not a single Marxist has any doubt that opportunism expresses bourgeois policy within the working-class movement, expresses the interests of the petty bourgeoisie and the alliance of a tiny section of bourgeoisified workers with “their” bourgeoisie against the interests of the proletarian masses, the oppressed masses.

The objective conditions of the end of the nineteenth century exceptionally intensified opportunism, converted the utilization of bourgeois legality into subservience to it, created a tiny stratum of bureaucrats and aristocrats within the working class, and drew into the ranks of the Social-Democratic parties numerous petty-bourgeois “fellow travellers”.

The war accelerated this development and transformed opportunism into social-chauvinism, transformed the secret alliance between the opportunists and the bourgeoisie into an open one. Simultaneously, the military authorities everywhere have introduced martial law and have muzzled the mass of the workers, whose old leaders have nearly all gone over to the bourgeoisie.

Opportunism and social-chauvinism have the same economic basis: the interests of a tiny stratum of privileged workers and of the petty bourgeoisie who are defending their privileged position, their “right” to crumbs of the profits “their” national bourgeoisie obtain from robbing other nations, from the advantages of their position as the ruling nation, etc.

Opportunism and social-chauvinism have the same ideological-political content: collaboration of classes instead of class struggle, renunciation of revolutionary methods of struggle, helping one’s “own” government in its embarrassed situation instead of taking advantage of these embarrassments for revolution. If we take all the European countries as a whole, if we pay attention not to individuals (even the most authoritative), we will find that it is the opportunist trend that has become the chief bulwark of social-chauvinism, whereas from the camp of the revolutionaries, more or less consistent protests against it are heard nearly everywhere. And if we take, for example, the grouping of trends at the Stuttgart International Socialist Congress in 1907[4], we will find that international Marxism was opposed to imperialism, while international opportunism was in favour of it already at that time.


Unity with the Opportunists Means Alliance Between the Workers and “Their” National Bourgeoisie and Splitting the International Revolutionary Working Class
In the past epoch, before the war, although opportunism was often regarded as a “deviationist”, “extremist” part of the Social-Democratic Party, it was nevertheless regarded as a legitimate part. The war has shown that this cannot be so in future. Opportunism has “matured”, is now playing to the full its role as emissary of the bourgeois in the working-class movement. Unity with the opportunists has become sheer hypocrisy, an example of which we see in the German Social-Democratic Party. On all important occasions (for example, the voting on August 4)[5], the opportunists come forward with an ultimatum, which they carry out with the aid of their numerous connections with the bourgeoisie, of their majority on the executives of the trade unions, etc. Unity with the opportunists actually means today, subordinating the working class to “its” national bourgeoisie, alliance with it for the purpose of oppressing other nations and of fighting for great-power privileges, it means splitting the revolutionary proletariat in all countries.

Hard as the struggle may be, in individual cases, against the opportunists who predominate in many organisations, peculiar as the process of purging the workers’ parties of opportunists may be in individual countries, this process is inevitable and fruitful. Reformist Socialism is dying; regenerated Socialism “will be revolutionary, uncompromising and insurrectionary”, to use the apt expression of the French Socialist Paul Golay.

“Kautskyism”
Kautsky, the biggest authority in the Second International, gives us a highly typical and glaring example of how the verbal recognition of Marxism has led actually to its conversion into “Struveism”[6], or into “Brentanoism”.[7] We see this also from the example of Plekhanov. By means of obvious sophistry they rob Marxism of its revolutionary living spirit; they recognise everything in Marxism except revolutionary methods of struggle, the preaching of and preparation for such methods, and the training of the masses precisely in this direction. Kautsky, in an unprincipled fashion, “reconciles” the fundamental idea of social-chauvinism, recognition of defence of the fatherland in the present war, with a diplomatic, sham concession to the Lefts it, the shape of abstaining from voting credits, the verbal claim of being in the opposition, etc. Kautsky, who in 1909 wrote a whole book on the approaching epoch of revolutions and on the connection between war and revolutions, Kautsky, who in 1912 signed the Basle Manifesto on taking revolutionary advantage of the impending war, is now, in every way, justifying and embellishing social-chauvinism and, like Plekhanov, joins the bourgeoisie iii ridiculing all thought of revolution, all steps towards direct revolutionary struggle.

The working class cannot play its world-revolutionary role unless it wages a ruthless struggle against this renegacy. spinelessness, subservience to opportunism and unexampled vulgarization of the theories of Marxism. Kautskyism is not fortuity, but a social product of the contradictions within the Second International, a combination of loyalty to Marxism in words and subordination to opportunism in deeds.

This fundamental falseness of “Kautskyism” manifests itself in different ways in different countries. In Holland, Roland-HoIst while rejecting the idea of defending the fatherland, defends unity with the opportunists’ party. In Russia Trotsky, while also rejecting this idea, also defends unity with the opportunist and chauvinist Nasha Zarya group. In Rumania, Rakovsky, while declaring war on opportunism as being responsible for the collapse of the International, is at the same time ready to recognise the legitimacy of the idea of defending the fatherland. All this is a manifestation of the evil which the Dutch Marxists (Gorter and Pannekoek) have called “passive radicalism”, and which amounts to substituting for Marxism eclecticism in theory and servility to, or impotence in the face of, opportunism in practice.


The Marxists’ Slogan is the Slogan of Revolutionary Social-Democracy
The war has undoubtedly created a most acute crisis and has increased the distress of the masses to an incredible degree. The reactionary character of this war, and the shameless lies told by the bourgeoisie of all countries in covering up their predatory aims with “national” ideology, are inevitably creating, on the basis of an objectively revolutionary situation, revolutionary moods among the masses. It is our duty to help the masses to become conscious of these moods, to deepen and formulate them. This task is correctly expressed only by the slogan: convert the imperialist war into civil war; and all consistently waged class struggles during the war, all seriously conducted “mass action” tactics inevitably lead to this. It is impossible to foretell whether a powerful revolutionary movement will flare up during the first or the second war of the great powers, whether during or after it; in any case, our bounden duty is systematically and undeviatingly to work precisely in this direction.

The Basle Manifesto refers directly to the example set by the Paris Commune, i.e., to the conversion of a war between governments into civil war. Half a century ago, the proletariat was too weak; the objective conditions for Socialism had not yet ripened; there could be no coordination and cooperation between the revolutionary movements in all the belligerent countries; the “national ideology” (the traditions of 1792), with which a section of the Parisian workers were imbued, was their petty-bourgeois weakness, which Marx noted at the time, and was one of the causes of the fall of the Commune. Half a century after it, the conditions that weakened the revolution at that time have passed away, and it is unpardonable for a Socialist at the present time to resign himself to the abandonment of activities precisely in the spirit of the Paris Communards.

The Example Shown by the Fraternisation in the Trenches
The bourgeois newspapers of all the belligerent countries have reported cases of fraternisation between the soldiers of the belligerent nations even in the trenches. And the issue by the military authorities (of Germany, England) of draconic orders against such fraternisation proved that the governments and the bourgeoisie attached grave importance to it. he fact that such cases of fraternisation have been possible even when opportunism reigns supreme in the top ranks of the Social-Democratic parties of Western Europe, and when social-chauvinism is supported by the entire Social-Democratic press and by all the authorities of the Second International, shows us how possible it would be to shorten the present criminal, reactionary and slave-owners’ war and to organise a revolutionary international movement if systematic work were conducted in this direction, if only by the Left-wing Socialists in all the belligerent countries.

The Importance of an Underground Organisation
The most prominent Anarchists all over the world, no less than the opportunists, have disgraced themselves with social-chauvinism (in the spirit of Plekhanov and Kautsky) in this war. One of the useful results of this war will undoubtedly be that it will kill both anarchism and opportunism.

While under no circumstances or conditions refraining from utilizing all legal possibilities, however small, for the purpose of organizing the masses and of preaching Socialism, the Social-Democratic parties must break with subservience to legality. “You shoot first, Messieurs the Bourgeoisie,”[8] wrote Engels, hinting precisely at civil war and at the necessity of our violating legality after the bourgeoisie had violated it. The crisis has shown that the bourgeoisie violate it in all countries, even the freest, and that it is impossible to lead the masses to revolution unless an underground organisation is set up for the purpose of advocating, discussing, appraising and preparing revolutionary methods of struggle. In Germany, for example, all the honest things that Socialists are doing, are being done in spite of despicable opportunism and hypocritical “Kautskyism”, and are being done secretly. In England, people are sent to penal servitude for printing appeals against joining the army.

To regard the repudiation of underground methods of propaganda, and ridiculing the latter in the legally published press, as being compatible with membership of the Social-Democratic Patty is treachery to Socialism.

Concerning Defeat of “One’s Own” Government in the Imperialist War
Both the advocates of victory for their governments in the present war and the advocates of the slogan “neither victory not defeat”, equally take the standpoint of social-chauvinism. A revolutionary class cannot but wish for the defeat of its government in a reactionary war, cannot fail to see that its military reverses facilitate its overthrow. Only a bourgeois who believes that a war started by the governments must necessarily end as a war between governments and wants it to end as such, can regard as “ridiculous” and “absurd” the idea that the Socialists of all the belligerent countries should wish for the defeat of all “their” governments and express this wish. On the contrary, it is precisely a statement of this kind that would conform to the cherished thoughts of every class-conscious worker, and would be in line with our activities towards converting the imperialist war into civil war.

Undoubtedly, the serious anti-war agitation that is being conducted by a section of the British, German and Russian Socialists has “weakened the military power” of the respective governments, but such agitation stands to the credit of the Socialists. Socialists must explain to the masses that they have no other road of salvation except the revolutionary overthrow of “their” governments, and that advantage must be taken of these governments’ embarrassments in the present war precisely for this purpose.

Pacifism and the Peace Slogan
The sentiments of the masses in favour of peace often express incipient protest, anger and consciousness of the reactionary character of the war. It is the duty of all Social-Democrats to utilise these sentiments. They will take a most ardent pan in every movement and in every demonstration on this ground; but they will not deceive the people by conceding the idea that peace without annexations, without the oppression of nations, without plunder, without the germs of new wars among the present governments and ruling classes is possible in the absence of a revolutionary movement. Such a deception of the people would merely play into the hands of the secret diplomacy of the belligerent governments and facilitate their counter-revolutionary plans. Whoever wants a lasting and democratic peace must be in favour of civil war against the governments and the bourgeoisie.

The Right of Nations to Self-Determination
The most widespread deception of the people perpetrated by the bourgeoisie it, the present war is the concealment of its predatory aims with “national-liberation” ideology. The English promise the liberation of Belgium, the Germans of Poland, etc. Actually, as we have seen, this is a war waged by the oppressors of the majority of the nations of the world for the purpose of fortifying and expanding such oppression.

Socialists cannot achieve their great aim without fighting against all oppression of nations. Therefore, they must without fail demand that the Social-Democratic parties of oppressing countries (especially of the so-called “great” powers) should recognise and champion the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, precisely in the political sense of the term, i.e., the tight to political secession. The Socialist of a ruling or colony-owning nation who fails to champion this right is a chauvinist.

The championing of this right, far from encouraging the formation of small states, leads, on the contrary, to the freer, fearless and therefore wider and mote widespread formation of very big states and federations of states, which are more beneficial for the masses and more fully in keeping with economic development.

The Socialists of oppressed nations must, in their turn, unfailingly fight for the complete (including organisational) unity of the workers of the oppressed and oppressing nationalities. The idea of the juridical separation of one nation from another (so-called “cultural-national autonomy” advocated by Bauer and Renner) is reactionary.

Imperialism is the epoch of the constantly increasing oppression of the nations of the world by a handful of “great” powers and, therefore, it is impossible to fight for the socialist international revolution against imperialism unless the right of nations to self-determination is recognized. “No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations” (Marx and Engels). A proletariat that tolerates the slightest violence by “its” nation against other nations cannot be a socialist proletariat.


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Notes
[1] See Karl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, Berlin 1957, Vol.I, p.4.

[2] [PLACEHOLDER.]

a [3] The Basle Manifesto on the war issue was unanimously adopted at the special congress of the Second International held on November 4-25, 1912, at Basle, Switzerland. The manifesto revealed the predatory aims of the war the imperialists were preparing and urged workers everywhere resolutely to combat the war danger. The manifesto proposed that in the event of an imperialist war breaking out, Socialists should take advantage of the economic and political crisis to precipitate the socialist revolution. (On the Basic Manifesto, see also V.I. Lenin, The Collapse of the Second International, Collected Works, Eng. ed., International Publishers, New York 1930, Vol. XVIII, pp.273-82.)

At the Basic Congress Kautsky, Vandervelde and the other leaders of the Second International voted for the Manifesto, but as soon as the world war broke out in 1914, they went back on it, and sided with their imperialist governments.

b [4] The Stuttgart international Socialist Congress, held on August 18-24, 1907. At this congress the R.S.D.L.P. was represented by 37 delegates. Lenin, Lunacharsky, Litvinov and others represented the Bolsheviks.

Most of the work of the congress was conducted in commissions, which drafted resolutions for submission to the plenary sessions. Lenin was a member of the commission that drafted the resolution on Militarism and International Conflicts. Jointly with Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin moved his historic amendment to Bebel’s resolution, declaring that it was the duty of Socialists to take advantage of the crisis brought about by war to rouse the masses for the overthrow of capitalism. The congress accepted this amendment. (On the congress see V.I. Lenin, The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart, Selected Works, Eng. ed., Lawrence and Wishart, London 1943, Vol.IV, pp.314-23, and Collected Works, 4th Russ. ed., Vol.XIII, pp.59-65.)

c [5] The voting on August 4 – Oft August 4, 1914, the Social-Democratic group in the German Reichstag voted in favour of granting the government of Wilhelm II war credits and for supporting the imperialist war. The leaders of German Social-Democracy betrayed the working class and took up the position of social-chauvinism and of defence of their imperialist bourgeoisie.

d [6] Struveism – see pp. 48-49 of this book.

[7] Brentanoism – a bourgeois reformist theory which “recognised the ‘school of capitalism’, but rejected the school of the revolutionary class struggle” (Lenin). Lujo Brentano, a German bourgeois economist, advocate of so-called “State Socialism”, tried to prove that it was possible to achieve social equality within the capitalist system by means of reforms and the conciliation of the interests of the capitalists and the workers. Under the cloak of Marxist phraseology, Brentano and his followers tried to subordinate the working-dan movement to the interests of the bourgeoisie.

a [8] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Der Sozialismus in Deutschland, Collected Works, Ger. ed., Berlin 1963, Vol.XXII, p. 251.

*From The Pages Of The Communist International-In Honor Of The 92nd Anniversary Of Its Founding (March 1919) And The 91st Anniversary Of The Historic Second World Congress (1920)-Theses On Soviets, Trade Unions, And Agrarian Policy

Honor The 92nd Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International (March, 1919)- Honor The 91st Anniversary Of The Historic Second World Congress (The 21 Conditions Congress) Of The CI (July-August 1920)

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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Markin comment on these theses:

If fundamental theses orient toward the general tasks of the period then specific theses such as here divide those tasks up. The question of soviets and when they are appropriate is an  important question, although not now on the immediate agenda, except maybe in the Middle East today. As is the relationship between trade unions and factory committees. And today, at least, the question of agrarian policy in the less developed countries is key as currents events are forcing us to face.
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Markin comment on theses:
As noted in my commentary on the Manifesto of the Second World Congress of the Communist International (1920), reposted below since it also applies to these theses, such documents give the political movement it is addressed to its marching order. In a general sense, at least. These theses codify those general propositions outlined in the manifesto. Note here that this Second Congress took place as the international working class movement was going through a regroupment process right after World War I between the reformist socialists, the emerging communist vanguard, and the bewildered anarchists. Note also the difference in approaches to the more hardened reformist-led socialist parties, and to the ill-formed but more revolutionary-spirited anarchist formations, especially the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) here in America in their good days.
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A manifesto, particularly a political manifesto, and especially a revolutionary communist manifesto like the one that issued out of the historic Second World Congress of the Communist International in 1920 should give a cogent analysis of the world political situation. It should also describe the nature of the period (revolutionary, non-revolutionary, heading toward or away from either, an estimation of the enemy’s capacities, and the obstacles in the way both inside and outside the workers movement (out side the treachery of the liberals and inside the perfidy of the labor bureaucracy resting on the labor bureaucracy). In short, give the international proletariat its marching orders. The Manifesto of the Second World Congress does just those things at a time when the fledgling Communist International was trying to consolidate its vanguard position in the world working class movement. The Communist International then, and for some time after, did yeoman’s work in that regard, not always perfectly but from a revolutionary perspective. Even as it degenerated politically toward the middle and late 1920s there were, as the Leon Trotsky-led International Left Opposition held, reasons, good reasons to adhere to its tenets. Only with the debacle around Hitler’s coming to power in Germany did Trotsky throw in the towel. That seemed right then, and now. I would argue that the Seventh (and last) World Congress in 1935 unquestionably put paid to that notion. We did not need a vanguard national party, or a vanguard revolutionary international party for that matter, to give the lead in the political struggle to the liberal bourgeoisie as the popular frontist politics of the CI proclaimed from that time onward (with a few “left” turns). There was an international for that “strategy”, or rather a mail-drop address, it was (is) called the Second International.
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Minutes of the Second Congress of the Communist International: Theses

Theses on the Conditions under which Workers' Soviets may be Formed1. The Soviets of Workers’ Deputies appeared for the first time in Russ

ia in 1905, at a time when the revolutionary movement of Russian workers was at its height. Already in 1905, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ Deputies was taking the first instinctive steps towards the seizure of power. And at that time the Petrograd Soviet was strong only in so far as it had a chance of acquiring political power. As soon as the imperial counter-revolution rallied its forces and the labour movement slackened, the Soviet, after a short period of stagnation, ceased to exist.

2. When in 1,916, at the beginning of a new strong revolutionary wave, the idea began to awaken in Russia of the immediate organisation of Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, the Bolshevik Party warned the workers against the immediate formation of Soviets, and pointed out that such a formation would be well-timed only at the moment when the revolution was already beginning, and when the time had come for a direct struggle for power.

3 At the beginning of the February revolution of 1917, when the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies were transformed into Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, they drew into the sphere of their influence the widest circles of the masses, and at once acquired a tremendous authority, because the real force was on their side, in their hands. But when the liberal bourgeoisie recovered from the suddenness of the first revolutionary blows, and when the social traitors, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, helped the Russian bourgeoisie to take the power into its hands, the importance of the Soviets began to dwindle. Only after the July days and after the failure of Kornilov’s counter-revolutionary campaign, when the masses began to move, and when the collapse of the counter-revolutionary bourgeois coalition government became acute, did the Soviets begin to flourish again, and soon acquired a decisive importance in the country.

4. The history of the German and the Austrian revolutions shows the same. When the popular masses revolted, when the revolutionary wave rose so high that it washed away the strongholds of the monarchies of the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs, in Germany and in Austria the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies were formed with all the power of a force of nature. At first the real force was on their side, and the Soviets were well on the way to become the de facto power. But as soon as, owing to a whole series of historical conditions, the power began to pass to the bourgeoisie and the counter-revolutionary Social-Democrats, the Soviets began to decline and dwindled away to nothing. During the days of the unsuccessful counter-revolutionary revolt of Kapp-Luttwitz in Germany, the Soviets again resumed their activity, but when the struggle ended in the victory of the bourgeoisie and the social-traitors, the Soviets, which had just begun to revive, once more died away.

5. The above facts prove that for the formation of Soviets certain definite premises are required. To organise Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, and transform them into Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, the following conditions are necessary.

(a) A great revolutionary impulse among the widest circles of workmen and workwomen, the soldiers and workers in general;

(b) An acute political and economic crisis, attaining such a degree that the power begins to slip out of the hands of the government;

(c) When, in the ranks of considerable masses of workers, and first of all in the ranks of the Communist Party, a serious decision to begin a systematic and regular struggle for the power has become ripe.

6. In the absence of these conditions, the Communists may and should systematically and insistently propagate the idea of Soviets, popularise it among the masses, demonstrate to the widest circles of the population that the Soviets are the only efficient form of Government during the transition to complete Communism. But to proceed to the direct organisation of Soviets in the absence of the above three conditions is impossible.

7. The attempt of the social traitors in Germany to introduce the Soviets into the general bourgeois-democratic constitutional system, is treason to the workers’ cause and deception of the workers. Real Soviets are possible only as a form of state organisation, replacing bourgeois democracy, breaking it up and replacing it by the dictatorship of the proletariat.

8. The propaganda of the Right leaders of the Independents (Hilferding, Kautsky and others), intended to prove the compatibility of the ‘Soviet system’ with the bourgeois Constituent Assembly, is either a complete misunderstanding of the laws of development of a proletarian revolution, or a conscious deception of the working class. The Soviets are the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Constituent Assembly is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. To unite and reconcile the dictatorship of the working class with that of the bourgeoisie is impossible.

9. The propaganda of some representatives of the Left Independents in Germany presenting the workers with a ready-made formal plan of a ‘Soviet system’, having no relation whatever to the concrete process of civil war. is a doctrinaire pastime which diverts the workers from their essential tasks in the real struggle for power.

10. The attempts of separate Communist groups in France, Italy, America and England to form Soviets not embracing the larger working masses, and unable, therefore, to enter into a direct struggle for power, are only prejudicial to the actual preparation of a Soviet revolution. Such artificial hot-house ‘Soviets’ soon become transformed, at best, into small associations for propaganda of the Soviet idea, and in the worst case such miserable ‘Soviets’ are capable only of compromising the Soviet idea in the eyes of the popular masses.

11. At the present time there exists a special situation in Austria, where the working class has succeeded in preserving its Soviets, which unite large masses of workers. Here the situation resembles the period between February and October, 1917, in Russia. The Soviets in Austria represent a considerable political force, and appear to be the embryo of a new power.

It must be understood that in such a situation the Communists ought to participate in these Soviets, help them penetrate into all phases of the social, economic and political life of the country; they should create Communist factions within these Soviets, and by all means aid their development.

12. Soviets without a revolution are impossible. Soviets without a proletarian revolution inevitably become a parody of Soviets. The authentic Soviets of the masses are the historically-elaborated forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat. All sincere and serious partisans of Soviet power should deal cautiously with the idea of Soviets, and while indefatigably propagating it among the masses, should proceed to the direct realisation of such Soviets only under the conditions mentioned above.
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Minutes of the Second Congress of the Communist International: Theses

Theses on the Trade Union Movement, Factory Committees and the Third International
1. The trades unions, created by the working class during the period of the peaceful development of capitalism, were organisations of the workers to increase the price of labour in the labour market, and for the improvement of labour conditions. The revolutionary Marxists endeavoured by their influence to unite them with the political party of the proletariat, the – Social Democracy, for a joint struggle for socialism. For the same reasons that international Social Democracy, with a few exceptions, proved to be not an instrument of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for the overthrow of capitalism, but an organisation which held back the proletariat from revolution, in the interests of the bourgeoisie, the trades unions proved to be in most cases, during the war, a part of the military apparatus of the bourgeoisie, helping the latter to exploit the working class as much as possible in a more energetic struggle for profits. Containing chiefly the skilled workmen, better paid, limited by their craft narrowmindedness, fettered by a bureaucratic apparatus disconnected from the masses, demoralised by their opportunist leaders, the unions betrayed not only the cause of the social revolution, but even also the struggle for the improvement of the conditions of life of the workmen organised by them. They started from the point of view of the trade union struggle against the employers, and replaced it by the programme of an amicable arrangement with the capitalists at any cost. This policy was carried on not only by the Liberal unions of England and America, not only by the would-be ‘socialist’ trades unions in Germany and Austria, but by the syndicalist unions in France as well.

2. The economic consequences of the war, the complete disorganisation of world economy, the insane prices, the unlimited use of the labour of women and children, the worsening of the housing conditions, all these are forcing the large masses of the proletariat into the struggle against capitalism. This struggle is revolutionary warfare, by its proportions and the character that it is assuming more and more every day; a warfare destroying in fact the bases of the capitalist order. The increase of wages, obtained one day by the economic struggle of one or another category of workers, is the next day nullified by the high prices. The prices must continue to rise, because the capitalist class of the victorious countries, ruining Central and Eastern Europe by its policy of exploitation, is not only not in a position to organise the world economy, but is incessantly disorganising it. For the success of their economic struggle, the wider masses of workers, who until now have stood apart from the labour unions, are now flowing into their ranks in a powerful stream. In all capitalist countries a tremendous increase of the trades unions is to be noticed, which now become organisations of the chief masses of the proletariat, not only of its advanced elements. Flowing into the unions, these masses strive to make them their weapons of battle. The sharpening of class antagonism compels the trades unions to lead strikes, which flow in a broad wave over the entire capitalist world, constantly interrupting the process of capitalist production and exchange. Increasing their demands in proportion to the rising prices and their own exhaustion, the working classes undermine the bases of all capitalist calculations and the elementary premise of every well-organised economic management. The unions, which during the war had been organs of compulsion over the working masses, become in this way organs for the annihilation of capitalism.

3. The old trade union bureaucracy and the old forms of organisation of the trades unions are in every way opposing such a change in the nature of the trades unions. The old trade union bureaucracy is endeavouring in many places to maintain the trades unions as organisations of the workers’ aristocracy; it preserves the rules which make it impossible for the badly paid working classes to enter into the trade union organisations. The old trade union aristocracy is even now intensifying its efforts to replace the strike methods, which are ever more and more acquiring the character of revolutionary warfare between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, by the policy of arrangements with the capitalists, the policy of long term contracts, which have lost all sense simply in view of the constant insane rise in prices. It tries to force upon the workers the policy of ‘Joint Industrial Councils’, and to impede by law the leading of strikes, with the assistance of the capitalist state. At the most tense moments of the struggle this bureaucracy sows trouble and confusion among the struggling masses of the workers, impeding the fusion of the struggle of various categories of workmen into one general class struggle. In these attempts it is helped by the old organisations of the trades unions according to crafts, which breaks up the workmen of one branch of production into separate professional groups, notwithstanding their being bound together by the process of capitalist exploitation. It rests on the force of the tradition of the old labour aristocracy, which is now constantly being weakened by the process of suppression of the privilege of separate groups of the proletariat through the general decay of capitalism, the equalisation of the level of the working class and the growth of the poverty and precariousness of its livelihood. In this way the trade union bureaucracy breaks up the powerful stream of the labour movement into weak streamlets, substitutes partial reformist demands for the general revolutionary aims of the movement, and on the whole retards the transformation of the struggle of the proletariat into a revolutionary struggle for the annihilation of capitalism.

4. Bearing in mind the rush of the enormous working masses into the trades unions, and also the objective revolutionary character of the economic struggle which those masses are carrying on in spite of the trade union bureaucracy, the Communists must join such unions in all countries, in order to make of them efficient organs of the struggle for the suppression of capitalism and for Communism. They must initiate the forming of trades unions where these do not exist. All voluntary withdrawals from the industrial movement, every artificial attempt to organise special unions, without being compelled thereto by exceptional acts of violence on the part of the trade union bureaucracy such as the expulsion of separate revolutionary local branches of the unions by the opportunist officials, or by their narrow-minded aristocratic policy, which prohibits the unskilled workers from entering into the organisation – represents a great danger to the Communist movement. It threatens to hand over the most advanced, the most conscious workers to the opportunist leaders, playing into the hands of the bourgeoisie. The luke-warmness of the working masses, their theoretical indecision, their tendency to yield to the arguments of opportunist leaders, can be overcome only during the process of the ever-growing struggle, by degrees, as the wider masses of the proletariat learn to understand, by experience, by their victories and defeats, that in fact it is already impossible to obtain human conditions of life on the basis of capitalist methods of management; and by degrees as the advanced Communist workmen learn through their economic struggle to be not only preachers of the ideas of communism, but also the most determined leaders of the economic struggle of the labour unions. Only in this way will it be possible to remove from the unions their opportunist leaders, only in this way will the communists be able to take the lead in the trade union movement and make of it an organ of the revolutionary struggle for communism. Only in this way can they prevent the break-up of the trades unions, and replace them by industrial unions – remove the old bureaucracy separated from the masses and replace it by the apparatus of factory-representatives, leaving only the most necessary functions to the centre.

5. Placing the object and the essence of labour organisations before them, the Communists ought not to hesitate before a split in such organisations, if a refusal to split would mean abandoning revolutionary work in the trades unions, and giving up the attempt to make of them an instrument of revolutionary struggle, the attempt to organise the most exploited section of the proletariat. But even if such a split should be necessary, it must be carried into effect only at a time when the Communists have succeeded by incessant warfare against the opportunist leaders and their tactics, in persuading the wider masses of workmen that the split is occurring not because of the remote and as yet incomprehensible aims of the revolution, but on account of the concrete, immediate interests of the working class in the development of its economic struggle. The Communists, in case a necessity for a split arises, must continuously and attentively discuss the question as to whether such a split might not lead to their isolation from the working masses.

6. Where a split between the opportunists and the revolutionary trade union movement has already taken place before, where, as in America, alongside of the opportunist trades unions, there are unions with revolutionary tendencies – although not communist ones – there the Communists are bound to support such revolutionary unions, to persuade them to abandon syndicalist prejudices and to place themselves on the platform Of communism, which alone is the platform for the economic struggle. Where within the trades unions or outside of them organisations are formed in the factories, such as shop stewards, factory committees, etc., for the purpose of fighting against the counter-revolutionary tendencies of the trade union bureaucracy, to support the spontaneous direct action of the proletariat, there, of course, the Communists must with all their energy give assistance to these organisations. But they must not fail to support the revolutionary trades unions, which are in a state of ferment and passing over to the class struggle. On the contrary, by approaching this evolution of the unions on their way to a revolutionary struggle, the Communists will be able to play the part of an element uniting the politically and industrially organised workmen in their struggle for the suppression of capitalism.

The economic struggle of the proletariat becomes a political struggle during an epoch of the decline of capitalism much quicker than during an epoch of its peaceful development. Every serious economic clash may immediately place the workers face to face with the question of revolution. Therefore it is the duty of the Communists in all the phases of the economic struggle to point out to the workers that the success of the struggle is only possible if the working class conquers the capitalists in open fight, and by means of dictatorship proceeds to the organisation of a socialist order. Consequently, the Communist must strive to create as far as possible complete unity between the trades unions and the Communist Party, and to subordinate the unions to the practical leadership of the party, as the advanced guard of the workers’ revolution. For this purpose the Communists should have communist groups in all the trades unions and factory committees and acquire by their means an influence over the labour movement and direct it.

II
1. The economic struggle of the proletariat for the increase of wages and the improvement of the conditions of life of the masses, is getting more and more into a blind alley. The economic crisis, embracing one country after another in ever-increasing proportions, is showing to even unenlightened workmen that it is not enough to demand an increase of wages and a shortening of the working hours, but that the capitalist class is less capable every day of establishing the normal conditions of public economy and of guaranteeing to the workers at least those conditions of life which it gave them before the world war. Out of this growing conviction of the working masses are born their efforts to create organisations which will be able to commence a struggle for the alleviation of the situation by means of workers’ control over production, through the medium of the factory committees. This aspiration to create factory committees, which is more and more taking possession of the workmen of different countries, takes its origin from the most varied causes (struggle against the counter-revolutionary bureaucracy, discouragement after union defeats, striving to create an organisation embracing all workers), but at the end it results in the fight for control over industry, the special historic task of the factory committees. Therefore, it is a mistake to form the shop committees only out of workmen who are already struggling for the dictatorship of the proletariat; on the contrary, the duty of the Communist Party is to organise all the workers on the ground of the economic crisis, and to lead them towards the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat by developing the struggle for workers’ control over production, which they all understand.

2. The Communist Party will be able to accomplish this task if, taking part in the struggle in the factory committees, it will instil into the minds of the masses the consciousness that a systematic reconstruction of public economy on the basis of capitalism, which would mean its new enslavement by the government in favour of the industrial class, is now totally impossible. The organisation of economic management in the interests of the working masses, is possible only when the government is in the hands of the working class, when the strong hand of labour dictatorship will proceed to the suppression of capitalism and to the new socialist organisation.

3. The struggle of the factory committees against capitalism has for its immediate object workers’ control over production. The workers of every enterprise, every branch of industry, no matter what their trade, suffer from the ‘sabotage’ of production on the part of capitalists, who frequently consider it more profitable to stop production in order that it may be easier to compel the workers to agree to unsatisfactory labour conditions, or not to invest new capital in industry at a moment of a general rise in prices. The need to protect themselves against such a sabotage of production by the capitalists unites the workmen independently of their political opinions, and therefore the factory committees elected by the workers of a given enterprise are the broadest mass organisations of the proletariat. But the disorganisation of capitalist management is the result of not only the conscious will of the capitalists, but in a still greater degree an inevitable decline of capitalism. Therefore, in their struggle against the consequences of such a decline, the factory committees must go beyond the limits of control in separate factories. The factory committees of separate factories will soon be faced with the question of workers’ control over whole branches of industry and their combinations. And as any attempt on the part of workmen to exercise a control over the supplying of the factories with raw material, or to control the financial operations of the factory owners, will be met by the most energetic measures against the working class on the part of the bourgeoisie and the capitalist government, the struggle for workers’ control over production must lead to the struggle for a seizure of power by the working class.

4. The campaign in favour of factory committees must be conducted in such a way that into the minds of the popular masses, even those not directly belonging to the factory proletariat, there should he instilled the conviction that the bourgeoisie is responsible for the economic crisis, while the proletariat with the watchword of workers’ control of industry, is struggling for the organisation of production, for the suppression of speculation, disorganisation and high prices. The duty of the Communist Parties is to struggle for control over production on the ground of the most insistent questions of the day: the lack of fuel and the transport crisis, to unite the different groups of the proletariat and to attract wide circles of the petty bourgeoisie, which is becoming more and more proletarianised day by day, and is suffering extremely from the economic crisis.

5. The factory committees cannot be substituted for the trades unions. During the process of struggle they may form unions outside the limits of single factories and trades, according to the branches of production, and create a general apparatus for the direction of the struggle. The trades unions are already now centralised fighting organs, although they do not embrace such wide masses of workers as the factory committees can, these latter being loose organisations which are accessible to all the workers of a given enterprise. The division of tasks between the shop committees and the industrial unions is the result of the historical development of the social revolution. The industrial unions organise the working masses for the struggle for the increase of wages and shortening of hours on a national scale. The factory committees are organised for workers’ control over production, for the struggle against the crisis, and embrace all the workers of the enterprise, but their struggle can only gradually assume the character of a national, one. The Communists must endeavour to render the factory committees the nuclei of the trades unions and to support them in proportion as the unions overcome the counter-revolutionary tendencies of their bureaucracy, as they consciously become organs of the revolution.

6. The duty of the Communists consists in inspiring the trades unions and factory committees with a spirit of determined struggle, and the consciousness and knowledge of the best methods of such a struggle – the spirit of communism. In carrying out this duty the Communists must in practice subordinate the factory committees and the unions to the Communist Party, and thus create a proletarian mass organ, a basis for a powerful centralised party of the proletariat, embracing all the organisations of the workers’ struggle, leading them all to one aim, to the victory of the working class, through the dictatorship of the proletariat to communism. The Communists, by converting the trades unions and factory committees into powerful weapons of the revolution, prepare these mass organisations for the great task which they will have after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat – the task of being the instrument of the reorganisation of economic life on a socialist basis. The trades unions, developed as industrial unions and supported by the factory committees as their factory organisations will then make the working masses acquainted with their tasks of production. They will educate the most experienced workers to become leaders of the factories, to control the technical specialists, and, together with the representatives of the workers’ state, lay down the plan of the socialist economic policy, and carry it out.

III
The trades unions tried to form international unions even in peacetime, because during strikes the capitalists used to invite workers from other countries as strike-breakers. But the Trade Union International had only a secondary importance before the war. It made one union support another when needful, it organised social statistics, but it did nothing for the organisation of a joint struggle, because the trades unions, under the leadership of opportunists, strove to avoid all revolutionary collisions on an international scale.

The opportunist leaders of the trades unions, who each in his own country during the war was a flunkey of his bourgeoisie, are now striving to revive the Trade Union International, attempting to make it a weapon for the direct struggle of the international world capital against the proletariat. Under the direction of Legien, Jouhaux and Gompers they are creating a Labour Bureau of the League of Nations, that organisation of international capitalist robbery. In all countries they are attempting to crush the strike movement by means of laws, and so compel the workers to submit to the arbitration of representatives of the capitalist state.

They are endeavouring to obtain concessions for the skilled workers by means of agreements with the capitalists, in order to break in this way the growing unity of the working class. The Amsterdam Trade Union International is thus a substitute for the bankrupt Second International of Brussels.

The Communist workers who are members of the trades unions in all countries must on the contrary strive to create an international battle-front of trades unions. The question now is not financial relief in case of strikes; but when danger is threatening the working class of one country, the trades unions of the others, being organisations of the larger masses, should all come to its defence; they should make it impossible for the bourgeoisie of their respective countries to render assistance to the bourgeoisie of the country engaged in the struggle against the working class. The economic struggle of the proletariat in all countries is daily becoming more and more a revolutionary struggle. Therefore, the trades unions must consciously use their forces for the support of all revolutionary struggles in their own and in other countries. For this purpose they must not only, in their own countries, strive to attain as great as possible centralisation of their struggle but they must do so on an international scale by joining the Communist International, and uniting in one army, the different parts of which shall carry on the struggle jointly, supporting one another.
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Minutes of the Second Congress of the Communist International: Theses

Theses on the Agrarian Question
1. Only the urban industrial proletariat, led by the Communist Party, can save the toiling masses in the countryside from the yoke of capital and landlordism, from dissolution and from imperialist wars, inevitable as long as the capitalist regime endures. There is no salvation for the peasants except to join the Communist proletariat, to support with heart and soul its revolutionary struggle to throw off the yoke of the landlords and the bourgeoisie.

On the other hand the industrial workers will be unable to carry out their universal historic mission, and liberate humanity from the bondage of capital and war, if they shut themselves within their separate crafts, their narrow trade interests, and restrict themselves complacently to a desire for the improvement of their sometimes tolerable bourgeois conditions of life. That is what happens in most advanced countries possessing a ‘labour aristocracy’, which forms the basis of the would-be parties of the Second International, who are in fact the worst enemies of Socialism, traitors to it, bourgeois jingoes, agents of the bourgeoisie in the labour movement. The proletariat becomes a truly revolutionary class, truly socialist in its actions, only by acting as the vanguard of all those who work and are being exploited, only as their leader in the struggle for the overthrow of the oppressors; and this cannot be achieved without carrying the class struggle into the agricultural districts, without rallying the toiling masses of the country around the Communist Party of the urban proletariat, without the peasants being educated by the urban proletariat.

2. The toiling and exploited masses in the countryside, which the urban proletariat must lead on to the fight, or at least win over to its side, are represented in all capitalist countries by the following groups:

In the first place, the agricultural proletariat, the hired labourers (seasonal, migrant and casual) making their living by wage labour in capitalist agricultural or industrial establishments. The independent organisation of this class, separated from the other groups of the country population (in a political, military, trade, co-operative, educational sense), and energetic propaganda among it, in order to win it over to the side of the Soviet Power and of the dictatorship of the proletariat – such is the fundamental task of the Communist Parties in all countries.

In the second place the semi-proletarians or smallholders, those who make their living partly by working for wages in agricultural and industrial capitalist establishments, partly by toiling on their own or on a rented piece of land, yielding but a part of the food needed for their families. This class of the toiling rural population is fairly numerous in all capitalist countries, but its existence and its peculiar position is hushed up by the representatives of the bourgeoisie and the yellow ‘socialists’ affiliated to the Second International. Some of these people intentionally cheat the workers, but others follow blindly the average petty-bourgeois view and mix up this special class with the whole mass of the ‘peasantry’. Such a method of bourgeois deception of the workers is to be observed more particularly in Germany and France, and to a lesser extent in America and other countries. Provided that the work of the Communist Party is well-organised, this group is sure to side with the Communists, the conditions of life of these half-proletarians being very hard; the advantage the Soviet Power and the dictatorship of the proletariat would bring them being enormous and immediate. In some countries there is no clear-cut distinction between these two groups; it is therefore permissible under certain circumstances not to form them into separate organisations.

In the third place the small peasants, the farmers who possess by right of ownership, or rent, small portions of land which satisfy the needs of their family and of their farming without requiring any additional wage labour. This part of the population gains everything by the victory of the proletariat, which brings with it: a) liberation from the payment of rent, or a part of it, with crops to the owners of large estates (for instance, the métayers in France, the same arrangements in Italy, etc.); b) abolition of all mortgages; c) abolition of many forms of dependence on the owners of large estates (the use of forests and pastures, etc.); d) immediate help from the proletarian state for farm work (permitting use by peasants of the agricultural implements and part of the land on the big capitalist estates expropriated by the proletariat, immediate transformation by the proletarian state power of all consumer and agricultural co-operatives, which under capitalist rule were chiefly supporting the wealthy and powerful peasant, into institutions primarily for support of the poor peasant; that is to say, the proletarians, semi-proletarians, small peasants etc.).

At the same time the Communist Party should be thoroughly aware that during the transitional period leading from capitalism to communism, i.e., during the dictatorship of the proletariat, at least some partial hesitations are inevitable in this class, in favour of unrestricted free trade and free use of the rights of private property. For this class, being a seller of commodities (although on a small scale), is necessarily demoralised by profit-hunting and habits of proprietorship. And yet, provided there is a consistent proletarian policy. and the victorious proletariat deals relentlessly with the owners of the large estates and the big peasants , the hesitations of the class in question will not be .considerable, and cannot change the fact that on the whole this class will side with the proletarian revolution.

3. All these three groups taken together constitute the majority of the agrarian population in all capitalist countries. This guarantees in full the success of the proletarian revolution, not only in the towns, but in the country as well. The opposite view is very widely spread, but it persists only because of a systematic deceit on the part of bourgeois scientists and statisticians. They hush up by every means any mention of the deep chasm which divides the rural classes we have indicated, between exploiting landowners and capitalists on the one hand and half-proletarians and small peasants on the other. This arises from the incapacity and the failure of the heroes of the yellow .Second International and the ‘labour aristocracy’, demoralised by imperialist privileges, to do genuine propaganda work on behalf of the proletarian revolution, or to conduct organising work among the poor in the country. All the attention of the opportunists was given and is being given now to the arrangement of theoretical and practical agreements with the bourgeoisie, including the landed and middle peasantry, and not to the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois government and the bourgeois class by the proletariat.

Finally, this view persists because of the force of inveterate prejudice connected with all bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices, and the incapacity to grasp a simple truth fully proven by the Marxian theory and confirmed by the practice of the proletarian revolution in Russia. This truth consists in the fact that the peasant population of the three classes we have mentioned above, being extremely oppressed, scattered and doomed to live in half-civilised conditions in all countries, even in the most advanced, is economically, socially and morally interested in the victory of Socialism; but that, with the exception of the agricultural workers, who already support the revolution, it will finally support the revolutionary proletariat only after the proletariat has taken the political power, after it has done away with the owners of the large estates and the capitalists, after the oppressed masses are able to see in practice that they have an organised leader and helper sufficiently powerful and firm to support, to guide and to show the right way.

The ‘middle peasantry’, in the economic sense, consists of small landowners who possess, according to the right of ownership or rent, portions of land, which, although small, nevertheless may usually yield under capitalist rule, not only a provision for the family and the needs of the farming, but also the possibility to accumulate a certain surplus, which, at least in the best years, could be transformed into capital; these farmers are often also in a position to hire outside labour. A group with farms of from 5 to 10 hectares of land in the German statistics of 1907 can serve as an example of the middle peasantry in an advanced capitalist country, where the number of agricultural wage labourers employed came to about a third of the number of farms in the group. In France, the country of a greater development of intensive culture, for instance of the vineyards, requiring special treatment and care, the corresponding group employs outside wage labour probably in a somewhat larger proportion.

4. The revolutionary proletariat cannot make it its aim, at least for the near future, and during the beginning of the period of proletarian dictatorship, to win this class over to its side. The proletariat will have to content itself with neutralising this class, i.e., preventing it from giving active aid to the bourgeoisie in the struggle between it and the proletariat. The vacillation of this class is unavoidable, and in the beginning of the new epoch its predominating tendency in the advanced capitalist countries will be in favour of the bourgeoisie, for the ideas and sentiments of private property are characteristic of the owners. The victorious proletariat will immediately improve the lot of this class by abolishing the system of rent and mortgage, and by the introduction of machinery and electrical appliances into agriculture. The proletarian state power cannot at once abolish private property in most of the capitalist countries, but must do away with all duties and levies imposed on this class of people by the landlords. In any case, the proletarian regime will guarantee the small and middle peasants not only the retention of their land, but also its increase by all the land they hitherto rented (by the abolition of rent).

The combination of such measures with a relentless struggle against the bourgeoisie guarantees the full success of the neutralisation policy. The. transition to collective agriculture must be managed with much circumspection and step by step, and the proletarian state power must proceed by the force of example, by the provision of machinery, the introduction of technical improvements and electrification, without any violence towards the middle peasantry.

5. The large peasants are capitalists in agriculture, managing their lands usually with several hired labourers. They are connected with the ‘peasantry’ only by their standard of culture, their way of living, and their personal manual labour on the land. This is the most numerous element of the bourgeois class, and the decided enemy of the revolutionary proletariat. The chief attention of the Communist Party in the rural districts must be given to the struggle against this element, to the liberation of the labouring and exploited majority of the rural population from the moral and political influence of these exploiters.

After the victory of the proletariat in the towns this class will inevitably oppose it by all means, from sabotage to open armed counter-revolutionary resistance. The revolutionary proletariat must therefore immediately begin, theoretically and organisationally, to prepare the necessary force for the disarmament of this class, and together with the overthrow of the capitalists in industry, the proletariat must deal a relentless, crushing blow to this class. To that end it must arm the rural proletariat and organise soviets in the country, with no room for exploiters and a preponderant place reserved to the proletarians and semi-proletarians.

But the expropriation even of the large peasants can by no means be an immediate object of the victorious proletariat, considering the lack of material, particularly of technical-material and further, of the social conditions necessary for the socialisation of such lands. In some, probably exceptional cases, parts of their estates will be confiscated if they are leased in small parcels, or if they are specifically needed by the small-peasant population. A free use must be also secured to this population, on definite terms, of a part of the agricultural machinery of the large peasants, etc. As a general rule, however, the state power can leave the large peasants in possession of their land, confiscating it only in case of resistance to the government of the labouring and exploited peasants. The experience of the Russian proletarian revolution, whose struggle against the landed peasants became very complicated and, prolonged owing to a number of particular circumstances, nevertheless shows that this class, if it is taught a lesson for even the slightest resistance, will be quite willing to serve loyally the aims of the proletarian state. It begins even to be permeated, although very slowly, by a respect for the government which protects every worker and deals relentlessly with the idle rich.

The specific conditions which made the struggle of the Russian proletariat against the large peasantry peculiarly difficult after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, consist mainly in the fact that after the coup d'état of October 25 (November 7) 1917, the Russian revolution traversed a stage of ‘general democratic’ (in fact, bourgeois-democratic) struggle of the peasantry as a whole against the landowners. The urban proletariat was culturally and numerically weak and, with the extremely bad communications, the long distances created great difficulties. The revolutionary proletariat in Europe and America must energetically prepare and carry out a much more rapid and complete victory over the resistance of the large peasantry, depriving them of all possibility of resistance. This is of the utmost importance, considering that until a complete, absolute victory is won, the proletarian state power cannot be regarded as secure and capable of resisting its enemies.

6. The revolutionary proletariat must proceed to an immediate and unconditional confiscation of the estates of the landowners and big landlords, that is of all those who systematically employ wage labour, directly or through their tenants, exploit all the small (and not infrequently also the middle) peasantry in their neighbourhood, and do not do any actual manual work. To this element belong the majority of the descendants of the feudal lords (the nobility of Russia, Germany and Hungary, the restored seigneurs of France, the Lords in England, the former slave owners m America) or financial magnates who have become particularly rich, or a mixture of those classes of exploiters and idlers.

No propaganda can be admitted in the ranks of the Communist Parties in favour of compensation to be paid to the owners of large estates for their expropriation. In the present conditions prevailing in Europe and America this would mean treason to socialism and the imposition of a new tax on the labouring and exploited masses, who have already suffered from the war – the war which increased the number of millionaires and multiplied their wealth.

In the advanced capitalist countries the Communist International considers that it is correct to preserve the large agricultural establishments and manage them on the lines of the ‘Soviet farms’ in Russia. It is also advisable to encourage collective establishments, co-operative estates, communes.

As a result of the economic backwardness of the country it was necessary in Russia to proceed to distribute the land among the peasants for their use. Only in comparatively few cases was it possible to use the land for the establishment of a so-called Soviet Farm, managed by the proletarian state on its own account. The previous wage-labourers are then transformed into both employees of the state and members of the soviets that administrate the state.

The preservation of large landholdings serves best the interests of the revolutionary elements of the rural population, namely, the land less agricultural workers and semi-proletarian small land-holders, who get their livelihood mainly by working on the large estates. Besides, the nationalisation of large land-holdings makes the urban population, at least in part, less dependent on the peasantry for their food.

In those places, however, where relics of the feudal system still prevail, the landlord’s privileges give rise to special forms of exploitation, such as serfdom and share-cropping, it may under certain conditions be necessary to hand over part of the land of the big estates to the peasants.

In countries and areas where large landholdings are insignificant in number, while a great number of small tenants are in search of land, there the distribution of the large holdings can prove a sure means of winning the peasantry for the revolution, while the preservation of the large estates can be of no value for the provisioning of the towns. The first and most important tasks of the proletarian state is to secure a lasting victory. The proletariat must not flinch from a temporary decline of production so long as it makes for the success of the revolution. Only by persuading the middle peasantry to maintain a neutral attitude, and by gaining the support of a large part, if not the whole, of the small peasantry, can the lasting maintenance of the proletarian power be secured.

At any rate, where the land of the large owners is being distributed, the interests of the agricultural proletariat must be a primary consideration.

The implements of large estates must be converted into state property, absolutely intact, but on the unfailing condition that these implements be put at the disposal of the small peasants free of charge, subject to conditions worked out by the proletarian state.

If, just after the proletarian coup d'état, the immediate confiscation of the big estates becomes absolutely necessary, and moreover also the banishment or internment of all landowners as leaders of the counter-revolution and relentless oppressors of the whole rural population, the proletarian state, in proportion to its consolidation not only in the towns, but in the country as well, must systematically strive to take advantage of men of the bourgeoisie who possess valuable experience, learning, organising ability, and must use them under special supervision of reliable communist workers and the control of the estate Soviets, to organise large-scale agriculture on socialist principles.

7. Socialism will not finally have vanquished capitalism and securely established itself for ever until the proletarian state power, after having finally subdued all resistance of the exploiters and secured for itself a complete and absolute submission, will reorganise the whole of industry on the basis of scientific large-scale production and the most modem achievements of technique (electrification of the whole economy). This alone will afford a possibility of such radical help in the technical and the social sense, accorded by the town to the backward and dispersed country, that this help will create the material base for an enormous increase of the productivity of agriculture and general farming work, and will incite the small farmers by force of example and for their own benefit, to change to large collective machine agriculture.

Most particularly in the rural districts a real possibility of successful struggle for socialism requires that all Communist Parties inculcate in the industrial proletariat the consciousness of the necessity of sacrifice on its part for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of proletarian power; for the dictatorship of the proletariat is based not only on its ability to organise and to lead the working and exploited masses, but also on the vanguard being ready for the greatest efforts and most heroic sacrifice for this goal. The possibility of success requires that the labouring and most exploited masses in the country experience an immediate and great improvement of their position caused by the victory of the proletariat, and at the expense of the exploiters. Unless this is done, the industrial proletariat cannot depend on the support of the rural districts, and cannot secure the provisionment of the towns with foodstuffs.

8. The enormous difficulty of the organisation and education for the revolutionary struggle of the agrarian labouring masses placed by capitalism in conditions of particular oppression, dispersion, and often a medieval dependence, require from the Communist Parties a special care for the strike movement in the rural districts. It requires powerful support and wide development of mass strikes of the agrarian proletarians and half-proletarians. The experience of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, confirmed and enlarged now by the experience of Germany, Poland, Italy, Britain and other advanced countries, shows that only the development of mass strike struggle (under certain conditions the small peasants are also to be drawn into these strikes) will be able to arouse the slumbering village and awaken the consciousness of the necessity of the class organisation in the exploited masses in the country, and show the obvious practical use of a union with the town workers. From this standpoint the promotion of the unionization of agricultural workers and the co-operation of communists in the land and forest workers’ unions are of great importance. The communists must likewise support the co-operative organisations formed by the exploited agricultural population closely connected with the revolutionary labour movement. A vigorous agitation is likewise to be carried on among the small peasants.

The Congress of the Communist International denounces as traitors those socialists – unfortunately there are such not only in the yellow Second International but also among the three most important European parties which have left the Second International – who manage not only to be indifferent towards the strike struggle in the rural districts, but who oppose it (like the trades union bureaucracy, the Scheidemanns and the Kautskys) on the ground that it might cause a falling-off of the production of foodstuffs. No programmes and no solemn declarations have any value if the fact is not in evidence, testified by actual deeds, that the Communists and the workers’ leaders know how to put above all the development of the proletarian revolution and its victory, and are ready to make the utmost sacrifices for the sake of this victory. Unless this is a fact there is no issue, no escape from starvation, dissolution and new imperialist wars.

The Communist Parties must make all efforts possible to start as soon as possible setting up Soviets in the country, and these soviets must be chiefly composed of hired labourers and half-proletarians. The formation of Soviets of small peasants must also be propagated. Only in connection with the mass strike struggle of the most oppressed class will the soviets be able to serve fully their ends, and become sufficiently firm to dominate the small peasants and later bring them into their ranks in alliance with the soviets of agricultural workers. But if the strike struggle is not yet developed, and the ability to organise the agrarian proletariat is weak because of the strong oppression of the landowners and the landed peasants, and also because of the want of support from the industrial workers and their unions, the organisation of the soviets in the rural districts will require a long preparation by means of creating Communist cells, however small; of intensive propaganda expounding in a most popular form the demands of the Communists and illustrating the reasons for these demands by specially convincing cases of exploitation; by systematic agitational excursions of industrial workers into the country, etc.

Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- The Shirelles “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”- Billie’s, Billie The Pope Of “The Projects” Night, View

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Shirelles performing the classic Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?.

Markin comment:

This is another tongue-in-cheek commentary, the back story if you like, in the occasional entries under this headline going back to the primordial youth time of the mid to late 1950s with its bags full of classic rock songs for the ages. Of course, any such efforts have to include the views of one Billie, William James Bradley, the schoolboy mad-hatter of the 1950s rock jailbreak out in our “the projects” neighborhood. Ya, in those days, unlike during his later fateful wrong turn trajectory days, every kid, including best friend Markin, me, lived to hear what he had to say about any song that came trumpeting over the radio, at least every one that we would recognize as our own.
Note:

Billie and I spent many, many hours mainly up in his tiny bedroom, his rock heaven bedroom, walls plastered with posters of Elvis, Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry and of every new teen heartthrob singer, heartthrob to the girls that is, around, every new record Billie could get his hands on, by hook or by crook, and neatly folded piles of clothing, also gathered by that same hook or by crook, appropriate to the king hell king of the schoolboy rock scene, the elementary school rock scene between about 1956 to 1960. Much of that time was spent discussing the “meaning” of various songs, especially their sexual implications, ah, their mystery of girls-finding-out-about worthiness.

Although in early 1959 my family was beginning to start the process of moving out of the projects, and, more importantly, I had begun to move away from Billie’s orbit, his new found orbit as king hell gangster wannabe, I still would wander back until mid-1960 just to hear his take on whatever music was interesting him at the time. These commentaries, these Billie commentaries, are my recollections of his and my conversations on the song lyrics in this series. But I am not relying on memory alone. During this period we would use my father’s tape recorder, by today’s standard his big old reel to reel monstrosity of a tape recorder, to record Billie’s covers of the then current hit songs (for those who have not read previously of Billie’s “heroics” he was a pretty good budding rock singer at the time) and our conversations of those song meanings that we fretted about for hours. I have, painstakingly, had those reels transcribed so that many of these commentaries will be the actual words (somewhat edited, of course) that appear in this space. That said, Billie, king hell rock and roll king of the old neighborhood, knew how to call a lyric, and make us laugh to boot. Wherever you are Billie I’m still pulling for you. Got it.
********
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Lyrics

Carole King

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

Tonight you're mine completely,
You give your love so sweetly,
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes,
But will you love me tomorrow?

Is this a lasting treasure,
Or just a moment's pleasure,
Can I believe the magic of your sighs,
Will you still love me tomorrow?

Tonight with words unspoken,
You said that I'm the only one,
But will my heart be broken,
When the night (When the night)
Meets the morning sun.

I'd like to know that your love,
Is love I can be sure of,
So tell me now and I won't ask again,
Will you still love me tomorrow?
Will you still love me tomorrow?

**********
Billie back again, William James Bradley, if you didn’t know. Markin’s pal, Peter Paul Markin’s pal, from over the Adamsville Elementary School and the pope of rock lyrics down here in “the projects.” The Adamsville projects, if you don’t know. Markin, who I hadn’t seen for a while since he moved “uptown” to North Adamsville, came by the other day to breathe in the fresh air of the old neighborhood and we got to talking about this latest record, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? by the Shirelles. They are hot.

Fair’s fair right, so I’ll give you Markin’s, Peter Paul’s, take on the lyrics, so I can come crashing down on his silly pipe dream ideas. By the way if you don’t know, and he will tell you this himself if he is honest, he was behind, way behind, in figuring out girls, and their girlish charms. I had to practically tell him everything he knows. Where did I learn it? Hell like everybody else from the older kids, the older guys, and my older sisters too if you can believe that. So I know a lot, or at least enough to keep old Peter Paul from being a total goofball. Still, see, he thinks the main thing is that the girl in the song here is worried about her reputation because she has just given in, in a moment of passion, to her boyfriend, it’s way too late to turn back and yet she is having second thoughts, second thought regrets, about it, and about what he will think of her and whether it will get around that she “does it.”

Ya, she does it, now officially certified a woman, or at least acting like a woman can act, that is what my sister Donna says, and from the feel of the song, probably in some back seat of some “boss” convertible, a Chevy I hope. Her guy, some under the hood day and night guy making that baby, his real baby, hum against the in-stock store-bought standards of his father’s car, his old fogy father’s car. She was breathless weeks ago when her Chevy guy came up gunning that beast behind her walking home from school and said “Hop in.” And she did, now she's the queen bee of the high school adventure car hop night. All the other girls, friend or foe, frantic at her fortune and ready to leap, girls’ “lav” leap, all over her come Monday morning finely-tuned grapevine gossip time. So tonight is paying back time, car hop queen bee paying back time. No turning back.

I hope, I really hope, they “did the deed” down by the seashore, big old moon out, big old laughing moon, waves splashing against the rocks and against the sounds of the night, the sounds of the be-bop moaning and groaning night. Call me a romantic but at least I hope that is where she gave it up. Or, maybe, away from coastal shoreline possibilities it was at some secluded lovers’ lane mountain top, tree-lined, dirt road, away from the city noise, some be-bop music playing on the car radio, just to keep those mountain fears away, motor humming against the autumn chill and the creaking sun ready to devour that last mountain top and face the day, and face the music.

But see that’s where Markin has got it all wrong, all wrong on two counts, because Chevy guy two-timing her, or spreading the “news” about his conquest, or even that hellish girls’ lav whirlwind inferno is not really what’s bothering her. Markin has got this starry-eyed thing, and I think it is from hanging around, or being around, all those straight lace no-go Catholic girls, who do actually worry about their reputations, at least for public consumption. That is why high Catholic that I am, just like old Markin, I don’t go within twenty yards of those, well, teasers. Ya, teasers but that’s a story for another time, because right now we have only time for women, or girls who act like women. What’s bothering moonstruck girl, number one, is that she likes it, she liked doing it with Chevy guy, and is worried that she’ll go crazy every time a boy gets within arms length of her. She “heard” that once a girl starts doing it they can’t help themselves and are marks, easy marks, for every guy who gives them the eye. Jesus, where did she ever get that idea. Must have been out in the streets, although I personally never heard such an idea when I was asking around. This is what I heard, well, not from the street but from my sister Donna, she said it was okay, natural even, for girls to like sex. If the moment was right, and maybe the guy too. It wasn’t some Propagation of the Faith, do-your-sex-duty to multiply thing we heard in church. Hell, Donna said she liked it too, and believe me, old Donna doesn’t like much if you listen to her long enough. So moonstruck girl don’t worry.

But number two you do have to worry about, although I don’t know what you can do about it now I never did ask Donna about that part. Pregnant. Ya, the dreaded word for girls and guys alike when you were just trying to have a little fun, just liking it. Now everything your mother told you about “bad” girls, about leaving school, about shot-gun weddings, or about having to go to “Aunt Bessie’s” for a few months, flood memories and as the sun comes up there is momentary panic. Like I say I don’t know what you can do. I don’t know the medical part of the thing. But Peter Paul, leave it to Peter Paul, who knows diddley about sex (except what I tell him) says do you know about “rubbers.” And he got all in a lather telling me that there is some new pill coming out, and coming out soon, so you don’t have to worry. This from a guy was practically missed the first time he kissed a girl. But if he is right, and I ain’t saying he is, then check it out and then you can still like “doing it.” And not worry.

From The UJP Website- A Report On The Boston Veterans For Peace Alternative Saint Patrick's Day Parade-March 20, 2011

Click on the headline to link to a UJP Website entry- A Report On The Boston Veterans For Peace Alternative Saint Patrick's Day Parade. Plus links for Photos.

Reflections From The Quantico War-Zone- The March 20th Rally In Support Of Private Bradley Manning- Free Bradley Manning Now

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the rally at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia on March 20, 2011 in support of alleged Army whistleblower Private Bradley Manning.

Markin comment:

I don’t have much occasion, or at least have not had much occasion recently, to be in Northern Virginia and certainly not in Triangle, Virginia the town attached to the Quantico Marine Base just off the Jefferson Davis Highway (that road designation named for the President of the defeated, or at least I assumed it was defeated, Southern Confederacy alone should tell everyone, every Northern everyone, that we are dealing with a different animal here). Nor would I, in the normal course of events, have occasion to be seeking parking space in the mammoth parking lot in front of the eerily-shaped Marine Corps Museum across from the base, although my late father proudly served in the Marines in World War II and saw battle in the Pacific. But as I have explained elsewhere (see below, Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner) today though, this day, this spring-like March day I am here on class-war prisoner business in support of accused whistleblower Private Bradley Manning who is being held in close pre-trial confinement here.

And so Northern Virginia Confederacy legacy or not, spring-like weather or not, I am here with other like-minded spirits to show our support in this desperate struggle to gain Private Manning’s freedom. And the usual cast of such characters are present: old-time radicals who have not lost that flickering flame that drove them to the left in their youths; Veterans for Peace, male and female, ex-soldiers of half the modern wars fought by the American imperial state, who learned the hard way, the very hard way, but learned, the madnesses of war and are out to spread the news; CodePink women who have become a righteous mainstay of the anti-war movement and put a little sparkle in as well; assorted Quakers and other religious people who know right from wrong in that milieu and are willing to do something about it; little old ladies in tennis sneakers (New Balance of course), little old men in tennis sneakers (ditto on the sneaker brand) and others, younger others, out to protest the outrageous treatment of alleged whistleblower Private Bradley Manning. Righteous people all, although maybe just a little too politically naïve about the nature of the American state. But I will let that pass for now as we are in a principled united front here on the issue that counted- freedom for Private Manning.

What was not present and, in the end to our regret, was anything like the Bolshevik Party of Russia in 1917. Or some great cloud of pre-World War I Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) descending on a Western town for a raucous Free Speech campaign where all hell was expected to break loose by both sides. Or even, closer in time, some Hippie-Yippie-Communist conflagration to shut down the streets of Chicago in the 1969 Days of Rage or the American government in the streets of Washington, D.C. in 1971. But someone forgot to tell the Virginia state/ Marine military intelligence officers who organized the security forces against the grannies and grandpas massed outside the Quantico base that this was not the intention, never was the intention, and could not possibly be the intention of those who sought Private Bradley Manning’s release this day. In the headline I called it the Quantico war-zone and that is what the governmental preparations were like- I swear I have not seen so many fully-armed, SWAT teams, so many horse-riding Cossacks, so many just plain police officers massed for a small demonstration in a while. Maybe I would have to go back to those shutting down the American government 1971 days but at least there we knew what we were up against, and were ready to take our chances. Needless to say with so much police presence the air was tense with expectation. And also with the inevitable police overreaction to every small gesture of resistance, no matter how non-violently posed. Like the fate of the American government was at stake in Triangle, Virginia that day. Everybody from Obama on down in that crowd should have egg on their faces from this one. But in the end the important thing was that we were there to support Private Bradley Manning, a righteous winter soldier. And we did so.

Note: I did not want to overload what I wanted to write above about the March 20th Quantico war-zone with a lot of speculation about what that massive police presence meant so I will put it in this note. Obviously some 30 billion dollars spent on intelligence-gathering, if that is the right word, does not buy you what it use to. A simple informer’s report from the March 19th Veteran’s for Peace-led march in front of the White House would have told the authorities that a mass rising at Triangle was not in the offing. And while we are on the subject it is clear that the Quantico security satraps did not bother to check with their Washington brethren about how to handle finicky grandpas and fidgety grandmas who WANT to be arrested as acts of civil disobedience. There were probably about a hundred or so police (maybe less) acting as security in front of the White House, the WHITE HOUSE for christsakes, who had the situation in well in tow and without serious incident. Additionally, and I take no credit for this one, apparently those in charge of Quantico security are-metaphorically-challenged and seemingly took literally the notion that we were there to free Bradley Manning. Like this was some Weather Underground freeing of guru Timothy Leary in the old days kind of action. In any case stop reading that old stuff and update your files.
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Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner
Markin comment:
Of course I will be standing at the front gate to the Quantico Marine Base on March 20th because I stand in solidarity with the actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious doings of this government, Bush-like or Obamian. If he did such acts. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning (or someone) exposed what we all knew, or should have knew- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justification rested on a house of card. American imperialism’s house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

Of course I will be standing at the front gate to the Quantico Marine Base on March 20th because I am outraged by the treatment of Private Manning meted to a presumably innocent man by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. The military has gotten more devious although not smarted since I was soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago. Allegedly Private Manning might become so distraught over his alleged actions that he requires extraordinary protections. He is assumed, in the Catch-22 logic of the military, to be something of a suicide risk on the basis of bringing some fresh air to the nefarious doings of the international imperialist order. Be serious. I, however, noticed no ‘spike” in suicide rates among the world’s diplomatic community once they were exposed, a place where such activities might have been expected once it was observed in public that most of these persons could barely tie their own shoes.

Now the two reasons above are more than sufficient reasons for my standing at the front gate to the Quantico Marine Base on March 20th although they, in themselves, are only the appropriate reasons that any progressive thinking person would need to show up and shout to the high heavens for Private Manning’s freedom. I have an addition reason though, a very pressing personal reason. As mentioned above I too was in the military’s crosshairs as a soldier during the height of the Vietnam War. I will not go into the details of that episode, this after all is about soldier Manning, other than that I spent my own time in an Army stockade for, let’s put it this way, working on the principle of “what if they gave a war and nobody came.” Forty years later I am still working off that principle, and gladly. But here is the real point. During that time I had outside support, outside civilian support, that rallied on several occasions outside the military base where I was confined. Believe me that knowledge helped me through the tough days inside. So on March 20th I am just, as I have been able to on too few other occasions over years, paying my dues for that long ago support. You, brother, are true winter soldier.

Private Manning I hope that you will hear us, or hear about our rally in your defense. Better yet, everybody who read this join us and make sure that he can hear us loud and clear. And let us shout to those high heavens mentioned above-Free Private Bradley Manning Now!