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Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
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Fourth Congress of the Communist International
Appendix to the Theses on Comintern Tactics;
Theses On The United Front
Adopted by the EC, December 1921
1
The international workers’ movement is currently going through a particular transitional stage, which presents both the Communist International as a whole and its separate sections with new and important tactical problems.
Basically, this stage can be characterised as follows: the world economic crisis is worsening; unemployment is growing; in almost every country international capital has gone over to a systematic offensive against the workers, the main evidence of which is the capitalists’ cynical and open attempts to reduce wages and lower the workers’ general standard of living; and the bankruptcy of the Versailles peace is steadily becoming more apparent to the vast majority of workers. It is obvious that unless the international proletariat overthrows the bourgeois system a new imperialist war, or even several such wars, is inevitable. Th e Washington conference is eloquent confirmation of this.
2 A certain revival of reformist illusions which, due to a whole series of circumstances, had begun among fairly wide sections of workers is now, under the pressure of reality, beginning to give way to a different mood. The democratic and reformist illusions that re-emerged, after the imperialist carnage had ended, among some workers (on the one hand the more privileged workers and on the other the more backward, less politically experienced workers) are fading, having failed to flower. The future course and outcome of the ‘work’ of the Washington conference will upset these illusions even more. If six months ago it was possible to speak with some justification of a general move to the right among the working masses of Europe and America, then today it is possible to state with certainty that an opposite move to the left has begun.
3 On the other hand, under the influence of the mounting capitalist attack, there is anew mood among the workers – a spontaneous striving towards unity, which literally cannot be restrained, and which is a development paralleled by the gradual growth in the confidence felt by the broad mass of workers in the Communists.
A steadily growing number of workers are only now beginning to appreciate the courage shown by the Communist vanguard in throwing itself into the fight for the interests of the working class, even when the vast majority of workers were still indifferent or even hostile to Communism. A steadily growing number of workers are now becoming convinced that it was only the Communists who defended their economic and political interests, and that they did so in the most difficult circumstances, at times making the greatest sacrifices. This is why there is once more growing respect for and confidence in the uncompromising Communist vanguard of the working class, now that even the more backward layers of the workers have seen through the empty reformist hopes and have understood that without struggle there will be no escape from the onslaught of the capitalist gangsters.
4 The Communist Parties can and should now gather the fruits of the struggle they waged earlier on, in the wholly unfavourable circumstances of mass apathy. But as confidence steadily grows in those who are most uncompromising and militant, in the Communist elements of the working class, the working masses as a whole are experiencing an unprecedented longing for unity. The new layers of politically inexperienced workers just coming into activity long to achieve the unification of all the workers’ parties and even of all the workers’ organisations in general, hoping in this way to strengthen opposition to the capitalist offensive. These new layers of workers, who have often not previously taken an active part in political struggle, are now finding a new way to test the practical plans of reformism in the light of their own experience. Like these new layers, considerable sections of workers belonging to the old social-democratic parties are even now unwilling to accept the attacks of the social democrats and the centrists on the Communist vanguard. They are even beginning to demand an agreement with the Communists, but at the same time they have not outgrown their belief in the reformists and large numbers of them still support the parties of the Second and the Amsterdam Internationals. They do not formulate their plans and aspirations all that clearly, but in general the new mood of these masses comes down to a wish to set up a united front and make the parties and unions of the Second and the Amsterdam Internationals fight alongside the Communists against the capitalist attack. To that extent, this mood is progressive. The most important point is that their faith in reformism has been broken. Given the general situation of the workers’ movement today, any serious mass action, even if it starts with only partial slogans, will inevitably bring to the forefront the more general and fundamental questions of revolution. The Communist vanguard can only gain if new layers of workers are convinced by their own experience that reformism is an illusion and that compromise is fatal.
5 When the birth of a conscious and organised protest against the treachery of the leaders of the Second International was still in its early stages, these leaders kept control of the entire apparatus of the workers’ organisations. They ruthlessly manipulated the principle of unity and proletarian discipline in order to stifle revolutionary proletarian protest and, without opposition, to place the entire power of the workers’ organisations at the service of national imperialism. Faced with these circumstances, the revolutionary wing had at any cost to win freedom of agitation and propaganda, i.e., the freedom to explain to the working masses that this is an unprecedented historical betrayal, and that it has been committed – is still being committed – by the parties and unions they themselves created.
6 The Communist Parties of the world, having secured complete organisational freedom to extend their ideological influence among the working masses, are now trying at every opportunity to achieve the broadest and fullest possible unity of these masses in practical activity. The heroes of the Second and the Amsterdam Internationals preach unity in words, but deny it in action. Now that the reformist compromisers of Amsterdam have failed in their organisational attempt to suppress the voice of protest, criticism, and revolutionary aspirations, they are looking for a way out of their own impasse and are bringing splits, confusion and organised sabotage to the struggle of the working masses. One of the most important tasks facing Communists is to expose publicly these new forms of the old treachery.
7 However, the diplomats and leaders of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals have lately been forced in their turn, by profound internal processes that stem from the general economic position of the working class in Europe and America, to push the question of unity into the foreground. Though, for the inexperienced sections of workers just becoming politically aware, the slogan of the united front is a genuine expression of their very real desire to rally the forces of the oppressed class against the capitalist attack, for the leaders and diplomats of the Second, Two-and-a-Half and Amsterdam Internationals the adoption of the slogan of unity represents a new attempt to deceive the workers and a new way of drawing them onto the old path of class collaboration. The approaching danger of a new imperialist war (Washington), the growth of armaments, the new imperialist treaties agreed on behind the scenes – all this not only fails to make the leaders of the Second, Two-and-a-Half and Amsterdam Internationals sound the alarm and uphold in deeds rather than words the international unification of the working class, but, on the contrary, is bound to provoke inside the Second and Amsterdam Internationals the same kind of friction and division that can be observed in the camp of the international bourgeoisie itself. This process is inevitable in as much as the cornerstone of reformism is the solidarity of the ‘reformist-socialists’ with the bourgeoisies of their ‘own’ countries.
These are the general conditions which the Communist International as a whole and its separate sections must consider in formulating their attitude to the slogan of the united socialist front.
8 Weighing up the situation, the Executive Committee of the Communist International finds that the slogan of the Third World Congress of the Communist International, -"To the masses!”, and the overall interests of the Communist movement require that the Communist Parties and the Communist International as a whole support the slogan of a united workers’ front and take the initiative on this question into their own hands. In this, the tactics of each Communist Party must of course be concretised with regard to the conditions and circumstances of each particular country.
9 In Germany the Communist Party at its last national conference supported the slogan of a united workers’ front and recognised the possibility of supporting a “united workers’ government”, provided it was willing to mount a serious challenge to capitalist power. The Executive Committee of the Communist International considers this decision entirely correct and is sure that the German Communist Party will be able, while fully maintaining its independent political position, to reach all sections of workers and strengthen Communist influence among the masses. In Germany, more than anywhere else, the broad masses will daily grow more convinced that the Communist vanguard was absolutely right in not wanting to lay down its arms at the most difficult time and in persistently exposing the hollowness of the reformist stratagems put forward to overcome a crisis that can be resolved only by proletarian revolution. By following this tactic, the Party can group around itself all the anarchist and syndicalist elements standing aside from the mass struggle.
10 In France the majority of politically organised workers support the Communist Party. This means that the question of the united front is posed rather differently in France than in other countries. However, it is essential that here, too, the entire responsibility for any split in the united workers’ camp should lie with our opponents. The revolutionary section of the French syndicalists is entirely correct to wage its fight against a split in the trade unions, i.e., for the unity of the working class in its economic struggle against the bourgeoisie. But the workers’ struggle does not end in the industrial sphere. Unity is also essential in view of the growing wave of reaction, of imperialist policies, etc. The policies of the reformists and centrists have led to a split in the Party and now threaten even the unity of the trade-union movement, which is objective proof that both Jouhaux and Longuet are playing into the hands of the bourgeoisie. The slogan of proletarian unity in the economic and political struggle against the bourgeoisie is the best means of defeating these plans for a split.
Even though the reformist Confederation of Labour led by Jouhaux, Merrheim and Co. will not fail to sell out the interest of the French working class, the French Communists and the revolutionary elements of the French working class must still approach the reformists before the start of every mass strike, revolutionary demonstration or any other spontaneous mass action, asking them to support the workers'
initiative, and must systematically expose the reformists when they refuse to support the revolutionary struggle of the workers. This will prove the easiest way to win the masses of workers who are outside the Party. Of course, it must in no circumstances induce the French Communist Party to give up any of its independence, by, for example, giving even a modicum of support to a “left-bloc” during election campaigns, or taking a lenient attitude to those shaky ‘Communists’ who still regret the split with the social-patriots.
11 In Britain the reformist Labour Party has refused to allow the Communist Party to affiliate on the same basis as other workers’ organisations. Influenced by the growing mood among the workers in favour of unity, the London workers’ organisations recently passed a resolution supporting the affiliation of the British Communist Party to the Labour Party.
Britain, of course, is an exception in this respect, since unusual conditions have made the Labour Party in Britain a kind of general workers’ association for the whole country. The British Communists must launch a vigorous campaign for their admittance to the Labour Party. The recent sell-outs by the trade-union leaders during the miners’ strike etc., the steady capitalist pressure on the workers’ wages etc., all this has roused a deep discontent among the masses of the British proletariat, which is becoming more revolutionary. The British Communists must do their utmost, whatever the cost, to extend their influence to the rank-and-file of the working masses, using the slogan of a united revolutionary front against the capitalists.
12 In Italy the young Communist Party is bitterly opposed to the reformist Italian Socialist Party and the social-traitors of the Confederation of Labour who have just sold the cause of proletarian revolution down the river; nevertheless it is beginning to conduct its agitational work around the slogan of a militant united proletarian front against the capitalist offensive. The Executive Committee of the Communist International considers that this agitational work is entirely correct and insists only that it be intensified in the same direction. The Executive Committee of the Communist International is sure that the Italian Communist Party, with sufficient far-sightedness, will be able to give the whole International an example of combative Marxism, by ruthlessly exposing at every step the half-hearted treachery of the reformists and the centrists (who have adopted the guise of Communists) and simultaneously by conducting a tireless campaign for the unity of the workers’ front against the bourgeoisie – a campaign that must steadily grow and involve larger and larger sections of the masses.
In this context the Party must naturally do its utmost to ensure the participation of revolutionary syndicalist elements in the common struggle.
13 In Czechoslovakia, where the Communist Party has the support of a significant section of the politically organised workers, the tasks of the Communists are in some respects analogous to those of the Communists in France. While strengthening its independence and weeding out the last traces of centrism, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia must also be able to popularise within the country the slogan of the united workers’ front against the bourgeoisie and must use it once and for all to expose the leaders of social democracy and the centrists as agents of capital in the eyes of the most backward workers. At the same time the Czechoslovak Communists must strengthen their efforts to win the trade unions, which are still to a significant extent in the hands of the scab leaders.
14 In Sweden the recent parliamentary elections have created a situation which will allow the small Communist fraction of deputies to play a major role. Mr. Branting, one of the most prominent leaders of the Second International and simultaneously prime minister for the Swedish bourgeoisie, is at present in such a position that, if he wishes to secure a parliamentary majority, he cannot remain indifferent to the actions of the Communist fraction in the Swedish parliament. The Executive Committee of the Communist International believes that the Communist fraction in the Swedish parliament may, in certain circumstances, agree to support the Menshevik ministry of Branting, as was correctly done by the German Communists in some of the provincial governments of Germany (for example, Thuringia). However, this certainly does not imply that the Swedish Communists should limit their independence in the slightest, or avoid exposing the character of the Menshevik government. On the contrary, the more power the Mensheviks have, the more they will betray the working class and all the greater must be the Communists’ efforts to expose these Mensheviks in the eyes of the broadest sections of workers. The Communist Party must also set about involving syndicalist workers in the common struggle.
15 In America the unification of all the Left elements in the trade-union and political movement is underway, and if the Communists occupy a central place in this Left unification, it will give them the opportunity to implant themselves in the broad masses of the American proletariat. The American Communists must form Communist groups wherever there are even a few Communists, must be able to stand at the head of this movement for the unification of all revolutionary forces and should particularly now raise the slogan of a united workers’ front, for example to defend the unemployed etc. The chief accusation levelled against the Gompers trade unions should be their unwillingness to participate in the setting up of a united workers’ front against the capitalists and in defence of the unemployed, etc. However, attracting the best elements from the IWW still remains the main task of the Communist Party.
16 In Switzerland our Party has been able to score a few successes by following the path we indicated. As a result of the Communists’ agitation for a united revolutionary front, the trade-union bureaucracy has been forced to call a special trade-union congress. At the congress, which is due to take place soon, our friends will be able to expose to all the Swiss workers the lie of reformism and so help boost the revolutionary solidarity of the proletariat.
17 In a number of other countries the question presents itself differently, in accordance with a whole series of different local conditions. Having made the general line clear, the Executive Committee of the Communist International is confident that individual Communist Parties will know how to apply it in accordance with the conditions prevailing in each country.
18 The Executive Committee of the Communist International considers that the chief and categorical condition, the same for all Communist Parties, is: the absolute autonomy and complete independence of every Communist Party entering into any agreement with the parties of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals, and its freedom to present its own views and its criticisms of those who oppose the Communists. While accepting the need for discipline in action, Communists must at the same time retain both the right and the opportunity to voice, not only before and after but if necessary during actions, their opinion on the politics of all the organisations of the working class without exception. The waiving of this condition is not permissible in any circumstances. Whilst supporting the slogan of maximum unity of all workers’ organisations in every practical action against the capitalist front, Communists cannot in any circumstances refrain from putting forward their views, which are the only consistent expression of the interests of the working class as a whole.
19 The Executive Committee of the Communist International considers it useful to remind all fraternal parties of the experience of the Russian Bolsheviks – the only party so far to succeed in defeating the bourgeoisie and taking power into its own hands. During the fifteen years that elapsed from the birth of Bolshevism to its victory over the bourgeoisie (1903-1917), Bolshevism never ceased to wage a tireless fight against reformism or, to use another name, Menshevism. Nevertheless, during these fifteen years the Russian Bolsheviks often made agreements with the Mensheviks. The formal split with the Mensheviks took place in the spring of 1905, but at the end of that year, influenced by the stormy development of the workers’ movement, the Bolsheviks temporarily formed a common front with the Mensheviks. The second formal split with the Mensheviks finally took place in January 1912, but between 1905 and 1912 separation gave way to unifications and semi-unifications in 1906-7 and also in 1910. These unifications and semi-unifications were caused not just by fluctuations in the factional struggle, but by the direct pressure of broad sections of workers who were beginning to be politically active and were in fact demanding the opportunity to test by their own experience whether the Menshevik path really did fundamentally diverge from the path of revolution. Before the new revolutionary upsurge that followed the Lena strikes, [the Lena is a Siberian river. The strikes which occurred in the Lena area in early 1912 gave rise to a vast movement of solidarity on 1 May of that year, which marked the beginning of the revival of the revolutionary movement.] not long before the start of the imperialist war, the working masses of Russia were particularly eager for unity and the diplomat – leaders of Russian Menshevism tried at the time to use this for their own ends, in much the same way as the leaders of the Second, Two-and-a-Half and Amsterdam Internationals are trying at present. The Russian Bolsheviks did not respond to the workers’ eagerness for unity by rejecting any and every united front. On the contrary, to counter the diplomatic game of the Menshevik leaders, the Russian Bolsheviks put forward the slogan “unity from below – , i.e., unity of the working masses themselves in the practical struggle for the revolutionary demands of the workers against the capitalists. Events showed that this was the only correct response. As a result of this tactic, which was modified to suit the circumstances of time and place, a large number of the best Menshevik workers were gradually won over to the side of Communism.
20 Since the Communist International is putting forward the slogan of the united workers’ front and permitting agreements between individual sections of the Communist International and the parties and unions of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals, it obviously cannot reject similar agreements at an international level. The Executive Committee of the Communist International made a proposal to the Amsterdam International in connection with famine relief to Russia. It repeated this proposal in connection with the White Terror and persecution of workers in Spain and Yugoslavia. The Executive Committee of the Communist International is currently making new proposals to the Amsterdam and Second Internationals, and also the Two-and-a-Half International, in connection with the initial work of the Washington conference, which has shown that a new imperialist slaughter threatens the international working class. The leaders of the Second, Two-and-a-Half and Amsterdam Internationals have shown by their behaviour so far that when it comes to practical activity they in practice ignore their slogan of unity. In all such situations the task of the Communist International as a whole and of each of its sections separately will be to explain to the broadest circles of workers the hypocrisy of the leaders of the Second, Two-and-a-Half and Amsterdam Internationals, who put unity with the bourgeoisie before unity with the revolutionary workers, by staying, for example, in the International Labour Organisation of the League of Nations and by being party to the Washington imperialist conference instead of organising the struggle against imperialist Washington etc. However, the rejection by the leaders of the Second, Two-and-a-Half and Amsterdam Internationals of this or that practical proposal from the Communist international will not make us give up this tactic, which has deep roots in the masses and which we systematically and steadily must develop. Whenever our opponents reject proposals for joint struggle, the masses must be informed so that they can learn who the real destroyers of the united workers’ front are. Whenever our opponents accept a proposal, we must aim gradually to intensify the struggle and raise it to a higher level. In either case it is essential to draw the attention of the broad masses to the talks between the Communists and the other organisations and to interest them in all the fluctuations of the struggle for the united revolutionary workers’ front.
21 In putting forward this plan, the Executive Committee of the Communist International directs the attention of all fraternal parties to the dangers that in certain circumstances could be involved. Not all Communist Parties are sufficiently developed and consolidated; not all have finally broken with centrist and semi-centrist ideology. There may be cases of bending the stick too far the other way; there may be tendencies which amount to the dissolution of the Communist Parties and groups into a formless united bloc. If the use of this tactic is to advance the cause of Communism, the actual Communist Parties carrying it out must be strong, united and under an ideologically clear leadership.
22 The groupings within the Communist International itself which, with greater or lesser justification, are considered Right or even semi-centrist, are clearly made up of two different tendencies. Some elements have not really broken with the ideology and methods of the Second International, have not freed themselves from reverence for its former organisational strength and, half-consciously or unconsciously, are still seeking ideological agreement with the Second International and, accordingly, with bourgeois society. Other elements, opposed to formal radicalism and the mistakes of so-called Leftism, etc., are anxious that the newly-formed Communist Parties should be more subtle and flexible in their tactics, so that they can more rapidly strengthen their influence among the rank-and-file of the working masses. The rapid pace of development of the Communist Parties has always appeared to push both these tendencies into the same camp, even into the same grouping. The use of the methods suggested by us, which are designed to give Communist agitation a base in the unified mass activity of the proletariat, is the most effective way of uncovering the truly reformist tendencies within the Communist Parties and, if applied correctly, these methods will greatly help the internal revolutionary consolidation of the Communist Parties, both by re-educating through experience impatient or sectarian Left elements and by ridding the Parties of reformist ballast.
23 The united workers’ front must mean the unity of all workers willing to fight against capitalism – including those workers who still follow the anarchists, syndicalists, etc. In the Latin countries there are still many such workers, and in other countries, too, they can contribute to the revolutionary struggle. From the start of its existence the Communist International has adopted a friendly line in its relations with those elements among the workers who have gradually overcome their prejudices and are moving towards Communism. Communists must be all the more attentive towards them now that the united workers’ front against the capitalists is becoming a reality.
24 In order finally to concretize this work along the lines indicated, the Executive Committee of the Communist International resolves to call in the near future an extended session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International with twice the usual number of delegates representing each Party.
25 The Executive Committee of the Communist International will closely follow every practical step taken in this sector of work and asks all the Parties to inform it of every attempt made and every gain won in this direction, giving full factual details.
Thursday, March 01, 2012
From The Pages Of The Communist International-In Honor Of The 90th Anniversary Of The Fourth Congress (1922)- Theses on Comintern Tactics
Click on the headline to link to the Communist International Internet Archives.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
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Fourth Congress of the Communist International
Theses on Comintern Tactics
5 December 1922
1. Endorsement of the Resolutions of the Third Congress
The Fourth World Congress first of all affirms that the resolutions of the Third World Congress
1) on the world economic crisis and the tasks of the Communist International and
2) on the tactics of the Communist International have been completely borne out by the course of events and by the development of the workers’ movement in the period between the Third and Fourth Congresses.
2. The Period of Capitalist Decline
On the basis of its assessment of the world economic situation the Third Congress was able to declare with complete certainty that capitalism had fulfilled its mission of developing the productive forces and had reached a stage of irreconcilable contradiction with the requirements not only of modern historical development, but also of the most elementary conditions of human existence. This fundamental contradiction was reflected in the recent imperialist war, and further sharpened by the great damage the war inflicted on the conditions of production and distribution. Obsolete capitalism has reached the stage where the destruction that results from its unbridled power is crippling and ruining the economic achievements that have been built up by the proletariat, despite the fetters of capitalist slavery.
The overall picture of capitalist economic decline is not belied by the inevitable conjunctural fluctuations, typical of the capitalist system during periods of downturn as well as upturn. The attempts of bourgeois and social-democratic political economists to interpret the improvement which began in the second half of 1921 (in the United States, to a significantly lesser extent in Japan and Britain, and partly also in France and other countries) as a sign that the capitalist equilibrium has been restored stem partly from a desire to falsify the facts and partly from the lack of insight of these servants of capital. The Third Congress, which took place before the present industrial revival, foresaw that it must come sooner or later and even then characterised it as only a slight deviation from the basic trend of progressive decline of the capitalist economy. Already it can be safely predicted that if the current industrial revival proves in any way incapable of restoring the capitalist equilibrium or of repairing the extensive war damage, then the next cyclical crisis, which should correspond to the underlying trend of capitalist decline, will reinforce its effects and so greatly increase the revolutionary potential of the situation.
Capitalism to its very end will be at the mercy of cyclical fluctuations. Only the seizure of power by the proletariat and a world socialist revolution can save humanity from permanent catastrophe, caused by the existence of the modern capitalist system.
What capitalism is passing through today is nothing other than its death throes. The collapse of capitalism is inevitable.
3. The International Political Situation
The continuing decline of capitalism is also reflected in the international political situation.
The question of reparations is still undecided. While the Entente powers hold conference after conference, the economic collapse of Germany continues, threatening the existence of capitalism throughout Central Europe.
The catastrophic deterioration in Germany’s economic situation will either force the Entente to renounce reparations,’ which will hasten the political and economic crisis in France, or else lead to the establishment of a Franco-German industrial bloc on the continent: this will worsen Britain’s economic situation and its position on the world market and place Britain and the continent in political opposition to one another.
In the Near East, Entente policies have proved completely bankrupt. The Sèvres treaty has been torn up by Turkish bayonets. The war between Greece and Turkey, and the events connected with it, have clearly revealed how unstable the present political balance is. The spectre of a new imperialist world war is rising up. Imperialist France, having helped to ruin the joint work of the Entente in the Near East through its rivalry with Britain, is now once more being pushed by capitalist interests into a common capitalist front against the Eastern peoples. However, by doing this, capitalist France will yet again show the peoples of the Near East that the only way they can defend themselves against oppression is by joining with Soviet Russia and gaining the support of the revolutionary proletariat of the whole world.
Regarding the Far East, the victorious Entente powers tried at Washington to revise the Versailles treaty. However, they managed to gain only a respite by agreeing to restrict over the next few years the production of only one type of armaments, namely warships. They did not find any solution to their problem. The struggle between America and Japan continues and is inflaming the civil war in China. The Pacific seaboard is still a breeding-ground of major conflicts.
The example of the national liberation movements in India, Egypt, Ireland and Turkey shows that the colonial and semi-colonial countries are hotbeds of growing revolutionary upsurge against imperialist power. They represent inexhaustible sources of revolutionary energy, and in the given situation this works objectively against the existence of bourgeois control of the world.
Events are liquidating the Versailles treaty. However, its demise is not giving way to a general agreement among the capitalist states and to the abandonment of imperialism, but instead is leading to new contradictions, new imperialist alignments and a new arms race.
In the present situation the reconstruction of Europe is impossible. Capitalist America is unwilling to make sacrifices to reconstruct the European capitalist economy. Vulture-like, capitalist America watches the decay of capitalist Europe, intending to claim its inheritance. America will enslave capitalist Europe unless the European working class seizes political power, clears the world of the ruins of the war and starts to build a federal Soviet republic of Europe.
The recent events even in as small a country as contemporary Austria [When Austria had had to be rescued from sheer collapse, first by American famine relief and then by reconstruction loans floated under the auspices of the League of Nations] are important in that they are symptomatic of the political situation in Europe. By edict of Entente imperialism, this famous ‘democracy’, jointly defended by Christian Socialists and the leaders of the Two-and-a-Half International, has been eliminated by a single stroke of the pen in Geneva and replaced by the undisguised dictatorship of an Entente agent. Even the bourgeois parliament has in practice been abolished; its place has been taken by the Entente bankers’ own bailiff.
These events in little Austria, along with the recent fascist coup in Italy, [with his troops ready to march on Rome, Mussolini was asked to form a government on 29 October 1922] highlight the instability of the whole situation and demonstrate, better than anything, that ‘democracy’ is just an illusion, meaning in reality the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
At the same time the international political position of Soviet Russia, the only country where the proletariat has defeated the bourgeoisie and for five years retained power despite enemy attacks, has become considerably stronger. At Genoa and at the Hague the Entente capitalists tried to force the Russian Soviet republic to abandon the nationalisation of industry and undertake a burden of debt so great that Soviet Russia would have become a virtual colony of the Entente. The proletarian government of Soviet Russia proved strong enough to resist these arrogant demands. Amidst the chaos of the collapsing capitalist system of power, Soviet Russia stands firm, from Berezina to Vladivostok, from Murmansk to the mountains of Armenia, and is becoming a major power within Europe, and in the Near and Far East. Despite the capitalist world’s attempt to strangle Soviet Russia by a financial blockade, the country will move towards economic recovery, using its own economic resources. At the same time competition between the capitalist powers will force them to start separate talks with Soviet Russia. One-sixth of the world is under Soviet power. Even now the mere existence of the Soviet republic in Russia is a permanent source of weakness for bourgeois society and an extremely important factor of world revolution. The more Soviet Russia’s economy is restored and strengthened, the greater will be the influence of this pre-eminent revolutionary factor in international politics.
4. The Capitalist Offensive
Since nowhere, except in Russia, did the proletariat deal capitalism a decisive blow while it was weakened from the war, the bourgeoisie, with the help of the social democrats, was able to defeat the militant revolutionary workers, re-establish its political and economic power and launch a new offensive against the proletariat. All the efforts of the bourgeoisie to get the international production and distribution of goods running smoothly again after the upheavals of the war have been made solely at the expense of the working class.
The systematically organised international capitalist offensive against all the gains of the working class has swept across the world like a whirlwind. Everywhere reorganised capital is mercilessly lowering the real wages of the workers, lengthening the working day, curtailing the modest rights of the working class on the shop floor and, in countries with a devalued currency, forcing destitute workers to pay for the economic disasters caused by the depreciation of money etc.
The capitalist offensive, which has recently grown to huge proportions, is everywhere forcing the working class to defend itself. Thousands and thousands of workers in the major sectors of industry are taking up this fight. All the time the struggle is attracting new groups of workers who play a vital role in economic life (railwaymen, miners, metal-workers, public and municipal employees). So far the majority of strikes have not brought immediate results, but the struggle itself is creating among multitudes of previously backward workers an implacable hatred of capitalists and the state power that protects them. This fight, forced on the proletariat, is making it impossible for the social-reformists and trade-union bureaucrats to continue their policy of collaboration with the employers. It graphically demonstrates to even the most backward layers of the proletariat the inseparable link between economics and politics. Today every big strike is a major political event. Such strikes have shown that the parties of the Second International and the leaders of the Amsterdam trade unions, far from giving help to the working masses in their hard defensive fight, have openly abandoned them to the mercy of fate, and betrayed them to the employers and the bourgeois governments.
One of the aims of the Communist Parties is to expose this continual, unprecedented treachery and illustrate it by using examples from the day to day struggle of the working masses. It is the duty of every Communist Party to extend and deepen the countless economic strikes, wherever possible turning them into political strikes and actions. Obviously the Communist Parties must also, in the course of defensive struggles, aim to strengthen the revolutionary consciousness and militancy of the proletarian masses to such an extent that, given favourable circumstances, the struggle will turn from defence to attack.
As the struggle spreads, it is inevitable that the contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie will steadily intensify. The situation is still objectively revolutionary; even the smallest strike could become the starting-point of great revolutionary battles.
5. International Fascism
Closely linked to the economic offensive of capital is the political offensive of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. Its sharpest expression is international fascism. Since falling living standards are now affecting the middle classes, including the civil service, the ruling class is no longer certain that it can rely on the bureaucracy to act as its tool. Instead, it is resorting everywhere to the creation of special White Guards, which are particularly directed against all the revolutionary efforts of the proletariat and are being increasingly used for the forcible suppression of any attempt by the working class to improve its position.
The characteristic feature of ‘classical’ Italian fascism, which at present has the whole country in its grip, is that the fascists not only form counter-revolutionary fighting organisations, armed to the teeth, but also attempt to use social demagogy to gain a base among the masses: in the peasantry, in the petty bourgeoisie and even in a certain section of the proletariat. There is currently a fascist threat in many countries: in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, almost all the Balkan countries, Poland, Germany, Austria, America and even in countries like Norway. The possibility of fascism appearing in one or another form cannot be ruled out even in such countries as France and Britain.
One of the most important tasks of the Communist Parties is to organise resistance to international fascism. They must be at the head of the working class in the fight against the fascist gangs, must be extremely active in setting up united fronts on the question and must make use of illegal methods of organisation.
But the reckless promotion of fascist organisation is the last card in the bourgeoisie’s hand. Open rule by the White Guards also works against the very foundations of bourgeois democracy. The broadest masses of working people become convinced that bourgeois rule is possible only in the form of an undisguised dictatorship over the proletariat.
6. The Possibility of New Pacifist Illusions
The current international political situation is characterised by fascism, the state of siege and the rising wave of White Terror against the working class. However, this does not rule out the possibility that in the near future open bourgeois reaction may, in some very important countries, give way to an era of ‘democratic pacifism’. In Britain (where the Labour Party made gains at the last elections) and in France (where a period of rule by the so-called “Left Bloc” is unavoidable) this kind of ‘democratic pacifist’ transitional period is very likely and may in its turn give rise to a revival of pacifist hopes in bourgeois and social-democratic Germany. In the period between the present domination of open bourgeois reaction and the complete victory of the revolutionary proletariat over the bourgeoisie, there will be various stages and the possibility of various short-lived episodes. The Communist International and its sections must be aware of all these possibilities. They must know how to defend their revolutionary positions in any situation.
7. The Situation Within The Labour Movement
At the same time as capitalist attacks are forcing the working class onto the defensive, the parties of the centre (the Independents) are drawing closer to and even fusing with the open social-traitors (the social democrats). During the revolutionary upsurge even the centrists, bowing to the pressure of the masses, declared themselves for the dictatorship of the proletariat and moved towards the Third International. But as soon as the wave of revolutionary feeling subsided even temporarily, these centrists ran back to the social-democratic camp, which in reality they had never left. Those people who during the mass revolutionary struggles held a vacillating position are now renouncing the defensive fight and returning to the camp of the Second International, which was always consciously counter-revolutionary. The centrist parties and the entire centrist Two-and-a-Half International are in a state of disintegration. The best of the revolutionary workers who were briefly in the centrist camp will in time come over to the Communist International. In some countries (Italy) this has already started to happen. In contrast, the overwhelming majority of the centrist leaders, who are at present allying themselves with Noske, Mussolini, etc., will turn into hardened counter-revolutionaries.
From an objective viewpoint, the fusion of the parties of the Second and the Two-and-a-Half Internationals can only benefit the revolutionary workers’ movement. The idea of a second revolutionary party outside the Communist camp is losing credibility. Now only two groups will contend for leadership of the majority of the working class: the Second International, which represents the influence of the bourgeoisie within the working class, and the Third International, which has raised the banner of socialist revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat.
8. The Trade-Union Split and the Preparations for White Terror Against the Communists
The fusion of the parties of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals was undoubtedly caused by the need to prepare a ‘favourable atmosphere’ for a systematic campaign against the Communists. Part of this campaign is the deliberate agitation by the leaders of the Amsterdam International in favour of a split. The Amsterdam leaders are avoiding any fightback against the capitalist offensive whilst continuing their policy of collaboration with the employers. They are systematically trying to eliminate Communist influence in the trade unions in order to make sure the Communists put no obstacles in the way of collaboration. Since, however, in many countries the Communists have already won a majority in the trade unions, or are about to do so, the Amsterdam leaders are prepared to use the tactic of forcing expulsions and formally splitting the union movement. Nothing is more effective in undermining the strength of proletarian resistance to the capitalist offensive than a split in the trade unions. The reformist trade-union leaders are well aware of this. But since they realise that the ground is slipping from under their feet and that they cannot avoid their imminent bankruptcy, they are anxious to split the unions, the strongest weapon of proletarian class struggle, so that the Communists will be left with only the fragments and splinters of the old trade-union organisations. The working class has not seen such a malicious betrayal since August 1914. [the parties of the Second International had then abandoned their previously militant opposition to war and joined the patriotic chorus]
9. The Task of Winning the Majority
In these circumstances the main directive of the Third World Congress is still completely valid: to achieve an increase of Communist influence among the majority of the working class and to involve its most decisive sections in struggle.
It is now even more important than it was at the time of the Third Congress to realise that with the present precarious equilibrium of bourgeois society a severe crisis may quite suddenly break out as the result of a major strike, a colonial rising, a new war or even a parliamentary crisis. This is precisely why tremendous importance accrues to the “subjective factor”, i.e., the level of consciousness, militancy and organisation of the working class and its vanguard.
To win the majority of the American and European working class – this was and is the key task facing the Communist International.
In the colonial and semi-colonial countries the Communist International has the following two tasks:
1) to establish the nucleus of a Communist Party, representing the interests of the proletariat as a whole;
2) to give full support to the national-revolutionary movement against imperialism, to become its vanguard and within this national movement to initiate and develop a social movement.
10. The United Front Tactic
There is consequently an obvious need for the united front tactic. The slogan of the Third Congress, “To the masses”, is now more relevant than ever. The struggle to establish a proletarian united front in a whole series of countries is only. just beginning. And only now have we begun to overcome all the difficulties associated with this tactic. The best example is France, where the course of events has won over even those who not so long ago had opposed this tactic on principle. The Communist International requires that all Communist Parties and groups adhere strictly to the united front tactic, because in the present period it is the only way of guiding Communists in the right direction, towards winning the majority of workers.
At present the reformists need a split, while the Communists are interested in uniting all the forces of the working class against capital.
Using the united front tactic means that the Communist vanguard is at the forefront of the day to day struggle of the broad masses for their most vital interests. For the sake of this struggle Communists are even prepared to negotiate with the scab leaders of the social democrats and the Amsterdam International. Any attempt by the Second International to interpret the united front as an organisational fusion of all the ‘workers’ parties’ must of course be categorically repudiated. The attempts of the Second International to absorb workers’ organisations further to the left and call this a united front (the ‘fusion’ of the social democrats and Independents in Germany [in 1922]) in fact simply provide yet another opportunity for the social-democratic leaders to betray new masses of workers to the bourgeoisie.
The existence of independent Communist Parties and their complete freedom of action in relation to the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionary social democracy is the most important historical achievement of the proletariat, and one which the Communists will in no circumstances renounce. Only the Communist Parties stand for the overall interests of the whole proletariat.
In the same way the united front tactic has nothing to do with the so-called ‘electoral combinations’ of leaders in pursuit of one or another parliamentary aim.
The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the Communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie. Every action, for even the most trivial everyday demand, can lead to revolutionary awareness and revolutionary education; it is the experience of struggle that will convince workers of the inevitability of revolution and the historic importance of Communism.
It is particularly important when using the united front tactic to achieve not just agitational but also organisational results. Every opportunity must be used to establish organisational footholds among the working masses themselves (factory committees, supervisory commissions made up of workers from all the different parties and unaligned workers, action committees, etc.).
The main aim of the united front tactic is to unify the working masses through agitation and organisation. The real success of the united front tactic depends on a movement “from below”, from the rank-and-file of the working masses. Nevertheless, there are circumstances in which Communists must not refuse to have talks with the leaders of the hostile workers’ parties, providing the masses are always kept fully informed of the course of these talks. During negotiations with these leaders the independence of the Communist Party and its agitation must not be circumscribed.
Obviously, the united front tactic has to be applied differently in different countries, according to the concrete conditions. Still, where the objective conditions in the most important countries are ripe for a socialist transformation, and where the social-democratic parties with their counter-revolutionary leaders are deliberately seeking to split the working class, the united front tactic will be of decisive importance for the whole epoch.
11. The Workers’ Government
The slogan of a workers’ government (or a workers’ and peasants’ government) can be used practically everywhere as a general agitational slogan. However, as a central political slogan, the workers’ government is most important in countries where the position of bourgeois society is particularly unstable and where the balance of forces between the workers’ parties and the bourgeoisie places the question of government on the order of the day as a practical problem requiring immediate solution. In these countries the workers’ government slogan follows inevitably from the entire united front tactic.
The parties of the Second International are trying to rescue the situation in these countries by advocating and forming a coalition of the bourgeoisie and the social democrats. The recent attempts by certain parties of the Second International (e.g. in Germany) to take part in this kind of coalition government secretly, whilst refusing to be openly involved, are nothing but a manoeuvre to pacify the indignant masses, just a more subtle deception of the working masses. In place of a bourgeois/social-democratic coalition, whether open or disguised, Communists propose a united front involving all workers, and a coalition of all workers’ parties around economic and political issues, which will fight and finally overthrow bourgeois power. Following a united struggle of all workers against the bourgeoisie, the entire state apparatus must pass into the hands of a workers’ government, so strengthening the position of power held by the working class.
The most elementary tasks of a workers’ government must be to arm the proletariat, disarm the bourgeois counter-revolutionary organisations, bringing control over production, shift the main burden of taxation onto the propertied classes and break the resistance of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.
Such a workers’ government is possible only if it is born out of the struggle of the masses and is supported by combative workers’ organisations formed by the most oppressed sections of workers at grassroots level. However, even a workers’ government that comes about through an alignment of parliamentary forces, i.e., a government of purely parliamentary origin, can give rise to an upsurge of the revolutionary workers’ movement. It is obvious that the formation of a genuine workers’ government, and the continued existence of any such government committed to revolutionary politics, must lead to a bitter struggle with the bourgeoisie or even to civil war. The mere attempt by the proletariat to form such a workers’ government will from its very first days come up against extremely strong resistance from the bourgeoisie. The slogan of a workers’ government therefore has the potential to rally the proletarians and unleash revolutionary struggle.
In certain circumstances, Communists must declare themselves ready to form a workers’ government with non-Communist workers’ parties and workers’ organisations. However, they should do so only if there are guarantees that the workers’ government will conduct a real struggle against the bourgeoisie of the kind already outlined. The obvious conditions on which Communists will participate in such a government are:
1 Communists participating in such a government remain under the strictest control of their Party;
2 Communists participating in such a workers’ government should be in extremely close contact with the revolutionary organisations of the masses;
3 The Communist Party has the unconditional right to maintain its own identity and complete independence of agitation.
For all its great advantages, the slogan of a workers’ government also has its dangers, as does the whole tactic of the united front. To avoid these dangers and to confront now the illusion that the stage of ‘democratic coalition’ is inevitable, the Communist Parties must be aware of the following:
Every bourgeois government is simultaneously a capitalist government, but not every workers’ government is a truly proletarian, socialist government.
The Communist International must consider the following possibilities:
1 A liberal workers’ government, such as existed in Australia and is possible in Britain in the near future.
2 A social-democratic ‘workers’ government’ (Germany).
3 A workers’ and peasants’ government. Such a possibility exists in the Balkans, Czechoslovakia, etc.
4 A social-democratic/Communist coalition government.
5 A genuine proletarian workers’ government, which can be created in its pure form only by a Communist Party.
Communists are also prepared to work alongside those workers who have not yet recognised the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Accordingly Communists are also ready, in certain conditions and with certain guarantees, to support a non-Communist workers’ government. However, the Communists will still openly declare to the masses that the workers’ government can be neither won nor maintained without a revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie.
The first two types of workers’ governments (the workers’ and peasants’ and the social-democratic/Communist governments) fall short of representing the dictatorship of the proletariat, but are still an important starting-point for the winning of this dictatorship. The complete dictatorship of the proletariat can only be a genuine workers’ government (type 5) consisting of Communists.
12. The Factory Committee Movement
No Communist Party can consider itself a serious and well-organised mass Communist Party unless it has strong Communist cells in the factories, mills, mines, railways, etc. In present-day conditions a workers’ movement cannot consider itself a systematically organised mass proletarian movement unless the working class and its organisations can set up factory committees to form the backbone of the movement. In particular, the fight against the capitalist offensive and for control of production is hopeless unless the Communists command a firm foothold in all the factories and the workers have set up in the workplaces their own fighting proletarian organisations (factory committees, workers’ councils).
Congress therefore considers that one of the major tasks facing every Communist Party is to strengthen its influence in the factories and to support the factory committee movement or take the initiative in starting such a movement.
13. International Discipline
Now, more than ever, the strictest international discipline is necessary, both within the Communist International and in each of its separate sections, in order to carry out the united front tactic at the international level and in each individual country.
The Fourth Congress categorically demands that all sections and all members keep strictly to this tactic, which will bring results only if it is unanimously and systematically carried out not only in word but also in deed.
Acceptance of the twenty-one conditions involves carrying out all the tactical decisions taken by World Congresses and by the Executive Committee, the organ of the Communist International between World Congresses. Congress instructs the Executive Committee to be extremely firm in demanding and seeing that every Party puts these tactical decisions into practice. Only the clearly defined revolutionary tactics of the Communist International will ensure the earliest possible victory of the international proletarian revolution.
Congress decides to attach as an appendix to this resolution the text of the December theses (192 1) of the Executive Committee, which are a correct and detailed explanation of the united front tactic.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
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Fourth Congress of the Communist International
Theses on Comintern Tactics
5 December 1922
1. Endorsement of the Resolutions of the Third Congress
The Fourth World Congress first of all affirms that the resolutions of the Third World Congress
1) on the world economic crisis and the tasks of the Communist International and
2) on the tactics of the Communist International have been completely borne out by the course of events and by the development of the workers’ movement in the period between the Third and Fourth Congresses.
2. The Period of Capitalist Decline
On the basis of its assessment of the world economic situation the Third Congress was able to declare with complete certainty that capitalism had fulfilled its mission of developing the productive forces and had reached a stage of irreconcilable contradiction with the requirements not only of modern historical development, but also of the most elementary conditions of human existence. This fundamental contradiction was reflected in the recent imperialist war, and further sharpened by the great damage the war inflicted on the conditions of production and distribution. Obsolete capitalism has reached the stage where the destruction that results from its unbridled power is crippling and ruining the economic achievements that have been built up by the proletariat, despite the fetters of capitalist slavery.
The overall picture of capitalist economic decline is not belied by the inevitable conjunctural fluctuations, typical of the capitalist system during periods of downturn as well as upturn. The attempts of bourgeois and social-democratic political economists to interpret the improvement which began in the second half of 1921 (in the United States, to a significantly lesser extent in Japan and Britain, and partly also in France and other countries) as a sign that the capitalist equilibrium has been restored stem partly from a desire to falsify the facts and partly from the lack of insight of these servants of capital. The Third Congress, which took place before the present industrial revival, foresaw that it must come sooner or later and even then characterised it as only a slight deviation from the basic trend of progressive decline of the capitalist economy. Already it can be safely predicted that if the current industrial revival proves in any way incapable of restoring the capitalist equilibrium or of repairing the extensive war damage, then the next cyclical crisis, which should correspond to the underlying trend of capitalist decline, will reinforce its effects and so greatly increase the revolutionary potential of the situation.
Capitalism to its very end will be at the mercy of cyclical fluctuations. Only the seizure of power by the proletariat and a world socialist revolution can save humanity from permanent catastrophe, caused by the existence of the modern capitalist system.
What capitalism is passing through today is nothing other than its death throes. The collapse of capitalism is inevitable.
3. The International Political Situation
The continuing decline of capitalism is also reflected in the international political situation.
The question of reparations is still undecided. While the Entente powers hold conference after conference, the economic collapse of Germany continues, threatening the existence of capitalism throughout Central Europe.
The catastrophic deterioration in Germany’s economic situation will either force the Entente to renounce reparations,’ which will hasten the political and economic crisis in France, or else lead to the establishment of a Franco-German industrial bloc on the continent: this will worsen Britain’s economic situation and its position on the world market and place Britain and the continent in political opposition to one another.
In the Near East, Entente policies have proved completely bankrupt. The Sèvres treaty has been torn up by Turkish bayonets. The war between Greece and Turkey, and the events connected with it, have clearly revealed how unstable the present political balance is. The spectre of a new imperialist world war is rising up. Imperialist France, having helped to ruin the joint work of the Entente in the Near East through its rivalry with Britain, is now once more being pushed by capitalist interests into a common capitalist front against the Eastern peoples. However, by doing this, capitalist France will yet again show the peoples of the Near East that the only way they can defend themselves against oppression is by joining with Soviet Russia and gaining the support of the revolutionary proletariat of the whole world.
Regarding the Far East, the victorious Entente powers tried at Washington to revise the Versailles treaty. However, they managed to gain only a respite by agreeing to restrict over the next few years the production of only one type of armaments, namely warships. They did not find any solution to their problem. The struggle between America and Japan continues and is inflaming the civil war in China. The Pacific seaboard is still a breeding-ground of major conflicts.
The example of the national liberation movements in India, Egypt, Ireland and Turkey shows that the colonial and semi-colonial countries are hotbeds of growing revolutionary upsurge against imperialist power. They represent inexhaustible sources of revolutionary energy, and in the given situation this works objectively against the existence of bourgeois control of the world.
Events are liquidating the Versailles treaty. However, its demise is not giving way to a general agreement among the capitalist states and to the abandonment of imperialism, but instead is leading to new contradictions, new imperialist alignments and a new arms race.
In the present situation the reconstruction of Europe is impossible. Capitalist America is unwilling to make sacrifices to reconstruct the European capitalist economy. Vulture-like, capitalist America watches the decay of capitalist Europe, intending to claim its inheritance. America will enslave capitalist Europe unless the European working class seizes political power, clears the world of the ruins of the war and starts to build a federal Soviet republic of Europe.
The recent events even in as small a country as contemporary Austria [When Austria had had to be rescued from sheer collapse, first by American famine relief and then by reconstruction loans floated under the auspices of the League of Nations] are important in that they are symptomatic of the political situation in Europe. By edict of Entente imperialism, this famous ‘democracy’, jointly defended by Christian Socialists and the leaders of the Two-and-a-Half International, has been eliminated by a single stroke of the pen in Geneva and replaced by the undisguised dictatorship of an Entente agent. Even the bourgeois parliament has in practice been abolished; its place has been taken by the Entente bankers’ own bailiff.
These events in little Austria, along with the recent fascist coup in Italy, [with his troops ready to march on Rome, Mussolini was asked to form a government on 29 October 1922] highlight the instability of the whole situation and demonstrate, better than anything, that ‘democracy’ is just an illusion, meaning in reality the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
At the same time the international political position of Soviet Russia, the only country where the proletariat has defeated the bourgeoisie and for five years retained power despite enemy attacks, has become considerably stronger. At Genoa and at the Hague the Entente capitalists tried to force the Russian Soviet republic to abandon the nationalisation of industry and undertake a burden of debt so great that Soviet Russia would have become a virtual colony of the Entente. The proletarian government of Soviet Russia proved strong enough to resist these arrogant demands. Amidst the chaos of the collapsing capitalist system of power, Soviet Russia stands firm, from Berezina to Vladivostok, from Murmansk to the mountains of Armenia, and is becoming a major power within Europe, and in the Near and Far East. Despite the capitalist world’s attempt to strangle Soviet Russia by a financial blockade, the country will move towards economic recovery, using its own economic resources. At the same time competition between the capitalist powers will force them to start separate talks with Soviet Russia. One-sixth of the world is under Soviet power. Even now the mere existence of the Soviet republic in Russia is a permanent source of weakness for bourgeois society and an extremely important factor of world revolution. The more Soviet Russia’s economy is restored and strengthened, the greater will be the influence of this pre-eminent revolutionary factor in international politics.
4. The Capitalist Offensive
Since nowhere, except in Russia, did the proletariat deal capitalism a decisive blow while it was weakened from the war, the bourgeoisie, with the help of the social democrats, was able to defeat the militant revolutionary workers, re-establish its political and economic power and launch a new offensive against the proletariat. All the efforts of the bourgeoisie to get the international production and distribution of goods running smoothly again after the upheavals of the war have been made solely at the expense of the working class.
The systematically organised international capitalist offensive against all the gains of the working class has swept across the world like a whirlwind. Everywhere reorganised capital is mercilessly lowering the real wages of the workers, lengthening the working day, curtailing the modest rights of the working class on the shop floor and, in countries with a devalued currency, forcing destitute workers to pay for the economic disasters caused by the depreciation of money etc.
The capitalist offensive, which has recently grown to huge proportions, is everywhere forcing the working class to defend itself. Thousands and thousands of workers in the major sectors of industry are taking up this fight. All the time the struggle is attracting new groups of workers who play a vital role in economic life (railwaymen, miners, metal-workers, public and municipal employees). So far the majority of strikes have not brought immediate results, but the struggle itself is creating among multitudes of previously backward workers an implacable hatred of capitalists and the state power that protects them. This fight, forced on the proletariat, is making it impossible for the social-reformists and trade-union bureaucrats to continue their policy of collaboration with the employers. It graphically demonstrates to even the most backward layers of the proletariat the inseparable link between economics and politics. Today every big strike is a major political event. Such strikes have shown that the parties of the Second International and the leaders of the Amsterdam trade unions, far from giving help to the working masses in their hard defensive fight, have openly abandoned them to the mercy of fate, and betrayed them to the employers and the bourgeois governments.
One of the aims of the Communist Parties is to expose this continual, unprecedented treachery and illustrate it by using examples from the day to day struggle of the working masses. It is the duty of every Communist Party to extend and deepen the countless economic strikes, wherever possible turning them into political strikes and actions. Obviously the Communist Parties must also, in the course of defensive struggles, aim to strengthen the revolutionary consciousness and militancy of the proletarian masses to such an extent that, given favourable circumstances, the struggle will turn from defence to attack.
As the struggle spreads, it is inevitable that the contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie will steadily intensify. The situation is still objectively revolutionary; even the smallest strike could become the starting-point of great revolutionary battles.
5. International Fascism
Closely linked to the economic offensive of capital is the political offensive of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. Its sharpest expression is international fascism. Since falling living standards are now affecting the middle classes, including the civil service, the ruling class is no longer certain that it can rely on the bureaucracy to act as its tool. Instead, it is resorting everywhere to the creation of special White Guards, which are particularly directed against all the revolutionary efforts of the proletariat and are being increasingly used for the forcible suppression of any attempt by the working class to improve its position.
The characteristic feature of ‘classical’ Italian fascism, which at present has the whole country in its grip, is that the fascists not only form counter-revolutionary fighting organisations, armed to the teeth, but also attempt to use social demagogy to gain a base among the masses: in the peasantry, in the petty bourgeoisie and even in a certain section of the proletariat. There is currently a fascist threat in many countries: in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, almost all the Balkan countries, Poland, Germany, Austria, America and even in countries like Norway. The possibility of fascism appearing in one or another form cannot be ruled out even in such countries as France and Britain.
One of the most important tasks of the Communist Parties is to organise resistance to international fascism. They must be at the head of the working class in the fight against the fascist gangs, must be extremely active in setting up united fronts on the question and must make use of illegal methods of organisation.
But the reckless promotion of fascist organisation is the last card in the bourgeoisie’s hand. Open rule by the White Guards also works against the very foundations of bourgeois democracy. The broadest masses of working people become convinced that bourgeois rule is possible only in the form of an undisguised dictatorship over the proletariat.
6. The Possibility of New Pacifist Illusions
The current international political situation is characterised by fascism, the state of siege and the rising wave of White Terror against the working class. However, this does not rule out the possibility that in the near future open bourgeois reaction may, in some very important countries, give way to an era of ‘democratic pacifism’. In Britain (where the Labour Party made gains at the last elections) and in France (where a period of rule by the so-called “Left Bloc” is unavoidable) this kind of ‘democratic pacifist’ transitional period is very likely and may in its turn give rise to a revival of pacifist hopes in bourgeois and social-democratic Germany. In the period between the present domination of open bourgeois reaction and the complete victory of the revolutionary proletariat over the bourgeoisie, there will be various stages and the possibility of various short-lived episodes. The Communist International and its sections must be aware of all these possibilities. They must know how to defend their revolutionary positions in any situation.
7. The Situation Within The Labour Movement
At the same time as capitalist attacks are forcing the working class onto the defensive, the parties of the centre (the Independents) are drawing closer to and even fusing with the open social-traitors (the social democrats). During the revolutionary upsurge even the centrists, bowing to the pressure of the masses, declared themselves for the dictatorship of the proletariat and moved towards the Third International. But as soon as the wave of revolutionary feeling subsided even temporarily, these centrists ran back to the social-democratic camp, which in reality they had never left. Those people who during the mass revolutionary struggles held a vacillating position are now renouncing the defensive fight and returning to the camp of the Second International, which was always consciously counter-revolutionary. The centrist parties and the entire centrist Two-and-a-Half International are in a state of disintegration. The best of the revolutionary workers who were briefly in the centrist camp will in time come over to the Communist International. In some countries (Italy) this has already started to happen. In contrast, the overwhelming majority of the centrist leaders, who are at present allying themselves with Noske, Mussolini, etc., will turn into hardened counter-revolutionaries.
From an objective viewpoint, the fusion of the parties of the Second and the Two-and-a-Half Internationals can only benefit the revolutionary workers’ movement. The idea of a second revolutionary party outside the Communist camp is losing credibility. Now only two groups will contend for leadership of the majority of the working class: the Second International, which represents the influence of the bourgeoisie within the working class, and the Third International, which has raised the banner of socialist revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat.
8. The Trade-Union Split and the Preparations for White Terror Against the Communists
The fusion of the parties of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals was undoubtedly caused by the need to prepare a ‘favourable atmosphere’ for a systematic campaign against the Communists. Part of this campaign is the deliberate agitation by the leaders of the Amsterdam International in favour of a split. The Amsterdam leaders are avoiding any fightback against the capitalist offensive whilst continuing their policy of collaboration with the employers. They are systematically trying to eliminate Communist influence in the trade unions in order to make sure the Communists put no obstacles in the way of collaboration. Since, however, in many countries the Communists have already won a majority in the trade unions, or are about to do so, the Amsterdam leaders are prepared to use the tactic of forcing expulsions and formally splitting the union movement. Nothing is more effective in undermining the strength of proletarian resistance to the capitalist offensive than a split in the trade unions. The reformist trade-union leaders are well aware of this. But since they realise that the ground is slipping from under their feet and that they cannot avoid their imminent bankruptcy, they are anxious to split the unions, the strongest weapon of proletarian class struggle, so that the Communists will be left with only the fragments and splinters of the old trade-union organisations. The working class has not seen such a malicious betrayal since August 1914. [the parties of the Second International had then abandoned their previously militant opposition to war and joined the patriotic chorus]
9. The Task of Winning the Majority
In these circumstances the main directive of the Third World Congress is still completely valid: to achieve an increase of Communist influence among the majority of the working class and to involve its most decisive sections in struggle.
It is now even more important than it was at the time of the Third Congress to realise that with the present precarious equilibrium of bourgeois society a severe crisis may quite suddenly break out as the result of a major strike, a colonial rising, a new war or even a parliamentary crisis. This is precisely why tremendous importance accrues to the “subjective factor”, i.e., the level of consciousness, militancy and organisation of the working class and its vanguard.
To win the majority of the American and European working class – this was and is the key task facing the Communist International.
In the colonial and semi-colonial countries the Communist International has the following two tasks:
1) to establish the nucleus of a Communist Party, representing the interests of the proletariat as a whole;
2) to give full support to the national-revolutionary movement against imperialism, to become its vanguard and within this national movement to initiate and develop a social movement.
10. The United Front Tactic
There is consequently an obvious need for the united front tactic. The slogan of the Third Congress, “To the masses”, is now more relevant than ever. The struggle to establish a proletarian united front in a whole series of countries is only. just beginning. And only now have we begun to overcome all the difficulties associated with this tactic. The best example is France, where the course of events has won over even those who not so long ago had opposed this tactic on principle. The Communist International requires that all Communist Parties and groups adhere strictly to the united front tactic, because in the present period it is the only way of guiding Communists in the right direction, towards winning the majority of workers.
At present the reformists need a split, while the Communists are interested in uniting all the forces of the working class against capital.
Using the united front tactic means that the Communist vanguard is at the forefront of the day to day struggle of the broad masses for their most vital interests. For the sake of this struggle Communists are even prepared to negotiate with the scab leaders of the social democrats and the Amsterdam International. Any attempt by the Second International to interpret the united front as an organisational fusion of all the ‘workers’ parties’ must of course be categorically repudiated. The attempts of the Second International to absorb workers’ organisations further to the left and call this a united front (the ‘fusion’ of the social democrats and Independents in Germany [in 1922]) in fact simply provide yet another opportunity for the social-democratic leaders to betray new masses of workers to the bourgeoisie.
The existence of independent Communist Parties and their complete freedom of action in relation to the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionary social democracy is the most important historical achievement of the proletariat, and one which the Communists will in no circumstances renounce. Only the Communist Parties stand for the overall interests of the whole proletariat.
In the same way the united front tactic has nothing to do with the so-called ‘electoral combinations’ of leaders in pursuit of one or another parliamentary aim.
The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the Communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie. Every action, for even the most trivial everyday demand, can lead to revolutionary awareness and revolutionary education; it is the experience of struggle that will convince workers of the inevitability of revolution and the historic importance of Communism.
It is particularly important when using the united front tactic to achieve not just agitational but also organisational results. Every opportunity must be used to establish organisational footholds among the working masses themselves (factory committees, supervisory commissions made up of workers from all the different parties and unaligned workers, action committees, etc.).
The main aim of the united front tactic is to unify the working masses through agitation and organisation. The real success of the united front tactic depends on a movement “from below”, from the rank-and-file of the working masses. Nevertheless, there are circumstances in which Communists must not refuse to have talks with the leaders of the hostile workers’ parties, providing the masses are always kept fully informed of the course of these talks. During negotiations with these leaders the independence of the Communist Party and its agitation must not be circumscribed.
Obviously, the united front tactic has to be applied differently in different countries, according to the concrete conditions. Still, where the objective conditions in the most important countries are ripe for a socialist transformation, and where the social-democratic parties with their counter-revolutionary leaders are deliberately seeking to split the working class, the united front tactic will be of decisive importance for the whole epoch.
11. The Workers’ Government
The slogan of a workers’ government (or a workers’ and peasants’ government) can be used practically everywhere as a general agitational slogan. However, as a central political slogan, the workers’ government is most important in countries where the position of bourgeois society is particularly unstable and where the balance of forces between the workers’ parties and the bourgeoisie places the question of government on the order of the day as a practical problem requiring immediate solution. In these countries the workers’ government slogan follows inevitably from the entire united front tactic.
The parties of the Second International are trying to rescue the situation in these countries by advocating and forming a coalition of the bourgeoisie and the social democrats. The recent attempts by certain parties of the Second International (e.g. in Germany) to take part in this kind of coalition government secretly, whilst refusing to be openly involved, are nothing but a manoeuvre to pacify the indignant masses, just a more subtle deception of the working masses. In place of a bourgeois/social-democratic coalition, whether open or disguised, Communists propose a united front involving all workers, and a coalition of all workers’ parties around economic and political issues, which will fight and finally overthrow bourgeois power. Following a united struggle of all workers against the bourgeoisie, the entire state apparatus must pass into the hands of a workers’ government, so strengthening the position of power held by the working class.
The most elementary tasks of a workers’ government must be to arm the proletariat, disarm the bourgeois counter-revolutionary organisations, bringing control over production, shift the main burden of taxation onto the propertied classes and break the resistance of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.
Such a workers’ government is possible only if it is born out of the struggle of the masses and is supported by combative workers’ organisations formed by the most oppressed sections of workers at grassroots level. However, even a workers’ government that comes about through an alignment of parliamentary forces, i.e., a government of purely parliamentary origin, can give rise to an upsurge of the revolutionary workers’ movement. It is obvious that the formation of a genuine workers’ government, and the continued existence of any such government committed to revolutionary politics, must lead to a bitter struggle with the bourgeoisie or even to civil war. The mere attempt by the proletariat to form such a workers’ government will from its very first days come up against extremely strong resistance from the bourgeoisie. The slogan of a workers’ government therefore has the potential to rally the proletarians and unleash revolutionary struggle.
In certain circumstances, Communists must declare themselves ready to form a workers’ government with non-Communist workers’ parties and workers’ organisations. However, they should do so only if there are guarantees that the workers’ government will conduct a real struggle against the bourgeoisie of the kind already outlined. The obvious conditions on which Communists will participate in such a government are:
1 Communists participating in such a government remain under the strictest control of their Party;
2 Communists participating in such a workers’ government should be in extremely close contact with the revolutionary organisations of the masses;
3 The Communist Party has the unconditional right to maintain its own identity and complete independence of agitation.
For all its great advantages, the slogan of a workers’ government also has its dangers, as does the whole tactic of the united front. To avoid these dangers and to confront now the illusion that the stage of ‘democratic coalition’ is inevitable, the Communist Parties must be aware of the following:
Every bourgeois government is simultaneously a capitalist government, but not every workers’ government is a truly proletarian, socialist government.
The Communist International must consider the following possibilities:
1 A liberal workers’ government, such as existed in Australia and is possible in Britain in the near future.
2 A social-democratic ‘workers’ government’ (Germany).
3 A workers’ and peasants’ government. Such a possibility exists in the Balkans, Czechoslovakia, etc.
4 A social-democratic/Communist coalition government.
5 A genuine proletarian workers’ government, which can be created in its pure form only by a Communist Party.
Communists are also prepared to work alongside those workers who have not yet recognised the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Accordingly Communists are also ready, in certain conditions and with certain guarantees, to support a non-Communist workers’ government. However, the Communists will still openly declare to the masses that the workers’ government can be neither won nor maintained without a revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie.
The first two types of workers’ governments (the workers’ and peasants’ and the social-democratic/Communist governments) fall short of representing the dictatorship of the proletariat, but are still an important starting-point for the winning of this dictatorship. The complete dictatorship of the proletariat can only be a genuine workers’ government (type 5) consisting of Communists.
12. The Factory Committee Movement
No Communist Party can consider itself a serious and well-organised mass Communist Party unless it has strong Communist cells in the factories, mills, mines, railways, etc. In present-day conditions a workers’ movement cannot consider itself a systematically organised mass proletarian movement unless the working class and its organisations can set up factory committees to form the backbone of the movement. In particular, the fight against the capitalist offensive and for control of production is hopeless unless the Communists command a firm foothold in all the factories and the workers have set up in the workplaces their own fighting proletarian organisations (factory committees, workers’ councils).
Congress therefore considers that one of the major tasks facing every Communist Party is to strengthen its influence in the factories and to support the factory committee movement or take the initiative in starting such a movement.
13. International Discipline
Now, more than ever, the strictest international discipline is necessary, both within the Communist International and in each of its separate sections, in order to carry out the united front tactic at the international level and in each individual country.
The Fourth Congress categorically demands that all sections and all members keep strictly to this tactic, which will bring results only if it is unanimously and systematically carried out not only in word but also in deed.
Acceptance of the twenty-one conditions involves carrying out all the tactical decisions taken by World Congresses and by the Executive Committee, the organ of the Communist International between World Congresses. Congress instructs the Executive Committee to be extremely firm in demanding and seeing that every Party puts these tactical decisions into practice. Only the clearly defined revolutionary tactics of the Communist International will ensure the earliest possible victory of the international proletarian revolution.
Congress decides to attach as an appendix to this resolution the text of the December theses (192 1) of the Executive Committee, which are a correct and detailed explanation of the united front tactic.
From The Pages Of The Communist International-In Honor Of The 90th Anniversary Of The Fourth Congress (1922)- The Versailles Peace Treaty
Click on the headline to link to the Communist International Internet Archives.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
******
Fourth Congress of the Communist International
The Versailles Peace Treaty
5 December 1922
The World War ended with the downfall of three imperialist powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. Four exploiting Great Powers emerged from the war as victors: the United States, Britain, France and Japan.
The peace treaties, the crux of which is the Versailles peace treaty, are nothing other than an attempt to stabilise the world domination of these four victorious powers; politically and economically, by reducing the rest of the world to the level of a single colony exploited by them, and socially, by creating an international union of the bourgeoisie designed to strengthen bourgeois rule both over the proletariat of their own countries and over the victorious revolutionary proletariat of Russia. With this end in view, a whole series of small vassal states were set up around Russia and armed by the Entente in order to strangle Soviet Russia at the first convenient opportunity. The defeated nations were made to repay fully the losses suffered by the victorious powers during the war.
It is now blatantly clear that the assumptions on which the peace treaties were built were mistaken. The attempt to establish a new balance of power on a capitalist basis had proved unsuccessful. The last four years present a picture of continual vacillation, constant uncertainty, economic crises, unemployment and labour shortages, ministerial crises, party crises and international political crises.
By holding an endless series of conferences, the imperialist powers are trying to delay the disintegration of the world system founded on the notorious peace treaties, and to conceal the bankruptcy of the Versailles peace.
In Russia attempts to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat have proved unsuccessful. The proletariat throughout the capitalist world is all the more firm in its support for Soviet Russia. Even the leaders of the Amsterdam International have been forced to declare openly that the overthrow of proletarian power in Russia would be tantamount to a victory for world reaction over the entire proletariat.
Turkey, outpost of the growing revolution in the East, has taken up arms and successfully opposed the implementation of the peace treaty. One of the most vital parts of the peace treaty is being solemnly buried at the Lausanne conference.
The prolonged world economic crisis has shown that the economic conceptions of the Versailles peace treaty were profoundly wrong. Britain, the leader of European imperialism and extremely dependent on world trade, is not in a position to consolidate its economy without the restoration of Germany and Russia. The United States, the strongest imperialist power, has finally turned its back on the peace treaty and is trying to consolidate an independent policy of world-wide imperialism. To realise this aim, it has enlisted the support of important sections of the British Empire – Canada and Australia.
The oppressed British colonies, the basis of Britain’s world power, are rebelling against their rulers: the entire Moslem world has been swept by open or clandestine revolt.
All the assumptions of the peace treaty have proved invalid, with a single exception: that the proletariat in the bourgeois countries has to bear the entire burden of the war and the Versailles treaty.
France
At first glance it might appear that, of all the victorious powers, France has gained the most. Besides the seizure of Alsace-Lorraine, the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine and the claim to countless billions of German reparations, it has in military terms become the strongest power on the European continent. With the help of its vassal states, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, whose armies are under the command and leadership of French generals, with the help of its own huge army, of its submarines and its airforce, France dominates the entire European continent; it is the watchdog and guardian of the Versailles peace treaty. However, its economy, diminishing population, enormous domestic and foreign debts and consequent economic dependence on Britain and America do not provide a firm enough basis for its insatiable imperialist appetite. British control of all the important naval strongholds, and the British and American oil monopoly, greatly limit its political power. The economic value of the iron ore gained by France as a result of the Versailles peace treaty is reduced by the fact that the coal vital for exploiting this wealth is in the Ruhr, which belongs to Germany. Hopes that German reparations would help to regulate France’s shaky finances have proved illusory. All the financial experts are agreed that Germany cannot possibly pay the sums needed by France to revive its finances. The French bourgeoisie has only one option – to lower the living standards of the French proletariat to the German level. The hunger the German workers are suffering prefigures the poverty that threatens to overtake the French workers very soon. Once the complete bankruptcy of the Versailles peace treaty is apparent, the devaluation of the franc, which is being deliberately encouraged by certain sections of French heavy industry, will be used to force the French proletariat to pay all the costs of the war.
Britain
The World War gave Britain the opportunity to unite its colonial world empire, stretching from the Cape of Good Hope to Egypt, and from Arabia to India. Britain has kept possession of all the most important outlets to the oceans. By making concessions to the dominions, it is trying to maintain an Anglo-Saxon world empire.
However, despite the great ability of the British bourgeoisie to adapt itself, and despite its stubborn efforts to win back the world market, it has become clear that, in the conditions created by the Versailles peace treaty, Britain cannot flourish. Such a highly industrialised country as Britain cannot exist unless the economies of Germany and Russia are restored. Here the interests of Britain and France violently clash: Britain wants to sell its goods to Germany, but this is prevented by the Versailles peace treaty; France wants to squeeze huge sums out of Germany as compensation for war losses, but this threatens to destroy German purchasing power. Hence Britain favours a reduction of reparations, while France is carrying on an undercover war against Britain in the Near East to compel greater flexibility on the question of reparations. While the British proletariat, through the unemployment affecting millions of workers, is shouldering the burden of the war, the British bourgeoisie continues to make new deals with the French bourgeoisie – at the expense of Germany.
Central Europe and Germany
One of the main concerns of the Versailles peace is Central Europe – the new colony of the imperialist gangsters. Parcelled out into a countless number of small states, divided into a series of economically unviable provinces, Central Europe has lost all possibility of following an independent policy. These states have all become colonies of British and French capital. The Great Powers, according to the needs of their changing interests, incite them against each other. Czechoslovakia, torn away from an economic body that brought together 60 million people, is undergoing a prolonged economic crisis. Austria has become an unviable imitation of a state, hanging on to the appearance of an independent political existence only because of the mutual hostility of its neighbours. Poland, which was given huge territories with a non-Polish population, has become a distant outpost of France, a caricature of the French Empire. In all these countries the proletariat, as a result of the fall in living standards and high unemployment, is paying the costs of the war.
The most important issue in the Versailles peace treaty is, however, Germany. Disarmed, deprived of any opportunity to defend itself, it is completely at the mercy of the Great Powers. The German bourgeoisie tries to make common cause now with the British and now with the French bourgeoisie. It is striving, through increased exploitation of the German proletariat, to satisfy part of the French claims, and at the same time, by resorting to foreign help, to strengthen its rule over the German proletariat. But even the most intensive exploitation of the German proletariat – even the reduction of the German worker to the level of a kind of European coolie, even the sea of poverty into which, thanks to the Versailles peace treaty, the German proletariat has sunk – all this still does not make the payment of the reparations possible. Germany has therefore become a toy in the hands of Britain and France. The French bourgeoisie wants to decide the question by force – by occupying the Ruhr. Britain is absolutely opposed to this. Only the intervention of the United States, economically the strongest power, could have gone some way towards conciliating the mutually conflicting interests of Britain, France and Germany.
The United States of America
However, the United States has long since refused to participate in implementing the Versailles peace, and was against ratifying the Versailles treaty. The United States, which emerged from the World War as the strongest power economically and politically, and as a major creditor of the European imperialist powers, shows no desire to help France out of its financial crisis by allocating substantial credits to Germany. American capital is steadily turning its back on the chaos in Europe and is trying, with great success, to build its own large colonial empire in Central and South America and in the Far East, and at the same time, by means of protective tariffs, to secure for its own ruling class the right to exploit the home market. Whilst leaving continental Europe to the mercy of fate, America nevertheless has to deal with the conflicting interests of Britain and Japan. By using its economic supremacy to build a strong navy, the United States has forced the other imperialist powers to sign the Washington agreement on disarmament. In doing this, it undermined one of the most important bases of the Versailles peace treaty – British world supremacy at sea – and so has removed any interest Britain had in preserving the alignment of powers envisaged by the Versailles treaty.
Japan and the Colonies
Japan, the youngest of the imperialist world powers, is also keeping out of the chaos in Europe created by the Versailles peace treaty. However, the transformation of the United States into a world power has seriously affected its interests. In Washington, Japan was forced to renounce its alliance with Britain; this removed yet another of the major pillars on which the division of the world that took place at Versailles was based. In addition, not only are the oppressed peoples rebelling against the rule of Britain and Japan, but the British dominions are seeking to safeguard their interests in the coming battle between the United States and Japan by establishing close links with the United States. The edifice of British imperialism is, in consequence, showing bigger and bigger cracks.
Towards A New World War
Owing to the conflicting interests of the imperialist Great Powers, the attempt to create a firm basis for their world rule has proved completely unsuccessful. The great edifice of the peace treaty lies in ruins. The Great Powers and their vassals are preparing for a new war. Militarism is stronger than ever. Although the bourgeoisie is panic-stricken and horrified at the thought of the new proletarian revolution that would result from the world war, the inner laws of the capitalist social order are inexorably leading to a new world conflict.
The Tasks of the Communist Parties
The Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals are trying to support the radical wing of the bourgeoisie, who represent mainly trade and banking capital, in their ineffectual fight for the reduction of reparations. On this, as on every question, they walk hand in hand with the bourgeoisie. The task of the Communist Parties, especially those in the victorious countries, is to explain to the masses that the Versailles peace treaty transfers all war costs to the proletariat in both the defeated and the victorious countries. They must make it clear that in every country the real victim of bourgeois peacemaking is the proletariat. Following on from this, the Communist Parties, above all those of Germany and France, must start a joint struggle against the Versailles peace treaty. The German Communist Party must emphasize the readiness of the German proletariat to help in any way possible the workers and peasants of Northern France to restore their ruined economy; at the same time, it must wage a sharp fight against its own bourgeoisie, which is ready to join the French bourgeoisie (Stinnes agreement [It is not clear what this refers to. In 1922, Stinnes did explore various schemes for a voluntary Franco-German iron and coal cartel, but nothing came of them.]) in sacrificing the German proletariat to a policy of meeting all obligations, and is even prepared to turn Germany into a colony of the French bourgeoisie, if this would fully secure its class interests. The French Communist Party must do all it can to fight the imperialist tendencies of its own bourgeoisie and any attempt to enrich the French bourgeoisie by increased exploitation of the German proletariat. It must fight for immediate withdrawal from the occupied left bank of the Rhine. It must fight against the seizure of the Ruhr, against the dismemberment of Germany and against French imperialism. It is no longer enough to oppose the idea of ‘defence of the fatherland’ in France: the struggle against the Versailles treaty must now be taken up everywhere. The Czechoslovak and Polish Communist Parties, as well as the Communist Parties of other vassal countries subordinate to France, have a duty to combine the fight against their own bourgeoisies with the fight against French imperialism. Joint mass actions must show the proletariat that the attempt to implement the Versailles peace treaty will reduce the entire European proletariat to grinding poverty, and that opposition to this attempt is in the common interests of the proletariat of the whole world.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
******
Fourth Congress of the Communist International
The Versailles Peace Treaty
5 December 1922
The World War ended with the downfall of three imperialist powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. Four exploiting Great Powers emerged from the war as victors: the United States, Britain, France and Japan.
The peace treaties, the crux of which is the Versailles peace treaty, are nothing other than an attempt to stabilise the world domination of these four victorious powers; politically and economically, by reducing the rest of the world to the level of a single colony exploited by them, and socially, by creating an international union of the bourgeoisie designed to strengthen bourgeois rule both over the proletariat of their own countries and over the victorious revolutionary proletariat of Russia. With this end in view, a whole series of small vassal states were set up around Russia and armed by the Entente in order to strangle Soviet Russia at the first convenient opportunity. The defeated nations were made to repay fully the losses suffered by the victorious powers during the war.
It is now blatantly clear that the assumptions on which the peace treaties were built were mistaken. The attempt to establish a new balance of power on a capitalist basis had proved unsuccessful. The last four years present a picture of continual vacillation, constant uncertainty, economic crises, unemployment and labour shortages, ministerial crises, party crises and international political crises.
By holding an endless series of conferences, the imperialist powers are trying to delay the disintegration of the world system founded on the notorious peace treaties, and to conceal the bankruptcy of the Versailles peace.
In Russia attempts to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat have proved unsuccessful. The proletariat throughout the capitalist world is all the more firm in its support for Soviet Russia. Even the leaders of the Amsterdam International have been forced to declare openly that the overthrow of proletarian power in Russia would be tantamount to a victory for world reaction over the entire proletariat.
Turkey, outpost of the growing revolution in the East, has taken up arms and successfully opposed the implementation of the peace treaty. One of the most vital parts of the peace treaty is being solemnly buried at the Lausanne conference.
The prolonged world economic crisis has shown that the economic conceptions of the Versailles peace treaty were profoundly wrong. Britain, the leader of European imperialism and extremely dependent on world trade, is not in a position to consolidate its economy without the restoration of Germany and Russia. The United States, the strongest imperialist power, has finally turned its back on the peace treaty and is trying to consolidate an independent policy of world-wide imperialism. To realise this aim, it has enlisted the support of important sections of the British Empire – Canada and Australia.
The oppressed British colonies, the basis of Britain’s world power, are rebelling against their rulers: the entire Moslem world has been swept by open or clandestine revolt.
All the assumptions of the peace treaty have proved invalid, with a single exception: that the proletariat in the bourgeois countries has to bear the entire burden of the war and the Versailles treaty.
France
At first glance it might appear that, of all the victorious powers, France has gained the most. Besides the seizure of Alsace-Lorraine, the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine and the claim to countless billions of German reparations, it has in military terms become the strongest power on the European continent. With the help of its vassal states, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, whose armies are under the command and leadership of French generals, with the help of its own huge army, of its submarines and its airforce, France dominates the entire European continent; it is the watchdog and guardian of the Versailles peace treaty. However, its economy, diminishing population, enormous domestic and foreign debts and consequent economic dependence on Britain and America do not provide a firm enough basis for its insatiable imperialist appetite. British control of all the important naval strongholds, and the British and American oil monopoly, greatly limit its political power. The economic value of the iron ore gained by France as a result of the Versailles peace treaty is reduced by the fact that the coal vital for exploiting this wealth is in the Ruhr, which belongs to Germany. Hopes that German reparations would help to regulate France’s shaky finances have proved illusory. All the financial experts are agreed that Germany cannot possibly pay the sums needed by France to revive its finances. The French bourgeoisie has only one option – to lower the living standards of the French proletariat to the German level. The hunger the German workers are suffering prefigures the poverty that threatens to overtake the French workers very soon. Once the complete bankruptcy of the Versailles peace treaty is apparent, the devaluation of the franc, which is being deliberately encouraged by certain sections of French heavy industry, will be used to force the French proletariat to pay all the costs of the war.
Britain
The World War gave Britain the opportunity to unite its colonial world empire, stretching from the Cape of Good Hope to Egypt, and from Arabia to India. Britain has kept possession of all the most important outlets to the oceans. By making concessions to the dominions, it is trying to maintain an Anglo-Saxon world empire.
However, despite the great ability of the British bourgeoisie to adapt itself, and despite its stubborn efforts to win back the world market, it has become clear that, in the conditions created by the Versailles peace treaty, Britain cannot flourish. Such a highly industrialised country as Britain cannot exist unless the economies of Germany and Russia are restored. Here the interests of Britain and France violently clash: Britain wants to sell its goods to Germany, but this is prevented by the Versailles peace treaty; France wants to squeeze huge sums out of Germany as compensation for war losses, but this threatens to destroy German purchasing power. Hence Britain favours a reduction of reparations, while France is carrying on an undercover war against Britain in the Near East to compel greater flexibility on the question of reparations. While the British proletariat, through the unemployment affecting millions of workers, is shouldering the burden of the war, the British bourgeoisie continues to make new deals with the French bourgeoisie – at the expense of Germany.
Central Europe and Germany
One of the main concerns of the Versailles peace is Central Europe – the new colony of the imperialist gangsters. Parcelled out into a countless number of small states, divided into a series of economically unviable provinces, Central Europe has lost all possibility of following an independent policy. These states have all become colonies of British and French capital. The Great Powers, according to the needs of their changing interests, incite them against each other. Czechoslovakia, torn away from an economic body that brought together 60 million people, is undergoing a prolonged economic crisis. Austria has become an unviable imitation of a state, hanging on to the appearance of an independent political existence only because of the mutual hostility of its neighbours. Poland, which was given huge territories with a non-Polish population, has become a distant outpost of France, a caricature of the French Empire. In all these countries the proletariat, as a result of the fall in living standards and high unemployment, is paying the costs of the war.
The most important issue in the Versailles peace treaty is, however, Germany. Disarmed, deprived of any opportunity to defend itself, it is completely at the mercy of the Great Powers. The German bourgeoisie tries to make common cause now with the British and now with the French bourgeoisie. It is striving, through increased exploitation of the German proletariat, to satisfy part of the French claims, and at the same time, by resorting to foreign help, to strengthen its rule over the German proletariat. But even the most intensive exploitation of the German proletariat – even the reduction of the German worker to the level of a kind of European coolie, even the sea of poverty into which, thanks to the Versailles peace treaty, the German proletariat has sunk – all this still does not make the payment of the reparations possible. Germany has therefore become a toy in the hands of Britain and France. The French bourgeoisie wants to decide the question by force – by occupying the Ruhr. Britain is absolutely opposed to this. Only the intervention of the United States, economically the strongest power, could have gone some way towards conciliating the mutually conflicting interests of Britain, France and Germany.
The United States of America
However, the United States has long since refused to participate in implementing the Versailles peace, and was against ratifying the Versailles treaty. The United States, which emerged from the World War as the strongest power economically and politically, and as a major creditor of the European imperialist powers, shows no desire to help France out of its financial crisis by allocating substantial credits to Germany. American capital is steadily turning its back on the chaos in Europe and is trying, with great success, to build its own large colonial empire in Central and South America and in the Far East, and at the same time, by means of protective tariffs, to secure for its own ruling class the right to exploit the home market. Whilst leaving continental Europe to the mercy of fate, America nevertheless has to deal with the conflicting interests of Britain and Japan. By using its economic supremacy to build a strong navy, the United States has forced the other imperialist powers to sign the Washington agreement on disarmament. In doing this, it undermined one of the most important bases of the Versailles peace treaty – British world supremacy at sea – and so has removed any interest Britain had in preserving the alignment of powers envisaged by the Versailles treaty.
Japan and the Colonies
Japan, the youngest of the imperialist world powers, is also keeping out of the chaos in Europe created by the Versailles peace treaty. However, the transformation of the United States into a world power has seriously affected its interests. In Washington, Japan was forced to renounce its alliance with Britain; this removed yet another of the major pillars on which the division of the world that took place at Versailles was based. In addition, not only are the oppressed peoples rebelling against the rule of Britain and Japan, but the British dominions are seeking to safeguard their interests in the coming battle between the United States and Japan by establishing close links with the United States. The edifice of British imperialism is, in consequence, showing bigger and bigger cracks.
Towards A New World War
Owing to the conflicting interests of the imperialist Great Powers, the attempt to create a firm basis for their world rule has proved completely unsuccessful. The great edifice of the peace treaty lies in ruins. The Great Powers and their vassals are preparing for a new war. Militarism is stronger than ever. Although the bourgeoisie is panic-stricken and horrified at the thought of the new proletarian revolution that would result from the world war, the inner laws of the capitalist social order are inexorably leading to a new world conflict.
The Tasks of the Communist Parties
The Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals are trying to support the radical wing of the bourgeoisie, who represent mainly trade and banking capital, in their ineffectual fight for the reduction of reparations. On this, as on every question, they walk hand in hand with the bourgeoisie. The task of the Communist Parties, especially those in the victorious countries, is to explain to the masses that the Versailles peace treaty transfers all war costs to the proletariat in both the defeated and the victorious countries. They must make it clear that in every country the real victim of bourgeois peacemaking is the proletariat. Following on from this, the Communist Parties, above all those of Germany and France, must start a joint struggle against the Versailles peace treaty. The German Communist Party must emphasize the readiness of the German proletariat to help in any way possible the workers and peasants of Northern France to restore their ruined economy; at the same time, it must wage a sharp fight against its own bourgeoisie, which is ready to join the French bourgeoisie (Stinnes agreement [It is not clear what this refers to. In 1922, Stinnes did explore various schemes for a voluntary Franco-German iron and coal cartel, but nothing came of them.]) in sacrificing the German proletariat to a policy of meeting all obligations, and is even prepared to turn Germany into a colony of the French bourgeoisie, if this would fully secure its class interests. The French Communist Party must do all it can to fight the imperialist tendencies of its own bourgeoisie and any attempt to enrich the French bourgeoisie by increased exploitation of the German proletariat. It must fight for immediate withdrawal from the occupied left bank of the Rhine. It must fight against the seizure of the Ruhr, against the dismemberment of Germany and against French imperialism. It is no longer enough to oppose the idea of ‘defence of the fatherland’ in France: the struggle against the Versailles treaty must now be taken up everywhere. The Czechoslovak and Polish Communist Parties, as well as the Communist Parties of other vassal countries subordinate to France, have a duty to combine the fight against their own bourgeoisies with the fight against French imperialism. Joint mass actions must show the proletariat that the attempt to implement the Versailles peace treaty will reduce the entire European proletariat to grinding poverty, and that opposition to this attempt is in the common interests of the proletariat of the whole world.
From The Pages Of The Communist International-In Honor Of The 90th Anniversary Of The Fourth Congress (1922)- The Black Question
Click on the headline to link to the Communist International Internet Archives.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
******
Fourth Congress of the Communist International
The Black Question
30 November 1922
1 During and after the war a revolutionary movement began to develop among the colonial and semi-colonial peoples and this movement is still successfully challenging the domination of world capital. Therefore, if capitalism is to continue, it must come to terms with the increasingly difficult problem of how to intensify its colonisation of the regions inhabited by black people. French capitalism clearly recognises that the power of pre-war French imperialism can only be maintained by creating a Franco-African empire, welded together by a Trans-Saharan railway. American finance magnates (who already exploit twelve million blacks in their own country) have begun a peaceful invasion of Africa. The extent to which Britain, for its part, fears any threat to its position in Africa is clearly shown by the extreme measures it took to suppress the strikes in South Africa. [This refers to the Rand Strike of 1922, an all-white affair conducted under the slogan: “For a White South Africa”. The Communist Party supported the strike movement, while calling for the unity of black and white workers] While competition between the imperialist powers in the Pacific has grown into the threat of a new world war, imperialist rivalry in Africa, too, is playing a more and more sinister role. Finally, the war, the Russian revolution, and the powerful anti-imperialist rebellion among the Asiatic and Moslem peoples have awakened the consciousness of millions of blacks who for centuries have been oppressed and humiliated by capitalism, in Africa, and probably to an even greater degree in America.
2 The history of the American blacks has prepared them to play a major role in the liberation struggle of the entire African race. 300 years ago the American blacks were torn from their native African soil, transported to America in slave ships and, in indescribably cruel conditions, sold into slavery. For 250 years they were treated like human cattle, under the whip of the American overseer. Their labour cleared the forests, built the roads, picked the cotton, constructed the railroads – on it the Southern aristocracy rested. The reward for their labour was poverty, illiteracy and degradation. The blacks were not docile slaves; their history is full of revolts, uprisings, and an underground struggle for freedom, but all their efforts to free themselves were savagely suppressed. They were tortured into submission, while the bourgeois press and religion justified their slavery. When slavery became an obstacle preventing the full and unhindered development of America towards capitalism, when this slavery came into conflict with the slavery of wage labour, it had to give way. The Civil War, which was not a war for the emancipation of the blacks but a war for the preservation of the industrial hegemony of the North, confronted the blacks with a choice between forced labour in the South and wage slavery in the North. The blood, sweat and tears of the ‘emancipated’ blacks helped to build American capitalism, and when the country, now become a world power, was inevitably pulled into the World War, black Americans gained equal rights with the whites ... to kill and to die for ‘democracy’. Four hundred thousand coloured proletarians were recruited to the American army and organised into special black regiments. These black soldiers had hardly returned from the bloodbath of the war before they came up against racial persecution, lynchings, murders, the denial of rights, discrimination and general contempt. They fought back, but paid dearly for the attempt to assert their human rights. The persecution of blacks became even more widespread than before the war, and the blacks once again learned to ‘know their place’. The spirit of revolt, inflamed by the post-war violence and persecution, was suppressed, but cases of inhuman cruelty, such as the events in Tulsa, [City in Oklahoma. Scene of a pogrom in 1921 which turned into a veritable race war] still cause it to flare up again. This, plus the post-war industrialisation of blacks in the North, places the American blacks, particularly those in the North, in the vanguard of the struggle for black liberation.
3 The Communist International is extremely proud to see the exploited black workers resisting the attacks of the exploiters, since the enemy of the black race and the enemy of the white workers is one and the same – capitalism and imperialism. The international struggle of the black race is a struggle against this common enemy. An international black movement based on this struggle must be organised: in America, the centre of black culture and black protest; in Africa, with its reserve of human labour for the further development of capitalism; in Central America (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Colombia, Nicaragua and the other ‘independent” republics), where American capitalism rules; in Puerto Rico, Haiti, San Domingo and the other Caribbean islands, where the brutal treatment of our black brothers by the American occupation has provoked a world-wide protest from conscious blacks and revolutionary white workers; in South Africa and the Congo, where the growing industrialisation of the black population has led to all kinds of uprisings; and in East Africa, where the inroads of world capital have led to the local population starting an active anti-imperialist movement.
4 The Communist International must show the black people that they are not the only ones to suffer capitalist and imperialist oppression; that the workers and peasants of Europe, Asia and America are also victims of imperialism; that the black struggle against imperialism is not the struggle of any one single people, but of all the peoples of the world; that in India and China, in Persia and Turkey, in Egypt and Morocco, the oppressed non-white peoples of the colonies are heroically fighting their imperialist exploiters; that these peoples are rising against the same evils, i.e., against racial oppression, inequality and exploitation, and are fighting for the same ends – political, economic and social emancipation and equality.
The Communist International represents the revolutionary workers and peasants of the entire world in their struggle against the power of imperialism – it is not just an organisation of the enslaved white workers of Europe and America, but is as much an organisation of the oppressed non-white peoples of the world, and so feels duty-bound to encourage and support the international organisations of the black people in their struggle against the common enemy.
5 The black question has become an integral part of the world revolution. The Third International has already recognised what valuable help the coloured Asiatic peoples can give to the proletarian revolution, and it realises that in the semi-capitalist countries the co-operation of our oppressed black brothers is extremely important for the proletarian revolution and for the destruction of capitalist power. Therefore the Fourth Congress gives Communists the special responsibility of closely applying the “Theses on the Colonial Question” to the situation of the blacks.
6 i) The Fourth Congress considers it essential to support all forms of the black movement which aim either to undermine or weaken capitalism and imperialism or to prevent their further expansion.
ii) The Communist International will fight for the racial equality of blacks and whites, for equal wages and equal social and political rights.
iii) The Communist International will do all it can to force the trade unions to admit black workers wherever admittance is legal, and will insist on a special campaign to achieve this end. If this proves unsuccessful, it will organise blacks into their own unions and then make special use of the united front tactic to force the general unions to admit them.
iv) The Communist International will immediately take steps to convene an international black conference or congress in Moscow.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
******
Fourth Congress of the Communist International
The Black Question
30 November 1922
1 During and after the war a revolutionary movement began to develop among the colonial and semi-colonial peoples and this movement is still successfully challenging the domination of world capital. Therefore, if capitalism is to continue, it must come to terms with the increasingly difficult problem of how to intensify its colonisation of the regions inhabited by black people. French capitalism clearly recognises that the power of pre-war French imperialism can only be maintained by creating a Franco-African empire, welded together by a Trans-Saharan railway. American finance magnates (who already exploit twelve million blacks in their own country) have begun a peaceful invasion of Africa. The extent to which Britain, for its part, fears any threat to its position in Africa is clearly shown by the extreme measures it took to suppress the strikes in South Africa. [This refers to the Rand Strike of 1922, an all-white affair conducted under the slogan: “For a White South Africa”. The Communist Party supported the strike movement, while calling for the unity of black and white workers] While competition between the imperialist powers in the Pacific has grown into the threat of a new world war, imperialist rivalry in Africa, too, is playing a more and more sinister role. Finally, the war, the Russian revolution, and the powerful anti-imperialist rebellion among the Asiatic and Moslem peoples have awakened the consciousness of millions of blacks who for centuries have been oppressed and humiliated by capitalism, in Africa, and probably to an even greater degree in America.
2 The history of the American blacks has prepared them to play a major role in the liberation struggle of the entire African race. 300 years ago the American blacks were torn from their native African soil, transported to America in slave ships and, in indescribably cruel conditions, sold into slavery. For 250 years they were treated like human cattle, under the whip of the American overseer. Their labour cleared the forests, built the roads, picked the cotton, constructed the railroads – on it the Southern aristocracy rested. The reward for their labour was poverty, illiteracy and degradation. The blacks were not docile slaves; their history is full of revolts, uprisings, and an underground struggle for freedom, but all their efforts to free themselves were savagely suppressed. They were tortured into submission, while the bourgeois press and religion justified their slavery. When slavery became an obstacle preventing the full and unhindered development of America towards capitalism, when this slavery came into conflict with the slavery of wage labour, it had to give way. The Civil War, which was not a war for the emancipation of the blacks but a war for the preservation of the industrial hegemony of the North, confronted the blacks with a choice between forced labour in the South and wage slavery in the North. The blood, sweat and tears of the ‘emancipated’ blacks helped to build American capitalism, and when the country, now become a world power, was inevitably pulled into the World War, black Americans gained equal rights with the whites ... to kill and to die for ‘democracy’. Four hundred thousand coloured proletarians were recruited to the American army and organised into special black regiments. These black soldiers had hardly returned from the bloodbath of the war before they came up against racial persecution, lynchings, murders, the denial of rights, discrimination and general contempt. They fought back, but paid dearly for the attempt to assert their human rights. The persecution of blacks became even more widespread than before the war, and the blacks once again learned to ‘know their place’. The spirit of revolt, inflamed by the post-war violence and persecution, was suppressed, but cases of inhuman cruelty, such as the events in Tulsa, [City in Oklahoma. Scene of a pogrom in 1921 which turned into a veritable race war] still cause it to flare up again. This, plus the post-war industrialisation of blacks in the North, places the American blacks, particularly those in the North, in the vanguard of the struggle for black liberation.
3 The Communist International is extremely proud to see the exploited black workers resisting the attacks of the exploiters, since the enemy of the black race and the enemy of the white workers is one and the same – capitalism and imperialism. The international struggle of the black race is a struggle against this common enemy. An international black movement based on this struggle must be organised: in America, the centre of black culture and black protest; in Africa, with its reserve of human labour for the further development of capitalism; in Central America (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Colombia, Nicaragua and the other ‘independent” republics), where American capitalism rules; in Puerto Rico, Haiti, San Domingo and the other Caribbean islands, where the brutal treatment of our black brothers by the American occupation has provoked a world-wide protest from conscious blacks and revolutionary white workers; in South Africa and the Congo, where the growing industrialisation of the black population has led to all kinds of uprisings; and in East Africa, where the inroads of world capital have led to the local population starting an active anti-imperialist movement.
4 The Communist International must show the black people that they are not the only ones to suffer capitalist and imperialist oppression; that the workers and peasants of Europe, Asia and America are also victims of imperialism; that the black struggle against imperialism is not the struggle of any one single people, but of all the peoples of the world; that in India and China, in Persia and Turkey, in Egypt and Morocco, the oppressed non-white peoples of the colonies are heroically fighting their imperialist exploiters; that these peoples are rising against the same evils, i.e., against racial oppression, inequality and exploitation, and are fighting for the same ends – political, economic and social emancipation and equality.
The Communist International represents the revolutionary workers and peasants of the entire world in their struggle against the power of imperialism – it is not just an organisation of the enslaved white workers of Europe and America, but is as much an organisation of the oppressed non-white peoples of the world, and so feels duty-bound to encourage and support the international organisations of the black people in their struggle against the common enemy.
5 The black question has become an integral part of the world revolution. The Third International has already recognised what valuable help the coloured Asiatic peoples can give to the proletarian revolution, and it realises that in the semi-capitalist countries the co-operation of our oppressed black brothers is extremely important for the proletarian revolution and for the destruction of capitalist power. Therefore the Fourth Congress gives Communists the special responsibility of closely applying the “Theses on the Colonial Question” to the situation of the blacks.
6 i) The Fourth Congress considers it essential to support all forms of the black movement which aim either to undermine or weaken capitalism and imperialism or to prevent their further expansion.
ii) The Communist International will fight for the racial equality of blacks and whites, for equal wages and equal social and political rights.
iii) The Communist International will do all it can to force the trade unions to admit black workers wherever admittance is legal, and will insist on a special campaign to achieve this end. If this proves unsuccessful, it will organise blacks into their own unions and then make special use of the united front tactic to force the general unions to admit them.
iv) The Communist International will immediately take steps to convene an international black conference or congress in Moscow.
From The Pages Of The Communist International-In Honor Of The 90th Anniversary Of The Fourth Congress (1922)-Resolution on the Work of the International Communist Women’s Secretariat
Click on the headline to link to the Communist International Internet Archives.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
**********
Fourth Congress of the Communist International
Resolution on the Work of the International Communist Women’s Secretariat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
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27 November 1922
The Fourth World Congress of the Communist International endorses the work carried out in the period under review by the International Communist Women’s Secretariat in Berlin, an auxiliary organ of the Executive Committee. The achievement of the International Communist Women’s Secretariat is that in every country with an active revolutionary movement, women Communists have joined the sections of the Communist International, and have studied and become involved in the work and struggles of the Party. An additional achievement of the Secretariat is that Communist agitational-propaganda and organisational work has reached the vast masses of women and drawn them into the struggle for the interests of the working masses and for Communism.
The International Communist Women’s Secretariat has sought to link the work of Communist women among the working women of various countries on an international scale, i.e., with the work and struggles of the Communist Parties and the Communist International. It has been able, in conjunction with the Communist Parties of the different countries, to extend and strengthen the international ties between women Communists who have joined these Parties. All its activity has taken place in continuous and close contact with the Executive Committee, under its guidance and in accordance with the major lines and decisions concerning principles and tactics that have been taken at the World Congresses of the Communist International and at the Second International Communist Women’s Conference in Moscow.
The particular methods of Communist Party work among women, and the special organisations for carrying out this work (women’s secretariats, zhenotdels*, etc.) that were set up on the basis of these major policy decisions, have proved not just useful but indispensable in popularising Communist ideas and slogans among the vast majority of working women.
In those countries where the class rule of the bourgeoisie still exists, the first priority of systematic Communist work among women workers and proletarians has been the struggle against the capitalist exploiters to defend the bare necessities of life, the struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the Soviet states, however, this work has been mainly concentrated on drawing working and peasant women into all aspects of economic and social life, involving them in the construction of the proletarian state and educating them to fulfil these duties. The international significance of Soviet Russia as the first workers’ state created by the world revolution means that Communist work among women acquires great importance as an example for all those sections of the Communist International which are in countries where the proletariat has yet to seize political power – the pre-condition for the Communist transformation of society. The necessity and value of special organisations for Communist work among women is also proved by the activity of the Women’s Secretariat in the East, which has carried out important and successful work under new and unusual conditions. Unfortunately, the Fourth World Congress of the Communist International has to admit that some sections have either completely failed to fulfil, or have only partially fulfilled, their responsibility to give consistent support to Communist work among women. To this day, they have either failed to take measures to organise women Communists within the Party, or failed to set up the Party organisations vital for work among the masses of women and for establishing links with them.
The Fourth Congress urgently insists that the Parties concerned make up for all these omissions as quickly as possible. It calls on every section of the Communist International to do all it can to promote Communist work among women, in view of the great importance of this work. The proletarian united front cannot be realised without the active and informed participation of women. In certain conditions, if there are correct and close links between the Communist Parties and working women, women can become pioneers of the proletarian united front and of mass revolutionary movements.
The Communist International must unite all forces and with no exceptions must develop a revolutionary consciousness in all sections of the proletariat in preparation for the building of Communism and for the struggle against the class rule of the bourgeoisie.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
**********
Fourth Congress of the Communist International
Resolution on the Work of the International Communist Women’s Secretariat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
27 November 1922
The Fourth World Congress of the Communist International endorses the work carried out in the period under review by the International Communist Women’s Secretariat in Berlin, an auxiliary organ of the Executive Committee. The achievement of the International Communist Women’s Secretariat is that in every country with an active revolutionary movement, women Communists have joined the sections of the Communist International, and have studied and become involved in the work and struggles of the Party. An additional achievement of the Secretariat is that Communist agitational-propaganda and organisational work has reached the vast masses of women and drawn them into the struggle for the interests of the working masses and for Communism.
The International Communist Women’s Secretariat has sought to link the work of Communist women among the working women of various countries on an international scale, i.e., with the work and struggles of the Communist Parties and the Communist International. It has been able, in conjunction with the Communist Parties of the different countries, to extend and strengthen the international ties between women Communists who have joined these Parties. All its activity has taken place in continuous and close contact with the Executive Committee, under its guidance and in accordance with the major lines and decisions concerning principles and tactics that have been taken at the World Congresses of the Communist International and at the Second International Communist Women’s Conference in Moscow.
The particular methods of Communist Party work among women, and the special organisations for carrying out this work (women’s secretariats, zhenotdels*, etc.) that were set up on the basis of these major policy decisions, have proved not just useful but indispensable in popularising Communist ideas and slogans among the vast majority of working women.
In those countries where the class rule of the bourgeoisie still exists, the first priority of systematic Communist work among women workers and proletarians has been the struggle against the capitalist exploiters to defend the bare necessities of life, the struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the Soviet states, however, this work has been mainly concentrated on drawing working and peasant women into all aspects of economic and social life, involving them in the construction of the proletarian state and educating them to fulfil these duties. The international significance of Soviet Russia as the first workers’ state created by the world revolution means that Communist work among women acquires great importance as an example for all those sections of the Communist International which are in countries where the proletariat has yet to seize political power – the pre-condition for the Communist transformation of society. The necessity and value of special organisations for Communist work among women is also proved by the activity of the Women’s Secretariat in the East, which has carried out important and successful work under new and unusual conditions. Unfortunately, the Fourth World Congress of the Communist International has to admit that some sections have either completely failed to fulfil, or have only partially fulfilled, their responsibility to give consistent support to Communist work among women. To this day, they have either failed to take measures to organise women Communists within the Party, or failed to set up the Party organisations vital for work among the masses of women and for establishing links with them.
The Fourth Congress urgently insists that the Parties concerned make up for all these omissions as quickly as possible. It calls on every section of the Communist International to do all it can to promote Communist work among women, in view of the great importance of this work. The proletarian united front cannot be realised without the active and informed participation of women. In certain conditions, if there are correct and close links between the Communist Parties and working women, women can become pioneers of the proletarian united front and of mass revolutionary movements.
The Communist International must unite all forces and with no exceptions must develop a revolutionary consciousness in all sections of the proletariat in preparation for the building of Communism and for the struggle against the class rule of the bourgeoisie.
From The Pages Of The Communist International-In Honor Of The 90th Anniversary Of The Fourth Congress (1922)- From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky-A Militant Labour Programme for the French Communist Party
Click on the headline to link to the Communist International Internet Archives.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
*********
Leon Trotsky
The First Five Years of the Communist International
Volume 2
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A Militant Labour Programme for the French Communist Party [1]
December 5, 1922
1) The party’s most pressing task is to organize the resistance of the proletariat against the capitalist offensive which is under way in France as in every other major industrial country. The defence of the 8-hour working day, the maintenance and increase of prevailing wage scales, the struggle for all the immediate economic demands – all this is the best possible platform for reuniting the disorganized proletariat and restoring its confidence in its own strength and future. The party must immediately take the initiative in every united mass action that is capable of halting the offensive of capitalism and instilling the working class with the spirit of unity.
2) The party must undertake a campaign to show the workers the interdependence of maintaining the 8-hour working day and of wages, as well as the inevitable effect of one of these demands upon the other. In its agitation the party must make use not only of the forays of the employers, but also of every attack by the state against the immediate interests of the workers, as for instance the tax on wages, and every economic issue which especially concerns the working class such as the increase in rents, sales taxes, social security, and so on. The party must carry on an active agitation campaign among the workers for the creation of factory and shop committees, embracing all the workers in each enterprise, irrespective of whether they are already organized politically and into unions or not. The aim of these factory and shop committees is to introduce workers’ control over the conditions of work and production.
3) The fighting slogans for the vital material demands of the proletariat must serve as a means of realizing in life the united front against economic and political reaction. The tactic of the workers’ united front must be our governing rule for every mass action. The party must create the favourable conditions for the success of this tactic; and to this end it must undertake seriously the education of its own members and sympathizers by every means of propaganda and agitation at its disposal. The press, the pamphlets, meetings of all sorts, everything must be used in this work of education which the party must carry on in every proletarian group where there are Communists. The party must issue appeals to the important rival political and economic organizations of labour. Therewith it must from time to time publicly explain both its own proposals and those of the reformists, and give reasons for its acceptance of some proposals and the rejection of others. In no case can the party renounce its unconditional independence, its right to criticize all the participants in a joint action. It must always seek to take and keep the initiative of these movements as well as to influence the initiative of the others in the spirit of its own program.
4) To be able to participate in the action of the workers in all its forms, to help in orienting this action or, in certain circumstances, to assume the leading role in the action, the party must, without losing a single day, proceed to organize its work in the trade unions. The formation of trade-union committees in the federations and the sections (decided upon at the Paris Convention) and of Communist cells in every factory and large private or state-owned enterprise will permit the party to penetrate the masses of workers and enable it to spread its slogans and increase Communist influence in the proletarian movement. The trade-union committee, in each party or union body, will maintain connections with the Communists who have, with the permission of the party, remained inside the reformist CGT and will guide their opposition to the policy of the official leaders. They will register every trade-union member of the party, control his activities and transmit to him the instructions of the party.
5) The activities of Communists in all trade unions without exception shall consist primarily in seeking to re-establish trade-union unity, indispensable for the victory of the proletariat. The Communists must take advantage of every opportunity in order to explain the harmful effects of the existing split and to advocate unity. The party must combat every tendency inclining toward organizational exclusiveness, circle-group atmosphere – in trade unions or localities – and anarchistic ideology. It shall defend the necessity of a centralized movement, of forming broad organizations on an industrial basis, and of co-ordinating isolated strikes in order to substitute unified mass actions, which will instil the workers with confidence in their own strength, for localized and partial actions that are doomed to failure. In the CGTU the Communists must combat every tendency opposed to the adhesion of the French trade unions to Red Trade-Union International (RILU). In the reformist CGT they must expose the Amsterdam International and the manipulations of its leaders in favour of class collaboration. In both federations they must fight for joint actions, demonstrations and strikes, for the united front, for organic unity and for the program of the Red Trade-Union International (RILU) as a whole.
6) The party must utilize every large-scale mass movement – spontaneous and organized alike – to show the political character of every class conflict. It must take advantage of every opportunity to spread as widely as possible its slogans of political struggle such as political amnesty, the annulment of the Versailles Treaty, the evacuation of the left bank of the Rhine, and so on.
7) The struggle against the Versailles Treaty and its consequences must remain in the forefront of the party’s entire activity. We must effect the union of the proletariat of France and Germany against the bourgeoisies of both countries who profit by this treaty. In view of this it is the pressing task of the French party to inform the workers and the soldiers of the tragic plight of their German brothers, crushed by the intolerable living conditions resulting primarily from this peace treaty. To satisfy the demands of the Allies the German government keeps increasing the burdens of the German working class. The French bourgeoisie spares the German bourgeoisie, engages in negotiations with it to the detriment of the workers, helps it to take possession of the state-owned public utilities and guarantees it aid and protection against the revolutionary movement. The bourgeoisies of both countries are ready to accomplish the merger of French iron and German coal interests; and they are coming to an understanding on the question of the occupation of the Ruhr, which signifies the enslavement of the Ruhr coal miners. But the exploited workers of the Ruhr basin are not the only ones menaced; the French workers will not be in a position to withstand the competition of German production because the latter will be reduced by the depreciation of the mark to a very cheap price for the French capitalists. The party must explain this situation to the French working class and warn it against the danger which menaces it. The party press must constantly describe the sufferings of the German proletariat, the real victim of the Versailles Treaty, and show the impossibility of carrying out the treaty. Special propaganda must be carried on in the occupied and war-wrecked regions to expose the bourgeoisies of both countries as responsible for the sufferings of these regions, and to develop the spirit of solidarity among the workers of the two countries. The Communist slogan must call for the fraternization of the French and German workers and soldiers on the left bank of the Rhine. The party shall maintain close ties with its sister party in Germany in order successfully to conduct this struggle against the Versailles Treaty and its consequences. The party shall combat French imperialism, and, furthermore, not only its policy in Germany but all over the world: special attention must be paid to the peace treaties of St. Germain, Neuilly, Trianon and Sèvres. [2]
8) The party must undertake systematic penetration of the army. Our anti-militarist propaganda must differ radically from the hypocritical pacifism of the bourgeoisie. The principle of arming the proletariat and disarming the bourgeoisie must permeate our propaganda. In their party press or in the parliament, and on all favourable occasions the Communists shall give support to the demands of the soldiers, insist upon the recognition of their political rights, and so on. Our revolutionary anti-militarist agitation must be intensified each time a new levy is called up for draft, each time there is a threat of another war. This propaganda must be carried on under the supervision of a special party body, in which the Communist youth must participate.
9) The party must make its own the cause of the colonial peoples, exploited and oppressed by French imperialism. It must support their national demands which constitute stages on the road of their liberation from the yoke of foreign capital. It must defend without any reservations their right to autonomy and independence. The unconditional fight for the political and trade-union liberties of the natives, and against the native levies, the fight for the demands of the native soldiers – this fight is the immediate task of the party. It must combat implacably every reactionary tendency, existing even among certain working-class elements, that favours limiting the rights of the natives. It shall create a special body attached to the Central Committee, to carry on party work in the colonies.
10) Our propaganda among the peasantry to win over the agricultural labourers, tenant farmers and poor peasants to the revolutionary movement and gain the sympathies of the small landholders must be accompanied by the struggle to ameliorate the living and working conditions of agricultural labourers who hire out or work for the big landowners. Such a struggle demands that the party organizations in the provinces elaborate and propagate programs of immediate demands corresponding to the special conditions in each locality. The party must foster those agricultural associations and co-operatives which go to meet the individual needs of the peasantry. It must pay special attention to building and developing trade unions among the agricultural workers.
11) Party work among women is of first-rate importance and requires a special organization. A Central Commission, attached to the Central Committee, with a permanent secretariat, and with more and more numerous local commissions and a periodical devoted to propaganda among the women must be created. The party must insist that the economic demands of the men and women workers be unified: it must demand equal pay for equal work without distinction of sex, and the participation of exploited women in all the actions of the workers.
12) The party must make far more systematic and persistent efforts than in the past in the development of the Communist Youth movement. In every department and institution of both organizations the closest reciprocal relations must be established between the party and the youth. It ought to be accepted as a principle that the youth must be represented on every Commission attached to the Central Committee. The propaganda departments and the sections of the party must help the existing youth groups, and help to create new ones. The Central Committee must follow the youth press and allot to the youth organization special pages in the central party publications. In the trade unions the party must back up the demands of the young workers in accordance with its program.
13) In the co-operatives the Communists shall defend the principle of a unified national organization and create Communist groups attached to the co-operative section of the Communist International through a commission functioning under the Central Committee. In every federation a special commission must be created to carry on party work in the co-operatives. The Communists will exert every effort to utilize the co-operatives as an auxiliary force in the labour movement.
14) Our members in parliament, in the municipal councils, etc., must conduct an energetic struggle intimately bound up with the struggles of the workers and the campaigns undertaken by the party and the trade-union organizations outside parliament. In accordance with the theses of the Second Congress of the Comintern, the Communist deputies, controlled and directed by the party’s Central Committee, together with the municipal and district councillors, controlled and directed by the sections and the federations must serve the party as agents of agitation and propaganda.
15) The party must perfect and strengthen its organization following the example of the large Communist parties of other countries and in accordance with the statutes of the Communist International, in order that it may rise to the level of the tasks outlined in its program and by the national and international congresses, and be in a condition to realize these tasks in life. It must fight for a strict centralization, an inflexible discipline, the subordination of every party member to the corresponding party body, of each party body to the organization immediately above it. Moreover, we must develop the Marxist education of our militants by systematically increasing the number of theoretical courses in the sections, by opening party schools; and these courses and schools must be placed under the supervision of a Central Commission attached to the Central Committee.
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Notes
1. This program of action was adopted unanimously at the 32nd session of the Fourth World Congress, December 5, 1922.
2. The series of treaties listed here were imposed by the victorious powers in World War I on the various members of the defeated coalition led by Germany.
The treaty of St. Germain was concluded on September 10, 1919, between the Entente and Austria. According to the terms of this treaty Austria was dismembered, yielding parts of her territory to Italy, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Rumania, etc. Austria’s industry and finances were placed under the control of an “international” reparations’ committee.
The treaty of Neuilly was concluded between the Entente and Bulgaria on November 27, 1919. By the terms of this pact Bulgaria lost sections of her territory to Greece and Yugoslavia, particularly along the Aegean shore line. Bulgaria was obliged to pay reparations, expenses for the occupation troops and the like.
The treaty of Trianon was concluded between the Entente and Hungary on July 4, 1920. Hungary ceded slices of her territory to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. This treaty set down no fixed reparations, Hungary’s economy being placed under the control of a special commission.
The treaty of Sevres was concluded between the Entente and Turkey on August 10, 1920. Turkey was deprived of two-thirds of her territory. All the rights of German and Austrian investors were annulled. Great Britain’s influence in the Middle East was recognized as supreme. The struggle by the Ankara government which then followed and which was supported by the USSR brought this rapacious treaty to nothing.
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Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
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Leon Trotsky
The First Five Years of the Communist International
Volume 2
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A Militant Labour Programme for the French Communist Party [1]
December 5, 1922
1) The party’s most pressing task is to organize the resistance of the proletariat against the capitalist offensive which is under way in France as in every other major industrial country. The defence of the 8-hour working day, the maintenance and increase of prevailing wage scales, the struggle for all the immediate economic demands – all this is the best possible platform for reuniting the disorganized proletariat and restoring its confidence in its own strength and future. The party must immediately take the initiative in every united mass action that is capable of halting the offensive of capitalism and instilling the working class with the spirit of unity.
2) The party must undertake a campaign to show the workers the interdependence of maintaining the 8-hour working day and of wages, as well as the inevitable effect of one of these demands upon the other. In its agitation the party must make use not only of the forays of the employers, but also of every attack by the state against the immediate interests of the workers, as for instance the tax on wages, and every economic issue which especially concerns the working class such as the increase in rents, sales taxes, social security, and so on. The party must carry on an active agitation campaign among the workers for the creation of factory and shop committees, embracing all the workers in each enterprise, irrespective of whether they are already organized politically and into unions or not. The aim of these factory and shop committees is to introduce workers’ control over the conditions of work and production.
3) The fighting slogans for the vital material demands of the proletariat must serve as a means of realizing in life the united front against economic and political reaction. The tactic of the workers’ united front must be our governing rule for every mass action. The party must create the favourable conditions for the success of this tactic; and to this end it must undertake seriously the education of its own members and sympathizers by every means of propaganda and agitation at its disposal. The press, the pamphlets, meetings of all sorts, everything must be used in this work of education which the party must carry on in every proletarian group where there are Communists. The party must issue appeals to the important rival political and economic organizations of labour. Therewith it must from time to time publicly explain both its own proposals and those of the reformists, and give reasons for its acceptance of some proposals and the rejection of others. In no case can the party renounce its unconditional independence, its right to criticize all the participants in a joint action. It must always seek to take and keep the initiative of these movements as well as to influence the initiative of the others in the spirit of its own program.
4) To be able to participate in the action of the workers in all its forms, to help in orienting this action or, in certain circumstances, to assume the leading role in the action, the party must, without losing a single day, proceed to organize its work in the trade unions. The formation of trade-union committees in the federations and the sections (decided upon at the Paris Convention) and of Communist cells in every factory and large private or state-owned enterprise will permit the party to penetrate the masses of workers and enable it to spread its slogans and increase Communist influence in the proletarian movement. The trade-union committee, in each party or union body, will maintain connections with the Communists who have, with the permission of the party, remained inside the reformist CGT and will guide their opposition to the policy of the official leaders. They will register every trade-union member of the party, control his activities and transmit to him the instructions of the party.
5) The activities of Communists in all trade unions without exception shall consist primarily in seeking to re-establish trade-union unity, indispensable for the victory of the proletariat. The Communists must take advantage of every opportunity in order to explain the harmful effects of the existing split and to advocate unity. The party must combat every tendency inclining toward organizational exclusiveness, circle-group atmosphere – in trade unions or localities – and anarchistic ideology. It shall defend the necessity of a centralized movement, of forming broad organizations on an industrial basis, and of co-ordinating isolated strikes in order to substitute unified mass actions, which will instil the workers with confidence in their own strength, for localized and partial actions that are doomed to failure. In the CGTU the Communists must combat every tendency opposed to the adhesion of the French trade unions to Red Trade-Union International (RILU). In the reformist CGT they must expose the Amsterdam International and the manipulations of its leaders in favour of class collaboration. In both federations they must fight for joint actions, demonstrations and strikes, for the united front, for organic unity and for the program of the Red Trade-Union International (RILU) as a whole.
6) The party must utilize every large-scale mass movement – spontaneous and organized alike – to show the political character of every class conflict. It must take advantage of every opportunity to spread as widely as possible its slogans of political struggle such as political amnesty, the annulment of the Versailles Treaty, the evacuation of the left bank of the Rhine, and so on.
7) The struggle against the Versailles Treaty and its consequences must remain in the forefront of the party’s entire activity. We must effect the union of the proletariat of France and Germany against the bourgeoisies of both countries who profit by this treaty. In view of this it is the pressing task of the French party to inform the workers and the soldiers of the tragic plight of their German brothers, crushed by the intolerable living conditions resulting primarily from this peace treaty. To satisfy the demands of the Allies the German government keeps increasing the burdens of the German working class. The French bourgeoisie spares the German bourgeoisie, engages in negotiations with it to the detriment of the workers, helps it to take possession of the state-owned public utilities and guarantees it aid and protection against the revolutionary movement. The bourgeoisies of both countries are ready to accomplish the merger of French iron and German coal interests; and they are coming to an understanding on the question of the occupation of the Ruhr, which signifies the enslavement of the Ruhr coal miners. But the exploited workers of the Ruhr basin are not the only ones menaced; the French workers will not be in a position to withstand the competition of German production because the latter will be reduced by the depreciation of the mark to a very cheap price for the French capitalists. The party must explain this situation to the French working class and warn it against the danger which menaces it. The party press must constantly describe the sufferings of the German proletariat, the real victim of the Versailles Treaty, and show the impossibility of carrying out the treaty. Special propaganda must be carried on in the occupied and war-wrecked regions to expose the bourgeoisies of both countries as responsible for the sufferings of these regions, and to develop the spirit of solidarity among the workers of the two countries. The Communist slogan must call for the fraternization of the French and German workers and soldiers on the left bank of the Rhine. The party shall maintain close ties with its sister party in Germany in order successfully to conduct this struggle against the Versailles Treaty and its consequences. The party shall combat French imperialism, and, furthermore, not only its policy in Germany but all over the world: special attention must be paid to the peace treaties of St. Germain, Neuilly, Trianon and Sèvres. [2]
8) The party must undertake systematic penetration of the army. Our anti-militarist propaganda must differ radically from the hypocritical pacifism of the bourgeoisie. The principle of arming the proletariat and disarming the bourgeoisie must permeate our propaganda. In their party press or in the parliament, and on all favourable occasions the Communists shall give support to the demands of the soldiers, insist upon the recognition of their political rights, and so on. Our revolutionary anti-militarist agitation must be intensified each time a new levy is called up for draft, each time there is a threat of another war. This propaganda must be carried on under the supervision of a special party body, in which the Communist youth must participate.
9) The party must make its own the cause of the colonial peoples, exploited and oppressed by French imperialism. It must support their national demands which constitute stages on the road of their liberation from the yoke of foreign capital. It must defend without any reservations their right to autonomy and independence. The unconditional fight for the political and trade-union liberties of the natives, and against the native levies, the fight for the demands of the native soldiers – this fight is the immediate task of the party. It must combat implacably every reactionary tendency, existing even among certain working-class elements, that favours limiting the rights of the natives. It shall create a special body attached to the Central Committee, to carry on party work in the colonies.
10) Our propaganda among the peasantry to win over the agricultural labourers, tenant farmers and poor peasants to the revolutionary movement and gain the sympathies of the small landholders must be accompanied by the struggle to ameliorate the living and working conditions of agricultural labourers who hire out or work for the big landowners. Such a struggle demands that the party organizations in the provinces elaborate and propagate programs of immediate demands corresponding to the special conditions in each locality. The party must foster those agricultural associations and co-operatives which go to meet the individual needs of the peasantry. It must pay special attention to building and developing trade unions among the agricultural workers.
11) Party work among women is of first-rate importance and requires a special organization. A Central Commission, attached to the Central Committee, with a permanent secretariat, and with more and more numerous local commissions and a periodical devoted to propaganda among the women must be created. The party must insist that the economic demands of the men and women workers be unified: it must demand equal pay for equal work without distinction of sex, and the participation of exploited women in all the actions of the workers.
12) The party must make far more systematic and persistent efforts than in the past in the development of the Communist Youth movement. In every department and institution of both organizations the closest reciprocal relations must be established between the party and the youth. It ought to be accepted as a principle that the youth must be represented on every Commission attached to the Central Committee. The propaganda departments and the sections of the party must help the existing youth groups, and help to create new ones. The Central Committee must follow the youth press and allot to the youth organization special pages in the central party publications. In the trade unions the party must back up the demands of the young workers in accordance with its program.
13) In the co-operatives the Communists shall defend the principle of a unified national organization and create Communist groups attached to the co-operative section of the Communist International through a commission functioning under the Central Committee. In every federation a special commission must be created to carry on party work in the co-operatives. The Communists will exert every effort to utilize the co-operatives as an auxiliary force in the labour movement.
14) Our members in parliament, in the municipal councils, etc., must conduct an energetic struggle intimately bound up with the struggles of the workers and the campaigns undertaken by the party and the trade-union organizations outside parliament. In accordance with the theses of the Second Congress of the Comintern, the Communist deputies, controlled and directed by the party’s Central Committee, together with the municipal and district councillors, controlled and directed by the sections and the federations must serve the party as agents of agitation and propaganda.
15) The party must perfect and strengthen its organization following the example of the large Communist parties of other countries and in accordance with the statutes of the Communist International, in order that it may rise to the level of the tasks outlined in its program and by the national and international congresses, and be in a condition to realize these tasks in life. It must fight for a strict centralization, an inflexible discipline, the subordination of every party member to the corresponding party body, of each party body to the organization immediately above it. Moreover, we must develop the Marxist education of our militants by systematically increasing the number of theoretical courses in the sections, by opening party schools; and these courses and schools must be placed under the supervision of a Central Commission attached to the Central Committee.
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Notes
1. This program of action was adopted unanimously at the 32nd session of the Fourth World Congress, December 5, 1922.
2. The series of treaties listed here were imposed by the victorious powers in World War I on the various members of the defeated coalition led by Germany.
The treaty of St. Germain was concluded on September 10, 1919, between the Entente and Austria. According to the terms of this treaty Austria was dismembered, yielding parts of her territory to Italy, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Rumania, etc. Austria’s industry and finances were placed under the control of an “international” reparations’ committee.
The treaty of Neuilly was concluded between the Entente and Bulgaria on November 27, 1919. By the terms of this pact Bulgaria lost sections of her territory to Greece and Yugoslavia, particularly along the Aegean shore line. Bulgaria was obliged to pay reparations, expenses for the occupation troops and the like.
The treaty of Trianon was concluded between the Entente and Hungary on July 4, 1920. Hungary ceded slices of her territory to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. This treaty set down no fixed reparations, Hungary’s economy being placed under the control of a special commission.
The treaty of Sevres was concluded between the Entente and Turkey on August 10, 1920. Turkey was deprived of two-thirds of her territory. All the rights of German and Austrian investors were annulled. Great Britain’s influence in the Middle East was recognized as supreme. The struggle by the Ankara government which then followed and which was supported by the USSR brought this rapacious treaty to nothing.
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