Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of LaVern Baker performing her 1950s classic Tomorrow Night.
“Tomorrow night, tomorrow night, will you still say the things you said tonight- a line from LaVern Baker’s song Tomorrow Night.
Walking down the narrow stairs leading to the admission booth at Jacky Fleet’s in old Harvard Square I was suddenly depressed by this thought-how many times lately had I walked down these very stairs looking, looking for what, looking, as Tom Waits says in his song, for the heart of Saturday night, looking recently every night from Monday to Sunday. Looking, not hard looking, not right now anyway after my last nitwit affair but looking for a man who at least had a job, didn’t have another girlfriend or ten, and who wanted to settle down a little, settle down with me a little. Yes, if you really need to know, want to know, I’ve got those late twenties getting just a touch worried old maid blues, and my parents, my straight arrow parents, my mother really, my father just keeps his own counsel between shots of whiskey, keeps badgering me about finding a nice young man. Yes, easy for you to say, Mother. And then she starts on the coming home and finding some farmer-grown boy from high school and X, Y, and Z still asks about me. No thanks that is why I fled to Boston right after college in 1972, and not just because I wanted to get my social worker master’s degree like I told them. And so here I am walking down these skinny stairs again, sigh, yet again.
Jacky’s isn’t a bad place to hang your hat, as my father always likes to say when he finds that one or two places where he feels comfortable enough to stay more than ten minutes before getting the I’ve got to go water the greenhouse plants or something itch. Not a bad place for a woman, a twenty–eight year old woman with college degrees and some aims in life beyond some one-night stand very now and again, or women if my friend and roommate Priscilla decides she is man-hungry enough to make the trip to Harvard Square from the wilds of Watertown and can stand the heavy smoke, mainly cigarette smoke as far as I know, but after a few drinks who knows, that fills the air before half the night is over. Tonight Priscilla is with me because she has a “crush” on Albie St John, the lead singer for the local rock group The Haystraws. And the last time she was here he was giving her that look like he was game for something although he is known around as strictly a for fun guy. And that is okay with Priscilla because she has some guy back home who will marry her when she says the word.
Here is the funny thing though alone, or with Priscilla like tonight, this funky old bar is the only place around where a woman can find a guy who was the least bit presentable to the folks back home, wherever back home was. I’ve met a couple although like I said before things didn’t work out because they were one-night stand guys or already loaded down with girlfriends and I am in no mood to take a ticket. So you can see what desperate straits I am in trying to meet that right guy, or something close. My standards may be a little high for the times but I’m chipping away at then by the day.
Moreover, this place, this Jacky Fleet’s is the only place around that has the kind of music I like, a little country although not Grand Ole Opry country stuff like my parents like, a little bit folkie, kind of left-handed folkie, more like local favorite Eric Andersen folk rock, and a little old time let it rip 1950s rock and roll, like the Haystraws cover, that I never knew anything about when I was a kid since I never got past Rickey Nelson and Bobby Darin, darn him, out in the farm field sticks. Upstate New York, Centerville to be exact, not far out of Albany but it might as well have been a million miles away me picking my sting beans, tomatoes, and whatever else pa grew to keep us from hunger’s door. Not for me this disco stuff, not my style at all, although I love to dance and even took belly dancing lessons even though voluptuous I am not, more just left of skinny and really voluptuous Priscilla calls me skinny. Also my kind of guy never, never would wear an open shirt and some chainy medallion around his neck. Plus, a big plus, Jacky’s has a jukebox for intermissions filled with all kinds of odd-ball songs, real country, stuff, late 1950s rock and roll (the Rickey Nelson/Bobby Vee/Bobby Darin stuff) that nobody but me probably ever heard of unless, of course, you were from Centerville, or a place like that.
After going through mandatory license check and admission fee stuff, saying hi to the waitresses that I know now by name, and Priscilla does too, and the regular bartenders too we find our seats, kind of reserved seats for us where we can sit and not be hassled by guys, or be hassled if something interesting comes along. I have been in kind of a dry spell, outside the occasional minute affair if one could really call some of the things that, for about six months now since I started to work, work doing social work, my profession, if you need to know. That’s what I am trained to do anyway although when I first came to town a few years ago I was, as one beau back then said, “serving them off the arm” in a spaghetti joint over the other side of Cambridge. Strictly a family fare menu, and plenty of college guys, including a few who I wound up dating, low on funds doing the cheap Saturday night date circuit. All in all a no tips situation anyway you cut it, although plenty of guff, a lot of come ons, and extra helpings of “get me this and get me that.”
Before that out in Rochester in college and later after a short stop at hometown Centerville it was nothing but wanna-be cowboy losers, an occasionally low rent dope dealer, some wanna-be musicians, farmer brown farmers, and married guys looking for a little something on a cold night. Ya, I know, I asked for it but a girl gets cold and lonely too. Not just guys, not these days anyway. But I am still pitching, although very low-key that is my public style (some say, say right to my face, prim but that’s only to fend off the losers).
“Laura, what are you having, tonight honey?’ asked my “regular” waitress, Lannie, and then asked Priscilla the same. “Two Rusty Nails” we replied. Tonight, from a quick glance around the room even though it is a Columbus Day holiday night looked like it was going to be a hard-drinking night from the feel of it. That meant on my budget and my capacity about three drinks, max. About the same for Priscilla unless she s real man-hungry. But that is just between us, Lannie, as is her habit, knowing that we are good tippers (the bonds of waitress sisterhood as Priscilla has also “served them off the arm”) brought the drinks right away. And so we settled in get ready to listen to The Haystraws coming up in a while for their first set. Or rather I did Priscilla was looking, looking hard at Albie, and he was looking right back. I guess I will be driving home alone tonight. But as I settled in I noticed that some guy was playing the jukebox like crazy. Like crazy for real. He kept playing about three old timey LaVern Baker songs, Jim Dandy of course, and See See Rider but also about six times in a row her Tomorrow Night. I was kind of glad when the band, like I said, these really good rockers, The Haystraws, began their first set. And so the evening was off, good, bad, or indifferent.
About half way through the set I noticed this jukebox guy kept kind of looking at me, kind of checking me out without being rude about it. You know those little half looks and then look away kind of like kid hide-and-seek and back again. Now I have around long enough to know that I am not bad to look at even if I am a little skinny and I take time to get ready when I go out, especially lately, and although times have been tough lately I am easy to get to know but this guy kind of put me on my guard a little. He was about thirty, neatly bearded which I like and okay for looks, I have been with worst. But what I couldn’t figure, and it bothered me a little even when I tried to avoid his peeks (as he “avoided” mine) is why he was in this place.
Jacky’s, despite its locale in the heart of Harvard Square, is kind of an oasis for country girls like me, or half country girls like Priscilla (from upstate New York too, Utica) and guys the same way although once in a while a Harvard guy (or a guy who says he goes to Harvard. I have met some who made the claim who I don’t think could spell the name, I swear). This guy looked like Harvard Square was his home turf and if he found himself five feet from a street lamp, a library, or a bookstore, he would freak out big time. He might have been an old folkie, he had that feel, or maybe a bluesy kind of guy but he was strictly a city boy and was just cruising this joint.
But here is where the story gets interesting. At intermission Priscilla had to run to the ladies’ room and on the way this guy, Allan Jackson, as I found out later when he introduced himself to me, stopped her and said that her brunette friend looked very nice in her white pants and blouse. He then said to her that he would like to meet me. Priscilla, a veteran of the Laura wars (and I of hers), had the snappy answer ready, “Go introduce yourself, yourself.” And he did start to come over but I kind of turned away to avoid him just in case he had escaped from somewhere (ya, like I said before my luck has been running a little rough lately so I am a little gun-shy).
And this is the every first thing that Allan ever said to me. “I noticed that you kind of perked up when I played LaVern Baker’s Tomorrow Night. Have you been disappointed when things didn’t work out after that first night of promise too, like in the song.” Not an original line, but close. I answered almost automatically, “Yes.” Then he introduced himself and just kind of stood there not trying to sit down or anything like that waiting for me to make the next move as Priscilla came back and said she had run into Albie St. John and he wanted to talk to her (like she was doing him this big favor, like I said I am definitely driving home alone today) before the band came back for a second set. She left and Allan was still standing there, a little ill at ease from his look. Befuddled by his soft non-threatening manner, and soft manners, I was not sure if I wanted him to sit down but then I said, what the hell, he seems nice enough and at least he was not drunk.
So he sat down, and gently, actually very gently, shook my hand and said thank you to me for letting me let him sit at the table. In the flush of that gentle handshake, I swear no man had ever taken my hand in such a manly manner without guile or gimme something, and so I relaxed a little and asked him, not an origin question but I was curious, what brought him to Jacky’s. He started to tell me about his country minute, about finding out abut the wild boys of country music, about Hank Williams (I winched that was my father’s music) about this guy Townes van Zandt and so on. And then he said he was looking for me. I winched again. No, not me exactly, but me as a person who he sensed had been kind of beaten down in the love game lately like he had. He said he saw that look in my face, in my eyes, when he kind of half-checked (I made him laugh when I said we were kid-hide-and-seeking) me out at the jukebox. I said I thought he had fully checked me out but he would only confess to the half. We both laughed at that one.
And after that opening strange to say, because being a country girl, and being brought up in a Methodist-etched household to keep my thoughts to myself, or else, or else Dad would have a fit, I started to talk to him about my troubles lately. And he listened and kept asking more questions, but not in your face questions but questions like he was really interested in the answers and not as some fiendish experiment to take advantage of a simple girl and then I asked him a few things and before we knew it the evening’s entertainment was over and Lannie kept telling us that we had to go. I still had some doubts about this guy, this city boy and his city ways, and his blue eyes that could be true or truly devilish.
As we got up to leave he asked, kind of sheepishly with a little stutter, asked, for my telephone number. No “my place or your place, honey”, or “let’s go down the Charles and have some fun” or “I brought you six drinks (we each brought our own) and so I expect something more” or any of that usual end of the night stuff that I have become somewhat inured to. He simply, softly, said he wanted it because he wanted to call me up tomorrow night. We kind of laughed at that seeing how we met, before we met. I hesitated just a minute and he, sensing my dilemma, started to turn to leave. A guy who knows how to take no for an answer, or the possibility of no, without recrimination or fuss. Wait a minute, Laura. Before he took two steps I blurted it out. And then put it on a cocktail napkin for him. As I passed the glass wet napkin to him he said he would call about seven if that was okay. I said yes. And then he shook my hand, shook it even more gently than when he introduced himself, if that was possible. I flushed again as he headed to the door. Something in that handshake said you had better not let this one get away. Something that said you had better be at the phone at 6:59 PM tomorrow night waiting for his call. And I will be.
Friday, March 02, 2012
From The Pages Of The Communist International-In Honor Of The 90th Anniversary Of The Fourth Congress (1922)On The 93rd Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International (1919)- Documents Of The CI-1923-28
Click on the headline to link to the Communist International Internet Archives documents-1923-28.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
From The Pages Of The Communist International-In Honor Of The 90th Anniversary Of The Fourth Congress (1922)On The 93rd Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International (1919)- J. T. Murphy-The 4th Congress-A Special Report on the Recent World Congress of the Comintern
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.
***********
J. T. Murphy-The 4th Congress-A Special Report on the Recent World Congress of the Comintern
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: The Communist Review, March 1923, Vol. 3, No. 11.
Publisher: The Communist Party of Great Britain
Transcription/Markup: Brian Reid
Proofreader: Dave Tate
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2006). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN the midst of unexampled enthusiasm on the part of the masses of Petrograd and Moscow the Fourth Congress of the Communist International began its work on the fifth anniversary of the Proletarian Revolution in Russia. The Second and Third Congresses had been wonderfully popular, but the Fourth Congress was accompanied by scenes which surprised friend and foe.
The Narodin Dom of Petrograd was crowded. Our veteran comrade, Clara Zetkin speaks: “Comrades, in the name of the Executive Committee of the Communist International I declare the Fourth World Congress of the Communist International open. The Congress is opened on the fifth anniversary of the greatest historic event of our time, on the day of the fifth anniversary of the decisive and victorious attack of the world proletarian revolution, which, through the Russian Revolution, inflicted the first defeat upon the international bourgeoisie. I declare the Fourth World Congress of the Communist International open.”
Thus our work began.
Comrade Zinovief was then elected chairman of the Congress. The delegations nominated their members to the Presidium. The Presidium was elected and the machinery of the Congress prepared for the four weeks’ hard work ahead. Then we passed from Red Petrograd to old Moscow and its Kremlin.
It is necessary in order to appraise the full significance and importance of this congress to determine first of all its place historically. The First Congress of the Communist International came forth from the flames of the Russian Revolution. The revolutionary wave throughout Europe was in the ascendant. Its organisational tasks were therefore elementary and simple. It was principally a rallying centre for the revolutionary forces of the working class movement of the world. Its rôle was declamatory; to scare the fearful, to trumpet the rallying cry of the revolution throughout the world, to draw together the new vanguard of the working class. The Second Congress met some sixteen months later on the crest of the revolutionary wave, but with all the signs that the highest point had passed. A wonderful response to the calls of the First Congress had now to be assimilated. Old parties and new parties had rallied to the call. The fabric of the old international was in ruins. Even the so-called centre parties were affected, and threw up, as camouflage, the skeleton of another international. The bourgeoisie were rallying, and the old social democratic leaders were coming to their aid. It was a stupendous situation. This congress had to lay the foundations of the Communist International as an organisation, and to hammer out its policy, to guard itself from the Utopias of the “revolutionary left,” to ensure itself as an instrument of revolution from the vagaries of reformism from the “right,” and to pave the way to an International Mass Party of Revolution—the International Communist Party.
The succeeding twelve months revealed how thoroughly this work was tackled. It was a year of splits in the old parties and the rallying of new masses to the Communist International. It was a year wherein “leftism” received heavy defeats in the struggles of the masses in Europe, and wherein the Levism of the “right” received its mortal blow within the ranks of the International. The Third Congress met with large mass parties affiliated to our International, with another year’s revolutionary experience in Europe and a deep depression looming close ahead. The fight with “leftism” was over. The period of splits in the old parties; which had been shaken to their foundations by the revolution, was for the moment at an end. The special problems of the Third Congress were problems of self-examination and the consolidation of the organisation, plus the great task of appraising the international situation correctly and indicating the means of action throughout the depression. The following months were to prove the testing-time of the International. An unprecedented period of economic depression had started throughout the world, and the capitalist class had begun its savage offensive. If the Communist International could survive this period and prove to have a policy commensurate with the objective demands of the slump, as well as one applicable to periods of revolutionary fervour, its future was assured.
The Fourth Congress met, only to reveal the International more powerful and influential than at any time since its birth. It had stood the test of a defensive struggle, and again began to take the measure of its experience in order to the more ably fulfil its historic rôle in the liberation war of the working class against capitalism.
The work of the Congress can be most conveniently divided into five divisions, as follows:—(1) Executive Committee’s report surveying the experiences of the year and indicating the next steps to be taken. (2) Perspectives of the world revolution, five years of the Russian Revolution, the decline of capitalism, the capitalist offensive, the struggle against the Versailles Treaty, etc. (3) Tactical problems, work within the unions, the Red International of Labour Unions, the agrarian problems, the Oriental question, etc. (4) An examination of the parties of the International in action. (5) Progress towards the International Communist Party (a) Organisational developments, (b) the programme of the International.
THE EXECUTIVE REPORT
The organisational growth and work of the central organs of the International reveal the magnitude of the task of building an international party. The problem is not simply one of counting heads and proclaiming the figures of membership. Without a centralised international party acting in unison throughout all its organs the working class cannot hope to conquer. Numbers have flocked to the Communist International, but they have come trailing the democratic traditions of the Second International and the Amsterdam Trades Unions across the path of the internal progress of the Third International as it grows into a centralised party. Nevertheless, the leaders of the International have made it clear in word and deed that the central authority in the International of revolution has no intention of operating simply as a recording instrument of the national parties.
The International now consists of more than fifty parties. Within the last fifteen months the Executive Committee has held thirty meetings. One hundred and forty-four questions have been discussed, ninety-seven being political questions and forty-seven organisational and administrative. The attendance at these meetings has totalled 1,032. Thirty-one commissions consisting of seven to nine members have dealt with special questions. In addition, the Presidium has met 75 times and discussed 735 questions. There have been two sessions of the enlarged Executive Committee wherein each party had double representation. Fifty-four delegates have been sent to various countries, and 129 commissions appointed according to the decisions of the Presidium and the Executive Committee. During the year, parties have been established in Japan, India, China, Turkey and Persia.
In addition, the Executive Committee has been working closely with the Red International of Labour Unions, the Young Communist International, the Co-operatives and the Women’s Secretariat. So much for the organisational aspects of the work done.
The outstanding political events of the last fifteen months have provided severe tests from which we can say with confidence we have emerged successfully. The capitalist offensive has been severe; the diagnosis of the condition of capitalism throughout the world made at the Third Congress has proven correct, and we see no reason to depart from the conclusions arrived at in the Trotsky-Varga thesis on the world’s economic crisis. Indeed, this condition of capitalism is likely to intensify the offensive for some time rather than to modify it. We can say more definitely than ever that we are now in the epoch of the decline of capitalism. Only Russia moves upward. All other countries are suffering the economic and social defections of a dying system.
No one can deny the advance of the Soviet Republic to the position of a great power in world politics. Contrary to all the predictions and desires of her enemies, month by month she has advanced. The introduction of what is known as the new economic policy marks an important stage in the development of the revolution. We are now able to measure the importance and significance of this policy. The problems of the proletariat in the countries where the workers have taken power are obviously different to the problems of that section of the International where power has yet to be achieved. It was one of the most important tasks of this congress to get to grips with this new economic policy and its rôle in the Soviet Republic and its place in the world revolution.
At the moment of its introduction there were many fears and misgivings in the ranks of the International, whilst our enemies proclaimed it to be the reversion to capitalism and the collapse of Communism. Twelve months’ actual experience has proven its value and revealed it as a very necessary part of the revolutionary development of the Soviet Republic, not an accidental part, but a necessary part, applicable in varying degrees to practically all countries after the taking of power by the proletariat.
The all-important task of the workers outside Russia was still the conquest of power. The period under review, however, was a period of universal and continuous retreat, of great losses in the membership of the trades unions, of the alliance of the Social Democrats with the bourgeoisie against the workers and the Communist International. In spite of these things, and although both the bourgeoisie and the Social Democrats have used even the famine in Russia as a weapon against the Communist International, and had spoken with a single voice in favour of the Social Revolutionary terrorists, the Communist International had done more than hold its own. It had made marked progress in a time when its enemies were predicting its decline and disruption.
Several outstanding political events of the year vindicated and proclaimed the Communist International as the real leader of the working class of the world. In 1921, at the Halle Congress, Comrade Zinovief declared to the German Right Independents that, in view of their refusal to accept the 21 conditions of the Communist International, they had thereby gone over to the bourgeoisie and to Noske. This declaration created an uproar among the Right Independents. But 1922 had seen the fusion of the Right Independents with the party of Noske. A swift and dramatic fulfilment of the prediction of 1921.
A further analogous and classic test of the tactics of the Communist International has been seen in Italy, a country now in the limelight of international events by virtue of its recent counter-revolutionary history. At the time of the Leghorn split in the Italian Socialist Party we warned those who turned away from the Comintern that they had the choice of two roads—either they follow the Reformist International and find themselves in the camp of the bourgeoisie; or they will confess their error and return to the Communist International. After terrible experiences and bitter defeats, the recent Rome conference of the Italian Socialist Party fulfilled the prediction of the Comintern, confessed their error, declared the Comintern to be right, and asked to be readmitted to our ranks.
A further important event again fulfilling the prediction of the Comintern is the amalgamation of the Second and the Two-and-a-half Internationals. It is important, because it unifies to a greater degree the activities of the counter-revolution. Comrade Zinovief declared that this amalgamation signifies a new period of White terror against the workers, the artillery preparation for a new onslaught of the international bourgeoisie. It paves the way to a new Gallifet, Noske, Mussolini, for new executioners of the working class. As if to immediately fulfil this prediction, the Hague Conference of “Peace” openly united with the bourgeoisie against the Communists, and the Ruhr crisis has found them in the camp of the imperialists denouncing the Communists.
In the midst of these dramatic events, the Communist International has attempted three important international campaigns, one in connection with famine relief in Russia, one in connection with the trial of the Social Revolutionaries, and the specially important campaign for the United Front. This campaign for the United Front did not proceed without hindrance from within the International. The experience has revealed how far we have rid ourselves of the practices of the Second International, how far the Communist International has progressed towards an International Communist Party.
It is fortunate for the International that this campaign did not involve the fate of hundreds of thousands of our comrades. Had the issue been more serious and the same inner resistance occurred in the ranks of the International, one hesitates to think of the magnitude of the tragedy which would have followed. Two parties, the French and the Italian, have hindered the International in action. To debate the issue at the hour of crisis when the call has gone forth from the central authority of the organisation is simply to turn the Communist International into a replica of the Second International. Debate as much as we like up to the time of decision, but when the decision is taken the International must act as one man. The French Party and the Italian one, along with the other parties of the International, have repeatedly affirmed their adherence to the 21 conditions of membership of the Communist International. Why, then, this failure to put them into practice?
A long list of details could be given from the debates arising out of the examination of the parties, but in the main practically all of them arise from the fact that the Communist International, as in the case of all other organisations, has not tumbled down from above fully equipped according to some foreordained plan, but is made up of the raw material history has offered with much of its past experience and habits of the pre-revolutionary epoch, hampering its efforts to carry through the tasks of the era of revolution. In the clarifying process through which the elements taming into the International of Revolution have to pass, it is of interest and significance to observe that it is only as they pass through the fire of revolutionary experience that they finally rid themselves of the illusions of the past. The best equipped section of the International is certainly the Russian Communist Party, and can we wonder when we remember the colossal problems they have had to tackle or perish, and the marvellous feats they have accomplished. It was not until the German party had passed through great trials and suffered terrible punishment that it ceased to be in a state of crisis and a first-class problem for the International. It is through struggle and defeats that the Italian comrades are solving their problems. It will be through struggle, that the French and other parties will emerge to become real sections of the International Communist Party. At the same time, it must not be thought that their problems are purely French problems or that the Italian problems are purely Italian, and that the International must wait until every section has suffered defeats and bitter awakenings ere the Central Executive or the Congress of the International strives to bring them into line. Not by these means can we build an international party. It is through the daily effort to operate as an international party that we shall succeed in becoming such. Hence the importance of the survey of the year’s experience of the campaign for the United Front and the critical examination of the parties in their attempted application of it.
One thing is quite certain now. There is no opposition to the policy of the United Front in the International, although there are very few parties that have not come under the fire of criticism for actions which either submerged the identity of the International or placed it in the position of the Utopians of the Left. The application of the policy is not simple. It is full of complexities. The fight against the policy is over, and there is no need to dwell on it. The problems of its application cannot be so hurriedly dismissed. The principal danger throughout is that of the submergence of the party on the plea of unity.
This danger arises from a lack of thorough understanding the rôle of the party, and it is one to which we have to give special attention. The Communist Party of Great Britain came in for a little rough handling on this question by Comrade Radek, on behalf of the Executive Committee. The general election here has provided us with a fund of experience to test how far the party and its leaders have grasped the implications of the policy. Running throughout the party there appears to be the notion that the party exists only to become a Left Wing of the Labour Party, that we ought not even to criticise its leaders, that everything should be submerged to the idea of getting the Labour Party into power via Parliament. In addition, there are many pursuing a policy of hiding the fact that it is the Communist Party which is giving a lead; they object to programmes for the unions or other labour organisations going forth in the name of the party. I have heard since my return from the Congress the following expression repeated at meeting after meeting, “We are prepared to support any party standing for so, and so,” which seems to indicate an attitude which completely obscures the independent role of the Party. I have looked through the election material of members of the Party, and in some cases it would be difficult to discover from the printed matter issued that they were members of the Party. Had the Executive Committee of the Communist International received this election data before the Congress I am convinced that the critcism the Party received would have been much more stringent. We should neither aim at being a subterranean party existing to draft programmes on the quiet, or a Party which has for its goal the election of a Labour Government through a hush-hush policy. These things are not the application of the United Front policy, but political confusion.
It is to be regretted that our party is not the only one suffering from these defects. The debates on the Executive report and the capitalist offensive made that perfectly clear. Again and again, throughout the debates on the unions, the agrarian question, the problems of the parties, there was a recurrence to this central theme and its many manifestations. The essential conclusions of the debates were as follows:—(1) The opponents of the United Front Policy in the International were wrong in assuming they could carry out the tasks of the International without winning the majority of the masses to their support. (2) It was wrong for any of the supporters of the policy of the United Front Policy to assume that it meant that the Party had to lose its identity in the cry for unity. These parties were directed again to the theses issued by the Executive Committee, especially to paragraph 18, which reads:—
“The Executive Committee of the Communist International counts as a primary and fundamental condition, of general application to the Communist Parties of all countries, that every Communist Party which enters into any agreement with the parties of the Second or Two-and-a-half International should retain absolute independence for the expression of its views and the criticism of its opponents. . . While supporting the watch-word of the maximum unity of the working class organisations, Communists, in every practical action taken against the capitalist front, must not on any account refrain from putting forward their views, which are only the logical expression of the defence of the interests of the working class as a whole.”
(3) In order to make clear the policy of the International to the masses, and to rally them to our side in the struggle, we have to utilise every means of approach, both the direct and the indirect appeal, to approach their present leaders at the same time as the masses with our proposals for the defence and prosecution of the interests of the workers both as a means to rally the masses and to expose clearly the character of their leadership. The demand for a Workers’ Government is not a demand which should smother the Communist Parties, but a slogan to rally the masses against capitalism by means of which the Parties can reveal the true character of the conquest the workers have to achieve. (4) The demand for the Workers’ Government is not of universal application. The Workers’ Government is not an historical necessity, but an historical possibility. Nor is the Labour Government a pseudonym for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, but a possible means leading to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. (5) The form of a Workers’ Government is not necessarily the Parliamentary form, nor does it follow that a Soviet Government is necessarily a true Workers’ Government. We must not be confused by forms or labels. Our aim is the Dictatorship of the proletariat and the defeat of the bourgeoisie. Comrade Zinovief summed up the situation admirably as follows: “We will say to the workers: Do you want a Workers’ Government, if so, well and good, we are ready to come to an agreement even with the social democrats, though we warn you that they are going to betray you. We favour a Workers’ Government, but under the one condition that you be ready to fight with us against the bourgeoisie. If this is your wish, then we will take up the fight against the bourgeoisie; and if the Workers’ Government results from the struggle, it will stand on sound principles, and will be a real beginning to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.”
There is nothing here which justifies reformist opportunism or the lowering of the Communist standard for the purpose of getting a seat in Parliament either as an unemployed candidate or a Labour Party candidate.
One other important phase of the struggle which has a direct bearing upon the condition of our Party, as well as upon many others in the International, is the struggle for the factory committees. At the moment they are in the forefront of the German movement. Comrade Zinovief stated in his report that no Communist Party could be a bona-fide Communist Party without it had succeeded in establishing nuclei in the factories, the mines, etc.; no movement could be considered a bona-fide workers’ movement that did not succeed in establishing factory councils.’
To this statement I took exception, not so much with regard to its assertion concerning the parties, but with regard to the creation of factory councils. With nearly 2,000,000 unemployed in Great Britain, among whom are the best elements upon whom we had to depend for the formation of factory councils, it was not to be expected that the factory committees would be the natural outlet for those who were left in the factories. The very attempt to form factory committees would lead to dismissal. Only when Germany was free from unemployment or the situation very revolutionary did we find factory councils playing an important rôle. Comrade Zinovief admitted the difficulties, but insisted that they must be overcome.
The need for making the factories and workshops the most important centres for our Communist activity and the importance of establishing Party nuclei within them cannot be over estimated. I am inclined to think, after several weeks’ renewal of contact with the Party and an examination of its election records, along with the records of other party activities, that the party has lost contact in this direction. There are no party nuclei in the factories. We must ponder over this part of the report and ask ourselves whether this lack of contact with the factories has not something to do with the marked tendencies towards formal democracy in our ranks. The attitude of “We are prepared to support any party which stands for, etc. . . ” haunts me. We have got to have those party nuclei in the factories, and pave the way to the factory councils.
The same issues were raised in the debate on our work within the unions, and again let it be understood that it is not a question of formal organisation, but of the means to revolutionise the masses. Even when allowance is made for unemployment, there are far more workers in the factories, etc., than there are unemployed, or even than in the trades unions. This issue was raised as sharply in the Red International Congress as in the Comintern Congress. And here let me dispose of the notion which has been running through the minds of many party members in this country as in others—that there is any intention or ever was any intention of winding up the Red International of Labour Unions. The Red International is necessary to the international working class movement. It has increased its influence, and will increase its influence the more sharply the revolutionary issues are brought to the forefront of the experiences of the masses. It is a necessary rallying centre for the revolutionary unions of the world in their struggle against Amsterdam and their progress towards Communism.
In order to overcome the prejudices of the syndicalists of France a concession was made by the R.I.L.U. Congress. Instead of insisting upon the unions affiliated to the R.I.L.U. having an organisational contact with the Communist Party in the respective countries, this is now optional. This has been taken by some to mean no contact with the Communist parties whatever. This notion we must combat with all our might. The best way of ensuring the unity of action between the two organisations is for the Party membership to push ahead with its nuclei organisation within the Red International, as in every other organisation, demonstrating by organised work that the Communist International is the actual leader of the proletariat in all its struggles.
The debates on the Executive report covered briefly practically all the tactical problems of the parties of the international. The essentials of the debates which I have indicated formed the basis of all the discussions concerning the parties for which there is not space to deal in detail. The Executive Committee’s report was agreed upon as confirming the leadership during the interval between the Third and Fourth Congresses and the Decisions of the Third Congress.
The reports on this section of the Congress proceedings were the most interesting of all. The leaders of the International took the floor, and how gladly we greeted our Comrade Lenin’s return. In his usual business-like way he proceeded straight to the subject to hand, though warning us that he intended to limit himself to only one part of the subject under discussion, viz., The New Economic Policy in Russia. In his speech to the Fourth Congress he disposed of the critics of the Russian Revolution in such a way that we feel that any subsequent attack can only be the result of an absolute refusal to face facts. Comrade Lenin’s speech along with the speeches of Comrades Clara Zetkin, Trotsky and Bela Kun constitute a masterly survey which leaves little more to be said about the fundamental features and the unfolding of the Russian Revolution.
Comrade Zetkin’s speech[1] ought to have come first. She gave the historical setting of the revolution in relation to the European working class movement. She illustrated the effect of the development of imperialism during the latter part of the nineteenth century, showing how it had created a new political orientation within the ranks of labour away from the path of revolution to reformism; and how it propounded the theory that revolution was not necessary to secure the emancipation of labour. Then came its collapse with the imperialist war of 1914-18 and its revival under the banner of capitalist reconstruction, holding out hopes of better times for the workers by peaceful collaboration with the capitalists. Throughout the whole of its history it had been actively eliminating the will to revolution.
Into this atmosphere the Russian Revolution came like a thunderbolt to begin the process of liquidating throughout the world the revisionism, and reformism which had so long ensnared the workers. The Russian proletariat struck the first mighty blow of the world revolution against capitalism. Its progress through the varying tempos of the world revolutionary developments had provided the working class with tremendous lessons, demonstrated the necessity for the dictatorship of the proletariat, the use of force, the supreme need of the party of revolution, the necessity of knowing how to use the peasantry to aid the proletarian revolution, how to advance and how to retreat.
Comrade Lenin took up the theme of the New Economic Policy, and placed it once and for all in its correct revolutionary setting. He referred to his analysis of the Russian situation in 1918, when he declared that for Russia to advance to State capitalism under the dictatorship of the Proletariat would be a marked advance for that country. And, here he incidentally referred to the discussion of the programme of the International and the necessity for all parties not only to consider plans of advance, but also plans of retreat. The volition of the revolution had taken them further than it was possible for them to consolidate. In February, 1921, they were nearer a rupture with the masses of the population than at any time since the beginning of the Revolution. They had gone too far. The masses had sensed that before they had taken the measure of the situation. Hence the New Economic Policy.
The fundamentals of the economic situation had not altered since 1918, and they took up the theses enunciated then, and elaborated them with a greater certainty and completeness. They were now witness to an all-round revival. The famine had been a terrible blow. Nevertheless, with the introduction of this policy the peasants had liquidated the famine and paid their taxes. The light industries had made and were making rapid progress. The revival of the heavy industry was their greatest problem. Without substantial State aid these could not revive. There had been much talk concerning the concessions. But these concessions up to now existed mainly on paper. There was much cry, but little wool. Capitalism refused its loans, the workers and peasants of Russia were culturally backward—they were isolated. Yet they were winning in spite of errors.
There has been much talk about our errors, and apparently by people who have little reason to be noisy concerning errors. There is one great difference between the errors of the Bolsheviks and the errors of the bourgeoisie and their followers in the Second and Two and a-Half Internationals. The Bolsheviks say 2 plus 2 equals 5. Now, that is an error that can be corrected. But our opponents say 2 plus 2 equals a burning candle.
Much has been said about our famous rouble. Very well. Since the introduction of our New Economic Policy we stabilised the rouble for a period of three months. In 1922 we have stabilised it for a period of five months. The progress is in the right direction and compares very favourably indeed with the dancing exchanges of the capitalist countries of the West. We shall stabilise the rouble, and we shall revive the heavy industry, even if there be no loans from the capitalist countries, although it may take a longer period. Already we have saved 20,000,000 gold roubles for our heavy industries. We need many millions more. We shall get them by persistent work and economy. By these means the proletarian State will be strengthened, and the path to Communism assured.
The rôle of the New Economic Policy is therefore perfectly clear as a transition measure for securing the willing co-operation of the peasantry with the town proletariat in those countries where agriculture is backward or has assumed forms of a peasant proprietary character. It is therefore not simply a measure forced upon Russia, but an historical necessity in many countries, if not, indeed, for every country, pending the growth within the new social order of the economic foundations of higher forms of agricultural or industrial organisation leading on to Communism.
Comrade Trotsky developed this theme as follows. He said: “The possibilities of the upbuilding of the socialist economic system, when the essential conquest of political power has been achieved, are limited by the degree to which the productive forms have been developed, the general cultural level of the proletariat, and the political situation, national and international.”
On the international situation there arose an interesting controversy. The subject of the capitalist offensive can hardly be disassociated from the international crisis of capitalism, nor can the struggle against the Versailles Treaty. Comrade Trotsky, in a too-brief survey of the international situation (having devoted the greater part of his speech to the Russian revolution), argued that capitalism is in a state of constant crisis, whilst the working class is not ready to end the crisis by seizing power. The crisis is not maintained at the same tempo. It had its ups and downs which would continue for some time. Within that period we should witness a period of Wilsonism in Europe under the pacific leadership of the Social Democratic Labour Parties, either in alliance with Liberals or without such an alliance. During this period we should have to guard against this social pacificism entering the ranks of the Communist International. The dangers from the Right were more pressing under these circumstances than any danger from the left. This does not mean that capitalism is finding a solution to its problems. The nineteenth century was the epoch of concessions to the working class. 1914 ushered in the epoch when these concessions could no longer be made. The forces of production had outgrown the old framework and the capitalists could find no solution to their problems. The period of pacifism could only be short lived. It was the last flicker of a candle burning itself out.
Comrades Friedlander, of Austria, and Ravenstem, of Holland, challenged this diagnosis of the situation, and argued that, rather than a period of pacifism, the whole tempo of the revolution would be quickened by the violent action of the reactionary movements which had manifested themselves most powerfully in recent days. The rise of Facism in Italy, Germany, and other countries, the aggressive attitude of the French Government, the ascendency of the reactionaries in Britain in the form of the Conservative, government, etc. Everything, they declared pointed to more violent actions and crises rather than to the possibilities of any pacific period.
Comrade Radek, who gave a masterly survey of the international situation, said that these comrades were looking too closely at the immediate situation. Comrade Trotsky looked over a much longer period, and, he did not differ with him. It is true that the capitalist offensive is extending and intensifying along the whole political and economic front, and its climax has not yet been reached. The question arises: What prospect of success has such an offensive? This wave of counter-revolution is not the outcome of a period of general economic revival, but represents an attempt to effect the forcible arrest of economic decay. The counter-revolution cannot bring bread and peace. We have, therefore, to do now with an offensive, which has no prospect of victory, however ruthless it may be. The social basis of this counter-revolution is very narrow. It lacks the élan, it lacks the affiliations, and it lacks the foundation which would render possible a long and victorious campaign.
Comrade Trotsky followed the discussion with a long article in the Congress paper, called the Bolshevik, in which he answered that there is hardly any ground for the categorical assertion that the proletarian revolution in Germany will be victorious before the internal and external difficulties of France will bring about a governmental and parliamentary crisis. Elections would return the Left bloc. The repercussion would deal a heavy blow at the conservative government in England, strengthen the opposition of the Labour Party, and in all probability lead to a crisis, elections, and a victory for the Labour Party, either alone or in league with the Independent Liberals. The social democrats of Germany would immediately quit their semi-opposition, and begin the “linking up of the great democracies of the West,” bring Scheideman back to power, etc. That such a regime could only be short-lived was obvious. To us the bourgeoisie is not a mere stone precipitated into the abyss, but a live historical force which struggles and resorts to manœuvres, and we must be prepared to grasp all the methods they employ, and understand all the measures they adopt if we would finally precipitate them into the abyss.
Following on this diagnosis of the situation Comrade Radek again developed the application of the policy of the United Front, and analysed again the demand for a Workers’ government, and in the process making perfectly clear that we had to face the situation as stated in the words of Clara Zetkin: “The aims and trends of any historical development are plainly to be seen. But the tempo depends mainly upon the subjective energies of the historical process, upon the revolutionary consciousness and activities of the proletarian masses.” “In the estimate of this factor so many imponderabilities are concerned that it is impossible to prophesy confidently concerning the tempo of the world revolution.” But whether slow or quick, it is the duty of the Communist International to be in the forefront of the fight leading to the conquest of power.
I do not propose to deal with these questions in this survey of the Congress. With regard to the first problems, in no case was there the introduction of entirely new issues. The theses presented were in the main an elaboration of the theses of the Second and Third Congresses, more especially the Second Congress. To attempt, to summarise them here would take too much space. An abridged edition of the Congress proceedings is prepared, and it will be better to follow the reports therein than to attempt to further condense them into an article.
With regard to an examination of the parties, many came under close scrutiny, chief of which were the French and Italian parties. In both cases agreements were arrived at with the delegations to bring the parties more in line with the requirements of the Communist International, the constitution of which both parties had repeatedly affirmed. In both cases there were questions of political confusion, the ridding of the parties of social democratic notions carried forward from the parties of the Second International. In the case of the Italian party, led by Bordiga, who had not yet rid himself of the absentee philosophy arising from his earlier anti-parliamentary outlook. The full story of the Italian and French[2] party developments are worthy of special articles for the study of every member of the party here.
Comrade Schuler, on behalf of the Y.C.I., gave an interesting report of the struggles of the Youth to build up their International. And it should be mentioned that our party did not shine in that report. We were told that the Youth had to work hard to persuade the party of the necessity of developing the Youth movement, and that it had been impossible to get an article in our party organs dealing with the organisation of the Youth.[3] This attitude of indifference to the Youth has been a characteristic of quite a number of the parties of the adult International. Nevertheless, the Youth International has established itself and grown in power. Its tasks were defined at its second congress as follows: (1) To defend the economic needs of the Youth; (2) To educate the Youth systematically in the Marxian doctrine; (3) To carry on anti-militarist campaigns among the young workers in and outside the bourgeois armies.
Since the Second Congress great strides had been made in these tasks. The Young Communist Press reflected better to-day than at any time previous, the daily struggles of the young workers, whilst we can safely say that the Young Communist Leagues of Germany, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia and Denmark are becoming real militant organisations. It is interesting to note that the Communist Youth organisations in France and Czecho-Slovakia have been suppressed by the State, whilst the adult parties have remained quite legal.
The time is urgent as never before for the closest working arrrangements between the Youth organisations and the adult parties. The Communist International therefore declares, “That the United Front of the young and the adult workers for a common struggle against capitalism and reaction is an absolute necessity, and calls upon its parties and the entire working class to stand for the interest and demands of the working class youth as well as for their own, and to make them the subject of their daily struggle.”
Four comrades, led by Comrade Zetkin, reported on this question of work amongst women, and again our party came in for severe criticism. But first let Comrade Zetkin address a few words as introduction, for she says the work of the Women’s Secretariat is misunderstood by our own comrades in the International.
“They misunderstand the work of the Communist among the women and the tasks of the national sections and of the International in this connection. This, with some, the remains of an old view, with others it is wilful prejudice because they do not sympathise with our cause and even partly oppose it. The International Women’s Secretariat is not, as many believe, the union of independent organisations of the women’s movements, but a branch of the Executive of the Communist International. It conducts the activity not only in constant co-operation with the Executive, but under its immediate leadership: It has nothing to do with any feminist tendencies. It exists for systematic Communist propaganda amongst women.”
Having made the position clear as to the task of the women’s section, it will be well for us to reflect on the criticism of our party.
“In England, organisation for conducting systematic agitation among the feminine proletariat is altogether lacking. The Communist Party of England excused itself by its weakness, and has continually refused or postponed the setting up of a special body for systematic agitation among the women. All the exhortations of the International Women’s Secretariat have been in vain. No Women’s Secretariat was established; the only thing that was done was to appoint a woman comrade as general party agitator. Our women comrades have organised various meetings for the political education of women out of their own feeble means. . . . The British section of the International cannot remain indifferent to the fact that millions of proletarian women are organised in suffrage societies, trades unions of the old type, in consumers’ co-operatives and in the Labour Party.”
Need I quote more? Comrade Hertha Sterm supplemented these observations, and there is no doubt that we have to be up and doing. Without the women, no revolution can hope to be successful. There are big possibilities here. Time and again the working women of this country have shown themselves capable of great actions, in rent strikes, in evictions, in strikes and in general agitation. Harnessed to the party they can be a power not to be despised. We are striving to make amends for our shortcomings. Since the Congress, the Party Executive has appointed a comrade to immediately get to work with the formation of the Women’s Secretariat of the Party.
The discussion on the programme of the International revealed a sharp division in the ranks of the leaders of the International on the question as to whether temporary measures should appear in the programme of the International. In this discussion, Bukharin opposed Varga and Thalheimer of Germany. This is an issue upon which every party will have to make itself clear during the ensuing months. So far, only a few parties have submitted programmes for consideration and incorporation in the International programme. All parties are now instructed to have their programmes in the hands of the Executive Committee of the International three months before the next Congress, when the complete programme of the International will be formulated. Meanwhile, the programmes that have been submitted will be printed and issued throughout the International for discussion.
I will content myself, therefore, with a statement of the most important difference. Bukharin takes the following position with regard to the insertion of temporary demands in the programme “Temporary measures, such as the policy of the United Front, the slogan of the Workers’ Government, should not be put in our programme. These slogans are required by the present defensive situation of the proletariat; to put them in our programme is a retreat from our offensive.” Thalheimer opposed as follows: “The present period of transformation is one of the most important on the way to revolution. In this period the Comintern must not fail in its duty. The inclusion of immediate demands is theoretically admissable so long as the theories upon which the demands are made are correct. Shortly before the October revolution, Comrade Lenin himself favoured the adoption of a programme of minimum demands.”
These are the starting points for the development of the arguments of the respective positions. We shall have to return to this subject again, sufficient for the moment to set the party thinking on these issues.
THE BUILDING OF THE INTERNATIONAL PARTY
Probably the most important development arising out of the Congress arises from the decisions taken concerning the Executive Committee. It was decided, that the time had arrived to make a further stride in the direction of the International Communist Party. This consists in the reorganisation of the Central Executive on the basis of a centralised party. Instead of the Executive consisting of a number of representatives of various parties, the Executive has now to be elected by the International Congress. “It shall consist of the President, 24 members and 10 substitutes.” This is the most important blow at the federaldstic notions in the International, which is followed up by the ruling that “no binding mandates are permitted, and such will be declared invalid, because such mandates contradict the spirit of an international, centralised, proletarian world party.”
In future, delegates sent from the various countries will go to the Congress, not simply to express the point of view of a particular party, but to be members of an international congress surveying and contributing to the solution of the problems of the International as a whole. It has been a habit of the majority of the delegates to survey the International from a national point of view rather than the reverse, just as it is a habit here for members of the party to start off their observations, “Well, so far as we on the Clyde are concerned . . . ,” “We in the provinces are of the opinion, etc. . .” I for one shall be, glad when we can drop the name Communist Party of Great Britain, Communist Party of Russia, etc., and we can speak clearly and act in the name of an International Communist Party. But even in this case it is “a long way to Tipperary.” We have to grow into it and step by step eliminate the things which impede our steps and take such measures as will positively build the organisation we require as the most effective instrument of the international working class.
By centralisation the International does not mean losing contact, and the experience of the last year has seen the development of means for more lively contact than hitherto. During the year the E. C. convened what were called enlarged executive committees. Their value has been thoroughly appreciated, and the Fourth Congress determined that there should be regular meetings of the enlarged Executive every four months. This enlarged Executive shall consist of (1) 25 members of the E.C.; (2) of three additional representatives from each of the following parties: Germany, France, Russia, Czecho-Slovakia, and Italy, also the Y.C.I. and, the Red International of Labour Unions; (3) of two additional representatives from England, Poland, America, Bulgaria and Norway; (4) one representative from each of the other countries that are entitled to vote.
In addition, in order to make the International more and more an efficient organ of struggle, the Congress ruled that “it is desirable for the purpose of mutual information and for coordinated work that the more important sections of neighbouring countries shall mutually-exchange representatives.“
Again, let no member of the party think that careerists are going to stand much chance in the Communist International. “The Congress, in the most decisive manner, condemns all cases of resignations tendered by individual comrades of the various central committees and by entire groups of such members. The Congress considers such resignations as the greatest disorganisation of the Communist movement. Every leading post in a Communist Party belongs not to the bearer of the mandate, but to the Communist International as a whole. The Congress resolves: Elected members of central bodies of a section can resign their mandate only with the consent of the Executive. Resignations accepted by a party central committee without the consent of the Executive Committee are invalid.”
These important decisions begin to operate now. The new Central Committee of the International was elected at the Congress, whilst, in the selection of the Executive, toleration was shown to the old arrangement, the Central Executive now represents the International as a whole. The next Congress will see little toleration for the federalism of the past. With these important steps towards the International Communist Party, the Congress closed on December 3rd.
We had had four weeks of constant meetings, discussions, self-examination. For detailed consideration of problems there has been no Congress to surpass it. To convey all in an article for a magazine is impossible. But to sum up: The Congress reviewed the work of the last fifteen months and found the leadership of the Executive to be good. It examined the decisions of the Third Congress in the light of this experience, and found them correct. The details of tactics in relation to the organisations of labour and the particular problems with which they had to deal had received detailed attention. Many parties of the International had been closely examined with a view to helping them in their efforts to become more efficient sections of the International. Bold measures have been initiated in the reorganisation of the International in terms of an International Communist Party. And the preliminary discussions of the programme of the Communist International have given a lead to the parties to complete the process of formulating the work to be accomplished. A great work and a great Congress, contributing greatly to the one cause which is worthy of all the efforts that have been put forth—the triumph of the working class in world-wide Communism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
1. A verbatim report of this magnificent speech by Clara Zetkin appeared in last month’s REVIEW.
2. Readers of the REVIEW are advised to study the inner struggles of the French party which have been ably dealt with by E. Verney. See the November number and a special article which appears in this issue. We shall deal with the Italian party in a future number.—Ed.
3. This sweeping statement, which appeared in the report submitted by Comrade Schuler, is not true so far as the COMMUNIST REVIEW is concerned. And the E.C. of the Y.C.L. in Britain have already written to the Editor of the COMMUNIST REVIEW to assure him that he is not involved in the charge put forward by their international delegate. Although the COMMUNIST REVIEW has never received one single article from the Y.C.L., we were able to procure a splendid historical outline of the growth of the Youth Movement by Comrade Leontieff. This lengthy article was published in the REVIEW and the type was offered to the Y.C.L., free of charge, to enable them to issue it as a pamphlet. This offer, for some reason, was not accepted. Our readers also know that the REVIEW, of its own accord, helps to push the sale of the Young Communist by publishing a free advertisement every month.—Editor of COMMUNIST REVIEW.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J. T. Murphy Archive | Communist Review
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in this day's other posts.
***********
J. T. Murphy-The 4th Congress-A Special Report on the Recent World Congress of the Comintern
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: The Communist Review, March 1923, Vol. 3, No. 11.
Publisher: The Communist Party of Great Britain
Transcription/Markup: Brian Reid
Proofreader: Dave Tate
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2006). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN the midst of unexampled enthusiasm on the part of the masses of Petrograd and Moscow the Fourth Congress of the Communist International began its work on the fifth anniversary of the Proletarian Revolution in Russia. The Second and Third Congresses had been wonderfully popular, but the Fourth Congress was accompanied by scenes which surprised friend and foe.
The Narodin Dom of Petrograd was crowded. Our veteran comrade, Clara Zetkin speaks: “Comrades, in the name of the Executive Committee of the Communist International I declare the Fourth World Congress of the Communist International open. The Congress is opened on the fifth anniversary of the greatest historic event of our time, on the day of the fifth anniversary of the decisive and victorious attack of the world proletarian revolution, which, through the Russian Revolution, inflicted the first defeat upon the international bourgeoisie. I declare the Fourth World Congress of the Communist International open.”
Thus our work began.
Comrade Zinovief was then elected chairman of the Congress. The delegations nominated their members to the Presidium. The Presidium was elected and the machinery of the Congress prepared for the four weeks’ hard work ahead. Then we passed from Red Petrograd to old Moscow and its Kremlin.
It is necessary in order to appraise the full significance and importance of this congress to determine first of all its place historically. The First Congress of the Communist International came forth from the flames of the Russian Revolution. The revolutionary wave throughout Europe was in the ascendant. Its organisational tasks were therefore elementary and simple. It was principally a rallying centre for the revolutionary forces of the working class movement of the world. Its rôle was declamatory; to scare the fearful, to trumpet the rallying cry of the revolution throughout the world, to draw together the new vanguard of the working class. The Second Congress met some sixteen months later on the crest of the revolutionary wave, but with all the signs that the highest point had passed. A wonderful response to the calls of the First Congress had now to be assimilated. Old parties and new parties had rallied to the call. The fabric of the old international was in ruins. Even the so-called centre parties were affected, and threw up, as camouflage, the skeleton of another international. The bourgeoisie were rallying, and the old social democratic leaders were coming to their aid. It was a stupendous situation. This congress had to lay the foundations of the Communist International as an organisation, and to hammer out its policy, to guard itself from the Utopias of the “revolutionary left,” to ensure itself as an instrument of revolution from the vagaries of reformism from the “right,” and to pave the way to an International Mass Party of Revolution—the International Communist Party.
The succeeding twelve months revealed how thoroughly this work was tackled. It was a year of splits in the old parties and the rallying of new masses to the Communist International. It was a year wherein “leftism” received heavy defeats in the struggles of the masses in Europe, and wherein the Levism of the “right” received its mortal blow within the ranks of the International. The Third Congress met with large mass parties affiliated to our International, with another year’s revolutionary experience in Europe and a deep depression looming close ahead. The fight with “leftism” was over. The period of splits in the old parties; which had been shaken to their foundations by the revolution, was for the moment at an end. The special problems of the Third Congress were problems of self-examination and the consolidation of the organisation, plus the great task of appraising the international situation correctly and indicating the means of action throughout the depression. The following months were to prove the testing-time of the International. An unprecedented period of economic depression had started throughout the world, and the capitalist class had begun its savage offensive. If the Communist International could survive this period and prove to have a policy commensurate with the objective demands of the slump, as well as one applicable to periods of revolutionary fervour, its future was assured.
The Fourth Congress met, only to reveal the International more powerful and influential than at any time since its birth. It had stood the test of a defensive struggle, and again began to take the measure of its experience in order to the more ably fulfil its historic rôle in the liberation war of the working class against capitalism.
The work of the Congress can be most conveniently divided into five divisions, as follows:—(1) Executive Committee’s report surveying the experiences of the year and indicating the next steps to be taken. (2) Perspectives of the world revolution, five years of the Russian Revolution, the decline of capitalism, the capitalist offensive, the struggle against the Versailles Treaty, etc. (3) Tactical problems, work within the unions, the Red International of Labour Unions, the agrarian problems, the Oriental question, etc. (4) An examination of the parties of the International in action. (5) Progress towards the International Communist Party (a) Organisational developments, (b) the programme of the International.
THE EXECUTIVE REPORT
The organisational growth and work of the central organs of the International reveal the magnitude of the task of building an international party. The problem is not simply one of counting heads and proclaiming the figures of membership. Without a centralised international party acting in unison throughout all its organs the working class cannot hope to conquer. Numbers have flocked to the Communist International, but they have come trailing the democratic traditions of the Second International and the Amsterdam Trades Unions across the path of the internal progress of the Third International as it grows into a centralised party. Nevertheless, the leaders of the International have made it clear in word and deed that the central authority in the International of revolution has no intention of operating simply as a recording instrument of the national parties.
The International now consists of more than fifty parties. Within the last fifteen months the Executive Committee has held thirty meetings. One hundred and forty-four questions have been discussed, ninety-seven being political questions and forty-seven organisational and administrative. The attendance at these meetings has totalled 1,032. Thirty-one commissions consisting of seven to nine members have dealt with special questions. In addition, the Presidium has met 75 times and discussed 735 questions. There have been two sessions of the enlarged Executive Committee wherein each party had double representation. Fifty-four delegates have been sent to various countries, and 129 commissions appointed according to the decisions of the Presidium and the Executive Committee. During the year, parties have been established in Japan, India, China, Turkey and Persia.
In addition, the Executive Committee has been working closely with the Red International of Labour Unions, the Young Communist International, the Co-operatives and the Women’s Secretariat. So much for the organisational aspects of the work done.
The outstanding political events of the last fifteen months have provided severe tests from which we can say with confidence we have emerged successfully. The capitalist offensive has been severe; the diagnosis of the condition of capitalism throughout the world made at the Third Congress has proven correct, and we see no reason to depart from the conclusions arrived at in the Trotsky-Varga thesis on the world’s economic crisis. Indeed, this condition of capitalism is likely to intensify the offensive for some time rather than to modify it. We can say more definitely than ever that we are now in the epoch of the decline of capitalism. Only Russia moves upward. All other countries are suffering the economic and social defections of a dying system.
No one can deny the advance of the Soviet Republic to the position of a great power in world politics. Contrary to all the predictions and desires of her enemies, month by month she has advanced. The introduction of what is known as the new economic policy marks an important stage in the development of the revolution. We are now able to measure the importance and significance of this policy. The problems of the proletariat in the countries where the workers have taken power are obviously different to the problems of that section of the International where power has yet to be achieved. It was one of the most important tasks of this congress to get to grips with this new economic policy and its rôle in the Soviet Republic and its place in the world revolution.
At the moment of its introduction there were many fears and misgivings in the ranks of the International, whilst our enemies proclaimed it to be the reversion to capitalism and the collapse of Communism. Twelve months’ actual experience has proven its value and revealed it as a very necessary part of the revolutionary development of the Soviet Republic, not an accidental part, but a necessary part, applicable in varying degrees to practically all countries after the taking of power by the proletariat.
The all-important task of the workers outside Russia was still the conquest of power. The period under review, however, was a period of universal and continuous retreat, of great losses in the membership of the trades unions, of the alliance of the Social Democrats with the bourgeoisie against the workers and the Communist International. In spite of these things, and although both the bourgeoisie and the Social Democrats have used even the famine in Russia as a weapon against the Communist International, and had spoken with a single voice in favour of the Social Revolutionary terrorists, the Communist International had done more than hold its own. It had made marked progress in a time when its enemies were predicting its decline and disruption.
Several outstanding political events of the year vindicated and proclaimed the Communist International as the real leader of the working class of the world. In 1921, at the Halle Congress, Comrade Zinovief declared to the German Right Independents that, in view of their refusal to accept the 21 conditions of the Communist International, they had thereby gone over to the bourgeoisie and to Noske. This declaration created an uproar among the Right Independents. But 1922 had seen the fusion of the Right Independents with the party of Noske. A swift and dramatic fulfilment of the prediction of 1921.
A further analogous and classic test of the tactics of the Communist International has been seen in Italy, a country now in the limelight of international events by virtue of its recent counter-revolutionary history. At the time of the Leghorn split in the Italian Socialist Party we warned those who turned away from the Comintern that they had the choice of two roads—either they follow the Reformist International and find themselves in the camp of the bourgeoisie; or they will confess their error and return to the Communist International. After terrible experiences and bitter defeats, the recent Rome conference of the Italian Socialist Party fulfilled the prediction of the Comintern, confessed their error, declared the Comintern to be right, and asked to be readmitted to our ranks.
A further important event again fulfilling the prediction of the Comintern is the amalgamation of the Second and the Two-and-a-half Internationals. It is important, because it unifies to a greater degree the activities of the counter-revolution. Comrade Zinovief declared that this amalgamation signifies a new period of White terror against the workers, the artillery preparation for a new onslaught of the international bourgeoisie. It paves the way to a new Gallifet, Noske, Mussolini, for new executioners of the working class. As if to immediately fulfil this prediction, the Hague Conference of “Peace” openly united with the bourgeoisie against the Communists, and the Ruhr crisis has found them in the camp of the imperialists denouncing the Communists.
In the midst of these dramatic events, the Communist International has attempted three important international campaigns, one in connection with famine relief in Russia, one in connection with the trial of the Social Revolutionaries, and the specially important campaign for the United Front. This campaign for the United Front did not proceed without hindrance from within the International. The experience has revealed how far we have rid ourselves of the practices of the Second International, how far the Communist International has progressed towards an International Communist Party.
It is fortunate for the International that this campaign did not involve the fate of hundreds of thousands of our comrades. Had the issue been more serious and the same inner resistance occurred in the ranks of the International, one hesitates to think of the magnitude of the tragedy which would have followed. Two parties, the French and the Italian, have hindered the International in action. To debate the issue at the hour of crisis when the call has gone forth from the central authority of the organisation is simply to turn the Communist International into a replica of the Second International. Debate as much as we like up to the time of decision, but when the decision is taken the International must act as one man. The French Party and the Italian one, along with the other parties of the International, have repeatedly affirmed their adherence to the 21 conditions of membership of the Communist International. Why, then, this failure to put them into practice?
A long list of details could be given from the debates arising out of the examination of the parties, but in the main practically all of them arise from the fact that the Communist International, as in the case of all other organisations, has not tumbled down from above fully equipped according to some foreordained plan, but is made up of the raw material history has offered with much of its past experience and habits of the pre-revolutionary epoch, hampering its efforts to carry through the tasks of the era of revolution. In the clarifying process through which the elements taming into the International of Revolution have to pass, it is of interest and significance to observe that it is only as they pass through the fire of revolutionary experience that they finally rid themselves of the illusions of the past. The best equipped section of the International is certainly the Russian Communist Party, and can we wonder when we remember the colossal problems they have had to tackle or perish, and the marvellous feats they have accomplished. It was not until the German party had passed through great trials and suffered terrible punishment that it ceased to be in a state of crisis and a first-class problem for the International. It is through struggle and defeats that the Italian comrades are solving their problems. It will be through struggle, that the French and other parties will emerge to become real sections of the International Communist Party. At the same time, it must not be thought that their problems are purely French problems or that the Italian problems are purely Italian, and that the International must wait until every section has suffered defeats and bitter awakenings ere the Central Executive or the Congress of the International strives to bring them into line. Not by these means can we build an international party. It is through the daily effort to operate as an international party that we shall succeed in becoming such. Hence the importance of the survey of the year’s experience of the campaign for the United Front and the critical examination of the parties in their attempted application of it.
One thing is quite certain now. There is no opposition to the policy of the United Front in the International, although there are very few parties that have not come under the fire of criticism for actions which either submerged the identity of the International or placed it in the position of the Utopians of the Left. The application of the policy is not simple. It is full of complexities. The fight against the policy is over, and there is no need to dwell on it. The problems of its application cannot be so hurriedly dismissed. The principal danger throughout is that of the submergence of the party on the plea of unity.
This danger arises from a lack of thorough understanding the rôle of the party, and it is one to which we have to give special attention. The Communist Party of Great Britain came in for a little rough handling on this question by Comrade Radek, on behalf of the Executive Committee. The general election here has provided us with a fund of experience to test how far the party and its leaders have grasped the implications of the policy. Running throughout the party there appears to be the notion that the party exists only to become a Left Wing of the Labour Party, that we ought not even to criticise its leaders, that everything should be submerged to the idea of getting the Labour Party into power via Parliament. In addition, there are many pursuing a policy of hiding the fact that it is the Communist Party which is giving a lead; they object to programmes for the unions or other labour organisations going forth in the name of the party. I have heard since my return from the Congress the following expression repeated at meeting after meeting, “We are prepared to support any party standing for so, and so,” which seems to indicate an attitude which completely obscures the independent role of the Party. I have looked through the election material of members of the Party, and in some cases it would be difficult to discover from the printed matter issued that they were members of the Party. Had the Executive Committee of the Communist International received this election data before the Congress I am convinced that the critcism the Party received would have been much more stringent. We should neither aim at being a subterranean party existing to draft programmes on the quiet, or a Party which has for its goal the election of a Labour Government through a hush-hush policy. These things are not the application of the United Front policy, but political confusion.
It is to be regretted that our party is not the only one suffering from these defects. The debates on the Executive report and the capitalist offensive made that perfectly clear. Again and again, throughout the debates on the unions, the agrarian question, the problems of the parties, there was a recurrence to this central theme and its many manifestations. The essential conclusions of the debates were as follows:—(1) The opponents of the United Front Policy in the International were wrong in assuming they could carry out the tasks of the International without winning the majority of the masses to their support. (2) It was wrong for any of the supporters of the policy of the United Front Policy to assume that it meant that the Party had to lose its identity in the cry for unity. These parties were directed again to the theses issued by the Executive Committee, especially to paragraph 18, which reads:—
“The Executive Committee of the Communist International counts as a primary and fundamental condition, of general application to the Communist Parties of all countries, that every Communist Party which enters into any agreement with the parties of the Second or Two-and-a-half International should retain absolute independence for the expression of its views and the criticism of its opponents. . . While supporting the watch-word of the maximum unity of the working class organisations, Communists, in every practical action taken against the capitalist front, must not on any account refrain from putting forward their views, which are only the logical expression of the defence of the interests of the working class as a whole.”
(3) In order to make clear the policy of the International to the masses, and to rally them to our side in the struggle, we have to utilise every means of approach, both the direct and the indirect appeal, to approach their present leaders at the same time as the masses with our proposals for the defence and prosecution of the interests of the workers both as a means to rally the masses and to expose clearly the character of their leadership. The demand for a Workers’ Government is not a demand which should smother the Communist Parties, but a slogan to rally the masses against capitalism by means of which the Parties can reveal the true character of the conquest the workers have to achieve. (4) The demand for the Workers’ Government is not of universal application. The Workers’ Government is not an historical necessity, but an historical possibility. Nor is the Labour Government a pseudonym for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, but a possible means leading to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. (5) The form of a Workers’ Government is not necessarily the Parliamentary form, nor does it follow that a Soviet Government is necessarily a true Workers’ Government. We must not be confused by forms or labels. Our aim is the Dictatorship of the proletariat and the defeat of the bourgeoisie. Comrade Zinovief summed up the situation admirably as follows: “We will say to the workers: Do you want a Workers’ Government, if so, well and good, we are ready to come to an agreement even with the social democrats, though we warn you that they are going to betray you. We favour a Workers’ Government, but under the one condition that you be ready to fight with us against the bourgeoisie. If this is your wish, then we will take up the fight against the bourgeoisie; and if the Workers’ Government results from the struggle, it will stand on sound principles, and will be a real beginning to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.”
There is nothing here which justifies reformist opportunism or the lowering of the Communist standard for the purpose of getting a seat in Parliament either as an unemployed candidate or a Labour Party candidate.
One other important phase of the struggle which has a direct bearing upon the condition of our Party, as well as upon many others in the International, is the struggle for the factory committees. At the moment they are in the forefront of the German movement. Comrade Zinovief stated in his report that no Communist Party could be a bona-fide Communist Party without it had succeeded in establishing nuclei in the factories, the mines, etc.; no movement could be considered a bona-fide workers’ movement that did not succeed in establishing factory councils.’
To this statement I took exception, not so much with regard to its assertion concerning the parties, but with regard to the creation of factory councils. With nearly 2,000,000 unemployed in Great Britain, among whom are the best elements upon whom we had to depend for the formation of factory councils, it was not to be expected that the factory committees would be the natural outlet for those who were left in the factories. The very attempt to form factory committees would lead to dismissal. Only when Germany was free from unemployment or the situation very revolutionary did we find factory councils playing an important rôle. Comrade Zinovief admitted the difficulties, but insisted that they must be overcome.
The need for making the factories and workshops the most important centres for our Communist activity and the importance of establishing Party nuclei within them cannot be over estimated. I am inclined to think, after several weeks’ renewal of contact with the Party and an examination of its election records, along with the records of other party activities, that the party has lost contact in this direction. There are no party nuclei in the factories. We must ponder over this part of the report and ask ourselves whether this lack of contact with the factories has not something to do with the marked tendencies towards formal democracy in our ranks. The attitude of “We are prepared to support any party which stands for, etc. . . ” haunts me. We have got to have those party nuclei in the factories, and pave the way to the factory councils.
The same issues were raised in the debate on our work within the unions, and again let it be understood that it is not a question of formal organisation, but of the means to revolutionise the masses. Even when allowance is made for unemployment, there are far more workers in the factories, etc., than there are unemployed, or even than in the trades unions. This issue was raised as sharply in the Red International Congress as in the Comintern Congress. And here let me dispose of the notion which has been running through the minds of many party members in this country as in others—that there is any intention or ever was any intention of winding up the Red International of Labour Unions. The Red International is necessary to the international working class movement. It has increased its influence, and will increase its influence the more sharply the revolutionary issues are brought to the forefront of the experiences of the masses. It is a necessary rallying centre for the revolutionary unions of the world in their struggle against Amsterdam and their progress towards Communism.
In order to overcome the prejudices of the syndicalists of France a concession was made by the R.I.L.U. Congress. Instead of insisting upon the unions affiliated to the R.I.L.U. having an organisational contact with the Communist Party in the respective countries, this is now optional. This has been taken by some to mean no contact with the Communist parties whatever. This notion we must combat with all our might. The best way of ensuring the unity of action between the two organisations is for the Party membership to push ahead with its nuclei organisation within the Red International, as in every other organisation, demonstrating by organised work that the Communist International is the actual leader of the proletariat in all its struggles.
The debates on the Executive report covered briefly practically all the tactical problems of the parties of the international. The essentials of the debates which I have indicated formed the basis of all the discussions concerning the parties for which there is not space to deal in detail. The Executive Committee’s report was agreed upon as confirming the leadership during the interval between the Third and Fourth Congresses and the Decisions of the Third Congress.
The reports on this section of the Congress proceedings were the most interesting of all. The leaders of the International took the floor, and how gladly we greeted our Comrade Lenin’s return. In his usual business-like way he proceeded straight to the subject to hand, though warning us that he intended to limit himself to only one part of the subject under discussion, viz., The New Economic Policy in Russia. In his speech to the Fourth Congress he disposed of the critics of the Russian Revolution in such a way that we feel that any subsequent attack can only be the result of an absolute refusal to face facts. Comrade Lenin’s speech along with the speeches of Comrades Clara Zetkin, Trotsky and Bela Kun constitute a masterly survey which leaves little more to be said about the fundamental features and the unfolding of the Russian Revolution.
Comrade Zetkin’s speech[1] ought to have come first. She gave the historical setting of the revolution in relation to the European working class movement. She illustrated the effect of the development of imperialism during the latter part of the nineteenth century, showing how it had created a new political orientation within the ranks of labour away from the path of revolution to reformism; and how it propounded the theory that revolution was not necessary to secure the emancipation of labour. Then came its collapse with the imperialist war of 1914-18 and its revival under the banner of capitalist reconstruction, holding out hopes of better times for the workers by peaceful collaboration with the capitalists. Throughout the whole of its history it had been actively eliminating the will to revolution.
Into this atmosphere the Russian Revolution came like a thunderbolt to begin the process of liquidating throughout the world the revisionism, and reformism which had so long ensnared the workers. The Russian proletariat struck the first mighty blow of the world revolution against capitalism. Its progress through the varying tempos of the world revolutionary developments had provided the working class with tremendous lessons, demonstrated the necessity for the dictatorship of the proletariat, the use of force, the supreme need of the party of revolution, the necessity of knowing how to use the peasantry to aid the proletarian revolution, how to advance and how to retreat.
Comrade Lenin took up the theme of the New Economic Policy, and placed it once and for all in its correct revolutionary setting. He referred to his analysis of the Russian situation in 1918, when he declared that for Russia to advance to State capitalism under the dictatorship of the Proletariat would be a marked advance for that country. And, here he incidentally referred to the discussion of the programme of the International and the necessity for all parties not only to consider plans of advance, but also plans of retreat. The volition of the revolution had taken them further than it was possible for them to consolidate. In February, 1921, they were nearer a rupture with the masses of the population than at any time since the beginning of the Revolution. They had gone too far. The masses had sensed that before they had taken the measure of the situation. Hence the New Economic Policy.
The fundamentals of the economic situation had not altered since 1918, and they took up the theses enunciated then, and elaborated them with a greater certainty and completeness. They were now witness to an all-round revival. The famine had been a terrible blow. Nevertheless, with the introduction of this policy the peasants had liquidated the famine and paid their taxes. The light industries had made and were making rapid progress. The revival of the heavy industry was their greatest problem. Without substantial State aid these could not revive. There had been much talk concerning the concessions. But these concessions up to now existed mainly on paper. There was much cry, but little wool. Capitalism refused its loans, the workers and peasants of Russia were culturally backward—they were isolated. Yet they were winning in spite of errors.
There has been much talk about our errors, and apparently by people who have little reason to be noisy concerning errors. There is one great difference between the errors of the Bolsheviks and the errors of the bourgeoisie and their followers in the Second and Two and a-Half Internationals. The Bolsheviks say 2 plus 2 equals 5. Now, that is an error that can be corrected. But our opponents say 2 plus 2 equals a burning candle.
Much has been said about our famous rouble. Very well. Since the introduction of our New Economic Policy we stabilised the rouble for a period of three months. In 1922 we have stabilised it for a period of five months. The progress is in the right direction and compares very favourably indeed with the dancing exchanges of the capitalist countries of the West. We shall stabilise the rouble, and we shall revive the heavy industry, even if there be no loans from the capitalist countries, although it may take a longer period. Already we have saved 20,000,000 gold roubles for our heavy industries. We need many millions more. We shall get them by persistent work and economy. By these means the proletarian State will be strengthened, and the path to Communism assured.
The rôle of the New Economic Policy is therefore perfectly clear as a transition measure for securing the willing co-operation of the peasantry with the town proletariat in those countries where agriculture is backward or has assumed forms of a peasant proprietary character. It is therefore not simply a measure forced upon Russia, but an historical necessity in many countries, if not, indeed, for every country, pending the growth within the new social order of the economic foundations of higher forms of agricultural or industrial organisation leading on to Communism.
Comrade Trotsky developed this theme as follows. He said: “The possibilities of the upbuilding of the socialist economic system, when the essential conquest of political power has been achieved, are limited by the degree to which the productive forms have been developed, the general cultural level of the proletariat, and the political situation, national and international.”
On the international situation there arose an interesting controversy. The subject of the capitalist offensive can hardly be disassociated from the international crisis of capitalism, nor can the struggle against the Versailles Treaty. Comrade Trotsky, in a too-brief survey of the international situation (having devoted the greater part of his speech to the Russian revolution), argued that capitalism is in a state of constant crisis, whilst the working class is not ready to end the crisis by seizing power. The crisis is not maintained at the same tempo. It had its ups and downs which would continue for some time. Within that period we should witness a period of Wilsonism in Europe under the pacific leadership of the Social Democratic Labour Parties, either in alliance with Liberals or without such an alliance. During this period we should have to guard against this social pacificism entering the ranks of the Communist International. The dangers from the Right were more pressing under these circumstances than any danger from the left. This does not mean that capitalism is finding a solution to its problems. The nineteenth century was the epoch of concessions to the working class. 1914 ushered in the epoch when these concessions could no longer be made. The forces of production had outgrown the old framework and the capitalists could find no solution to their problems. The period of pacifism could only be short lived. It was the last flicker of a candle burning itself out.
Comrades Friedlander, of Austria, and Ravenstem, of Holland, challenged this diagnosis of the situation, and argued that, rather than a period of pacifism, the whole tempo of the revolution would be quickened by the violent action of the reactionary movements which had manifested themselves most powerfully in recent days. The rise of Facism in Italy, Germany, and other countries, the aggressive attitude of the French Government, the ascendency of the reactionaries in Britain in the form of the Conservative, government, etc. Everything, they declared pointed to more violent actions and crises rather than to the possibilities of any pacific period.
Comrade Radek, who gave a masterly survey of the international situation, said that these comrades were looking too closely at the immediate situation. Comrade Trotsky looked over a much longer period, and, he did not differ with him. It is true that the capitalist offensive is extending and intensifying along the whole political and economic front, and its climax has not yet been reached. The question arises: What prospect of success has such an offensive? This wave of counter-revolution is not the outcome of a period of general economic revival, but represents an attempt to effect the forcible arrest of economic decay. The counter-revolution cannot bring bread and peace. We have, therefore, to do now with an offensive, which has no prospect of victory, however ruthless it may be. The social basis of this counter-revolution is very narrow. It lacks the élan, it lacks the affiliations, and it lacks the foundation which would render possible a long and victorious campaign.
Comrade Trotsky followed the discussion with a long article in the Congress paper, called the Bolshevik, in which he answered that there is hardly any ground for the categorical assertion that the proletarian revolution in Germany will be victorious before the internal and external difficulties of France will bring about a governmental and parliamentary crisis. Elections would return the Left bloc. The repercussion would deal a heavy blow at the conservative government in England, strengthen the opposition of the Labour Party, and in all probability lead to a crisis, elections, and a victory for the Labour Party, either alone or in league with the Independent Liberals. The social democrats of Germany would immediately quit their semi-opposition, and begin the “linking up of the great democracies of the West,” bring Scheideman back to power, etc. That such a regime could only be short-lived was obvious. To us the bourgeoisie is not a mere stone precipitated into the abyss, but a live historical force which struggles and resorts to manœuvres, and we must be prepared to grasp all the methods they employ, and understand all the measures they adopt if we would finally precipitate them into the abyss.
Following on this diagnosis of the situation Comrade Radek again developed the application of the policy of the United Front, and analysed again the demand for a Workers’ government, and in the process making perfectly clear that we had to face the situation as stated in the words of Clara Zetkin: “The aims and trends of any historical development are plainly to be seen. But the tempo depends mainly upon the subjective energies of the historical process, upon the revolutionary consciousness and activities of the proletarian masses.” “In the estimate of this factor so many imponderabilities are concerned that it is impossible to prophesy confidently concerning the tempo of the world revolution.” But whether slow or quick, it is the duty of the Communist International to be in the forefront of the fight leading to the conquest of power.
I do not propose to deal with these questions in this survey of the Congress. With regard to the first problems, in no case was there the introduction of entirely new issues. The theses presented were in the main an elaboration of the theses of the Second and Third Congresses, more especially the Second Congress. To attempt, to summarise them here would take too much space. An abridged edition of the Congress proceedings is prepared, and it will be better to follow the reports therein than to attempt to further condense them into an article.
With regard to an examination of the parties, many came under close scrutiny, chief of which were the French and Italian parties. In both cases agreements were arrived at with the delegations to bring the parties more in line with the requirements of the Communist International, the constitution of which both parties had repeatedly affirmed. In both cases there were questions of political confusion, the ridding of the parties of social democratic notions carried forward from the parties of the Second International. In the case of the Italian party, led by Bordiga, who had not yet rid himself of the absentee philosophy arising from his earlier anti-parliamentary outlook. The full story of the Italian and French[2] party developments are worthy of special articles for the study of every member of the party here.
Comrade Schuler, on behalf of the Y.C.I., gave an interesting report of the struggles of the Youth to build up their International. And it should be mentioned that our party did not shine in that report. We were told that the Youth had to work hard to persuade the party of the necessity of developing the Youth movement, and that it had been impossible to get an article in our party organs dealing with the organisation of the Youth.[3] This attitude of indifference to the Youth has been a characteristic of quite a number of the parties of the adult International. Nevertheless, the Youth International has established itself and grown in power. Its tasks were defined at its second congress as follows: (1) To defend the economic needs of the Youth; (2) To educate the Youth systematically in the Marxian doctrine; (3) To carry on anti-militarist campaigns among the young workers in and outside the bourgeois armies.
Since the Second Congress great strides had been made in these tasks. The Young Communist Press reflected better to-day than at any time previous, the daily struggles of the young workers, whilst we can safely say that the Young Communist Leagues of Germany, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia and Denmark are becoming real militant organisations. It is interesting to note that the Communist Youth organisations in France and Czecho-Slovakia have been suppressed by the State, whilst the adult parties have remained quite legal.
The time is urgent as never before for the closest working arrrangements between the Youth organisations and the adult parties. The Communist International therefore declares, “That the United Front of the young and the adult workers for a common struggle against capitalism and reaction is an absolute necessity, and calls upon its parties and the entire working class to stand for the interest and demands of the working class youth as well as for their own, and to make them the subject of their daily struggle.”
Four comrades, led by Comrade Zetkin, reported on this question of work amongst women, and again our party came in for severe criticism. But first let Comrade Zetkin address a few words as introduction, for she says the work of the Women’s Secretariat is misunderstood by our own comrades in the International.
“They misunderstand the work of the Communist among the women and the tasks of the national sections and of the International in this connection. This, with some, the remains of an old view, with others it is wilful prejudice because they do not sympathise with our cause and even partly oppose it. The International Women’s Secretariat is not, as many believe, the union of independent organisations of the women’s movements, but a branch of the Executive of the Communist International. It conducts the activity not only in constant co-operation with the Executive, but under its immediate leadership: It has nothing to do with any feminist tendencies. It exists for systematic Communist propaganda amongst women.”
Having made the position clear as to the task of the women’s section, it will be well for us to reflect on the criticism of our party.
“In England, organisation for conducting systematic agitation among the feminine proletariat is altogether lacking. The Communist Party of England excused itself by its weakness, and has continually refused or postponed the setting up of a special body for systematic agitation among the women. All the exhortations of the International Women’s Secretariat have been in vain. No Women’s Secretariat was established; the only thing that was done was to appoint a woman comrade as general party agitator. Our women comrades have organised various meetings for the political education of women out of their own feeble means. . . . The British section of the International cannot remain indifferent to the fact that millions of proletarian women are organised in suffrage societies, trades unions of the old type, in consumers’ co-operatives and in the Labour Party.”
Need I quote more? Comrade Hertha Sterm supplemented these observations, and there is no doubt that we have to be up and doing. Without the women, no revolution can hope to be successful. There are big possibilities here. Time and again the working women of this country have shown themselves capable of great actions, in rent strikes, in evictions, in strikes and in general agitation. Harnessed to the party they can be a power not to be despised. We are striving to make amends for our shortcomings. Since the Congress, the Party Executive has appointed a comrade to immediately get to work with the formation of the Women’s Secretariat of the Party.
The discussion on the programme of the International revealed a sharp division in the ranks of the leaders of the International on the question as to whether temporary measures should appear in the programme of the International. In this discussion, Bukharin opposed Varga and Thalheimer of Germany. This is an issue upon which every party will have to make itself clear during the ensuing months. So far, only a few parties have submitted programmes for consideration and incorporation in the International programme. All parties are now instructed to have their programmes in the hands of the Executive Committee of the International three months before the next Congress, when the complete programme of the International will be formulated. Meanwhile, the programmes that have been submitted will be printed and issued throughout the International for discussion.
I will content myself, therefore, with a statement of the most important difference. Bukharin takes the following position with regard to the insertion of temporary demands in the programme “Temporary measures, such as the policy of the United Front, the slogan of the Workers’ Government, should not be put in our programme. These slogans are required by the present defensive situation of the proletariat; to put them in our programme is a retreat from our offensive.” Thalheimer opposed as follows: “The present period of transformation is one of the most important on the way to revolution. In this period the Comintern must not fail in its duty. The inclusion of immediate demands is theoretically admissable so long as the theories upon which the demands are made are correct. Shortly before the October revolution, Comrade Lenin himself favoured the adoption of a programme of minimum demands.”
These are the starting points for the development of the arguments of the respective positions. We shall have to return to this subject again, sufficient for the moment to set the party thinking on these issues.
THE BUILDING OF THE INTERNATIONAL PARTY
Probably the most important development arising out of the Congress arises from the decisions taken concerning the Executive Committee. It was decided, that the time had arrived to make a further stride in the direction of the International Communist Party. This consists in the reorganisation of the Central Executive on the basis of a centralised party. Instead of the Executive consisting of a number of representatives of various parties, the Executive has now to be elected by the International Congress. “It shall consist of the President, 24 members and 10 substitutes.” This is the most important blow at the federaldstic notions in the International, which is followed up by the ruling that “no binding mandates are permitted, and such will be declared invalid, because such mandates contradict the spirit of an international, centralised, proletarian world party.”
In future, delegates sent from the various countries will go to the Congress, not simply to express the point of view of a particular party, but to be members of an international congress surveying and contributing to the solution of the problems of the International as a whole. It has been a habit of the majority of the delegates to survey the International from a national point of view rather than the reverse, just as it is a habit here for members of the party to start off their observations, “Well, so far as we on the Clyde are concerned . . . ,” “We in the provinces are of the opinion, etc. . .” I for one shall be, glad when we can drop the name Communist Party of Great Britain, Communist Party of Russia, etc., and we can speak clearly and act in the name of an International Communist Party. But even in this case it is “a long way to Tipperary.” We have to grow into it and step by step eliminate the things which impede our steps and take such measures as will positively build the organisation we require as the most effective instrument of the international working class.
By centralisation the International does not mean losing contact, and the experience of the last year has seen the development of means for more lively contact than hitherto. During the year the E. C. convened what were called enlarged executive committees. Their value has been thoroughly appreciated, and the Fourth Congress determined that there should be regular meetings of the enlarged Executive every four months. This enlarged Executive shall consist of (1) 25 members of the E.C.; (2) of three additional representatives from each of the following parties: Germany, France, Russia, Czecho-Slovakia, and Italy, also the Y.C.I. and, the Red International of Labour Unions; (3) of two additional representatives from England, Poland, America, Bulgaria and Norway; (4) one representative from each of the other countries that are entitled to vote.
In addition, in order to make the International more and more an efficient organ of struggle, the Congress ruled that “it is desirable for the purpose of mutual information and for coordinated work that the more important sections of neighbouring countries shall mutually-exchange representatives.“
Again, let no member of the party think that careerists are going to stand much chance in the Communist International. “The Congress, in the most decisive manner, condemns all cases of resignations tendered by individual comrades of the various central committees and by entire groups of such members. The Congress considers such resignations as the greatest disorganisation of the Communist movement. Every leading post in a Communist Party belongs not to the bearer of the mandate, but to the Communist International as a whole. The Congress resolves: Elected members of central bodies of a section can resign their mandate only with the consent of the Executive. Resignations accepted by a party central committee without the consent of the Executive Committee are invalid.”
These important decisions begin to operate now. The new Central Committee of the International was elected at the Congress, whilst, in the selection of the Executive, toleration was shown to the old arrangement, the Central Executive now represents the International as a whole. The next Congress will see little toleration for the federalism of the past. With these important steps towards the International Communist Party, the Congress closed on December 3rd.
We had had four weeks of constant meetings, discussions, self-examination. For detailed consideration of problems there has been no Congress to surpass it. To convey all in an article for a magazine is impossible. But to sum up: The Congress reviewed the work of the last fifteen months and found the leadership of the Executive to be good. It examined the decisions of the Third Congress in the light of this experience, and found them correct. The details of tactics in relation to the organisations of labour and the particular problems with which they had to deal had received detailed attention. Many parties of the International had been closely examined with a view to helping them in their efforts to become more efficient sections of the International. Bold measures have been initiated in the reorganisation of the International in terms of an International Communist Party. And the preliminary discussions of the programme of the Communist International have given a lead to the parties to complete the process of formulating the work to be accomplished. A great work and a great Congress, contributing greatly to the one cause which is worthy of all the efforts that have been put forth—the triumph of the working class in world-wide Communism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
1. A verbatim report of this magnificent speech by Clara Zetkin appeared in last month’s REVIEW.
2. Readers of the REVIEW are advised to study the inner struggles of the French party which have been ably dealt with by E. Verney. See the November number and a special article which appears in this issue. We shall deal with the Italian party in a future number.—Ed.
3. This sweeping statement, which appeared in the report submitted by Comrade Schuler, is not true so far as the COMMUNIST REVIEW is concerned. And the E.C. of the Y.C.L. in Britain have already written to the Editor of the COMMUNIST REVIEW to assure him that he is not involved in the charge put forward by their international delegate. Although the COMMUNIST REVIEW has never received one single article from the Y.C.L., we were able to procure a splendid historical outline of the growth of the Youth Movement by Comrade Leontieff. This lengthy article was published in the REVIEW and the type was offered to the Y.C.L., free of charge, to enable them to issue it as a pamphlet. This offer, for some reason, was not accepted. Our readers also know that the REVIEW, of its own accord, helps to push the sale of the Young Communist by publishing a free advertisement every month.—Editor of COMMUNIST REVIEW.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J. T. Murphy Archive | Communist Review
From The Pages Of The Communist International-In Honor Of The 90th Anniversary Of The Fourth Congress (1922)On The 93rd Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International (1919)-Leon Trotsky-Report on the Communist International
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-Report on the Communist International
(December 1922)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Delivered: December 28, 1922
First Published: In Russian, official anniversary volume issue in 1926 by the Bureau of Party History.
Source: Fourth International New York, Vol.4 No.8 (Whole No. 36), August 1943, pp.245-250.
Translated: John G. Wright.
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters.
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following speech by Trotsky was delivered in Moscow December 28, 1922, to a session of the Communist fraction of the Tenth All-Union Congress of the Soviets, with non-party delegates participating. The Fourth World Congress of the Communist International had just taken place from November to December 3 – the last of the congresses led by Lenin and Trotsky.
As Trotsky obliquely indicates in his opening remarks, there was already to be noticed in the Soviet press a turning away from the international scene – one of the first signs of the reaction on which Stalin rode to power. This reaction, in turn, was primarily the result of the failure of the revolution in Western Europe, the causes of which Trotsky deals with in this speech.
During the next year – 1923 – came a new revolutionary opportunity in Germany; but it was missed precisely because of the immaturity of the Communist Party of Germany with which Trotsky deals here. This failure, in turn, deepened the reaction in the Soviet Union, enabling Stalin to seize control of the Comintern and pervert it into an agency of Kremlin foreign policy.
This is the first publication of this speech in English. Translation by John G. Wright.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comrades:
You have invited me to make a report on the recent Congress of the Communist International. I take this to mean that what you want is not a factual review of the work of the last Congress, since if that were the case it would be much more expedient to turn to the minutes of the proceedings, already available in printed bulletins, rather than listen to a report.
My task, as I understand it, is to try to give you an evaluation of the general situation of the revolutionary movement and its perspectives in the light of those facts and questions that faced us at the Fourth World Congress.
Naturally this presupposes a greater or lesser degree of acquaintance with the condition of the international revolutionary movement. Let me remark parenthetically that our press, unfortunately, does far from everything it should in order to acquaint us as intimately with facts of the world labor movement, especially the Communist movement, as it does, say, with facts relating to our economic life, to our Soviet construction. But to us these are manifestations of equal importance. For my part, I have resorted more than once (contrary to my custom) to partisan actions in order to get our press to utilize the exceptional opportunities at our disposal and to provide our party with a complete, concrete and precise picture of what is taking place in the sphere of revolutionary struggle, doing this from day to day without commentaries, directives or generalizations (for we need generalizations only from time to time), but simply supplying facts and material from the internal life of the communist parties.
I think that on this point the pressure of the party public opinion ought to be brought to bear on the press, whose editorial boards read the foreign press, proferring on the basis of this press generalizations from time to time, but almost no factual material. But inasmuch as gathered here is the fraction of the Soviet Congress and, consequently, highly qualified party elements, I shall assume for the purpose of my report a general acquaintance with the actual condition of the communist parties and the other parties which still wield influence in the workers’ movement. My task is to submit to verification our general criteria, our views on the conditions for and the tempos of the development of the proletarian revolution from the standpoint of new facts, and in particular those facts which were supplied us by the Fourth Congress of the Comintern.
Comrades, I wish to say at the very outset that if we aim not to become confused and not to lose our perspective, then in evaluating the labor movement and its revolutionary possibilities we ought to bear in mind that there are three major spheres which, although inter-connected, differ profoundly from one another. First, there is Europe; second America; and third the colonial countries, that is, primarily Asia and Africa. The need of analyzing the world labor movement in terms of these three spheres flows from the essence of our revolutionary criteria.
The Pre-requisites for Revolution
Marxism teaches us that in order for the proletarian revolution to become possible there must be given, schematically speaking, three premises or conditions. In the first place the conditions of production. The technology of production must have attained such heights as to provide economic gains from the replacement of capitalism by socialism. Secondly, there must be a class interested in effecting this change and sufficiently strong to achieve it, that is, a class numerically large enough and playing a sufficiently important role in economy to introduce this change. The reference here, is of course, to the working class. And thirdly, this class must be prepared to carry through the revolution. It must have the will to carry it out, and must be sufficiently organized and conscious to be capable of carrying it out. We pass here into the field of the so-called subjective conditions and pre-requisites for the proletarian revolution. If with these three criteria – productive-technological, social-class and subjective-political – we approach the three spheres indicated by me, then the difference between them becomes strikingly apparent. True enough, we used to view the question of mankind’s readiness for socialism from the productive-technological standpoint much more abstractly than we do now. If you consult our old books, even those not yet outdated, you will find in them an absolutely correct estimate that capitalism had already outlived itself 15, 20, 25 and 30 Years ago.
In what sense was this intended? In the sense that 25 years ago, and more, the replacement of the capitalist method of production by socialist methods would have already represented objective economic gains, that is, mankind would have produced more under socialism than under capitalism. But 25-30 years ago this still did not signify that productive forces were no longer capable of development under capitalism. We know that throughout the whole world, including Europe and especially in Europe which has until comparatively recent times played the leading economic and financial role in the world, the productive forces still continued to develop. And we are now able to point out the year up to which they continued to develop in Europe: the year 1913. This means that up to that year capitalism represented not an absolute but a relative obstacle to the development of the productive forces. In the technological sense, Europe developed with unprecedented speed and power from 1894 to 1913, that is to say, Europe became economically enriched during the 20 years which preceded the imperialist war. Beginning with 1913 – and we can say this with complete certainty – the development of capitalism, of its productive forces, came to a halt one year before the outbreak of the war because the productive forces ran up against the limits fixed for them by capitalist property and the capitalist form of appropriation. The market was divided, competition was brought to its intensest pitch, and henceforth capitalist countries could seek to remove one another from the market only by mechanical means.
It is not the war that put a stop to the development of productive forces in Europe, but rather the war itself arose from the impossibility of the productive forces to develop further in Europe under the conditions of capitalist economy. The year 1913 marks the great turning point in the evolution of European economy. The war acted only to deepen and sharpen this crisis which flowed from the fact that further economic development within the conditions of capitalism was absolutely impossible. This applies to Europe as a whole. Consequently, if before 1913 we were conditionally correct in saying that socialism is more advantageous than capitalism, then since 1913 capitalism already signifies a condition of absolute stagnation and disintegration for Europe, while socialism pro. vides the only economic salvation. This renders more precise our views with respect to the first pre-requisite for the proletarian revolution.
The second pre-requisite: the working class. It must be. come sufficiently powerful in the economic sense in order to gain power and rebuild society. Does this fact obtain today? After the experience of our Russian revolution it is no longer possible to raise this issue, inasmuch as the October revolution became possible in our backward country. But we have learned in recent years to evaluate the social power of the proletariat on the world scale in a somewhat new way and much more precisely and concretely. Those naive, pseudo-Marxist views which demanded that the proletariat comprise 75 or 90 per cent of the population before taking power – these views now appear as absolutely infantile. Even in countries where the peasantry comprises the majority of the population the proletariat can and must find a road to the peasantry in order to achieve the conquest of power. Absolutely alien to us is any sort of reformist opportunism in relation to the peasantry. But at the same time, no less alien to us is dogmatism. The working class in all countries plays a sufficiently great social and economic role in order to be able to find a road to the peasant masses and to the oppressed nationalities and the colonial peoples, and in this way assures itself of the majority. After the experience of the Russian revolution this is not a presumption, nor a hypothesis, nor a conclusion, but an incontestable fact.
And, finally, the third pre-requisite: the working class must be ready for the overturn and capable of achieving it. The working class not only must be sufficiently powerful for it, but must be conscious of its power and must be able to apply this power. Today we can and must analyze and render more precise this subjective factor: We have witnessed in the political life of Europe, during the post war years, that the working class is ready for the overturn, ready in the sense of subjectively striving for it, ready in terms of will, mood, self-sacrifice but still lacking the necessary organizational leadership. Consequently, the mood of the class and its organizational consciousness do not always coincide. Our revolution, thanks to an exceptional combination of historical factors, gave our backward country the possibility of bringing about the transfer of power into the hands of the working class, in a direct alliance with the peasant masses. The role of the party is only too clear to us and, fortunately, it is today already clear to the Western European communist parties. Not to take the role of the party into account is to fall into pseudo-Marxist objectivism which presupposes some sort of purely objective and automatic preparation of the revolution, and thereby postpones the latter to an indefinite future. This automatism is alien to us. This is a Menshevik, a social-democratic world outlook. We know, we have learned in practice, and we are teaching others to under. stand the enormous role of the subjective, conscious factor that the revolutionary party of the working class represents.
Without our part the 1917 overturn would not, of course, have taken place and the entire fate of the country would have been different. It would have been thrown back to vegetate as a colonial country; it would have been plundered by and divided among the imperialist countries of the world. That this did not happen was guaranteed historically by the arming of the working class with the incomparable sword, our communist party. This did not obtain in post-war Europe.
Two of the three necessary pre-requisites were given: long before the war the relative advantages of socialism, and since 1913 and all the more so after the war, the absolute necessity of socialism. Europe is decaying and disintegrating economically without it. This is a fact. The working class in Europe no longer continues to grow. Its destiny, its class destiny, corresponds and runs parallel to the development of economy. To the extent that European economy, with inevitable fluctuations, suffers stagnation and even disintegration, to that extent the working class, as a class, fails to grow socially, ceases to increase numerically but suffers from unemployment, the terrible oscillations of the reserve army of labor, etc., et. The war roused the working class to its feet in the revolutionary sense. Was it capable of carrying out the revolution before the war? What did it lack? It lacked the consciousness of its own power. Its power grew in Europe automatically, almost imperceptibly, with the growth of industry. The war shook up the working class. Because of this terrible bloody upheaval, the entire working class in Europe was imbued with the revolutionary mood on the very next day after the war. Consequently, one of the subjective factors-the striving to change this world-was on hand. What was lacking? The party was lacking, the party capable of leading the working class to victory.
The Revolutionary Wave, 1917-1921
This is how the events of the revolution unfolded within our country and abroad. In 1917, the February-March revolution; within nine months – October: the revolutionary party guarantees victory to the working class and peasant poor. In 1918 revolution in Germany, accompanied by changes at the top; the working class tries to forge ahead but is smashed time and again. The proletarian revolution in Germany does not lead to victory. In 1919, the eruption of the Hungarian proletarian revolution: the base is too narrow and the party too weak. The revolution is crushed in a few months in 1919. By 1920, the situation has already changed and it continues to change more and more sharply.
There is a historical date in France – May 1, 1920 – when a sharp turn took place in the relation of forces between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The mood of the French proletariat was on the whole revolutionary but it took too light a view of victory: it was lulled by that party and those organizations which had grown up in the preceding period of peaceful and organic development of capitalism. On May 1, 1920 the French proletariat declared a general strike. This should have been the first major clash with the French bourgeoisie.
The entire bourgeois France trembled. The proletariat which had just emerged from the trenches struck terror into its heart. But the old Socialist Party, the old Social-democrats who dared not oppose the revolutionary working class and who declared the general strike simultaneously did everything in their power to blow it up; while the revolutionary elements, the Communists, were too weak, too dispersed and too lacking in experience. The May 1st strike failed. And if you consult the French newspapers for 1920 you will see in the editorials and news stories already a swift and decisive growth of the strength of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie at once sensed its own stability, gathered the state apparatus into its hands and began to take less and less into account the demands of the proletariat and the threats of revolution.
In that same year, in August 1920, we experienced an event closer to home which likewise brought about a change in the relation of forces, not in favor of the revolution. This was our defeat below Warsaw, a defeat which from the international standpoint is most intimately bound up with the fact that in Germany and in Poland at that moment the revolutionary movement was unable to gain victory because there was lacking a strong revolutionary party having the confidence of the majority of the working class.
A month later, in September 1920, we live through the great movement in Italy. Precisely at that moment in the autumn of 1920 the Italian proletariat reaches its highest point of ferment after the war. Mills, plants, railways, mines are seized. The state is disorganized, the bourgeoisie is almost prostrate with its spine broken. It seems that only another step forward is needed and the Italian working class will conquer power. But at this moment, its party, that same Socialist party which had emerged from the previous epoch, although formally adhering to the Third International but with its spirit and roots still in the previous epoch, i.e., in the Second International – this party springs back in terror from the seizure of power, from the civil war, leaving the proletariat exposed. An attack is launched upon the proletariat by the most resolute wing of the bourgeoisie in the shape of Fascism, in the shape of whatever still remains strong in the police and the army. The proletariat was smashed.
After the defeat of the proletariat in September, we observe in Italy a still more radical shift in the relationship of forces. The bourgeoisie said to itself: “So that’s the kind of people you are. You urge the proletariat forward but you lack the spirit to take power.” And it pushed the fascist detachments to the fore.
Within a few months, by March 1921, we witness the most important recent event in the life of Germany, the famous March events. Here we have the lack of correspondence between the class and the party developing from an opposite direction.
In Italy, in September, the working class was driving battle. The party shied back in terror. In Germany the working class was driving to battle: it fought in 1918, in the course of 1919 and in the course of 1920, but its efforts and sacrifices were not crowned by victory because it did not have at its head a sufficiently strong, experienced and cohesive party; instead there was another party at the head which saved the bourgeoisie for the second time, after saving it during the war. And now in 1921 the Communist Party of Germany, seeing how the bourgeoisie was strengthening its positions, wanted to make a heroic attempt to cut off the bourgeoisie’s road by an offensive, by a blow, and it rushed ahead. But the working class did not support it. Why? Because it had not yet learned to have confidence in the party. It did not yet fully know this party while its own experience in the civil war had brought it only defeats in the course of 1919-1920.
The Immaturity of Our Parties
And so in March 1921 the fact occurred which impelled the Communist International to say: The relations between the parties and the classes, between the communist parties and the working classes in all countries of Europe are still not mature for an immediate offensive, for an immediate battle for the conquest of power. It is necessary to proceed with a painstaking preparation of the communist ranks in a two-fold sense: First, in the sense of fusing them together and tempering them; and second, in the sense of their conquering the confidence of the overwhelming majority of the working class. Such was the slogan advanced by the Third International when the March events in Germany were still fresh.
And then, Comrades, after the month of March, throughout the year 1921 and during 1922 we observed the process, at any rate externally, of the strengthening of the bourgeois governments in Europe; we observed the strengthening of the extreme right wing. In France the national bloc headed by Poincaré still remains in power. But Poincaré is considered in France, that is within the national bloc, as a leftist and looming on the horizon is a new and more reactionary, more imperialist ministry of Tardieu. In England, the government of Lloyd George, this imperialist with pacifist preachments and labels, has been supplanted by the purely conservative, openly imperialist ministry of Bonar Law. In Germany, the coalition ministry, i.e., one with an admixture of social democrats, has been replaced by an openly bourgeois ministry of Cuno; and finally in Italy we see the coming to power of Mussolini, the open rule of the counter-revolutionary fist. In the economic field, capitalism is on the offensive against the proletariat. In all the countries of Europe the workers have to defend, and not always successfully, the scale of wages they had yesterday and the eight-hour working day in those countries where it had been gained legally during the last period of the war or after the war. Such is the general situation. It is clear that the revolutionary development, that is, the struggle of the proletariat for power beginning with the year 1917, does not represent a uniform and steadily rising curve.
There has been a break in the curve. Comrades, in order to picture more clearly the situation which the working class is now living through it might not be un-useful to resort to an analogy. Analogy-historical comparison and juxtapositions a dangerous method because time and again people try to extract more from an analogy than it can give. But within certain limits, when used for the purpose of illustration, an analogy is useful. We began our revolution in 1905, after the Russo-Japanese War. Already at that time we were drawn toward power by the logic of things. 1905 and 1906 brought stagnation, and the two Dumas; 1907 brought the 3rd of June and the government coup, the first victories of reaction which met almost no resistance and then the revolution rolled back. 1908 and 1909 were already the black years of reaction; and then only gradually beginning with 1910-1911 was there an upswing, intersected by the war. In March, 1917, came the victory of bourgeois democracy; in October-the victory of workers and peasants. We have therefore two main points: 1905 and 1917, separated by an interval of 12 years. These twelve years represent in a revolutionary sense a broken curve, first dropping and then rising.
In an international sense, first and foremost in relation to Europe we now have something similar. Victory was possible in 1917 and in 1918 but we did not gain it-the last condition was lacking, the powerful communist parties. The bourgeoisie succeeded in re-establishing many of its political and military. police positions but not the economic ones, while the proletariat began building the communist parties brick by brick. In the initial stages this communist party tried to make up for the lost opportunity by a single audacious leap forward, in March 1921 in Germany. It burned its fingers. The International issued a warning: "You must conquer the confidence of the majority of the working class before you dare summon the latter to an open revolutionary attack." This was the lesson of the Third Congress. A year and a half later the Fourth World Congress convened.
In making the most general appraisal it is necessary to say that at the time the Fourth Congress convened, a turning point had not yet been reached in the sense that the International could say: "The hour of open attack has already been sounded." The Fourth Congress developed, deepened, verified and rendered more precise the work of the Third Congress, and was convinced that this was basically correct.
An Analogy with 1905-1917
I have said that in 1908-09 we lived through in Russia, on a much narrower basis at the time, the moment of the lowest decline of the revolutionary wave in the sense of the prevailing moods among the working class as well as in the sense of the then triumphant Stolypinism and Rasputinism, as well as in the sense of the disintegration of the advanced ranks of the working class. What remained as illegal nuclei were frightfully small in comparison to the working class as a whole. The best elements were in jails, in hard-labor penitentiaries, in exile. 1908-09this was the lowest point of the revolutionary movement. Then came a gradual upswing. For the past two years and, in part, right now we have been living through a period undoubtedly analogous to 1908 and 1909, i.e., the lowest point in the direct and open revolutionary struggle.
There is still another point of similarity. On June 3, 1907 the counter-revolution gained a victory (Stolypin’s coup) on the parliamentary arena almost without meeting any resistance in the country. And toward the end of 1907 another terrible blow descended – the industrial crisis. What influence did this have on the working class? Did it impel it to struggle? No. In 1905, in 1906 and the first half of 1907 the working class had already given its energy and its best elements to the open struggle. It suffered defeat, and on the heels of defeat came the commercial-industrial crisis which weakened the productive and economic role of the proletariat, rendering its position even less stable. This crisis weakened it both in the revolutionary and political sense. Only the commercial and industrial upswing which began in 1909-1910 and which re-assembled the workers in factories and plants again imbued the workers with assurance, provided a major basis of support for our party and gave the revolution an impulsion forward
Here too, I say, we have a certain analogy. In the Spring of 1921 a terrible commercial crisis broke out in America and in Japan after the proletariat had suffered a defeat: in France on May 1, 1920; in Italy, in September, 1920; in Germany, throughout 1919 and 1920 and especially in the March days of 1921. But precisely at this moment in the Spring of 1921 there ensues the crisis in Japan and in America and in the latter part of 1921 it passes over to Europe. Unemployment grows to unprecedented proportions, especially, as you know, in England. The stability of the proletariat’s position drops still lower, after the losses and disillusionments already suffered. And this does not strengthen, but on the contrary in the given conditions of crisis weakens it. During the current year and since the end of last year there have been signs of a certain industrial awakening. In America it reaches the proportions of a real upswing while in Europe it remains a small, uneven ripple. Thus here, too, the first impulse for the revival of an open mass movement came, especially in France, from a certain improvement in the economic conjecture.
The New Situation in Europe
But here, Comrades, the analogy ceases. The industrial upswing of 1909 and 1910 in our country and in the entire pre-war world was a full-blooded, powerful upswing which lasted until 1913 and came at a time when the productive forces had not yet run up against the limits of capitalism, giving rise to the greatest imperialist slaughter.
The industrial improvement which began at the end of last year denotes only a change in the temperature of the tubercular organism of European economy. European economy is not growing but disintegrating; it remains on the same levels only in a few countries. The richest of European countries, insular England, has a national income at least one-third or one-quarter smaller than before the war. They engaged in war, as you know, in order to conquer markets. They ended by becoming poorer at least by one-fourth or one-third. The improvements this year have been minimal. The decline in the influence of the social democracy and the growth of the communist parties at the expense of the former is a sure symptom of this. As is well known, social reformism grew thanks to the fact that the bourgeoisie had the possibility of improving the position of the most highly skilled layers of the working class. In the nature of things, Scheidemann and everything else connected with him would have been impossible without this, for after all it is not simply an ideological tendency but one growing out of economic and social premises. This is a labor aristocracy which profits from the fact that capitalism is full-blooded and powerful and has the possibility of improving the condition at least of the upper layers of the working class. That is precisely why we witness in the years preceding the war, from 1909 to 1913, the most powerful growth of the bureaucracy in the trade unions and in the social democracy, and the strongest entrenchment of reformism and nationalism among the summits of the working class which resulted in the terrible catastrophe of the Second International at the outbreak of the war.
And now, Comrades, the gist of the situation in Europe is characterized by the fact that the bourgeoisie has no longer the possibility of fattening up the summits of the working class because it hasn’t the possibility of feeding the entire working class normally, in the capitalist sense of ‘normal.’ The lowering of the living standards of the working class is today the same kind of law as the decline of the European economy. This process began in 1913, the war introduced superficial changes into it; after the war it has become revealed with especial cruelty. The superficial fluctuations of the conjuncture do not alter this fact. This is the first and basic difference between our epoch and the pre-war one.
But there is a second difference and this is: the existence of Soviet Russia as a revolutionary factor. There is a third difference and this is: the existence of a centralized international communist party.
And we observe, Comrades, that at the very time when the bourgeoisie is scoring one superficial victory after another over the proletariat, the growth, strengthening and planful development of the communist party is not being checked but advances forward. And in this is the most important and fundamental difference between our epoch and the one from 1905 to 1917.
A Different Tempo in the US
What I have said touches, as you see, primarily Europe. It would be incorrect to apply this wholly to America. In America, too, socialism is more advantageous than capitalism and it would be even more correct to say that especially in America socialism would be more advantageous than capitalism. In other words, were the present American productive forces organized along the principles of collectivism a fabulous flowering of economy would ensue.
But in relation to America it would be incorrect to say, as we say in relation to Europe, that capitalism represents already today the cessation of economic development. Europe is rotting, America is thriving. In the initial years or more correctly in the initial months, in the first twenty months after the war it might have seemed that America would be immediately undermined by the economic collapse of Europe inasmuch as America made use of and exploited the European market in general and the war market in particular. This market has shriveled and dried up, and having been deprived of one of its props, the monstrous Babylonian tower of American industry threatened to lean over and to fall down altogether. But America, while having lost the European market of the previous scope (in addition to exploiting its own rich internal market with a population of 100 million), is seizing and has seized all the more surely the markets of certain European countries – Germany and to a considerable measure, England. And we see, in 19211922, American economy passing through a genuine commercial and industrial upswing at a time when Europe is experiencing only a distant and feeble reflection of this upswing.
Consequently, the productive forces in America are still developing under capitalism, much more slowly, of course, than they would develop under socialism but developing nevertheless. How long they will continue to do so is another question. The American working class in its economic and social power has, of course, fully matured for the conquest of state power, but in its political and organizational traditions it is incomparably further removed from the conquest of power than the European working class. Our power – the power of the Communist International – is still very weak in America. And if one were to ask (naturally this is only a hypothetical posing of the question) which will take place first: the victorious proletarian revolution in Europe or the creation of a powerful communist party in America, then on the basis of all the facts now available (naturally all sorts of new facts are possible such as, say, a war between America and Japan; and war, Comrades, is a great locomotive of history) – if one were to take the present situation in its further logical development, then I would venture to say that there are infinitely more chances that the proletariat will conquer in Europe before a powerful communist party rises and develops in America. In other words, just as the victory of the revolutionary working class in October 1917 was the pre-condition for the creation of the Communist International and for the growth of the communist parties in Europe, so, in all probability, the victory of the proletariat in the most important countries of Europe will be the pre-condition for the swift revolutionary development in America. The difference between these two spheres lies in this, that in Europe the economy decays and declines with the proletariat no longer growing productively (because there is no room for growth) but awaiting the development of the communist party; while in America the economic advancement is still proceeding.
The Colonial Revolution
The third sphere is constituted by the colonies. It is self-understood that the colonies – Asia, Africa (I speak of them as a whole), despite the fact that they, like Europe, contain the greatest gradations – the colonies, if taken independently and isolatedly, are absolutely not ready for the proletarian revolution. If they are taken isolately, then capitalism still has a long possibility of economic development in them. But the colonies belong to the metropolitan centers and their fate is intimately bound up with the fate of their European metropolitan centers.
In the colonies we observe the growing national revolutionary movement. Communists represent there only small nuclei imbedded in the peasantry. So that in the colonies we have primarily petty-bourgeois and bourgeois national movements. If you were to ask concerning the prospects of the socialist and communist development of the colonies then I would say that this question cannot be posed in an isolated manner. Of course, after the victory of the proletariat in Europe, these colonies will become the arena for the cultural, economic and every other kind of influence exercised by Europe, but for this they must first of all play their revolutionary role parallel with the role of the European proletariat. In this connection the European proletariat and in particular that of France and especially that of England are doing far too little. The growth of the influence of the ideas of socialism and communism, the emancipation of the toiling masses of the colonies, the weakening of the influence of the nationalist parties can be assured not only by and not so much by the role of the native communist nuclei as by the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat of the metropolitan centers for the emancipation of the colonies. Only by this will the proletariat of the metropolitan centers demonstrate to the colonies that there are two European nations, one the oppressor, the other the friend; only by this will it provide a further impulse to the colonies which will topple down the structure of imperialism and thereby perform a revolutionary service for the cause of the proletariat.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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-Report on the Communist International
(December 1922)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Delivered: December 28, 1922
First Published: In Russian, official anniversary volume issue in 1926 by the Bureau of Party History.
Source: Fourth International New York, Vol.4 No.8 (Whole No. 36), August 1943, pp.245-250.
Translated: John G. Wright.
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters.
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following speech by Trotsky was delivered in Moscow December 28, 1922, to a session of the Communist fraction of the Tenth All-Union Congress of the Soviets, with non-party delegates participating. The Fourth World Congress of the Communist International had just taken place from November to December 3 – the last of the congresses led by Lenin and Trotsky.
As Trotsky obliquely indicates in his opening remarks, there was already to be noticed in the Soviet press a turning away from the international scene – one of the first signs of the reaction on which Stalin rode to power. This reaction, in turn, was primarily the result of the failure of the revolution in Western Europe, the causes of which Trotsky deals with in this speech.
During the next year – 1923 – came a new revolutionary opportunity in Germany; but it was missed precisely because of the immaturity of the Communist Party of Germany with which Trotsky deals here. This failure, in turn, deepened the reaction in the Soviet Union, enabling Stalin to seize control of the Comintern and pervert it into an agency of Kremlin foreign policy.
This is the first publication of this speech in English. Translation by John G. Wright.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comrades:
You have invited me to make a report on the recent Congress of the Communist International. I take this to mean that what you want is not a factual review of the work of the last Congress, since if that were the case it would be much more expedient to turn to the minutes of the proceedings, already available in printed bulletins, rather than listen to a report.
My task, as I understand it, is to try to give you an evaluation of the general situation of the revolutionary movement and its perspectives in the light of those facts and questions that faced us at the Fourth World Congress.
Naturally this presupposes a greater or lesser degree of acquaintance with the condition of the international revolutionary movement. Let me remark parenthetically that our press, unfortunately, does far from everything it should in order to acquaint us as intimately with facts of the world labor movement, especially the Communist movement, as it does, say, with facts relating to our economic life, to our Soviet construction. But to us these are manifestations of equal importance. For my part, I have resorted more than once (contrary to my custom) to partisan actions in order to get our press to utilize the exceptional opportunities at our disposal and to provide our party with a complete, concrete and precise picture of what is taking place in the sphere of revolutionary struggle, doing this from day to day without commentaries, directives or generalizations (for we need generalizations only from time to time), but simply supplying facts and material from the internal life of the communist parties.
I think that on this point the pressure of the party public opinion ought to be brought to bear on the press, whose editorial boards read the foreign press, proferring on the basis of this press generalizations from time to time, but almost no factual material. But inasmuch as gathered here is the fraction of the Soviet Congress and, consequently, highly qualified party elements, I shall assume for the purpose of my report a general acquaintance with the actual condition of the communist parties and the other parties which still wield influence in the workers’ movement. My task is to submit to verification our general criteria, our views on the conditions for and the tempos of the development of the proletarian revolution from the standpoint of new facts, and in particular those facts which were supplied us by the Fourth Congress of the Comintern.
Comrades, I wish to say at the very outset that if we aim not to become confused and not to lose our perspective, then in evaluating the labor movement and its revolutionary possibilities we ought to bear in mind that there are three major spheres which, although inter-connected, differ profoundly from one another. First, there is Europe; second America; and third the colonial countries, that is, primarily Asia and Africa. The need of analyzing the world labor movement in terms of these three spheres flows from the essence of our revolutionary criteria.
The Pre-requisites for Revolution
Marxism teaches us that in order for the proletarian revolution to become possible there must be given, schematically speaking, three premises or conditions. In the first place the conditions of production. The technology of production must have attained such heights as to provide economic gains from the replacement of capitalism by socialism. Secondly, there must be a class interested in effecting this change and sufficiently strong to achieve it, that is, a class numerically large enough and playing a sufficiently important role in economy to introduce this change. The reference here, is of course, to the working class. And thirdly, this class must be prepared to carry through the revolution. It must have the will to carry it out, and must be sufficiently organized and conscious to be capable of carrying it out. We pass here into the field of the so-called subjective conditions and pre-requisites for the proletarian revolution. If with these three criteria – productive-technological, social-class and subjective-political – we approach the three spheres indicated by me, then the difference between them becomes strikingly apparent. True enough, we used to view the question of mankind’s readiness for socialism from the productive-technological standpoint much more abstractly than we do now. If you consult our old books, even those not yet outdated, you will find in them an absolutely correct estimate that capitalism had already outlived itself 15, 20, 25 and 30 Years ago.
In what sense was this intended? In the sense that 25 years ago, and more, the replacement of the capitalist method of production by socialist methods would have already represented objective economic gains, that is, mankind would have produced more under socialism than under capitalism. But 25-30 years ago this still did not signify that productive forces were no longer capable of development under capitalism. We know that throughout the whole world, including Europe and especially in Europe which has until comparatively recent times played the leading economic and financial role in the world, the productive forces still continued to develop. And we are now able to point out the year up to which they continued to develop in Europe: the year 1913. This means that up to that year capitalism represented not an absolute but a relative obstacle to the development of the productive forces. In the technological sense, Europe developed with unprecedented speed and power from 1894 to 1913, that is to say, Europe became economically enriched during the 20 years which preceded the imperialist war. Beginning with 1913 – and we can say this with complete certainty – the development of capitalism, of its productive forces, came to a halt one year before the outbreak of the war because the productive forces ran up against the limits fixed for them by capitalist property and the capitalist form of appropriation. The market was divided, competition was brought to its intensest pitch, and henceforth capitalist countries could seek to remove one another from the market only by mechanical means.
It is not the war that put a stop to the development of productive forces in Europe, but rather the war itself arose from the impossibility of the productive forces to develop further in Europe under the conditions of capitalist economy. The year 1913 marks the great turning point in the evolution of European economy. The war acted only to deepen and sharpen this crisis which flowed from the fact that further economic development within the conditions of capitalism was absolutely impossible. This applies to Europe as a whole. Consequently, if before 1913 we were conditionally correct in saying that socialism is more advantageous than capitalism, then since 1913 capitalism already signifies a condition of absolute stagnation and disintegration for Europe, while socialism pro. vides the only economic salvation. This renders more precise our views with respect to the first pre-requisite for the proletarian revolution.
The second pre-requisite: the working class. It must be. come sufficiently powerful in the economic sense in order to gain power and rebuild society. Does this fact obtain today? After the experience of our Russian revolution it is no longer possible to raise this issue, inasmuch as the October revolution became possible in our backward country. But we have learned in recent years to evaluate the social power of the proletariat on the world scale in a somewhat new way and much more precisely and concretely. Those naive, pseudo-Marxist views which demanded that the proletariat comprise 75 or 90 per cent of the population before taking power – these views now appear as absolutely infantile. Even in countries where the peasantry comprises the majority of the population the proletariat can and must find a road to the peasantry in order to achieve the conquest of power. Absolutely alien to us is any sort of reformist opportunism in relation to the peasantry. But at the same time, no less alien to us is dogmatism. The working class in all countries plays a sufficiently great social and economic role in order to be able to find a road to the peasant masses and to the oppressed nationalities and the colonial peoples, and in this way assures itself of the majority. After the experience of the Russian revolution this is not a presumption, nor a hypothesis, nor a conclusion, but an incontestable fact.
And, finally, the third pre-requisite: the working class must be ready for the overturn and capable of achieving it. The working class not only must be sufficiently powerful for it, but must be conscious of its power and must be able to apply this power. Today we can and must analyze and render more precise this subjective factor: We have witnessed in the political life of Europe, during the post war years, that the working class is ready for the overturn, ready in the sense of subjectively striving for it, ready in terms of will, mood, self-sacrifice but still lacking the necessary organizational leadership. Consequently, the mood of the class and its organizational consciousness do not always coincide. Our revolution, thanks to an exceptional combination of historical factors, gave our backward country the possibility of bringing about the transfer of power into the hands of the working class, in a direct alliance with the peasant masses. The role of the party is only too clear to us and, fortunately, it is today already clear to the Western European communist parties. Not to take the role of the party into account is to fall into pseudo-Marxist objectivism which presupposes some sort of purely objective and automatic preparation of the revolution, and thereby postpones the latter to an indefinite future. This automatism is alien to us. This is a Menshevik, a social-democratic world outlook. We know, we have learned in practice, and we are teaching others to under. stand the enormous role of the subjective, conscious factor that the revolutionary party of the working class represents.
Without our part the 1917 overturn would not, of course, have taken place and the entire fate of the country would have been different. It would have been thrown back to vegetate as a colonial country; it would have been plundered by and divided among the imperialist countries of the world. That this did not happen was guaranteed historically by the arming of the working class with the incomparable sword, our communist party. This did not obtain in post-war Europe.
Two of the three necessary pre-requisites were given: long before the war the relative advantages of socialism, and since 1913 and all the more so after the war, the absolute necessity of socialism. Europe is decaying and disintegrating economically without it. This is a fact. The working class in Europe no longer continues to grow. Its destiny, its class destiny, corresponds and runs parallel to the development of economy. To the extent that European economy, with inevitable fluctuations, suffers stagnation and even disintegration, to that extent the working class, as a class, fails to grow socially, ceases to increase numerically but suffers from unemployment, the terrible oscillations of the reserve army of labor, etc., et. The war roused the working class to its feet in the revolutionary sense. Was it capable of carrying out the revolution before the war? What did it lack? It lacked the consciousness of its own power. Its power grew in Europe automatically, almost imperceptibly, with the growth of industry. The war shook up the working class. Because of this terrible bloody upheaval, the entire working class in Europe was imbued with the revolutionary mood on the very next day after the war. Consequently, one of the subjective factors-the striving to change this world-was on hand. What was lacking? The party was lacking, the party capable of leading the working class to victory.
The Revolutionary Wave, 1917-1921
This is how the events of the revolution unfolded within our country and abroad. In 1917, the February-March revolution; within nine months – October: the revolutionary party guarantees victory to the working class and peasant poor. In 1918 revolution in Germany, accompanied by changes at the top; the working class tries to forge ahead but is smashed time and again. The proletarian revolution in Germany does not lead to victory. In 1919, the eruption of the Hungarian proletarian revolution: the base is too narrow and the party too weak. The revolution is crushed in a few months in 1919. By 1920, the situation has already changed and it continues to change more and more sharply.
There is a historical date in France – May 1, 1920 – when a sharp turn took place in the relation of forces between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The mood of the French proletariat was on the whole revolutionary but it took too light a view of victory: it was lulled by that party and those organizations which had grown up in the preceding period of peaceful and organic development of capitalism. On May 1, 1920 the French proletariat declared a general strike. This should have been the first major clash with the French bourgeoisie.
The entire bourgeois France trembled. The proletariat which had just emerged from the trenches struck terror into its heart. But the old Socialist Party, the old Social-democrats who dared not oppose the revolutionary working class and who declared the general strike simultaneously did everything in their power to blow it up; while the revolutionary elements, the Communists, were too weak, too dispersed and too lacking in experience. The May 1st strike failed. And if you consult the French newspapers for 1920 you will see in the editorials and news stories already a swift and decisive growth of the strength of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie at once sensed its own stability, gathered the state apparatus into its hands and began to take less and less into account the demands of the proletariat and the threats of revolution.
In that same year, in August 1920, we experienced an event closer to home which likewise brought about a change in the relation of forces, not in favor of the revolution. This was our defeat below Warsaw, a defeat which from the international standpoint is most intimately bound up with the fact that in Germany and in Poland at that moment the revolutionary movement was unable to gain victory because there was lacking a strong revolutionary party having the confidence of the majority of the working class.
A month later, in September 1920, we live through the great movement in Italy. Precisely at that moment in the autumn of 1920 the Italian proletariat reaches its highest point of ferment after the war. Mills, plants, railways, mines are seized. The state is disorganized, the bourgeoisie is almost prostrate with its spine broken. It seems that only another step forward is needed and the Italian working class will conquer power. But at this moment, its party, that same Socialist party which had emerged from the previous epoch, although formally adhering to the Third International but with its spirit and roots still in the previous epoch, i.e., in the Second International – this party springs back in terror from the seizure of power, from the civil war, leaving the proletariat exposed. An attack is launched upon the proletariat by the most resolute wing of the bourgeoisie in the shape of Fascism, in the shape of whatever still remains strong in the police and the army. The proletariat was smashed.
After the defeat of the proletariat in September, we observe in Italy a still more radical shift in the relationship of forces. The bourgeoisie said to itself: “So that’s the kind of people you are. You urge the proletariat forward but you lack the spirit to take power.” And it pushed the fascist detachments to the fore.
Within a few months, by March 1921, we witness the most important recent event in the life of Germany, the famous March events. Here we have the lack of correspondence between the class and the party developing from an opposite direction.
In Italy, in September, the working class was driving battle. The party shied back in terror. In Germany the working class was driving to battle: it fought in 1918, in the course of 1919 and in the course of 1920, but its efforts and sacrifices were not crowned by victory because it did not have at its head a sufficiently strong, experienced and cohesive party; instead there was another party at the head which saved the bourgeoisie for the second time, after saving it during the war. And now in 1921 the Communist Party of Germany, seeing how the bourgeoisie was strengthening its positions, wanted to make a heroic attempt to cut off the bourgeoisie’s road by an offensive, by a blow, and it rushed ahead. But the working class did not support it. Why? Because it had not yet learned to have confidence in the party. It did not yet fully know this party while its own experience in the civil war had brought it only defeats in the course of 1919-1920.
The Immaturity of Our Parties
And so in March 1921 the fact occurred which impelled the Communist International to say: The relations between the parties and the classes, between the communist parties and the working classes in all countries of Europe are still not mature for an immediate offensive, for an immediate battle for the conquest of power. It is necessary to proceed with a painstaking preparation of the communist ranks in a two-fold sense: First, in the sense of fusing them together and tempering them; and second, in the sense of their conquering the confidence of the overwhelming majority of the working class. Such was the slogan advanced by the Third International when the March events in Germany were still fresh.
And then, Comrades, after the month of March, throughout the year 1921 and during 1922 we observed the process, at any rate externally, of the strengthening of the bourgeois governments in Europe; we observed the strengthening of the extreme right wing. In France the national bloc headed by Poincaré still remains in power. But Poincaré is considered in France, that is within the national bloc, as a leftist and looming on the horizon is a new and more reactionary, more imperialist ministry of Tardieu. In England, the government of Lloyd George, this imperialist with pacifist preachments and labels, has been supplanted by the purely conservative, openly imperialist ministry of Bonar Law. In Germany, the coalition ministry, i.e., one with an admixture of social democrats, has been replaced by an openly bourgeois ministry of Cuno; and finally in Italy we see the coming to power of Mussolini, the open rule of the counter-revolutionary fist. In the economic field, capitalism is on the offensive against the proletariat. In all the countries of Europe the workers have to defend, and not always successfully, the scale of wages they had yesterday and the eight-hour working day in those countries where it had been gained legally during the last period of the war or after the war. Such is the general situation. It is clear that the revolutionary development, that is, the struggle of the proletariat for power beginning with the year 1917, does not represent a uniform and steadily rising curve.
There has been a break in the curve. Comrades, in order to picture more clearly the situation which the working class is now living through it might not be un-useful to resort to an analogy. Analogy-historical comparison and juxtapositions a dangerous method because time and again people try to extract more from an analogy than it can give. But within certain limits, when used for the purpose of illustration, an analogy is useful. We began our revolution in 1905, after the Russo-Japanese War. Already at that time we were drawn toward power by the logic of things. 1905 and 1906 brought stagnation, and the two Dumas; 1907 brought the 3rd of June and the government coup, the first victories of reaction which met almost no resistance and then the revolution rolled back. 1908 and 1909 were already the black years of reaction; and then only gradually beginning with 1910-1911 was there an upswing, intersected by the war. In March, 1917, came the victory of bourgeois democracy; in October-the victory of workers and peasants. We have therefore two main points: 1905 and 1917, separated by an interval of 12 years. These twelve years represent in a revolutionary sense a broken curve, first dropping and then rising.
In an international sense, first and foremost in relation to Europe we now have something similar. Victory was possible in 1917 and in 1918 but we did not gain it-the last condition was lacking, the powerful communist parties. The bourgeoisie succeeded in re-establishing many of its political and military. police positions but not the economic ones, while the proletariat began building the communist parties brick by brick. In the initial stages this communist party tried to make up for the lost opportunity by a single audacious leap forward, in March 1921 in Germany. It burned its fingers. The International issued a warning: "You must conquer the confidence of the majority of the working class before you dare summon the latter to an open revolutionary attack." This was the lesson of the Third Congress. A year and a half later the Fourth World Congress convened.
In making the most general appraisal it is necessary to say that at the time the Fourth Congress convened, a turning point had not yet been reached in the sense that the International could say: "The hour of open attack has already been sounded." The Fourth Congress developed, deepened, verified and rendered more precise the work of the Third Congress, and was convinced that this was basically correct.
An Analogy with 1905-1917
I have said that in 1908-09 we lived through in Russia, on a much narrower basis at the time, the moment of the lowest decline of the revolutionary wave in the sense of the prevailing moods among the working class as well as in the sense of the then triumphant Stolypinism and Rasputinism, as well as in the sense of the disintegration of the advanced ranks of the working class. What remained as illegal nuclei were frightfully small in comparison to the working class as a whole. The best elements were in jails, in hard-labor penitentiaries, in exile. 1908-09this was the lowest point of the revolutionary movement. Then came a gradual upswing. For the past two years and, in part, right now we have been living through a period undoubtedly analogous to 1908 and 1909, i.e., the lowest point in the direct and open revolutionary struggle.
There is still another point of similarity. On June 3, 1907 the counter-revolution gained a victory (Stolypin’s coup) on the parliamentary arena almost without meeting any resistance in the country. And toward the end of 1907 another terrible blow descended – the industrial crisis. What influence did this have on the working class? Did it impel it to struggle? No. In 1905, in 1906 and the first half of 1907 the working class had already given its energy and its best elements to the open struggle. It suffered defeat, and on the heels of defeat came the commercial-industrial crisis which weakened the productive and economic role of the proletariat, rendering its position even less stable. This crisis weakened it both in the revolutionary and political sense. Only the commercial and industrial upswing which began in 1909-1910 and which re-assembled the workers in factories and plants again imbued the workers with assurance, provided a major basis of support for our party and gave the revolution an impulsion forward
Here too, I say, we have a certain analogy. In the Spring of 1921 a terrible commercial crisis broke out in America and in Japan after the proletariat had suffered a defeat: in France on May 1, 1920; in Italy, in September, 1920; in Germany, throughout 1919 and 1920 and especially in the March days of 1921. But precisely at this moment in the Spring of 1921 there ensues the crisis in Japan and in America and in the latter part of 1921 it passes over to Europe. Unemployment grows to unprecedented proportions, especially, as you know, in England. The stability of the proletariat’s position drops still lower, after the losses and disillusionments already suffered. And this does not strengthen, but on the contrary in the given conditions of crisis weakens it. During the current year and since the end of last year there have been signs of a certain industrial awakening. In America it reaches the proportions of a real upswing while in Europe it remains a small, uneven ripple. Thus here, too, the first impulse for the revival of an open mass movement came, especially in France, from a certain improvement in the economic conjecture.
The New Situation in Europe
But here, Comrades, the analogy ceases. The industrial upswing of 1909 and 1910 in our country and in the entire pre-war world was a full-blooded, powerful upswing which lasted until 1913 and came at a time when the productive forces had not yet run up against the limits of capitalism, giving rise to the greatest imperialist slaughter.
The industrial improvement which began at the end of last year denotes only a change in the temperature of the tubercular organism of European economy. European economy is not growing but disintegrating; it remains on the same levels only in a few countries. The richest of European countries, insular England, has a national income at least one-third or one-quarter smaller than before the war. They engaged in war, as you know, in order to conquer markets. They ended by becoming poorer at least by one-fourth or one-third. The improvements this year have been minimal. The decline in the influence of the social democracy and the growth of the communist parties at the expense of the former is a sure symptom of this. As is well known, social reformism grew thanks to the fact that the bourgeoisie had the possibility of improving the position of the most highly skilled layers of the working class. In the nature of things, Scheidemann and everything else connected with him would have been impossible without this, for after all it is not simply an ideological tendency but one growing out of economic and social premises. This is a labor aristocracy which profits from the fact that capitalism is full-blooded and powerful and has the possibility of improving the condition at least of the upper layers of the working class. That is precisely why we witness in the years preceding the war, from 1909 to 1913, the most powerful growth of the bureaucracy in the trade unions and in the social democracy, and the strongest entrenchment of reformism and nationalism among the summits of the working class which resulted in the terrible catastrophe of the Second International at the outbreak of the war.
And now, Comrades, the gist of the situation in Europe is characterized by the fact that the bourgeoisie has no longer the possibility of fattening up the summits of the working class because it hasn’t the possibility of feeding the entire working class normally, in the capitalist sense of ‘normal.’ The lowering of the living standards of the working class is today the same kind of law as the decline of the European economy. This process began in 1913, the war introduced superficial changes into it; after the war it has become revealed with especial cruelty. The superficial fluctuations of the conjuncture do not alter this fact. This is the first and basic difference between our epoch and the pre-war one.
But there is a second difference and this is: the existence of Soviet Russia as a revolutionary factor. There is a third difference and this is: the existence of a centralized international communist party.
And we observe, Comrades, that at the very time when the bourgeoisie is scoring one superficial victory after another over the proletariat, the growth, strengthening and planful development of the communist party is not being checked but advances forward. And in this is the most important and fundamental difference between our epoch and the one from 1905 to 1917.
A Different Tempo in the US
What I have said touches, as you see, primarily Europe. It would be incorrect to apply this wholly to America. In America, too, socialism is more advantageous than capitalism and it would be even more correct to say that especially in America socialism would be more advantageous than capitalism. In other words, were the present American productive forces organized along the principles of collectivism a fabulous flowering of economy would ensue.
But in relation to America it would be incorrect to say, as we say in relation to Europe, that capitalism represents already today the cessation of economic development. Europe is rotting, America is thriving. In the initial years or more correctly in the initial months, in the first twenty months after the war it might have seemed that America would be immediately undermined by the economic collapse of Europe inasmuch as America made use of and exploited the European market in general and the war market in particular. This market has shriveled and dried up, and having been deprived of one of its props, the monstrous Babylonian tower of American industry threatened to lean over and to fall down altogether. But America, while having lost the European market of the previous scope (in addition to exploiting its own rich internal market with a population of 100 million), is seizing and has seized all the more surely the markets of certain European countries – Germany and to a considerable measure, England. And we see, in 19211922, American economy passing through a genuine commercial and industrial upswing at a time when Europe is experiencing only a distant and feeble reflection of this upswing.
Consequently, the productive forces in America are still developing under capitalism, much more slowly, of course, than they would develop under socialism but developing nevertheless. How long they will continue to do so is another question. The American working class in its economic and social power has, of course, fully matured for the conquest of state power, but in its political and organizational traditions it is incomparably further removed from the conquest of power than the European working class. Our power – the power of the Communist International – is still very weak in America. And if one were to ask (naturally this is only a hypothetical posing of the question) which will take place first: the victorious proletarian revolution in Europe or the creation of a powerful communist party in America, then on the basis of all the facts now available (naturally all sorts of new facts are possible such as, say, a war between America and Japan; and war, Comrades, is a great locomotive of history) – if one were to take the present situation in its further logical development, then I would venture to say that there are infinitely more chances that the proletariat will conquer in Europe before a powerful communist party rises and develops in America. In other words, just as the victory of the revolutionary working class in October 1917 was the pre-condition for the creation of the Communist International and for the growth of the communist parties in Europe, so, in all probability, the victory of the proletariat in the most important countries of Europe will be the pre-condition for the swift revolutionary development in America. The difference between these two spheres lies in this, that in Europe the economy decays and declines with the proletariat no longer growing productively (because there is no room for growth) but awaiting the development of the communist party; while in America the economic advancement is still proceeding.
The Colonial Revolution
The third sphere is constituted by the colonies. It is self-understood that the colonies – Asia, Africa (I speak of them as a whole), despite the fact that they, like Europe, contain the greatest gradations – the colonies, if taken independently and isolatedly, are absolutely not ready for the proletarian revolution. If they are taken isolately, then capitalism still has a long possibility of economic development in them. But the colonies belong to the metropolitan centers and their fate is intimately bound up with the fate of their European metropolitan centers.
In the colonies we observe the growing national revolutionary movement. Communists represent there only small nuclei imbedded in the peasantry. So that in the colonies we have primarily petty-bourgeois and bourgeois national movements. If you were to ask concerning the prospects of the socialist and communist development of the colonies then I would say that this question cannot be posed in an isolated manner. Of course, after the victory of the proletariat in Europe, these colonies will become the arena for the cultural, economic and every other kind of influence exercised by Europe, but for this they must first of all play their revolutionary role parallel with the role of the European proletariat. In this connection the European proletariat and in particular that of France and especially that of England are doing far too little. The growth of the influence of the ideas of socialism and communism, the emancipation of the toiling masses of the colonies, the weakening of the influence of the nationalist parties can be assured not only by and not so much by the role of the native communist nuclei as by the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat of the metropolitan centers for the emancipation of the colonies. Only by this will the proletariat of the metropolitan centers demonstrate to the colonies that there are two European nations, one the oppressor, the other the friend; only by this will it provide a further impulse to the colonies which will topple down the structure of imperialism and thereby perform a revolutionary service for the cause of the proletariat.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)