PDF-Version: Programme Communiste – The 2nd Congress of the Communist International – A Summit and a Crossroads – Part I

1 – Prelude

At the time of the 2nd Congress of the Communist International (19 July – 7 August 1920), the economic and social situation and class struggles in the world still appeared to be full of revolutionary possibilities, despite the harsh defeats of the first year of peace.

The Red Army’s counter-offensive against the most advanced Anglo-French stronghold in Eastern Europe – Poland – was under way, and the fall of Warsaw was expected at any time, which unfortunately was not to be. At the same time, the troops of the last white general subsidised by the Entente, Wrangel, were gradually losing ground in southern Russia, particularly in the Crimea; in October, they literally vanished when the last survivors sailed on French ships.

The advance to the heart of Poland made us forget the horrors of the counter-revolution in Finland and Hungary. The fighting was still strong in the German proletariat; England experienced large miners’ strikes and France, railway workers; in Italy, the occupation of the factories was preceded by a lively fermentation. Even the two major Western countries that emerged victorious from the war[1] were also experiencing a wave of arrests and persecutions; in Spain and the Balkans, political and social instability was chronic; neutral countries, from Switzerland to Scandinavia, and smaller countries that had taken part in the war such as Belgium or the Netherlands, showed symptoms of unrest. All this naturally led to the diagnosis of an acute crisis of the capitalist regime. This crisis reached even the main beneficiary of the carnage, the United States (steel strike, September 1919 – January 1920). As Lenin will recall in the opening speech of the Congress, it also found a dramatic expression in the conflicts that, at the Paris conference, pitted the Allies themselves against each other, and in the alarming cries of a Keynes about the disastrous consequences of a short-sighted, economically senseless, revengeful policy.

Significantly, because of this crisis, Moscow, symbol of the Red October, irresistibly attracted proletarian groups whose origin and tradition were not Marxist, but who were deeply engaged in social struggles and full of revolutionary momentum. Under its influence, American I.W.W., English shop stewards committees, trade unionists – French, Italian, Spanish, German revolutionaries – began to open up a little to the problems of the Party, the violent conquest of power, the proletarian dictatorship and terror. Another fact that could be seen as a symptom of the imminence of a revolutionary crisis on a European scale was the attitude of powerful organisations such as the Independent Labour Party in England, the USPD in Germany, the PSF (ex-SFIO) in France, the Socialist Party of America in the United States; having decided to abandon the Second International, these parties oscillated between the dubious prospect of a “reconstruction” on less overtly conciliatory bases (a kind of 2 ½ International avant la lettre) and cautious diplomatic polls with a view to a possible accession to the CI, either that (the most benevolent but also the most debatable hypothesis) their leaders were pushed to bow to the base, or that (hypothesis more in line, in our opinion, with their historical mission), they felt that they had to prevent the radicalisation of this base, and fight it to prevent more determined fractions from separating themselves from the old party.

Thus, while even those who had launched the anti-Bolshevik crusade in 1918-1919 were beginning to resign themselves to the situation in Russia, or even to “acknowledge” it to the point of considering concluding peace treaties and trade agreements with it (Britain was the first to join the ranks), everything seemed possible again in the arena of class struggle, after the terrible setbacks of 1919 and the long years of civil war in the vast area governed by the power of the Red October. Never forgotten or denied, the prospect of world revolution was taking shape again. It was fuelled by the powerful tremors that shook the colonies and semi-colonies, especially the British, which had hitherto been the main source for European capital of these super-profits that had led to the creation of a workers aristocracy, the basis of opportunism. Years later, these tremors confirmed the grandiose vision of Marx and Engels on the link between the proletarian movement of capitalist metropoles and the efforts to emancipate the peoples of the East drawn into the whirlwind, the world economy and the market. This vision, which at the time concerned mainly India and China, was now also of interest to Persia, Turkey and the Dutch Indies. If, as the witnesses at the time told us, the eyes of the delegates to the 2nd Congress were fixed on the map of Poland where small flags marking the advance of the Red Army were being raised daily, their presence in Moscow reflected a much broader battle as it spread to all continents; Indeed, workers militants from the most diverse countries, who differed not only by the colour of their skin, but also by their ideology, had gathered in the capital of the first country to have experienced a true proletarian dictatorship, united by a revolutionary passion stronger than their attachment to the particular political traditions they had inherited from the past. As the Bolsheviks were the first to notice, this great outbreak was largely a “fashion”, a new political trend, with all its suspicions. That is why Zinoviev was able to speak of the need to “lock up the Communist International” and place a “sentinel” at the entrance, and Trotsky preferred the naive fervour of militants not yet rid of their anti-authoritarian prejudices, but full of class momentum and instinct, to the “arrogance” of “communists” for whom the great questions that had torn the workers movement apart – the question of the party, that of the violent conquest of power, dictatorship and red terror – were now final conquests. As for Lenin, who covered not only the social democratic right with infamy, but also the centre that had abjured the revolutionary movement despite its haste to send pilgrims to Moscow, he blamed the Left only for being a “infantile disease of communism”, against part of the vitality and the growth of this movement.

Nevertheless, this outbreak was able to burn a lot of slag if it was properly directed. However, those who led it were the Bolsheviks engaged at the same time in a titanic battle on both the internal and external front. In writing theses for the Second Congress, they had forged weapons far more formidable than the delegates flocking to Moscow could have imagined, whose parties had only joined the Comintern a year earlier. Most of them were not ready to accept these theses as their own; they only accepted them in a formal way, without assimilating their substance. This does not prevent them from remaining as milestones on the path of the proletariat engaged in the struggle for its emancipation: warning delegates against the mistake of believing that the ruling class had no way out of the post-war crisis, Lenin will stress in his inaugural speech that with such weapons, the situation could cease to be revolutionary[2], without the preparation of the insurrectional assault ceasing to be possible.

Half a century later, it is easy to say that the enthusiasm of the time masked a much less favourable reality than one might have thought. It should not be forgotten, however, that the year 1920 had begun with two great victories: the defeat of the enemy in the Russian civil war and the joining of the various detachments of the world proletarian army, which the imperialist war and the imperialist siege of the Bolshevik republic had dismembered. Two such victories justified not only enthusiasm but joy, and only pedants and philistines may not feel the historical significance. Moreover, the leaders of the International saw perfectly the contradictory aspects and “ambiguities” of the situation of the communist movement. There was not the slightest rhetoric in Lenin when he proudly declared, after the end of Russia’s encirclement:

“A little more than a year has passed since the First Congress of the Communist International, and in this time we have defeated the Second International”,

or at Zinoviev’s when he said:

“Today we have a complete right to declare that the Second International has been beaten over the head by the Communist International… The collapse of the Second International reflects the collapse of the bourgeois order itself… We have beaten the Second International because the ‘Twilight of the Gods’ of capitalism has begun… every organisation that tries to tie its destiny to the bourgeois class will itself sink”[3].

Yet the Bolsheviks were too good Marxists to ignore the fact that, since the First Congress, things had not changed significantly within the workers movement. No communist party had yet been formed in Europe, let alone the United States. Worse, among the parties that were about to be formed or that claimed to be already constituted, very few offered serious guarantees of communism. Serrati deplored (and historian Carr later echoed) Moscow’s annoyingly “pedagogical” attitude and tone towards delegates from the adhering parties; he complained that, even more than the “fellow travellers” suffering from child leftism, they were treated as school children and that they were often not better (if not worse) than the doubtful candidates from the USPD or the PSF. The truth is that the Bolsheviks had to do this because, as they were well aware, they were the only ones who could do it. As for us, we would have liked to see them go even further in the direction of intransigence and rigour.

The Bolsheviks knew that to free these communist aspirants from a whole rotten past of conciliation (at best), compromise (at worst), they would have even more trouble than they had had in Russia with the “non-party” workers and peasants’ assemblies. The 2nd Congress would devote a large part of its efforts to proselytism and propaganda within the communist movement itself or supposedly so, which, whether or not it pleased Serrati or others, only the victors in October could take the initiative. At first, they had been inclined to soften the conditions for admission to the International. Perhaps they thought they were dealing with parties that were theoretically and practically mature and therefore did not need orders or prohibitions to find the right way; perhaps, quite simply, they thought they could more easily neutralise these last-minute converts than their opponents in Russia, and be more flowing with them than they had been at the helm of the Soviet dictatorship. In any case, the Congress debates enlightened them on the European “communists” and they ended up tightening the said admission conditions, which was admittedly insufficient in the Left’s opinion.

Apart from the parties in the Soviet, Balkan, Germanic, Polish and Finnish areas, neither the few recent acquisitions in Europe (the Communist Parties of Spain and Belgium) nor the Italian Socialist Party, whose true face had only half been discovered, could be seriously counted on: the same was true for the two parties that had hastily formed in America and were soon to merge, the “Communist Party of America” and the “Communist Workers Party of America”; the same was true for the four English groups (the British Socialist Party, the British Labour Party, the South Wales Socialist Society and the Workers Socialist Federation) which had together formed a “Provisional Committee for the Constitution of the Communist Party of Great Britain”, but which were weak, confused and divided not only on the parliamentary question and the trade union question, but on the question of membership of the Labour Party, a question which the elastic structure of the latter allowed to be raised. As for the results of the last few months in Germany, although they proved the KAPD wrong in theory, they were not in favour of the K.P.D. either for doctrinal maturity or for the orthodoxy of tactics. In France, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Italy, the actual communist currents, groups and fractions still had only a negligible weight. In short, it was not possible to judge parties that had already officially formed in Europe and Asia before they had been tested by the facts.

As for the “left” wings already separated from the “centrist” parties or about to do so, their contribution was dubious and always considered with suspicion; certainly, the detachments of combative militants such as the IWW, shop stewards, French and Spanish unionists in crisis, etc., could serve as a counterweight and, to some extent, an antidote to these parties, but they themselves needed a tough “preparatory school”, the outcome of which could not be foreseen.

“The struggle between us and the Second International,” Zinoviev said at the opening of the Congress, “is not a struggle of two factions of one revolutionary movement, it is not a struggle of shades of opinion, not a struggle of different tendencies within a homogeneous class camp, it is in fact a struggle of classes”.

On a historical scale, this was true; but in the immediate future, the demand of the President of the Third International (“clarity, clarity and once more clarity”) was far from being satisfied, and the dividing line between the classes passed through the middle of almost all the affiliated parties. “Any step forward in the real movement” is more important to Marxists than a program rag, but on the express condition that it not be accomplished at the cost of “concessions on principle”. Yet, the delegates gathered in Moscow expected to be greeted by expressions of enthusiasm, not by the flood of criticism that fell on them, which we might call the 1920 version of the “Critique of the Gotha Programme”.

At the “rebuilders”, one could slam the door in their face. But, as Lenin wrote in his draft “Theses on fundamental tasks of the Second Congress Of The Communist International”, dated 14 July[4], the “immense and immediate danger to the success of the cause of proletarian emancipation” – a danger much more serious than the tendency towards “leftism” – consisted in the fact that

“a section of the old leaders and of the old parties of the Second International—some yielding half-unconsciously to the wishes and pressure[5] of the masses, and some deliberately deceiving the masses in order to retain their function of agents and assistants of the bourgeoisie within the working-class movement—declare their qualified or even unqualified adherence to the Third International, while actually remaining in all their practical party and political work, on the level of the Second International”.

And Lenin deduced from this that “the present stage in the development of the international communist movement is marked by the fact that in the vast majority of capitalist countries, the proletariat’s preparations[6] to effect its dictatorship have not been completed, and, in many cases, have not even been systematically begun” (Thesis 5).

It was urgent to ensure “that ‘recognition’ of the dictatorship of the proletariat shall not remain a more matter of words”, not forgetting (as did the parties that hesitated to amputate their right wing or their “open or masked Kautskyan centre”) “that which, prior to the victory of the proletariat, seems merely a theoretical difference on the question of ‘democracy’ inevitably becomes, on the day following victory, a question that is settled by force of arms”.

Under these conditions, what is surprising about the “pedagogical attitude of the glorious Bolshevik staff?” If it had bled itself dry during two and a half years of civil war, it was because it knew that the triumph of the world revolution depended on its victory. Being politically and almost alone, although its physical isolation had ceased, it did not say “the right” (it never claimed it), but the revolutionary duty to “teach the lesson” to those who should have been at the forefront of the movement, but who were at the back. The prophecy made by Kautsky in 1902 and recalled in the first chapter of the “Infantile Disorder” was fulfilled, against Kautsky:

“Russia, which has borrowed so much revolutionary initiative from the West, is now perhaps herself ready to serve the West as a source of revolutionary energy. The Russian revolutionary movement that is now flaring up will perhaps prove to be the most potent means of exorcising the spirit of flabby philistinism and coldly calculating politics that is beginning to spread [in 1920 it was more than spread] in our midst, and it may cause the fighting spirit and the passionate devotion to our great ideals to flare up again”[7]

But it was not a mechanical process, as Professor Kautsky, a doctor of high theory, perhaps wished: it was a task, another very heavy one, that the heroic Russian militants, who had thought they could finally catch their breath and reap after giving so much, were preparing to perform with an equally heroic firmness. Only German or English Independents could deduce from this that they were imbued with a “nationalist spirit”!

When they mention the impressive mass of pamphlets, theses and comments written by the Bolsheviks between the end of April – the date on which it was decided to convene the 2nd Congress as soon as possible and which marked the beginning of the pilgrimage of the socialist “information missions” to Moscow – and on 19 July, opening date of the Congress – historians in the pay of opportunism invariably like to throw us at the head “The Infantile Disorder of Communism” (the “left-wing”), with the air of saying, when they do not say it clearly and jubilantly: we caught you Left-wingers in the act; here it is, your excommunication bull; here it is, our proof of Leninism!

These learned scholars of public relations and opportunism ignore two small details. The first is that “Infantile Disorder” opens with the following observation:

“soon after the victory of the proletarian revolution in at least one of the advanced countries… Russia will cease to be the model and will once again become a backward country… At the present moment in history, however, it is the Russian model that reveals to all countries something—and something highly significant—of their near and inevitable future”[8].

And this “something” is not the democratic, parliamentary, national path to… socialism that these gentlemen enjoy and delight their public with. It’s..:

“the experience of the victorious dictatorship of the proletariat” that is to say “a most determined and most ruthless war [yes, war and no dialogue, war and not only struggle] waged by the new class against a more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie… whose power lies, not only in the strength of international capital, the strength and durability of their international connections, but also in the force of habit, in the strength of small-scale production. Unfortunately, small-scale production is still widespread in the world, and small-scale production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass scale. All these reasons make the dictatorship of the proletariat necessary [and not: good here, bad there], and victory over the bourgeoisie is impossible without a long, stubborn and desperate life-and-death struggle…”[9]

Secondly, opportunist historians pretend to ignore which currents Lenin’s criticism is aimed at: first of all, those who, after having accepted the anti-democratic, anti-parliamentary and anti-legalist principle of the dictatorship (which today’s opportunist harbingers have renounced a hundred times), reduce this acceptance to nothing by spreading, consciously or not, an equally democratic ideology since it denies the party, centralisation, the leading role of the “prior organisation”, thus “the constitution of the proletariat as a class”, and thus the terms of its “constitution as the dominant class”; then, those who (another aspect of the petty-bourgeois “force of inertia”) believe they can resolve all issues by substituting the “revolutionary phrase”, verbal extremism, for the difficult search for tactical solutions directly related to the principle of violent seizure of power and its dictatorial exercise. With the exception that our fraction was not in the camp of infantile leftism (we have already recalled that Lenin confessed when speaking of us that he knew us too little), “Infantile Disorder” must be considered as we did at the time, that is, as a vigorous offensive against the second face of petty-bourgeois democracy, namely anti-authoritarianism and anti-partism of the “libertarian” type, parliamentarianism, legalism and reformism, which is the first face of it, having previously been liquidated in a few lapidary sentences.

Let us go further: to the extent that (and only to this extent), in large sectors of the working class, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, anti-authoritarianism and anti-partyism were not a direct and fully claimed filiation of the old Proudhonian and Bakuninist deviation, but an immediate and unconscious reaction against the putrefaction of avowed socialist parties and against the accommodating laxity of those who, while claiming to be communists, wanted to keep their former name which they considered “glorious”, it was right to call “leftism” a “childhood disease” which, unlike the senile infection of democracy, could be cured by methods that were even only “educational”; to this extent, indeed, these reactions reflected “a noble and working-class hatred for the bourgeois ‘class politicians'”, which is “the beginning of all wisdom”. It is on the roots of the ideological and “cultural” tradition of the opportunist harbingers who cannot understand this hatred that the axe of “Infantile Disorder” is being struck!

That being said, let us not pretend that the Second Congress vigorously reaffirmed the fundamental principles common to the Bolsheviks and the Left – a party-dictatorship-terror, in short anti-democratism and anti-parliamentarism – because it considered the revolutionary outcome of the world crisis imminent. For Lenin, the recognition of these principles (which even Kautsky, even Turati, could well recognise “in words”) cannot be limited to a vague profession of faith: it is a constant commitment to prepare the revolutionary solution to the crisis of bourgeois society. Whether the armed insurrection is near or far, this is the compass that guides the party’s march in all its manifestations, including parliamentary activity, which in any case is always one of the least important,[10] and which, in given circumstances, can and must be suspended. The theses already cited, as well as all the speeches at the 2nd Congress, repeat it forcefully, and it is not by chance that the harbingers of opportunism jump on them, because we find in detail what, at the beginning of the “Infantile Disorder”, had been condensed into a few lapidary pages and given for definite acquisition. However, these theses and speeches insist all the more on this point because after the date (May 12, 1920) when Lenin finished the brochure completed with his appendix, the first contacts with the “pilgrims” arriving in Moscow had proved for the umpteenth time that not only was it not a definitive achievement for them, but that they did not recognise any achievement at all!

2 – First Contacts with the Delegations of the Western Workers

In this respect, the arrival of the Italian delegation was even more revealing than that of the delegations of the English Independent Labour Party and the PSF. Its decision to go to Russia dated back to 3 April and its original purpose was to “study the functioning of the Soviet regime”, according to a typically opportunistic idea: to seek a political lesson and theoretical confirmation from the “homeland of the October Revolution”, not a political lesson (for that there was no need for travel…. of exploration, since they were inscribed in the facts of the revolution itself, and in the works of its artisans), but a model of “technical” construction of the new society, a patent… social engineering. The delegation consisted of thirteen members: Serrati and Vacirca for the management, Bombacci, Rondani and Graziadei for the parliamentary group, d’Aragona, Bianchi, Marietti, Colombino, Dugoni, Pavirani, Nofri, Pozzani for the CGL (General Labour Confederation), the National League of Cooperatives and other local economic organisations. All had wisely protected themselves against typhus and hunger thanks to abundant stocks of food (spaghetti, the first “national exception”!) and special clothing, which made them look like underwater divers. As Rosmer points out, among other things, they seemed worthy in every respect of a Cook expedition.

Although the “right” had the absolute majority, this delegation was very well celebrated when it arrived in Petrograd on 6 June and in Moscow on 14 June (the same day as the letter convening the 2nd Congress). At that time, writes Zinoviev,

“we did not know that they were reformists; we had total confidence in Serrati, as in all those he had brought with him; we thought they were elements whose ideas were still confused, but whose dedication to the proletarian cause was truly sincere.”[11]

But on June 16, at the Soviet Executive Committee, the delegation had to listen to Bukharin’s indictment against the French party which refused to amputate its right wing[12] and, on June 18, it had to read in “Pravda” the “salute” addressed to it by the same Bukharin, which said in substance:

“It’s time to drive the group of Turatists out of the Italian workers’ movement!”[13],

which was like telling three-quarters of the Italian delegates to get out of the way! In “Infantile Disorder”, giving reason at least to the “Soviet”, Lenin had expressed the wish that the PSI, which had already been a member of the International for a year, would decide to

“to drive out Mr. Turati and Mr. Co. with shame to become a communist party both by name and by work“.

In the passage, mentioned above, of “Terrorism and Communism”, another unforgettable viaticum for the IInd Congress, Trotsky had written these words, which it would be useless to advise opportunist historiographers to read carefully:

“A passive attitude to the Kautskyian, Longuetist, Turatist groups is usually cloaked by the argument that the time for revolutionary activity in the respective countries has not yet arrived. But such a formulation of the question is absolutely false. Nobody demands from Socialists striving for Communism that they should appoint a revolutionary outbreak for a definite week or month in the near future. What the Third International demands of its supporters is a recognition, not in words but in deeds, that civilised humanity has entered a revolutionary epoch; that all the capitalist countries are speeding towards colossal disturbances and an open class war; and that the task of the revolutionary representatives of the proletariat is to prepare for that inevitable and approaching war the necessary spiritual armoury and buttress of organisation. The internationalists who consider it possible at the present time to collaborate with Kautsky, Longuet and Turati, to appear side by side with them before the working masses, by that very act renounce in practice the work of preparing in ideas and organisation for the revolutionary rising of the proletariat, independently of whether it comes a month or a year sooner or later. In order that the open rising of the proletarian masses should not fritter itself away in belated searches for paths and leadership, we must see to it to-day that wide circles of the proletariat should even now learn to grasp all the immensity of the tasks before them, and of their irreconcilability with all variations of Kautskyianism and opportunism.

A truly revolutionary, i.e., a Communist wing, must set itself up in opposition, in face of the masses, to all the indecisive, half-hearted groups of doctrinaires, advocates, and panegyrists of passivity, strengthening its positions first of all spiritually and then in the sphere of organisation – open, half-open, and purely conspirative. The moment of formal split with the open and disguised Kautskyians, or the moment of their expulsion from the ranks of the working-class party, is, of course, to be determined by considerations of usefulness from the point of view of circumstances; but all the policy of real Communists must turn in that direction.”[14]

Two days later – we note this detail only to highlight the steady pace of the…. lesson in pedagogy – the Italian delegates will hear Lenin once again denounce the

“putrefaction of Turati’s wing… that prevents the whole party from following a perfectly correct line” (as stated in a brief journalistic summary)[15]. For the party, these words were nothing new: it had a thousand and one times been able to read them in “Il Soviet”.

But the force of “historical inertia” is such that, during his numerous colloquia with Lenin and Trotsky, Zinoviev and Bukharin, Serrati continued unwaveringly, as in Italy, to defend both Turati, who was not there, and Aragona, who was part of the delegation. He was irritated by the fact that the management delegated by telegraph to the II Graziadei and Bombacci Congress, already uncertain; he intrigued in vain to extend the mandate to Vacirca and, at least in an advisory capacity, to the eight delegates of the CGL; he deplored that the Executive had invited Bordiga for the Abstentionist Fraction and Polano for the Youth Federation, the former with a consultative vote, the latter with a deliberative vote, he took under his wing the bearded secretary of the CGL, who, as Rosmer points out, invariably sought refuge with the patriarch of the maximalist centre, when he failed to escape the embarrassment caused by the pressing injunctions of the Bolsheviks. Having concluded from their visit to the “Soviet model” that they had nothing to learn from the Bolsheviks and everything to teach them from the top of their wisdom as citizens of civilised countries, the leaders of trade unions and cooperatives returned home long before the Congress had begun its work and launched its wrath against opportunism: Serrati remained to defend them or at least to justify their presence in the PSI by presenting them as “harmless”. The case of Serrati is, of course, not a “personal case” and that is why we are talking about it here, we who do not care about biographical gossip: his two co-delegates to the Congress, Graziadei and Bombacci, tended to deviate from classical maximalism (the future had to say how much), and he was not entirely wrong to affirm that he alone truly and authentically represented maximalism. His stubborn refusal to dissociate himself from Turati faithfully reflected this trend, for which parliamentary activity was at the centre of the party’s life: yet the parliamentary group was merged with the right wing. Moreover, in his judgment on the reformists, this consideration of practical opportunity weighed less than the positive attestation of good conduct granted to men who, as Serrati said verbatim in his report to the International[16]

“obey the party’s discipline[!] and increasingly turn to the left[!]”.

Finally, when he insisted to Aragona that he save face by approving the constitutive convention of the Provisional Committee of Red Trade Unions, the nucleus of the future Red Trade Union International, not without first reaching a wobbly compromise and suggesting that, in his opinion, it was a mistake,

“the red trade union organisation should not be dependent on the Communist International, but should be something autonomous, which works amicably alongside it”[17].

Serrati was still a faithful reflection of maximalism; for him, the CGL was congenitally “red” and the PSI, communist by definition; just like the State and the Church in the liberal tradition, they constituted in his eyes two sovereign powers within the framework of their respective functions, and which, although always ready to help each other when the “common interest” was at stake, could only have relationships of equal value. In Russia, the problem of “separation from open or masked Kautskyism” could only be solved “by the force of arms”, and at the cost of immense sacrifices; in the West, where the centre was represented by maximalism, it was not even the “weapons of criticism”. Let us recognise at least the tenacity of Serrati’s the advantage of having allowed the International (with delay, it is true) to place maximalism in its true camp, that of centrism, of which communism is the sworn enemy.

But spring had brought another family of swallows to Moscow: the delegates of the “rebuilding” parties who had come to contemplate, according to Lenin’s ironic remark

“the Soviet system, as the Germans say, or the Soviet idea, as the socialists of the British guilds say.”

and also to get to know the International, see if they could join it and above all had an interest in doing so and therefore to find out about the conditions required.

These people represented another danger, denounced in all the Theses and in all the speeches of the Congress: that of parties wishing to regain their virginity at a low cost, either through skilful cosmetic surgery operations, in the manner of the USPD, or through demagogic concessions to the generous impatience and fermentation of the base. All had conducted surveys, through the Swiss Socialist Party, whose role as mediator reflected that of its country, to see what were the possibilities and prospects for the reconstitution of a non-dogmatic International…. By this they meant that it would be open to

“all parties determined to remain faithful to the foundations of socialism”.

This formula, which satisfied everyone and did not engage anyone, was worthy of its authors, the French socialists, who, meeting in congress in Strasbourg on 25-29 February, had kept their hands free to be able to deal as perfect diplomats with the “terribly” sectarian International of Moscow! In their regard, there was no illusion to be made. The “pedagogical” method was of no help there, even if Moscow strongly hoped to detach part of the proletarian base from these directions, which were now “completely bourgeois” because they were linked to the interests of certain limited but powerful layers of the workers aristocracy that were about to be put against the wall. For the leaders of the Comintern, there was no question of welcoming these parties into its ranks[18] – unless they accepted conditions equivalent to suicide for them – nor of indoctrinating their spokespersons on a journey of exploration: it was a question of causing an abscess to die.

The Independent Labour Party mission arrived first in May. It had just sent to Berne a project for a “reconstructed International” open to “all parties that accept as fundamental bases of socialism the collective ownership and use of the land and the main instruments of work, as well as of industry in general and of everything concerning the question of public wealth” without saying how to achieve it, nor what attitude to adopt towards the bourgeois state and its institutions. What party, even the most reformist, would not have been willing to swear on such a Bible? In this International, the sections were to enjoy

“the fullest autonomy with regard to freedom of action and tactics in each country”[19].

However, during its stay in Russia, the delegation encountered tough “interlocutors”, not surprised to find at home – as Lenin will say, commenting on its May 26 meeting – “the old ulcer” that the imperialist war had exposed even more,

“namely, the desertion of the majority of the workers’ parliamentary and trade union leaders to the side of the bourgeoisie”[20]

It is likely that it feigned stupor when Britain was accused of giving its aid to Polish aggressors, and did not fail to denounce the lack of freedom of the press, association and propaganda in besieged proletarian Russia! At least she had the decency not to beat her chest like Cachin, and to return home with a strengthened faith in democracy. Lenin immediately wrote his epitaph:

“Let each man stick to his job: let the Communists work directly through their Party, awakening the revolutionary consciousness of the workers. Let those who supported the “defence of country” during the imperialist war for the partitioning of the world…let such people hasten to increase the number of their “peace resolutions” to the point of becoming ridiculous; the more they do that, the sooner will they meet with the fate of Kerensky, the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries”[21]

Thus, the 2nd Congress had neither the “honour” nor the embarrassment to see the British variety of German Independents pose as communists.

Charged with carrying out similar probes, the French mission Cachin-Frossard had arrived at the third, and with it, things had taken a cynical and melodramatic turn. The two pilgrims were not allowed to give their opinion or make engagements, but only to ask for and report information: with a volubility that was only equalled by their lack of principles, they had nevertheless let themselves go to manifestations of oratory enthusiasm for the Bolshevik victories and the conquests of the proletariat in Russia. At the June 16 meeting in Moscow, Bukharin recalled not only the ignominy of French social-chauvinism, but also Cachin’s personal mistakes as spokesman for the Union Sacrée (a practice that the Bolsheviks considered, as Serrati reports, “not as a mistake, but as a crime”) and Lenin pronounced this verdict:

“Between the Third International and the whole policy of the French Socialist Party, there is an abyss”

and he demonstrated it by all the press and by the activity of the parliamentary group, by Longuet’s equivocal action, by the conciliatory attitude of the PSF towards the leaders of the CGT and his passivity at the time of the arrest for the “plot” of Loriot, Monatte and Souvarine;

“Cachin then burst into tears, just like in Strasbourg in front of Poincaré celebrating the return of Alsace to France,” notes Rosmer[22].

It is likely that he did the same at the subsequent meetings on 18 and 29 June and 23 and 28 July, where, gradually giving in to the urgent exhortations of the Comintern staff, he finally committed himself (within what limits, we will soon see) to fighting within the party to encourage it to join the Comintern in an informal way, even at the risk of causing a split whose Russian “interlocutors” knew it would necessarily be the price of membership. It does not matter whether subjectively, this progressive “alignment” was sincere or not; what is certain is that it was accompanied by a thousand reservations. On March 9, the French Party had entrusted its emissaries with the task of

“contacting the Russian Bolshevik Party and the qualified organs of the Third International in order to study ways of achieving the restoration of International Socialist Unity [the capital letters are in the text] and to collect the most accurate information and intelligence on the situation in Russia and its political, economic and social organisation”[23].

During the session of June 18, Cachin began by presenting to the Executive a glowing picture of the “revolutionary” action of the PSF, while Frossard explained that the latter was not at all opposed to joining the CI: it was sufficient to clarify certain “tactical modalities”, and to recognise the need to grant a “certain freedom” of movement to national sections, given their particular circumstances and would require action; it was sufficient for example (and especially!) to admit that “the conquest of proletarian power (in France) is conceivable only if an agreement is reached on an equal footing between the CGT and the Party”. He had added, as his mandate prescribed, that he could neither accept the “ostracism measures” demanded by the Executive against certain comrades, nor admit that they were “imposed [on the PSF] from outside [the International… foreign power!]”.) to admit that “the conquest of proletarian power (in France) is conceivable only if an agreement is reached on an equal footing between the CGT and the Party”. He had added, as his mandate prescribed, that he could neither accept the “ostracism measures” demanded by the Executive against certain comrades, nor admit that they were “imposed[on the PSF] from outside[the International… foreign power!]”. No one in Moscow hoped to convert the two pilgrims with a few brief “lessons” of Bolshevism: they were indeed praising Longuet for his famous article of December 1919[24], in which Trotsky had pilloried them as centrists, and the CI could not therefore see them in a positive light. All it was looking for was to place a “mine” in the PSF, to liberate its proletarian base despite the militant nature of the situation. We will not go back over this tactic or the risks it entailed. Passing in any case on the probable cynicism of the two “emissaries” of the PSF, the Executive tried to convince them to transmit to the latter a series of draconian admission conditions, and even to defend them before it. The ransom for this attempt was to be the at least partial clearance of the “Committee for Membership of the Third International”, the only group, albeit a small one, that had long been in favour of communism in France. However, young militants should not forget that this Committee, although a breeding ground for sincerely revolutionary forces, was born on many confusing bases since it oscillated between Marxist orthodoxy and an anarcho-syndicalist tradition superficially masked by its enthusiasm for the October Revolution and “Leninism” which it considered from the point of view of “workers’ democracy” and a vague “Sovietism”. The delegation left before it learned the final and stricter text of the “conditions of admission”, but with a “letter to all members of the French Socialist Party and to all conscious proletarians of France”, which translated into precise and harsh injunctions the questions that, after having specified that membership of the CI is not intended to issue an international status label, but to set tasks of revolutionary struggle, and (that) it can therefore under no circumstances be based on reticence, misunderstandings or equivocations, Trotsky had issued an ultimatum to the PSF: was the PSF prepared or not to disavow without reservation or mitigation of the “national defence” policy? To exclude any participation or even indirect support for bourgeois governments? To fight against the obvious sabotage of strikes by the leaders of the CGT? To support the colonial peoples, crushed by French imperialism, in a merciless struggle against the metropolitan bourgeoisie and its state? To expel from its ranks the “prophets of passivity” in Longuet and Blum-Renaudel, in reformist and centrist sauce?[25] We will see which “reservations” Cachin and Frossard will attach, shortly before their departure, to the purely personal commitment to fight for the conditions of membership of the CI, and which reactions their words will provoke among the youngest French delegates and among the Russian delegates. In any case, this was the line now adopted by the CI, with all the dangers of the rebirth of the so-called “reconstructive” right, but in reality liquidating, that it entailed. Could this danger be eliminated, either by a positive outcome of the world situation, or, on the contrary, by greater vigilance and a vigorous hardening of centralisation and discipline on the part of the Executive? This great question remained open.

We have drawn up such a detailed picture of the forces attracted to Moscow at the opening of the Congress because it is necessary to assess the facts. This tableau must be completed with two testimonies. The first concerns the fierce discussions that took place during the first two weeks of July between the delegations of the Italian GLC, the IWW, the shop stewards, the Spanish CNT led by trade unionists, the trade unionist minority of the French GTC and the German anarcho-syndicalists (FAU) on the one hand, and Zinoviev and Losovsky on the other hand on the problem of the constitution of the Red Trade Union International. Losovsky’s account of these discussions is revealing[26]. When in order to create an “International Provisional Council of Trade and Industry Unions” against the International Trade Union Federation (ITF) of Amsterdam, reconstituted in close liaison with the International Labour Office and therefore with the League of Nations, the Bolsheviks posed the problem of conquering the trade unions with the principles of communism to transform them into instruments of the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat, the delegates of the Italian CGL had the front to declare that they were ready to make propaganda for these principles, but not to make them the subject of a profession of public faith. The anarcho-syndicalists and English and American workers raised (more honestly, it must be acknowledged) the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat: who should lead it? Economic organisations of trade, industry or factory, as they thought, or the party, as the Bolsheviks thought (of course, some delegates with openly anarchist tendencies denied any form of dictatorship)? The Italian confederations agreed with trade unionists and workers of all origins to exclude that the future Red Trade Union International should be closely dependent on the Political International. However, new disagreements arose when it came to deciding whether to conquer existing national trade unions, or to break out of them to create bodies better adapted to the needs of revolutionary action on a global scale[27]. Very harsh and revealing of the infinite diversity of positions that clashed within the workers’ movement and more particularly the trade union movement gathered in Moscow, the discussions dragged on for a long time. Finally, as the delegates of the IWW and shop stewards maintained their reservations on the two points above (as did the Congress itself), the Italian delegates, after much hesitation and not without a great deal of pressure from Serrati, managed to have the “constituent convention” of the International Interim Council formulated in the form of a vague compromise. On the one hand, national organisations joining the Council were required to make extensive propaganda for the ideas of class struggle, social revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat

“as a transitional but decisive means […] to crush the resistance of the exploiters and consolidate the conquests of the “workers government”, in other words to fight against the “scourge of collaboration with the bourgeoisie and hope in a peaceful transition to socialism“

by calling on the revolutionary and classist elements of the global trade union movement to lead the fight in Amsterdam at the same time without calling for desertion and the division of existing national organisations. It was also established that, under the direction of the Council, this set of activities should be carried out “in close agreement and in liaison with the Executive Committee of the CI”, with one member of the latter being delegated to the governing bodies of the Council and vice versa. The vagueness of the declarations of principle and the accompanying commitments to action, as well as the near equality between the Political International and the Trade Union International, satisfied the Italian delegates whose perplexity was… understandable, and they signed the document at the same time as the Russians, the Spanish, the French, the Bulgarians, the Yugoslavs and the Georgians. When Lenin saw this document, he considered it to be an unpleasant compromise, but nevertheless suggested accepting it: the important thing was to have created a centre, “clarity will come later”. This did not prevent the representatives of the Italian CGL from claiming that the alliance pact concluded in Italy between the PSI and the CGL had been raised to the level of an international principle and to triumph. In the following month, they therefore continued along the same path as in the past, a path that led not to Moscow but to Amsterdam, as they were reproached a year later, at the Red Trade Union International’s formation congress.

The second testimony concerns the delegation of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany[28] which, according to the general tendency, had come to “deal” with the CI. and which was composed, as the only eyewitness to our current points out, of “three individuals of archbourgeois appearance, who travelled in the black suits and top-hats of diplomats”.

At the meeting of the Executive Committee held on the very day of their arrival, 25 July, and then at the commission for the conditions of admission, the clash with those delegates who were seeking to place their damaged political goods was particularly violent[29]. It happened again at the Congress where it was decided to admit them in an advisory capacity, just like their two French colleagues. The four USPD delegates (two from the right and two from the so-called “left”) agreed “in general” to join the Comintern; however, like the Italian maximalists, they fiercely defended their party’s revolutionary… tradition, downplaying the influence Kautsky exercised there (Hilferding was quite another matter!). They were more or less unanimous in discovering a thousand dangers in the initial 19 conditions of admission: it was dangerous to change the party’s name: there was a risk of a ban; dangerous to make known the existence of an illegal party network next to the legal network: there was a risk of losing the sacred heritage of a hundred newspapers and seeing their precious editorial offices closed; dangerous to propaganda in the army: there was a risk of court-martial; dangerous to insist too much on centralism: it risked displeasing the masses (the same individuals had had the audacity to claim that the “lack of socialist consciousness of the masses” had not allowed them more effective action during the war!); as for violence and terror, it was better, according to them, not to talk about it: “there are things that we do and that we do not say”! When these four Germans, who, under the crossfire of questions, had already lost some composure, made their appearance in Congress (without top hats!), they were greeted by a storm of indignation![30]

3 – The Essential and the Ancillary of the 2nd Congress

These few introductory remarks are necessarily incomplete, since the minutes of the committees and subcommittees, and even the meetings of the Executive, are still not published (it would be futile to expect the solemn Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute to do so, as it has many other concerns). However, they prove that the tasks imposed on the Bolsheviks by the post-war social crisis were much heavier than they probably expected. The World Communist Congress whose work was about to begin was not that of an army already constituted and which only had to specify its war plans: the troops remaining scattered and disunited, its task was to gather them painfully for a first elementary training. Enthusiasm was great, faith was fierce, the will to fight was immense: but only a strong shaking of the base of bourgeois society could have achieved the miracle (which would not have been the first of those years) of subjecting the various battalions of a heterogeneous vanguard, which Congress had only formally united, to a single strategic and tactical direction. For the time being, they were wavering in front of the centralised command in Moscow, but in the perspective of an extension of the revolution in Europe, it was reasonable to assume that they would succeed in merging with each other and submitting to this command.

Meanwhile, only small groups walked along the same path as the Bolsheviks in October 1917, overcoming their secondary tactical differences: as for the vast majority of those who should have formed the red army of communism and the world proletariat groping in the dark, it needed to be disciplined in theoretical, programmatic, tactical and organisational terms[31].

Although today the failure of this attempt is easy to see, no one has the right to proclaim from the pulpit that it was condemned a priori. Only pedantic philistines can close the book of these fiery days as if they had nothing more to teach us: if they did, the Martin’s Hall meeting would also belong to the Museum of Antiquities.

But if, as in 1864 or 1850, the revolution may have seemed closer in 1920 than it actually was, the greatness of the disciples as pioneers of scientific communism is to have worked, each in their own time, for the future, to have built on the quicksand of the bourgeois cycle that they believed, alas, wrongly, near its end, the theoretical foundations of the future building. Opportunists may well cry out the paradox: the strength of our doctrine lies in its ability to overcome the ups and downs of the moment, even when its representatives fail to do so.

In 1956, with regard to Lenin’s comment to Marx’s letter to Weydemeyer of March 5, 1852, in “State and Revolution” (“Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat “), we wrote in “Dialogue with the Dead” (1957):

“It is quite clear that this is a fundamental principle valid for all periods and all revolutions. All these so-called paths of passage to socialism, which do imply a recognition of the class struggle, but which do not extend it to the dictatorship of the proletariat, are therefore nothing more than opportunism. However, it was above all to opportunism that Lenin fought the war on the theoretical and practical levels during these difficult years.

This original theory of which Marx speaks is not a ‘creative conquest’ of the historical experience of which the communists of today are so fond. Indeed, Marx established it when history had not given any example of dictatorship of the proletariat and even more so of the suppression of the classes. Lenin made it an undeniable principle, shortly after the resounding triumph of the first stable dictatorship, when it remained in the grip of very violent assaults by the enemy and when it was still very far from any historical example of the disappearance of classes and the State, just as it is still the case today.” (p. 33).

Well, what is at the heart of the 2nd Congress is precisely the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, whose recognition – and only its recognition – distinguishes the Marxist “from the small (and even the big) vulgar bourgeois”. It is child’s play to decree today that in 1920, the revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat remained as far apart as in 1852, at the time of Marx’s “forgotten” letter. But Lenin, who came to the podium to recall the ABC of Marxism, did not offer the militants of the time a place reserved for the festival of proletarian dictatorship: he pointed out the path that must necessarily be followed to achieve this dictatorship, for which it was a question of “preparing” hard, day after day, because for all times and for all revolutions, it constituted the “fundamental principle” that must be affirmed in theory and practically applied when the time came. Lenin does not speak only for 1920, nor did Marx speak for the year nineteen before the Paris Commune, because this is not an accessory thing, but an essential and permanent principle.

It is from this perspective that we must look at the 2nd Congress. Without this, it is nothing, but thus considered, it has the scope of a world restoration of revolutionary Marxism engraved in its theses, in its resolutions, in its manifesto to the proletarians of all continents, of all races, of all generations. The revolutionary communist movement is now rekindling a thread that could not fail to break before the strands separated by the war, which had exploded the silent contradictions accumulated during a long peace marked by fictitious conquests, had been painstakingly assembled. Therefore, the small formation that is the heiress of the Left of the time not only has the right, but also the duty to tell young activists to seek under the veil of the hopes, even the illusions of the months we are talking about, the treasure of “impossible communism” of which, whether distant or near, it was then a question of defining the necessary conditions.

Let historians talk about the tactical and organisational expediencies that seem essential to them: this is not what could prevent the communist movement from regressing well below its 1848 level; on the contrary, it is what perpetuated the inadequacies, immaturity and inertia of the past, and that is why these gentlemen, who are opportunists, are so favourable to these expediences. We must return to the path traced by the principles that were then vigorously reaffirmed, the difference between the Bolsheviks who were desperately trying to make them triumph in the immediate future and the Left, who intended to safeguard them for the future, having not prevented the two currents – and they alone – from agreeing on the essential.

4 – A Tough Test Bed

One cannot read without emotion the report of the inaugural meeting of the 2nd Congress, on July 19 in Petrograd, in the same Palace of Taurida where a revolutionary sailor had been able to disperse the Committee by shouting at the deputies:

“It’s late, we’re sleepy, the assembly is dissolved.”

The same applies to the report of the session that brought together congressmen, the Pan-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Moscow Soviet and the Plenum of Trade Unions and Factory Councils and which, on 7 August, marked the end of the work of the Congress, the supreme body of the communist movement.

This emotion was certainly felt by the delegates at the time when they saw the thread broken by the capitulation of opportunism to patriotic ideology being rekindled for the first time since the war. Among them, representing thirty-seven countries, were for the first time communists from the British and Dutch Indies, Turkey and Persia, China and Korea, two countries on the eve of powerful revolutionary upheavals. Gathered in October’s Russia, which had fought tirelessly on all fronts against all enemies during the civil war, they could not fail to feel the solemnity of that moment, whatever their past, the statements they had made or were about to make, the weaknesses that prevented them from joining the Comintern without reservation. They could do so all the less so since the war against Poland, which was then raging and which then seemed victorious, could seem like the prologue to a general class explosion and since the immense Russia, which was fighting hard, not only for itself, but for the proletarians of the whole world, appeared only as one of the theatres of operations of the world class struggle. The Lenin who spoke in the gallery of the Congress was a soldier of the revolution, as were the two Red Guards who framed the podium. The theses and resolutions sounded like war communiqués and the song of the International sprang from the throats of militants who had made every sacrifice for the revolutionary cause. Perhaps no one has made the meaning of these memorable days more tangible for future generations than Trotsky, organiser of the Red Army, when he said in his final speech:

“We know our efforts and our sacrifices, and now the envoys of the working class of the world have become more closely acquainted with them. We must however say that the main reason that we have stood firm is that we felt and knew the growing assistance in Europe, America and every part of the world. Every strike of the Scottish proletariat on the Clyde, every movement in the towns and villages of Ireland, where not only the green flag of Irish nationalism but also the red flag of proletarian struggle is flying, every strike, every protest, every uprising in whatever town in Europe, America or Asia, the powerful movement of Britain’s colonial slaves in India and the growth of the development of consciousness, the growth of one central slogan – the slogan ‘Soviet World Federation’ – that is what gave us the certainty that we are on the right path. That is what, in the darkest hours, when we were surrounded on all sides and it seemed that they would strangle us, permitted us to stand up and say: ‘We are not alone, the proletariat of Europe and Asia and the whole world is with us, we will not give way, we will stand firm.’ And we stood firm.”

“With your hands, comrades, we have fanned a blaze in our Moscow forge. In this blaze we have heated the proletarian steel to white heat, we have worked it with the hammer of our proletarian soviet revolution, we have tempered it with the experience of the civil war and forged a splendid, and incomparable sword for the international proletariat. We will arm ourselves with this sword, we will arm the others with it. We say to the workers of the whole world: ‘We have forged a strong sword in the Moscow fire. Take it in your hands and plunge it into the heart of world capital.’”

In this atmosphere, even a Serrati, who had grown up in the padded atmosphere of a party of parliamentarians and trade union organisers, could call out his wishes at the opening of the congress.

“the day when the proletarian Red Army will no longer be made up solely of Russian proletarians, but of proletarians from all over the world; when all the workers united by the consciousness of the noble ideal of socialism will form a single, great and invincible army“:

even a Levi, trained in the school of a cautious “communist possibilism”, could see in the Polish war the test bed of international solidarity between proletarians, the opportunity for the working class of Germany and other countries to atone for its shameful contribution to the attempt to strangle the revolution in Ukraine and southern Russia. Even a Steinhardt from the warm Viennese cradle of “Austro-Marxism” could call upon the workers of Europe blessed by the League of Nations, with its procession of “heroes of the Second International”, to fight for the defence of proletarian Hungary against which all the forces of the former regime had united, “professional assassins in generals’ uniforms and Christian priests, London bankers and scoundrels of the Romanian aristocracy, French usurers and social traitors from all over the world, black mercenaries and “civilised” representatives of culture”. Even a Gallacher, who had prepared for revolutionary combat in the jealous localism of the shop stewards, could praise the centralised battalions of the world communist army; and all could do so with the same sincerity, with the same ardour as a Marchlevsky or a Raja seasoned by long years of clandestine struggle and white terror in Poland and Finland, as a Roy or a Maring accustomed to the delights of civilisation introduced by the oldest capitalist powers to Asia with cannon fire. The representatives of bourgeois civilisation can smile today at what seems like a vain dream: then, the Quaker Wilson, the Protestant Churchill, the Catholic Poincaré, the Freemason Giolitti, the executioner Noske, the butcher Horty had little reason to smile and in all the chancelleries, we signed each other fearfully every morning!

In the “Moscow Forge”, we were not only working to transform all those militants whom emotion alone would not have been enough to free them from their old perplexity, their old fears, their old routine. We were working for future men, now that the military forces of the counter-revolution were defeated, as later on we faced the even more formidable economic forces that threatened the existence of revolutionary power in Russia. It is up to the “objective” historian to glean from the pages of the gigantic minutes of the Second Congress the controversies concerning tactical subtleties far removed from vital problems. It is up to us to extract its historical significance, their scope going well beyond 1920.

There were 218 delegates from about twenty communist parties, at least as many fractions[32] or currents not yet constituted as parties, para-trade union or trade union organisations, as well as representatives without voting rights of centrist parties in which there was an opportunist leadership and an instinctively revolutionary basis; above, protagonists of each phase of the debate, authors and reporters of all the fundamental theses and resolutions, the delegates of the PCR, much more numerous than the others, to the great scandal of the democrats, already outraged that in Russia the small conscious minority exercised dictatorship in the name of the class, and that the revolution itself has broken out… without prior consultation, and without complying with the Social Democrats’ ukases which claimed that it should start in the advanced West! As if the English and French bourgeoisies had waited in their time for the rest of Europe to follow them to complete their industrial or political revolution, and to proclaim to the world the eternal principles of wage labour and the rights of man and citizen! And as if they had placed themselves at the forefront of a world still entangled in precapitalist relationships by virtue of some verdict of the ballot box, and not by virtue of historical necessity! As if the representatives of parties and groups attracted by the Moscow Pole had not come to the Congress to be told

“fundamental task of combating bourgeois democracy and exposing its falseness and hypocrisy“[33]!

As if, when they arrived, they had not found in the first pages of “The Infantile Disorder” and, from the first to the last line, in “Terrorism and Communism”, the criticism of the foundations of this same democratic, parliamentary, anti-centralist ideology, whose dominant class rocks the dominated class! The rest could be discussed; tactical deductions could be refined and sharpened with the help of communist militants fighting a democracy a thousand times more influential and experienced than the February one in Russia and dominant in a central and capillary way through seduction and mystification. But who could and should have defined the fundamental principles of the world communist movement, the only guarantee of its victory, if not the party that had theoretically armed itself with a struggle of three lustrous years and which, going into violent action, had defeated the enemy, that is, Lenin’s party, a magnificent nursery of theorists and polemicists, agitators and soldiers? Who, apart from it, could claim that these principles were indisputable? In order to make the work of the Second Congress more organic and effective, our organisation had hoped that we would proceed as follows

“first of all, to a general debate on the programmatic principles of communism, setting them in a very precise formulation“, before “coming to the discussion of the various problems of action and tactics that awaited their solution from the Congress“[34].

Had things gone this way, the tactical issues would have presented themselves in a more natural order, they would have been less linked to local problems, less subject to overlapping and unwelcome interference: the tactical debate would therefore have been much more homogeneous, and the approval of decisions would not have taken up the attention that should have been essentially reserved for the prior debate on the principles and programme that distinguished the communists and that they had to accept without discussion.

We considered that if the tactic had to be imperative, it was even more so for the general principles and for the program from which it derives. They were the ones who were to act as a barrier against the spokespersons of parties oscillating between a past of democracy and the revolutionary future, parties which, despite their language and internationalist aspirations, were still attached to their nation and its mystifying traditions, its “culture”.

If it was not so, it was perhaps because it was impossible at the time; the misfortune is that once the time for a better method had passed, things never happened again as they should have. That being said, only opportunist historians can present these fourteen days of congresses, where general sessions and meetings of committees or subcommittees alternate, as a kind of long parliamentary session where tactics would have been decided on the basis of time or place contingencies, particular cases, regardless of principles. In reality, the Second Congress followed the common thread that links theory, final goal, principles, program, and only last but never least, tactics. This is what makes it a historical step in the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat. Yet few felt that it was this thread that needed to be held firmly; too many lost themselves in detailed, local and momentary considerations. It is not surprising that more than fifty years later, historians are even less familiar with it!

5 – Along the Red Thread: Principles, Tasks, Perspectives

On July 19, after having mentioned the communist militants who fell under enemy lead, or arrested by henchmen at the orders of capital, Zinoviev inaugurated the Congress by recalling that the theses on the historical role of “so-called democracy” written a year earlier by Lenin and confirmed by the outburst of white terror throughout the world constituted one of the pillars of the International. He summarises in this way the tasks awaiting the great communist assembly gathered (certainly not by chance) at the headquarters of the Petrograd Soviet:

“just as the Communists, in order to beat the bourgeoisie in their own country, need above all a centralised, powerful, strong party cast all in one piece, so too the time has come to take in hand the creation of such an organisation on the international scale. We are fighting against the international bourgeoisie, against a world of enemies who are armed to the teeth, and we must have an iron international proletarian organisation that is able to beat the enemy everywhere, which must be able to give any one of its troops the greatest possible help at any given moment, which must elaborate the most powerful, flexible and mobile forms of organisation it possibly can in order to face fully armed the enemy it has to fight”

Speaking immediately afterwards, Lenin painted a broad picture of the world situation and imperialist contradictions. According to the ideologues and bourgeois economists themselves, especially Keynes, the end of the war has not diminished these contradictions at all; on the contrary, they exasperate them irresistibly, pushing the proletarians of the imperialist metropoles and the peoples of the colonies to fight with arms in their hands. It is

“It is from this that the international crisis arises, and these economic roots of the crisis are the main reasons for the brilliant successes of the Communist International”[35].

Our task is no longer to “demonstrate” only in theory that there is no way out of such a crisis for global capitalism; it is to demonstrate by

“the practice of the revolutionary parties that they are sufficiently conscious, that they possess sufficient organisation, links with the exploited masses, determination and understanding to utilise this crisis for a successful and victorious revolution”.

The preparation of the communist vanguards of the proletariat for this great task is only just beginning. We need to tell them their direct target:

“Opportunism is our main enemy. The opportunism in the upper layers of the working class is not proletarian but bourgeois socialism. The practical proof of this is the fact that the leaders who belong to the opportunist tendency inside the workers’ movement defend the bourgeoisie better than the bourgeoisie itself. Without their support the bourgeoisie could not defend itself against the workers . This is proved not only by the history of the Kerensky government in Russia but also by the democratic republic in Germany led by its social-democratic government and by Albert Thomas’s relations with his bourgeois government. It is proved by the corresponding experiences in Britain and the United States. Here is our main enemy and we have to defeat this enemy. We must go away from the Congress with the firm resolve to carry on this struggle right to the end in every party. That is our main task.”

In comparison, “this task the correction of the mistakes of the ‘left’ trend in Communism will be an easy one…. a thousand times easierthan the struggle with the bourgeoisie which, in the guise of the reformists, has found its way into the old parties of the Second International and carries out all their work not in the proletarian but in the bourgeois spirit”; this struggle will be crowned by “the unification of the revolutionary proletarians of the advanced capitalist nations with the revolutionary masses of the countries which have no or almost no proletariat, with the oppressed masses of the Eastern colonial countries “; for imperialism cannot fail to collapse

“when the revolutionary impetus of the exploited and subjugated workers inside each country defeats the opposition of the petty-bourgeois elements and the influence of the numerically small aristocracy of labour, and unites with the revolutionary pressure of the hundreds of millions of people who previously stood outside history and were only regarded as its object”

In this perspective:

“With pride we can say: at the first Congress we were only really propagandists. We sketched the basic ideas, the call to struggle to the international proletariat. We asked merely: where are the people to feel capable of taking this path? Now the advanced proletariat everywhere is on our side. Everywhere there are proletarian armies, even if they are poorly organised and in need of reorganisation. And if our comrades internationally help us to create a unified army, no shortcomings can hold us back from our intention. This work is the cause of the proletarian world revolution, the work of creating the world Soviet Republic.”

Lenin’s speech was brief and sharp: in paragraphs I and II of his “Theses on Fundamental Tasks”, he hammered out the principles and program without which there can be no “single proletarian army” on the way to its historical objective. Here is an excerpt, which is a slap in the face to the philistines of yesterday, today and tomorrow[36].

I. The Essence of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Soviet Power

“2. The victory of socialism (as the first stage of communism) over capitalism requires that the proletariat, as the only really revolutionary class, shall accomplish the following three tasks. First—overthrow the exploiters, and first and foremost the bourgeoisie, as their principal economic and political representative; utterly rout them; crush their resistance; absolutely preclude any attempt on their part to restore the yoke of capital and wage-slavery. Second—win over and bring under the leadership of the Communist Party, the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat, not only the entire proletariat, or its vast majority, but all who labour and are exploited by capital; educate, organise, train and discipline them in the actual course of a supremely bold and ruthlessly firm struggle against the exploiters; wrest this vast majority of the population in all the capitalist countries from dependence on the bourgeoisie; imbue it, through its own practical experience, with confidence in the leading role of the proletariat and of its revolutionary vanguard. Third—neutralise, or render harmless, the inevitable vacillation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, between bourgeois democracy and Soviet power, to be seen in the class of petty proprietors in agriculture, industry and commerce—a class which is still fairly numerous in nearly all advanced countries, although comprising only a minority of the population—as well as in the stratum of intellectuals, salary earners, etc., which corresponds to this class.

3. In the concrete situation created throughout the world, and above all in the most advanced, powerful, enlightened and free capitalist countries, by militarism, imperialism, the oppression of colonies and weak countries, the world wide imperialist butchery and the “Peace” of Versailles—in that situation the very idea of the capitalists peacefully submitting to the will of the majority of the exploited, the very idea of a peaceful, reformist transition to socialism, is not merely sheer philistine stupidity but also down right deception of the workers, embellishment of capitalist wage-slavery, and concealment of the truth. That truth consists in the bourgeoisie, even the most enlightened and democratic, no longer hesitating at any fraud or crime, even the massacre of millions of workers and peasants, so as to preserve private ownership of the means of production. Only the forcible overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the confiscation of its property, the destruction of the entire bourgeois state apparatus from top to bottom—parliamentary. judicial, military, bureaucratic, administrative, municipal, etc.—right down to the wholesale deportation or internment of the most dangerous and stubborn exploiters and the institution of strict surveillance over them so as to foil their inevitable attempts to resist and to restore capitalist slavery—only such measures can ensure real submission of the whole class of exploiters.

On the other hand, the idea, common among the old parties and the old leaders of the Second International, that the majority of the exploited toilers can achieve complete clarity of socialist consciousness and firm socialist convictions and character under capitalist slavery, under the yoke of the bourgeoisie (which assumes an infinite variety of forms that become more subtle and at the same time more brutal and ruthless the higher the cultural level in a given capitalist country) is also idealisation of capitalism and of bourgeois democracy, as well as deception of the workers. In fact, it is only after the vanguard of the proletariat, supported by the whole or the majority of this, the only revolutionary class, overthrows the exploiters, suppresses them, emancipates the exploited from their state of slavery and-immediately improves their conditions of life at the expense of the expropriated capitalists—it is only after this, and only in the actual process of an acute class struggle, that the masses of the toilers and exploited can be educated, trained and organised around the proletariat under whose influence and guidance, they can get rid of the selfishness, disunity, vices and weaknesses engendered by private property; only then will they be converted into a free union of free workers.

4. Victory over capitalism calls for proper relations between the leading (Communist) party, the revolutionary class (the proletariat) and the masses, i.e., the entire body of the toilers and the exploited. Only the Communist Party, if it is really the vanguard of the revolutionary class, if it really comprises all the finest representatives of that class, if it consists of fully conscious and staunch Communists who have been educated and steeled by the experience of a persistent revolutionary struggle, and if it has succeeded in linking itself inseparably with the whole life of its class and, through it, with the whole mass of the exploited, and in completely winning the confidence of this class and this mass—only such a party is capable of leading the proletariat in a final, most ruthless and decisive struggle against all the forces of capitalism. On the other hand, it is only under the leadership of such a party that the proletariat is capable of displaying the full might of its revolutionary onslaught, and of overcoming the inevitable apathy and occasional resistance of that small minority, the labour aristocracy, who have been corrupted by capitalism, the old trade union and co-operative leaders, etc.—only then will it be capable of displaying its full might, which, because of the very economic structure of capitalist society, is infinitely greater than its proportion of the population. Finally, it is only after they have been really emancipated from the yoke of the bourgeoisie and of the bourgeois machinery of state, only after they have found an opportunity of organising in their Soviets in a really free way (free from the exploiters), that the masses, i.e., the toilers and exploited as a body, can display, for the first time in history, all the initiative and energy of tens of millions of people who have been crushed by capitalism. Only when the Soviets have become the sole state apparatus is it really possible to ensure the participation, in the work of administration, of the entire mass of the exploited, who, even under the most enlightened and freest bourgeois democracy, have always actually been excluded 99 per cent from participation in the work of administration […]”

II. How to Organise the Immediate and General Preparation of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat?

“5. The present stage in the development of the international communist movement is marked by the fact that in the vast majority of capitalist countries, the proletariat’s preparations to effect its dictatorship have not been completed, and, in many cases, have not even been systematically begun. From this it does not, however, follow that the proletarian revolution is impossible in the immediate future; it is perfectly possible, since the entire economic and political situation is most inflammable and abounds in causes of a sudden flare-up; the other condition for revolution, apart from the proletariat’s preparedness, viz., a general state of crisis in all the ruling and in all bourgeois parties, also exists. However, it does follow that the Communist Parties’ current task consists not in accelerating the revolution, but in intensifying the preparation of the proletariat. On the other hand, the facts cited above from the history of many socialist parties make it incumbent on us to see that “recognition” of the dictatorship of the proletariat shall not remain a more matter of words.

Hence, from the point of view of the international proletarian movement, it is the Communist parties ’ principal task at the present moment to unite the scattered Communist forces, to form a single Communist Party in every country (or to reinforce or renovate the already existing Party) in order to increase tenfold the work of preparing the proletariat for the conquest of political power—political power, moreover, in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. […]

6. The proletariat’s conquest of political power does not put a stop to its class struggle against the bourgeoisie; on the contrary, it renders that struggle most widespread, intense and ruthless. Owing to the extreme intensification of the struggle all groups, parties and leaders in the working-class movement who have fully or partly adopted the stand of reformism, of the “Centre”, etc., inevitably side with the bourgeoisie or join the waverers, or else (what is the most dangerous of all) land in the ranks of the unreliable friends of the victorious proletariat. Hence, preparation for the dictatorship of the proletariat calls, not only for an intensification of the struggle against reformist and “Centrist” tendencies, but also for a change in the character of that struggle. The struggle cannot be restricted to explaining the erroneousness of these tendencies; it must unswervingly and ruthlessly expose any leader of the working-class movement who reveals such tendencies, for otherwise the proletariat cannot know who it will march with into the decisive struggle against the bourgeoisie. This struggle is such that at any moment it may—and actually does, as experience has shown—substitute criticism with weapons for the weapon of criticism. Any inconsistency or weakness in exposing those who show themselves to be reformists or “Centrists” means directly increasing the danger of the power of the proletariat being overthrown by the bourgeoisie, which tomorrow will utilise for the counter-revolution that which short-sighted people today see merely as “theoretical difference”.

7. In particular, we must not restrict ourselves to the usual repudiation, in principle, of all collaboration between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, of all “collaborationism”. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, which will never be able, at one stroke, to abolish private property completely, mere defence of “liberty”’ and “equality”, while private ownership of the means of production is preserved, turns into “collaboration” with the bourgeoisie, and undermines the rule of the working class. The dictatorship of the proletariat means that the state uses its whole machinery of power to uphold and perpetuate “no-liberty” for the exploiters to continue their oppression and exploitation, “inequality” between the owner of property (i.e., one who has appropriated for himself certain means of production created by social labour) and the non-owner. That which, prior to the victory of the proletariat, seems merely a theoretical difference on the question of “democracy” inevitably becomes, on the day following victory, a question that is settled by force of arms. Consequently, even preliminary work in preparing the masses to effect the dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible without a radical change in the entire character of the struggle against the “Centrists” and the “champions of democracy “.

8. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the most determined and revolutionary form of the proletariat’s class struggle against the bourgeoisie. This struggle can be successful only when the most revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat has the backing of the overwhelming majority of the proletariat. Hence, preparation for the dictatorship of the proletariat entails not only explanation of the bourgeois character of all reformism, of all defence of democracy, while private ownership of the means of production is preserved; it entails, not only exposure of such trends, which are in fact a defence of the bourgeoisie within the labour movement; it also calls for old leaders being replaced by Communists in proletarian organisations of absolutely every type—not only political, but also trade union, co-operative, educational, etc. The more complete, lengthy and firmly established the rule of bourgeois democracy has been in a given country, the more the bourgeoisie will have succeeded in securing the appointment to such leading posts of people whose minds have been moulded by it and imbued with its views and prejudices, and who have very often been directly or indirectly bought by it. These representatives of the labour aristocracy, bourgeoisified workers, should be ousted from all their posts a hundred times more sweepingly than hitherto, and replaced by workers—even by wholly inexperienced men, provided they are connected with the exploited masses and enjoy their confidence in the struggle against the exploiters. The dictatorship of the proletariat will require the appointment of such inexperienced workers to the most responsible posts in the state; otherwise the workers’ government will be impotent and will not have the support of the masses.”

It is from these general principles that the practical tasks that will later be specified in the “Conditions of Admission” and in such other specific “Theses” flow: revolutionary action in parliament, revolutionary action in trade unions, support for revolutionary movements in the colonies, revolutionary propaganda in the army, combining legal and illegal work, strengthening the revolutionary press, etc.

This was – or should have been – the lowest common denominator of all communist parties, but the rest of the congress and subsequent events showed only too much resistance to the full and unconditional acceptance of these tasks in all countries. For us, as “abstentionists”, they constituted a minimum to be accepted without reservation, not only as a general basic programme, but as a practical application of this programme. Differences over abstention or participation in elections were not very significant compared to this. Many of those who voted for these theses abstained from voting what was their logical coronation and which, already clear in paragraph III, was made even more explicit in the “Conditions of Admission”: who was for Lenin, and who was against? Full agreement on the principles and the agenda – which we have already demonstrated on several occasions – could force us to submit to international discipline even on points of tactics that did not seem organically linked to them; on the other hand, maximalism, in all its forms, had to push back both the principles and the agenda, because they excluded any relaxation of the limits, however generously “expanded”, that the tactics must not exceed. Maximalism preferred to come to the aid of those who sometimes yield “half-unconsciously to the wishes and pressure of the masses, and some deliberately deceiving the masses in order to retain their function of agents and assistants of the bourgeoisie within the working-class movement—declare their qualified or even unqualified adherence to the Third International, while actually remaining in all their practical party and political work, on the level of the Second International”,

thus perpetuating a state of affairs that the Theses define as

“absolutely intolerable, because it leads to downright corruption of the masses, detracts from the Third International’s prestige, and threatens a repetition of the same acts of treachery as were perpetrated by the Hungarian Social-Democrats, who so hastily assumed the title of Communists”

Even if it meant pushing back the ABCs of communism as summarised in Lenin’s theses, maximalism intended to save these people. How could it have been convinced by the invective of the CI Executive during the trip from Petrograd to Moscow and the four days left for reflection between 19 and 23 July, since neither the six months nor the years that followed were enough to change its mind? When a year later, the CI renewed its vain attempt to recover at least one wing of the Italian Socialist Party formed by allegedly repentant sinners, the Left was therefore quite correct in writing:

“Every mechanism has its own functional law, which cannot be violated. A thesis similar to the one that demonstrates the impossibility of seizing the apparatus of the bourgeois state to use it for the purposes of the proletarian class and socialist construction proves, with multiple confirmations in reality, that the structure of the pre-war social-democratic parties, with its parliamentary and trade union functions, cannot be transformed into the structure of the revolutionary class party, the organ for conquering dictatorship.”[37]

6 – Along the Red Thread: Party and International

When the Congress resumed its sessions in Moscow on July 23, another central point of communist doctrine, namely the nature of the party and its task of preparing for the revolutionary assault, conquering power and exercising it dictatorially, was discussed before the delegates for them to assimilate it and with them, not only the workers they represented, but communist militants from all over the world.

The question was a burning one since the International had summoned to Moscow representatives of workers’ organisations and parties who were known to underestimate or even deny the leading, if not decisive, role of the political party in proletarian revolution, thereby denying the class dictatorship, unless it was emptied of any content; Moreover, as can be seen from the preceding pages, it had reason to believe that this thesis was not entirely clear even to some Comintern members who, although claiming to be communists, were hesitant and reluctant to hear it strongly reaffirmed.

The theses written by Zinoviev were approved with secondary variants; we reproduce them in their final version with a brief commentary showing that they developed point by point the same questions of principle as the “Il Soviet” since the beginning of its publications in December 1918.

Theses on the Role of the Communist Party in Proletarian Revolution

(French translation revised from the “Protokoll des II. Weltkongresses der Kommunistischen Internationale”, Hamburg 1921, Feltrinelli Reprint.)

“The world proletariat is on the eve of decisive struggles. The time we live in is a time of open civil wars. The decisive hour is approaching. Soon, in all countries where there is a major labour movement, the working class will have to wage a series of fierce battles with weapons in hand. More than ever, at this time, the working class needs a solid organisation. It must tirelessly prepare for this decisive struggle, without wasting a single hour of precious time.

If during the Paris Commune (1871) the working class had had a Communist Party, even a small one, but firmly organised, the first heroic insurrection of the French proletariat would have been much stronger and would have avoided many errors and faults. The battle awaiting the proletariat today, in a different historical situation, will be more serious in consequences than the one of 1871.

The 2nd World Congress of the Communist International therefore draws the attention of revolutionary workers all over the world to the following:

1. The Communist Party is a fraction of the working class and of course it is the most advanced, most conscious and, therefore, most revolutionary fraction. It is formed by the spontaneous selection of the most conscious, dedicated and clairvoyant workers. The Communist Party has no different interests from those of the working class. The Communist Party differs from the great mass of workers only by the fact that it has a general vision of the historical course of the working class and that, at all the turning points of this course, it defends not the interests of particular categories or groups, but those of the working class as a whole. The Communist Party constitutes the organising and political force with the help of which the most advanced fraction of the working class leads the proletarian and semi-proletarian masses in the right direction.

2. As long as the proletariat has not conquered political power, as long as it has not definitively ensured its domination and made bourgeois restoration impossible, the Communist Party will only include a minority of workers in its organised ranks. Until the seizure of power and in the period of transition, the Communist Party can, under favourable circumstances, exert an undisputed ideological and political influence on all proletarian and semi-proletarian strata of the population, but it cannot welcome them and organise them into its ranks. Only when the proletarian dictatorship has wrested from the bourgeoisie such powerful means of influence as the press, school, parliament, church, administration, etc., it is only when the definitive defeat of the bourgeois order has become obvious to all, that all or almost all workers will begin to enter the ranks of the Communist Party.

3. The notions of party and class must be distinguished with the greatest care. The members of the “Christian” and liberal trade unions in Germany, England and other countries undoubtedly belong to the working class. The more or less considerable workers’ groups that still follow the Scheidemann, Gompers and others, undoubtedly belong to the working class. Under certain historical conditions, it is very possible that many reactionary tendencies may emerge in the working class. The task of communism is not to adapt to these backward elements of the working class, but to raise the entire working class to the level of the communist vanguard. The confusion between these two notions – party and class – can lead to the most serious mistakes and misunderstandings. It is, for example, obvious that the Workers Party had to, despite the prejudices and state of mind of part of the working class during the imperialist war, rise up against these prejudices and state of mind at all costs, in the name of the historical interests of the proletariat which required its Party to declare war on war.

Thus, for example, at the beginning of the imperialist war of 1914, the social- traitor Parties of all countries, supporting “their” respective bourgeoisies, did not fail to justify their conduct by invoking the will of the working class. They forgot, in doing so, that if even this had been the case, the task of the Proletarian Party in such a situation would have been to oppose the state of mind of the majority of the workers and to defend all the historical interests of the proletariat. Thus, at the end of the 20th century, the Mensheviks of the time (those called “economists”) repudiated the open political struggle against Tsarism because, they said, the working class as a whole was not yet in a position to understand the necessity of the political struggle.

In the same way, right-wing independents in Germany justify their hesitations and half-measures by the “desires of the masses” – without understanding that the Party is there precisely to precede the masses and show them the way”.

With vigorous clarity, these first paragraphs mark a milestone in the struggle waged for decades by communism against any democratic mystification so that the authoritarian and centralist, and therefore anti-autonomist and anti-popular characters of the dictatorship of the proletariat (and therefore essentially of the party, its governing body), can be openly proclaimed. Designed to delimit unequivocally the position of the Marxist communists from that of the revisionists, both on the right (reformists, social democrats, labourists) and on the left (syndicalist-revolutionaries, anarchists), they correspond step by step with the views of our Faction, and are of fundamental historical importance, especially today when the worst petty bourgeois opportunism rules everywhere.

Defining the party as the “organ” and not, unlike Zinoviev’s, as a “part” of the class, the Left’s theses had the advantage of better defining its nature and function (but the conception was basically the same), avoiding a misunderstanding whose future will show the danger, when one begins to seek the revolutionary essence of the party in its social composition (as if one could equate the militant workers in its ranks with the others, and assign them the same importance) and thus to attenuate the qualitative difference existing between the party, depositary of a doctrine and program embracing the entire historical course of proletarian emancipation and its final goals, and the class considered from a statistical and static point of view. Certainly the author of the above-mentioned theses and the Bolsheviks in general did not make such mistakes, as each of the paragraphs proves. But the so-called “Bolshevism” which, a few years later, would claim to ensure and preserve a revolutionary and Marxist physiognomy for the party by giving it as a basis factory cells and nuclei exclusively composed