Minutes of the Second Congress of the Communist International
The Second Congress of the Third (Communist) International was one of the great milestones in the history of the international working class. Under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, it united those forces throughout the world who had taken up the banner of the October Revolution. In its discussions, the main principles of Communism were hammered out; its economic and political analysis and its philosophical method, dialectical materialism, were all elaborated. Fifty-six years of gigantic changes notwithstanding, these principles remain the only basis on which the working class can and must resolve its crisis of leadership and thus the crisis of humanity; for we still live in the same historical epoch as the delegates who gathered in Petrograd in July, 1920, the epoch of the socialist revolution.
The resolutions and theses of the Congress are of tremendous value to the revolutionary movement. But in the full proceedings even more can be found. The first four Congresses of the Communist International, held each year from 1919 to 1922, were characterised by the sharpest controversy and the fullest discussion, in complete contrast to the stage-managed unanimity of the Comintern in its Stalinist phase. Not only the doctrine of Bolshevism, but the method of struggle for it is displayed in these debates.
To Lenin and the Bolsheviks, from August 1914 it was a vital necessity to form a new International to replace the Second International. The old social-democratic parties had shown themselves to be utterly corroded with opportunism, as the leaders rushed to join their respective ruling classes in the imperialist slaughter. Lenin above all had grasped what was expressed in this collapse of the Second International: that capitalism had reached its highest stage, imperialism, ‘the eve of the world-wide socialist revolution’. A Third International was required, not just to take up the tasks abandoned by the opportunist and centrist leaders, but to prepare the leadership for the world revolution.
The victory of the working class in Russia in October, 1917, was seen only in this light. Knowing that the Russian Revolution was part of the world crisis, the Bolsheviks could take the decision for insurrection. After that, the future of the revolution depended on the spread of the dictatorship of the proletariat to the rest of the world.
The revolutionary upsurge in every continent which followed 1917 entirely confirmed the correctness of this decision. But this movement had to be consciously reflected in the establishment of Communist Parties with deep roots in the masses. That is why the defence of the Soviet state was inseparable from the building of the Communist International, ‘World Party of Socialist Revolution’.
This consideration determined the way the struggles at the Congresses of the Communist International were conducted. The task was essentially to establish the international character of the October Revolution, the history, theory and method of Bolshevism. Each delegate to the Second Congress was presented with copies of two books: Lenin’s Left-Wing Communism and Trotsky’s Terrorism and Communism: in each of these, the author attempted to distil the essence of Bolshevism and of Soviet power, and put it at the disposal of the international working class.
For this essence to be brought into the consciousness of revolutionary parties, the issues had to be fought out in the context of the actual struggles in which the working class was engaged. Only by struggling to grasp the developments taking place in the class struggle, as expressed in the most advanced layers of the revolutionary class in each country, could Marxist theory be developed. That is why the work of the Russian delegates in these debates is characterised by the combination of rock-like firmness on theoretical questions, and great flexibility and unbounded patience in explaining them.
The enemies of communism have tried to depict the position of the Russians in the Comintern, and especially at its Second Congress, as one of ‘dictatorship’, finding in Lenin’s leadership the basis for Stalin’s later bureaucratic caricature. This view is not merely false: it is a deliberate attempt to defend the opportunism of all anti-communist trends in the labour movement. As Trotsky explained:
Adherence to the International is not a matter of fulfilling international etiquette but of undertaking revolutionary fighting tasks. For this reason it cannot in any case be based on omissions, misunderstandings or ambiguities. The Communist International contemptuously rejects all those conventionalities which used to entangle relations within the Second International from top to bottom; and which had as their mainstay this, that the leaders of each national party pretended not to notice the opportunist, chauvinist declarations and actions of other national parties, with the expectation that the latter would repay in the same coin. The reciprocal relations among the national ‘Socialist’ parties were only a shabby counterpart of the relations among the bourgeois diplomats in the era of armed peace. Precisely for this reason, no sooner had the capitalist generals thrust capitalist diplomacy aside, than the conditional diplomatic falsehood of the ‘fraternal’ parties of the Second International was supplanted by the naked militarism of its leaders. (The First Five Years of de Communist International, Vol. I, pp. 112-3)
Soon after its Founding Congress, Lenin had summed up the place of the Communist International in history:
The First International (1864-72) laid the foundation of the proletarian, international struggle for Socialism.
The period of the Second International (1889-1914) was a period of preparation of the soil for the broad, the mass spread of the movement in a number of countries.
The Third International gathered the fruits of the work of the Second International, discarded its opportunist, social-chauvinist, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois dross and has begun to realise the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The international revolutionary alliance of the parties which are leading the most revolutionary movement in the world, the movement of the proletariat for the overthrow of the yoke of capital, now rests on an unprecedentedly firm base in the shape of several Soviet republics, which are giving embodiment to the dictatorship of the proletariat, and to its victory over capitalism on an international scale.
When the delegates had assembled in Moscow for the First Congress of the Communist International in March 1919, the International was little more than a collection of propaganda groups. Only a few of those present represented actually functioning parties. Apart from the Russians, the only important one was the newly-formed German Communist Party, and they had sent Eberlein with a mandate to oppose the formation of the International at that time. (He was persuaded to abstain.) What the Congress accomplished was to clarify the meaning of the split in the world workers’ movement.
The opening of the Second Congress, only sixteen months later, saw a completely changed situation. In several countries, Communist Parties were now functioning. Despite many weaknesses, they had brought together the best elements in the working class and among the intellectuals and youth. In all, twenty-one Communist Parties were represented at the Congress.
Most important was the presence of representatives from several Asian countries. In the Second International, while lip-service had been paid to international solidarity with colonial peoples, nothing had ever been done to organise the fight for socialism outside the advanced capitalist countries. It was a sign of the new stage reached in the world revolution, that the Russian revolution had attracted the support of workers and peasants in colonial countries for communism.
Although the immediate post-war wave of revolution had subsided, the crisis of world capitalism was clear for all to see. Central to this was the survival of the Soviet state, beating off the onslaught of the armies of imperialism and its agents, with the aid of workers in many countries. As the Congress met, the Red Army was throwing back the Polish Army, sent against Russia with the backing of Anglo-French imperialism. A large map, wing the daily advance of the Red Army, was displayed in the Congress hall.
The task of the First Congress had been to bring into a unified organisation all those who had broken with reformism and who wanted to bring about the spread of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The question facing the Second Congress was how to bring under the leadership of Communism those masses of workers who, while sympathising with the Russian Revolution, still followed right-wing and centrist leaders.
In his speech on ‘The Basic Tasks of the Communist International’, at the opening session (July 19), Lenin warned against assuming that the world capitalist crisis would by itself lead to the collapse of capitalism. ‘We must now “prove” through 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 this “proof” is the main reason why we have gathered here for this Congress of the Communist International.'
This meant that the fight had to be waged against opportunism and centrism, not only in the workers’ movement as a whole, but especially within the parties which had applied to join the Communist International. Opportunism and centrism had a material basis: ‘[It is] because the more advanced countries made and make their culture possible at the expense of thousands of millions of oppressed people... The disease is protracted, its cure has taken a long time, longer than the optimists could have hoped for.’ (pp. 27-28.) The fight against ‘leftist’ tendencies was a subordinate part of this struggle: ‘Opportunism is our main enemy ... the correction of the errors of the “left” trend in communism will be an easy one.’ This emphasis is maintained throughout the Congress.
The delegations to the Congress were not all Communist. Also invited – to the annoyance of some of the ‘lefts’ – were representatives of three centrist organisations, the USPI) from Germany, the French Socialist Party and the Italian Socialist Party. When the ‘leftist’ Wijnkoop challenged the right of the first two of these to take part in the Congress as observers, he was sharply put in his place. Nothing must stand in the way of the fight to destroy centrism.
To secure the presence of delegations officially representing the French and German centrist parties, long and careful work had been carried out. The success of this operation was possible because of the pressure of masses of workers on the leaderships of these organisations. Forced to break with the Second International, the centrist leaders had come to Moscow to obtain, they thought, a deal from the Bolsheviks: give us the right to our opportunism at home, they wanted to tell Lenin and Trotsky, and we shall make speeches about communism.
It was not just a matter of rejecting and exposing this proposition. What had to be done was to release whole layers of the European working class from the swamp of centrism. As this was one of the main tasks of the Second Congress, it is worth looking more closely at the development of the German and French parties, as well as at the related position of the Italian Socialist Party.
The Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) had broken from the Social-Democratic Party (SPD) in 1917. It included in its ranks a wide range of political tendencies. Some of its leaders, notably Kautsky, Bernstein and Hilferding, differed only slightly from the open class-collaborators who had led the SPD into support for German imperialism in 1914. On the left wing, grouped around Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and Leo Jogiches, were the Spartacists, opposing the war as revolutionary internationalists. While they held positions close to those of the Bolsheviks, they did not grasp the need to break organisationally with centrism, and only formed the Communist Party (KPD) in the last days of 1918, when the German revolution was already under way.
Between these tendencies, however, were important groups of workers, including the militant shop stewards’ movement (revolutionäre Obleute). In the course of the overthrow of the old regime in November 1918, the attachment of these men to the USPD was crucial. The USPD leaders had joined the SPD in a ‘Council of People’s Representatives’. At the decisive moments of the revolution, when the right-wing leaders were working to prevent the destruction of the capitalist state, the connections of the USPD with the factories was vital to give the Council the necessary authority. Only thus was the power handed back to the Junkers and the General Staff. When they had been used in this way, the USPD leaders broke with the Council, in December, 1918.
The KPD was formed only after this, merging the Spartacists with other groups outside the USPD. The new party was marked by the deepest confusion, and at its founding conference the Spartacist leaders were swamped by leftist and adventurist tendencies. Otherwise, it might have been possible to win over a far larger section of the USPD ranks.
The problems of the KPD were intensified when its three main leaders, Luxemburg, Liebknecht and Jogiches, were murdered just after the Party was formed. Paul Levi, one of Rosa’s supporters, took over the leadership, and managed to overcome some of the leftist errors, including the decision to boycott parliamentary elections. In October, 1919, he manoeuvred to drive one section of the ultra-left out of the Party, later to become the KAPD (Communist Workers’ Party). But the fight against leftism was still not over.
In March, 1920, the working class defeated the attempted coup by General Lüttwitz and the Prussian civil servant Kapp, in a movement of greater revolutionary activity than 1919. To the despair of Levi, at that time in prison, the KPD leaders issued a call in opposition to the general strike, which mobilised the mass of German workers. (The directive was ignored by the organisations of the Party, and soon reversed.)
Meanwhile, the USPD had grown in numbers and influence. By the time of the Second Congress it had 800,000 members, to the KPD’s 50,000. Among these workers, revolutionary ideas were widespread, especially support for the Russian Revolution. During late 1919 and 1920, the issue of affiliation of the USPD to the Communist International became the major question facing the party.
The leaders had worked hard to find a form of international centrist collaboration. At the USPD Congress in Leipzig in November-December 1919, a formula was worked out which called for ‘a united proletarian International’, and the entry into negotiations with ‘the Third International and the social-revolutionary parties of other countries’. The left wing, which opposed this attempt to avoid straight affiliation to the International, did however declaring his agreement with communism. Not until the following year did the PSI finally expel Turati, and apply for re-affiliation to the Communist International. By that time, fascism had its boot on the neck of the Italian working class.
The debates over the Conditions for Entry into the Communist International were therefore far from a formality. The Bolsheviks aimed to bring into the ranks of Communism all those workers confused by the centrists, while at the same time excluding the centrist leaders who were only disguised opportunists. That is why – to the bewilderment of men like Wijnkoop – the USPD and the SFIO were both represented on the Commission drawing up the Conditions. When it appeared that some centrist leaders might have crept through the original 19 Conditions, two extra points were added. One insisted that a majority of the leadership of a Communist Party must be in the hands of those who fought for affiliation to the Communist International; the other demanded the expulsion of anyone who rejected the Conditions in principle. The debates on these Conditions enabled the Bolsheviks to cut the centrists to pieces. (July 29, 30.)
The proceedings show how far many of the delegates were from under standing what the Bolsheviks were fighting for. We have already mentioned the opposition of Wijnkoop. But he was by no means alone. He himself mentions his ‘mistakes’ in the Amsterdam Bureau. This had been set up by the Executive Committee of the Communist International, with Wijnkoop as its secretary. But it had been dissolved before the Second Congress, when it was found to be operating as a factional centre for the ‘leftists’.
Two different ‘left’ trends emerge from the Congress. Wijnkoop represents those who tend to see the International only as an organisation of propaganda sects, and this includes some of those who had supported the formation of the Communist International right from the start. These people are firmly put down whenever they rear their heads.
But there was another quite different tendency on the left. Characterised by youthful impatience, this group’s syndicalism or even semi-anarchism reflected revolutionary currents in the working class. Lenin in particular takes great care with these people, while never giving them the slightest concession.
For example, when the issue comes up of the affiliation of a British Communist Party to the Labour Party, there is no question that Lenin and the Bolsheviks favour the position of the British Socialist Party (BSP) for affiliation.
But in his speech on the question (Session of July 23), Lenin goes out of his way to criticise the BSP and to praise the syndicalist speakers – with whom he disagreed – as genuine representatives of the British workers. When Tanner tells the Congress that he is opposed to political parties in the working class, Lenin tries to persuade him that the National Advisory Council of the Shop Stewards Movement, which sent Tanner and his friends to the Congress, is already a step towards a party.
But the conclusion of the speech is unequivocal: if the British communists cannot reach agreement on the issue of Labour Party affiliation, it would be better to form two Communist Parties, until experience had shown the correctness of the International’s viewpoint, Lenin says. For what was at stake was the fight to place the Communist Party into the closest connection with the living movement of the working class.
In the discussions on the National and Colonial Question (Sessions of July 25 and July 28), the same relationship between principles and concrete struggle is expressed. The Theses, drafted by Lenin, open by condemning the hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy, which starts with an abstract and formal idea of equality, and turns it into an instrument for maintaining oppression. Instead, communists had to analyse each situation concretely.
The main issue for Lenin was the bringing together of the workers and peasants of all countries for the overthrow of the capitalists and landlords. This meant uniting the national liberation struggles in colonial and semicolonial countries with the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the defence of the Soviet state. The Theses draw on the experience of Soviet Republics in Central Asia in this respect.
In his original draft, Lenin had called for communists to support the ‘bourgeois-national movements’ against imperialism. In the Commission, this had been contested, and agreement was reached on the use of the term ‘national-revolutionary’, instead of ‘bourgeois-national’. This was not some verbal trick, but an attempt by Lenin to develop the understanding of the movement in the light of the discussions with the Asian delegates.
Similarly, he agrees with the unanimous decision of the Commission to recommend acceptance of both his Theses, as amended, and those of the Indian M.N. Roy. As Lenin says in his speech: ‘The latter were framed chiefly from the standpoint of the situation in India and other big Asian countries oppressed by British imperialism. Herein lies their great importance for us.'
The same method is displayed in the discussions on Parliament (August 2), Trades Unions (August 3) and the Agrarian Question (August 4). In each case, it is not a matter of formulating abstract doctrine in the head, but of drawing out of the living experience of struggle the general principles to guide the work of communists. It is particularly instructive to contrast the speech of Lenin on Parliament with Bordiga’s formalism.
The attitude of the American delegates to trade union work parallels that of the British to the Labour Party. Neither the Communist Party of America, nor the Communist Labour Party had engaged in work within the American Federation of Labour. despite appeals for them to do so from the Executive Committee of the Communist International Even after the Congress, John Reed in particular was opposed to such an attitude to the AFL.
The most important result of the Second Congress was that it set up a functioning centralised organisation. Despite all the problems and weaknesses which remained, the principle that revolutionary parties had to be built, as
sections of a World Party, was accepted and acted upon. In the Statutes and the Conditions for Entry, as well as all the other resolutions and Theses agreed by the Congress, the conception of revolutionary internationalism was basic, and shown to be vital for all Marxist work in the epoch of imperialism.
Only by basing itself on the experience of a centralised International could a communist leadership develop its understanding of the tasks facing the working class in any country. It is this conclusion that inspires the Manifesto, drafted and presented by Trotsky (August 8), and which ends with the call:
In all his work, whether as leader of a revolutionary uprising, or as Organizer of underground groups, as secretary of a trade union, or as agitator at mass meetings, as member of parliament or co-operative worker or barricade fighter, the communist always remains true to himself as a disciplined member of the Communist Party, an unrelenting fighter, a mortal enemy of capitalist society, its economic foundation, its State forms, its democratic lies, its religion and its morality. He is a self-sacrificing soldier of the proletarian revolution and an untiring herald of the new society.
Working men and women! On this earth there is only one banner under which it is worth fighting and dying: it is the banner of the Communist International.
And in the subsequent twenty years, many thousands did fight and die under that banner, even after it had fallen into the hands of the counter-revolutionary bureaucracy, and the ideas inscribed upon it corrupted and distorted out of all recognition.
In 1943, Stalin formally dissolved the Comintern. But this act – carried out to cement the alliance of the Soviet bureaucracy with Anglo-American imperialism – came ten years after the World Party founded by the leaders of the Russian Revolution had ceased to exist, and after most of those leaders had been destroyed by Stalin’s thugs.
After the German working class had been handed over to Nazism by the treacherous policies of Stalinism, a new International, the Fourth, had to be built, if the lessons of the Third were not to be lost. Founded in the period of defeats and betrayals, it is the only continuator of the struggle for communism. As imperialism is now plunged into its deepest-ever crisis, the Fourth International, organised by the International Committee, can and must bring into the class battles of today all the experience of the fight for the principles of Communism, against Stalinism and its revisionist conciliators.
Never before has it been so vital for the working class to have at its disposal the theory, strategy and tactics which will enable it to mobilise its strength as a historical force. Never before have such conditions existed for the struggle for Marxism and the construction of revolutionary parties.
The proceedings of the Second Congress of the Communist International contain a wealth of material which will be used in the training of the cadres who will lead the socialist revolution.
Editor, New Park Publications