Executive Committee of the Communist International
Source: The Communist International, No. 16-17, 1921, p. 30 (550 words)
Transcription: Ted Crawford
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Five members, of the Central Committee of the United Communist Party of Germany have left the Central Committee in consequence of their disapproval of the position taken by the Executive Committee on the question of the split in the Italian Socialist Party.
For every thinking Communist the fact is sufficient that the Centrist group of leaders, faced with the solution the question, as to whether they should side with the reformists or with the Communists, or in order to please Serrati and 12,000 reformists, break. 60,000 Communist proletarians of Italy—this fact speaks more than all discussions on the subject of the tactless behaviour of such or other representatives of the Communist International. This must be clear to all the members of the German Central Committee. In a Communist party the leaders: nominated by the workers have as little right to leave their posts without the permission of the party, as a Red army man has to leave his sentry post. Only in the bourgeois and opportunist parties does the leader consider himself entitled to act independently, against the wishes of the members of the party. At any rate these five comrades were bound out of respect to international discipline to inform the Executive Committee of the Communist International of their intention to withdraw from the Central Committee. The Executive Committee regrets the withdrawal of these comrades and sees in it:
(1) A lack of discipline in the leading circles of the U.C.P.G.
(2) A proof of the fact that among the leaders of the U.C.P.G. there are signs which point to the formation of a Right wing.
The Executive Committee is of the opinion that the motives which induced Comrade Levi and his group to withdraw from the Central Committee of the U.C.P.G. are not the Italian question, but opportunist vacillations in German and international policy.
To all the class conscious comrades of Germany it must be clear that the Executive Committee of the Communist international makes it its object to form in every country not sects but active Communist revolutionary mass parties.
The endeavours of the Executive Committee to unite in Germany the Spartacus Union with the revolutionary elements of the Socialist Party of Germany and the Communist Labour Party of Germany before the formation of a large Communist mass party are a sufficient proof of this.
The attempt, of several comrades to represent, events in the Italian party as a “mechanical split” proves that they are either insufficiently informed of the actual situation of the Italian party, or that they are inclining towards the Menshevist reformist tendency.
The Executive Committee draws the attention of all the German Communists to the fact that during the last months in different countries elements are appearing which are striving to form a Right wing of Communism. The Communists must therefore close their ranks and stifle these tendencies in embryo, The explanations of Comrade Levi of March 23rd prove that he is quite near to a split with the Communist International.
This fact must show to the comrades who have been solid with Levi whither this course is leading him, and it must help them to recognise their delusion.
Executive Committee of the Communist International