Towards a History of the Third International (Part II). From the third to the sixth congress

[p052] Towards a history of the Third International (Part II) Bukharin : His facile pen fashioned a whole new course into the draft programme for the 6th Congress. retain their hold over the majority or a substantial part of the working class in the advanced countries also posed some crucial problems of tactics. There was certainly some wavering in the higher councils of the Comintern about what attitude should be taken towards the other workers’ parties. These tendencies were reflected, too, in the rank and file and extended from outright rejection of any joint action to a tendency towards some kind of compromise. In fact the primary task in the new situation was to build genuine communist parties with their roots in the working class which could ‘win predominating influence over the majority of the working class, and bring its decisive strata into the’ struggle’. The Theses on Tactics set the aim, then, of winning the masses for communism. ‘From the day of its foundation’, the Theses ran, ‘the Com- munist International has clearly and unambiguously made its goal the formation not of small com- munist sects, trying by propaganda and agitation only to establish their influence over the working masses, but participation in the struggle of the working masses, the direction of the struggle in a Communist spirit, and the creation in the course of this struggle of experienced, large, revolutionary, mass communist parties’. In a number of countries, indeed, the bases had been laid for such parties, but there were others, including the United States 117

[p053] and Britain—the principal bastions of world im- perialism at this time—where little progress had been made. The hallmark of these Theses is that the com- munist parties could only develop in struggle. In contradistinction to the minimum programme of the Social-Democratic parties, having the effect and often the intention of bolstering up capitalism, the communist parties had to put forward what was known as a transitional programme. The strategic aim was the overthrowing of capitalism, but to do this it was necessary to win the support of the masses, so that the party had to participate in and lead the day-to-day struggles in which the working class was involved under capitalism. Therefore, ‘the communist parties must put for- ward demands whose fulfilment is an immediate and urgent working-class need, and they must fight for these demands in mass struggle, regardless of whether they are compatible with the profit economy of the capitalist class or not’. The intent of these demands in their totality should be to disintegrate the power of the bourgeoisie. “The workers who fight for partial demands will auto- matically be forced into struggle against the entire bourgeoisie and their state apparatus’, stated the Theses in a passage very relevant to the situation in-the capitalist countries today when both the Social-Democrats and the so-called Communist Parties operate with minimum programmes de- signed to be acceptable to bourgeois parties and allies. The Theses proposed that the Communist Parties should take advantage of every weakness in the bourgeois front and seek to turn every im- portant local struggle into a general struggle. This could only be done through organization and discipline and by a co-ordination of national struggles. A further set of Theses on the Structure of Communist Parties and on the Methods and Content of Their Work, which went into some detail on party organization and methods of work, was also passed. It was stated that ‘There can be no absolutely correct and unalterable form of organization for the communist parties. The con- ditions of the class struggle are subject to change in an unceasing process of transformation and the organization of the proletarian vanguard must always seek the appropriate forms which corres- pond to these changes. Similarly, the parties in the different countries must be adapted to the his- torically determined peculiarities of the country concerned’. Nevertheless there was a tendency both in the Theses and in the practice of the 118 parties to follow too closely the Russian model. At the next Congress Lenin criticized it, saying, ‘It is an excellent resolution, but it is almost entirely Russian, that is to say, everything in it is taken from Russian conditions’. He went on to say that while it was a good resolution and he subscribed to every one of its 50 paragraphs, ‘we have not yet discovered the form in which to present our Russian experience to foreigners, and for that reason the resolution has remained a dead letter. If we do not discover it we shall not go forward’. Professor Carr considers that the Theses on organization ‘contrasted oddly with the desire to create mass communist parties in the western world’. He is of the opinion that such parties could only have been created, and he is clearly thinking most of all of Britain and America, had the Comintern been willing ‘to relax the rigidities not only of doctrine, but of discipline, and to concede to national parties and their leaders a far wider discretion in the framing of policies and tactics suited to national conditions, which could never be well or promptly enough appreciated in Moscow’. Braunthal, for his part, is puzzled to know why, especially after the adoption of the ‘united front’ tactic, the re-unification of the workers’ parties could not take place. It is remarkable that Carr can imply that the reason why communist parties made little headway in the Anglo-Saxon countries was a result of the insistence on doctrine and discipline. He suggests, in fact, that there was room for two parties of an essentially ‘social-democratic’ type, loose in organization and membership and with a pro- gramme adapted to catching votes. There are many reasons why the communist parties in a number of western countries remained small and weak, but it was not adherence to the Twenty-One Con- ditions or to the programmatic statements of the first four congresses which accounted for the failure to build mass parties. As for Braunthal’s criticism, if he has read the documents of the early con- gresses their meaning must have eluded him. Not only in organization and methods of work, but in the conception of continuous struggle for tran- titional demands as a preparation for taking power, the communist movement at this stage was irreconcilably opposed to the theory and practice of social-democracy, even of its left wing. Of course, this did not preclude joint discussions of the sort which took place with the Second Inter- national and the so-called Vienna International in 1922, nor did it prevent united front activity. The trouble in the period after 1923-1924 is not Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p054] that the communist parties adhered too closely to the earlier resolutions and decisions but that, under the influence of the Soviet bureaucracy, they neglected them. Therefore, instead of Bolshevik parties there came parties which were at the beck- and-call of Moscow, disorientated by the vagaries of the strategic line and swung on command be- tween the extremes of opportunism and adventur- ism. Instead of the patient task of party building and preparation there was a search for short cuts or a lapse into sectarian propaganda activity. Instead of the disciplined party organization, true enough based upon the Bolshevik model and which needed adaptation to the special conditions of each country, which was proposed by the first four congresses, the parties became centralized bureau- The acceptance of the need for a temporary retreat and for preparation was the basis also for the tactic of the united front which was put forward in the early 1920s. The basis of the united front, indeed, was that the situation no longer carried imminent possibilities of revolution but required the communists to gain the confidence of the masses by working for transitional demands and by assisting the working class to resist the offensive of capital. This definitely did not mean submerging the party in mass movements, conceal- ing its identity or altering its organizational prem- ises. In any case the question of the united front was of practical significance chiefly in those countries where important Communist Parties existed side-by-side with reformist parties and trade unions commanding the loyalty of a large part, and probably the majority, of the working class. It did not at all mean that the party should cease to struggle to establish its leadership of the class or to make completely clear the difference between revolutionary Marxism and reformist. But, as Trotsky pointed out, the united front did not mean that the Communist Parties could go straight to the masses under reformist leadership: in that case there would be no need for a united front. The question was to create a mass pressure which would oblige the reformist and centrist leaders either to take part in joint action on specific issues or to be obliged to explain why to their own supporters. Since united front activity required struggle bringing the masses into political life it would, however, create the most favourable conditions for the communists and make possible, though it would not guarantee, the wresting of Towards a history of the Third International (Part I!) united front in his cracies ruled by leaders hand-picked in Moscow and brooking no genuine discussion. Obedience was substituted for discipline, repetition of the general line or of the current slogans took the place of creative revolutionary activity. On this basis, because of objective conditions and the disgust of a large part of the working class with the Social-Democratic movement, a few large par- ties were able to exist in the 1920s. The attractive power of the October Revolution remained strong. Many were convinced that the Stalinists were, as they monotonously proclaimed, the true heirs of Lenin, but the parties which developed were far from being of the sort which Lenin and Trotsky had fought to build in the early years of the Third International. part of the rank and file of the reformist organ- izations from their existing leaders. Far from im- plying some form of durable agreement on a com- mon programme on the basis of the existing balance of forces between the Marxists and the reformists, leading to an eventual merging and disappearance of differences, the united front, if operated successfully, would enable the former to emerge strengthened from the experience with the split actually widened and with large sections of the working class attracted to their side. As put forward at this time, therefore, the united front was a dynamic tactical turn attuned to a specific Zinoviev : Argued for the ‘Theses on Tactics’ for the 4th Congress. 119

[p055] situation which existed in a number of key countries. The Fourth Congress, which met at the end of October 1922, had as its principal theme the united front. The Theses on Tactics, drawn up and presented by Zinoviev, argued that the necessity for the united front followed from the existing situation of capitalism, the rise of fascism and the defensive position which this was imposing on the labour movement. Among the points which Zinoviev made was the need to preserve the independence and freedom of action of the com- munist parties. “The most important thing in the united front tactic’ he argued, ‘is and remains the agitational and organizational rallying of the work- ing masses. Its true realization can only come “from below’, from the depths of the working masses themselves. Communists, however, must not refuse in certain circumstances to negotiate with the leaders of the hostile workers’ parties, but the masses must be kept fully and constantly informed of the course of these negotiations. Nor must the communist parties’ freedom to agitate be 4 By 1922 the Communist movement had become world-wide. Not only had Communist Parties been established in many countries, but the Young Communist International, founded during the war, had grown and the Red International of Trade Unions had been established. Between Congresses the business of the Comintern was transacted by its secretariat in Moscow and by an executive committee drawn from leaders of the Russian and other parties, while the practice of holding plenums between full Congresses was also estab- lished. In its resolutions and in its publications the International dealt with all the political problems of the day. It adopted important resolutions on the work of individual parties, on the national and colonial question, the agrarian question and the peasantry, trade union work, and so on. These resolutions and theses are models of their kind for clarity and a principled treatment of the matter in hand and can be studied with profit at the present day. Substantial extracts are available in the Degras collection but, since the tenor of these resolutions is entirely contrary to the prac- tice of Stalinism and to that of the present-day Communist Parties, it is not surprising that most party members, even amongst the theoretically sophisticated, are ignorant of them. For the Fourth International, however, these documents are re- 120 circumscribed in any way during these negotiations with the leaders.’ In a resolution dated December 1922, the Con- gress called for the submission of draft pro- grammes for the Communist International and asked the national sections to draw up programmes for their countries. A programme had already been drafted by Bukharin, though not as yet discussed even in the Russian party. It was presumably this draft which was the basis for the draft which was later published and circulated and adopted by the Sixth Congress in 1928. However, between the closure of the Fourth Congress and the publication of the draft programme fundamental changes took place in Russia and in the Comintern. The death of Lenin, the emergence of the General Secretary, Joseph Stalin, from the administrative shadows to lay down the theoretical line for the Party, and the domination of the Comintern by his yes-men and agents after a bitter struggle with the Left Opposition, changed the character of the world communist movement. The Third International recognized the importance of the national movement. Lenin is seen here in con- ference with representatives of various nationalities. garded as a part of the valuable political heritage which provides the bridge with Bolshevism. Many of them bear the mark of Lenin and Trotsky, who, of course, approved fully those which were adopted as Comintern policy, though some were drawn up by Zinoviev and Bukharin, both later to perish at Stalin’s hand. Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p056] It is significant that, unlike the Second Inter- national, the Third quickly recognized the import- ance of the national movement in the colonies in the struggle against imperialism. At the present time, when so much is heard about the revolution in the underdeveloped countries, the documents of the early Congresses on this question conserve a particular importance. Furthermore, of course, failure to adhere to the principles which they lay down brought about the catastrophe in China in 1927. The Theses on the National and Colonial Question therefore deserve special mention both because they laid down principles which are especially valid today and because neglect of them in the 1920s reflected the abandonment of Marxist practice by the Stalinist clique which controlled the policy of the Comintern. The Theses, drafted and introduced to the Second Congress by Lenin himself, were based implicitly upon an internationalist strategy of struggle against imperialism. Thus, rejecting ab- stract appeals to national equality and democracy, the exploitation of the great majority of the world’s population by imperialism had to be ex- posed. It follows, the Theses went on, ‘that the entire policy of the Communist International on the national and colonial question must be based primarily on bringing together the proletariat and working classes of all nations and countries for the common revolutionary struggle for the over- throw of the landlords and the bourgeoisie’. In exposing the violations of the oppressed nations it was necessary to point out that only a Soviet system could ensure real equality for the nations. Even before Lenin’s death, it may be added, a violation of the nationalities policy was perpetrated by Stalin in Soviet Georgia. The resolution warned against petty-bourgeois nationalism and pacifism typical of the parties of the Second International which ‘evén occurs not infrequently among parties which call themselves communist’. It called for a struggle against re- actionary and medieval tendencies in the less- developed countries, Christian missions, pan- Islamic, pan-Asian and similar movements. It called for a struggle against the landlords and for all assistance to be given to the peasant movement. It laid upon the working-class movement in the advanced countries the responsibility to support by their action the colonial liberation struggle. Particularly important in view of later develop- ments in the practice of the Stalinized Communist Parties and the discussion going on about tactics in the less-developed countries, is the passage concerning the building of revolutionary parties in the less-developed countries which deserves to be quoted in full and which runs as follows: A resolute struggle must be waged against the attempt to clothe the revolutionary liberation movements in the backward countries which are not genuinely communist in communist colours. The Communist International has the duty of sup- porting revolutionary movements in the colonies and backward countries only with the object of rallying the constituent elements of the future proletarian parties—which will be truly communist and not only in name—in all the backward coun- tries and educating them to a consciousness of a special task, namely that of fighting against the bourgeois-democratic trend in their own nation. The Communist International should collaborate provisionally with the revolutionary movement of the colonies and backward countries, and even form an alliance with it, but it must not amal- gamate with it; it must unconditionally maintain the independence of the proletarian movement, even if it is in an embryonic stage. In Algeria, Egypt, India, Ceylon and in Latin America the revisionists and the communist par- ties have in the past two decades made a series of In the past two decades, the revisionists and the communist parties made a series of unprincipled and disastrous alliances with the bourgeois nationalists. Above: the coalition government in Ceylon in which prominent members of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party assumed cabinet portfolios. Towards a history of the Third International (Part Il) 121

[p057] unprincipled and disastrous alliances with the bourgeois national leaderships following the models established by Stalin in the 1920s. Successful struggles in the less-developed coun- tries require an international revolutionary strategy such as Lenin envisaged. They cannot be undertaken by subordinating the revolutionary movement to petty-bourgeois national leaders or by adventurist guerrilla actions. They require, as the resolution maintains, the formation of revolu- tionary Marxist parties even where the proletariat 9) After the Fourth Congress the Communist Inter- national began to experience the repercussions of the struggle which was shaking the Russian party. It was, however, the unsuccessful rising in Germany in October 1923 which became the centre of the first stormy debates. According to Trotsky, ‘The German events of 1923 form the breaking point that inaugurates a new, post- Leninist period in the development of the Comin- tern’. It was the occasion for the writing of his pamphlet Lessons of October, which related the lost opportunities in Germany to the struggle in the Bolshevik Party which preceded the 1917 Revolution. The essence of the failure in Germany was that the leadership of the German Com- munist Party lagged behind events and behind the working class, just as a section of the Bolshevik Party, including Stalin, had done in 1917. Natur- ally, Stalin, as well as his temporary allies, wished to draw a veil over the real situation in the Bolshevik Party in 1917 as well as to justify the advice which they had given to the German party in 1923, From this period the leadership of the Comintern begins to take on the cloak of infalli- bility; increasingly it gives orders which have to be obeyed; the national sections become dependent upon the Russian party. This shift was at first accomplished gradually and was fought every inch of the way by Trotsky and his co-thinkers, to such effect that Zinoviev and others were won over to a common platform of opposition to the Stalinist course both in Russia and internationally in 1927. It developed in a situation still fraught with great dangers for the Soviet Union. Inside the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as well as in the national parties there was also a serious danger from the Right which had to be contended with. Moreover, many of the non-Russian com- munists, because they were not informed about the issues or because they had no theoretical grasp of 122 is small. And the movement in the less-developed countries must form an integral part of a world- wide struggle in which a decisive role is taken by the parties in the advanced countries; the very nature of imperialism determines this strategy. To turn away from this, however much it may be accompanied by enthusiasm, self-sacrifice and heroism, is to seek a short cut which has proved and is proving to be a blind alley at the end of which there can only come defeat. them, simply failed to understand what was at stake and considered the discussions in the Russian party and in the Comintern to be a waste of time. Further, the falling away of some of the early leaders, the expulsion of others and the rise of a new hand-picked leadership as a product of the ‘Bolshevization’ of the national parties, all assisted Stalin and his allies to dominate the world communist movement and impose upon it the con- ceptions which seemed to conform with the needs of the ascendant bureaucracy in the Soviet Union itself. The Fifth Congress, which met in June-July, 1924, was thus in a sense, transitional. It was dominated by the German defeat and by the desire of the Comintern leadership to find scapegoats. It established a precedent, subsequently followed in- variably, of blaming everything which went wrong in a country on to the leadership of the national section. Similarly, in its analysis of world trends it begins to find justifications for pre-determined policies instead of honestly and objectively dealing with the situation. Referring to this latter tendency Trotsky posed the question: ‘Isn’t it already clear that there cannot be serious talk of Bolshevik strategy with- out the ability to survey both the basic curve of our epoch as a whole and its individual segments which are at every given moment of the same importance for the party leadership as railway curves are for the engine driver? To open wide the throttle on a steeply-banked curve is surely to run the train over the embankment’. Indeed, during the period from the Fifth Con- gress a wide gap began to open up between the Opposition and the dominant leadership of the Comintern, into which entered basic questions of perspective. Since the Stalinists began with the possibility of separately successful national struggles within the perspective of ‘socialism in Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p058] one country’, and the Opposition began with a unified strategy based upon the international character of imperialism as embodied in the theses and resolutions of the first four congresses, the rift inevitably widened as one issue after another brought them into conflict. However, the terms of To put forward his perspectives for the Comin- tern Stalin employed the ill-fated Bukharin as his amanuensis. The choice was obviously no accident. Bukharin was clever and talented. Devoted in his way to the Revolution as an abstraction, he was inclined to be over-impressed by the difficulties of the moment. In the controversy over the economic questions in the Soviet Union he had become the leading theoretician of the ‘right’ tendency which sought to conciliate the peasantry and regarded the NEP as being an indefinite neces- sity. The draft programme finally adopted by the Sixth Congress in 1928 was principally Bukharin’s work, but it was obviously attuned to the needs of Stalin and was based on the so-called theory of ‘socialism in one country’ which he had enunciated some years before. The draft programme therefore marked a sharp break with the conceptions of the first four congresses. Its correct partial analyses and various unexceptional statements from the point of view of Marxism-Leninism were thus vitiated by the framework, or the pre-suppositions, of the document as a whole. It is not read today even in the Communist Parties not only because it was written by one of the principal accused of the Moscow Trials but because even with all its faults and weaknesses it stands closer to Marxism than the programmes of the CPSU and the national parties which are now adhered to. In fact, it is difficult to find much common measure between the Programme of 1928 and, say, The British Road to Socialism as approved by Stalin and subse- quently from time to time revised. By comparison, then, Bukharin’s programme is still a revolutionary document in intention. The programme of 1928 is chiefly known today because in draft form it was subjected by Trotsky to a merciless criticism in a document submitted to the Comintern but only circulated by mistake outside narrow circles. As it happened, Trotsky’s critique was to play a crucial part in making known the differences between the Left Opposition and the Stalinist leadership of the Comintern and bringing about the formation of parties or groups which were to open the way, at a later stage, for Towards a history of the Third International (Part II) the debate were by no means free and equal. Stalin used his control of the apparatus of the Comintern to suppress and distort the views of the Opposition to prepare the way for dealing with them by physical means. Trotsky almost single-handed, carried the fight be- tween the 4th and 6th Congresses. Trotsky, his son Leon and Natalia Trotsky are seen above in their place of exile at Alma Ata. the Foundation of the Fourth International. Almost single-handed Trotsky carried on through the period from the Fourth to the Sixth Congress a running fight against the theoretical and moral degeneration which Stalin’s domination of the Comintern involved. His writings, especially those collected in The Third International After Lenin, The Stalin School of Falsification and Prob- lems of the Chinese Revolution, are accessible, and should be studied. It is not intended here, then, to go over the history of this period and to take up the issues related to the British General Strike, the Chinese events of 1925--927 and the situation in the other countries where communist parties played an important political role. At this time capitalism was relatively stable and experiencing a boom. For the working-class movement it was a period of retreat and some defeats, of rearguard actions and defensive struggles. It should also have been a period of preparation and theoretical re-arming of the kind proposed by the Third and Fourth Congresses. In fact, as far the policy and programme of the Communist International was concerned, it was a period of domesticating the 123

[p059] national parties to the Stalinist line and of theoretical confusion. The life of the International itself becomes more barren of achievement, directed as it was to the self-justification of what- ever line was laid down by Moscow and to the hounding of the Opposition, the first stage of 7 No more has been done here than to draw up a very cursory balance sheet of this stage in the history of the Communist International. Clearly there is need for the questions raised to be in- vestigated in much greater detail. At the centre of the stage, leaving aside the obvious bureaucratic measures of the Stalin faction, there was plainly the struggle for Marxist theory carried on by Trotsky and his co-thinkers, as the heirs of Bolshevism, against a particularly pernicious and wholesale revision of Marxism. However, this revision imposed itself, not from its inherent strength, but because it was adopted by the domin- ant caste in the Soviet Union which carried it into the Communist International, using the prestige of the October Revolution with the world’s commun- ists, and enforced it by administrative means. The history of the individual parties shows how this was done, bringing to the fore a hand-picked cadre of leaders at the end of the 1920s and the early 1930s in the main national parties which was to which was concluded with the exiling of Trotsky. The way was being prepared for the adventures of the ‘third period’, the opportunist turn to the ‘Popular Front’ and the final liquidation of the Third International. survive through to the 1960s. This cadre was schooled to accept the programme and methods of Stalinism and became adept at making all the abrupt turns and adaptations which the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy required. At the same time, it began to put down roots in its own countries, establish a national social base and, approved by Moscow, to work out its various national roads to socialism in the true spirit of Stalinism. But in time, not only did the envelope of the Comintern cease to fulfil any useful function for the Soviet bureaucracy but it had become embarrassing to the national parties. Thus the formal disappearance of this body, which had completely changed its character during the 1920s, became only a matter of time. The third and concluding article will deal with the Sixth and Seventh Congresses of the Com- munist International and the events which led up to its dissolution in 1943. Prices 12s. 6d. MOSCOW TRIALS Anthology Available from New Park Publications 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. 124 Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p060] national parties to the Stalinist line and of theoretical confusion. The life of the International itself becomes more barren of achievement, directed as it was to the self-justification of what- ever line was laid down by Moscow and to the hounding of the Opposition, the first stage of 7 No more has been done here than to draw up a very cursory balance sheet of this stage in the history of the Communist International. Clearly there is need for the questions raised to be in- vestigated in much greater detail. At the centre of the stage, leaving aside the obvious bureaucratic measures of the Stalin faction, there was plainly the struggle for Marxist theory carried on by Trotsky and his co-thinkers, as the heirs of Bolshevism, against a particularly pernicious and wholesale revision of Marxism. However, this revision imposed itself, not from its inherent strength, but because it was adopted by the domin- ant caste in the Soviet Union which carried it into the Communist International, using the prestige of the October Revolution with the world’s commun- ists, and enforced it by administrative means. The history of the individual parties shows how this was done, bringing to the fore a hand-picked cadre of leaders at the end of the 1920s and the early 1930s in the main national parties which was to which was concluded with the exiling of Trotsky. The way was being prepared for the adventures of the ‘third period’, the opportunist turn to the ‘Popular Front’ and the final liquidation of the Third International. survive through to the 1960s. This cadre was schooled to accept the programme and methods of Stalinism and became adept at making all the abrupt turns and adaptations which the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy required. At the same time, it began to put down roots in its own countries, establish a national social base and, approved by Moscow, to work out its various national roads to socialism in the true spirit of Stalinism. But in time, not only did the envelope of the Comintern cease to fulfil any useful function for the Soviet bureaucracy but it had become embarrassing to the national parties. Thus the formal disappearance of this body, which had completely changed its character during the 1920s, became only a matter of time. The third and concluding article will deal with the Sixth and Seventh Congresses of the Com- munist International and the events which led up to its dissolution in 1943. Price: 12s. 6d. Available from New Park Publications 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. 124 Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969