Arthur Rosenberg 1934
As early as 1914 Lenin had announced the Third International. Nevertheless, as has already been shown above, the proposal found little acceptance among the working-class masses in Europe until 1917. On the victory of the Bolshevik revolution the situation underwent a complete change. The middle-class revolution in Russia made little impression upon the European working class. A far deeper impression was made by the fact that the Bolsheviks were the first of all governments to make peace. And the news of the socialisation of Russia ran through the proletarian masses in all countries like an earth-tremor.
The revolution which had been dreamed of for decades by the working class suddenly became an accomplished fact. Proof was given that it was possible to expropriate the capitalist, to abolish the use of money, and to hand over the factories to the proletariat. Lenin’s early ideal — a middle-class revolution in Russia and a socialist revolution in Western Europe — could not have been expected to meet with much sympathy from the European workers. To advise German and English working men to adopt socialism at the same time that he himself embarked on capitalism may have been defensible from a theoretical standpoint. It did not provide a platform for a European mass movement. The European working man might very well have replied to Bolshevik agitators that they had better first practise at home the socialism they preached abroad. It was thanks to the resolute action of the Russian working men who in the winter of 1917-18, and against the will of Lenin, seized the factories, that the ground was made ready for the Third International as a mass movement.
As long as wartime legislation prevented independent action on the part of European working men the profound inward change that had come over the European proletariat was not manifest. After the conclusion of the war it revealed itself with elemental force in the years 1919-20 in the desertion by millions of European workers of their old leaders, traditions and organisations, and in their turning for guidance to Moscow. Under the immediate influence of the war and the subsequent economic crisis these working men believed in an early breakdown of capitalism and a victorious world revolution. The three categories into which European socialism was divided in prewar days have already been enumerated: on the right the revisionist minority (IIa), in the centre the great movement of official radicalism (IIb), and on the left the small revolutionary groups round Rosa Luxemburg, Gorter and others (III). The World War resulted in the moral bankruptcy of official radicalism, and at the same time the supporters of the old right and centre had indiscriminately divided themselves between the two new groups of those who supported national defence and those who did not. In the years 1919 and 1920 millions of socialist workmen joined the ranks of the revolutionary left. They did not, however, remain constant to the ideals of Rosa Luxemburg but went farther to join the Bolsheviks. Their desire was to serve under Russian leadership and to complete the work of the revolution under the orders of Lenin and Trotsky.
The old leaders of the European socialist left wing recognised the achievement of the Bolsheviks and were prepared to cooperate with them in the cause of revolution. Nevertheless they remained critical in matters of detail. They never lost sight for an instant of the difference between Bolshevik theory and their own ideals. This statement is as true of the Spartacists as of the Dutch left-wing socialists. During her imprisonment in the autumn of 1918 Rosa Luxemburg wrote a series of critical articles on the Russian Revolution in which all her old differences of opinion with Lenin once more make their appearance. She pointed out the use made by Lenin of the ideal of nationality and his spoliation of the peasants as well as the destruction in Russia not only of middle-class but also of proletarian democracy. In these circumstances, she argued, socialism could only be realised by a unique display of energy and spirit on the part of the masses — qualities which could only be developed under conditions of perfect freedom. Rosa Luxemburg added:
The suppression of all political life throughout Russia must also result in paralysing the activity of the soviets. Without universal suffrage, liberty of the press and of public meeting, and freedom of debate, public institutions will atrophy and take on a shadow existence so that powers remain with the bureaucracy alone. Nothing and nobody is exempt from the action of this law. Public life gradually ceases. A few dozen party leaders possessed of tireless energy and inspired by boundless idealism direct and control everything. In reality a dozen of the most outstanding intellects among them take charge of affairs. A selected number of workmen are from time to time summoned to meetings in order to applaud the speeches of their leaders and to pass unanimously resolutions that are laid before them. In fact it is government by a clique — a dictatorship, and not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but the dictatorship of a handful of politicians, that is, a middle-class dictatorship like that of the Jacobins.
It was the middle-class and Jacobin aspects of Bolshevism that specially attracted the attention of Rosa Luxemburg and Gorter and caused them to reject its teachings. On the other hand the broad masses of the people saw only what had been achieved in Russia in the way of socialism and wanted to copy it in their own countries. Their experience during the war had lessened the fondness of the continental workmen for democracy. The middle-class parliamentary system no longer found acceptance in their eyes and the democratic right to a controlling voice in their own proletarian organisations had proved itself to be of little value. If it would lead to socialism they were ready to accept a stern dictatorship after the Russian pattern. There can indeed be little question that in the years 1919-20 the majority of socialist workmen in France and Italy, Germany and the former Austro-Hungarian countries, favoured an alliance with Bolshevism. Strong Bolshevik sympathies also existed in the Balkan states, Scandinavia, Poland and the Baltic States. The socialist proletariat saw in the Bolsheviks men called to be their leaders in a successful attempt to organise humanity in accordance with socialist ideals. They neither saw nor understood the middle-class revolutionary character of Russian Bolshevism.
What was the attitude at that time of the non-socialist workmen in Europe to the Russian Revolution? The majority of workmen in Spain were followers of the anarchists and syndicalists, who also commanded a certain following in Italy and France. Although they were socialistic in aim, they refused to recognise the authority of the state and the employment of force even when used in the name of socialism. They rejected parliamentarism and the political party system. Their ideal was to organise the masses in revolutionary trade unions wholly distinct from the Social-Democrat trade unions. Although the authoritarianism and political party system characteristic of Soviet Russia was unwelcome to them, they nevertheless sought under the influence of the magnetism exercised by the Russian Revolution to ally themselves with Moscow, and hoped to achieve a compromise with the Bolsheviks over matters of principle.
The great majority of workmen in England up to 1914 were politically supporters of the middle-class parties. Although millions of English workmen were organised in trade unions, only a few small groups professed socialism before the outbreak of the World War. A great change came over England during the years of the war and the socialist Labour Party gained millions of members. Lively sympathy was felt by English workmen after 1918 for Soviet Russia. Nevertheless, there was little disposition to adopt a Bolshevik revolutionary policy.
A section of the Christian socialist and conservative workmen on the Continent was also borne along on the wave of enthusiasm for Bolshevism. It is only necessary to recall the conduct of the miners in the Mansfeld and Saar districts, in the Ruhr and in Upper Silesia after 1918.
Another movement of opinion among the working class, in addition to the Marxist-socialist, anarchic-syndicalist and middle-class tendencies, must be commented upon here. Although this fourth tendency had no organised existence, it nevertheless bore a highly individualised character. It can perhaps be best described under the name of utopian radicalism. Its followers were to be found among the very poorest, desperate and embittered workmen. These men were animated by a passionate hatred not only for middle-class society but for any one more fortunate than themselves. They refused all negotiation and compromise and would only be content with an extreme form of action. A fanatical mistrust of all organisation and leaders filled their minds and they felt themselves betrayed by anyone who sought to impose discipline upon them or to advise moderation. There was much in common between this utopian radicalism and syndicalism. Nevertheless, the two must be clearly distinguished from each other. It is incontestable that syndicalism — the question whether its doctrines are false or true does not arise here — is a precise philosophy of life founded upon scientific arguments and pursuing definite aims by means of a formulated policy. On the other hand utopian radicalism is a purely emotional state and as such incapable of systematisation or coherence. The utopian radicals among the workers also turned towards Bolshevism.
The November Revolution in 1918 and the consequent collapse of the militaristic monarchies in Germany and Austria-Hungary appeared to fulfil Bolshevik prophecies. Workers’ and soldiers’ councils established in the seats of the German Kaisers in Berlin and Potsdam now issued orders in their stead. It seemed as if the World War had really set in motion the world revolution and that the movement which had started in October 1917 in Petrograd was spreading irresistibly from country to country. It was not long, however, before it became clear that notwithstanding workers’ and soldiers’ councils, the middle-class revolution alone had proved victorious in Germany. The history of the revolution in Germany clearly proves that the soviet system is not necessarily identical with socialism. An attempt on the part of extreme working-class elements to turn the middle-class into a socialist revolution in Germany led to the disaster of 1919 and the assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. At the same time it is easy to understand why the Ebert–Scheidemann government was looked upon in Russia as a sort of German Kerensky government and the same fate prophesied for it that befell Kerensky and his followers. Moreover, Italy found herself involved in a serious domestic crisis, disturbance was rife in all the succession states, in the Balkans, in the Baltic States; and in France and England extremist tendencies were openly manifesting themselves in the proletarian masses of the population. The spring of 1919 saw the temporary establishment of soviet republics in Hungary and Bavaria. Thus the ground was prepared for giving practical expression to the ideal of a Third International.
The Third International was formally established in March 1919 at a meeting held in Moscow for that purpose. The difficulties then attendant upon a journey to Russia prevented the arrival of more than a few foreign delegates. This First World Congress was only a beginning. The Second World Congress in July-August 1920 was thoroughly representative of the majority of European workmen and also included important delegations from other parts of the world. At this congress the Communist International was for the first time given a definite programme and a definite political stamp.
From the very outset the Socialist parties in Italy — filled with pride for the loyal adherence to their principles throughout the war — had joined the Third International to a man. The majority of the Socialist parties in France were also prepared to cooperate in its work. Among German Socialists the first to join the Third International was the Spartacist Union, which had changed its title towards the end of 1918 into that of German Communist Party (KPD). In the days of the World War the small group of Marxist leaders centred round Rosa Luxemburg in the Spartacist Union had been opposed by a membership that was largely utopian radical in its opinions. It was contrary to the wishes of Rosa Luxemburg that the party had been compelled as the result of a poll of its members to take part in the unsuccessful fighting in January 1919. After the deaths of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, Paul Levi took over the leadership of the KPD. At a party congress held in Heidelberg Levi resolutely carried out the exclusion from the Spartacist Union of the utopian radical workmen. As a result his party was reduced heavily in numbers. The ostracised workmen in common with a number of doctrinaires holding syndicalist views founded the German Communist Labour Party (KAPD). Its members formed only a small minority of the German proletariat.
The majority of the German socialist workmen in 1920 were members of the German Independent Social-Democrat Party (USPD). This party won greater and greater successes in its struggle with the old Majority Socialists. While the Majority Socialists wished for the time being to content themselves with a middle-class democratic republic, the USPD demanded the establishment of a socialist state. The USPD was prepared to join the Third International. The KAPD did not wish to sever its relations with Moscow.
The majority of workmen in the Balkan states, in Czechoslovakia and in Norway were also in sympathy with the Third International. There was indeed hardly a country in the world in which a more or less powerful Communist Party had not been established. The Second International was completely disorganised and the leadership of the world proletariat seemed to have passed finally into the hands of the Bolshevik Party in Moscow. Lenin and the Bolsheviks, however, were little concerned in 1920 with securing the moral support of the international proletariat. That could be of little use to them. Their aim was to direct a socialist revolution to victory as speedily as possible in one or more of the greater states of Europe. If they succeeded in achieving their aim, the encirclement of Soviet Russia by the capitalist powers would be broken; and the Bolsheviks would receive from the new labour governments in Europe the economic, moral and, perhaps, even military assistance that was necessary to enable them to defend socialism in Russia against the attack of the peasants. A successful working-class revolution seemed easiest of achievement in Germany and Italy, where the majority of the proletariat had openly declared themselves in support of the Third International and the existing middle-class organisation of society was manifestly crumbling to pieces. If soviet republics could be established in Germany and Italy, the victory of communism would be assured in the countries that lay between them and Russia — Poland, the Baltic States, the succession states and the Balkan states. The Union of Soviet Republics would then extend from Russia to the Rhine and the Alps.
The task confronting the Communist parties, especially in Germany and Italy, would in this eventuality be no light one. Indeed, it would be a task of exceptional difficulty inasmuch as trained revolutionary parties like those in Russia did not exist in Europe. Lenin was fully cognisant of these difficulties. He had, however, no time to lose. Communist parties must be set up in all the more important European countries as quickly as possible and must be thrown into the battle. From the moment when Lenin seriously resolved upon the preparation of a working-class revolution in Europe he abandoned all purely agitatist catchwords and occupied himself with a sober calculation of facts and forces. A preliminary to victory was that the revolutionary Communist party should in each country win the support of all or almost all the proletariat. Such a proceeding was obviously irreconcilable with the theory of the existence of a working-class aristocracy. Although Lenin remained faithful in theory to a conception that he had evolved during the war, he abandoned it in practice. In 1920 he wrote:
Socialism inevitably inherits from capitalism on the one hand the old differences between the workers (differences that arose out of those between the various trades and handicrafts and that have evolved through centuries) and on the other hand associations of trade unions that have slowly and after many years developed — and are continuing to develop — into broader industrial associations less reminiscent of guilds and embracing not merely trades, crafts and professions but entire industries. Thanks to these industrial associations the trade unions will further develop into organisations for abolishing division of labour and for educating and training all-round men and women — men and women capable of undertaking any task. This is the goal towards which communism is striving and to which it will attain only after the lapse of many years. To attempt today to anticipate the achievements of a perfected and mature communism is like attempting to teach higher mathematics to a four-year-old child. We can and must begin to build up the edifice of socialism with the materials left to us by capitalism and not with some human compound that is our own special discovery. This will unquestionably be very ‘difficult’. All other solutions to the problem are nevertheless so vain that they are not worthy of discussion.
Lenin here admits after sober reflection the existence of differences between the various types of European workmen. It does not, however, follow that the poorest workmen should therefore attack and destroy their more fortunate fellows. On the contrary they should build up socialism together under the leadership of the Communist Party. The great majority of the skilled workers in Europe are organised in trade unions. Hence if the Communist Party desires to secure control over the masses, it must, according to Lenin, obtain a foothold in the existing trade unions. Nor must it allow itself to be influenced by the consideration that the leaders of these trade unions are for the most part ‘reactionaries’ — enemies of the revolution and the Third International. In no circumstances must the Communists abandon their activities in the trade unions. For if they withdraw with revolutionary speeches from reactionary associations, they surrender their chances of winning over the masses and of leading the revolution to victory. Thus Lenin was led to refuse categorically any cooperation with utopian radicalism and any recognition for certain syndicalist ideals. The trade-union question is indeed one of the most fateful problems confronting modern labour. It constitutes the acid test of whether a party is really prepared to lead the proletariat or whether it is no more than a sect content with pseudo-radical doctrines. In placing before the Communists, as one of their chief tasks, the seizure of control over the trade unions, Lenin showed his recognition of the importance of the skilled and better-paid workman for the proletariat as a whole; and he thereby refused to build up the Communist party solely out of the unemployed and the very poorest class of workpeople. Nor did Lenin in those days contemplate this seizure of control over the trade unions by the Communists as a long process of careful organisation extending over many years. There was indeed no time to spare. He foresaw instead a violent change in the character of the old Social-Democrat trade unions as a result of a revolution.
In 1920 Lenin published a pamphlet specially devoted to an attack on utopian radicalism and syndicalism. In this pamphlet, entitled Communism and the Infantile Disease of Radicalism, Lenin demanded categorically that Communists should participate in parliamentary elections and in political life generally, and, above all, that they should define their attitude as a political party to all political issues arising in their country. The Communist party was to refrain from a reckless policy and from rushing wildly at its objective. It must learn to conclude alliances and compromises, and even to retreat if the occasion demanded it. This pamphlet was written with the deliberate intention of provoking and alienating utopian radicals. Lenin was well aware that an unrestrained, emotional radicalism on the part of the proletariat could only lead to anarchy, and that it could not be used for constructive and practical purposes. Every movement animated by the spirit of utopian radicalism was at once deprived of all serious political purpose and aroused mistrust in the broad masses of the people. Thus, for example, Lenin would rather have lost the support of fifty thousand working-class members of the KAPD than risk losing that of the five million members of the USPD through shaping his policy to accord with the views of the fifty thousand. The attack led by Paul Levi in 1919 against the KAPD was fully in accord with Lenin’s own views. If, however, the KAPD and the syndicalists were to recognise the error of their ways, then they should be welcomed back to the fold. Their ideals must, nevertheless, meet with no response in the Communist International.
The Communists in Europe were not only to obtain control over the proletariat but also over the peasants and lower middle classes. If they could not win these latter over to their side, they were at least to avoid rousing their hostility. Neither in the towns nor in the country was the property of these classes to be expropriated. A socialist revolution in Europe was conceived by Lenin in 1920 solely as the nationalisation of the great monopolies and as the expropriation by the working-class state of the great trusts, companies and banks. Lenin remained faithful to his principle of state capitalism and economic centralisation as realised in the World War and was content to remove the handful of plutocratic capitalists from all control over this centralised economic system. A revolution this type would indeed have been possible in Europe in 1920 in an era of distress, crises and conflicts. There is not the slightest exaggeration in the analysis of world conditions made by Lenin in those days.
At the first session of the Second World Congress of the Communist International (July 1920) Lenin delivered a speech in which he adapted his theory of imperialism to the new conditions obtaining in the world. Once again he spoke of a small number of parasitic imperialistic nations living by the spoliation of other peoples. Among these exploited colonial areas Lenin reckoned also countries like China or the South American states, which enjoyed a nominal independence. A principal result of the World War, in Lenin’s opinion, was the reduction of Germany and the states formerly comprising Austria-Hungary to the level of protectorates exploited by the victorious powers. The Entente had intended to mete out the same fate to Russia. Who derived profit from the appalling misery of the world? Lenin calculated as follows: the United States has a population of 100 million, Japan of 50 million, and England also of 50 million. If to these figures there be added those of the smaller neutral states who grew rich through the World War, the total will amount to some 250 million people. Since France and Italy were at that time indebted to America and England, Lenin did not reckon these two powers among the real victors of the World War. The picture of the world as it presented itself to Lenin’s eyes was that of 1500 million people driven desperate through exploitation at the hands of 250 million. Nor do the 250 million of the so-called victors constitute an entity. In these countries, as elsewhere, the vast mass of the population was subject to a small group of financial magnates. Since, however, impoverishment and indebtedness on a vast scale had overwhelmed the whole world, the victorious powers could not find a market for their products; and thus unemployment and a rise in prices occurred within their own frontiers. Debts and the devalorisation of money had caused the complete breakdown of the machinery of the capitalist system throughout the world.
Nevertheless, Lenin refused to abandon his belief that it was impossible to expect an automatic collapse of capitalism. Unless they were overthrown by a deliberate and organised revolution on the part of the oppressed peoples, the imperialists would still be able to find a way of escape from their present dilemma. And this revolution must be prepared by a collaboration between the exploited peoples and the proletariat: ‘In this congress the revolutionary proletariat from highly-developed capitalist states meets together with the revolutionary peoples of those countries in which there is no, or virtually no, proletariat — the inhabitants of the exploited countries of the East.’ Indians and Chinese would rise against imperialism. The problem was one of finding a footing for Communism in the non-capitalist countries. ‘Here there will be no workers’ councils. There will be peasants’ councils or councils of active individuals.’ The world revolution then as always was, in Lenin’s eyes, not solely an affair of the proletariat but a democratic rising of humanity against imperialism.
The great revolutions in Asia and Africa that would have brought relief to Soviet Russia were certainly not likely to occur in the immediate future. Help could only come quickly through an extension of the revolution to Central Europe. Lenin advised the German working class in 1920 in the event of a successful revolution to accept temporarily the Treaty of Versailles, after the fashion in which Russia had been forced to submit to the peace of Brest-Litovsk. A Soviet Germany would thus secure a breathing-space in which to carry on its work of domestic reconstruction. The Italian workmen should ally themselves with the small peasantry and leaseholders in order to achieve power. In the event of a successful revolution on the part of the Italian workers and peasants, Lenin reckoned on a blockade of Italy by France and England. At the same time he believed himself to be in a position to assure Soviet Italy reliable assistance — probably by an advance on the part of the Red Army through Hungary to the Adriatic.
In England Lenin did not expect a communist revolution in the immediate future. He anticipated a socialist victory at the polls and the advent to power of a Labour government in a constitutional manner. The various tiny Communist groups in England must unite to form a single party and support the Labour Party in its struggle with the middle-class parties in parliament. The Communists would not take the place now occupied by the Labour Party until a much later stage of development had been reached. Lenin was also right in assuming as he did that the existence of a socialist Labour government in England would make the international situation of Russia easier.
An attempt has been made above to describe the way in which workmen belonging to all parties in Europe turned in the years 1919 and 1920 towards the Third International. By the side of these workmen, inspired by a belief in the necessity for a speedy communist revolution led by Bolsheviks, stood the utopian radicals whom Lenin so bitterly opposed. And in addition to this danger threatening the revolution from the left there also existed what Lenin considered to be an even greater danger coming from the right.
The World War made an end of the old official radicalism of the Second International. A radicalism that did not bind its followers to revolutionary action was no longer possible in parties which had voted war credits and least of all in an International which could serve as a platform for this type of ‘reform’. Officials and leaders of the labour movement as well as many European workmen were, nevertheless, desirous not to abandon the old traditional, radical form of speech, the irreconcilability and aversion to compromise, and the concentration in thought and speech upon the goal lying ahead. At the same time they were far from any thoughts of realising socialism through revolution. These men sought in 1919-20 for a new faith and believed themselves to have found it in Bolshevism. Here was revolutionary action on an heroic scale. Here was the realisation of socialism, and here an unbridgeable breach with capitalism. Entry into the Third International made a workman free of all these achievements. The ‘disgrace’ of 1914 was wiped out and the organising work of prewar radicalism could be resumed and continued towards the ultimate goal. Italy became the scene of a typical development of this kind.
The chance and superficial causes that led the entire Italian Socialist Party to refuse to vote war credits have been described above. This party had thus avoided committing the ‘sin’ of 1914 and could take part as a whole in the Third International. Prewar traditions were thus preserved unaltered in a postwar Italy, where the extraordinary situation arose in which not only the entire prewar radicals (IIb) but also the revisionists (IIa) became members of the Third International.
The European supporters of the Third International presented a kaleidoscopic picture in their conflicting tendencies and beliefs. Revisionists and radicals of the official prewar type stood side by side with experienced revolutionaries determined to realise Bolshevism in their own countries, with utopian radicals, with syndicalists and with the supporters of Rosa Luxemburg. Only the exercise of democratic self-criticism and actual experience on the part of the masses could have gradually created a single unified party out of these diverse elements represented in the new Communist parties in Europe. And there was no time to spare for such an organic development. Instead it was essential to create as quickly as possible Communist parties in all the leading European states capable of revolutionary action in the near future. According to Bolshevik opinion the foundation of an efficient combative party was to be found in its possession of a strong party committee animated by a resolute fighting spirit. In order to obtain this desideratum the control of the party must be purged of all who might be suspected of weakness and indecision in a time of revolution. It was for this reason that Lenin demanded of the former Socialist, now Communist, Party in Italy that it should exclude from its ranks the old group of revisionists led by Turati. His demand resulted in the break-up of the Italian Communist Party into three groups: a right wing led by Turati; a left wing which supported Lenin’s demand; and a broad centre group, approximating to the prewar radicals, led by Serrati. Although this latter group was strongly opposed to the attitude adopted by the right wing, Serrati hesitated to provoke a cleavage in the Italian labour movement by insisting upon the exclusion of Turati and his followers. He preferred to resign from the party himself with all his supporters.
On the subject of the situation in Italy Lenin wrote in a manner highly characteristic of his own personality:
Serrati failed to understand the peculiar conditions obtaining in a period of transition such as that through which Italy is now passing. As is generally recognised, Italy is now moving towards a decisive conflict between the proletariat and the middle class for the control of the state. The exclusion of the Mensheviks, reformists, and of Turati and his followers, from the party is in such a moment not only inevitable and necessary but it may even be necessary to remove sincere and able Communists from all important posts if they show signs of indecision and especially of inclining towards an ‘agreement’ with the reformists.
Lenin went on to say that he would cite an apt example of what he meant. Immediately before and after the October Revolution in Russia a number of outstanding Communists made a mistake ‘which we now hesitate to mention’. And Lenin went on to describe the hesitations displayed by the Zinoviev–Kamenev group at the time of the October Revolution. He depicted these men resigning from the party committee at the decisive hour. Their resignation, however, was not a misfortune. For:
... on the eve of the revolution and in the midst of a violent struggle for victory the slightest hesitation within the party itself might have cost us the victory, destroyed the revolution, and taken power from the hands of the proletariat — a power that is not secure inasmuch as its possession is still hotly contested. If hesitant leaders disappear at such a moment, their departure strengthens rather than weakens the party, the labour movement and the revolution. Such a moment has now come in Italy.
In addition to ostracising Turati and his friends, the Communist Party in Italy was also to allow Serrati and his followers to go their own way peacefully. The party would only find itself the stronger for their absence in the hour of revolution. After the victory of the revolution the honourable men among those who had abandoned the party in the moment of crisis would admit their mistake and return. On this subject Lenin wrote:
A part of the Italian Mensheviks and followers of Turati would most probably return after the crisis of the revolution was over and be received again into the party in the same manner (we have lived through three critical years since the revolution) in which a number of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries have returned to us after fighting on the other side of the barricades in 1917-18.
It is clear from these sentences that Lenin did not at that time contemplate a state of things in which in every country in Europe a ‘pure’ Communist party and an ‘impure’ Social-Democrat party would be in permanent opposition to one another. He was concerned solely with the acute stage in the revolution. The masses were desirous of fighting and were waiting for a resolute leader to give them the signal to engage the battle. It was not of importance how many members a Communist party possessed at the outbreak of a revolution. Two conditions alone were of importance: the party must carry the masses with it; and the party committee must not contain any faint-hearted member who would seek to hinder the revolution. The party should dispense with the support of a few thousand left-wing radicals if by doing so it retained control over millions of workmen. With the same equanimity it should exclude doubters from its leadership, or refuse to accept them, even if by so doing it should lose members. Those who remained faithful to the party would all the more certainly prove victorious in a time of revolution while the workmen and party officials who had temporarily stood aside would then return to the fold of the Communist party. This purge was not an end in itself, but only a tactical means for rendering easier the conduct of a revolution; and the aim remained the reunion of the working class and of the leaders who were truly in sympathy with the proletariat.
Lenin’s attempt in 1919-20 to organise a revolution in Europe was a magnificent experiment. There were, however, gigantic difficulties to be overcome before it could succeed. The tradition of the working class in Europe was without exception democratic in the sense that labour policy could only be decided upon in accordance with the free exercise of the right to self-determination on the part of the masses. The conversion of the proletariat from a policy of reform to one of revolution seemed only possible if the masses altered their opinions first and subsequently discovered a suitable means of giving expression to them. Now the exactly contrary process was to be embarked upon with all possible rapidity. A revolutionary party committee was to be set up in every country and endowed with dictatorial powers over the members of the party, and with an unquestioned authority over the masses, and this party committee was to carry out a revolution. Although in the Promised Land of professional revolutionaries — Russia — it was possible to create such a central authority, there was nobody in Europe capable of undertaking such a task. And if, indeed, a revolutionary of this type was concealed somewhere in Europe in the editor of a labour newspaper, or a trade-union official — how was he quickly to be discovered? Even in Russia and under Lenin’s direction the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party had only gradually gained the confidence of the masses after years of work. How was an improvised Central Committee of the KPD or Communist Party in Italy to win over the majority of the nation to its cause? The creation of a Central Committee of European Communists could only be accomplished through the persistent use of dictatorial methods. For the time being the only way of knowing whether any particular person was a good revolutionary or not was by his voluntary acceptance or rejection of resolutions emanating from Russia. Hence twenty-one conditions were formulated for the acceptance of any party desirous of joining the Third International. The seventh condition read as follows:
Parties desirous of belonging to the Communist International are pledged to recognise the complete cleavage with reformism and the policy of the centre and to propagate this cleavage as widely as possible among their members. Unless that is done there can be no consistent Communist policy. The Communist International unconditionally and absolutely demands the carrying out of this cleavage in the shortest possible space of time. The Communist International will never be prepared to agree that notorious opportunists such as Turati, Kautsky, Hilferding, Hillquit, Longuet, MacDonald, Modigliani, etc, shall have the right to pass as members of the Third International; for that would only lead to making the Third International closely resemble the Second International that came to a disastrous end.
By ‘centre’ is meant the middle or moderate tendency in socialism. The twentieth and twenty-first conditions ran:
Those parties anxious to join the Third International whose policy has not already undergone a radical change must before their entry into the Communist International take measures to see that not less than two-thirds of the members of their Central Committees and all other central executive organs are comrades who unmistakably and openly advocated entry into the Third International before the assemblage of the Second Congress of the Communist International. Exceptions may be made with the approval of the Executive of the Third International. The Executive of the Communist International possesses the right to make exceptions for the representatives of the centre named in paragraph VII.
Members of parties who refuse in principle to accept the conditions and theses propounded by the Communist International shall be expelled from the party.
The above has special application to delegates to extraordinary meetings of the party.
Thus confidence was automatically placed in European leaders who had never performed any revolutionary action but who had announced their adherence to the Third International before a given date. In the same manner entry to the Third International was denied to certain persons mentioned by name who had during the war belonged to Kautsky’s group. These were the men upon whom Lenin had already declared war at the time of the Zimmerwald conference — the ‘centrals’ — who stood between him and the so-called social patriots. Although the executive of the Third International could make an exception in favour of individuals among these men, the principle was not thereby altered in any way. Anyone refusing to agree to the twenty-first condition was excluded from membership. If, for example, the party congress of the USPD put the question of membership of the Third International to the vote, and if the majority were in favour of accepting the Twenty-One Conditions, then the delegates composing the minority were automatically excluded from the new Communist Party by the mere fact of their voting.
The employment of such methods in European labour parties must inevitably result in creating an atmosphere of sectarianism and heresy-hunting. Valuable members would be rejected merely because they refused their support for certain theses and not because they had proved themselves useless in revolutionary work. Moreover, the question remained to be answered whether those who assented to these propositions would in the event lead the revolution to victory. The truth is that Lenin was then the prisoner of circumstances. In order to preserve socialism in Russia revolution must be propagated in Europe as quickly as possible. And if organised and developed revolutionary parties and party committees did not already exist in Europe, then they had to be in some way — good or bad — created.
The passing of the Twenty-One Conditions was the most important achievement of the Second World Congress. These conditions reveal the spirit animating the Communist International in the very brief period — they ceased to exist by 1921 — in which this organisation was the real leader of the international socialist revolution. Although this spirit was characterised by a stony one-sidedness, it also revealed a mighty revolutionary will-power. The first of the Twenty-One Conditions demanded that every party should conduct truly Communist propaganda and agitation and, above all, hold up the ideal of a dictatorship of the proletariat before the eyes of the masses. The second demanded the removal of all reformists and supporters of the centre from responsible posts at the disposal of the party. The third demanded that each party should create an illegal, in addition to its legal, organisation because in practically all American and European countries class warfare emerged at some stage in a civil war. At such a moment the legal status of a party was not sufficient to enable it to carry on its work. The fourth condition demanded the pursuit of a systematic Communist propaganda in the armies. The fifth condition was of importance as defining the relationship between the working class and the peasantry. It ran:
A regular and systematic agitation must be carried on in the country districts. The working class cannot achieve victory unless it is supported by the country proletariat and at least a part of the poorest peasantry, and unless it has assured itself by its policy of the neutrality of a proportion of the remaining inhabitants of the villages. At the present time Communist activity in the country districts is of the utmost importance. It must be pursued through the cooperation of revolutionary Communist workmen who have friends and relations among the peasantry. An abandonment of this activity or the entrusting of it to unreliable and not truly revolutionary workers would be tantamount to an abandonment of the proletarian revolution.
The sixth condition required the disavowal of the ‘sham of social pacifism’. The seventh condition has already been given above. The eighth required that all Communist parties should work for the liberation of all colonial peoples and for the independence of the colonies belonging to their own countries. The ninth condition contained a rejection of utopian radicalism and syndicalism in the trade-union question. It ran:
Every party desirous of joining the Communist International must develop Communist activities in a systematic and resolute manner in the trade unions, labour councils, factory committees, consumers’ associations and other mass working-class organisations. Communist cells must be organised within these organisations for the purpose of winning the trade unions, etc, for Communism through determined and persistent propaganda. These cells are to expose the treason of the social patriots and the fickleness of the ‘Centre’ on all possible occasions. The Communist cells must be completely subordinated to the party.
The tenth condition is ambiguous. In every country the Communists are to pursue their work zealously in the Social-Democrat trade unions. If, however, the central committee of the trade unions in any country becomes Communist, then these trade unions are to desert the old Social-Democrat trade-union International — the so-called Amsterdam International — and to join a new International of Red trade unions. As the revolution passes rapidly from country to country, the capture by the Communists of the central committees of the trade unions in the individual countries must automatically follow, and the creation of the new trade-union International progress parallel with the growth of the Communist International. If, however, the revolution is delayed, then violent controversies will arise within the individual trade unions — for example, the German Metal-Workers’ Association — over the question of union with Moscow or Amsterdam. This controversy might easily result in the emergence of the danger of a cleavage notwithstanding the activity of the Communist party within the trade unions. The trade-union question has from 1920 to the present day remained one of the gravest difficulties confronting the Communist International.
The eleventh condition dealt with parliamentary activity. In opposition to the syndicalists it approved parliamentary activity before the advent of the revolution. At the same time the Communist members of parliament were to be completely subordinate to the Central Committee of the party and to carry on truly revolutionary propaganda and agitation at all times.
The twelfth to the nineteenth conditions are concerned with organisation. All Communist parties are to be organised after the Bolshevik model. The Central Committee of the party is to be entrusted with the ‘fullest power and authority, and with far-reaching rights’. ‘Iron discipline’ is required of the members. All these demands are founded upon the necessity for an absolutely unanimous leadership of a revolutionary party in time of civil war. This form of organisation is given the name of ‘democratic centralisation’ in view of the fact that the authority of the Central Committee of the party should rest upon the confidence reposed in it by the members. Any opposition group within the party would be at a disadvantage in comparison with such an autocratic Central Committee. The Central Committee is empowered to appoint all the party officials, control all party newspapers, and to expel from the party undesirable members. Hence the Central Committee can make its preparations beforehand for the party congress and assure itself of the vote of confidence necessary to enable it to continue in office until the next party congress. The Central Committee of a party is subordinated to the Executive Committee of the Communist International in an exactly similar manner to that in which the party members and local groups are subordinated to it. The world congress elects the Executive Committee. The majority of its members are non-Russians. Nevertheless, the real policy of the Communist International is laid down by the representatives of the Russian Communist Party. All decisions of the Executive Committee are binding upon all Communist parties. An opposition group within a Communist party can never in normal circumstances overthrow the Central Committee. It is, however, master of the situation at the moment when it succeeds in gaining the ears of the Executive Committee, that is, the leaders of the Russian Bolshevik Party. In that case the Central Committee succumbs to an attack on two fronts and its opponents take its place in the control of the party with the approval of the Executive Committee.
It is undeniable that such an organisation of an international labour movement was only tolerable in an age of civil warfare. Even then it is necessary to ask if a great popular revolution can be conducted on military lines. In peaceful times the organisation of the Communist International would inevitably lead to grave disputes among European workmen. Zinoviev was chosen as Chairman of the Communist International, and Lozovsky was entrusted with the management of the International of Red Trade Unions. Both men sought to wipe out the memory of their indecision in the autumn of 1917 by an increased display of revolutionary energy.
The immediate problem was that of giving effect in Europe to the decisions of the Second World Congress. The remarkable party congress of the USPD which was to decide for or against acceptance of the Twenty-One Conditions was held in Halle. Zinoviev appeared in person. He delivered a speech that lasted for four hours in which he explained the Bolshevik point of view with brilliant ingenuity. The majority of the delegates accepted the Twenty-One Conditions; and the majority of the USPD thereupon united with the old KPD (Spartacist Union) to form a great new United German Communist Party. In France the majority at the Socialist Party congress accepted the Twenty-One Conditions and founded the French Communist Party. In Italy, however, the Twenty-One Conditions were rejected both by Turati’s supporters and by those of Serrati. It was therefore only a minority of the old Italian Socialist Party that founded the Italian Communist Party. The various tiny groups in England who had declared themselves in favour of the decisions of the Second World Congress united to form the English Communist Party.
The establishment of Communist parties in the sense desired by the Second World Congress had thus been achieved in all important European countries. It is true, however, that this was done at the cost of serious cleavages and the alienation of large numbers of former Socialist and syndicalist workmen. The author of the Twenty-One Conditions had from the first reckoned with these losses. Moreover, it was of no importance in 1920 whether the Communist party in a particular country was supported by 20, 30, or 40 per cent of the electorate, nor what percentage of workmen in a country were already organised. All that was of decisive importance was whether the Communists would be successful in securing the support of the majority of the people for revolution. Whether the European Communist parties would be able to organise a successful revolution so quickly that socialist Russia would be freed from her cares, and whether Soviet Russia in her dangerous condition of domestic crisis would be able to wait and hold out until the revolution made itself perceptible in Europe — these were the all-important questions of the day.