Source: Published in Toward the United Front: Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 1922 (https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/897-to-the-masses), pp. 946-947.
Translation: Translations by John Riddell
HTML Markup: David Walters & Andy Blunden for the Marxists Internet Archive, 2018
Copyright: John Riddell, 2017. Republished here with permission.
After a number of meetings, the commission came to the following conclusion:
1. The report presented to the commission of the delegate of the Socialist Party of Egypt is sufficient evidence that this party is a significant revolutionary movement that is in agreement with the broad movement represented by the Communist International.
2. However, the commission considers it necessary to postpone the affiliation of the Socialist Party of Egypt until:
a. The party has excluded certain undesirable elements.
b. The party has called a congress at which an attempt will be made to bring back into the Socialist Party of Egypt Communist forces now outside the party who want to accept the Twenty-One Conditions of the Communist International.
c. The party has changed its name to ‘Communist Party of Egypt’.
3. The Socialist Party of Egypt is instructed to convene a congress to this end soon, and in any case not later than 15 January 1923.
Published: in Toward the United Front: Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 1922 (https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/472-toward-the-united-front), pp. 1191-1193.
Developing Marxist educational work is an essential task of all Communist parties. The goal of this work is to raise the capacity of all party members and functionaries for education, organisation, and struggle. Functionaries must receive not only a general Marxist schooling but also the knowledge and abilities necessary for their specialised fields of work.
Communist educational work should be an integral component of the party’s work as a whole. It must absolutely be placed under the control of the central party leadership. In countries where revolutionary workers’ education is carried out predominantly by special organisations outside the Communist Party, this goal should be pursued through the systematic work of Communists in these organisations.
It is desirable to establish an educational secretariat, linked to the party central committee, to take the leadership of the entire educational activity of the party. All the Communist Party members active in general workers’ educational institutions that are not led by the party (worker educational associations, proletarian universities, proletkult,[1] labour colleges, and so on) are subject to the supervision and directives of party organisations.
Communist educational work is carried out by the parties, as circumstances and given conditions permit, by establishing central and local party schools, daytime and evening courses, and the like, by making available travelling teachers and lecturers, by organising libraries, and so on.
The parties are obligated to give material and ideological support to the independent educational work of the Communist youth. Communist youth should be invited to all party educational activities. The revolutionary upbringing of proletarian children should be carried out jointly with the Communist youth. Guidelines for this will be made available by an educational section attached to the ECCI.
An international educational division is being established as part of the ECCI. Its task is above all to further clarify the challenges of Communist educational work, the leadership of party educational work as a whole, and unification of work in the proletarian educational institutions that are outside the party. This task includes collecting and exchanging international experiences; enriching the forms and methods of work in each country; working up and publishing handbooks, manuals, and other material; and settling any special problems that arise in the sphere of educational work in specific countries. The international educational secretariat will also investigate and develop policies on education for the Communist parties and the Communist International.
The Socialist Academy and similar institutions in Soviet Russia will establish international courses in order to provide intensified Marxist schooling and practical Communist education for qualified comrades from the Communist International’s national sections.
1. Every member of the Communist International is obliged to carry out agitation among workers outside the party. This can be done whenever and wherever workers can most readily be encountered, at their own or other workplaces, in the trade unions, in people’s assemblies, in workers’ associations, in sports clubs, choirs, tenants’ and consumer groups, in people’s centres, in workers’ restaurants, on the railway, in the villages, and often by visiting workers’ homes (house agitation).
2. The starting point of such agitation should always be the specific conditions and needs of the workers in question, with the goal of leading them along the path of organised, revolutionary class struggle. There should be no imposition of communist principles or demands that the listeners cannot yet understand. However, they should always be encouraged to support and struggle for the common demands of the proletariat against the capitalists and every form of bourgeois class rule.
3. In every struggle of workers against the capitalists and bourgeois class rule, Communists should take part vigorously and fight in the front lines for the interests of all, setting aside personal gain and winning others through their example.
4. The leading party bodies should issue practical instructions to the local branches regarding regular agitational work by all party members, as well as regarding agitational work in campaigns (in elections, regarding inflation and taxes, in the factory councils, in the unemployed movement) and other efforts led by the party. (A copy of all such instructions is to be sent to the ECCI.)
5. All party members have the right to ask responsible leaders of their organisation for more specific direction on how agitation should be carried out. It is the responsibility of leaders of Communist cells, work groups, and fractions to give such instructions and to supervise their execution. Where such group leaders are not available, special leaders of agitation should be assigned for this purpose.
6. During the coming winter, all party organisations, even the smallest, should determine, with regard to each of their members:
a. Does the member conduct agitation among workers outside the party
i. Regularly?
ii. Only occasionally?
iii. Not at all?
b. Does the member carry out other party work
i. Regularly?
ii. Only occasionally?
iii. Not at all?
After consulting with the ECCI, the party Central Committee will send a circular to all its branches explaining how to present these questions in unambiguous fashion.
Responsibility to carry out this survey lies with the district and local organisations. The party Central Committee is to send the results to the ECCI.
1. All members of the Communist International must be informed of the important decisions not only of their own party but of the Communist International.
2. All branches of affiliated national sections must see to it that every member of the party is acquainted at least with the programme of their own party and the Twenty-One Conditions of the Comintern, as well as with decisions of the Communist International that relate specifically to their party. Party members should be tested regarding their level of understanding.
3. Responsible officers should have a thorough knowledge of all the most important tactical and organisational decisions of the world congress, and their knowledge should be tested. This is also desirable, although not compulsory, for as many other party members as possible.
4. The Central Committee of every section is obligated to send appropriate instructions to its organisation for putting these decisions into practice and to send a report of the results to the ECCI early next year.
1. Proletkult (Proletarian Culture) was a movement in Soviet Russia, supported by the Commissariat of Education, that aimed to develop a new culture appropriate for socialist society. An international Proletkult bureau was established at the Second Comintern Congress (see Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1991, vol. 1, p. 484).