Terracini’s Speech

Third (Communist) International
Third Congress – 11^th Session, 1^st July 1921

Speech by Delegate Terracini of the PCd’I, in relation to the discussion on the Theses on Tactics presented by Radek

(From the German Protocol, being compared with some parts evidently taken from the “Bulletin of the Third Congress”)

Delegates have already read this morning in Moscow the amendments that the German delegation, together with those of Austria and Italy, wish to propose to the congress delegates. We have now been informed by the Communist Youth that they wish to join with the Italian, German, and Austrian delegates in expressing their opinion on our proposal.

Let me say right from the start that we do not wish to alter the theses that Comrade Radek proposed yesterday at the close of his report – at least, not as regards their fundamental principle. In our opinion, Comrade Radek’s theses are actually linked to the theses and report by Comrade Trotski on the world situation. When Comrade Trotski spoke on this topic, he also noted that Comrade Radek had protested that Trotski had deviated from the question under discussion and taken up aspects of the Theses on Tactics and Strategy. In his summary, Comrade Trotski said he was pulling back somewhat in order to leave the entire topic of these theses to Comrade Radek. This incident shows that there is in fact a relationship between the reports of Comrade Radek and Comrade Trotski, and that you can move from one report to the other without presenting new principles and adding new explanations.

All delegates, including those from Germany, Austria, Italy and the Communist Youth, have given general approval to the theses proposed by Comrade Trotski. That signifies that they have also declared their agreement with the theses of Comrade Radek. They would be contradicting themselves if, having approved Comrade Trotski’s theses, they were now to reject those of Comrade Radek.

In our view, the theses of Comrade Radek can serve only as a foundation for the debate, unless they are first modified by fundamental amendments. You read the amendments today in Moscow. Comrades, they fill almost a full page. All these amendments rest on general principles that I will now propose. Each individual amendment will then be explained and clarified by other comrades, who – like me – can convey news on the situation in specific countries and on specific conditions that bear on the theses.

One of the sections in Comrade Radek’s theses deals with the situation in each country and the developments in different parties. These theses on the current situation should give us the key to the tactics that must be carried out by each party and country. The expression, ‘events in individual parties’ must therefore be altered, in our opinion. Take the situation in Italy, for example. What is said here on Italy does not correspond to the true situation in the Socialist Party and among the proletarian masses of the country. These assertions can easily give our enemies a weapon to use against us.

In point 4, we read: The politics of the Serrati current, while strengthening the influence of the reformists, also strengthened that of the anarchists and syndicalists, in which the masses sought to find leaders for the struggle against capitalism. They also generated anti-parliamentary verbal‑radical tendencies within the party itself.

The claim that the Italian masses sought leadership for the struggle against capitalism among the anarchists and syndicalists does not, in our opinion, correspond to reality. The anarchists and syndicalists in Italy have never had an organization. It is not true that the proletarian masses turned to the anarchists and syndicalists to find other leaders of the anticapitalist struggle, after the Socialist Party had shown itself to be weak. Many opponents of communism and the Communist Party in Italy did in fact claim that the masses sought leaders among the syndicalists and anarchists after the Third International appraised the Socialist Party in disparaging terms. From what I hear, Comrade Zetkin told the VKPD Central Committee that the Communist Party of Italy is largely composed of syndicalists and contains many anarchists. Serrati, too, has asserted more than once in the columns of Avanti and in his speeches that those who split from the Socialists in Livorno were merely anarchists and syndicalists. He tried to arouse the belief that the Third International’s organization in Italy, like all its parties in other countries, was nothing other than an organization of anarchists who had previously belonged to the Socialist Party and had now left it. Therefore, he said, the Socialist Party did not want to tolerate any anarchists or syndicalists in its ranks in the future.

The proletarian masses will have to make the choice between the anarchists, on the one hand, and the reformists and centrists on the other. The reformists today represent a rather large organized force. We are convinced that the proletarian masses will follow the Communist Party. In Italy, too, after the period of confusion following the Livorno Congress, these masses sought a new focus for organization and found it in the Communist Party of Italy. We therefore propose that the sentence regarding the masses’ efforts to find new leaders among the anarchists and syndicalists be amended as follows:

In moments of confrontational action, the centrist attitude of these leaders resulted in a situation where the Communist parties either failed to take the lead of the mass actions with sufficient energy or where centrist or half‑centrist elements attacked them from the rear.

There is no doubt that this danger is now behind us, and that there is now in Italy a genuine Communist Party that leads the masses in struggle against capitalism and the bourgeoisie.

We must raise a principled question: that of the radical current within the Communist Party. There has already been a sharp struggle against the radical tendency in debates within the Executive and here at this congress. When we in the Executive discussed the question of the Communist Party of France, the delegate of the Communist Youth of France attempted to demonstrate how strong opportunism is, even today, in the Communist Party of France. He cited examples and cases where the Communist Party of France, in his opinion, had not taken a truly revolutionary position. On this occasion, many comrades heatedly attacked the delegate of the Communist Youth of France. We certainly do not hold that the proposals of the French comrade must be adopted here. It is not our view that the Communist Party of France should have carried out the revolution and resisted the French army’s invasion of Luxemburg with arms in hand. We do not believe that, when the class of 1919 was conscripted, the French Communist Party should have issued the order not to respond to the call, or that, when the guards came to fetch the young French comrades, they should have resisted with arms in hand. However, we do not believe that every radical tendency must be rejected in such a ruthless fashion. In our opinion, the statements in Comrade Radek’s theses about radical tendencies in the French party and in other countries are too strong. (Interjection) No, they are too strong, not too weak.

The Third International still has a major struggle to fight today, a struggle against the rightist tendencies, against the centrists, half‑centrists, and opportunists. We expelled Levi from the Third International and the VKPD and refused to admit Serrati into the Third International. But we cannot yet conclude that the Third International is now free from all centrist tendencies and from the threat of opportunist tendencies. The full challenge of the struggle against centrist and opportunist tendencies lies before us now. Strong centrist tendencies, which still exist in the Third International and many of its member parties, must be combated energetically.

On the other hand, the proposals that we adopted yesterday in the Executive, the proposal regarding the Executive’s conduct, speak of certain parties affiliated to the Third International that still display centrist tendencies. We explained that these tendencies must be wiped out.

We spoke of certain parties that joined the Third International because the masses wanted it, even though this was against or almost against the will of their leaders. These leaders belong to the Third International today only because the masses wanted to join it. The possibility now exists that these leaders, who entered the Third International only because the masses wanted them to, will now try to switch over once again to centrist or reformist policies. The Executive must keep a close eye on these party leaders and take care that no new Serrati or new Levi crops up, who would represent a danger not only for the revolutionary movement in their country but for the Third International as a whole.

We therefore consider that it is not the struggle against radical tendencies, but rather above all the struggle against the rightists that must be taken up – especially in the paragraphs dealing with the situation in the Communist Party of France. Specifically, all the references in these paragraphs that crudely target the tendencies referred to here as ‘impatient and politically inexperienced forces’. Instead of that, we should add advice to the radical forces. We can advise the Central Committee of the French party to work to prevent the radical forces, in the words of Comrade Lenin in the Executive, from ‘committing stupidities’. However, it must be emphasized that the Executive of the French party must direct its attention and its work above all toward the right tendency.

In his report on the Executive, Comrade Zinoviev spoke quite fully against the right tendencies. If we now adopt the amendment to the Theses on Tactics and Strategy, we will only be reaffirming the statements of Comrade Zinoviev. We do not expect Comrade Radek to raise any objections to our amendment. When the Executive discussed the question of the French party, Comrade Radek spoke not against the radical tendency but against the rightists. Our amendment’s aim at nothing more than to stress in the Theses on Tactics and Strategy the same points that Comrade Radek has already made in the Executive with regard to the P.C.F.

When we come to the situation in Czechoslovakia, we encounter a second principled question, which is mentioned quite often, in a general sense, in Comrade Radek’s theses. However, I would like to speak specifically about the situation in Czechoslovakia.

The question here is how large mass parties should be organized. In his theses, Comrade Radek seems very concerned to prevent the Communist parties in different countries from devoting themselves to any task other than the organization of larger and larger masses of proletarians and workers. So we read, for example, in point 1: ‘it’s a matter of the tactics and strategy to be applied in our struggles. ’… Well, in our opinion, the words regarding the need to win a majority of the working class to Communist principles can lead to misunderstandings in the parties and the other workers’ organizations.

Yes, we must strive to organize the majority of the proletariat in the Communist Party, we must make efforts to bring ever broader proletarian masses to the organizations of the Communist Party. As for the words, ‘winning the masses’, all we can say is that we must strive to win the sympathy of the vast majority of the proletariat for revolutionary struggle. Comrade Radek’s theses contain the notion that we must win the majority of the proletariat for communism.

In point 4 – page 9 in the French version of the theses – we read that in Czechoslovakia there is already a party with 350,000 organized members, plus another 60,000 in the German party in that country. As a result, when the two parties fuse, there will be a total membership of 400,000. It follows from this that the Czechoslovak party faces the task of attracting and educating the majority of the working class of this country through a truly communist agitation. In our opinion, the Communist Party of a country as small as Czechoslovakia, a party that already counts more than 400,000 members, faces yet other tasks, namely those of winning the remaining workers who are still outside the party. You cannot halt propaganda work; you cannot close the gates of the Communist Party to the workers who wish to join it. That lies beyond any doubt. But there is still another task, namely the communist training of the 400,000 workers who are already organized in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The workers that heretofore stood under the influence of reformist and democratic leaders, who always instructed them in a reformist and opportunist spirit, must now be educated as Communists. The statement that the Czechoslovak party has the task of winning even broader working masses, and moreover not merely through propaganda, thus signifies that the Communist Party must also be expanded through action. We now wish to explain what we can expect from revolutionary struggle and what it will look like. It must truly be a struggle of the entire proletariat, or almost all of it. In our opinion we must not postpone revolutionary action until the majority of the proletariat is organized and acknowledges the principles of communism. We have heard often enough that the Russian Revolution was carried out and triumphed while the Communist Party of Russia was still a small and relatively unimportant organization. So, when it is said that the majority of the proletariat must be organized in the party, that can only mean that the majority of the proletariat must be involved in the revolutionary struggle.

When I read the theses of Comrade Radek, I had the impression that he was saying that the majority of the proletariat must be organized before the revolutionary struggle begins. We do not share this point of view.

On the contrary, we believe that the working class cannot be won over otherwise than through action by the party. The workers who now belong to the democratic and reformist parties are more likely to be convinced by action than by our propaganda that the principles of communism are correct. Only then will they quit the reformist parties. In my opinion, a Communist Party will always consist of only the most active workers, until it launches itself in struggle – and, what is more, until it has almost triumphed.

The workers who now belong to the majority and reformist parties and are won by our propaganda will not join the Communist Party but will remain outside, forming a party of those without affiliation. That happened in Russia, where the unaffiliated workers are only now, after three years of revolutionary struggle, joining up with communism – indeed, without for the moment having any clear conception of what it is.

The theses should therefore not assert that the main task of the Communist Party consists of winning the majority of the proletariat for the principles of communism. It would be much more correct to say that the majority of the proletariat must be drawn into the revolutionary struggle. We must not, however, propose the notion that the majority of the proletariat must be organized in the Communist Party. That statement would give the reformists a sharp weapon to use against us. The reformists have always claimed that the revolutionary struggle must not begin until the majority of the proletariat is organized in the Communist Party. What we have here is a democratic principle that people want to use against the Communist Party. However, this is suitable only for the reformists and not for the theses proposed for the Third International.

We find this assertion again in the passage that takes up the tasks of the German party and the position of the KPD with regard to the Third International (page 9). There we read: “The VKPD was formed from the fusion of the “Spartacists” with the working masses of the left‑wing Independents. Although already a mass party, it faces the major task of increasing and strengthening its influence on the broad masses; winning the proletarian mass organizations, the trade unions; and breaking the hold of the Social Democratic Party and trade‑union bureaucracy. From this it follows that the VKPD also has the task of strengthening its influence on the broad masses. In our opinion, however, a party like the one in Germany, which has a large number of members, has another much more important task, namely that of placing itself at the head of the masses in the coming struggles of the German proletariat. We can be sure that the revolutionary movement in Germany is not yet over. On the contrary, the future struggles of the German proletariat will be more significant and more bitter precisely because the German proletariat was defeated in the March Action.

I was in Germany when the struggle broke out. I stayed there for several days and then returned to Italy. I must say that I saw how the influence and popularity of the German party in Italy was significantly greater after the

March Action, when there was no longer any hope of victory, than it was before. The Italian comrades and the workers with whom I spoke asked question after question about the struggle of the German proletariat. There is no way that I can portray to you how great was the sympathy of Italian workers for the German party, which had the courage to take up the struggle to defend the German proletariat under the most difficult conditions imaginable. The Italian workers displayed greater sympathy for the KPD after the March Action in Germany than before. They demonstrated greater admiration, greater trust in the party than there was in Germany itself. In Germany there now exists a true mass party. Before, the Italian workers could not be convinced of that. Comrade Trotski shakes his head. It appears that he does not quite believe what I am saying. (Trotski: I am not just referring to what you are saying right now.) I thought as much. However, I can definitely say that my statement reflects the true feelings of the Italian proletariat.

Moreover, the March movement in Germany was useful to the VKPD in many regards. It contributed to tearing the mask from the face of numerous opportunists. The German party learned in the March struggle how discipline is expressed in action. We have always spoken of discipline, but we never had the opportunity to apply it. During the March struggles, however, the German comrades learned to apply discipline. They have now achieved a competence in struggle that was lacking before the March Action, and which we ourselves still lack to this day.

Comrade Radek and others spoke sarcastically about the theory of the offensive. It is true that this is a poor choice of words. It is adopted from military language. It seems that Comrade Radek has read quite a bit regarding military tactics, such that he now feels able to speak sarcastically of the policy of an offensive that found its theoreticians in Germany after the March Action. Nonetheless, the words ‘theory of the offensive’ have a certain meaning, which we must clearly understand. We are convinced that this will be of significant benefit for the revolutionary struggle. We should not reject this theory; rather we must try to understand its meaning.

When comrades talk of the theory of the offensive, they mean a tendency toward expanding the activity of the Communist Party. The term aims to stress that a dynamic tendency will now replace the static one that has until now struck deep roots in almost all Communist parties of the Third International. The formula ‘theory of the offensive’ signifies the transition from a period of inactivity to a period of action. In our opinion, the theory of the offensive can be accepted only in this sense and this spirit. If we interpret it in the fashion that I have laid out, then the Theses on Tactics and Strategy must not reject, out of hand, the statements of comrades who speak of the theory of the offensive; rather we must correct the exaggerations in their statements.

The main principled changes that we are proposing to congress delegates are these: first, we must not deal with the Left too sharply while abandoning the field to the rightists in the Communist parties and the Third International. On the contrary, in our view the Right must be combated, for it represents a much greater danger for communism. The Left, on the other hand, will only pose a danger to the party when the party fully develops its activity. Also, it must be stressed that it is not absolutely necessary that the Communist Party is already organized and has won the majority of the working masses. What is important is merely the capacity of the Communist parties, at the moment of struggle, to draw the masses with them.

As I said earlier, other comrades will take up additional questions raised by the theses. For my part, I am limiting myself to the two questions that I have just discussed.