The Italian Left: On the Line of Lenin and the First Two Congresses of the Third International Pt 6

Chapter 6: The Second Congress of the Communist International (Petrograd, July 19 – August 7, 1920)

During the First Congress of the Communist International in 1919, precise conditions for admission were not set out. In most countries, with the exception of Russia, there were merely communist groups or communist tendencies, not communist parties.

“At the time of our First Congress,” said Lenin in 1920 “we were only propagandists; we were only expounding basic ideas to the proletariat of the whole world. We were calling people to fight and we were only wondering which men would be capable of following our route.” At its Second Congress, the C.I. appeared as “an organization of struggle,” and in every respect “a unique communist party of the whole world. The parties working in the various countries should merely be its various sections.”

The fundamental problem was to safeguard the new organization from the ever-present danger of an opportunist ambush. Indeed there were numerous parties and groups who asked to join the Comintern who hadn’t made a clear and final break with the programmes and methods of the Second International.

“The in-between parties and the centrist groups, seeing the utter hopelessness of the Second International, are trying to find support in the Communist International, which is growing steadily stronger. But in doing so they hope to retain enough ‘autonomy’ to enable them to continue their former opportunist or ‘centrist’ policy” (The Conditions of Admission). The example of Hungary, where the merger of communists with left-wing social democrats had allowed the bourgeoisie to drown the Magyar revolution in blood, was present in the minds of communists everywhere.

The Second Congress had an economic and social framework which was potentially revolutionary, and Warsaw was expected to fall under the counter-offensive of the Red Army, even though this didn’t eventually happen. Huge strikes broke out in Germany, England, and France, which were followed by arrests (Loriot, Monatte, Souvarine in France, Pankhurst in England).

Organization

The delegates, 218 of them representing thirty-seven countries, arrived from all corners of the world. Faced with a radicalization of the class struggle, powerful organizations like the English Independent Labour Party, The German USPD, the French Socialist Party, and the Socialist Party of America, asked to join.

The Italian delegation arrived on June 6 and was composed of a large number of representatives, only some of whom were admitted and allowed to participate in the congress. Those with deliberative votes were Serrati, representing the leadership of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), Bombacci and Graziadei from the parliamentary group, and Polano from the Youth Socialist Federation; the part of the delegation not asked to take part in the congress was composed of members of the unions (D’Aragona, Colombino); the league of co-operatives (Pavirani) and some other proletarian organizations. This mainly right-wing delegation arrived under Serrati’s protection and had their main discussions with the Bolsheviks prior to the congress. Lenin, Trotski, Zinoviev, and Bukharin attempted in vain to convince Serrati that it was necessary to split from Turati & Co., but the obstinate leader of the Maximalists continued to defend Turati and D’Aragona, and even attempted to extend the consultative vote to all eight representatives of the union confederation. He also deplored the invitation sent by the Executive Committee to the representative of the Communist Abstentionist Fraction (CAF) to act in a consultative capacity. The union and co-operative delegates got ready to return to Italy before the congress had started, whilst Serrati would continue to justify their presence within the PSI.

The representative of the CAF was therefore not included in the PSI delegation. It was Lenin who wanted them to participate at the congress, and he organized this by means of Heller (Chiarini) his delegate in Italy, who went to Naples several times to arrange the journey according to the following itinerary: Brenner, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsingfors, Reval, and Petrograd. The CAF representative thus arrived at Petrograd the day before the opening of the congress. He was invited to participate in all the congress debates with a consultative vote as representative of the Petrograd, July 19 – August 7, 1920 only fraction of the PSI which had explicitly set out the necessity of an irrevocable break with the reformist right-wing of the party.

The French delegation, including Rosmer, Sadoul, Guilbeaux, Cachin, and Frossard were sent by the French Socialist Party on a “fact-finding mission”, and left before the final conditions of admission to the CI were drawn up (with only nineteen of the twenty-one conditions!). In the autumn of 1920, on the return of the CAF delegate, “il Soviet” published an article called “On the International Communist Congress” in which the proceedings and organization of the debates were described. For each subject on the agenda, a commission was named which presented its deliberations for debate in full congress. The debate would then generally conclude with a preliminary vote after which the theses would be sent back to the commission in order to introduce the amendments which had been agreed in congress. Sometimes, if substantial changes were made to the theses, they had to be resubmitted to congress for final approval. The arrangement of the topics to be discussed often led to repetition.

“The prior preparation for the congress debates, conducted within the communist movements of all countries and within the international communist press, was integrated by the comrades of the Executive Committee in Moscow, and supplemented by critical writings and polemics summing up their viewpoint. Particularly outstanding, and provoking much discussion, was Lenin’s “Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder”. The Executive Committee also presented a report on its work, which, along with reports by representatives of particular parties was incorporated without much discussion into the proceedings of the congress.” (Il Soviet, October 3, 1920).

Apart from the question of parliamentarism, the conclusions reached by the commissions didn’t come up against any noticeable opposition from congress when it came to the vote. As a matter of fact, at no time was a vote close enough to merit a recount.

The following topics were debated:

1. Statutes of the CI
2. Conditions of admission of parties to the CI
3. Principal tasks of the CI
4. Resolution on the role of the Communist Party in the Proletarian Revolution
5. The trade-union movement and the factory committees
6. Theses on the national and colonial questions
7. Theses on the Agrarian question
8. The Communist Party and parliamentarism
9. Congress Manifesto: the capitalist world and the Communist International
    

The Tasks of the Party and the International

On the July 19, at the seat of the Petrograd Soviet, Zinoviev opened the congress with a speech which summed up the tasks of the International. The fundamental task of Communists was to create a strong party, centralized and international, to fight against the bourgeoisie. Lenin took the stand after Zinoviev and provided an outline of the world situation and the inter-imperialist conflicts. The principal enemy of the proletarian revolution were the opportunist currents (Kerensky in Russia, Albert Thomas in France, Turati in Italy, etc.) since they defended not only the bourgeoisie but capitalism as a whole. It would be a thousand times easier, said Lenin, to correct any mistakes made by the Communist International’s left-wing tendencies than to fight against “those bourgeois who, in the guise of reformists, belong to the old parties of the Second International and conduct the whole of their work in a bourgeois, not a proletarian, spirit.”

On July 23, the congress sat again in Moscow taking up the question of The Role of The Party in the Proletarian Revolution. Zinoviev’s theses were formally clearly Marxist and confirmed the authoritarian and centrist nature of the proletarian dictatorship and of the party, and they agreed point by point with the positions of our fraction. The theses condemned both the anarchist and councilist positions: or to be precise, the anarchist and syndicalist positions which denied or minimized the role of the class’s political party, and which therefore represented an obstacle to Marxism by playing into the hands of the social traitors and the bourgeoisie.

During the debate some syndicalist delegates opposed the theses, not on questions of principle but rather by raising doubts about their general relevance to all countries. On August 4, the Statutes of the CI were debated. The International’s supreme body was declared to be the World Congress, whose function was to discuss and take decisions on the most important programmatic and tactical questions; The Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) would be the leading body of the CI in the periods between World Congresses and responsible only to the World Congress; there were debates about Communist Party discipline and centralization, etc.

On August 6, there was the report on “The Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International”, which confirmed the principals and programme which presupposed the existence of a “unified proletarian army” marching towards its historical goal. Divided into three main sections, and nineteen theses, the first section concerned “the meaning of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and of the Soviet System”; the second responded to the question of “What work should be carried out at once to prepare for the dictatorship of the proletariat”, and the third section concerned “Correction of the policy and partly also of the personnel of the parties adhering or willing to adhere to the Communist International”.

Thesis seventeen referred to the situation in Italy:

“In regard to the Italian Socialist Party, the Second Congress of the Communist International recognizes that the revision of the programme undertaken by this party at its congress at Bologna last year represents a very important stage in the transformation to communism and that the proposals made to the National Council of the party by the Turin Section and published in the newspaper L’Ordine Nuovo on May 8, 1920 all correspond with the fundamental principles of communism. The congress asks the Italian Socialist Party to examine at its next congress, which will take place in accordance with its own statutes and the general conditions of entry into the Communist International, the proposals that have been made and all the decisions of the Second Congress of the Communist International, especially with regard to the parliamentary fraction, the trade unions, and the non-Communist elements in the party.”

The Conditions of Admission to the Communist International

The fact that the Second Congress (the real founding congress of the Comintern) was taking place in circumstances full of serious pitfalls and dangers, even if pregnant with revolutionary possibilities, was mentioned on several occasions: in the Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the CI, in several of the speeches of Lenin, Trotski, and Zinoviev, and even in the introduction to the “conditions” themselves. Now the situation becomes one where not just communist groups or currents were allowed to participate in the congress, but also representatives of other proletarian parties and organizations. The irresistible attraction that the October Revolution and the new International was exerting on the masses couldn’t fail to influence the parties which, up to the day before had belonged to the Second International and accepted its theoretical, tactical, and organizational conceptions. The French Socialist Party (PSF), represented by Cachin and Frossard, and the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (still scarred by its adhesion to the imperialist war and its participation in the first bloodthirsty republican government) were two characteristic examples.

Another example was the Italian Socialist Party, whose majority declared in favor of joining the CI at the Bologna Congress in the autumn of 1919, but whose conception of the revolutionary process was very vague; to the extent it stubbornly refused to expel well-known reformists such as Turati, Treves, Modigliani and D’Aragona from its ranks. The revolutionaries therefore feared that it would all too easy for certain people to subscribe to the condemnation of pacifism and the Union sacré since the problem was no longer a “hot” issue, and similarly it would be very easy to declare in favor of an insurrection that history still hadn’t placed on the agenda. Therefore the fear of seeing the CI sink under the massive weight of the big opportunist parties was a major concern amongst genuine revolutionaries. Meanwhile, other factors pulled partly in the other direction, since it was also necessary to prevent the “left-wing infantilism” founded on idealism. There existed also the problem of an over-optimistic evaluation of the revolutionary process, which held that the masses, carried forward on the revolutionary wave, would reject, or at least remain neutral towards, their wavering and hypocritical “leaders”. Still in the balance also was the pressing necessity of pulling heroic revolutionary Russia out of its isolation by speeding up the process by which the parties would “crystallize”. To address the masses by means of the old leaders, using them as go-betweens, seemed easier than talking to the masses over the heads of these leaders. The Italian Left did not share this latter view since it had always declared that unhesitating use of the “scalpels of history” was necessary.

The congress condensed the fundamental tactical questions into theses which clearly marked out the positions of communism. The Left was nevertheless correct in deploring the fact that the congress hadn’t established a general and complete definition of principles on which to base its work, or defined an inviolable platform for admission to the Comintern from which tactical lines of action, and a definition of practical and organizational directives, could be derived. The representative of the CAF alluded to this in his speech: “We must compel these parties (social democrats) to make unequivocal declarations of their principles. All the communist parties throughout the world must have a common programme, which unfortunately isn’t possible at the present moment.” On his return to Italy, The CAF representative declared in the Turin Section and published in the newspaper L’Ordine Nuovo on May 8, 1920 “all correspond with the fundamental principles of communism. The congress asks the Italian Socialist Party to examine at its next congress, which will take place in accordance with its own statutes and the general conditions of entry into the Communist International, the proposals that have been made and all the decisions of the Second Congress of the Communist International, especially with regard to the parliamentary fraction, the trade unions, and the non-Communist elements in the party.” that it would have been preferable to start off by debating the programmatic principles of communism, and by formulating them in a very precise way, and then on this basis to proceed to discussions about the various tactical questions which the congress had to decide upon. In such a way, abiding by the Marxist maxim so little prized by the reformists: “No revolutionary action without revolutionary theory.” Marxists would then be clearly distinguishable from opportunists, who are characterized precisely by their lack of principles.

The “Theses on the Conditions of Admission” prepared by Lenin partly filled this gap. Although lacking the general value of a “declaration of principles”, they nevertheless covered the entire range of principles, and left no room for doubt either about the most important tactical questions of the world communist movement, or about the fundamental criteria of centralism as the premise for effective functioning of the International and its sections as a unique world party. The nineteen theses on the conditions of admission assumed an overriding importance in the congress debates following lively discussions during the committee stage. The German Independents and the Italian Maximalists, although they declared themselves keen to join the CI, went on to express strong reservations in virtue of the “special conditions” in their respective countries. As for the French party, the verbally unconditional acceptance of Cachin and Frossard (who left Moscow before the twentieth and twenty-first conditions were discussed), if we consider how silent and reticent they were about the fundamental program and tactics, didn’t in fact offer any guarantees.

Given the arrogance of the speakers representing the German Independents; Serrati’s resistance to the elimination of the Right; and the rather too easy approval given by Cachin and Frossard, several voices rose up in objection. These included Lenin and Radek, along with other Russian delegates, delegates from the German CP and representatives of the French Left. Lefebre (who would die soon after his journey back) stated that, because of Cachin’s and Frossard’s long opportunist past, they presented the risk of a penetration of the Second International’s spirit of betrayal into the ranks of the Communist International. Guilbeaux declared that their adherence was artificial, and that once they were back in Paris the pestilential atmosphere of the PCF would ensure they would relapse into their old errors. Goldenburg, from the French socialist youth movement, took a stand against what he held to be the voluntarist method of allowing elements into the CI which didn’t in fact approve of it, and he along with Guilbeaux called for the formation of a communist party which contained communists only! The debate nevertheless seemed to be restricted to the various internal problems faced by movements at a national level and it was to the merit of the Italian abstentionists that the discussion was raised to the level of principles.

In his speech, the representative of the CAF declared that faced with the danger of opportunist elements joining the CI due to a lull in the revolutionary movement, communists should require everyone to completely accept the theses in an unconditional way, in the realm of theory as well as action.

In Europe, where capitalism was much more developed than in Russia, it was necessary to apply Marxist methodology and theory much more rigorously, and the way had to be barred to the social democrats by forcing them to formulate unequivocal declarations of principle. With this aim in view, the Italian representative proposed amendments to the fifteenth condition of admission, which went: “Parties which still retain their old social-democratic programmes are obliged to reverse them as quickly as possible, and to draw up – in accordance with the special conditions of their country – a new communist programme in conformity with the decisions of the Communist International.” The Italian Left’s proposal was to get rid of the expression “in accordance with the special conditions of their country” and replace it with the following formulation:

“and to draw up a new program in which the principles of the Third International are incorporated in an unequivocal way. The minority which votes in congress against the new programme and joining the Third International will have to be excluded from the party for this reason alone. Those parties which have already joined the Third International without adopting this condition must call an extraordinary congress as soon as possible in order to bring it into force.”

More than any other group, the fraction emphasized that it was a burning necessity for all communist parties to have a shared programme, although at the time this was, regrettably, impossible. They therefore called for the question of the right-wing minorities to be posed with extreme clarity: for example, the PSF representatives hadn’t said if they intended to get rid of Renaudel or not. Those who voted against the new programme should be expelled from the party. “Abiding by the programme – our spokesman declared – is not a question of discipline: either one accepts it or rejects it, and in the latter case one leaves the party. The programme is something common to all of us, not something established by a majority of militants. It is what is, and must be, enforced on parties which want to join the Communist International.” This concept was incorporated into the twenty-first condition of admission.

After this organizational stage, the door would stay closed to parties which failed to meet the entry requirements and only individual membership would be possible. The fraction’s representative also moved to resubmit Lenin’s proposal (which had been withdrawn) according to which parties which wanted to join would have to have a certain percentage of communists in their directorates, even if it was preferable that they were all communists (twentieth condition).

Conditions twenty and twenty-one were put to the vote and carried whilst the amendment to the fifteenth condition was not accepted. The reason the representative of the Italian Left insisted on dwelling on the “special conditions” clause was because defending it, at the Second Congress, had already become the battle-cry of Serrati, Modigliani, and Treves etc., of the Center and the Right, in other words. According to these gentlemen it was the responsibility of the local party, not of the International, to establish what the “special conditions in each country” were. In the review “Comunismo” (no. 15, September 30, 1920), Serrati would deny that the International had the right to formulate “absolute and definite judgements from a distance, without detailed knowledge of the facts,” and he quoted, as a scandalous example, the fact that the twentieth condition required communists, regardless of their administrative capacity (!!), to take up responsible positions in the town halls, co-operatives, etc. Similar pretexts would be used by the PSF in order to relegate trade-union activity to a minor role, and to avoid the resolute action required by the eighth condition in the face of French militarism and colonialism.

In the October 3, 1920 issue of “il Soviet”, the Left’s representative wrote: “The conditions have been more or less completed and have been sharpened up, but the gist of the discussion on the whole was that the ‘reconstructors’ should be allowed to join the International under certain conditions. Our view is that in certain countries, and above all in France, there exists the danger of elements that are too right-wing joining.”

If the “restrictive” conditions favored by the abstentionists had been accepted, it might have been possible to avoid mergers like those which occurred at the Halle Congress, where the reunification of the German CP with the majority of the Independents would prove to be a contributory cause of the 1921-23 crisis. Similarly, the maneuvers of the “Terzini” in Italy could have been avoided.

The Twenty-One Conditions were therefore approved with only two votes against. Here is a résumé:

1. Propaganda and agitation: the party press must be subordinated to the party presidium and run by reliable Communists.
2. Removal of reformists and centrists from positions of responsibility.
3. Creation of parallel illegal organizations.
4. Agitation amongst the troops; refusal to undertake such work is tantamount to a dereliction of revolutionary duty, and incompatible with membership of the CI.
5. Agitation in the countryside. The working class cannot consolidate its victory without the support of at least part of the workers in the countryside.
6. Denunciation of social-patriotism and social-pacifism.
7. Recognition of the need for a complete and absolute break with reformism and with the policy of the “Center”.
8. Each party must expose the imperialist role of its own bourgeoisie in the colonies and support every colonial liberation movement.
9. Systematic propaganda within the trade-unions and within other mass organizations of the working class. Communist cells should be formed.
10. Struggle against the Amsterdam “International” of yellow trade unions; support for the international association of red trade unions adhering to the Communist International.
11. The composition of the parliamentary fraction to be reviewed and subordinated to the party presidium.
12. The principle of democratic centralism, iron discipline, the party center equipped with the most comprehensive powers.
13. Periodical evictions from the party of petty-bourgeois elements.
14. Support for the Soviet Republic in the struggle against reaction.
15. Party programmes to be revised and a Communist programme drawn up.
16. All the decisions of the congresses of the CI, as well as those of the Executive Committee, are binding on all parties belonging to the CI.
17. Every party wishing to join then CI must be called: Communist Party of such and such a country (Section of the Third Communist International).
18. All leading press organs in all countries are obliged to publish all important official documents of the Executive Committee of the CI.
19. Parties to convene within four months an extraordinary congress to examine the Conditions of Admission.
20. Parties which have not radically changed their former tactics must see to it that, before joining the CI, at least two thirds of their central committee and of all their leading bodies are Communists.
21. Expulsion from the party of all those who reject in principle the conditions and theses put forward by the Communist International.