The Centenary of the Communist International (1919-1943): The Historical Experiences and their Contemporary Relevance
The centenary of the Russian Revolution had been observed, in
whatever shape, through large numbers of meetings, seminars, rallies, and
publications in India. This was however not the case for the centenary of the
Communist International. None of the major parties claiming to be Marxist
organised any serious discussion, or even significant political meetings in
West Bengal, where a left front had governed between 1977 and 2011, and where
even now there are numerous left parties and groups. Radical Socialist
organised a programme on 22nd November.
Radical Socialist is a small organisation of communist
revolutionaries, functioning since 2008. Sections of RS came out of the
Inquilabi Communist Sangathan (Indian Section of the Fourth International) when
it was collapsing. Others have joined since then. Radical Socialist is a
Permanent Observer to the Fourth International.
The programme on the Comintern was organised because Radical
Socialist felt that in recent times most shades of the left, calling itself
Marxist, was looking at tactical issues of the immediate concern rather than
broader theoretical issues; local and national concerns without looking at
internationalist perspectives; Indian capitalism and its crisis and road to
attempted recovery without looking at world capitalism as a whole.
Internationalism was no longer even a formal ritualistic utterance for many
activists of left parties. India’s growing friendship with Israel, the complex
conflicts in Syria, the huge battles in Chile, Bolivia and elsewhere, evoke
paltry responses. Yet the left parties continue to proclaim themselves Marxist.
Members of Radical Socialist work in numerous mass organisations. They too are
concerned about the struggle for living wages, the struggle against the
regressive labour laws, the struggle for the equality of oppressed genders and
sexual minorities, the conflict between aggressive communalism and secularism,
and the struggle for social justice for Dalits and other non-dominant castes.
But there are hundreds, thousands of far left and independent activists, and
more members of the larger left parties. So the politics of Radical Socialist
cannot be exhausted by the mass movement activities. It is from this
perspective that Radical Socialist, as an internationalist organisation,
campaigned for observing the centenary of the foundation of the Communist
International. This was intended as a serious dialogue between different
parties and their perspectives. Accordingly, the programme was not one where
only the viewpoint f Radical Socialist would be taken to a picked audience.
Instead, leaders of three Marxist parties, and a leading Marxist intellectual
lose to a fourth party, were invited as speakers.
The speakers were Sridip Bhattacharya, Central Committee
member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Partha Ghosh, Political
Bureau member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)- Liberation,
Parthasarathi Dasgupta, Editor of Ganabarta, the Bangla organ of the
Revolutionary Socialist Party, Sobhanlal Dutta Gupta, the eminent Indian Marxist
scholar of the Comintern, who is also close to the Communist Party of India. Kunal
Chattopadhyay conducted the session, speaking initially to raise the concerns
Radical Socialist hoped would get discussed. [Text of his speech, slightly
edited, is given below].
Partha Ghosh spoke about the three Internationals, talked a
little about the contribution of the Comintern to the national and colonial
questions, and suggested that the line of the Sixth Congress had been often
misinterpreted, but continued to be relevant. He was referring both to the
Colonial Theses, and the Sixth Congress line of fighting fascism by raising the
slogan of class against class, and United Front from Below.
He also argued that the arguments in defence of international
organisations today had to answer what contributions the Comintern had made to
the Chinese Revolution, for example.
Sridip Bhattacharya argued that the Comintern had made three
contributions. These were – the rearming of working class parties after the
debasement caused by the Second international especially during World War I,
the building of revolutionary parties in many countries, and developed an
internationalist perspective within the working class. He however rejected the view that there was
any need for a functioning international organisation today, talking about many
revolutions and strategic divergences, which was why polycentrism, and periodic
international gathering of Communist Parties was adequate.
Parthasarath Dasgupta argued that Socialism in One Country,
enshrined as the programme of the Comintern, was what led to the nationalist
degeneration of communist parties as well as the later bureaucratic control
from Moscow.
Sobhanlal Dutta Gupta looked at the national and colonial
question. He stressed the great role of the Bolshevik leaders in the early
years of the Comintern in supporting the Communists of the colonial and
semi-colonial countries. He pointed to severe limitations in the
internationalism of the British, French, Portuguese and Dutch Communist
Parties, all of which were communist parties operating in major colonial
countries. He also suggested that one major reason for the major flaws in
mainstream communist politics in India came from the Comintern decision, once
M. N. Roy was removed from his role, to ask the CPGB to act as the mentor for
the CPI. Regardless of whether particular pieces of advice by the CPGB were
correct or not, this meant that Communists in India were asked not to think for
themselves. His talk also suggested, though he did not draw out the
implication, that when looking at the colonial and semi-colonial world, class
had to be intermeshed with race, something not always clear in the work of the
Comintern.
A small pamphlet was published by Radical Socialist on the
occasion of the programme. This consisted of three articles by John Riddell and
one by Paul LeBlanc, all translated into Bengali by members of Radical
Socialist. The articles are
The introductory talk by Kunal Chattopadhyay
Welcome to today’s discussion. We
have organised this not out of some historical curiosity, nor for pedantic
reasons. We sincerely believe that all forces claiming to be Marxist in Indi
are facing not merely short term political problems but a deep ideological-political
crisis, and that discussions have to be held across organisational boundaries
over many of these ideological issues. We have attempted such dialogues in the
past, as with the discussion over fascism when we published a collection of
essays. We believe that today’s discussion is no less important. That is why we
went for large scale campaigns instead of trying to hold a small round table
meeting in a room. We have also published on this occasion a pamphlet
containing thee essays by John Riddell, one of the foremost authorities on the
early Comintern, who has been responsible for the translation of all the major
texts and debates from the foundation of the Comintern to its Fourth Congress,
and one essay by noted scholar and activist Paul Le Blanc.
As coordinator, I propose to
raise a number of issues. It is not that every speaker must address every
aspect. But I believe all of these to be vital issues. I hope that many of them
will be discussed today, and that the audience will continue to think over them
after the meeting.
Let
me say that there are many vital points, and I can therefore barely mention
them now, and connect them to the class struggle of the present time. There is the question, first of all, about the
relationship between Internationalism and International Organisations. Do
we need an International organisation to have effective internationalism? Marx,
Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin clearly thought so. The later Communist International,
by dissolving itself, and the main currents of communist parties worldwide
thereafter by their practice, have showed they think differently. Which
position is valid? The Bund der Kommunisten, despite being mainly an
organisation of German communist workers, wrote its Manifesto with an
internationalist perspective. And its members joined workers organisations in
other countries wherever they lived. In 1864, when the International
Workingmen’s Association was founded, Marx drafted its rules, and wrote in the
preamble:
“That the emancipation of labour
is neither a local nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all
countries in which modern society exists, and depending for its solution on the
concurrence, practical and theoretical, of the most advanced countries;
That the present revival of the
working classes in the most industrious countries of Europe, while it raises a
new hope, gives solemn warning against a relapse into the old errors, and calls
for the immediate combination of the still disconnected movements”;
And these views were accepted by
English trade unionists, French Proudhonist anarchists, German communists, and
soon by workers in many other countries. This suggests that within advanced
sections of the working class this was a widely held idea, not a sectarian
gospel imposed by this or that group. And as far back as 1871, we find Marx on
behalf of the General Council of that International, writing, evidently to an
English worker in Calcutta, that setting up a section of the International in
India should involve bringing in Indian workers as well.
When the Second International was
founded, it was a more Marxist international. And the debates and conflicts in
it actually showed that internationalism and consistent left wing politics went
together. Thus, it was the rightwing non-Marxist socialist Ramsay Mcdonald who
objected to Madam Cama speaking at the Stuttgart Congress. In the same Congress
it was the then left wing Kautsky who condemned colonialism while the rightwing
van Kol defended a so-called socialist colonial policy for Africa. The lesson,
for us in a non-imperialist country, is that without active, organised
internationalism, can there be real, consistent anti-colonialism,
anti-imperialism in the belly of the east? Ask yourself – leftists are ranged
on opposing sides over the anti Assad struggle. Leftists are divided over
Bolivia, even, with some feeling that criticising the shortcomings of Morales
is more important than building resistance to the coup. Unless we have a
structured forum for international discussions, how do we organise
international solidarity over major issues like these? Closer to home, who
other than communists have a real interest in talking about the democratic
rights of Kashmiris, anywhere in the world? Not the US, not Pakistan
government, not other governments taking positions for diplomatic reasons.
Founding
and dissolving the Comintern:
This was the internationalist
heritage that Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, and other left wing communists felt
was betrayed in 1914, when most parties of the Second International in their
majority supported their national rulers in World War I. Each of them, right
from 1914, were discussing when and how to form a Third, Communist
international. The debate was over tactical questions, not the principle. As
Luxemburg famously said – The International is the Fatherland of the Working
Class.
Yet in 1943, the Communist
International dissolved itself, claiming that it had served its purpose. Had
it? The letter that went out to invite communists to come together had talked
about coordination of communist activity under a common leadership. The
Manifesto of the First Congress stressed that real equality of nations was not
possible without proletarian revolution and proletarian internationalism. So
this is a clear issue in debate. Can real internationalism exist without a
revolutionary workers’ international? Do we need discipline in that
International? What kind of discipline – the one that existed in 1919-1923 or
the one that began to be imposed in the name of Bolshevization by Zinoviev and
Stalin? Or do we say that no international is needed – let each party in each
country go its own way? Would that not raise national patriotism above
internationalism?
What were the aims of the
Communist International, and what was it not? A routine bourgeois claim is that
from the beginning the communist International was a tool of soviet foreign
policy. There have been three kinds of responses. One is to deny that there was
ever a stage when that happened. A second one is to accept that under Stalin
that happened, and that is why it is not a good idea to have an international.
A third position is to argue that the early experience of the international
shows why having an international was valuable and why we should even now
strive to rebuild an international. It fought for a unity of revolutionaries –
coming from social democratic, anarchist, syndicalist, and other traditions.
Today, once more, we have a deeply fragmented social and political left. Not
all even call themselves communists. Do we think there is a need to unite them?
Do we need an international and structured discussion over issues coming up in
every country or not? They range from what is Leninism really about and is it
valid? What is the nature of imperialism today? What is the relationship between
special oppression and class (race, caste, gender, sexuality, etc). In India,
we are facing the painful reality that significant social movements see the
Marxist left as irrelevant or even as opponents – for example large Ambedkarite
Dalit movements, Adivasi struggles, LGBTIQ struggles – even though in many
cases concrete battles have been fought by the left. These issues are coming up
in various countries. Do we need the experience of Bolivia, where the first
nation (our Adivasi) is the majority or not? Do we need to learn about
transgender struggles and the class struggle or not? And are we going to leave
that to academics in Universities, or go back to activist –thinkers, which is
what Marx, Engels, the younger Kautsky, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin,
Gramsci and others were? The Comintern holds a lesson for us. Do we want to
take it?
Achievements
of the Congresses:
We
need to look at the concrete experience of the work of the International to
judge these issues. It held Seven World Congresses. The tradition in which Radical places itself
sees the first four Congresses as fundamentally positive. That does
not mean that every semi colon of every document of that period is valid today.
But it means, as John Riddell and his collaborators have shown through their
decades long work, that in that period, there was real, vibrant democracy.
There was a massive debate over everything. And the Bolsheviks did not use
their numerical strength to push through lines. There are clear traces of
negotiations in how the documents were drafted and amended, how lines were
modified. At the same time, the work can be divided into two phases. The first
two congresses brought the communist forces together. The third and the fourth
congresses saw that there existed a left tendency hat thought communists alone
could make the working class revolution, and sought to correct this by calling
for a turn to the masses. This led to sharp debates. On one hand there was a
conflict between those who thought that any participation in bourgeois
parliaments, bureaucratic trade unions, etc were signs of degeneration and
those who saw these as necessary work. On the other hand there was a serious
attempt at understanding on the part of some of the Russians, like Lenin and
Trotsky, that tactics suitable for Russia were not always suitable elsewhere.
But they were also concerned that the elections plus trade unionism, the tried
and tested tactics of the second international, needed to be overcome for a
revolutionary line. Rosa Luxemburg, working in the German Social Democratic
Party long before the war, was better aware of this dimension, and her The Mass
Strike was an attempt to break out of this false orthodoxy. Out of these twin
concerns were born the tactics of the working class united front. This was the
idea that when capitalism was on the offensive a united front of all working
class organizations could halt them, snatch some small victories, change the
attitude of workers, show them that communists were serious about class unity,
and begin a fresh tide towards revolutionary politics. But today, in India, we
seem to have returned to that old duality. Either we talk about immediate armed
struggle. Or we talk about nothing but elections and the annual ritualised
general strike.
The
United Front – From The ECCI and the Fourth Congress to the Fifth, sixth and
Seventh:
But this immediately brings us to
several sharp disputes which we need to consider. The United Front, discussed
by the ECCI and then by the Fourth Congress, was not interpreted in the same
way by all. Lenin, Trotsky, Zetkin, and others had one understanding. The aim
of the UF as they saw was to wage defensive struggles of the working class in
alliance with other working class parties and mass organisations. Victories in
defensive struggles could lead to radicalisation of the workers and also make
the communist politics mre acceptable to many still attached to the Social
Democrats. At the fifth Congress, which Zinoviev called the Congress of
Bolshevisation, Zinoviev and Stalin had a different understanding, which was
for a more rigid tactics where the main task of the UF was seen simply as
exposing the social democrats. This hardened at the Sixth Congress to the so
called United Front from Below, which meant no UF with leaders of the reformist
parties, but a rhetorical call to their cadres to break and join with the
communists. This led to the crushing defeat at the hands of Hitler.
Social
fascism, and change in the Colonial Policy:
Of course, this leads to two
other issues of the Sixth Congress – the view that all parties other than the
communists were fascists, the Social Democrats being social fascists, and
actually more dangerous than the Nazis. And there were the colonial theses, so
different from the national and colonial documents of the Second and the Fourth
Congresses.
Finally, after Hitler’s defeat,
there was a swing, not to the working class UF, but a very different UF
propounded by Dimitrov. Its variant for India was the famous Dutt Bradley
thesis. Saumendranth Tagore, delegate to the Sixth Congress, was critical of
the colonial Thesis. He was also opposed to Dimitrov’s line of the UF. In
France, in Spain, this line was put into action. Left wing critics argue that
it led to a disaster. It led to Franco’s victory, because the Popular front
tried to placate capitalists and ended by disarming the revolutionary anarchist
and POUMist workers of Barcelona.
This is a matter of much debate.
Not only supporters of Stalin, but those who believe that Diimitrov posed a
challenge to Stalin in some way, will differ from my assessment. But this is
hardly a historical curiosity. Today, we have all three trends. There are those
on the left who think we need an all-out alliance with every anti-BJP party in
the name of a United Front. Let us remember that each time this has been done,
there have actually been a strengthening of the right – as in the Left support
to UPA I leading to the weakening of the left thereafter. There are those who
call for a working class UF. And there are those who argue that the CPI(M), or
the Left Front as a whole, is social fascist, so to call for a working class UF
is to succumb to unity with revisionism and social fascism.
The
dissolution of the Comintern
Why was the CI dissolved? Was it
to keep the imperialist allies of the USSR happy? Was it because it had served
its purpose? Let us remember, the dissolution was not through a fresh world
congress. It was done by the Presidium of the ECCI. The resolution read in part
The world war unleashed by the
Hitlerites still further sharpened the differences in the conditions in the
various countries, drawing a deep line of demarcation between the countries
which became bearers of the Hitlerite tyranny and the freedom-loving peoples
united in the mighty anti-Hitler coalition. Whereas in the countries of the
Hitlerite bloc the basic task of the workers, toilers and all honest people is
to contribute in every conceivable way towards the defeat of this bloc by
undermining the Hitlerite war machine from within, by helping to overthrow the
Governments responsible for the war, in the countries of the anti-Hitler
coalition the sacred duty of the broadest masses of the people, and first and
foremost of progressive workers, is to support in every way the war efforts of
the Governments of those countries for the sake of the speediest destruction of
the Hitlerite bloc and to secure friendly collaboration between the nations on
the basis of their equal rights.
First, this shows that class
terms had disappeared in favour of tyrants versus freedom loving people, etc.
Second, this leads us to ask why this change happened. This goes back to the
6th Congress. That Congress adopted a programme calling for Socialism in One
County. If that happened, Trotsky said, a case today valid for USSR would be
valid tomorrow for others and would lead to national communism everywhere. So
internationalism and class struggle would give way to nationalism.
Finally, the text quoted shows
that in the so-called anti-Hitler bloc, the struggle against imperialism was not
paramount. At the same time, the resolution insisted that situations were
different in each county that is why an international was not needed. This
raises the question – were situations less different in 1919? And this also
raises a very important question for India. It shows that the decision to
oppose the Quit India Movement, the decision to support the British government,
was not some silly mistake made by the CPI leaders. That it was in fact the
line of the Communist International. This brings us to the questions – (a) can
we have a communist line that does not prioritise class struggle in one’s own
country, (b) can such class struggle be successful if it does not try to become
hegemonic, i.e., national in the best positive sense, (c) does this not prove
that an international is a bad idea? Or does this, instead, raise questions
about the nature of democratic centralism on an international level and the
relationship between workers’ state and revolutionary parties that need much
more serious debate?
Communist
Women’s International
One more question is of extreme
importance, so I want to raise it here. In the period up to the middle 1920s,
the CI played a great role in developing an autonomous communist women’s
movement – the Communist Women’s International. From 1924, Clara Zetkin was
clearly feeling a pressure. This is evident from how she writes the
Reminiscences of Lenin, invoking Lenin to stress the need for an autonomous
communist women’s mass organisation. But gradually, over the next three years
or so, it was shut down. So was the Soviet Zhenotdel by the end of the
1920s.This brings up the question – was there a uniform communist gender and
sexuality policy? Or is it possible to argue that both revolutionary Russia and
the international communist movement was more radical in the period 1918-1925
and grew into accommodating a kind of left wing but patriarchal line in the
subsequent period? Recovering that heritage is important if we want to
participate in the mass feminist and Queer movements and to make them a living
part of the socialist struggles. We need to acknowledge that large sections of
the left took a hostile position to the feminist demand for autonomous
movements, terming it separatism, petty bourgeois. We need to understand that
our rejection of struggles to express sexuality by asserting that it is
unimportant stems from our accepting compulsory heteronormativity, something
that early years of Soviet power was breaking with. In today’s world where will
we stand? Will we be part of new LGBTIQ struggles, will we fight for parties
that are feminist as well as revolutionary, or will we retreat behind the
conservative position of the later Comintern and the later , Stalin era USSR,
where sexist, heterosexist, and family ideology dominated politics were
restored?
Internationalism
and International Organisation Now
Finally – what of now? Is it
enough to have periodic exchanges, international meetings? Or does the nature
of globalized world capitalism, the global climate change threat, the global
rise of ultra right, fascistic or ultra nationalistic forces, call for a
revival of more concrete forms of organisational coordination – certainly, not
micro internationals, but mass international organisations to coordinate real
internationalist struggles. To explain this, let me highlight how differences
can occur. When in the name of forcing the Germans to pay the indemnity, the
French imperialists occupied the Ruhr, the Communist International called for
united response across Europe. In the Ruhr, fraternization with the French
troops was an important component in drawing a political line against the
German nationalists (and Social Democrats), and the KPD youth achieved some
success in such efforts. The French Communists, working with the Communist Youth
International, vigorously campaigned against the occupation; propaganda was
distributed to soldiers in both French and Arabic. At the same time, the KPD
rejected nationalism. When German Chancellor Cuno called for a vote of
confidence on his “passive resistance” policy in the Reichstag on January 13,
the KPD parliamentary fraction demonstrated and voted against him. By contrast,
in the 1970s, with ‘independent’ communist parties, the trade disputes of the
European Economic Community saw the French and the Italian Communists opposing
each other over export quotas of French and European wine.
The usual objections to having a
revolutionary International are twofold. First, reference is made to
bureaucratic handling, removing elected leaderships, and so on and so forth. An
international today cannot punish, as if it is handling a disobedient criminal.
It does not and would not have the material means at its disposal, as did the
Comintern under Stalin. But it can bring persuasion in a systematic way. It can
coordinate information and action in a disciplined way. This is our
perspective. But as with all the issues I have raised, this needs debate and
discussion.
The second argument is that the
world is so fragmented that one international tactical line cannot serve. This
is to misunderstand what the founders expected from the Comintern and what we
can expect today. We cannot and must not expect the tactical line of local
politics to be worked out from some international centre. But how do we respond
to three things – (a) the need to re-equip present day communists? Do we leave
it to University professors? Or do we expect arties to think, to draw
collective lessons, even if leading intellectuals do the actual writing?
Remember, leaders of the Second and the Communist International who were
intellectual were party activists. Few were professors. (b) The struggle for
bringing together collective experiences. Immigration is a major issue all over
the world. And nationalism over the immigration question can wreck communist
politics. How other than through organic international contacts do we counter
that? (c) How fragmented is the world? Was it not fragmented between the
colonized and the colonizer back in 1919? How do we build real solidarity
without international cooperation on a permanent, not ad hoc basis?
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