Material for the Second Congress of the Communist International

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The Second Congress of the Communist International, which laid the foundations of the Comintern’s programme, tactics and organisation was held from July 19 to August 7, 1920, in Soviet Russia. The opening session was held in Petrograd and the subsequent sessions, beginning with July 23, in Moscow. The congress was attended by 169 voting delegates and 49 delegates with a consultative voice representing 67 workers’ organisations of 37 countries. Apart from delegates representing the Communist Parties and organisations of 31 countries, there were delegates from the Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany, the socialist parties of Italy and France, Industrial Workers of the World (Australia, Britain and Ireland), the National Confederation of Labour of Spain and other organisations. The RCP(b) was represented at the congress by 64 delegates.

All the preparatory work for convening the congress was directed by Lenin, who attached great importance to this international congress of communist and workers’ organisations. An important role in defining the tasks and working out the political line of the Comintern was played by Lenin’s book “Left-Wing” Communism-an Infantile Disorder, written for the opening of the Second Congress. Lenin wrote the “Preliminary Draft Th(Ç,ses on the National and Colonial Questions (For the Second Congress of the Communist International)”, “Preliminary Draft Theses on the Agrarian Question (For the Second Congress of the Communist International)”, “Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Second Congress of the Communist International” and “The Terms of Admission into the Communist International” (see present edition, Vol. 31, pp. 144-51, 152-64, 184-201, 206-11).

The congress adopted the following agenda: 1) The International Situation and the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International; 2) The Role and Composition of the Communist Parties Before and After the Conquest of Power by the Proletariat; 3) The Trade Unions and the Factory Committees; 4) the Question of Parliamentarism; 5) The National and Colonial Questions; 6) The Agrarian Question; 7) The Attitude to the New “Centrist” Trends and Terms of Admission Into the Communist International; 8) The Charter of the Communist International; 9) Organisational questions (legal and illegal organisations, women’s organisations, etc.); 10) The Communist youth movement; 11) Elections; ’12) Miscellaneous.

At the opening session of the congress Lenin delivered a report on the international situation and the fundamental tasks of the Communist International (see present edition, Vol. 31, pp. 215-34).

Lenin took an active part in the work of most of the committees-those on the national and colonial questions, on the agrarian question, on terms of admission into the Communist International, and on the international situation and the tasks of the Comintern.

Lenin also made a speech at the congress on the role of the Communist Party, delivered a report of the Committee on the National and Colonial Questions, speeches on the terms of admission into the Communist International, on parliamentarianism and on affiliation to the British Labour Party (ibid., pp. 235-63). The congress adopted Lenin’s theses as a resolution, passed a resolution “On the Role of the Communist Party in the Proletarian Revolution”, in the formulation of which Lenin took an active part, and adopted other resolutions, the “Terms of Admission Into the Communist International” and the Charter of the Comintern. The congress also adopted the Manifesto of the Second Congress of the Communist International. In addition it published a number of appeals: “The Third International to the Trade Unions of All Countries”, “To the Workers of Petrograd”, “To the Red Army and Red Navy of the RSFSR”, “Against the Executioners of Hungary”, “To the Proletarian Men and Women of All Countries”, and others.

The Second Congress of the Comintern played a tremendous role in the development of the international communist movement After the congress Lenin pointed out that “communism has become the central to the working-class movement as a whole” (see present edition, Vol. 32, p. 180).

Contents

1. Plan of a Resolution Concerning the Meaning of the Concept “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” and the Fight Against the “Fashionable” Distortion of This Slogan

Written in July, not later than 4, 1920

First published August 1, 1935 in the journal The Communist International No. 22

Printed from the manuscript

1. Precisely the revolutionary, and only the revolutionary part of the proletariat, to be organised into the party, and a similar part of the party promoted to its leading centres.

2. Systematic exposure to the masses of reformism and opportunism in the party and the labour movement.

3. Replacement of opportunist leaders in the party’s sections, in the trade unions, in the co-operatives, in clubs, in cultural and educational and all other organisations of the proletariat by revolutionary leaders.

4. Formation of communist cells in all and every form of workers’ and small-peasant organisations for systematic leadership of the entire labour movement (and part of the small-peasant movement) by the party.

=3?

5

. Obligatory appointment of definitely revolutionary workers who are entirely free from traditions, habits and prejudices of peaceful work, parliamentarism and legalism, and who, even if extremely inexperienced, are (1) capable of fighting reformism and opportunism (2) and are in close touch with the rank and file of the proletariat and with its most revolutionary section—

—their appointment to top posts in the party in sufficient numbers, especially in the Party’s CC and the parliamentary group, and in all the most important (for the Party) bodies.

6. Especially detailed subordination of the parliamentary group to the Party’s Central Committee and the latter’s strict supervision over it.

7. The people who are to be considered collaborationists, advocates of a bloc between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and proprietors, are not only those who put this idea into practice directly, who stand for a bloc in the government, etc., hut also those who put it into practice indirectly, for instance, those who stand for equality between the working class and the class of petty proprietors, for equality in their points of view, etc.

8. Press organs of the reformists (or conciliation with reformism) L’Humanite, should be closed down. The party should have 1 central organ of a definitely revolutionary trend-not like that of Populaire or Freiheit. The party’s whole press is to be a single thought, a single trend, preparation for dictatorship.

9

. Deeper into the masses. Not for the labour aristocracy, but for the untrained masses. Not only for the towns, but for the country. Agitation among the masses, not only propaganda (contra British Socialist Party).

Free distribution of leaflets for the backward workers covered by contributions from the advanced.

Proletarians to go to the masses, to assist strikers and farm labourers.

10

. Open analysis before the masses of mistakes and betrayals of the opportunist leaders (the strike of 20-21/V11. 1919, etc.).

Analysis in the press of all opportunist mistakes and weak speeches of parliamentarians, etc.

11. Systematic work on all occasions and in all respects in application to all spheres of life;

clarify concrete tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat, viz.:

(a) suppression of the resistance of the exploiters (including the kulaks and saboteurs among the intellectuals);

(b) confiscation, since redemption payment now, after 1914-18, is impossible;

(c) special supervision over the exploiters and bourgeois intellectuals;

(d) immediate revolutionary improvement of life

for the workers

for all the exploited masses

for the small farmers

at the expense of the exploiters;

(e) neutralisation of the small proprietors the

the middle peasants

artisans

small manufacturers

part of the bourgeois intelligentsia i. e., with a view to preventing them going over to the Whites;

(f) determination, capability, skill, special organisation for suppressing resistance.

1. ΣΣ=(α) break down (β) enthuse (γ) neutralise,

12. Epuration…

13

. “Freedom of the press”?—“assembly”?—“the person’?

Party = the vanguard

(αα) (1) revolutionary part

(ββ) (2) linked with the masses.

Immediate preparation ( 2. 3. 4. 5. 6 (+13). 7. αα

( 8. 9. 10.ββ

Chief danger: Rights, i.e., undisplaced leaders.

3 parties (+ American Socialist Party) (+ Swiss Socialist Party). Immediate affiliation impossible.

Lefts. Their mistakes. Immediate affiliation possible.

Reformism in the Italian Party (maybe, + B.S.P.?)

NB //

Committee on the French Party and press:

Lozovsky Serrati + Bukharin Deslinières + Guilbeaux + Sadoul

2. Re Jack Tanner’s Speech at the Second Congress of the Comintern

Written July 23, 1920

First published in 1959 in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI

Printed from the manuscript

Tanner’s speech (Shop Stewards) has made it quite clear that:

1) a place should be made within the Third International for sympathisers;

2) a special reservation should be made for Britain and America to the effect that in spite of our contradictions on parliamentarism we propose that

(a) the mass movement in the form of the I.W.W. and the Shop Stewards should remain affiliated to the Third International; and

(b) the question should be threshed out once more and a practical test made to improve the socialist parties which had agitated among the masses insufficiently and failed to establish ties with them.

Lenin

3. Remarks on the Report of A. Sultan-Zade Concerning the Prospects of a Social Revolution in the East

Written between July 24 and 23, 1920

First Published in 1963 in the Fifth Russian Edition of the Collected Works, Vol. 41

Printed from the manuscript

1) Disintegration of the propertied exploiter classes

2) a large part of the population are peasants under medieval exploitation

3) small artisans-in industry

4) deduction: adjust both Soviet institutions and the Communist Party (its membership, special tasks) to the level of the peasant countries of the colonial East.

This is the crux of the matter. This needs thinking about and seeking concrete answers.

4. Notes for the Committee on the National and Colonial Questions

Written in French in July, not later than 28, 1920

Facsimile of the MS first published in 1923 in the book: H. Guilbeaux Wladimir Iljitsch Lenin Ein treues Bild seines Wesens, Berlin

First published in Russian in 1963 in the Fifth Russian Edition of the Collected Works, Vol. 41

Translated from the French

Printed from the facsimile

The use of medieval particularism? Too dangerous; not Marxist.

Modern national movements should be distinguished from “movements” (so-called movements) of a medieval nature.