"Work amongst Women" - from the Third Congress of the Comintern

The Second Congress of the Communist International had agreed that the Executive Committee of the International, (the ECCI) should - alongside the ‘Women's section of the International’ also agreed at that Congress - develop policy on work amongst women.

Clara Zetkin (left) with Rosa Luxemburg, 1910 

Clara Zetkin, who had been elected the International Secretary of the Women's Section, alongside others like Kollontai and Krupskaya, took the lead on carrying out what had been agreed. A first women’s conference of the International had been held in the summer of 1920, and the second was held to coincide with the Third Congress of the whole International, taking place in Moscow in 1921.

As a result of these discussions, three resolutions were tabled at the Third Congress, on 8 July 1921:

1) On Strengthening International Contact and on the Tasks of the Comintern's International Secretariat on Work among Women;

2) On Forms and Methods of Communist Work among Women;

3) Theses on Methods and Forms of Work among Communist Party Women.

I have summarised these three resolutions below, summaries which can hopefully be of benefit to comrades leading this key area of revolutionary work today.

On Strengthening International Contact and on the Tasks of the Comintern's International Secretariat on Work among Women

This resolution informed Congress of the proposals made at the “Second International Conference of Communist women”, which were then agreed by the Congress:

In summary, these were:

1 For all individual national Communist Parties to appoint leading women comrades as ‘international correspondents’;

2 For these correspondents to seek to regularly inform the Secretariat of the ECCI, ultimately responsible for all the work of the International;

3 For national parties to make available to the appointed correspondents all their technical and other resources, and for the correspondents to make wide use of them;

4 For the International Women's Secretariat (IWS), based in Moscow like the ECCI, to organise regular meetings for correspondents twice a year - more frequently if necessary.

5 For the IWS to maintain close ties with both the ECCI, to whom it is accountable, and with the appointed correspondents, and pay The particular attention to: “1) the activity of departments for work among proletarian women in the Communist Parties where insufficient work is being carried out and the basic principles and positions of the III International are being disregarded, 2) giving the women's Communist movement of all countries a single direction and 3) organising working women' campaigns on an international scale that can draw the revolutionary movement of the whole proletariat into the struggle for its dictatorship”.

A further three points (6/7/8) proposed that the ECCI and IWS set up of a “West European auxiliary-technical body” to prepare resolutions in line with the decisions of the IWS and ECCI, and then to ensure that they were carried out.

On Forms and Methods of Communist Work among Women

This resolution also informed Congress of the political declaration agreed at the ‘Second International Conference of Communist women', as also then endorsed by the Congress.

Again in summary, the resolution stressed that:

Successful revolutionary struggle “can only be achieved If the broadest masses of working women are consciously and resolutely involved”.

Similarly, “in countries such as Soviet Russia where the proletariat has already won state power and, by introducing the Soviet system, has established the dictatorship”, the struggle to oppose counter-revolution and to organise a new society “cannot be carried out unless the broad masses of working women are absolutely and unshakably convinced that the struggle for and building up of a new society concerns them as well”.

All Communist Parties must take seriously the decision of the Conference - to agitate, engage and organise the “broad masses of working women” in revolutionary struggle and in Communist ideas, and “to draw these women into the Communist Party, thereby deepening and developing their will and ability to be active and to fight”.

That every Party must organise sections for work amongst women to carry out these aims that “carry out all their work under the leadership of the Party, but their forms and methods of work have to be sufficiently flexible to adapt themselves to the specificities of the position of women in the family and in society. The work of these departments is described in detail in the theses passed by the conference [see below]”. 

The resolution noted that the sections/departments had a dual task - both “to inspire in the female proletarian masses a high level of class consciousness and a firm commitment to engage in the revolutionary class struggle, the struggle of all humiliated and oppressed people against the bourgeoisie, and the struggle for communism”, and, “after the victory of the proletarian revolution, to involve them in a conscious and dedicated way in the joint work needed to build a Communist society”.

It also instructed Parties and their ‘departments’ to remember that “their job involves more than just verbal and written agitation and propaganda. Their main concern is to carry out agitation through action - the most effective method at their disposal - and, in all the capitalist countries, to encourage working women to take an active part in all the actions and struggles of the revolutionary proletariat, in strikes, street demonstrations and armed uprisings, while in Soviet countries they must give working women an active part to play in all spheres of Communist construction”.

Theses on Methods and Forms of Work among Communist Party Women

These more detailed theses expanded on the points in the two briefer resolutions summarised above.

Basic Principles

This opening section of the Theses sets out a succinct summary of the position of revolutionary Marxism - a summary well worth re-reading and re-discussing today.

It started by clearly stating that all the Parties of the Third International “need to increase work amongst the female proletariat, educating the broad mass of working women in Communist ideas and drawing them into the struggle for Soviet power, for the construction of the Soviet workers' republic”. 

It restated the general political analysis of the International, including that: “the sharp decline in living standards of the working people, the inability of the bourgeoisie to restore production, the rise of speculation, the disintegration of production, unemployment, price fluctuations and the gap between prices and wages, lead everywhere to the inevitable sharpening of the class struggle. This struggle decides who and which system is to lead, administer and organise production - either a small group of bourgeois or the working class basing itself on the principles of Communism”.

It explained how events in the Soviet Union had proved in practice the importance of involving working and peasant women in the struggle - with women playing such a vital role in the civil war, combating desertion and sabotage, for example.

On the other hand, as the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution had shown, the resolution it also raised the particular danger to the movement posed by “the masses of passive working women who are outside the movement - the housewives, office workers and peasant women who are still under the influence of the bourgeois world-view, the church and tradition, and have no links with the great liberation movement for communism. Women that stand outside this movement are inevitably a stronghold of bourgeois ideas and a target for counter revolutionary propaganda, both in the West and in the East”.

The resolution therefore proposed, again in line with the earlier resolutions, that Communist Parties organise “special apparatuses inside the Party … establishing special methods of approaching women, with the aim of liberating them from the influence of the bourgeois world-view or the influence of the compromising parties, and of educating them to be resolute fighters for Communism and consequently for the full development of women”.

The section of the resolution also stressed the importance to the whole working class of the “active, conscious and determined participation” of women in the struggle, and in the organisations of the class. It restated the point made in the previous resolution, that “the Third Congress of the Communist International maintains that without the active participation of the broad masses of the female proletariat and the semi-proletarian women, the proletariat can neither seize power nor realise communism”.

But it also raised an important corollary for all women fighting against their oppression, namely that “without Communist Party support for all the projects leading to the liberation of women, the recognition of women's rights as equal human beings and their real emancipation cannot in practice be won”.

The resolution explained this point more fully a few paragraphs later in this section. Given that these points continued to be central to debates around ‘socialist feminism’ today, I have quoted them almost in full here:

“The Third Congress of the Communist International … points out to the working women of the whole that their liberation from centuries of enslavement, lack of rights and inequality is possible only through the victory of Communism, and that the bourgeois women's movement is completely incapable of guaranteeing women that which Communism gives. So long as the power of capital and private property exists, the liberation of woman from dependence on a husband can go no further than the right to dispose of her own property and her own wage and decide on equal terms with her husband the future of her children.

The most radical feminist demand - the extension of the suffrage to women in the framework of bourgeois parliamentarianism - does not solve the question of real equality for women, especially those of the propertyless classes. The experience of working women in all those capitalist countries in which, over recent years, the bourgeoisie has introduced formal equality of the sexes makes this clear. The vote does not destroy the prime cause of women's enslavement in the family and society. Some bourgeois states have substituted civil marriage for indissoluble marriage. But as long as the proletarian woman remains economically dependent upon the capitalist boss and her husband, the breadwinner, and in the absence of comprehensive measures to protect motherhood and childhood and provide socialised child-care and education, this cannot equalise the position of women in marriage or solve the problem of relationships between the sexes.

The real equality of women, as opposed to formal and superficial equality, will be achieved only under Communism, when women and all the other members of the labouring class will become co-owners of the means of production and distribution and will take part in administering them, and women will share on an equal footing with all the members of the labour society the duty to work; in other words, it will be achieved by overthrowing the capitalist system of production and exploitation which is based on the exploitation of human labour, and by organizing a Communist economy.

Only Communism creates conditions whereby the conflict between the natural function of woman - maternity - and her social obligations, which hinder her creative work for the collective, will disappear and the harmonious and many sided development of a healthy and balanced personality, firmly and closely in tune with the life and goals of the labour-collective, will be completed. All women who fight for the emancipation of woman and the recognition of her rights must have as their aim the creation of a Communist society.

But Communism is also the final aim of the proletariat as a whole and therefore, in the interests of both sides, the two struggles must be fought as 'a single and indivisible' struggle”.

Based on this class analysis, the resolution stressed, therefore, “the basic position of revolutionary Marxism that there is no 'special' women's question, nor should there be a special women's movement” in the sense that “any alliance between working women and bourgeois feminism or support for the vacillating or clearly right-wing tactics of the social compromisers and opportunists will lead to the weakening of the forces of the proletariat, thereby delaying the great hour of the full emancipation of women. A Communist society will be won not by the united efforts of women of different classes, but by the united struggle of all the exploited”.

The Theses added that “at its highest stage, the struggle of women against their dual oppression (by capitalism and by their own domestic family dependence) must take on an international character, developing into a struggle … by the proletariat of both sexes for their dictatorship and for the Soviet system”.

The Theses also called on women workers “in factories, offices and fields” to show their support for the Communist International, remembering the serious and detailed approach it had always taken towards the question of women’s oppression, ensuring that resolutions addressing the need to draw women into the struggle for socialism were present from its very first Congress agenda onwards. In contrast, “women must remember that the Second International has never tried to set up any kind of organisation to further the struggle for the liberation of women”. [An international gathering of women socialists had been held in Berne in 1915, but organised under the independent initiative of the women themselves - including Zetkin, not by the Second International]

Methods and Forms of Work among Women

This section of the Theses set out a series of points for all Communist Parties to follow, quoted, largely in full, below. It might be useful to discuss what parts of the language used, forms of oppression highlighted and methods proposed perhaps need amending to be fully applicable for today, and/or whether the points outlined still generally retain their validity:

“Women must be included in all the militant class organisations - the Party, the trade unions, the co-operatives, Soviets of factory representatives etc., with equal rights and equal responsibilities”.

“The importance must be recognised of drawing women into all of the active struggle of the proletariat (including the military defence of the proletariat) and of constructing in all areas the foundations of a new society and organising production and everyday life on Communist lines”.

“The maternal function must be recognised as a social function and the appropriate measures to defend and protect women as child-bearers must be taken or fought for”.

“Congress … is firmly opposed to any kind of separate women's associations in the Parties and trade unions or special women's organisations, but it accepts that special methods of work among women are necessary and that every Communist Party should set up a special apparatus for this work. In adopting this position, the Congress takes into consideration the following:

a) the oppression women suffer in everyday life, not only in the bourgeois-capitalist countries, but in countries with a Soviet structure, in transition from capitalism to communism; 

b) the great passivity and political backwardness of the female masses, which is to be explained by the fact that for centuries women have been excluded from social life and enslaved in the family;

c) the special function - childbirth - which nature assigns to women, and the specificities connected with this function, call for the greater protection of their energies and health in the interests of the whole collective”.

The resolution then set out five different tasks that the “special apparatus for conducting work among women” that each Communist Party was instructed to develop. “This apparatus must consist of departments or commissions for work among women, attached to every Party committee at all levels, from the CC of the Party right down to the urban, district or local Party committee”. The tasks were: 

“1 to educate women in Communist ideas and draw them into the ranks of the Party;

2 to fight the prejudices against women held by the mass of the male proletariat, and increase the awareness of working men and women that they have common interests;

3 to strengthen the will of working women by drawing them into all forms and types of civil conflict, encouraging women in the bourgeois countries to participate in the struggle against capitalist exploitation, in mass action against the high cost of living, against the housing shortage, unemployment and around other social problems, and women in the Soviet republics to take part in the formation of the Communist personality and the Communist way of life;

4 to put on the Party's agenda and to include in legislative proposals questions directly concerning the emancipation of women, confirming their liberation, defending their interests as child-bearers;

5 to conduct a well-planned struggle against the power of tradition, bourgeois customs and religious ideas, clearing the way for healthier and more harmonious relations between the sexes, guaranteeing the physical and moral vitality of working people”.

The resolution added some additional points about how the work of the departments or commissions should be led and organised. It stressed that “all local, regional and central organisations should have one woman comrade responsible for organising propaganda among women’ and that “in the modern epoch the trade unions, production unions and co-operatives must serve as the basis for Party work among women”.

It concluded with stressing the balance required to ensure that “work amongst women must be informed by an understanding of the unity of the Party movement and organisation, but at the same time show independent initiative and, proceeding independently from other Party commissions or sections, work towards the rapid and full emancipation of women”.

Party Work among Women in the Soviet Countries

This section of the resolution stressed the need to continue to prioritise drawing more women into the Party and work of constructing the new society in the Soviet republics themselves.

Amongst other points, it called for more women to be involved in the bodies administering workers' control of production, in factory delegate meetings, and elected to the Soviets and their executive committees. It also stressed the importance of improving technical education for women.

It called on the departments to help develop “the entire network of social institutions” in order to “help emancipate women's everyday lives, turning the slave of the home and family into a free member of the working class - the class which is its own boss and the creator of new forms of living”. The resolution highlighted “communal dining rooms, laundries, repair shops, institutions of social welfare, house-communes etc”, as the kind of network which could “transform everyday life along new, Communist lines and relieve women of the difficulties of the transitional period”. 

As a key strategy for reaching out beyond the ranks of the Party to wider layers of both working and peasant women, the resolution proposed that departments organise women's delegate meetings, with representatives elected from local factories and offices, but also via elections for peasant and ‘housewife’ delegates as well. 

Giving a useful glimpse into the wider attempts to forge a new workers' democracy, the resolution stressed that the elected delegates “must report on their activity to their shops or to their residential area meetings” and be “elected for a period of three months”. 

They should also be encouraged to become ‘delegate-practitioners’ - i.e. given paid release from other duties to allow them to be involved in workers’ control and administration bodies. 

These kind of initiatives - both in encouraging workers' democracy in general and the emancipation of women in particular - were sadly to be soon crushed by the coming Stalinist counter-revolution.

In Bourgeois-Capitalist Countries

This section of the resolution linked the general threats facing the whole working-class under capitalist crisis, detailed in other Congress resolutions, to the specific threats that crisis imposed on women workers, including the fall in demand for their labour, which also increased the numbers turning to prostitution, the high cost of living and the critical shortage of housing.

Again, the resolution re-emphasised the consequent need to recruit more women into the Party, and to bring them onto its leading bodies - and those of the unions and co-operatives - as well “on equal terms with men”, countering “any attempts to isolate or separate off working women”.

It stressed the need for involving working women - including office workers and peasant women - in campaigns for “equal pay for equal work” and for “free and universal vocational education which would help women workers increase their skills”.

In the Economically Backward Countries (The East)

The next section of the resolution highlighted the particular need to campaign for women to have equal rights within the Party and workers' organisations as a whole, and to “fight all prejudices and all religious and secular customs that oppress women” in “countries where industry is underdeveloped”, including Soviet republics as well as capitalist nations.  

The Party and its departments should carry out its agitation on these issues amongst men, as well as women, and “take the principles of women's equality into the spheres of child education, family relations and public life”. Above all, it should seek support “from the broad layer of women exploited by capital, i.e., who work in the cottage industries and on the rice and cotton plantations” … drawing those plantation workers “into unions alongside the men”.

In terms of culture and education (a key interest for Krupskaya and some of the other leading women Bolsheviks), the resolution stayed that “in the Soviet countries of the East, the raising of the general cultural level of the population is the best method of overcoming backwardness and religious prejudices. The departments must encourage the development of schools for adults that are open to women. In the bourgeois countries the commissions must wage a direct struggle against the bourgeois influence in the schools”.

It also recommended that departments “organise clubs for working women” that “must be cultural centres and experimental model institutions that show how women can work towards their emancipation through self-activity (the organization of crêches, nurseries, literacy schools clubs, etc.)”. It added that mobile clubs should be organised to work amongst nomadic peoples.

It added that, in Soviet republics, the departments also had a role in “convincing working women by practical example that the domestic economy and the previous family form block their emancipation, while social labour liberates them”. They must also ensure that “the legislation which recognises the equal rights of women with men and defends the interests of women is observed among the Eastern peoples” and “encourage women to work as judges and juries in national courts of law”.

Finally, it stressed that a careful path needed to be struck, “avoiding tactless and crude attacks on religious beliefs or national traditions, the departments or commissions working among the women of the East must still struggle against nationalism and the power of religion over people's minds”.

Methods of Agitation and Propaganda

This section of the theses stressed that the guiding principle of work among women needed to be ‘agitation and propaganda through action’ … “above all encouraging working women to self-activity, dispelling the doubts they have about their own abilities and drawing them into practical work in the sphere of construction or struggle”.

It then added a phrase that could also be applied in many other fields of work too: “Firstly, practice and action, that lead to an understanding of Communist ideals and theoretical principles; and secondly, theory, that leads to practice and action - these are the methods of work the Communist Parties and their working women's departments must employ in approaching the mass of women”.

What should that ‘practice and action’ consist of? In the Soviet countries, it answered, it meant bringing women “into all branches of Soviet construction, ranging from the army and the police through to those which directly emancipate women by their organisation of communal eating, a network of institutions of social education, the protection of motherhood, etc”. 

In the capitalist countries, “propaganda by deed means above all encouraging working women to participate in strikes, demonstrations and any type of struggle which strengthens and deepens their revolutionary will and consciousness”. 

The resolution emphasised the importance of having dedicated women's organisers in the Party union caucuses and restarted the usefulness of holding the delegate meetings previously mentioned, as well as public meetings, meetings at individual workplaces and ‘house-to-house agitation’. 

On the latter strategy, it stressed that it should be aimed at developing a close-knit network, rather than just random ‘door-knocking’: “The Communist women doing this work must each be responsible for no more than ten households, they must make visits at least once a week to do agitation among housewives, and call more frequently when the Communist Party is conducting a campaign or is preparing any kind of action”. 

It also pointed out the importance of written material aimed specifically at working women, including having dedicated pages in the Party and trade union press.

Finally, “in order to strengthen comradeship between working women and working men”, it expressed a preference for encouraging more women to attend general Party courses and discussions, rather than ones “especially for working women” which “should be organised only where they are really necessary and expedient”. However, it added that “general Party schools must without fail include a course on the methods of work among women”.

The Structure of the Departments

This section of the resolution made a number of specific organisational points, including restating the point made earlier that departments/commissions of work among women should be “attached to every Party committee, at local and regional Party level and at CC level” although their size and the allocation of full-time workers to them was a decision for individual sections.

It also stressed that, to maintain a clear unified approach, the leader of each local department should also be a member of the local Party committee, or at least an observer to it with full voting rights on all matters concerning the work of the department. 

The tasks of the central Party department were also described in some detail, including producing a regular journal for working women, calling at least an annual meeting of representatives from all local district departments, organising national speaking tours, and an annual International Working Women's Day.

On International Work

Very finally, the theses sets out that “the International women's Secretariat of the Communist International leads the women's work of the Communist Parties at the international level”.

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There is certainly still a host of ideas and approaches within these resolutions worth discussing and applying - as considered applicable - by revolutionaries today.

World Perspectives and Tasks 1921 - Theses of the Third World Congress

The Third World Congress of the Communist International met in July 1921 at a time when, as the ‘Theses on the International Situation’ drafted by Trotsky put it, “the mighty wave” of revolutionary movements after the war - not just in Russia but also in Germany and Hungary, alongside mass strikes in countries like France, Britain, the USA and Czechoslovakia - had, despite its scope and intensity, failed “in overthrowing world capitalism, not even European capitalism”. 

Since the previous Second Congress, the Red Army had also been driven back from Poland, and the Italian (September 1920) and German (March 1921) workers had suffered defeats. Faced with these facts, the Theses set out updated world perspectives and tasks for the International.

Written at a time of growing inter-capitalist tensions - with the imposition of tariffs and the threat of further wars, despite all the evidence of the human and economic cost of the First World War - these Theses are particularly worth thinking over in relation to the world situation in 2025.

Trotsky and others at the 3rd Congress

I The Crux of the Question 

Given events, and the way that the international bourgeoisie seemed to have successfully weathered the post-war storms and were now going back on the offensive, Trotsky's Theses opened by asking four important questions for consideration by the Congress and the workers’ movement as a whole:

“To what extent do these new political interrelations between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat correspond to the more profound interrelationship of forces between these two contending camps? Is it true that the bourgeoisie is about to restore the social equilibrium which had been upset by the war? Are there grounds for assuming that the epoch of political paroxysms and class battles is being superseded by a new and prolonged epoch of restoration and capitalist growth? Doesn't this necessitate a revision of programme or tactics on the part of the Communist International?”

II The War, Speculative Prosperity, the Crisis and the Countries of Europe

To answer these questions, Trotsky started at the place where world perspectives must always be based - with the world economy.

The Theses started by reminding Congress that the two decades before the First World War had been “a period of exceptionally powerful capitalist growth” with strong lengthy upswings and only brief, shallow, downswings. “In general, the curve sloped sharply upwards; the capitalist nations were growing rich”. 

The consequent growth of the world market had been starting to reach its limits but a world war, with its wholesale destruction of productive forces, could have created the basis for a further upswing. However, the war lasted far longer than any of the capitalists had bargained for. 

As the Theses again reminded delegates, “as a result the war not only caused the economic destruction of 'surplus' productive forces, but also weakened, shattered and undermined the fundamental productive apparatus of Europe. At the same time it contributed to the mighty capitalist development of the United States and to the feverish rise of Japan. The centre of gravity of the world economy has shifted from Europe to America”. 

World capitalism had been rightly concerned about whether the period immediately after the end of the war, before they had had an opportunity to redress the economic damage it had caused, could be dangerous for them. All of the countries that had been in turmoil as a result of the war had, indeed, been gripped by big working-class struggles.

However, the Theses explained that the bourgeoisie had succeeded in creating an economic upswing by 1919-20, absorbing most of the demobilised troops into the factories and being able to raise wages sufficiently to at least “create the mirage of economic gains”. This was the economic basis for the return of confidence amongst the capitalist class.

However, the Theses pointed out that, “The revival of 1919-20 was not, however, at bottom the beginning of the postwar regeneration of capitalist economy, but a mere prolongation of the artificial state of industry and commerce which had been created by the war”. 

It went on to explain this ‘artificial state’ as follows: “The war created virtually unlimited markets for the basic branches of industry, completely secure against competition. This reliable and insatiable customer was ever in want of goods. The production of the means of production was replaced by the production of the means of destruction. Primary necessities were devoured at ever-higher prices by millions of individuals engaged not in production but in destruction. This process meant ruin. But by virtue of the monstrous capitalist economy this ruin assumed the guise and form of enrichment. The state floated loan after loan, one issue of paper money followed upon another and the state budgets which used to carry millions began carrying billions. Machines and equipment became worn out and were left unrepaired. The land was poorly cultivated. Capital construction work in the cities and on the communications system was discontinued. Meanwhile the number of government bonds, bills of credit, treasury issues, and notes kept growing incessantly. Fictitious capital swelled in proportion as productive capital kept being destroyed. The credit system became transformed from a means of circulating commodities into a means of mobilising national wealth, including that still to be created by future generations, for war purposes”.

Fearing the potential for revolutionary consequences, the bourgeois continued with the same financial policies after the war “namely: new currency issues, new loans, regulation of prices of primary necessities, guarantee of profits, subsidies for grain and other forms of government subsidies for salaries and wages, plus military censorship and military dictatorship … At the same time, the cessation of hostilities … brought to the fore the demand for all sorts of commodities, from all parts of the globe. The war left huge stocks of unsold products. Enormous sums of money were left concentrated in the hands of dealers and speculators who invested them wherever the greatest profits offered at the moment. Hence the feverish commercial boom, accompanied by an unprecedented rise of prices and fantastic dividends, while none of the basic branches of industry anywhere in Europe approached the pre-war level”.

So, in reality, the bourgeois - the banking and industrial trusts and the government that acted in their interests - had simply bought themselves some time. However, they had done so at the cost of creating yet further sources of instability - fictitious capital, depreciation of currency and speculation. By 1920 - starting in Japan, then the US, then Europe and the capitalist world as a whole - the bubble had started to burst.

So, the Theses stressed that: “the crisis of 1920 - and this is the key to the understanding of the world situation! [Trotsky's emphasis, not mine!] - is not a periodic stage of the 'normal' industrial cycle but a more profound reaction consequent on the fictitious prosperity during the war and the next two post-war years, a prosperity based on ruination and exhaustion”. It added that, instead of an upward curve of industrial development, “during the last seven years, Europe’s productive forces have not been rising but falling abruptly”. 

However , for now, “the dislocation of the very foundations of the economy has still to make itself felt throughout the entire superstructure”. But the perspective for the next period had to be one where the curve of European economic development would be downwards, with only short-lived speculative upswings but longer and deeper downswings, “a crisis of under-production”.

The Theses went on to analyse the specific situation in some of the key countries of Europe:

Britain - then both the strongest European economy and the one least damaged by war - had made some commercial gains from its military victory but, industrially, it had fallen backwards, with its coal industry in particular being in a parlous state. Both Britain’s productivity of labour and national income were still far below pre-war levels.

France, Belgium and Italy had been seriously damaged by the war. French state debts and military expenditure had grown to unsupportable levels and the loss of workers from war deaths and injuries were undermining economic recovery.

In Germany, production continued to fall, along with workers' living standards, while inflation was soaring. “German exports as well as the entire economic life of Germany are at the mercy of a gang of Entente speculators, especially Parisian speculators”. 

III The United States, Japan, Soviet Russia and the Colonial Countries

The Theses then pointed out that, in many ways, the development of the United States during the war had been the complete opposite of developments in Europe. It had benefited from military production without its own productive forces risking any war damage, and even the indirect damage to transport links and agricultural exports was far more limited than in Europe. At the same time, it had taken advantage of the inability of Europe to compete with it in other areas of production, such as oil, shipbuilding, cars, and coal.

The strengthened position of the US was explained in the following paragraph: “Today most of the countries of Europe are dependent on America not only for their oil and grain, but also for their coal. While prior to the war America's exports consisted chiefly of agricultural products and raw materials … her main export at present consists of manufactured goods (60 percent of her export trade). While America before the war was a debtor country, she is today the world's creditor. Approximately one half of the world's gold reserves are concentrated in the United States and the gold continues to flow in. The leading role on the world money markets has passed from the pound sterling to the dollar”.

However, the Theses pointed out that even American capitalism, although initially benefiting from the lack of European competitors during the war, was now threatened by that same weakness of the European economies. Having developed so rapidly as an export economy, it could no longer find enough buyers of its goods overseas.

Japan was facing an even more difficult situation, this becoming the first of the capitalist nations to face economic crisis in 1920. Its lack of competitors during wartime had allowed it to capture new markets but now, with renewed competition, its less developed industry was being squeezed out of those markets.

Similarly, it added, countries previously largely reliant on the export of raw materials, such as Canada, Australia, China, India, Egypt and in South America, had seized the chance to develop their industrial base - providing new competitors for European capitalism in particular - but also now being threatened by the weakness of the global market.

Therefore, the Theses concluded, there was no prospect of global economic stability for capitalism. “The world market is disorganised, Europe needs American products, but has nothing to offer in return. Europe suffers from anaemia, America, from plethora”. 

It went on to explain that “the gold standard has been overthrown. The depreciated currencies of European countries (reaching in some cases 99 per cent) present almost insurmountable obstacles to the world exchange of commodities. The incessant, sharp fluctuations of the rate of exchange have converted capitalist economy into an orgy of speculation. America, in her turn, defends herself against artificially cheap European exports (dumping) by raising her tariffs” Then, as now, their international capitalist competitors were raising their own tariffs in turn, further disrupting world markets. That disruption was made worse by the capitalists political decision to “exclude Soviet Russia from the world market - as a consumer of manufactured goods and as a supplier of raw materials”. 

The Theses went on to explain how the years of Civil War and imperialist intervention to attempt to crush Soviet Russia had further weakened it's already weak industrial base. Faced with this onslaught, “it was entirely out of the question during the three years of incessant civil war for this exhausted and utterly ruined country to organise a number of new branches of industry, yet without these the old branches faced certain ruin through the wear and tear of their basic inventory. In addition to this, hundreds of thousands of the best proletarian elements, comprising a large number of the most highly skilled workers, had to be drawn into the Red Army”. 

However, it also pointed out that “under these historical conditions, surrounded by the iron ring of blockade, carrying on incessant warfare, suffering from the terrible heritage of ruin - no other regime could have maintained the country's economic life and created a centralised administration”.

Having, at great cost, won through against the odds, only now “with the establishment of sounder transitional forms for relations between the city and the country, has the Soviet power received the opportunity to exercise a gradual, unwavering, centralised direction of the country’s economic revival” [The redirection of the Soviet economy from the period of ‘War Communism’ to that of the ‘New Economic Policy’ is explained elsewhere].

IV The Aggravation of Social Contradictions

This section of the Theses started by explaining how the growing crisis was sharpening the division of wealth between rich and poor, especially in Europe. Some of the previously more privileged middle class layers, such as state employees who were now being hit by government cuts, had been pushed into the ranks of the working class. At the same time, a tiny rich elite were amassing stupendous levels of wealth (again, sounds familiar?!). 

Some of this retrogressive redistribution of wealth had arisen from the soaring prices caused by the depreciation of European countries as they attempted to cheapen their exports. The political effects of this widening social divide could only be further fierce class struggles. 

The resolution added that social contradictions were also being aggravated in the countryside. Rising prices for agricultural goods had brought new wealth to the villages, but mainly to the rich peasants and big landowners, which had also led to increasing tensions between the rural and urban sections of the capitalist class.

It stressed that the widening class divide in the US, unlike Europe, was taking place in the context of a growing economy, although one beset with sharp fluctuations owing to the wider instability of the world market. This would “impart to the class struggle on American soil an extremely intense and revolutionary character”.

It added that emigration of workers and peasants “has always served as a safety valve to the capitalist regime in Europe” but that “at the present time America and Australia are putting ever-greater obstacles in the way of émigrés from Europe”. 

Finally, this section of the Theses pointed out the possibilities of revolutionary struggles developing in both China and India, where the rapid development of capitalism had created a fresh working-class, alongside the remains of feudal bondage, as had developed in Russia prior to its Revolutions. Their national bourgeoisies were also so closely tied to foreign capital that they were also unwilling to lead a serious struggle to overthrow imperialist domination, leaving the “young colonial proletariat” with the responsibility of putting itself at the head of the movement. 

It concluded that “the revolutionary peoples' movement in India and in other colonies is today as much an integral part of the world revolution of the toilers as is the uprising of the proletariat in the capitalist countries of the old and the new worlds”.

V International Relations

The Theses opened by pointing out how the results of world war had thrown back the attempts - inevitably unsuccessful ones under capitalism - to overcome the barriers to global development created by the existence of individual nation states, thus further worsening the crises facing the global economy:

“International relations, as they have emerged from the war and from the Versailles Peace, are rendering the situation even more hopeless. While imperialism was engendered by the needs of the productive forces to eradicate the framework of nation-states and to convert Europe and the rest of the world into one economic territory, the result of the dog-fight between the hostile imperialist powers was to pile up in Central and Eastern Europe a whole number of new boundaries, new custom barriers and new armies. In the state-economic sense, Europe has been thrown back to medievalism. The soil which has been exhausted and ruined is now being called upon to sustain an army one and a half times as large as that of 1914”.

The French capitalists were trying to improve their dire situation by crippling Germany through debt repayments and by hoping to grab hold of its coal and heavy industry in the Saar, Ruhr and Upper Silesia. [France did in fact occupy the Ruhr in January 1923].

“But these efforts run counter to the interests of Britain. The latter's task is to keep German coal away from French ore, the coupling of which is one of the most indispensable conditions for the regeneration of Europe”.

The Theses went on to explain that the British Empire had, for now, survived intact, even expanding its reach further than ever before, despite Britain’s actual economic decline. It had succeeded in defeating German capitalism, despite its outdated technology and organisation in comparison to the more recently developed German capitalism. “But in the shape of the United States, which has already economically subjected both Americas, there has now risen a triumphant rival, even more menacing than Germany”. 

It commented that, “thanks to its superior organisation and technology, the productivity of labour in U.S. industry is far above that of England. Within the territories of the United States 65 to 70 per cent of the world's petroleum is being produced, upon which depends the car industry, tractor production, the navy and the air fleet” . 

The US had broken Britain’s monopoly over coal, similarly with undersea cables, and had now almost caught up in the size of its merchant navy and would soon overtake Britain in terms of its military naval fleet.

“In the field of industry Great Britain has gone over to the defensive, and under the pretext of combating 'unwholesome' German competition is now arming herself with protectionist measures against the United States …. The situation is such that either Britain will be automatically pushed back and, despite her victory over Germany, become a second-rate power or she will be constrained in the near future to stake in mortal combat with the United States her entire power gained in former years”. As it turned out, the first option proved correct!

The Theses also foresaw the growing “antagonism between Japan and the United States, temporarily veiled by their joint participation in the war against Germany… As a result of the war Japan has come closer to American shores, taking possession of islands in the Pacific which are of great strategic importance”. But, beyond that, it also foresaw in these growing global antagonisms that “the last great war was - in its origin, its immediate causes and in its principal participants - a European war” but would now be seen “as a European prelude to a genuine world war which is to solve the question of who will exercise the rule of imperialist autocracy”.

But, the Theses added, there was now a new element to world relations, and that was the existence of the Russian Soviet Federation and the Third International. However, as it warned, “the conclusion of peace treaties and trade agreements by certain capitalist countries [eg Britain] with Soviet Russia does not at all mean that the world bourgeoisie has renounced the idea of destroying the Soviet Republic. We have here only a change - perhaps a temporary one - of forms and methods of struggle … It is absolutely self-evident that the more protracted the world proletarian revolutionary movement is in its character, the more inevitably will the bourgeoisie be impelled by the contradictions of the world economic and political situation to engage in another bloody denouement on a world scale”. 

This section of the Theses concluded with a comment that is worth thinking over in 2025 too. “Despite the fact that the experience of the last war has furnished fearsome proof that 'war is a miscalculation’ - a truth which exhausts all of bourgeois and socialist pacifism - the process of economic, political, ideological and technical preparation for a new war is going on at full speed throughout the capitalist world”. In other words, the ‘logic’ of capitalist competition and imperialist rivalry meant that the threat of “illogical” conflict, with consequences that risked damaging all capitalist rivals, nevertheless remained then, as it does today, a very real one.

VI The Working Class After the War

The Theses then asked a key question - what did these perspectives mean for the working class, or, as it posed sharply, for capitalism to stabilise itself, “will the working class be willing to make, under the new and incomparably more difficult conditions … than those ruling before the war, those sacrifices which are indispensable for the stable conditions necessary for its own slavery to be re-established?”

It explained that the European capitalists needed to restore the productive forces destroyed during the war - but that would require imposing even longer hours and lower wages on the working-class. And, despite the pleas of their treacherous leaders, the European workers were quite rightly not willing for capitalism to restore its profits at their expense. 

No, the working class were demanding “a higher standard of living, which is in direct contradiction to the objective possibilities of the capitalist system. Hence the interminable strikes and uprisings; hence the impossibility of the economic reconstruction of Europe”. 

It added that a whole number of European states - it lists Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and the Balkans etc. - needed to “declare themselves bankrupt”, refusing to continue to pay off their debts and making deep state expenditure cuts, in order to stabilise their plummeting currencies. It would also mean preventing imports of consumer goods and further attacking workers' wages and conditions in order to reduce the cost of production of their exports - if, of course, they could succeed in imposing those attacks on their respective proletariats.

In short, this wasn't a question that could be decided by mere economics but only by the class struggle: “The question of whether capitalism can be revived becomes in consequence a question which involves the struggle between living forces: the contending classes and their parties. If, of the two main classes in society - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat - one of them, the latter, renounces the revolutionary struggle, then the former, the bourgeoisie, would undeniably in the final analysis establish a new capitalist equilibrium - one based on material and spiritual degeneration by means of new crises, new wars, progressive pauperisation of entire countries and the steady dying out of millions of toilers”. 

This was a perspective, that laid out at least in broad terms, the defeats of workers’ struggles and the economic turmoil of the inter-war years, and - although not foreseen here specifically - the rise of fascism. However, as things stood in 1921, the Congress resolution drew a more optimistic perspective - that “the present state of the world proletariat furnishes the least justification for a prognosis of this kind”.

That's not to say that the Theses weren't alert to the damaging influence that the reformist politicians and conservative trade union leaders retained over many organised workers. But they argued that the war had changed both the outlook and composition of the workforce - now younger, with more women and unskilled workers. 

Whilst there were still many layers of the working-class not yet ready to break with their treacherous leaders, “millions of young men and women” have brought into the workplaces “their impatient aspirations for better conditions of life … who have grown up amid the tempests of war and revolution are the most receptive to the ideas of Communism and are burning with the desire to act’.

The Theses also noted “the gigantic army of unemployed, for the most part declassed and semi-declassed elements, whose ebbs and flows illustrate most strikingly the process of capitalist economic disintegration.”

It explained that “the instability of living conditions, which mirrors the universal instability of national and world economic conditions, is today one of the most important factors of revolutionary development”, but also that the differing moods amongst the various diverse layers meant that there had not been a unified or simultaneous movement of the masses. Instead, the pace of struggle had ebbed and flowed. 

However, it felt that, “the overwhelming majority of the proletarian masses is being rapidly welded together by the shattering of old illusions, by the terrible uncertainty of existence, by the autocratic domination of the trusts by the bandit methods of the militarised state. This multimillion headed mass is seeking a firm and lucid leadership, a clear-cut programme of action, and thus creates the premises for the decisive role which the closely welded and centralised Communist Party is destined to play”. 

In retrospect, was that an overly optimistic perspective? Given the global crisis which the Theses correctly predicted - rather than any period of sustained capitalist recovery - I don't think it was. However, as the final section of these Theses was to also emphasise, how events were to develop would also depend on whether such a clear leadership would be built to play the role required of it.

VII Perspectives and Tasks

The final section opens with an honest assessment: “The war did not directly terminate in the proletarian revolution. The bourgeoisie has with some justification recorded this fact as a major victory for itself”.

But it then adds that “only petty-bourgeois blockheads can construe the bankruptcy of the programme of the Communist International from the fact that the European proletariat did not overthrow the bourgeoisie during the war or immediately after it. That the Communist International bases its policy on the proletarian revolution does not at all mean either dogmatically fixing any definite date for the revolution or issuing any pledges to bring it about mechanically at a set time”. 

It continues with quotes that still ring true today - if in the context of later struggles of the working masses around the globe:

“The revolution was and remains a struggle of living forces waged upon given historical foundations. … The differences between the Communist International and the Social Democrats of both groups do not arise from our alleged attempt to force the revolution on a fixed date whereas they are opposed to utopianism and putschism; the difference lies in this, that the Social Democrats obstruct the actual development of the revolution by rendering, whether as members of the administration or as members of the opposition, all possible assistance in restoring the equilibrium of the bourgeois state, whereas the Communists are exploiting every means, every method, every possibility for the purpose of overthrowing and abolishing the bourgeois state through the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat”.

“In the course of the two and a half years that have elapsed since the war, the proletariat of various countries has exhibited so much energy, such readiness for struggle, such a spirit of self-sacrifice as would have more than sufficed to bring victory to the revolution, provided there had been at the head of the working class an International Communist Party strong, centralised and ready for action. But during the war and immediately thereafter, by force of historic circumstances, there stood at the head of the European proletariat the organisation of the Second International which has become and which remains an invaluable political weapon in the hands of the bourgeoisie”.

As the most pointed example, the Theses restated the lessons of Germany - at the end of 1918 and at the beginning of 1919 - when “the power was actually in the hands of the working class. The Social Democrats - the majority faction, the Independents, and the trade unions alike - used their whole apparatus and all their traditional influence for the purpose of returning this power into the hands of the bourgeoisie”.

And it added that since then, in Italy, it had been “only thanks to the petty-bourgeois impotence of the Socialist Party, to the treacherous policy of its parliamentary fraction, to the cowardly opportunism of the trade union organisations, that the bourgeoisie found itself enabled to repair its apparatus, to mobilise its ‘White Guards’ and to assume the offensive against the proletariat.”

In Britain too, “the mighty strike movement in Britain was shattered again and again during the last year by the ruthless application of military force, which intimidated the trade-union leaders. Had these leaders remained faithful to the cause of the working class, the machinery of the trade unions despite all of its defects could have been used for revolutionary battles. The recent crisis of the Triple Alliance [when the transport and rail unions failed to take action in solidarity with the locked out miners] furnished the possibility of a revolutionary collision with the bourgeoisie but this was frustrated by the conservatism, cowardice and treachery of the trade-union leaders”. 

The Theses added a phrase that might only too well still apply in future, unless genuine ‘Broad Lefts’ succeed in transforming the trade unions in Britain: “Were the machinery of the British trade unions to develop today half the amount of energy in the interests of socialism it has been expending in the interests of capitalism, the English proletariat could conquer power with a minimum of sacrifice and could start a systematic reconstruction of the country's economic system”. And, as the Theses also added, “the same applies in a greater or lesser degree to all other capitalist countries”.

Once again, the Theses made clear that Lenin, Trotsky and the leadership of the Communist International weren’t blind to reality: “It is absolutely incontestable that on a world scale the open revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for power is at present passing through a stoppage, a slowing down in tempo”. 

However, the Theses also made clear that this was inevitable following the failure to win a rapid revolutionary victory, to follow on from the Russian Revolution, when capitalism was at its most vulnerable immediately after the war - not least in Germany: “It was impossible to expect that the revolutionary offensive after the war … would go on developing uninterruptedly along an upward curve. … If the offensive of the proletariat is not crowned by victory, the bourgeoisie seizes the very first opportunity for a counter-offensive. … But it remains equally incontestable that in our epoch the curve of capitalist development as a whole is constantly moving - [if also] through temporary upswings - downwards; while the curve of the revolution - through all its fluctuations - is constantly moving upwards”.

So what was the fundamental task of the Communist Parties during this pause in revolutionary struggle? To conclude from the perspectives outlined that “workers will be driven again and again to engage in strikes and to rise in revolt. Under this oppression and pressure, in the course of these battles, the will of the masses to abolish the capitalist system will grow and become tempered” and so for the Party “to lead the present defensive struggles of the proletariat, to extend their scope, to deepen them, to unify them, and in harmony with the march of events, to transform them into decisive political struggles for the ultimate goal”.

It also noted that, even if the perspective proved incorrect, and capitalism did succeed in creating for itself a “period of prosperity” [as it did in the special global conditions after World War Two] this would inevitably only be temporary, remembering that “so long as capitalism exists, cyclical oscillations are inevitable”. 

The final paragraph stressed the following: “Whether the revolutionary movement develops in the next period at a swift or slow tempo, the Communist Party must in either case remain the party of action. It stands at the head of the struggling masses; it firmly and clearly formulates its fighting slogans, exposing and sweeping aside all the equivocal slogans of the Social Democracy, which are always based on compromise and conciliationism”. 

It concluded - using a military analogy - that “whatever the shifts in the course of the struggle, the Communist Party always strives to consolidate organisationally new bases of support, trains the masses in active manoeuvering, arms them with new methods and practices designed for direct and open clashes with the enemy forces. Utilising every breathing spell in order to assimilate the experience of the preceding phase of the struggle, the Communist Party seeks to deepen and extend the class conflicts, to co-ordinate them nationally and internationally by unity of goal and unity of practical action, and, in this way, at the head of the proletariat, shatter all resistance on the road to its dictatorship and the socialist revolution”.

As we know, the actual course of events in the century since these perspectives were written has turned out to be one where the tempo of struggle has extended over a far longer period than anyone at that 1921 Congress would have expected. 

Capitalism - at the expense of both the world’s working class and poor, and indeed the global environment too - has managed to maintain its domination of the world. But the advice above retains its relevance for revolutionary parties today.

The Class, the Party and the International

As stated in my previous posts analysing the decisions taken by the 1920 Second Congress of the Communist International, the defeats suffered by the Revolutions in Germany and Hungary in particular had confirmed that, without the presence of strong revolutionary parties rooted in the working class and its mass organisations, proletarian revolutions would not succeed. In response, the Second Congress stressed the importance of revolutionary leadership, nationally and internationally, 

In this final post outlining the decisions made by that Second Congress, I have therefore sought to summarise a final set of four resolutions that, together, set out the importance of building revolutionary parties, made tactical suggestions for doing so, as well as agreeing both the key tasks and necessary conditions for parties who wished to be part of the Communist International, so that they would be parties able to provide that necessary revolutionary leadership.

These four resolutions, all of which still retain their relevance as the basis for for discussion and for party organisation today, are:

1) The Role of the Communist Party in Proletarian Revolution (24 July 1920, as drafted by Zinoviev);

2) Theses on the Conditions of Admission to the Communist International (30 July 1920, presented by Trotsky);

3) Statutes of the Communist International (4 August 1920, as drafted by Lenin);

4) Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International (6 August 1920, as drafted by Trotsky).

There is inevitable repetition of some points between the different resolutions - ensuring they are consistent with each other - but I have stressed the main points in each separate resolution below:

Some of the delegates to the Second Congress 

1) The Role of the Communist Party in Proletarian Revolution

Many of the key points in this resolution still apply today just as they did back in 1920, so I will quote them in their original wording, but I have given emphasis to sections that I think are particularly significant:

The Party is part of the working class - its most politically conscious part.

“1 The Communist Party is a part of the working class, the most advanced, politically conscious and revolutionary part. [It] is composed of the best, most politically conscious, most dedicated and far-sighted workers. [It] has no interests other than those of the working class. It differs from the general mass of workers in that it surveys the whole historical path of the working clas in its totality, and tries at each stage of the struggle to defend the interests of the working class as a whole, rather than of individual groups or trades. The Communist Party is the organisational and political lever which assists the more advanced part of the working class to direct the mass of the proletariat and semi-proletariat onto the right path”.

“2 Until the proletariat has captured state power and has finally consolidated its rule against bourgeois restoration, the Communist Party will, as a rule, have only a minority of workers organised in ranks. At the time of the seizure of power and during the transition period the Communist Party can, in favourable conditions, exercise unquestioned ideological and political influence on all the proletarian and semi-proletarian layers of the population, while remaining unable to draw them organisationally into its ranks. Only after the proletarian dictatorship [workers' power] has deprived the bourgeoisie of such powerful weapons as press, school, parliament, church and the administrative apparatus, and only after the defeat of the bourgeois system has become plain to everyone, will all, or nearly all, workers begin to join the Party. 

Raise - not descend to - the level of the more politically backward workers

“3. … In certain historical situations very considerable sections of the working class may hold reactionary positions. The Communists must not adapt themselves to these backward layers of the working class - on the contrary, they must raise the working class to the level of its Communist vanguard. … At the outbreak of the imperialist war in 1914, all the various parties of social-traitors, in supporting ‘their’ bourgeoisie, invariably argued that this was the will of the working class. They forgot that, even if this had been the case, the duty of the proletarian party in such a situation is to oppose the mood of the majority of workers and, whatever the cost, argue for the historical interests of the proletariat …”. 

Build a revolutionary proletarian party

“4 The … collapse of the old 'social-democratic' parties of the Second International should not be seen as the general collapse of proletarian parties. The epoch of direct struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat gives birth to a new proletarian party - the Communist Party”.

“5 The Communist International firmly rejects the view that the proletariat can accomplish its revolution without an independent political party. The class struggle is always a political struggle. The goal of this struggle, which inevitably develops into a civil war, is the conquest of political power. 

However, political power can only be seized, organised and channelled by a political party. Only if the proletariat is led by an organised and experienced party which has definite aims, and a worked-out programme for immediate action in the sphere of both internal and external affairs, can the seizure of power be a starting-point for a long period of communist construction instead of merely a chance episode. 

The class struggle requires the unification and centralisation, under a common leadership, of the various strands of the proletarian movement …. Only a political party can provide the necessary unifying and guiding centre. The refusal to form and strengthen this party, subordinating all else to it [the resolution specifically criticises the syndicalists of the ‘IWW’ for failing to accept this point] means the rejection of the principle of unified leadership for the various militant sections of the proletariat acting in the various arenas of struggle. 

Finally, proletarian class struggle requires intense agitational work to clarify the common thread linking the various stages of the struggle and, at each given moment, to direct the attention of the proletariat to certain key issues, which are of importance to the class as a whole. Such a task cannot be accomplished without a central political apparatus, i.e. without a political party ….

The working class will never achieve complete victory over the bourgeoisie just by a general strike or by the tactic of 'sitting still and doing nothing’. The proletariat' will have to resort to an armed uprising. Whoever has understood this must also realise that the need for an organised political party inevitably follows and that amorphous workers' unions are insufficient”.

Build amongst the wider working class too

“6 The most important task of a genuine Communist Party is to maintain the closest possible contact with the widest sections of the proletariat. For this purpose Communists must also work in associations which are not attached to the Party, but which have large numbers of working-class members, such as the organisations of disabled ex-servicemen which exist in several countries, the 'Hands off Russia' committees in Britain [formed in the summer of 1920 to oppose British intervention in the Russian-Polish War], the proletarian tenants' associations etc. …

Communists consider systematic organisational and educational work inside these broad organisations to be one of the most important aspects of their activity. In order to carry out this work successfully, and prevent the enemies of the revolutionary proletariat from winning control of these broad workers' organisations, the politically conscious Communist workers must also create their own independent and disciplined Communist Party which acts in an organised fashion and which is capable, however events unfold, and whatever form the movement takes, of defending the general interests of Communism”.

“7 Communists do not shun the mass non-Party workers' organisations even when, as is sometimes the case, these are clearly reactionary (scab unions, Christian unions etc.). The Communist Party constantly and tirelessly works inside these organisations to show the workers that the bourgeoisie and its bootlickers deliberately promote the principle of non-partisanship in order to divert the proletarians from organised struggle for socialism”.

Build a Party majority in the Soviets, don't dissolve into them 

8 … The party of the proletariat, i.e. the Communist Party, must provide permanent and systematic leadership of the Soviets and the revolutionary trade unions. The organised vanguard of the working class - the Communist Party - furthers equally the interests of the economic, political, cultural and educational struggles of the working class as a whole. The Communist Party must be the moving spirit of the production unions, the Soviets of workers' deputies and all other forms of proletarian organisation.

The rise of the Soviets as the main historically determined form of the dictatorship of the proletariat in no way detracts from the leading role of the Communist Party in the proletarian revolution. When the German 'Left' Communists say … that "the party, too, is more and more adapting itself to the Soviet idea and assuming a proletarian character”, they are expressing the commonly-held idea that the Communist Party ought to dissolve itself into the Soviets, that the Soviet can replace the Communist Party. This idea is fundamentally incorrect and reactionary.

In the history of the Russian revolution there was a whole period when the Soviets acted against the proletarian party and supported the policy of the agents of the bourgeoisie. The same thing has been observed in Germany. It could possibly happen in other countries also. A strong Communist Party is essential if the Soviets are to fulfil their historical mission. A party is needed that does not 'adapt' itself to the Soviets, but is able in a decisive way to influence their policies - in particular preventing the Soviets from themselves 'adapting’ to the bourgeoisie and the White Guard social democracy - and, through the Communist fractions, to win their support…”.

A Party is needed not just to lead the struggle for workers' power but also to hold and build it as well

“9 The working class needs the Communist Party not only before and during the seizure of power, but also in the period after power has been transferred to the hands of the working class. The history of the Russian Communist Party, which has held power in a huge country for three years, shows that the role of the Party does not decrease in the period after the seizure of power, but, on the contrary, increases greatly”.

“10 In the period immediately after the seizure of power by the working class, the proletarian party reaches, as previously, only a part of the working class, but precisely that part which has organised the victory. For two decades in Russia and for a number of years in Germany, the Communist Parties have, in the course of their struggles with the bourgeoisie and with those 'socialists' who in effect transmit bourgeois ideas to the proletariat, been drawing into their ranks the most dedicated, far-sighted and politically aware working-class fighters. Only the existence of a united organisation involving the best elements of the working class makes it possible to overcome all those difficulties which confront the workers' dictatorship in the period after its victory. The organisation of the new proletarian Red Army, the actual destruction of the bourgeois state apparatus, the struggle against the narrow craft aspirations of individual groups of workers, and against local and district 'patriotism', the introduction of a new labour discipline - in all these spheres the final word belongs to the Communist Party, whose members provide an example which the majority of the working class follows”.

“11 The need for a proletarian political party ceases only with the complete abolition of classes. On the road to final victory the relative weight of the three basic proletarian organisations of today (the party, the Soviets and the trade unions) may possibly change and they may gradually develop into a single type of workers' organisation. But the Communist Party will dissolve completely into the working class only when communism has ceased to be the object of struggle and the entire working class has become Communist”.

A Party built on democratic centralism - especially in a period of civil war

“12. The Second Congress of the Communist International … must also indicate to the international proletariat, at least in general terms, the kind of Communist Party needed”.

“13. The Communist International considers that, particularly in the epoch of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Communist Party must be built according to the principle of iron proletarian centralism. So that it can successfully lead the working class in the long and difficult period of civil war that approaches, the Communist Party must establish an iron military discipline within its ranks. 

The experience of the Russian Communist Party, which for three years has successfully led the working class in the civil war, has shown that the workers cannot win unless the strictest discipline prevails, complete centralism maintained, and all the Party organisations have absolute trust in the leading Party centre. 

“14 The Communist Party must be organised on the basis of democratic centralism. The main principles of democratic centralism are that higher bodies are elected by lower bodies, all directives of higher bodies are absolutely binding on subordinate bodies and a powerful Party centre exists whose authority between congresses is unquestioned by all the leaders of the Party”.

“15 A whole number of Parties in Europe and America have to exist illegally as a result of the state of siege declared by the bourgeoisie. It is essential to remember that in such a situation the principle of holding elections cannot always be observed, and the leading party bodies have the right to co-opt members, as was the case at one time in Russia. Under a real state of siege the Communist Party is unable to resort to a referendum of Party members on every major question, which some American Communists think necessary. The Communist Party must allow the leading centre to make decisions on behalf of all Party members when necessary”.

“16 Proposals for the broad autonomy of each individual local Party organisation in effect weaken the ranks of the Communist Party at the present time, undermining its capacity for action and aiding petty-bourgeois, anarchist tendencies, which are in favour of a loose structure”.

Legal and illegal work

“17 In those countries where power is still in the hands of the bourgeoisie or the counter-revolutionary social democracy, the Communist Parties must learn skilfully to combine legal with illegal work. Legal work must always be under the control of the illegal Party. Parliamentary Communist fractions in central and local government institutions must be completely and absolutely subordinate to Communist Party as a whole - regardless of whether the Party is at the time a legal or illegal organisation. Those deputies who, whatever the issue, refuse to subordinate themselves to the Party must be driven out of the Communist ranks.

The legal press (newspapers and publishing houses) must be unconditionally and absolutely subordinate to the Party as a whole, and to its Central Committee. No concessions on this point are admissible”.

Build Communist “cells” in every sector

“18 The basis of all the organisational work of the members must be the creation of ‘Communist cells’, wherever there is a small number of proletarians or semi-proletarians. In every Soviet of workers' deputies, in every trade union, enterprise, workshop, house committee, government institution - wherever there are even three people sympathetic to Communist ideas - a Communist cell should be organised immediately. 

It is only the capacity of the Communists to organise themselves that gives the vanguard of the working class the opportunity of winning the entire working class. All Communist cells working in the non-Party organisations must accept the unconditional control of the Party organisation as a whole, irrespective of whether or not the Party is legal or illegal at the time. Communist cells of all kinds must be subordinate to one another in as strict and precise a hierarchy as possible”.

From the towns into the villages

19 The Communist Party almost always begins as an urban party, as a party of industrial workers living mainly in the towns. To ease and hasten victory for the working class, it is essential that the Communist Party becomes not only the party of the towns, but of the villages as well. The Communist Party must carry out its propaganda and organisational work among the agricultural workers and the small and middle peasants. The Communist Party must take particular care to organise Communist cells in the villages”.

Build the Communist International 

“The international organisation of the proletariat will be strong only if the Communist Party assumes the role outlined above in all the countries where Communists live and struggle. 

The Communist International invites to its congresses every trade union which accepts the principles of the Third International and is ready to break with the scab International. The Communist International will organise an international section of Red trade unions that accept Communist ideas.

The Communist International is ready to co-operate with any non-Party workers' organisation which wishes to wage a serious revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie. But, at the same time, the Communist International will always affirm the following points:

1 The Communist Party is the main weapon for the liberation of the working class. Each country now needs not groups or currents, but a Communist Party. 

2 There must exist only one Communist Party in each country.

3 The Communist Party must be built according to the principle of the strictest centralisation and, in the epoch of civil war, must establish military discipline within its ranks.

4 Wherever there are a dozen or so proletarians or semi-proletarians, the Communist Party must have an organised cell.

5 A Communist Party cell, strictly subordinate to the Party as a whole, must exist in every non-Party workers' institution.

6 While adhering firmly and selflessly to the programme and revolutionary tactics of Communism, the Communist Party must always maintain the closest contact with the broad workers' organisations and be as wary of sectarianism as of lack of principle”.

2) Theses on the Conditions of Admission to the Communist International

These theses set out the 21 conditions of admission of new parties to the Communist International - and the duties incumbent on parties who were its members.

The 21 points were preceded by a short introduction explaining the necessity of having an International built on solid ground, and not one “watered down by elements characterised by vacillation and half measures”. 

It particularly pointed to the lessons of the defeated Hungarian Revolution of 1919, where “the fusion of the Hungarian Communists with the so-called ‘left’ social democrats cost the Hungarian proletariat dear”. [Fearing isolation, and ignoring Lenin’s warnings, Bela Kun and the Hungarian CP had agreed to merge with the Hungarian SPD reformist leaders when the latter were intent on saving capitalism, not overthrowing it].

It also noted that the sympathy of the class conscious workers of the world for the Russian Revolution had made the Communist International “fashionable”. So some parties, particularly given the wartime collapse of the ‘Second International’ had expressed an interest in joining the Third International, whilst still wanting to retain their ‘autonomy’. In other words, as one of the introductory paragraphs put it, they wanted to be seen as being members whilst also being permitted “to continue their previous opportunist or ‘centrist’ policies”. 

These 21 conditions of membership were drafted in a way to ensure that the danger of any such watering down of the International was avoided. Again, given their continued relevance for today, I have quoted some of the conditions in full, but summarised others where they are largely a repetition of points already set out in other resolutions. This choice of emphasis is, of course, my own:

1 “All propaganda and agitation must bear a really Communist character and correspond to the programme and decisions of the Communist International. All the Party's press organs must be run by reliable Communists who have proved their devotion to the cause of the proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat must not be treated simply as a current formula learnt off by heart. Propaganda for it must be carried out in such a way that its necessity is comprehensible to every simple worker, every woman worker, every soldier and peasant from the facts of their daily lives, which must be observed by our press and used day by day”.

This first condition also insisted that all Party publications, including its paper and periodicals, must be accountable to the Party leadership. “The publishing houses must not be allowed to abuse their independence and pursue policies that do not entirely correspond to the policies of the Party”. Articles, speeches and other agitation must also not only criticise the capitalists “but also its helpers, the reformists of every shade, systematically and pitilessly”. 

2 This condition demanded that every affiliate to the Communist International “must regularly and methodically remove reformists and centrists from every responsible post in the labour movement (Party organisations, editorial boards, trades unions, parliamentary factions, co-operatives, local government) and replace them with tested Communists, without worrying unduly about the fact that, particularly at first, ordinary workers from the masses will be replacing 'experienced' opportunists”.

3 This condition, based on the political situation internationally at the time and a perspective for a deepening crisis, including civil war, set down that affiliates must set up “a parallel organisational apparatus” ready to provide leadership if the Party has to organise in conditions of illegality.

4 Again, based on the political situation of the time, this condition stresses the duty on affiliated to carry out Party agitation within the army, even if such activity is deemed “illegal”.

5 This condition emphasises that “systematic and methodical agitation is necessary in the countryside. The working class will not be able to win if it does not have the backing of the rural proletariat and at least a part of the poorest peasants, and if it does not secure the neutrality of at least a part of the rest of the rural population through its policies”. It stresses that particular responsibility for this work falls on urban workers who have links with the villages and that this key work  must not be carried out by reliable Party members [*See note at the end of this post on the 'Theses on the Agrarian Question'].

6 This condition, while written in a different period, insisted on affiliates combating the pacifist ideas still put forward today from well-meaning but misguided reformists who put their faith in ‘international diplomacy’ and bodies like the ‘United Nations’. It stayed that “every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International has the obligation to unmask not only open social-patriotism … but also social-pacifism, to show the workers systematically that, without the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism no international court of arbitration, no agreement on the limitation of armaments, no 'democratic' reorganisation of the League of Nations will be able to prevent new imperialist wars”.

7 This condition was particularly directed at parties considering joining the Communist International whose leaderships still contained significant reformist, ‘centrist' and even out-and-out opportunist elements (it specifically name-checked Turati and Modigliani from the Italian Socialist Party, Kautsky and Hilferding of the German USPD, Hillquit from the US Socialist Party, the French socialist Longuet and Ramsay MacDonald of the ILP in Britain), noting that if characters like these were seen to be associated with the Communist International, then it would send up “very similar to the wreck of the Second International”. 

This seventh condition therefore insisted on such parties urgently carrying out a “complete break with reformism and 'centrist' politics and of spreading this break among the widest possible circles of their party members”. 

8 This condition insisted upon a Communist policy on the Colonial and National Questions, especially “on the part of the Communist Parties of those countries where bourgeoisies are in possession of colonies and oppress other nations”. Parties must support “every liberation movement in the colonies not only in words but in deeds … demanding that their imperialist compatriots should be thrown out of the colonies” and encourage workers to build “a truly fraternal relationship to the working population in the colonies and to the oppressed nations” as well as “carrying out systematic propaganda among their own country's troops against any oppression of colonial peoples”.

9 This condition stressed the importance of work in the trade unions and other mass organisations: “Every party … must systematically and persistently develop Communist activities within the trade unions, workers' and works councils, the consumer co-operatives and other mass workers' organisations. Within these organisations it is necessary to organise Communist cells, the aim of which is to win the trades unions etc. for the cause of Communism by incessant and persistent work”. Once again, the cells had to be accountable to the Party as a whole and also ready to expose both “the treachery of the social patriots and the vacillations of the 'centrists'”.

10 In addition, this condition stressed that affiliates must oppose the social-democratic “‘Amsterdam 'International’ of scab trade union organisations” and instead encourage unions to “support the International Association of Red Trades Unions affiliated to the Communist International, at present in the process of formation”.

11 This condition confirmed the obligation on affiliates “to subject the personal composition of their parliamentary factions to review, to remove all unreliable elements from them and to subordinate these factions to the Party leadership, not only in words but also in deeds” [see my previous post on ‘Revolutionary Parliamentarianism’].

12/13 These conditions confirmed that, as set out in the resolution above, parties should be “built on the basis of the principle of democratic centralism (12)” and “must from time to time undertake purges (re-registration) of the membership of their Party organisations in order to cleanse the Party systematically of the petty-bourgeois elements within it (13).”

14 This condition demanded that every affiliated party supported “every Soviet republic in its struggle against the forces of counter-revolution” including by campaigning for workers' action to prevent the transport of war material to their enemies and by carrying out propaganda work “among troops sent to stifle workers' republics”.

15 This condition insisted that former social-democratic parties joining the International updated their party programmes as quickly as possible, “working out a new Communist programme corresponding to the particular conditions in the country and in accordance with the decisions of the Communist International”. Further, the programme of all affiliated parties “must be ratified by a regular Congress of the Communist International or by the Executive Committee. Should the Executive Committee of the Communist International reject a Party's programme, the Party in question has the right of appeal to the Congress of the Communist International”.

16 This condition stressed, given the political situation, the need for the Third International to operate in a more centralist way than the failed Second International had done, including that “decisions of the Congresses of the Communist International and decisions of its Executive Committee are binding on all parties belonging to the Communist International”. However, it also noted that “the Communist International and its Executive Committee must, of course, in the whole of its activity, take into account the differing conditions under which the individual Parties have to fight and work, and only take generally binding decisions in cases where such decisions are possible”.

17 In order to create a clear identity for all parties belonging to the International, and to clearly distinguish themselves from “all scab social-democratic parties”, this condition insisted that all affiliated parties “must bear the name Communist Party of this or that country (Section of the Communist International)”. It stressed that “The question of the name is not formal, but a highly political question of great importance. … The difference between the Communist Parties and the old official 'social-democratic' or 'socialist' parties that have betrayed the banner of the working class must be clear to every simple toiler”.

18 “All the leading press of the Parties in every country have the duty of printing all the important official documents of the Executive Committee of the Communist International”.

19 “All Parties that belong to the Communist International or have submitted an application for membership have the duty of calling a special congress as soon as possible, and in no case later than four months after the Second Congress of the Communist International, in order to check all these conditions. In this connection all Party centres must see that the decisions of the Second Congress are known to all their local organisations”.

20/21 As a final safeguard to protect the integrity of the International, the last two conditions referred to “parties that now wish to enter the Communist International but have not yet radically altered their previous tactics”. The twentieth condition insisted that, before these parties could join, they must ensure that “no less than two-thirds of the Central Committee and of all their most important central institutions consist of comrades who even before the Second Congress of the Communist International spoke out unambiguously in public in favour of the entry of the Party into the Communist International” (although exceptional cases might be permitted by the Executive Committee of the International. The final condition was that “those Party members who fundamentally reject the conditions and Theses laid down by the Communist International are to be expelled from the Party”.

3) Statutes of the Communist International 

Like the "Conditions of Admission” above, the 17 Statutes - a ‘Rule Book’ for the new International - were preceded by a short introduction, but in this case drafted by Lenin.

The introduction starts by quoting some of the statutes of the First International from its foundation in 1864. These included the following three points, points that still hold true today:

“That the emancipation of the working classes must be achieved by the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges a monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule;

That the economic subjection of the workers to the monopolisers of the means of production, the sources of life, lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence;

That the economic emancipation of the working classes is therefore the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means”.

But the statutes of the First International had also warned that, to achieve this goal, it was necessary to overcome the “lack of solidarity” between different sections of the working class and between the working classes of different countries. And these new statues pointed to the collapse of the Second International in 1914, “undermined by opportunism and shattered by the treachery of its leaders' defection to the side of the bourgeoisie”. 

This “Third Communist International” therefore pledged to continue the work begun by the First International but was now armed with the knowledge of how capitalism had condemned the world to war, hunger and poverty and “that unless capitalism is overthrown, the repetition of such destructive wars is not only possible but inevitable”, and that “the imperialist war has once again confirmed what was written in the statutes of the First International: the emancipation of the workers is not a local, nor a national, but an international question”.

The introduction confirmed that “the aim of the Communist International is to fight by all possible means, including armed struggle, to overthrow the international bourgeoisie and create an international Soviet republic as a transitional stage to the complete abolition of the state. In the view of the Communist International, only the dictatorship of the proletariat can liberate humanity from the horrors of capitalism. The Communist International considers Soviet power the historically determined form of this proletarian dictatorship”. 

The introduction also made clear that, unlike the Second International “which recognised only white-skinned peoples”, “the aim of the Communist International is the liberation of the working people of the whole world”, of all races and nationalities.

It also added that “the Communist International supports fully and selflessly the conquest of the great proletarian revolution in Russia, the first victorious socialist revolution in world history, and calls on proletarians everywhere to follow the Russian example. The Communist International undertakes to support every Soviet republic, wherever it may be formed”. 

Finally, before listing the statutes themselves, the introduction explained that they were drafted to ensure the International worked, as needed for it to succeed in its aims, “a strongly centralised organisation” where “in action the Communist International must be a single universal Communist Party, the Parties in each country acting as its sections”. Further, “the organisational apparatus of the Communist International must guarantee the working people of every country the opportunity to receive maximum assistance at any time from the organized proletarians of other countries”.

The resolution then set out the seventeen statutes that, firstly, confirmed the points in the introduction and then went on to set out specific rules and structures. I have quoted some of the key statutes below:

Statute 4: “The supreme body of the Communist International is the World Congress attended by all parties and organisations adhering to the International. The World Congress meets once a year as a rule. The World Congress alone has the right to alter the programme of the Communist International. The World Congress discusses and takes decisions on the most important programmatic and tactical questions connected with the activity of the Communist International. The number of votes to which each Party and organisation is entitled is determined by a special decision of Congress”.

Statute 5: “The World Congress elects the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), which is the leading body of the Communist International in the periods between World Congresses and is responsible only to the World Congress”.

Statute 7: “An extraordinary World Congress of the Communist International can be called only by decision of the ECCI or at the demand of half the Parties affiliated to the Communist International at the time of the preceding World Congress”.

Statute 8: “The work of the ECCI is performed mainly by the Party of that country where, by decision of the World Congress, the ECCI is located. [Congress voted to keep this location as Russia]. This Party has five representatives with full voting rights on the ECCI. The ten to thirteen most important Communist Parties - the list to be ratified by the regular World Congress of the Communist International - each have one representative with full voting powers on the ECCI. Other parties and organisations in the Communist International are each entitled to send one representative with consultative voice to the ECCI”.

Statute 10: “The ECCI has the right to co-opt onto the Committee, with consultative voice representatives of organisations and parties which, while not members of the Communist International, sympathise with it and are close to it”.

Statute 13: “As a rule, all the most important political communications between different parties affiliated to the Communist International are relayed through the ECCI. In urgent cases communication may be direct, but the ECCI should be simultaneously informed”.

Statute 14: “Trade unions which accept Communist ideas and are united on an international scale under the leadership of the ECCI are, at the present time, forming a trade-union section of the Communist International. These trade unions send their representatives to World Congresses of the Communist International through the Communist Parties of the countries concerned. The trade-union section of the Communist International delegates one representative to the ECCI with full voting rights. The ECCI has the right to send a representative with full voting rights to the trade union section of the Communist International”.

Statute 15: “The Communist Youth International is a full member of the Communist International and is subordinate to the ECCI. The Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International has one representative with full voting rights on the ECCI. The ECCI has the right to send one representative with full voting rights to the executive body of the Communist Youth International”. 

Statute 16: “The ECCI confirms the appointment of the International Secretary of the Communist women’s movement [Clara Zetkin] and organises a women's section of the Communist International ”.

4) Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International

This fourth resolution, drafted by Trotsky, repeats and restates points made in the other resolutions above but is particularly useful to consider for two reasons:

a) The attitude recommended by Trotsky and the rest of the leadership to the Congress to take to other parties considering joining the International;

b) Its explanation of the meaning of the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat” - which could be wrongly misinterpreted to infer a lack of workers' democracy.

The ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ is a phrase that appears throughout the resolutions of the Second Congress yet is not that widely used today. Why not? Probably because the use of the word ‘dictatorship’, particularly after the horrors of he bureaucratic counter-revolution of Stalinism, is too easily interpreted as meaning that Lenin, Trotsky and the other originators of the Communist International were anti-democratic. Far from it! 

As this resolution makes clear, their aim was to create a Soviet republic - a far higher level of workers' democracy than has ever existed under a capitalist parliamentary democracy where real power lies with the wealthy and powerful, not with elected representatives. However, it would also be a ‘dictatorship’ although only in the sense - though an important one - that it had to ensure that the capitalists internationally could not successfully employ their financial, military and political power to overthrow a new workers' state.

The resolution opens by restarting “the fundamental principles of the Communist International - namely, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the power of the Soviet” and the widespread support that existed for these principles amongst both the urban working-class and the advanced layers of the agrarian workers too.

But the resolution also restated the concealed threat to the Communist movement by the supposed support being given to it - in name at least - by some of the “old leaders and old parties of the Second International, partly unconsciously yielding to the wishes and pressures of the masses, partly consciously deceiving them” who nevertheless remained, in reality, “supporters of the bourgeoisie inside the Labour movement”. This threatened “a repetition of betrayal like that of the Hungarian Social-Democrats, who so facilely assumed the disguise of Communists. 

It also restated another “if much less important mistake, which is for the most part a malady inherent to the growth of the movement”, the danger of ‘ultra-leftism’.

The resolution continued by explaining that “the duty of Communists is not to gloss over any of the weaknesses of their movement, but to criticise them openly, in order to get rid of them promptly and radically. To this end it is necessary 1) to establish concretely, in the basis of the practical experience already acquired, the meaning of the terms: 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ and ‘Soviet System'; and 2) to point out in what could and should consist in all countries the immediate and systematic preparatory work for realising these slogans; and 3) to indicate the means of curing our movement of its defects”.

I The Meaning of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and of the Soviet System 

To help explain the first of these points, the resolution explained that a socialist victory over capitalism requires the working-class - “the only really revolutionary class” to: 

(1) “lay low the exploiters, and first of all the bourgeoisie as their chief economic and political representative, to defeat them, to crush their resistance, to render impossible any attempts on their part to reimpose the yoke of capitalism and wage-slavery”; 

(2) “to inspire, and lead in the footsteps of the revolutionary advance-guard of the proletariat (the Communist Party) not only the whole proletariat or its large majority, but the entire mass of workers and and those exploited by capital; to enlighten, organise, instruct and discipline them during the course of the bold and merciless struggle against the exploiters; to wrench this enormous majority of the population in all the capitalist countries out of their state of dependence on the bourgeoisie; to instil in them, through practical experience, confidence in the leading role of the proletariat and its revolutionary advance-guard”; and

(3) “to neutralise or render harmless the inevitable fluctuations between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat … on the part of … the small owners and proprietors in agriculture, industry, commerce, and the corresponding strata of intellectuals, white-collar workers, and so on.”

The resolution then came to the nub of the matter - that given the experience of the world war, imperialism and colonialism’ “to admit the idea of a voluntary submission of the capitalists to the will of the majority of the exploited - of a peaceful, reformist passage to Socialism - … is direct deception of the workers, a disguising of capitalist wage-slavery, a concealment of the truth. This truth consists in the fact that the bourgeoisie, the most enlightened and democratic bourgeoisie, is even now not hesitating at deceit and crime, at the slaughter of millions of workers and peasants, for the retention of the right of private ownership over the means of production.”

So why was a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat'  - a workers' state - required? Because “only a violent defeat of the bourgeoisie, the confiscation of its property, the annihilation of the entire bourgeois government apparatus, from top to bottom, parliamentary, judicial, military, bureaucratic, administrative, municipal, etc., up to the individual exile or internment of the most stubborn and dangerous exploiters, the establishment of a strict control over them for the repressing of all inevitable attempts at resistance and restoration of capitalist slavery - only such measures will be able to guarantee the complete submission of the whole class of exploiters”.

The resolution then raised the interesting point that it was wrong to suggest - as the old reformist leaders did - that socialism would be won by waiting for the majority of the working-class to acquire a clear socialist consciousness and understanding of the need for socialism. No, under the rule of the bourgeoisie - with all the means at their disposal to confuse, divide and misinform the masses that they exploit - the resolution argued that it would only be the “advanced guard of the proletariat” that fully understood the transformation of society that was required. However, when that advanced layer around the revolutionary party “supported by the whole class, or a majority of it, has overthrown the exploiters, crushed them, freed all the exploited from their position of slaves, improved their conditions of life immediately at the expense of the expropriated capitalists - only after that, and during the very course of the acute class struggle, will it be possible to realise the enlightenment, education and organisation of the widest masses of workers and exploited, under the influence and direction of the Communists”.

But the resolution went on to explain that such a victory required the right relationship between the the leadership of the working-class, organised within the Communist Party,  and the broader mass of the exploited:

“Only the Communist Party, if it is really the advanced guard of the revolutionary class, if it includes the best representatives of the class, if it consists of perfectly conscious and loyal Communists, enlightened and tempered by the experience gained in stubborn revolutionary struggle - if this Party is able to become bound indissolubly with the entire life of its class, and through the latter with the whole mass of the exploited, and to inspire full confidence in this class and this mass, only such a party is capable of leading the proletariat in the most pitiless decisive last struggle against all the forces of capitalism”.

Under such a leadership, the resolution continued, the working-class would be able to lead the broader masses and nullify the apathy, and perhaps resistance, encouraged by the reformist leaders and trade union bureaucracy.

Finally, this part of the resolution explained how it will be through the organisation of Soviets that the previously exploited masses will be able to “employ for the first time in history all the initiative and energy of tens of millions of people, formerly crushed by capitalism. Only when the Soviets become the only State apparatus will effectual participation in the administration be realised for the entire mass of the exploited, who even under the most cultured and free bourgeois democracy remained ninety per cent excluded from participation in the administration. Only in the Soviets does the mass really begin to study, not out of books, but out of its own practical experience, the work of Socialist construction, the creation of a new social discipline, a free union of free workers”.

II What Work Should Be Carried out at once to Prepare for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat?

The resolution then went on to analyse what needed to be done to overcome the weakness of revolutionary parties in most countries. 

It noted that “it does not follow that the proletarian revolution is not possible in the most immediate future; it is quite possible because the economic and political situation is extraordinarily rich in inflammable material which needs but a few sparks to light it. The other condition of a revolution, besides the preparedness of the proletariat, namely, the general state of crisis in all the ruling and all the bourgeois parties, is also at hand. But it follows from the above that the duty of the hour for the Communist Parties consists in accelerating the revolution, without provoking it artificially until sufficient preparation has been made …”.

The key task, therefore, was to build and strengthen the required revolutionary parties, ensuring “the uniting of the dispersed Communist forces, the formation in each country of a single Communist Party (or the strengthening and renovation of the already existing one) in order to assist in the work of preparing the proletariat for the conquest of state power in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat”. 

It also explained that the depth of the crisis would lead to a greater level of class struggle - which would put all parties and their leaderships to the test. In these circumstances, it was even more vital to expose the failings of reformist and ‘centrist’ tendencies, “otherwise the proletariat will not know whom it trust in the most decisive struggle against the bourgeoisie” … and the bourgeoisie themselves will “utilise in favour of the counter-revolution everything which today appears to short-sighted people an as a 'theoretical difference of opinion'”.

One of those ‘theoretical differences’ that the resolution then draws out is the insistence by genuine revolutionaries that the ‘right’ of the capitalist class to retain their private ownership of the means of production under the pretext of 'liberty and equality', cannot be a ‘right’ under a workers' state. Whilst some level of private ownership will continue, “the dictatorship of the proletariat means the strengthening and defence, by means of the ruling power of the State, of the 'non-liberty’ of the exploiter to continue his work of oppression and exploitation, the inequality of the proprietor (ie, of the person who has taken for himself personally the means of production created by social labour) with the propertiless. That which, before the victory of the proletariat, seems but a theoretical difference of opinion on the question of 'democracy', becomes inevitably … after the victory, a question which can only be decided by force.”

The resolution therefore emphasised that preparation for a successful socialist transformation required “replacing of the old leaders by Communists in all kinds of proletarian organisations, not only political, but industrial, cooperative, educational, etc”., noting also that, “the more lasting, complete and solid the rule of bourgeois democracy has been in any country, the more it has been possible for the bourgeoisie to appoint as labour leaders men who have been educated by it, imbued with its views and prejudices and very frequently, directly or indirectly, bribed by it. It is necessary to remove all these representatives of the labour aristocracy, or of the bourgeoisified workers, from their posts and replace them by even inexperienced workers, so long as these are in unity with the exploited masses, and enjoy the latter's confidence in the struggle against the exploiters. The dictatorship of the proletariat will demand the appointment of such inexperienced workmen to the most responsible State functions, otherwise the workers' government will be powerless and it will not have the support of the masses”.

This task required, as had also been set out in other resolutions, was for “groups or nuclei of Communists” to be formed in every workers’ organisation and union, to then also to expand into the wider professional, educational, sporting, military and other organisations of the wider masses too. These nuclei should be openly organised where possible, but in secret if necessary. 

“These nuclei, in close contact with one another and with the central Party, exchanging experiences, carrying on the work of propaganda, campaign, organisation, adapting themselves to all the branches of social life, to all the various forms and subdivisions of the working masses, must systematically train themselves, the Party, the class and the masses by such many-sided work.”

The resolution contrasted how, whilst the imperialist prejudices of labour movement leaders had to be “mercilessly exposed”, the inevitable prejudices of the masses had to be taken up patiently, taking into account the particular situation of each section, occupation etc.

And, again echoing what has been summarised already from previous resolutions, it also stressed the particular need for Party oversight over elected representatives, whether it be the Party’s parliamentary faction, or those elected to local or municipal councils. 

The key direction agreed for all the parties of the Third International was then summarised by the motto: “Deeper into the masses, in closer contact with the masses”. That was not to be only into the organised sections of the working-class but into the broad masses of all those exploited by capitalism too, “especially the less organised and enlightened, the most oppressed and least accessible to organisation”. 

To do so, the organised workers needed to take part “in all the events and branches of public life, as a leader of the whole working and exploited mass … In particular, it is necessary for the Communist Party and the whole advanced proletariat to give the most absolute and self-denying support to all the masses in a broad, elemental strike movement, which is alone able, under the yoke of capitalism, to awaken properly, arouse, enlighten and organise the masses, and develop in them a full confidence in the leading role of the revolutionary proletariat”.

The resolution continued by emphasising, again as set out in previous resolutions, the need for affiliates to carry out both ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ work as required by circumstances, adopting “a systematic blending of legal and illegal work”. 

It stressed that parties should always make every effort to find a way to set up legalised organisations and/or publications, even if that necessitated a frequent change of name to get around bans proscribed by the capitalist courts (but, in doing so, exposing the hypocrisy and falseness of bourgeois “liberty”), as was being done with some success by a number of sections of the International.

It stressed that “without a revolutionary fight involving the masses for the freedom of the Communist press, preparation for the dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible”. 

It recommended that, given the current climate of increasing state repression, “Communist Parties must create a new type of periodical press for extensive circulation among the workers:

1) Lawful publications, in which the Communists, without calling themselves such, and without mentioning their connection with the Party, utilise the slightest possibility allowed by the laws, as the Bolsheviks did in the time of the Tsar, after 1905.

2) Illegal sheets, although of the smallest dimensions and irregularly published, but reproduced in most of the printing offices by the workers (in secret, or if the movement has grown stronger, by means of a revolutionary seizure of the printing offices) and giving the proletariat undiluted revolutionary information and revolutionary slogans”.

III Correction of the Policy and Partly Also of the Personnel of the Parties Adhering or Willing to Adhere to the Communist International

The resolution analysed the fact that the growing world economic and political crisis, and the growing pressure from below from the working class, had forced “the most influential parties of the Second International, the French Socialist Party*, the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Independent Labour Party of Britain, the American Socialist Party [to have] decided conditionally to join the Third International”. 

But whilst it was important to consolidate the growing support of the working class base of these parties for the Third International, it was clear that the parties themselves and their leaderships were far from being in agreement with its principles and programme. The Congress therefore agreed “that it does not consider it possible to receive the parties immediately” but, instead, “confirms its readiness to carry on negotiations with any party leaving the Second International and desiring to join the Third” but on the basis of a set of seven conditions, worded in line with the ‘Conditions of Admission’ set out previously in this post, designed to create the maximum opportunity for discussion amongst the rank-and-file membership of these parties:

“I The publishing of all resolutions passed by all the congresses of the Communist International and by the Executive Committee, in all the periodical publications of the Party.

2 Their discussion at the special meetings of all sections and local organisations of the Party.

3 The convocation, after such a discussion, of a special congress of the party … to be called … within a period of four months at the most following the Second Congress.

4 Purging from the Party of all elements who continue to act in the spirit of the Second International.

5 The transfer of all periodical papers of the Party into the hands of Communist editors.

6 Those parties … which have not yet radically changed their old tactics, must above all take care that two-thirds of their Central Committee and of their chief central institutions consist of such comrades as have publicly spoken out in favour of affiliation to the Third International before the Second Congress. … 

7 Members of the Party who repudiate the conditions and theses adopted by the Communist International must be excluded from the Party. The same applies to delegates of special congresses”.

[*As a concrete example of this approach, the presidium of the Congress agreed a letter addressed to “All Members of the French Socialist Party” setting out these conditions in the context of France, but also making clear how far this Party was from meeting these conditions. For example, it had not clearly broken with its social-patriotic wing who had so treacherously backed the French bourgeoisie in the world war. The letter bluntly described its Parliamentary group as being neither “revolutionary, proletarian or socialist” and added that its daily papers were “often indistinguishable from the papers of the French bourgeoisie”].

The resolution concluded by making some specific tactical proposals for Communists to take in relation to existing mass workers’ parties in various countries. The flexibility of the tactics proposed, and its emphasis on winning over the best layers of the working-class towards the Third International, even where there were theoretical differences, is definitely worth considering today.

It stressed that “in view of the rapid development and the revolutionary spirit of the masses” the genuinely Communist minority within these parties should remain working within them for as long as they were able to openly campaign for the positions of the International and criticise the failings of both the opportunists and ‘Centrists’ within those parties, so as to win more workers towards them. 

It added, however, that “when the left wing of a centrist party becomes sufficiently strong it can - provided it considers it beneficial for the development of Communism - leave the party in a body and inaugurate a Communist Party”.

The Congress resolution proposed a specific tactic for Communists in Britain which I will quote in full, as it gives important guidance to how a new mass workers’ party should be organised today, i.e. in a federal manner, and based on the trade unions: The resolution declared in favour of “the Communist Party, and the groups and organisations sympathising with Communism in Britain, joining the Labour Party, although this party is a member of the Second International. The reason for this is that so long as this party will allow all constituent organisations their present freedom of criticism and freedom of propaganda, and organisational activity in favour of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the power of Soviets, so long as this party preserves its character as an alliance of all the trade union organisations of the working class, the Communists ought to take all measures, and even consent to certain compromises, in order to be able to exercise an influence over the wider circles of workers and the masses, to denounce their opportunist leaders from a higher platform visible to the masses, to accelerate the transfer of political power from the direct representatives of the bourgeoisie to the 'labour lieutenants of the capitalist class', so that the masses may be more rapidly cured of all illusions on this subject”.

Separately, the resolution noted that the programmatic changes agreed by the Italian Socialist Party represented “a very important stage in the transformation to Communism” and called on its next Party Congress to consider whether it could accept the conditions of entry and policies of the Communist International, “especially with regard to the parliamentary faction, the trade unions and the non-Communist elements in the Party”. 

When it came to genuine mass workers' organisations who may not be in full agreement with the programme of the Third International, the resolution made clear that programmatic and tactical differences should not be an automatic barrier to affiliation. Notwithstanding the mistaken positions - for example on parliamentary work and participation in reactionary unions - taken by parties such as the KAPD in Germany and other groups such as the IWW in the US and the Shop Stewards’ Committees in Britain, the Congress resolution expressed its support for the immediate affiliation of these organisations - or, at the very least, continued friendly engagement, because “we are dealing with a genuine proletarian mass movement, which practically adheres to the principles of the Communist International”, adding that, “in such organisations, any mistaken views on the question of participation in the bourgeois parliaments are to be explained not so much by the presence of members of the bourgeoisie advocating their own petty-bourgeois views (as the views of the anarchists frequently are) but by the political inexperience of proletarians who are, nevertheless, completely revolutionary and in contact with the masses”.

It added, however, that amongst the anarchists too, a class division was opening up, with more working-class anarchists beginning to move towards Communist positions. The concluding paragraph of this long, but important, resolution says: “The Congress considers it the duty of all comrades to support with all their strength all the masses of proletarian elements passing from anarchism to the Third International. The Congress points out that the success of the work of truly Communist Parties ought to be measured, among other things, by how far they have been able to attract to their Party all the mass proletarian elements from anarchism to their side”.

That quote also concludes this rather lengthy summary of these four important and interrelated resolutions, but it is hopefully a summary that can usefully remind comrades of the approach recommended by the Second Congress, providing suggestions and ideas that can be adapted and applied in today's struggles to build a revolutionary International as well.

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One further resolution - the Agrarian Question 

*The only significant Second Congress resolution which has not been summarised in this series of posts is Lenin’s “Draft Theses on the Agrarian Question”. They are no longer of such immediate significance, however, they still contain important guidance in relation to winning over middle class layers to the support of the socialist revolution.

The theses set out the need for the industrial proletariat to give a lead to the working and exploited people of the countryside, supporting strike struggles of agricultural labourers and building village soviets out of those struggles. It stated that it was important to seek to neutralise the potential opposition of the intermediate layer of small  farmers, not by immediately abolishing all private ownership, but by abolishing rent and mortgages, in order to win them away from the counter-revolutionary actions of the big landowners. However, those big landowners should have their estates, stock and machinery confiscated, and without compensation. Most of these big farms should be converted into ‘state farms’ but in order to secure support from the peasantry, it could also sometimes be correct to grant some of the land “that belonged to the expropriated expropriators to the neighbouring small and sometimes middle peasants.” [Failure to act in this way was one of the mistakes that had been made by Bela Kun and the Hungarian CP in 1919.]