The historical cycle of the degeneration of the 3rd International (V)

THE HISTORICAL CYCLE OF THE DEGENERATION OF THE III INTERNATIONAL (V)

1923 – Arrest of the Leaders of the Italian Communist Party by Fascism

The arrest of the leaders of the Italian Communist Party by fascism provides the pretext for the Executive of the Third International to remove the Left from the leadership of the Communist Party of Italy and replace it with an Ordinovist leadership, first Togliatti, and later Gramsci.

1923 – III Enlarged Executive: National Bolshevism

In January 1923, the French army occupied the Ruhr to collect reparations from the Treaty of Versailles.

This led to a policy of agitation and collaboration between the German Communist Party and the German bourgeoisie, based on the theory that Germany had become a 'colony' being plundered by France. Therefore, the German patriotic movement would be an anti-colonial movement, and the bourgeoisie would become revolutionary despite being in a situation of mature capitalism.

In June 1923, at the III Enlarged Executive, Zinoviev (president of the International) boasted that the bourgeoisie recognized the 'national Bolshevism' of the Communist Party, demonstrating that this party had acquired a 'mass psychology'.

All of this is clearly a programmatic deviation that contradicts Marxism and the Theses of the II Congress on the national and colonial question.

The similarities with the 'national socialism' of Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) are excessive, and in fact, joint meetings were held between them until they were repudiated by... the 'Nazis'.

As the Left denounced in Communism and the National Question (1924), this tactical eclecticism that cut off all ties with the principles that had given rise to certain tactics led to a true revision that turned their actions into social-nationalism.

"This is how forgetting the fundamental principles behind communist political solutions can lead to applying them where the necessary conditions do not exist, under the pretext that any complex expedient can always be used beneficially. One cannot fail to consider this phenomenon to have certain analogies with the enterprises of social nationalism in the fact that comrade Radek, in order to support the tactic he had promoted at an international meeting, "discovers" that the nationalist's sacrifice in fighting the French in the Ruhr should be praised by the communists in the name of a principle (new to us and unprecedented) that, above parties, those who sacrifice themselves for their idea should be supported.

A deplorable narrowing down is to reduce the task of the great proletarian class of German to a national emancipation: for we expect this proletariat and its revolutionary party to win not for themselves, but to save the existence and socialist economic development of Soviet Russia, and to overthrow the capitalist strongholds of the West with the flame of world revolution, awakening the workers of other countries who have been momentarily immobilized by the recent existence and socialist economic development of Soviet Russia, counter-offensives of bourgeois reaction." (Communism and the National Question, 1924)

The text recalls that the way by which the betrayal of the 2nd International was conveyed at the outbreak of war in 1914 was that of the improvised discovery of higher principles above the class struggle:

"Then it was learned (and well few knew, fewer still were able, among the socialist militants, to express their indignation and their protest) that the socialist proletariat had to put aside the principles while they were the principles of the class doctrine, but had to bow before them as a sacred thing, when it was a question of the principles of bourgeois ideology, of those fundamental ideas in the religion of which the ruling classes tend to transform the prevalence of their interests: the betrayal of the content of the Marxist critique could not be more shameless..." (Communism and the National Question, 1924).

July 1914 – Start of World War I (bankruptcy of the II International)
1917 – February and October Revolution in Russia
1917 – Foreign military intervention and civil war in Russia
March 1918 – Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
November 1918 – Kiel Mutiny
November 1918 – End of World War I
December 1918 – Foundation of the Communist Party of Germany
January 1919 – Assassination of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht by the social democracy
March 1919 – 1^st Congress of the 3^rd International
March-August 1919 – Hungarian Soviet Republic (participation of social democrats dynamite it)
April 1919 – Soviet Republic of Bavaria
March-April 1920 – Kapp/Lüttwitz "putsch" + Ruhr Uprising
May 1920 – Theses of the Communist Abstentionist Fraction of the PSI
July-August 1920 – II Congress of the 3^rd International "21 conditions of admission" (in particular, the 21^st).
August 1920 – Defeat of the red army in Warsaw
September 1920 – Occupation of factories in Italy
December 1920 – Fusion of the 'left' of the USPD with the KPD
January 1921 – Foundation of the Communist Party of Italy
January 1921 – 'Open letter' of the KPD to the SPD and the trade unions
March 1921 – Failure of the March action in Germany
June-July 1921 – III Congress of the 3^rd International "conquest of the masses" (of the majority...)
December 1921 – Resolution previous to the 1^st Enlarged Executive "political united front".
January 1922 – Theses on the tactics of the Communist Party of Italy (Rome)
February 1922 – 1^st Enlarged Executive
April 1922 – Joint Conference with the II International and the II ½ International
June 1922 – 2^nd Enlarged Executive (workers' ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌government).
August 1922 – Submission of the CPC to the Kuomintang
October 1922 – March on Rome
November 1922 – Project‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ of Thesis presented by the CP of Italy to the IV Congress
November-December 1922 – IV Congress of the 3^rd International "workers and peasants government"

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January 1923 – French occupation of the Ruhr
February 1923 – Arrest of the leaders of the CP of Italy, handpicking of Togliatti for the direction
June 1923 – "National Bolshevism" in Germany
October 1923 – Communist ministers in the governments of Saxony and Thuringia (and ulterior military dissolution)

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January 1924 – Death of Lenin
June-July 1924 – V Congress of the 3^rd International "bolshevization"
June 1924 – Assassination of Matteoti and Aventine pantomime
April 1925 – Hindenburg's presidential election in Germany
January 1926 – Theses of the Left to the III Congress of the Communist Party of Italy (Lyon)
February 1926 – VI Enlarged Executive
March 1926 – Betrayal of the proletarian revolution in China (massacre of Shanghai and Canton in 1927).
May 1926 – Betrayal of the miners' strike in Great Britain (Anglo-Russian Committee)
December 1926 – VII Enlarged Executive "socialism in one country", defeat of the Russian opposition
October 1929 – Crash of 1929
1936, 1938 – Moscow processes
May 1937 – May events during the Spanish civil war
September 1939 – Start of the 2^nd Imperialist World War II
May 1943 – Formal dissolution of the 3rd International

The text reminds us of the need for the communist movement to have stable principles or, better, acquired stable programmatic postulates and their 'codification' in clear tactical rules of action:

"To briefly indicate the best solution as we see it, we will say that we must absolutely reject the thesis that Marxist politics is satisfied with a simple examination of successive situations (with a well-determined method) and needs no other elements. When we have studied the economic factors and the development of class conflicts occurring within a given problem, we will have done something indispensable but have not yet taken everything into account. There are certain other criteria that must necessarily be taken into account, which can be called revolutionary 'principles', provided it is clarified that these principles are not immutable and revealed dogmas fixed once and for all in tablets that have been "found" somewhere, beautifully sculpted. If desired, it is possible to renounce the word principles to speak of programmatic postulates: it can always be better specified, indeed it must be done bearing in mind also the linguistic needs of an international movement, our terminology.

The way to coordinate each of the solutions to this general purpose is concretized in postulates acquired by the party, which are presented as the foundation of its program and its tactical methods. These postulates are not immutable and revealed dogmas, but they are themselves the conclusion of a general and systematic examination of the situation of all human society in the present historical period, in which all the factual data falling under our experience have been accurately taken into account. We do not deny that this examination is in continuous development and that the conclusions are continually being improved. However, it is true that we could not exist as a world party if the historical experience already possessed by the proletariat did not allow our critique to put up a program and a set of rules of political conduct. We would not exist, without this, neither as a world party nor the proletariat as a historical class in possession of a doctrinal consciousness and an organization for the struggle. Where there are gaps in our conclusions or where partial revisions are foreseen in the future, it would be a mistake to remedy this with a renunciation of the definition of the postulates and principles, which certainly appear as a "limitation" of the actions that may be suggested to us by successive situations in various countries. An infinitely smaller error would be to remedy this with an even slightly arbitrary complement to our conclusive formulas because clarity and precision, along with the maximum possible continuity of such formulas for agitation and political action, are indispensable conditions for strengthening the revolutionary movement. To this assertion, which may seem somewhat daring, we add, without dwelling too long on the serious question that many may find excessively abstract, that it seems to us that the data provided by the history of the class struggle up to the Great War and the Russian Revolution allow the world communist party to fill in all the gaps with satisfactory solutions: this certainly does not mean that we will have nothing to learn from the future and from the continuous confirmation of our conclusions in their political application. The refusal to "codify" the program and the rules of tactics and organization of the International can only have, for us today, the meaning of an opportunistic danger, by which our action would risk once again taking refuge under bourgeois principles and rules, which are completely mistaken and ruinous for the 'freedom' of our action." (Communism and the National Question, 1924)

1923 – Entry of Communist Ministers into the Governments of Saxony and Thuringia

At the end of the tumultuous year 1923, the long-awaited opportunity for the implementation of the "workers' government" came with the entry of Communist ministers into the governments of Saxony and Thuringia, which were dissolved shortly thereafter without any effort by the German Army.

The entire approach was contradictory, and the parameters were wrong. Instead of anticapitalism, there was antifascism. From legalistic vacillations and hesitations, there was an abrupt shift to optimistic 'revolutionary' attitudes that justified the abandonment of principles. The petty bourgeoisie was identified as revolutionary within capitalism. A social democratic government was joined and the suicidal illusion that reformists would arm the revolutionary working class was perpetuated. History shows that reformists will only provide weapons without ammunition, damaged weapons, or simply promises, which serve as a prelude and a delay tactic to allow the bourgeoisie to organize the repression against the proletariat.

In September, there had been a sudden shift in Moscow, which had become all too common, from a fundamentally pessimistic stance of waiting (the major 'antifascist day' scheduled for July 23rd had been canceled with the approval of the International due to government prohibition) to the most frenzied optimism. On October 1st, Zinoviev prophesied to the secretary of the German party, Brandler, the approach of the "decisive moment within four, five, or six weeks", and added that it was "necessary... to concretely raise the issue of our entry into the Saxon government [dominated by the social democrats] on the condition that Zeigner's people [the reformist council president] are truly willing to defend Saxony against Bavaria and the fascists" (after 1918, 1919, and 1921, there was renewed trust in the 'will' of the social democrats to renounce being... themselves!).

In the pamphlet Probleme der deutschen Revolution, Zinoviev attributed a revolutionary role "to the urban petty-bourgeois masses, to small and medium-sized officials, to small traders, etc.", and it was even hypothesized that "the role played in the Russian revolution by the war-weary peasantry will be assumed, to a certain extent, in the German revolution by the broad urban petty-bourgeois masses, pushed to the brink of economic ruin and collapse by capitalist development" (!??).

Entry into the government, which could only be carried out "with the consent of the Comintern", was considered justified "only if it offers the secure guarantee that the state apparatus truly begins to serve the interests of the working class; that hundreds of thousands of workers are armed for the struggle against Bavarian and German fascism in general; that not only verbally but in practice, there is a mass expulsion of bourgeois officials from the state apparatus... and that revolutionary economic measures capable of decisively striking the bourgeoisie are introduced without delay". In other words, as stated in Zinoviev's famous telegram to Brandler on October 1st, if it provides the guarantee of "immediately arming 50 or 60 thousand men in Saxony... and likewise in Thuringia".

On October 20th, the central government of the Reich sent an ultimatum to the Saxon government, demanding the immediate dissolution of the weak workers' militias and threatening to order the Army to march if the demand was not met. The Party decided to proclaim a general strike throughout Germany. However, unsure about itself and about the support of the proletarians, who were disoriented by the jumble of contradictory slogans and objectives, Brandler contemplated 'consulting' with the masses in advance, represented by an assembly of workers and political and labor's union officials in Chemnitz. Convinced that the opportune moment had passed, he revoked the strike order. A small detachment of the army was enough to remove the Saxon government. Proletarian Hamburg rose up in isolation due to a delay in the news of the strike's revocation and was swiftly suppressed in twenty-four hours. The proletarians should have marched under the Party's guidance, but it was the Army that marched under the guidance of the kaiserist generals left in place by the social democrats Ebert-Scheidemann. Some outbreaks of resistance were quickly extinguished, and the German 1923 came to an end.

The disgraceful end of this experience did not lead to the burial of this mistaken tactic but rather held the Party leadership responsible for its incorrect application. This method would also become widespread within the International, with leading groups raised to the altars only to be defenestrated time and time again, instead of rectifying the erroneous tactic that led the International from one failure to another.

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