First Congress of the Communist International
[172]
The First Congress of the Communist International met in Moscow from March 2-6, 1919.
In January 1919 a meeting of representatives from a number of Communist Parties and Left-wing Socialist groups, held to discuss the founding of the Third, Communist International, adopted a Manifesto entitled "For the First Congress of the Communist International", which was worked out with Lenin's direct participation. It was published on behalf of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. (B.), foreign bureaus of the Communist Workers' Party of Poland, Hungarian Communist Party, Communist Party of German Austria, the Russian bureau of the Central Committee of the Latvian Communist Party, Central Committee of the Finnish Communist Party, Executive Committee of the Balkan Revolutionary Social-Democratic Federation and the Socialist Labour Party of America.
At the end of February delegates from many countries arrived in Moscow in response to the Manifesto. On March 1 a preliminary meeting was held under Lenin's chairmanship to discuss the agenda of the Congress.
March 2, 1919, was the opening day of the International Communist Conference, attended by 52 delegates (34 delegates with vote and 18 delegates with voice but no vote). Among the delegates were V. I. Lenin, V. V. Vorovsky, G. V. Chicherin, H. Eberlein (M. Albert), O. V. Kuusinen, F. Platten, B. Reinstein, S. Rutgers, I. S. Unshlikht (Yurovsky), Y. Sirola, N. A. Skrypnik, S. I. Gopner, K. Shteingard (I. Gruber), J. Fineberg, J. Sadoul and others. The following Communist and Socialist parties, groups and organisations were represented: the Communist Parties of Russia, Germany, German Austria, Hungary, Poland, Finland, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Byelorussia, Estonia, Armenia, the Volga German region; Swedish Left Social-Democratic Party, Norwegian Social-Democratic Party, Swiss Social-Democratic Party (the Opposition), Balkan Revolutionary Social-Democratic Federation; the Joint Group of the Eastern peoples of Russia, Zimmerwald Left wing of France; Czech, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, British, French and Swiss Communist groups; Dutch Social-Democratic group; Socialist Propaganda League and Socialist Labour Party of America; Socialist Workers' Party of China; Korean Workers' Union; Turkestan, Turkish, Georgian, Azerbaijanian and Persian sections of the Central Bureau of the Eastern peoples, and the Zimmerwald Commission.
The first meeting decided "to hold sessions as an International Communist Conference" and adopted the following agenda: 1) constitution; 2) reports; 3) policy statement of the International Communist Conference; 4) bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat; 5) the Berne Conference and attituds towards socialist trends; 6) the international situation and the Entente's
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policy; 7) Manifesto; 8) White terror; 9) elections to the Bureau and other questions of organisation.
Lenin's theses and report on bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat attracted much attention. The theses in Russian and German were circulated among the delegates. At the third session on March 4, Lenin read his theses and substantiated the last two points of the theses in his report. The Conference expressed its unanimous approval of Lenin's theses and decided to submit them to the Bureau for wide circulation. It also adopted a resolution moved by Lenin as a supplement to the theses (see p. 475 of this volume).
On March 4, after the adoption of the theses and the resolution on Lenin's report, the question was raised again of founding the Communist International in view of the fact that new delegates had arrived. On the motion of the delegates of the Communist Party af German Austria, Left Social-Democratic Party of Sweden, Balkan Revolutionary Social-Democratic Federation and Hungarian Communist Party the Conference resolved "to constitute itself as the Third International and adopt the name of the Communist International". On the same day a unanimous resolution was passed to consider the Zimmerwald association dissolved. The Conference formulated the policy statement of the Communist International, which contained the following main propositions: 1) inevitability of the replacement of the capitalist by the communist social system; 2) necessity of the proletarian revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of bourgeois governments, and 3) destruction of the bourgeois state and its replacement by a new type of state, a proletarian state of the Soviet type, which would ensure the transition to communist society.
The Manifesto to the workers of the world was one of the most important documents of the Congress. It stated that the Communist International carried on the ideas expounded in the Manifesto of the Communist Party. The Congress urged the workers of all countries to support Soviet Russia and demanded from the Entente non-interference in the internal affairs of the Soviet Republic, with drawal of interventionist troops from her territory, recognition of the Soviet state, lifting of the economic blockade and restoration of trade relations.
The resolution "On the Attitude Towards 'Socialist' Trends and the Berne Conference" condemned attempts to restore the Second International, "a tool in the hands of the bourgeoisie", and declared that the revolutionary proletariat had dissociated itself from the Berne Conference.
The founding of the Third, Communist International played an important role in exposing opportunism in the working-class movement, restoring the ties between the working people in different countries, and creating and strengthening Communist Parties.
[p.453]
[173] Shop stewards committees -- elective labour organisations in various industries, which were particularly widespread during the First
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World War. Unlike the compromising trade unions which pursued a policy of "civil peace" and renounced the strike struggle, the shop stewards committees championed the interests and demands of the workers, led the strike movement and carried on anti-war propaganda. Shop stewards were united in shop, district and city committees. In 1916 the shop stewards committees and workers' committees were united nationally.
After the October Revolution, during the foreign armed intervention in the Soviet Republic, the shop stewards committees actively supported Soviet Russia. Many leaders of the shop stewards committees (William Gallacher, Harry Pollitt, Arthur McManus and others) joined the Communist Party.
[p.456]
[174] Most probably, it is not the Birmingham Workers' Council that is meant here, but the shop stewards committee. It is very likely that the newspaper which Lenin read contained incorrect information. Speaking at the First Congress of the Communist International on March 3, 1919, J. Fineberg, a delegate from the British Communist group, said: "In industrial areas local workers' committees were formed, including representatives of the shop stewards committees, for instance, the Clyde workers' commlttee, London and Sheffield workers' committees and so on. The committees served as organisational centres and representatives of organised labour in the localities. For some time the employers and the government refused to recognise the shop stewards committees, but in the end they had to enter into negotiations with these unregistered committees That Lloyd George agreed to recognise the Birmingham committee as an economic organisation proves that the shop stewards committees have become permanent factors in the British movement. In the shop stewards committees, workers' committees and national conferences of shop stewards committees we have an organisation similar to the one forming the basis of the Soviet Republic" (First Congress of the Communist International. Minutes, Moscow, 1933, p. 63). [p.456]
[175] Engels's Introduction to The Civil War in France by Marx (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Moscow, 1962, Vol. I, p. 485). [p.458]
[176] Karl Marx, The Civil War in France (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Moscow, 1962, Vol. I, p. 520). [p.459]
[177] Lenin has in mind the resolution of the Seventh Congress of the R.C.P. (B.) on changing the name of the Party and its programme (Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 140-41). [p.468]
[178] Gazeta Pechatnikov (Printers' Newspaper ) -- organ of the Moscow Printers' Union, appeared from December 8, 1918. At that time the trade union came under Menshevik influence. In March 1919 the paper was closed down because of its anti-Soviet propaganda. [p.470]
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[179] Lenin refers to Rosa Luxemburg's article "Der Anfang" ("The Beginning") published in Die Rote Fahne No. 3, November 18, 1918. [p.473]