Contents "The internationalist proletarian" n.12
THE HISTORICAL CYCLE OF THE DEGENERATION OF THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL
In this timeline, a series of synthetic facts and fundamental texts are collected, initially for the introduction to the study of the 1920, 1922 and 1926 Theses, which constitute the framework for the study of the struggle of the Communist Left against the degeneration of the Communist International, as well as the causes and external manifestations of this degeneration.
In the course of only seven years after its birth in 1919, what should have been the world organization of the revolutionary proletariat and for a moment was so, completed the full parabola from an initial tactical error to a true tactical deviation ("political united front", 1921), tactical-programmatic deviation ("workers' government", "workers' and peasants' government", 1922), organizational deviation ("bolshevization", 1924) to end in a complete betrayal of communist principles with the programmatic deviation of "socialism in one country" in 1926, which culminated the process of degeneration of the International and the abandonment of the world revolution.
The lessons of the struggle of the Italian Communist Left against this degeneration are indispensable material for the resumption of the communist revolutionary movement for the overthrow of the bourgeois regime.
The material presented here is deliberately schematic, among other reasons, because to understand and retain the lessons of complex and detail-laden processes, it is necessary to first comprehend the internal connections of the fundamental facts that determine the rest. Only then, once an appropriate mental framework is established, can a greater number of facts and details be incorporated into this scheme without "the trees obscuring the forest."
Finally, the detailed study of the schematically presented facts, together with the explanations provided and - most importantly - the study of the fundamental texts linked is a task to which communist militants must devote the utmost attention. The programmatic and tactical political content of the fundamental texts presented throughout the timeline is not easy to absorb in the current hostile environment devoid of immediate revolutionary prospects. These texts must be the subject of permanent study at the individual and collective level, not for historiographical erudition but to correctly apprehend and apply the profound lessons they contain to the militant activity of the Party.
- 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 – 1st Congress of the 3rd 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 3rd International
"21 conditions of admission" (in particular, the 21st) - 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 3rd International "conquest of the masses" (of the majority...).
- December 1921 – Resolution previous to the 1st Enlarged Executive "political united front"
- January 1922 - Theses on the tactics of the Communist Party of Italy (Rome)
- February 1922 – 1st Enlarged Executive
- April 1922 – Joint conference with the II International and the II ½ International
- June 1922 – 2nd Enlarged Executive "workers' government".
- 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 3rd International “workers and peasants government”
- 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)
- January 1924 – Death of Lenin
- June-July 1924 – V Congress of the 3rd International "bolshevization" + Kuomintang sympathizing party
- 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 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 – Crack of 29
- 1936-1938 – Moscow processes
- May 1937 – May events during the Spanish civil war
- September 1939 – Start of the 2nd Imperialist World War II
- May 1943 – Formal dissolution of the 3rd International
The late organizational break with opportunism and the consequent delay in the formation of communist parties prevented the exploitation of the revolutionary fire at the right moment and imposed a tragic phase delay.
This phase delay acted as a catalyst for all subsequent tactical errors and justified tactical eclecticism and organizational mergers with ambiguous currents, motivated by the eventual eclipse of the revolution and isolation of the Russian revolution within the global revolution. Therefore, communist parties became detached from the working masses in Europe.
The Communist International was not a politically homogeneous organization, and despite apparent declarations, completely heterogeneous and anti-Marxist positions coexisted behind national exceptions and sudden tactical zig-zags that followed one another.
The lack of political homogeneity within the International resulted in a lack of tactical stability, an internal environment of parliamentarism and bureaucratic diplomacy alongside its inevitable counterpart: 'discipline for discipline' and 'ideological terror' as organizational cement.
The misguided transfer of a suitable tactic for the dual revolution in Russia (anti-feudal revolution combined with proletarian revolution) to a situation of mature capitalism where the prerequisites for its application did not exist led to the subjugation of newly formed communist parties to the politics of social democracy, causing complete confusion with the executioners of the revolution.
It is crucial to realize the extreme speed at which a tactical error solidifies into a tactical deviation that projects into a programmatic deviation and, to establish itself within the organization, materializes as an organizational deviation. Just a year and a half after its birth, the International embarked on the path that would lead to its complete degeneration in just 7 years of existence.
More specifically, starting with the tactical error of 'revolutionary parliamentarism' in mature capitalism and the ambiguous formulation of 'conquering the majority', the slide into the tactical deviation of the 'political united front' combined with a tactical-organizational deviation in the federalist sense (not individual adherence but 'mergers with pieces of parties', admission of sympathizing parties, internal atmosphere of 'parliamentary maneuvering') led to theoretical-programmatic deviations such as 'national Bolshevism' in Germany and the “workers' government” culminating with the organizational deviation of the wrongly named 'Bolshevization' which meant the establishment of 'discipline for discipline' and of 'ideological terror', the method of 'personal humiliation' through 'self-criticism', even using the state police apparatus and economic pressure to suppress internal disagreements.
The material defeat of the revolution in Europe, both cause and product of the aforementioned points, prevented the correction of deviations and confined the Russian revolution to the task of building capitalism in Russia.
The Stalinist counterrevolution - 'socialism in one country', abandonment of the world revolution, reinstatement of Menshevism, and physical elimination of the old Bolshevik guard - is thus a result of this degenerative process of the International, straddling the material defeat of the revolution in Europe, a combined product of the needs of capitalism's development in Russia and the tactic of alliance ('political united front', 'workers government') with European Mensheviks, with social democracy, a consummate bourgeois agent.
The organizational formula of 'democratic centralism', characteristic of the Third International, was historically open to different and opposing developments: on one hand, it tended toward bureaucratic, despotic, and state, yet always democratic, centralism of Stalinism, in other words, of counterrevolution; and on the other hand, it tended toward organic and non-democratic centralism characteristic of the single International Communist Party, purely communist and purely Marxist, based on a single doctrine, a single program, and a rational systematization of tactics. "'Democratic centralism' was historically open on one hand to the monolithism of the revolution, and on the other hand to the monolithism of counterrevolution."(The organic structure of the party is the other side of its unity of doctrine and program, 1965).
The Russian opposition, physically liquidated in the culmination of this degenerative process, shared responsibility for all tactical deviations that precisely led to that degeneration. It was defeated by the counterrevolution without being able to draw lessons from its own mistakes - or, worse, drawing incorrect lessons - so it cannot represent a starting point for the resumption of the revolutionary communist movement.
The councilist opposition faced the mechanical generalization of the tactical lessons of the Russian revolution to capitalist Europe but made profound errors in assessing the political nature of the Russian revolution (considered purely bourgeois), in the devaluation of the Party and the role of leaders, in equating the workers union plan with the parliamentary one, thereby falling into anarchoid positions incompatible with Marxism. This opposition cannot represent a starting point for the resumption of the revolutionary communist movement either.
Among the currents that opposed Stalinist counterrevolution, only the 'Italian' Communist Left opposed the degeneration of the Communist International on the basis of integral Marxism, anticipating causes and consequences, advocating for a left line that is truly general and not occasional, while consistently advocating for the proletarian political character of the October Revolution, the need for a centralized Communist Party, the need for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat led by this Party, the use of Red Terror, and the need for the development of labor union work as a necessary but insufficient element for the revolutionary perspective. Simultaneously, it advocated for the need for a tactical program binding for the entire organization (center and periphery), the most complete political homogeneity as the only basis for true organic centralism to overcome the deceptive democratic organizational aspect: "Real unity and centralization - demanded by us more than by anyone else - in action and in the Party's organizational mode are the result, the endpoint, not the cause and the starting point, of unity and centralization of doctrine, program, and the system of tactical norms: seeking the former without the latter is futile; worse than futile, it's destructive and deadly."(Continuity of Party Action on the Thread of the Tradition of the Left, 1966).