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INVESTIGATION OF UN-AMERICAN
PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES IN THE
UNITED STATES
SPECIAL
COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SEVENTY-SIXTH CONGRESS "
FIRST SESSION
ON
H. Res. 282
TO INVESTIGATE (1) THE EXTENT, CHARACTER, AND OBJECTS .
OF UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES IN THE UNITED -f II H$
STATES C^) THE DIFFUSION WITHIN THE UNITED STATES OF '
SUBVERSIVE AND UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA THAT IS INSTI-
GATED FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES OR OF A DOMESTIC ORIGIN
AND ATTACKS THE PRINCIPLE OF THE FORM OP GOVERN-
MENT AS GUARANTEED BY OUR CONSTITUTION, AND (3) ALL
OTHER QUESTIONS IN RELATION THERETO THAT WOULD AID
CONi^tRESS IN ANY NECESSARY REMEDIAL
LEGISLATION
APPENDIX— PART I
A COMPILATION OF ORIGINAL SOURCES USED AS EXHIBITS
TO SHOW THE NATURE AND AIMS OF THE COMMUNIST
PARTY, ITS CONNECTIONS WITH THE U. S. S. R.
AND ITS ADVOCACY OF FORCE AND VIOLENCE
WITH INDEX
Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities
INVESTIGATION OF UN-AMERICAN
PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES IN THE
UNITED STATES
SPECIAL
COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SEVENTY-SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
H. Res. 282
TO INVESTIGATE (1) THE EXTENT, CHARACTER, AND OBJECTS
OF UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES IN THE UNITED
STATES, (2) THE DIFFUSION VvITHIN THE UNITED STATES OF
SUBVERSIVE AND UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA THAT IS INSTI-
GATED FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES OR OF A DOMESTIC ORIGIN
AND ATTACKS THE PRINCIPLE OF THE FORM OF GOVERN-
MENT AS GUARANTEED BY OUR CONSTITUTION, AND (3) ALL
OTHER QUESTIONS IN RELATION THERETO THAT WOULD AID
CONGRESS IN ANY NECESSARY REMEDIAL
LEGISLATION
APPENDIX— PART I
A COMPILATION OF ORIGINAL SOURCES USED AS EXHIBITS
TO SHOW THE NATURE AND AIMS OF THE COMMUNIST
PARTY, ITS CONNECTIONS WITH THE U. S. S. R.
AND ITS ADVOCACY OF FORCE AND VIOLENCE
WITH INDEX
Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities
> .1 1J« .
> f • ...
^i
,rC^
•n
^JS
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
*J1931 WASHINGTON : 1940
C^
^/y/v'
FEB 4 1344 :
/
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
WASHINGTON, D. C.
MARTIN DIES, Texas, Chairman
JOHN J. DEMPSEY, New Mexico NOAH M. MASON, Illinois
JOE STARNES, Alabama J. PARNELL THOMAS, New Jersey
JERRY VOORHIS, California
JOSEPH E. CASEY, Massachusetts
Robert E. Stripling, Secretary
J. B. Matthews, Director of Research
n
* • « V
I
LIST OF EXHIBITS
Exhibit
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Description
Page
The Manifesto of the Communist Partv, bv Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels "^ "_
A discussion of the Communist manifesto, bv Otto Kuusinen,
a m.ember of the secretariat of the Communist Inter-
national, in which the manifesto is described as "the
great charter of the international Communist movement"
A continuation of exhibit No. 2
Testimony of William Z. Foster, before the" Spec iarCo'm-"
mittee on Un-American Activities, in which he, as chair-
man of the Communist Partv of the United States, de-
clared his acceptance of "The Program of the Communist
International"
The text of the "Program of the Communist international"
together with its Constitution"
The text of a pamphlet entitled "Lenin— the Great Strategist
of the Class War," by A. Lozovsky, formerlv head of the
Red International of Labor Unions, in which,' among other
things, Lozovsky described Lenin as "the father of the
Communist International"
The text of a pamphlet entitled "Lenin on the " Historic
Significance of the Third International"
The text of "A Letter to American Workers," bv V. I. Leniii
Excerpts from a book entitled "Stalin," bv Boris Souvarine,
former member of the executive committee of the Com-
munist International
Excerpts from a pamphlet entitled "Questions arid Answers
to American Trade Unionists— Stalin's Interview with
tlie First American Trade Union Delegation to Soviet
Russia," in which Stalin made statements on the control
of the Russian Government by the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union and on the question of monev sent to
the American Communist Partv bv the Communist
International and by the Communist Partv of the Soviet
Union "__
Excerpts from a book entitled "Mv Life" As" a" Rebel/' "by
Angelica Balabanoff, first secretarv of the Communist
International
Theses and statutes of tlie "fhird (Communist)" Int"e"rn"at[onal" "
adopted by the Second Congress, Julv 17 to Aug. 7, 1920
Excerpts from a book entitled "Lenin on Organization," in
which the conspiratorial character of a communist party
IS repeatedly emphasized '
Program of the World Revolution, lay X. B u char iti," former-
leader of the Communist International and of the Com-
munist Party of the Soviet Union
Manifesto of the Second Congress of the third (Communist)
International, 1920, entitled "The Capitalist World and
the Communist International"
The constitution and program of the Communist Part"v of
America, adopted in 1921, bv the joint unity convention
of the Comnuinist Party and the United Communist
Party of America — predecessors of the present Communist
Party of the United States of America
Program and constitution of the Workers Partv of America,
adopted at the National Convention of the Party, Dec.
24-26, 1921 — one of the earlv names of the present Com-
munist Party of the United States of America
20
26
34
34
73
89
9S
107
lOS
108
110
15a
155
199
214
231
in
IV
LIST OF EXHIBITS
Exhibit
Description
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
Excerpts from a book entitled "Theses and Resolutions,"
adopted at the Third World Congress of the Communist
International, held in Moscow from June 22 to July 12,
1921
Excerpts from a book entitled "The Fourth Congress of the
Communist International," held in Moscow from Nov. 7
to Dec. 3, 1922
Excerpts from a booklet entitled "Resolutions and Theses of
the Fourth Congress of the Communist International,
held in Moscow Nov. 7 to Dec. 3, 1922"
The text of a pamphlet entitled "The Party Organization,"
by Jay Lovestone and C. E. Ruthenberg, and containing
a letter from the Communist International to the Workers
(Communist) Party of America, and also the Constitution
of the Workers (Communist) Party of America — pub-
lished in 1925
The text of the program of the Workers (Communist) Party
of America, published under the title "Our Immediate
Work" in 1924
The text of a pamphlet entitled "The Second Year of the
Workers Party of America — Theses. Program. Resolu-
tions," 1924
Statement in the first issue of the Daily Worker, declaring
its revolutionary character and also its connection with
the Communist International, 1924
Statement by C. E. Ruthenberg, executive secretary of the
Workers Party, calling upon the party to demonstrate its
"loyalty and support to the Communist International".
Statement from the Worker, Apr. 28, 1923, in an editorial
stating that the following May Day would be remembered
as the time when the Workers Party appeared in the
world arena of the class struggle "as the American Section
of the Communist International"
Text of a cablegram from Zinoviev, head of the Communist
International, to C. E. Ruthenberg, executive secretary
of the Workers Party of America, on the establishment of
the Daily W^orker, Sept. 8, 1923
Statement by C. E. Ruthenberg, executive secretary of the
Workers Party of America, calling for the postponement
of the convention of the technical aid "pending the final
decision of the Communist International," Mar. 24, 1923
Statement from the Worker, giving the Communist position
on the inevitability of a "resort to force," Apr. 7, 1923__
Statement from the Worker, giving the Communist position
on the inevitability of force in tTie class struggle
Excerpts from a booklet entitled "Fifth Congress of the
Commimist International, Abridged Report of Meetings
held at Moscow, June 17 to July 8, 1924"
Excerpts from a book entitled "Workers (Communist)
Partv of America, the Fourth National Convention,"
Aug.' 21-30, 1925
Excerpts from a book entitled "The Communist Inter-
national, Between the Fifth and Sixth World Con-
gresses— 1924-28"
Statement from the Worker, dealing with the question of
individual acts of terrorism, 1922
Statement from the theses of the enlarged committee of
the Communist International, dealing with the Com-
munists' use of armed force, 1922
Statement by C. E. Ruthenberg in the Worker, declaring
that "without the Russian Revolution there would have
been no Communist movement in the United States." 1922.
LIST OF EXHIBITS
Exhibit
Description
37 Excerpt from the manifesto of the Communist Party of
America, declaring that capitahsm cannot be abolished
without the use of force, 1922
38 Statement by J. Louis Engdahl in the Worker, Nov. 4, 1922,
declaring for the acceptance of the leadership of the Com-
mun ist International
39 Statement from the Worker, Dec. 2, 1922, on the inspiration
and leadership of the Communist International
40 Text of a cablegram from Zinoviev, head of the Communist
International, to C. E. Ruthenberg, executive secretary
of the Workers Partv of America, Dec. 16, 1922
41 An article by H. M. Wicks in the Worker, Jan. 13, 1923,
calling for the "wresting" of the Government from the
hands of the Communists' enemies and for the establish-
ment of a Soviet Government
42 Statement by the Central Executive Committee of the
United States Communist Party, appearing in the Worker,
Mar. 3, 1923, and declaring that the Central Executive
Committee "will carry out the decisions of the Communist
International not only out of discipline but because of full
conviction of their correctness"
43 Excerpt from a statement of the Executive Committee of the
Communist International on the "American Question,"
Feb. 24, 1923, published in the Worker
44 An article on The Soviet Government and the Third
International, bv H. M. Wicks, published in the Worker,
June 2, 1923 _ _ _'
45 A statement on The Communist International, the Eman-
cipator of the Whole People, published in the Worker,
Sept. 15, 1923
46 Greetings to the Communist International from the Third
National Convention of the Workers Party of America,
published in the Worker, Jan. 12, 1924
47 Excerpts from an editorial in the Worker, Jan. 5, 1924,
entitled "Greetings from the International"
48 Excerpt from an article in the Worker, Jan. 5, 1924, entitled
"Greetings from Commvmist International to Third
Convention of Workers Party"
49 Excerpt from an article in the Worker, Jan. 12, 1924, in
which the United Front is declared to be an applica-
tion of the policy of the Communist International in the
United States
50 Excerpt from an editorial in the Daily Worker, July 5, 1924,
entitled "Against Imperialist War," in which it is declared
that "the imperialist war must be turned into civil war"-_
51 Excerpts from an article in the Daily Worker, Mar. 6, 1924,
entitled "The Commimist International," by Robert
Minor, in which the Communist International is described
as "the instrument thru which the working class takes
possession of the earth"
52 A statement in the Daily Worker, Mar. 5, 1924, entitled
"Forward Under Banner of the Communist Interna-
tional," promulgated by the central executive committee
of the Workers Party of America
53 Excerpts from an article in the Daily Worker, Mar. 5, 1924,
entitled "The Communist International in America," by
C. E. Ruthenberg, in which the leadership of the Com-
munist International in the United States is acknowledged
by the executive secretary of the Workers Party of America.
54 Excerpts from an article in the Daily Worker, Feb. 28, 1924,
entitled "The Discussion Within the Russian Communist
Party," in which the Communist Party of Russia is de-
scribed as the "leading party of International Commu-
nism"
VIII
LIST OF EXHIBITS
Exhibit
Description
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
Text of a letter from Maxim Litvinoff, people's commissar
for foreign affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Repub-
lics, to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Presideiil of the United
States, dated Nov. 16, 1933
Excerpt from an article in the Communist, November 1934,
entitled "Leninism Is the Only Marxism of the Imperialist
Era," by Alex Bittelman and V. J. Jerome, in which the
authors advocate the transformation of "imperialist vi^ar
into revolution"
Text of chapter VIII from "Foundations of Leninism," by
Joseph Stalin, published bv International Publishers,
1934 1
Text of a resolution of the Sixth World Congress of the
Communist International on The Struggle Against
Imperialist War and the Tasks of the Communists,
published by Workers Library Publishers in a second
edition, July 1934
Text of chapter IV from "Foundations of Leninism," by
Joseph Stalin, published by International Publishers, 1934.
An excerpt from an article in the Communist, August 1934,
entitled "The Leninist Party as Leader of the Struggle
Against Itaperialist War," by H. M. Wicks, in which the
author advocates "armed uprising," "civil war," and
"the abolition of capitalism"
Excerpts from an article in the Communist, August 1934,
entitled "The Tasks of Revolutionary Social-Democracy in
the European War," by V. I. Lenin, in which the author
advocates civil war and declares that "the workers have no
fatherland"
Text of the Thesis of the Thirteenth Plenum of the Execu-
tive Committee of the Communist International, en-
titled "Fascism, the Danger of War and Tasks of the
Communist Parties," published in the Communist,
February 1934
Text of an article in the Communist, August 1934, entitled
"For a Bolshevik Antiwar Struggle," by Alex Bittleman
Text of an article in the Communist, September 1934,
entitled "15 Years of Our Party," by Max Bedacht
The text of the Resolutions of the Seventh World Congress
of the Communist International, including the closing
speech of Georgi Dimitroff — a pamphlet published by the
Workers Library Publishers, November 1935
The text of a speech delivered by Georgi Dimitroff on Aug.
2, 1935, at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist
International
The text of a booklet entitled "The Communist Party —
A Manual on Organization," by J. Peters, published in
July 1935
Excerpts from a pamphlet entitled "Why Communism?"
by M. J. Olgin, published in May 1935
Excerpts from a pamphlet entitled "The Negroes in a
Soviet America," by James W. Ford and James S. Allen,
published in June 1935
Excerpt from a pamphlet entitled "Marxism vs. Liberalism —
An Interview of Joseph Stalin by H. G. Wells," published
in 1935
Excerpts from a pamphlet entitled "Youth and Fascism,"
by O. Kuusinen, published in November 1935
Excerpt from a book entitled "State and Revolution," by
V. I. Lenin, dealing with the subject of "Class Society and
the State," published in its fourth printing in 1935
LIST OF EXHIBITS
rx
Exhibit
Description
106 Excerpt from a book entitled "State and Revolution," by
V. I. Lenin, dealing with the subject of "The Destruction
of Parliamentarism," published in its fourth printing in
1935
107 Excerpt from a book entitled "State and Revolution," by
V. I. Lenin, dealing with the nature of the dictatorship of
the proletariat, published in its fourth printing in 1935_-
108 The text of a chapter entitled "Force and Violence," from a
book entitled "What Is Communism?" by Earl Browder,
published in its second edition in 1936
109 The text of a chapter entitled "What About Religion?" from
a book entitled "What Is Communism?" by Earl Browder,
published in its second edition in 1936
110 The text of a chapter entitled "A Glimpse of Soviet Amer-
ica," from a book entitled "What Is Communism?" by
Earl Browder, published in its second edition in 1936
111 The text of an article from the Party Organizer, entitled
"Work Among Professional People," bv David Armstrong,
May 1 937 _"
112 The text of a booklet entitled "Milestones in the History of
the Communist Partv," by Alex Bittelman, published in
1937 '..-^:
113 The text of a letter from Joseph Stalin in reply to one from
Ivan Philipovich Ivanov, published in the Daily Worker,
Feb. 17, 1938
114 The text of a statement of nearlj^ 150 prominent American
professional people in support of the Soviet Trial Verdict,
together with the names of the signers of the statement,
published in the Daily Worker, Apr. 28, 1938
115 Excerpt from an article in the Daily Worker, May 28, 1938,
in which it was stated that Dimitroff, Manuilsky, and
Kuusinen had been proposed for places on the honorary
presiding committee of the Communist Party's tenth
convention
116 The text of a speech delivered by Joseph Stalin on Jan. 26,
1924, 5 days after the death of Lenin, entitled "Lenin's
Heritage," published in the Daily Worker, Jan. 21, 1938.
117 The text of article XI from the constitution and bylaws of
the Communist Party of the United States of America,
setting forth its affiliation with the Communist Interna-
tional, published in August 1938
118 Excerpt from the sworn testimony of Earl Browder before
the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Sept.
6, 1939, in which the general secretary of the Communist
Party declared that he would try to precipitate civil war
in the United States in the event of a war between the
Soviet Union and the United States
119 Excerpt from the sworn testimony of Alexander Trachten-
berg before the Special Committee on Un-American
Activities, Sept. 13, 1939
120 Excerpt from the sworn testimony of William Z. Foster
before the Soecial Committee on Un-American Activities,
Sept. 29, 1939
121 Excerpt from the sworn testimony of Max Bedacht before
the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Oct.
16, 1939
122 Excerpt from the sworn testimony of Alexander Trachten-
berg before the Special Comnu'ttee on Un-American Activ-
ties, Sept. 13, 1939, on the subject of the distribution of
the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
123 The text of a special bulletin of the org-educational and
literature commissions of the national committee of the
Communist Party of the United States, on the subject
of the distribution of the History of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union
xn
LIST OF EXHIBITS
Exhibit
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
Description
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of Earl Browder before
the Special Committee on Un-Americaa Activities, Sept.
6, 1939, on the subject of the Communist Party's distribu-
tion of publications printed in the Soviet Union
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of Earl Browder before
the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Sept.
6, 1939, on the subject of Comintern delegates to the
United States
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of Alexander Trachten-
berg before the Special Committee on Un-American
Activities, Sept. 13, 1939, on the subject of his trips to
the Soviet Union
An excerjpt from the sworn testimony of Alexander Trachten-
berg before the Special Committee on Un-American
Activities, Sept. 13, 1939, on the subject of A. A. Heller,
head of International Publishers
Text of a pamphlet entitled "The War and the Working
CUiss of the CapitaUst Countries," by Georgi Dimitroff,
published in 1939
An excerpt from an article in the Sunday Worker, Mar. 5,
1939, in which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
is described as "a model, an example for the Communist
Parties of all countries"
Text of a leaflet published by the national committee of the
Communist Party of the United States, September 1939,
on the subject of the Second Imperialist War
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of Earl Browder before
the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Sept.
5, 1939, on the importance of the Dimitroff's book, The
United Front
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of Earl Browder before
the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Sept.
5, 1939, on the affiliation of the Communist Party of the
United States with the Communist International
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of Earl Browder be-
fore the Special Committee on Un-American Activities,
Sept. 5, 1939, on the subject of his reports to meetings of
the Communist International
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of Earl Browder be-
fore the Special Committee on Un-American Activities,
Sept. 5, 1939, on the subject of the Closest Harmony Be-
tween the Communist Party of the United States and the
Communist International
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of Earl Browder be-
fore the Special Committee on Un-American Activities,
Sept. 5, 1939, on the subject of the Closest Harmony
Between the Communist Party of the United States and
the Communist International
A leaflet issued by the Young Communist League of Illinois
and Lake County, Ind., on the European War and the
Yanks Are Not Coming
An excerpt from a leaflet issued by the Communist Party
of Massachusetts on the European War and the Yanks
Are Not Coming
A leaflet issued by the Young Communist League of Cali-
fornia on the JEuiopean War and the Yanks Are Not
Coming
A leaflet issued bv the Communist Party of New York on
the European War and the Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Club Lincoln (New York) of the
Young Communist League on the European War and the
Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Lincoln Club of the Young Communist
League on the European War and the Yanks Are Not
Coming
854
855
LIST OF EXHIBITS
xiir
Exhibit
Description
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
Leaflet issued by the Communist Party of Los Angeles on
the European War and the Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the thirty-fourth ward (Philadelphia) of the
Communist Partly on the European War and the Yanks
Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Fort George Club (New York) of the
Yoiuig Communist League on the European War and the
Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Club Herndon (New York) of the
Young Communist League on the European War and the
Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Stuyvesant Club (New York) of the
Young Communist League on the European War and the
Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Communist Party (third and fourth
branches) of New York on the European War and the
Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Communist Party (Bleecker Street) of
New York on the European War and the Yanks Are Not
Coming
Leaflet issued by the Communist Party, United States of
America, on the European War and the Yanks Are Not
Coming
Leaflet issued by the Fort George Club (New York) of the
Young Communist League on the European War and the
Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Helen Lynch Club (New York) of the
Young Communist League on the European War and the
Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the New York State committees of the
Communist Party and the Young Communist League on
the P^uropean War and the Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Young Communist League of Wash-
ington, D. C, on the European War and the Yanks Are
Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the national council of the Young Com-
munist League on the European War and the Yanks Are
Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Boro Park and Abraham Lincoln
branches (New York) of the Young Communist League on
the European War and the Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Communist Party of Indiana on the
European War and the Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Young Communist League of New
York on the European War and the Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Communist Party of Massachusetts on
the European War and the Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Communist Party of Rhode Lsland on
the European War and the Yanks Are Not Coming
Leaflet issued by the Communist Party of Union County
(New Jersey) on the European War and the Yanks Are
Not Coming
Excerpt from a prepared speech by Thomas Patrick O'Dea
and identified by him at a hearing before the Special Com-
mittee on Un-American Activities, Apr. 3, 1940
Excerpts from a booklet entitled "The War Crisis — Ques-
tions and Answers," by William Z. Foster, published in
January 1940
The text of stenographic reports of speeches by Stalin,
Kuusinen, and Molotov on The American Question,
submitted in evidence by Jay Lovestone at a liearing be-
fore the Special Committee on Un-American Activities,
Dec. 2, 1939
Page
856
856
857
857
858
859
859
860
861
861
862
864
865
868
869
870
872
872
873
874
874
875
XIV
LIST OF EXHIBITS
Exhibit
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
Description
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of Earl Browder before
the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Sept.
5, 1939, on the principal authoritative writings of the
Communist Party
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of Earl Browder before
the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Sept.
5, 1939, on the question of his membership an the execu-
tive committee of the Communist International
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of William Z. Foster
before the Special Committee on Un-American Activities,
Sept. 29, 1939, on his trips to the Soviet Union
An excerpt from the sworn testimony of William Z. Foster
before the Special Committee on Un-American Activities,
Sept. 29, 1939, on his official position in the Comm,unist
International
Text of an address by the Executive Committee of the Com-
munist International to all members of the Communist
Partv of the United States, published in the Daily Worker,
May 20, 1929
Text of a statement of the Central Executive Committee of
the Communist Party of the United States on the address
of the Communist International, published in the Dailv
Worker, .luly 8, 1929 . 1,
Text of an editorial from the Daily Worker, June 1, 1929,
dealing with the question of an educational campaign on
the address of the Communist International
Text of an editorial from the Daily Worker, May 27, 1929,
on the subject of the address of the Communist Inter-
national
Endorsements of the address of the Communist Interna-
tional, published in the Daily Worker, May 30, 1929
Endorsements of the address of the Communist Interna-
tional, published in the Daily Worker, May 28, 1929
Endorsements of the address of the Communist Interna-
tional, published in the Daily Worker, May 25, 1929
Endorsements of the address of the Communist Interna-
tional, published in the Daily Worker, May 27, 1929
Text of a cable from the Young Communist International
to the Young Communist League of the United States,
and the statement of the Young Communist League on
the cable, published in the Daily Worker, July 11, 1929
Endorsements of the address of the Communist Interna-
tional, published in the Daily Worker, May 24, 1929
Endorsements of the address of the Communist Interna-
tional, published in the Daily Worker, May 22, 1929
Endorsements of the address of the Communist Interna-
tional, published in the Daily Worker, May 23, 1929
Cablegram from the Young Communist International to the
Communist Youth League of the United States of America,
and motions adopted by the Communist Youth League,
published in the Daily Worker, May 23, 1929
Text of the decision of the Tenth Plenum of the Executive
Committee of the Communist International on the appeal
of Lovestone, published in the Dailv Worker, July 29,
1929 -
An article in the Daily Worker, July 9, 1929, entitled "The
Line of American Right Opposition to the Comintern,"
by William W. Weinstone
Statement of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of the United States on the appeal of Jay Love-
stone and others to the Communist International, pub-
lished in the Daily Worker, July 25, 1929
LIST OP EXHIBITS
XV
Exhibit
Description
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
Excerpt from a pamphlet entitled "Draft Resolution of the
Eighth Convention of the Communist Party, United
States of America," on turning imperialist war into civil
war, published in March 1934
Excerpt from a pamphlet entitled "Theses and Decisions of
the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the
Communist International — 'December 1933," on turning
imperialist war into civil war, published in March 1934
Excerpt from a pamphlet entitled "Theses and Resolutions
for the Seventh National Convention of the Communist
Party of United States of America by Central Committee
Plenum," on turning imperialist war into civil war and the
defeat of "our own" capitalist government, published in
1930
Excerpt from a pamphlet entitled "Theses and Resolutions
for the Seventh National Convention of the Communist
Party of the United States of America by Central Com-
mittee Plenum," on the defense of the Soviet Union,
published in 1930
Excerpt from a pamphlet entitled "Theses and Resolutions
for the Seventh National Convention of the Communist
Party of the United States of America by Central Com-
mittee Plenum," on the preparation for imperialist war,
published in 1930
Excerpt from an article in the Communist, September 1933,
entitled "The Intensified Drive Toward Imperialist War,"
by William W. Weinstone, on work among the armed
forces
Excerpt from a book entitled "Communism in the United
States," by Earl Browder, on rooting the American
League Against War and Fascism in the basic and war
industries, published in 1935
Excerpt from International Press Correspondence, Sept. 7,
1935, on Communist work in war industries
Excerpt from International Press Correspondence, Aug. 31,
1935, on the work of the American Youth Congress in
war industries
Excerpt from International Press Correspondence, Aug. 10,
1935, on Communist work in war industries
Excerpt from International Press Correspondence, Aug. 3,
1935, on the work of the World Committee Against War
and Fascism (Amsterdam) in the war industries
Excerpt from International Press Correspondence, Apr. 20,
1935, on the work of water-transport workers against war
Excerpt from International Press Correspondence, Apr. 13,
1935, on the work of the World Committee Against War
and Fascism in war industries
Page
936
936
936
936
937
937
937
937
937
938
938
938
938
Exhibit No. 1
[Source: A pamphlet published by International Publishers, New York, 1932]
MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
AUTHORIZED ENGLISH TRANSLATION
(Edited and annotated by Friedrich Engels)
International Publishers, New York
Preface
(By Friedricii Engels)
The Manifesto was published as the platform of the Comnnuiist League, a
workingmen's association, first exclusively German, later on international, and,
under the political conditions of the Continent before 1S48, unavoidably a secret
society. At a Congress of the League, held in London in November, 1847, Marx and
Engels were commissioned to prepare for publication a complete theoretical and
practical party programme. Drawn up in Germany, in January, 1848, the manu-
script was sent to the printer in London a few weeks before the French revolution
of February 24th.' A French translation was brought out in Paris, shortly before
the insurrection of June, 1848." The first English translation, by INIiss Helen Mac-
farlane, appeared in George Julian Harney's Red Republican, London, 1850. A
Danish and a Polish edition had also been published.
The defeat of the Parisian insurrection of June, 1848 — the first great battle
between proletariat and bourgeoisie — drove again into the background, for a
time, the social and political aspirations of the European working class. Thence-
forth, the struggle for supremacy was again, as it had been before the revolution
of February, solely between dilTerent sections of the propertied class ; the working
class was reduced to a tight for political elbow-room, and to the position of extreme
wing of the middle-class Radicals. Wherever independent proletarian movements
continued to show signs of life, they were ruthlessly hunted down. Thus the
Prussian police hunted out the Central Board of the Communist League, then
located in Cologne. The members were arrested, and, aftei- eighteen months'
imprisonment, they were tried in October, 1852. This celebrated "Cologne Com-
munist Trial" lasted from October 4th till November 12th ; seven of the prisoners
were sentenced to terms of imprisonment in a fortress, varying from three to six
years. Immediately after the sentence, the League was formally dissolved by the
remaining members. As to the Manifesto, it seemed thenceforth to be doomed to
oblivion.
When the European working class had recovered sufficient strength for another
attack o]i the ruling classes, the International Workingmen's Association sprang
up. But this association, formed with the express aim of welding into one body
the whole militant proletariat of PiUrope and America, could not at once proclaim
the principles laid down in the Manifesto. The International was bound to have a
progrannne broad enough to be acceptable to the Engli.sh trades unions, to the
followers of Proudhon ' in France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain, and to the Lassall-
eans^ in Germany. Marx, who drew up this programme to the satisfaction of all
parties, entirely trusted to the intellectual development of the working class, which
was sure to result from combined action and mutual discussion. The very events
and vicissitudes of the struggle against capital, the defeats even more than the
victories, could not help bringing home to men's minds the insufliciency of their
various favourite nostrums, and preiiaring the way for a more complete insight
into the true conditions of working-class emancipation. And Marx was right.
The International, on its breaking up in 1874, left the workers quite different men
See footnotes on p. 10.
1
94931 — 40— app., pt. 1 2
2 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
from what it had found them iu 1864. Proiidhoiiism in France, Lassalleanism in
Germany were dying out, and even the conservative Engli.sli trades unions, though
most of them had long since severed their connection with the International, were
gradually advancing towards that point at which, last year at Swansea, their
president could say in their name "continental Socialism has lost its terrors for
us." In fact, the principles of the Manifesto had made considerable headway
among the workingmen of all countries.
The Manifesto itself thus came to the front again. Since 1850 the German text
had been reprinted several times in Switzerland, England and America. In 1872,
it was translated into English in New York, where the tran.slation was published
in Woodhiill and Claflin's Weekly. From this English version, a French one was
made in Lc Soeialiste of New York. Since then at least two more English trans-
lations, more or less mutilated, have been brought out in America, and one of
them has been reprinted in England. The first Russian translation, made by
Bakunin, was published at Herzen's Kolokol office in Geneva, about 1863 ; a second
one, by the heroic Vera Zasulich, also in Geneva, in 1882.^ A new Danish edition
is to be found in Soeialdeniokrutisk Bibliothek, Copenhagen, 18S5; a fresh French
tran.slation in Le Soeialiste, Paris, 1886. From this latter, a Spanish ver.sion was
prepared and published in IMadrid, iu 1886. Not counting the German reprints
there had been at least twelve editions. An Armenian translation, which was to be
published in Con.stantinople some time ago, did not see the light, I am told, be-
cause the publisher was afraid of bringing out a book with the name of Marx on
it, while the translator declined to call it his own production. Of further trans-
lations into other languages I have heard, but have not seen. Thus the history of
the Manifesto reflects, to a great extent, the history of the modern working class
movement; at present it is undoubtedly the most widespread, the most interna-
tional producticni of all Socialist literature, the common platform acknowledged by
millions of workingmen from Siberia to California.
Yet, when it was written, we could not have called it a Soeialist manifesto.
By Socialists, in 1S47, were understood, on the one hand, the adherents of the
various Utopian systems: Owenites " in England, Fourierists ' in France, both of
them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out ; on
the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks, who, by all manners of
tinkering, profes.'-ed to redi'ess, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts
of social grievances, in both cases men outside the working class movement, and
looking rather to the "educated" classes for support. Whatever portion of the
working class had become convinced of the insuflieiency of mere political revolu-
tions, and had proclaimed the necessity of a total social change, called itself i^om-
munist. It was a crude, rough-hewn, purely instinctive sort of Communism ; still,
it touched the cardinal point and was powerful enough amongst the working class
to produce the Utopian Communism of Cabet ^ in France, and of Weitling" in
Germany. Thus, in 1847, Socialism w;is a middle class movement. Communism a
working class movement. Socialism was, on the continent at least, 'respectable";
Communism was the very opposite. And as our notion, from the very beginning,
was that "the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working
class itself," there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take.
Moreover, we have, ever since, been far from repudiating it.
The JSlanifesto being our joint production, I consider myself bound to state
that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus, belongs to Marx.
That proposition is: That in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of eco-
nomic production and exchange, and the social organisation necessaiily following
from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be
explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch ; that consequently
the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society,
holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests
between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history
of these class struggles form a series of evolutions in which, nowadays, a stage
has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class — the proletariat — can-
not attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class — the
bourgeoisie — without at the same time, and once and for all. emancipating society
at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.
This proposition, which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what
Darwin's theory has done for biology, we, both of us, had been gradually ap-
proaching for some years before 1845. How far I had independently progressed
towards it, is best shown by my Conditimt of the Working Class in Enijland}"
But when I again met Marx at Brussels, in spring, 1845, he had it alieady worked
See footnotes on p. 19.
APPENDIX, PART 1 3
out, and put it before me, in terms almost as clear as those in which I have
stated it here.
From our joint preface to the German edition of 1872, I quote :
"However much the state of things may have altered during the last 25 years,
the general principles laid down in this Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct
to-day as ever. Here and there some detail might be improved. The practical
application of the principles will dei>end, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere
and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for
that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at
the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently
worded to-day. In view of the gigantic strides of modern industry since 1848,
and of the accompanying improved and extended organisation of the working
class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February rev(jlution,
and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the iirst
time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some
details become anticpiated. Olie thing especially was proved by the Conmume,
viz., that 'the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state
machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.' (See The Civil War in Franee ;
Address by the General Council of the International Workingnien's Association,
1871, where this point is further developed.) Further, it is self-evident, that the
criticism of Socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, be-
cause it comes down only to 1847 ; also, that the remarks on the relation of the
Communists to the various opposition parties (Section IV), although in principle
still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has
been entirely changed, and the progress of hi.story has swept from off the earth
the greater portion of the political parties there enumerated.
"But then, the Manifesto has become a historical document which we have no
longer any right to alter."
The present translation is by Mr. Samuel Moore, the translator of the greater
portion of INIarx's Capital. We have revised it in common, and I have added a
few notes explanatory of historical allusions.
London, January 30th, 1888.
Manifesto of the Communist Party
(By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels)
A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism. All the powers of
old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre : Pope and
Czar, jMetternich and Guizot, French Radicals '^ and German police-spies.
Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by
its opponents in power? Where the Opposition that has not hurled back the
branding reproach of Comnmnism, against the more advanced opposition parties,
as well as against its reactionary adversaries?
Two things result from this fact :
I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself
a power.
II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole
world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery
tale of the spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself.
To this end. Communists of various nationalities have assembled in London,
and sketched the following manifesto, to be published in the English, French,
German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages.
I. BorBGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS "
The history of all hitherto existing society " is the history of class struggles.
Freeman, and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master "
and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposi-
tion to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open tight,
a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society
at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated
arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold grad'ation of social rank.
In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves ; in the Middle
Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in
almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.
See footnotes on p. 19.
4 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIEt^
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal
society, has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established
new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the
old ones.
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive
feature : It has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more
and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes
directly facing each other — bourgeoisie and proletariat.
From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers ^ of the
earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were
developed.
The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground
for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisa-
tion of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange
and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an
impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the
tottering feudal society, a rapid development.
The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised
by closed guilds," now no longer sufficed, for the growing wants of the new
markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were
pushed aside by the manufacturing middle class ; division of labour between
the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in
e'ach single workshop.
Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even
manufacture no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolution-
ised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant,
modern industry, the place of the industrial middle class, by industrial million-
aires — the le'aders of whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.
Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery
of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development
to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has,
in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry ; and in proportion as industry,
commerce, navigation, r'ailways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie
developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class
handed down from the Middle Ages.
We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long
course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and
of exchange.
Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a
corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the
sway f>f the feudal nobility, it became an armed and self-governing association
in the mediaeval commune ;" here independent urban republic as in Italy and
Germany), there taxable "third estate" of the monarchy ('as in France) ; after-
wards, in the period of manufacture proper, serving either the semi-feudal or
the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact,
corner-stone of the great monarchies in general — the bourgeoisie has at last,
since the establishment of modern industry and of the world market, conquered
for itself, in the modern representative state, exclusive political sway. The
executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common
affairs of the whole l)ourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie has played a most revolutionary role in history.
The bourgeoisie, wherever it h'as got the upper hand, has put an end to all
feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley
feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and has left no other
bond between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash pay-
ment." It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of
chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of ego-
tistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, land
in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that
single, unconscionable freedon — Free Trade. In one woi'd, for exploitation,
veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless,
direct, lirutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoiired
and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer,
the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourers.
The bourgeoisie has torn 'away from the family its sentimental veil, and has
reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.
See footnotes on p. 19.
APPENDIX, PART 1 5
The bourgeoisie lias disclosed how it came to iDass that the brutal display
of vigour ill the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, fouiid its
fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show
what man's activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far sur-
passing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it bus
conducted expeditious that ijut in the shade all former migrations of nations
and crusades.
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instru-
ments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the
whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in
unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all
earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted
disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation dis-
tinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen rela-
tions, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are
swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify.
All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last
compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life and his relations
with his kind.
The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the
bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere,
settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.
The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a
cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To
the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry
the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries
have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new
industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised
nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw
material drawn from the remotest zones ; industries whose products are con-
sumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old
wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring
for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of
the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse
in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so
also in intellectual productions. The intellectual creations of individual nations
become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness be-
come more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local
literatures there arises a world literature.
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production,
by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all nations, even
the most barbarian, into civilisation. The cheap prices of its commodities are
the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it
forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate.
It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of
production ; it comi^els them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their
midst, i. e., to become bourgeois themselves. In a word, it creates a world after
its own image.
The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has
created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared
with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from
the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the
towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the
civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.
More and more the bourgeoisie keeps doing away with the scattered state of
the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomer-
ated population, centralised means of production, and has concentrated property
in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation.
Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws,
governments and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation,
with one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, one frontier
and one customs tariff.
The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more
massive and more colossal productive forces than have all proceding generations
together. Subjection of nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chem-
istry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs,
clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole popula-
6 UN-AMERIOAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
tions conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment
that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
We see then that the means of production and of exchange, which served
as the foundation for the growth of the bourgeoisie, were generated in feudal
society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production
and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and ex-
changed, the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing industry,
in a word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with
the already developed productive forces ; they became so many fetters. They
had to be liurst asunder ; they were burst asunder.
Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and politi-
cal constitution adapted to it, and by the economic and political sway of the
bourgeois class.
A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois
society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society
that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like
the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world
whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of
industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive
forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations
that are the conditions for the existence of the boiirgeoisie and of its rule. It
is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put
the existence of the entire bourgeois society on trial, each time more threaten-
ingly. In these crises a great part not only of the existing products, but also
of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these
crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have
seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddeidy finds
itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism: it appears as if a famine,
a universal war of devastation had cut off the supply of every means of sub-
s^istence ; industry and conmieree seem to be destroyed. And why? Because
there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry,
too much conunerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer
tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property ; on the
contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they
are fettered, and no sooner do they overcome these fetters than they bring dis-
order into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois
property. The conditions of boui'geois society are too narrow to comprise the
wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises?
On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces : on
the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploita-
tion of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for motre extensive and
more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are
prevented.
The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are
now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself;
it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the
modern working class — the proletarians.
In proportion as the bourgeoisie, (". e., capital, is developed, in the same pro-
portion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of
labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work (mly so
long as their labour increases capital. Tliese labourers, who must sell them-
selves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are
consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctiiations
of the market.
Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, the
work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently,
all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it
is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired kn;ick, that
is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted,
almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his mainte-
nance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and
therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, there-
fore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more,
in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the
same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of
the working hours, by increase of the work exacted in a given time, or by
increased speed of the machinery, etc.
APPENDIX, PART 1 7
Modern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master
into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of lahourers, crowded
into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army
they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and ser-
geants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois
state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-looker,
and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more
openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the
more hateful and the more embittering it is.
The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other
words, the more modern industry develops, the more is the labour of men super-
seded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any dis-
tinctive social validity for the working class. AH are instruments of labour,
more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.
No sooner has the labourer received his wages in cash, for the moment escap-
ing exploitation by the manufacturer, than he is set upon by the other portions
of the liourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.
The lower strata of the middle class — the small tradespeople, shopkeepers,
and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants — all these
sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does^
not suffice for the scale on which modern industry is carried on, and is swamped
in the competition with the large capitalists, partly becau.se their specialised
skill is reiKlered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat
is recruited from all classes of the population.
The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth
begins its struggle with the boiirgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by
individual labourers, then by the work people of a factory, then by the opera-
tives of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly
exploits them. Tliey direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions
of pi-oduction, but against the instruments of production themselves ; they
destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash machinery
to pieces, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished
status of the workman of the Middle Ages.
At this stage the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the
whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they
unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their
own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoise, which class, in order to
attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the w^hole proletariat in motion,
and is moreover still able to do so for a time. At this stage, therefore, the
proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the
remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the nonindustrial bourgeois,
the petty bourgeoisie. Thus the whole historical movement is concentrated in
the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the
bourgeoisie.
But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in
number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength "grows, and it
feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life witliin
the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as
machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour and nearly everywhere reduces
wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois,
and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more
fluctuating. The unceasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly
developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious ; the collisions
between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the
character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon the workers begin to
form combinations (trade unions) against the bourgeoisie; they club together
in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in
order to make provisions beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and
there the contest breaks out into riots.
Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real
fruit of their l)attles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expand-
ing union of the workers. This union is furthered by the improved means of
communication which are created by modern industry and which place the
workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this
contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the
same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class
struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers
8 UN-AMERIOAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the
modern proletarians, thanks to railways achieve in a few years.
This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and consequently into a
political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the
workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mighter. It
compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking
advantage of (he divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus the ten-hour
bill " in England was carried.
Altogether, collisions between the classes of the old society further the course
of development of the proletariat in many ways. The bourgeoisie finds itself
involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy ; later on, with those
portions of the bourgeoisie itself whose interests have become antagonistic to
the progress of industry ; at all times with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries.
In all those battles it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for
its help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. The bourgoisie itself,
therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general
education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fight-
ing the bourgeoisie.
Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling classes are,
by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least
threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply the proletariat
with fresli elements of enlightenment and progress.
Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process
of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range
of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of
the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class
that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a
section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the
bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the
bourgeois ideologists, v/ho have raised themselves to the level of comprehending
theoretically the historical movement as a whole.
Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the
proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and
finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special
and essential product.
The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan,
the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction
their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revo-
lutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to
roll back tlie wheel of history. If by chance they are revolutionary, they are
so only in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus
defend not their present, but their future interests ; they desert their own
standpoint to adopt that of the proletariat.
The "dangerous class," the social scum (Lympenproletariat), that passively
rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there,
be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution ; its conditions of life,
however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary
intrigue.
The social conditions of the old society no longer exists for the proletariat.
The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has
no longer anything in common with bourgeois family relations; modern in-
dustrial labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France,
in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national char-
acter. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind
which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.
All the preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought to fortify their
already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of
appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive
forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropria-
tion, and thereliy also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have
nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all
previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.
All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the
interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, inde-
pendent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense
majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot
stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincombent strata of oflicial
society being sprung into he air.
See footnotes on p. 19.
APPENDIX, PART 1 9
Though not in substance, yet in fomi, the struggle of the proletai-iat with the
bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must,
of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.
In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat,
we traced the more or less veiled civil war, ranging within existing society,
up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the
violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of th(j
proletariat.
Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen,
on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to
oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can,
at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom,
raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois,
under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois.
The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the progress
of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of
his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly
than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie
is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions
of existence upon society as an over-riding lawi It is unfit to' rule because
it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because
it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him,
instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie,
in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.
The essential condition for the existence and sway of the bourgeois class,
is the formation and augmentation of capital ; the condition for capital is
wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the la-
bourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bour-
geoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their
revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of modern
industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which
the b6urgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie
therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the
victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
II. Proletarians and Communists
In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working
class parties.
They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat
as a whole.
They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape
and mould the proletarian movement.
The Communists are distinguished from the other working class parties
by tliis only : 1. In the national struggles of the iiroletarians of the different
countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the
entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages
of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie
has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of
the movement as a whole.
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most
advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country,
that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically,
they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly
understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general
results of the proletarian movement.
The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other
proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow
of bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.
The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas
or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be
universal reformer.
They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an
existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very
eyes. The abolition of existing property relations is not at all a distinctive
feature of Communism.
10 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
All property relations in the past have continually been subect to historical
change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.
The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour
of bourgeois property.
The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property
generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois
private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of
producing and appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on
the exploitation of the many by the few.
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single
sentence: Abolition of private property.
We Communists have been reproached vi^ith the desire of abolishing the
right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's own labour,
which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom,
activity and independence.
Hard-won, self-acquired, self -earned property ! Do you mean the property of
the petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded
the bourgeois formV There is no need to abolish that; the development of
industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it
daily.
Or do you mean modern bourgeois private property?
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit.
It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and
which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of
wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based
on the antagonism of capital and wage-labour. Let us examine both sides of
this antagonism.
To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status
in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action
of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all
members of society, can it be set in motion.
Capital is therefore not a personal, it is a social, power.
When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property
of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into
social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed.
It loses its class character).
Let us now take wage-labour.
The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum
of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer
in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appro-
priates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a
bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropria-
tion of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the main-
tenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith
to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the
miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives
merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only insofar as the interest
of the ruling class require it.
In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated
labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen,
to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.
In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present ; in Com-
munist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital
is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent
and has no individuality.
And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition
of individuality and freedom ! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois
individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly
aimed at.
By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production,
free trade, free soiling and buying.
But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears
also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other "brave words"
of our bourgeoisie about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only
in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of
the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the Communist abo-
lition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and
of the bourgeoisie itself.
APPENDIX, PART 1 H
You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But
in your existing society, private property is already done away with for
nine-tenths of the population ; its existence for the few is solely due to its
non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore,
with intending to do away with a ft)rm of property, the necessary condition
for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense
majority of society.
In a word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property.
Precisely so ; that is just what w^e intend.
From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital,
money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monoiwlised, L e., from
the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into
bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality
vanishes.
You must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person
than the bourgeois, than the middle class owner of property. This person
must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.
Communism deiirives no man of the power to appropriate the products of
society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the
labour of .others by means of such appropriation.
It has been objected, that upon the abolition of private property all work
will cea.«e, and universal laziness will overtake us.
According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the
dogs through sheer idleness ; for those of its members wlio work, acquire
nothing, and those who acquire anything, do not work. The whole of this
objection is but another expression of the tautology : There can no longer be any
wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.
All objections urged against the Communist mode of producing and appro-
priating material porducts, have, in the same way, been urged against the
Communits modes of producing and appropriating intellectual products. Just
as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property is the disappearance
of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical
with the disappearance of all culture.
That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous majority,
a mere training to act as a machine.
But don't wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended abolition
of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom,
culture, law, etc. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions
of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurispru-
dence is but tlie will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose
essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions
of existence of your class.
Tlie selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws
of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode
of production and form of property — historical relations that rise and dis-
appear in the progress of production — this misconception you share with
every ruling class that has preceded you. What .you see clearly in the case
of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are
of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of
property.
Abolition of the family ! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous
proposal of the Ccnnmunists.
On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family based?
On capital, on private gain. In its comnletely developed form this family
exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its comple-
ment in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in
public prostitution.
The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement
vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.
Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by
their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.
But, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of I'elations, when we
replace home education by social.
And your education ! Is not that also social, and determined by the social
condifions under which you educate, bv the intervention of society, direct or
indirect, by means of schools, etc.? The Communists have not invented the
intervention of society in education ; they do but seek to alter the character
12 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of tlie ruling
class.
The bourgeoise claptrap about the family and education, about the hallowed
co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by
the action of modern industry, all family ties among the proletarians are
torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce
and instruments of labour.
But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the
whole bourgeoisie in chorus.
The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears
that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and,
natiirally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of being common
to all will likewise fall to the women.
He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do awjay
with the status of women as more instruments of production.
Foi" the rest, notliing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of
our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly
and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need
to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.
Our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of their
proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the
greatest pleasure in seducing each other's wives.
Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common and thus, at
the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that
they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an
openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident, that the
abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition
of the community of women springing from that system, i. e., of prostitution
both public and private.
The Comnmnists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries
and nationality.
Tlie workingmen have no country. We cannot take from them what they
have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy,
must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the
nation, it is, so far, itself national though not in the bourgeois sense of the
word.
National differences and antagonisms between peoples are vanishing gradually
from day to day. owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of
commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and
in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.
The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster.
United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first
conditions f<u" the emancipation of the proletariat.
In proportion as the exploitation of one individaal by another is put an
end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to.
In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes,
the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.
The charges against Communism made from a religious, a pliilosophical,
and, generally, from an ideoligical standpoint, are not deserving of serious
examination.
Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views, and
conceptions, in one word, man's cousciousnoss, changes with every change in
the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his
social life?
What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production
changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The
ruling ideas of each ngr- have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
When people speak of ideas that revolutionise society, they do biit express
the fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been created,
and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution
of the old conditions of existence.
When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were over-
come by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century
to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death-battle with the then revo-
lutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience,
merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of
knowledge.
APPENDIX, PART 1 13
"Undoubtedly," it will be said, "religion, moral, philosophical and juridical
ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. But reli-
jiion. morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this
change."
"There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are
common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths,
it abolishes all religion, and all moi'ality, instead of constituting them on a
new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience."
What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all past society
has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, antagonisms that as-
sumed different forms at different epochs.
But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past ages,
vie, the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder, then, that
the social con.sciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety
it displays, moves within certain common forms, or general ideas, which
cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class
antagonisms.
The Connnunist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional prop-
erty relations ; no wonder that its development involves the most radical rup-
ture with traditional ideas.
But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.
We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working
class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to establish
democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all
capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the
hands of the state, i. e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class ; and to
increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of des-
potic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois
production ; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically in-
sufficient and untenable, but which. In the course of the movement, outstrip
themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are
unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
These measures will of course be different in different countries.
Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty
generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public
purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national
bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands
of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state;
the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil
generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies,
especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual aboli-
tion "of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribu-
tion of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of child fac-
tory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial
production, etc.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared,
and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association
of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political
power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for
oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie
is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class ; if, by
means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling cla.ss, and, as such sweeps
away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these
conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antago-
nisms, and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own suprem-
acy as a class.
14 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms,
we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the
condition for the free development of all.
III. Socialist and Communist Literatuee
1. REACTIONARY SOCIALISM
a. Feudal Socialism
Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the aristocracies
of France and England to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society.
In the French revolution of July, 1830,'" and in the English reform agitation,
these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart. Thenceforth, a
serious political struggle was altogether out of the question. A literary battle
alone remained possible. But even in the domain of literature the old cries
of the restoration period -" had become impossible.
In order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy was obliged to lose sight, ap-
parently, of its own interests, and to formulate its indictment against the
bourgeoisie in the interest of the exjiloited working class alone. Thus the
aristocracy took its revenge by singing lampoons against its new master, and
whispering in his ears sinister prophecies of coming catastrophe.
In this way arose Feudal Socialism : Half lamentation, half lampoon ; half
echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty and
incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart's core, but always
ludicrous in its effect through total incapacity to comprehend the march of
modern history.
The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian
alms-bag in front for a banner. Bvit the people, as often as it joined them,
saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coats of arms, and deserted with
loud and irreverent laughter.
One section of the French Legitimists," and "Young England," '^ exhibited this
spectacle.
In pointing out that their mode of exploitation was different from that of
the bourgeoisie, the feudalists forget that they exploited under circumstances
and conditions that were quite different, and that are now antiquated. In
showing that, under their rule, the modern proletariat never existed, they forget
that the modern bourgeoisie is the necessary offspring of their own form of
society.
For the rest, so little do they conceal the reactionary character of their criti-
cism, that their chief accusation against the bourgeoisie amounts to this, that
under the bourgeois regime a class is being developed, which is destined to cut
up root and branch the old order of society.
What they upbraid the bourgeoisie with is not so much that it creates a
proletariat, as that it creates a rcvolutiouanj i)rolctariat.
In political practice, therefore, they join in all coercive measures against
the working class ; and in ordinary life, despite their high-falutin phrases,
' they stoop to pick up the golden apples dropped froiu the tree of industry, and
to barter truth, love, and honour for trafiic in wool, beetroot-sugar, and potato
spirits.^
As the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord, so has Clerical
Socialism with Feudal Socialism.
Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has
not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against
the state? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity and poverty,
celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church?
Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates
(he heartburnings of the aristocrat.
6. Petty Boiirgcoif: Socialism
The feudal aristocracy was not the only class that was ruined by the bour-
geoisie, not the only class whose conditions of existence pined and perished in
the atmosphere of modern bourgeois society. The mediaeval burgesses and the
small peasant proprietors were the precursors of the modern bourgeoisie. In
those countries which are but little developed, industrially and commercially,
these two classes still vegetate side by side with the rising bourgeoisie.
See footnotes on p. 19.
APPENDIX, PART 1 15
In countries where modern civilisntion has become fully developed, a new
class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctnatiu!;- b»>tvveen proletariat and
bourgeoisie, and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois
society The individual members of this class, however, are being constantly
liurled down into the proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern
industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will com-
pletely disappear as an independent section of modern society, to be replaced,
in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailifl's and shopmen.
In countries, like France, where the peasants constitute far more than half
of the population, it was natural that writers who sided with the proletariat
against the bourgeoisie, should use, in their criticism of the bourgeois regime,
the standard of the peasant and petty bourgeois, and from the standpoint of
these intermediate classes should take up the cudgels for the working class.
Thus arose petty bourgeois Socialism. Sismondi "* was the head of this school,
not onlv in France but also in England.
This 'school of Socialism dissected with great acuteness the contradictions in
the conditions of modern production. It laid bare the hypocritical apologies
of economists. It proved, incontiovertibly, the disastrous effects of machinery
and division of labour; the concentration of capital and land in a few hands;
overproduction and crises ; it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty bour-
geois and peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the
crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of extermi-
nation between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family
relations, of the old nationalities.
In its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either to restoring
the old means of production and of exchange, and with them the old property
relations, and the old society, or to cramping the modern means of production
and of exchange within the framework of the old property relations that have
been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means. In either case, it i.*
both I'eactionary and Utopian.
Its last words are : Corporate guilds for manufacture ; patriarchal relations
in agriculture.
Ultimately, when stubborn historical facts had dispersed all intoxicating effects.
of self-deception, this form of Socialism ended in a miserable fit of the blues.
c. Gernwn or ''True'" Socialism
The Socialist and Communist literature of France, a literature that originated
under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and that was the expression of
the struggle against this power, was introduced into Germany at a time when the
bourgeoisie, in that country, had just begun its contest with feudal absolutism.
German philosophers, would-be philosophers, and men of letters eagerly seized
on this literature, only forgetting that when these writings immigrated from
France into Germany, French social conditions had not immigrated along with
them. In contact with German social conditions, this French literature lost all
its immediate practical significance, and assumed a purely literary aspect.
Thus, to the German philosophers of the 18th century, the demands of the
first French Revolution were nothing more than the demands of "Practical
Reason" in general, and the utterance of the will of the revolutionary French
bourgeoisie signified in their eyes the laws of pure will, of will as it was bound
to be, of true human will generallJ^
The work of the German literati consisted solely in bringing the new French
ideas into liarmony with their ancient philosophical conscience, or rather, in
annexing the French ideas without deserting their own philosophic point of
view.
This annexation took place in the same way in which a foreign language iS'
oppjfopriated, namely by translation.
It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic saints orer the
manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendom had been
written. The German literati reversed tliis process with the profane French
literature. They wrote their philosophical nonsense beneath the French origi-
nal. For instance, beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of
money, they wrote "alienation of humanity," and beneath the French criticism
of the bourgeois state, they wrote, "dethronement of the category of the general,"
and so forth.
The introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the French
historical criticisms they dubbed "Philosophy of Action," "True Socialism,"
See footnotes on p. 19.
IQ UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
"German Science of Socialism," "Pliilosopliical Foundation of Socialism,"
and so on.
The Frencli Socialist and Conimnnist literature was thus completely emascu-
lated. And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to expi-ess the struggle
of one class with the other, he felt conscious of having overcome "French one-
sidedness" and of representing, not true requirements, but the requirements
of truth ; not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of human nature,
of man in general, who belongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only
in the misty realm of philosophical phantasy.
This German Socialism, which took its school-boy task so seriously and
solemnly, and extolled its poor stock-in-trade in such mountebank fashion,
meanwhile gradually lo.st its pedantic innocence.
The tight of the German and especially of the Prussian bourgeoisie against
feudal aristocracy and absolute monarchy, in other words, the liberal movement,
became more earnest.
By this, the long-wished-for opportunity was offered to "True" Socialism of
confronting the political movement with the Socialist demands, of hurling the
traditional anathemas against liberalism, against representative government,
against bourgeois competition, bourgeois freedom of the press, bourgeois legis-
lation, bourgeois liberty and equality, and of preaching to the masses that they
had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by this bourgeois movement.
German Socialism forgot, in the nick of time, that the French criticism, whose
silly echo it was, presupposed the existence of modern bourgeois society, with
its corresponding economic conditions of existence, and the political constitution
adapted thereto, the very things whose attainment was the object of the pending
struggle in Germany.
To the absolute governments, with their following of parsons, professors,
country squires and officials, it served as a welcome scarecrow against the
threatening bourgeoisie.
It was a sweet finish after the bitter pills of floggings and bullets, with which
these same governments, just at that time, dosed the risings of the German
working class.
While this "True" Socialism thus served the governments as a weapon for
fighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directly represented a
leactionary interest, the interest of the German Philistines. In Germany the
petty bourgeois class, a relic of the 16th century, and .since then constantly crop-
ping up again under various forms, is the real social basis of the existing state
of things.
To preserve this class, is to preserve the existing state of things in Germany.
The industrial and political supremacy of the bourgeoisie threatens it with
certain destriiction — on the one hand, from the concentration of capital; on the
other, from the rise of a revolutionary proletariat. "True" Socialism appeared
to kill these two birds with one stone. It spread like an epidemic.
The robe of speculative cobwebs, embroidered with fiowers of rhetoric, steeped
in the dew of sickly sentiment, this transcendental robe in which the German
Socialists wrapped their sorry "eternal truths," all skin and bone, served to
increase wonderfully the sale of their goods amongst such a public.
And on its part, German Socialism recognised, more and more, its own calling
as the bomba.stic representative of the petty bourgeois Philistine.
It proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and the German
petty Philistine to be the typical man. To every villainous meanne.ss of this
model man it gave a hidden, higher, socialistic interpretation, the exact contrary
of his real character. It went to the extreme length of directly opposing the
"brutally destructive" tendency of Communism, and of proclaiming its supreme
and impartial contempt of all class struggles. AVith very few exceptions, all
the so-called Socialist and Communist publications that now (1847) circulate
in Germany belong to the domain of this foul and enervating literature.
2. CONSEEVATIVE OR BOURGEOIS SOCIALISM
A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order
to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society.
To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers
of the condition of the working class, organi.sers of charity, members of societies
for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner
APPENDIX, PART 1 17
reformers of every imaginable kind. This form of Socialism has, moreover, been
vv-orked out into complete systems.
We may cite Proudhon's Philosophy of Poverty as an example of this form.
The socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions
without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire
the existing state of society minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements.
Tliey wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally
conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best ; and bourgeois
Socialism develops this comfortable conception into various more or less com-
plete systems. In requiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and
thereby to march straightway into the social New Jerusalem, it but requires in
reality, that the proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society,
but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie.
A second and more practical, but less systematic, form of this Socialism
sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyes of the working
class, by showing that no mere political reform, but only a change in the ma-
terial conditions of existence, in economic relations, could be of any advantage
to them. By changes in the material conditions of existence, this form of
Socialism, however, by no means understands abolition of the bourgeois rela-
tions of production, an abolition that can be effected only be a revolution, but
administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these relations ;
reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and
labour, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and simplify the administrative work
of bourgeois government.
Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression, when, and only when, it
becomes a mere figure of speech.
Free trade : For the benefit of the working class. Protective duties : For the
benefit of the working class. Prison reform : For the benefit of the working
class. These are the last words and the only seriously meant words of bourgeois
Socialism.
It is summed up in the phrase : the bourgeois are bourgeois — for the benefit
of the working class.
3. CRITICAL-UTOPIAN SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM
We do not here refer to that literature which, in every great modern revolu-
tion, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat, such as the
writings of Babeuf ^ and others.
The first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends — made iu
times of universal excitement, when feudal society was being overthrown —
necessarily failed, owing to the then undeveloped state of the proletariat, as
well as to the absence of the economic conditions for its emancipation, condi-
tions that had yet to be produced, and could be produced by the impending
bourgeois epoch alone. The revolutionary literature that accompanied these
first movements of the proletariat had necessarily a reactionary character.
It inculcated universal asceticism and social levelling in its crudest form.
The Socialist and Communist systems properly so called, those of St. Simon,'"
Fourier, Owen and others, spring into existence in the early undeveloped period,
described above, of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie (see Section
1. Bourgeois and Proletarians).
The founders of these systems see, indeed, the class antagonisms, as well as
the action of the decomposing elements in the prevailing form of society. But the
proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them the spectacle of a class without
any historical initiative or-any indei^endent political movement.
Since the development of class antagonism keeps even pace with the develop-
ment of industry, the economic situation, as such Socialists find it. does not
as yet offer to them the material conditions for the emancipation of the pro-
letariat. They therefore search after a new social science, after new social
laws, that are to create these conditions.
Historical action is to yield to their personal inventive actions ; historically
created conditions of emancipation to phantastic ones ; and the gradual, spon-
taneous class organisation of the proletariat to an oi'ganisation of society
specially contrived by these inventors. Future history, resolves itself, in their
eyes, into the propaganda and the practical carrying out of their social plans.
In the formation of their plans they are conscious of caring chiefiy for the
See footnotes on p. 19.
04931 — 40— app., pt. 1 3
Ig UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
interests of the working class, as being the most suffering class. Only from
the point of view of being the most suffering class does the proletariat exist
for them.
The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings,
causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class
antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society,
even that of the most favoured. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at
large, without distinction of class ; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For
how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see in it the
best possible plan of the best possible state of society?
Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary action ; they
wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endeavour, by small experi-
ments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the
way for the new social gospel.
Such phantastic pictures of future society, painted at a time when the prole-
tariat is still in a very undeveloped state and has but a phantastic conception
of its own position, correspond with the first instinctive yeai'nings of that class
for a general reconstruction of society.
But these Socialist and Communist writings contain also a critical element.
They attack every principle of existing society. Hence they are full of the most
valuable materials for the enlightenment of the working class. The practical
measures proposed in them— such as the abolition of the distinction between town
and country ; abolition of the family, of private gain and of the wage-systems; the
proclamation of social harmony ; the conversion of the functions of the state into a
mere superintendence of production— all these proposals point solely to the disap-
pearance of class antagonisms which were, at that time, only just cropping up,
and which, in these publications, are recognised in their earliest, indistinct and
undefined forms only. These proposals, therefore, are of a purely Utopian
character.
The signficance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an inverse
relation to historical development. In proportion as the modern class struggle
develops and takes definite shape, this phantastic standing apart from the contest,
these phantastic attacks on it, lose all practical value and all theoretical justi-
fication. Therefore, although the originators of these systems were, in many
respects, revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case, formed mere reaction-
ary sects. They hold fast by the original views of their masters, in opposition
to the progressive historical development of the proletariat. They, therefore,
endeavour, and that consistently, to deaden the class straggle and to reconcile the
class antagonisms. They still dream of experimental realisation of their .social
Utopias, of founding isolated phalanst^res, of establishing "Home Colonies," or
setting up a "Little Icaria" ^ — pocket editions of the New Jerusalem — and to
realise all these castles in the air, they are compelled to appeal to the feelings
and purses of the bourgeois. By degrees they sink into the category of the
reactionary conservative Socialists depicted above, differing from these only by
more systematic pedantry, and by their fanatical and superstitious belief in the
miraculous effects of their social science.
They, therefore, violently oppose all political action on the part of the working
class; such action, according to them, can only result from blind unbelief in the
new gospel.
The Owenites in England, and the Fourierists in France, respectively, oppose
the Chartists '" and the Udformistes.
IV. Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing
Opposition Parties
Section II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the existing
working class parties, such as the Chartists in England and the Agrarian
Reformers in America. ""
The Conununists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the
enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class ; but in the move-
ment of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that move-
ment. In France the Communist ally themselves with the Social-Democrats,'*
against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however, the right to
take up a critical position in regard to phrases and illusions traditionally handed
down from the great Revolution.
See footnotes on p. 19.
J
APPENDIX, PART 1 19
In Switzerland they support the Radicals, without losing sight of the fact that
this party consists of antagonistic elements, partly of Democratic Socialists, in
the French sense, partly of radical bourgeois.
In Poland (hey support the party that insists on an agrarian revolution as the
prime condition for national emancipation, that party which formented the
insurrection of Cracow in 1846.
In Germany they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionary
way, against the absolutely monarchy, the feudal squirearchy, and the petty
bourgeoisie.
But they never cease, for a single instant, to instil into the working class the
clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and
proletariat, in order that the German workers may straightway use, as so many
weapons against the bourgeoisie, the social and political conditions that the
bourgeoisie must necessarily introduce along with its supremacy, and in order
that, after the fall of the reactionary classes in Germaiiy, the fight against the
bourgeoisie itself may immediately begin.
The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that country
is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be carried out under more
advanced conditions of European civilisation and with a much more developed
proletariat than what exisited in England in the 17th and in France in the 18th
century, and because the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude
to an immediately following proletarian revolution.
In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement
against the existing social and political order of things.
In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each
case, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.
Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic
parties of all countries.
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare
that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing;
social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
Workingmen of all countries, unite !
Notes
(All unsigned notes are these made by Engcls to the English edition of 1888 ; all others were
prepared by the editor and are so marked. Where it was found necessary to enlarge upon
Engels' notes, the additions appear in brackets.)
1. King Louis Philippe was deposed and a republic proclaimed as result of the revolution
in Paris, February 22-24, 1S4S. — Ed.
2. The rising of the Parisian workers. June 2.3-27, 1848. The insurrection was suppressed
by General Cavaignac with great slaughter. — Ed.
.3. Pierre .Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865). — French publicist and political economist ; leading
exponent of petty-bourgeois Socialism. — Ed.
4. Lassalle [Ferdinand Lassalle, 1825-1864] always acknowledged himself to us personally
to be a disciple of Marx and, as such, stood on the ground of the Manifesto. But in his public
agitation, 1862-64, he did not go beyond demanding co-operative workshops supported by
state credit.
5. The Russian version published at Geneva in 1882 was made by Plekhanov, not by Vera
Zasulich. Bakuuin's translation appeared in 1870. — Ed.
6. The followers of Robert Owen (177] -1858), leading English Utopian Socialist. He
envisioned a collective economic and social life organised in small communist communes, where
property would be owned in commou. — Ed.
7. The followers of Francois Charles Fourier (1772-18.37), leading French Utopian Socialist,
Who urged a system of colonies on a socialist plan. His criticism of bourgeois society was
recognised as basic both by Marx and Engels. — Ed.
8. Etienne Cabet (1788-1856). — A French Utopian, exiled to England for his participation
in the July Revolution of 18.30. In his book, Voyage en Icarie, he pictures life in a Communist
society.- — Ed.
9. Wilhelm Weitling (1808-1871). — A German Utopian Socialist who took part in the
revolutionary movement of 1848 and exerted great influence among the German worker.s. He
came to America where he carried on socialist agitation among German worker.s. — Ed.
10. The Co7idition of the Workinff Class in England in Wi/i/hy Friedrich Engels, translated
by Florence K. Wischnewetsky, who later assumed her maiden name of Florence Kelley and wag
a well-known social worker in America. — Ed.
11. Metternich (1773-18.59). — Chancellor of the Austrian empire and acknowledged leader
of the European reaction. Guizot (1787-1874) was the French intellectual protagonist of high
finance and of the industrial bourgeoisie and the irreconcilable foe of the proletariat. The
French Radicals, Marrast (1802-1852), Carnot (1801-1888), and Marie (1795-1870) waged
polemic warfare against the Socialists and Communists. — Ed.
12. By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social
production and emploj'ers of wage-labour ; by proletariat, the class of modern wage-labourers
who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power
m order to live.
13. That is, aU written history. In 1837, the pre-history of society, the social organisation
existing previous to recorded history, was all but unknown. Since then Haxthausen [August
Footnotes continued on p. 20.
20
UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
von, 1792-1866] discovered common ownership of land in Russia, Maurer [Georg Ludwig vonj
proved it to be tlie social foundation from which all Teutonic races started in history, and,
by and by, village communities were found to be, or to have been, the primitive form of society
everywhere from India to Ireland. The inner organisation of this primitive communistic
society was laid bare, in its typical form, by Morgan's [Lewis H., 1818-1881] crowning dis-
covery of the true nature of the gens and its relation to the tribe. With the dissolution of
these primaeval communities, society begins to be differentiated into separate and finally
antagonistic classes. I have attempted to retrace this process of dissolution in The Origin
of the Family, Private ProjKrtii and the State.
14. Guild-master, that is a full member of a guild, a master within, not a head of a guild.
15. Chartered burghers were freemen who had been admitted to the privileges of a chartered
borough thus possessing full political rights. — Ed.
16. Craft guilds, made up of exclusive and privileged groups of artisans were, during the
feudal period, granted monopoly rights to markets by municipal authorities. The guilds
imposed minute regulations on their members controlling such matters as working hours,
wages, prices, tools and the hiring of workers. — Ed.
17. "Commune" was the name taken in France by the nascent towns even before they had
conyuered from their feudal lords and masters local self-government and political rights as
the 'Third Estate." Generally speaking, for the economic development of t'le bourgeoisie,
England is here taken as the typical country, for its political development. Prance.
18. The lO-IIour Bill, for which the English workers had beeu fighting for 30 years, was
made a law in 1847. — Ed
19. In July, 1830, the Parisians rose in revolt against Charles X. The elder branch of the
Bourbiin faniily was driven out, and Louis Philippe, of the younger or Orleans branch, became
••King of the French." — Ed.
20. Not the English Restoration, 1660 to 1689, but the French Restoration. 1814 to 1830.
21. The French legitimists favoured the claims of the elder branch of the Bourbon family,
fts against the Orlcanists, the younger branch. — Ed.
22. "Young England" included a group of philanthropic tories and youthful sprigs of the
British and Irish aristocracy, who strongly opposed industrial capitalism and wished to restore
feudalism. — Ed.
23. This applies chiefly to Germany where the landed aristocracy and squirearchy have large
portions of their estates cultivated for their own account by stewards, aiid are, moreover,
extensive beetroot-sugar manufacturers and distillers of potato spirits. The wealthier British
aristocrats are. as yet, rather above that : but they, too, know how to make up for declining
rents by hnding their names to floaters of more or less shady joint-stock companies.
24. Jean Tharles Leonard (Simonde) Sismondi (1773-1842). — French historian and
economist.- — Ed.
25. Francois Noel Babeuf (1764-1797). — A radical republican (Jacobin) in the Great French
Revolution who was guillotined for plotting a revolution aiming at the overthrow of the
bourgeois state and the creation of a Communist state. — Ed.
26. Claude Henri de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (1760-1825). — French Utopian Socialist who saw
the labour question as the prime social question of the future and proposed as a solution the
organisation of production by "association." — Ed.
27. Phalan.sicres were socialist colonies on the plan of Charles Fourier ; Icaria was the
name given by Cabet to his Utopia and, later on, to his American Communist colony.
28. Chartism lasted as a more or less organised radical political movement of the British
workers from 1837 to 1848. The People's Charier, for which the Chartists fought, demanded
an immediate improvement in the workers' conditions as well as legislative reforms. — Ed.
29. Reference is made to the leaders of "Young America" who, during the struggle of the
New York farmers against high rents, demanded the nationalisation of the land and limitation
of farms to 160 acres. After a few paltry reforms had been obtained in the field of agrarian
legislation, tl e movement petered out. — Ed.
HO. The party then represented in Parliament by Ledru-Rollin, in literature by Louis Blanc
[1811-1882], in the daily press by the Reforms. The name of Social-Democracy signifies, with
these its inventors, a section of the Democratic or Republican Party more or less tinged with
Socialism.
Exhibit No. 2
[Source : The Communist, a magazine of the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism,
published monthly by the Communist Party of the United States of America. Decem-
ber, 1933, Vol. XII, No. 12, pages 1169-1178]
The Communist Manifesto — A Programmatic Document of the Dictatorship
OF the Proletarlvt ^
By O. Kuusinen
The Communist Manifesto is the great charter of the international Communist
movement.
Eight.y-five years ago the Communist Manifesto enunciated for the first time
in the form of a complete theoretical and practical program, the Marxian world
outlook — dialectic materialism, the teaching on the class struggle, on the world-
wide historical role of the proletariat and of its Communist vanguard. It pointed
the way to the victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie and the transition
from capitalism to a Communist society. It charted the basic programmatic
demands and the main lines of strategy and tactics of the Communist Party.
^ Translated from The Bolshevik (Politico-Economic Fortnightlv Organ of the Com-
munist Party of the Soviet Union), Issue No. 6 of March 31st, 1933.
APPENDIX, PART 1 21
This was a mighty revolutionary call to struggle, which has lost none of its
compelling rcYOlutionary force even today. Millions of woikers of all countries
derived from this Manifesto the very force which awakened in them the revolu-
tionary class consciousness. New millions will read it and study it in order
that they may unite, pursuant to its call, for revolutionary class struggle. His-
tory from the time of the appearance of the Communist Manifesto has brilliantly
confirmed the firm theses of ]\Iarx. And even now the Manifesto stands im-
mutably, like an unfailing beacon, as a living, and in its main lines actual, pro-
gram of the international Communist movement. Its historical sequel is the
program of the Communist International.
THE BIRTH OF SCIENTIFIC COMMUNISM
Wherein lies the inexhaustible revolutionary strength of the Communist
Manifesto?
We quote from the Manifesto itself :
"The theories of the Communists are not in any way based upon ideas
or principles discovered or established by this or that universal reformer.
"They serve merely to express in general terms the concrete circumstances
of an actually existing class struggle, of a historical movement that is going
on under our very eyes. The abolition of pre-existent property relations is
not a process exclusively characteristic of Communism."
We quote further :
"It is customary to speak of ideas which revolutionize a whole society.
This is only another way of saying that the elements of a new society have
formed within the old one ; that the break-up of the old ideas has kept pace
with the break-up of the old social relations."
These words reveal the secret of the birth and vitality of the Communist
Manifesto itself. The teaching of Marx, already revealed in the Manifesto in
its main lines, was itself a product of the antagonistic productive relations of
capitalist society ; was a realization of the position of the proletariat and its his-
toric mission and "a general expression of actual relations within the existing
class struggle''.
The flaming words of each and every line of the Communist Manifesto clearly
indicate that the system of ideas contained in the Mayiifesto was born in the
fire of revolutionary struggle. It was growing up, in the first place, in the
incandescent atmosphere of the European revolutionary class battles of the
forties of last century and, in the second place, directly out of the ideological
and practical struggle which Marx and Engels led in the years 1843-1847.
In their ideological struggle Marx and Engels based themselves on the best
that the nineteenth century had created. As Lenin and Engels pointed out, the
three sources and component parts of Marxism were: Classical German philoso-
phy, classical English political economy, and French socialism along with the
French revolutionary teachings in general.
The greatest exponents of these three ideological currents were Hegel, Ricardo
and the great Utopians. In his own realm each of them built up a complete
thoretical system, which Vv^as not capable of further development along the lines
of its original basic principles. Meanwhile Marx actually continued, completed
and merged into one solid system these ideological currents. That was possible
only by means of a critical recreation of their underlying principles. Marx
carried furtlier Hegel's dialectics, first having turned it upside down, tliat is
formulating the dialetic development of material reality in place of the eternal
self-propulsion of a mystical "idea." Marx carried further Adam Smith's and
Ricardo's theory of value, revealing at the same time the fetishism of economic
categories, and thus bringing them down from the realm of "eternal laws of
nature", as they were pictured by the bourgeois economists, to a mere expression
of social production relations, which are historically conditioned and transitory.
In the same manner Marx carried further the socialism of St. Simon, Fourier,
and Robert Owen, first taking it down from the sphere of Utopian ideas and
'''brain product" projects of a new society, to the solid ground of historic reality
as an expression and program of the class struggle of the proletariat.
Thus were demolished the "eternal ideas" of all these three basic domains
of ideology, behind which were incarcerated as behind bars, the living elements
of a new world outlook.
Along with this struggle it was necessary to carry on another ideological
struggle in all the three domains. There was a "criticism of criticism", /. e..
22 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
in the first place a criticism of the left Hegelians, who were the critics of
Hegel, such as Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner, etc., and also a criticism of the
major shortcomings of Feuerbachian materialism; in the second place it was
a critism of the petty bourgeois critics of classic political economy, of the
economic theories of Proudhon, Sismondi, and others; and in the third place
it was a criticism of the petty socialist critics of the great Utopians, the English
and the Germnu ("true") socialists.
Only now are we in a position to restore the full picture of that fierce
ideological struggle, which jMarx and Engels waged during the decisive period
of the formation of the Marxian system. This became po.ssible after such
precious manuscripts as the Philosophical Economic Essays by Marx and the
full edition of the German Idcoloyji by Marx and Engels, hitherto concealed by
the leaders of the German Social-Democracy, became public property once again.
What were the results of the ideological stri;ggle of Marx and Engels?
The Marxian critique of philosophy and of historiography gave rise to dia-
lectical materialism and particularly to the materialist conception of the history
of mankind.
The critique of political economy gave rise to the Marxian theory of surplus
value and to all the ensuing laws of the development of contradictions within
capitalism and of its resulting breakdown. All these laws are treated sys-
tematically and in detail in Capital.
The critique of Utopian socialism gave rise to Marxian Communism, which
firmly links up the scientific conception of the dialectic transition from capital-
ism to socialism and Communism with the class struggle and with the consequent
revolutionary practice of "'changing the face of the world". From Utopian
socialism there emerged INIarxian Communism, which changes science into revolu-
tionary politics, and that politics into science.
Lenin, who miderstood the theory of Marx more deeply than anyone else,
emphasized with particular vigor that that theory combines strict scientific
properties of the highest type (it being the culmination of social science)
with revolutionary properties ; that their synthesis is not accidental ; that it is
not a result of the author's combining in his personality . the qualities of a
scientist and a revolutionary ; but that this synthesis is contained within the
theory innately and indivisibly.
In concise form the Communist Manifesto dwells upon many vast domains
of the teachings of Marx. First of all the Manifesto affords a brilliantly
clear miderstanding of the materialistic conception of history. The entire history
of maidvind from the inception of class society till the appearance of the
socialist society unfolds before the reader from a uniform scientific ix)int of
view, as a history of the struggle of classes which develops on the basis of
changing modes of production and of inner contradictions inherent in the pro-
duction relations which are based on exploitation.
Two important component parts of the Marxian teachings find little expres-
sion in the Communist Manifesto.
First — his philosophical theory of cognition (gnoseology). Of course, the
materialistic-philosophical conception of the sources and principles of knowledge
forms the very base of all the theses of the Manifesto, but that conception is
not treated in the Manifesto in a direct manner. It is formi;lated in part in
the earlier philosophical works of INIarx and Engels {The Hohi Family, The
Oerman Ideology) partly in the later works of Engels {Anti-Duehring, The
Dialectics of Nature, and Ludivig FeuerMch) and also in Lenin's Materialism,
and Enipirio-Criticism.
Second — the mature form of the Marxian theory of surplus value is not yet
contained in the Communist Manifesto. However, the most important postu-
lates which he used in subsequently developing his theory of surplus value are
already to be found in there. They are :
1. That the capitalist system is a system of wage slavery ; the workers "are
the slaves of the bourgeois class", "who can exist only as long as they find
work, and who can find work only as long as their labor increases capital".
2. " . . . These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a com-
modity, like every other article of commerce ..." is stated in the Cotnynnnist
Manifesto. According to a later formulation of Marx, workers sell their labor
power as a commodity, but it also means that they sell "their own skin". For
the commodity labor power exists only "in the person of the laborer", "only
as the faculty of a living individual" (Capital).
3. According to the Communist Manifesto "the cost of production of a worker
amounts to little more than the cost of the means of subsistence he requires for
his upkeep and for the propagation of his race".
APPENDIX, PART 1 23
4. The gituation of the workers luirter capitalism is becoming increasingly
worse, as the productivity of their labor increases ; this worsening manifests itself
partly in a lowered wage or a lengthened working day, partly in an increased
intensification of labor, oppression at work, etc.
Marx, it is true, still employs in the Communist Manifesto the old and incorrect
terra, "the price of labor" (in place of, "value and price of labor pov.'er") not at
all, however, in the bourgeois meaning, according to which the term implies that
the worker receives full payment (is fully compensated) for the labor he per-
forms. No. according to the Communist Manifesto, the workers selling them-
selves piecemeal, get in the form of wages much less than the sum total of values
Avliich their labor creat-es. The growth of capital is accomplished in no other
way than by exploitation. But the Manifesto does not contain the clear explana-
tion, subsequently developed by Marx, of this exploitation, by way of distinction
l,etween "necessary labor" and "surplus labor" (or "unpaid labor"), which creates
surplus value. Only these theoretically highly important definitions made pos-
sible a clear and consistent analysis of the capitalist process of production, but
they changed in no way the basic conception formulated in the Communist Mani-
festo. On the contrary, that conception was only strengthened and deepened
in all its essential parts.
Afterwards, in a number of other basic questions, Marx fundamentally com-
pleted and developed the theses expounded in the Communist Manifesto, particu-
larlv the problem of the dietatorship of tlie proletariat. Aside from that, the
remarks contained in Section IV of the Communist Manifesto about the position
of the Communists in relation to the various existing opposition parties, as it was
pointed out by Marx and Engels themselves already in 1872, are, of course, histori-
cally antiquated in their concrete form, although "fundamentally they are correct
to this day".
The subsequent development of the ideas proclaimed for the first time in the
Communist Manifesto and the evolution of Marxism into Mar.Tism-Leninism
cannot be understood without taking into consideration the basic character of
the new epoch in particular and especially the greatest triumph of these ideals :
their aceomplislihnient in practice, the building of socialism on one-sixth of the
face of the earth.
A new edition of the Communist Manifesto entitles the reader to expect at
lea.st a most elementary characterization of the main phases of this development
and of the actual realization of ^larxism in our own time. Therefore, we will
discuss the matter briefly in the following lines, starting with the basic postulates
of the Communist Manifesto and. alongside with it, subjecting to a critical
analysis the main principles of social-democracy.
THE EPOCH OF IMPERIALISM ANI> THE BEX5INNING OF THE STRUGGT-E OF BOLSHEVISM
AGAINST THE OPPORTUNISM OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL
The Communist Manifesto states that "the bourgeoisie has centralized the
means of production and has concentrated property in few hands". However,
this capitalist centralization and concentration, as well a.^ the "constant changes
of modes of production" were destined to attain truly gigantic proportions. Sub-
sequently Marx gave in his main work a thorough analysis of the accumulation
of capital and of the general law governing the same.
But neither Marx nor Engels lived to the time of the last phase of capitalism,
during which the concentration of production and the centralization of capital
assumed the form of cartels and of trustification of entire ma.ior branches of pro-
duction ; when the .sway of free competition and of industrial capital turned into
the domination of the monopolistie finance capital, which domination, however,
Is imable to eliminate free competition.
In the past, according to the Comniuni.9t 'Manifesto, "the cheap prices of com-
modities were the heavy artillery with which the bourgeoisie battered down all
Chinese walls". At present, however, monopoly prices are becoming the heavy
artillery of the large scale bourgeoisie in its fight for surplus value the world
over.
In the past "the need of a constantly expanding market for its products drove
the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe". At present the decisive
role in this chase is relegated to finance capital. There has begun the division of
the world among the international trusts into spheres of influence.
While in the past the bourgeoisie of the most developed countries already ex-
ploited many a "barbarian nation", pushing them on at the same time along the
path of "so-called civilization", now, however, the entire territory of the globe is
24 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
divided up among the great powers and the practice of pitiless exploitation and
enslavement of colonial and semi-colonial peoples has assumed the form of a
system. There has been launched a fierce struggle for the redivisiou of the
already divided world.
This very division of the whole world, which ended on the threshold of the
new century, is, along with the stormy development of monopolistic capital,
a turning point to a new epoch — the epoch of imperialism.
As a whole, capitalism, which developed until then along an ascending line
of progress, began to show signs of decay. Lenin defined this last phase of
capitalism as the phase of decayvng and dying capitalism : not, however, in the
sense that capitalism is dying off automatically but in the sense of "a transition
of capitalism into socialism". "Monopoly, growing out of capitalism, already
represents the dying of capitalism — the beginning of its transition into social-
ism. In the first place — the gigantic socialization of labor by imperialism
. . . denotes the very same thing. In the second place — imperialism intensifies
the contradictions of capitalism to the highest degree and carries them to a
limit beyond which revolution begin.s". (Stalin)
But the Second International did not see the matter in this light. It
embarked in theory, as well as in practice, on the path of opportunistic adap-
tation to the conditions and requirements of decaying capitalism, of imperi-
alism.
Marx and Engels waged a constant straggle against opportunism, which
already began to raise its head during their lifetime not only among the
socialists of the Anglo-Saxon countries, but even among the leaders of the
German Social-Democracy. The latter were "farsighted" enough to conceal
from the public (up till 1932!) the letters of Marx and Engels, in which their
opportunistic tendencies were subjected to criticism.^
Engels, full of indignation at the opportunism of the German Social-
Democracy, wrote to Wilhelm Liebknecht the following, as early as 1885 :
"Is it possible that the chapter [in the Communist Manifesto — K.] on
German or true socialism is destined to become the burning question again
now after 40 years?"
And that is exactly what happened. To the extent that the development of
a privileged aristocracy of labor in the epocli of imperialism tended to create
a considerable social base for opportunism, to that extent the process of social
democracy turning bourgeois continued in full swing.
Then began the reckless revision of Marxism, and of the basic theses of
the CotuDiunist Manifesto in particular.
"The theory of pauperization is not true", was the cry of the social-democrats
identifying the position of the broad masses of proletarians with that of its
privileged strata. The Communist Manifesto if. wrong when it states that the
worker is only "an appendage of the machine", who is "daily and hourly
enslaved by the machine, by the overseer, and, above all, by the individual
bourgeois manufacturer himself". No, the worker of today is rather a free
partner of the industrialist. It is not true that "the worker has nothing to lose
but his chains", for the contemporary worker may even acquire a few shares of
stock, etc.
The imperialist bourgeoisie was interested in concocting petty-bourgeois illu-
sions to befuddle the workers and the social-democratic criers from the top
of the labor aristocracy were zealously carrying out the order. At first a
frontal attack against the Marxian theory was launched by the Bernsteinians
and by other revisionists ; then Kautsky and other "opponents of revisionism"
continued the attack in roundabout hidden ways by means of distorting, weak-
ening and emasculating Marxism in the name of its "orthodox interpretation".
The aristocracy of labor, bribed and corrupted by the imperialistic bour-
geoisie, was interested, not in preparing for the revolution, but in the
prosperity of capitalist production.
That is why the social-democratic theoreticians got busy first of all to
undermine the Marxian theory of the collapse of capitalism, and in particular
the basic thesis, as stated in the Communist Manifesto about "the revolt of
modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the
^Tvvo volumes of these letters, hitherto concealed by the social-democratic leaders, are
now published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute.
APPENDIX, PART 1 25
property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie
and of its rule".
The revolutionary theory of the unavoidable sharpening of the basic contra-
diction of capitalism was transformed into its direct antithesis, into an
apology for capitalism and for every step of the bourgeoisie, as long as it
could be interpreted as promoting the development of productive forces.
To impede the development of productive forces is, according to social-
democratic sophists, a reactionary step from the Marxian point of view, therefore,
the labor movement must refrain from any form of struggle which would be
likely to hamper the capitalistic industrial development. The fact that produc-
tion in certain industries is still capable of development within the framework
of capitalism, is supposed to prove according to Marx, that the time for social-
ism is still far off, etc. There was systematically spread the fatalistic viewpoint,
that the development of productive forces will bring about socialism of itself
some time in the distant future, not, of course, as a result of the breakdown
of capitalism, and of a violent revolution, but as a result of a gradual and
peaceful "growing into" socialism.
Thus was Marxism turned into labor liberalism under cover of pseudo-Marxian
phraseology. The upper crust of the Second International remained socialist
in words, bourgeois in deeds.
The practice of social-democracy was adapting itself even more fully and more
rapidly than its theory to the requirements of the imperialistic bourgeoisie.
The dominant political line of class collaboration of the pre-war social-democ-
racy in the leading capitalist countries manifested itself in the dullest parlia-
mentary cretinism and trade-union reformism (mainly in negotiations with
employers regardng wage scales). Parliament was to them the center of the
universe. Legal parliamentary democracy — their road to bliss. Parliamentary
diplomacy — their wisdom and virtue.
Everything said in the Communist Manifesto about the "conservative or
bourgeois socialism" and most of what is said there about the "German or 'true'
socialism"— all that strikes squarely in the face of the leading spirits of the
Second International, particularly during the period immediately preceding the
World War.
A consistent struggle against this opportunism and bourgeois socialism be-
came now the burning issue for all true Marxists within the international labor
movement and in every individual country. The task of solving this problem
was undertaken by Lenin — by Bolshevism. The struggle of Bolshevism against
Menshevism and against the Second International was from its very beginning a
struggle for the restoration of the true revolutionary Marxism both in theory
and in practice. It was a constant battle against various and sundry falsifiers
of Marxism. At the same time it signified a further development of Marxism
in accordance with the conditions of the new epoch.
While the ringleaders of the Second International were covering up the con-
tradictions of imperialism, Lenin was exposing those contradictions. He proved
the inevitable sharpening of the three basic contradictions of capitalsm in the
epoch of imperialism, namely: (a) between capital and labor, (b) between a
handful of exploiting nations and an overwhelming majority of exploited popu-
lations of colonial and dependent countries, (c) between various imperialist
powers and financial groups.
While the ringleaders of the Second International were busy painting the per-
spective of a uniform evolution of capitalism, Lenin demonstrated the accelera-
tion of its uneven development in the epoch of imperialism.
This uneven development is not an increase of differences in the level of
development of various capitalist countries. No, this inequality tends to di-
minish on the basis of such an eqtialization, as was shown by Comrade Stalin,
and the intensification of the action of such an unevenness of development in
the period of imperialism is quite possible. This unevenness does not consist
in "some countries overtaking others and then surpassing them economically
in due course, in an evolutionary way, so to say" as was the rule in the period
of pre-monopoly capital. No,
". . . the law of the unevenness of development in the period of imperial-
ism denotes a spasmodic development of some countries with relation to
others ; a rapid displacement from the world markets of some countries by
others; periodic redivisions of the already divided world by means of mili-
tary clashes and military catastrophies ; a. deepening and sharpening of
26 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
conflicts in the camp of imperialism ; a weakening of the front of the world
capitalism with a consequent possibility of breaking through that front
by proletarians of individnal countries and the possibility of the victory of
socialism in individtial countries." (Stalin)
(To be continued)
Exhibit No. 3
[Somce : The Communist, a magazine of the tlieory and practice of Marxism-Leninism,
published monthly by the Communist Party of the United States of America. February,
1934, Vol. XIII, No. 2, pages 193-206]
The Communist Manifesto — A Progeammatic Docxtment of the Dictatorship
OF the Peoletakiat
(By O. Kuusinen)
(Continued from December issue)
The problem of the attitude to imperialism, with the steadily growing tenseness
of the international situation, forced itself with ever greater persistence as the
burning question of the day before every workers' party. Lenin gave a very
clear diagnosis of the positions of the social classes in relation to this question :
"The proletariat is struggling for the revolutionary overthrow of the im-
perialist bourgeoisie, while the petty bourgeoisie is struggling for a reformistie
'perfection' of imperialism, for adapting itself to it, while being subservient
to it."
The right social-democrats, such as Cunow, acted as open social-imperialists,
but, of course, they too made use of pseudo-Marxian sophistry to justify their
policy. '"Cunow", writes Lenin, "argues clumsily and cynically: Imperialism is
contemporary capitalism ; but the development of capitalism is both inevitable and
progressive ; hence imperialism is progressive ; hence, we must cringe before
imperialism and glorify it."
Centrists, such as Kautsky, strove particularly to cover up the contradictions
of imperialism. Imperialism, generally speaking, is not a new phase of capitalism,
according to Kautsky, but an unreasonable policy of expansion on the part of
industrial nations. Instead of this imp'jrialistic policy the bourgeoisie could
carry through with equal and even greater success a different and much wiser
policy of expansion, "The tendencies of capital to expand," wrote Kaut.sky literally,
"can be realized best of all not by the violent methods of imperialism, but by
peaceful democracy."
And he was deceiving the workers with illusions of permanently peaceful "ultra-
imperialism".
''There tmll he no more crises T, announced the professors of economics, them-
selves hirelings of the cartels ; and the chorus of social-democratic theoreticians
would joyously take up the refrain: "Yes, no more; the cartels are in a position
to eliminate crises". And only the crises themselves were rudely destroying the
harmony of the soloists and the chorus : the crisis of 1000 in Germany and in
Russia ; the crisis of 1903 in the United States ; the crisis of 19()7 again in the
United Stales, and in some other countries.
Each crisis confirmed the theory of crises of Marx and Lenin. Each crisis was
a reminder of what had been foretold in the Communist Manifesto:
"How does the bourgeoisie overcome these crises? On the one hand by the
compulsory annihilation of a quantity of the productive forces ; on the other,
by the conquest of new markets and the more thorough exploitation of old
ones. With what results? The results are that the way is paved for more
wide-spread and more disastrous crises and that tlie capacity for averting
such crises is lessened."
"There will be no more wars!", proclaimed the cabinet ministers who managed
the affairs of the financial oligarchy; and a chorus of petty bourgeois Kautskyists
would take up the tune : "Yes, no more ! Finance capital together with the wise
governments will somehow eliminate the war danger through the 'Peaceful
Democracy' of a perfected imperialism."
APPENDIX, PART 1 27
But wars themselves were destroying without any ceremony this delightful
harmony: the Spanish-American war of 1898; the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902;
the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905; the Balkan wars of 1912-1913; and finally
the imperialist World War of 1914-1918.
Each war loudly proclaimed that Kautsky's theory of harmony is nothing more
than a delusion of the masses, that Lenin is perfectly correct in insisting that
imperialism leads unavoidably to bandit wars for the purpose of a new redivision
of colonies and of other spheres of exploitation, to violent clashes among the
biggest imperialist powers for world hegemony; and that peace agreements be-
tween imperialist powers are merely respites between wars and preparations for
new ones.
The struggle of Bolshevism against international Menshevisra was concentrated
primarily around three great problems of the international movement, which
remain to this day in the center of daily struggles : 1. The question of the party.
2. The attitude towards imperialist war. 8. The dictatorship of the proletariat.
In the solution of each of these problems Lenin was able to find much direct
support in the Communist Manifesto.
THE PROBLEM OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
The epoch of imperialism is an epoch of open clashes between classes, of
direct preparations by the working class for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie,
and of proletarian revolutions. Such an epoch places the working class face to
face with historic problems of great importance, with problem.s which it cannot
solve without the leadership of a truly revolutionary Communist party.
The CmummriHt Manifesto came to life in a period already fraught with revo-
lutionary class struggles. Already at that time Marx and Engels understood
the urgent need for a highly class-conscious party, in order that "the proletariat
may be sufficiently strong to win during the decisive days". They wrote the
Communist Manifesto as a theoretical and practical "party program". It was
actually named Tho Manifesto of the Communist Party {Comnmnist Manifesto
is merely an abbreviation).
At the same time Marx and Engels were busy organizing the Communist
Party. For several years they were busy recruiting adherents in France, Bel-
gium. Germany, and" England, uniting them into party groups, educating and
instructing them in accordance with the unfolding of events. In 1847, they
reorganized the international "League of the Just", originally founded by
German emigres, into the "League of Communists", and took upon themselves
the task of its political leadership.
The conscious Conimunists of that time constituted a small group, while
major revolutionary battles were in the offing. Could the Comnuuiists then
hope to be able to organize the working class In that short period and to rally
them around their program to such an extent that the Communist Party should
be able to supplant major proletarian mass organizations, such as the Chartist
movement in England? No. The political development of the masses of
workers was inadequate for such a task. Had the Communists taken such a
course, they would have merely isolated themselves without having aided the
development of the revolutionary movement.
Marx and Engels were absolutely against such a sectarian approach. Their
line of action consisted of the following: To start by building a unified Com-
munist Party, led by a single Central Committee, out of these Communist groups
already organized by them in a few co\ui tries, and out of the local organizations
of the "Union". The reorganized "League of Communists" was to become that
Communist Party, which was to be an international party. Each country was
to be divided into a certain number of districts and all districts of a given
country were 1o be subordinated to its national center. This party, which
under the prevailing coiiditlons could everywhere maintain but an illegal exist-
ence, and which was as yet numerically very weak, was not to endeavor arti-
ficially to shape in accordance with academically worked out "special prin-
ciples" those labor mass organizations which were being formed in different
counti'ies. This v/as the way Marx and Engels approached the problem in 1847:
the "League of Communists" will not put itself in opposition to other working
class parties, v.iiich may arise in various forms depending upon the concrete
circumstances, but will rather direct them forward along the road of revolu-
tionary class struggle through the work of its members within these parties.
This first bold attempt to build a Communist Party failed as a result of the
defeat of the revolutionary movement of 1848-9 and of the ensuing reaction.
28 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
and was pushed to the background for a long time. With the founding of the
First International (1864) the task was not to organize actual Communist
parties, but rather "to unite into one great army all the fighting forces of
Europe and America". This International, therefore, could not base itself
upon the principles expounded in the Manifesto. It had "to adopt a program
that v/ould leave the door open to the English trade-iinionists ; to the French,
Belgian, Italian, Spanish Proudhonists ; and the German Lassalleans" (Engels).
But during the period of the First International, as well as later, Marx and
Engels were doing everything possible to educate the socialist parties of the
various countries in the spirit of uncompromising class struggle as well as in
the spirit of the Con.nnunist program. Thus, the First International was
organizationally the great forerunner and prototype of the Communist
International.
However, the objective conditions immediately after the collapse of the First
International did not favor the building of Communist parties. On the con-
trary, there followed a prolonged period of more or less peaceful development,
when the immediate task called for rather slow organizational and propaganda
efforts. It is well known that during all these stages of the lai^or movement,
Marx and Engels conducted a systematic struggle against bourgeois and petty-
bourgeois influences upon the labor movement, both against the so-called "con-
servative socialism" and anarchism. But the development of the Western
European movement, particularly since the founding of the Second Interna-
tional, while growing broadly, was directed ever more one-sidedly along the
path of social-democratic parliamentarism.
With the advent of the epoch of imperialism, problems quite different from
parliamentary ones began pressing for solution. Large scale revolutionary
struggles were looming once again, the same as at the end of the forties, hence
again the possibility and necessity of a genxTine Communist Party.
The new epoch placed before the proletariat new tasks, namely:
"The rebuilding of the entire Party work along new revolutionary lines;
the education of the workers in tlie spirit of revolutionary struggle for
power ; preparation and consolidation of reserves ; union with proletarians
of neighboring countries ; establishing of solid and enduring contacts with
the movements for liberation in the colonies and dependent countries ; etc.,
etc. To think that the forces of the old social-democratic parties, trained in
the peaceful ways of parliamentarism, will be able to solve all these prob-
lems is to doom oneself to hopeless despair and to an unavoidable defeat."
(Stalin)
The typical parties of the Second International, of the character of which
we have already spoken, were poles apart from that type of party which would
correspond to the revolutionary workers' party conceived by Marx.
In the first place, they were not the conscious vanguard of the working class.
The Communist Manifesto, speaking of Communists, presents them as the
actual vanguard of the proletariat :
"Thus, in actual practice. Communists form the most resolute and per-
sistently progressive section of the working class parties of all lands
whilst, as fur as theory is concerned, being in advance of the general
mass of the proletariat, they have come to understand the determinants
of the proletarian movement and how to forsee its course and its gen-
eral results."
But the social-democratic parties enjoyed neither of these two advantages.
There were no lines of demarcation between the party and the class and fre-
quently not even between the party and the mass movement of the petty
bourgeoisie. In general, it was not even considered necessary to raise the
question about these dividing lines, until Lenin raised that issue in the Russian
movement.
The attitude of social-democratic parties to the masses at that time was
one of "tailism". Even the left social-democrats were completely off the track in
this respect with their theory of spontaneity, by failing to understand the leading
role of the party. The entire structure of the Communist Manifesto cannot
be reconciled with either tailism or sectarianism. Communists must not iso-
late themselves from the masses, neither must they reduce tliemselves to the
level of the non-class-conscious masses ; they must rather educate the masses
and lift them to the level of the vanguard. They must not place themselves
APPENDIX, PART 1 29
in opposition to mass movements of the workers; on the contrary, they must
participate in all these movements, they mnst fight in the front line and must
guide the movement towards the historical aims of the working class.
"Communists fight on behalf of the immediate aims and interests of the
working class, but in the present movement they are also defending the
future of the movement."
Such is the setting of the Communist Manifesto.
In the second place, social-democratic parties v»-ere not the organized van-
guard of the working class. INIany of these parties were a conglomerate, based
not on an individual membership, but on a collective one. Instead of a con-
stant centralized leadership of the party organization by its higher and lower
organs, there appeared in these parties, just as in a bourgeois state, a deep-
seated duality ; a rift between the bureaucracy and a passive membership.
Their main political organization was not the party but its parliamentary
fraction. Party discipline counted for nothing.
The "League of Communists", after its reorganization by Marx and Engels,
was a totally different type of party. In accordance with' the statutes of the
"League of Communists", signed by Engels in the capacity of secretary, each
member of the League had to subscribe to the following conditions : "faith in
the tenents of Communism" ; adherence to the rules and regulations of the
"League" ; admission by unanimous vote to a lower party unit ; and, aside from
that, "a revolutionary energy and zeal in propaganda work". And it was
underscored that, "He who ceases to conform to these conditions is to be ex-
pelled." In general, on the one hand, these statutes are a prototype of the stat-
utes of a present-day undergroimd Communist Party, and, on the other hand, the
prototype of the Statutes of the Communist International.
In the third place, a typical social-democratic party was not a leading organi-
zation with respect to trade unions and other proletarian mass organizations.
Even where the trade unions were collectively afiiliated with the party, they
were considered independent of it. Neither the party nor the trade unions
entertained any desire that the party members inside the trade unions should
make an effort, under the direction of the party, to insure unity of political
line in the decisions of the trade unions. On the contrary, there prevailed the
conception of "independence" and "neutrality" of the non-parti.san organizations,
a conception — "breeding independent parliamentarians and activists of the
press, torn away from the party ; breeding narrow-minded professionals and
petty-bourgeoisified co-operators" (Stalin).
The Commitnist Manifesto contains no directives that might be applied
straight to the problem of the i-elationship between the party and the trade
unions, which, as mass organizations, were as yet non-existent at that time.
There was, howevei-, a mass labor party in England, the Charist movement,
and Marx assumed then, that similar revolutionary movements of parties may
appear in other countries, too. To such labor parties are applied the following
words of the Communist Manifesto:
"The Communists do not form a separate party conflicting with other
working-class parties."
This, however, did not mean that in general the Communists must not form
their own party. No, this phrase may be correctly understood taking in con-
sideration the conditions under which the "League of Communists" was working,
and of which we already spoke at the beginning of this article. This phrase
means that, in individual countries, the Communists were not suppo.sed to put
their pai-ty in opposition to such revolutionary working-class parties as the
Chartist movement, but to enter such mass organizations and to work in their
ranks as "the most resolute section of the working-class parties, that section
which pushes forward all others."
In 1920 Lenin recommended similar tactics, though in different circum-
stances, to the English Communists with regard to the Labor Party of England,
at the time when the latter did not yet forliid the Communists to conduct unre-
strained agitational work in its ranks. It is, however, much more important
that Lenin insisted from the very beginning of the imperialist epoch upon the
work of Party members in the ranks of non-Party mass organizations along
directives from Party organizations in order to bring about the realization
of a political guidance by the Party of all other forms of organizations of the
proletariat. Lenin taught that the Party is the highest form of class unity of
proletarians.
30 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIP^S
In the fourth place, the social-democratic parties were not the means for
attaining the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
It is stated in the Manifesto that the "immediate ohjective" of a Communist,
as well as of "all other proletarian parties" (i. e., parties similar to the Chartist
organization in England) is:
"Organization of the proletariat on a class basis ; destruction of bourgeois
supremacy ; conquest of political power by the proletariat."
The epoch of imperialism made this basic problem a burning issue of the
day. It was necessary to proceed immediately with the task of training the
working class for struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. But the
social-democratic parties had turned into a tool for the preservation of the
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
"Hence the urgent need for a new party, a fighting party, a revolutionary
party; a party sufficiently daring to lead the proletarians into struggle for
l^ower ; a party experienced enough to oi'ieutate itself under the complex
conditions of a revolutionary situation and flexible eno\igh to avoid all
and sundry pitfalls on the road to its goal." (Stalin)
Marx took into consideration the lessons of the Paris Commune in dealing
with the problems of the Party. This found a clear expression in the resolu-
tion of the London Conference of delegates of the First International (Septem-
ber, 1871) where it was emphasized that it was necessary "to form the prole-
tariat into a political party in order to insure the victory of the social revolu-
tion and of its highest goal — the abolition of classes". Here the idea is
already given for the teachings of Lenin on the Party as a weapon in the
hands of the proletariat for consolidating and broadening the dictatorship after
having wrested power.
In the fifth place, the parties of the Second International of that period
did not represent a unity of will. Their doors were wide open for all sorts
of ideological quacks, priests and political careerists. The very name of the
party ("Social-Democratic") was utilized for that purpose, a name first adopted
in Germany despite Marx's strongest objections to it. The program of the
party and the resolutions of congresses were looked upon as mere propaganda
literature implying no obligations upon either the leadership or the membership
of the party. The example afforded by the "League of Communists" was wholly
forgotten. In line with the traditions of bourgeois liberalism, there prevailed
in the ranks of the social-democratic party a free competition of the most
diversified currents of thought, of groups, and of fractions. And they never
even imagined that it ought to be otherwise until I^enin demanded some-
thing entirely different — a monolithic party, which "knows how to conduct its
affairs and is not afraid of difficulties" (Stalin) ; which sets a firm line of
action in accordance with the changes of the situation and then actually carries
out that line ; which fights everywhere as an entity for an identical platform ;
which is capable of mass struggles, is trained for such struggles and can, there-
fore, maintain an iron discipline within its ranks.
Was there a practical possibility of creating such a truly revolutionary
Marxian party under the conditions of the labor movement of those (the pre-
war) days? Yes, there was, but only along one road. Engels expressed it
back in 188.5, when he wrote to Wilhelm Liebknecht about the social-democratic
party of Germany :
"The petty-bourgeois element within the party is gaining the upper hand
ever more and more. If this will continue, you may rest assured that there
will be a split in the ranks of the party."
A split of the social-democracy — such is the road. There was actually no
other way ahead under the conditions of those days. The Bolsheivks, under the
leadersship of Lenin, were not afraid to proceed along that road (in 1903).
Without its struggle against Menshevism, the Party could not have been trained
for the solution of the impending historical tasks. And that became possible
only because Lenin put the question of that struggle squarely without retreat-
ing even before an imminent split.
In many countries there were left elements in the ranks of the social-demo-
cratic parties. Almost nowhere did they follow the example of the P>olsheviks
during the pre-war days. Their struggles against opportunism were half-
hearted. They themselves were partly infected with opportunism which bios-
APPENDIX, PART 1 31
somed out Inxnriantly within the Second International. The German Lefts
were also guilty of the same fault.
The Centrists were the main champions of unity within the old social-
democratic parties, resolutely fighting against tendencies toward a split.
Therein lies one of the greatest evils of centrism.
Even the lefts failed to understand that ''the party is strengthened by cleans-
inn itself from opportunistic elements'' (Stalin). This premise is also one of
the very basic features of the Leninist Party. The Centrists viewed the
strengthening of the Party exclusively from the point of view of electoral
chances. Nor were the lefts free from that one-sidedness.
We have formulated the problem of the Party in the above discussion from
the viewpoint of Comrade Stalin's six basic points, which he formulated, in
his lectures on the foundations of Leninism, as features peculiar to the Party
of Lenin : and with respect to almost every one of these points we were able
to establish the presence, both in the Communist Manifesto as well as in the
"League of Communists", of definite roots of Lenin's teachings on the Party.
Exactly because of its loyalty to the principles of Marxism did the party of
Lenin, the C. P. S. U., become not merely a model for the revolutionary labor
parties of all countries, but also the leading vanguard of the international labor
movement.
The Bolsheviks are true internationalists. Theirs has always been the policy
of true Communists, as expressed in the Communist Manifesto.
"On the one hand, in the various national struggles of the proletarians,
they emphasize and champion the interests of the proletariat as a whole,
those proletarian interests that are independent of nationality ; and, on
the other hand, in the various pliases of evolution through which the strug-
gle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie passes, they always advo-
cate the interests of the movement as a whole."
Russian Bolshevism, thanks to its correct tactics and organization, which
were justified by the greatest successes and victories
". . . became a world-wide Bolshevism ; it brought forth the idea, the
theory, the program and the tactics which distinguish it concretely and
practically from social-chauvinism and social-pacifism. Bolshevism killed
the old, rotten International of the Scheidemanns and the Kautsky.s, of the
Renaudels and the Longuets, of the Hendersons and the MacDoualds. . . .
Bolshevism created the ideological and tactical bases of the Third Inter-
national — the truly proletarian and Communist International, which takes
into consideration both the conquests of the peaceful epoch and the expe-
riences of the revolutionary epoch into which we are entering."
Lenin wrote those words a few months before the constituent congress of the
Communist International. Ever since then the Communist International, under
the guidance of the C.P.S.U., grew up into a sturdy world Party of the revo-
lutionary proletariat. There is no country in the world without an organiza-
tion of the Communist International. The Comintern has already been tried
and tempered in countless fierce battles. To it belongs the future.
THE IMPERIALIST WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR TURNING IT
INTO A PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION
When the imperialist war broke out in August, 1914, all social-democratic
parties betrayed socialism openly. The Second International suffered an igno-
minious crash. Tlie majority of social-democratic leaders, parliamentarists, and
newspapers went over openly to the side of their respective governments. "The
Fatherland is in danger — all out to protect the Fatherland!" — such was the
slogan of the Russian. German, French, English and other social-chauvinists.
Such was the slogan in numerous fatherlands.
And what was proclaimed in the Communist Manifesto?
"The workers have no country. No one can take from them what they
they have not got.'"
The socialists have been repeating this truth from the Communist Mani-
festo thousands of times as their principle. And now? Today, when the
social-democratic parties find themselves face to face with the acid test of
history to determine whether or not they will practice what they preach, today
— a complete betrayal.
32 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
OhIij one party — ihe party of Lenin — fnZ/y passed this historiG test. In
other countries only left-wing groups conducted struggles against their respective
imperialist governments. The heroic struggle of Karl Liebknecht in Germany-
was particularly outstanding.
The Kautskyists in Germany, the Longuetists in France, the '-Independents"
in England, the Mensheviks — "internationalists"^ — in Russia, and other centrists
were playing the role of pacifists. In words they were not for war, and, just
like the right social-democrats, they were for universal peace. But in fact this
meant only one thing : the maintenance of peace with one's own government
engaged in war and wnth the openly chauvinistic social-democrats.
It is important even in these days not to forget the particular pacifistiG
sophistry of the n-artime eentrists (because history is sure to repeat itself in
one form or another). They were swearing and vowing, as Lenin said, that
they are Marxists and Internationalists, that they are for exerting every pnsible
"pressure" upon their governments for the cause of peace. They "condenuied"
the attack on Belgium by Germany, the war Russia was waging upon German
soil, the tendencies for annexation of territory exhibited by this or that gov-
ernment, the "start" of the war by this or that government, but they would not
hear or know of one thing: the class character of the imperialist irar.
They knew perfectly well that according to the Communist Manifesto, the
abolition of "exploitation of one nation by the other" is connected with the
abolition of "exploitation of one individual by the other" ; but they were loth
to derive therefrom the conclusion that is given in the Communist Manifesto:
"In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another comes to
an end, the exploitation of one nation by another will come to an end.
"The ending of class oppositions within tlie nations will end the mutual
hostility of the nations."
The centrist sopliists turned the question upside down : first, remove the
hostility between nations and then it will be possible to start thinking wliat is
to be done to remove class antagonisms.
Lenin explained to the workers that :
. ". . . the character of a war (be it a revolutionary or a reactionary one)
does not depend upon who was the aggressor nor upon tlie question of
whose territory is occupied by the 'enemy', but it depends upon the class
of society which wages that war and what policy is being promulgated
by that war. If that war is a reactionary, imperialistic one, waged by
two sets of imperialistic, oppressing, predatory and reactionary bourgeoisie
then every bourgeoisie (even of a small country) is turned into a partic-
ipant in this looting and it is my task, the task of a representative of the
revolutionary proletariat, to prepare the world proletarian revolution,
as the only salvation from the horrors of the world war."
And that was the true internationalism with respect to the war.
The Leninist party did not forget in this case what was so strongly empha-
sized by Marx in the Communist Manifesto:
"The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle
matters with its own boiu'geoisie."
The Bolsheviks were not afraid to come out for the defeat of their own
governments in the war. That is true of Karl Liebknecht. '"The m<iin enemy
is within one's own country," such is the correct principle for action by a
revolutionary workers' party. "Turning the imperialist tvar into a civil tofir,"
such is the correct slogan.
"Imperialism is the epoch of wars, but at the same time it is also the epoch
of proletarian revolutions," declared Lenin. The imperialist war showed that
the world bourgeoisie in this epoch can only hasten its downfall even with its
own monstrous crimes. Millions upon millions of men were sent by the imperi-
al!.«t boui'geoisie to the front to fight for its piratical policy, to figlit, to shed
their blood and to die. And what was the outcome? Was it merely senseless
destruction, as the pacifists claim? No. Was it merely rich spoils and
conquest for which the imperialists hoped? No. Only a few of the imperialists
have amassed a booty of other peoples' goods and lands. RussianCzarism broke
its neck. Austria-Hungary followed suit and German imperialism came out of
the Avar very much crippled. Such results were of doubtful benefit for the
APPENDIX, PART 1 33
cause of the world bourgeoisie. Ratlier the contrary — it was an acceleration
of the world proletarian revolution.
The war gathered all the contradictions of imperialism into one knot, wiMtes
Comrade Stalin, and "threw them imto the scales, thus hastening and facili-
tating the revolutionary battles of the proletariat. In other words, imperialism
brought about a situation which made the revolution not only a practical
necessity, but also created favorable conditions for a frontal attack upon the
very strongholds of capitalism."
A revolutionary situation was created on a European scale. The Bolsheviks
drew from it the true Marxian conclusion : since we are faced with a revolu-
tionary situation, we have to take up the question of revolution as a practical
problem. And they did. They did not wait for the revolution to break out
everywhere. Lenin said :
"To wait until the working class will accomplish the revolution on a
world scale iiuplies that we all congeal while waiting.
Russia was the focal point of imperialist contradictions.
". . . not only because these contradictions were particularly apparant in
Russia due to their particularly stupid and unbearable character; not only
because Russia was the most important mainstay of Western imperialism,
serving as the connecting link between the finance capital of the West and
the colonies of the East, but also due to the fact that only in Russia there
existed that particular and real power, which was able to solve the contra-
dictions of capitalism in a revolutionary way." (Stalin)
That power was the most revolutionary proletariat in the world, headed by the
party of Lenin, and having at its disposal such an important ally as the revolu-
tionary peasantry of Russia.
Objective conditions for a proletarian revolution were ripe and favorable in
many other European countries at the end of the imperialist war. But the
Centrist "also-Marxists" did not want a revolution against their governments.
They were afraid of a revolution. That is the crux of the matter. And because
of that did they embark upon inventing all sorts of "Marxist" sounding excuses
to justify their evasion of the revolution.
The Bolsheviks, however, with an eye to the final objective, were busily pre-
paring the proletariat of Russia for the revolution, and they led the proletariat
to victory and to power.
The great October Revolution has given the working class a fatherland, for
the first time in the history of mankind. It freed the workers and all the
oppressed nations of the former Russian Empire. It started a new era in the
world history — the era of world proletarian rerolution.
Soon after that, proletarian revolutions broke out in a number of countries,
where the proletariat seized power temporarily, but was unable to retain it.
And why? Because the labor parties at the head of the revolution were not
Bolshevist parties. This was the main reason for the defeat of the revolution
in Finland, for instance, and, some time later, in Bavaria and Hungary. Another
reason was that in 1918 the German bourgeoisie sent troops into Finland, into
the Baltic countries and into the Ukraine in order to strangle the revolution.
Not without reason did Karl Liebknecht and the Spartacides accuse the German
Social-Democracy of betrayal. In full agreement with this accvisation, Lenin
wrote :
"This accusation expresses a clear cognizance of the fact that the German
proletariat betrayed the Russian (and the international) revolution in
strangling Finland, the Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia. But this accusation is
directed first and foremost not against the masses, which are downtrodden
everywhere, but against those leaders, who, like Scheidemann and Kautsky,
failed in their duty of revolutionary agitation, revolutionary propaganda,
and revolutionary work among the masses to counteract their backwardness ;
who, as a matter of fact, acted contrary to the revolutionary instincts and
aspirations which are ever smoldering in the depths of the masses of an
oppressed class."
The revolution broke out in Germany in November, 1918. The German bour-
geoisie admitted the social-democratic parties to power. And it knew what it was
doing. The "Socialist" rulers— Ebert, Scheidemann, Noske, Haase, and Com-
pany — saved their bourgeoisie. Very skillfully they deceived, disorganized,
and broke up the revolutionary movement of the German working class. At
94931 — 40 — app., pt. 1 4
34 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
that time the Communist Party of Germany was only in the process of formation.
In the same manner and in many other countries, the social-democracy was busy
saving its bourgeoisie from ruin.
It is possible that those exploits of the social-democratic leaders are merely
a record of days gone by? He is mistaken who thinks so. Is it possible that the
social-democratic politicians have given up befogging the minds with their pacifist
sophistry? Not at all. As recently as February, 1932, the Second International
burst forth again into one of its typical appeals for peace. In what respect is
this any worse than the Basel Manifesto of 1912. What is to hinder the Second
International from declaring itself as an "instrument of peace" in case of war,
true to its sharp practices?
Or did the social-democratic leaders perchance turn left? Oh, no ! They
were very much "left" in 1919-1920 when It was necessary to charm the masses
with radical phrases. At that time the French Socialist Party, the German
National Socialist Party, the English independents and others were even passing
resolutions in favor of joining the Comintern ! Many leaders of these parties,
including Ramsay MacDonald, suddenly declared themselves adherents of the
slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat ! In Germany, however, Ebert,
Scheidemann, Noske, Haase, and Company first played the role of "i^eople's
plenipotentiaries," elected by the councils of workers' and soldiers' deputies (in
November 1918), and nine months later — that of the happy fathers of the Weimar
Constitution. In the meantime Noske succeeded, in the course of six days, in
shooting down workers on the streets of Berlin and in organizing the treacherous
murder of the best leaders of the German proletariat — Karl LieV)knecht and Rosa
Luxemburg.
Do you realize now, you social-democratic workers, why Lenin demanded a
change in the name of the Russian labor party, which up to 1917 also was called
"social-democratic"? And why he uttered the words, which we, Communists,
repeat to you today :
"It is high time to cast oft the dirty shirt, it is time to put mi clean
clothes."
It is high time to throw the social-democartic party off your shoulders !
Exhibit No. 4
[Sourca: Hearings of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, page 5356.
Testimony of Willinm Z. Foster, Cliairman of the Communist Party of the United
States, September 29, 1939]
*******
Mr. Matthews. Mr. Foster has already stated that he accepts the Program
of the Communist International; that is correct, is it not?
Mr. Foster. That is right.
Mr. Matthews. And in your book you have quoted extensively from the
Program of the Communist International; that is also correct, is it not?
Mr. Foster. That is right.
Exhibit No. 5
[Source: A pamphlet published by Workers Library Publishers, New York, 1936]
PROGRAM OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL TOGETHER WITH
ITS CONSTITUTION
Worljers Library Publishers : New York, 1936
The Program of the Communist Interyiational, together with the
Constitution., vas adopted at the forty-sixth session of the Sixth
World Congress of the Communist International, September 1,
1928.
Introduction
The epoch of imperialism is the epoch of moribund capitalism. The World
War of 1914-1918 and the general crisis of capitalism which it unleashed, being
APPENDIX, PART 1 35
the direct result of the sharp contradictions between the growth of the pro-
ductive forces of world economy and the national state barriers, have shown
and proved that the material prerequisites for socialism have already ripened
in the worab of capitalist society, that the shell of capitalism has become aa
intolerable hindrance to the further development of mankind and that history
has brought to the forefront the task of the revolutionary overthrow of the yoke
of capitalism.
Imperialism subjects large masses of the proletariat of all countries — from
the centers of capitalist might to the most remote corners of the colonial
world — to the dictatorship of the finance-capitalist plutocracy. With elemental
force, imperialism exposes and accentuates all the contradictions of capitalist
society : it carries class oppression to the utmost limits, intensifies to an
•extraordinary degree the struggle between capitalist states, inevitably gives
rise to world-wide imperialist wars that shake the whole prevailing system of
relationships to the foundations and inexorably leads to the ivorld proletarian
revolution.
Binding the whole world in chains of finance-capital, forcing its yoke, by blood-
letting, by the mailed fist and starvation, upon the proletariat of all countries,
of all nations and races, sharpening to an immeasurable degree the exploitation,
oppression and enslavement of the proletariat and confronting it with the
immediate task of conquering power — imperialism creates the necessity for
closely uniting the workers of all countries, irrespective of state boundaries and
of differences of nationality, culture, laugiaage, race, sex or occupation, in a single
international army of the proletariat. Thus, while imperialism develops and
completes the process of creating the material prerequisites for socialism, it
at the same time musters the army of its own grave-diggers, compelling the
proletariat to organize into a militnnt international workers' association.
On the other hand, imperialism splits off the best provided for section of the
working class from the main mass of the workers. Bribed and corrupted by
imperialism, this upper stratum of the working class, which constitutes the
leading element in the Social-Democratic parties, which has a stake in the
imperialist plunder of the colonies and is loyal to "its own" bourgeoisie and
■"its own" imperialist state, has lined up in the decisive class battles with
the class enemy of the proletariat. The split that occurred in the socialist
movement in 1914 as a result of this treachery, and the subsequent treachery of
the Social-Democratic parties, which in reality have become bourgeois labor
parties, have demonstrated that the international proletariat will be able to
fulfill its historical mission — to throw off the .yoke of imperialism and establish
the proletarian dictatorship — o)ily by ruthless struggle against Social-Democracy.
Hence, the organization of the forces of the international revolution becomes
possible only on the platform of communism. In opposition to the opportunist
Second International of Social-Democracy — which has become the agency of
imperialism in the ranks of the working class — inevitably rises the Third,
Communist. International, the international organization of the working class,
which embodies the real unity of the revolutionary workers of the whole world.
The war of 1914-1918 gave rise to the first attempts to establish a new,
revolutionai-y International, as a counterpoise to the Second, social-chauvinist
Internati inal, and as a weapon of resistance to bellicose imperialism (Zimmer-
wald and Kienthal). The victorious proletarian revolution in Russia gave an
imiietus to the formation of Communist Parties in the centers of capitalism
and in the colonies. In 1919. the Communist International was formed, and for
the first time in world history the most advanced strata of the European and
American proletariat were really united in the pi'ocess of practical revolutionary
struggle with the proletariat of China and India and with the Negro toilers of
Africa and America.
As the united and centralized international Party of the proletariat, the
Communist International is the only heir to the prininples of the First Inter-
national, carrying them forward upon the new, mass foundation of the revolu-
tionary proletarian movement. The experience gathered from the first im]>e-
riaiist war, from the subsequent period of the revolutionary crisis of capitalism,
from the series of revolutions in Europe and in the colonial countries ; the
experience gathered from the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialist
construction in the U. S. S. R. and from the work of all the Sections of the
■Communist International as recorded in the decisions of its Congres.ses : finally,
the fact that the struggle between the imperialist bourgeoisie and the proletariat
is more and more assuming an international character — all this creates the
36 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
need for a program of the Communist International, a uniform and common
program for all Sections of the Communist International. This program of the
Communist International, as the supreme critical generalization of the whole
body of historical exiierience of the international revolutionary proletarian
movement, becomes tlie program of struggle for the world proletarian dictator-
sliip, ihe program of struggle for world eommunism.
Uniting as it does, the revolutionary workers, who lead the millions of
oppressed and exploited against the bourgeoisie and its "socialist'' agents, the
Communist International regards itself as the historical successor to the "Com-
munist League" and the First International led by Marx, and as the inheritor
of the best of the pre-war traditions of the Second International. The First
International laid the ideological foundation for the International proletarian
strxiggle for socialism. The tiecond International, in the best period of its ex-
istence, prepared the ground for the expansion of the labor movement among
the masses. The Third, Communist International, in continuing the work of
the First International, and in accepting the fruits of the work of the Second In-
ternational, has resolutely lopped off the latter's opportunism, social-chauvinism,
and bourgeois distortion of socialism and has commenced to realize the dictator-
ship of the proletariat. In this manner the Communist International continues
the glorious and heroic traditions of the International labor movement ; of the
English Chartists and the French insurrectionists of 1831 ; of tlie French and
German working class revolutionaries of 1848; of the immortal fighters and
martyrs of the Paris Commune; of the valiant soldiers of the German, Hungar-
ian and Finnish revolutions; of the workers under the former tsarist despotism — -
the victorious bearers of the proletarian dictatorship; of the Chinese pro-
letarians — the heroes of Canton and Shanghai.
Basing Itself on the experience of the revokitionary labor movement on all
continents and of all peoples, the Communist International, in its theoretical and
practical work, stands wholly and unreservedly upon the ground of revolutionary
Marxism and its further development, Leninism, which is nothing else but
Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution.
Advocating and propagating the dialetical materialism, of Marx and Engels
and employing it as the revolutionary method of the cognition of reality, with
the view to the revolutionary transformation of this reality, the Communist In-
ternational wages an active struggle against all forms of bourgeois philosophy
and against all forms of theoretical and practical opportunism. Standing
on the ground of consistent proletarian class struggle and subordinating the
temporary, partial, group and national Interests of the proletariat to its lasting,
general, international interests, the Communist International mercilessly exposes
all forms of the doctrine of "class peace" that the reformists have accepted
from the bourgeoisie. Expressing the historical need for an international
organization of revolutionary proletarian.s — -the grave-diggers of the capitalist
order — the Communist International is the only international force that has
for its program the dictatorship of the proletariat and communism, and that
openly comes out as the organizer of the international proletarian revolution.
chapter one
The World S"s»3tem of Capitalism, Its Development and Inevitable Downfall
1. The General Laxos of the Development of Capitalism and the Epoch of
Industrial Capital
The characteristic features of capitalist society which arose on the basis of
commodity production are the monopoly of the most important and vital means
of production by the capitalist class and big landlords; the exploitation of the
wage labor of the proletariat, which, being deprived of the means of produc-
tion, is compelled to sell its labor power ; the production of commodities for
profit; and these, linked up with all the planless and anarchic character of the
process of ])roduction as a whole ; exploitation relationships and the economic
domination of the bourgeoisie and their political expression in the organized
capitalist state — the instrument for the suppression of the proletariat.
The history of capitalism has entirely confirmed the Marxian theory con-
cerning the laws of development of capitalist society and the contradiction of
this development which ineA'itably lead to the downfall of the whole capitalist
system.
APPENDIX, PART 1 37
lu its quest for profits the bourgeoisie was compelled to develop the productive
forces oa an ever-increasing scale and to strengthen and expand the domination
of capitalist relationships of production. Thus, the develoimient of capitalism
constantly reproduces on a wider scale all the inherent contradictious of the capi-
talist system, primarily, the decisive contradiction betvi-een the social character
of labor and private appropriation, between the growth of the productive forces
and the property i-elations of capitalism. The predominance of private prop-
erty in the means ot production and the anarchy prevailing in the process of
produi-tion have disturlied the equilibrium between the various branches of
production ; for a growing contradiction developed between the tendency towards
unlimited expansion of production and the restricted consumption of the masses
of the proletariat (general over-production), and this resulted in periodical
devasraring crises and mass unemployment among the proletariat. The pre-
dominance of private property also found expression in the competition that
prevailed in each separate capitalist couutry as well as on the constantly ex-
panding world market. This latter form of capitalist rivalry resulted in a
numl)er of wars, which are the inevitable accompaniment of capitalist
development.
On the other hand, the technical and economic advantages of large-scale pro-
duction have resulted in the squeezing out and destruction in the competitive
struggle of the pre-capitalist economic forms and in the ever-increasing concen-
tration! ami centralization of capital. In the sphere of industry this hiw of con-
centration and centralization of capital manifested itself primarily in the direct
ruin of small enterprises and partly in their being reduced to the position of
auxiliary units of large enterprises. In the domain of agriculture which, owing
to the existence of the monopoly in land and absolute rent, must inevitably lag
behind the general rate of development, this law not only found expression in
the process of differentiation that took place among the peasantry and in the
proletarianization of broad strata of the latter, but also and mainly in the open
and concealed subordination of small peasant economy to the domination of
big capital ; small farming has been able to maintain a nominal independence
only at the price of extreme intensification of labor and systematic under-
consiunprion.
Tlie e\er-growing application of machinery, the constant improvements in
technique and the resultant uninterrupted rise in the organic composition of
capital, accompanied by still further division, increased productivity and inten-
sity of labor, meant also increased employment of female and child labor, the
formation of enormous industrial reserve armies which are constantly replen-
ished by the proletarianized peasantry who are forced to leave their villages as
well as by the ruined urban small and middle bourgeoisie. The collection of a
handful of capitalist ntagnates at one pole of social relationships and of a
gigantic mass of the proletariat at the other ; the constantly increasing rate
of exploitation of the working class, the reproduction on a wider scale of the
deepest contradictions of capitalism and their consequences (crises, wars, etc.) ;
the constant growth of .social inequality, the rising discontent of the proletariat
united and schooled by the mechanism of capitalist production itself — all this
was inevitably undermining the foundations of capitalism, bringing nearer the
day of its collapse.
Simultaneously, a profound change has taken place in the social and cultural
life of capitalist society ; the parasitical decadence of the rentier group of the
bourgeoisie : the break-up of the family, which expresses the growing contradic-
tion between the mass participation of women in social production and the
forms of family and domestic life largely inherited from previous economic
epochs; the growing shallowness and degeneracy of cultural and ideological
life resulting from the minute specialization of labor, the monstrous forms of ur-
ban life and the restrictedness of rural life ; the incapability of the bourgeoisie,
notwithstanding the enormous achievements of the natural sciences, to create
a .\vnthetically scientific philosophy, and the growth of idealogical, mystical and
religious superstition, are all plienomena signalizing the approach of the
historical end of the capitalist system.
2. The Era of Finance Capital (Imperialism)
The period of induntrial capitalism was, in the main, a period of "free com-
petition" : a period of a relatively smooth evolution and expansion of capitalism
throughou.t the whole world, when the as yet unoccupied colonies were being
di',ided up and conquered by armed force ; a period of continuous growth of the
38 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
inner contradictions of capitalism, tlie burden of wtiich fell mainly upon the
systematically plundered, crushed and oppressed colonial periphery.
Towards the beginning of the twentieth century, this period was replaced by
the period of imperialism, during which capitalism developed spasmodically
and conflictingly ; free competition raindly gave way to monopoly, the previously
"available" colonial lands had already been divided up, and the struggle for
a redistribution of colonies and spheres of influence inevitably began to assume
primarily the form of a struggle by force of arms.
Thus, the entire scope and truly world-wide scale of the contradictions of
capitalism become most glaringly revealed in the epoch of iinperialism (finance
capitalism), which, from the historical standpoint, signifies a new form of
capitalism, a new system of relationship between the various parts of world
capitalist economy and a change in the relationship between the principal
classes of capitalist society.
This new historical period set in as a result of the operation of the principal
dynamic laws of capitalist society. It grew out of the development of indus-
trial capitalism, and is the historical continuation of the latter. It sharpened
the manifestations of all the fundamental tendencies and laws of capitalist
development, of all its fundamental contradictions and antagonisms. The law
of the concentration and centralization of capital led to the formation of power-
ful combines (cartels, syndicates, trusts), to a new form of gigantic combina-
tions of enterprises linked up into one system by the banks. The merging of
industrial capital with banking capital, the absorption of big land ownership
into the gent>ral system of capitalist organization, and the monopolistic charac-
ter of this form of capitalism transformed the epoch of industrial capital into
the epoch of finance capital. "Free competition" of the period of industrial capi-
talism, which replaced feudal monopoly and the monopoly of merchant capital,
became itself transformed into ftnmice-capUal mouopoly. At the same time, the
capitalist monopolies which grow out of free competition do not eliminate com-
petition, but exist side by side with and hover over it, and thus give rise to a
series of exceptionally great and acute contradictions, frictions and conflicts.
The growing application of complex machinery, of chemical processes and of
electric energy ; the resulting higher organic composition of capital and, con-
sequently, decline in the rate of profit, which only the biggest monopolistic
combines are able to counteract for a time by their policy of high monopoly
prices, still further stimulate the quest for colonial super-profits and the strug-
gle for a new division of the world. Standardized mass production creates the
demand for new foreign markets. The growing demand for raw materials and
fuel intensifies the race for their sources. Lastly, the system of high protection,
which hinders the export of merchandise and secures additional ])rortt for ex-
ported capital, creates additional stimuli for the export of capital. Export of
capital becomes, therefore, the decisive and specific form of economic contact
between the various parts of world capitali.st economy. The total effect of all
this is that the monopolist ownership of colonial markets, of sources of raw
materials, and of spheres of investment of capital extremely accentuates the
general uneveuness of capitalist developm.ent and sharpens the conflicts between
the "great powers" of finance capital over the redistribution of the colonies and
spheres of infiuence.
The growth of the productive forces of world economy thus leads to the further
internationalism of economic life and simultaneously leads to a struggle for re-
distribution of the world, already divided up among the biggest finance capital
states, to a change in and sharpening of the forms of tliis struggle, to stiperseding
to an increasing degree the method of lower prices which the method of forcible
pressure (boycott, high protection, tariff wars, wars proper, etc.). Consequently,
the monopolistic form of capitalism is inevitably accompanied by imperialist wars,
which, by the area they embrace and the destructiveness of their technique, have
no parallel in world history.
3. The Forces of Imperialism and the Forces of Revolution
Expressing the tendency for unification of the various sections of the dominant
class, the imperialist form of capitalism places the broad masses of the proletariat
in opposition, not to a single employer, but, to an increasing degree, to the capitalist
class as a whole and to the capitalist state. On the other hand, this form of
capitalism breaks down the national barriers that have become too restricted for
it, widens the scope of the capitalist state power of the dominant Great Power
and brings it in opposition to the vast masses of the nationality oppressed peoples
APPENDIX, PART 1 39
in the so-called small nations and in the colonies. Finally, this form of capitalism
brings the imperialist states most sharply in opposition to each other.
This being the case, state power, whicli is becoming the dictatorship of the
finance-capitalist oligarchy and the expression of its concentrated might, acquires
special significance for the bourgeoise. The functions of this multi-national im-
perialist state grow in all directions. The development of state capitalist forms
which facilitate the struggle in foreign jnarkets (mobilization of industry for war
purposes) as well as the struggle against the working class ; the monstrous growtii
of militarism (armies, naval and air fleets, and the employment of chemistry and
bacteriology) ; the increasing pressure of the imperialist state upon the Avorkiiig
class (the growth of exploitation and direct suppression of the workers on the
one hand and the systematic policy of bribing the bureaucratic reformist leader-
ship on the other), all this expresses the enormous growth of the power of the
state. Under these circumstances, every more or less important action of tlie
proletariat becomes transformed into an action against the state power, i. c,
into political action.
Thus the development of capitalism, and particularly the imperialist epoch of
its develoinnent, reproduces the fundamental contradictions of capitalism on an
increasingly magnified scale. Competition among small capitalists ceases, only to
make way for competition among big capitalists ; where competition among big
capitalists subsides, it flares up between gigantic combinations of capitalist mag-
nates and their states ; local and national crises become transformed into crises
affecting a number of countries and, subsequently, into world crises ; local wars
give way to wars between coalitions of states and to world wars ; the class strug-
gles change from isolated actions of single groups of workers into nation-wide
conflicts and subsequently, into an international struggle of the world proletariat
against the world bourgeoisie. Finally, two main revolutionary forces are or-
ganising against the organized might of finance capital — on the one hand, the
workers in the capitalist states, on the other, the victims of the oppression of
foreign capital, the masses of the people in the eolonies, marching under the lead-
ership and the hegemony of the international revolutionary proletarian move-
ment.
However, this fundamental revolutionary tendency is temporarily paralyzed
by the fact that certain sections of the European, North American and Japanese
proletariat are bribed by the imperialist bourgeoisie, and by the treachery of the
national bourgeoisie in the semi-colonial and colonial countries which is fright-
ened by the revolutionary mass movement. The bourgeoisie of imperialist
countries, which is able to secure additional surplus profits from the position it
holds in the world market (more developed technique, export of capital to
countries with a higher rate of profit, etc.), and from the proceeds of its plunder
of the colonies and semi-colonies — was able to raise the wages of its "own"'
workers out of the surplus profits, thus giving the.se workers an interest in the
development of "their" capitalism, in the plunder of the colonies and in being
loyal to the imperialist state.
This systematic bribery was and is being widely practised in the most powerful
imperialist countries and finds most striking expression in the ideology and prac-
tice of tlie labor aristocracy and the bureaucratic strata of the working class,
i. e., the Social-Democratic and trade union leaders, who proved to be the direct
agencies of bourgeois influence among the proletariat and stalwart pillars of
the capitalistist system.
However, while it has stimulated the growth of the corrupt upper stratum of
the working class, imperialism in the end destroys their influence upon the work-
ing class, because the growing contradictions of imperialism, the worsening of the
conditions of the broad masses of the workers, the mass unemijloyment among
the proletariat, the enormous cost of military conflicts and the "burdens they
entail, the fact that certain powers have lost their monopolistic position in the
world market, the break-away of the colonies, etc., serve to undermine the basis
of Social-Democracy among the masses. Similarly, the systematic bribery of
the various sections of the bourgeoisie in the colonies and semi-colonies, their
betrayal of the national-revolutionary movement and their rapprochement with
the imperialist powers can paralyze the development of the revolutionary crisis
only for a time. In the final analysis, this leads to the intensification of imperial-
ist oppression, to the decline of the influence of the national bourgeoisie upon
the masses of the people, to the .sharpening of the revolutionary crisis, to the
unleashing of the agrarian revolution of the broad masses of the pea.santry and to
the creation of conditions favorable for the establishment of the hegemony of the
proletariat in the colonies and dependencies in the popular mass struggle for in-
dependence and complete national liberation.
40 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
4. Imperialism and the Doumfall of Capitalism
Imperialism has greatly developed the productive forces of world capitalism.
It has completed the preparation of all the material prerequisites for the socialist
organization of society. By its vi'ars it has demonstrated that the productive
forces of world economy, which have outgrown the restricted boundaries of
imperialist states, demand the organization of economy on a world, or inter-
national, scale. Imperialism tries to remove this contradiction by hacking a road
with fire and sword towards a single world state-capital trust, which is to organize
the whole world economy. This sanguinary utopia is being extolled by the
Social-Democratic ideologist as a peaceful method of a new, "organized", capital-
ism. In reality, this utopia encounters insurmountable objective obstacles of such
magnitude that capitalism must inevitably fall beneath the weight of its own
contradictions. The law of the uneven development of capitalism, accentuated
in the epoch of imperialism, renders firm and durable international combinations
of imperialist powers impossible. On the other hand, imperialist wars, which are
developing into world wars, and by which the law of centralization of capitalism
strives to reach its world limit — a single world trust — are accompanied by so
much destruction and j)lace such burdens upon the shoulders of the working class
and of the millions of colonial proletarians and peasants, that capitalism nnist
inevitabl.v perish beneath the blows of the proletarian revolution long before this
goal is reached.
Being the highest phase of capitalist development, developing the productive
forces of world economy to enormous dimensions, refashioning the whole
world after its own image, imperialism draws into the orbit of finance-capitalist
exploitation all colonies, all races and all nations. At the same time, however,
the monopolistic form of capital increasingly develops the elements of parasitical
degeneration, decay and decline of capitalism. By destroying, to some extent,
the driving force of competition, by conducting a policy of monopoly prices, and
having undivided mastery of the market, monopoly capital tends to retard the
further develojmient of the forces of production. In squeezing enormous sums
of surplus profits out of the millions of colonial workers and peasants and in
accumulating colossal incomes from this exploitation, imperialism is creating
a type of decaying and parasitically degenerate rentier-states as well as whole
strata of parasites who live by clipping coupons. Wliile completing the process
of creating the material prerequisites for socialism (the concentration of means
of production, the enormous socialization of labor, the growth of labor organi-
zations), the epoch of imperialism intensifies the antagonisms among the Great
Powers and gives rise to wars which cause the break-up of unified world
economy. Imperiali.sm is therefore moribund and decayimj capitalism. It is the
final stage of development of the capitalist system. It is the threshold of world
social revolvtion.
Thus, international proletarian revolution emerges out of the conditions of
development of capitalism generally, and out of its imperialist phase in par-
ticular. The capitalist system as a whole is approaching its final collapse. The
dictatorship of finance capital is perishing to give way to the dictatorship of
the proletariat.
chapter two
The General Crisis of Capitalism and the First Phase of World Revolution
1. The World War and the Progress of the Revolutionary Crisis
The imperialist struggle among the largest capitalist states for the redistribu-
tion of tbe globe led to the first imiierialist world war (1914-1918). This war
shook the whole system of world capitalism and marked the beginning of the
period of its general crisis. It bent to its service the entire national economy
of the belligerent countries, thus creating the mailed fist of state capitalism;
it increased unproductive expenditures to enormous dimensions, destroyed enor-
mous quantities of the means of production and human labor power, ruined
large masses of the population and imposed incalculable burdens upon the in-
dustrial workers, the peasants and the colonial peoples. It inevitably led to
the intensification of the class struggle, which grows into open revolutionary
mass action and civil ivar. The imperialist front was broken at its weakest
link, in tsarist Russia. Tlie Felyrnarij revolution of 1017 overthrew the domina-
APPENDIX, PART 1 41
lion of the autocracy of the big land-owning class. The Ortobcr revolution
overthrew the rule of the bourgeoisie. This victorious proletjirian revolution
expropriated the expropriators, took the means of production from the laud-
lords and the capitalists, and for the first time in human history set up and
consolidated the dictatorship of the proletariat in an enormous country, brought
into b«'ing a new, Soviet type of state and initiated the international proletarian
revolution.
The powerful shock to which the whole of world capitalism was subjected,
the sharpening of the class struggle and the direct influence of the October
proletarian revolution gave rise to a series of revolutions and revolutionary
actions on the continent of Europe as well as in the colonial and semi-colonial
countries : January, 191S, the proletarian revolution in Finland ; August, 191S,
the so-called "rice-riots" in Japan ; November, 1918, the revolutions in Austria
and Germany, which overthrew the semi-feudal mon.archies ; March, 1919, the
proletarian revolution in Hungary and the uprising in Korea ; April, 1919, the
Soviet government in Bavaria ; January, 1920, the bourgeois-national revolution
in Turkey : September, 1920, the seizure of the factories by the workers in Italy ;
March, 1921, the rising of the advanced workers of Germany ; September, 1923,
the uprising in Bulgaria; autumn, 1923, the revolutionary crisis in Germany;
December, 1924, the uprising in Estonia ; April, 1925, the uprising in Morocco ;
August, 1925, uprising in Syria ; May, 1926, the general strike in England ; July,
1927, the proletarian uprising in Vienna. These events, as well as events like
the uprising in Indonesia, the deep ferment in India, the great Chinese revolution
which shook the whole Asiatic continent, are links in one and the same inter-
national revolutionary chain, constituent parts of the profound general crisis
of capitalism. This international revolutionary process embi'aced the direct
struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat, as well as national wars of
liberation and colonial uprisings against imperialism which are inseparably
linked with the agrarian mass mo"S'ement of millions of peasants. Thus, an
enormous mass of humanity was swept into the revolutionary torrent. World
history entered a new phase of development — a phase of prolonged general crisis
of the capitalist system. In this process, the unity of world economy found
expression in the international character of the revolution, while the uneven
develoi)ment of its separate parts was expressed in the absence of simultaneity
in the outbreak of revolution in the different countries.
The first attempts at revolutionary overthrow, which sprang from the acute
crisis of capitalism (1918-1921), ended in the victory and consolidation of the
dictatorship of the proletariat in the U. S. S. R. and in the defeat of the pro-
letariat in a number of other countries. These defeats were primarily due to
the treacherous tactics of the Social-Democratic and reformist trade union
leaders, but they were also due to the fact that the majority of the working
class had not yet accepted the lead of the Communists and that in a number of
important countries Communist Parties had not yet come into existence at all.
As a result of these defeats, which created the opportunity for intensifying the
exploitation of the mass of the proletariat and the colonial peoples, and for
severely depres.sing their standard of living, the bourgeoisie was able to achieve
a partial stabilization of capitalist relations.
2. The Revolutionary Crisis and Counter-Revolutionary Social-Democracy
During the progress of the international revolution, the leading cadres of the
Social-Democratic parties and of the reformist trade unions on the one hand,
and the militant capitalist organizations of the fascist type on the other, ac-
quired special significance as a powerful counter-revolutionary force actively
fighting against the revolution and actively supporting the partial stabilization
of capitalism.
The war crisis of 1914-1918 was accompanied by the disgraceful collapse of
the Social-Democratic Second International. Acting in complete violation of the
thesis of the Commmiist Manifesto written by Marx and Engels that the prole-
tariat has no fatherland under capitalism, and in complete violation of the
anti-war resolutions passed by the Stuttgart and Basle Congresses, the leaders
of the Social-Democratic parties in the various countries, with a few exceptions,
voted for the war credits, came out definitely in defense of the imperialist
''fatherland" (i. e., the state organizations of the imperialist bouregeoisie) and
instead of combatting the imperialist v/ar, became its loyal soldiers, bards and
propagandists (social-patriotism, which grew into social-imperialism). In the
subsequent period, Social-Democracy supported the predatory treaties (Brest-
42 UN-AMEKICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
Litovsk, Versailles) ; it actively aligned itself with the militarists in the oloody
snppression of proletarian nprisiugs (Noske) ; it conducted armed warfare
against the first proletarian republic (Soviet Russia) ; it despicably betrayed the
victorious proletariat (Hungary) ; it joined the imperialist League of Nations
(Albert Thomas, Paul Boncour, Vanden-elde) ; it openly supported the imperial-
ist slave-owners against the colonial slaves (the British Labor Party) ; it actively
supported the most reactionary executioners of the working class (Bulgaria,
Poland) ; it took upon itself the initiative in securing the passage of imperialist
"military laws" (France) ; it betrayed the general strike of the British prole-
tariat ; it helped and is still helping to strangle China and India (the MacDonald
government) ; it acts as tlie propagandist for the imperialist League of Nations;
it is capital's herald and organizer of the strujrgle against the dictatorship of
the proletariat in the U. S. S. R. (Kautsky, Hilferding).
In its systematic conduct of this counter-revolutionary policy, Social-Democ-
racy operates on two flanks: the Right wing of Social-Democracy, avowedly
counter-revolutionary, is essential for negotiating and maintaining direct con-
tact with the bourgeoisie ; the ''Left" wing is essential for the subtle deception
of the workers. While playing with pacifist and at times even with revolu-
tionary phrases, "Left wing" Social-Democracy in practice acts against the
workers, particularly in acute and critical situations (the British I. L. P. and
the "Left" leaders of the General Council during the general strike in 1926;
Otto Bauer and Co., at the time of the Vienna uprising), and is, therefore, the
most dangerous faction in the Social-Democratic parties. While serving the
interests of the bourgeoisie in the ranks of the working class and being wholly
in favor of class cooperation and coalition with the bourgeoisie, Social-Democ-
racy, at certain periods, is compelled to play the part of an opposition party
and even to act as if it were defending the class interests of the proletariat in
its economic struggles, in order thereby to win the confidence of a section of
the working class and thus be in a position the more shamefully to betray the
lasting interests of the working class, particularly in the midst of decisive class
battles.
The principal function of Social-Democracy at the present time is to disrupt
the essential fighting unity of the proletariat in its struggle against imperialism.
In splitting and disrupting the united front of the proletarian struggle against
capital, Social-Democracy serves as the mainstay of imperialism in the working
class. International Social-Democracy of all shades, the Second International
and its trade union branch, the Amsterdam Federation of Trade Unions, have
thus become the last reserve of bourgeois society, its most reliable pillar of
support.
3. The Crisis of Capitalism and Fascism
Along with Social-Democracy, with whose aid the bourgeoisie suppresses the
workers or lulls their class vigilance, fascism comes into the scene.
The epoch of imperialism, the sharpening of the class struggle and the
growth of the elements of civil war — particularly after the imperialist war —
led to the bankruptcy of parliamentarism. Hence, the adoption of "new"
methods and forms of administration (for example, the system of inner cab-
inets, the formation of oligarchical groups acting behind the scenes, the dete-
rioration and falsification of the function of the "popular representative"
institutions, the restriction and annulment of "democratic liberties," etc.).
Under certain special historical conditions, the progress of this bourgeois,
reactionary offensive assumes the form of fascism. These conditions are:
instability of capitalist relationships ; the existence of a considerable declassed
social element, the pauperization of broad strata of the urban petty bourgeoise
and of the intelligentsia ; discontent among the rural petty bourgeoisie and,
finally, the constant menace of mass proletarian action. In order to stabilize
and perpetuate its rule, the bourgeoisie is compelled to an increasing degree
to abandon the parliamentary system in favor of the fascist system, which is
independent of inter-party arrangements and combinations. The fascist system
is a system of direct dictatorship, ideologically masked by the "national idea"
and representation of "occupations" (in reality, representation of the various
groups of the ruling class). It is a system that resorts to a peculiar form of
social demagogy (anti-Semitism, occasional sorties against usui'ers' capital and
gestures of impatience with the parliamentary "talking shop") in order to
utilize the discontent of the petty bourgeoisie, the intellectuals and other strata
of society, and to corruption — the creation of a compact and well-paid hier-
archy of fascist units, a party apparatiis and a bureaucracy. At the same time.
APPENDIX, PART 1 43
fascism strives to permeate the working class bj' recruiting the most bacliward
strata of worljers to its ranks by phiying upon their discontent, by talving
advantage of the inaction of Social-Democracy, etc. The principal aim of
fascism is to destroy the revolutionary vanguard of the working class, i. e., the
Communist sections of the proletariat and their leading forces. The combina-
tion of social demagogy, corruption and active white terror, in conjunction with
extreme imperialist aggressiveness in the sphere of foreign politics, are the
characteristic features of fascism. In periods of acute crisis for the bour-
geoisie, fascism resorts to anti-capitalist phraseology, but after it has estab-
lished itself at the helm of state, it casts aside its anti-caiiitalist rattle and
discloses itself as the terrorist dictatorship of big capital.
The bourgeoisie resorts either to the method of fascism or to the method of
coalition with Social-Democracy according to the changes in the political situa-
tion ; while Social-Democracy itself often plays a fascist role in periods when
the situation is critical for capitalism.
In the iirocess of development Social-Democracy manifests fascist tendencies
which, however, does not prevent it, in other political situations, from posing
as an opposition party against the bourgeois government. The fascist method
and the method of coalition with Social-Democracy are hot the methods
employed in "normal" capitalist conditions ; they are symptoms of the general
capitalist crisis, and are employed by the bourgeoisie in order to stem the
advance of the revolution.
4. The Contradictions of Capitalist Stabilization aaid the Inevitability of the
Revolutionary Collapse of Capitalism
Experience throughout the post-war historical period has shown that the
stabilization achieved by the repression of the working class and the systematic
depression of its standard of living can be only a partial, transient, and
decaying stabilization.
The spasmodic and feverish development of technique bordering in some
countries on a new technical revolution, the accelerated process of concentration
and centralization of capital, the formation of giant trusts and of "national"
and "international" monopolies, the merging of trusts with the state power and
the growth of world capitalist economy cannot, however, eliminate the general
crisis of the capitalist system. The break-up of world economy into a capitalist
and a socialist sector, the shrinking of markets and the anti-imperialist move-
ment in the colonies intensify all the contradictions of capitalism, which is
developing on a new, post-war basis. This very technical progress and ration-
alization of industry, the reverse side of which is the closing down and
liquidation of numerous enterprises, the restriction of production, and the
ruthless and destructive exploitation of labor power, lead to chronic unemploy-
ment on a scale never before experienced. The absolute deterioration of the
condition of the working class becomes a fact even in certain highly developed
capitalist countries. The growing competition between imperialist countries,
the constant menace of war and the growing intensity of class conflicts prepare
the ground for a new and higher stage of development of the general crisis of
capitali.sm and of the world proletarian revolution.
As a result of the first round of imperialist wars (the World War of 1914-
1918) and of the October victory of the working class in the former Russian
tsarist empire, world economy has been split into two fundamentally hostile
camps; the camp of the imperialist states and the camp of the dictatorship
of the proletariat in the U. S. S. R. The difference in class structure and in
the class character of the government in the two camps, the fundamental
differences in the aims each pursues in internal, foreign, economic, and cultural
policy, the fundamentally different courses of their development, bring the
capitalist world into sharp conflict with the state of the victorious proletariat.
Within the framework of a formerly uniform world economy, two antagonistic
systems are now contesting against each other: the system of capitisli.sm and
the system of socialism. The class struggle, which hitherto was conducted in
forms determined by the fact that the proletariat was not in possession of
state power, is now being conducted on an enormous and really world scale;
the working class of the world has now its own state — the one and only father-
land of the international proletariat. The existence of the Soviet Union and
the Influence it exercises upon the toiling and oppressed masses all over the
world is in itself a most striking expression of the profound crisis of the world
capitalist system and of the expansion and intensification of the cla.ss struggle
to a degree hitherto without parallel in history.
44 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
The capitalist world, powerless to eliminate its inherent contradictions, strives
to establish interuatioual associations (the League of Nations) the main purpose
of which is to retard the irresistible growth of the revolutionary crisis and to
strangle the union of proletarian republics by war or blockade. At the same
time, all the forces of the revolutionary proletariat and of the oppressed colonial
masses are rallying around the U. S. S. R. The world coalition of Capiialr
unstable, internally corroded, but armed to the teeth, is confronted by a single
world coalition of lahor. Thus, as a result of the first round of imperialist wars
a new, fundamental antagonism has arisen of world historical scope and signifi-
cance — the antagonism between the TJ. S. S. R. and the capitalist world.
Meanwhile, the inherent antagonisms within the capitalist sector of world
economy itself have become intensified. The shifting of the economic center of
the world to the United States of America and the fact of the "Dollar Repub-
lic" having become a world exploiter have caused the relations between United
States and European capitalism, particularly British capitalism, to become
strained. The conflict between Great Britain — the most powerful of the old,
conservative imperialist states — and the United States — the greatest of the
young imperialist 'States, which has already won world hegemony for itself — is
becoming the pivot of the world conflicts among the finance capitalist states.
Germany, though plundered by the Versailles peace, is now economically re-
covered ; she is resuming the path of imperialist politics, and once again she
stands out as a serious competitor in the world market. The Pacific is becoming-
involved in a tangle of contradictious which center mainly around the antag-
onism between America and Japan. Along with these main antogonisms, the
conflict of interests among the unstable and constantly changing groupings
of powers is increasing, while the minor powers serve as the auxiliary instru-
ments in the hands of the imperialist giants and their coalitions.
The growth of the productive capacity of the industrial apparatus of world
capitnlism, at a time when the European home markets have shnmk as a result
of the war, and in face of the Soviet Union's dropping out of the system of
purely capitalist intercourse and of the close monopoly of the most important
sources of raw material and fuel, leads to ever-widening conflicts between
the capitalist states. The "peaceful" struggle for oil, rubber, cotton, coal and
metals and for a redistribution of markets and spheres for the export of
capital is inexorably leading to (mother irorld war, the destructiveness of which
will increase in proiwrtion to the progress achieved in the furiously developing-
technique of war.
Simultaneously, the antagonisms between the imperialist home countries and
the colonial and semi-colonial countries are yroioing. The relative weakening
of European imperialism as a result of the war, the development of capitalism
in the colonies, the influence of the Soviet revolution, and the centrifugal
tendencies within the premier maritime and colonial empire — Great Britain
(Canada, Australia, South Africa), have stimulated rebellions in the colonies
and semi-colonies. The great Chinese revolution, which roused hundreds of
millions of the Chinese people to action, caused an enormous breach in the
imperialist system. The unceasing revolutionary ferment among hundreds
of miliions of Indian workers and peasants is threatening to break the domina-
tion of the world citadel of imperialism, Great Britain. The growth of ten-
dencies directed against the powerful imperialism of the United States in the
Latin-American countries threatens to undermine the expansion of North
American Capital. Thus, the revolutionary process in the colonies, which is
drawing into the struggle against imperialism the overwhelming ma.iority of the
world's population that is subjected to the rule of the finance-capital oligarchy
of a few "great powers" of imperialism, also expresses the profound general
crisis of capitalism. Even in Europe itself, where imperialism has put a
number of small nations under its heel, the national question is a factor that
intensifies the inherent contradictions of capitalism.
Finally, the revolutionary crisis is inexoi'ably maturing in the very centers of
impeiialism : the capitalist offensive against the working clasts. the attack
upon the workers' standard of living, upon their organizations and their political
rights, and the growth of white terror, rouse increasing resistance on tlie part
of the broad masses of the proletariat and intensify the class struggle between
the working class and trustified capital. The great battles fought between labor
and capital, the accelerated swing of the masses to the Left, the growth in
the influence and authority of the Communist Parties ; the enormous growth
of sympathy of the broad masses of workers for the land of the proletarian
dictatorship — all this is a clear symptom of the maturing of a new revolu-
tionary upsurge in the centers of imperialism.
APPENDIX, PART 1 45
Thus, the sj^stem of world imperialism, and with it the partial stabilization
of capitalism, is being corroded from various causes; by the antagonisms and
conflicts between the imperialist states ; by the rising of the vast masses in the
colonial countries; by the action of the revolutionary proletariat in the im-
perialist home countries; finally, by the le.'iding force in the vi^orld revolutionary
movement— the proletarian dictatorship in the U. S. S. R. The international
revolution is developing.
Against this revolution, imperialism is gathering its forces. Expeditions
against the colonies, a new world war. a campaign against the U. S. S. R. are
matters which now figure prominently in the politics of imperialism. This
musr lead to the release of all the forces of international revolution and to the
inevitable doom of capitalism.
chapter three
The Ui.timate Aim of the Communist International^ — World Communism
The ultimate aim of the Communist International is to replace world capital-
ist economy by a world system of communism. Communist society, the basis
for which has" been prepared by the whole course of historical development, is
mankind's only way out, for it alone can abolish the contradictions of the
capitalist system which threaten to degrade and destroy the human race.
Communist society will abolish the class division of society, /. c, simultaneously
with the abolition of anarchy of production, it will abolish all forms of exploita-
tion and oppression of man by man. Society will no longer consist of antago-
nistic classes in conflict with each other, but will represent a united common-
wealth of labor. For the first time in its history mankind will take its fate into
its own hands. Instead of destroying innumerable human lives and incalculable
wealth in struggles between classes and nations, mankind will devote all its
energy to the struggle against the forces of nature, to the development and
strengthening of its own collective might.
After abolishing private ownership in the means of production and converting
them into social property, the world system of communism will replace the
elemental forces of the world market, of competition and the blind process of
social production, by consciously organized and planned production for the pur-
pose of satisfying rapidly growing social needs. With the abolition of competi-
tion and anarchy in production, the devastating crises and still more devastating
wars will disappear. Instead of colossal waste of productive forces and spas-
modic development of society there will be planned utilization of all material
resources and painless economic development on the basis of the unlimited,
harmonious and rapid development of the productive forces.
The abolition of private property and the disappearance of classes will do
avray with the exploitation of man by man. Work Vtill cease to be toiling for
the benefit of a class enemy. Instead of being merely a means of livelihood
it will become a necessity of life. Want and economic inequality, the misery
of enslaved classes, and a wretched standard of life genei'ally will disappear;
the hierarchy created in the division of labor sy.stem will be abolished together
with the antagonism between mental and manual labor, and the last vestige of
the social inequality of sexes will be removed. At the same time, the organs of
class domination, and the state in the first place, will disappear also. The state,
being the embodiment of class domination, will wither away insofar as classes
disappear, and with it all measures of coercion will expire.
With the disappearance of classes the monopoly of education in every form
will be abolished. Culture will become the acquirement of all and the class
ideologies of the past will give place to scientific materialist philosophy. Under
such circumstances, the domination of man over man, in any form, becomes
Impossible, and a great field will be opened for the social selection and the
harmonious development of all the talents inherent in humanity.
In communist society no social restrictions will be imposed upon the growth
of the forces of production. Private ownership in the means of production, the
selfish lust for profits, the artificial retention of the masses in a state of ignor-
ance, poverty — which retards technical progress in capitalist society— and unpro-
ductive expenditures will have no place in a communist society. Tlie most
expedient utilization of the forces of nature and of the natural conditions of
production in the various parts of the world; the removal of the antagonism
between town and country that under capitalism results fi-om the low technical
level of agriculture and its systematic lagging behind indu.stry ; the closesC
possible cooperation between science and technics, the utmost encouragement of
4g UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
research work and the practical application of its results on the widest possible
social scale, planned organization of scientific work ; the application of the most
perfect methods of statistical accounting and planned regulation of economy.
the rapidly growing social needs, which is the most powerful internal driving
force of the whole system — all these will secure the maximum productivity of
social labor, which in turn will release human energy for the powerful develop-
ment of science and art.
The development of the productive forces of world communist society will
make it possible to raise the well-being of the whole of humanity and to reduce
to a minimum the time devoted to material production and, consequently, will
enable culture to flourish as never before in history. This new culture of a
humanity that is united for the first time in history, and has abolished all
state boundaries, will, unlike capitalist culture, be based upon clear and trans-
parent human relationships. Hence, it will bury forever all mysticism, religion,
prejudice and superstition and will give a powerful impetus to the development
of all-conquering scientific knowledge.
This higher stage of communism, the stage in which communist society has
already developed on its own foundation, in which an enormous growth of
social productive forces has accompanied the manifold development of mail, in
which humanity has already inscribed on its banner: "From each according
to his abilities ; to each according to his needs !" — presupposes, as a preliminary
iiistorical condition, a lower stage of development, the stage of socialism. At
this lower stage, communist society only just emerges from capitalist society
and bears all the economic, ethical and intellectual birthmarks it has inherited
from the society from whose womb it is just emerging. The productive forces
of socialism are not yet sufficiently developed to assure a distribution of the
produces of labor according to needs; these are distributed according to the
amount of labor expended. Division of labor, i.e., the system whereby certain
groups perform certain labor functions, and especially the distinction between
mental and manual labor, still exists Although classes are abolished, traces
of the old class division of society, and, consequently, remnants of the pro-
letarian state power, coercion, laws, still exist. Consequently, certain traces
of inequality, which have not yet managed to die out altogether, still remain.
The antagonism between town and country has not yet been entirely removed.
But none of these survivals of former society is protected or defended by an.y
social force. Being the product of a definite level of development of produc-
tive forces, they will disappear as rapidly as mankind, freed from the fetters
of the capitalist system, subjugates the forces of nature, re-educates itself in
the spirit of communism, and passes from socialism to complete communism.
chapter four
The Period of Transition From Capitalism to Socialism and the; Dictator-
ship OF the Proletariat
1. The Transition Period and the Conquest of Potver by the Proletariat
Between capitalist society and communist society a period of revolutionary
transformation intervenes, during which the one changes into the other. Cor-
respondingly, there is also an intervening period of political transition, in whi-'-h
the essential state form is the revolutionary dictatorship of the pi-oletariat.
The transition from the world dictatorship of imperialism to the world dictator-
ship of the proletariat extends over a long period of proletarian struggles with
defeats as well as victories; a period of continuous general crisis in capitalist
relationships and the maturing of socialist revolutions, i.e., of proletarian civil
wars against the bonrgeoisie; a period of national wars and colonial rebellions
which, although not in themselves revolutionary proletarian socialist move-
ments, are nevertheless, objectively, insofar as the,y undermine the domination
of imperialism, constituent parts of the world proletarian revolution; a period
in which capitalist and socialist economic and social systems exist side by side
in "peaceful" relationship as well as in armed conflict ; a period of formation of
a Union of Soviet Republics ; a period of wars of imperialist states against Soviet
states ; a period in which the ties between the Soviet states and colonial peoples
become more and more closely established, etc.
Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism.
This uneveiiness is still n)ore pronounced and acute in the epoch of imperialism.
Hence, it follows that the international proletarian revolution cannot be con-
ceived as a single event occuring simultaneously all over the world ; at first
APPENDIX, PART 1 47
.socialism may be victorious in a few, or even in one single capitalist country.
Every such proletarian victory, however, broadens the basis of the world revo-
lution and, conse(iuently, still further intensifies the general crisis of capitalism.
Thus, the capitalist system as a wh<ile reaches the point of its final collapse; the
dictatorship of finance capital perishes and gives place to the dictatorship of the
proletariat.
Bourgeois revolutions brought about the political liberation of a system of
productive relationships that had already established itself and become economi-
cally dominant, and transferred political power from the hands of one class of
exploiters to the hands of another. Proletarian revolution, however, signifies
the forcible invasion of the proletariat into the domain of property relationships
of bourgeoise society, the expropriation of the expropriating classes, and the trans-
ference of power to a class that aims at the radical reconstruction of the eco-
nomic foundations of society and the abolition of all exploitation of man by man.
The political domination of the feudal barons was broken all over the world as
the result of a series of separate bourgeois revolutions that extended over a
period of centuries. The international proletarian revolution, however, although
it will not be a single simultaneous act, but on.e extending over a whole epoch,
nevertheless — -thanks to the closer ties that now exist between the countries of
the world — will accomplish its mission in a much shorter period of time. Only
after the proletariat has achieved victory and consolidated its power all over the
world will a prolonged period of intensive construction of world socialist econ-
omy set in.
The conquest of power by the proletariat is a necessary condition precedent to
the growth of socialist forms of economy and to the cultural growth of the prole-
tariat, which transforms its own nature, perfects itself for the leadership of
society in all spheres of life, draws into this process of transformation all other
classes and thus prepares the ground for the abolition of classes altogether.
In the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat, and later for the trans-
formation of the .social system, as against the alliance of capitalists and land-
lords, an alliance of workers and peasants is formed, under the intellectual and
political hegemony of the former, an alliance which serves as the basis for the
dictatorship of the proletariat.
The characteristic feature of the transition period as a w'hole, is the ruthless
suppression of the resistance of the exploiters, the organization of socialist con-
struction, the mass training of men and women in the spirit of .socialism and the
gradual disappearance of classes. Only to the extent that these great historical
tasks are fulfilled will .society of the transition period become transformed into
communist society.
Thus, the dictatorship of the world proletariat is an essential and vital con-
dition precedent to the transition of world capitalist economy to socialist economy.
This world dictatorship can be established only when the victory of socialism
has been achieved in certain countries or groups of coiuitries, when the newly
established proletarian republics enter into a federative union with the already
existing proletarian republics, when the number of such federations lias grown
and extended also to the colonies which have emancipated themselves from the
yoke of imperialism ; when these federations of republics have finally grown into
a World Union of Soviet Socialist Republics uniting the whole of mankind under
the hegemony of the international proletariat organized as a state.
The conquest of power by the proletariat does not mean peacefully "capturing"
the ready-made bourgeois state machinery by means of a parliamentary majority.
The bourgeoisie resorts to every means of violence and terror to safeguard and
strengthen its predatory property and its political domination. Like the feudal
nobility of the past, the bourgeoisie cannot abandon its historical position to
the new class without a desperate and frantic struggle. Hence, the violence of
the bourgeoisie can be suppressed only by the stern violence of the proletariat.
The conquest of power by the proletariat is the violent overthrow of bourgeois
power, the destriiction of the capitalist state apparatus (bourgeois armies, police,
bureaucratic hierarchy, the .iudiciary, parliaments, etc.). and sub.stituting in its
place new organs of proletarian power, to serve primarily as instruments for the
suppression of the exploiters.
2. The Dictafnrship of the Proletariat and It.i Soviet Form
As has been shown by the experience of the October revolution of 1917 and by
the Hungarian revolution, which immeasurably e))larged the experience of the
Paris Commune of 1871, the most suitable form of the proletarian state is the
4S UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
Soviet state — a new type of State, which differs in principle from the bourgeois
state, not only in its class content, but also in its internal structure. This is
precisely the type of State which, emerging as it does directly out of the broadest
possible mass movement of the toilers, secures the maximum of mass activity and
is, consequently, the surest guarantee of final victory.
The Soviet form of state, being the highest form of democracy, namely, prole-
tarian democracy, is the very opposite of bourgeois democracy, which is bourgeois
dictatorship in a masked form. The Soviet state is the dictatorship of the prole-
tariat, the rule of a single class — the proletariat. Unlike bourgeois democracy,
proletarian democracy openly admits its class character and aims avowedly at
the suppression of the exploiters in the interests of the overwhelming majority of
the population. It deprives its class enemies of political rights and, under special
historical conditions, may grant the proletariat a number of temporary advan-
tages over the diffused petty-bourgeois peasantry in order to strengthen its role
of leader. While disarming and suppressing its class enemies, the proletarian
state at the same time regards this deprivation of political rights and partial
restriction of liberty as temporary measures in the struggle against the attempts
on the part of the exploiters to defend or restore their privileges. It inscribes
on its banner the motto : the proletariat holds power not for the purpose of
perijetuat.ing it, not for the purpose of protecting narrow craft and professional
interests, but for the purpose of uniting the backward and scattered rural prole-
tariat, the semi-proletariat and the toiling peasants still more closely with the
most progressive strata of the workers, for the purpose of gradually and sys-
tematically overcoming class divisions altogether. Being an all-embracing form
of the unity and organization of the masses under the leadership of the prole-
tariat, the Soviets, in actual fact, draw the broad masses of the proletariat, the
peasants and all toilers into the struggle for socialism, into the work of building
up socialism, and into the pi-actical administration of the state: in the whole of
their work they rely upon the working-class organizations and practice the prin-
ciples of broad democracy among the toilers to a far gi'eater extent and im-
measurably closer to the masses than any other form of government. The right
of electing and recalling delegates, the combination of the- executive with the
legislative power, the electoral system based on a production and not on a resi-
dential qualification (election by workshops, factories, etc.) — all this secures
for the working class and for the broad masses of the toilers who march under
Its hegemony systematic, continuous and active pafticipation in all public
affairs — economic, social, political, military and cultural — and marks the sharp
difference that exists between the bourgeois-parliamentary republic and the Soviet
dictatorship of the proletariat.
Bourgeois democracy, with its formal equality of all citizens before the law,
is in reality based on a glaring material and economic inequality of classes. By
leaving inviolable, defending and strengthening the monopoly of the capitalist
and landlord classes in the vital means of production, bourgeois democracy, as
far as the exploited classes and especially the proletariat is concerned, converts
this formal equality before the law and these democratic rights and liberties,
vrhich in practice are systematically curtailed, into a juridical fiction and, conse-
quently, into a means for deceiving and enslaving the masses. Being the ex-
pression of the political domination of the bourgeoisie, so-called democracy is
therefore capitalist democracy. By depriving the exploiting classes of the means
of production, by placing the monopoly of these means of production in the hands
of the proletariat as the dominant class in society, the Soviet state first foremost
guarantees to the working class and to the toilers generally the material condi-
tions for the exercise of their rights by providing them with premises, public
buildings, printing plants, traveling facilities, etc.
In the domain of general political rights the Soviet state, while depriving the
exploiters and the enemies of the people of political rights, completely abolishes
for the first time all inequality of citizenship, which under systems of exploita-
tion is based on distinctions of sex, religion and nationality; in this sphere it
establishes an equality that is not to be found in any bourgeois country. In
this respect, also, the dictatorship of the proletariat steadily lays down the
material basis upoii which this equality may be truly exercised by introducing
measures for the emancipation of women, the industrialization of former colonies,
etc.
Soviet democracy, therefore, is proletarian democracy, democracy of the toiling
mafiscs, democracy directed agaii^^f the exploiters.
The Soviet state completely disarms the bourgeoise and concentrates all arms
in the hands of the proletariat ; it is the armed proletarian state. The armed
APPENDIX, PART 1 49
toroes under the Soviet state are organized on a class basis, which corresponds
to the general structure of the proletarian dictatorship, and guarantees the
role of leadership to the industrial proletariat. This organization, while main-
taining revolutionary discipline, ensures to the warriors of the Red Army and
Navy close and constant contacts with the masses of the toilers, participation
in the administration of the country and in the work of biiilding up socialism.
d. The Dictatorsli i I) of the J'roletariut and the Expropriation of the Expropriators
The victorious proletariat utilizes the conquest of power as a lever of economic
revolution, /. e., of the revolutionary transformation of the property relations of
capitalism into relationships of the socialist mode of production. The starting
point of this great economic revohition is the expropriation of the landlords and
capitalists, i. c, the conversion of the monopolistic property/ of the bouriieoisie
into the property of the proletarian state.
In this sphere the Conuuunist International advances the following funda-
mental tasks of the proletarian dictatorship:
.1. Indiisfii/, Transport and Conitniinication Services:
A. The conliscation and proletarian nationalization of all large private capitalist
luidertakings (factories, plants, mines, electric power stations) and the trans-
ference of all state and municipal enterprises to the Soviet.
B. The confiscation and proletarian nationalization of private capitalist rail-
way, waterway, automobile and air transport services (commercial and passen-
ger air fleet) and the transference of all state and municipal transport services
to the Soviets.
c. The confiscation and proletarian nationalization of private capitalist com-
munication services (telegraphs, teleiihones and wireless) and the transference
of state and nninicii)al communication services to the Soviets.
D. The organization of workers' management of industry. The establishment
of state organs for the management of industry with provision for the close
participati(m of the trade unions in this work of management. Appropriate func-
tions to be guaranteed for the factory and plant committees.
E. Industrial activity to be directed towards the satisfaction of the needs of
the broad masses of the toilers. The reorganization of the branches of industry
that formerly served the needs of the ruling class (luxury trades, etc.). The
strengthening of the branches of industry that will facilitate the development of
agriculture, with the object of strengthening the ties between industry and peas-
ant economy, of facilitating the development of State farms, and of accelerating
the rate of development of national economy as a whole.
B. Agriculture:
A. The confiscation and pi'oletarian nationalization of all large landed estates
in town and country (private, church, monastery and other lands) and the trans-
ference of State and municipal landed property including forests, minerals, lakes,
rivers, etc., to the Soviets with subseqtient nationalization of the whole of the
land.
B. The confiscation of all property utilized in production belonging to large
landed estates, sitch as buildings, machinery and other inventory, cattle, enter-
prises for the manufacture of agricultural products (large Hour mills, cheese
plants, dairy farms, frtiit and vegetable drying plants, etc.).
c. The transfer of large estates, particularly model estates and those of con-
siderable economic importance, to the management of the organs of the proletarian
dictatorship and of the Soviet farm organizations.
D. Part of the land confiscated from the landlords and others, particularly
where the land was cultivat(Hl liy the peasants on a tenant basis and served as
a means of holding the peasantry in economic bondage, to be transferred to the
use of the i>easantry (to the poor and partly also the middle peasantry). The
amount of land to be so transferred to be determined by economic expediency as
well as by the degree of necessity to neutralize the peasantry and to win them
over the side of the proletariat: this amount nuist necessarily vary according to
the different circumstances.
E. Prohibition of buying and selling of land, as a means of preserving the land
for the peasantry and preventing its passing into the bands of capitalists, land
speculators, etc. Violations of this law to be energetically combatted.
F. To combat usury. All transactions entailing terms of bondage to l)e an-
nulled. All debts of the exploited strata of the peasantry to be aimulled. The
poorest stratum of the peasantry to be relieved from taxation, etc.
!»40r!l--40— .Tpp.. pt. 1 n
50 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
G. Comprehensive state measures for developing tlie productive forces of agri-
culture, the development of rural electrification : the manufacture of tractors, the
production of artificial fertilizers ; the production of pure quality seeds and raising
thoroughbred stock on Soviet farms; the extensive organization of agricultural
credits for land reclamation, etc.
H. Financial and other support for agricultural co-operatives and for all forms
of collective production in the rural districts (co-operative societies, communes,
etc.). Systematic propaganda in favor of peasant co-operation (selling, credit
and supply co-operative societies) to be based on the mass activity of the peasants
themselves ; propaganda in favor of the transition to large-scale agricultural pro-
duction which — owing to the indubitable technical and economic advantages of
large-scale production — provide the greatest immediate economic gain and also
a method of transition to socialism most accessible to the broad masses of the
toiling peasants.
C. Trade and Credit:
A. The proletarian nationalization of private banks (the entire gold reserve,
all securities, deposits, etc., to be transferred to the proletarian state) ; the pro-
letarian state to take over state, municipal, etc.. banks.
B. The centralization of banking : all nationalized big banks to be subordinated
to the central state bank.
c. The nationalization of wholesale trade and large retail trading enterprises
(warehouses, elevators, stores, stocks of goods, etc.), and their transfer to the
organs of the Soviet state.
D. Every encouragement to be given to consumers' co-operatives as representing
an integral part of the distribiiting apparatus, while maintaining uniformity in
their system of work and securing the active participation of the masses them-
selves in their work.
E. Monopoly of foreign trade.
F. The repudiation of state debts to foreign and home capitalists.
D. Conditiwis of Ldfe, Labor, etc.:
A. Reduction of the working day to seven hours, and to six hours in industries
particularly hainiful to the health of the workers. P^irther reduction of the
working day and transition to a five-day week in countries with developed pro-
ductive forces. The regulation of the working day to correspond to the increase
of the productivity of labor.
B. Prohibition, as a rule, of night work nnd employment in harmful trades
for all females. Prohibition of child labor. Prohiliition of overtime.
c. Special reduction of the work-day for the youth (a maximum six-hour day
for young persons up to 18 years of age). Socialistic reorganization of the labor
of young persons so as to combine employment in industry with general and
political education.
D. Social insurance in all forms (sickness, old age. accident, unemployment,
etc.) at state expense (and at the expense of the owners of private enterprises
where they still exist), insurance affairs to be managed by the insured them-
selves.
E. Comprehensive measures of hygiene; the organization of free medical
service. To combat social diseases (alcoholism, venereal dieases, tuberculosis,
etc. ) .
p. Complete equality between men and women before the law and in social
life; a radical reform of marital and family laws; recognition of maternity
as a social function: protection of mothers and infants. Initiation of social
care and upbringing of infants and children (creches, kindergartens, children's
homes, etc.).
The establishment of institutions that will gradually relieve the burden of
bouse drudgery (public kitchens and laundries) ; and systematic cultural
struggle against the ideology and traditions of female bondage.
E. Housififf:
A. The confi.scation of big housing property.
B. The transfer of confiscated houses to the administration of the local
Soviets.
c. The bourgeois residential districts to be settled by workers.
D. Palaces and large private and public buildings to be placed at the disposal
of labor organizations.
E. The carrying out of an extensive program of housing construction.
F. Nofio7ial and Colonial Questions:
A. The recognition of the right of all nations, irrespective of race, to com-
plete self-determination, that is, self-determination inclusive of the right to state
separation.
APPENDIX, PART 1 51
B The voluntary unification and centralization of tlie military and economic
forces of all nations liberated from capitalism— for the purpose of fightm^^
against imperialism and for building up socialist economy.
<3. Wide and determined striiggle against the imposition of any kind of limita-
tion and restriction upon any nationality, nation or race. Complete equality
for all nations and races.
D. The Soviet state to guarantee and support with all the resources at its
command thie national cultures of nations liberated from capitalism while
carrying out a consistent proletarian policy in the development of the content of
such cultuiies. . ^ ,^ ,
E. Everj assistance to be rendered to the economic, political and cultura^
gi-owth of the formerly oppressed "territories", "dominions" and "colonies",
with the oJ)ject of transferring them to socialist lines, so that a durable basis
may be l»M for complete national equality.
F. To c<ombat all remnants of chauvinism, national hatred, race prejudices
and other ideological products of feudal and capitalist barbarism.
G. Means of Ideoloigical Influence:
A. The nationalization of printing plants.
B. The monopoly of newspaper and book-publishing.
c. The nationalization of big cinema enterprises, theatres, etc.
D. The utilization of the nationalized means of "intellectual production" for
the most extensive political and general education of the toilers and for the
building up of a new socialist culture on a proletarian class basis.
4. The Basis for the Economic Policy of the Proletarian Dictatorship
In .carrying out all these tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the
following postulatees must be borne in mind :
A. The complete abolition of private property in land, and the nationalization
of the land, camiot be brought about immediately in the more developed
capitalist countries, where the principle of private property is deep-rooted among
broad strata of the peasantry. In such countries, the nationalization of all the
land can only be I)rought about gradually, by means of a series of transitional
measures.
B. Nationalization of production should not, as a rule, be applied to small and
middle-sized enterprises (peasants, small artisans, handicraft, small and
mediitm shops, small manufacturers, etc.). First, because the proletariat must
draw a strict distinction between the proiierty of the small commodity producer
workmg for him.self. who can and must be gradually brought into the groove of
socialist construction, and the property of the capitalist exploiter, the liquidation
of which is an indispensible prerequisite for socialist construction.
Second, because the proletariat, after seizing power, may not have sufficient
organisizing foz-ces at its disix)sal, particularly in the first phases of the dic-
tatorship, for the purpose of destroying capitalism and at the same time to
establish contacts with the smaller and medium individual units of production
'Oil a s<;»cialist basis. These small individual enterprises (primarily peasant
entei-prise^) will be drawn into the general socialist organization of production
and distribution only gradually, with the powerful and systematic aid the
proletarian state will render to organize them in all the various forms of col-
lective enterprises. Any attempt to break up their economic system violently
and to compel them to adopt collective methods by force would only lead to
harmful results.
c. Owing to the prevalence of a large number of small units of production
(primarily peasant farms, farmers' enterprises, small artisans, small shop-
keepers, etc.) in colonies, semi-colonies and economically backward countries,
where the petty-bourgeois masses represent the overwhelming majority of the
population, and even in the centers of the capitalist world economy (the United
States of America, Germany, and to some degree also England), it is necessary,
in the first stage of development, to preserve to some extent, market forms of
economic contacts, the money system, etc. The variety of prevailing economic-
forms (ranging from socialist large scale industry to small peasant and artisan
enterprises), which unavoidably come into conflict with each other; the variety
of classes and class groups corresponding to this variety of economic forms,,
each having different stimuli for economic activity and conflicting class interests
and finally, the prevalence in all spheres of economic life of habits and tradi-
tions inherited from bourgeois society, which cannot be removed all at once. —
/ill this demands that the proletariat, in exercising its economic leadership.
52 UN-AMEKICAN niUI'AGAXDA ACTIVITIES
shall properly combine, on the basis of market relationship, large-scale socialist
industry with the small enterprises of the simple commodity producers, i. e.,
it must combine them in such a way as to guarantee the leading i-ole to socialist
Industry and at the same time bring about the greatest possible development
of the mass of peasant enterprises. Hence, the greater the weight of scattered
small peasant labor in the general economy of the country, the greater will be
the scope of the market relations, the smaller will be the significance of direct,
planned management, and the greater will be the degree to which the general
economic plan will depend upon an estimation of the xmcontrollable economic
relations. On the other hand, the smaller the weight of petty husbandry and
the greater the proporti(»n of .socialized labor, the more powerful the concen-
trated and socialized means of production, the smaller will be the scope of the
market relations, the greater will be the importance of plaiuied management
as compared with the uncontrolled economic activities, and the more consider-
able and univer.sal will be the application of planned nuinagenient in the sphere
of production and distribution.
Provided the proletarian dictator.ship carries out a correct class policy, /. c.,
provided proper account is taken of clas.s-relationshii>s, the technical and eco-
nomic superiority of large-scale socialized production, the centralization of all
the most imiwrtant economic key positions (industry, tran.siiort, large-scale
agricultural enterprises, banks, etc. ) in the hands of the proletarian state,
planned management of industry, and the power wielded by the state apparatus
as a whole (the budget, taxes, administrative legislation and legislation gener-
ally), render it possible continuously and systematically to dislodge private
•capital as well as the new outcrops of capitalism which, on the basis of more
•or less free trading and of the market relations, emerge in town and country
■with the development of simple comnifMlity production (big fanners, kulaks).
At the same time, by organizing peasant farming on co-operative lines, and as
i\ result of the growth of collective forms of economy, the great bulk of the
peasant enterprises will be .systematically drawn into the main channel of
developing socialism. The oiitwardly capitalist forms and methods of eco-
nomic activity that are bound up with market relations (money form of ac-
counting, payment for labor in money, buying and selling, credit and banks,
etc.), serve as levers for the socialist transformation insofar as they to an
increasing degree serve the consistently socialist type of enterprises, /. e., the
socialist section of economy.
Thus, provided the state carries out a correct policy, the market relations
under the proletarian dictatorship destroy themselves in the process of their
•own development by helping to dislodge private capital, by changing the char-
acter of peasant economy, by further centralization and concentration of the
means of production in the hands of the proletarian state; by these means they
help to destroy market relations altogether.
In the event of probable capitalist military intervention, and of prolonged
counter-revolutionary wars against the dictatorship of the proletariat, the
necessity may arise for a war-Communist economic policy (War Communism),
which is nothing more nor less than the organization of rational consumption
for the purpose of military defense, accompanied by a system of intensified
pressure upon the capitalist groups (confiscation, requisitions, etc.), with the
more or less complete liquidation of freedom of trade and market relations and
a sharp interference with the individualistic, economic stimuli of the small
producers, which results in a diminution of the productve forces of the country.
This policy of War Conununism. while it luidermines the material basis of the
strata of the population of the country that are hostile to the working class,
secures a rational distribution of the available supplies and facilitates the
military struggle of the proletarian dictatorship, which is the historical justifi-
cation of this policy, it nevertheless cannot be regarded as the "normal" eco-
nomic policy of the proletarian dictatorship.
5. Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Classes
Tiie dictatorship of the proletariat is a eontiniiation of the class striiof/le
under new conditions. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a stubborn fight —
bloody and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, pedagogical
iind administrative, — against the forces and traditions of the old society,
against external capitalist enemies, against the remnants of the exploiting
classes within the country, against the upshoots of the new bourgeosie that
spring up on the basis of still existing commodity production.
APPENDIX, PART 1 53
After the civil war has been broxight to an end the stubborn class struggle
continues in new forms, primarily in the form of a struggle between the sur-
vivals of previous economic systems and fresh upshoots of them on the one
hand, and socialist forms of economy on the othei-. The forms of the struggle
undergo a change at various stages of socialist development, and in the first
stages, the struggle, under certain conditions, may be extremely severe.
In the initial stage of the proletarian dictatorship, the policy of the prole-
tariat towards other classes and social groups within the country is determined
by the following postulates :
A. The Up honrgcoKic and the lando'wners, a section of the officer corps, the
higher command of the forces, and the higher bureaucracy — who remain loyal
to the bourgeosie and the landlords — are consistent enemies of the working
class against whom ruthless war must be waged. The organizing skill of a
certain section of these strata may be utilized, but as a rule, only after the
dictatorship has been consolidated and all conspiracies and rebellions of ex-
ploiters have been decisively crushed.
B. In regard to the technical i)itelUf/entsia, which was brought up in the
spirit of bourgeois traditions and the higher ranks of which were closely linked
up with the commanding apparatus of capital, the proletariat, while ruth-
lessly suppressing every coiuiter-revolutionary action on the part of hostile
sections of the intelligentsia, must at the same time give consideration to the
necessity of utilizing this skilled social force for the work of socialist con-
struction ; it must give every encouragement to the groups that are neutral,
and especially to those that are friendly, towards the proletarian revolution.
In widening the economic, technical and cultural perspective of socialist con-
struction to its utmost social limits, the iiroletariat must systematically win
over the technical intelligentsia to its side, subject it to its ideological influence
and secure its close co-operation in the work of social reconstruction.
c. In regard to the peasoHtrij, it is tb.e task of the Communist Party, while
placing its reliance in the agricultui'al proletariat, to win over all the exploited
and toiling strata of the countr.vside. The victorious proletariat must draw
strict distinctions between the various groups among the peasantry, weigh their
relative importance, and render every support to the propertyless and semi-
proletarian sections of the peasantry by transferring to them a part of the
land taken from the big landowners, by helping them in theii' struggle against
usurer's capital, etc. Moreover, the proletariat must neutralize the middle
strata of the peasantry and mercilessly suppress the slightest opposition on the
I)art of the village I)ourgeoisie who ally themselves with the landowners. As
its dictatorship becomes consolidated and socialist constniction develops, the
proletariat nnist proceed from the policy of neutralization to a policy of durable
alliance witli the masses of middle pea.santry, but must not adopt the viewpoint
of sharing power in any form. The dictatorship of the proletariat implies that
the industrial workers alone are capable of leading the entire mass of the toilers.
On the other hand, while representing the rule of a single class, the dictator-
ship of the proletariat at the same time represents a special form of class
alliance between the proletariat, as the vanguard of the toilers, and the
numerous non-proletarian sections of the toiling masses, or the majority of
them. It represents an alliance for the complete overthrow of capital, for the
complete suppression of the opposition of the bourgeoisie and its attempts at
restoration, an alliance aiming at the complete building up and consolidation
of socialism.
D. The urban pctti/ hoiin/eoisie, which continuously wavers between extreme
reaction and sympathy for tlie proletariat, must likewise be neutralized and,
as far as possible, won over to the side of the proletariat. This can be achieved
by leaving to them theii- small property and permitting a certain measure of
free ti-ade, by releasing them from the bondage of usurious credit and by the
proletariat's helping them in all sorts of ways in the struggle against all and
every form of capitalist oppression,
G. jl/a.s'.s^ Organizations iyi the f^iistcin of Proletariaii Dictatorship
In the process of fulfilling tliese tasks of the proletarian dictator.ship, a radi-
cal change takes place in the tasks and functions of the mass organizations,
particularly of the tahor organizations. Under capitalism, the mass labor or-
ganizations, in which the broad masses of the proletariat were originally
organized and trained, i.e., the trade (industrial) unions, served as the prin-
cipal weapons in the struggle against trustified capital and its state. Under
54 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
the proletarian dictatorship, they become transformed into the principal lever
of the state; thej- become transformed into a school of communism, by means
of which vast masses of the pi-oletariat are drawn into the work of socialist
management of production; they are transformed into organizations directly
connected with all parts of the state apparatus, influencing all branches of its
■work, safeguarding the lasting as well as the day to day interests of the
working class and fighting against bureaucratic distortions in the organs of the
Soviet state. Thus, insofar as they promote from their ranks leaders in tlie
work of construction, draw into this work of construction broad sections of the
proletariat and particularly as they undertake the task of combating bureau-
cratic distortions which inevitably arise as a result of the operation of class
influences alien to the proletariat and of the inadequate cultural development
of the masses, the trade unions become the backbone of the proletarian economic
and state organization as a whole.
Notwithstanding reformist Utopias, worki)i[/ chhsu co-operatwe organizations
under capitalism are doomed to play a very minor role and in the general
environment of the capitalist system not infrequently degenerate into mere
appendages of capitalism. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, however,
these organizations can and must become the most important units of the
distributing apparatus.
Lastly, peasmit agricultural co-operative organ izationn (selling, purchasing,
credit and producing), under proper management and provided a systematic
struggle is carried on against the capitalist elements, and that really broad
masses of the toilers who follow the lead of the proletariat take a really active
part in their work, can and must become one of the principal organizational
means for linking up town and country. To the extent that they were able
to maintain their existence at all under capitalism, co-operative peasant enter-
prises inevitably became transformed into capitalist enterprises, for they were
dependent upon" capitalist industry, capitalist banks and upon capitalist eco-
nomic environment, and were led by reformists, the peasant bourgeoisie, and
sometimes even by landlords. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, how-
ever, such enterprises develop amidst a different system of relationships, they
depend upon proletarian industry, proletarian banks, etc. Thus, provided the
proletariat carries out a proper policy, provided the class struggle is system-
atically conducted against the capitalist elements outside as well as inside the
co-operative organizations, and provided socialist industry exercises its guid-
ance over it, agricultural co-operation will become one of the principal levers
for the socialist transformation and collectivization of the countryside. All
this, however, does not exclude the possibility that in certain countries the
consumers' societies, and particularly the agricultural co-operative societies led
by the bourgeoisie and their Social-Democratic agents, at first be hotbeds of
counter-revolutionary activity and sabotage against the work of economic
construction of the workers' revolution.
In the course of this militant and constructive work, carried on through
the medium of these multifarious proletarian organizations — which should
serve as effective levers of the Soviet state and the link between it and the
masses of all strata of the working class — the proletariat secures unity of will
and action and exercises this unity through the medium of the Communist
Party, which plays the leading role in the system of the proletarian dictatorship.
The Party of the proletariat relies directly on the trade unions and other
organizations that embrace the masses of the workers, and through these, relies
on the peasantry (Soviets, co-operative societies, Young Communist Leagues,
etc.) ; by means of these levers it guides the whole Soviet system. The pro-
letariat can fulfill its role as organizer of the new society only if the Soviet
government is loyally supported by all the mass organizations, only if class
unity is maintained, and only under the guidance of the Party.
~. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Cultural Revolution
The role of organiser of the new human society presupposes that the pro-
letariat itself will become culturally mature^ that it will transform its own
nature, that it will continually promote from its ranks increasing numbers of
men and women capable of mastering science, technics and administration in
order to build up socialism and a new socialist culture.
Bourgeois revolution against feudalism presupposes that a new class has arisen
in the midst of feudal society that is culturally more advanced than the ruling
class and is already the dominant factor in economic life. The proletarian
APPENDIX, PART 1 55
revcihition, however, develops under other conditions. Being economically ex-
ploited, politically oppressed and culturally downtrodden under capitalism, the
working class transforms its owai nature only in the course of the transition
period, only after it lias conquered state poiver, only by destroying the bour-
geois monopoly of education and mastering all the sciences, and only after it has
gained experience in great works of construction. The mass awakening of
communist consciousness, the cause of socialism itself, calls for a mass chunge of
human nature-, which can be achieved only in the course of the practical move-
ment, in revolution. Hence, revolution is not only necessary because there is
no other way of overthrowing the ruling class, but also because, only in the
process of revolution is the ov^erthroicing class able to purge itself of the dross
of the old society and become capable of creating a new society.
In destroying the capit^ilist monoply of the means of production, the working
class must also destroy the capitalist monopoly of education, that is, it must
take possession of all of the schools, from the elementary schools to the uni-
versities. It is particularly important for the proletariat to train members of
the working class as experts in the sphere of production (engineers, techni-
cians, organizers, etc.), as well as in the sphere of military affairs, science, art,
etc. Parallel with this work stands the task of raising the general cultural
level of the proletarian masses, of improving their political education, of raising
their general standard of knowledge and technical skill, of training them in
the methods of public work and administration, and of combating the survivals
of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois prejudices, etc.
Only to the extent that the proletariat promotes from its own ranks a body
of advanced men and women capable of occupying these "key positions" of
socialist construction and culture, only to the extent that this body grows, and
draws increasing numbers of the working class into the process of revolutionai*y-
cultural transformation and gradually obliterates the line that divides the
proletariat into an "advanced" and a "backward" section will the guarantees
be created for successful socialist construction and against bureaucratic decay
and class degeneracy.
However, in the process of revolution the proletariat not only changes its
own nature, but also the nature of other classes-, primarily the numerous petty-
bourgeois strata in town and country and especially the toiling sections of the
peasantry. By drawing the wide masses into the process of cultural revolu-
tion and .socialist construction, by uniting and communistically educating them
with all the means at its disposal, by strongly combating all anti-proletarian and
narrow craft ideologies, and by persistently and systematically overcoming the
general and cultural J>ackwardness of the rural districts, the working class, on
the basis of the developing collective forms of economy, prepares the way for
the complete removal of class divisions in society.
One of the most important tasks of the cultural revolution affecting the wide
mjisses is the task of systematically and unswervingly combating religion — the
(ipium of the people. The proletarian government must withdraw all state
support from the church, which is the agency of the former ruling class ; it
mu.«;t prevent all church interference in state-organized educational affairs, and
ruthlessly suppress the counter-revolutionary activity of the ecclesiastical or-
ganizations. At the same time, the proletarian state, while granting liberty
of worship and abolishing the privileged position of the formerly dominent
religion, carries on anti-religious propaganda with all the means at its com-
mand and reconstructs the whole of its educational work on the basis of
scientifie materiali-sm.
S. The Struggle for the World Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Principal
Types of Revolutions
The international proletarian revolution represents a combination of processes
which vary in time and character : purely proletarian revolutions ; revolutions
of a bourgeois-democratic type which grow into proletarian revolutions ; wars
for national liberation ; colonial revolutions. The world dictatorship of the
proletariat comes only as the final result of the revolutionary process.
The uneven development of capitalism, which became more accentuated in
the period of imi>erialism, has given ri.se to a variety of types of capitalism,
to different stages of ripeness of capitalism in different countries, and to a
variety of sijecific conditions of the revolutionary process. These circumstances
make it historically inevitable that the proletariat will come to power by a
varifty of ways and degrees of rapidity ; that a number of countries must pass
5g UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
through certain transition stages leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat
and must adopt varied forms of socialist construction.
The variety of conditions and ways by which the proletariat will achieve
its dictatorship in the various countries may be divided schematically into
three main types.
Countries of highly developed capitalism (United States of America, Germany,
Great Britain, etc), having powerful productive forces, highly centralized pro-
duction, with small-scale production reduced to relative insignificance, and a
long established bourgeois-democratic political system. In such countries the
fundamental political demand of the program is direct transition to the dic-
tatorship of the proletariat. In the economic sphere, the most characteristic
demands are: expropriation of the whole of large-scale industry; organization of
a large number of state Soviet farms and, in contrast to this, a relatively
small portion of the land be transferred to the peasantry ; unregulated market
relations to be given comparatively small scope ; rapid rate of socialist develop-
ment generally, and of collectivization of peasant farming in particular.
Countries ivith a medium development o^ capitalism, (Spain, Portugal, Poland,
Hungary, the Balkan countries, etc. I , having numerous survivals of semi-feudal
relationships in agriculture, possessing, to a certain extent, the material prerequi-
sites for socialist construction, and in which the bourgeois-democratic reforms
have not yet been completed. In some of these countries a process of more or less
rapid development from bourgeois-democratic revolution to socialist revolution is
possible. In others, there may be types of proletarian revolutions which will have
a large number of bourgeois-democratic tasks to fulfill. Hence, in these countries,
the dictatorship of the proletariat may not come ab(jut at once, but in the process
of transition from the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry to
the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat ; where the revolution develops directly
as a proletarian revolution it is presumed that the proletariat exercises leadership
over a broad agrarian peasant movement. In general, the agrarian revolution
plays a most important part in these countries, and in some cases a decisive role ;
in the process of expropriating large landed property a considerable portion of
the confiscated land is placed at the disposal of the peasantry ; the scope of market
relations prevailing after the victory of the proletariat is considerable: the task
of organizing the peasantry along cooperative lines and, later, of uniting them in
cooperative production, occupies an important place among the tasks of socialist
construction. The rate of this construction is relatively slow.
Colonial and semi-colonial countries (China, India, etc.), and dependent coun-
tries (Argentina, Brazil, etc.), having the rudiments of and in some cases con-
siderably developed industry, but which in the majority of cases is inadequate for
independent socialist construction ; with medieval feudal relationship, or "Asiatic
mode of production" relationships, prevailing in their economics and political
super-structure: finally, their most important industrial, commercial and lianking
enterprises, the principal means of transport, the large landed estates (lati-
fundia), plantations, etc., are concentrated in the hands of foreign imperialist
groups. The principal tasks in such countries are, on the one hand, to fight
against feudalism and the pre-capitalist forms of exploitation and to develop
systematically the peasant agrarian revolution ; on the other hand, to fight against
foreign imperialism and for national independence. As a rule, transition to the
dictatorship of the proletariat in these countries will be possible only through
a series of preparatory stages, at the outcome of a whole period of the trans-
formation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into socialist revolution, while
in the majority of cases, successful socialist construction will be possible only if
direct support is obtained from the countries in which the proletarian dictatorship
is established.
In still more backward countries (as in some parts of Africa) where there are
no wage workers or very few, where the majority of the population still live in
tribal conditions, where survivals of primitive, tribal forms still exist, where a
national bourgeoisie is almost non-existent, where the primary role of foreign
imperialism is that of military occupation and usurpation of land, the central
task is to fight for national independence. Victorious national uprisings in these
countries may open the way for their direct development towards socialism and
their avoiding the stage of capitalism, provided real, powerful assistance is
rendered to them by the countries in M'liich the proletarian dictatorship is
established.
Thus, in the epoch in which the proletariat in the most developed capitalist
countries is confronted with the task of capturing power, in which the dictatorship
of the proletariat is already established in the U.S.S.R. and is a factor of world
APPENDIX, PART 1 57
siguificance; tlie liberation movements in the colonial and semi-colonial countries,
which were caused by the penetration of world capitalism, may lead to their
.socialist development — notwithstanding the immaturity of social relationships in
these countries taken by themselves — iirovided theij reeeive the ai^sistance and
support of the proletarian dictatorship and of the international proletarian move-
ment generally.
9. The Struggle for the World Proletarian Dictatorship and the Colonial
Revolutions
The special conditions of the revolutionary struggle prevailing in colonial and
semi-colonial countries, the inevital)ly long period of struggle required for the
demo<-ratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry and for the trans-
formation of this dictatorship into the dictatorship of the proletariat, and,
finally, the decisive importance of the national aspects of the struggle, impose
upon the Comnnmist Parties of these countries a number of special tasks, which
are preparatory stages to the general tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The Communist International considers the following to be the most important
of these special tasks :
A. To overthrow the rule of foreign imperialism, of the feudal rulers and of
the landlord bureaucracy.
B. To establish the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry
on a Soviet basis.
o. Ck)mplete national independence and national unification.
n. Annulment of state debts.
K. Nationalization of the large-scale enterprises (industrial, transport, banking
and others) owned by the imperialists.
F. The confiscation of landlord, church and monastery lands. The national-
ization of all the land.
Ci. Introduction of the eight-hour day.
H. The organization of revolutionary workers' and peasants' armies.
In the colonies and semi-colonies where the proletariat is the leader of and
commands hegemony in the struggle, the consistent bourgeois-democratic revolu-
tion will grow into proletarian revolution — in proportion as the struggle develops
and becomes more intense (sabotage by the bourgeoisie, confiscation of the enter-
pi'ises l)elonging to the sabotaging section of the bourgeoisie, which inevitably
extends to the nationalization of the whole of large-scale industry). In the
colonies where there is no proletariat, the overthrow of the domination of the
imperialists implies the establishment of the rule of people's (peasant) Soviets,
the confiscation and transfer to the state of foreign enterprises and lands.
Colonial revolutions and movements for national liberation play an extremely
important part in the struggle against imperialism and in the struggle for the
conquest of power by the working class. Colonies and semi-colonies are also
important in the transition period because they constitute the world rural district
in relation to the industrial countries, which function, as it were, as the urban
cenrers of the world. Consequently, the problem of organizing socialist world
economy, of properly combining industry with agriculture is, to a large extent,
the problem of the relation towards the former colonies of imperialism. The
establishment of a fraternal fighting alliance with the masses of the toilers in
the colonies co)i.stitutes one of the principal tasks lohich the tvorld industrial
proletariat must fulfill as the leader in the struggle against imperialism.
Thus, the world revolution in the course of its development, while rousing the
workers in the imperialist countries for the struggle for the proletarian dictator-
ship, rouses also hundreds of millions of colonial workers and peasants for the
struggle against foreign imperialism. In view of the existence of centers of
socialism represented by Soviet Republics of growing economic power, the colonies
which break away from imperialism economically gravitate towards and gradu-
ally combine with the industrial centers of world socialism. Thus, drawn into
the channel of socialist construction, they skip the further stage of development
of capitalism as a pi-edominant system, and obtain opportunities for rapid eco-
nomic and cultural progress. The Peasants' Soviets in the backward ex-colonies
and the Workers' and Peasants' Soviets in the more developed ex-colonies group
themselves politically around the centers of proletarian dictatorship, join the
grt>wing Federation of Soviet Republics, and thus enter the general system of
the world proletarian dictatorship.
Socialism, as the new method of production, thus obtains world-wide scope of
development.
58 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
CHAPTER FIVE
The Diotatorship or the Proletariat in the U. S. S. R. and the iNTsatNA-
TioNAL SooiAi. Revolution
1. The Building Up of Socialism in the U. S. S. R. and the Class Struggle
The principal manifestation of the profound crisis of the capitalist system
is the division of world economy into capitalist countries on the one hand, and
countries building up socialism on the other. Therefore, the internal consoli-
dation of the proletarian dictatorship in the U. S. S. R., the success achieved
in the work of socialist construction, the growth of the influence and authority
of the U. S. S. R. among the masses of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples
of the colonies signify the continuation, strengthening and expansion of the
international socialist revolution.
Possessing in the country the necessary and suflScient material prerequisites
not only for the overthrow of the landlords and the bourgeoisie but also for the
establishment of complete socialism, the workers of the Soviet Republic, with
the aid of the international proletariat, heroically repelled the attacks of the
armed forces of the internal and foreign counter-revolution, consolidated their
alliance with the bulk of the peasantry and achieved considerable success in the
sphere of socialist construction.
The linking up of the proletarian socialist industry with the small peasant
economy, thus stimulating the growth of the productive forces of agriculture and
at the same time asuring the leading role to socialist industry ; the collaboration
of this industry with agriculture, instead of its catering, as was the case under
capitalism, to the unproductive consumption of parasitic classes ; production, not
for capitalist profit, but for the satisfaction of the growing needs of the masses
of the consumers; the growth of the needs of the masses, which in the final
analysis greatly stimulates the entire productive process ; and finally, the close
concentration of the economic key positions under the command of the proletrian
state, the growth of planned management and the more economic and expedient
distribution of the means of production that goes with it— all this enables the
proletariat to make rapid progress along the road of socialist construction.
In raising the level of the productive forces of the whole economy of the
country, and in steering a straight course for the Industrialization of the
U. S. S. R. — the rapidity of which is dictated by the international and internal
situation, the proletariat in the U. S. S. R., notwithstanding the systematic
attempts on the part of the capitalist powers to org'anize an economic and
financial boycott against the Soviet Republics, at the same time increases the
relative share of the socialized (socialist) sector of national economy in the
total means of production in the country, in the total output of industry and in
the total trade turnover.
Thus, with the land nationalized, and with the increasing industrialization of
the country, the state socialist industry, transport and banking are more and
more guiding, by the means of the state trade and the rapidly growing coop-
eratives, the activities of the small and very small peasant enterprises.
In the sphere of agriculture especially, the level of the forces of production
is being ratsed amidst the conditions that restrict the process of differentiation
among the peasantry (nationalization of the land, and consequently, the pro-
hibition of the sale and purchase of land ; sharply gi'aded progressive taxation ;
the financing of poor and middle peasants' cooperative societies and producers'
organizations ; laws regulating the hiring of labor ; depriving the kulaks of cer-
tain political and public rights ; organizing the rural poor in separate organiza-
tions, etc.). However, in so far as the productive forces of socialist industry
have not yet grown sufficiently to provide a broad new technical base for
agriculture and, consequently, to render possible the immediate and rapid unifi-
cation of peasant enterprises into Targe social enterprises (collective farms),
the kulak class, too, grows, establishing economic and, later, also political col-
laboration with the elements of the so-called "new bourgeoisie".
Being in command of the principal economic key positions in the country and
systematically squeezing out the remnants of urban and private capital, which
has greatly dwindled in the last few years of the New Economic Policy ; re-
stricting in every way the exploiting strata in the rural districts that arise out
of the development of commodity and money relationships ; supporting existing
Soviet farms in the rural districts and establishing new ones ; drawing the bulk
of the peasant simple commodity producers into the general system of Soviet
APPENDIX, PART 1 59
ecouomic organization and, consequently, into the work of socialist construction,
through the medium of the rapidly growing cooperative movement, which —
under the proletarian dictatorship and in view of the economic leadership of
socialist industry — is identical with the development of socialism ; passing from
the process of restoration to the process of expanded reproduction of the entire
productive and technical base of the country — the proletariat of the U. S. S. R.
sets itself, and is already beginning to fulfill, the task of large-scale basic con-
struction (production of means of production generally, development of heavy
industry land especially of electrification) and, developing still further, selling,
buying and credit cooperation, sets itself the task of organizing the peasantry
in producing cooperatives on a mass scale and a collectivist basis, which calls
for the powerful material assistance of the proletari'an state.
Thus socialism — which is already the decisive economic force determining,
in the main, the entire economic development of the U. S. S. R. — makes still
further strides in its development and systematically overcomes the diflBculties
that arise from the petty-bourgeois character of the country and the periods
of temporarily acute class antagonisms.
The task of re-equipping industry and of large-scale basic construction must
give rise to serious difficulties in the path of socialist development which, in
the last analysis, are to be attributed to the technical and economic backward-
ness of the country and to the ruin claused in the years of the imperialist and
civil wars. Notwithstanding this, however, the standard of living of the
working class and of the broad masses of the toilers is steadily rising and,
simultaneously with the socialist rationalization and scientific organization of
industry, the seven-hour day is gradually being introduced, which opens up
still wider prospects for the improvement of the living and working conditions
of the working class.
On the basis of the economic growth of the U. S. S. R. and of the steady
increase in the relative importance of the socialist sector of its economy; never
for a moment halting the struggle against the kulaks ; relying upon the rural
poor and maintaining a firm alliance with the bulk of the middle peasantry,
the working class, united and led by the Communist Party which has been
hardened in revolutionary battles, draws increasing masses, scores of millions
of toilers into the work of socialist construction. The principal means employed
towards this aim are: the development of broad mass organizations (the Party,
as the guiding force ; the trade unions, as the backbone of the entire system
of the proletarian dictatorship ; the Young Communist League ; cooperative
societies of all types ; working women's and peasant women's organizations ;
(he various so-called "voluntary societies" ; worker and peasant correspondents'
societies; sport, scientific, cultural and educational organizations) ; full encour-
agement of the initiative of the masses and the promotion of fresh strata of
workers to high posts in all spheres of economy and administi*ation. The
steady attraction of the masses into the process of socialist construction, the
constant renovation of the entire state, economic, trade union and Party
apparatus with men and women fresh from the ranks of the proletariat, the
systematic training, in the higher educational institutions and at special
courses, of workers generally and young workers in particular as new, socialist
experts in all branches of construction — all these together serve as one of the
principal guarantees against the bureaucratic ossification and social degenera-
tion of the stratum of the proletariat directly engaged in administration.
2. The Signipcance of the U. 8. S. R. and Its International
Revolutionary Duties
Having defeated Russian imperialism and liberated all the former colonies
and oppressed nations of the tsai'ist empire, and systematically laying a firm
foundation for their cultural and political development by industrializing their
territories ; having guaranteed the juridicial position of the Autonomous Terri-
tories, Autonomous Republics and Federated Republics in the Constitution of
the Union and having realized in full the right of nations to self-determination
— the dictatorship of the proletariat in the U. S. S. R. has thereby secured, not
only formal, but al.so real equality for the different nationalities of the Union.
As the land of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of socialist construc-
tion, the land of great working class achievements, of the union of the workers
with the peasants and of a new culture marching under the banner of Marxism,
the U. S. S. R. inevitably becomes the base of the world movement of all op-
pressed classe,s, the center of international revolution, the greatest factor in
,QQ UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
world history. In the U. S. S. R., the world proletariat for the first time has
acquired a country that is really its own, and for the colonial movements the
U. S. S. R. becomes a powerful center of attraction.
Thus, the U. S. S. R. is an extremely important factor in the general crisis
■of capitalism, not only because it has dropped cut of the world capitalist system
and has created a basis for a new socialist system of production, but also
because it plays an exceptionally great revolutionary role generally; it is the
international driving force of proletarian revolution that impels the proletariat
■of all countries to seize power ; it is the living example proving that the working
class is not only capable of destroying capitalism, but of building up socialism
as well ; it is the prototype of the fraternity of nationalities in all lands united
in the world union of socialist republics and of the economic unity of the toilers
of all countries in a single world socialist economic system that the world
proletariat must establish when it has captured political power.
The simultaneous existence of two economic systems — the socialist system
in the U. S. H. R., and the capitalist system in other countries — imposes on tlie
proletarian state the task of warding off the blows showered upon it by the
capitalist world (boycott, blockade, etc.). This also compels it to resort to
economic maneuvering and to utilize the economic contacts with the capitalist
countries (with the aid of the monopoly of foreign trade, which is one of the
fundamental conditions for the successful building up of socialism, and also
with the aid of credits, loans, concessions, etc.). The principal and fundamental
line to be followed in this connection must be the line of establishing the widest
possible contact with foreign countries — within limits determined hv tbfir
usefulness to the I'. !S. S. R., i. e., primarily for strengthening industry in tlie
U. S. S. R., for laying the base for its own heavy industry and electrification and
finally, for the development of its own socialist machine manufacturing in-
dustry. Only to the extent that the economic indei>endence of the U. S. S. R.
from the encircling capitalist world is secured can solid guarantees be obtained
against the danger that socialist construction in the U. S. S. R. may be destroyed
and that the U. S. S. R. may be transformed into an appendage of the world
capitalist system.
On the other hand, notwithstanding their interest in the markets of the
U. S. S. R., the capitalist states continually vacillate between their commercial
interests and their fear of the growtli of the U. S. S. R., which means the growth
of the international revolution. However, tha principal and fundamental
tendency in the policy of the imperialist powers is to encircle the U. S. S. R. and
to conduct counter-revQlutionary war against her in order to strangle her
and to establish a world bourgeois terrorist regime.
The systematic imperialist attempts politically to encircle the U. S. S. R. and
the growing danger of an armed attack upon her, do not, however, prevent
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union — a section of the Communist Inter-
national and the leader of the proletarian dictatorship in the U. S. S. R. — from
fulfilling its international obligations and from rendering support to all the
<)ppressed, to the labor movement in the capitalist countries, to the colonial
movements against imperialism and to the struggle against national oppres-
sion in every form.
3. The Duties of the International Proletariat to the U. 8. S. R.
In view of the fact that the TJ. S. S. R. is the only fatherland of the interna-
tional proletariat, the principal bulwark of its achievements and the most
important factor for its international emancipation, the international pro-
letariat must on its part facilitate the success of the work of socialist con-
struction in the U. S. S. R. and defend it against the attacks of the capitalist
powers by all the means in its power.
"The world political situation has made the dictatorship of the proletariat
an immediate issue, and all the events of world politics are inevitably
concentrating around one central point, nfimely, the struggle of the world
bourgeoisie against the Soviet Russian Republic, which must inevitably
group around itself the Soviet movements of the advanced workei's of all
countries on the one hand, and all the national liberation movements of
the colonial and oppressed nationalities on the other." {Lenin.)
In the event of the imperialist states declaring war upon and attacking the
U. S. S. R., the international proletariat must retaliate by organizing bold and
determined mass action and struggling for the overthrow of the imperialist
APPENDIX, PART 1 61
governments with the slogan of: Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Alliance
with the U. S. S. R. ......
In the colonies, and particularly the colonies of the imperialist country
attacking the U. S. S. R., every effort must be made to take advantage of the
diversion of the imperialist military forces to develop an anti-imperialist
struggle and to organize revolutionary action for the purpose of throwing off
the vokp of imperialism and of winninj; complete independence.
The development of socialism in the U. S. S. R. and the growth of its inter-
national innuence not only rouse the hatred of the capitalist states and the
Social-Democratic agents against it, but also inspire the toilers all over the
world with sympathy towards it and stimulate the readiness of the oppressed
classes of all countries to fight with all the means in their power for the
land of the proletarian dictatorship, in the event of au imperialist attack
upon it.
Thus, the development of the contradictions within modern world economy,
the development of the general capitalist crisis, and the imperialist military
attack upon the Soviet Union inevitably lead to a mighty revolutionary outbreak
which must overwhelm capitalism in a number of the so-called civilized countries,
unlease the victorious revolution in the colonies, broaden the base of the prole-
tarian dlctatorsliip to an enormous degree and thus, with tremendous strides,
bring nearer the final world victoi-y of socialism.
chaptersix
The Strategy and Tactics of the Communist International in the Struggle
FOR the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
1. Ideologies Among the Working Class Inimical to Communism
In its fight against capitalism for the dictatorship of the proletariat, revolu-
tionary conuuunism encounters numerous tendencies within the working class
which to a greater or lesser degree express the ideological suliordination of the
proletariat to tlie imperialist bourgeoisie, or rellect the ideological influence
exercised upon the proletariat by the petty bourgeoisie, which at times rebels
against the .shackles of finance capital, but is incapable of adopting sustained
and scientifically planned strategy and tactics or of carrying on the struggle in
an organized manner on the basis of the stern discipline that is characteristic
of the proletariat.
The mighty social power of the imperialist state, with its auxiliary apparatus
— schools, press, theater and church — is primarily reflected in the existence of
confessional and reformist tendencies among the working class, which represent
the main obstacles on the road towards the proletarian social revolution.
The confessional, religiously tinged, tendency among the working class flnds
expression in the confessional trade unions, which frequently are directly con-
nected with corresponding bourgeois political organizations and are affiliated
with one or other of the church organizations of the dominant class (Catholic
trade unions, Young Men's Christian As.sociation, Jewish Zionist organizations,
etc.). All these tendencies, being the most striking ijroduct of the ideological
captivity of certain strata of the proletariat, in most cases, bear a romantic-
feudal tinge. By sanctifying all the abominations of the capitalist regime with
the holy water of religion, and by terrorizing their flock with the spectre of
punishment in the hereafter, the leaders of these organizations serve as the most
reactionary agents of the class enemy in the camp of the proletariat.
A cynically commercial, and imperialistic secular form of subjecting the pro-
letariat to the ideological influence of the bourgeoisie is represented by contem-
porary "socialist" reformism. Taking its main gospel from the tablets of
imperialist politics, its model today is the deliberately anti-socialist and openly
counter-revolutionary American Federation of Labor. The "ideological" dic-
tatorship of the servile American trade union bureaucracy, which in its turn
expresses the "ideological" dictatorship of the American dollar, has become,
through the medium of British reformism and His Majesty's Socialists of the
British Labor Party, the most important constituent in the theory and practice
of international Social-Democracy and of the leaders of the Amsterdam Inter-
antional, while the leaders of German and Austrian Social-Democracy embellish
these theories with Marxism phraseology in order to cover up their utter be-
trayal of Marxism. The principal enemy of revolutionary communism in the
labor movement, "socialist" reformism, which has a broad organizational base
62 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
in the Social -Democratic Parties and tlirougli these in tlie reformist trade unions,
stands out in its entire policy and tlieoretical outlook as a force directed against
the proletaiian revohition.
In the sphere of foreign, politics, the Social-Democratic Parties actively sup-
ported the imperialist war on the pretext of "defending the fatherland". Im-
perialist expansion and "colonial policy'' received their wholehearted support.
Orientation towards the counter-revolutionary "holy alliance" of imperialist
powers (the League of Nations), advocacy of "ultra-imperialism", mobilization
of the masses under pseudo-pacifist slogans, and at the same time, active supiwrt
of imperialism in its attacks upon the U. S. S. R. and in its preparations for war
against the U. S. S. R. — are the main features of reformist foreign policy.
In the sphere of home politics, Social-Democracy has set itself the task of
directly cooperating with and supporting the capitalist regime. Complete sup-
port for capitalist rationalization and stabilization, safeguarding of class peace,
of "industrial peace" ; the policy of linking up the labor organizations with the
organizations of the employers and with the predatory imperialist state ; the
practice of so-called "industrial democracy" which in fact means complete sub-
ordination to trustified capital ; homage to the imperialist state and particularly
to its false democratic front ; active participation in the building up of the organs
of the imperialist state — police, army, gendarmerie, its class judiciary; the
defense of the state against the encroachments of the revolutionary communist
proletariat and the executioner's role Social-Democracy plays in time of revolu-
tionary crisis — such is the line of reformist home policy. While pretending to
conduct the industrial struggle, reformism considers its function in this field
to be to conduct that struggle in such manner as to guard the capitalist class
against any kind of shock, or at all events, to preserve the complete inviolability
of the foundations of capitalist property.
In the sphere of theory, Social-Democracy has utterly and completely be-
trayed Marxism, having traversed the road from revisionism' to complete liberal
bourgeois reformism and avowed social-imperialism ; it has substituted In place
of the Marxian theory of the contradictions of capitalism, the bourgeois theory
of its harmonious development : it has pigeonholed the theory of crises and of
the pauperization of the proletariat ; it has turned the flaming and redoubtable
theory of class struggle into the mean advocacy of class peace ; it has exchanged
the theory of growing class antagonisms for the petty-bourgeois fairy-tale about
the "democratization" of capital; in place of the theory of the inevitability of
war under capitalism it has substituted the bourgeois deceit of pacifism and the
lying propaganda of "ultra-imperialism" : it has exchanged the theory of the
revolutionary downfall of capitalism for the counterfeit coinage of "sound"'
capitalism transforming itself peacefully into socialism ; it has replaced revolu-
tion by evolution, the destruction of the bourgeois state by its active upbuilding,
the theory of proletarian dictatorship by the theory of coalition with the bour-
geoisie, the doctrine of international proletarian solidarity — by preaching defense
of the imperialist fatherland ; for Marxian dialetical materialism it has sub-
stituted the idealist philosophy and is now engaged in picking up the crumbs of
religion that fall from the table of the bourgeoisie.
Within Social-Democratic reformism a number of tendencies stand out that
are characteristic of the bourgeois degeneracy of Social-Democracy.
Constrnctii-e socialism (MacDonald & Co.) — the very name of which suggests
the idea of struggle against the revolutionary proletariat and a favorable atti-
tude towards the capitalist system — continiies the liberal-philanhropic. anti-
revolutionary and bourgeois traditions of Fabianism (Beatrice and Sydney
Webb. Bernard Shaw, Lord Oliver, etc.). It repudiates, on principle, the
dictatorship of the proletariat and the iise of violence in the struggle against
the bourgeoisie, but it favors violence in the struggle against the proletariat
and the colonial peoples. Acting as apologist of the capitalist state, "con-
structive socialism" preaches state capitalism under the guise of socialism,
denounces, in conjunction with the most vulgar ideologists of imperialism
in both hemispheres, the theory of the class struggle as "prescientific'' theory,
and ostensibly advocates a moderate program of nationalization with compensa-
tion, taxation of land values, inheritance taxes and taxation of surplus profits
as a means for abolishing capitalism. Being resolutely opposed to the dictator-
ship of the proletariat in the U. S. S. R., "Constructive* Socialism", in complete
alliance with the bourgeoise — is an active enemy of the communist proletarian
movement and of colonial revolutions.
A special variety of "Constructive Socialism" is "Cooperatism'", or "Coopera-
tive Socialism'" (Charles Gide, Totomyantz & Co.), which also strongly repudi-
APPENDIX, PART 1 63
ates the class struggle and advocates the cooperative organization of consumers
as a means of overcoming capitalism, but which in fact does all it can to help
the stabilization of capitalism. Having at its command an extensive propa-
gandist apparatus, in the shape of the mass consumers' cooperative organiza-
tions, which it employs for the purpose of systematically influencing the masses,
"cooperativism" carries on a fierce struggle against the revolutionary labor
movement, hampers it in the achievement of its aims and represents today one
of the most potent factors in the camp of the reformist counter-revolution.
So-called "Guild Socialism' (Penty, Ot*age, Hobson and others) is an eclectic
attempt to unite "revolutionary" syndicalism with bourgeois-liberal Fabianism,
anarchist decentralization ("national industrial guilds") with state-capitalist
centralization, and medieval guild and craft narrowness with modern capitalism.
Starting out with the ostensible demand for the abolition of the "wage system"
as an "immoral" institution which must be abolished by means of workers'
control of industi-y, Guild Socialism completely ignores the most important
question, viz., the question of power. While striving to unite workers, intel-
lectuals, and technicians into a federation of national industrial "guilds" and
to convert these guilds by peaceful means ("control from within") into organs
for the administration of industry within the framework of the bourgeois state,
Guild Socialism actually defends the bourgeois state, obscures its class, im-
perialist and anti-proletarian character and allots tti it the function of the non-
clas.« representative of the interests of the "consumers" as against the guild-
organized "producers". By its advocacy of "functional democracy", *. e., repre-
sentation of classes in capitalist society, each class being presumed to have
definite social and productive function. Guild Socialism paves the way for the
fascist "Corporate State". By repudiating both parliamentarism and "direct
action", the majority of the Guild Socialists doom the working class to inaction
and passive subordination to the bourgeoisie. Thus, Guild Socialism represents
a peculiar form of trade unionist Utopian opportunism and, as such, cannot but
play an anti-revolutionary role.
Lastly, Aiistro-Marxism represents a special variety of Social-Democratic
reformism. Being a part of the "Left-wing" of Social-Democracy, Austro-
]Marxism represents a most subtle deception of the masses of the toilers.
Prostituting the terminology of Marxism, while divorcing themselves entirely
from the basic principles of revolutionary Marxism (the Kantism, Machism,
etc., of the Austro-Marxists in the domain of philosophy), toying with religion,
borrowing the tiieory of "functional democracy" from the British reformists,
agreeing with the principle of "building up the Republic", i. e., building up the
liourgeois state. Austro-Marxism recommends "class cooperation" in periods of
so-called "equilibrium of class forces", /. e., precisely at the time when the revo-
lutionary crisis is maturing. This theory is a .iustification of coalition with the
bourgeoisie for the overthrow of the proletarian revolution under the guise
of defending "democracy" against the attacks of reaction. Objectively, and in
practice, the violence which Austro-Marxism admits in cases of reactionary
attack is converted into reactionary violence against the proletarian revolu-
tion. Hence, the "functional role" of Austro-Marism is to deceive the workers
already marching towards Communism, and therefore it is the most dangerous
enemy of the proletariat, more dangerous than the avowed adherents of
predatory social-imperialism.
All the above-mentioned tendencies, being constituent parts of "socialist"
reformism, are agencies of the imperialist bourgeoisie within the working class
itself. But Communism has to contend also against a number of petty-bourgeois
tendencies, which reflect and express the vacillation of the unstable strata
of society (the urban petty bourgeoisie, the lumpen-proletariat, the declared
Bohemian intellectuals, the pauperized artisans, certain strata of the peasantry,
etc. etc.). These tendencies, which are distinguished for their extreme political
instability, often cover up a Right policy with Left phraseology or drop into
adventurism, substitiite "radical" political gesticulation for objective estimation
of forces and often tumble from astounding heights of revolutionary bombast
to profound depths of pessimism and downright capitulation before the enemy.
Under certain conditions, particularly in periods of sharp changes in the po-
litical situation and of forced temporary retreat, these tendencies may become
very dangerous disrupters of the proletarian ranks and, consequently, a drag
upon the revolutionary proletarian movement.
Anarcliism, the most prominent representatives of which (Kropotkin, Jean
Grave and others) treacherously went over to the side of the imperialist
g4 tJN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
bourgeoisie in the war of 1914-1918, denies the necessity for wide, centralized
and disciplined proletarian organizations and thus leaves the proletariat
powerless before the powerful organizations of capital. By its advtx;acy of
individual terror, it distracts the proletariat from the methods of mass organiza-
tion and mass struggle. By repudiating the dictatorship of the proletariat in
the name of "abstract" liberty, anarchism deprives the proletariat of its most
important and sharpest weapon against the bourgeoisie, its armies, and all its
organs of repression. Being remote from mass movement of any kind in the
most important centers of proletarian struggle, anarchism is steadily being
reduced to a sect which, by its tactics and actions, including its opposition to
the dictatorship of the working class in the U. S. S. R., has objectively joined
the united front of the anti-revolutionary forces.
"Revolutionary" syndicalism, many ideologists of which in the extremely
critical war period went over to the camp of the fascist type of "•anti-
parliamentary" counter-revolutionaries, or became peaceful reformists of the
Social-Democratic type, by its repudiation of political struggle (particularly
of revolutionary parliamentarism) and of the revolutionary dictatorship of the
proletariat, by its advocacy of the craft decentralization of the labor movement
generally and of the trade union movement in particular, by its repudiation of
the need for a proletarian party, and of the necessity of insurrection, and by its
exaggeration of the importance of the general strike (the "folded-arms tactics").
like anarchism, hinders the revolutionization of the masses of the workers
wherever it has any influence. Its attacks upon the U. S. S. R., which logically
follow from its repudiation of dictatorship of the proletariat in general, place
it In this respect on a level with Social-Democracy.
All these tendencies take a common stand with Social-Dcinocraci/, the prin-
cipal enemy of the proletarian revolution, on the fundamental political issue,
viz., the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Hence, all of them come
out more or less definitely in a united front with Social-Democracy against the
U. S. S. R. On the other hand, Social-Democracy, which has utterly and com-
pletely betrayed Marxism, tends to rely more and more upon the ideology of the
Fabians, of the Con.structive Socialists and of the Guild Socialists. The.se
tendencies are becoming transformed into the official liberal-reformist ideology
of the bourgeois "socialism" of the Second International.
In the colonial countries and among the oppressed peoples and races gener-
ally, communism encounters the influence of peculiar tendencies in the labor
movement which played a useful role in a definite phase of development, but
which, in the new stage of development, are becoming transformed into a
reactionary force.
Sirfi-Yat-8enisin in China expres.sed the ideology of petty-bourgeois democratic
"socialism." In the "Three Principles" (nationalism, democracy, socialism),
the concept "people" obscured the concept "classes" ; socialism was presented,
not as a specific mode of production, to be realized by a specific class, i. c, by
the proletariat, but as a vague state of social well-being, the struggle against
imperialism was not linked up with the perspective of the development of 'the
class struggle in China. Therefore, while it played a very useful role in the
first stage of the Chinese revolution, as a consequence of the further process
of class differentiation that has taken place in the country and of the further
progress of the revolution, Sun-Yat-Senism has now changed from being the
ideological expression of the development of that revolution into fetters of its
further development. The epigones of Sun-Yat-Senism, by emphasizing and
exaggerating the very features of this ideology that have become objectively
reactionary, have transformed it into the official ideology of the Kuomintang,
which is now an openly counter-revolutionary force. The ideological growth of
Ihe masses of the Chinese proletariat and of the toiling peasantry must therefore
be accompanied by determined decisive struggle against the Kuomintang decep-
tion and by opposition to the remnants of the Sun-Yat-Senist ideology.
Tendencies like Gandhi-ism in India, thoroughly imbued with religious con-
ceptions, idealize the most backward and economically most reactionary forms
of social life, see the solution of the social problem not in proletarian socialism,
but in a reversion to these backward forms, preach passivity and repudiate thi^
class struggle, and in the process of the development of the revolution become
transformed into an openly reactionary force. Gandhi-ism is more and more
becoming an ideology directed against mass revolution. It must be strongly
combatted by communism.
Garveyism, which formerly was the ideology of the Negro small property
owners and tcorkers in America, and which even now exercises some influence
APPENDIX, PART 1 65
over the Negro masses, like Gandhi-ism. has hecome a hindrance to the revolii-
tionization of the Negro masses. Originally advocating social equalit.v for
Negroes, Garve.vism snbseqnentl.v developed into a peculiar form of Negro
Zionism which, instead of fighting American imperialism, advanced the slogan :
"Back to Africa !'" This dangeroiis ideology, which bears not a single genuine
democratic trait, and which toys with the aristocratic attributes of a non-
existent "Negro kingdom", must he strongly resisted, for it is not a help but a
hindrance to the mass Negro liberation struggle against American imperialism.
Standing out against all these tendencies is proletarian communism. The
powerful ideology of the international revolutionary working class differs from
all these tendencies, and primarily from Social-Democracy, in that in complete
harmony with the teachings of Marx and Engels, it conducts a theoretical avd
practical revolutionar)/ striif/gle for the dictatorship of the proletariat, and in
the strvfigle applies all forms of proletarian mass action.
2. The Fundamental Tasks of Communist Strategy and Tactics
The successful struggle of the Communist International for the dictatorship
of the iiroletariat presupposes the existence in every country of a compact
Communist Party, hardened in the struggle, disciplined, centralized, clo.'^ely
linked up with the masses.
The Party is the vanguard of the working class and consists of the best,
most class-conscious, most active, and most courageous members of that class.
It incorporates the whole body of experience of the proletarian struggle. Basing
itself upon the revolutionary theory of Marxism and representing the general
and lasting interests of the whole of the working class, the Party personifies
the unity of proletarian principles, of proletarian will and of proletarian revo-
lutionary action. It is a revolutionary organization, bound by iron discipline
and strict revolutionary rules of democratic centralism, which can be carried
out thanks to the class-consciousness of the proletarian vanguard, to its loyalty
to the revolution, its ability to maintain unbreakable ties with the proletarian
masses and to its correct political leadership, which is constantly verified and
clarified b.v the experiences of the masses themselves.
In order that it may fulfill its historic mission of achieving the dictatorship
of the proletariat, the Communist Party must first of all set itself and accom-
plish the following fundamental strategic aims :
Extend its influence over the ntajority of memiers of its own class, including
working women and the working youth. To achieve this the Comnuinist Party
must secure ijredominant influence in the broad mass proletarian organizations
(Soviets, trade unions, factory committees, cooperative societies, sport organi-
zations, cultural organizations, etc.). It is particularly important for the
purpose of winning over the majority of the proletariat, to gain control of the
trade unions, which are genuine mass working class organizations closely bound
up with the every-day struggles of the w<n-king class. To work in reactionary
trade unions and skillfully to gain control of them, to win the confidence of
the broad masses of the industriall.v organized workers, to change and "remove
from their posts" the reformist leaders, represent important tasks in the
preparatory period.
The achievement of the dictatorship of the proletariat presupposes also that
the proletariat has acquired hegemony over vide sections of the toiling masses.
To accomplish this the Communist Party must extend its influence over the
masses of the urban and rural poor, over the lower strata of the intelligentsia
and over the so-called "little man", /. r., the petty-bourgeois strata generally.
It is particularly important that work be carried on for the purpose of extending
the Party's influence over the peasantry. The Communist Party must secure
for itself the whole-hearted support of that stratum of the rural population
that stands closest to the proletariat, /. e., the agricultural laborers and the
rural poor. To this end, the agricultural laborers must be organized in separate
organizations ; all possible support must be given them in their struggles again;:!t
the rural bourgeoisie, and strenuous work must be carried on among the small
parcel farmers and small peasants. In regard to the middle strata of the peas-
antry in developed capitalist countries, the Communist Parties must conduct
a policy to secure their neutrality. The fulfillment of all these tasks by the
l)roletariat — the champion of the interests of the whole people and the leader
of the broad masses in their struggle against the oppression of finance capital —
is an essential prerequisite for the victorious communist revolution.
94931 — 40— app., pt. 1 6
(56 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
The tasks of the revolutionary struggle in colonies, seniwolonies and de-
pendencies are extremely important strategic tasks of the Communist Inter-
national from the standpoint of the world proletarian struggle. The colonial
struggle presupposes that the broad masses of the working class and of the
peasantry in the colonies be rallied around the banner of the revolution; but
this cannot be achieved unless the closest cooperation is maintained between
the proletariat in the oppressing countries and the toiling masses in the oppressed
countries.
While organizing, under the banner <if the proletarian dictatorship, the revolu-
tion against imperialism in the so-called civilized states, the Communist Inter-
national supports every movement against imiK'rialist oppression in the colonies,
semi-colonies and dependencies (for example in Latin-America) ; it carries on
propaganda against all forms of chauvinism and against the imperialist mal-
treatment of enslaved peoples and races, big and small (treatment of Negroes,
'•yellow labor", anti-Semitism, etc.), and supports their struggles against the
bourgeoisie of the oppressing nations. The Conununist International e.specially
combats the chauvinism among the dnmiiiant nations of the great powers, the
chauvinism fostered by the imperialist bourgeoisie as well as by its Social-
Democratic agency, the Second International, and constantly holds up in contrast
to the practices of the imperialist bourgeoisie the practice of the Soviet Union,
which has established relations of fraternity and equality among the nationalities
inhabiting it.
The Communist Parties in the imperialist countries must render systematic aid
to the colonial revolutionary liberation movement and to the movement of oppressed
nationalities generally. The duty of rendering active support to these movements
rests primarily upon the workers in the countries upon which the oppressed na-
tions are economically, financially or politically dependent. The Communist
Parties must openly recognize the right of the cohtnies to separation and their
right to carry on propaganda for this separation, i. e., propaganda in favor of
the independence of the colonies from the imperialist state ; they must recognize
their right of armed defense against imperialism (i. c, the right of rebellion and
revolutionary war) and must advocate and give active support to this defense
by all the means in their power. The Communist Parties must adopt this line of
policy in regard to all oppressed nations.
The Communist Parties in the coloui<i1 <uid semi-coloni-al countries must carry
on a bold and consistent struggle again.'it foreign im))crialism and unfailingly
conduct propaganda in favor of friendship and unity with the proletariat in the
imperialist countries. They nuist openly advance, conduct propaganda for and
carry out the slogan of agrarian revolution ; they must rovise the broad ma.sses of
the peasantry for the overthrow of the landlords and combat the reactionary and
medieval influence of the clergy, of the missionaries and other similar elements.
In these countries, the principal task i.s to organize the workers and the peasantry
independcntiii (to establish class Communist Parties of the proletariat, trade
unions, peasant leagues and committees and, in a revolutionary situation, Soviets,
etc. t. and to free them from the influence of the national bourgeoisie, with whom
temporary agreements may be made only on the condition that they, the bourgeoisie,
do not hamper the revolutionary organization of the workers and peasants, and
that they carry on a genuine struggle against imperialism.
In determining its line of tactics, each Communist Party must take into account
the concrete internal and external situation, the correlation of class forces, the
degree of stability and strength of the bourgeoisie, the degree of preparedness of
the proletariat, the position taken up by the various intermediary strata in its
country, etc. The Party determines its slogans and methods of struggle in accord-
ance with these circumstances, with the view to organizing and mobilizing the
masses on the broadest possible scale and on the highest possible level of this
struggle.
When a revolutionary situation is developing, the I'arty advances certain transi-
tional slogans and partial demands corresponding to the concrete situation; but
these demands and i^logans must be bent to the revolutionary aim of capturing
power and of overthrowing bourgeois capitalist society. The Party must neither
stand aloof from the daily needs and struggle of the working class nor confine
its activities exclusively to them. The task of the Party is to utilize these minor
tvery-day needs as a startnifj point from which to lead the working class to the
revolutionary strugfflc for power.
In the event of a rerolutiomiry upxurge. if the ruling classes are disorganized,
the mas.'jes are in a state of revolutionary ferment and the intermediary strata
are inclining towards the proletariat. If the masses are readv for action and for
APPENDIX, PART 1 g7
saciitice, the Party of the proletariat is confronted with the task of leading the
masses to a direct attack upon the bourgeois state. This it does by carrying on
propaganda in favor of increasingly radical transitional slogans (for Soviets,
workers' control of industry, for peasant connnittees for the seizure of the big
landed properties, for disarming the bourgeoisie and arming the proletariat, etc.),
ajid by organizing mass action, upon which all branches of the Party agitation
and propaganda, including parliamentary activity, must be concentrated. This
mass action includes : a combination of strikes and demonstrations ; a combination
o± strikes and armed demonstrations and finally, the general strike conjointly
with armed insurrection against the state power of the bourgeoisie. The latter
form of struggle, which is the supreme form, must be conducted according to the
lules of military science: it presupposes a plan of campaign, offensive fighting
operations and unboimded devotion and heroi.sm on the part of the proletariat. An
ab.sclutely essential prerequisite for this form of action is the organization of the
broad masses into militant units, which, by their very form, embrace and set into
action the largest possible numbers of toilers (Councils of Workers" Deputies,
Soldiers' Councils, etc.), and intensified revolutionary work in the army and the
navy.
In passing over to new and more radical slogans, the Parties must be guided by
the fundamental role of the political tactics of Leninism, which call for ability to
lead the masses to revolutionary positions in such a manner that the masses may,
by their own experience, convince themselves of the correctness of the Party line.
Failure to observe this rule must inevitably lead to isolation from the masses, to
])Ut.schism, to the indeological degeneration of communism into "Leftist" dog-
matism and to petty-bourgeois "revolutionary" adventurism. No less dangerous
is the failure to take advantage of the culminating point in the development of the
levolutionary situation, when the Party of the proletariat is called upon to conduct
a bold and determined attack upon the enemy. To allow that opportunity to slip
by and to fail to start rebellicm at that point, means to allow the initiative to pass
to the enemy and to doom the revohition to defeat.
When there is no revolutionary upsurge, the Communist Parties must advance
partial slogans and demands that correspond to the every-day needs of the toilers,
linking them up with the fundamental ta.sks of the Communist International. The
Connnunist Parties must not. however, at such a time, advance transitional slogans
that are applicable only to revolutionary situations (for example, workers' control
of industry, etc.). To advance such slogans when there is no revolutionary situa-
tion means to transform them into slogans that favor merging with the system
of capitalist organization. Partial demands and slogans generally form an essen-
tial part of correct tactics ; but certain transitional slogans go inseparably with a
revolutionry situation. Repudiation of partial demands and transitional slogans
"on principle", however, in incompatible with the tactical principle of communism,
for in effect, such repudiation condemns the Party to inaction and isolates it from
the masses. Throughout the entire pre-revohitionani period a most imiwrtant
basic part of the tactics of the Communist Parties is the tactic of the nnited front,
as a means towards most successful struggle against capital, towards the class
iiiobilization of the masses and the exposure and isolation of the reformist leaders.
The correct application of united front tactics and the fulfillment of the general
task of winning over the masses presuppose in their turn systematic and persistent
work in the trade unions and other mass proletarian organizations. It is the
boniiden duty of every Communist to belong to a trade union, even a most reac-
tionary one, provided it is a mass organization. Only by constant and persistent
work in the trade unions and in the factories for the steadfast and energetic defense
of the interests of the workers, together with ruthless struggle against the reformist
bureaucracy, will it be possible to win the leadership in the workers' struggle and
to win the industrially organized workers over to the side of the Party.
T'nlike the reformists, whose policy is to split the trade unions, the Communists
defend trade union vnitii nationally and internationally on the basis of the class
struggle, and render every support to and strengthen the work of the Red Interna-
tional of Labor Unions.
In universally championing the current everyday needs of the masses of the
workers and of the toilers generally, in utilizing the bourgeois parliament as a
platform for revolutionary agitation and propaganda, and subordinating the partial
tasks to the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Parties of the Com-
munist International advance partial demands and slogans in the following main
spheres :
In the sphere of lahor, in the narrow meaning of the term. i. c. questions con-
cerned with the industrial struyyle (the light against the trustified capitalist
68 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
offensive, wage questions, tlie working day, compulsory arbitration, nnemploy-
meut), wliich firow into questions of the general political struggle (big industrial
conflicts, tight for the right to organize, right to strike, etc.) : in the sphere of
politics proper (taxation, high cost of living, fa.scisiu, persecution of revolutionary
parties. White terror and current politics generally) ; and finally the sphere of
world politics; viz., attitude towards the U. S. S. R. and colonial revolutions, strug-
gle for the unity of the international trade union movement, struggle against
imperialism and the war danger, and systematic prepiiration for the tight against
imperialist war.
In the sphere of the peasant problems, the partial demands are those appertain-
ing to taxation, peasant mortgage indebtedness, struggle against usurer's capital,
the land hunger of the peasant small holders, rent, the metayer (crop-sharing)
system. Starting out from these partial needs, the Communist Party must
sharpen the respective slogans and broaden them out into the slogans : confisca-
tion of large estates, and workers' and peasants' government (the synonym for
proletarian dictatorship in developed capitalist countries and for the democratic
dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry in backward countries and in
certain colonies).
Similarly, systematic work must be carried on among the proletarian and
peasant yo^ith (mainly through the Young Communist International and its
Sections) and among working icomcn and peasant women. This work must
concern itself with the special conditions of life and struggle of the working and
peasant women, and their demands must be linked up with the general demands
and fighting slogans of the proletariat.
In the struggle against colonial oppi'ession, the Communist Parties in the
colonies must advance partial demands that correspond to the special circum-
stances prevailing in each country, such as : compieLe equalny lor all uanoiis
and races ; abolition of all privileges for foreigners ; the right to organize for
workers and peasants ; reduction of the working day ; prohibition of child labor ;
prohibition of usury and of all transactions entailing bondage ; reduction and
abolition of rent ; reduction of taxation ; refusal to pay taxes, etc. All these
partial slogans must be subordinate to the fundamental demands of the Com-
munist Parties such as : complete political independence of the country and the
expulsion of the imperialists, workers' and peasants' government, the land to the
whole people, eight-hour day, etc. The Communist Parties in imperialist coun"
tries, while supporting the struggle proceeding in the colonies, must carry on a
campaign in their own respective countries for the withdrawal of imperialist
troops, conduct propaganda in the army and navy in defense of the oppressed
countries fighting for their liberation, mobilize the masses to refuse to transport
troops and munitions and, in connection with this, to organize strikes and other
forms of mass protest, etc.
The Communist International must devote itself especially to systematic prep-
aration for the struggle against the danger of imperialist wars. Ruthless ex-
posure of .social-chauvinLsm, of social-imperialism, and of pacifist phrasemonger-
ing intended to camouflage the imperialist plans of the bourgeoisie ; propaganda
in favor of the principal slogans of the Communist International ; everyday or-
ganiz itional work in connection with this, in the course of which work legal
methods must unfailingly be combined with illegal methods; organized work in
the army and navy— such must be the activity of the Communist Parties in this
connection. The fundamental slogans of the Communist International in this
connection must be the following : Convert imperialist war into civil war ; defeat
"your own" imperialist government; defend the U.S.S.R. and the colonies by
every possible means in the event of imperialist war against them. It is the
bouiiden duty of all Sections of the Communist International, and of every one
of its members, to carry on propaganda for these slogans, to expose the "social-
istic" sorhisms and the "socialist" camouflage of the League of Nations and
constantly to keep to the front the experiences of the war of 1914-1918.
In order that revolutionary work and revolutionary action may be coordinated
and in order that these activities may be guided most successfully, the interna-
tional proletariat must be bound by international class discipline, for which, first
of all, it is most important to have the strictest international discipline in the
Communist ranks.
The international Communist discipline must find expression in the subordina-
tion of the partial and local interests of the movement to its general and lasting
interests and in the strict fulfillment, by all members, of the decisions passed by
the leading bodies of the Communist International.
APPENDIX, PART 1 69
Uulike the Social-Democratic, Second International, each section of which
submits to the discipline of "its own" national bourgeoisie and of its "fatherland",
the Sections of the Communist International submit to only one discipline, vis.,
international proletarian discipline, which guarantees victory in the struggle of
the world's workers for world proletarian dictatorship. Unlike the Second
International, which splits the trade unions, fights against colonial peoples, and
practices unity with the bourgeoisie, the Communist International is an organiza-
tion that guards proletarian unity in all countries and the unity of the toilers of
all races and all peoples in their struggle against the yoke of imperialism.
Despite the bloody terror of the bourgeoisie, the Communists fight with courage
and devotion on all sectors of the international class front, in the firm conviction
that the victory of the proletariat is inevitable and cannot be averted.
"The Connnunists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly
declare that their aims can be attained, only l>y the foreihle overthroiv of all the
ea^isting social conditions. Let the ruling class tremble at a ootnmunist revolu-
tion. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a tvorld
to win.
"Workers of all countries, unite!"
Constitution of the Communist International
/. Name and Objects
1. The Communist International — the International Workers' Association — is
a union of Communist Parties in various countries ; it is the world Communist
Party. As the leader and organizer of the world revolutionary movement
of the proletariat and the protagonist of the principles and aims of Com-
munism, the Communist International strives to win over the majority of the
working class and the broad strata of the propertyless peasantry, fights for
the establishment of the world dictatorship of the proletariat, for the estab-
lishment of a World Union of Socialist Soviet Ilepublics. for the complete
abolition of classes and for the achievement of socialism — the first stage of
communist society.
2. Each of the various Parties atfiliated to the Communist International
is called the Communist Party of [name and country] (Section
of the Communist International). In any given country there can be only
one Communist Party affiliated to the Communist International and con-
stituting its Section in that country.
3. Membership in the Communist Party and in the Conununist International
is open to all those who accept the program and rules of the respective
('Ommunist Party and of the Communist International, who join one of the
basic units of the Party, actively work in it. aliide by all the decisions of
the Party and of tlie Communist International, and regularly pay Party dues.
4. The basic unit of the Communist Party organization is the nucleus in
the place of employment (factory, workshop, mine, oftice, store, farm, etc.)
which unites all the Party members employed in the given enterprise.
5. The Communist International and its Sections are built up on the basis
of democratic centralism, the fundamental principles of which ;are : (a)
election of all the leading committees of the Party, from the lowest to the
highest (by general meetings of I'arty members, conferences, congresses and
international congresses) ; (b) periodical reports by k'ading Party committees
to their constituents: (c) decisions of the higher Party organs to be ob-
ligatory for the lower organs, strict Party discipline and prompt execution of
the decisions of the Communist International, of its leading committees and
of the leading Party centers.
Party questions may be discussed by the members of the Party and by
Party organizations until such time as a decision is taken upon them by
the competent Party organs. After a decision has been taken by the Congress
of the Communist International, by the Congress of the respective Sections,
or by leading committees of the Comintern, and of its various Sections, the
decision must be unreservedly carried out even if a part of the Party mem-
bersliip or of the local Party organizations are in disagreement with it.
In cases where a Party exists illegally, the higher Party committees may
appoint the lower committees and co-opt members for their own committee,
subject to subsequent endorsement by the competent higher Party committees.
70 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
6. In all non-Party workers' aud peasants' mass organizations and in their
leading committees (trade unions, co-operative societies, sport organizations,
ex-servicemen's organizations, and at their congresses and conferences! and
also on municipal elective bodies and in parliament, even if there are only
two Party members in such organizations and bodies. Communist fractions
must be formed for the purpose of strengthening the Party's influence and for
carrying out its policy in these organizations and bodies.
7. The Communist fractions are subordinated to the competent Party bodies.
Note. a. Communist fractions in international organizations (Red Inter-
national of Labor Unions, International Labor Defense, Workers International
Relief, etc.), are subordinate to the Executive Committee of the Communist
International.
B. The organizational structure of the Communist fractions and the manner
in which their work is guided are determined by special instructions from
the Executive Committee of the Communist International and from Central Com-
mittees of the respective Sections of the Comintern.
//. The World Congress of the Communist International
8. The supreme body of the Communist International is the World Congres.s
of representatives of all Parties (Sections) and organizations affiliated to
the Communist International.
The World Congress discusses and decides the programmatic, tactical and
organizational questions connected with the activities of the Communi>^t In-
ternational aud of its various Sections. Power to alter the Program and
Constitution of the Communist International lies exclusively with the World
Congress of the Communist International.
The World Congress shall be convened once every two years. The date of
the Congress and the number of representatives from the various Sections
to the Congress to be determined by the Executive Committee of the Communist
International.
The number of decisive votes to be allocated to each Section at the World
Congress shall be determined by the special decision of the Congress itself,
in accordance with the membership of the respective Party and to the political
importance of the respective country. Delegates to the Congress must have a
free mandate ; no imiierative mandate can be recognized.
9. Special Congresses of the Communist International shall be convened on
the demand of Parties which, at the preceding World Congress, had an aggre-
gate of not less than one-half of the decisive votes.
10. The World Congress elects the Executive Committee of the Communist
International (E. C. C. I.), and the International Control Commission (I. C. C).
11. The location of the headquarters of the Executive Committee is decided
on by the World Congress.
///. The Executive Committee of the Communist International
and Its Suhsi diary Bodies
12. The leading body of the Communist International in the period between
Congresses is the Executive Committee, which gives instructions to all the
Sections of the Communist International and controls their activity.
The E. C. C. I. publishes the Central Organ of the Communist International,
in not less than four languages.
13. The decisions of the B. C. C. I. are obligatory for all the Sections of
the Communist International and must be promptly carried out. The Sections
have the right to appeal against decisions of the E. C. C. I. to the World
Congress, but the decisions of the E. C. C. I. must be carried out pendioir the
action of the World Congress.
14. The Central Committees of the various Sections of the Communist
International are responsible to their respective Party Congresses and to the
E. C. C. I. The latter has the right to annul or amend decisions of Party^
Congresses and of Central Committees of Parties and also to make decisions
which are obligatory for them. (Cf. Par. 13.)
15. The E. C. C. I. has the right to expel from the Communist International,
entire Sections, groups and individual members who violate the program and
constitution of the Communist International or the decisions of the World
APPENDIX, PART 1 7J^
Congress or of the E. C. C. I. Persons and bodies expelled have the right
to appeal to the World Congress.
16. The programs of the various Sections of the Communist International
must be endorsed by the E. C. C. I. In the event of the E. C. C. I. refusing
to endorse a program, the Section concerned has the right to appeal to the
World Congress of the Communist International.
17. The leading organs of the press of the various Sections of the Communist
International must publish all the decisions and official documents of the
E. C. C. I. These decisions must, as far as possible, be published also in
the other organs of the Party press.
18. The E.C.C.I. has the right to accept affiliation to the Communist Inter-
national of organizations and Parties sympathetic to Communism, such organ-
izations to have a consultative voice.
19. The E.C.C.I. elects a Presidium responsible to the E.C.C.I., which acts as
the permanent body carrying out all the business of the E.C.C.I. in the interval
between the meetings of the latter.
20. The E.C.C.I. and its Presidium have the right to establish permanent
bureaus (Western European, South American, Eastern and other Bureaus of the
E.C.C.I.), for the purpose of establishing closer contact with the various Sec-
tions of the Communist International and in order to be better able to guide
their work.
Note: The scope of the activities of the permanent bureaus of the E.C.C.I.
shall be determined by the E.C.C.I. or by its Presidium. The Sections of the
Communist International which come within the scope of activities of the
permanent bureaus of the E.C.C.I. must be informed of the powers conferred
on these bureaus.
21. The Sections must carry out the instructions of the permanent bureaus
of the E.C.C.I. Sections may appeal against the instructions of the permanent
bureaus to the E.C.C.I. or to its Presidium, but must continue to carry out sucli
instructions pending the decision of the E.C.C.I. or of its Presidium.
22. The E.C.C.I. and its Presidium have the right to send their representatives
to the various Sections of the Communist International. Such representatives
receive their instructions from the E.C.C.I. or from Its Presidium, and are
responsible to them for their activities. Representatives of the E.C.C.I. have the
right to participate in meetings of the central Party bodies as well as of the
local organizations of the Sections to which they are sent. Representatives of
the E. C. C.I. must carry out their commission in close contact with the Central
Committee of the Section to which they are sent. They may, however, speak in
opposition to the Central Committee of the given Section, at Congresses and Con-
ferences of that Section, if the line of the Central Committee in question diverges
from the instructions of the E.C.C.I. Representatives of the E.C.C.I. are especially
obliged to supervise the carrying out of the decisions of the World Congresses and
of the Executive Committee of the Conununist International.
The E.C.C.I. and its Presidium also have the right to send instructors to the
various Sections of the Communist International. The powers and duties of
instructors are determined by the E.C.C.I., to whom the instructors are responsible
in their work.
23. Meetings of the E.C.C.I. must take place not less than once every six months.
A quorum consists of not less than one-half of the membership of the E.C.C.I.
24. Meetings of the Presidium of the E.C.C.I. must take place not less than
once a fortnight. A quorum consists of not less than one-half of the membership
of the Presidium.
25. The Presidium elects the Political Secretariat, which is empowered to make
decisions, and which also draws up proposals for the meetings of the E.C.C.I.
and of its Presidium, and acts as their executive body.
26. The Presidium appoints the editorial committees of the periodical and other
publications of the Communist International.
27. The Presidium of the E.C.C.I. sets up a Department for Work among Women
Toilers, permanent committees for guiding the work of definite groups of Sections
of the Communist International and other departments for its work.
IV. The International Control Commission
28. The International Control Commission investigates matters affecting the
unity of the Sections affiliated to the Communist International and also matters
72 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
connected with the Communist conduct of individual members of tlie various
Sections.
For tliis purpose tlie I.C.C.,
A. Examines complaints against the actions of Central Committees of Com-
munist Parties lodged by Party members who have been subjected to disciplinary
measures for political differences ;
B. Examines such analogous matters concerning members of central bodies of
Communist Parties and of individual Party members as it deems necessary, or
which are submitted to it by the deciding bodies of the E. C.C.I. ;
c. Audits the accounts of the Communist International.
The International Control Commission nuist not intervene in the political
differences or in organizational and administrative conflicts in the Communist
Parties.
The headquarters of the I. (". C. are lixed by the I. C. C, in agreement with
the E. C. C. I.
T. The Relationship Between the Sections of the Communist International and
the E. C. C. I.
29. The Central Committees of Sections affiliated to the Communist Interna-
tional and the Central Committees of affiliated sympathizing organizations must
send to the E. C. C. I. the Minutes of theii' meetings and reports of their work.
30. Resignation from office by individual members or groups of members of
Central Committees of the various Sections is regarded as disruptive of the
Communist movement. Leading posts in the Party do not belong to the
occupant of that post, but to the Communist International as a whole. Elected
members of the Central leading bodies of the various Sections may resign
before their time of office expires only with the consent of the E. C. C. I.
Resignations accepted by Central Committees of Sections without the consent of
the E. C. C. I. are invalid.
31. The Sections affiliated to the Communist International nuist maintain
close organizational and informational contact with each other, arrange for
mutual representation at each other's conferences and congresses, and with
the consent of the H C. C. I., exchange leading comrades. This applies par-
ticularly to the Sections in imperialist countries and their colonies, and to
the Sections in countries adjacent to each other.
32. Two or more Sections of the Communist International which (like the
Sections in the Scandinavian countries and in the Balkans) are politically
connected with each other b.v common conditions of struggle, may, with the
consent of the E. C. C. I., form federations for the piu'pose of co-ordinating
their activities, such federations to work under the guidance and control of
the E. C. C. I.
83. The Sections of the Comintern must regularly pay affiliation dues to the
E. C. C. I.; the amount of^such dues to be determined by the E. C. O. I.
34. Congresses of the various Sections, ordinary and special, can be convened
only with the consent of the E. C. C. I.
In the event of a Section failing to convene a Party Congress prior to the
convening of a World Congress, that Section, before electing delegates to the
World Congress, must convene a Party conference, or Plenum of its Central
Committee, for the purpf)se of considering the questions that are to come before
the World Congress.
35. The International League of Conununist Youth (Comnnuiist Youth Inter-
national) is a Section of the Communist International with full rights and is
subordinate to the E. C. C. I.
36. The Communist Parties must be prepared for transition to illegal
conditions. The E. C. C. I. must render the Parties concerned assistance in
their preparations for transition to illegal conditions.
37. Individual members of Sections of the Communist International may
pass from one country to another only with the consent of the Central Com-
mittee of the Section of which they are members.
Communists changing their domicile must join the Section in the country of
their new domicile. Communists leaving their country without the consent of
the Central Committee of their Section must liot be accepted into other Sections
of the Communist International.
APPENDIX, PART 1 73
Exhibit No. 6
[Source: A booklet published by the Trade Uuion Educational League, 1113 W. Wash-
ington St., Chicago. Illinois : September, 1924]
LENIN— THE GREAT STRATEGIST OF THE CLASS WAR
(By A. Losovsky)
{Translation and Jntrodiiction by Alexander Bitteltnan)
Published by The Trade Union International League, 111.3 W. Wasliington Blvd.,
Chicago. 111.
INTKODUCTION
If I were iiJ^ked to tell in a few words what is tlie most pronounced feature
of tliis pamplilet by A. Lozovsky on "Lenin ; tlie Great Strategian of the Class-
War," I should say this : It is a desire to extract from tlie experiences of
Lenin's life as many lessons as is humanly possible for the advancement «)f the
class struggle and for the promotion of the proletarian victory thruout the
world.
A. Lozovsky has been prompted to write on Lenin, it seems to me, not merely
by a desire to perpetuate Lenin's memory. No. Lenin's name will live in the
world as long as toiling ma.sses struggle against exploitation, and as long as
oppressed nations and persecuted races tread the path of revolt against their
masters in a fight for freedom aiul human equality. The motive that produced
this little book is mucli more immediate, direct and practical than a mere wish
to perpetuate the memory of a great leader. It is an earnest attempt to make
Lenin in his death as nearly useful to the working class as he was in his life,
and a study of this pamphlet will show that its autlior has acquitted himself of
his task with more than ordinary excellence.
What is it that we are primarily interested in about I/cniu? We, I mean
tliose that are part and parcel of the labor movement and of the proletarian
class struggle and that are fighting for the dawn of a new day. Wliat do we
want to know about I.*nin and for what purpose?
Lenin was the founder of a great party, the Commiuiist Party of Russia.
He was the leader of the first successful proletarian revoUition. He was for
over .six years the head of the tirst Workers' and Peasants' Government in the
world. He was also the founder and recognized leader of the Communist In-
ternational. For us, working class militants in the cause of labor, there is a
world to learn from the experiences of Lenin as to how to educate, organize and
arouse the masses to action against their capitalist exploiters. What we all
want to know is, how did Lenin do it? What theories did he hold? What
tactics did he pursue? What means did he employ? In short, ivhat is the
essence of Lenin ism f
Leninism is the theory and practice of working class struggle. It is tlie
accumulated experience of the battling armies of the proletariat against capi-
talism reflected by the mind of a genius. It is the century-old hatred of the
oppressed against tlie oppressors embodied in a man of iron will and a great,
beautiful heart. It is the proletarian urge to power expressed, formulated and
led by the greatest leader the working class ever had.
To understand thoroughly Lenin and Leninism one needs to be familiar with
Russia, its history, the martyrdom of hundreds and thousands of Russian
revolutionaries, and the long, bitter years of oppression suffered by the toiling
masses of Russia. Lenin is inseparable from the class struggle of the Russian
masses.
But his greatness and the importance of his work have gone far beyond the
boundaries of his native land. At this moment there is not another name in
the whole world which means so much for millions upon millions of human be-
ings. It is as if the deepest longings and most intimate dreams of the oppressed
in every corner of the globe, in "civilized" Europe as w^ell as in backward Africa,
as much in America, as in Asia, have gone forward into the endless spaces of the
universe and have found their point of concentration, their unifying genius in the
life and teachings of Lenin.
Was there ever a human being more truly international, more a leader of
the people of all countries and all nations, than Lenin?
Take his attitude toward the late imperialist war. How did he look upon
it? How did he react towards it?
74 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
He loA-ed the Russian masses with all the great powers of his human soul.
Is anyone in doubt about that? If one's understanding of the most deeply
buried feelings of the masses is any test of one's love for them, then who in
Russia's history has surpassed Lenin in such understanding? And if one's
sympathy for the sufferings of the masses, sympathy of the purest kind, of a
most intense and burning nature, is any sign of one's love and devotion to the
masses, then who in the life of Russia is greater in this resiJect than Lenin?
And vet Lenin was one of the most consistent opponents of the idea of the
workers defending "their" fatherland. He was unalterably opposed to the
Russian masses shedding their blood for the greatness of Russia. Why?
Because to him "Russia" was not an abstraction, but a real living thing.
Because his great realistic mind was able to pierce through the glittering super-
ficialities of "patriotism and fatherland, and to reach out after the substance of
things. And in doing so he tinally reached the truth that if the name Russia
stands for the tens of millions of its toiling masses, if the greatness of Russia is
the same as the well-being, peace and security of the workers and peasants, then
the true way of serving the greatness of Russia was to combat the late war
and to destroy those forces which were instrumental in bringing the war about.
This was the Lenin-way of being patriotic and loyal to one's nation and
country.
As these lines are being written, new war clouds are becoming visible on
the Far-Eastern horizon. The capitalists of Japan are preparing to resist th.e
encroachment of the capitalists of America in the division of imperialist spoils
in China. The capitalists of America are preparing to impose their will by
the force of arms. What does it mean? It means that we are drifting with
progressively greater speed into a war with Japan. In fact, we are already
engaged in war.
Look at what we are now doing in China. All the manoeuvres of our bankers
and officials in China in support of one warring general against another, all
the movements of our warships in the Chinese waters, are nothing else than war
against the capitalists of Japan for more power and influence over China for
the capitalists of America.
Again the air will be filled with "patriotism." love of country, loyalty to the
fatherland, etc. Again the workers of the United States will be called upon
l)y their masters to come to the defense of the honor, greatness and even
freedom of America. The capitalist press of the country, these giant factories
for the production of sham and camouflage to dope the working masses, will
again start out on a systematic campaign to befog and befuddle the minds of
the masses into tlie belief that "their" country is in danger of being attacked
by a foreign enemy.
' And when this begins to happen we shall be badly in need of some antidote
to the poisonous influences of war propaganda. And what better means is
there for such purpose than the wholesome, nourishing and sustaining food
of Leninism?
When in troi;ble, go back to Lenin. When in doubt, consult Lenin. This
should become the maxim of every worker and poor farmer in the United States.
For there is no surer guide to what the oppressed masses must do to protect
themselves against the conspiracies of the capitalists than the teachings and
directions of Leninism.
Is it war that you are called upon to sacrifice your life for? If It is, here
is what Lenin will tell you. First, inquire, ask questions. Who is it that calls
you to war? For what purpose? In defense of whose interests?
And when you find, as you are bound to, that the war is championed by the
capitalists, that you are called upon to defend the profits and power of your
I)Osses and exploiters, that it is a war of imperialist robbery and plunder, you
will say what Lenin said: Not a cent and not a man for the aggrandizement
of our class-enemies I Instead of waging war for capitalism, we shall start
war against capitalism, for the overthrow of the power of our bosses and for
the establishment of our own rule.
And, then, you might ask some more questions. You might want to know
liow best to fight your economic battles, how to resist wage cuts, open shops
drives, unemployment. You will find, for instance, that one of your main
problems in the coming months will be how best to strengthen your unions,
to rejuvenate them with a new spirit of militancy and hopefulness. What
must you do? What can you do?
Turn to Lenin, he'll tell you. He has built a party and led a movement
which already conquered for the toiling masses one sixth of the earth's surface.
APPENDIX, PART 1 75
He ought to know liow you do those things. Ask him and he'll tell you.
Then, if you go deep enough into the problems of the woi'king class, you
will strike the problem of all problems, the question of how you can do away
with capitalism altogether. And you will want to know the best way, the suresc
road, the shortest cut to your final goal. And again we say, ask Leuiu, study
Leninism.
As with all knowledge tliat is really worth having, there is no royal or
sliort road to the study of Leninism. Many books liave been and will be
written on Lenin and on Leninism, which is merely anotlier name for the great
art and science of the Social Revolution. Those working class militants, who
are truly ambitious to serve their class against capitalism, will no doubt find
the rime and energy required for a thorough study of Leninism. And as a
l.ieginning or introduction to such a course of study we know of no better work
than this pamphlet by A. Losov.sky.
Losovsky's pamphlet should be carefully read aud studied by every trade-
union militant who is active in the labor movement. For there are few better
ways of assimilating the experiences of great — one is tempted to say the
greatest — revolutionary leader and turning these experiences to good account
is one's own immediate work, than by studying the life work of Lenin. And
for this one would want no more efficient and kindlier guide than this little
book.
AVhen you are thru with the reading of it. you grasp, perhaps for the first
time, the true stature of the Russian giant. His marvelous knowledge of
economics and the social sciences generally, his great analytical mind, his
almost superhuman sense for detecting the deep, quiet processes that are
constantly taking place within the broad masses, his flexibility of mind, his
burning hatred of capitalist oppression and his iron determination to fight the
l)loody thing to a finish — all these qualities of Lenin take living shape under the
pen of Lozovsky, who has succeeded in presenting us with a most illuminating
picture of the great Strategian of the Class Struggle.
We cannot all become Lenins. it is true, but many a workingman and working-
woman can succeed in approximating the great leader to one degree or another
if sufficient effort is lent in that direction in a conscious and determined way.
Our class is badly in need of leaders — loyal, capable and efficient fighters
in the proletarian struggle for power. Never in the history of society has an
oppressed class struggling for freedom confronted an enemy as clever, tricky,
resourceful, unscrupulous and brutal as is the ruling class of today, the
capitalists. This fact imposes a duty upon every working class militant to
study and learn the art and science of social revolution, to familiarize him-
.self with the tactics and methods of Leninism which have been proved to be
the only way to the overthrow of capitalism and the complete liberation of
the working class.
Alexander Bittelmax
Chicago, September, 1924.
A Le:adf.r Not A Hero
There are epochs in human history when single individuals incorporate the
experiences and historical tasks of whole classes. History develops by curves
find as the class struggle develops in intensity these individuals appear in the
foreground and assume their greatest importance at a time when the social
antiigouisms reach their highest point.
Human history knows of many examples of gifted statesmen, thinkers,
politicians aud diplomats. But all of them up till now have been representa-
tives of the feudal and capitalist classes. Only in the 19th century when the
proletariat came to feel itself as a class do we find the refiection of its in-
terests in the genius, Marx. Lenin is the direct successor of Marx.
When we consider closely Lenin's role in the labor movement of the last
decades the first question that appears is. whether we Marxians ought not to
revise our theory regarding the role of single individuals in history. For is
it not a fact that Lenin has been a living illustration of the theory of the
heroes and the masses and did he not, by the activities of his life, disprove the
correctness of the materialist conception of history? We must consider this
problem at the very outset in order to relieve ourselves of any false idealistic
conceptions that we might entertain. The truth is that the real greatness of
yg UN-AMEKICAN PROl'AGANDA ACTIVITIES
the genius of the most outstanding strategian of the class struggle can be cor-
rectly appreciated only from the point of view of the class whose leader he was.
The Marxians who enter the study of Lenin's role in history are under
no necessity of abandoning their theory of the relation between heroes and
masses. Quite the contrary. Only on the basis of the materialist conception
of history, only thru a sober analysis of the forces in the class strugglp, can
we correctly appreciate the role which Lenin, the greatest thinker and rev-
olutionist, has played in the international labor movement and in tlse inter-
national revolution.
^Marxism ix Practice
Lenin was a Marxian dialectician. There are many people that 'know Marx
very well but are incapable of deriving the political lessons and conclusions
implied in theory. In this' respect Lenin was totally diffei-ent. He has taken
the Marxian tlieory and methods and applied them in the practice of life.
And with the help of his acute analytical mind he interpreted events in their
dialectical development. Lenin was one of the foremost experts in the economics
and philosophical theories of Marx. But as already said, he was not primarily
a theoretician, but a practical Marxian and a political dialectician. The Hegel-
ian dialectics which Marx had developed to its higliest point were conipletely
mastered by Lenin. He never reasoned abstractly. He despised piu-e rati<iii-
alizing. He hated the free sway of "pure reasoning." He fought against
philosophic charlatanism and always proved in action that the truth is concrete.
Just as Marx was manoeiivring with the general factors of economic life,
so was Lenin manoeuvring with the concrete forces of the class struggle. In the
colorful kaleidoscope of social relations and from the complexities of the
everyday events of modern life he always managed to hit upon the fundamental
and most important tendencies. He was never deceived by appearances. He
was a man called upon to tread new paths. Always pursuing his own way,
capable by means of his dialectics not only to explain but constantly to drive
history forward. Lenin was a dialectician in politics and a Marxist in action.
That is, he knew exactly how to make history in as masterly a fashion as Marx
explained it.
Identity With a Class
Lenin joined the labor movement at its very dawn. The first spontaueou.s
outbreaks of the class struggle in the '80s reverberated thru Russia with a
resounding echo. The advancing Marxian movement thrust itself upon the
beginnings of the industrial develoiiment of Russia, drawing into its ranks
many elements of the radical intelligentsia. The first generation of revolution-
ary intellectuals (Plechanov, Vera Sassulitsch, and Deutsch) founded the group
of "Liberation of Labor" which is the predecessor of the Russian Social-
Democratic Party and of the Russian Communist Party. Lenin belonged to
the second generation of Marxians. Together with many others he joined the
labor movement, but while tlie others were merely passers-by. utilizing it for
their own purpose, Lenin remained and led the movement until his very end.
Lenin imderstood from the very outset the power of the new class. In his
very first writings he discusses this matter and says : '"The working class
is the bearer of the revolution." The working class stands in the foreground
and everything which hampers its development, which demoralizes its ranks,
which stands in the way of its historical development, must be destroyed and
removed. To say at that period that the working class was the bearer of the
revolution meant to determine its historic role as against tlie couceptions of
the old socialist school of the "Narodniki."
Lenin completely identified him.'^elf with the working class and became its
spokesman. He knew as nobody else did how to keep away from the working
class and from the then-developing working class party all alien elements. At
present it is <>asier, of course, to see which of those elements were really alien
to the labor movement. But to have known this 25 or 30 years ago was much
more difficult. At that time there were no material advantages to be derived
by people accepting the Marxian theory. On the contrary.' they had to bring
sacrifices, suffer persecutions, etc. Nevertheless some of these Marxians were
nothing more than hangers-on to the labor movement. Chief among those was
Peter Struve, formerly a Social-Democrat and later on a leader of the left-wing
of the liberal movement, still later a meml)er of the Constitutional Democratic
APrENDIX, PART 1 77
I'arty, ami at present a monarchist. One required a sliarp tlieoretical mind,
and an extraordinary instinct, to detect in tlie Marxian pliraseology of the
Jirst worlc of Peter Struve the real weak spots.
Lenin po.ssessed the ability to guard the working class theoretically and
practically against the intrusion of alien elements. He also knew how to relieve
llie labor* movement of those of them who succeeded iu getting into it. Lenin
knew the working class, he had faith in it, he grasped its historical importance
and tlierefore understood how to maintain the integrity of the labor movement.
Building the Russian Party
The working class will win, but only iu the event that it succeeds in creating
a strongly united <ii'gauization whicli is ideologically homogeneous. The work-
ing class cannot be victorious without uniting the best, the most class conscious
and revolutionary elements. Hence tiie role of the party as the guiding-force
of the revolution." The party is not identical with the working class, l)ut is its
natural leader. The party leads the masses only inasmuch as it is organically
united with tiie working class reacting to its everyday life. Without a party
tlie working class cannot make a single step. Without a party the revolution
is an empty i)hrase.
Theoretically this truth was recognized even by Lenin's predecessors, but it
was he alone "who understood how to translate into practice these theoretical
propositions. The history of the Russian Social-Democracy and of the Russian
Communist Party is organically bound up with the activities of Lenin. He was
the organizer of "the party, tiie educator of a whole generation of party workers
and leaders, beginning with the time of underground groups up till the moment
when the working class assumed power in the largest country in the world.
It was because he understood that the w^orking class cannot live without a
party that he devoted his greatest attention to the building up of such a party.
It" would be difticult to find another man in the history of parties whose life
and activity was so intimately interwoven with the party as was Lenin's with
the Russian Commttnist Party. He was its theoretician, its man of action,
agitator, propagandist, organizer and leader. He was soldier and general,
teacher and ptipil. but never did he get the idea that: "The party, this is I,"
as his opponents used to reproach him. He realized that the power and great-
ness of the party depends upon its organic connection with tlie masses, its
collaboration with the creative and progressive elements of the working class.
One can state without exaggeration that the Russian Communist Party was
the creation of his spirit, the work of his hands. Such a party could be created
liy one who is perfectly clear as to what are the mtitual relations between the
party and the class. Lenin's slogan was: "The party above all." Why'?
Because the Party is the vanguard of the working class, and as such must know
not only how to march forward but, if need be, to go against the spontaneous
movements among the workers and at decisive moments powerfully to assume
the offensive. The party is the organized consciousness of the class, a fact
which distinguishes it from the unorganized elemental movements of the
workers.
Seuf-Criticism and Frankness
Lenin knew exactly the strong and weak sides of the labor movement. And
for this reason he reacted so exceptionally critically to every theory built upon
tlie backwardness and weaknesses of the working class. He possessed a sixth
sense, the sense of anti-reformism. He smelted reformism from a distance. It
was very difficult indeed in 1903 to have determined on the basis of differences
(if opinion regarding the first paragraph of tlie party constittition, who were the
proletarian Girondists and who were the Jacobins. Nevertheless, Lenin deter-
mined this very definitely after the Second Congress of the Russian Social-
Democratic Party. Thrti the formttlation of the famous paragraph one, he
came to the creation of the Girondist wing of the Party. Since then he con-
tinuotisly criticized the right wing of the Russian Social-Democratic Party whose
reformism became apparent to everyone only in 1905.
Thruout the first revolution, in tlie period preceding the late war, and par-
ticularly after the war, this anti-reformist sense of Lenin manifests itself in
all his activities. He was deceived neither by revolutionary phrases nor by
well-sounding resolutions. He exposed to the daylight the reformist theoreti-
cians and men of action, despite all their atteniijts to conceal their real nature.
78 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
He was primarily a man of experience and practical deeds, and it was iu this
.sphere of life that he caused the defeat of the strategians of reformism. More
than one half of his writings were devoted to the demoralizing activities of
reformism, specifically to the Russian Mensheviks. Just as an archeologist
determines the species of a pre-historic animal by the examination of a single
bone, so Lenin was able to determine the reformist nature of his opponents by a
single phrase in one or another of their articles.
The Enemy of Reformism
Lenin would i-eacli out after the substance of reformism, no matter under
what masks it would make its appearance, and without any effort on his part
would tear off the covering. In the attempt that was made before the first
revolution to revise Marx, to connect him with Kant and similar philosophers,
Lenin immediately recognized the intention to reject the revolution and a tend-
ency to surrender Marxism to the ideology of the bourgeoisie. Lenin never
considered reformism as an inner tendency in the working class. He con-
sidered reformism rather as a class enemy, operating within the labor movement
and therefore more dangerous to it than the outside enemies.
Because of this attitude of Lenin's, he has been charged with sectarianism
and intolerance. But he continued to pursue his line of action with the greatest
tenacity for details, proving that reformism is one of the greatest enemies of
the labor movement, and that our theoretical struggle with the Mensheviks will
eventually bring us to the sharpest conflicts with them. The Russian revolution
has proved Lenin correct, thereby showing his extraordinary far-sightedness and
sound instinct. In recent years reformism became the most powerful weapon
in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Due to reformism, the working class movement
has suffered a series of defeats enabling the capitalist system to continue a
while in existence.
Re\-oluiion and Actuaxity
Lenin conceived of the revolution as of something that Avas moving right
upon us. and not as something lying in the far-off distance. Because of this
he never tired of insisting that we must prepare ourselves daily for the revo-
lution, even politically and technically. The political preparations consisted in
training the masses for action thru everyday struggle. Lenin used to say:
"The most important thing is to bring the masses in motion, thereby enabling
them to accumulate experiences within a short period of time." The revolution
confronts us directly with the problem of armed insurrection. And to speak
of this without proper technical preparations, is merely to mouth empty
phrases. He who wants the revolution must systematically prepare for it the
broad masses, who will, in the process of preparation, create the necessary
organs of the struggle.
The Mtnisheviks were fond of ridiculing the idea of technical preparations
for an armed insurrection. According to their conception the center of gravity-
would lie in the sphere of propaganda, of arming the minds of the workers.
To this Lenin's reply was: '"He who refuses technically to prepare for the
insurrection ultimately rejects the insurrection itself, and transforms the
program of the revolution into an empty phrase."
Although Lenin knew quite well that revolutions are not made to order, that
the success of a revolution demands certain deep-going historical changes.
Tievertheless he insisted that the problem of the revolution is not only political
but also the technical organization of the revolutionary class. A party which
does not prepare for the revolution must be considered a discussion club rather
than the leader of a revolutionary class. No matter how difficult this problem
is. yet all the progressive forces of the working class must be organized in
order to solve this problem. Thus we see that for Lenin the revolution was
always a concrete problem of the day which at times comes close to us and
again moves back into the distance, depending upon the situation and the
correlation of forces, but always remains the acute problem of the labor
movement.
Proletarian Statesmanship
Lenin was a foremost statesman. What does this mean? Arcording to' his
own definition a statesman is one who understands how to manoeuver with
niiliions of people, Avho is capable of estimating correctly the mutual relations-
APPENDIX, PART 1 79
of social classes, who can detect the weak spots iu his enemy's armor and who
knows how to make effective the strongest side of his own class.
In this respect Lenin possessed extraordinary gifts. He knew above all
how to determine the line of demarcation between classes and to create a con-
crete and practical program of action calculated to bring together the working
class with its temporary ally, the peasantry. He based his judgment of political
conditions, not on superficial appearances, not upon the so-called public opinion,
but upon the deep processes that are taking place within the working class.
His mind always pierced thru to the very vitals of a situation. He studied
the make-up of social life in order to find for himself a starting point, and
then he continued to base his activities on tlie dynamics of the class struggle.
These traits of Lenin's character made him the most dangerous to, and at
the same time the most hated by, the class enemies of the proletariat, whom
he always managed to hit at the softest spot. He was a realer politiker (of
course, realistic not in the reformist sense, for whom realism means adaptation
to the bourgeoi-sie ) in the sense that he based his revolutionary activities on
the correlation of forces in the class struggle. The reformists of all countries
declared Lenin to be a Utopian, an "irrational" statesman, because he always
busied himself with the problem of revolution, and themselves they consider
realists because they advocate the idea of gradually transforming bourgeois
society along the lines of evolution. But these "great realists" became tools
in the hands of the bourgeois politicians after the war, while Lenin the
"irrational state.sman" became the most dangerous opponent of the bourgeoisie
and the leader of millions of toilers who have risen against theii* masters.
Immediately after the October revolution Lenin was charged by all petty
bourgeois socialists with being an adventurer. But this "adventurer" iiroved
by his deeds which side the real power was on. The "realists" among the
Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviks have simply missed the importance of
rhe great change that has taken place in human life. They have even failed
to notice that the masses have turned their backs on them, Lenin was the
greatest statesman of our age. He has proven this standing at the helm of
the greatest state in the world, by the exceptional flexibility of the Russian
Communist Party, whose leader and creator he was.
Critical and Realistic
A sober estimate of his own and his enemies' forces was always the starting
point for Lenins political activity. Only he can be termed a real statesman
who is able fearlessly to look reality in the face, who coolly estimates the forces
of the opposing class, who is not dealing in mere phrases and who is able mer-
cilessly to expose and criticize the weak sides of his own class and Iiis own
organization. Also in this respect Lenin iiossessed an exceptionally strong
senst' for reality. He never succumed to the hypnosis of fantastic figui'es and
prctnipous proclamation.
When he came to Russia in 1917. the time when the Social-Revolutionists held
full sway, Lenin remarked : "The power they hold is only imaginary. The
Party of the Socialist Revolutionists is an empty shell." Although at that
time millions upon millions of workers were following the lead of the party
of the Chernovs and Kerenskys. yet he immediately perceived the instability
of the influence of the Socialist Revolutionists.
Basing his opinion on the real situation, Lenin spoke in favor of the Brest-
Litovsk treaty against the wish of the "public opinion" (at that time the
liberal and reformist press was still in existence) and at first even against
the leadership of the Russian Connnunist Party. Upon what did Lenin base
his tactics? T'pon those deep processes which have been developing within
the broad masses. While these latter had been protesting against the peace
treaty, the soldiers were leaving the front e» masse. Lenin has defined the
situation by a very laconic but significant expi-ession : "The peasants have voted
in favor of peace with their legs because they have been leaving the front."
No amount of phraseology in favor of a revolutionary war could convince him to
the contrary. He was asking his opponents : "Have you got at least one regi-
ment, have you the support of any armed power, which could be put up against
rho fleeing, demoralized peasant ma.sses? We cannot fight. We need a I)rea th-
ing space. No matter how short, it will be of advantage to us." History has
proved that he was right.
Lenin's prognosis that by means of tliis breathing space we would be able to
create a new army, inspired with a new spirit, and able to take the offensive
^Q UN-AMERICAN PKOPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
again, has been proven to the correct. "One must know also how to evade a
tight," he used to exclaim, arguing in favor of signing the Brest-Litovsk treaty.
"It is better to retreat in a semi-orderly fashion than to subject the army to
complete dissolution. A leader is he who knows how to protect his army from
breaking up, and who adopts all necessary measures to preserve his army for
future battles." Today this looks to us like A. B. C. wisdom. In order to
understand the real extent of Lenin's genius one must remember the tragic
situation of Soviet Russia in 1918, and the terrific difBculties which Lenin had
to overcome in order to convince his own Party that his estimate of the situa-
tion and of the relation of forces was the correct one.
The Gbkat Alliance Be-Tween Workers and Peasants
Lenin's sense for reality has manifested itself also in the fact that long before
the revolution he was able to estimate correctly the significance of the peasan-
try. Most of the Marxians had a very poor conception of the role of the peas-
ants in the approaching revolution. From the fact that agriculture was
subservient to city industry and that small-scale production was gradually dis-
appearing, many Marxians drew the conclusion that the peasants will not play
in the revolution any active part at all or else will play a reactionary part.
As far back as 1905, Lenin already perceived the insufficiency of the agrarian
program of the Social-Democratic Party. Immediately upon the beginning of
the wide revolutionary movement among the peasants in 1005, he formulated
the demand for the nationalization of the land. Lenin's slogan at that time was :
"The dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry." He saw the necessity
for an alliance of these two classes in order to remove the power of the largo
land-owners. As the February revolution was developing, making clear the
extent of the change that was to come, and as he realized that Russia would
not satisfy itself with a l)Ourgeois democracy, he conunenced propounding in a
practical fashion the problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry which was to be incorporated in the Russian Soviet State.
As an expert in the agrarian problems, and as one well versed in the applied
phases of political economy, I^enin had been well aware of the fact that the
peasantry cannot play any independent role. But for this very reason, he said,
it is our duty to win the peasantry over to the side of the proletariat. He had
been writing and saying: "The peasantry will support either the bourgeoisie or
the proletariat. The peasantry stands to gain from the proletariat much more
than from the bourgeoisie. Particularly if we pursue such a policy as to
disabuse the peasantry of its prejudices against the dictatorship of the prole-
tariat." Hence his slogan : "An alliance between the proletariat and the peas-
antry," and the policy of winning the masses of the villages for the support of
the political and economic policies of the working class.
LEiVRNiNG From Events
How did Lenin succeed in arriving at such a realistic conception of the role
of the peasantry in the revolution? It was due to his ability to estimate cor-
rectly the social forces in modern society. He knew how to learn from events.
The peasant uprisings of 1902-03, which had assumed very large proportions
before the revolution of 1005, the role played by the army in suppressing the
first revolution, the role played by the same army during the second revolution,
the revolt of the peasants, the vacillating attitude of the peasantry towards the
Soviet Power during the first year after the October revolution — all these facts
served Lenin as material for his decisions on tactics with regard to the peasantry.
He was a realistic statesman in the best sense of the word. A defeat would never
cause him to fold his hands in passivity, but on the contrary would just aroust>
his energy and obstinacy, in a desire to study and arrive at the causes which had
led to defeat. He used to sa.v : "We are defeated. We must learn the causes
of our defeat, we must throw light upon every wrong step that we have made, so
that we become more practical and more far-sighted."
A WORLD OUTLOOK
Lenin never limited himself to the study of the labor movement of Russia alone
but studied with the same vigor all social confiicts in Europe during which the
working class suffered defeat. The great French Revolution, the conspiracy of
Baboeuf, the Chartist movement, the June days in Paris, the Paris Commune,
the great economic strikes during the end of the 19th and the beginning of the
APPENDIX, PAET 1 §J
20th ceiituiy— all these served as the basis for determiniug the causes of the
weakness of the working class movement. Furthermore he studied with the same
care the mechanism of modern society and the forces at the disposj'.l of our enemy
classes. As the result of his study of capitalist society, its form and methods
of oi'ganization, the unity of the bourgeois classes as against the disunity of the
working masses, he had found the prime reason for our defeats, for the victories
of the bourgeoisie, and had arrived at a correct appreciation of the methods of
struggle of the working class.
Tbtje Pegle^takian Internationalism
As with the agrarian problem, so also with the national problem, Leain has
given us a new conception of its siguificance. The international Social-
Democracy attempted tlie solution oi this problem in a purely rationalistic man-
ner. The Social-Democracy protested formally against the colonial policy of the
bourgeoisie. It became apparent, however, right at the beginning of the last
war, that international reformism is putting the so-called national interests
above the class interests, and is accepting the point of view of the bourgeoisie in
the matter of colonial ix)licy. Long before the revolution Lenin had been study-
ing the national problem. During the war he had been writing against the
Great Russian chauvinists, exposing the false position of even many of the left-
wing elements of the labor movement.
When Lenin came to power he commenced to put into effect his own policies.
In doing so, it must be admitted, he found resistance even in the ranks of his
own party. Lenin had fought with particular energy against the attempt to
carrj on a nationalistic and Russifying policy under the cover of international-
ism. It is known that Lenin was the spiritual father of tiie international policies
of Soviet Russia. But is is not so well known that he had been following with
particular attention Soviet Russia's Eastern policies. From the workers of those
countries which hold in subjection other nations, he used to demand not only
platonic sympathies for the oppressed, but practical political and technical mea-
sures of support to the revolutionary masses which are struggling against the
yoke of imperialism.
For Lenin the demand for "self-determination of nations up to the point of
separation" was no mere demagogic phrase, but a real law of practical policy.
If we follow the line of policy pursued by Soviet Russia since its existence we
hnd that this v.'as the actual policy of Leuin put into effect. He was never
satisfied with general principles alone. He carried out his ideas in all details.
Lenin took part in the debate on the national question which took place in
December of 1922. He wrote : "I have already mentioned in my writings on
the national question that there is no use in considering this problem abstractly.
It is necessary to distinguish between the nationalism of a people which op-
presses, and the nationalism of a people which is itself oppressed, that is, be-
tween the nationalism of big nations and the nationalism of small nations. We,
as representatives of a big nation, are almost always guilty of endless wrongs
against the small nations. And furthermore, unconsciously for ourselves, we
perpetrate outrages and give offense. The internationalism of the so-called big
nations, of one who is oppressing others, must consist not only in formally ac-
cepting the principle of equality of nations, but also in creating conditions for
the abolition of the wrong doings of the great nation. He who does not under-
stand this will not be able to assume a correct proletarian position on this
question. He will assume substantially the point of view of the petty bourgeoisie,
being liable at any moment to follow the lead of the bourgeoisie. What is it that
is of importance to the proletariat? It is not only important but absolutely
essential that the proletariat possess great confidence in iself. How can this
be secured V To establish the principle of formal equality will not suffice. Only
thru our deeds, thru the actual concessions that we make to other nationalities,
which will wipe out their memories of former oppression by the old ruling classes,
can we establish the necessary self-confidence. I believe that a Bolshevist or a
Communist needs no further explanations. A true proletarian policy would
demand of us in this sphere of activity, to be particuhirly careful and concilia-
tory, and in this given instance it would be much better to yield too nuich than too
little to the national minorities. The interests of proletarian solidarity, and c(m-
sequently of the proletarian class struggle, demand that we consider the national
question not merely in a formal way. We must take into consideration the dif-
ference of conception and ideas between the great nation and the small }iation.
Nothing is so detrimental to the development and consolidation of proletarian
94031 — 40 — app., pt. 1 7
§2 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
solidarity as a sense of national injustice. Nothing calls forth such bitter reac-
tions from the national minorities as the sense of being oppressed by our own
proletarian comrades."
This quotation shows the whole genius and simplicity of Lenin's deep under-
standing of the psychology of the oppressed peoples. Now, has Lenin's national
policy brought any positive results? If there is any doubt on that score it can
be obliterated by merely inquiring of the oppressed peoples of the East. The
oppressed peoples of the entire East have a very correct understanding of the
deeply interna,tional and revolutionary proletarian character of Lenin's national
policy.
The Gift of Orientation
Lenin possessed the exceptional ability of orientation and Marxian far-
sightedness. As a realist in class politics he quickly perceived the nature of
bourgeois democracy. But it was in this field that great efforts had to be made
to free oneself from historic traditions. For was not Lenin the founder of the
Social-Democracy which had inscribed on its banner that the way to socialism
lies thru democracy? Yet in spite of all this he was successful in destroying
all fetishes of democracy. He succeeded in this because of the revolution which
in its development had to overcome these democratic obstacles. He did not shrink
even from dissolving the Constituent Assembly, which had been a sacred
thing in the minds of many generations of Russian intellectuals. Political
democracy was never able to blind his eyes to the social and economic problems
of the revolution. As against bourgeois democracy he placed the democracy of
the proletariat.
International refoi-mism saw in this act of Lenin's his heaviest sin, while in
reality it was one of his greatest contributions to the proletarian class struggle.
The civil war in Russia had exposed the fractions and parties, which had been
fighting under the banner of democracy and the Constituent Assembly as real
counter-revolutionists. The last years of struggle in the West have proved very
convincingly that the democratic cooperationi between the Social-Democracy
and the bourgeoisie is nothing more than betrayal of the working class.
The Proletarian State and the Communist Party
Lenin had a perfect conception of the nature of democracy and of the State.
He restated the ftlarxian position regarding the nature of the State and its
role in the class struggle. As against the bourgeois democi-atic State, he placed
the Soviet State as the concrete form of the proletarian dictatorship. And
he also defined the position of the Soviet State in the development of the social
revolution. Every State, including the Soviet State, is the weapon of a definite
class. The State as such is an organ of oppression of one class by the other.
In this definition is contained the idea of the tran.sitory nature of the State
from a historic point of view. By the abolition of classes and the class stmggle,
the State will disappear, hut as a result of many years of historical develop-
ment and not as a result of one single act, as in the conception of the Anarchists.
To bring about the situation where there are no classes in society, is possible
only by means of a firm dictatorship of the working class, becau.se it is only
by means of such a dictatorship that we can break the resistance of the classes
that are opposed to the proletariat. Lenin also knew that the establishment
of the proletarian power is impossible without a violent revolution, and tliat
the maintenance of this proletarian power would be impossible without a
merciless suppression of the exploiting classes.
But the State is not an abstract category. The proletariat creates the State
in a form which is most advantageous to itself. Such a form is the Soviet
System of State, for it best unites the workers for management of the economic
and political affairs of the country. Consequently the Soviet system is the
best form of the proletarian dictatorship, and the Soviets are the best adapted
fighting organs of the working class.
How does the working cla.ss realize its dictatorship? Naturally, thru the
Soviets. And how do the Soviets realize their dictator.ship? Thru special organs
created by themselves. The opponents of Communism criticized Lenin for
the fact that he placed the sign of equation between the dictatorship of the
class and the dictatorship of the Party. They said: "The dictatorship of the
class is one thing, while the dictatorship of the Party is an entirely different
proposition." To this Lenin replied : "The working class must realize its
APPENDIX, PART 1 83
dictatorship thru its vanguard, and since the Communist Party of Russia is the
vanguard of the working class it is quite natural that this Party exercises the
power of the proletarian rule." This theory Lenin had put into effect. And
it is not an abstract theory, but a living reality. In the gigantic workshop
called Soviet Russia were forged the new historic forms of working class power,
and new methods of struggle for its liberation. Lenin always went aliead,
clearing the path, casting aside all prejudices and throwing a mighty searchlight
of Marxism upon the complex problems of the social and economic struggles.
Power of Concentration
As a foremost strategian Lenin understood how to direct the attention of the
masses to itself, how to concentrate the lighting energies of the masses, direct-
ing them to some central point. He knew the secret of formulating slogans in
a simple and universally understood manner. He also knew as nobody else did
how to organize the masses and lead them into struggle, always in accordance
with the fundamental principle of strategy which is, that the offensive is the
best defensive. Lenin never iiermitted the initiative to slip out of his hands.
He knew that the moment the enemy seizes the initiative our battle is lost.
He was always striving towards determining results, even if they were small.
He pursued our class enemies to the point of tlieir complete destruction. He
knew neither sentimentalism nor vacillation, whicli was the result, not of his
"blood-thirstiness"' as our class enemies would have us believe, but of liis deep
understanding of the mechanism of the social struggle.
When the class struggle reaches a sharpened stage, indecision is much more
costly to the working class than the utmost relentlessness towards the enemy.
In moments of decision the least failure to adopt energetic measures results
in tlie working class paying witli thousands of lives. Such indecision enables
the enemy to collect its forces and to assume the offensive. In the whole of
Lenin's activities the following passes like a redthread : Initiative, determina-
tion, ruthlessness, the pursuit of the enemy until he is destroyed, quick action
and the co'.icentration of the proletarian forces at the weakest spot of the
enemy's front.
At the same time Lenin understood how to diagnose the weak spots in the
armor of his own class. He would fight and exclude from the midst of the
proletariat many elements and whole social groups that were steering against
the course of the proletarian movement. He had a very fine sense of perception
for all the quiet processes that are going on within the masses, he sensed very
quickly all the subterranean forces within the proletariat, and he always under-
stood how to differentiate between tlie sound and unsound tendencies within
the working class. We must not forget that the working class finds itself within
the capitalist order of society, and that as a result of this, capitalism is exert-
ing a great influence over the proletarian masses. Reformism, for instance, is
the ideology of the bourgeoisie transplanted on working class soil. Lenin was
in possession of an iron will to fight. He never permitted himself to be intimi-
dated by defeats. He always intrenched himself in the po.sitions to which the
working class would be compelled to retreat and from there again assume the
offensive.
An Organizer of Masses
Lenin was not only a foremost Marxian, a statesman and strategian of
extraordinary foresightedness, he was also one of the greatest organizers and
leaders of the masses. He knew how to unite around himself large masses of
human beings, to draw them into a mass movement, and to lead them into strug-
gles. He always stood at the central point of the class struggle. He was
charged with energy, with faith, witli absolute conviction, transmitting all this
not only to those who stood close to him but also to hundreds of thousands and
to millions. The international reformists speak of Lenin as the destroyer of
socialism, a sectarian, an intolerant spirit, and .so forth. Yes, we will admit
that Lenin was the destroyer of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties. He
couldn't tolerate reformism. He was a sectarian because he refused to deal
with the betrayers of the labor movement.
The work of Lenin's life speaks for itself. This "spirit of destruction" stood
at tlie head of a mighty country. This "sectarian" has been the founder and
leader of the greatest political party in the world. This "spirit of intolerance"
left after him more love and loyalty than anyone else in the course of thou-
sands of years. Lenin's organizing abilities have found their expression in 30
j'ears of work, beginning with the creation of illegal political groups up to the
84 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
point when he assumed the leadership of Soviet Russia. For him there was
no struggle possible, no victory possible, without organization. Organization
work was part and parcel of his life's activities. He had built his organiz-ition
from the bottom up, he created a school of organization that is being followed
hy a generation which, from his theorey and particularly from his action, will
draw inspiration for years and years to come.
The Embodiment op the Proletaeian Will to Po^^•ER?
One of Lenins most notable characteristics was his will pov\'er. He knew
nothing but the revolution, and had been pursuing this end with all his energy.
So-called public opinion had no influence over him. He never paid any attention
to "what the other fellow will say. He always felt the pulsation of the working
class, because he was so closely connected with it. He also knew how to swim
against the current, how to overcome obstacles, whenever this was demanded
by the revolution. Let us recollect how he passed to Russia thru Germany at the
I)eginning of the revolution without paying the least attention to the insinuations
of Ithe capitalist and reformist press the world over. He possessed the ability to
concentrate his will power and to strike the enemy at the weakest spot. While
he was very patient with his friends he never knew or showed any tolerance to
the betrayers of the working class. When a friend of yesterday would become
the enemy of todav Lenin would pursue the same tactics of uncompromising
hostility. His tactics were always elastic, which enabled him to utilize even
the slightest mistake of his opponent in order to drive a wedge into the ranks
of the enemy. He never shunned responsibility, especially in decisive moments
of struggle. * He always knew what he wanted. The most characteristic feature
of the Apolitical and moral physiognomy of Lenin, this gigantic concentration
of the v.'ill of the proletariat, were his extraordinary will power and his all-
inclusive spirit.
Formal Logic Versus Revolutionary Tactics
If one were to approach the estimation of Lenins activities from the point of
view of formal logic, one would find quite a number of contradictions. In the
one hand, if one analyzes his activity from the i>oint of view of the objective
conditions with which Lenin was dealing, and also considers dialectically the
developments themselves, then all contradictions will disappear. He pursued
the taetics of quick changes in orientation. His agrarian program between 1901
and 1903 had been based upon the principle of the division of land among the
peasants, and in October of 1917 he carried thru the socialization of land.
Like all Social-Democrats Lenin started out as one favoring the defense of the
fatherland. However, when the last war broke out, he immediately adopted
the attitude of uncompromising hostility to the theory and practice of national
defense. He declared that not even the defeat of Russia would matter for
the working class. xVt that time the Marxian literature had just begun to
discuss the problem of national and imperialist war. Lenin began devoting
his attention to this problem and came to the conclusion that it is our duty
to transform the imperialist war into a civil war.
From the Provisional Government of Russia he demanded the immediate con-
vocation of the Constituent Assembly, and after the October Revolution he dis-
persed this very same Assembly. In the beginning Lenin was in favor of mili-
tary Communism, but in 1921 he introduced the New Econmic Policy. Follov,ing
Ihe socialization of the land in 1917, he favored in 1918 the formation of special
committees composed of the poorest peasants, in order to split the peasantry
thereby deciding the fate of the civil war in the villages. Starting out as an
adherent of the idea of revolutionary war, he yet rejected this idea in 1918,
and signed the Brest Litovsk peace treaty. And in 1920, he again favored the
revolutionary war. this time against Poland. A deadly enemy of reformism,
opposed to all dealings with the reformists, yet when conditions changed he de-
clared in favor of the united front as a means of combating reformism altho it
involved dealing wtih the reformists. Altho he favored a direct struggle against
all parties of the Second International, yet at a certain stage in the development
of the class struggle in England he favored the idea of supporting the British
Labor Party and its coming into power. We could relate many more illustrations
of the same kind. . . , .c i, *
In view of all this, would not the activity of Lenin appear to be full of con-
tradictions? Closet philosophers, adherents of the so-called rationalistic and
logical formulae, could never adjust themselves to the "illogical" thinking of
APPENDIX, PART 1 g5
Lenin. But this proves only tliat tliese people have forgotten the whole Hegelian
rule that the truth is concrete. Lenins quick changes of orientation were not
caused by abstract reasons, but by changes of realties. He was no couservor of
dead formulae and lifeless slogans. Lenins mobility in politics and tactics was
always in accord with the daily changes in the mutual relation of forces between
classes.
If we were to collect all that has been written on Lenin by his opponents, we
should get one great historical rebus. According to some of his opponents, Lenin
was a typical conspirator, a Blanquist, a Jacobin. According to others, Lenin
was one of the greatest opportunists, a careerist, one who was determined upon
getting into power, irrespective of the price. All these descriptions are mean-
ingless because they are based upon single instances of Lenins activities, torn out
from their connections with the whole, qualified according to the personal senti-
ments of one or the other of his enemies, and stamped accordingly.
Lenin was a dialectician in politics. That is, he knew how to attack, when
necessary to retreat, always according to plan, to change directions, and when
the situation became favorable again, to reassume the offensive, never for a
second losing sight of his final aims. During the thirty years of his activities
Lenin showed how changes of orientation could be effected without the Party or
the class whom he represented breaking their necks, but on the contrary strength-
ening their fighting ability and organization. From this point of view his entire
political work has been a classical example of revolutionary class strategy.
War and Revolution
From the very beginning Lenin had a clear conception of the international
nature of the class struggle. Long before the war he already felt himself a
stranger at the international socialist parades where the phrase reigned svipreme
and where no action was to be seen. As a result of his appearance at interna-
tional congresses (Stuttgart, Copenhagen) there was formed a small and loosely-
allied left wing. This "Russian sectarian" was treated condescendingly by the
leaders of European reformism. Some of them looked upon Lenin's activities
as a sort of sectarian madness, others considers it a result of the mystical traits
of his Slavic character. Very few realized the significance of this coming leader
of the interjiational working class movement. Only a few radical Germans,
Polish social-democrats, and several comrades of other countries, stood in close
political relations towards Bolshevism. Clara Zetkin relates the following story :
At the congress in Stuttgart, held in 1907, Rosa Luxembourg, while pointing out
to her the place occupied by Lenin, said: "See that man? Just watch the char-
acteristics of his head. He looks as if he were ready to crush the whole world,
that he would rather break his head than surrender."
Lenin knew the international working class movement well for many years.
But the international labor movement began to know Lenin only after the Octo-
ber Revolution. And here we approach one of the most interesting questions
connected with the theory and practice of the labor movement. How many peo-
ple are familiar with the giant of scientific socialism whose name was Marx? A
few hundreds of thousands. On the other hand, how many have heard of Lenin?
Hundreds of millions. How is this to be explained? Marx forged the weapon
of criticism for the struggle against the capitalist system, while Lenin employed
this cHticism as a weapon to strike the enemy over the head. The oppressed
millions have gotten a very clear conception of the significance of what Lenin
was doing, while the materialistic conception of history, the theory of the sociali-
zation of production, could be understood by a limited number of people. But
the expropopriation of land, factories, and banks, the abolition of exploitation,
the annulment of debts — such propaganda by action appealed to and was
understood by the widest sections of the working class.
One of the French bourgeois papers wrote after Lenin's death : "His thots were
grey and theologically monotonous." For the bourgeois world the ideas of Lenin
were really grey. But how did the international working class movement
re.spond to his ideas? Millions of people understood his thots because they were
simple and within the grasp of the masses. They were in harmony with the
class instincts of these masses, if not always with their conscious understanding.
But the true greatness of Lenin's "grey ideas could be seen only after these ideas
had been transformed into "red actions."
When at the end of 1914 Lenin spoke of the necessity of putting up the civil
war against the imperialist war, not even the left wing could follow the trend
gQ UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
of his thots. He therefore organized at Zimmerwald a left wing which assumed
definite form only at Kienthal. But even after the conference at Kienthal one
of its participant's, the French delegate Brisson, spolie of Lenin as of a queer sort
of fellow who had been making publicly very childish propositions.
From the very beginning Lenin had a very clear idea as to wliat results the
imperialist war would bring to humanity, and that the capitalist world would
under no circumstances be able to avoid civil war. This explains his radical
slogans. But the international labor movement had been developing very slowly.
It had to have a few more years of war before the masses would come back to
their senses. And this had been Lenin's task, to awaken the masses to revo-
lutionary action altho he was very little known to tlie wide proletarian masses.
After the February Revolution the patriotic henchmen of all countries started a
campiiign of vilification against Lenin as an agent of the Germnn General Staff.
This story found wide circulation also among social-democratic circles. Only
after the October Revolution did the masses come to learn the part played by
Lenin at Zimmerwald and Kienthal where he demanded that the working class
be aroused ti gainst the imperialist war. Only after he assumed the leadership of
the greatest revolution in the history of the world did tlie masses come to know
who Lenin really was. And since then the international labor movement has been
divided into two groups as far as Lenin was concerned, enthusiastic friends and
deadly enemies.
Every day of the existence of Soviet Russia, every attaclc against Russia by
its enemies, have contributed towards the increase of Lenin's popularity among
the masses, thereby raising the importance of those organizations (the Com-
munist International and the Red liiternational of Labor Unions) whose fiite was
bound up with that of Soviet Russia.
Lenin's deatli deeply impressed the working masses of the entire world. Most
of the leaders of the international revolutionary movement have realized that
Lenin has been the trail-blazer for the Commtinist Parties of every country in the
world. At present the theoretical and practical features of Bolsiievism which
were created by Lenin liave become factors of world importance. Since Bol-
shevism has thrown off the chains of Czarist rule, it has become the object of
universal attention and of the liatred of the imperialist bourgeoisie the world
over. Bolshevism at present stands against imperialism and reaction as a real
power. In the constant development of our movement, in the constant growtli
of the Communist ideas and Communist Parties, in the extended influence of the
Communist International and the Red International of Labor Unions, in the inter-
nationalization of our methods of struggle and in the elasticity of our revolution-
ary tactics, in the growing international unity between the various sections of the
revolutionary proletariat — in all this we can see the firm hand and the great
genius of Lenin. He stands out in the history of the international labor move-
ment as one of its foremost and greatest leaders.
The Father of the Communist International
Lenin was the creator and the drivhig force of the Third Communist Inter-
national, which he began building during the very first days of the world war. The
moment the Parties of the Second International began openly to support their
Governnu'nts, Lenin issued the following slogan : "The Second International is
dead; long live the Third International." He was one of the organizers of the
conference of Zimmerwald and Kienthal, where he fornuilated the basis for the
left wing. During the years of war he ruthlessly opposed and attacked every
shade of opportunism, particularly the meaningless pacifist abortion of Kautsky.
But it was only after the October Revolution that conditions became ripe for the
Third International, conditions which laid the national, territorial, social, and
political foundations for the International of action. The Russian experiences
served the Communist Internationnl as the guiding line of its policies.
However, Lenin did not reject in an offhand manner everijthinfj that was created
1\V the Second International. He understood how to differentiate between what
was valuable and what was not. In his article entitled "The Third International
and Its Place in History" he said the following:
"Tlie First International laid the foundation for the international proletarian
struggle for socialism. The Second International constitutes the epoch in which
the ground has been prepared in a number of countries for a mass movement.
The Third International utilizes the results of the activities of the Second Inter-
APPENDIX, PART 1 87
national, breaks with tlie opportunistic, social-chiuivinistic, and petty-bourgeois
tendencies, and begins to realize the dictatorship of the proletariat."
In the same article Lenin explains what he c^uisidercd llie foundation of the
Third International :
'•The historic world significance of the Communist International consists in
this, that it begins to put into effect the things which Murx has proven the-
oretically to be a necessity, thereby realizing the consequences produced by the
socialist and labor movement, that is, the dictatorship of the proletariat."
Lenin gave the Communist Iiiterjiational not only its ideological direction by
formulating many of the theses adopted by the Comintern, which hiive drawn the
attention of the Communist Parties to the importance of the agrarian and colonial
questions, to the mutual relations between the dictatorship and capitalist
democracy, but he also participated directly and actively in the solution of all
problems confronted by the Communist International. Between Congresses he
always occupied himself very intensively with the problems of the Communist
Parties all over the world. And when, in the beginning of 1920, he noticed the
appearance of a sort of Utopian Communism, he began struggling against it in his
famous booklet, "The Infantile Sickness of Communism," thereby dealing a death-
blow to this tendency.
After the formation of the Communist International, Lenin's main worry was
to close the gates to the opportunist elements. The famous 21 points, which
attracted so much attention, not only of the reformist press but also of the
capitalist press, belong to Lenin. Lenin looked upon the Communist International
not as a meeting place of all kinds of independent national parties, but as a abso-
lutely homogeneous international fighting organization. However, he always had
regard for the situations of the various countries, and never presented exag-
gerated demands to the newly-formed Communist organizations, for he knew only
too well how much effort it would require to educate politically and organization-
ally and to put on the right track all those new Communist Parties which had
just emerged from the ranks of the Social Democracy. He considered it the best
means to pursue a clear revolutionary policy and, in this sense, he developed his
activities in the Communist International. Lenin was, for the Third Interna-
tional, what Marx was for the First. The revolutionary workers of all countries
have still a lot to learn from Lenin's works, particularly from his actions, because
Leninism and Communism are one and the same thing.
Lenin and the Trade Unions
The trade union movement also is very much indebted to Lenin. First of
all because he has determined the correct place to be occupied by the trade
xmions in the class struggle. He fought very bitterly all those in the trade
unions of Europe that favored the existence of the trade unions as perfectly
independent organizations from the political party of the proletariat. He
proved in a number of cases that this idea of the independence of the unions
from the political movement of the proletariat in reality means independence
from revolutionary class politics, that the anarchists and reformists by preach-
ing the idea of the independence of the trade unions are merely serving the
Intei'ests ofjthe bourgeoisie.
Lenin looked upon the trade unions as the elementary units of working class
organization, "as the place where the masses are trained in organization, in
collective management, and in Communism." He was at one and the same time
opposed to over-estimating as well 'as under-estimating the importance of trade
unions. He always insisted upon the necessity of taking part in these mass
oi'ganizations, irrespective of the nature of their leadership. In his book "The
Infantile Sicknesses of Communism," in the chapter entitled, "Shall Revolu-
tionaries Participate in Reactionary Trade Unions?" he criticizes very ener-
getically those Communist elements which at the first onslaught of the reaction-
ary bureaucracy become pessimistic and throw out the slogan of : "Out of the
Trade Unions, an immediate split." Such tactics he designates as: "Unpardon-
able stuioidity which is equivalent to offering the greatest .service to the bour-
geoisie." He says : "We must work wherever the masses are, criticize merci-
lessly the labor aristocracy which is dominated by reformism, narrow craft
egotism, and the ideas of bourgeois imperialism." Lenin would emphasize time
and again that without the trade unions the Soviet Government could not have
maintained itself in power for more than two weeks. The trade unions are
the connecting link between the masses and the proletarian vanguard. It is
gg UN-AilERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
only by our dnily activities that we can convince the masses that it is only we
who are caijable of leadiiijr them from capitalism communism.
The development of the revolutionary trade union movement followed that of
the Communist movement. The Russian trade union movement was to the Red
International of Labor Unions of the same importance as the Communist Party
of Russia \\'^is to the Communist International. The Russian trade union move-
ment had begun developing with particuar intensity after the October Revolution
under the ideological and political leadership of Lenin.
Lenin followed the development of the trade nnion movement with the same
interest with which he followed that of the Commmiist movement. He would
always explain that the Amsterdam International is the main support of the
international bourgeoisie, and l^ecause of this was he so much interested in the
R(>d International of Labor Unions, as can be seen from his communication to
the First Congre.ss of the R. I. L. U. (July, 1921) where Lenin said :
"It is hard to express in words the importance of this international trade
union congress. Everywhere in the whole world the Communist ideas find ever
more followers among the membership of the trade unions. The progress of
Comnuniism does not follow a straight line. It is not regular, it has got to
overcome thousands of obstacles, but it moves forward just the same. This
international trade nnion congress will hasten the progress of Communism,
which will be victorious in the trade union movement. There is no power on
earth that is able to prevent the collapse of capitalism and the victory of the
working class over the bourgeoisie."
From this it can be seen what importance Lenin attached to the internation'al
unification of the revolutionary trade union movement for the struggles of the
working class.
A Child of His People and Centuby
Lenin was the child of his people and of his century. When called a Jacobin
he would answer : "We, the Bolsheviks, are the Jacobins of the Twentieth
Century, that is, the Jacobins of the proletarian revolution." Lenin was, as we
have seen, the very embodiment of the idea of internationalism, 'and at the
same time he was part and parcel of the mighty revolutionary movement that
the oppressed masses of Russia have been carrying on for years and years.
He was really one link in 'a long chain of struggles for the emancipation of
the Russian proletariat and the Russian peasantry. From Radschev, thru
Belinsky. Dobroljubov. Bakunin, Tschernischevsky, Netschajev. and Jelibov,
thru the party "The Will of the People" and thru the group of "Emancipation of
Labor.*' and thru many mdvnown representatives of the workers and peasants,
which have been populating the prisons of the Czar and of Siberia, there runs
the thread of struggle which unites Lenin with the Russian revolutionary move-
ment. He was a man of an all-inclusive spirit : the press of our opponents
would speak with irony about the utopian plans of Bolshevism. But in this
irony there is to be found 'a profound truth. Lenin has been operating with
whole continents. He was basing his policies upon the experiences of millions.
Only the limitless and vast extent of Russia could give birth to such a
spirit. This youth, born to a family of state functionaries and adopted by the
proletariat, embo<lied and gave expression to the hatred of the working class of
Russia accumul'ated thru centuries. He also reflected in himself the hatred of
the peasantry against its oppressors that accumulated thru centuries. He had
a deep sense for the sufferings of the toiling masses, even when the masses
could not give expression to those sufferings in words.
Lenin cnnnot be considered apart from the Russian workers and peasants
land from the Russian history. Only within the social structure of Russia, the
revolutionary struggles of whole generations, only by considering the achiev-
ments of the Russian revolutionary movement since the ISth century and up
to the last day, can we locate the prime factors that have brought about the
appearance of Bolshevism in Russia at the cross-roads of two centuries. Only
by taking all this into consideration can we properly estimate the moral, po-
litical, national, and international physiognomy of Lenin. For us, his contem-
poraries, who have been living within the circle of his influence, one thing is
clear. liCnin was one of those men by whom humanity marks its historical
path, concerning whom legends are being told in his lifetime, and the farther we
go from the date of his death the clearer will stand before us Lenin's greatness
and immortality.
APPENDIX, PART 1 89
Exhibit No. 7
[Source: "Lenin on the Historic Sisniflcance of tlio Tliird Internationiil," a pamphlet
published by Martin liawrence, London: 19;54]
LENIN ON THE HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THIRD
INTERNATIONAL
Published by Martin Lawrence, 33 Great James Street, London. W. C. 1. and printed in
Great Britain by Western Printing Services Ltd., Bristol, 1934
The Third, Communist International
Speech Recorded for the Gramophone
In March of this year, 1919, there took place an international congress of
Communists in Moscow. This Congress founded the Third, Communist Inter-
national, the Union of the Workers of the whole world who are striving for
the establishment of Soviet power in all countries.
The First International, founded by Marx, existed from 1864 to 1872. The
defeat of the heroic Paris workers — the famous Paris Commune — meant the
end of this International. It is unforgettable, it is eternal, in the history of
the struggle of the workers for their emancipation. It laid the foundation of
that building of the World Socialist Republic, which we to-day have the
happiness of constructing.
The Second International existed from 1889 to 1914, until the war. This
period was the period of the quietest and most peaceful developments of capi-
talism, a period without great revolutions. The labour movement grew strong
and mature in that period in a number of countries. But the leaders of the
workers in the majority of parties, growing accustomed to peaceful times, lost
the capacity for revolutionary struggle. When the War began in 1914, which
for four years has drenched the earth with blood, a war between the capitalists
for the division of protits, for power over the small and weak nations, these
socialists passed over to the side of their governments. They betrayed the
workers, they helped to drag out the slaughter, they became enemies of
Socialism, they passed over to the side of the capitalists. The masses of the
workers have "turned away from the:^ traitors to Socialism. Throughout the
world a turn to revolutionary struggle has commenced. The War has shown
that capitalism is doomed. A new order is taking its place. The traitors to
Socialism have disgraced the old word "Socialism."
Now the workers who have remained faitlifui to the cause of the overtlirow
of the yoke of capital call themselves Communists. Throughout the world
the Union of Communists is growing. In a number of countries Soviet power
has already been victorious.^ It will not be long before we see the victory of
Communism throughout the world, before we see the foundation of the World
Federal Republic of Soviets. {Made in March 1919.)
The Third International and Its Place in History
The imperialists of the Entente countries are blockading Russia, endeavouring
to cut off the Soviet Republic from the capitalist world, as a centre of infection.
These people who boast of the "democracy" of their institutions are so blinded
by hatred towards the Soviet Republic that they do not notice how they are
making themselves ridiculous. Only think : the advanced, most civilised and
"democratic" countries, armed to the teeth, which in a military respect have
xmchallenged sway over the whole earth, are frightened as of lire of the ideolof/ical
infection which proceeds from a ruined, hungry, backward, and, as they declare,
even a half-savage country !
This contradiction alone opens the eyes of the labouring masses of all countries
and helps to expose the hypocrisy of the imperialists Clemenceau, Lloyd George,
Wilson, and their governments.
But not only the blind hatred of the capitalists towards the Soviets, but also
their squabbles among themselves help us, inciting them to injure one another.
They have concluded among themselves a real conspiracy of silence, being fright-
ened more than anything else of the spreading of correct news about the Soviet
Republic in general, and of its official documents in particular. Howe^•er, the
^ Lenin refers to the Soviet revolutions in Bavaria and Hungary.
QQ UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
chief organ of the French hourgeoisie, Le Temps, has printed a communication
about the founding in Moscow of the Third, Communist International.
We express our respectful thanks for this to the chief organ of the French
bourgeoisie, to this leader of French chauvinism and French imperialism. We
are ready to send the newspaper Lc Tcmvn a solemn address in expression of our
gratitude for having so succes-sfuUy and cleverly assisted us.
From the wav in which the newspaper Lc Temps made its communication on
the basis of our wireless message we can see with complete clarity the motive
which impelled this organ of the money bags. It wanted to taunt Wilson, to
sting him. I'ray see what kind of people you are allowing negotiations with !
These clever feliows who wrote at command of the money bags do not see how
their attempt to scare Wilson with the P,olsheviks is turned in the eyes of the
labouring masses into an advertisement for the Bolsheviks. Once again, our
respectful thanks to the organ of the French millionaires!
The foundation of the Third International took place in such a world situation
that lui i)i'()liihitions, no petty or wretched tricks of the imperialists of the Entente
or of the lackeys of capitalism, such as Scheideniann in Germany, Renner in
Austria, could prevent the spreading of the news of this International among the
working class of the whole world and of sympathy towards it. This situation has
been created l»y the-iiroletarian revolution which is clearly growing everywhere,
no longer just daily, but hourly. This situation has been created by the Soviet
movement among the labouring masses which has already reached such a strength
that it has really become ivtennitional.
The First International (1864-1872) laid the foundation of the international
organisation of the workers for the preparation of their revolutionary onslaught
upon capital. The Second International (1889-1914) was the international or-
ganisation of the proletarian movement, the growth of which extended widely
but not without a temporary lowering of the height of the revolutionary level,
without a temporary increase in opportunism which finally led to the shameful
collapse of this International.
The Third International was in fact founded in 1918 when the many years
process of struggle against opportunism and social-chauvinism, particularly during
the War, has led to the formation of Communist parties in a number of nations.
Formally, the Third International was founded at its first Congress in Moscow
in March 1919. And the most characteristic feature of this International, its
vocation, is to fulfill and bring to life the heritage of Marxism and to realise the
century-old ideals of Socialism and of the labour movement — this most character-
istic feature of the Third International showed itself at once in the fact that
the new. Third, "International Working Men's A.ssociation" has alreadij begun nou-
to eoincide to a certain degree, with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The first International laid the foundation of proletarian. International struggle
for Socialism.
The Second International was the epoch of preparing the ground for a wide,
mass spreading of the movement in a number of countries.
The Third International gathered the fruits of the work of the Second Inter-
national, cut off its opportunist, social-chauvinist, bourgeois and pettv-bourgeois
filth and ber/an to realise the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The International Union of the parties which are leading the most revolutionary
movement in the world, the movement of the proletariat for the overthrow of the
yoke of capital, now has beneath it a basis of unexampled firmness: several
Soviet republics which on an international scale embody in life the dictatorship of
the proletariat, its victory over capitalism.
The world historical importance of the Third, Communist International con-
sists in the fact that it has begun to bring to life Marx' greatest slogan the
slogan which sums up the century-old development of Socialism and of the labour
movement, tlie slogan which is expressed in the conception : the dictator.ship of
the proletariat.
This prophecy of genius, this theory of genius is becoming a reality
The.se T.atin words have now been translated into all the national languages of
modern Europe— more than that, into all the languages of the world
A new epoch in world history has begun.
Humanity is throwing off the last form of slavery, capitalist or wage-slavery
In emancii)ating itself from slavery humanity is for the first time approaching
real freedom. '^^ *
How could it happen that the first country to realise the dictatorship of the
proletarit to organize a Soviet republic, was one of the most backward European
countries? We shall hardly be mistaken in saying that it was precisely this
APPENDIX, PART 1 91
contradiction between the backwardness of Russia and its "leap" to the highest
form of democracy, through bourgeois democracy to Soviet or proletarian democ-
racy, it was precisely this contradiction which was one of the reasons (in addition
to the load of opportunist habits and philistine prejudices which lay upon the
majority of the socialist leaders), which has particularly made diflBcult and
slowed up the understanding of the role of the Soviets in the West.
The working masses throughout the world guessed by instinct the importance
of the Soviets as the weapons of struggle of the proletariat and as the forms of
the proletarian state. But the "leaders," spoiled by opportunism, continued and
still continue to pray to bourgeois democracy, calling it "democracy" in general.
Is it astonishing that the realisation of the dictatorship of the proletariat has
first of all shown the "contradiction" between the backwardness of Russia and
its "leap" fhrough bourgeois democracy? It would have been astonishing if the
realisation of n nctc form of democracy had been given us l:>y history without
a riumbcr of contradictions.
Any ^Marxist, even any person acquainted with modern science in general, if
you asked him: "Is the even, or harmonious, proportional transition of different
capitalist countries to the dictatorship of the proletariat likely?" — would un-
doubtedly have answered this question in the negative. Neither evenness, nor
harmony, nor proportion have ever existed in the world of capitalism or ever
could exist. Every country has developed particularly prominently either one
side or feature, or group of characteristics of capitalism and of the labour move-
ment. The process of development has gone on une^•enly.
When France carried out its great bourgeois revolution, awakening the
whole continent of Europe to a historically new life, England was at the head
of the counter-revolutionary coalition, although at that time it was much more
developed capitalistically than France. Yet the English labour movement at
this period anticipates with genius a great deal of future Marxism.
Wlien England gave the world the first wide and really mass, politically
organised, proletarian revolutionary movement. Chartism, on the European
continent in most cases feeble bourgeois revolutions were taking place, but in
France there broke out the first great civil war between proletariat and bour-
geoisie. The bourgeosie defeated the various national detachments of the
proletariat singly and in different ways in different countries.
England was an example of a country in which, according to the expression
of Engels, the bourgeosie, along with an aristocracy become bourgeois, created
a more or less bourgeois upper section of the proletariat. An advanced capi-
talist country for some generations was backward in the sense of the revo-
lutionary struggle of the proletariat. France apparently exhausted the strength
of the proletariat in two heroic revolts of the working class against the bour-
geosie in 1848 and 1871 which gave an extraordinary great deal in the world
historical sense. The hegemony in the International of the labour movement
nest passed to Germany from the seventies of the nineteenth century, when
Germany was economically behind both England and France. But when Ger-
many caught up both these countries economically, that is towards the second
decade of the twentieth century, then at the head of the Marxist labour party
of Germany, which had been an example to the world, appeared a group of
arch-scoundrels, of the filthiest swine bought by the capitalists, from Scheide-
mann and Noske to David and Legien, of the most disgusting executioners of
the workers in the service of the monarchy and the counter-revolutionary
bourgeosie.
World history mai-ches unswervingly towards the dictatorship of the prole-
tariat, but it marches along paths which are far from smooth, simple or direct.
When Karl Kautsky was still a IMarxist, and not the renegade from Marxism
he has become in his capacity of fighter for unity with the Scheidemanns and
for bourgeois democracy against Soviet or proletarian democracy, at the very
beginning of the twentieth century, he wrote an article, "The Slavs and the
Revolution." In this article he explained the historical conditions which
pointed to the possibility of the passing of the hegemony inside the international
revolutionary movement to the Salvs.
It has happened so. For a time— obvioiisly only for a short time — the hege-
mony in the revolutionary proletarian International has passed to the Russians,
as at different periods in the nineteenth century it was held by the English,
then by the French, then by the Germans.
I have had occasion to say more than once, in comparison with the advanced
countries it was easier for the Russians to 'brgin a great proletarian revolution,
but it will be more difficult for them to continue it and bring it to final victory,
in the sense of the complete organisation of socialist society.
92 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
It was easier for us to begin because in the first place, the unusual political
backwardness— for twentieth century Europe— of the Tsarist monarchy called
forth unusual strength in the revolutionary onslaught of the masses. Sec-
ondly, the backwardness of Russia merged in an original fashion the prole-
tarian revolution against the bourgeosie with a peasant revolution agauist the
landlords. We started from this in October 1917 and we shoidd not have been
so easily victorious if we had not started from this. x\.s far back as 1856,
speaking of Prussia, Marx pointed out the possibility of au original combination
of the proletarian revolution with a peasant war. The Bolsheviks from the
beginning of 1905 persisted in the idea of the revolutionary democratic dic-
tatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. Thirdly, the revolution of 1905
did an extraordinary great deal for the political education of the masses of
workers and of peasants both in the sense of making the vanguard acquainted
with the "last word" in Socialism in the West, and also in the sense of the
revolutionarv activity of the masses. Without such a "general rehearsal" as
took place in 1905 the revolutions of 1917, both the bourgeois February one and
the proletarian October one, would have been impossible. Fourthly, the geo-
graphical conditions of Russia allowed it to hold out more than other countries
against the external preponderance of the capitalist advanced countries.
Fifthly, the peculiar relationship of the proletariat and the peasantry facili-
tated the transition from the bourgeois revolution to the socialist one, facili-
tated the influence of the proletarians of the towns ovev the semiproletarian,
poorest sections of the toilers in the country. Sixthly, the long school of strike
struggle and the experience of the European mass labour movement facilitated
the appearance in a deep and rapidly sharpening revolutionary situation of
such an original form of proletarian revolutionary organisation as the Soviets.
This list is, of course, not complete. But we can limit ourselves to it mean-
while.
Soviet or proletarian democracy was born in Russia. In comparison with
the Paris Commune a second world historical step was made. The proletarian-
peasant Soviet republic has become the first stable socialist republic in the
world. It is already impossible for it to die as a new type of state. It is
now already not standing alone.
For the continuing of the work of the construction of Socialism, in order to
bring it to a conclusion, a very great deal is still called for. Soviet republics
in more civilised countries in which the proletariat has greater weight and
influence, have every chance of overtaking Russia once they step onto the path
of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The bankrupt Second International is now dying and rotting alive. It is in
fact playing the role of servant of the international bourgeosie. It is a real
yellow International. Its most important ideological leaders .such as Kautsky,
are praising honrc/eois democracy, calling it "democracy" in general or, what
is still more crude and stupid, "pure democracy,"
Boui'geois democracy has outlived itself, as has the Second International,
having done a historically necessary and useful work, when it was a question
of the preparation of the working masses within the confines of this bourgeois
democracy.
The most democratic bourgeois republic has never been and never could be
anything but a machine for the suppression of the toilers by capital, a tool of
the political power of capital, of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The
democratic bourgeois republic promised power to the majority, proclaimed it,
but could never realise it so long as private property in the land and of the
means of production existed.
"Freedom" in the bourgeois democratic republic was in practice freedom
for the rich. The proletarians and labouring peasants could and should use
it for preparing their forces for the overthrow of capital, for passing beyond
bourgeois democarey, but in fact as a general rule the toiling masses under
capitalism could not make use of democracy.
For the fir.st time in the world, Soviet or proletarian democracy has created
democracy for the masses, for the toilers, for the workers and small peasants.
There has never before in the world been such a state power of the majority
of the population, a power of that majority in practice, as is the Soviet power.
It suppresses the " freedom " of the exploiters and their assistants, it takes
away f I'om them the " freedom " to exploit, the " freedom " to make profit out
of hunger, the " freedom " of struggle to restore the power of capital, the
" freedom " to make agreements with the foreign bourgeoisie against the workers
and peasants of their own fatherland.
APPENDIX, PART 1 93
Let the Kantskys defend such a freedom. To do this they must be renegades
from Marxism, renegades from socialism.
The colhipse of the ideological leaders of the Second International, such as
Hilferding and Kautsky, has in no way been so vividly shown as in their com-
plete incapacity to understand the meaning of Soviet or proletarian democracy,
its relation to the Paris Commune, its historical place, its necessity, as the form
of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In number 74 of the newspaper Die Freihcit, the organ of the "Independent"
(read, petty-bourgeois, philistine, middle-class) German Social Democracy, in
the issue of the 11th February, 1919. there was published an appeal " To the
revolutionary proletariat of Germany."
This appeal was signed by the leadership of the party and the whole of its
fraction in the "National Assembly," in the German " Constituent."
This appeal accuses the Scheidenianns of trying to get rid of the Soviets and
propose.s — don't lau^h ! — to conibiuc the Soviets with the Constituent, to give
the Soviets definite state rights, a definite place in the constitution.
To reconcile, to unite the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie with the dictatorship
of the proletariat! How simple! Wliat a philistine idea of genius!
It is only a pity that the united Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries,
those petty-bourgeois democrats who call themselves socialists, have already
tried it in Russia under Kerensky.
Whoever has ii«>t understood when reading Marx that in capitalist society, on
every acute occa.sion. at every serious conflict of classes, it is only jjossible to
have either the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, or the dictatorship of the pro-
letariat, has understood nothing of either the economic or the political teaching
of Marx.
But the pliilistine idea of genius of Hilferding, Kautsky and Co. of peacefully
uniting the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the prole-
tariat demands a special examination if we wish to exhaust the economic and
political stupidities crov.-ded into this remarkable and comic appeal of the 11th
February.
We must put this off for another article.
Moscow, 15th April, 1919.
First published in No. 1 of the Communist International, May 1st, 1919.
The Heroes of the Beene Internationai.
In the article The Third International and Its Place in History I pointed out
one of the outstanding manifestations of the ideological collapse of the repre-
sentatives of the old, rotten " Berne " International. This collap.se of the
theoreticians of the reactionary Socialism which does not understand the dic-
tatorship of the proletariat, is expressed in the proposal of the German "Inde-
pendent " social-democrats to combine, unite and join the bourgeois parliament
with Soviet power.
The most prominent theoreticians of the old International, Kautsky, Hilferd-
ing, Otto Bauer and Company have not understood that they are proposing to
join the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat!
The people who made a name for themselves and won the sympathy of the
workers by preaching the class struggle, by explaining its necessities, at the
most decisive moment of the struggle for Socialism have not understood that
they are completely abandoning all teaching of the cla.ss struggle, that they are
completely renouncing it and in practice passing into the camp of the bourgeoisie
in trying to join the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie with the dictatorship of
the proletariat.
This sounds unlikely, but it is a fact.
As a rare occurrence we have managed now to get in Moscow a fairly large
number of foreign newspapers, though of odd issues, so that it is possible to
put together in a little more detail, although, of course, far from fully, the
history of the hesitations of the " Independent " gentlemen in the chief theo-
retical and practical question of our time. This is the question of the relation-
ship of dictatorship (of the proletariat) to democracy (hourgeois) or of Soviet
power to bourgeois parlianientarianii-m.
In his pamphlet The Dictatorship of the Proletariat (Vienna, 1918) Mr.
Kautsky wrote that " Soviet organisation is one of the mo.st important phenom-
ena of our times. It promises to obtain decisive importance in the grrnt decisive
battles between capital and labour towards which we are marching" (page 33
94 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
of Kautsky's pamphlet). And he added that the Bolsheviks had made a mistake
in converting the Soviets from "the militant organisation of one class" into "a
state organisation;' thereby "destroying democracy" (the same page).
In my pamphlet The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky
(Petrograd and Moscow 1918) I have analysed this argument of Kantskv in
detail and shown that it is made up of complete forgetfulness of the verv founda-
tions of the teaching of Marxism upon the state. For the state (every state,
including the most democratic republic) is nothing but a machine for the sup-
pression of one class by another. To call the Soviets the militant organisation
of a class and to deny them the right of becoming a " state organisation " means
in practice to renounce the A. B. C. of Socialism, to declare or to defend the in-
violability of the bourgeois machine for the suppression of the proletariat (that
is of the bourgeois democratic republic, of the bourgeois state), means in facl
going over into the camp of the bourgeoisie.
The stupidity of Kautsky's position is so glaring, the onslaught of the work-
ing masses who are calling for Soviet power is so strong, that Kautsky and the
Kautskyians have been forced to retreat shamefully, to fall into confusion, for
they have not shown themselves able to admit honestly that they were mistaken.
On February 9th, 1919, in the newspaper Freiheit, the organ of the " Inde-
pendent " (of Marxism, but completely dependent on petty-bourgeois democracy)
Social Democrats of Germany, there appeared an article by Mr. Hilferding
which already calls for the conversion of the Soviets into state organisations,
but along with the bourgeois parliament, with the " National Assembly," to-
gether with it. On February llth, 1919, in an appeal to the proletariat of Ger-
many the whole "Independent" party adopts this slogan (consequently Mr.
Kautsky also who has forgotten about the statement he made in the Autuinn of
1918).
This attempt to join the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie with the dictatorship
of the proletariat is a complete renunciation of Marxism and of Socialism in
general, it is forgetting the experience of the Russian Mensheviks and " Socialist
Revolutionaries" who from May 6th, 1917 to October 25th, 1917 (old style)
made the "experiment" of combining the Soviets as a "state organisation"
with the bourgeois state and failed shamefully in this experiment.
At the Party Congress of the "Independents" (at the beginnins- of March
1919) the whole party adopted this position of sage combination of the Soviets
with bourgeois parliamentarianism. But in No. 178 of Freiheit. on April 1.3th,
1919, it is announced that the fraction of the " Independents " at the Second
Congress of Soviets has proposed the resolution:
"The Second Congress of Soviets is adopting the ground of the Soviet
system. In accordance with this the political and economic system of
Germany must be based on the organisation of Soviets. The Soviets of
Workers' Deputies are the recognised representative of the toiling popula-
tion in all spheres of political and economic life."
Alongside with this the same fraction proposed to the Congress a project of
"directives" (Richtlinien), in which we read :
"The Congress of Soviets has full political power. The right to elect and
to be elected into the Soviets is enjoyed without distinction of s^ex by those who
fulfill socially necessary and useful labour without exploiting other peoples'
labour power."
We see, con.sequently, how the "Independent" leaders have turned out to be
wretched philistines. completely dependent on thephilistine prejudices of the most
l)ackward section of the proletariat. In the Autumn of 1818 these leaders, through
the mouth of Kautsky, renounce any conversion of the Soviets into state organisa-
tion. In March 1919 they abandon this position, hanging onto the tail "of the
working masses. In April 1919 they upset the decision of their own Congress,
passing over completely to the position of the Communists: "All power to the
Soviets."
Such leaders are not worth much. To be an indication of the mood of the more
backward section of the proletariat, going behind and not in front of the advance
guard, it is not for this that leaders are needed. And these leaders are worth
nothing at all for the complete lack of character with which they change their
slogau.s. It is impossible to feel confidence in them. They will nlwaijs be ballast,
a negative quantity In the labour movement.
APPENDIX, PART 1 95
The most "left" of them, a certain Mr. Daumig, argued as follows at the Party
Congress (see Frciheit of March 9th) :
"Diiumig declares that nothuig divides him from the demand of the Com-
munists : 'All power to the Soviets of Workers' Deputies.' But he nuist
appeal against the putschism in practice carried out hy the Communist Party
and against the Byzantinism " which they assume in regard to the masses
instead of educating them. Putschist disrupting activity cannot take us
forward. . . ."
The Germans call putschism what old revolutionaries in Russia fifty years ago
called "outbreak.s," "outbreak-fomenting," the organisation of petty conspiracies,
attempts at assassination, uprisings, etc.
In accusing the Communists of "putschism" Mr. Diiumig only proves thereb.y his
own "Byzantinism," his servile crawlii.g before the pliilistine prejudices of the
petty bourgeoisie. The "leftism" of such a gentleman which repeats a "fashion-
iible" slogan out of cowardice before the masses, ivithout understanding the mass
revotutionary movement, is not worth a broken half-penny.
In Germany a powerful wave of spontaneous strike movements is taking place.
There is an unheard of revival and growth of the proletarian struggle, greater,
apparently, even than there was in Russia in 1905 when the strike movement
reached a height so far unparallelled in the world. To talk of "outbreak-foment-
ing" in the face of such a movement means that one is a hopeless tout and lackey
of Philistine prejudices.
The Philistine gentlemen, led by Diiumig, are dreaming probably of the kind of
revolution (if in general they have any kind of idea in their head about revolution)
in which the masses would rise all at once and completely organised.
There are no svich revolutions and there cannot be such revolutions. Capitalism
would not be capitalism if it did not keep the millions of the masses of toilers, the
immense majority, in oppression, down-trodden. In want and in darkness. Capi-
talism cannot collapse otherwise than by means of revolution which in the course
of the struggle will raise masse.> wlio were hitherto unaffected. Spontaneous
explosions are inevitable with the growth of revolution. Without this there has
been no revolution and cannot be a revolution.
That Communists are in favour of spontaneity is a lie of Mr. Diiumig, exactly
the same sort of lie as we have many times heard from the Mensheviks and S. Rs.
Communists are not in favour of spontaneity, do not stand for scattered outbreaks.
Comnuuiists teach the masses organised, complete, comradely, opportune, mature
action. This fact is not refuted by the philistine slanders of Messrs. Diiumig,
Kautsky and Co.
But the Philistines are not capable of understanding that Communists consider —
and quite correctly — it is their duty to he iritii the struggling masses of the op-
pressed and not with the heroes of Philistinism who stand on one side in cowardly
expectation. When the masses are struggling mistakes are inevitable in the
struggle. And the Communists seeing these mistakes, explaining them to the
masses, getting the mistakes corrected, unswervingly insisting on the victory of
con.sciousness over spontaneity, remain vith the niaf<ses. It is better to be with
the struggling masses who in the course of their struggle gradually free them-
selves from mistakes, than with the intellectuals, the phiiistines, the Kautskyians,
who wait on one side for "complete victory," and this is a truth which it is not
given to the Mr. Daumigs to understand.
So much the wor.se for them. They have already passed into the history of the
world revolution as cowardly phiiistines. reactionary whimperers, yesterday's
servants of the Scheidemanns, to-day's pi'eachers of 'social peace," for it is a matter
of indifference whether this preaching is hidden luider the form of combining a
Constituent Assembly with Soviets or under the form of deep thinking condemna-
tion of "putschism."
Mr. Kautsky has broken the record in the cause of replacing Marxism by reac-
tionary Philistine whining. He sticks to one note. He weeps over what has taken
place, complains, cries, is horrified, preaches reconciliation ! All his life this
knight of pitiful shape has written about the class struggle and about Socialism,
but when matters have reached a maximum sharpening of the class struggle and
the eve of Socialism, our sage is panic-stricken, bursts into tears and appeal's as a
common philistine. In No. r>8 of the paper of the Vienna traitors to socialism,
the Austerlitzes, the Renners, the Rauers, (Arbeiter Zietung, April 9th. 1919,
" Obscure dogmatism.
96 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
Vienna, morning edition), Kautsky, for tlie hundredth, if not for the thousandth
time brings liis lamentations together :
"Economic thought and economic understanding," he weeps, "have been
driven from the lieads of all classes." "The long War has accustomed wide
sections of the proletariat to a complete disregard for economic conditions
and to a firm faith in the all-powerfulness of violence."
There are the two "little points" of our "very learned" person !
"The cult of violence" and the collapse of production — that is why instead of an
analysis of the real conditions of the class struggle he has fallen into the accus-
tomed, old, primordial, philistine whining. "We expected," he writes, "that the
revolution will come as a product of the proletarian class struggle . . . but the
revolution has come as a consequence of the military collapse of the ruling system
in Russia and in Germany. . . ."
In other words this sage "expected" a peaceful revolution ! This is excellent !
But Mr. Kautsky has so lost his head that he has forgotten how he himself
once wrote, when he was a Marxist, that war, most likely, will be the cause of
revolution. Now in place of a calm analysis of what changes in the forms of
revolution are hievitubic as a consequence of the War, our "theoretician" weeps
for his broken "expectations !"
". . . Disregard for economic conditions from wide sections of the proletariat !"
What pitiful nonsense ! How well we know that philistine song from the
Menshevik newspapers of the epoch of Kerensky !
The economist Kautsky has forgotten that when a country is ruined by
war, and brought to the verge of doom, that the chief, main, fundamental,
"economic condition" is the salvation of the worker. If the working class is
to be saved from famine, from downright destruction, then it will be possible
to restore ruined production. But in order to save the working class, the
dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary, the only means of preventing the
burdens and consequences of the war being thrown onto the shoulders of the
workers.
The economist Kautsky has "forgotten" that the question of dividing the
burdens of defeat is decided by class struggle and that the class struggle in the
situation of a completely tormented, ruined, starving, dying country incvitahhj
changes its form. This is no longer class struggle for a share in production,
for carrying on production (for pi-oduction is at a standstill, there is no coal,
the railways are spoiled, the war has thrown people out of their stride, the
machines are worn out and so on and so on), but for salvation from famine.
Only fools, even though they are very "learned," can in such a situation "con-
demn" "consumers' soldiers' " communism and sui^erciliously teach the workers
the importance of production.
It is necessary in the first place, above all, in the very first place, to save
the v^orker. The bourgeoisie wishes to preserves its privileges, to throw all
the consequences of the war upon the worker, and that means to kill the
workers with hunger.
The working class wishes to be saved from hunger and in order to do this
it must completely smash the bourgeoisie, in the first place guarantee consump-
tion, even though a very meagre one, for otherwise it is impossible to drag out
a semistarved existence, it is impossible to hang on until production is set
going again.
"Think of production !" says the well-fed bourgeois to the starving worker
enfeebled by hunger, and Kautsky, repeating these songs of the capitalists in
the shape of "economic science" is completely converted into a lackey of the
bourgeoisie.
But the worker says: "Let the bourgeoisie also be put on the ration of
semi-starvation in order that the toilers may pull themselves together, may
not perish." "Consumers' commmiism" is the condition for saving the worker.
It is impossible to hesitate before any sacrifices in order to save the worker!
Half a pound to the capitalists, a pound to the worker — this is the way it is
necessary to get out of the condition of f.-imine, of ruin. The consumption of
the starving worker is the foundation and condition for the restoration of
production.
Clara Zetkin was quite right to say to Kautsky that he "is going over to
bourgeois political economy. Production is for man, not the contrary . . . ."
The independent Mr. Kautsky, weeping over "the cult of violence" has shown
exactly the same dependence on petty bourgeois prejudices. When even in
APPENDIX, PART 1 97
1914 the Bolshevik party pointed out that the imperialist war will be turned
into a civil war, Mr. Kautsky was silent, while remaining in one party with
David and Co., who had declared this forecast (and this slogan) to be
"madness." Kautsky absolutely did not understand the inevitability of the
conversion of the imperialist war into a civil war and now throws his lack of
understanding onto both of the sides struggling in the civil war ! Surely this
is an example of reactionary, philistine stupidity?
But if in 1914 failure to understand that the imperialist war must inevitably
be turned into a civil war was merely philistine stupidity, now, in 1919, it is-
already something worse. It is treachery to the working class. For civil war
both in Russia, and in Finland, and in Latvia, and in Germany, and in
Hungary, is w fact. Hundreds and thousands of times in his former works
Kautsky recognised that historical periods occur when the class struggle is
inevitably converted into civil war. This has come, and Kautsky has turned
out to be in the camp of hesitating, cowardly petty-bourgeoisie.
''The, spirit inspiring Spartacvs^ is in essence the spirit of Ludendorf
. . . ISpartaciis is not onttj bringing about the doom of its oirn cause but
strengthening the policy of violence of the majority socialists. Noske i»
the antithesis of Spartacus . .''
These words of Kautsky (from his article in the Vienna Arbciter Zeitung) are
so utterly stupid, base and vile that is suflicient just to point at them. A
party which tolerates such leaders is a rotten party. The Berne International,
to which Mr. Kautsky belongs, must be judged by us as it deserves, from the
point of view of these words of Kautsky, as a yellow International.
As a curiosity we will also mention the argument of Mr. Haase in his article
on "The International at Amsterdam" {Freiheit May 4th, 1919). Mr. Haase
boasts that on the colonial question he proposed a resolution by which "a
League* of Nations, organized according to the proposal of the International
. . . will have the task, before the realisatiofi of socialism" (note this!) . . .
"of administering the colonies in the first place in the interests of the natives,
and afterward in the interests of all the peoples united in the League of
Nations. . ."
Is not this really a pearl? Before the realisation of .socialism the colonies
will be administered, according to the resolution of this sage, not by the
bourgeoisie but by some kind, just, sweet "League of Nations!" How is this dif-
ferent in practice from painting iu false colours the vilest capitalist hypocrisy?
And these are the "left" members of the Berne International. . .
In order that the render may more clearly compare the full stupidity, base-
ness and vileness of the writings of Haase, Kautsky and Co. with the real
situation in Germany, I will bring forward one other quotation.
The famout capitalist Walter Rathenau has published a book. The New State.
The book is dated March 24th, 1919. Its theoretical value is absolutely nil.
But as an observer, Walter Rathenau is compelled to recognise the following:
"We, a people of poets and thinkers, are philistines by our secondary
occupation. . ."
"To-day idealism is found only among the extreme Monarchists and the
Spartacists."
"The bare truth is a.s follows: we are going towards a dictatorship,
either a proletarian or a pretorian one."
This bourgeoise evidently imagines himself to be as "independent" of the
bourgeoisie as Messrs. Kautsky and Haase imagine themselves to be "inde-
pendent" of petty bourgeois Philistinism.
But Walter Rathenau is head and shoulders above Karl Kautsky. for the
latter whines, hiding himself in cowardly fashion from "the bare truth," while
the former recognises it directly.
2Sth May, 1919.
First published in No. 2 of the Communist International.
1st June, 1919.
* Kautsky refers to the Spartacus Lensno foundofl by Karl Liebknecht ami Rosa
Luxemburg which became the Communist Party of Germany hi November, 1018-
94931— 40— app., pt. 1 8
98 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
Exhibit No. 8
[Source: A pamphlet published by the International Publishers, New York: second print-
ing, 1935. In an edition of lOO.Odtl]
A Letter to American Workers
(V. I. Lenin)
International Publishers
INTRODUCTION
When the October Revolution was less than a year old, August 20, 1918, Lenin
submitted a written report to the American workers on the progress of the Pro-
letarian Revolution in Russia and the obstacles which were still in the way of
complete victory.
Remembering the revolutionary traditions of the American working class and
believing that "the American revolutionary proletarians are destined now to
play an especially important role as irreconcilable foes of American imperialism."
Lenin proceeded to explain the imperialist nature of the war which was still
raging, the rapacious imperialist designs of the ruling classes of the warring
nations, including the American, and the attempts of the capitalist governments
to destroy the young Soviet Republic. In flaming words he showed how the
Allies as well as the Central Powers were carrying on the wholesale slaughter
for the division of spoils, for profits from the markets and colonies which would
go to the victorious imperialist group.
In words full of scorn, Lenin described the betrayals of those Socialist leaders,
"the watchdogs of imperialism," who aided their capitalist governments by
deluding the workers. He wrote : "Thrice they deserve utmost contempt, this
scum of international Socialism, these lackeys of bourgeois morality."
But the October Revolution made a breach in the strongest imperialist block.
The Soviet Republic withdrew from the war and renounced all the imperialist
covenants and policies of tsarism and of the Kerensky government which con-
tinued them. The October Revolution established workers' rule, which was
showing the road to power to the toiling masses of the capitalist countries and
the colonies. World capitalism would not countenance that. Counter-revolution
in Russia was given every possible aid. Armies wore fitted out and dispatched
to the various borders from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Almost the
very day Lenin was writing his Letter to the American Workers about these im-
perialist attacks, American troops were disembarking in Vladivostock (August
17, 1918) to join Japanese, British and French military detachments.
Already on July 17, President Wilson had agreed to a "limited military in-
tervention." On August 3, the American government was forced to admit publicly
that it was in full accord with the other imperialist powers in the Russian inter-
ventionist policy. But in the usual, hypocritical Wilsonian manner, common to
all "democratic" governments, it declared that the troops wei-e being sent to
"protect" the "stranded" Czechoslovak regiments, and to "guard the military sup-
plies" from the Germans who were thousands of miles away. In "the most
public and solenm manner," the American government infornied the people of
Russia that "it contemplates no interference with the political sovereignty of
Russia and no intervention in her internal affairs" (sic!). The Japanese govern-
ment hurried to issue a statement containing similar assurances of "friendship
to Russia" and proclaiming "its avowed policy of respecting the territorial in-
tegrity of Russia and of abstaining from all interference in her internal affairs."
To make sure that Russian territory in Siberia was "respected," Japan, which
was to send over 7000 troops, soon landed 70,000 armed and equipped men.
Troops of the other "respectors" of Russian territory were pouring in from
Hong-Kong (British), Indo-China (French) and the Philippines (American).
Not satis- fled with sending troops to the Far East, the American government
al.so sent military detachments to Archangel in the North with the cradle of
the revolution, Petrograd, as a cherished objective.
Lenin characterised these American invasions by declaring that the American
government was joining "the Anglo-Japanese beasts for the purpose of stran-
gling the first Socialist Republic."
While Russian soil was being invaded, the enemies within, the Socialists-
Revolutionaries, were organizing an attempt on the life of the German Ambassa-
dor von INIirbach, in order to provoke the invasion of the German army from
the West, and were plotting to behead the revolution bv killing Lenin. They
succeeded in killing the German Ambassador and seriouslV wounding Lenin.
APPENDIX, PART 1 99
It was in these circumstances that Lenin addressed himself directly to the
American workers, telling them of the conditions under which the October
Kevolution was fighting to achieve its aims. He also drew lessons for the
American workers and, for that matter, for the workers of the whole world, to
whom the success or failure of the Russian Revolution was closely tied up
with their own struggles against the oppression of imperialism.
With war again the order of the day and with Japanese imperialisni and
Oerman fascism acting as spearheads in the threatening attack on the Soviet
I'nion, Lenin's Letter is as timely today as it was when it was written.
The lessons which Lenin outlined in the Letter are also timely at the present
lime. To those who did not free themselves "from the pedantry of bourgeois
intellectualism" and were questioning Lenin's policy of dealing with the French
niilitari^its when the German troops were marching towards the Ukraine, he
declared: "To throw back the rapacious advancing Germans we made use of
the equally rapacious counter-interests of the other imperialists thereby serving
I lie interests of the Russian and the international Socialist revolution." The
>ame reasoning was used earlier by Lenin when he fought the "revolutionary"
views of those who oppo.sed the signing of the Brest-Litovsk peace with the
German government, necessary, according to Lenin, to "gain a breathing spell"
for the revolution.
Turning to American history, Lenin recalled how the leaders of the American
Revolution sought the aid of other Powers in their struggle against the British.
"The American people utilised the differences that existed between the French,
the Spanish and the English, at times even fighting side by side with the
armies of the French and Spanish oppressors against the English oppressors.
First it vanquished the English and then freed itself (partly by purchase) from
the French and the Spanish."
There were voices in America, as elsewhere, who were bemoaning the "de-
struction" which was entailed in the civil war brought about by the imperialist
invasion and counter-revolution at home. Drawing again the parallel with
epochal events in American history and suggesting that immediately after the
Civil War the United States may have appeared "behind" that of the pre-war
period, Lenin exclaimed : "But what a pedant, what an idiot is he who denies
on such grounds, the greatest, world-historic, progressive and revolutionary
significance of the American Civil War of 18G1-186.5 !"
Those in the American labor movement who ranged themselves against Lenin
and the Bolsheviks were prepared to admit the progressive character of the
war for the abolition of ehutirl slavery, but, "frightened by the bourgeoisie and
shunning the revolution, cannot understa)id or do not want to understand the
necessity and the legality of civil war" in the struggle for the abolition of
icage .slavery — "a vastly greater task."
Over the heads of the treacherous and faint-hearted leaders, the Gomperses
and the Hillquits, Lenin passed on to the American workers the great lesson
"that there can be no successful revolution without crusliino the resistance of
the exploiters" a truth "left as a heritage to the workers by the best teachers,
the founders of modern Socialism."
The workers of Germany and Austria are today smarting under the iron
heel of fascism because the socialist leaders refused to follow this truth "taught
by all revolutions" when the revolutions of 1918 occurred. Instead of allowing
the workers' revolution to develop to its logical conclusion — proletarian dicta-
torship and Soviet power — the socialist leaders permitted the counter-revolution
of the bourgeoisie to develop to its logical conclusion — fascism.
Under Lenin's tutelage, the Bolsheviks, on the other hand, mastered the
"great truth" and continually urged the Russian workers and peasants to carry
on tlie struggle until every vestige of capitalism in the city and on the land
was destroyed and the workers' rule firmly entrenched.
Every line of Lenin's Letter breathes with faith in the ultmiate triumph of
the revolution, and not only in Russia, but throughout the world. Fervently
confident that the international revolution would materialise, Lenin foresaw
that "before the outburst of the international revolution there may be several
defeats of separate revolutions." And, in his Letter he wrote: "We know that
help from you, comrades American workers, will probably not come soon."
Irrespective, therefore, of the temporary fortunes of the revolutions in other
countries, the Russian Revolution must carry on. Thus, under the leadership
of Lenin, the Russian workers conquered power, and under the leadership of
his successor, Stalin, are now building successfully a classless society— -
Socialism.
100 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
But the overthrow of the rule of capital, tlirougliout the world, is iiieYitahle.
Writing in the darkest hour of the Russian Revolution — imperialist attacks on
all sides, far-flung civil war — Lenin concluded his historic message to the
American workers with the words which the toiling masses of all countries
can inscribe on their banners: "We are wviiicible, because the world prole-
tarian revolution is invincible.''
A Letter to American Workers, dated August 20, 1918, was first published
in the United States in the December, 11)18 issue of the Class Striif/gle, a
bi-monthly issued by an internationalist group in the Socialist Party. It was
reprinted in pamphlet form from that magazine and widely distributed. It
played an important part in developing among American Socialists an under-
standing of the nature of imperialism, of the aims of the October Revolution
and of the role of the social-chauvinists in the labor movement. It directly
contributed to the building of the Left Wing in the Socialist Party which led
later to the splitting away of the revolutionary elements and the formation of
the Communist Party.
The version of the Letter printed in the Class Struffffle and reprinted on
numerous occasions in the periodical press, was not only inaccurate but also
incomplete. Whole passages were left out, some of them giving Lenin's estimate
of the role of American imperialism in the World War and stressing the im-
perialist designs of both warring groups. Much of what Lenin wrote about
the role of the reformist and centrist Socialists — the forerunners of present-day
social-fascists — in the war was omitted. The translation was free, whole sec-
tions of the Letter being rendered only in bare outline.
Partial results of an inquiry conducted recently into the cause of the crim-
inal mutilation of Lenin's ''Letter'' revealed that the English translation was
made from the Swedish text published in a Stockholm paper. It is yet to be
established who were responsible for the excisions and free tran.slation — those
v.iio translated the ''Letter" from Russian into Swedish, or the English
tran.slator.
For the present edition, a completely new translation was made from the
original Russian text, prepared l)y the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute and pub-
lished in Lenin's Collected Worl;s.'' This is, therefore, the first complete Eng-
lish version of the historic message of Lenin to the Americjin worki^rs, which
remains as fresh and appropriate today as when it was penned almost sixteen
years ago.
May, 1934. Alexander Tbachtenberg.
A Letter to American Workers
Comrades: A Russian Bolshevik who participated in the Revolution of 1905
and for many years afterwards live in your country has offered to transmit
my letter to you. I accepted his proposal all the more joyfully, because the
American revolutionary proletarians are destined precisely now to play an
especially important role as irreconcilable foes of American imperialism, which
is the newest, strongest and latest to participate in the world-wide slaughter of
nations for the division of capitalist profits. Precisely now the American
billionaires, these contemporary slave-owners, have opened a particularly tragic
page in the bloody history of bloody imperialism by giving their ajjproval — it
makes no difference whether direct or indirect, whether open or liypooitically
covered up — to an armed expedition of the Anglo-Japanese beasts for the pur-
pose of strangling the first Socialist republic.
The Iiistory of modern civilised America opens with one of those great, really
liberating, really revolutionary wars of which there have been so few among
the large numlier of wars of conquest that were caused, like the present
imperialist war, by squabbles among kings, landowners and capitalists over the
division of .seized lands and stolen profits. It was a war of the American
people against English robbers who subjected America and held it in colonial
slavery as these "civilised" bloodsuckers are even now subjecting and holding
in colonial .slavery hundreds of millions of people in India, Egypt and in ail
corners of the word.
Since that time aliout 150 years have passed. Bourgeois civilisation has
borne all its luxuriant fruits. By the high level of development of the produc-
tive forces of organised human labour, by utilising machines and all the wonders
of modern technic. America has taken the first place among free and cultured
nations. But at the same time America has become one of the foremost conn-
APPENDIX, PART 1 IQl
tries as regards the depth of the abyss which divides a handful of brazen
billionaires who are wallowing in dirt and in luxury on the one hand, and
niilliuns of toilers who are always on the verge of starvation. The American
people, who gave the world an example of a revolutionary war against feudal
subjection, now appears as a new, capitalist wage slave of a handful of billion-
aires; finds itself playing the role of a hired assassin for the wealtliy gang,
having strangled the Philippines in 1898 under the pretext of "liberating" them,
and strangling the Russian Socialist Republic in 1918 under the pretext of
"protecting" it from the Germans.
But four years of the imperialist slaughter of peoples have not passed in
vain. Obvious and irrefutable facts have exposed to the end the duping of
peoples by the scoundrels of both tlie English and the German group of brigands.
The four years of war have shown in their results the general law of capitalism
as applied to war between murderers for the division of spoils : that he who
was richest and mightiest profited and robbed the most; that he who was
weakest was robbed, decimated, crushed and strangled to the utmost.
In numljer of "colonial slaves" the English imperialist cutthroats have always
been most powerful. English capitalists did not lose a foot of their "own"
territory (acquired through centuries of robbery) but have managed to ap-
propriate al tiie German colonies in Africa, have grabbed Mesopotamia and
Palestine, have stifled Greece and have begun to plunder Russia.
German imperialist cutthroats were stronger in regard to the organisation
and discipline of "their" armies, but weaker in colonies. They have lost all
their colonies, but have robbed half of Europe and throttled most of the small
countries and weaker peoples. V/hat a great war of "liberation" on both sides !
How well they have "defended the fatherland" — these bandits of both groups,
the Anglo-French and the German capitalists together with their lackeys, the
social-chauvinists, i. e., Socialists who went over to the side of "their own"
boiirgeoisie !
The American billionaires were richest of all and geographic;! lly tlie most
secure. They have profited most of all. Tliey have made all, even the richest
countries, their vassals. They have plundered hundreds of billions of dollars.
And every dollar is stained with fllth ; filthy secret pacts between England and
her "allies." between Germany and her vassals, pacts on the division of spoils,
pacts on mutual "aid" in oppressing the workers and persecuting the Socialists-
internationalists. Every dollar is stained with the filth of "profitable" military
•deliveries enriching the rich and despoiling the poor in every country. And
every dollar is stained with blood — of that sea of blood which was shed by tlie
ten millions killed and twenty millions maimed in the great, noble, liberating and
holy war, which was to decide whether the English or the German cutthroats
will get more of the spoils, whether tlie English or the German executioners
Avill be the first to smother the weak peoples the world over.
While the German bandits established a record of military brutalities, the
English established a record not only in the numl)er of looted colonies, l)ut also
in the subtlety of their disgusting hyprocrisy. Precisely now the Anglo-French
and American bourgeois press is spreading in millions upon millions of copie.s
their lies and calumnies about Russia, hypocritically justifying their predatory
expedition against her by the alleged desire to "protect" Russia from the
Germans !
It is not necessary to waste many words to disprove this despicable and
Iddeous lie ; it is sufficient to point out one well-known fact. When in October,
1917, the Russian workers overthrew their imperialist government, the Soviet
power, the power of revolutionary workers and peasants openly proposed a just
peace, a peace without annexations and indemnities, a peace fully guarantee-
ing equal rights to all nations — and proposed such a peace to all the countries at
war.
And it was the Anglo-French and the American bourgeoisie who refused to
accept our proposals; they were the very ones who even refused to talk to us
of a universal peace! Precisely thej were the ones who acted treacherously
towards the interests of all peoples by prolonging the imperialist slaughter.
Precisely they were the ones who, speculating upon a renewed participation
■of Russia in the imperialist war, have shunned peace negotiations and thereby
given a free hand to the no less marauding German capitalists in foisting upon
Russia the annexationist and violent Brest Peace ! ^
1 The treaty signed in Brest-Litovsk, Marcli, 1918, between the Soviet Government and
the Central Powers. — Ed.
JQ2 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
It is difficult to imagine a more disgusting piece of hypocrisy than the
one with which the Anglo-French and American bourgeoisie now put upon us
the "blame" for the Brest Peace. The very capitalists of those countries upon
which it depended to turn Brest into general negotiations for world peace are
now our "accusers." The scoundrels of Anglo-French imperialism who profited
from the loot of colonies and from the slaughter of peoples, and who prolonged
the war almost a year after Brest— they "accuse" us, the Bolsheviks, who
proposed a just peace to all countries; us, who tore up, exposed and put to
shame the secret criminal treaties of the former Tsar with the Anglo-French
capitalists. . .
The workers of the whole world, in whatever country they may live, rejoice
with us and svmpathise with us, applaud us for having burst the iron ring of
imperialist ties, dirtv imperialist treaties, imperialist chains, for having dreaded
no sacrilice, however great, to free ourselves, for having established ourselves
as a Socialist republic, even though rent asunder and plundered by the im-
perialists, for having gotten out of the imperialist war and raising the banner
of peace, the banner of Socialism over the world.
No wonder that for this we are hated by the band of international im-
perialists; no wonder that they all "accuse" us and that the lackeys of imperial-
ism, including our right Socialist-Revolutiouiiries and Meusheviks, also "accuse"
us. From the hatred of these watchdogs of imperialism for the Bolsheviks,
as well as from the sympathy of class-conscious workers of all countries, we
draw new assurance in the justice of our cause.
He is no Socialist who does not understand that one cannot and must not
hesitate to make even such a sacrifice as the sacrifice of a piece of territory,
the sacrifice of a heavy defeat at the hand of capitalists of other countries, the
sacrifice of indemnities to capitalists, in the interest of victory over the
bourgeoisie, in the interest of transfer of power to the working class, in the
interest of the Icfjinning of the international proletarian revolution. He is no
Socialist who has not shown by deeds his readiness for the greatest sacrifices
on the part of his fatherland so that the cause of the Socialist revolution may
be pushed forward.
For the sake of "their" cause, that is, the conquest of world hegemony, the
imperialists of England and Germany have not hesitated to ruin and to strangle a
whole series of countries from Belgium and Serbia to Palestine and Mesopotamia.
And what about the Socialists? Shall they, for the sake of "their" cause — the
liberation of the workers of the whole world from the yoke of capital, the
conquest of a universal lasting peace — wait until they can find a way that entails
no sacrifice? Shall they be afraid to commence the battle until an easy victory
is "guaranteed"? Shall they place the integrity and safety of "their" fatherland,
created by the bourgeoisie, above the interests of the world Socialist revolution?
Thrice they deserve utmost contempt, this scum of international Socialism, these
lackeys of bourgeois morality who think along these lines.
The beasts of prey of Anglo-French and American imperialism "accuse" us of
coming to an "agreement" with German imperialism.
O hypocrites ! O scoundrels, who slander the workers' government and shiver
from fear of that sympathy which is being shown us by the workers of "their
own" countries ! But their hypocrisy will be exposed. They pretend not to un-
derstand the difference between an agreement made by "Socialists" with the
bourgeosie (native or foreign) against the workers, against the toilers, and an
agreement for the safety of the workers who have defeated their bourgeoisie,
with a bourgeoisie of one national color af/ainst the bourgeoisie of another color
for the sake of the utilisation by the proletariat of the contradictions between
the different groups of the bourgeoisie.
In reality every European knows this difference very well, and the American
people particularly, as I shall presently show, have "experienced" it in their own
history. There are agreements and agreements, there are fagots et fagots as the
French say.
When the German imperialist robbers in February. 1918, threw their armies
against defenseless, demobilised Russia, which staked its hopes upon the inter-
national solidarity of the proletariat before the international revolution had
completely ripened, I did not hesitate for a moment to come to a certain "agree-
ment" with the French monarchists. The French captain Sadoul, who sympa-
thised in words with the Bolsheviks while in deeds a faithful servant of French
imperialism, brought the French officer de Lubersac to me. "I am a monarchist.
My only purpose is the defeat of Germany," de Lubersac declared to me. "That
goes without saying {cela va sans dire)," I replied. But this by no means pre-
APPENDIX, PART 1 103
veuted me from coming to an "agreement" with de Lubersac concerning certain
services that French olticers, experts in explosives, were ready to render by
blowing up railroad traclis in order to prevent the advance of German troops
against us. This was an example of an "agreement" of which every class-con-
scious worker will approve, an agreement in the interests of Socialism. We
shook hands with the French monarchist although we knew that each of us would
readily hang his "partner." But for a time our interests coincided. To throw
l)ack the rapacious advancing Germans we made use of the equally rapacious
counter-interests of the other imperialists, thereby serving the interests of the
Russian and the international Socialist revolution. In this way we served the
interests of the working class of Russia and other countries, we strengthened
the proletariat and weakened the bourgeoisie of the whole world, we used the
justified practise of manoeuvring, necessary in every war, of shifting and waiting
for the moment when the rapidly growing proletarian revolution in a number of
advanced countries had ripened.
And despite all the wrathful howling of the sharks of Anglo-French and Ameri-
can imperialism, despite all the calumnies they have showered upon us, despite
all the millions spent for bribing the right Socialist-Revolutionary, Menshevik
and other social-patriotic newspapers, / would not liesiiate a single second to
come to the same kind of an "agreement" with the German imperialist robbers,
should an attack upon Russia by Anglo-French troops demand it. And I know
perfectly well that my tactics will meet with the approval of the class-conscious
proletariait of Russia, Germany, France. England, America— in a word, of the
whole civilised world. Such tactics will lighten the task of the Socialist revolu-
tion, will hasten its advance, will weaken the international bourgeoisie, will
strengthen the position of the working class which is conquering it.
The American people used these tactics long ago to the advantage of its
revolution. When America waged its great war of liberation against the English
oppressors, it was confronted with the French and the Spanish oppressors, who
owned a portion of what is now the United States of North America. In its
difficult war for freedom the American people, too, made "agreements" with one
yroup of oppressors against the other for the purpose of weakening oppressors
and strengthening those who were struggling in a revolutionary manner against
oppression — in the interest of the oppressed masses. The American people
utilised the differences that existed between the French, the Spanish and the
English, at times even fighting side by side witli the armies of the French and
Spanish oppressors against the English oppressors. First it vanquislied the Eng-
lish and then freed itself (partly by purchase) from the French and the Spanish.
The great Russian revolutionist Chernyshevsky once said : "Historical action
is not the pavement of Nevski/ Prospect." He is no revolutionist who would
"permit" the proletarian revolution only under the "condition" that it proceed
easily, smoothly, with the co-ordinated and simultaneous action of the prole-
tarians of different countries and witli a guarantee beforehand against defeat :
that the revolution go forward along the broad, free, direct path to victory, with-
out the necessity sometimes of making the greatest sacrifies, of "lying in wait
in besieged fortresses," or of climbing along the narrov.'est, most impassable,
winding, dangerous mountain road,s — he has not yet freed himself from the
pedantry of bourgeois intellectualism, he will fall back again and again into the
camp of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, like our Right Socialist-Revolu-
tionaries, Mensheviks and even (although more seldom) the Left Socialist-
Revolutionaries.
Along with the bourgeoisie these gentlemen like to blame us for the "chaos"
of revolution, the "destruction" of industry, the unemployment, the lack of food.
What hypocrisy these accusations are from people who greeted and supported
the imi^erialist war or came to an "agi'eement" with Kereusky, who continued this
war ! It is that very imperialist war which is the cause of all these misfortunes.
The revolution that was born of the war must necessarily go through the terrible
difficulties and sufferings left as the heritage of the prolonged, destructive, re-
actionary slaughter of the peoples. To accuse us of "destruction" of industries, or
of "terror," is either hypocrisy or clumsy pedantry ; it is an inability to under-
stand the basic conditions of the raging class struggle, intensified to the utmost,
which is called revolution.
Generally speaking, such "accusers" limit themselves to a verbal recognition
even when they do "recognise" the class struggle, but in deeds they revert again
2 Reference is here made to the smoothness of the pavement of the famed main street of
St. Petersburg, now Leningrad. — Ed.
104 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
and asain to the philistine Utopia of "conciliation" and "collaboration" of classes.
For the class struggle in revolutionary times has always inevitably and in every
country taken on the form of a civil war, and civil war is unthinkable without
the worst kind of destruction, without terror and limitations of formal democracy
in the int(>rests of the war. Only suave priests, be they Christian or "secular"
parliamentary or parlor Socialists, are unable to see, understand and feel this
necessity. Only a lifeless "man in the case" ^ can shun the revolution for this
reason instead ' of throwing himself into the fight with the utmost passion and
decisiveness at a moment when history demands that the greatest problems of
humanity be solved by struggle and war.
The American people has a revolutionary tradition adopted by the best repre-
sentatives of the American proletariat, who gave repeated expression to their full
solidarity with us, the Bolsheviks. This tradition is the war of liberation against
the English in the ISth and the Civil War iri the 19th century. If we are to take
only into consideration the "destruction" of some branches of industry and
national economy, America in 1870 was in some respects hehlnd 18G0. But whnt
a pedant, what an idiot is he who denies on such grounds the greatest, world-
historic, progressive and revolutionary significance of the American Civil War of
1S61-1865!
Representatives of the bourgeoisie understand that it was worth letting the
country go through long years of civil war, the abysmal ruin, destruction and
terror which are connected with every war for the sake of the overthrow of
Negro slavery and the overthrow of the rule of the slave-owners. But now, wlien
we are confronted with the vastly greater task of the overthrow of capitalist
wage slavery, the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie — now the representa-
tives and defenders of the bourgeoisie, as well as the socialist-reformists, fright-
ened by the bourgeoisie and shunning the revolution, cannot understand and do
not want to understand the necessity and the legality of civil war.
The American workers will not follow the bourgeoisie. They will be with us
for civil war against the bourgeoisie. The whole history of the world and the
American labour movement strengthens my conviction. I also recall the words
of one of the most beloved leaders of the American proletariat, Eugene Debs,
who wrote in Tltc Appeal to Rcamn. I believe towards the end of 191.^. in the
article "In Whose War I Will Fight" ^ (I quoted that article at the beginning
of 1916 at a public meeting of workers in Berne, Switzerland) that he, Debs,
would rather be shot than vote for loans for the present criminal and reaction-
ary imperialist w^ar : that he, Debs, knows of only one holy and, from the
standpoint of the proletariat, legal war. namely: the war against the capitalists,
the war for the liberation of manliind from wage slavery !
I am not at all surprised that Wilson, the head of the American billionaires
and servant of the capitalist sharks, has thrown Debs into prison. Let the
bourgeoisie be brutal to the true internationalists, the true representatives of the
revolutionary proletariat! The more obduracy and bestiality it displays, the
nearer comes the day of the vict<n-ious proletarian revolution.
We are blamed for the destruction caused by our revolution. . . . Who are
the accusers? The hangers-on of the bourgeoisie, that very bourgeoisie, which
has destroyed almost the whole of European culture during the four years of
the imperialist war, and has brought Europe to a state of barbarism, savagery
and starvation. That bourgeoisie now demands of us that we do not carry on
our revolution on the basis of this destruction, amidst the remnants of culture,
ruins created by the war, nor with men whom the war turned into savages.
O how humane and righteous is that bourgeoisie !
Its servants accuse us of terror. . . . The English bourgeois has forgotten
his 1649, the French his 1793." Terror was just and legal when used bv the
bourgeoisie to its own advantage against feudalism. Terror became monstrous
and criminal when workers and the poorest peasants dared to use it against
the bourgeoisie! Terror was legal and just when used in the interests of a
substitution of one exploiting minority for another. Terror became monstrous
and criminal when it began to be used in the interests of an overthrow of ei^erij
exploiting minority, in the interests of a really vast majoritv, in the interests
cl.nJ^n Us^*shon — Brf ' ""^ ^^ Anton Chekhov. The hero is hemmed in by routine like a
".l/;pe«/ foieert.so«, September 11, 1015. Reprinted in Voices of Revolt, Vol. IX,
Speeches (if I'.ujrene V. Deb.s ' (International Publi.shers) p 6.3 Ed
"The oxeeution of Khig Charle.s I and the suppression of opposition' durinj? the rggime
Df Cromwell in England, and the terror during the Great French Revolution.— JS/d.
APPENDIX, PART 1 105
of the proletariat and semi-proletariat, the working class and the poorest
peasantry!
The international imperialist bourgeoisie has killed off ten million men and
maimed twenty million in "its" war, the war to decide whether the English or
the German robbers are to rule the world.
If our war. the war of oppressed and exploited against oppressors and
exploiters, results in half a million or a million victims in all countries, the
bourgeoisie will say that the sacrifice of the former is justified, while the
latter is criminal.
The proletariat will say something altogether different.
Now, amid the ravages of the imperialist war, the proletariat is thoroughly
mastering that great truth taught by all revolutions and left as a heritage
to the workers by their best teachers, the founders of modern Socialism. That
truth is, that there can be no successful revolution without crush inr/ the resist-
ance of the exploiters. It was our duty to crush the resistance of exploiters
when we, the workers and toiling peasants, seized state power. We are proud
that we have been doing it and are continuing to do it. We only regret that we
are not doing it in a sutRciently firm and dererniined manner.
We know that the fierce resistance of the bourgeoisie to the Socialist revolution
is inevitable in all countries and that it will grow with the growth of this revo-
lution. The proletariat will crush this resistance; it will definitely mature to
victory and power in the course of struggle against the resisting bourgeoisie.
Let "the kept bourgeois press howl to the whole world about each mistake made
by our revolution. We are not afraid of our mistakes. Men have not become
saints because the revolution has begun. The toiling classes, oppressed and
downtrodden for centuries and forced into the clutches of poverty, savagery and
ignorance, cannot be expected to bring about a revolution flawlessly. And
the cadaver of bourgeois society, as I had occasion to point out once before,'
cannot be nailed in a casket and buried. Defeated capitalism is dying and
rotting around us, polluting the air with germs and poisoning our lives, grasping
the new, the fresh, the young and the live with thousands of threads and bonds
of the old, the rotten, the dead.
For every hundred mistakes of ours heralded to the world by the bourgeoisie
and its lackeys (including our own Mensheviks and Right Socialist-Revolu-
tionaries) there are 10,000 great and heroic deeds, the greater and the more
heroic for their simplicity, for their being unseen and hidden in the everyday
life of an industrial quarter or provincial village, performed by men who are not
used to (and who do not have the opportunity to) herald their achievements
to the world.
But even if the contrary were true— although I know this supposition to be
incorrect — even if there were 10,000 mistakes for every 100 correct actions of
ours, even in that case our revolution would be great and invincible, and so it
will be in the ei/es of ivorld history, because, for the first time not the minority,
not only the rich, not only the educated, but the real masses, the vast majority
of toilers are thetnselves building a new life, are deciding hy their own experi-
ence the most difficult problems of Socialist organisation.
Each mistake in such a work, in this most honest and sincere work of tens
of millions of simple workers and peasants for the reorganisation of their
whole life, each such mistake is worth thousands and millions of "faultless"
successes of the exploiting minority — successes in swindling and duping the
toiler. For only through such mistakes will the workers and peasants learn
to build a new life, learn to do without capitalists; only thus will they blaze
a new trail — through thousands of obstacles — to a victorious Socialism.
In carrying on their revolutionary work mistakes were made by our peasants
who abolished all private landed property at one blow in one night, October
25-26 (Nov. 7), 1917. Now, month after month, overcoming tremendoTis hard-
ships and correcting themselves, they are solving in a practical way the most
difficult tasks of oi-ganising new conditions of economic life — struggling with
kulaks, securing the land for the toilers (and not for the rich people) and
bringing about the transition to a Communist large scale agriculture.
In carrying on their revolutionary work mistakes were made by our workers,
who have now nationalised, after a few months, almost all the major factories
and plants and who are learning from hard, day-to-day work the new task of
managing whole branches of industry ; who are perfecting the nationalised
■^ In a speech before the Joint Session of the Central Executive Committee, the Moscow
Soviet and the Trade Unions on June 4, 1918. — Ed.
106 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
economy; who are overcoming the powerfnl resistance of inertia, petty-bourgeois
tendencies and seliisbness ; who are laying stone after stoue the foundation
of a neiv social bond, of a new labor discipline, of a neiv power of trade unions
of worliers over their members.
In carrying on their revolutionary work mistakes are made by our Soviets,
which were created back in 1905 by a mighty upsurge of the masses. The
Soviets of workers and peasants are a new ti/pe of state, a new and higher
type of democracy, the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a means of
ruling the state ivithout the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie. For the
first time democracy serves the masses, the toilers, having ceased to be a
democracy for the rich, as it stills remains hi all the bourgeois republics, even
the most democratic ones. For the first time the popular masses are deciding,
on a scale affecting hundreds of millions of people, the task of realising the
dictatorship of proletarians and semi-proletarians — a task without the solution
of which one cannot speak about Socialism.
Let the pedants, or people hopelessly stuffed with bourgeois-democratic or
parliamentary prejudices, shake their heads perplexedly about our Soviets, for
instance, about the lack of direct elections. These people forgot nothing and
learned nothing during the period of the great upheavals of 1914-1918. A
union of the dictatorship of the proletariat with a new democracy for the
toilers — civil war with the broadest involving of the masses in politics — such
union is neither to be achieved at once nor is it to be fitted into the dreary
forms of routine parliamentary democracy. A new world, the world of Social-
ism, is what rises before us in its contours as the Soviet Republic. And it is
no wonder that this world is not being born ready-made and does not spring
forth all at once, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter.
Wliile the old bourgeois-democratic constitutions spoke about formal equality
and right of assembly, our proletarian and peasant Soviet constitution casts
aside the hypocrisy of formal equality. When bourgeois republicans overthrew^
thrones they did not care about formal equality of monarchists with republicans.
When we speak of the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, only traitors or idiots will
seek to concede to the bourgeosie formal equality of rights. The "freedom of
assembly" for workers and peasants is not worth a cent when the best buildings
are in the hands of the bourgeosie. Our Soviets took away all the good build-
ings from the rich both in town and country, and turned over all these buildings
to the workers and peasants for their unions and meetings. That is our free-
dom of assembly — for the toilers. That is the idea and content of our Soviet,
Socialist Constitution !
And this is why we are so firmly convinced that our Republic of Soviets is
imniicibJe no matter what misfortunes befall her.
It is invincible, because each blow of frenzied imperialism, each defeat
which we suffer from the international bourgeoisie, calls to struggle new strata
of workers and peasants, teaches them at the price of the greatest sacrifices,
hardens them and gives birth to new mass heroism.
We know that help from you, comrades American workers, will probably not
come soon, for the development of the revolution proceeds with a different
tempo and in different forms in different countries (and it cannot be otherwise).
We know that the European proletarian revolution also may not blaze forth
during the next few weeks,** no matter how rapidly it has been ripening lately.
We stake our chances on the inevitability of the international revolution, but
fhis in no way means that we are so foolish as to stake our chances on the
inevitability of the revolution within a stated short period. We have seen in
our country two great revolutions, in 1905 and 1917, and we know that revolu-
tions are made neither to order nor by agreement. We know that circumstances
brought to the fore our Russian detachment of the Socialist proletariat, not by
virtue of our merits, but due to the particular backwardness of Russia, and that
before the outburst of the international revolution there may be several defeats
of separate revolutions.
Despite this, we are firmly convinced that we are invincible, because man-
kind will not break down under the imperialist slaughter, but will overcome
it. And the first country which demolished the galley chains of imperialist war,
was our country. We made the greatest of sacrifices in the struggle for the
* The German Revolution broke out about ten weeks after these lines were written. — F!d.
APPENDIX, PART 1 107
demolitiou of this chain, but we &roA-e it. We are beyond imiDerialist depend-
ence, we raised before the wliole world tlio banner of struggle for tlie complete
OA'erthrow of imperialism.
We are now as if in a beleaguered fortress until other detachments of the
international Socialist revolution come to our rescue. But these detachments
exist, they are more numerous than ours, they mature, they grow, they become
stronger as the bestialities of imperialism continue. The workers sever con-
nections with their social-traitors — the Gomperses, Hendersons, Renaudels,
Scheidemauns, Renners."' The workers are going slowly, bvit unswervingly,
towards Communist, Bolshevik tactics, towards the proletarian revolution,
which is the only one capable of saving perishing culture and perishing mankind
In a word, we are invincible, because the world px'oletarian revolution is
invincible.
N. Lenin.
August 20, 1918.
First published in Pravda, No. 178, August 22, 1918.
Exhibit No. 9
[Source: Excerpts from Stalin, by Boris Souvarine, former member of the Executive
Committee of the Communist International. Alliance Booli Corporation. Longmans,
Green & Company, New York : 1939]
The disaster of the Spartacus League in Germany, then the assassination of
Liebkuecht and of Rosa Luxemburg, has darkened the prospects of revolution.
But Lenin renounced neither his hopes nor his plans, and he had at heart
the creation of a Communist International. No one in his Party raised any
objections when he proposed to summon to Moscow the Conference, to which,
in addition to Bolsheviks of the various nationalities inside Russia, there was
only one single delegate representing a Party, the German Communist Party.
The other participants, recruited from refugees, emigres, exiles, represented
no one but themselves. The Spartacus delegate brought with him the
posthumous view of Rosa Luxemburg, definitely hostile to the premature forma-
tion of a new International. This was also the definite opinion of the Central
■Committee of his Party. After much hesitation, Lenin ignored it ; the Com-
munist International was born of his will. He was not disturbed by a modest
beginning. The political fortune of his own original group, of which he had
been the only fully conscious member, seemed to him to promise the future
victoi'y of the Communist embryo organization on a world scale. A few days
after the conference had transformed itself into a congress the proclamation
of a Soviet Republic in Hungary and then in Bavaria, where no Communist
Party even existed, fortified him in his illusions, [pages 236, 237]
The Politbureau, which had to conduct simultaneously both the foreign
policy of the Soviet Union, which was necessarily opportunist, and the Com-
munist International, which was, by definition, revolutionary, had embarked
on a queer diplomatic adventure with the General Council of the Trade Union
Congress using the bureaucratic Russian trade unions as intermediaries.
Ipage 428]
ilf ^ in H: il: if t-
After a few days of this unparalleled democracy, the Opposition, faced with
the dilemma of submission or insurrection, chose to retreat. On October 4th
it oiTered to make peace with the Politbureau ... As for Zinoviev, he was
invited to resign from the Presidency of the International, which he did soon
after, [page 436]
*******
Stalin arranged his pieces on the chess-board, where the so-called Trotskyists
were mere pawns : Ordjonikidze as Pi*esident of the Control Commission ; Chubar
to fill the vacancy as alternate of the Politbureau ; Bukharin at the helm of
* Right-wing leaders of American, English, French, German and Austrian socialist and
trade union movements. — Ed.
j;08 UN- AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
the International, without the title of President ; lesser personages everywhere
where the machine did not appear to be secure, [page 440]
Stalin had against him a body of more or less respectable traditions, static
tendencies consecrated by time, and reputations which were long established,
even overvalued . . . Having already postponed the Party Congress, first for
some months, then for a year, he adjourned the Congress of the Soviets for
the same period, and put off the Congress of the International to an unspecified
date, [page 44S]
Exhibit No. dO
[Source: Excerpts from Questions and Answers to American Trade Unionists, Stalin's
Interviev; with the First American Trade Union Delegation to Soviet Russia. Septem-
ber 9, 1927. Workers Library Publishers, 39 East 125th Street, New York', N. Y. :
First edition — December 15, 1927]
^: :{: ^ ^ 4: >;: ^
Question II. Is it accurate to say that the Communist Party controls the
Russian Government?
Reply : . . . Perhaps the delegation did not mean control, but the guidance
exercised by the Party in relation to the Government. If that is what the
delegation meant by its question, then my reply is : Yes, our Party does guide
the Government. And the Party is able to guide the Government because it
enjoys the confidence of the majority of the workers and the toilers generally
and it has the right to guide the organs of the Government in the name of this
majority, [page 21]
Question X. Is any money now heing sent to America to aid either the
American Communist Party or the Communist paper, The ''Daily Worker''?
If not how much do American Communists remit to the Third International
in annual membership duesf
Reply: If this has reference to the relations between the Communist Party
of America and the Third International, I must say that the Communist Party
of America, as part of the Communist International most likely pays afliliation
fee to the Comintern. On the other hand, the Comintern, being the central
body of the International Communist movement, we assume, renders assistance
to the Communist Party of America whenever it thinks it necessary. I do not
think there is anything surprising or exceptional in this. . . . What would
hapiien if the Communist Party of America did appeal for aid to the Com-
munist Party of the U. S. S. R.? I think the Communist Party of the U. S. S. R.
w^ould render it whatever assistance it could. Indeed, what would be the worth
of the Communist Party, a Party which is in power, if it refused to do what
it could to aid the Communist Party of another country laboring under the
yoke of capitalism. I would say that such a Communist Party would not be
worth a cent. Let us assume that the American working class had come into
power after overthrowing its bourgeoisie. Let us assume that the working
class of another country appealed to the working class of America, which had
emerged victorious in a great struggle against capitalism, for material aid;
would the American working class refuse it? I think it would disgrace itself
if it hesitated to give the assistance asked fon [page 44]
Exhibit No. 11
[Source: Excerpts from My Life as A Rebel, by Angelica Balabanoflf, first Secretary of the
Vo"l"i^""'^ I"t<^'"°ational. Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London :
*******
Soon after the February Revolution the Soviets had issued a proclamation
to the effect that "the time had come to begin a resolute struggle with the
predatory aspirations of the governments of all countries." [page 153]
APPENDIX, PART 1 109
In Russia, at the April meeting of tlie Bolshevik Party, Lenin liad already
railed for a break with the Zimnierwald "Center" and for the immediate organi-
zation of the Third International, [page 154]
5). ***** *
On January 24th Chicherin sent out, by radio, an invitation to an interna-
tional Left iving gathering to be held in Moscow early in March . . . The
manifesto which had been written by Trotsky, ended with the call : "Under
the banner of Workers' Councils, of the revolutionary fight for power and the
(llctarorship of the proletariat, under the bamier of the Third International,
workers of all countries, unite !" [page 209]
^;; * * * SfS * *
I heard that Radek was organizing foreign sections of the "Communist
Party,"' with headquarters in the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. When I
went there to investigate, I found that this widely heralded achievement was
a fake. The members of these sections were practically all war prisoners in
Russia : most of them had joined the Party recently because of the favour
and privileges which membership involved . . . Radek was grooming them to
return to their native countries, Where they were to "work for the Soviet
Union." [page 210]
*#****»
Most of the thirty-five delegates and fifteen guests had been handpicked
by the Russian Central Committee from so-called "Communist parties" in those
smaller "nations" which had formerly comprised the Russian Empire, such as
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Finland; or they were war prisoners
or foreign radicals who happened to be in Russia at this time . . . the
Socialist Propaganda League of America (made up mostly of Slavic immi-
grants) . . . were represented by a Dutch- American engineer named Rutgers,
[page 213]
*******
The Third International was born ! Immediately after this, Lenin, Trotsky,
Zinoviev, Racovsky, and Flatten were chosen as the members of its first Bureau.
[page 216]
*******
Meeting Trotsky as I was leaving the hall, I bade him good-bye.
"Good-bye? AVhat do you mean?" he asked. "Don't you know that you are
to be the secretary of the International? It has been discussed and Lenin
is of the opinion that no one but you should have this position." [page 217]
* :;: *****
I hardly had time to voice my first objection to Lenin when he inter-
rupted me . . .
"Party discipline exists for you too, dear comrade. The Central Committee
has decided." (When Lenin had decided something before the Central Com-
mittee had ratified his decision, he usually anticipated their action in this
fashion so as to avoid superfluous discussion.)
I knew it would be useless to argue.
When I returned to my hotel a few minutes after this conversation with
Lenin I received the confirmation of my apiwintment by telephone, [page 218]
***** ^ *
I was surprised to find that the topics of discussion at our Executive meet-
ings had so little relation to the work we had been elected to do. (Later,
when I discovered that our meetings were mere formalities and that real
authority rested with a secret Party Committee, I was to understand the
reason for this.) [page 222]
*******
It was the secret Party Committee, not the Comintern Executive, that had
met "informally" and issued statements in my name, [page 224]
********
I knew, of course, that the Bolshevik leaders controlled the International
Executive . . .
The next meeting of the International Executive was to take place in Petrograd
in Zinoviev's magnificent oflices . . . [page 241]
IH) UN-AMEKICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
It become obvious that the Bolsheviks . . . were concerned only with the
organization in each country of a militarized and miniature Bolshevik Party
completely dominated by and dependent upon Moscow itself, [page 274]
Exhibit No. 12
[Source: A booklet published by the Publishing Office of the Communist International,.
Moscow : 1920 ; and reprinted by the United Communist Party of America]
Workers of the uorld unite!
THESES AND STATUTES OF THE THIRD (COMMUNIST)
INTERNATIONAL
Adopted by the Second Congress July 17th— August 7th, 1920. Publishing
Office of the Communist International, Moscow, 1920. Reprinted by
United Communist Party of America
(To be inserted in the U. C. P. edition of the Theses of the Second Congress
of the Third (Communist) International.)
ERBATA
Theses on the Trade Union Movement :
Page 136, twenty-fifth line from bottom
Instead of: "But the support of the revolutionary trades unions, which are
in a state of ferment and passing over to the class struggle, must not be
neglected" —
This sentence should read: "But the support of the revolutionary trades
unions must not result in an exodus of the communists from the opportunist
unions which are in a state of ferment and are beginning to recognize the class
struggle."
ADDENDUM
Final text of clause 17, of the "Theses on the Fundamental Tasks
of the Communist Interuationar' (see pages 120-121).
§ 17. With regard to the Italian Socialist Party the Second Congress of
the Third International recognizes that the revision of the programme, which
had been last year decided upon by the Party Congress of Bologne, indicates
a milestone along the road of communism and that the proposal which was sub-
mitted to the National Council of the Italian Socialist Party by the Turin
Section of the Party published in the journal "KOrdine Nuovo" (The New
Order) of the 3rd of May, 1920, is in keeping with all the basic principles of
the Third International. The Third International requests that at the next
Congress of the Italian Socialist Party which is to be convened in accordance
with the party regulations and the general rules regarding the affiliation to the
Third International the Italian Socialist Party should discuss these proposals
as well as all the decisions of the two Congresses of the Communists Inter-
national, special attention to be paid to the resolutions on parliamentary frac-
tions, trade unions and the non-communist elements of the party.
Statutes of the Communist International
In London in 1864 was established the first International Association of
Workers, latterly known as the First International. The statute of the Inter-
national Association of Workers reads as follows :
"That the emancipation of the working class to to be attained by the working
class itself;
That the struggle for the emancipation of the working class does not mean
a struggle for class privileges and mnnopolies but a struggle for equal rights
and equal obligations, for the abolition of every kind of class-domination ;
That the economic subjection of the worker under the monoy;)olists of the
means of production, i. e., of the sources of life is the cause of servitude in
APPENDIX, PART 1 m
all its forms, the cause of all social misery, all mental degradation and
liolitical dependence.
Tliat the economic emancipation of the working class is therefore the great
aim which every political movement must be subordinated to;
That all endeavors for this great aim have failed as yet because of the lack
of solidarity between the various branches of industry in all countries, because
of the absence of the fraternal tie of unity between the working classes of
the different countries.
That the emancipation is neither a local nor a national problem but a problem
of a social character embracing every civilized country, the solution of which
depends on the theoretical and practical co-operation of the most progressive
countries ;
That the actual simultaneous revival of the workers' movement in the
industrial countries of Europe, on the one hand, awakens new hopes, while,
on the other hand, it is a solemn warning of the danger of relapse into the
old errors and an appeal for an immediate union of the hitherto disconnected
movement."
The Second International which was established in 18S9 at Paris had under-
taken to continue the work of the First International. In 1914, at the outbreak
of the world slaughter, it suffered a complete failure. Undermined by oppor-
tunism and damaged by the treason of its leaders who had taken the side
of the bourgeoise — the Second International perished.
The Third Communist International which was established in March, 1919,
in the capital of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, in the cit.v
of Mt)scow, solemnly proclaims before the entire world that it takes upon itself
to continue and to complete the great cause begun by the First International
Workers" Association.
The Third Communist International was formed at a moment when the
Imperialist slaughter of 1911-1918, in which the Imperialist bourgeoise of the
various countries had sacrificed twenty million men, came to an end.
Keep in mind the Imperialist war ! This is the first appeal of the Com-
munist International to every toiler wherever he may live and whatever lan-
guage he may speak. Keep in mind that owing to the existence of the capitali-'^t
system a small group of Imperialists had the oijportuuity during four loog
years to compel the workers of various countries to cut each other's throats.
Keep in mind that the bourgeois war has cast Europe and the entire world
into a state of extreme destitution and starvation. Keep in mind that unless
the capitalist system is overthrown the repetition of such criminal war is not
only possible but inevitable.
The Communist International makes its aim to put up an armed struggle
for the overthrow of the International bourgeoisie and to create an Interna-
tional Soviet Republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the
State. The Communist International considers the dictatorship of the prole-
tariat as the only means for the liberation of humanity from the horrors of
capitalism. The Communist International considers the Soviet form of goverii-
ment as the historically evolved form of this dictatorship of the proletariat.
The Imperialist war is responsible for the close union of the fates of the
workers of one country with the fates of the workers of all other countries.
The imperialist was emphasizes once more what is pointed out in the stature
of the First International : that the emancipation of labor is neither a local.
nor as a national task, but one of a social and international character.
The Communist International once for ever breaks with the traiiitions of
the Second International which in reality only recognized the white race. The
Communist International makes it its task to emancipate the workers of the
entire world. The ranks of the Connnunist International fraternally unite
men of all colors : white, yellow, and black — the toilers of the entire world.
The Communist International fully and unreservedly upholds the gains
of the gx'eat proletarian revolution in Russia, the first victorious socialist
revolution in the world's history, and calls upon all workers to follow the same
road. The Communist International makes is its duty to support with all
the power at its disposal every Soviet Republic, wherever it may be formed.
The Communist International is awai-e that for the purpose of a speedy
achievement of victory the International Association of Workers, whicii is
struggling for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of Communism,
should possess a firm and centralized organization. To all intents and purposes
]. ]^2 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
the Commiuiist International shonlrt represent a single universal Communist
party, of which the parties operating in every country form individual
sections. The organized apparatus of the Communist International is to
secure to the toilers of every country the possibility at any given moment of
obtaining the maximum of aid from the organized workers of the other
countries.
For this purpose the Communist International confirms the following items
of its statutes :
§ 1. The new International Association of Workers is established for the
purpose of organizing common activity of the workers of various countries
who are striving towards a single aim: the overthrow of capitalism; the
establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the International
Soviet Republic; the complete abolition of classes, and the realization of
socia/sm — the first step of Communist Society.
§ 2. The new International Association of Workers has been given th.e name
of The Communist International.
§ 3. All the parties and orgnnizations comprising the Conununist Interna-
tional bear the name of the Communist party of the given country (section
of the Communist International).
§ 4. The World Congress of all parties and organizations which form part
of the Communist International, is the supreme organ of this International.
The World Congress confirms the programmes of the various parties com-
prising the Communist International. The World Congress discusses and
decides the more important questions of programme and tactics, which are
connected with the activity of the Communist International. The number
of decisive votes at the World Congress for every party and organization is
determined by a special regulation of the Congress ; it is found necessary to
strive for a speedy establishment of a standard of representation on the
basis of the actual number of the members of the organization and the real
influence of the party in question.
§ 5. The World Congress elects an Executive Committee of the Communist
International which serves as the leading organ of the Communist Interna tioiial
in the interval between the convention of World Congresses, and is respon-
sible only to the World Congress.
§ 6. The residence of the Executive ('ommittee of the ('ommunist Inter-
national is every time decided at the World Congress of the Communist
International.
§ 7. A Special World Congress of the Communist International may be
convened eitli.er by regulation of the Executive Committee, or at the demand
of one-half of the* number of the parties which were part of the Communist
International at the last World Congress.
§ 8. The chief bulk of the work and greatest responsibility in the Executive
Committee of the Communist International lie with the party of that country
where, in keeping with the regulation of the World Congress, the Executive
Committee finds its residence at the time. The party of the country in ques-
tion sends to the Executive Committee not less thtui five members with a
decisive vote. In addition to this, one representative with a decisive vote is
sent to the Comnuniist International from ten or twelve of the largest com-
munist parties. The list of these representatives is to be confirmed by the
Universal Congress of the Communist Interna tional. The remaining parties
and organizations forming part of the Communist International enjoy the
right of sending to the Executive Committee one representative each with a
consultative votei.
§ 9. The Executive Committee is the leading organ of the Communist Inter-
national between the conventions ; the Executive Committee publishes in no
less than four languages the central organ of the Communist International
(the periodical 'The Commimist International"). The Executive Committee
makes the necessary appeals on behalf of the Communist International, and
issues instructions obligatory on all the parties and organizations which form
part of the Communist International. The Executive Committee of the Com-
munist International enjoys the right to demand from the affiliated pa.rties
the exclusion of groups of members who are guilty of the infringement of
international pi-oletarian discipline, as well as the exclusion from the Communist
International of parties guilty of the infringement of the regulations of the
World Congress. In the event of necessity the Executive Connnittee organizes
in various countries its technical and auxiliary bureaus, which are entirely
under the control of the Executive Committee.
APPENDIX, PART 1 113
S 10. The Executive Committee of the Communist International enjoys the
right fo include in its ranlvs representatives of organizations and parties not
accepteil in tlie Communist International, but whicli are sympathetic towards
conunimism ; these are to have a consultative vote only.
§ 11. The organs of all the parties and organizations forming part of the
Communist International as well as of those which are recognized sympathizers
of tiie Communist International, are obliged to publish all official regulations of
the Connnunist International and of its Executive Committee.
§ lli. The general state of things in the whole of Europe and of America
makes it necessary for the conanunists of the wliole world an obligatory forma-
tion of illegal connnunist organizations along wuth those existing legally.
The Executive Connnittee should take charge of the universal application of
this rule.
§ 13. All the most important jiolitical relations between the individual parties
forming part of the Communist Inerniitional will generally be carried on through
the nieilium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. In
oases of exigency direct relations will be established, with the provision, how-
ever, that tiie Executive Connnittee of the Communist International shall be
informed of them at the same time.
§ 14. The Trade Unions that have accepted the Communist platform and
are united on an international scale under the control of the Executive Com-
mittee of the Communist International, form Trade Union Sections of the
Communist International. The Communist Trade Unions send their representa-
tives to the World Congresses of the Communist International through the
medium of the Communist parties of their respective countries. Trade Union
sections of the Comnuinist International delegate a representative with decisive
vote to the Executive Committee of the Communist International. The Execu-
tive Committee of the Communist International enjoys the right of sending
a representative with decisive vote, to the Trade Union section of the Com-
munist International.
§ 15. The International League of Communist Youth is subordinate to the
Communist International and its Executive Committee. One representative of
the PJxecutive Committee of the International League of Communist Youth with
a decisive vote is delegated to the Executive Committee of the Communist
International. The Executive Connnittee of the Communist International, on the
other hand, enjoys the right of sending a representative with a decisive vote
to the Executive organ of tlie International League of Youth. Organization
relations between the League of Youth and the Communist party are basically
defined in every country after the same system.
S 10. The Executive Committee of the Communist International confirms
the Interna tiorial Secretary of the Communist Women's Movement, and organizes
a women's section of the Communist International.
S 17. In case a member of the Communist International goes to another
country, he is to have the fraternal support of the local members of the
Third Interna tional.
The Fundamental Tasks of the CommunIvST International
theses adopted by the second congress
1. A characteristic feature of the present moment in the development of the
international Communist niovement is the fact that in all the capitalist coun-
tries the best representatives of the revolutionary proletariat have completely
understood the fundamental principles of the Communist International, namely,
the dictatorship of the proletariat and the power of the Soviets; and with a
loyal enthusiasm have placed themselves on the side of the Communist Interna-
tional. A still more important and great step forward is the unlimited sym-
pathy with these principles manifested by the wider masses not only of the
proletariat of the towns, but also by the advanced portion of the agrarian
workers.
On the other hand two mistakes or weaknesses in the extraordinarily rapidly
increasing international Communist movement have shown themselves. One
very serious weakness directly dangerous to the success of the cause of the
liberation of the proletariat consists in the fact that some of the old leaders
and old parties of the Second International— partly half-unconsciously yielding
to the wishes and pressure of the masses, party consciously deceiving them in
ordei' to preserve their former role of agents and supporters of the bom-geoisie
94931 — 40 — a pp.. pt. 1 9
114 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
inside tlie Labor movement — are declaring tlieir conditional or even uiicdijcli-
tioual affiliation to the Third International, while remaining-, in reality, in the
whole practice of their party and political work, on the level of the Second
International. Snch a state of things is absolutel.v inadmissible, because it
demoralizes the masses, hinders the development of u strong Commnnist Party,
and lowers their respect for the Third International by threatening repetition
of such betrayals as that of the Hungarian Social-Democrats, who had rapidly
assumed the disguise of Communists. The second much less important mistake.
which is, for the most part, a malady inherent in the paity growth nf the
movement, is the tendency to be extremely "left." which leads to an erroneous
valution of the role and duties of the party in respect to the class and lo the
mass, and of the obligation of the revolutionary Communists to work in the
bourgeois parliaments and reactionary labor unions.
The duty of the Communists is not to gloss over any of the weaknesse>« of
'.heir movement, but to criticize them openly, in order to get rid of them
promptly and radically. To this end it is necessary, 1) to establish concretely,
especially on the basis of the already acquired practical experience, the meaning
of the terms: "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and "Soviet Po^wer", and, 2
to point out what could and should be in all countries the immediate and sys-
tematic preparatory work to realizing these formulas; and. 3) to indiear*- the
ways and means of curing our movement of its defects.
I. THE SUBSTANCE OF THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROlKTAKlAT AND OF THE SOVIBl'
POWER
2. The victory of Socialism over Capitalism — as the fii-st step to Cummu-
iiism — demands the accomplishment of the three following tasks by the prole-
tariat, as the only really revolutionary class :
The first task is to lay low the exploiters, and above all the bourgeoisie as
their chief economic and political representative : to defeat them completely : to
crush their resistance; to render impossible any attempts on their part to veini-
pose the yoke of capitalism and wage-slavery.
The second is to inspire and lead in the footsteps of the revolutionary advance
guai'd of the proletariat, its Communist party — not only the whole proletariat
or the great majority, but the entire mass of workers and those exploited )>y
capital ; to enlighten, organize, instruct, and discipline them during the course
of the bold and mercilessly firm struggle against the ex])loiters; to wrench this
enormous majority of the population in all the capitalist countries out of their
state of dependence on the bourgeoisies; to instill in them, through practical
experience, confidence in the leading role of the proletariat and its revolutionary
advance guard. The third is to neutralize or render harmless the inevitable
lluctuations between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, between bourgeois
democracy and Soviet Power, on the part of that rather numerous class in all
advanced countries — although constituting a minority of the population — the
small owners and proprietors in agriculture, industry, connnerce, and the cor-
responding layers of intellectuals, employees, and so on.
The first and second tasks are independent ones, demanding each of them
their special methods of action in respect to the exploiters and to the exploited.
The third task results from the two first, demanding only a skilful, timely,
supple combination of the methods of the first and second kind, depending on
the concrete circumstances of each separate case of fluctuation.
3. Under the circumstances which have been created in the whole world, and
especiall.^■ in the most advanced, most powerful, most eidightened and freest
capitalist countries by militarist imperialism — oppression of colonies and
weaker nations, the universal imperialist slaughter, the "peace" of Versailles —
to admit the idea of a voluntary submission of the capitalists to the will of the
majority of the exploited, of a peaceful, reformist iiassage to Socialism, is not
only to give proof of an extreme petty bourgeois stupidity, but it is a direct
deception of the workmen, a disguisal of capitalist wage-slavery, a concealment
of the truth. This truth is that the bourgeoisie, the most enlightened and dem-
ocratic portion of the bourgeoisie, is even now not stopping at deceit and crime,
at the slaughter of millions of workmen and ])easants, in order to retain the
right of private ownership over the means of prodiK'tion. Oidy a violent defeat
of the iKmrgeoisie, the confiscation of its propert.v, the annihilation of the
entire bourgeois governmental apparatus, parliamentary, judicial, military,
bureaucratic, administrative, municipal, etc., even the individual exile or in-
ternment of the most stubborn and dangerous exploiters, the establishment of
APPENDIX, PART 1 115
a strict control over them for the repression of all inevitable attempts at re-
sistance and restoration of capitalist slavery— only such measures will be able to
guarantee the complete submission of the whole class of exploiters.
On the other hand, it is the same disguising of capitalism and bourgeois
democracy, the same deceiving of the workmen, when the old parties and old
leaders of the Second International admit the idea that the majority of the
workers and exploited will be able to acquire a clear Socialist consciousness,
firm Socialifst convictions and character under the conditions of capitalist
enslavement, under the yoke of the bourgeoisie, which assumes an endless
variety of forms — the more refined and at the same time the more cruel and
pitiless, the nwjre cultured the given capitalist nation. In reality it is only
when the advance guard of the proletariat, supported by the whole class as the
only revolutionary one, or a majority of the same, will have 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 — ttnly after that, and during the very course of the acute class strug-
gle, it will be iwssible to bring about the enlightenment, education and organ-
ization of the widest masses of workers and exploited around the proletariat,
under its influence and direction ; to cure them of their egotism, their non-soli-
darity, their vic-es and weaknesses engendered by private ownership, and to
transform them into free workers.
4. For victory over capitalism a correct correlation between the leading
Communist Party — the revolutionary class, the proletariat — and the masses,
i. e.. the whole mass of workers and exploited, is essential. If the <Jon>munist
Party is really the advance guard of the revolutionary class, if it includes the
best representatives of the class, if it consists of perfectly conscious and loyal
Communists, enlightened by experience gained in the stubborn revolutionary
struggle — if it can be bound indissolubly with the entire life of its class, and
thiough the latter with the whole mass of the exploited, and if it can inspire
full confidence in this class and this mass, only then is it capable of leading the
proletariat in the pitiless, decisive, and final struggle against all the forces of
capitalism. On the other hand, only under the leadership of such a Party will
the proletariat be able to employ all the force of its I'evolutionary onslaught,
nullifying the inevitable apathy and partial resistance of the insignificant mi-
nority of the demoralized labor aristocracy, the old trade-union and guild
leaders, etc. Only then will the proletariat be able to display its power whicli
is inmaeasurably greater than its share in the population, by reason of the
economic organization of capitalist society itself. Lastly, only when practically
freed from the yoke of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois governing apparatus,
only after acquiring the possibility of freely (from all capitalist exploitation ►
oi-ganizing into its own Soviets, will the mass — i. e., the total of all the workei-)^
and exploited — 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 will become the only State apparatus, will effectual participation in the
administration be realized for the entire mass of the exploited, who, even under
the most cultured and free bourgeois democracy, remain practically 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 exijerience,
the work of Socialist construction, the creation of a new social discipline, a free
union of free workers.
II. IN WHAT SHOULD THE IMMEDIATE PKEPARATION FOR DICTATORSHIP OF THE
PROLETARIAT CONSIST ?
5. Tlie present moment in the development of the International Communist
movement is characterized by the fact that in a great majority of capitalist
countries the preparation of the proletariat or the realization of its dictator-
ship is not yet completed — very often it has not even been begun systemati-
cally. It does not follow that the proletarian revolution is not possible, for the
economic and political situation is extraordinarily rich in inflammable mate-
rial which may cause a .sudden flame: the other condition for a revolution,
besides the preparedness of the proletariat, namely, the general state of crisis
in all the ruling and all the bourgeois pai-ties. is also at hand. But \t follows
from the above that for the moment the duty of the Comnuinist Parties consist.*;
in accelerating the vevolution, without provoking it artificially until sufficient
preparation has been made; such preparation is to be carried on and empha-
sized by revolutionary activity. On the other hand, the above instance in the
\IQ UN-AMERIGAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
history of mauy Socialist parties draws our attention to the fact, that the
"recognition" of the dictatorship of the proletariat should not remain only
verbal.
Therefore the principal duty of the Communist Parties, from the point of
view of an international proletarian movement, is at the present moment 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 perform the work of preparing the proletariat for
the conquest of the governing power, and especially for the acquisition of power
under the form of a dictatorship of the groups and parties that recognize the-
'dictatorship of the proletariat. This work has not been sufficiently subjected
to the radical reformation, the radical renovation, which ai-p necessary for it
to be recognized as Communist work, and as corresponding to the tasks on
the eve of proletarian dictatorship.
v6. The conquest of political power by the proletariat does not put a stop to
its class struggle against the bourgeoisie ; on the contrary, it makes the struggle
especially broad, acute, and pitiless. All the groups, pai'ties, leaders of the
Labor movement, fully or partially on the side of reformism, the "center,"
and so on, turn inevitably, during the most acute periods of the struggle, either
to the side of the bourgeoisie or to that of the wmvering ones, and the most
dangerous are added to the number of the unreliable friends of the vanciuished
proletariat. Therefore the preparation of the dictatorship of the prolcrariat
■demands not only an increased struggle against all reformists and "'centrist"
tendencies, but a modification of the nature of this struggle.
The struggle should not be limited to an explanation of the fallacy of ^nch
tendencies, but it should stulibornly and mercilessly denounce any leader in the
Labor movement who may be manifesring such tendencies, otherwise the ])ro-
letariat will not know whom it must trust in the n\ost decisive struggle
against the bourgeoisie. The struggle is such, that the slightest hesitation or
weakness in the denunciation of those who show themselves to be reformists
or "centrists," means a direct increase of the danger that the power of the
proletariat may be overthrown by the liourgeoisie, which will on the morrow
utilize in favor of the counter-revolution all that which to short-sighted people
appears only as a "theoretical difference of opinion" to-day.
7. In particular one cannot stop at the usual doctrinaire refutation of all
"'collaboration" between the proletariat and the hourgeoisie:
The simple defense of "liberty and equality," under the condition of preserving
the right of i>rivate ownership of the means of production, becomes transformed
under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat — which will never
be able to suppress completely all private ownershii) — into a "collaboration "
with the bourgeoisie, v.'hich undermines directly the power of the working class.
The dictatorship of the proletariat means the strengthening and defense, 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 (i. e., of the person who has taken for himself personally the means
•of production created by public labor and the proletariat). That which before
the victory of the proletariat seems but a theoretical difference of opinion on
the question of "democracy," becomes inevitably on the morrow of the victoi'y,
ji question which can only be decided by force of arms. Consequently, without
a radical modification of the whole nature of the struggle against the "centrists"
and "defenders of democracy," even a preliminary preparation of the mass for
the realization of a dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible.
8. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the most decisive and revolution-
ary form of class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Such
a struggle can be successful only when the revolutionary advance guard of
the proletariat leads the majority. The preparation of the dictatorship of
the proletariat demands, therefore, not only the elucidation of the bourgeois
nature of all reformism, all defense of "democracy," with the preservation of
the right to the ownership of the means of production ; not only the denunci-
ation of such tendencies, which in practice mean the defense of the bourgeoisie
inside the Labor movement — but it demands also the replacing of the old
leaders by Communi.sts in all kinds of proletarian organizations, not only
political, but industrial, co-operative, educational, etc. The more lasting, com-
plete, and solid the rule of the bourgeois democracy has been in any country,
the more has it been possible for the bourgeoisie to apixtint as labor 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
APPENDIX, PART 1 H^
Jill these representatives of the Labor aristocracy, all such "bourgeois" work-
men, from their posts and replace them by even inexperienced workers, so
long as these are in unity with the exploited masses, and enjoy tlie latter's
confidence in the struggle against the exploiters. The dictatorship of the pro-
letariat will demand the appointment of such inexperienced workmen to the
most responsible State functions, otlierwise the rule of the Labor government
will be powerless and it will not have the support of the masses.
9. The dictatorsliip of the proletariat is the most complete realization of a
leadership over all workers and exploited, who have been oppressed, beaten
down, crushed, intimidated, disi>ersed, deceived by the class of capitalists, oa
the part of the only class prepared for such a leading role by the whole his-
tory of capitalism. Therefore the preparation of the dictatorship of the
proletariat must begin immediately and in all places by means of the following
methods among others :
In every organization, vniion, association — beginning with the proletarian ones-
at first, and afterwards in all those of the non-proletarian workers and ex-
ploited masses (political, pi'ofessional, military, co-operative, educational,
sporting, etc., etc.) must be formed groups or nuclei of Communists — mostly
open ones, but also secret ones which become necessary in each case when the
arrest or exile of their juembers or the dispersal of their' organization is
threatened ; and these nuclei, in close contact with one another and with the
central Party, exchanging experiences, carrying on the work of propaganda,
campaign, organization, adapting themselves to all the branches of social life,
to all the various forms and subdivisions of the working masses, must syste-
matically train themselves, the Party, the class, and the masses by such
multiform work.
At the same time it is most important to work out practically the necessary
methods on the one hand in respect to the "leaders" or responsible repre-
sentatives, who are very frequently hopelessly infected with petty bourgeois
and imperialist prejudices : on the other hand, in respect to the masses, who.
especially after the imperialist slaughter, are mostly inclined to listen to and
accept the doctrine of the necessity of leadership of the proletariat as the
only way out of capitalistic enslavement. The masses must be approached
with patience and caution, and with an understanding of the peculiarities, the-
special psychology of each layer, each profession of these masses.
10. In particular one of the groups or nuclei of the Communists deserves
tJie exclusive attention and care of the party, namely, the parliamentary fac-
tion, i. e., the group of members of the Party who are members of bourgeois
representative institutions (first of all state institutions, then local, municipal,
and others). On the one hand, such a tribune has a special importance in the
eyes of the wider circles of the backward or prejudiced working masses;
therefore, from this very tribune, the Communists must carry on their work
of propaganda, agitation, organization, explaining to the masses why the
dissolution of the bourgeois parliament (Constituent Assembly) by the national
Congress of Soviets was a legitimate proceeding at the time in Russia (as it
will be in all countries in due time). On the other hand, the whole history
of bourgeois democracy has made the parliamentary tribune, e.specially in the
more advanced countries, the chief or one of the chief means of unbelievable
fijiancial and political swindles, the means of making a career out of hypocrisy
and oppression of the workers. Therefore the deep hatred against all parlia-
ments in the revohitionary proletariat is perfectly justified. Therefore the
Communist Parties, and all parties adhering to the Third International, espe-
cially in cases when such parties have been formed not by means of a division
in the old parties and after a long stubborn struggle against them, but by
means of tiie old parties passing over (often nominally) to a new position,,
must be very strict in their attitude towards their parliamentary factions,
demanding their complete subordination to the control and the direction of the
Central Committee of the party; the inclusion in them chiefly of revolutionary
workmen; the carrying out at Party meetings of a most intensive analysis of
the Party press and of the parliamentary speeches, from the point of view of
their Communist integrity ; detailing of parliament members for propaganda
among the masses ; the exclusion from such groups of all those who show a
tendency towards the Second International, and so forth.
11. One of the chief causes of difficiilty in the revolutionary Labor movement
in the advanced capitalist countries lies in the fact that owing to colonial
dominions and super-dividends of a financial capital, etc., capital has been able to
attract a comparatively more solid and broader group of a small minority of the
ll^ UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
labor aristocracy. The latter enjoy better conditions of pay and are most of all
impregnated with the spirit of ijrofessional narrow-mindedness, bonrgeois and
imperialist prejndices. This is the true social '"support" of the Second Inter-
national reformists and centrists, and at the present moment almost the chief
social support of the bourgeoisie.
Not even preliminary preparation of the proletariat for the overthrow of tlie
bourgeoisie is possible without an immediate, systematic, widely organized and
open struggle against the group which undoubtedly — as experience has already
proved — will furnish plenty of men for the White (iuards of the hourgfoisie after
the victory of the proletariat. All the parlies adhering to the Third International
must at all costs put into practice tlie mottoes: "deeper into the masses," "in
closer contact with tln^ masses," understanding by the word "masses" the entire
mass of workers and those exploited by tapitalism, especially the less organized
and enlightened, the most oppressed and less adaptable to organization.
The proletariat becomes revolutionary in so far as it is not enclo-^ed within
narrow guild limits, in so far as it participates in all the events and branches
of public life, as a leader of the whole working and exploited mass ; and it is
completely impossible for it to realize its dictatorship unless it is ready for and
capable of doing everything for the victory over the boiugeoisie. The experience
of Russia in this resi)ect has a theoretical and practical importance; where the
proletariat could not have realized its dictatorship, nor acciuired the respect and
confidence of the whole working mass, if it had not borne most of the sacrifices
and had not suffered from hunger more than all tlu- other groups in this mass,
during the most difhcult moments of the onslaught, war and blockade on the part
of the imiversal bourgeoisie.
In particular it is necessary for the Conmnmist Parly and the whole advanced
proletariat to give the most absolute and self-denying support to all the masses
for a larger general strike movement, which is alone able under the yoke of
capitalism to awaken jiroperly. arouse, enlighten, and organize the masses, and
develop in them a full c(infi(lence in the leading role of the revolutionary pro-
letariat. Without such a preparation no dictatorship of the proletariat will be
possible, and those who are capable of preaching against strik<'s. like Kautsky
in Germany. Turati in Italy, are not to l)e suffered in the ranks of parties adhering
to the Third International. This concerns still more, naturally, such trade-union
and parliamentary leaders, as often betray the the worklngmen l»y teaching them
to make the strike an instrument of reform and not of revolution (Jouhaux in
France. Gompers in America, and Thomas in England.)
12. For all countries, even for most free "legal" and "peaceful" ones in the sense
of a lesser acuteness in the class struggle, the period has arrived, when it has
become absolutely necessary for every Communist party to join systematically
lawful and unlawful work, lawful and unlawful organization.
In the most enlightened and fi'ee countries, with a most "solid bourgeois-
democratic regime, the governments are systematically recurring, in spite of
their false and hypocritical assurances, to the method of keeping secret lists of
Communists: to endless violations of their constitutions f<ir the semi-secret sup-
port of White Guards and the murder of Communists in all countries; to .secret
preparations for the arrest of Communists: the introduction of provocateurs
among the Communists, etc. Only the most reactionary petty bourgeoisie, by
whatever high-sounding "democratic" or pacifist phrases it might disguise its
ideas, can dispute this fact or the necessary conclusion ; an immediate formation
by all lawful Communist parties of unlawful organizations for systematic unlawful
work, for their complete preijaration at any moment to thwart any steps on the
part of the bourgeoisie. It is especially necessary to carry on unlawful work in
the army. navy, and police, as, after the imperialist slaughter, all the govern-
ments in the world are becoming afraid of the national armies, open to all
peasants and workingmen. and they are .<etting up in secret all kinds of select
military organizations recruited from the bourgeoisie and especially provided with
Improved technical equipment.
On the other hand, it is also necessary, in all cases without exception, not
to limit oneself to unlawful work, but to carry on also lawful work over-
coming all diflSculties, founding a lawful press and lawful organizations under
the most diverse, and in case of need, frequently changing names. This is
now being done by the illegal Communist parties in Finland, in part in
Germany, Poland, Latvia, etc. It is thus that the I. W. W. in America should
act. as well as all the lawful Communist parties at present, in ca.se prosecutors
start prosecutions on the basis of resolutions of the congresses of the Com-
munist International, etc
APPENDIX, PART 1 119
The absolute necessity of the principle of unlawful and lawful work is
determined not only by the total aggregate of all the peculiarities of the
given movement, on the very eve of a proletarian dictatorship, but by the neces-
sity of proving to the bourgeoisie, that there is not and can not be any branch
of the work of which the Communists have not possessed themselves, and
still more by the fact that everywhere there are still wide circles of the
proletariat and greater ones of the non-proletarian workers and exploited
masses, which still trust in the bourgeois democracy, the discussion of which
is our most important duty.
13. In particular, the situation of the Labor press in the more advanced
capitalist countries shows with special force both the falsity of liberty and
equality under the bourgeois democracy, and the necessity of a systematic
blending of the lawful and unlawful work. Both in vanquished Germany
and in victorious America all the powers of the governmental apparatus
of the bourgeoisie, and all the tricks of its financial kings are being set
in motion in order to deprive the workingmen of their press; prosecutions
and arrests (or murber by means of hired murderers) of the editors, denial
of mailing privilege, curtailing of paper supply, etc. Moreover, the informa-
tion necessary for a daily paper is in the hands of bourgeois telegraph
agencies, and the advertisements, without which a large paper cannot pay
its way, are at the "free" disposal of capitalists. On the whole, by means
of deception, the pressure of capital, and the bourgeois government, the
bourgeoisie deprives the revolutionary proletariat of its press.
For the struggle against this state of things the Communist parties must
create a new type of periodical press for extensive circulation among the
workmen :
1) Lawful publications, in which the Communists without calling themselves
such and without mentioning their connection with the party, learn to utilize
the slightest liberty allowed by the laws, as the Bolsheviks did at the "time
of the Tsar," after 1905.
2) Illegal sheets, although of the smallest dimensions and irregularly pub-
lished, but reproduced in most of the printing offices by the workingmen (in
secret, or if the movement has grown stronger, by means of a revolutionary
.seizure of the printing offices) giving the proletariat imdiluted revolutionary
information and the revolutionary mottoes.
Without a Communist press the preparation for the dictatorship of the
proletariat is impossible.
III. THE .\MENDMBNT OF THE POLICY— PARTLY ALSO OF THE MAKE-UP — OF THE PARTIKS
ADHERING OR WILLING TO ADHERE TO THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL
14. The degree of preparedness of the proletariat to carry out its dictator-
ship, in the countries most important from the view-point of world economics
and world politics, is manifested most objectively and precisely by the fact
that the most influential parties of the Second International, the French
Socialist Party, the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, the
Independent Labor Party of England, the American Socialist Party, have
gone out of this yellow International and have passed resolutions to join the
Third International, the first three con-resolutions to join the Third Inter-
national, all, however, making certain reservations. This proves that not only
the advance guard but the majority of the proletariat has begun to pass
over to our side, persuaded thereto by the whole course of events. The chief
thing now is to know how to complete this passage and solidly, structurally
strengthen it, so as to be able to advance along the whole line, without the
slightest hesitation.
1.5. The whole activity of the above-mentioned parties (to which must be added
the Swiss Socialist Party if the telegraphic reports regarding its resolution to
join the Third International are correct) proves — and any given periodical paper
of tliese parties confirms it — that they are not Comtminist as yet, and frequently
even are in direct opposition to the fundamental principles of the Third Interna-
tional, namely: the rpoognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and of
♦Soviet iiower instead of the bourgeois democracy.
Therefore the Second Congress of the Communist International should announce
that it does not consider it possible to receive these parties immediately ; that
it confirms the answer of the Executive Committee of the Third International
to the German Independents ; that it confirms its readiness to carry on negotia-
tions with any party leaving the Second International and desiring to join the
120 UN-AMERIOAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
Third ; that it reserves the right of a consultative vote to the delegate of such
parties at all its congresses and conferences, and that it proposes the following
conditions for a complete union of these (and similar) parties with the Com-
munist International.
1.) The publishing of all the resolutions passed by all the congress of the
party for the weeding out of all elements that Committee, in all the periodical
publications of the party.
2.) Their discussion at the special meetings of all sections and local organiza-
tions of the party.
3.) The convocation, after such a discussion, of a special congress of the party
for the weeding out of all elements which continue to act in the spirit of the
Second International. Such a congress is to be called together as soon as possible
within a period of four months at most foliov/ing the Second Congress.
4.) Expulsion from the party of all members who persist in their adlierence
to the Second International.
5.) The transfer of all periodical papers of tlie party into the hands of
Communist editors.
6.) The parties wishing to join the Third International but which have not
yet radically changed their old tactics, must above all take care that two-thirds
of their Central Conunittee and of their chief central institutions consist of such
comrades as have declared their adherence to a party of the Third International
before the Second Congress. Exceptions can be made only with the sanction
of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. The E. C. also
reserves the right of making exceptions with regard to the rejiresentatives of the
"centrist" movement mentioned in paragraph 7.
7.) Members of the party who repudiate the conditions and theses adopted by
the Communist International must be excluded from the Party. The same ap-
plies to delegates of special congresses. The Second Congress of the Third
Intern, must charge its Executive Committee to adnu"t the above-named and
similar parties into the Third International after a preliminary verification that
all these conditions have been fulfilled, and that the nature of the activity of the
party has become Conmiunist.
16. In regard to the question as to what must be the line of conduct of the
Communists at present constituting the minority at the responsible posts of the
above-named and similar parties, the Second Congress of the Third International
should establish, that, in view of the rapid progress of the actual revolutionarv
spirit among the workingmeTi belonging to these parties it would be undesirable
for the Communists to leave the parties, so long as they are able to carry on
their work within the parties in the spirit of a lecognition of the dictatorship
of the proletariat and of the criticism of all opportunists and centrists still
remaining in these parties.
When the left wing of the centre 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.
At the same time the Second Congress of the Third International must declare
itself in favor of the joining of Connnunist Party, and the groups and organiza-
tions sympathizing with Communism in England, joining the Labor Party, not-
withstanding the circumstance that this party is a member of the Second
International. The reason of this is that so long as this party will allow all
constituent organizations their present freedom of criticism and freedom of
propaganda, and organizing activity in favor of the dictatorship of the proletariat
and the power of Soviets, so long as this party preserves its principle of uniting
all the industrial organizations of the working class, the Connnunists 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 workingmen and the masses,
to denounce their opportunist leaders from a higher tribune, to accelerate the
transfer of the political power from the direct representatives of the bourgeoise
to the "Labor lieutenants of the capitalist class," so that the masses may be
more rapidly cured of all illusions on this subject.
17. In regard to the Italian Socialist Party, the Second Congress of the Third
International considers as perfectly correct the criticism of tliis Party and the
practical propositions which are stated, as propositions to the District Council
of the Italian Socialist Party on behalf of the Turin section of this Party in
the paper "New Order" (L'Ordine Nnovo) dated May 8th, 1920, and which
completely corresponds with the fundamental principles of the Third Inter-
national.
APPENDIX, PART 1 X21
Therefore the Second Congress of the Third International requests the Italian
Socialist Party to convene an extraordinary congress of the party for the dis-
cussion of these propositions and the resolutions of both congresses of the
Commnnist International, especially with regard to the parliamentary fraction,
lo the non-communist elements in the party, and concerning the tactics in the
trade unions.
18. The Second Congress of the Third International considers as not correct
Ihe views regarding the relations of the Party to the class and to the masses,
and the non-iiarricipation of the Communist Parties in the bourgeois parlia-
ments and reactionary Labor unions, whicli have been emphatically repudiated
in the special re,solutions of the present congress, and defended in full by the
'Communist Labor P;>rty of Germany" and also partially by the "Comnnmist
Parly of Switzerland," by the organ of the West European secretariat of the
< 'ommunist International "CommunisniTis" in Amsterdam, and by several of our
Dutch comrades: further by certain Communist organizations in England, as
for instances "The Workers' Socialist Federation," also by the "I. W. W." in
America, the '"Shop Steward Committees" in England, and so forth,
Nevertlieless the Second Congress of the Third International considers pos-
sible and desirable the iunnediate afriliation of such of these organizations as
have not already d(me so ollicially, because, in the given case, especially as
regards the I. W. W. of America and Australia, and the "Shop Steward Com-
mittees of England, we have to deal with a genuinely proletarian mass move-
ment, which practically adheres to the principles of the Communist Interna-
tional. In such organizations any mistaken views on the question of partici-
pation in the bourgeois parliaments, are to be explained not so much on the
theory that they are members of the bourgeoisie advocating their own petty
bourge<ns vievrs, as the views of the Anarchists frequently are, but on the
theory of the political inexjierience of the proletarians, who are, nevertheless,
completely revolutionary and in contact with the masses.
The Second Congress of the Third International requests, therefore, all
Communist organizations and groups in the Anglo-Saxon countries, even in
case immediate union between the Third International and the "Industrial
Workers of the World" and the "Shf)p Steward Committees" does not take place,
to carry on a polic.v of the most friendly attitude toward these organizations,
to eater into closer connection with them, to explain to them in a friendly way,
from the point of view of all revolutions and the three Russian revolutions in
the Twentieth Centttry especially, the fallac.v of their above-stated views, and
not to desist from repeated attempts to become united with these organiza-
tions so as to form one Communist Party.
19. In connection with this the Congress draws the attention of all com-
rades, especially in the Latin and AngloSaxon countries to the fact that
among the Anarchists since the war all over the world a deep ideological
schism is taking jjlace iipon the question of thei rattitude towards the dictator-
ship of the proletariat and the power of Soviets. And it is just among the
proletarian elements, which were frequently led into anarchism by their per-
fectly justified hatred of the opportunism and reformism of the parties of
the Second International, that there is to be noticed a perfectl.v correct ttnder-
standing of these principles, especially among those who are more nearly
acqtiainted with the experience of Russia, Finland. Hungary, Lettland, Poland,
and Germany.
The Congress considers it the duty of all comrades to sitpport by all measures
all the masses of proletarian elements passing from Anarchism to the Third
International. The Congress points out that the success of the work of the truly
Communist Parties otight to be measured, among other tbing.s, by how far they
have been able to attract to their party all the uneducated, not petty-botirgeois,
but proletarian masses from Anarchism.
Conditions or Admission to the Communist International
The First Constituent Congress of the Communist International did not draw
up precise conditions of admission to the Third International.
At the moment of the convocation of the First Congress in the majority of
countries only Communist currents and groups existed.
The Second World Congress of the Communist International is convening under
different conditions. At the present moment in most countries there are not only
Communist tendencies and groups but Communist parties and organizations.
122 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
The Commumst International more and more frequently receives applications
from parties and groups but a short time ago belonging to the Second Inter-
national, now desirous of poining the Third International, but not yet really
communist. The Second International is completely broken. Seeing the com-
plete helplessness of the Second International the intermediary faction and the
groups of the "centre" are trying to lean on the ever strengthening Communist
International hoping at the same time, however, to preserve a certain "autonomy"
which should enable them to carry on their former opportunist or "centrist"
policy. The Communist International has become the fashion.
The desire of certain leading groups of the "centre" to join the Third Inter-
national now is an indirect confirmation of the fact that the majority of conscious
workers of the whole world is growing stronger every day.
The Communist International is being threatened with the danger of dilution
with the fluctuating and half-and-half groups which have as yet not abandoned
the ideaology of the Second International.
It must be mentioned that in some of the large parties (Italy, Norway, Jugo-
slavia, etc.), the majority of which adhere to the point of view of Commnni.sm,
there is up to this moment a considerable reformist and social pacifist wing,
which is only awaiting the moment to revive and to begin an active "sabotage" of
the proletarian revolution, and thus assist the bourgeoisie and the Second
International.
No Communist should forget the lesson of the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
The unity between the Hungarian Communists and the so-called Left Social
Democrats cost the Hungarian Proletariat very dearly.
In view of this the Second World Congress finds it necessary to establish
most definite conditions for the joining of new parties, as well as to ix)int out to
such parties as have already joined the Communist International the duties
which are laid upon them.
The Second Congress of the Commumst International rules that the condi-
tions for joining the Communist International shall be as follows :
1. The general propaganda and agitation shoxild bear a really Communist
character, and should correspond to the programme and decisions of the Third
International. The entire party press should be edited by reliable Communists
who have proved their loyalty to the cause of the Proletarian revolution. The
dictatorship of the proletariat should not be spoken of simply as a current hack-
neyed formula, it should be advocated in such a way that its necessity should be
apparent to every rank-and-file working man and woman, to each soldier and
peasant, and should emanate from everyday facts systematically recorded !iy our
press day by day.
All periodicals and other publications, as well as all party publications and
editions, are subject to the control of the presidium of the party, independently
of whether the party is legal or illegal. The editors should in no way be given
an opportunity to abuse their autonomy and carry on a policy not fully
corresponding to the policy of the party.
Wherever the followers of the Third International have access, and whatever
means of propaganda are at their disposal, whether the columns of new.>:papers,
popular meetings, labor imions or co-operatives, — it is indispensable for them
not only to denounce the bourgeoisie, but also its assistants and agent.s —
reformists of every color and shade.
2. Every organization desiring to join the Communist International shall
be bound systematically and regailarly to remove from all the responsible posts
in the labor movement (Party organizations, editors, labor unions, parliamentary
factions, co-operatives, municipalities, etc.), all reformists and followers of the
"centre," and to have them replaced by Communists, even at the cost of replacing
at the beginning "experienced" men by rank-and-file working men.
3. The class struggle in almost every country of Europe and America is enter-
ing the phase of civil war. Under such conditions the Communists can have no
confidence in bourgeois laws. Tliey should create everywhere a parallel illegal
apparatus, which at the decisive moment should do its duty by the party, and in
every way possible assist the revolution. In every country where in consequence
of martial law or of other exceptional laws, the Communists are unable to carry
on their work lawfully, a combination of lawful and unlawful work is absolutely
necessary.
4. A persistent and systematic propaganda and agitation is necessary in the
army, where Communist groups should be formed in every military organizarion.
Wherever, owing to repressive legislation, agitation becomes impossible, it is neces-
sary to carry on such agitation illegally. But refusal to carry on or participate
APPENDIX, PART 1 123
in such work shoiikl be considered equal to treason to the revolutionary rause,
and incompatible with affiliation with the Third International.
5. A systematic and regular propaganda is necessary in the rural districts.
The working class can gain no victory unless it possesses the sympathy and
support of at least part of the rural workers and of the poor peasants, and
unless other sections of the population are equally utilized. Communist work in
the rui'al districts is acquiring a predominant importance during the present
period. It shotdd be carried on through Communist workingmen of both city
and country who have connections with the rural districts. To refuse to do this
work, or to transfer such work to untrustworthy half reformists, is equal to
renouncing the proletarian revolution.
6. Every party desirous of affiliating with the Third International should re-
nounce not only avowed social patriotism, but also the falsehood and the hypoc-
risy of social pacifism ; it should systematically demonstrate to the workers that
without a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism no international arbitration, no
talk of disarmament, no democratic reorganization of the League of Nations
will he capable of saving mankind from new Imperialist wars.
7. Parties desirous of joining the Communist International must recognize
the necessity of a complete and absolute rupture with reformism and the
policy of the "centrists," and must advocate this rupture amongst the widest
circles of the party membership, without which condition a consistent Ccrm-
munist policy is impossible. The Communist International demands uncon-
ditionally and peremptorily that such rupture be brought about with the least
possible delay. The Communist International cannot reconcile itself to the
fact that such avowed reformists as for instance Tiirati, Modigliani, Kautsky,
Hillquit, Longuet, Macdonald and others should be entitled to consider them-
selves members of the Third International. This would make the Third
International resemble the Second International.
8. In the Colonial question and that of the oppressed nationalities there is
necessary an especially distinct and clear line of conduct of the parties of
countries where the boui'geoisie possesses such colonies or oppresses other
nationalities. Evei'y party desirous of belonging to the Third International
should be bound to denounce without any reserve all the methods of "its own"
imperialists in the colonies, supporting not only in words but practically a
movement of liberation in the colonies. It should demand the expulsion of its
o'wn Imperialists from such colonies, and cultivate among the workingmen
of its own country a truly fraternal attitude towards the working population
of the colonies and oppressed nationalities, and carry on a systematic agitation
in its own army against every kind of oppression of the colonial population.
9. Every party desirous of belonging to the Communist International should
be bound to carry on systematic and per.sistent Communist work in the labor
unions, co-operatives and other labor organizations of the masses. It is
necessary to form Communist groups within the organizations, which by per-
sistent and lasting work should win over labor unions to Communismi These
groups shoiild constantly denounce the treachery of the social patriots and
of the fluctuations of the "centre." These Communist groups should be com-
pletely subordinated to the party in general.
10. Any party belonging to the Communist International is bound to carry
on a stubborn struggle against the Amsterdam "International" of the yellow
labor unions. It should propagate insistently amongst the organized workers
the necessity of a rupture with the yellow Amsterdam Internatioiial. It shoiild
support by all means in its power the International Unification of Red Labor
L^nions. adhering to the Communist International, which is now beginning.
11. Parties desirous of joining the Third International shall be bound to
inspect the persotinel of their parliamentary factions, to remove all unreliable
elements therefrom, to control such factions, not only verbally but in reality,
to subordinate them to the Central Committee of the party, and to demand
from each proletarian Communist that he devote his entire activity to the
interests of real revolutionary propaganda.
12. All parties belonging to the Communist International should be formed
on the basis of the principle of democratic centralization. At the present time
of acute civil war the Communist Party will be able fully to do its duty only
when it is organized in a sufficiently thorongh way when it possesses an iron
discipline, and when its party centre enjoys the confidence of the members of
the party, who are to endow this centre with complete power, authority and
ample rights.
13. The Communist parties of those countries where the Communist activity
is legal, should make a clearance of their members from time to time, as well
224 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
-as those of the party organizations, in order systematically to free the party
from the petty bourgeois elements which penetrate into it.
14. Each party desirous of affiliating with the Communist International
should be obliged to render every possible assistance to the Soviet Republics
in their struggle against all counter-revolutionary forces. The Communist
parties should carry on a precise and definite propaganda to induce the workers
to refuse to transport any kind of military equipment intended for fighting
against the Soviet Republics, and should also by legal or illegal means carry on a
prop;iganda amongst the troops sent against the workers' republics, etc.
15. All those parties which up to the present moment have stood upon the
old social and democratic programmes should, within the shortest time pos-
sible, draw up a new Communist programme in conformity with the special
•conditions of their country, and in accordance with the resolutions of the
■Communist International. As a rule, the programme of each party belonging
to the Communist International should be confirmed by the next congress of the
Communist International or its Executive Committee. In the event of the
failure of the programme of any party being confirmed by the Executive
Committee of the Communist International, the said party shjill be entitled
to appeal to the Congress of the Communist International.
16. All the resolutions of the congresses of the Communist International, as
well as the resolutions of the Executive Committee are binding for all parties
joining the Communis!" International. The Communi.st International, operating
under the conditions of most acute civil warfare, should be centralized in a
better manner than the Second International. At the same time, the Communist
International and the Executive Committee are naturally bound in every form
of their activity to consider the variety of conditions under which the different
parties have to work and struggle, and generally binding resolutions should be
passed only on such questions upon which such resolutions are possible.
17. In connection with the above, all parties desiring to join the Com-
munist International should alter their name. Each party desirous of joining
the Communist International should bear the following name : Communist
Party of such and such a country, section of the Third Connnunist International.
The question of the renaming of a party is not only a formal one, but is a
political question of great importance. The Comnumist International has de-
clared a decisive war against the entire bourgeois world, and all the yellow
Social Democratic parties. It is indispensable that every rank-and-file worker
should be able clearly to distinguish between the Communist parties and the
•old official "Social Democratic'' or "Socialist" parties, which have betrayed the
cause of the working class.
18. All the leading organs of the press of every party are bound to publish
all the most important documents of the Executive Committee of the Communist
International.
19. All those parties which have joined the Communist International, as well
as those which have expressed a desire to do so, are obliged in as short a space
of time as possible, and in no case later than four months after the Second
Congress of the Communist International, to convene an Extraordinary Congress
in order to discuss these conditions. In addition to this, the Central Committees
of these parties should take care to acquaint all the local organizations with the
regulations of the Second Congress.
20. All those parties which at the present time are willing to join the Third
International, but have so far not changed their tactics in any radical manner,
shotild, prior to their joining the Third International, take care that not less
than two-thirds of their committee members and of all their central institutions
should be composed of comrades whf) have made an open and definite declaration
prior to the convening of the Second Congress, as to their desire that the party
should affiliate with the Third International. Exclusions are permitted only with
the confirmation of the Executive Committee of the Third International. The
Executive Committee of the Communist International has the right to make
an exception also for the representatives of the "centre" as mentioned in
paragraph 7.
21. Those members of the party wlio reject the conditions and the theses of
the Third International, are liable to be excluded from the party.
This applies principally to the delegates at the Special Congresses of the party.
The Role of the Communist Party in the Proletarian Revolution
The world proletariat is confronted witli decisive battles. We are living in an
epoch of civil war. The critical hour has struck. I)i almost all countries where
APPENDIX, PART 1 125
there is a labor movement of any importance the working class, arms in hand,
stands in the midst of tierce and decisive battles. Now more than ever is the work-
ing class in need of a strong organization. Without losing an hour of invaluable
time, the working class must keep on indefatigably preparing for the impending
decisive struggle.
The first hetoic uprising of the French proletariat during the Paris Commune
of 1871 would have been much more successful, and many errors and shortcomings
would have been avoided, had there been a strong Communist party, no matter
how small. The struggle which the proletariat is now facing, under changed his-
torical cii'cumstances, will be of nuich more vital importance to the future destiny
of the working class than was the insmreciion of 1871.
The Second World Congress of the Connnunist International therefore calls upon
the revolutionary workers of the whole world to concentrate all their attention on
the following:
1. The ('ommunist Party is part of the working class, namely, its most ad-
vanced, intelligent, and therefore most revolutionary part. The Communist Party
is formed of the best, most intelligent, self-sacrificiug and far-seeing workers.
The Communist Party has no other interests than those of the working class. It
differs from the general mass of the workers iu that it takes a general view of
the whole historical march of the working class, and at all turns of the road it
endeavors to defend the interests, not of separate groups or professions, but of
the working class as a whole. The Communist Party is the organized political
lever by means of which the more advanced part of the working class leads all
the proletarian and semi-proletarian mass.
2. Until the time when the power of g(A-ernment will have been finally conquered
by the proletariat, until the time when the proletarian rule will have been firmly
established beyond the possibility of a bourgeois restoration, the Communist Party
will have in its organized ranks oidy a minority of the workers. Up to the time
when the power will have been seized by it, and during the transition period, the
Conmiunist Party may. under favorable conditions, exercise undisputed moral and
political influence on all the proletarian and semi-proletarian classes of the popula-
tion ; but it will not be able to unite them within its ranks. Only when the dicta-
torship of the workers has deprived the bourgeoisie of such powerful weapons
as the press, the school, parliament, the church, the government apparatus, etc.;
only when the final overthrow of the capitalist order will have become an evident
fact — only then will all or almost all the workers enter the ranks of the Communist
Party.
3. A sharp distinction must be made between the conception of "party" and
"class". The members of the "Christian" and liberal trade luiions of Germany,
England, and other coinitries, are undoubtedly parts of the working class. More
or less considerable circles of the working people, followers of Scheidemann,
Gompers and Co., are likewise part of the working class. Under certain historical
conditions the working class is very likely to be impregnated with numerous reac-
tionary elements. The task of Communism is not to adapt itself to such retrograde
elements of the working class, but to raise the whole working class to the level of
the Communist vanguard. The confoiuiding of these two conceptions — of party
and of class — can only lead to the greatest errors and confusion. Thus, for in-
stance, it is clear that notwithstanding the disposition or pre.iudices of certain
parts of the working masses during the imperialist war, the workers' parties ought
to have counteracted these prejudices, defending the historical interests of the
proletariat, which demanded of the proletarian parties a declaration of war
against war.
Thus in the beginning of the imperialistic war of 1914, the social-traitor parties
of all countries, in upholding the capitalists of their "own" countries, unanimously
declared that such was the will of the people. They forgot at the same time that
even if this were so, the duty of the workers' party would have been to combat
.such an attitude of the majority of the workers, and to defend the interests of the
workers at whatever cost. At the very beginning of the twentieth century the
Russian Mensheviks (minimalists) of the time (the so-called "economists"), denied
the possibility of an open political struggle against Tsarism, on the ground that
the working class in general was not yet ripe for the understanding of the political
struggle. So also has the right wing of the Independents of Germany, in all its
compromising, referred to the "will of the masses," failing to understand that the
party exists precisely for the purpose of marching ahead of the masses and point-
ing out the way.
4. The Communist International is firmly convinced that the collapse of the
old "Social Democratic" parties of the Second International cannot be rep-
126 UN-AMERICAN PKOPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
resented as the collapse of the proletariau party organizations in general. The
period of open struggle for the dictatorship of the workers has created a new
proletarian party, the Communist Party.
5. The Communist International emphatically rejects the opinion that the
workers could carry out a revolution without having an independent political
party of their own. Every class struggle is a political struggle. The object of
this struggle, which inevitably turns into a civil war, is the obtaining of politi-
cal power. However, this power cannot be acquired, organized and directed
otherwise than by means of a political party. Only in case the workers have
for their leader an organized and experienced party, with strictly defined
objects, and a practically drawn up program of immediate action, both in
internal and foreign policy — then only will the acquisition of political power
cease to be a causal episode, but will serve as a starting point.
This class struggle likewise demands that the general guidance of the vari-
ous forms of the proletarian movement (labor unions, co-operative associations,
cultural-educational work, elections, etc. ) be united in one central organiza-
tion. Only a political party can be such a unifying and guiding centre. To
refuse to create and strengthen such a party and submit to its dictates, would
mean to abandon the idea of unity in the guidance of the separate proletariau
groups operating in the different arenas of the struggle. Lastly, the class
struggle of the proletariat demands a concentrated propaganda, throwing light
on the various stages of the fight, a unified point of view, directing the atten-
tion of the proletariat at each given moment to the definite tasks to be accom-
plished by the whole class. This cannot be done without the help of a cen-
tralized political apparatus, i. e., a political party. Therefore the propaganda
of the revolutionary Syndicalists, and the partisans of the Industrial Workers
of the World (I. W. W.), against the necessity of an Independent Workers"
Party, as a matter of fact has only served and continues to serve the interests
of the bourgeoisie and the counter-revolutionary "Social Democrats." In their
propaganda against the Comnuuiist Party, which the Syndicalists and Indus-
tiralists desire to replace by the labor unions, they approach the opportunists.
After the defeat of the revolution in 1905, during the course of several years
the Russian Mensheviks proclaimed the necessity of a so-called Labor Congress,
which was to replace the revolutionary party of the working class ; all kinds of
"Laborites" of England and America, while consicously carrying on a bour-
geois policy, are propagating among the workers the idea of creating indefinite
shapeless workers' unions instead of a political party. The revolutionary Syn-
dicalists and Industrialists desire to fight against the dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie, but they do not know how to do it. They do not see that a working
class without an independent political party is like a body without a head.
Revolutionary Syndicalism and Industrialism are a step forward only iu
comparison with the old. mttsty, counter-revolutionary ideology of the Second
International. But in comparison with the revolutionary Marxian doctrine,
i. e., with Communism, Syndicalism and indtistrialism are a step backward.
The declaration made by the "Lefts" of the Communist Labor Party of Ger-
many (in the programme-declaration of their Constituent Congress in April)
to the effect that they are forming a party, but not one in the traditional sense
of the word (''Kein Partei im iiberlieferten Sinne") — is a capitulation before
the views of Syndicalism and Industrialism which are reactionary. The work-
ing class cannot achieve the victory over the bourgeoisie by means of the gen-
eral strike alone, and by the policy of folded arms. The proletariat nn;st re-
sort to an armed uprising. Having understood this, one realizes that an or-
ganized political party is absolutely essential, and that shapeless labor organi-
zations will not suffice. ^
The revolutionary Syndicalists frequently advance the idea of the great ini;^
portance of a determined revolutionary minority. The Communist Party is
just such a determined minority of the working class, which is ready to act,
which has a program and strives to organize the masses for the struggle.
6. The most important task of a genuine Communist Party is to preserve con-
stantly the closest contact with the widest masses of the workers. For that
purpo.se the Communists must carry on activity also within such orgainzations
as are non-partisan, but which comprise large proletarian groups, for exam-
ple organizations of war invalids in various countries, the "Hands-off Russia"
Committee in England, Proletarian Tenants' Unions, and so forth. Of special
importance are the so-called non-party conferences of workers and peasants
held in Russia. Such conferences are being organized almost in every town,
in all industrial districts and in the country. In the elections to these con-
APPENDIX, PART 1 127
ferences the widest masses even of the most backward workers take part.
The order of business at these conferences is made up of the most pressing
questions, such as the food question, the housing problem, the military situa-
tion, the school question. The Communists exercise their influence on these
non-party conferences in the most energetic manner, and with the greatest
success for the party. They consider it their most important task to carry
on the work of organization and instruction within such organizations. But
in order that their efforts should bring forth the desired results, and that such
organizations should not become the prey of opponents of the revolutionary
proletariat, the most advanced Communist workers should always have their
own independent, closely united Connnunist Party, working in an organized
manner, and standing up for the general interests of Communism at each turn
of events, and under every form of the movement.
7. The Communists have no fear of the largest workers' organizations which
belong to no party, even when they are of a decidedly reactionary nature
(yellow unions, Christian Associations, etc.). The Communist Party carries
oil its work inside such organizations, and untiringly instructs the workers,
and proves to them that the idea of no political party as a principle is con-
sciously cultivated among the workers by the bourgeoisie and its adherents,
with the object of keeping the proletariat from an organized struggle for
Socialism.
8. The old classical division of the labor movement into three forms (party,
hibor unions and co-operatives) has evidently served its time. Th9 proletarian
revolution in Russia has brought forward the fundamental form of the workers'
dictatorship, the Soviets. The new divisions, which are now everywhere form-
ing, are: Party, Soviet, Industrial Union. But the party of the proletariat,
that is to say, the Communist Party, must constantly and systematically direct
the work of the Soviets as well as of the revolutionized industrial unions.
The Communist Party, the organized vanguard of the working class, must
direct the struggle of the entire class on the economic and the political fields,
and also on the tield of edvication. It must be the animating spirit in the indus-
trial unions, labor councils and all other forms of proletarian organizations.
The existence of the Soviets as an historically basic form of the dictatorship
of the proletariat, in no way lessens the guiding role of the Communist Party
in the proletarian revolution. The assertions made by the "Left" Communists
of Germany (in their appeal to the German proletariat of April 14th, 1920,
signed "The Communist Labor Party of Germany") that the party must always
adapt itself to the idea of the Soviets and assume a proletarian character, is
nothing but a hazy expression of the opinion that the Communist Party should
dissolve itself into the Soviets, that the Soviets can replace the Commimist
Party. This idea is essentially reactionary.
There was a period in the history of the Russian Revolution when the Soviets
were acting in opposition to the party, and sitpported the policy of the agents
of the bourgeoisie. The same has happened in Germany, and may take place
in other countries.
In order that the Soviets may be able to perform their historic mission, a
party of staunch Communists is necessary who should not merely adapt
themselves to the Soviets, but, on the contrary, should take care that the
Soviets do not adapt themselves to the boiu-geoisie, and to the white guard
Social Democracy. The Soviets, with the aid of the Communist factions in
them, should be brought under the banner of the Communist Party.
Those who propose to the Communist Party to "conform" to the Soviets,
those who perceive in such "conformation" a strengthening of the "proletarian
nature" of the party, are rendering a bad service both to the Party and to
the Soviets, and do not understand the importance of the Party, nor that of the
Soviets. The stronger the Communist Party in each country, the sooner will
the Soviet idea triumph. INIany "Independent" and even "Right" Socialists
profess to believe in the Soviet idea. But we cannot prevent such elements from
distorting this idea, unless there exists a strong Communist Party, capable of
determining the policy of the Soviets and of making them follow it.
9. The Communist Party is necessary to the working class not only before
it has acquired power, not only while it is acquiring such power, but also
after the power has passed into the hands of the working class. The history
of the Russian Communist Party, for three years at the head of such a vast
country, shows that the role of the party after the acquisition of i>ower by
the working class has not only not diminished, but, on the contrary, has
greatly increa.sed.
128 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
10. On the morrow of the acquisition of power by the proletariat, its party
still remained, as formerly, a part of the working class. But it was just that
part of the class which organized the victory. During twenty years in Russia —
and for a number of years in Germany — the Communist Party, in its struggle
not only against the bourgeoisie, but also against those Socialists who diffuse
bourgeois ideas among the proletariat, has enrolled in its ranks the staunchest,
the most far-seeing and most advanced fighters of the working class. Only by
having such a closely united organization of the best part of the working class
is it possible for the Party to overcome all the difficulties that arise before the
proletarian dictatorships in the days following tlie victory. In the organization
of a new proletarian Red Army, in the practical abolition of the bourgeois govern-
ing apparatus, and the building in its place of tlie framework of a new prole-
tarian state apparatus, in the struggle against the narrow craft tendencies of
certain separate groups of workers, in the struggle against local and provincial
"patriotism," clearing the way for the creation of new labor discipline — ^^iu all
these undertakings the final decisive word is to be said by the Communist Party,
whose members by tlieir own example animate, guide the majority of the workers.
11. The necessity of a political party for the proletariat can cease only with
the complete abolition of classes. On the way to this final victory of Comnnmism
it is possible that the relative importance of the three fundamental proletarian
organizations of modern times (Party, Soviets, and Industrial Unions), shall
undergo some changes, and that gradually a single type of workers' organization
will be formed. The Communist Party, however, will become absorbed in the
working class only when Communism ceases to be the object of struggle, and the
whole working class shall have become Communist.
12. The Second Congress of the Communist International must serve not only
to establish the historical mission of the Communist Party in general, but it
must indicate to the international proletariat, in rough draft, what kind of
Communist Party is needed.
13. The Communist International assumes that especially during the period
of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Communist Party should be organized
on the basis of strict proletarian centralism. In order to lead the working
class successfully during the long, stubborn civil war, the Communist Party
must establish the strictest military discipline within its own ranks. The expe-
rience of the Russian Communist Party in its successful leadership of the civil
war of the working class during three years, h'as proved that the victory of
the workers is impossible without a severe discipline, a perfected centralization,
and the fullest confidence of all the organizations of the party in the leading
organ of the party.
14. The Communist Party should be based on the principle of democratic
centralization. The chief principle of the latter is the election of the tipper
party units by those immediately below, the unconditional subordination of
subordinate units to the decisions of those above them, and a strong party
central organ, whose decrees are binding upon all the leaders of party life
between party conventions.
15. In view of the state of siege introduced by the bourgeoisie ag^xinst the
Communists, a whole series of Communist parties in Europe and America, are
comiielled to exist illegally. It must be remembered that imder such condi-
tions it may become necessary sometimes temporarily to deviate from the strict
observance of the elective principle, and to delegate to the leading party organi-
zations the right of co-election, as was done in Rtissia at one time. Under the
state of siege the Communist Party cannot have recourse to a democratic refer-
endum among all the members of the party (as was proposed by part of the
American Communists), but on the contrary, it should empower its leading
central organ to make important decisions in emergencies on beh'alf of all the
members of the party.
16. The doctrine of a vride "autonomy" for the separate local organizations
of the party at the present moment only weakens the Communist Party, under-
mines its working capacity, and aids the development of petty bourgeois,
anarchistic, centrifugal tendencies.
17. In countries where the power is in the hands of the bourgeoisie or the
counter-revolutionary Social Democrats, the Communist Party must learn to
unite systematically legal with Illegal work ; but all legal work must be carried
on under the practical control of the illegal Party. The parliamentary groups
of Communists, both in the central as well as in the local government institu-
tions, must be fully and absolutely subject to the Communist Party in general,
irrespective of whether the Party on the whole be a legal or an illegal organiza-
APPENDIX, PART 1 129
tlou at the moment. Ad.v delegate who in one way or another does not submit
absolutely to the Party shall be expelled from the ranks of Communism.
The legal press (newspapers, publications) must be unconditionally and fully
subject to the party in general, and to its Central Committee. No concessions
are admissible in this respect.
18. The fundamental principle of all organization work of the Communist
Party and individual Communists nuist be the creation of Communist nuclei
everywhere where they find proletarians and semi-proletarians — although even
in small numbers. In" every Soviet of Workers' Deputies, in every government
institution, everywhere, even though there may be only three people sympathizing
with Comnuuiisiu, a Communist nucleus must be inunediately organized. It is
only the power of organization of the Communists that enables the advance guard
of the working class to be the leader of the whole class. Communist nuclei,
working in organizations adhering to no political party, must be subject to the
party organizations in general, whether the Party itself is working legally or
illegally at the given moment. Conunnnist nuclei of all kinds nuist be subordin-
ated one to another in a strictly hierarchical order and system.
19. The Communist Party almost always begins its work among the industrial
workers residing for the niost part in cities. For the rapid victory of the work-
ing class it is necessary that the Party should also work in the country, in the
villages. The Communist Party must carry on its propaganda and organization
work among the agricultural laborers and the poorer farmers. It must especially
endeavor to organize Communist nuclei in tlie rural districts.
The international organization of the proletariat will be strong only if in all the
countries where the Communists are living and working the above principles of
party organization and activity are firmly established. The Communist Interna-
tional invites to its Congress all labor unions which recognize the principles of
the Third International, and are ready to break with the yellow International.
The Conmiunist International intends to organize an international section com-
posed of the red labor unions, which recognize the principles of Comnuinism.
The Communist International will not refuse to co-operate with purely non-
political workers' organizations desirous of carrying on a serious revolutionary
struggle against the boiirgeoisie. But at the same time the Communist Interna-
tional will never cease to emphasize to the workers of all the world :
1. The Communist International is the chief and essential instrument for the
liberation of the working class. In each country there must now be not only
Communist groups, or tendencies, — but a Communist Party.
2. In evei-y country there must be only one Commimist Party.
3. The Conunnnist Party must be founded on the principle of the strictest
centralization, and during the period of civil war it must introduce military
discipline in its ranks.
4. In every place where there are a dozen proletarians or semi-proletarians,
the Communist Party must have an organized nucleus.
5. In each non-political organization there must be a Communist nucleus,
strictly subordinate to the Party in general.
6. While firmly and faithfully supporting the programme and revolutionary
tactics of Communism, the Communist Party must always be closely united with
the most widely spread workers' organizations, and avoid sectarianism as much
as lack of principle.
The Communist Party and Parliamentarism
i. the new epoch and the new parliamentarism
The attitude of the Socialist Parties towards parliamentarism was originally,
at the time of the Fir.st International, one of utilizing the bourgeois parliament
for purposes of agitation. Participation in parliamentary activity was looked
upon from the point of view of developing class consciousness, i. e., of awaken-
ing in the proletariat class hostility toward the ruling class. Changes in this
attitude were brought about not through change of doctrine, but under the in-
fluence of political development. Owing to the uninterrupted advance of the
forces of production and the widening sphere of capitalist exploitation, capi-
talism, and together with it the parliamentary state, acquired a lasting stability.
This gave rise to the adaptibility of the parliamentary tactics of the Socialist
parties to "organic" legislative activity in the bourgeois parliament, and the
ever growing significance of the struggle for reforms within the capitalist
system as well as the predominating influence of the so-called "immediate de-
94931— 40— app., pt. 1—10
]^30 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
niand" and the conversion of the maximum programme into a figure of speech
as an altogether remote "final goal." This served as a basis for the develop-
ment of parliamentary careerism, corruption, and open or hidden betrayal of
the fundamental interests of the working class.
The attitude of the Third International towards parliamentarism is deter-
mined not by a new doctrine, but by the changed goal of i>arliamentarism
itself. During the previous epoch parliament performed a certain i)rogressive
function as the weapon of developing capitalism, but under the present condi-
tions of unbridled Imperialism, parliament has become a tool of falsehood,
deceit, violence, and enervating gossip. In the ruin, parliamentary reforms,
devoid of system, of constancy, and of definite plan, have lost every practical
significance for the working masses.
Parliament has lost its stability like the whole of bourgeois society. The
sudden transition from the organic to the critical epoch has created the founda-
tion for new proletarian tactics in the field of parliamentarism. The Russian
Workers' Party (Bolsheviks) had already worked out the essence of revolu-
tionary parliamentarism in the preceding period, owing to the fact that Russia,
since 1905, had lost its political and social equilibrium and had entered upon
Ihe period of storm and stress.
To the extent that some Socialists with an inclination for Communism iwinr
out that the moment of revolution in their respective countries has not yet
arrived, and so decline to break away from the parliamentary opportunists,
they are reasoning consciously or unconsciously from the assumption that the
present epoch is one of relative stability for imperialist society, and they are
assuming, therefore, that i)ractical results may be achieved in the struggle for
reform by coalition with such men as Turati and Longuet. As soon as Com-
munism comes to light, it must begin to elucidate the character of the present
epoch (the culminations of capitalism, imperialistic self-negation and self-
destruction, uninterrupted growth of civil war, etc.). Political relationships
and political groupings may be different in different countries, but the essence
of the matter is everywhere the same: we must start with the direct prepara-
tion for a proletarian uprising, politically and technically, for the destruction
of the bourgeoisie and for the creation of the new proletarian state.
Parliament at present can in no way serve as the arena of a struggle for
reform, for improving the lot of the working people, as it has at certain periods
of the preceding epoch. The centre of gravity of political life at present has
been completely and finally transferred beyond the limits of parliament. On
the other hand, owing not only to its relationship to the working masses, but
also to the complicated mutual relations within the various groups of the
bourgeois itself, the bourgeoisie, is forced to have some of its policies in one
way or another passed through parliament, where the various cliques haggle for
power, exhibit their strong sides and betray their weak ones, get themselves
unmasked, etc., etc. Therefore it is the immediate historical task of the work-
ing class to tear this apparatus out of the hands of the ruling classes, to break
and destroy it, and to create in its place a new proletarian apparatus. At the
same time, however, the revolutionary general staff of the working class is
vitally concerned in having its scouting parties in the parliamentary institu-
tions of the bourgeoisie, in order to facilitate this task of destruction.
Thus the fundamental difference between the tactics of Communists entering
parliament with revolutionary aims in view, and the tactics of the socialist
parliamentarians, becomes perfectly clear. The latter act on the assumption
of the relative stability and the indefinite durability of the existing order, they
consider it their task to achieve reforms by all means and are concerned to
make the mass(>s appreciative of every accompiishinent as the merit of Social
Democratic parliamentarism (Turati, Longuet & Co.).
Instead of the old compromising parliamentarism a new parliamentarism
has come to life, as a weapon for the destruction of parliamentarism as a
whole. Hut the aversion towards tlie traditional practices of the old parlia-
mentarism drives some revolutionary elements into the camp of the opponents
of parliamentarism on principle (I. W. W., the revolutionary Syndicalists,
German Communist Labor Party).
Taking all this into consideration, tlie Second Congre.ss adopts the following
theses :
ir. COMMUNISM, THE STRUGGLK FOR THE DICTATORSHTl' OF THE PR0T.ET.\RIAT, AND
THE UTILIZATION OF THE liOUKGIOIS PARLIAMENT
1. Parliamentarism as a State system, has become a "democratic" form of
the rule of liie bourgeoisie which, at a certain stage of its development, needs
1
APPENDIX, PART 1 131
ilif liotion of national representation, wliicli outwardly would be an organiza-
rion of a "national will" standing outside of classes, but in reality is an
instrument of oppi'ession and suppression in the hands of the ruling capitalists.
2. Parliamentarism is a definite form of State order. Therefore it can in
no way be a form of Comnuuiist society, which recognizes neither classes, nor
class struggle, nor any form of State authority.
3. Parliamentarism cannot be a form of proletarian government during the
transition period between the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and that of the
proietariat. At the moment when the accentuated class struggle turns into
civil war, the proletariat must inevitably form its State organization as a
fighting organization, whicii cannot contain any of the representatives of the
former ruling classes: all fictions of a "national will" are liarniful to the
proletariat at that time, and a parliamentary division of authority is needless
and injurious to it; the only form of proletarian dictatorship is a Republic
of Soviets.
4. The bourgeois parliaments, which constitute one of the most important
instruments of the State machinery of the bourgeoisie, cannot be won over
by the proletariat any more than can the bourgeois order in general. The
task of the proletariat consists in blowing up the whole machinery of tiie
bourgeoisie, in destroying it. and all the parliamentary institutions with it,
whether they l)e republican or constitutional-monarchical.
5. Thf same relates to the local government institutions of the bourgeoisie,
which theoretically it is not correct to differentiate from State organizations.
In reality they are part of the same apparatus of the State machinery of the
bourgeoisie which must be destroyed by the revolutionary proletariat and
replaced by local Soviets of Workers' Deputies.
6. <'onse(iuently, Communism repudiates parliamentarism as the form of the
future; it renounces the same as a form of the class dictatorship of the prole-
tariat: it repudiates the possibility of winning over the parliaments ;. its aim
is to destroy parliamentarism. Therefore it is only possible to speak of
utilizing the bourgeois State organizations with the object of destroying them.
The question can be discussed only and exclusively on such a plane.
7. All class struggle is a political struggle, because it is finally a straggle for
power. Any strike, when it spreads through the whole country, is a menace
to tlie bourgeois State, and thus acquires a political character. To strive to
overthrow the bourgeoisie, and to destroy its State, means to carry on political
warfare. To create one's own class apparatus — for the bridling and suppres-
sion of the resisting bourgeoisie, whatever such an apparatus may be — means
to gain political power.
8. Consequently, the question of a political struggle does not end in the
question of one's attitude towards the parliamentary system. It is a general
condition of the class struggle of the proletariat, insofar as the struggle grows
from a .small and personal one to a general struggle for the overthrow of the
capitalist order as a whole.
9. The elementary means of the struggle of the proletariat against the rule of
the bourgeoisie is, first of all, the method of mass demonstrations. Such mass
demonstrations are prepared and carried out by the organized masses of the
prol^'tariat, under the direction of a united, disciplined, centralized Conununist
Party. Civil war is war. In this war the proletariat must have its eflicient
political officers, its good political general staff, to coudtict operations dtu'ing
all tlie stages of that fight.
Ki. The mass struggle means a whole system of developing demonstrations
growing ever more actite in form, and logically leading to an uprising against
the capitalist order of government. In this warfare of the masses developing
into ;i civil war, the guiding party of the proletariat must, as a general rule,
secure every and all lawftil positions, making them its auxiliaries in the revolu-
tioiiaiy work, and stibordinating sitch positions to the plans of the general
campaign, that of the mass struggle.
11. One such auxiliary suiiport is the rostnun of the bourgeois parliament.
Against participation in a political campaign one should not use the argument
that parliament is a bourgeois government institution. The Communist Party
enters such institutions not for the purpose of organization work, imt in order to
blow up the whole bourgeois machinery and the parliament itself from within (for
instance, the work of Liebknecht in Germany, of the Bolsheviks in the Imi)erial
Duma, in the "Democratic Conference," in the "Parliament" of Kereusky. and
lastly, in the "Constituent Assembly." and akso in the Municipal Dumas, an<l
the activities of the Bulgarian Co;nnuinists. )
132 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
12. This work within the parliaments, which consists chiefly in malcing revolu-
tionary propaganda from the parliamentary platform, the denouncing of enemies,
the ideological unification of the masses, who are still looking up to the parlia-
mentary platform, captivated by democratic illusions, especially in backward
territories, etc., must be fully subordinated to the objects and tasks of the mass
struggle outside the parliaments.
The participation in the elective campaign and the revolutionary propaganda
from the parliamentary tribune has a special importance for the winning over of
those elements of the workers, who — as perhaps the agrarian working masses —
have stood far away from the revolutionarj' movement and political life.
13. If the Communists have the majority in the local government institutions,
they must: a) carry on a revolutionary opposition against the bourgeois central
authority; b) do all for the aid of the poor population (economic measures,
establishment ot attempt to establish an armed workers' militia : c) point out on
every occasion the barriers which the bourgeois State power i)urs against really
great changes; d) develop on this basis the sharpest revolutionary propaganda
without fearing a conflict with the State authorities; e) under certain conditions
substitute local Workers' Councils for the municipal administration. The whole
activity of the Communists in the communal administration therefore must be
a part of the general work of destruction of the capitalistic system.
14. The elective campaign must be carried on not in the sense of obtaining a
maximum of votes, but in that of a revolutionary mobilization of the masses
around the mottoes of the proletarian revolution. The election campaign must
be conducted by the entire mass of party members, not by the leaders alone ; it is
necessary to make use of and be in complete touch witli all the manifestations
of the masses (strikes, demonstrations, movements among the soldiers and sailors,
etc.) going on at the moment; it is necessary to summon all the masses of the
proletarian organizations to active work.
15. In complying with all these conditions, as well as with those indicated in
a special instruction, the parliamentary work must present a direct contrast to
the dirty ''politics" which has been practised by the Social Democratic parties
of all countries, that enter parliament with tlie object of supporting that "demo-
cratic" in.stitution or. at best, to "win it over." The Comnumist Party can only
recommend a revolutionary use of the parliament as exemplified by Karl Lieb-
knecht, Haeglund and the Bolsheviks.
16. "Anti-parliamentarism," in principle, in the sense of an absolute and
categorical repudiation of participation in the elections and the parliamentary
revolutionary work, cannot, therefore, bear criticism, and is a naive, childish
doctrine, which is founded sometimes on a healthy disgust of politicians, but
which does not understand the possibilities of revolutionary parliamentarism.
Besides, very often this doctrine is connected with a quite erroneous idea of the
role of the party, which in this case is considered not as a fighting, centralized,
advance guard of the workers, but as a decentralized system of badly joined
revolutionary nuclei.
17. On the other hand, an acknowledgement of the value of parliamentary
work in no wise leads to an absolute, in-all-and-any-case acknowledgement of
the necessity of concrete elections and a concrete participation in parliamentary
sessions. The matter depends upon a series of specific conditions. Under
certain circumstances it may become necessary to leave the parliament. The
Bolsheviks did so when they left the pre-parliament in order to break it up,
to weaken it, and to set up against it the Petrograd Soviet, which was then
prepared to head the uprising; they acted in the same way in the Constituent
Assembly on the day of its dissolution, converting the Third Congress of Soviets
into the centre of political events. In other circumstances a lioycotting of the
elections may be necessary, and a direct, violent storming of both the great
bourgeois State apparatus and the parliamentary bourgeois clique, or a parti-
cipation in the elections with a boycott of the parliament itself, etc.
18. In this way, while recognizing as a general rule the necessity of parti-
cipating in the election to the central parliament, and the institutions of local
self-goverment, as well as in the woi'k in such institutions, the Communist
Party must decide the question concretely, according to the specific conditions of
the given amount. Boycotting the elections or the parliament, or leaving the
parliament, is permissible, chiefly when there is a possibility of an immediate
transition to an armed fight for power.
19. At the same time one must constantly bear in mind the relative unimpor-
tance of this question. If the center of gravity lies in the struggle for the power
outside the parliament, then naturally the qtiestion of a proletarian dictatorship
APPENDIX, PART 1 133
and a mass fight for it is immeasurably greater tliau tlio seeoiidary one of using
the parliament.
20. Therefore the Communist International insists categorically that it con-
siders any division or attempt at a division within the Communist Parties
along this line a crime against the labor movement. The Congress calls upon
all the elements which are in favor of the mass struggle for the proletarian
dictatorship, and of being under the direction of a centralized party of the
revolutionary proletariat for gaining influence over all the mass organizations
of the working class, to strive for a complete unity Ijetween the Communist
elements, notwithstanding any iwssible disagreement on the question of utilizing
the bourgeois parliaments.
III. RWVOLUTION.ARY PARLIAMENTAKISM
For securing the real execution of revolutionary parliamentary tactics it is
necessary that :
1. The Conuuunist Party in general and its Central Committee should, during
the preparatory stage, before the parliamentary elections, inspect very carefully
the quality of the personnel of the parliamentary factions. The Central Com-
mittee should be responsible for the parliamentary Communist faction. The
Central Committee shall have the undeniable right to reject any candidate of any
organizations, if it is not perfectly convinced that such candidate will carry on a
real Communist policy while in parliament.
The Communist parties must desist from the old Social Democratic habit
of electing as delegates only the so-called "experienced" parliamentarians, chiefly
lawyers and so on. As a rule workmen should be put forward as candidates,
without troubling al)out the fact that these may be sometimes simple rank-and-
file workmen. The Communist Party must treat with merciless contempt all
elements who try to make a career by joining the party just before elections
in order to get into parliament. The Central Committees of Communist parties
must sanction the candidacy of only such men as by long years of work have
proved their unwavering loyalty to the working class.
2. When the elections are over, the organization of the parliamentary factions
must be wholly in the liands of the Central Committee of the Conununist Party —
whether the party in general is a lawful or unlawful one at the given moment.
The chairman and the bureau of the parliamentary faction of Communists must
he confirmed in their functions by the Central Committee of the Party. The
Central Committee of the Party must have its permanent representative in the
parliamentary faction with the right of veto. On all important political ques-
tions the parliamentary faction shall get preliminary instructions from the
Central Committee of the Party.
At each forthcoming important debate of the Communists in the parliament,
the Central Committee sliall bo entitled and I)ound to appoint or reject the
orator of the faction, to demand that he submit previously the theses of his
speech, or the text, for confirmation by the Central Committee, etc. Each candi-
date entered in the list of the Connnunists must sign a paper to the effect that
at the first request of the Central Committee of the Party he shall be bound
to give up his mandate, in order that in a given situation the act of leaving the
parliament may be executed in luiison.
3. In countries where reformist, semi-reformist or simply career-seeking ele-
ments have managed to penetrate into the parliamentary faction of the Com-
munists (as has already happened in several places), the Central Committees
of the Communist Parties are bound radically to weed out the personnel of the
factions, on the principle that it is better for the cause of the working class
to have a small but truly Communist faction than a large one without a regular
Communist line of conditct.
4. A Communist delegate, by decision of the Central Committee, is bound
to combine lawful work with unlawful work. In countries where the Communist
delegate enjoys a certain inviolability, this must be utilized by way of rendering
assistance to illegal organizations and for the propaganda of the party.
.5. The Communist members shall make all their parliamentary work depend-
ent on the work of the Party outside the parliament. The regular proposing
of demonstrative measures, uot for the purpose of having them passed by the
bourgeois majority, but for the purpose of jiropaganda, agitation, aiid organiza-
tion, must be carried on under the direction of the party and its Central
Committee.
J34 UN-AMBRIOAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
6. In the event of labor demonstrations in the streets or other revolutiouarjr
movements, the Commnnist members must occupy the most conspicuous place —
at the head of the proletarian masses.
7. The Communist deputies must try to get in touch (under the control of
the party) v^^ith the revolutionary workingmen, peasants, and other workers
either by correspondence or otherwise. They must in no way act like the
Social Democratic deputies who carry on mere business relations with the con-
stituents. They must always be at the disposal of the Commnnist organiza-
tions for propaganda work in the country.
8. Each Communist member nnist remember that he is not a "legislator"
who is bound to seek agreements with the other legislators, but an agitator of
the Party, detailed into the enemy's camp in order to carry out the orders of
the Party there. The Communist member is answerable not to the wide mas.<
of his constituents, but to his own Comnnmist Party— whether lawful or
unlawful.
9. The Communist members must speak in parliament in such a way as tt> be
understood by every workman, peasant, washerwoman, shepherd; so that
the Party may publish his sijeeches and spread them tol the most remote
villages of the country.
10. The rank-and-tile Communist worker must not shrink from speaking in
the bourgeois parliaments, and not give way to the so-called experienced
parliamentarians, even if such woikingmen are novices in parliamentary
methods. In case of need the workingmen members may read their speeches
from notes, in order that the speech may be printed afterwards in the papers
or in leaflet form.
11. The Communist members mnst make use of the parliamentary tribune to
denounce not only the bourgeoisie and its hangers-on, but also for the denuncia-
tion of the social patriots, reformists, the half-and-half politicians of the
centre and other opponents of Communism, and for the wide propagation of
the ideas of the Third International.
12. The Communist members, even though there should be only one or two
of them in the parliament, should by their whole conduct challenge capitalism,
and never forget that only those are worthy of the name of Communists, who
not in words only but in deeds are the mortal enemy of the bourgeois order
and its social-patriotic flunkeys.
The Trade Union Movement, Factory Committees, anu the Third International
The trade unions, created by the working class during the period of the
peaceful development of capitalism, were organizations of the workers for the
struggle for the increase of the price of labor at the labor market, and the im-
provement of labor conditions. The revolutionary Marxists endeavored by their
influence to unite them with the political party of the proletariat, the Socinl
Democracy, for a joint struggle for Socialism. For the same reasons that the
international Social Democracy, with a few exceptions, proved to be not an in-
strument of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for the overthrow of
capitalism, but an organization which held back the proletariat from revolution
in interests of the bourgeoisie, the trade unions proved to be in inost cases, duriiiir
the war, a part of the military apparatus of the bourgeoisie, helping the latter
to exploit from the working class as much sweat as possible for a more energetic
warfare for capitalist profits. Containing chiefly the skilled workmen, the better
paid, limited by their craft narrowmindedness, fettered by a bureaucratic appa-
ratus, which had removed itself from the masses, demoralized by their oppor-
tunist leaders, the labor xuiions betrayed not only the cause of the Social Revolu-
tion, but even also the struggle for the improvement of the conditions of life of
the workmen organized by them. They started from the point of view of the
trade union struggle against the employers, and replaced it by the program of
an amiable arrangement with the capitalists, at any cost. This policy was carried
on not oilly by liberal unions of England and America, not only by the would-be
"Socialist". Trade unions in Germany and Austria, but by the Syndicalist unions
in France as well.
2. The economic consequences of the war, the complete disorganization of worlil
economy, the insane prices, the unlimited application of the labor of women and
children, the aggravation of the housing conditions, all these are forcing tlu"-
large masses of the proletariat into the struggle against capital i.sm. This strug-
gle is revolutionary warfare by its proposition, and the character that it i.s;
assuming more and more every day ; a warfare destroying objectively the bases;
APPEiNDIX, PART 1 135
of the capitalist order. The increase of wages, ohtained one day by the economic
struggle of one or another category of workers, is the next day nullified by the
high prices. The prices must continue to vise, because the capitalist class of the
victorious countries, ruining by their policy of exploitation central and eastern
Europe, is not only not in a position to organize world economy but is incessantly
disorganizing it. For the success of their economic struggle, the larger masses of
workers who up to this time have stood apart from the labor unions, are now
flowing into their ranks in a powerful stream. In all capitalist .countries a tre-
mendous increase of the trade unions is to be noticed, which now become organi-
zations of the chief masses of the proletariat, not only if its advanced elements.
Flowing into the unions, these masses strive to make them their weapons of
battle. The sharpening of class antagonism compels the trade unions to lead
strikes, which flow in a broad wave over the entire capitalist world, constantly
interrupting the process of capitalist production and exchange. Increasing their
demands in proportion to the rising prices and their own exhaustion, the working
classes undermine the basis of all capitalist calculations, that elementary premise
of every well organized economic management. The unions, which during the
war had been organs of compulsion over the working masses, become in this way
organs for the annihilation of capitalism.
3. The old trade union bureaucracy and the old forms of organization of the
trade unions are in every way opposing such a change in the nature of the trade
unions. The old trade unions Bureaucracy is endeavoring in many places to
maintain the old trade unions as organizations of the workers" aristocracy. It
preserves the rules which make it impossible for the badly paid working classes
to enter into the trade union organizations. The old trade union aristocracy is
even now intensifying its efforts to replace the strike methods, which are ever
more and more acquiring the character of revolutionary warfare between the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat, by the policy of arrangements with the capitalists,
the policy of long term contracts, which have lost all sense simply in view of
constant insane rise of prices. It tries to force upon the workers the policy of
"Joint Industrial Councils," and legally to impede the leading of sti'ikes with the
assistance of the capitalist State. At the most tense moments of the struggle
this bureaucracy sows trouble and confusion among the struggling masses of
the workers, impeding the fusion of the struggle of various categories of
workmen into one general class struggle. In these attempts it is helped by
the old organization of the trade unions according to crafts, which breaks up the
workmen of one branch of production into separate professional groups, not-
withstanding their being bound together by the process of capitalist exploita-
tion. It rests on the force of tradition of the ideology of the old labor aristoc-
racy, which is now constantly being weakened by the process of suppression of
the privilege of separate groups of the proletariat through the general decay of
capitalism, the equalization of the level of the working class and the growth
of its need and the precariousness of its livelihood. In this way the trade
imion bureaucracy breaks up the powerful stream of the labor movement
into weak streamlets, substitutes partial reformist demands for the general
revolutionary aims of the movement, and on the whole retards the transfor-
mation of the struggle of the proletariat into a revolutionary struggle for
the annihilation of capitalism.
4. Bearing in mind the rush of the enormous working masses into the trade
rnions. and also the objective revolutionary character of the economic struggle
which those masses are carrying on in spite of the trade union bureaucracy, the
Communists must join such unions in all countries, in order to make of them
efticient organs of the struggle for the suppression of capitalism and for Com-
munism. They must initiate the forming of trade unions where these do not
exist. All voluntary withdrawal from the industrial movement, every arti-
ficial attempt to organize special unions, without being compelled thereto by
exceptional acts of violence on the part of the trade union bureaucracy,
such as expulsion of separate revolutionary local branches of the unions
by the opportunist officials, or by their narrow-minded aristocratic policy,
which prohibits the unskilled workers from entering into the organization,
represents a great danger to the Communist movement. It threatens to hand
over the most advanced, the most conscious workers, to the opportunist leaders,
playing into the hands of the bourgeoisie. . . . The luke-warmness of
the working masses, their ideological Indecision, their tendency to yield to the
arguments of opportunist leaders, can be overcome only during the process of
the evergrowing struggle, by degrees as the wider masses of the proletariat
learn to understand, by experience, by their victories and defeats, that ob-
136 CN-AMERICAX PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
jectiveJy it is already impossible to obtain Imman conditions of life on the
basis of capitalist methods of management ; and by degrees as the advanced
Communist workmen Jearn through their economic struggle to be not only
preachers of the ideas of Communism, but also the most determined leaders
of the economic struggle of the labor unions — only in this ^\'ay will it be possible
to remove from the unions their opportunist leaders, only in this way will the
Communists be able to take the lead of rlie trade-union movement, and make of
it an organ of the revohitionary struggle for Communism. Only in this way can
tliey prevent the break-up of tlie trade unions, and replace them by industrial
unions, remove the old bureauiracy separated from the masses and replace it by
the apparatus of factory-representatives, leaving only the most necessary func-
tions to the center.
5. Placing the object and the essence of labor organizations before them, the
Communists ought not to hesitate before a split in such organizations, if a
refusal to split would mean abandoning revolutionary work in the trade unions,
and giving up tlie attempt to make of them an instrument of revolutionary
struggle, the attemjit to orgjinize the most exploited part of the proletariat.
But even if such a split siiould be necessary, it must be carried into effect only
at a time when tiie Comnnuiists have succeeded by the incessant warfai'e against
the opportunist leaders and their tactics, by their most active participation in
the economic struggle, in persuading the wider masses of workmen that the split
is occurring not because of the remote and as yet incomprehensible aims of the
i-evolution, but on account of the concrete, immediate interests of the working
class in the development of its economic struggle. The Communists in case a
necessity for a split arises, must continuously and attentively discu.ss the ques-
tion as to whether a split might not lead to their isolation from the working
mass.
6. Where a split between the opportunists and the revolutionary trade union
movement has already taken place before, where, as in America, alongside the
opportunist trade unions there are unions with revolutionary tendencies — al-
though not Comijiunist ones — there the Ccnnmunists are bound to support such
revolutionary unions, to persuade thein to abandon Syndicalist prejudices and
to place themselves on the platform of Connnunism, which alone is a trustworthy
compass in the complicated question of the economic struggle. Where within
the trade unions or outside of them in the factories, organizations are formed,
such as shop stewards, factory committees, etc., for the purpose of fighting
against the counter-revolutionary tendencies of the trade-union bureaucracy, to
support the spontaneous direct action of the proletariat, there, of course,' the
Oomminiists must with all their energy give assistance to these organizations.
But the support of the revolutionary trade unions, which are in a state of fer-
ment and passing over to the class struggle, must not be neglected. On the con-
trary, by approaching this evolution of the unions on their way to a revolution-
ary struggle, the Connnunists will be able to play the part of aii element uniting
the politically and industrially organized workmen in their joint struggle for
the suppression of capitalism.
The economic struggle of the proletariat becomes a political struggle during
an epoch of the decline of capitalism nmch quicker than during an epoch of
its peaceful development. Every serious economic clash may immediately place
the workers face to face with the question of revolution. ' Therefore it' is the
duty of the Communists in all the phases of the economic struggle to point out
to the workers, that the success of the struggle is only possible if the working
class conquers the capitalists in open fight, and by means of dictatorship pro-
peeds to the organization of a Socialist order, (^'onsequently. the Communists
must strive to create as far as i>ossible complete unity "between the trade
unions and the Communist party, and to subordinate the unions to the prac-
tical leadership of the Party, as the advance guard of the workers' revolutions.
For this purpose the Ccmmuuiists should have Communist factions in all the
trade unions and factory committees, and acquire by their means and influence
over the labor movement and direct it.
II
1. The economic struggle of the proletariat for the increase of wages and
the imT)rovenient of the conditions of life of the masses, is getting more and
more into a blind alley. The economic crisis, embracing one country after
another in ever increasing proportions, is showing to even unenlightened work-
ingmen that it is not enough to demand an increase of wages and a shortening
APPEiNDIX, PART 1 137
of the working hours, but thnt the capitalist classes less capable every day
of establishing the normal conditions of public economy and of guaranteeing
to the workers at least those conditions of life which it gave them before the
world war. Out of this growing conviction of the working masses are born
their efforts to create organizations which will be able to commence a struggle
for the alleviation of the situation by means of workers' control over pro-
duction through the medium of the factory committees. This aspiration to
create factory committees, which is more and more taking iwssession of the
workingmen of different countries, takes its origin from the most varied causes
(struggle against tlie counter-revolutionary bureaucracy, discouragement after
union defeats, striving to create an organization embracing all workers), but
in the end it results in the fight for control over industry, the special historic
task of the factory committees. Therefore it is a mistake to form the shop
committees only out of workingmen who are already struggling for the dic-
tatoi-ship of the proletariat; on the contrary, the duty of the Communist Party
is to organize all the workingmen on the ground for the economic crisis, and
to lead them toward the strv;ggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat by
developing the struggle for workers' control over production, which they all
understand.
2. The Communist Party will be able to accomplish this task if, taking part
in the struggle in the factory committees, it will instill in the minds of the
masses the consciousness that a systematic reconstruction of the public econ-
omy on the basis of a capitalist order, which would mean its new enslavement
by the government in favor of the industrial class, is now fatally impossible.
The organization of the economic management corresiionding with the interests
of the working masses, is possible only when the government is in the hands
of the working class, when the strong hand of the labor dictatorship will
proceed to the suppression of capitalism and to the new Socialist organization.
3. The struggle of the factory committees against capitalism has for its'
immediate object workers' control over production.
The workers of every enterprise, every branch of industry, no matter what
their trade, suffer from the "sabotage" of production on the part of capitalists,
wh<i frequently consider it more profitable to stop production in order that it
may be easier to compel the workingmen to agree to unsatisfactory labor
conditions, or not to invest new canital in industry at a moment of a general
rise in prices. The need to protect themselves against such sabotage of pro-
duction by the capitalists luiites the workingmen independently of their polit-
ical opinions, and therefore, the factory conunittees elected by the workingmen
of a given enterprise are the broadest mass organizations of the proletariat.
But the disorganization of capitalist management is the result not only of
the conscious will of the capitalists, but in a still greater degree an inevitable
decline of capitalism. Therefore in their struggle against the consequences of
such a decline, the factory committees must go beyond the limits of control in
separate factories. The factory committees of separate factories will soon
be faced with the question of workers' control over the whole branches of
industry and their combinati<ms. And as any attempt on the part of the
workingmen to exercise a control over the supplying of the factories with raw ma-
terial or to control the financial operations of the Factory owners, v/ill meet
with the most energetic measures against the working class on the pait of the
bourgeoisie and the capitalist government, the struggle for workers' control
over production must lead to the struggle for a seizure of power by the working
class.
4. The campaign in favor of the factory committees n>ust be conducted in
such a way that into the minds of the popular masses, even not directly be-
longing to the factory proletariat, there should be instilled the conviction that
the bourgeoisie is responsible for the economic crisis, while the proletariat, im-
der the motto of workers' control of indstry. is struggling for the organization
of produ^-tion. for the suppression of speculation, dism-ganization and high
prices, the duty of the Communist Parties is to struggle for control over pro-
duction on the ground of the most insistent questions of the day, the lack of
fuel, the transport crisis — to unite the different groups of the proletariat and
to attract wide circles of the petty bour<reoisie, which is ber-omino- nioi'e and
mo»-e proletarized day by day, and is suffering extremely from, the economic
crisis.
5. The factory committees cannot be substituted for the labor unions. Dur-
ing the process of struggle they mav forTU unions outside the limits of single
factories and trades, according to the branches of production, and create a
138 UN-AMERIOAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
-general apparatus for the direction of the struggle. The labor unions are
already now centralized fighting organs, although they do not embrace such
wide masses of workingmen as the factory committees are capable of, these
latter being loose organizations which arc accessible to all the workers of a
given enterprise. The division of tasks between the shop committees and the
industi-ial unions is the result of the historical development of the social revolu-
tion. The industrial unions organize the working masses for the struggle for
the increase of wages and shortening of work-hours on a national scale. The
factory committees are organized for workers' control over production, for tlir
struggle against the crisi.'s, cm.bracing all the workingmen of the enterprises, but
tlieir struggle can only gradually assume the character of a national one.
The Connnunists must endeavor to render the factory comn>ittecs the nuclei of
the labor unions and to support them in proportion as the unions overcome
the counter-revolutionary tendencies of their bureaucracy, as they consciously
h(>come organs of the revolution.
G. The duty of the Connnunists consists in inspiring the labor unions and the
factory committee with a spirit of determined struggle, and the consciousness
and knowledge of the best methods of such a struggle — tlie spirit of Commun-
ism.. In execution of this duty the Communists must practically subordinalc
the factory committees and the unions to the Connnunist Party, and thus create
a proletarian mass organ, a basis for a powerful centraliz(Hl party of the
proletariat, embracing all the organizations of the proletarian struggle, lendin;:
them all to one aim, to the victory of the working class, through the dictator-
ship of the proletariat to Communism. The Communists converting the labor
unions and factory committees into powerful weai)ons of the n'volution, pre-
pare these miiss organizations for the great task which they will have aft«'r
the establishment of the dictator.shiii of the proletariat, for the task of being
the Instmment of the reorganization of economic life on a Socialistic basis.
The labor unions, developed as industrial iniions and supported by the factory
committees as their factory organizations, will then make the working mas.ses
acquainted with their tjisks of production: they will educate the most experi-
enced workingmen to become leaders of the factories to control the technical
specialists, and, together with the repre.sentatives of the Workers' State, will
lay down the plan of the Socialist economic policy, and carry it out.
Ill
1. The labor unions tried to form international unions even in time of peace,
because during strikes the capitalists used to invite workers from other coun-
tries, as strike-breakers. But the International of Labor T'nions had only a
secondary importance before the war. It made one union support another
when needful ; it organized social statistic, hut it did nothing for the organiza-
tion of a joint struggle, because the labor unions, under the leader.ship of op-
portunists, strove to avoid all revolutionary collisions on an international scale.
The opportunist leaders of the lal)or unions, who, each in his own country,
during the war were flunkies of the bourgeoisie, are now striving to revive the
International of Labor Union, attempting to make it a weapon for the direct
struggle of international world capital against the proletariat. Under the di-
rection of Legien, Jouhaux, Gompers, they are creating a Labor Unreau of the
League of Nations, the organization of international capitalist robbery. In all
countries they are attempting to crush the strike movement by means of laws,
compelling the workmen to submit to the arbitration of representatives of the
■capitalist State.
They are endeavoring to obtain concessions for the skilled workers by
means of agreements with the capitalists, in order to break in this way
tl'.e growing unity of the working class. The Amsterdam International of
Labor Unions is thus a substitute for the bankrupt Second International of
IBrussels.
The Communist workers who are members of the labor unions in all
C'Oimtries must, on the contrary, strive to create an international battle fr<nit
of labor unions. The question now is not financial relief in case of strikes:
but when the danger is threatening the working class of one country, the
labor unions of the others, being organizations of the larger mas.ses, shoidd
all come to its defen.se: they should make it impossible for the bourgeoisie of
their respective countries to render assistance to the bourgeoisie of the country
engaged in the struggle against the working class. The economic struggle
against the working class, the economic str,uggle of the proh'tariat in all conn-
APPENDIX, PART 1 ] 39
tries, is daily becoming more and more a revolutionai-y .struggle. Therefore the
labor unions must consciously use their forces for the support of all revolution-
ary struggles in their own and in other countries. For this purpose they must
not only, in their own countries, strive to attain as great centralization of their
struggle as possible, but they must do so on an international scale by joining the
Communist International, and by vmiting in one army the different parts of
-which shall carry on the struggle co-jointly, supporting one another.
Whesst and Under What Conditions Soviets of Workers' Deputies
Should Be Formed
1. The Soviets of Workers' Deputies appeared for the first time in Russia
in 1905, at a time when the revolutionary movement of Russian workingmen
was at its heiglit. Already in 1905 the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' Deputies
was taking the first instinctive steps towards a seizure of the power. And at
that time the Petrograd Soviet was strong only as far as it had a chance
of acquiring political power. As soon as the Imperial counter-revolution rallied
its forces and the labor movement slackened, the Soviet, after a short vege-
tatitm, ceased to exist.
2. When in 190.5, at the beginning of a new strong revolutionary wave,
the idea began to awaken in Russia regarding the immediate organization of
Soviets of Workers' Deputies, the Bolshevik party warned the workingmen
against the immediate formation of the Soviets, and pointed out that such a
foi'iuation would be well-timed only at the moment when the revolution
■would have already begun, and when the turn would have come for the direct
■struggle for the power.
3. At the beginning of the February revolution of 1917. when the Soviets of
Workers' Deputies were transformed into Soviets of Wox-kers' and Soldiers'
Deputies, they drew into the .sphere of their influence the widest circles of
the popular masses and at once acquired a tremendous authority, because
the real force was on tlieir side, in their hands. But when the liberal bour-
geoisie recovered from the suddenness of the first revolutionary blows, and
^vhen the social traitors, the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki.
lielped the Russian bourgeoisie to take the power into its hands, the importance
of the Soviets began to dwindle. Only after the Jidy days and after the
ill-success of Kornilov's counter-revolutionary campaign, when the wider popu-
lar masses began to m<ive, and when the threat of the counter-revolutionary
Iwurgeois coalition government came quite near, then the Soviets began to
flourish again ; and they soon required a pi'ominent position in the country.
4. The history of the German and the Austrian revolutions shows the same
situation. When the popular masses revolted, when the revolutionary wave
rose so high that it washed away the strongholds of the monarchies of the
Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs, in Germany and in Austria, the Soviets or
Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies were formed with gigantic rapidity. At first
the real force was on their side, and the Soviets were well on the way to
become practically the power. But, owing to a whole series of historical
■conditions, as soon as the power began to pass to the bourgeoisie and the
counter-revolutionary Social Democrats, then the Soviets began to decline
and lose all importance. During the days of the unsuccessful counter-revolu-
tionary revolt of Kapp-Liittwitz in Germany, the Soviets again resumed their
activity, but when the struggle ended again in the victory of the bourgeoisie
and the social-traitors, the Soviets, which had just begun to revive, once more
died away.
5. The above facts prove that for the formation of Soviets certain definite
premises are necessary. To organize Soviets of Workers' Deputies, and trans-
form them into Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the following con-
ditions are necessary :
a) A great revolutionary impulse among the widest circle of working men
and working women, the soldiers and the workers in general ;
h) The acuteness of a political economic crisis attaining such a degree that
the power begins to slip out of the hands of the government ;
c) A serious decision to begin a systematic and regular struggle developing
in the ranks of considerable masses of the workingmen, and first of all in
the ranks of the Communist Party.
6. In the absence of these conditions the Conununists may and should systera-
ntically and insistently propagate the idea of Soviets, jxipuJarize it among the
X40 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
masses and demonstrate to the widest circles of the population that the Soviets-
are the only efficient form of government during the transition to complete
Communism". Bnt to proceed to a direct organization of Soviets in the absence
of the above three conditions is impossible.
7. The attempt of the social traitors in Germany to introduce the Soviets
into the general bourgeois-democratic constitutional system, is treason to the
workers' cause and deception of the workingmen. Real Soviets are possible
only as a farm of state organization, relieving bourgeois democracy, breaking
it up and replacing it by a dictatorship of the proletariat.
8. The propaganda of the rit^lit leaders of the Independents (Hilferdmg.
Kautsky, and others), proving the compatibility of the Soviet "system" with
the bourgeois Constituent Assembly, is either a complete misunderstanding of
the laws of development of a proletarian revolution, or a conscious deceiving
of the working class. The Soviets are the dictatorship of the proletariat. The
Constituent Assembly is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. To unite and
reconcile the dictatorship of the working class with that of the bourgeoisie is
impossible.
9. The propaganda of some representatives of the Left Independents in
Germany presenting the workers with a ready-made, formal plan of a "Soviet
system,'"' which has no relation whatever to the concrete process of the civil
war, is a doctrinaire pastime which draws the workers away from their
essential tasks of the real struggle for power.
10. The attempts of separate Communist groups in France, Italy, America,
England to form Soviets not embracing the larger working masses and unable,
therefore, to enter into a direct struggle for power, are only prejudicial to
the actual preparation of a Soviet revolution. Such artificial hot-house
"Soviets" soon become transformed in the best of cases into small associations
for propaganda of the idea of a Soviet power, and in the worst case stich
miserable "Soviets" are capable only of compromising the idea of the power
of "Soviets" in the eyes of the popular masses.
11. At the present time there exists a special condition in Austria, where
the working class has succeeded in preserving its Soviets, which unite large
masses of workers. Here the situation resembles the period between February
and Oetol)er, 1917, in Russia. The Soviets in Austria represent a considerable
political force, and appear to be tlie embryo of a new power.
It must be niiderstood that in such a situation the Communists onght to par-
ticipate in these Soviets, help the Soviets to i:»enetrate into all phases of the
social economic and political life of the country ; they should create Commu-
nist factions within these Soviets, and by all means aid their development.
12. Soviets without a revolution are impossible. Soviets without a pro-
letarian revolution inevitably became a parody of Soviets. Tlie authentic
Soviets of the masses are the historically revealed form of the dictatorship of the
proletariat. All sincere and serious partisans of the power of Soviets should
deal cautionsly with the idea of Soviets, and while indefatigably propagating
it among the mas.ses, proceed to the direct realization of such Soviets only under
the conditions mentioned above.
Theses on the National and Colonial Questions.
A.) THESES.
1. It is typical of bourgeois democracy, by its very nature, to take an abstract
or forinj'd attitude towards the question of the colonies in general, and to that
of national e(piality in particular. Under the appearance of the eqttality of
human beings in general, bourgeois democracy proclaims the formal or judicial
equality of the i)roprietor and the proletarian, of the exploiter and the exploited,
thereby greatly deceiving the oppressed classes. On the pretext of absolute
equality which is in itself but a rellection of the relations caused by commodity
production, he converts them into an instnnnent in the struggle"^ against the
abolition of classes. But the real essence of the demand for equality is based
on the demand for the abolition of classes.
2. In conformity with its chief task — the struggle against boni'geois democ-
racy and the denunciation of its lies and deceptions — the Communist Party
being the class conscious expression ot tlie struggle of the proletariat to cast off
the yoke of the bourgeoisie, must not advance any abstract and formal princi-
ples on the national question, but must first analyz-e liie historical, and, before
APPENDIX, PAPvT 1 141
nil, the economic conditions; second, it must clearly distinguish the interests
of 'the oppressed classes, of the toilers, of the exploited, from the general con-
ception of national interests which in reality means the interests of the ruling
class; third, it must equally separate the oppressed and subject nations from
the dominating nations, in* contradistinction to the liourgeois democratic lies
concealing the enslavement of a vast majority of the population of the earth
by an insignificant minority of the advanced capitalist nations which is peculiar
to the epoch of financial capital and imperialism.
3. The imperialist war of 1914 has deujonstrated very clearly to all nations
and to all opiiressed classes of the world the deceitfulness of bourgeois demo-
cratic phraseology. That war has been carried on on both sides under the false
motto of the freedom of nations and luttional self-determination. But the
Brest Litovsk and Bucharest peace on the one hand, and the Versailles and
Saint-Germain peace on the other, have shown how the bourgeoisie establishes
even "national" boundaries in conformity with its own economic interests,
•'National" boundaries are for the bourgeoisie nothing but market commodities.
The so-called "League of Nations" is nothing but an insurance policy in which
the victoi-s mutually guarantee each other their prey. The striving for the
reconstruction of national unity and of the "re-union of alienated territories"
on the part of the bourgeoisie, is nothing but an attempt of the vanquished to
gather forces for new wars. The re-uniting of the nationalities artificially torn
asunder corresponds also to the interests of the prolet;u-iat only through revolu-
tionary struggle and by the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. The League of Na-
tions and the policy of the imperialist powers after the war demonstrate this
even more clearly and definitely, making the revolutionary struggle in the
.■idvanced countries more acute, increasing the ferment of the working masses
of the colonies and the sul>ject countries, and dispelling the middle class na-
tionalistic illusion of the possibility of peaceful collaboration and equality of
D.-itions under capitalism.
4. It follows from the fundamental principles laid down above, that the policy
of the Conununist International on the National and Colonial questions must be
chiefly to bring about a union of the proletarian and working masses of all nations
and countries for a joint revolutionary struggle leading to the overthrow of
capitalism, without which national equality and oppression cannot be abolished.
5. The. political situation of the world at the present time has placed the
question of tlie dictatorship (^f the proletariat in the foreground, and all the events
of world politics are inevitably concentrating around one point, namely, the
struggle of the bourgeois world against the Russi;in Soviet Republic, which is
grouping around itself the Soviet movements of the vanguard of the workers of
all countries, and all national liberation movements of the colonial and subject
counti-ies, which have been taught by bitter experience that there can be no salva-
tion for them outside of a union with the revolutionary proletariat, and the
triumph of the Soviet power over Imperialism.
6. Consequently, we nutst not content ourselves with a mere recognition or
declaration concerning the tmlty of the workers of different nations, but we
must carry out a policy of realizing the closest union between all national and
colonial liberation movements and Soviet Russia, determining the forms of this
union in accordance with the stage of development of the Conununist movement
among the proletariat of each country, or the revolutionary liberation movement
hi the subject nations and backward countries.
7. Federation is a transitional form towards the complete imion of the workers
of all countries. It has already proved its efficiency in practice in the relations
of the Socialist Federated Soviet Republic of Russia to the other Soviet Republics
(Hungarian, Finnish, Lettish, in the past; and the Azerbeidjan and Ukrainian
in the present ) , as also within the borders of the Socialist Federal Soviet Republic
of Russia with regard to the nationalities which had neither their own govern-
ment nor any self-governing institutions (for example, the autonomous Republic
of Bashkiria and the Tartar Republic, wbich were formed in 1019 — 1920 by the
Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic).
8. It is the task of the Communist International in this regard not only to
develop further, but also to study and test by experience, these federations which
have arisen out of the Soviet order and the Soviet movement. Recognizing fed-
eration as a transition form towards complete tuiion, we must strive for ever
closer federative connections, bearing in mind first, the impossibility of maintain-
ing the Soviet Republic surrounded by powerful imperialist nations, without a
close union with other Soviet Republics ; second, the necessity of a close economic
union of the Soviet Republics, without which the restoration of the forces of pro
142 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
(luction destroyed by Imperialism, and the assuring of the welfare of the workers
is impossible ; third, the striving towards the creation of a unified world economy
based on one general plan and regulated by the proletariat of all the nations of
the world. This tendency has already manifested itself under capitalism, and is
undoubtedly going to be further developed and perfected by Socialism.
9. With regard to inter-state relations, the international policy of the Com-
munist International cannot limit itself to a mere formal verbal declaration of
the recognition of the equality of nations, which does not involve any practical
obligations, such as has been made by the bourgeois democrats who styled them-
selves socialist. The constant violations of the equality of nations and the
infringement upon the rights of national minorities practised in all the capitalist
states in spite of the democratic constitutions, must be denounced in all the propa-
ganda and agitational activity of the Communist International, within, as well
as outside the parliament. It is likewise necessary, first, to explain constantly
that only the Soviet regime is able to give the nations real equality, by uniting the
proletariat and all the masses of the workers in the stiuggle against the bour-
geoisie ; second, to support the i-evolutionary movement among the subject nations
(for example, Ireland, American negroes, etc.) and in the colonies.
Without this last, especially important conditiun the struggle against the
oppression of dependent nations and colonies, as well as the recognition of their
right to an independent existence, is only a misleading signboard, such as has
been exhibited by the i)arties of the Second International.
10. It is the habitual practice not only of the centre parties of the Second
International, but also of those which have left it. to recognize internationali.sm
in words and then to adulterate it in their propaganda, agitation, and practical
activity by mixing it up with petty bourgeois nationalism and pacifism. This
is to be found even among those parties that at present call themselves Com-
munist. The struggle against this evil, and against the deep-rooted petty
bourgeois national pi-ejudices (manifesting themselves in various forms, such
as race hatred, national ant.-igonism and antisemitism). must be brought to the
foreground the more vigorously because of the urgent necessity of transforming
the dictatorship of the proletariat and changing it from a national basis (i. e.,
existing in one country and incapable of exercising an influence over world
politics), into an international dictatorship ( i. e., a dictatorship of the proletariat
of at least several advanced countries capable of exercising a determined influ-
ence upon world politics). Petty bourgeois internationalism means the mere
recognition of the rights of national equality, and preserves intact national ego-
tism. Proletarian internationalism, on the other hand, demands: (1) the sub-
ordination of the intei'e.sts of the proletarian struggle in one nation to the inter-
ests of that struggle on an international scale; (2) the capability and the readi-
ness on the part of one nation which has gained a victory over the bourgeoisie, of
making the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international
capitalism.
In the countries in which fully developed capitalist states exist, the labor
parties, comprising the vanguard of the proletariat, must consider it as their
primary and most important task to combat the opportunist an<l petty bourgeois
pacifist confusion of the ideas and the policy of internationalism.
11. AVith regard to those states and nati(inalities where a backward, mainly
feudal, patriarchal, or patriarchal-agrarian regime prevails, the following must
be borne in mind: 1) All ("onnnunist parties must give active support to the
revolutionary movements of liberation, the form of support to be determined
by a study of existing conditions, carried on by the party wherever there is
one. This duty of rendering active support is to be impo.«ed in the first place-
on the workers of those countries on whom the subject nation is dependent
in a colonial or financial way: 2) Naturally, a struggle must be carried on
against the reactionary nudiaeval influences of the clergy, the christian mis-
sions, and similar elements; H) It is iilso necessary to combat the pan-Islam
and pan-Asiatic and similar movements, which are" endeavoring to utilize the
liberation struggle against European and American imperialism for the purpose
of strengthening the power of Turkish and .lapanese iniperiiilists, of the nobility,
of the large land owners, of the clergy, etc.: 4) It is of special importance to
support the peasant movements in backward countries against the land owners
and all feudal survivals: above all, we nmst strive as far as possible to give the
peasant movement a revolutionary character, to organize the peasants "and all
the exploited into the Soviets, and thus bring about the closest possible union
between the romminiist proletariat of Western Europe and the revolutionary
peasant movement of the East and of the colonial and subject countries; 5) It
is likewise necessary to wage determined war against the attempt of quasi-
APPE^^DIX, PART 1 143..
Coniimiiiist revolutionists to cloak the liboration movement in the backward
coimtries with a Cunnnnnist garb. It is the duty of the Communist International
to support the revolutionary movement in the colonies and in the backward'
countries, for the exclusive purpose of uniting the various units of the future-
proletarian parties — such as are Comnnuiist not t)nly in name^ — in all back-
ward countries and educate them to the consciousness of their specific tasks, i. e.,.
to the tasks of the struggle against the bourgeois democratic tendencies within
their respective nationalities. The Communist International muist establish
temporai'y relations and even unions with the revolutionary movements in the
colonies and backward countries, without, however, amalgamating with them, but
preserving the independent character of the proletarian movement, even though
it be still in its embryonic state. 6) It is essential continually to expose the
deception fostered among the masses of the toilers in all, and especially in the
backward countries, by the imperialist powers aided by privileged classes of"
the subject countries, in creating under the mask of political independence various
governments and state institutions which are in reality completely dependent
upon them economically, financially and in a military sense. As a striking
example of the deception practised upon the working class of a subject country
through the combined efforts of Allied Imperialism and bourgeoisie of the
given nation, we may cite the Palestine affair of the Zionists, where, under the-
pretext of creating a Jewish state in Palestine, in which the Jews form only an
insignificant part of the population. Zionism has delivered the native Arabian
working population t(» the exploitation of England. Only a union of Soviet
Republics can bring salvation to the dependent and weak nationalities under
present International conditions.
12. The age long enslavement of the colonial and weak nationrJities by the
imperialist powers, has given rise to a feeling of I'ancour among the masses of
the enslaved countries, as well as to a feeling of distrust towards the oppressive -
nations in general and towards the proletariat of those nations. These senti-
ments have becojjie strengthened by the base treachery of the majority of the-
official leaders of the proletariat in the years of 1914-1919, when the social
patriots came out in defence of their fatherlands and of the "rights" of their
bourgeoisie to the enslavement of the colonies and to the plunder of the financially
dependent countries. These sentiments can be completely rooted out only by
the abolition of imperialism in the advanced countries and the radical trans-
formation of all the foundations of economic life in the backward countries.
Thus it will take a long time for these national prejudices to disappear. This
impo.ses upon the class conscious proletariat of all countries the duty of exercising
special caution and care with regard to these national sentiments still surviving
in the countries and nationalities which have been subjected to lasting enslave-
ment, and also of making necessary concessions in order more speedily to remove
this distrust and prejudice. The victory over capitalism cannot be fully achieved
and carried to its ultimate goal unless the proletariat and the toiling masses of
all nations of the world rally of their own accord in a harmonious and close
union.
B. ) SUPPLEMENTARY THESES
1. To determine more especially the relation of the Communist International
to the revolutionary movements in the countries dominated by capitalistic im-
perialism, for instance, China and India, is one of the most important questions
before the Second Congress of the Third Internationiil. The history of the
world revolution has come to a peiiod when a proper understanding of this re-
lation is indispensable. The great European war and its results have shown
clearly that the mas.ses of non-European subject countries are inseparably con-
nected with the proletarian movement in Europe, as a consequence of the cen-
tralization of world capitalism — for instance, the sending of colonial troops and
huge armies of workers to the battle front during the war, etc.
2. One of the main sources from which European capitalism draws its chief
strength is to be found in the colonial possessions and deijendencies. Without
the control of the extensive ??V??V and vast fields of exploitation in the colonies,
the capitalist powers of Europe, cannot maintain their existence even for a
short time. P]ngland, the stronghold of imperialism, has been suffering from
overproduction for more than a century. But for the extensive colonial pos-
sessions ac(iuired for the sale of her surplus products and as a source of raw
materials for her ever-growing industries, the capitalistic structure of England
144 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
would have been crushed uuder its own weight long ago. By euslayiug the hun-
dreds of millions of inhabitants of Asia and Africa, English imperialism succeeds
so far in keeping the British proletariat under the domination of the bourgeoisie.
3. Super-profit gained in the colonies is the mainstay of modern capitalism
and so long as the latter is not deprived of this source of super-profit, it will
not be easy for the European working class to overthrow the capitalist order.
Thanks to "the possibilitv of the extensive and intensive exploitation of human
labor and natural resources in the colonies, the capitalist nations of Europe
are trviug, not without success, to recuperate their present bankruptcy. By
exploiting the masses in the colonies, European imperialism will be m a iwsition
to give concession after concession to the labor aristocracy at home While, on
the one hand, European imperialism seeks to lower the standard of living of the
home proletariat bv bringing into competition the productions of the lower paid
workers in subjectV-ountries, on the other hand, it wnll not hesitate to go to the
extent of sacrificing the entire surplus value in the home country so long as it
continues to gain its huge super-profits in the colonies. . , ^, , ^ •
4 The breaking up of the colonial empire, together with the proletarian
revolution in the home country, will ovei'thiow the capitalist system in Europe.
Consequently, the Communist International must widen the sphere of its
activities. It must establish relations with those revolutionary forces that
are working for the overthrow of imperialism in the countries subjected
politically and economically. These two forces must be co-ordinated if the
final success of the world revolution is to be guaranteed.
.5. The Communist International is the concentrated will of the world revo-
lutionary proletariat. Its mission is to organize the working class of the whole
world for the overthrow of the capitalistic order and the establishment of
Communism. The Third International is a fighting body which must assume
the task of combining the revolutionary forces of all the countries of the
world. Dominated as it was by a group of politicians, permeated with bour-
geois culture, the Second International failed to appreciate the importance of
the colonial question. For them the w'orld did not exist outside of Europe.
They could not see the necessity of co-ordinating the revolutionary movement
of Europe with those in the non-European countries. Instead of giving moral
and material help to the revolutionary movement in the colonies, the members
of the Second International themselves became imperialists.
6. Foreign imperialism, imposed on the Eastern peoples prevented them from
developing, socially and economically, side by side wath their felhtws in Europe
and America. Owing to the imperialist policy of preventing industrial devel-
opment in the colonies, a proletarian class, in the strict sense of the word,
could not come into existence there until recently. The ingenious craft indus-
tries were destroyed to make room for the products of the centralized indus-
tries in the imperialistic countries, con.sequently a majority of the population
was driven to the land to produce food, grains, and raw materials for export
to foreign lands. On the other hand, there followed a rapid concentration of
land in the hands of the big landowners, of financial capitalists, and the state,
thus creating a huge landless peasantry. The great bulk of the population
Avas kept in a state of illiteracy. As a result of this policy, the spirit of revolt
latent in every subject people, found its expression only through the small,
educated middle class.
Foreign domination has obstructed the free development of the social forces,
therefore, its overthrow is the first step towards a revolution in the colonies.
So to help overthrow the foreign rule in the colonies is not to endorse the
nationalist aspirations of the native bourgeoisie, but to open the way to the
smothered proletariat there.
7. There are to be found in the dependent countries two distinct movements
which every day grow farther apart from each other. One is the bourgeois
democratic nationalist movement, with a programme of political independence
uuder the bourgeois order, and the other is the mass action of the poor and
ignorant peasants and workers for their lil)eration from all sorts of exploita-
tion. The former endeavor to control the latter, and often succeed to a certain
extent, but the Communist International and the parties affected must stmggle
against such control, and help to develop class consciousness in the working
masses of the colonies. For the overthrow of foreign capitalism, which is
the first step toward revolution in the colonies, the co-operation of the bour-
geois nationalist revolutionary elements is useful.
But the foremost and necessary task is the formation of Communist Parties
which will organize the peasants and workers and lead them to the revolution
APPEJVDIX, PART 1 145
and to the establishment of soviet republics. Thus the masses in the backward
countries may reach Communism, not through capitalistic development, but
led by the class conscious proletariat of the advanced capitalist countries.
8. The real strength of the liberation movements in the colonies is no longer
confined to the narrow circle of bourgeois democratic nationalists. In most
of the colonies there already exist organized revolutionary parties which strive
to be in close connection with the working masses. (The relation of the
Communist International with the revolutionary movement in the colonies
should be realized through the mediums of these parties or groups, because
they were the vanguard of the working class in their respective countries.)
They are not verv large today, but they reflect the aspirations of the masses
and' the latter will follow them to the revolution. The Communist parties of
the different imperialistic countries must work in conjunction with these pro-
letarian parties of the colonies, and, through them, give all moral and material
support to the revolutionary movement in general.
9. The revolution in the colonies is not going to be a Communist revolution
in its first stages. But from the outset the leadership is in the hands of a
Communist vanguard, the revolutionary masses will not be led astray, but
will go ahead through the successive periods of development of revolutionary
experience. Indeed, it would be extremely erroneous in many of the Oriental
countries to try to solve tie agrarian problem according to pure Communist
principles. In "its first stages the revolution in the colonies must be carried on
with a programme which will include many petty bourgeois reform clauses,
such as division of land, etc. But from this it does not follow at all that
the leadership of the revolution will have to be surrendered to the bourgeois
democrats. On the contrary, the proletarian parties must carry on vigorous
and systematic propaganda of the Soviet idea, and organize the peasants' and
workers' Soviets as soon as possible. These Soviets will work in co-operation
with the Soviet Republics in the advanced capitalistic countries for the ulti-
mate overthrow of the capitalist order throughout the world.
Thesis on the Agrarian Question
1. No one but the city industrial proletariat, led by the Communist Party,
can save the laboring masses in the country from the pressiire of capital
and landlordism, from dissolution and from inperialistic wars, ever inevitable
as long as the capitalist regime endures. There is no salvation for the peasants
except to join the Communist proletariat, to support with heart and soiil
its revolutionary struggle to throw off the yoke of the landlords and the
bourgeoisie.
On the other hand, the industrial workers will be unable to carry out their
universal historic mission, and to liberate humanity from the bondage of capital
and war, if they shut themselves within their separate guilds, their nr.rrow
trade interests, and restrict themselves self-sufficiently to a desire for the
improvement of their sometimes tolerable botirgeois conditions of life. That
is what happens in most advanced cottntries possessing a "labor aristocracy,'*
which forms the basis of the would-be parties of the Second International, who
are, in fact, the worst enemies of Socialism, traitors to it, bourgeois jingoes,
agents of the bourgeoisie in the labor movement. The proletariat becomes a
truly revolutionary class, truly Socialist in its actions, only by acting as the
vanguard of all those who work and are being exploited, as their leader in
the struggle for the overthrow of the oppressors; and this cannot be achieved
without carrying the class struggle into the agrictiltural districts, without
making the laboring masses of the country all gather around the Communist
Party of the town proletariat, without the peasants being educated by the
town proletariat.
2. The laboring and exploited masses in the cotmtry, which the town pro-
letariat must lead on to the fight, or at least wih over to its side, are repre-
sented in all capitalist coimtries by the following groups :
In the first place, the agrictiltural proletariat, the hired laborers (by the year,
by the day, l)y the job), making their living by wage hibor in capitalist, agri-
cultural or industrial establishments; the independent organization of this class,
separated from the other groups of the country population (in a political, mili-
tary, trade, co-operative, educational sense), and an energetic propaganda among
it, in order to win it over to the side of the Soviet power and of the dictatorship
of the proletariat, must be the fundamental task of the Comnnniist parties in all
countries.
04931 — 40 — app., pt. 1 11
146 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
In the second place, the semi-proletariat or small peasants, those who make
their living partly by working for wages in agricultural and industrial capitalist
establishments, partly by toiling on their own or a rented parcel of land yielding
but a part of the necessary food produce for their families ; this class of the rural
population is rather numerous in all capitalist countries, but its existence and
its peculiar position are hushed up by the representatives of the bourgeoisie
and the yellow "Socialists" affiliated to the Second International. Some of these
people intentionally cheat the workers, but others follow blindly the average
views of the public and mix up this special clas.s with the whole mass of the
"peasantry." Such a method of bourgeois deception of the workers is used more
particularly in Germany and France, and then in America and other countries.
Provided that the work of the Communist Party is well organized, this group
is sure to side with the Communists, the conditions of life of these half-prole-
tarians being very hard, the advantage the Soviet power and the dictatorship of
the proletariat would bring them being enormous and immediate. In some coun-
tries there is no clear-cut distinction between these two groups ; it is, therefore,
permissible under certain conditions to form them into separate organizations.
In the third place, the little proprietors, the small farmers who possess by
right of ownership or on rent small portions of land which satisfy the needs of
their family and of their farming without requiring any additional wage labor ;
this part of the population as a class gains everytliing by the victory of the
proletariat, which brings with it: a) liberation from the payment of rent or of
a part of the crops (for instance, the metayers in France, the same arrangements
in Italy, etc.) to the owners of large estates: b) abolition of all mortgages; c)
abolition of many forms of pressure and of dependence on the owners of large
estates (forests and their use, etc.) ; d) immediate help from the proletarian
?tate for farm work (permitting use by peasants of the agrueiltural implements
and in part of the buildings on the big capitalist estates expropriated by the
proletariat, the immediate transformation by the proletarian state power of
all rural co-operatives and agricultural companies, which under the capitalist
rule were chiefly supporting the wealthy and the middle peasantry, into institu-
tions primarily for the support of the poor peasantry, that is to say, the proletari-
ans, semi-proletarians, small farmers, etc.)
At the same time the Connnunist I'arty should be thoroughly aware that during
the dictatorship of the proletariat, at least some partial hesitations are inevitable
in this class, in favor of unrestricted free trade and free use of the rights of
private property. For this class, being a seller of commodities (although on
a small scale), is necessarily demoralized by profit-hunting and habits of pro-
prietorship. And yet, provided thei'e is a consistent proletarian policy — and the
victorious proletariat deals relentlessly with tlie owners of the large estates and
the landed peasants — the hesitations of the class in question will not be consid-
erable, and cannot change the fact that on the whole this class will side with
the proletarian revolution.
3. All these three groups taken together constitute the majority of the agrarian
popiUation in all capitalist countries. This guarantees in full the success of the
proletarian revolution, not only in the towns but in the country as well. The
opposite view is very widely spread, but it persists only becaiise of a systematic
deception on the part of bourgeois science and statistics. They hush up by every
means any mention of the deep chasm which divides the rural classes we have
indicated, from the exploiters, the landowners and capitalists on the one hand,
from the landed peasants on the other. It holds further because of the incapacity
and the failure of the "heroes" affiliated to the yellow Second International and
the "labor aristocracy," demoralized by imperialistic privileges, to do gemiine
propaganda work among the poor in the country. All the attention of the
opportunists was given and is being given now to the arrangement of theoretical
and practical agreements with the bourgeoisie, including the landed and the middle
peasantry (see Paragraph concerning these classes) and not to the revolutionary
overthrow of the bourgeois government and the bourgeois class by the proletariat.
In the third place, this view persists because of the force of inveterate prejudice
possessing already a great stability (and connected with all bourgeois-democratic
and parliamentary prejudices) the incapacity to grasp a simple truth fully
proved by the Marxian theory and confirmed by the practice of the proletarian
revolution in Russia. This truth consists in the fact that the peasant population
of the three classes we have mentioned above, being extremely oppressed, scat-
tered, and doomed to live in half-civilized conditions in all countries, even in the
most advanced, is economically, socially, and morally interested in the victory
of Socialism; but that it will finally support the revolutionai'y proletariat only
APPENDIX, PART 1 147
after the proletariat has taken the political power, after it has done away with
the owners of the large estates and the capitalists, after the oppressed masses
are able to see in practice that they have an organized leader and helper suf-
ficiently powerful and firm to support and to guide, to show the right way.
The "middle peasantry," in the economic sense, consists of small landowners
who possess, according to the right of ownership or rent, portions of land, which,
although small, nevertheless may: 1) usually yield under capitalist rule not only
scanty provision for the fjiniily and the needs of the farming, but also the possibil-
ity of accinnulating a certain surplus, which, at least in the best years, could be
transformed into capital; and 2) necessitate the employment of (for instance, in
a family of two or three members) wage labor. As a concrete example of the
middle peasantry in an advanced capitalist country, we may take the situation in
Germany, where, according to the registration of ]917, there was a group tilling
farms from live to ten acres, and in these farms the number of hired agricultural
laborers made up about a third of the whole number of farms in this group.' In
France, the country of a greater development of siiecial cultures, for instance,
the vineyards, requiring special treatment and care, the corresponding group
employs wage labor probably in a somewhat larger portion.
The revolutionary proletariat can not make it its aim, at least for the nearest
future and for the beginning of the period of the proletarian dictatorship, to win
this class over to its side. The proletariat will have to content itself with neu-
tralizing this class, i. e., with making it take a neutral position in the struggle
between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The vacillation of this class is
unavoidable, and in the beginning of the new epoch its predominating tendency
in the advanced capitalist countries will be in favor of the bourgeoisie, for the
ideas and sentiments of private property are characteristic of the possessors. The
victorious proletariat will immediately improve the lot of this class by abolishing
the system of rent and mortgage, by the introduction of machinery and electrical
appliances into agriculture. The proletarian state power cannot at once abolish
private property in most of the capitalist countries, but must do away with all
duties and levies imposed upon this class of people by the landlords ; it will also
secure to the small and middle peasantry the ownership of their land holding-s
and enlarge them, putting the peasants in possession of the land they used to rent
abolition of rents).
The combination of such measures with a relentless struggle against the bour-
geoisie guarantees the full success of the neutralization policy. The transition to
collective agriculture must be managed with much circumspection and step by
step, and the proletarian state power must proceed by the force of example without
any violence toward the middle peasantry.
5. The landed peasants or farmei-s ( Grossbauern ) ) are capitalists in agricul-
ture, managing their lands usually with several hired laborers. They are con-
nected with the "peasantry" only by their rather low standard of culture, their
way of living, the personal manual work of their land. This is the most nu-
merous element of the bourgeois class, and the decided enemy of the revolu-
tionary proletariat. The chief attention of the Communist Party in the rural
districts must be given to the struggle against this element, to 'the liberation
of the laboring and exploited majority of the rural population from the moral
and political influence of these exploiters.
After the victory of the proletariat in the towns, this class will inevitably
oppose it by all means, from sabotage to open armed counter-revolutionary
resistance. The revolutionary proletariat must, therefore, immediately begin
to prepare the necessary force for the disarmament of every single man of this
class, and together with the overthrow of the capitalists in industry, the pro-
letariat must deal a relentless, crushing blow to this class. To that end it must
arm the rural proletariat and organize Soviets in the country, with no room
for exploiters, and a preponderant place must be reserved to the proletarians
and the semi-proletarians.
But the expropriation even of the landed peasants can by no means be an
immediate object of the victorious proletariat, considering the lack of material,
particularly of technical material, and further of the social conditions necessary
for the socialization of such lands. In some probably exceptional cases parts
^ These are the exact figures: number of farms .5 — 10 acres 552,798 (out of 5,736,082) :
tney possess in all sorts of hired worl^ers, 487,704 — the number of worlcers with their
families (Familienangehoeri'j-e) being 2,013,6.3.3. In Austria, according to the census of
1910, there were 383,351 farms in this group. 126,136 of them employing hired labor :
146,044 hired worker.s, 1,215,969 workers with their families. The total number of
farms in Austria amounts to 2,856,349.
148 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
of their estates will be confiscated if they are leased in small parcels, or if they
are specially needed by the small-peasant iX)pulation. A free use must be also
secured to this population, on definite terms, of a part of the agricultural
machinery of the lauded peasants, etc. As a general rule, however, the state
power must leave the peasants in possession of their land, confiscating it only
in case of resistance to the government of the laboring and exploited peasants.
The experience of the Russian proletarian revolution, whose struggle against the
landed peasants became very complicated and prolonged owing to a number of
particular circumstances, nevertheless shows that this class has been at last
taught what it costs to make the slightest attempt at resistance, and is now
quite willing to serve loyally the aims of the proletarian state. It begins even
to be penetrated, although very slowly, by a respect for the government which
protects every worker and deals relentlessly vi'ith the idle rich.
The specific conditions which complicated and prolonged the struggle of the
Russian proletariat against the landed peasantry after the overthrow of the
bourgeoisie, consist mainly in the fact that after the coup d'etat of October 25 and
November 7, 1917, the Russian revolution traversed a stage of "general demo-
cratic," actually bourgeois democratic, struggle of the peasantry as a whole
against the landowners, and there were further the low standard of living and
scarcity of the urban proletariat, and, finally, the enormous distances and ex-
ceedingly bad transport conditions. Insofar as these adverse conditions do not
exist in the advanced countries, the revolutionary proletariat in Europe and
America must prepare with much more energy and carry out a much more rapid
and complete victory over the resistance of the landed peasantry, depriving it
of all possibility of resistance. This is of the utmost importance, considering that
until a complete, absolute victory is won, the proletarian state power cannot be
regarded as secure and capable of resisting its enemies.
6. The revolutionary proletariat must proceed to an immediate and uncondi-
tional confi.scation of the estates of the landowners and big landlords, that is,
of all those who systematically euiploy wage labor, directly or through their
tenants, who exploit all the small (and not infrequently also the middle)
peasantry in their neighborhood, and who do not do any actual manual work.
To this element belong the majority of the descendants of the feudal lords
(the nobility of Russia, Germany, and Hungary, the restored seigneurs of
France, the Lords in England, the former slave owners in America), or financial
magnates who have become particularly rich, or a mixture of those two classes
of exploiters and idlers.
No propaganda can be admitted in the ranks of the Communist parties in
favor of an indemnity to be paid to the owners of large estates for their
expropriation. In the present conditions prevailing in Europe and America
this would mean treason to Socialism and the imposition of a new tax on the
laboring and exploited masses, who have already suffered from the war, which
has increased the number of millionaires and has mulliplied their wealth.
In the advanced capitalist countries the Communist International considers
that it should be a prevailing practice to preserve the lai-ge agricultural estab-
lishments and manage them on the lines of the "Soviet farms" in Riissia.^ In
regard to the management of the estates confiscated by the victorious prole-
tariat from the owners of large landed property — the prevailing practice in
Russia — the cause of economic backwardness was the partition of this landed
property for the benefit of the peasantry, and in comparatively rare exceptions
was there a preservation of the so-called "Soviet farm." managed by the prole-
tarian state at its expense, and transforming the former wage laborers into
workers employed by the state, and into members of the Soviets managing these
farms.
The preservation of large landholdings serves best the interests of the revo-
lutionary elements of the population, namely, the landless agricultural workers
and semi-pi'oletarian small landholders, who get their livelihood mainly by
working on the large estates. IJesides, the nationalization of large landholdings
makes the urban population, at least in part, less dependent on the peasantry
for their food.
In those places, however, where relics of the feudal system still prevail,
where "serfdom" and the system of giving half of the products to the peasants
prevails and where a part of the soil belongs to the large estates the landlord
privileges give rise to special forms of exploitation.
2 It is also advisable to encourage collective establishments (Comnuines).
APPENDIX, PART 1 149
In countries where large landlioklings are insignificant in number, while a
great number of small tenants are in search of land, the distribution of the
large holdings can prove a sure means of winning the peasantry for the revo-
lution, while the preservation of the large estates can be of no value for the
provisioning of the towns. The first and most important task of the proletarian
state is to secure a lasting victory. The proletariat must put up with a tempo-
rary decline of production so long as it makes for the success of the revolution.
Only by persuading the middle peasantry to maintain a neutral attitude, and
by gaining the support of a large part, if not the whole, of the small ijeas-
antry, can the lasting maintenance of the proletarian power be secured.
At any rate, where the land of the large owners is being distributed, the
interests of the agricultural proletariat must be of primary consideration.
The implements of large estates must be converted into state property abso-
lutely intact, but on the unfailing condition that these implements be put at
the disposal of the small peasants gratis, subject to conditions worked out by
the proletarian state.
If just at first, after the proletarian coup de'etat, the Immediate confiscation
of the big estates becomes absolutely necessary, and moreover, also the banish-
ment or internment of all landowners as leaders of the counter-revolution, and
relentless oppressors of the whole rural population, the proletarian state, in
proportion to its consolidation not only in the towns but in the country as well,
must systematically strive to take advantage of all the forces of this class, of
all those who possess valuable experience, learning, organizing talent, and must
use them (under special control of the most reliable Communist workers) to
organize large agriculture on Socialist principles.
7. The victory of Socialism over capitalism, the consolidation of Socialism, will
be definitely established at the time that the proletarian state power, after hav-
ing finally subdued all resistance of the exploiters and secured for itself com-
plete and absolute submission, will reorganize the whole industry on the base of
wholesale collective production and a nev/ technical basis (founded on the elec-
trification of agriculture). This alone will afford a possibility of such radical
help in the technical and the social sense, accorded by the town to the backward
and dispersed country, that this help will create the material base for an enor-
mous increase in the productivity of agricultural and general farming work, and
will induce the small farmers by force of example and for their own benefit to
change to large, collective machine agriculture.
Most particularl.v in the rural districts real possibility of successful struggle
for Socialism requires, in the first place, that all Communist parties inculcate in
the industrial proletariat the necessity of sacrifice on its part, and readiness to
sacrifice it.self for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and that the consolidation of
the proletariat be based on the proletariat's knowing how to organize and to lead
the woi-king and exploited masses, and on the vanguard's being ready for the
greatest sacrifices and heroism. In the second place, possibility of success re-
quires that the laboring and most exploited masses in the country experience
immediate and great improvement in their position caused by the victory of the
proletariat and by the defeat of the exploiters. Unless this is done, the indus-
trial proletariat cannot depend on the support of the rural districts, and cannot
secure the provisioning of the town with foodstuffs.
8. The enormous ditficulty of organization and education for the revolutionary
struggle of the agrarian laboring masses placed by capitalism in a condition of
particular oppression, disper.sion, and often a mediaeval dependence require from
the Communist parties special care for the strike movement in the rural dis-
tricts. It requires enforced support and wide development of mass strikes of the
agrarian proletarians and semiproletarians. The experience of the Russian rev-
olutions of 1905 and 1917, confirmed and enlarged now by the experience of Ger-
many and other advanced countries, shows that only the development of mass-
strike struggle (under certain conditions the small peasants are also to be drawn
into these strikes) will shake the inactivity of the country population, arouse
in them a class consciousness and the consciousness of the necessity of class
organization in the exploited masses in the country, and show them the obvious
practical use of their joining the town workers. From this standpoint the pro-
motion or Unions of Agricultural "Workers, the co-operation of Communists in
the country, and woodworkers' organizations are of great importance. The
Communists must likewise support the co-operative organizations formed by the
exploited agricultural population closely connected with the revolutionary labor
movement. A vigorous agitation is likewise to be carried on among the small
peasants.
150 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
The Congress of the Communist International denounces as traitors those
Socialists — unfortunately there are such not only in the yellow Second Interna-
tional, but also among the three most important European parties, which have
left the Second International — who are not only indifferent toward the strike
struggle in the rural districts, but oppose it (as does Kautsky) on the ground
that it might cause a falling-off of the production of foodstuffs. No programmes
and no solemn declarations have any value if the fact is not in evidence, testified
to by actual deeds, that the Communists and labor leaders know how to put the
development of the proletarian revolution and its victory above everything else
and are ready to make the utmost sacrifices for the sake of this victory. Unless
this is a fact, there is no escape, no barrier against starvation, dissolution, and
new imperialistic wars.
The Communist parties must make all efforts possible to start as soon as pos-
sible setting up Soviets in the country, and these Soviets must be chiefly com-
posed of hired laborers and semi-proletarians. Only in connection with the
mass-strike struggle of the most oppressed class will the Soviets be able to serve
fully their ends, and become sufficiently firm to dominate (and further on to
include in their ranks) the small peasants. But if the strike struggle is not yet
developed, and the ability to organize the agrarian proletariat is weak because
of the strone: oppression by the landowners and the landed peasants, and also
because of the want of support from the industrial workers and their unions,
the organization of the Soviets in the rural districts will require long prepara-
tion by means of creating small Communist centers, of intensive propaganda, ex-
pounding in a most popular form the demands of the Communists, and illustrat-
ing the reasons of these demands by specially convincing cases of exploitation,
and pressure by systematic excursions of industrial workers into the country, etc.
Exhibit No. 13
[Source: Excerpts from Lenin On Organization, published by Daily Worl^er Publislilng
Company, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago. Illinois: 1926. Pages G4, 74, 111-
1251
* * * * * * *
On the other hand, the organizations of revolutionaries must be comprised
first and foremost of people whose profession consists of being revolutionaries
(that is why I speak of organizations of revolutionaries, meaning revolutionary
Social Democrats). In face of this common characteristic the members of such
an organization must ahdvdon all distincUo'n between workers and intellectuals,
let alone distinctions between trades and professions. Such an organization must
of necessity be not too extensive and as conspiratorial as possible.
******
I might go on analyzing the statutes, but I think that what has been said will
suflSce. A small tight kernel, consisting of reliable, experienced and steeled
workers, with responsible agents in the chief districts and connected by all the
rules of strict conspiracy with the organizations of revolutionaries, can, with
the wide support of the masses and without any formulation, fully perform all
the functions belonging to a trade union organization, and perform them
moreover in the manner desii-ed by Social Democrats.
*******
IV
General Type of Organization
(From "A Letter to a Comrade on Our Problems of Organization,"
September, 1902)
. . . Now a word about the factory circles. They are of extreme im-
portance to us : the main strength of our movement lies in the workers' organi-
zations in the large factories. For in the large factories (and works) are
concentrated that section of the worlving class which is not only predominant
in numbers, but still more predominant in influence, development and fighting
capacity. Every factory must be our stronghold. And that means that every
"factory" workers' organization must be as conspiratorial internally and as
"ramified" externally, and that its feelers be stretched as far and widespread
as any revolutionary organization. I emphasize that hero again the center,
APPENDIX, PART 1 151
the leader, the "boss" nutst be .1 group of worker revolutionaries. We must
break completely with the traditional type of purely labor or purely trade union
oi-ganizatiou, not excludhiff the "factory" circles. The factory si'oup, or the
factory (works) committee (to distinguish it from other groups of which there
should be a great number) must consist of a very small number of revolu-
tionaries who will take their instructions and receive their authority to carry
on Social Democratic work in the factory, direetlij from the committee. Kvery
member of the factory committee must regard himself as an agent of the com-
mittee, obliged to subordinate himself to the orders of the committee and to
adhere to all the 'iaws and customs" of that "army on active service" which
he has joined and which in time of war he has no right to abandon without the
consent of his superior. The composition of the factory committee is therefore
a matter of extreme importance. One of the main cares of the committee
should be that the sub-committee be properly organized. I inuigine the thing
somewhat as follows: the committee charges certain of its members (plus, let
us say, certain workers who for some reason or other cannot join the committee,
)iut who may be very useful on account of their experience, knowledge of people,
good sense and connections) to organize factory sub-committees everywhere.
Ihe commission will consult with the district delegates, arrange meetings, care-
fully examine the candidates for membership of the factory sub-committees,
submit them to close cross-examination, if possible subject them to a test, en-
deavoring themselves to interview and directly examine as large a numher as
possible of candidates to the sub-committee of the factory in question and will
finally submit a certain list of members for each factory group for the approval
of the committee, or propose that authority be given to a certain worker to set
up. indicate, or select a complete sub-committee. The committee will itself
(letermine which of these agents is to maintain contact with it and how the
contact ivS to be maintained (as a rule, through the district delegates, but this
rule may be subject to additions and amendments). In view of the great im-
portance of these factory sub-committees, we must see to it that wherever pos-
sible each sub-committee should be in possession of an address to which to
direct its communications to the C. O. (16) and have a depot for its contacts
in some safe place (i. e., that the information required for the immediate
reformation of a factory committee in the event of the arrest of its members
should be transmitted as frequently and as abundantly as possible to the party
centre, there to be kept in a safe place where the Russian gendarmes are unable
to get at it). It will, of course, be understood that the transmission of
addresses is to be determined by the committee according to its own discretion
and the facts at its disposal, and not in accordance with some non-existent
"democratic" right. Finally, it is perhaps not superfluous to mention that it
might sometimes he more convenient in place of a factory sub-committee con-
sisting of several members to confine itself to the appointment of an agent of
the committee (and his candidate or substitute). As soon as the factory
sub-committee has been formed it should proceed to organize a number of fac-
tory groups and circles with diver.se functions and with varying degrees of
conspiratorialness and definition of organization : such as, for instance, circles
for distributing and broadcasting literature (this is one of the most important
functions ; it must be so organized as to provide us with a real postal service
of our own ; not only the methods of distributing literature but also of deliver-
ing it in the homes must be carefully studied and tested, and the home of
every worker and the way to it must be well learned) ; circles for reading
illegal literature ; groups for keeping a watch on spies ; ^ circles for the economic
struggle, groups of agitators and propagandists who know how to start and to
carry specific leadership of the trade union movement and on long conversations
in a legal manner (on the subject of machinery, inspectors, etc.), and so be
able to speak safely in public, to examine people and feel how the land lies."
The factory sub-committee should endeavor to embrace the whole factory and the
largest possible number of the workers in a network of circles of all kinds (or
agents). The success of the activities of the .sub-committee should be measured
1 We must get tlie workers to understand that while the killins of spies, pro-
vocateurs and traitors ma.v sometimes, of course, be absolutely unavoidable, it is highly
undesirable and mistaken to make a system of it, and that our endeavor should be to
create an organization which will be able to render spies innocuous by exposing them
and tracking them down. To root out spies altogether is impossible, but to create an
organization which will track them out and educate the working class masses is both
possible and necessarii.
2 We also need fighting groups, in which workers who have had military training or
who are particularly muscular and agile should be enrolled, to be used in tlie event of
demonstrations, prison, releases, etc.
][52 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
by the multiplicity of circles, the possibility of travelling propagandists getting^
into contact with them, and above all, by the correctness and regularity of the
work done in the distribution of literature and the reception of information and
correspondence.
In my opinion, the general type of organization should be as follows: the
head of the whole local movement and of all the local Social Democratic
activities should be the conmiittee. From it should proceed the institutions
and branch departments subordinated to it, such as, firstly, the network of
executive agents embracing (as far as possible) the whole working class mass
and organized in the form of district groups and factory (works) sub-corn-
mitties. In times of peace this network will be engaged in distributing litera-
ture, leaflets, proclamations and the conspiratorial communications of the
committee ; in time of war it will organize demonstrations and similar collec-
tive activities. Secondly, there will proceed from the committee circles and
groups of all kinds necessary for serving the whole movement (propaganda,
transport, conspiratorial function, etc.). Every group, circle, sub-committee,
etc., must be on the footing of a committee or branch department of the
committee. Certain of them may express a direct wish to join the Rus.sian
Social Democratic Labor Party (17), and, provided that the committee give\s
its approval, will do so, and (at the request of, or in agreement with, the
committee) will assume definite functions, will undertake to obey all the
instructions of the Party organs, will be endowed with the rights enjoyed by
every member of the Party, may be regarded as immediate candidates for
membership of the committee, etc. Others will not join the Russian Social
Democratic Labor Party, but will be regarded as circles formed by Party mem-
bers or associated with some or other Party group, etc.
In all their internal affairs the members of all these circles are, of course,
equal among themselves, just as the members of a committee are equal among
themselves. The sole exception will be that the right of personal contact with
the local committee (as well as with the C. C. and the C. O. ) will be possessed
only by the person (or persons) appointed for that purpose by the committee.
In all other respects, this person will be on an equality with the rest, who
will also have the right of addressing themselves (but not personally) to the
local committee and to the C. C. and the C. O. The exception indicated there-
fore will not be an infringement of equality, but only an absolutely essential
concession to the demands of conspiracy. A member of a committee who fails
to transmit to the committee, the C. C. or the C. O:, the communications of
"his" group will be guilty of a direct infringement of his Party duties. Fur-
thermore, the degree of conspiratorialness and definition of organization of the
various circles will depend upon the character of their functions, and the
organizations will therefore be of the most varied character (from the most
"strict", narrow and closed type of organization to the "loosest," widest, oi>en
and indefinite type). For instance, the distributing groups require the utmost
conspiratorialness and nnlitary discipline. The propagandist groups need to be
equally conspiratorial, but with a far less degree of military discipline. Work-
ers' groups for reading legal literature, or for discussions on trade union needs
and problems require to be still less conspiratorial and so on. The distributing
groups should belong to the R. S. D. L. P. and be acquainted with a certain
number of its members and responsible persons. A group for studying trade
union conditions of labor and for drawing up trade union demands is not obliged
to belong to the R. S. D. L. P. A group of students, officers or clerks engaged
in self-education with the cooperation of one or two members of the Party,
should sometimes even not be acquainted with the fact that they belong to the
Party, etc. But in one respect we must ahsoltdcly demand the maximum dcfi-
niteness in every branch of groups, namely, that each Party member working
in these groups is formally responsible for the conduct of their affairs and is
obliged to take ei-ery measure in order that the composition of each of the.se
groups, the whole mechani.-nn of its work and the character of that work should
be knoivn to the C. C. and the C. O. That is necessary not only in order that
the centres may have a complete picture of the whole movement, but that the
selection for various Party posts may be made from the widest possible circle of
people, that (through the intermediary of the centre) each group may serve as a
les-son for all the groups of a similar character in Russia, and that adequate
warning may be given in the event of the appearance of provocateurs or doubtful
persons — in a word, it is necessary from every point of view.
How is this to be done? By regular reports to the committee, the transmis-
sion of as large a number of as much of the contents as possible of these reports
APPENDIX, PART 1 153
1() the C. O. by arranging that members of the C. C. and the local committee
should visit the circles, and, tinally. that the contacts with the circles, i. e. the
names and addresses of several members of each circle, should be transmitted
for safe-keeping (and to the Party bureaus of the C. O. and the C. C). Only
when reports are regularly made and contacts transmitted may it be said that
a Party member participating in a circle is fulfilling his duties; only when the
Party as a whole is in a position to leant from every circle which; is carrying
(in practical work, will arrests have lost their terror; for if contacts are main-
tained with the various circles it will always be easy for a delegate of the C. C.
to find a substitute iiuDiediateUj and liave the work renewed. The arrest of a
committee will then not destroy the whole machine, but only remove the leaders,
to replace whom there will always be candidates ready. And let it not be said
that the communication of reports and contacts are impossible under conspira-
torial conditions: one has only to desire it and it is always, and icill always,
be possible to hand over (or transmit) reports and contacts as long as we have
committees, a C. C. and a C. O.
We have arrived at a very important principle of all Party organization and
all Party activity: while as far as the intellectual and practical leadership of
the movement and the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat is concerned,
the greatest possible decentralization is required, as far as keeping the Party
centre (and therefore the Party as a whole), informed regarding the movement
and as far as responsibility to the Party is concerned, the greatest possible de-
centralization is required. The leadership of the movement should be entrusted
to the smallest possible number of uniform groups of professional revolution-
aries who have been trained in the school of experience. The greatest possible
number of diverse and heterogeneous groups of every section of the proletariat
(and other clas.ses of the population) should take part in the movement. The
Party centre must always have before it not only exact information regarding
the activities of each of" the groups, but also the fullest possible facts regard-
ing its composition. The leadership of the movement must be centralized.
We must also, (and for that very reason, for without information we cannot
have decentralization) as far as possible, decentralization responsibility to the
Party on the part of every individual member and every participant in the
work and of every circle belonging to, or associating itself with, the Party.
This decentralization is an essential condition of revolutionary centralization
and an essential corrective to it. When centralization has been fully estab-
lished and we have a C. O. and a C. C, it will be possible for every group,
however small, to communicate with them — and not only will it be able to
communicate with them, but regularity of comnuinication will be established
by years of experience— and the possibility of grievous consequences resulting
from the chance unfortunate composition of a local committee will be removed.
Now, when we are seriously endeavoring to effect real unity in the Party and
to create a real leading centre, we must particularly bear in mind that the
centre will be impotent if we do not introduce the maximnm of decentraliza-
tion both as far as responsibility to the centre and keeping it informed of all
the wheels and inner wheels of the Party machine are concerned. Thisi de-
centralization is only the reverse side of the division of labor which is generally
recognized to be one of the most urgent practical needs of our movement. The
official recognition of a given organization as the leading organization, the setting
up of a formal C. C. is not enough to make our movement a real united move-
ment, or to create a strong fighting Party if the Party centre is oit off from
direct practical work by the local committees of the old type, i. e. by such as are,
on the one hand, made up of a great number of persons each of which carries
on every kind of work, does not devote himself to certain definite functions, is not
responsible for some special duty, never carries a well-considered and well-
prepared piece of work to an end, and spends an enormous amount of time and
energy in simply running to and fro — and, on the other hand, embrace a great
mass of student and worker.s' circles, half of which are altogether unknown to the
committee, and the other half are huge unspecialized, accumulating no profes-
sional experience, nor making use of the experience of others, and, like the
committee itself, engaged in endless conferences about everything in general,
in elections and in the drawing up of statutes. In order that the centre may be
able to work properly, the local committees must be re-formed; they must become
specialized and "business-like" organizations which will be capable of achieving
real "improvements" in some one or other practical .sphere. In order that the
centre should do more than discuss, argue and wrangle (as has been the case
hitherto) but really conduct the orchestra, it is necessary that it should know
X54 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
who is playing wliicli fiddle and where; who has learnt, or is learning to play
a certain instrument, and how and where ; who is playing a false note ( that
is, when the music happens to go wrong) and where and why, and who must
be transferred, and where to in order that the discord be corrected, etc. Let
it be said openly, at the present moment we either know nothing about the
real internal work of a given committee, except from its proclamations and gen-
eral correspondence, or we know about it from friends or personal acquaintances.
It is ridiculous to think that this is good enough for a huge Party which is capable
of leading the Russian working class movement and which is preparing itself
for an attack upon the autocracy. The number of members of the committees
must be cut down ; each of them, wherever possible, must be entrusted with a
definite special and responsible function, for which it must account ; a small
special directing centre must be set up ; a network of executive agents must be
developed to connect the committee with every large factory and works, to conduct
the regular distribution of literature and to supply the centre with an exact
picture of how the distribution is being carried out and of the whole mechanism
of the work ; and finally, numerous groups and circles must be formed which
will take various functions upon themselves or unite persons who desire to
work with the Social Democratic Party, to help it and to become Social Demo-
crats, and which will keep the committee and the centre constantly informed of the
activities (and the composition) of the circles. That is the way in which the St.
Petersburg, and all the other comimttees of the Party must be reorganized ; and
that is why the question of the statutes is of such little importance.
PROPAGANDIST GROUPS
... I now pass to the question of the propagandist groups. To organize such
in every district is hardly possible and hardly desirable, in view of our poverty of
propagandists. Propaganda should be carried on by the Committee as a whole
and must be strictly centralized, and my idea of the matter is therefore as fol-
lows : the Committee charges certain of its members to organize a propagandist
group (which will act as a branch department of the Committee or be one of the
Committee institution's). This group, making conspiratorial use of the services
of the district groups, will conduct propaganda throughout the tvhole town, and
in every locality "within the competence" of the Committee. If necessary, this
group may set up a sub-group, and, so to speak, transfer certain of its functions,
but only with the sanction of the Connnittee, and the Committee shall always
and unconditionally possess the right of detailing its delegate to each group,
sub-group, or circle which has any contact at all with the movement. . .
By the way, while on the subject of propagandists, I should like to say a few
words in criticism of the usual practice of ovcrloadinff this profession with
people of little capacity for it and thus lowering the level of propaganda.
Almost every student without any selection is regarded as a propagandist, and
the whole of our youth demand that they should "be given circles." This
tendency must be fought, because it is doing a lot of harm. As a matter of
fact, capable propagandists well-grouni!ed and trained in theory are very rare
(to become such a propagandist requires a fair amount of training and accu-
inulation of experience) ; they must therefore be specialized, we must put them
wholly on this work and take great care of them. We must arrange several
lectures a week for them; we nuist be able when necessary to send them to
other towns, and, in general, arrange for various towns to be toured by capable
propagandists. The mass of young beginners should rather be put on practical
jobs; these are rather neglected in comparison with the amount of circle attend-
ing which is done by the students and which is optimistically called "propa-
ganda." Of course, serious practice jobs also require considerable training,
but nevertheless, work in this sphere can more easily be found even for
"novices". . .
VARIOUS GROUPS
In the same way, and after the type of branch department of the Committee
or Connnittee institution, all the other groups serving the movement should be
organized — the university students and high school students groups, the groups,
let us say, for assisting government officials, transport groups, printing groups,
passport groups, groups for arranging conspiratorial meeting places, groups for
tracking spys, military groups, groups for procuring arms, organization groups,
such as for running income producing enterprises, etc. The whole art of con-
spiratorial organization consists in making use of everything and everybody and
APPENDIX, PART 1 155
finding work for everybody, at the same time retaining the leadership of the
whole movement, not by force, but by virtue of authority, energy, greater experi-
ence, greater versatility and greater talent. We say this for the sake of those
who usually object that too strict centralization, which is absolutely impossible
to any large extent and which is even directly harmful to revolutionary work
carried on under an autocratic government. Statutes gives us no guarantee ;
that can be provided only by measures of "fraternal co-operation," beginning
with the resolutions of each and every sub-group, their appeals to the C. O. and
the C. C. and ending (if the worst comes to the worst tvith the overthrow of
incapable authorities. The Committee should try to achieve the greatest possible
division of labor, remembering that the various kinds of revolutionary work
demand various capacities and that a person who is absolutely useless as an
organizer may be invaluable as an agitator, or that a person who does not
possess the endurance demanded by conspiratorial work may be an excellent
propagandist and so on. . .
Exhibit No. 14
[Source: Programme of the World Revolution, by N. Bucharin ; a booklet published by
the Contemporary Publishing Association, New York : 1920]
PROGRAMME OP THE WORLD REVOLUTION
(By N. Bucharin)
Contemporary Publishing Association, New York. 1920
chapter i
The Reign of Capital, the Working Class, and the Poorer Elements of the
Village Population
In all countries, except in Russia, Capital is predominant. Whatever State
one takes, whether semi-despotic Prussia, or Republican France, or so-called
democratic America, everywhere power is wholly concentrated in the hands of
big capital. A small group of people, landowners, manufacturers and the
richest bankers, hold millions and hundreds of millions of town workers and
rural poor in slavery bondage, compelling them to toil, sweating them and
throwing them on the street as soon as they become useless and worn out and
incapable of being a source of further profit to Lord Capital.
This terrible power of the bankers and manufacturers over millions of toilers
is given to them by wealth. Why does a poor man who is thrown on the streets
have to starve to death? Because he possesses nothing but a pair of hands
which he can sell to the capitalist should the capitalist want them. How is it
that a rich banker or business man can do nothing, and yet lead an easy life
free of care, getting a solid income and taking in profit daily, hourly, and
even by the minute? Because he possesses not only a pair of hands, but also
those means of production without which work is impossible nowadays, fac-
tories, land, machines, railroads, mines, ships and steamers, and all kinds of
apparatus and instruments. All over the world, except in present-day Russia,
this wealth accumulated by man belongs only to capitalist and landowners
who have also become capitalists. And it is no wonder that in such a state
of affairs a group of men, having in their hands all that is indispensable, the
most necessary things, dominate the rest who possess nothing. Let us take the
instance of a poor man from the country coming to town to seek work. Who
does he go to? To the proprietor, the man who owns a factory or works. And
this snme proprietor becomes the complete master of the man's life. If his,
the master's loyal servants, directors and bookkeepers, have calculated that it
is possible to squeeze more profits out of fresh workers than out of the old ones,
then he "gives a job." If not, he tells him to "pass along." At the factory
the capitalist is monarch of all he surveys. He is obeyed by all, and hi."?
directions are implicitly carried out. The factory is extended or reduced at
his will. At his command, through foremen and managers, workmen are em-
ployed or dismissed. He decides how long they are to work and what pay
they are to get. And all this happens because the factory is his factory, the
works his works, they belong to him, are his private property. It is this right
156 UN- AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
of private property over the means of production that is the cause of the
terrible power trhich is in the hands of capital.
The same thing Iwkls good with regard to land. Take the freest and the
most democratic country — the United States. Thousands of workers cultivate
land that does not belong to them, land owned by landowning capitalists. Here
everything is organized on the plan of a large factory ; there are tens and
hundreds of electric ploughs, reaping machines, reaping and sheaf-binding
machines, at which hired slaves toil from dawn till night. And just as at the
factory, they work not for themselves, but for a master. This is because land
itself as well as the seeds and machines, in a word, everything, except the
working hands, is the private property of the capitalist master. He is autocrat
here. He commands and conducts the business in such a way as to convert
the very sweat and blood into shining yellow metal. The workmen, grumbling
sometimes, obey, and go on making money for the master because he possesses
everything, while the worker, the poor agricultural laborer, possesses nothing.
But sometimes It so happens that the landowner does not hire laborers, but
lets his land on lease. Here in Russia, for instance, the poor peasantry, holding
small allotments hardly enough to pasture a hen, were obliged to rent land
from the landowners. They cultivate it with their own horses, ploughs and
harrows. But even here they were mercilessly fleeced. The greater the peas-
ant's need for land, the greater was the rent charged by the landowners, thus
holding the poor peasant in real bondage. What enabled him to do that? The
fact that the land was his, the landowner's land ; the fact that the laud con-
stituted the private property of the landoimiing class.
Capitalist society is divided into two classes : those who work a great deal
and feed scantily, and those who work little or not at all, but eat well and
plentifully. That is not at all in accordance with the Scriptures, where it says:
"He that does not work, neither shall he eat." This circumstance, however,
does not prevent the priests of all faiths and tongues from lauding the capitalist
order; for these priests everywhere (except in Soviet Republic) are maintained
by increment derived from private or church property.
Another question now arises. How is it possible for a group of parasites to
retain private ownership over the means of labor, so indispensable to all? How
has it come about that private ownership by the idle classes is maintained to
the present day? Where does the reason lie?
The reason lies in the perfect organization of the enemies of the laboring
class. To-day there does not exist a single capitalist country where the capital-
ists act individually. On the contrary, each one of them is infallibly a member
of some economic organization. And it is these economic unions that hold every-
thing in their hands, having tens of thoiisands of faithful agents to serve them,
not out of fear, but as a matter of conscience. The entire economic life of every
capitalist country is at the complete disposal of special economic organizations ;
syndicates, trusts, and unions of many banking concerns. TTiese combines own
and direct everything.
The most important industrial and financial combine is the Bourgeois State.
This combine holds in its hands the reins of government and power. Here
everything Is weighed and measured, everything is premeditated and arranged
in such a manner as to crush instantly any attempt at rebellion on the part
of the working class against the domination of capital. The State has at its
disposal forces (such as spies, police, judges, executioners, and trained soldiers,
who have become soulless machines), as well as mental influences v.^hich grad-
ually pervert the workers and poorer elements of society, imbuing them with
fallacious ideas. For this purpose the bourgeois State utilizes schools and
Church, aided by the capitalist press. It is a known fact that pig-breeders can
breed such stock as are incapable of moving owing to the vast accumulation
of fat ; but such pigs are extremely suitable for slaughter. They are bred
artificially on special fattening food. The bourgeoisie deals witli the working
class in exactly the same way. It is true it gives them little enough substantial
food — not enough to get fat on. But day by day it offers to the workers a
specially-prepared mental food which fattens their brains and make them
incapable of thought. The bourgeoisie wants to turn the woi'king class into a
herd of swine, docile and fit for slaughter, not capable of thinking and ever
subservient. This is the reason why, with the help of schools and the Church,
the bourgeoisie tries to instill into the minds of children the idea that it is
necessary to obey the Authorities, as they hold their power from heaven (and
the Bolsheviks, instead of prayers, have drawn on themselves the curses of the
Church, because they have refused to grant any State subsidies 1o these cas-
APPENDIX, PART 1 157
socked frauds). This is also the reason why the bourgeoisie is so anxious to
circulate its lying press far and wide.
The poiverfiil organization of the bourgeois class enables them to retain pri-
vate property. TTie rich are few in number, but they are surrounded by a large
number of faithful, devoted and handsomely-paid servants : ministers, directors
of works, directors of banks, and so on; these latter are again surrounded by
a still greater number of retainers who get paid less, but who are entirely de-
pendent on them, and are educated along the same lines. They are themselves
on the look-out for such posts, should they be lucky enough to attain them.
These again are followed by minor officials, agents of capital, etc., etc. It is
just as the Russian nursery tale has it : "Grandad holds on to the turnip,
grandma on to grandad, grandchild on to grandma," and so on ; in short they
follow one another in an interminable chain united by the general organization
of the bourgeois State and other industrial combines. These organizations cover
all countries with a net out of which the working class struggles in vain to
get free. Every capitalist State is in reality one vast economic union. The
workers toil — the masters enjoy themselves. The workers carry out orders —
the masters lord it over them. The workers are deceived — the masters deceive
them. Such is the state of things called capitalistic, which the capitalists and
their servants — the priests, intellectual classes, mensheviks, socialist revolu-
tionaries, and the rest of that fraternity, are inviting the workers and peasants
to obey.
chapter ii
Plundering Wars, the Oppeession of the Working Classes, and the
Beginning of the Fall of Capitalism
In every capitalist country small capital has practically vanished ; of late it
has been eaten up by the big sharks of capitalism. At first, a struggle went
on between the individual capitalist for customers ; at the present time when
there are only a few of them left (as the small fry is absolutely ruined), the
remaining ones have united, organized, and have it their own way in their
country, just as in olden times the barons had full power over their own
domains ; a few American bankers own the whole of America, just as formerly
a single capitalist owned his factory. A few French usurers have subjugated
the whole French people ; 5 of the biggest banks hold the fate of the German
people in their hands. The same thing happens in other capitalist countries.
It may therefore be said that the present capitalist States, or as they are called,
"Fatherlands," have become huge factories owned by an industrial combine, just
as formerly a single capitalist owned his particular factory.
It is not surprising that such combines, unions of the various capitalist coun-
tries, are now carrying on among themselves the same sort of struggle which
was formerly carried on between individual capitalists ; the English capitalist
State is fighting the German capitalist State, just as formerly in England or in
Germany respectively one individual manufacturer was struggling against an-
other. Only now the State is a thousand times bigger, and the struggle for the
Increase of profits is being waged by means of human life and human blood.
In this struggle, which has spread over the whole globe, the first to i>erish
were small weak countries. At the beginning it is always the small colonial
people that perish. Weak, uncivilized tribes are dispossessed of their lands by
the great plundering States. A struggle ensues for the division of the remain-
ing '"free" lands, i. e., lands not yet looted by the "civilized" States. Then
begins a struggle for the re-division of that which has already been looted.
It is quite evident that the struggle for the re-division of the world must be
bloody and furious as no war before it. It is conducted by monstrous giants, by
the biggest States in the world, armed with perfected death-dealing machines.
The U'orld tear which broke out in the summer of 1914 was the first war of
the final re-division of the world between the monsters of "civilized" robbery.
It has drawn into its whirlpool four of the chief rival giants : England. Ger-
many, America and Japan. And the struggle is being carried on to decide
which of these plundering unions will put the world under the domination of
its bloody iron heel.
This war has everywhere vastly deteriorated the position of the working
class, which was bad enough as it was. Terrible calamities have fallen on the
workers : millions of the best men were simply mown down on the battlefields ;
158 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
starvation was the fate of others. Those who dare to protest are menaced with
severest punishments. Prisons are filled to overflowing; gendarmes with ma-
chine guns are held ready against the working classes. The rights of the
workers liave vanished even in the most "free" countries : the workers are even
forbidden to strike ; strikes are looked upon in the sam,e light as treason. The
Labor and Socialist Press is stifled. The best workers, the most loyal fighters
for the revolution, are compelled to hide and build up their organizations
secretly, just as we used to do in the time of the Czar, furtively liiding from
crowds of spies and police. No wonder that all these consequences of the war
have made the workers not only groan, but 7-ise against their oppressors.
But now the bourgeois States, which are responsible for the great slaughter,
are in their turn beginning to decay at the root and fall. The bourgeois States
have "stuck," so to speak. They have stuck in the bloody swamp they have
created in their hunt after profit, and there is no way out. To go back, to
return empty-handed is impossible. Tlie policy of the war has led .them into
a blind alley from which there is no exit. And that is why the war is still
continuing without either coming to an end or achieving any definite result.
For the same reason the decaying capitalist order is beginning to totter, and
will sooner or later have to make way for a new order of things, under which
the imbecility of the world war for the sake of gain will have become impossible.
The longer the war lasts the poorer the combatant countries become. The
flower of the working class has either perished or is lying eaten alive by lice
in the trenches, busily at work in the cause of destruction. Everything has
been demolished in the cour.se of the war : even brass door handles have been
conflscated for war requirements. Objects of primary necessity are lacking
because the war, like the insatiable locust, has devoured everything. There
is no one to manufacture useful articles any longer ; what there is, is being
gradually used up. For nearly four years factories that previously turned out
useful things are manufacturing shells and shrapnel instead. And now, with-
out men, without producing what is indispensable, all the countries have reached
a state of decline where people are beginning to howl like wolves with cold,
hunger, poverty, want and oppression.
In German villages, where formerly electricity was used, they now burn
dried wood cliips for lack of coals. Life is coming to a standstill with the
general growth of poverty of the people. In such well-kept towns as Berlin
and Vienna, the streets are not traversable at night because of the robberiei?
that take place. The press is wailing over the insufficiency of iwlice. They
refuse to see that the growth of crime is the consequence of the growth of
pauperism, despair and exasperation. Cripples returning from the front find
sheer starvation at home; the number of hungry and homeless, notwith-
standing the number of various relief organizations, is constantly growing,
because there is nothing to eat.
The harder the position of the warring States, the more friction, quarrels
and misunderstandings arise between the different sections of the bourgeoisie,
who formerly went hand in hand for the sake of their mutual aims. In
Austro-Hungary, Bohemians, Ukranians, Germans, Poles and others are fighting
each other. In Germany, with the conquest of new provinces, the same
bourgeoisie (Esthonian, Lettish, Ukranian, Polish) which welcomed the German
troops, are now quarreling furiously with their liberators. In, England, the
English bourgeoisie is in mortal conflict with the enslaved Irish bourgeoisie.
And in the midst of this tumult and general disorganization is heard the voice
of the laboring class, before which history has laid the problem of putting an
end to war and of oi^erthrotving the yoke of capitalism. Thus approaches
the hour of the decay of capitalism and the communist revolution of the working
class.
The first stone was laid by the Russian October Revolution. The reason why
capitalism in Russia became disorganized before it did in any other country,
was that the burden of the world war was heaviest for the young capitalist
State of our country. We had not the monstrous organization of the bour-
geoisie which they have in England, Germany or America ; and our bourgeoisie
could not therefore coi)e with the demands laid on it by the war. Nor could
they withstand the mighty onset of the Russian laboring class and of the poor
elements of the peasantry who, in the October days, knocked the bourgeoisie
out of their seats and put at the head of the Government the party of the
working class — the Communist Bolsheviks.
APPENDIX, PART 1 159
Sooner or later the same fate will overtake the bourgeoisie of Western
Europe, where the working class is joining more and more the ranks of the
communists. Everywhere, organizations of native "bolsheviks" are growing; in
Austria and America, in Germany and in Norway, in France and in Italy.
The programme of the communist party is becoming tlie programme of the
universal proletarian revolution.
chapter iii
General Sharing, or Cooperative Communist Production
We already know that the root of the evil of all plundering wars, of oppression
of the working classes and of all the atrocities of capitalism, is that the world
has been enslaved by a few State organized capitalist bands, who own all the
wealth of the earth as their private property. The capitalist ownership of
means of production — this is the reason of reasons which explains the barbarity
of the present order of things. To deprive the rich of their power by depriving
them of their wealth, by force, that is the paramount duty of the working class,
of the Labor Party, the party of communists.
Some think that, after depriving the rich of their possessions, these should be
religiously, justly and equally divided between everybody, and then all will be
well. Everyone, they say, would have just as much as everyone else; all would be
equal, and freed from inequality, oppression and exploitation. Thanks to this
equal share-out, general division and allotment of all the riches amongst the
I)oor, everybody will look after -himself, will own all things convenient for his
use, and the domination of man over man will vanish.
But this is not the point of view of the Communist Party. The Communist
Party considers that such equal sharing would lead to nothing good, and to no
other result than confusion and a return to the old order.
Firstly, there are quite a number of things which are impossible to divide.
How, for instance, would you divide the railway? If one man gets the rails,
another the steel plate, a third one of the screws, and a fourth begins smashing
up the carriages to light his stove, a fifth breaks a mirror, to have a piece of glass
for shaving purposes, and so on — it is plain that this kind of division would not
be fair at all, and would only lead to an idiotic plundering and destruction of
useful things. It is just as impossible to divide a machine. For. if one takes a
pinion, another a lever, and the rest other parts, the machine will cease to be a
machine, and the whole thing will go to ruin. And the same thing holds good with
I'egard to all complicated machinery, which is so important as a means of further
production. We have only to think of telegraph and telephone apparatiis, and
the apparatus at chemical works, etc. It is evident that only an unintelligent
man or a direct enemy of the working class would advise this kind <>f sharing.
This, however, is not the only reason why such a sharing is harmful. Let us
suppose that by some kind of miracle, a more or less equal division was attained
of everything taken from the rich ; even that would not lead to any desirable
result in the end. What is the meaning of a division? It means that instead of a
few large owners there would spring up a large number of small ones. It means
not the abolition of private ownership, but its dispersion over a large area. In
the place of large ownership there would arise ownership on a small scale. But
such a period we have already had in the past. We know very well that capital-
ism and large capitalists have developed out of the competition between one
small owner and another. If we bred a number of small owners as a result of
our division, we shouh! get the following result: part of them (and quite a
considerable part) would, on the very next day, get rid of their share on some
market or other (say the Soucharew Market in Moscow), and their property
would thus fall into the hands of wealthier owners ; between the remaining ones
a struggle would ensue for the buyers, and in this struggle, too, the wealthier
ones would soon get the upper hand of the less well-to-do. The latter would soon
be ruined and turn into proletarians, and their lucky rivals would amass fortunes,
employing men to work for them, and thus be gradually transformed into first-
rate capitalists. And so we should, in a very short time, return to the same order
which we have just destroyed, and find ourselves once again before the old
problem of capitalist exploitation.
Dividing up into small pi'operty-holders is not the ideal of the workers or the
agricultural laborer. It is rather the dream of the small shopkeeper opnressed
by the big one, who wants to become a large shopkeeper himself. How to
become a 'boss', how to get hold of as much as possible and i-etain it in his greedy
150 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
clutch — that is what the shopkeeper is aiming at. To think of otlier^ and consider
what this may result in is not his affair so long as he gets an extra sixpence
clinking in his pocket. He is not to be frightened by a possible return to capi-
talism, for he is cherishing a faint hope that he himself, John Smith, may
become a capitalist. And that would not be so bad for him.
No ; there is an entirely different road along which the working class should
go, and is going. The working class is interested in such a reconstruction of
society as would make return to capitalism impossible. Sharing of wealth
would mean driving capitalism out of the front door only to see it return by
the back door. The only way out of this dilemma is a cooperative lahor {com-
munist) system.
In a communist order, all the wealth belongs not to individuals or classes,
but to society as a whole, which becomes, as it were, one great labor association ;
no one man is master over it. All are equal comrades. There are no classes ;
capitalists do not employ labor, nor do workers sell their labor to employers.
The work is carried out jointly, according to a prearranged labor plan. A
central bureau of statistics calculates how much it is required to manufacture
in a year ; such and such a number of boots, trousers, sausages, blacking, wheat,
cloth, and so on. It will also calculate that for this purpose such and such a
number of men must work on the fields and in the sausage work respectively,
such and such a number in the large communal tailoring workshops, etc., and
working hands will be distributed accordingly.
The whole of production is conducted on a strictly calculated and adjusted
plan, on the basis of an exact estimate of all the machines, apparatus, all raw
material, and all the labor power in the community. There is also an exact
account kept of the annual requirements of the community. The manufactured
products is stored in communal warehouses, from whence it is distributed
amongst the workers. All work is carried out only in the largest works and
on the best machines, thereby saving labor. The management of production
is conducted along the most economical lines : all unnecessary expenditure is
avoided, owing to work being carried out on one general plan of production.
We do not have here the kind of order that allows one kind of management
in one place and another kind of management in another ; or that one factory,
for example, should not know how things are done at another factory. Here,
on the contrary, the whole world is weighed and accounted for. Cotton is only
grown where the soil is most suitable. The production of coal is concentrated
in the richest mines; iron foundries are built in the neighborhood of coal and
ore ; parts where the soil is tit for wheat, will not be employed for building
monstrous city edifices, but will be used for sowing wheat. Everything, in
short, is arranged in such a manner that each kind of production should be
carried out in a place most suitable for it, where work could be done most
successfully, where things could be obtained easiest, where human labor would
be most productive. All this can be attained only by working on a single plan
and by organizing the whole community into one vast labor commune.
People in this commtmistic order do not benefit at one another's expense.
There are no rich here, no parvenues, no bosses and no bottom dogs ; society is
not divided into classes of which one rules over the other. And there being no
classes means that there are not two sorts of people (poor and rich), gnashing
their teeth against one another, the oppressor against the oppressed, and vice
versa. For this same reason we have no such organization as the State, because
there is no dominating class requiring a special organization to keep their class
opponents under their heel. There is no Government to rule men, and there
is no power of one man over another. There is administration of things only,
management of machines ; there is the power of human society over Nature.
Mankind is not divided up into hostile camps; it is imited by common labor and
by a common struggle against the elements. The political barriers that divide
nations are done away with. Separate fatherlands are abolished. The whole
of humanity, without distinction of nationality, is bound together in all its
parts and organized into one united whole. All peoples form one great united
labor association.
chapter iv
An Anarchist or a Communist Crder
There are people who call themselves Anarchists, that is to say, adherents
to an order of things where there is no Government. They aflBrm that the
APPENDIX, PART 1 IgJ
Rolslievik-Coninmnists are on the wrong path, because they wish to preserve
order, and that any kind of power or authority, and any kind of state, means
oppression and violence. We have seen tliat sucli an opinion of communism
is not right. A communist order of life is an order in which there are neither
workers nor capitalists, nor any kiiul of State. The difference between an
anarchist and a communist order is not in the fact that there is a State in
one and none in the other. No ; there is no State in either of them. The real
difference is in the following : —
Anarchists think that human life will be better and freer when they sub-
divide all production into small labor-conmiune organizations. A group or
association, say, of ten men is formed who have united by their own free
will. Very well. These ten men begin to work on their own account and at
their own risk In another place there has arisen a similar association ; in a
third another. In time all these associations enter into negotiations and agree-
ments with one another concerning the things which are lacking in each respec-
tive union. Gradually they come to an understanding and "free contracts" or
agreements are drawn up.
And now all production is carried on in these small communes. Every
man is free at any time to withdraw from tlie commune, and each commune
is free to withdraw from the voluntary union (federation) of these small com-
munes (labor associations). Do anarchists reason rightly? Any v.'orker ac-
quainted with the present system of factory machine production will see that
this is not right. Let us explain why.
The future order is meant to save the working class from two evils. In
the first place from the subjection of man by man, from exploitation from
the evil of one man oppressing another. Tliis is attained by casting off the
yoke of capital and depriving the capitalists of all their wealth. But there
Is yet another problem, that of shaking off the yoke of Nature, of mastering
Nature, of organizing production in the best, most perfect way. Only then
will it i)e possible for each man to spend but a little time in the manufacture of
food products, boots, clothes, houses, etc., and to spend the rest of his time
for developing his mind, for studying science, for art, for all that which makes
human life beautiful. Prehistoric man lived in groups in which all were equal.
But they led a brutal existence, because they did not subject Nature to them-
selves, but allowed Nature entirely to subject them. Although with the capital-
ists production on a large scale humanity has learned to control Nature, the
working class still live like beasts of burden, because the capitalists hold them in
his clutches, owing to the existence of economic inequality. What follows?
That economic equality should be united with production on a large scale. It
is not enough to do away with capitalists. It is indispensible that production
should be organized, as we have already said, on a large scale. All small,
inefficient enterprises must disappear. The whole work must be concentrated
in the largest factories, work and estates. And not in such a way that Tom
should not know what John is doing, nor John know what Tom is doing ; this
kind of management is all wrong. What we want is a united plan of work.
The more localities such a plan embraces the better. The world must ultimately
become one labor enterprise, where the whole of humanity, in accordance with
a strictly worked out, estimated and measured plan, would work for its own
needs, on the best machines, at the biggest works, without either employers
or capitalists. In order to advance production, we must on no account subdivide
the big production which capitalisnk has left us as a heritage. It should, on
the contrary, be still more widened. The wider and larger the general plan,
the bigger the scale on which production will be organized, the more will it be
guided by the estimates and accounts of the statistical centres. In other words,
the more centralized industry will be, the better: for then the less labor will
fall to the share of each individual, the freer will each man be, the greater
the scope for mental development in human society.
But the future state of society propagated by the anarchists is just the
opposite of this. Instead of enlarging, centralizing or regulating production,
it subdivides it, and consequently iveakens the domination of man over Nature.
There is no general plan, no large organization. Under an anarchist order
it will be even impossible to utilize large machines to the fullest extent, to
reconstruct railroads, according to a ganeral plan, to undertake irrigation on
a big scale. Let us give an example. A great deal is being spoken of sub-
stituting steam plant by electricity, and of utilizing waterfalls, etc., for obtain-
ing electric motor power. In order to distribute correctly the electrical energy
obtained, it is of course necessary to estimate, weigh and measure where and
94931— 40— app., pt. 1 12
162 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
how much of this energy is to be directed, so as to derive the greatest possible
advantage therefrom. What does that mean, and how is it to be made pos-
sible? It is only possible wlien production is organized on a large scale, wlaen
it is concentrated in one or two great centres of management and control.
And, on tlie other hand, it is Impossible under an anarchist order of small,
disseminated communes but loosely held togetlier. In this way we can see
that, as a matter of fact, production cannot be properly organized in an
anarcliist State. This in its turn results in a long working day, i. e., dependence
to a great extent on Nature. An anarchist order would only serve as a bridle
retarding the progress of liumanity. That is wiiy we, communists, are tight! ng
against tlie teaching spread by the anarchists.
Now it is plain why anarchist propaganda leads to a sharing of wealth
instead of a communist construction of society. A small anarcliist commune
is not a vast collaboration of men, but a tiny group, wliidi can even consist
of as few as two or three men. At Petrograd there exist such a group — "The
Union of Five Oppressed". According to the anarchist teachings it might
have been "A Union of Two Oppressed". Imagine what would happen if
every five men or every couple of men began independently to requisition,
confiscate, and then start work at their own risk. Tliere are in Russia about
a hundred million of tlie laboring population. If they were to form "unions
of five oppressed," we should have in Russia twenty millions of such com-
munes. Imagine what a Babel would ensue if these twenty million little com-
munes began acting indei>end('ntly ! What chaos and anarchy we should have!
Nor would it be surprising that if such groups began, independently of each other,
to usurp tlie wealth of the ricli, notliing but a sharing-out would result. And
sharing-out leads, as we have seen above, to the reign of capital all over again,
to violence and oppression of tlie laboring masses.
CHAPTER V
To Communism Through Proletarian Dictatorship
How is the communist order to be instituted? How is it to be attained? To
this the Communist Party gives the following answer: Through the dictator-
ship of the proletariat.
Dictatorship means a power of iron, a power that shows no mercy to its
foes. Tlie dictatorship of the working class means the governing power of
the working class, which is to stifle the bourgeoisie and the landowners.
Such a government of the workers can only arise out of a Socialist revolution
of the working class, which destroys the bourgeois State and bourgeois power,
and builds up a new State on the ruins — that of the proletariat itself and
of the poorest elements supporting it.
This, in fact, is the reason why we stand for a workers' State, whilst the
anarchists are against it. That means to say that we, communists, want a
workers' government which we MUST HAVE PROVISIONALLY, UNTIL THE
WOisKING CLASS' HAS COMi'LETELY DEFEATED ITS OPPONENTS,
THOROUGHLY DRILLED THE WHOLE OF THE BOURGEOISE, KNOCKED
THE CONCEIT OUT OF IT, AND DEPRIVED IT OF THE LAST SHRED
OF HOPE EVER TO RISE AGAIN TO POWER.
And so you, communists, are for force, we may be asked. Certainly, we
shall reply. But we are for REVOLUTIONARY FORCE. First of all we
think that by mere gentle persuasion the working class will never attain any-
thing at all. The road of compromise, as preached by the mensheviks and
the socialist revolutionaries, will lead nowhere. The working class will achieve
liberty in no other w;>y except thronsrb a revolution, that is to say, through
the overthrow of the power of capitalism, through the destruction of the bour-
geoise State. But every revolution is a form of violence against former rulers.
The March revolution in Russia was force against the oppressors, landlords and
the Czar. The October revolution was force, of the workers, peasants and
soldiers, against the bourgeoisie. And such force against those who have op-
pressed millions of the toiling masses is not wiong — it is sacred.
But the working class is compelled to use force against the bourgeoisie even
after the bourgeoisie has been overthrown in an open revolutionary fight.
For, as a matter of fact, even after the working class have destroyed the
government of the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie does not cease to exist as
a class. It does not vanish altogether. It continues to hope for a return to
1
appelNdix, part 1 163
the old order, and is therefore ready to form an alliance with anyone, except
•ciie victorious working class.
The experience of the Russian revolution of 1917 fully confirms this. In
October the working class excluded the bourgeoisie from the government. But,
nevertheless, the bourgeoisie was not completely crushed : it acted against the
workers, mobilizing all its forces, striving to crush the proletariat again, and
to achieve its own ends by hook or by crook. It organized sabotage; that is,
counter-revolutionary officials, — clerks, and civil servants who did not wish to
be subjected to workmen and peasants, abandoned their posts en masse. It
organized the armed forces of Dutoff, Kaledin, Korniloff ; it is at present, whilst
we are writing these lines, organizing the banus of Esaiil Seminoff for a cam-
paign against the Siberian Soviets ; and lastly it is calling to its aid the troops
■of the foreign bourgeoisie, German, Japanese, British, etc. Thus the experience
of the Russian October revolution teaches us that the working class, even after
its victory, is compelled to deal with the mightiest of external foes (the plun-
dering capitalistic States) who are on their way to aid the overthrown bour-
geoisie of Russia.
If we seriously consider the whole world at the present time, we shall see
that it is only in Russia that the proletariat has succeeded in overthrowing
the power of the bourgeois State. The remainder of the world still belongs
to big-capital robbers. Soviet Russia, with its worker and peasant Govern-
ment, is a small island in the midst of a tempestuous capitalist ocean. And
even if the victory of the Russian workers is to be followed by a victory of
the workers of Austria and Germany, there will still be left big vulture-like
capitalist States. If all capitalistic Europe breaks up and fails under the blows of
the working class, there will still be left the capitalistic world of Asia, with Japan
like a beast of prey at its head. Then we have the capital of America, at
the head of which stands the monstrous plundering union called the United
States of America. All these capitalist States will not give up their position
without a fight. They will fight with all their might to prevent the proletariat
from getting possession of the whole world. The mightier the onslaught of the
proletariat, the more dangerous the position of the bourgeoisie ; the more neces-
sary it becomes for the bourgeoisie to concentrate all its forces in the struggle
against the proletariat. The proletariat, having conquered in one, two, or
three countries, will inevitably come into collision with the rest of the bourgeois
world that will attempt to break by blood and iron the elTorts of the class
that is fighting for its freedom.
What follows? It follows that pr^ior to the establishment of the communist
order and after the abolition of capitalism, in the interval between capitalism
and communism, even after socialistic revolutions in several countries, the
working class will have to endure a furious struggle with its inner and external
foes. And for such a struggle a strong, wide, well-constructed organization'
is required, having at its disposal, all the means of fighting. An organization
of this kind is the Proletarian State, the power of the workers. The proletarian
State, similar to other States, is an organization of the dominant class (the
dominating class is here the working class), and an organization of force over
the bourgeoisie, as a means of putting an end to the bourgeoisie and getting
rid of it.
He who is afraid of this kind of force is not a revolutionist. The question
of force should not be regarded from the point of view that every kind of
force is pernicious. The force practised by the rich against the poor, by
capitalists toward workers — such force acts against the working class and
aims at supporting and strengthening capitalistic plunder. But the force of
workers against the bourgeoisie aims at freeing millions of working men from
slavery; it means redemption from the rod of capital, from plundering wars,
from savage looting and destruction of all that mankind has been building
up and accumulating for ages and ages. That is why, in the making of revolu-
tion and the forming of a communist order, the iron rule of a proletarian
dictatorship is indispensable.
It should be clear to everyone, that during the transition period, the working
class will have to (and must now) strain all its energy in order to emerge
victorious in the battle with its numerous enemies, and that no other organiza-
tion can defeat the enemies of the working class except one that embraces the
working class and the poorer peasantry of the whole country. How is it possible
to ward off foreign imperialists unless one holds in one's hands government
power and an army? How is it possible to fight against counter-revolution
unless one holds in one's hands arms (as a means of coercion), prisons for
154 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
confining counter-revolutionaries (a means of coercion), and other means of
force and subjection? How is it possible to make capitalists conform to the
workers' control, requisition, etc., if the working class possesses no means for
compelling others to obey? Of course some may say that a few "Unions of Five
Oppressed" would be sufficient. That is nonsense.
The pecularities of a transition, period call for ttie necessity of a Workers'
State. For even when the bourgeois will be defeated all over the world, accus-
tomed as it is to idleness, and imbued with feelings of hostility towards the
workers, it will do its best to avoid work, to try and injure the proletariat in every
way. The bourgeois must be made to serve the people. Only an authorized
government and compulsory measures can do that.
In backward countries like Russia there still exists a multitude of small and
medium property-holders, sweaters, usurers, and land-grabbers. All these are
against the poorest elements of the rural population and still more against the
town laborers. They follow in the wake of big capital and of the ex-state
owners. It is needless to say that the workers and the poorest of the peasants
must crush them should they rise against the revolution. The workers have got
to think how to organize a new plan of work, systematize the work of produc-
tion taken out of the hands of the manufacturers, help the peasants to organize
rural economy and a fair distribution of bread, manufactured goods, iron
products, and so on. But the sweater-land-grabber, grown fat on the war, is
stubborn ; he does not intend to act in the common interest. "I am my own
master", he says. The workers and the poor elements of the peasantry must
compel him to obey just in the same way as they are compelling the big
capitalists to obey ; the ex-landlords and ex-generals and officers.
The more precarious the position of the workers' revolution is. and the more
enemies it is surrounded by, the more ruthless should be the workers' govern-
ment, the heavier should be the hand of the revolutionary workers and of the
poorest elements of the peasantry, and the more energetic should be the dicta-
torship. State governnaent in the hands of the working class is an axe held
in readiness against the bourgeoisie. In a Communist order, when the bour-
geoisie has ceased to exist, and with it class divisions and every kind of ex-
ternal as well as internal danger, then the axe will be needed no longer. But
in the transition period, when the enemy is still showing his fangs, and is ready
to drown the whole working class in a sea of blood (let us recall to mind the
shooting of the Finnish workmen, the executions at Kiev, executions of work-
men and peasants all over the Ukraine and in Lithuania!), and we will agree
that to go unarmed, to act without this axe of State government, would be an
act of folly.
Two parties are clamouring against the dictatorship of the working class.
On the one side are the Anarchists ; these, being against every kind of govern-
ment, are therefore against the government of the workers and peasants. To
these we can say, "If you are against the workers using means of force against
the bourffcoisie, then get you to a convent !"
On the other side, against the dictatorship of the workers we have the
Mensheviks and the Right Socialist Revolutionaries (though they were them-
selves formerly in favor of it). These are against encroaching upon the
liberty. ... of the bourgeoisie. They are backing up the purse-proud bourgeois
to get for him that which he once possessed, and enable him peacefully to saunter
along the Nevsky Prospect in Petrograd or the Tverskaya at Moscow, etc. They
maintain that the working class is "not yet ripe" for a dictatorship. To them
we can say, "You, sirs, defenders of the bourgeoisie, go to the bourgeoisie whom
you love so much, but leave the working class and the poor peasantry alone".
Just because the Communist Party is an adherent of the most rigid iron
dictatorship of the workers over capitalists — small sweaters, late landowners,
and all other similar delightful relics of the old bourgeois order — it is for that
very reason the extremest and most revolutionary of all existing groups and
parties. "Through a mercilessly firm government of the workers, through a
proletarian dictatorship— to Communism !" This is the war-cry of our party.
And the programme of our party is the programme of proJctarian dictatorship.
CHAPTER VI
A Soviet Government or a Boltrgeois Repubuc?
Our attitude towards the necessity of dictatorship leads us, as an inevitable
result, both to our struggle against an antiquated form of a parliamentary
bourgeois republic (sometimes called "democratic"), and to our attempts at
APPENDIX, PART 1 1(35
setting up instead a new form of State administration — a government of the
tiovicts of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies.
The meusheviks and the right wing of the socialist revolutionaries are staunch
supporters of the Constituent Assembly and a parliamentary republic. They
loudly abuse the government of the Soviets. And why? First, because they are
afraid of the power of the workers, and desire to retain all power in the
hands of the bourgeoisie. But the communists who are sti'iving to realize the
(ommunist (socialist) order must inevitably fight for the dictatorship of the
proletariat and for the complete overthrow of the bourgeoisie. That is where
the difference lies. And for this very reason tlie parties of meusheviks and
socialist revolutionaries are at one with the party of the bourgeoisie.
What is the essential dift'erence between a parliamentary republic and a
republic of Soviets? It is, that in a soviet republic the non-working elements
are deprived of the franchise and take no part in administrative affairs. The
country is governed by Soviets, which are elected by the toilers in the places
vrhere they work, as factories, works, work.shops, mines and in villages and
liamlets. The bourgeoisie, ex-landowners, bankers, speculating traders, mer-
chants, shopkeepers, usurers, the Korniloft" intellectuals, priests and bishops,
in short the whole of the black host have no right to vote, no fundamental
political rights. The foundation of a parliamentary republic is formed by
the Constituent Assembly, while the supreme organ of the Soviet Republic is
The Convention of Soviets. What is the principal difference between the Con-
vention of Soviets and the Constituent Assembly? Anybody with the least
intelligence can easily answer this question. Although the meusheviks and
the right wing of the .socialist revolutionaries do, as a matter of fact, try to
muddle things by inventing various pompous names such as, for instance,
"Master of the Russian Land," still truth will out. The Constituent Assembly
differs from the Convention of Soviets inasmuch as into the former are elected
not only the laborers, but also the bourgeoisie and all the bourgeois hangers-on.
It consequently differs from the Convention of Soviets in that in the Constituent
Assembly may sit not only workers and peasants, but also bankers, landowners
and capitalists; not only the labor party (the communists), not only the left
wing of socialist revolutionaries, and even not only the socialist traitors such
as the right wing of the socialist revolutionaries, but also the constitutional
democrats (the party of traitors to the people), the Black Hundred and the
Octobrists. This is the crowd for whom these honorable compromisers are
demanding enfranchisement. When they clamor for the necessity of a "popu-
lar," "all-national" Constituent Assembly, they do not consider the Soviets as
all-national, because the Rnssian. bourgeoisie is lacking to complete the full
representation of the Russian people. To supplement working-class representa-
tion with this crowd of parasites, to give these enemies of the people all
rights, to give them seats next to themselves iu parliament, to transform the
class government of workers and peasants into a class government of the boui'-
geoisie under the pretext of admitting all nationalities — this is the task of the
right wing of the socialist revolutionaries, of the mensheviks, of the constitu-
tional democrats, in a word of big capital and its petty bourgeois agents. The
experience of all countries shows that where the bourgeoisie enjoy all the
lights, it invariably deceives the working class and the poorest peasantry.
By holding the press, newspapers and magazines firmly in its grasp, possess-
ing as it does vast riches, bribing officials, exploiting the services of hundreds of
thousands of their agents, threatening and intimidating the more downtrodden
of their slaves the bourgeoisie succeed in preventing power from slipping from
their hands. At first sight it appears as if the whole nation were voting, but
iu reality this screen is used by domineering financial capital, which arranges
matters to suit itself, and even boasts of "allowing the people to vote" and of
preserving all kinds of "democratic liberties." This is the reason why, in all
countries where there is a bourgeois republic (take, for instance, France, Swit-
zerland, and the United States), notwithstanding universal suffrage, the power
is completely concentrated in the hands of the leading bankers. And so we see
why the right wing of the socialist revolutionaries and the mensheviks are
striving to overthrow the power of the Soviets and to summon the "Constituent
Assembly." In granting votes to the bourgeoisie they intend to prepare for a
transition to a similar order of things as exists in France and America. They
consider that the Russian workers are not "ripe" to hold the government in
their own hands. But the party of the communists-bolsheviks, on the contrary,
holds that dictatorship of the workers is essential at the present moment and
that there can be no talk whatever of any transfer of government. The bour-
geoisie must be deprived of every possibility of deceiving the people. The
IQQ UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
bourgeoisie must be set aside aud firmly prevented from taking any part in the-
government of the country, because the present is the time of acute struggle.
We must strengthen aud widen the dictatorship of the workers and the poorer-
elements of the peasantry. That is why the State government of Soviets is
indispensable. Here we have no bourgeoisie whatever, and no landowners.
Here the State is governed by the organizations of workers and peasants which
have grown up together with the revolution and have borne the whole burden
of the great struggle on their own shoulders.
But this is not enough. An ordinary republic does not only represent the
power of the bourgeoisie. A republic of this kind can never, by reason of its
composition, become inspired with the spirit of the workers party. In a parlia-
mentary republic every citizen hands in his vote once in every four or five years,
and there his part in this matter ends. All the rest is left to deputies, ministers
and presidents, who manage everything. There is no connection whatever with
the masses. The masses of the laboring people are only tools exploited by the-
oflicials of the bourgeoisie, taking no real part in the government.
Quite a different matter is a Soviet republic, corresponding to a dictatorship
of the workers. Here the whole administration is based on an entirely different
principle. A Soviet government is not an organization of officials independent
of the masses and dependent on the bourgeoisie. The Soviet government and its
organs are supported by general organizations of the woi'king class and the
peasantry. Trade unions, works and factories committees, local Soviets of work-
ment and peasants, soldiers' and sailors' organizations — all these support the
central Soviet Government. Prom the Central Soviet Government thousands
and millions of threads spread in all directions : first these threads go to dis-
trict and provincial Soviets, then to the town Soviets, from these to the town-
parish Soviets, from these again to the factories and works, uniting hundreds
of thousands of workers. All the higher institutions of the Soviet Government
are organized on the same lines. Take, for instance, the Supreme Council for
Public Economy. It is composed of representatives of central committees of
trade unions, of factories and works committees, and other organizations. Trade-
unions in their turn unite whole branches of production ; they have branches in
various towns and are supported by the organized masses at factories and
works. To-day at every factory there is a factory and works committee, which
is elected by the workers of that factory ; these factory and works' committees
being again united. And these, too, send their representatives to the Supreme
Council for Public Economy, which draws up economic plans and directs pro-
duction. Thus, here, too, the central organ of the control of industry is com-
posed of representatives of workers, and is supported by mass organizations
of the working class and of the poorest elements of the peasantry. This, then,,
is an entirely different plan from that of a bourgeois republic. The bourgeoi-
sie is not only deprived of rights, and there is not only a question of the country
being governed by representatives of workers and peasants. The great thing is
that the Soviets govern the country, keeping in constant touch with the large
unions of the workers and peasants, and thus the wide masses are all the time
taking part in the administration of the Workers' and Peasants' Government
In this way each organized workman exercises his influence. He takes part
in the government of the state not only by electing trusted representatives once
a month or two. No. The trade unions, say, work out a plan for organizing
production ; these plans are then considered by the Soviets or by the Council
for Public Economy, and then, if they are practicable they obtain the full force
of law, after being approved by the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets.
Any given trade union, any works' and factories' committee, can in this way
take a part in the general work of creating a new order of life. In a bour-
geois republic the more indifferent the masses are, the happier is the govern-
ment, because the interests of the masses are opiiosed to those of the capitalist
state. If, for Instance, the masses of the United States should take matters into
their own hands — that would mean the end of the supremacy of the bourgeoisie.
Tlie bourgeois State is based on the deception of the masses, keeping them half-
awake, by the method of depriving them of any active part in the everyday
work of the state, by summoning them once every few years "to vote", and by
deceiving them with their own vote. It is entirely different thing in a Soviet
republic. The Soviet republic, embodying the dictatorship of the masses, cannot
even for a minute tear itself away from these roas.ses. Such a republic is the
stronger in proportion to the greater activity and energy manifested by the
masses and the more work accomplished at works and factories, in the towns
APPENDIX, PART 1 167
and iu the provinces. It is not a matter of mere chance, therefore, that the
Soviet Government in issuing its decrees addresses tlie masses with the demand
that the workers and poorest peasants themselves should carry these decrees
into execution. That is why the significance of various workers' and peasants'
organizations entirely changed after the October revolution. At first they were
weapons of class struggle against the governing capitalists and landowners.
Take, for example, the trade unions and some small peasants' Soviets. At first
they were compelled to carry on a struggle for higher pay and a shorter working
day in the towns, and for depriving the landowners of the land in the rural
districts. At the present time, when the government is in the hands of the
workers and the peasants, the.se organizations are becoming wheels in the
machinery of state government. At present, the trade unions are not only fight-
ing with the capitalists, but are taking an active part in the organization of
production, as organs of a labor government, as part of the Soviet State, in the
adminii^tratio)! of industry; and in the same way the village and peasants'
Soviets not only have to carry on a war with village sharks or sweaters, with
the capitalists and landowners, but are also working to establish a new land
system; that is to say, they have the ndm'mistratlon of the land in their hands
as organs of a workers' and peasants' government; they are as screws and nuts
in the huge machine of state administration, where the power is in the hands
of the workmen and peasants.
In this way, through the workers' and peasants' organizations, the widest sec-
tions of the laboring masses have been gradually called to the work of govern-
ment. There is nothing like this in any other country. Nowhere but in Russia
has the victory of the working class and the establishment of a workers' govern-
ment yet been achieved ; no other country has yet a proletarian dictatorship,
nor a Soviet Republic, nor a Soviet state.
It is very clearly understood that the Soviet Government corresponding to
the proletarian dictatorship, does not suit those groups of the population that
are interested in a return to capitalist slavery, instead of going ahead to a
communist order. It is also clear that they cannot possibly say frankly and
openly, "we want the whip and the stick for the workers."
Here, too. a certain amount of deceit is required. Such deceit is the specialty
of the right wing of the socialist revolutionaries and of the mensheviks who are
shouting about "a struggle for a democratic republic," about the Constituent
Assembly, which they declare will save us from all evils, and so on. But as a
matrer of fact the real question here is to transfer the government to the
howf/eoisie. And iu this fundamental question no agreement can possibly be
arrived at between us, communists, and the various mensheviks, right wing
socialist revolutionaries, the followers of the "Novaya Zhisn," and the rest of
that fraternity. They stand for capitalism, whilst we stand for a movement
towards Comniunism. They— for a government of the bourgeoisie, we — for a
dictatorship of the workers; they — for a parliamentary bourgeois i-epublic, where
capital will reign, we — for a Soviet Socialist Republic where all the power
belongs to the workers and the poorest elements of the peasantry.
Until the present time, prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, the dictator-
ship of the proletariat was only written about. But no one seemed to have
quite a clear idea as to how this dictatorship v.'as to be realized. The Russian
Revolution evolved the actual form of the dictatorship— that of the Soviet
Republic. And therefore, at the present moment, the best sections of the uiter-
national proletariat are inscribing on their banners the motto of a Soviet re-
public and of a Soviet government. And therefore, too, our task now consists
in strengthening the Soviet government by all the means in our power, and in
clearing it of various imdesirable elements, in attracting to the task of recon-
struction a greater number of capable comrades, elected by the working and
peasant masses. Only such a government, a government of the Soviets, a govern-
ment of the workers and peasants, is what the workers and peasants can and
should defend.
Should our workers and peasons suffer defeats, should the Constituent Assem-
bly be really summoned, should the place of the Government of the Soviets be
taken by an ordinary bourgeois republic after the manner of the French and
American Republic, then the worker should not only not be under any obliga-
tion to defend it, but should make it the task of his life to overthrow such a
reputlic. For it is his duty to defend the government of the workers and not
the government of the bourgeoisie. With regard to the government of the bour-
geoisie, he has but one obligation, and that is to overthrow it.
158 UN-AMERIGA^' PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
chaptee vii
Freedom for the Working Class and the Poorest Elements of the Peasantry ;
Restrictions for the Bourgeoisie
(Freedom of Speech, Press, Unions, Meetings, etc., in the Soviet Republic)
Since v^^e have a dictatorship of workers and peasants whose aim is to crush
the bourgeoisie completely and to put down any attempt at reviving the bour-
geois government, it is plain that there can be no question of freedom, in the
wide sense of the word, for the bourgeoisie, just as there can be no question of
allowing the bourgeoisie the riglit of franchise, nor of transforming the Soviet
Government into a republican bourgeois parliament.
The party of the Communists (bolsheviks) are overwhelmed on all sides by
shouts of indignation and even threats : ''You stop newspapers, you make arrests,
you prohibit meetings, you suppress the freedom of speech and of press, you
revive despotism, you are violators and murderei's," and much more to the same
effect. It is this question of "freedom" in the Soviet Republic that should be
thoroughly discussed in detail.
First of all, let us take an example. When the revolution broke out in ]\Iarch
of last year (1917), Tzarist ministers were arrested (Sturmer, Protoppopoff
and others). Did anyone protest? No! And yet these arrests, just as any
other arrests, were an infringement of personal freedom. Why was this in-
fringement universally approved? And why do we still say at the present
moment : "Yes, that was the right thing to do?" Simply because it was the arrest
of dangerous counter-revolutionaries. And in a revolution, more than at any
other time, we should remember the eleventh Commandment : "Be on the look
out!" If you are not, if you set all the enemies of the people free, if you do
not keep them under control, there will be nothing left to remember the
revolution by !
Anotljer example. When Sturmer and Goremikin were being arrested, the
Black Hundred press was closed. This was a deliberate infringement of the
freedom of the press. Was it justifiable? Most certainly! And no reasonable
being will dispute that this was just what should have been done. And why?
Again, because at a time of revolution, when there is a life and death struggle
going on, the enemy should be deprived of his weapons. And the press is such
a weapon.
Prior to the October revolution, several Black Hundred societies ("The Two-
Headed Eagle" and a few others) were closed down at Kiev. This was an
infringement of the freedom^ of association. But it was the right thing to do,
because the revolution cannot permit the free organization of unions against the
revolution.
Wlien Korniloff was advancing on Petrograd, a number of generals struck,
refusing to obey the orders of the Provincial Government. They declared they
would support Korniloff to the last. Was it possible to sanction such freedom
of generals' strikes f Surely for such strikes the Black Hundred generals should
have been subjected to the severest punishment.
What does all this mean? We see now that infringement of freedom is
necessary with regard to the opponents of the revolution. At a time of revolution
we cannot allow freedom for the enemies of the people and of the revolution.
That is a sure, clear, irrefutable conclusion.
After March and before October neither the mensheviks nor the right socialist
revolutionaries, nor the bourgeoisie, once raised their voices against the usurpa-
tion of power by violence in March, or against the suppression of freedom (of
the Black Hundred press), or speech (Black Hundred), etc. They never once
raised their voices against all this, because it was carried out by the bourgeoisie,
Goutchkoff, Mihikoff, Rodzianko, and Tereschenko, and their loyal servants Keren-
sky and Tzeretelli, who had usurped power in March.
By October things had changed. In October the workers rose against the
bourgeoisie who had trodden upon their necks in March. In October the peasants
supported the workers. It clearly follows that the bourgeoisie grew to hate
the woi'kers' revolution, and in its mad hatred behaved no better than the
landowners.
All the large property owners united against the working class and the
poorest peasantry. They gathered around the so-called party of the people's
freedom (in reality the party of the people's treason) against the people.
APPENDIX, PART 1 169
And it is easy enough to understand that when the people succeed in getting
the upper hand over their enemies the latter, in impotent fury, cry, "usurpers,"
"violators," and so on.
The following is now clear to the workers and peasants. The party of the
Connnunists not only allows no freedom (such as liherty of the press, speech,
meetings, unions, etc.) for the hourf/eois enemies of the people, but goes still
further and demands of the government to be always ready to close the bour-
geois press, to br(>ak up gatherings of the enemies of the people to forbid their
lying and libeling, and sowing panic; the party must mercilessly suppress all
attempts of the bourgeoisie to return to power. And this is what is meant by
dictatorship of the proletariat.
When there is a question of the press, we first ask whieh press— the bourgeois
or the workers' press; when there is a question of gatherings, we ask what
gatherings — workers' or counter-revolutionary ; when a question arises of strikes,
the first question for us is whether it is a strike of the workers against the
capitalists, or a sabotage instigated by the bourgeoisie or the bourgeois intel-
lectuals against the proletariat. He who makes no distinction between these
two things is groping in the dark. The press, meetings, unions, etc., are weapons
of class struggle. And in a revolutionary epoch they are the weapons of civil
war, together with munition stores, machine guns, powder and bombs. The great
question is : which class is using them as a weapon against the other. The workers
revolution cannot possiblv grant freedom for the organization of such risings as
those of Korniloff, Dutoff, or Milukoff against the working masses. Neither
can it allow full freedom of organization, of speech, press, and of meetings of
the counter-revolutionary bands who are stubbornly carrying on their own policy,
and only lying in wait for a chance of throwing themselves upon the workers.
As we have already seen, the right wing socialist revolutionaries and men-
sheviks, decaring their motto to be "the Constituent Assembly," are only
anxious for votes for the dourflcoisie. And just in the same way when they
violently abuse destruction of freedom they are anxious for the freedom of the
hourgeoisie. The bourgeois press, bourgeois leaders, the counter-revolutionary
bourgeois organizations are not to be touched — this is the real position of these
gentlemen.
But, they will say. you yourselves used to close both mensb.evik and socialist
revolutionary newspapers ; the party of the Communists has more than once
encroached on the liberty of worthy individuals, who in their time (in the reign
of the Tzar) suffered imprisonment. How can we .justify that'? This question
may be answered by another : when Goltz, the right wing socialist revolutionary,
organized a rising of Junkers and officers against the soldiers and the workers —
what were we to do? Pat him on the head for it? When Roudneff, the richt
wing socialist revolutionary together with colonel Riabtzeff, the right wing
socialist revolutionary. In October armed the Moscow White Guards, consist-
ing of the sons of the bourgeoisie, houseowners, and other gentry, the gilded
youth, and in union with the officers and .junkers tried to suppress by machine
guns and drown in blood the October rising of workers and soldiers — what could
we do? Decorate them with medals for their feats? When the menshevlk organ
"Forward" (which ought really to be named "Backward") and the socialist
• revolutionist "Labor" lied to the Moscow workers at the critical moment of the
struggle, that Kerensky had taken Petrograd (which they did to break up the
unanimity nf the workers), were we expected to praise them for these provocatory
tricks?
What follows from all this? It follows that when the socialist traitors and
socialist traitors' organs begin to serve the bourgeoisie too fervently, or when
they cease to differ In their line of action from the Black Hundred cadet or-
ganizers of pogroms — then they should and must be treated In the same way as
their beloved teachers and benefactors. At the present moment there are many
such, who, although having fought against the Tzar and landowners, now cry
at the top of their voice when the workers seize the wealth of the bourgeoisie.
For what they have done in the past we render them our thanks. But if at the
present moment they do not in any way differ from the Black Hundred liorde,
then they can hardly exiiect us to encourage them.
But whilst the l)ourgeolsle and all the other enemies of the proletariat and
I poorest peasantry require a bridle to restrain them, the proletariat and peasantry,
1 on the other hand, need complete freedom of speech, of association, and of the
I press, etc., not only In word, but In fact. Never, under any government, was
there such a number of workers' and peasants' organizations as there are now
I'JO UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
in the Soviet Government. Never did any government support such a vast num-
ber of worliers' and peasants' organizations as does the Soviet Government. This
is because the Soviet Government is the government of workers and peasants
themselves, and it is no wonder therefore that such a government supports all
other working class organizations as far as it lies in its power. We repeat, the
Communists carry all this freedom into effect instead of merely proclaiming it
before the world. Here is a little example : the freedom of the workers' press.
Under the pressure of the working class even the bourgeoisie might agree to a
greater or smaller amount of freedom for the workers' press. But the workers
have no means ; all the printing works are in the hands of the capitalists. Paper
is in the hands of the capitalists, who have bought up everything. The workers
have the right to a free press, but they are unable to make use of it. We,
Communists, on the other hand, approach the owners of printing works and of
paper works, and we say to them : "the proletarian government is about to con-
fiscate your works and declare them to be the property of the workers' and
peasants' government, and to place them at the disposal of the workers" ; let
them now put their right to a free press into execution. Of course the capitalists
will set up a howl at such proceedings, but it is the only way to attain real
freedom of the workers' press.
Another question may be put to us : why did the bolsheviks never before speak
of the complete destruction of the freedom of the bourgeois press? Why were
they formerly on the side of a bourgeois democratic republic? Why did they
themselves side with the Constituent Assembly without ever expressing them-
selves in favor of depriving the bourgeoisie of the franchise? In a word, why
have they changed their attitude now in conection with these questions?
The reason is very simple. The working class at that time was not yet powerful
enough to storm the bourgeois fortress. It needed time to prepare, to gather
strength, to enlighten the masses, to organize.
It lacked, for instance, a press of its own uninfluenced by the capitalist class.
But it could not come to the capitalists and their government and demand :
"close your newspapers. Messrs Capitalists, and start newspapers for us work-
ers." They woidd be laughed at; it would be ridiculous to put such demands
to capitalists. It would be equivalent to expecting the latter to cut their hands
off with their own knife. Such demands are only made when a position is
being taken by storm. Previously there was no such time. And that is why
the working class (and our party) said: "Long live freedom of the press (the
whole press, the bourgeois jjress included) !" Or take another instance. It is
evident that employers' associations, such as throw workers on the street, keep
black lists, etc. These are very harmful to the working class. But the working
class could not demand the suppression of employers' associations and full
liberty for labor union. To do this it was necessary first to destroy the capi-
talist government, and the workers were not strong enough to do that. Tliat
is why at that time our party demanded the freedom of association (not only
workingmen's), but unions in general.
Now times have changed. There is no question now of a lengthy preparation
for the battle : we are now living in the period after storm, in the period after
the first great victory over the bourgeoisie. Now there is only one other prob-
lem before the working class : to finally and irretrievably break up the resist- •
ance of the bourgeoisie.
That is why the working class, acting in the name of the liberation of the
whole of humanity from the atrocities and terrors of capitalism, must carry
out this task to a definite end and with unswerving firmness. No indidgence
for the bourgeoisie and no leniency^ — but complete liberty and the possibility
of realizing this liberty, to the working class and poorest peasants.
chapter viii
Banks, the Common Propehity of the Workeks. Nationalization of Banks
We have seen above that the cause of all evils in a capitalist society lies in
the fact that all the means of production belong to the landowners and capital-
ists. We have also seen that the only way out of this is to take the means nf
production out of the hands of the capitalist class (whether they be individual
capitalists, or trusts, or a bourgeois State) and to transfer them into the hands
of the working class. This can be done and is being done, now that the workers
and peasants possess such a strong weapon as is their Workers' Soviet Govern-
ment.
APPENDIX, PART 1 171
It is perfectly understood that the tirst thing to be done in this direction is to
deprive capitaf of its most essential and most important means of control ; to
take the principal economic fortresses of capital. The second is to begin with
that which is not only easier to take, but easier also to organize and have
control and account over, and which can be arranged in the smoothest way.
AVe already know that the task of the working class and the poor peasantry
does not consist in depriving the rich of their wealth, distributing this wealth
among themselves, robbing and sharing the spoils. No ; it consists in construct-
ing society on the basis of labor, working according to a defimte plan, and
organizing the production and distribution of products. Hence it follows that
the working class must tirst of all take possession of those organizations which
have up till now existed only for the profit of the capitalist, and divert them
to their own uses, putting them on a different footing, thus making them serve
not capitalists and landowners, not speculators and sharks, but the laboring
mass.
That is why our party has put forward the demand (since carried into
execution) for the nationalization of banks, that is to say, for the transfer of
banks into the hands of the workers' and peasants' Government.
It is generally believed that the chief significance of banks lies in the fact
that their vaults are packed with piles of gold and heaps of paper money and
valuables, for which reason the Communists are so eager to get the banks. But
in reality tliis is not the case.
Modern banks are not only filled with money bags. Banks as a matter of fact,
represent the pinnacle of capitalist orf/anization which rules industry. The
industrial capitalists make profits uninterruptedly, and capital flows to them in
a continuous stream. What does tlie capitalist do with the profit acquired? A
parr of it is saved for eating, drinking and dissipation. Another part, consider-
ably larger, is saved for extending his business at any given moment: he can
only do so when a large enough "balance" has accumulated, a sum big enough,
let "us say, to build a new factory or set up a new plant. Until that happens he
deposits his money into the bank so as not to have "dead" capital on his hands.
He deposits it and gets definite interest on it. The question now is, does this
capital remain in the bank, increasing thei-e of itself? Certainly not. The
bank transacts business with this money. It either establishes enterprises, or
shares purchases in enterprises just being formed. The dividend it obtains on
its shares are considerably higher than the sums it pays to its clients.
The difference goes to form the profit of the bank. This difference accumu-
lates, is again involved in transactions, and in this way the capital of the bank
increases. Gradually the banks become the real heads of industrial enterprises ;
some enterprises are entirely owned by them, others, only partly. Experience
has shown that it is enough to own thirty or forty per cent, of the total shares
to become practically the controller of the whole enterprise. And that is what
really happens. For instance, two banks manage and direct the entire industry
of America. In Germany four banks hold in their hands the whole economic
lifei of the country. The same thing to a certain extent held good for Russia.
The great majority of big enterprises in Russia were limited companies.
Russian banks, too, were the owners of a large number of shares of these
enterprises, so that the limited companies were in the closest union and in
complete dependence on the banker — were, in fact, under their heel. Seeing that
one bank rules over many industrial enterprises, it is evident that a number of
the largest banks are in reality tlie main directors of industry, the centre as it
were, in which the threads of various enterprises meet. That is why confiscating
the banks, depriving private persons of control over banks, and transferring
them into the hands of the workers' and peasants' government, in a word, the
nationalization of banks, should become a question of paramount importance to
the working class. In response to this, the bourgeoisie, together with its press
and the rest of its suite, have, of course, raised the cry of alarm : "the bolshe-
viks are robbers ! The bolsheviks are thieves ! Do not allow them to plunder
the national wealth and the national savings !" But the reason for all this
clamor is self-evident : the bourgeoisie felt that the nationalization of banks was
a transfer to the working class of the main fortress of capitalistic society — and
therefore the first decisive step towards the destruction of their gain and ex-
ploitation. Once the proletariat has laid its hand on the banks, that means that
it has already taken into its hands to a great extent the reins of industry.
On the other hand, it is not hard to see that without the nationalization of
banks it would have been impossible to weaken the power of the capitalist in
works and factories. The modern factory depends on the bank ; either the
]^72 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
bank simply owns the whole factory or a part of its shares. In some cases it
allows the "factory credit in one form or another. Let us now suppose that the
workmen of a certain factory have taken everything under their own control.
If the bank of the factory is a private concern belonging to the bourgeoisie, the-
whole factory must stop work : it will simply be informed by the bank that there
will be no further credit. And that is equivalent to cutting off a fortress from
supplies. Under such conditions the workers would inevitably have to surrender
and bow the knee to the master. That means, that in nationalizing the banks-
the Soviet Government simultaneously acquires the power of directing and
managing finance, and various bonds and certificates which serve as substitutes
for money ; and thereby the bank, instead of hindering the transfer of industry
into the hands of the working class, on the contrary lends its assistance in such
transfer. The power that in the hands of the bankers was directed against the
workers, now under these now circumstances becomes a power helping the work-
ing class, and directed against the capitalists.
The next ta.sk consists in uniting the different and formerly private banks into
our national bank, to unite the work of the banks or, as it is called, to centralize
the hanking huslness. In that case the transfer of industry into the hands of
the working class would convert the national bank into the principle counting
house; an institution affecting mutual "payments" between different enterprises
and separate branches of production. Let us suppose that the coal, steel, and
iron industries depended on the Central bank. Each one of these has to utilize
the products of the others ; the steel foundries nuist receive their coal from the
coal mines, the steel works must get their steel from the foundries, and so on.
It is evident that since all these enterprises depend entirely upon the bank, all
kinds of "payments" can be settled by the mere transfer of accounts ; banks
become simply counting houses for central book-keeping, where the relations
between the various sections of industry are made clear. In accordance with
these relationships the banks supports ("finances") industry, supporting it with
financial supplies.
Ultimately should we be successful in duly organizing the whole business (and
that is what our party and tlie Soviet Government, at the head of which our
party stands, is striving for) it would result in the following state of things:
they are united by means of central national banks, at which the threads of the
separate enterprises meet, grotiped according to their respective specialties. The
bank keeps an exact account of these enterprises and of all transactions effected
between them which mutually countei-balance as one branch of production sup-
plies products for another. In the bank, the book-keeping department of com-
munal production, the general position of production is in this manner neg-
lected. The centralized and nationalized banking business (that is to say, the
united banking business that is in the hands of the workers' and iieasants'
State) is converted into a communal book-keeping department of the socialist
co-operative production.
chaptee ix
Industry to Belong to the Working Class. (Nationalization of Industry) ?
Although the most important step towards obtaining the means of productioii '
from the hands of exploiters is, as we have seen above, the proletarian na-
tionalization of banks, nevertheless, if industry, in factories and works, the
power of the capitalists will still be maintained, no very desirable results wouM
have been achieved. These enterprises wotild draw such sums as they reqtiircd
from the bank, and the capitalists would calmly go on exploiting their workers,
and would even manage to beg for State subsidies to be spent on all kinds of
things. And therefore a transition to a Comumnist oider. which is unattainable
without the nationalization of banks, is jttst as unattainable without the prole-
tarian nationalization of all large industrial enterprises.
In this direction, too, the working class and our party are taking such steps
to enable us not only to break with the old, taking the reins of prodttction out
of the hands of capitalists, but to create a new standard of relations. That is
why the nationalization of industry must begin with large enterprises, namely,
in the first place with the so-called syndicate.
What is syndicated industry (industries united in syndicates)? Syndicates
are huge industrial combines. When capitalist owners of various enterprises see
that it is not worth their while to compete for each others clients, and that it
is far more profitable to form a close union for the purpose of jointly fleecing
the public, they organize syndicates or still closer combines of manufacturers,
APPENDIX, PART 1 173
namely — trusts. Wlieu promoters are not united in sucli unions, each one tries
to bring clown the prices of his rival ; each one wishes to win over his com-
petitor's client, and this can only be done if he sells goods cheaper, thus ulti-
mately ruining his rival, who is unable to withstand the competition. This sort
of struggle between the rich manufacturt'rs invariably leads to the ruin of the
smaller man; the big sharks of capitalism and the richest manufacturers come
out victorious. Let us now suppose that in some one branch of industry (say the
merallurgic) three or four big lirms remain. If one of them is stronger it
•carries on the struggle until the rest are ruined. But supposing that their
powers are approximately the same, then it is evident that a mutual straggle
is fruitless : it will result in the exhaustion of all the rivals to an equal extent.
In such cases we generally see an attempt to come to an understanding; they
organize a union of these" enterprises and make an agreement not to sell their
goods below a fixed price; they distribute the orders among themselves, or
appoint one firm to do business in one pr.rt of the country and another firm in
^another; in a word, they amicably divide the market between themselves. As
the firms united into a syndicate usually supply nuich more than half products
required for a given area, that means that the syndicate dominates over the
market, and that the directors of the syndicates can fix very high prices and
fleece their buyers like sheep. But once they join a union it is natural that they
are comi>elled to form a joint board of management for the formerly separate
enterprises and to keep a strict account of all the goods produced, to organize
the distribution of orders, in a word, they are compelled to organize production.
Not for the people, not for the sake of the buyer's advantage. Oh, no! Only
for their own profits and gains, and for the sake of overcharging the worker
and fleecing the buyer ; that is the real purpose for which capitalists form their
tniions.
It has now been made clear why the working class must first of all proceed
to nationalize those branches of productiou which are syndicated. It is because
such branches have already been organized by the capitalists, and such produc-
tion, even when organized by capitalists, is easiest to deal with. It is, of
course, necessary somewhat to modify the capitalist organizations, ridding them
of the most obdurate enemies of the working class ; w^e must strengthen the
po.sition of the workers in such a way that everything should be subjected to
the workers ; and, in the process, abolish certain things altogether. Even a
child can understand why such companies are easiest to conquer. Here the
same thing is repeated as in the case of Government railroads ; being organized
by a bourgeois Government, their management was, for that very reason,
worked on a principle of centralization, and it was easier for the Workers'
Government to take them into its own haiuls.
In Western Europe (especially in Germany) and in th.e United States of
America, practically tlse whole of production during the time of the war has
fallen into the hands of the plundering bourgeois Government. The bourgeoisie
■decided that it would never attain a victory unless the war was condr.cted in
accordance with the latest dictates of science. And modern warfare dem-mds
not only expenditure of money, but necessitates all production to be organized
for the purpose of the war, a strict account being registered of everything,
so that there be no waste and all things be correctly distributed. All this is
possible when there is a central united management. It is needless to say that
production is not organized for the benefit of the working class, but only for
the purpose of conducting the war and of affording the bourgeoisie still more
chances of enriching themselves. No wonder, then, that at the head of this
system of penal servitude there stand generals, bankers, and the greatest
exploiters. Nor is it surprising that the working class in those countries
are oppressed and turned into white slaves or serfs. But, on the other hand,
if the workers there succeed in shattering the machinery of the bourgeois
State, it will be quite easy for them to take possession of the means of produc-
tion and arrange it on a new plan ; they will have to drive the generals and
bankers out, and put their own men everywhere ; but they will be able to use
that apparatus tor checking and control that has been created for them by
the vultures of capitalism. That is why it is infinitely harder for the Western
European workers to hegin destroying the most powerful of bourgeois States,
but it will be also much easier to conclude the task, having at their disposal
tlie means of production organized by the bourgeoisie.
The Russian bourgeoisie, seeing that its power was not very secure, and
that the proletariat was near a victory, was afraid to start decisively along
the road traced by the Western European bourgeoisie. It understood that,
together with the Government power, organized production would fall into
174 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
the hands of the working class. And therefore the Russian bourgeoisie did
not care to improve its organization, but, on the contrary, strove to disorganize,
and at the time of Kerensli.v, had recourse to sabotage as a means of ruining
production.
However it is to be noted tliat, even prior to the war, in Russia, partly owing
to foreign capital, the most important spheres of industry were already
syndicated. This especially applies to the so-called heavy branches of industry
(coal mining, metallurgic industry, etc.). It is this heaA-y industry that must be-
nationalized first (and this is already being done: production in the Ural
district, for instance, being practically entirely nationalized). After that, the
whole of big production should be nationalized. Together with the transfer of
big industry into the hands of the Woi-kers' Government, the less important
industries will also become dependent on the Government, because very many
lesser industries depended to a great extent on the greater ones even before
any nationalization took place. Sometimes these smaller firms are no more
than branches of the larger concerns, depending on them for orders. In otlier
cases they supply their products to the larger concerns ; in others they depend
on the banks, and so on. Together with the nationalization of banks and of
large industry, they immediately become dependent in some way or other
upon nationalized production. Of course, there will still remain a number of
small owners and proprietors of small home industries, etc. There are a
great number of such in Russia. But, nevertheless, the basis of our industry
is not the above named workshops, but the large scale industry, and the
r\ationalization by the Workers' Government of this kind of production deals
capitalism an irreparable blow. The banks and large scale industry are the
two main fortresses of capitalism. Their expropriation, that is to say, their
seizure by the working class and the Workers' Government, marks the end of
capitalism and the beginning of Socialism. The means of production, that prin-
cipal basis of human existence, is thereby taken out of the hands of a small
number of exploiters and transferred into the hands of the working class and
the Workers' and Peasants' Government.
The Meusheviks and the Right Wing Socialist Revolutionaries, who do not
wish to deviate one step from capitalism, and who are going hand in hand witli
the bourgeoisie, are opposed to any kind of nationalization by the Soviet
Government. That is because they are fully aware, as well as the bourgeoisie,
that by nationalization a severe blow is dealt into the very heart of the
capitalist order, so dear to them. They deliberately deceive the workers with
tales of our "immaturity" for Socialism, of our industry being in a backward
state, of it being quite impossible to organize, and so on.
We have already seen that this is not the case at all. The backwardness
of Russia is not in the small number of large enterprises — on the contrary, we
have quite a number of such. Its backwardness consists in the fact that the
whole of our industry occupies too little place in comparison with the vast areas
of our rural districts. But in spite of this we must not belittle the importance
of our industry, for it is a significant fact that the working class is carrying
all the vital elements of the Revolution along with it.
There is another curious circumstance to be noted. All the time when the
Government was in the hands of the bourgeoisie, Mensheviks and Right Wing
Socialist Revolutionaries, these latter drew up a programme of Government
regulation of industry. They did not then lament over the backwardness of
our country. At that time they considered it possible to organize industry.
What is the reason for such change in opinion? It is simple enough. The
Mensheviks and Right Wing Socialist Revolutionaries hold it necessary for
the bourgcais State to organize production (in Western Europe this would be
agreed to by Wilhelm, George and President Wilson) ; the party of the Com-
munists, on the contrary, wants production to be organized by a proletarian
Government. The thing is indeed simplicity itself. It is the same story all over
again. The Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries want to revert to capital-
ism ; the Communists are going ahead to Socialism and Communism, and the
most important step on the road towards Communism they consider to be the
nationalization of banks and the nationalization of large-scale production.
CHAPTE» X
Communal Cultivation of Public Land
The October Revolution accomplished that for which the Russian peasants
had been striving during many centuries. It deprived the landowners of the
APPENDIX, PART 1 175
land and transferred it into the hands of the peasants. The question now is
how to allot this land. And here, too, we Communists must talce up the same
position as we did regarding the question of arranging industrial produftion.
riilike a factory, land can, of course, be divided. But what would be the
result of dividing up land into private allotments amongst individual i^asants?
The result would be that the man who had managed to save up a little money,
being stronger and richer, would soon become a "personality" and turn into
a shark, a land-grabber or a usurer; then he would aim still higher and l)egin
buying up the land of those who were getting poorer. Before long the village
would be again divided into big landowners and poor peasants, the latter having
no alternative but to go to town in search of work or hire himself out to the
rich landowner.
These new landowners would not, it is true, belong to the gentry, being only
rich peasants, but the difference is after all a small one. The exploiting peasant
landowner is a real vampire; he will sweat the poor worker even harder than
the representative of the degenerating, impoverished, and thoroughly incapable
nobility.
This shows us that the plan of dividing or sharing the land offers us no way
out of the dilemma. The only solution is in a communal national holding of
land ; in land being declared the conunon property of the laborers. The Soviet
Government has made a law of socialization of land ; the land has in fact been
taken from the landowners, and it has become the common property of the toiling
people.
But that is not enough. We must aim at such an arrangement as would ensure
the land being not only owned in common, but also be cultivated in common. If
that is not done, then no matter what you proclaim or whatever laws you
publish, the result will be most unsatisfactory. One man will fuss about on
his allotment, another on his, and if they continue to live apart without mutual
aid and common work, they will gradually come to look upon the land as their
private property, and no laws from above would be of any use. Common cultiva-
tion of the soil is what should be aimed at.
In agriculture, just as in industry, it is easiest to carry on production on a
large scale. With large-scale production it is possible to use good agricultural
machines effecting a saving of all kinds of material, to arrange the work accord-
ing to one single plan, to put every workman to the most suitable job, and to
keep a strict account of everything, thus preventing undue waste of either ma-
terials or labor-power. Our task, therefore, does not at all consist in making
every peasant a manager of his own small allotment, but in making the poorer
peasants join a cfimniDn scheme of work on the largest possible scale.
How is this to lie done? This can and must be done in two ways: first, co-
operative cultivation of irhat were formerly hiy estates; and secondly, hij or-
yanizing agricultural labor communes.
In the estates of former landowners where the land was not leased to the
peasant as a whole, and where there existed the private direction of the landlord,
the estate was, of course, ever so much better managed than the peasants'. The
evil was that the entire profits fell into the hands of the landowners, who
oppressed the peasants. And here again there is one thing clear to the Com-
munists ; just as there is no sense whatever in the factory workers plundering
the factory plant, to share them between themselves, and ruining the factory,
so would it be equally senseless for the peasants to act in the same manner on
the land. On the l)ig private estates there is often much that is valuable: horses,
cattle, different kinds of implements, stocks of seeds, reaping and other kinds of
agricultural machines, and so on. In other estates, again, there are dairies,
cheese churns, quite large works in fact. And it would be senseless to plunder
all that and drag it away to the different cottages. The village exploiters would
be interested in that, knov^'ing that sooner or later all these things would fall
into their hands again, as they would buy up the poor men's shares.
The exploiting country shark clearly understands that such a sharing will in the
end be to his "benefit." But the interests of the poorest peasantry, of the prole-
tariat, and of all those who eked out a poor living independently by selling their
labor power, lie in quite another direction. For the poorest peasants it is far
more profitable to deal with "the large estates in just the same way as the workers
are dealing with the factories," that is, to take them under their control and
management, to cultivate the former landowner's estates in common, and not
plundering and carrying off the machines and plant, but using jointly such ma-
chines and plant that formerly belonged to the landowners and have now become
the property of the laborers. They could call to their aid agricultural experts,.
lYQ UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
competent men, to help them cultivate the land not in a casual way, but properly,
so that it should yield not less than when it belonged to the landlord, but much
more. It is not difficult to seize the land; neither did it prove difficult to seize
private estates. It had to be done. In spite of all tliat the Socialist Revolu-
tionaries and Mensheviks did to dissuade the peasants (pointing out the lawless-
ness of such an action, and saying that the whole thing would be useless and
i-esult only in bloodshed, and so on ) , the peasants, in spite of everything, took the
land, and the Soviet Government helped them to do it. It is a far harder ta.sk
for the workers to retain the land, defending it from the exploiting village sharks
whose eyes are already lighting up with greed at the prospect of seizing it. At
this point the poorest peasants should remember that they must carefully guard
the safety of communal property. For now the wealth that was formerly the
landowner's has become the property of the whole community. It should be
improved for the benefit of all the workers. Things should be organized in such
a manner that the delegates of the poorest peasantry and of the laborers and
those of the regional Soviets and their land departments, should have charge of
everything, so as not to allow any waste, and should lend their assistance in the
joint cultivation of the land. The more ordered the joint production in such
estates will be, the better it will be for the workers. All this means that the
land will yield better crops, the village exploiters will be foiled, and the pea.saut
will be trained in co-operative production, the latter a most important principle of
Communism.
But it is not enough to preserve the estates of the former landowners and
cultivate them on new principles. AVe must strive to organize hir(/e joint
agriculfiiral labor communes by uniting separate allotments. For now the
Government is in the hands of the workers and peasants. That means that
this Government will, as far as it lies within its power, assist the peasants
in any useful undertaking. It is only necessary for the poorest peasants and
semi-proletariat, as well as the late farm hands, to manifest greater activity,
more personal initiative. The weak, poverty-stricken peasants, working each
one by liimself, can achieve nothing; they \\\\\ hardly be able to exist. But
they will aitain a great deal once they begin to unify their allotments, jointly
purchasing machinery with the aid of the town workers, and in this manner
cultivating the land in common, on a basis of common interests.
The town Soviets and economic organizations of the workers will assist
such labor agricultural communes, supplying them with iron and manufactured
goods, and they will help them by recommending land experts and competent
men. And thus gradually the once poor peasant, who has never seen anything
beyond his native town, will begin to be transformed into a comrade, who,
hand in hand with others, will march along the road of communal labor.
It has now been made clear that to organize matters in this direction we
must have a solid organization of the poorest elements of peasantry. This
organization must accomplish two principle tas-ks; the first is the struggle
with the country sharks, usurers, former inn-keepers, in a woi'd, with the
former bourgeoisie ; the second is the organization of agricultural production
and the control over the distribution of land, the organization of labor com-
munes and the management of the estates of former landowners with a view
to their best possible utilization ; in other words, they must set before them-
selves the groat task of a new reconstruction of land. The poorest peasantry
should form such organizations in the shape of regional Soviets, and shoidd
introduce into them special departments such as, for instance, a food supply
department, a land department, and others. The land departments of the
peasants' Soviets should form the chief support of the poorest elements of the
peasantry in conned ion with the land question. To arrange matters on a
firmer basis it woidd be best to construct these Soviet organizations in such
a way that the local and neighboring factory workers should also have
their representatives. Workmen are a moi'e experienced set of people than
the peasants, they are used to joint business organizations, and are also more
experienced in the struggle against the bourgeoisie. The factory workers
will always help the village poor against the rich, and therefore the former
will ever find in them their staunchest allies.
The village poor should not allow tliemselves to be duped. They have
fought and struggled for the land, and they have finally won it from the
landlords. They miTSt see that they do not lose it again ! They must see
that they do not let it slip through their fingers ! The danger is there if they
are going to work in the direction of sub-dividing the land and sharing it out
into private lots. The danger will vanish if the rural poor, together with
APPENDIX, PART 1 177
tlie working class, go along the road of joint production on as large a scale as
jidsi^ilile. Then we shall all proceed at top speed towards Communism.
Chapter XI
Workers' Management of Production
Just as in connection with the land, the lef'ding part in the management in
1 ^ various localities is gradually transferred to the organizations of poorest
1! 'asantry and the different peasant Soviets and their departments, so is indus-
trial management gradually heing transferred (which is exactly what our party
expects) into the hands of the workers and peasants' government.
Prior to the October revolution and in the period immediately following upon
ir. the working class and our party put forward the demand for a workers' con-
trol that is to say, for workers' supervision over factories and works to prevent
rhe capitalists from making secret reserves of fuel and raw materials, to see
that they did not cheat or speculate, damage goods or dismiss workers unjustly.
A workers' supervision was instituted over production, as well as over the sale
and purchase of products, raw materials, their storage, and the financing of
enterprises. However, a mere supervision proved inefficient. Especially did this
l)rove insufficient wdien the nationalization of production took place and the
v:trious privileges of the capitalists were destroyed, and when enterprises and
whole branches of Industry were transferred into the hands of the workers' and
peasants' government. It is easy to see that a mere supervision is quite ineffi-
cient, and that what is required is not only a workers' control but tvorkers' man-
aricvient of industry; workers' organizations, w^orks' and factories' committees,
trade unions, economic branches of the Soviets, of workers' deputies, and finally
organs of the Workers' and Peasants' Government (such as special committees,
Soviets of public economy, and so on). These are the organizations that should
nor cinly supervise but should also manage. There is another thing that atten-
tion should be drawn to here.
Some of the workers who are not sufficiently imbued with the class-spirit
argue as follows : w^e are here to take our factory into our own hands, and there
is an end to the matter. Before, the factory was the property of, say, Mr.
Smith ; now it is the property of the workers. Such a point of view is, of
coui'se. wrong, and closely resembles dividing. Indeed, if a state of affairs came
about in which every factory belongs to the workers of only that particular
factory, the result would be a competition between factories : one cloth factory
would strive to gain more than another, they would strive to win over eacli
others customers ; tlie workers of one factory would be ruined whilst those of
another would prosper ; these latter employ the workers of the ruined factory, and,
in a word, we have again the old familiar picture ; just as in the case of the shar-
ing out capitalism w^ould soon revive.
How are we to fight against it? It is evident that we must build up such an order
of workers' management of enterprises as would train the workers in the idea that
every factory is the property not only of the workers of that particular factory,
but of the tvhole working people. This can be attained in the following way.
Every factory that works should have a board of management composed of
workers in such a way that the majority of members should belong not to that
factory in question, but should consist of w^orkers delegated by trade unions of
the special branch of industry, by the Soviet of Workers' Deputies, and finally
by the local Soviet of Public Economy. If the board is composed of workers and
of employees (the workers must be in the majority, as they are more reliable
adherents to Communism), and if the majority of workers should belong to
other factories, then the factory will be managed in the manner required for
turtliering the interests of all workers as a class.
Every worker understands that works and factories cannot do without book-
keepers, mechanics, engineers, etc. Therefore another task of the working class
lies in enlisting these into their service. So far the working class could not
produce such specialists from their own midst (but they will be able to do so
when plans of general education will have been carried out successfully, and a
special h-igher education will have become accessible to ever.vbody), until that
time, of course, we shall have, willy-nilly, to pay higher wages to ordinary
spejialists. Let them now serve the working class just as they formerly did the
bourgeoisie. Formerly they were under the control and supervision of the
1 uurgeoisie ; now they will have to be under the supervision and control of the
workers and employees.
94931— 40— app., pt. 1 13
178 UN-AINIERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
To ensure a smooth running of the wheels of industry it is indispensable, as
we have already explained, to have one general plan. It is not enough for
every large factory to have its own board of management consisting of workers.
There are many factories and many branches of production ; they are all bound
to one another, all inter-dependent : if the coal mine yields little coal the result
will be that factories and railroads will be brought to a standstill ; if there is no
petrol, navigation is impeded ; if no cotton, there will be no work to do for the
textile factories. It is consequently necessary to form such an organization
which should embrace all production, based on a general plan, and united with
workers' boards of management of other works and factories; should keep an
exact account of all requirements and reserves, not only of one town or of one
factory, but for the whole country. The necessity for such a general plan is
especially evident in the case of railroads. Any child can understand that the
disorganization in the working of railroads causes incredible calamities: in
Siberia, for instance, there is a sui>er-abundauce of bread, whilst Petrograd is
on the verge of famine. Why is this? Because the bread is beyond the reach
of the inhabitants of Petrograd, as it is impossible to transport it. To ensure
regular traffic it is necessary that everything be strictly registered and correctly
distributed. And this is only possible under one uniform plan. Let us imagine
that one mile of the railroad is under one management, another is under a dif-
ferent one, and a third under a third, and so on, all working independently
of each other. An indescribable muddle would be the result. Such a muddle
could be avoided only by conducting the railway through a single centralized
management. Hence the necessity arises for such workers' organs and labor
organizations, as would unite entire branches of production to each other,
forming one complete whole, and which would also unite the work done in
different parts of the country, as, for instance, Siberia and the Ural districts,
the northern provinces, the centre, and so on. Such organs are in the course
of construction ; they are the district and regional Soviets of Public Economy,
sijecial committees uniting whole branches of production or commerce (as, for
instance, Centro-texile, Centro-sugar, and so on), and over all the rest we have,
as a central organization, the Supreme Council (Soviet) of Public Economy.
All these organizations are connected with the Soviets of the workers' deputies
and work in unison with the Soviet Government. Their staff is mainly com-
posed of representatives of tcorkers' orf/anizaiions. and they are siipported by
trade unions, works' and factories' committees, unions of employees, and so on.
In this way gradually a irorkrrs' management of industry is being formed
from the top of the ladder to the bottom. In the respective localities we have
works' and factories' committees and the workers' board of management, and
above those the region and district committees, and Soviets of Public Economy,
and at the head of all these organizations we have the Supreme Council of
Public Economy. The task of the working class now lies in enlarging and
strengthening by all possible means the workers' management of industry,
educating the vast masses of the people in this direction. The proletariat taking
production into its own hands, not as the property of separate individuals or
groups, but as the property of the whole working class, should concern itself
with supporting the central and district workers' organizations by thousands of
branches, at the various works and factories. If the higher organs of workers
boards of management in the localities of production are not supported by the
local ones, they will hover, as it were, in mid air, and become transformed into
bureaucratic institutions devoid of any live revolutionary spirit. But, on the
other hand, they will be enabled to cope with the terrible existing disorganiza-
tion if they are supported on all sides by the vital forces of the workers in every
locality, and every command of the workers' central organization will lie
responded to and executed not as a matter of form, but as a matter of duty by
the workers' organizations and by the working masses in their respective
localities. The more the masses discuss matters for themselves, the more keen
their interest in the election of their boards, the more work carried on at the
works and factories, the greater the part they take in the business of doing away
with all kinds of disorder and dishonesty — the sooner will the working class
possess itself not only in word but in deed of the whole industrial production,
thus realizing not merely a political, but even an eeonninie dieiaiorxhU) of flu'
■irfyi-Jcwfj elasn. that is to say, the working class will become the actunl nvi^tei'
not only of the army, the courts of justice, schools and other departments, hut
it will also be at the bead of the management of ijirjdiietio}). Only then will
the might of capital he completely rooted out, and the possibility for capital
ever again to crush the working class under its heel be completely destroyed.
APPENDIX, PART 1 179
chapter xii
Bkead — Only fdr the Woekers. Compxjlsory Labor Service fob the Rich
A transition to the communal order means a transition to an order where
there will be no class difference between people, and where all will be coiu-
mnnal icorkers and never hired laborers. It is necessary to pass immediately
on to the oryanization of such an order. And one of the first steps in this
direction on a parallel with a proletarian nationalization of banks and of
industry, is the introduction of labor service for the rich.
There are at present many ijeople who do nothing, create nothing, but consume
that which others have made. And more than that, there are people who not
only do no work, but whose whole activity is directed at hindering and inter-
fering with the work of the Soviet Government and the working class. The
Avorkers sflw with their own eyes the instance of the sabotage attempted by
the Russian intellectuals, teachers, engineers, doctors and others of the "learned
professions." It would be superfluous to mention the bigger game such as
directors of factories and banks, the late high oflicials, etc. They all made
efforts to disorganize and destroy at the i-oot the work of the proletariat and
the Soviet Government. The task of the proletariat consists in cmnpelling
these bourgeoisie, former landowners, and numerous intellectuals of the well-
to-do classes to work for the common good. How is this to be done? By means
of introducing lahor record books and labor service. Every one of the above-
named class should receive a special book in which an account is kept of his
work, that is to say, of his compulsory service. Fixed entries in his book
entitle him to buy or receive certain food products, bread in the first place.
Anyone who refuses to work, supposing he sabotages (an ex-official, a former
manufacturer or landowner who cannot possibly accustom himself to the idea
of the loss of land on which he has lived for years and has become a frenzied
enemy of the workers), if such an individual refuses to work there is nO'
corresponding entry in his book. He goes to the store, but is told, "There is
nothing for you. Please to show an entry confirming your work."
Under such a system the mass of idlers who fill the Nevsky Prospect of
Petrograd and the main street of other big towns, will have to set to work
against their will. It is i>erfectly understood that the carrying into execution'
of this kind <>f labor service will be hindered by many obstacles. The upper
and upper-middle classes will, on the other hand, make every endeavor to evade-
this compulsory service, and on the other hand, try by every means within their
power to hinder such an order. To arrange matters so that certain food
products should be obtained only on producing a corresponding entry in the
labor book, and that such products .should not be distributed in any other way,
is not an easy matter. The rich who possess money (and money means merely:
counters for obtaining products) have also a thousand possibilities of deceiving
the Soviet Government and duping the workers and poorest peasantry. These
possibilities must be destroyed by a well-regulated organization for supplying
products.
Of course labor service for the rich should only be a transitory stage towards
(jenenii labor service. The latter is necessary not only because the productveness
of our trade and agriculture can be increased by enlisting the service of all
members of society fit for work, but also because a strict account of labor power
and a proper distribution of such over the various branches of production and
the different undertakings is neces.sary. Just as in war time it is necessary,
on the one hand, to mobilize all the forces, and on the other to keep account of
and properly organize them, so in the war ivifh economic disoryanisaiiO'n it is
necessary to draw all the useful sections of the population into the work,
register and organize them into one great army of labor with a labor discipline
and a proper understanding of its duties.
At the pre.sent moment in Russia, in consequence of the economic disorganiza'-
tion and shortage of raw material which has been intensified by the occupatioru
of South Russia and Ukraine by the forces of German Imperialism, there is a
considerable amount of unemployment. As a result we are faced with the
following situation : we know that we can only win through by the aid of
human labor power, from the fact that only labor can increase the productivity
of our industry and agriculture; and of this human labor power we have plenty.
But in spite of that there is no opportunity to apply this labor power. There
is already a large amount of unemployment as a result of the shortage of fuel
and raw material. Where then shall we place these people whom the Workers'
IgQ UN-AMERIOAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
and Peasants' Government intends to compel to work? It is true that one of
the most important questions is the organization of public works and construc-
tion of such things of supreme social importance as railways, grain elevators,
and the opening of new mines. But it is evident that this work could not at
once absorb the large surplus of labor that exists.
Thus it will be necessary fr-om the very first to limit ourselves to registering
the working hands, noting their respective compulsory service only at the request
of the Soviet Government, or working class bodies superintending the manage-
ment of production. Let us illustrate this by an example. Supposing that
for surveying new mines in Siberia engineering specialists are required. The
metallurgic department of the Soviet of Public Economy puts forward a demand
for such. The department for registering labor power examines its lists and
finds the people who correspond to the kind required, and these are then ohUycd
to go where the above-mentioned departments choose to send them.
Naturally, as the organization of production becomes more ordered, and the
demand for labor increases, so will compulsory service be carried into effect;
that is to say, all persons capable of work will be compelled to do their share
of work.
Compulsory labor service in itself is not a new idea. At the present moment,
in practically all the warring countries, the Imperialist Governments have in-.^
troduced labor service for their population (in the first instance, of course, for
the oppressed classes). But the labor service introduced in Westeni Europe
is as far removed from that which ought to be introduced by us as is heaven
from earth. In the Imperialist States such service means the complete suhju-
gation of the working class, its complete enslavement to financial capital and
the plundering Government. And why is that? Simply because the workers
do not govern themselves but are governed by generals, bankers and big syndi-
calists and bourgeois politicians. The worker there is a mere pawn in their
hands. He is a serf whom his master can dispose of as he pleases. No wonder
that compulsory service in the West at the present time means a new contri-
bution, a new ^feudal levy, the institution of a new system of military hard
labor. It is introduced there for the purpose of enabling the capitalists, whose
pockets are being filled by the labor of the workers, to carry on an interminable
plundering war.
Our workers themselves must, through their own organizations, introduce and
carry out compulsory labor-service on the basis of self government by the work-
ers. There is no bourgeoisie over them here. On the contrary, the workers
are noto placed over the bourgeosie. Controlling, accounting, and distributing
labor power is now the concern of tlie workers' oryaiiizations, and as compulsory
labor service will affect the rural districts, it will become the concern of the
peasants Soviets, which will stand over the village bourgeoisie, subjugating it
to their ride. All the organs dealing with labor will be purely workers* organs.
This is quite natural : if the administration of industry is to become a workers'
administration, the management of labor must also be in the hands of the work-
ers, for that is only part of the management or administration of production.
The working class, which wishes to take the lead in the economic life of the
country (and which will do so in spite of any obstacles), the class that is becom-
ing master of all the wealth, is confronted with this main question — the organi-
zation of prodiietiov. The organization of production demands in its turn the
solution of two principal problems : the organization of the means of production
(accounting, controlling, and correct distribution of fuel, raw material, machin-
ery, instruments, seeds, etc.), and the organization of labor (accounting, con-
trolling and correct distribution of labor power). In order to utilize thoroughly
all the forces of society, compulsory labor service, which will sooner or later
be introduced by the working class is indispensable. Idlers must vanish ; only
useful social workers will remain.
CHAPTER XIII
A Systematic Distribution of Products. The Abolition of Trade, Profits,
AND Speculation. Co-operative Communes
It is impossible to take possession of production properly without taking control
of the distribution of products. When products are wrongly distributed there
can be no projier production. Supposing that the largest branches of industry
are nationalized. As we have seen above, one branch of production works for
another. To make production systematic it is necessary that each branch should
APPENDIX, PART 1 181
be supplied with as much material as it requires; one enterprise getting more,
another less. That means that each product should be distributed regularly,
according to plan, in correspondence with the demands of the branches in question.
The various organs of supply, that is to say, such working organizations as deal
with distribution of pioducts, must be in direct communication with the organs
dealing with its production. Only then can the work of production run smoothly.
But there are some products that are directly used by the consumer. Such as
bread, for instance, many food products, the greater part of clothing materials,
many India ruliber products (no factory buys goloshes, which enter into direct
use of the consumer), and so on. Here an equally strict account and a just distri-
bution of these products among the population is necessary. And such a just
distribution is absolutely impossible without a definite plan being carried into
execution. First, the quantity of goods must be registered, then the demand for
fhem, and after that the products must be distributed according to these calcida-
tious. Tlie best instance of the necessity of an organized plan is the food question,
the question of bread. At present the bourgeoisie, the village sweaters, the
Right Social Revolutionaries, the IMensheviks, the well-to-do land grabbing peas-
ants, have all raised a hue and cry about repealing the bread monopoly, and
that speculators, big and small, the wholesale dealers and myesochniki ' should
be allowed to cairy on their trade as they like. It is easy to understand why
the tradesmen are interested in the repeal of the bread monopoly ; in some way
or another this monopoly hinders them from fleecing the consumer. On rhe
other hand, it is quite clear that the present state of things is absurd; the rich
calmly go on eating white bread, buying it in smuggler fashion ; that they have
black bread in plenty there is no question. They just pay considerably more and
get everything they want. Who helps them in thisV The speculators, of course.
What they are anxious about is not to feed the population, bui to grab a little more
money, to stuff a little more into their pockets, and it is, of course, the rich, not
the poor, that can give more. That is why the speculators bring bread not to
those localities where it is most needed, but to where they get paid most. And,
so far, it has not been possible to put an end to this. Hence it is clear that to
organize a systematic distribution of bread, the bread monopoly must be left
intact, as well as the food committees and the hoards of food, and further, this
monopoly must be carried out in the strictest manner, speculators must be dealt
with without mercy, private traders must be made to undei'stand that they dare
not make money out of a national calamity, disturl)ing the general plan. The
trouble at the present time is in the fact that the bread monopoly is imperfectly
carried out, while contraband private trading is thriving, and not in the fact that
there is a monopoly. And that, at a time when there is so little bread, when the
Germans have occupied the richest provinces; at a time when in many places
grain stored for seeds has been eaten up, when the fields remain uncultivated and
people are starving! Every piece of bread is precious, every pound of flour and
grain is priceless. And just for this very reason everything must be strictly
registered, so that not a crumb be wasted, and that all the bread be distributed
evenly, and that the rich should not be privileged in any way. This, we repeat,
can be done and will be attained if the workers only set to work promptly, if
they aid the working organizers in their task, if they help to catch speculators
and cheats.
Unfortunately, there are quite a number of people not filled with class spirit,
who make purchases at their own risk independently of the working organizations,
thereby also increasing the disorganization of the general plan. Each one thinks
to himself: "No matter what you say, I can mind my own business best" — and
off he goes to buy bread. Later on, conflicts are apt to arise on the way, on
account of this very bread, and then he complains : "They don't give you a chance
to look after yourself." As a matter of fact the whole affair looks somewhat like
this : let us imagine a train going, packed full ; some passengers are standing in
the corridors, others lying on the floors — in a word there is not enough room to
drop a pin. Then all of a sudden one man smells something burning, raises a cry
of "fire," and dashes like mad towards the door, pushing i)eople aside. The
people, panic stricken, try to break open the door, a wild scuffle ensues, they bite
and hit each other, break one another's ribs, trample children underfoot. The
result is — dozens of killed, wounded, maimed. Is that right? It might all have
been quite different. If reasonable people had been found to reassure the crowd,
^ The term "mysochnik" comes from a Russian word which means a sack, and is
applied to petty food speculators who carry flour, bread, etc., from the country Into tbe
towns in sacks.
132 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
to calm it, everyone would have walked out iu order without a scratch! Why
did everything hapiien in the way it did? Because each one thought: he will act
for himself, the others are "no concern of mine." But in the end it is he who gets
his neck broken first.
The very same thing takes place with those who buy bread independently,
infringing the regulations of the workers' food organizations. Each one thinks
that he will make things easier for himself. But what is the result? Every such
purchase upsets the systematic registering of the stock in hand : owing to these
purchases the regular delivery of bread becomes impossible. One locality, for
instance, where there is absolute starvation, must have bread delivered at the
expense of another, where things are comparatively better. But, instead some
people from the latter locality buy up all the bread and take it with them. The
former locality is thus left to starve to death. What follows? As the organized
public purchases have become disorganized there appears on the scene the maraud-
ing speculator. He at once begins to try his hand at private purchases. In this
manner the unintelligent poor, lacking in class consciousness, not understanding
things themselves, aid and abet the vampire speculator, whose real place is on
the gallows. Now we can understand why these speculating gentry exploit the
natural dissatisfaction of the hungry against the Soviet Government, and why
the greatest scoundrels and sweaters often stand at the head of risings against
the Soviets in small provincial towns. Workers should understand once and for
all that salvation is not to be attained by a return to the old order, but by ways
which lead forward towards the destruction of speculation towards the annihila-
tion of private trade, towards the social distribution of products by the workers'
organizations.
The same holds good concerning a whole series of other products. The working
class ought not to sufCer in order that the rich may get everything for extra prices,
but, on the contrary, must put an end to the profiteering speculators who, like the
hungry ravens, come flocking from all directions. A just, regulated distribution of
products, on the basis of registering the demands and reserves, is one of the
fundamental tasks confronting the working class. What does this mean? It
means the nationalization of trading, that is, in other words, the aholltion of
trading, for the transition to social distribution cannot exist side by side with
dealer.s and agents who live like parasites and completely upset the work of
supply. Not back to "free private trading," that is to say, to "free" robbery, but
towards an exact, regulated distribution of products by workers' organizations—
this should be the watchword of the intelligent workers.
In order to carry out this plan into execution more successfully a compulsory
union of the whole population into co-operative communes must be aimed at.
Only then can products be justly distributed, when the population that is to get
them is united and organized into large groups, whose demands can be exactly
estimated. If the population, instead of being united and organized, is scattered,
it becomes extremely difBeult to carry out this distribution in a more or less
orderly way ; it is difficult to calculate how much of each article is needed, what
and how much is to be delivered, how, that is, through what agency the distribu-
tion is to be effected. Let us imagine that the population is united into co-opera-
tive communes according to their parishes. Every town or parish, say, is united
into one co-operation which is in its turn united with the house committees.
Then a given product is first distributed to such communes, and these, having cal-
culated beforehand what product and of what quality they require, they distribute
it through their agents, among the different consumers.
In uniting the population into such co-oi>erative communes the already existing
co-operative societies will be of great importance. The wider the sphere of work
of the co-operatives, the wider the circle of the population included, the more
organized will the distribution of products become, and the more frequently will
these co-operatives be changed into organs of supply for the whole population.
Compulsory communes around already existing co-operatives; such, in all
probability, will be the most convenient form of the organization of distribution,
by the aid of which it will be ultimately possible to supplant trade and do away
once for ever with private profit.
To make the task of a regular distribution of products still easier, we must
aim at changing our private system of domestic economii into a social one. At
present every family has its own kitchen, every family, independently of others,
buys provisions, dooming woman to slavery, turning her into an eternal cook
who sees nothing from dawn till night except kitchen utensils, brushes, dusters,
and all kinds of refuse. An innnense amount of labor is absolutely wasted. If
we united and organized housekeeping, beginning with the supply and prepara-
APPENDIX, PART 1 183
tion of food (by means of joint purchases of provisions, cooking, construction of
large model restaurants, etc.). it would be much easier to keep an account of the
demandis of various households, and besides tlie saving of money tluis effected,
the regular genei'al distribulion would be greatly assisted.
One of the most viral questitms for the consumer, and a very painful one for
the town laborers, is the housino question. The poor are here mercilessly ex-
ploited. And on the other hand landlords used to make heaps of money on the
business. The expropriation of this kind of property, a transfer of houses and
of various kinds of residential premises, their registering and the regular dis-
tribution of flats and rooms, the transfer of this work into the hands of the
local workers' committee and of the organs of the Soviet Government is a difficult
but grateful task. We have had enough of the lording of the better classes ! The
worker, the poor toiler, has also a right to a warm room and to a living as
befits a human being.
In this way must economic life gradually be organized. The working class
must organize production. The working class must organize distribution. The
working class to organize consinnption — food, clothes, and housing — there is an
nccounf kept of everything, everything is distributed in the most reasonable way.
T'here are no master.s — there is the self administration of the working class.
chapter xiv
Labor Discipline of thei Working Class and of the Poorest Elements of the
Peasantry
To organize production so that life should be possible without masters, to
organize it on a fraternal basis, is a very good thing, but it is easier said than
done. We meet with munberless difficulties : in the first place we are now stand-
ing face to face with the heritage of the unfortunate war — a ruined country.
The working class is now obliged to clear up the mess made by Nicholas Romanoff
and his servants — Stunner. Sukhomlinolf, Protoppopoff, a mess which was later
increased by Gutchkofl: and Rodzianko with their servants — Kerensky, Tzeretelli,
Dan. and the rest of the treacherous company. Secondly, the working class are
now compelled to organize production whilst reijelling the blows of their greatest
enemies : on the other hand, those who are attacking them with savage hatred
from without, as well as those who are attempting to destroy the Workers'
■Government from within.
In order to emei-ge victorious under such conditions, to conquer once and for
•ever, the workers must struggle against their own inertia. Whilst organizing a
lahor (irriuj. it is at the same time imperative to create a revolutionm'y labor
(li.scipUne in this army. The fact of the matter is that there are still such indi-
viduals among the workers who do not yet believe that they have now become
masters of the situation. We want them to understand that at the present time
the State Exchequer belongs to the workers and the peasants : the factories are
national factories, the land is the land of the people, forests, machinery, mines,
factory plant, houses, evory thing has been transferred into the hands of the
working class. The administration over all this is a toorkers' ndnmmtration.
The attitude of the workers and peasants towards all this wealth cannot now
be the same as it was before; before it belonged to the masters, now all this
wealth belongs to the people. The masters used to sweat the workers to the
utmost. The landowner who lived like a lord fleeced the poor peasant and farm
laborer as bare as he could. Both the worker and the farm laborer were there-
fore right when they did not consider themselves bound to do their best under
the master's whip, for the sake of strengthening the might and power of their
tormentors. This is why there can be no question whatever of a labor discipline
when the whip of the capitalist is brandished over the workmen's head and the
whip of the landowner over that of the peasant and farm laborer. Things are
quite different now. These whips have now been destroyed. The working class
is now working for itself, it is now not making money for the capitalists, but
working in the people's cause, in the cause of the toiling masses which were
previously held in bondage.
But nevertheless, we repeat, there still are workers lacking class spirit who
do not seem to see all this. Why is that? Because they have been slaves too
long. Slavish servile thoughts ever crowd in their brain. Perhaps they think,
at the bottom of their hearts, that they cannot possibly exist without God and
i\ master. And consequently they use the revolution to their own ends, trying to
fill their pockets, to grasp where they can, and what they can, never stopping to
184 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
thiuk of their labor duties nor of the fact that slovenliness and cheating at wort
at present is a crime against the ivoikitKj class. For labor does not now serve to
enrich a master ; labor now supports the workers — the poverty-stricken classes
who are now at the helm of State. The indifferent workman now does not injure
directors or bankers, but members of workers' administration, workers' unions,
and the Government of the workers and peasants. To handle machinery care-
lessly, to break tools, to try and get little work done in the ordinary working
hours for the purpose of working overtime and receiving double pay — by all this
it is not the master who is cheated, it is not the capitalist who is harmed, but
the working class as a whole. The same thing applies to the land. He who
steals farming implements which have been registered by the farm laborers and
peasants, robs the society and not the landowner, who has been driven out a
long time ago. The man who cuts down timber despite the prohibition of the
peasants' organizations is thereby robbing the poor. Any man who, instead of
cultivating the land taken from the landowner, is engaged in bread speculation
or secret distilling, is a cheat and a criminal against the workers and peasants.
Now it is quite evident to everyone that, for setting in order and organizing
production, it is necessary for the workers to organize themselves and create
their own labor discipline. At the factories and works the workers must them-
selves see to it that every comrade should tuin out as much as is required.
Professional workers' unions and the Soviets of the workers are in direct super-
vision of production. They may, when possible, shorten the working day, and
we mean to aim at such excellent organization of production as to make it
possible for each set of workmen to work only six instead of eight hours. But
these very same workers' organizations, as well as the workers' Government and
the working class as a whole, may and she mid expect of their members the most
conscientious devotion to their work. The workers' organizations, especially
labor unions, should themselves fix the average output, that is to say, the amount
of work that must be performed by every workman during one working day :
he who does riot execute the required quantity, allowance of course being made
for sickness and weakness, is sabotaging, undermining the work of constructing
a new social order, and hinders the working class in its progress towards i^erfect
Communism.
Production is a vast machine, every part of which must be in perfect harmony
with the other, all working equally well. An imperfect tool in the hands of a good
workman is worthless, and so is a good tool in the hands of an inefficient one.
What we want is a good tool and a good workman.
Therefore we should strain our powers to the utmost to organize the supply
of fuel and raw material, to organize transpoi-t and to distribute this fuel and
raw material properly, at the same time taking measures for self-discipline and
a proper training of the working masses to conscientious labor.
It is more difficult to do this in Russia than in any other country. The work-
ing class (and this applies in a still greater degree to the peasantry) have not
gone through a long stage of organized training as the Western European and
American workers have. We have among our mnnber many woi'kers who are
only just becoming workers, who are only just getting accustomed to rollectivo
social work, who are only now learning that to say "other people's business is no
concern of mine" is not the proper sentiment for a workman to express. This
kind of workman will always tend to disturb the harmony of social labor. The
more we have of the kind who still nurse the idea of becoming their own masters,
or saving a little money and starting a shop, the harder will be our task of carry-
ing through real labor discipline. But foi- this very reason must those in tlie
vanguard of the I'evolution, pioneers and labor organizations, grow more and
more determined to establish and strengthen such discipline. If this is a success
will become possible to organize everytliing else and for the working class to
emerge victorious out of the difficulties created by the war, by disorganization and
sabotage, and all the barbarity and atrocities of the capitalist order.
chaptee xv
The End of the Power of Money. "State Finance" and Financial Economy
IN THE Soviet Republic
Money at the present time represents the means of obtaining goods. Tlius
those who have much money can buy many things ; they are rich. However low
the rate of money falls, it is always easier to live for the man who has much of it.
The rich classes who even now have an abundance of money can live at their
APPENDIX, PART 1 185
.-as.'. In towns, traders, merchants, capitalists and speculators : in the country
The "kulaks" (rich peasants), the sharks and sweaters who have fattened on
tliH wai- to an incredible degree, having saved hundreds of thousands of roubles.
Things have reached such a pitch that some buried their money in the ground in
boxes or glass jars.
The workers" and peasants' State, on the other hand, is in need of money.
Additional issues of paper money depreciates its value: the more paper money
is printed the cheaper it gets. And yet the works and factories must be main-
tained by these paper tokens ; workers must be paid, the administration must be
kept going, the employees must get their wages. Where is the money to come
f!om? To get the money it is necessary first of all to tax the rich. An income
inid property fax. that is to say, a tax on big profits and on large property, must
be the principal tax; a tax on the rich, a tax on those who receive a surplus
income.
But at the present time, when everybody is living through a revolutionary fever,
when it is diflScult to arrange for the regular imposition of taxes, any means of
obtaining money is reasonable and admissible. For instance, the following is
quite an excellent measure. The Government declares that up to a certain date
all money must be exchanged for new. and that the old money has lost its value.
That means that everybody must empty his boxes and jars and cupboards and
bring his hoard to the bank to be exchanged. And here the following system
should be carried out; the savings of poor people must be untouched, a new
rouble being paid for every old one ; but begiiniing with a certain sum a part must
be deducted for the benefit of the State. And the larger the amount of money
saved up, the greater will be the sum retained. Let us propose the following
scheme: up to 5000 the exchange is to be a rouble for a rouble; of the following
5000 a tenth part is deducted ; from the third 5000 a seventh part ; from the
fourth a fourth part ; from the fifth a half : from the sixth three-quarters ; and
beginning with a definite sum, the whole is confi.'icated.
Thus the power of the rich would be considerably undermined, additional
means for the needs of the Workers' State would be obtained, and everybody
would be more or less equalized with regard to income.
In a time of revolution the imposition of contrihutions on the bourgeoisie is
justifiable. It is certainly not at all advisable for one local Soviet to tax the
bourgeoisie according to one system, whilst the other does so in accordance with
another system, and a third according to a third. Tliis would be as bad as if
there were varying forms of levying taxes in a given locality.
We must strive towards a uniform system of taxation, suitable for the whole
Soviet Republic. But if in the meantime we have not been able to build up such
machinery, contributions are admissible. There is a Russian proverb which says :
"When you can't get fish, a lobster will do." We mi;st bear in mind that the
duty of the party and of the Soviets, as well as that of the working class and the
poorest peasantry, consists in uniting and centralizing on one definite plan, the
collection of taxes, thereby systematically driving the bourgeoisie out of their
economic stronghold.
We must, however, note that the moi-e successful the organization of produc-
tion on new labor principles, the more will the importance of money decrease.
Formerly, when private enterprises were the dominating institution, these private
enterprises sold their goods to one another. The tendency now is for various
branches of industry to unite and become different departments of general social
production. Products may be exchanged between the different departments
simply by a process of book-keeping without the need of using money at all.
This method is acrually in process between the different branches of capitalistic
trusts or combines.
Combined enterprises are those which embrace several varying branches of
production. In America, for instance, there are enterprises which own metal
works, coal mines, iron mines, and steamship companies. One branch of the
enterprise supplies the other with raw materials or transports its manufactured
products. But all these separate branches represent but part of one enterprise.
It is. of course, imderstood that one part does not sell its products to another
branch of the enterprise, but distributes it according to the orders of the central
head oflice of the various departments. Or let us take another example: the
works of one department transfer the half-finished product to another, yet
n-ithin the works no kind of purchase and sale transaction takes place. The same
sort of things will be established in the general plan of production. The main
branches of production will be organized into huge social enterprises under the
management of the workers. A systematic distribution of the necessary means
IgQ UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
of production will take place between the different branches ; this will include
fuel, raw materials, half-finished products, auxiliary materials, and so on. And
that will mean that money will lose its importance. Money is important only
when production is unorganized ; the more organized it becomes the smaller
becomes the part played by money, and the need for it gradually decreases.
What about the woi-kers' pay? we shall be asked. The same thing will hold
good here. The better production is organized by the working class, the less will
social workmen be paid in money and the more they will be paid in kind, that
is to say, in products. We have already spoken of co-operative communes and of
labor registers. Products required by workers will be issued without any money
whatever, simply upon the evidence that such and such a man has worked and is
working; they will be given out by the co-operative stores in accordancf' with
such entries in the labor registers. This, of course, cannot be organized all at
once. It will be long before we are able to organize this into proi:>er working
order. It is a new plan that has never been worked before, and is therefore
exceptionally difficult to carry out. But one thing is clear : in proportion as the
worker.s come into possession of production and distribution, the need of money
will become less and less, and subsequently will gradually die out altogether.
An "exchange" of goods must then begin between town and countrij, without
the agency of money; municipal industrial organizations send out textile, iron
and other goods into the country, while the village district organizations send
bread to the towns in exchange. Here, too. the importance of money will \ye les-
sened in proportion as the town and country labor organizations of the workers
and peasants become more closely united.
But at present, at this very moment, the workers' Government needs money,
and needs it badly. That is because the organizations of production and di.^tri-
bution is only just getting into working order, and money still plays a most
important part. Finances, including income and expenditure of State money, are
at present of the utmost importance. And that is why the question of taxes is sa
acute at the present time ; they must be exacted by every means. The confisca-
tion of surplus incomes of Ihe town and country bourgeoisie is inevitable, as i?
also periodical taxation.
But in the future taxation will also become obsolete. To the extent that pro-
duction becomes nationalized, .so capitalists' profits cease: as there are no more
landowners the so-called land tax is abolished. Property holders are deprived of
their houses, and thus another source of taxation is gone. Superfluous wealth
is confiscated, the rich are losing their main support, and the whole population
is gradually becoming employed by the proletarian State organizations. (Later
on, with complete Communism, when there is no State, [jeople, as we have seen,
will become equal comrades, and the very memory of the division of society into
bourgeoisie will vanish.)
When such a state of things exists it will be much simpler to deduct the neces-
sary taxes immediately from salaries than to deduct considerable sums in the
way of taxes or dues. It is not worth while spending both time and money on
the senseless transaction of giving with one hand and taking away with the other.
We have seen, on the other hand, that when production and distribution are
thoroughly organized, money will play no part whatever and as a matter of
cour.se no kind of money dues will be demanded from anyone. Money will have
generally become unnecessar.v. Finance will become extinct.
We repeat that that time is a long way off yet. There can be no talk of it in
the near future. For the present we must find means for public finance. But we
are already taking steps leading to the abolition of the money system. Society
is being transformed into one huge labor organization or company to produce
and distribute what is already produced without the agency of gold coinage or
paper money. The end of the power of money is imminent.
CHAPTEB, XVI
No Trade Communication Between the Russian Bourgeoisie and Foreign
iMPERiAijsTS. ( Nation alizaton of Foreign Trade)
At the present time every countr.y is surrounded b.v other countries on which
it depends to a considerable extent. It is very difficult for a country to manage
without foreign trade, because the country produces more of one protluct than
another, and vice versa. Blockaded Germany is now experiencing how hard it
is to do without a supply from other countries. And should England, for instance,
be surrounded by as close a ring as is Germany, it would have perished long ago.
APPENDIX. PART 1 lg7
The Russian industry, nationalized by tli«^ working class, cannot possibly dis-
pense with certain goods from abroad, and on the other hand, foreign countries,
especially Germany, are badly in need of raw material. We must not forget even
for a minute that we live in the midst of rapacious capitalist States. Naturally
enough these plundering States will try to obtain everything that they require
to further their aims of plunder. And the Russian bourgeoisie, that has been so
hedged in and persecuted in Russia, will be very glad to enter into direct contact
with foreign Imperialists. There is no doubt whatever that the foreign bourgeoisie
could pay the Russian speculators even more than does our own home-made,
true-Russian patriotic bourgeoisie. A speculator, as we know, sells to him who
pays the most. And so we have only to give our bourgeois the chance of exporting
goods abroad, and foreign plunderers the possibility of arranging their little
business atfairs here, and the Socialist Soviet Republic would have little cause
to rejoice at the results.
Formerly, when the question of foreign trade arose, the discussion confined
itself to two points; whether high import duties on foreign goods were necessary
or whether they should be abolished altogether; that is to say, Protection or
Free Trade. During the last years of the reign of capital, capitalists were very
active in carrying out the policy of Protection. Thanks to this the trusts received
additional profit. Having no competitors or rivals within the country, they were
the monopolists of the home market, the high wall of import duties protected
them from foreign competitors. In this way, by the aid of high duties, the
syndicalists, that is the biggest sharks of capital, could fleece their countrymen
shamelessly. Making use of this double extortion of their countrymen, the syn-
dicalists began to export goods abroad at extremely cheap prices in order to
displace or remove their rival syndicalists of other countries from their path.
Xatuially these cheap prices were only temporary. As soon as they had removed
their rivals they immediately raised the prices in the newly-conquered markets.
It was in order to carry out this policy that they required high customs tarifEs.
In raising a cry about the defence of industry the syndicalists were really
clamoring for a' means of attack, for means of economic conquest of foreign
markets. And as always happens in such cases, these professional imposters on
the people were disguising their plunder by a pretence of guarding the national
interests.
A few Socialist.s seeing this, put forward the demand for Free Trade between
the different countries. That would have meant everything being left to the
chances of a free economic struggle between individual bourgeoisie. But this
war cry was left to hover in mid-air; it was simply of no use to anybody. For
what syndicalist would reject a proposition of additional profit? And since he
received this additional profit only owing to his being immune from foreign com-
petition thanks to the high customs tariff, how do you expect this syndicalist
to reject such high duties? First of all it is imperative to overthrow the syn-
dicalists. Our first object is a Socialist Revolution. This is how the question
was answered by true Socialists, by Communist Bolsheviks, as we now call them.
And a Socialist Revolution means the institution of such an order where every-
thing is in the hands of an oryanized ^tatc of the icorking class. We have seen
what harm private trade causes within the country: the harm done by this kind
of trade between different countries is not less. In other words, abolishing Free
Trade within the country whilst establishing it abroad is sheer nonsense. Equally
absurd, from the point of view of the working class, is the system of taxation of
foreign capitalists. A third way out is wanted, and this consists in the nationali-
zation of foreifj)! trade hi/ the proletarian State.
What does this mean? It means that no one who lives upon Russian soil has
a right to make business agreements with foreign capitalists. If anyone is
caught at it, he should be fined or Imprisoned. The whole of the foreign trade is
carried on by the Workers' and Peasants' Government. The latter carries out
all transactions whenever occasion arises. Suppo.sing American machines are
being offered In exchange for certain goods or for a certain amount of money or
gold, whilst some Germans offer the same machines at a different price and on
different terms. The workers" organizations (Government Soviet organizations)
consider whether it is necessary to make the purchase and of whom it should
be more advantageous to buy. In accordance with their decision the machines
are bought in the place and upon terms which are the most profitable. Products
bought in the manner are distributed to the liopulation without any profits being
made out of them, because the transaction is carried out not by capitalists to
make money out of the workers, but by the workers themselves. In this manner
the domination of capital would be abolished hi this department as well. The
138 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
workers must take the business of foreign trade (as tliey liave done and are
doing) into their own hands and organize it so that not a single swindler or
speculator or shop-keeper should be able to evade the workers' watchfulness.
It is clearly understood that capitalist smugglers should be dealt with merci-
lessly. They should be made to forget all their tricks. The management of
economic life is at present the business of the working class. It is only by the
aid of a further strengthening of this order that the working class can attain
its final liberation from the remnants of the accursed capitalist order.
chapter xvii
Spiritual Liberation — The Next Step to Economic Liberation. (The Church
AND the School in the Soviet Republic)
The working class and its party, the party of Communist Bolsheviks, are
struggling not only for economic freedom but also for spiritual liberation of the
toiling masses. Economic liberation itself will be the easier attained the sooner
the workman and the farm laborer get their brains cleared of all the rubbish
with which the landowners and the manufacturing bourgeoisie have stuffed
them. We have already noticed before how cleverly the dominating classes
have hitherto bound the workers with their newspapers, journals, pamphlets,
priests, and even the school, which they cleverly converted from an organ of
enlightenment into an institution for dulling the minds of the people.
One of the agencies in achieving this object was the belief in God and in the
Devil, spirits good and evil (angels and saints), in short, in religion. A great
number of people have grown accustomed to believe in all this, whilst if we
analyze these ideas and try to understand the origin of religion and why it
is so strongly supported by the bourgeoisie, it will become clear that the real
significance of religion is that it is a poison which is still being instilled into
the people. It will also become clear why the party of the Communists is a
>strong antagonist of religion.
Modern science has proved that the original form of religion was the worship
of the souls of dead ancestors. This worship began at a time when the so-called
elders — that is to say, the richer, more experienced and wise old men of the
tribe who already had some power over the rest, had attained great importance.
In the early stages of human history, when men were still living in herds, like
semi-apes, people were indeed equal. It was only later on that elders or heads
of tribes began to have command over the whole tribe: they were the first to
be worshipped. The worship of the spirits of the dead rich — this is the basis
of religion: and these "sacred" idols were later on changed into a terrible God
who punishes and forgives, judges and governs. Let us analyze why people
have come to accept such an explanation of everything that takes place around
them. The reason is that people judge of things that are little known to them
by comparing them with things with which they are familiar : they weigh and
measure things on a scale that is concrete and comprehensible. A well-known
scholar quotes the following instance. A little girl, brought up on a private
estate where there was a poultry farm, constantly had to do with eggs: eggs
were ever present before her eyes. Once, when she saw the sky strewn with
stars, she told a story of how the heavens were sprinkled with a vast number
of eggs. Such instances may be quoted endlessly. The same thing holds true
as regards religion. People saw that there are those who obey and those who
are obeyed. They constantly witnessed the following picture — the elder (and
later on the prince) surrounded by his followers, more experienced, wiser,
stronger and richer than the others, orders others and reigns over them: the
others act according to his wish : he is obeyed by all.
This kind of thing witnessed daily and hourly apiieared to explain all that
takes place in the world. There is on the earth, they said, one commander
and those who obey him. Consequently, they reasoned, the whole world is built
up on the same scheme. There is a master of the world, a great, strong, terrible
master upon whom everything is dependent, and who punishes her servants
severely for disobedience. This master over the world is God. And so the
idea of a god in the heavens arises only in tliose cases when people are accustomed
to the power of the elders over the tribe.
It is an interesting fact that all the names given to God confirm the same origin
of religion. The Russian words for God and for rich are of the same origin ; thus
"Bog" (God) and "Bogat" (rich) are derived from the same root. God is great,
powerful, and rich. God is called Lord or Master. What does "Lord" signify
APPENDIX, PART 1 Igg
hnt the contrary to servant or slaA^e? In prayers we have : "We arc thy servants."
God is further called the "Heavenly King." All the other titles point in the
same direction : "sovereign," "ruler." and so on. And so, what does "God"
really mean? It means, as we are told, a rich, strong master, a slave owner,
a "heavenly king," a judge — in short, an exact copy, a reproduction of the earthly
power of the elders, and later on of the princes. When the Jews were governed
by their ]irinces, who punished and tortured them, there arose the teaching of
a cruel and terrible God. Such is the God of the Old Testament. He is a vicious
old man, who chastises his subjects severely. Let us now consider the God of
the Greek Orthodox <;5hurch. The teachings concerning this god arose in
Byzantium, in the country which served as a model of despotism. At the head
stood a despotic monarch surrounded by his ministers: these, in their turn, were
surrounded by high ofiicials ; next followed a whole host of avaricious officials.
The Greek orthodox religion is an exact model of this system. The "Heavenly
King" sits above. Around him are gathered the most important saints (for in-
stance, Saint Nicholas, the Holy Virgin, something after the style of an empress,
tlie wife of the Holy Ghost), these are ministers; next comes a hierarchy of
angels and saints in the order of officials in a despotic government. These are
the so-called "ranks of angels and arch-angels": cherubs, seraphs heralds and
various other "ranks" or "offices." The word "rank" itself shows that we
have to do with officials ("rank" and "official" are words which have the same
root in the Russian language). These "ranks" are represented on images in
such a way as to show that he who stands higher in rank is better dressed, has
more laurels, that is to say, he has more "orders," just the same as on our
sinful earth. In a despotic State the official invariably demands "a bribe", else
ho will do nothing for you : and just in the same way it is necessary to light
a candle before the image of the saint or he will get angry and not deliver
your message to the highest official — to God. In a despotic State there are
special officials whose express mission is to act as intercessors, for a bribe,"
of course. Here in the orthodox religion there are also special saints — "inter-
cessors," or intermediaries, especially women. For instance, the Holy Virgin
is, so to speak, a professional female "intercessor." Of course, she does not per-
form her services free of charge ; she expects to have more churches built in
her name than anyone else, and a great number of surplices have tO' be bought
for her images, ornamented with precious stones, and so on.
In short, we see that the belief in God is a )X'ffcction of the commonest everyday
relations: it is the belief in sJarerii, which people are made to believe exists-
not only on the earth, but in the whole universe. We understand, of course, that
in reality there is nothing of the kind ; and it is clear to everybody that sucfe
legends hinder the development of humanity. The progress of Man is possible
only when he finds vafural explanations for all phenomena. But when, instead of
a logical reason, people invent a god or saints or demons or devilsi, then, of
course, we can expect nothing sensible. Here are a few more instances. Some
religious people believe that thunder is caused by the Prophet Elijah taking a
ride in his chariot ; and therefore, when they hear thunder they take off their
hats and make the sign of the cross. In reality this electricity which causes
thunder is perfectly well known to science, and by this same power we run
trams and carry on them many things we desire. A logical line of reasoning
shows us that we can convey manure with the aid of the "Prophet Elijah," and
that he makes a good carman. Let us suppose that we believed in the Prophet
Elijah version. In that case we should never have invented tramears. That
means that, owing to religion, we should for ever have remained in a state of
burharix')!!. Another instance. AVar breaks out, people perish in millions, oceans
of blood are shed. A reason explaining this must be found. Those who do not
believe in God think, reason, and analyze ; they see that the war is conducted
f(ir plundering purposes and for filthy aims; and therefore they say for the
workers of all countries, "To arms against your oppressors !" "Down with cap-
ital !" We see quite a different attitude in the case of a religious man. Sighing
like an old woman, he rea.sons as follows: "God is punishing us for our sins.
O Lord, our heavenly father ! Thou art chastising us justly for our transgres-
sions." And if he is very pious, and Greek Orthodox into the bargain he makes:
it a point to use one particular kind of food on definite days (this is called
fasting), to beat his forehead against stone floors (this is called penance), and
to perform a thousand other idiotic things. Equally foolish things are done
by the religious Jew, the Moslem Turk, the Buddhist Chinese, in a word by
everyone who believes in God. Hence it follows that really religious people
are incapable of fighting. Religion, as we have shown, not only leaves peopl'' iu
190 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
a state of harbarism. but helps to leave them in a state of slaverji. A religious
man is more inclined to suffer anything that happens resignedly, for everything,
as they believe, "comes from God" ("from on high") ; he considers himself bound
to submit to the authorities and to suffer, for which he will be repaid a hundred-
fold in the life to come. Little wonder, then, that the dominant classes in cap-
italist States look upon religion as a very useful tool for deceiving and stultifying
the people.
At the beginning of the chapter we saw that the power of the bourgeoisie is
sustained not only by bayonets but also by dulling the hrains of the slaves. We
also saw that the bourgeoisie poisons the minds of its subjects on an organized
plan. For this purpose there is a special organization, namely, the Church or-
ganized by the State. In nearly all capitalist countries the church is just af<
much a State institution as is the police ; and the priest is as much a State oflBcial
as is the executioner, the gendarme, the detective. He receives a Governmient
sahirij for administering his poison to the masses. Tliis is the most dangerous
part of the whole affair. Were it not for this monstrously firm and strong
organization of the plundering capitalist State, there would be no room for
a single priest. Their bankruptcy would be swift enough. But the trouble is
that the bourgeois States support the whole church institution, which in return
staunchly supports the bourgeois Government. At the time of the Tzar the
Russian priests not only deceived the masses, but even made use of the con-
fessional to find out what ideas or intentions their victims entertained towards
the Government ; they acted as spies while discharging their "sacred duties."
The Government not only supported them, but even persecuted by imprisonment
and exile and all other means, all so-called "blasphemers" of the Greek Orthodox
Church.
All these considerations explain the programme of the Communists with regard
to their attitude to religion and to the Church. RclU/ion must be fought, if not
by violence, at all events by argument. The Church must be seita rated from the
State. That means that the priests may remain, but should be maintained by
those who wish to accept their poison from them or by those who are interested
in their existence. There is a poison called opium ; when that is smoked, sweet
visions appear; you feel as if you were in paradise. But its action tells on the
health of the smoker. His health is gradually ruined, and little by little he
becomes a meek idiot. The same applies to religion. There are people wh<_)
wish to smoke opium ; but it would be absurd if the State maintained at its
expense, that is to say. at the expense of the people, opium dens and special men
to serve them. For this reason the Church must be (and already is) treated
in the same way : priests, bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, abbots and the rest
of the lot must l)e refused State maintenance. Let the believers, if they wish ir.
feed the holy fathers at their own expense on the fat of the land, a thing which
thev. the priests, greatly appreciate.
On the other hand, freedom of thought must be guaranteed. Hence the axiom
that religion is a private affair. This does not mean that we should not struggle
against it by freedom of argument. It means that the State should support
no' church organization. As regards this question, the programme of the Bol-
shevik Communists has been carried out all over Russia. Priests of all creed-*
have been deprived of State subsidy. And that is the reason why they have
become so furious and have twice anathematized the present Government, i. e.,
the Government of the workers, by excommunicating all workers from the church.
We must note this. At the time of the Tzar they knew well enough the text in
the Scripture which says, "There is no power but from God," and "The powers
that be are to be obeyed." They willingly sprinkled executioners with holy water.
But why have they forgotten these texts at a time when the workers are at
the head of the Government? Is it possible that the will of God does not hold
good when there is a Communist Government? What can the reason be? The
thing is very simple. The Soviet Government is the first Government in Russia
to attack the pockets of the clergy. And this, by the way, is a priest's most
sensitive spot. The clergy are now in the camp of the "oppressed bourgeoisie."
They areworking secretly and openly against the working class. But times
have changed, and the masses of the laboring class are not so prone to become
the easy prey to deceit they were before. Such is the great educational signfi-
cance of the Revolution ; revoiution liberates us from economic slavery, but ir.
also frees us from spiritual bondage.
There is another vital Question concerning the mental education of the masses.
It is the question of the school.
APPENDIX, PART 1 ]^9][
At the time of the domination of the bourgeoisie the school served more as an
ur^'aii of educating the masses in a spirit of submission to the houryeoisie than as
a medium of real education. All primers and other appurtenances of study were
permeated with the spirit of slavery. Especially was this the case with history
1 looks. These did nothing but lie in describing the feats of the Tzars and other
crowned scoundrels. Next to these, an important part in the schools was played
l>y the clergy. Everything aimed at one object: to mould the child so that it
i<liouId emerge not a citizen l)ut a subject, a slave, capable if the occasion requires
to kill his fellow-men should they rise against the capitalist Government. Schools
were divided into grades; there were schools for the common people and others
lor the better classes. For the latter there were colleges and universities, where
the sons of the bourgeoisie were taught various sciences with the final object
of teaching them how to manage and subjugate the rabble ; for the rabble there
was the lower school. In these, more than in the others, was the influence of the
clergy predominant. The object of this school, that gave very little knowledge
but lauglit the children a great deal of religious lies, was to prepare i^eople to
suffer, obey, and be resignedly submissive to the better classes. The common
people had no access whatever to the higher schools, that is to the universities,
the social higher technical schools, and various other institutions. And thus an
educational monopoly was created. Only the rich or those supported by the
rich could enjoy a more or less decent education. For these reasons the intellec-
tuals utilized their position in a very clever manner. And, of course, at the time
of the October Revolution they were against the workers ; they scented danger
of their privileges and rights vanishing if everybody had the right to study, and
if the "rabble" were given the possibility of acquiring knowledge.
It is therefore necessary in the very first place to make education general
and c^impulsory. In order to construct life on new principles it is necessary that
a man ^^hould be accustomed from childhood to honest toil. For this purpose
school children should be taught all kinds of manual labor in the schools. The
doors of the high schools shoitld be open to all. The priests should be turned
out of the schools ; let them, if they wish to, fool the children anywhere they like,
but not in a Government institution: schools should be secular and not religious.
The organs of the local government of the workers have control over the schools,
and should not be parsimonious where public instruction and the supply of all
the requisites for successful teaching for boys and girls is concerned. At present
in some of the villages and provincial towns, some idiotic schoolmasters, aided
l)y the "kulaks" (or rather the "kulaks" aided by these idiots) are carrying on
a propaganda, saying that the Bolsheviks are aiming at destroying science,
abolishing education, and so on. This is, of course, a most despicable lie. The
Comnuinist Bolsheviks have quite different intentions ; they wish to liberate
science from the yoke of capitalism, and to make all science accessible to the
laboring masses. They wish to destroy the monopoly (exclusive right) of the
rich to education. This is the true foundation of the matter : and it is no wonder
that the rich are afraid of losing one of their chief supports. If every workman
acquires the qualifications of an engineer, then the position of the capitalist and
of the rich engineer is not worth a brass farthing. They will have nothing more
to boast of, for there will be many such as they. No undermining of the workers'
cause, no amottnt of sabotage by the old servants of capital will be of any avail.
And that is what the right honorable bottrgeoisie is afraid of.
Culttire for the bourgeoisie, spiritual subjection for the poor — these are the
capitalists' war cries. Citltttre for all, liberation of the mind from the yoke of
capital — this is the watchword of the party of the working class, the party of
the Oimmunists.
chapter xviii
The People Akmed Defend Their Gains
(Army of the Soviet Republic)
"The best guarantee, the best security for freedom, is a bayonet in the hands
of the workers." These were the words of one of the creators of scientific Com-
munism, Frederick Engels. Now we can actually see how true this saying is :
it has been completely confirmed by the experience of the great Revolution of
1917.
Quite a short time ago even some of otir more radical comrades raised the
cry of "disarmament." This is what they said: The bourgeoisie is everywhere
]^92 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
building a monstrous, colossal fleet — submarine, marine and aerial; huge armies
are growing. Fortresses are being built, colossal cannon and such organs of
destruction as armored cars and tanks. All this terrible system of violence must
be destroyed. We must demand general disarmament.
But the Bolsheviks argued otherwise. We said : Our war cry is disarmament
of the bourgeoisie and unconditioTial and universal arming of the working class.
And indeed, it would be ridiculous to attempt to persuade the bourgeoisie to
surrender its most powerful weapon — its armed forces (composed by the way,
of deceived workmen and poor peasants). This violent death-dealing machine
can only be destroyed by means of violence. Arms are surrendered only by the
compulsion of the superior armed force of the other side ; and in this fact lies
the signiticance of the armed resi.sta)ice against the bourgeoisie.
For the bourgeoisie the army is a weapon in the struggle for the division of
the world on the one hand, and a weapon in the struggle against the working
class on the other. The Tzar and Kerensky dreamed of conquering Constanti-
nople as well as the Dardanelles, Galicia, and many another spicy bit by the
aid of their army. At the same time both the Tzar and Kerensky (and that
means the landowners and the capitalists) were oppressing the working class
and the poorest peasantry as nnich as they could. In the hands of large property
owners the army served as a weapon for the division of the world and for the
subjection of the poor elements of the population. That is what the army used to
be in former times.
How was it possible for the bovirgeoisie to make of the workers and peasants
(of whom the army is largely composed) a weapon against these very workers
and peasants? What enabled the Tzar and Kerensky to do so? Why was it
done by Wilhelra and Hindenburg and by the German bourgeoisie, who turned
their workers into executioners of the Russian, Finnisli, Ukrainian and German
revolutionaries? Why were German sailors who revolted against their oppres-
sors shot down by the hand of other German sailors? How is it that the Englisli
bourgeoisie is suppressing by means of English soldiers (who are also mostly
workers) the revolution in Ireland, a country oppressed and trodden underfoot
by cruel English bankers?
To this question the same answer should be given as to that of how the bour-
geoisie manages to retain its power in general. We have seen that this is
achieved by means of the perfect organization of the bourgeoisie. In the army
the power of the bourgeoisie rests on two principles ; tirstly on the officer corps.
consisting of nobles and bourgeois; and secondly on the special training and
spiritual murder, i. e., on a bourgeois moulding of the minds of the soldier.'t.
The otficer corps on the whole is a purely class institution. An officer is ideally
tiained for the work of militarism, to inflict brutal corporal punishment on the
soldiers and to cruelly mishandle them. Just glance at one of these brave officers
of the Guards or at a Prussian dandy with the face of a prize bull-dog. You
can see at a glance that like a circus trainer he has been long and i)ersistently
learning how to ill-treat and bully and keep the human herd in a state of mortal
fear and blind-obedience.
You can see that, since such gentlemen are picked and chosen from among the
bourgeoisie and nobility and sous of landowners and capitalists, it is quite
evident that they will lead the army in quite a definite direction.
And now, look at the soldiers : They enter the army as common men, with no
common bond, from different provinces, unable to show any united resistance,
with minds already tainted by the clergy and the school. They are instantly
put up at barracks, and the triiuing begun. Intimidation and teaching of the
most anti-democratic notions, a constant system of fear and punishment, cor-
ruption by i-ewards for crime (for instance, for the execution of strikers), all
this makes idiots of the men, dummies, who blindly obey their own mortal
enemies.
It is evident that with the Revolution, the army entirely resting on the old
Tzarist basis, the army driven to slaughter for the purpose of conquering Con-
stantinople even by Kerensky, must inevitably have become disorganized. Do
you ask why? Because the soldiers saw that they were being organized, trained
and thrown into battle for the sake of the criminal stupidity of the bourgeoisie.
They saw that for nearly three years they sat in the trenches, perished, hungered,
suffered, and died and killed others all for the sake of somebody's money-bags.
It is natural enough that when the revolution has displaced the old discipline
and a new one had not get had time to be formed, the collapse, ruin and deatji
of the old army took place.
APPEKDIX, PART 1 193,
This disease was inevitable. Tlie Meiishevik and Socialist revolutionary fools
accuse the Bolsheviks of this disaster: "see what you have done! Corrupted
the army of the Tzar." They fail to see that the lievolutiou could not have
been victoriou.s if the army had remained loyal to the Tzar and to the generals
in February and to the bourgeoisie in October. The soldiers' rising against the
Tzar was iilrvadv the result of the disorganization of the Tzarist army. Every
revolution destroys what is old and rotten: a certain period (a very difficult
one to live through) must pass until the new life is fornieil, until the building
of a new beautiful editice is begun upon the ruins of the old pig-sty.
Let us give you another example from a different sphere. As the older
workers know, in bygone times, when the peasants were only begiiming to turn
to factory work, the first thing that happened when they came to town was to
become desperate "hooligans," "rowdies," "roughs." The word "factory hand"
or "worker" were practically words of abuse ; and indeed our workers were
great hands at ruflianism, obscenity and swearing. Basing their arguments on
this state of affairs, all reactionaries fearing any kind of innovation used to
propagate a return to serfdom.
What they said was this : As town life depraves workers and as its rendency
is to "roughen their characters," what they want is the country, and especially
the paternal rod of the landowners. Under these conditions virtue will be sure
to thrive. And they sneered ill-naturedly at those who looked upon the working
class as the salt of the earth. They used to say to us Marxists, disciples of
the great Conununist, Karl Marx: "Do you see what you workers areV They
are swine, not men. They are blackguards ! And you say that they are tlie salt
of the earth ! A good whip and a stick — that is what they want ; that will teach
them to behave themselves."
Many were "convinced" by such argumeuts. But the truth of the matter is
this: when the pea.'^ants went to town iuid broke with the country, the old village
ties and traditions were forgotten. In the country they lived according to
old traditions, looking up to the old men as if they were oracles, obeying them
although they had grown childish with age : they would stay peacefully within
the limits of their cabbage patch, never setting foot outside their native town,
and would, of course, be afraid of anything new. This is an example of rustic
wisdom. Bad as it was, it served as a bridle, and helped to preserve village order.
This simplicity vanished rayndly in the towns, where everything was new: new
people, new outlooks, and a multitude of new temptations in store. No wonder
that the old village morality vanished into thin air, and some time elapsed
before a new was formed. It was this interval between two periods that came
to be a period of depravity.
But during the course of events a new consciousness arose in the new sphere
of life; the consciousness of the solidarity of the proletariat. The factory united
the workers; the opression of the capitalists taught them to struggle jointly:"
in the place of the weak, insipid grandfatherly wisdom there arose a new prole-
tarian outlook, infinitely higher than the old. It is this new outlook that is
changing the proletariat into the most advanced, most revolutionary, most
creative of all classes. We Communists, of course, and not the feudalist land-
owners proved to be right.
At the present time the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries have taken
up the attitude of the feudalists with regard to the army. They are loudly lic-
wailing the disorganization of the army, whilst laying the blame on the Bol-
sheviks. And just as the feudalists used to call the worlvers back into the country
under the protective wing of the landowner and his whip, just so do the Men-
sheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries now appeal for a return to the old army
discipline, to serve under a Constituent Assembly on a basis of a return to
capitalism and all its "attractions." But we Communists look aliead. We know
that the past is dead, having become rotten as was inevitable, and that, failing
thus, the workers and poor i>easants could never take the (Tovernment into their
hands: we know that in the place of the old army a new, more enlightened one.
the Red Arniii of Socialism, has arisen.
As long as the bourcjeoisie stand at the head of Government, and our country
is a fatherland of bankers, traders, speculators, liolice. kings and ))residents, so
long will the working class have no personal interests in guarding this filthy profit-
producing apparatus. A proletarian's duty is to rise against this institution.
Only miserable lackies and hangers-on to money-bags can say that we must not
strike and revolt against the plundering Imjierialist Government at a time of war.
Of course, such revolts stand in the way of the plundering war business. It is
949.^,1—40— app.. pt. 1— — 14
194 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
quite clear that agitation within the country, and more especially agitation in
the army, aids disorganization. But how is the domination of Wilhelm, for
instance, to be broken without disorganizing the Wilhelm discipline? Impossible.
The German martyr sailors murdered by Wilhelm's executioners, certainly aided
the disorganization of the army organized after the high-way robbery system.
But if the robbers' armv is inwardly strong, that would mean death to the revolu-
tion If the revolution is strong, that means death to the robbers' army. The
followers of Scheidemann, the German social betrayers, are persecuting Lieblvnecht,
as a disorganizer of the army. They are persecuting all the German revolution-
ists, the German Bolsheviks, as people who are "dealing the valorous army a
dastardly blow in the back," in other words, a blow to the cause of plunder. Let
the Scheidemanns fraternize with our Mensheviks and such like individuals^
they are all of a kidney.
Russia has passed through this period. The revolution of the workers is vic-
torious. The period of decay has passed into the realm of memory. The period
of construction of a new order of things is upon us. A Red Army is being built
now 7iot for plunder, but for the defence of t<ociaUsms not to guard the fatherland
of profit, where everything was in the hands of capital and the landowners, but
to protect the Socialist fatherland, where everything has been transferred to the
hands of workers ; not for the sake of mutilating and ravaging foreign countries,
but for the purpose of aiding the international Coninninist Revolution.
It is needless to say that this army must be built on different principles to the
old one. The Red Army, we have said, must represent an armed people alongside
a disarmed bourgeoisie. It must be a class army of the proletariat and the poor-
est peasantry. It is essentially directed against the bourgeoisie of the whole
world, including its own. This is the reason why it cannot include armed repre-
sentatives of the bourgeoisie. To admit the bourgeoisie into the army would be
equal to arming it: it would mean creating a White Guard within the Red Array
which might easily disorganize the whole concern, becoming a centre of treason
and revolt, and go over into the camp of the imperialist troops of the enemy. Our
object is not to arm the bourgeoisie, but to disarm it, depriving it of its last
machine gun.
Our second, and not less important task, is to prepare a proletarian officer corps.
The working class has to defend itself against enemies who are attacking it from
all sides. War has been imposed upon it by the imperialist rascals : and modern
warfare requires well-trained specialists. The Tzar and Kerensky had such men
at their disposal, but the working class and the peasantry have not. Specialists
have to be trained. For this purpose we must utilize the knowledge of the old
ones; they must be compelled to instruct the proletariat. Then the Socialist
Soviet Fatherland will have its own officers and its own officer corps. And just
as in the Revolution, the more experience and active working class leads after it
the poor peasantry, so in the war against the imperialist robbers, the worker-
officers will lead tlie whole mass of the Red Peasant Army.
The Red Army must be created on the basis of universal training of the worker.s
and the poorest elements of the peasantry.
This is most urgent and important. Not a minute, not a second should be lost.
Every workman and every peasant must be trained and must be taught how to
use arms. Only fools can argue that : "They are a long way off yet ; until they
come we shall have time to get ready." Russian sluggards often reason like that.
All the world knows that the favorite Russian saying is ("avos") "perhaps" or
"maybe" ; "avos we shall manage." But before you have time to wink, the class
foe called landowners and capitalists, arrives on the spot and takes the workman
by the collar; and, maybe, when some brave Prussian subaltern (or an English
oiie, who knows?) places our workman against the wall to be shot, the good-
natured fellow will scratch his head saying, "What a fool I have been !"
We must look sharp. Don't let Peter loait for Bill, or Bill for Peter. Let no one
be idle, but all set earnestly to work. Universal military training is the most
urgent and most important problem of the day.
The old army was based on the retreat of the soldiers. This happened because
of capitalists and landowners commanding over millions of soldiers-peasants and
workmen, whose interests were contrary to their own. The capitalist Govern-
ment was thus obliged to turn the soldier into a brainless tool, acting against his
own interests. But the Red Army of the workers and peasants, on the contrary,
is defending its own cause. It must therefore be based only on the enlighten-
ment and conscieniiou.'iness of all comrades who enter its ranks. Hence the need
for special courses, reading-rooms, lectures, meetings and conferences. In their
leisure hours the soldiers of the Red Army must take an active part together
APPENDIX, PAllT 1 195
Avirli the workmen in the political life of the country, attending meetings and
sliiirivf/ the life of the irorking class.
This is one of the most important conditions for creating a firm rvrolutiotuiry
discipline: not the former discipline of the rod, hut the new discipline of the
class-conscious revolutionary. If the bond between the army and tlie working
class is broken, then the army rapidly degenerates and can easily turn into a
band willing to serve the master who pays most. Then it begins to fall asunder,
and nothing can save it. And, on the contrary, if the soldiers of the Red Army
keep close contact with and take an interest in their lives, then they will be
exactly what they are meant to be — the armed organ of the revolutionary masses.
Due of the best ways of keeping in contact with the masses besides the above-
mentioned lectures, political meetings, is the utilization of the soldiers for con-
tinuously training the workers in shooting, handling rifles, machine guns, etc.
Instead of idling, card playing, and other "recreations." instead of senselessly
sauntering about the barracks, they can turn to creative work, which is in unit-
ing the proletariat into one friendly family. In this way an armed people is
<?reated, as well as an armed peasantry, to keep watch over the great revolution
of the workers.
CHAPTER XIX
The LiBEfRATioN OF Nations
(The National Question and International Diplomacy)
The programme of the Communist Party is a scheme not only for the liberation
of the proletariat of one country, but for the emancipation of the proletariat of
the whole world: for it is a programme of international revolution. But it is, at
the same time a progrannue of the liberation of all oppressed countries and
nations. The plundering "great Empires" (England, Germany, Japan, America,
ere.) have, by dint of robbery acquired ascendancy over untold expanses of land
and vast number of people. They have divided our whole planet between them ;
and no wonder that in these conquered countries the working class and the labor-
ing: masses are groaning under a double yoke — that of their own bourgeoisie and
the additional one cast ttpon them by their conqtierors.
Tzarist Russia had also gained by plunder a great deal of territory and many
peoi»les. The present size of "our"' Empire is only to be explained in this way It
is quite natural that among many "aliens," including even some sections of the
proletariat who did not belong to the "great Russian" nationality, there was a
general lack of confidence towards the "Moscal." as the natives of Muscovy were
formerly called. The nationalist persecution evoked nationalist sentiments ; the
ojtpressed part of the proletariat had no confidence in the oppressing nationality
a-> a whole, without distinction of class ; the oppressing parts of the pro-
letariat did not sufficiently understand the position of the "alien" prole-
tariat subjected to a double burden of persecution. And yet, in order to attain
the victory of the workers' revolution along the whole front, complete and
ji< rfect confidence of the various parts of the proletariat towards each other is
imperative. The proletariat of "alien" nations should be made to feel by deed
and word that it has a loyal ally in the person of the proletariat of the nation
that formerly was the oppressor. Here in Russia the dominating nation used to
be the "Great Russian," which conquered in succession the Finns and the Tartars,
the Ukrainian and the Armenians, the Georgians and the Poles, the Sivashes and
Moravians, the Kirghizes and Ba.shkirs, and dozens of other tribes. It naturally
follows that some proletarians of these peoples foster mistaken notions concerning
everpthififf Rus.^ian. He has been accustomed to being ordered about and abused
by the Tzar's officials, and he thinks that all Russians and the Russian proletariat
as well are like what the former was.
It is for the ptirpose of instilling a brotherly confidence in the various sections
of the proletariat that the programme of the Communists proclaims the rif/ht of
the laboring class of every nation to complete independence. That means to sa.v
that the Russian worker who is now at the head of the Government must say
to the workers of other nationalities living in Russia : "Comrades, if you do not
wish to form a part of the Soviet Republic: if you wish to organize your own
Soviets and form an independent Soviet Republic, you can do so. We fully
acknowledge your right to do so, and we do not wish to detain you by force even
for a single moment.
It is self-evident that only by such tactic.'< can the confidence of (he proletariat
as a whole be won. Let us imagine what would happen if the workers' Soviets
190 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
of Great Russia were to attempt by force of arms to coerce the worting ela?.s of
other nations into submission. The hitter would mean the complete collapse of
the whole of all proletarian movements and the fall of the Revolution. Thai is
not the right way to act, for, we repeat, victory is possible only on condition of a
frntcrnal union of the ivorkers.
Let us bear this in mind. The question is not of the right of the nation [ i. e., of
the workers and the bourgeoisie together) to independence, but of the right of the
laboririff classes. That means that the so-called "will of the nation" is not in the
least sacred to us. We consider sacred only the will of tlie proletariat innl the
semi-proletarian masses.
That is why we .speak not of the rights of nations to independence, but of the
right of the lahoritu/ rlnsses of every nation to separation if it so desires. During
a proletarian dictatorship it is not the constituent Assemblies (all national,
embracing all the people of the given territory), but the Soviets of workers that
decide questions. And if in any out-of-the-way corner there would be simul-
taneously convened two conferences, the "Constituent Assembly" of the given:
nation and the Convention of Soviets ; and if it so happens that tlie "Constituent
Assembly" expressed itself in favor of separation, and the Proletariat Convontion
voted against it, even then we should support the decision of the prolcltiriaf
against that of the "Constituent Assembly" by every means, including force of
arms.
This is how the Proletarian Party decides que.stions relating to the proletarians
of the various nations living within the bomidai ies of the country. But our party
is confronted witli a still more dilRcuH question, that of its international pro-
gramme. Here our way is clear. We must pursue the tactics of universal siiit-
port of the International Revolution by means of revolutionary propaganda,
strikes, and revolts in Imperialist countries, and by piopagating revolts and in-
.surrections in the colonies of these countries.
In Imperialist countries (and such are all countries except Russia, whei'e the
workers have blown out the brains of capital) one of the main obstacles to a
revolution is the social-patriotic p;u-ty. Even at the present moment it is pro-
claiming the defence of the (phmdering) fatherland, thereby deceiving the masses
of the people. They are deploring the decay of the (plundering) army. They
are persecuting our friends the German, Austrian and English Bolsheviks, wlio
alone persist in refusing with contempt and indigiiatiDit to defend the bourgeois
fatherland. The position of tlie f^oviet Republic is an exclusive one. It is the
only proletarian State organization in the world, in the midst of organized plun-
dering bourgeois States. For that reason alone this Soviet State has a right to
he defended: and more tlian tliat, it must be looked on as a weapon of the
universal proletariat against the tuiiversal bourgeoisie. The war cry of this
struggle is self-evident: the universal war cry of this struggle is the motto of the-
International Soviet Republic.
The overthrow of Imperialist Governments by means of armed insurrection, and
the organization of the international Soviet Republic, such is the way to an
international dictatorship of the working class.
The most efficient means of supporting the international revolution is the
organization of armed forces of the revolution. The workers of all cottntrles who
are not blinded by social patriots, the local Socialist Revolutionaries and Menshe-
viks (of whom there are many in every country) I'ecognize in the Russian Workers'
Revolution and in the Soviet Government facts that concern them intimately.
Why? Because they understand that the government of the Soviets means tlie
government of the workers themselves. It w(tuld be quite different if the bour-
geoisie, aided by the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries had overthrown the
Soviet Government, convened the Constituent Assembly, and by its means had
organized the government of the bourgeoisie, approximately on the same plan as
that which existed before the October coup d'etat. In that case the working class
would have lost its country, its fatherland, foi' if would have lost its power. Then
the banks would inevitably have been returned to the bankers, the factories to the
manufacturers, and the land to the landowners. The fatherland of profits would
have revived, and the workers would not have been interested in the least in de-
fending such a fatherland. On the other hand the West European workers would
also have ceased to regard bourgeoisie Russia as the bright beacon showing them
their way in the difficult struggle. The development of international revolution
would have retarded. On the contrary, the organization of i-esistanee against
international robbers who are fighfing against Soviet Russia as its class enemies,
as owners and capitalists, in a word, as a band of executioners of the Workers''
Rcrolutioi7, the oi'ganization of the Red Army — these are the factors combining
to strengthen the revolutionary movement in all European countrie.s.
APPE^NDIX, PART 1 197
The better we are organized, the better we arm the battalions of workers and
peasants, tlie stronger will be the proletarian dictatorship in Russia, and the
quicker will the cause of international revolution advance.
The Revolution is inevitable, however its progress is hindered by German,
Austrian, French and English Mensheviks. The Russian working masses have
broken with the compromisers. The workers of Western Europe will also break
with them. (They are, as a matter of fact, doing so already.) The maximum
of overthrowing the bourgeois fatherlands, of shattering the plundering Govern-
ments, and of establishing workers' dictatorship, is steadily gaining ground.
Sooner or later we shall have an International RepvbUe of Soviets.
The International Republic of Soviets will free hundreds of millions in all
nations of their yoke. The "civilized" plundering Empires have cruelly tortured
tin- inhabitants of their colonies by their blood and iron regime. European civili-
zation was maintained by the blood of small peoples mercilessly exploited and
lobbed in the far-otf countries beyond the seas. They will be freed by the
dictatorship of the proletariat, and by that alone. Just as the Russian Govern-
menr has announced its refusal to participate in a colonial policy, and has proved
its decision by its attitude with regard to Persia, just so will the European work-
ing class, after overthrowing the domination of bankers, etc., give complete free-
dom to the oppressed and exploited classes. That is the reason why our pro-
gramme, which is that of the international revolution, is at the same time a
plan for the complete liberation of all the weak and oppressed. The great class —
the working class — has set before itself great problems: and it has not only set
them, but is proceeding to solve them in a bloody, painful, heroic struggle.
Conclusion
I (Why We are Communists)
Up to the time of the last Convention, our party called itself the party of the
social democracy. The party of the working class bore the same name all over the
world. But the war has been responsible for an unprecedented schism in the
social-democratic parties here. Three main tendencies have come to the fore —
the extreme right, the centre, and the extreme left wing.
The right social-democrats have proved to be thoroughgoing traitors to the
working class. They prostrated themselves in the dust, and are still doing so,
before the generals whose hands are covered with the blood of workers. They
support the vilest projects and greatest crimes of their Governments. We have
only to remember that the German Social-Democrat Scheidemann is supporting
the' Ukrainian policy of the German generals. They are the real executioners
■of the wvrkers revohition.
When the German workers have won their cause they will hang Scheidemann
on the same gallows as Wilhelm. There are a great number of these kind of
persons in France and England, as well as in other countries. It is they who
deceive the workei's by empty words about the defence of the fatherland (the
bourgeois, Wilhelm fatherland), and crush the workers' revolution at home and
execute it in Russia with the aid of the bayonets of their Governments.
The second current is the centre. This has a tendency to grumble against its
Guverinnent, but it is not capable ot carrying on a revolutionary struggle. It has
not the courage to call the workers into an open fight, and fears beyond everything
;an armed insurrection, which is the only way of solving the question.
And lastly, there is the third current, the extreme left. In Germany Liebknecht
and his comrades. They are German Bolsheviks, their policy and views being
those of the Bolsheviks.
You will understand what a muddle ensues as a result of all these grotips calling
themselves by one and the sante name. The Social Democrat Liebknecht and the
Social Democrat Scheidemann! What have they in common? The one, a mean
traitor, an executioner of the revolution : and the other, a brave fighter for the
working class. Can you imagine a greater difference?
In Russia, where the revolutionary struggle and the development of the revolu-
tion in October caused the question of Socialism and the overthrow of the bour-
geois Government to be settled : immediately the dispute between the traitors to
Socialism and the adherents of true Socialism was decided by force of arms.
The Right Socialist Revolutionaries and party of the Mensheviks were on the
same side of the barricades as the counter-revolutionary rabble : the Bolsheviks
were on the other side, side by side with the workers and soldiers. Blood marked
a boundary line between us. Such a thing cannot and never will be forgotten.
198 UN-AMEEICAX PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
This is why we were compelled to give a different name to distinguish us from
the traitors to Socialism. The difference between us is too great. Our ways and
means are too far apart.
As regards the boiirr/eois Government, we Connnunists know but one duty
towards it— to blow it up, shattering at one blow this union of plunderers. The
Social Democrats propagate the defence of the union of business men, screening
themselves by a pretence of defending their fatherland.
But after the victory of the AA'orking class, we stand for the defence and pro-
tection of the workers' Soviet Government against the sworn enemies, the
Imperialists of the whole world. But they, like true traitors to the workers'
interests, make it their task to break up the Workers' Government and demolish
the Soviets. And in their struggle in this direction they go hand in hand with
the united bourgeoisie.
We Communists are eagerly striving onward in spite of all difficulties: we are
going towards Communism throin/h ihe dictntorship of the proletariat. But they,
like the evil bourgeoisie, hate this dictatorship with all their hearts, libelling and
lowering it whenever they can. proclaiming as their watchword : "Back to
Capitalism !"
We Connnunists say to the working class: "There ai-e many thorns upon our
path, but we must go onward, undaunted. The great revolution which is turning
the old world upside down cannot go smoothly ; the great revolution cannot be
carried out in white gloves ; it is born in pain. These birth pangs must be gone
through with infinite patience : when duly born they will serve to free us from
the iron grip of capitalist slavery."
And the Mensheviks. Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats stand
aside, looking on at our mistakes and failings, and draw the conclusion of going
back. "Let us return," they say. "Give up everything to the bourgeoisie and
content ourselves with a modest helping at capitalist tables."
No! Our road is not the same. These wretches try to scare us by the hogej^
of civil war. But there can be no revolution without a civil war. Or do they
perhaps imagine that in other more advanced counti'ies Socialist revolutions will
take place without civil warY The example of Finland has proved the best
evidence of civil war in advanced capitalist countries being even more tierce,
more bloody, more cruel and frenzied than ours proved to be. Now we can foresee
that in Germany, for instance, the war between the classes will be extremely acute.
The German officers are already shooting their soldiers and sailors by hundreds
for the slightest attempt at rebellion. It is only through civil war and the iron
dictatorship of the workers that Socialism can be attained. Such is the pro-
gramme of the Communists.
The domination of the bourgeois Government, organization of production by the
working class, a wide road to Communism — such is the programme of the Com-
munist Party.
When we call ourselves Communists we not only draw a line to distinguish
ourselves from the social traitors, such as Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries,
and followers of Scheidemann. and other bourgeois agents. We i-evert to the
old name of the revolutionary party, at the head of which stood Kail Marx. His
was the Communist Parti/. The testament of modern revolution up to the present
moment is still the "Manifesto of the Communists" written by Marx and Engels.
Some eighteen months before his death old Engels protested against the name of
"Social Democrat." He said. "This name is not a suitable one for a party which
is striving towards Communism and which finally aims at destroying evenj form
of government, including a democratic one." What would these great old men,
glowing with hatred towards the bourgeois State apparatus, say if they were
shown such Social Democrats as Dan, Tzeretelli, Scheidemann? They would have
branded them with contempt, as they did those "democrats" who. in tragic and
difficult moments of the revolution, directed the muzzles of their revolvers against
the working class.
There are many obstacles in our way ; and there is at present much that is
evil in our midst. For many outsiders have joined us who are selling themselves
for money to the highest bidder, intending to flsh in troubled waters. And the
working class is young and inexi>erienced. And the fiercest enemies are surround-
ing the young Soviet Republic on all sides. But we Communists know that the
working class is learning wi.sdom by its own mistakes. We know that it will
clear its ranks of all the impurity that has crept in ; we know that it will be
joined by its loyal and desired ally — the world proletariat. No old womanish
wails, no hysterical shrieks will confuse our party, for it has put upon its banner
APPENDIX, PART 1 199
the golden words written bv Marx in the Communist Manifesto: "LET THE
GOVERNI\G CLAS^^E.^ TREMBLE BEFORE THE COMMUNIST REVOLU-
TION THE PROLETARIAT HAS NOTHING TO LOSE BUT ITS CHAINS:
IT HAS A WORLD TO WIN. PROLETARIANS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
May, 1918.
Exhibit No. 15
[Source: A pamphlet published by the Tublishing Office of the Third Communist Interna-
tional, Moscow: 1920; American edition, published by the United Communist Party
of America]
Workers of the World Unite!
THE CAPITALIST WORLD AND THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL
Manifesto of the Second Congress of the Third Communist International
Publishing Office of the Third Communist International, Moscow 1920. American
edition published by the United Communist Party of America
The Second Congress of the Communist International, representing
thirty-five countries, met at Petrograd on July 17th, 1920, and con-
tinued its sessions in Moscow from July 27th to Aug. 7th. Its pur-
pose was to form a clear idea regarding the international situation,
to cast a retrospective glance over the road already traveled, and to
establish the milestone of further struggle.
The World Congress of the Communist International unanimously
addresses this manifesto to the workingmen and women of the whole
world with the profound conviction that its aims are just and its
methods correct.
1. international relations after VERSAILLES
The bourgeoisie of the whole world is looking back wistfully upon the days-
just past. All the foundations of international and internal relations have beea
overthrown or shaken. Threatening clouds darken the future of the capitalist
world. The old system of alliances and mutual insurance which formed the
foundations of international equilibrium and of armed peace has been utterly
destroyed by the Imperialist War. The Versailles Treaty has failed to establish
any othei- adjustment in its stead.
Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany in succession have fallen out of the
world race. Some of the powerful empires which had themselves previously
played a prominent part in the world's plunder have now become the objects of
plunder and dismemberment. A new and vast field for colonial exploitation,
beginning from this side of the Rhine, embracing the whole of Central and Eastern
Europe and stretching as far as the Pacific Ocean, opens itself before the victorious
Imperialists of the Entente. How can the Congo, Syria, Egypt or Mexico be com-
pared with the steppes, forests and mountain lands of Russia taken together with
the skilled labor power of Germany? The new colonial policy of the victors has
worked itself out: the overthrow of the Labor Republic in Russia, the plunder of
Russian raw material, the compulsory application of German labor power to work
this raw material with the aid of German coal, using the German employer as an
armed overseer — and the assembling of the manufactured products and the profits
that go with them. The victorious Allies have inherited the program of "organ-
izing Europe", which had been advanced by German Imperialism in the heyday
of its military success. Thus when the vanquished bandits of the German Empire
are to be put on trial by the Entente rulers, they will certainly be tried by a jury
of their peers.
But there are defeated parties even in the camp of tlie conquerors.
Stupefied by tlie fumes of a chauvinistic victory which it had won for the benefit
of others the French bourgeoisie fancies that it has become tiie ruler of Europe.
But in reality France has never been in such slavish dependence upon the more
powerful governments of England and America than she is today. France is
dictating Belgium's industrial and military policy, thus converting her weaker ally
into a subject province. While she herself is nothing but a larger Belgium in
relation to England. For the time being the English Imperialists allowed the
200 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
French usurers to have their way within tlie limits of the continent assigntd to
them, thus shrewdly diverting from themselves the keen indignation of Euroi^ean
and English workers, and turning it ui)on France. The power of moribund and
xlevastated France is ephemeral and almost farcical. Sooner or later this fact
will penetrate into the minds of even the French social-patriots.
Italv has fallen still lower in the scale of international relations. Deprived
of coal and bread, deprived of raw material, having its internal equilibrium lost
as a result of the war. the Italian bourgeoisie is incapable, though entirely will-
ing, to realize in full measure the rights to plunder and violate even those colonial
allotments assigned to it by England.
Japan, torn within her feudal shell by capitalist contradictions, stands on the
verge of a great revolutionary crisis which is already paralyzing her imperialist
aspirations, in spite of the favorable international situation.
Thus only two great powers remain : Great Britain and the United States.
The English Imperialism has rid itself of the Asiatic rivalry of Czarism and of
the menace of German competition. The military power of Britain has reached
its apex. England has surrounded the Continent with a chain of subject nations.
She has subjected to her control Finland, Esthonia and Latvia, thus depriving
Sweden and Norway of the last vestige of independence and converting the Baltic
Sea into a British bay. She has no rival in the North Sea. Her supremacy in
South Africa, Egypt, India, Persia and Afganistau has converted the Indian Ocean
into a British lake. Her domination on the sea makes her likewise mistress of the
continent. Her power over the world ends only with the American Dollar Repub-
lic and the Russian Soviet Republic.
The United States was absolutely thrown off the path of continental provincial-
ism by the world war. The Monroe doctrine — "America for the Americans" —
which was the program of the newly fledged national capitalism, has given place
to the imperialism watchword — ''Make the Whole World America." Having
started with exploiting the war and profiting from the European bloodshed by
commercial and industrial deals and exchange speculation, America went on to
direct participation in the world war, playing a predominant part in the destruction
of Germany and now has its hand in all questions of European and world politics.
Under the banner of the League of Nations the United States tried to extend to
this side of the ocean its policy of uniting various nationalities on a federative
basis and hitch to its golden chariot the nationalities of Europe and other pai'ts
of the world and govern them from Washington. The League of Nations was to
be essentially nothing more than a world monopoly of "Yankee and Co."
The President of the Ignited States, the great Prophet of Platitudes, had de-
scended from Mt. Sinai to conquer the world with his Fourteen Commandments.
Stockbrokers, ministers and men of business entertained no illusion whatever
regarding the meaning of this new revelation. The European "Socialists" on the
other hand, baked on the Kautskian oven, got into a religious transport, and
danced like King David following in the wake of the Wilsonian ark.
But in coming down to practical questions the American apostle learned that in
spite of the excellent exchange rate of the dollar, England still occupies, as here-
tofore, the first place on all sea routes which connect and divide nations, for she
has the strongest navy, the longer cables and the greater experience in world
plunder. Another obstacle in Wilson's path was the Soviet Republic and Com-
munism. Thus the American Messiah resentfidly deserted the League of Nations,
which has become one of England's diplomatic offices, and turned his back \xpou
Europe.
It would be childish, however, to suppose that American Imperialism, its first
advance thwarted by England, is going to lock itself up within the shell of the
Monroe doctrine. By no means. The laiited States is planning to create its own
international system with its center in North America ; both the Republican and
Democratic parties stand by the policy of continuing to subject the entire Ameri-
can continent, convert all the countries of Central and South America into colonial
dependencies, and thus create a counterpart to the English League of Nations.
This end is to be achieved by means of a naval program, which in 3 to 5 years
will create a navy surpassing that of Great Britain. This being a matter of life
and denth for English Imperialism, it results in a frenzied shipbuilding rivalry
between the two giants, accompanied by a no less frenzied scramble for petroleum.
France, which had expected to play the part of arbiter between England and the
TTnited States, but which has herself like one of the lesser planets been drawn into
the orbit of Great Britain, now finds herself unbearably burdened by the League
of Nations and is trying to rid herself of it by fainiing antagonism between
England and the United States.
APPENDIX, PART 1 201
Thus the greatest Powers are preparing the ground for a new world encounter.
Instead of liberating the small nationalities the War has brought ruination and
t'lislavemeut upon the Balkan nations, both victors and vanquished, and has Bal-
kanized a considerable part of Europe. Actuated by ilieir Imperialist interests
I he conquerors adopted the policy of dividing up the devastated great powers into
.-mall separate national states. This policy bears not even a trace of the so-called
national principle: Imperialism is essentially inimical to national boundaries, even
iliough they be those of great powers. The new petty bourgeois states are nothing
more than the by-products of Imperialism ; it has created as temporary props for
irself. a whole series of small nations, such as Austria, Hungary, Poland, Jugo-
slavia, Bohemia, Finland, Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Armenia, Georgia and
orliers, some of which are openly oppressed while others are officially patronized,
but all are treated as vassals. By means of its banks, railways and coal monop-
olies. Imperialism dominates these nations, dooming them to intolerable economic
and national hardships, to endless conflicts and sanguinary strife.
What an overwhelming irony of fate tliat the reconstruction of Poland, which
formed a part of the program of the Revolutionary democracy during the first rev-
olutionary outbursts of the international proletariat, should now be brought about
by Imperialism for counter revolutionary ends, and that the "Democracy" of
Poland, whose predecessors had died on the barricades of Europe, should be used
as a foul and bloody weapon in the miirderous hands of the Anglo-French bandits
against the first Proletarian Republic in the world !
"Democratic" Czecho-Slovakia has likewise sold itself to French capital, and
has furnished White Guard contingents against Soviet Russia and Hungary.
The heroic attempt of the Hungarian proletariat to free itself from the national
and economic chaos prevailing in central Europe, and emerge upon the road of a
Soviet Federation, which is the only means to salvation, was stifled by the com-
bined forces of capitalist reaction at a time when the proletariat of the more
advanced countries of Europe, misled by its parties, proved incapable of doing its
duty both toward Socialist Hungary and its own self.
The Soviet Government of Btidapest was overthrown with the assistance of the
social traitors who after having stayed in power foi' three and a half days, were
themselves overthrown by the luibridled counter-revolutionary canaille, surpassing
in Its bloody deeds the crimes of Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel and other Allied
agents. But even though temporarily crushed Soviet Hungary is like a beacon
light to the toilers of Central Europe.
The Turks are unwilling to submit to the l)ase peace terms dictated by the
London tyrants. In order to get these terms fulfilled England has armed Greece
and set her against Turkey. Thus both the Turks and the Greeks are given over
to mutual destruction, and the Balkan peninsida and anterior Asia Minor are
doomed to devastation.
Armenia's part in the Allies' fight against Turkey is analogous to that which
Belgium played in the war with Germany, and Serbia in the war with Austria-
Hungary. When the Armenian state was formed — without boundary lines and
withou't means of existence — Wilson declined the Armenian mandate offered him
by the "League of Nations", for Armenia's soil contained neither petroleum nor
platinum. "Liljerated" Armenia is now less secui'e than ever before.
Almost all the newly formed "national" states have their own irritants, their
internal national ulcers.
At the same time the national strike within the liounds of the victorious coun-
tries has reached its climax. The English bourgeoisie which pretends to be the
guardian of the nations of the world is incapable of solving the Irish question
at home.
Still more threatening is the national question in the colonies. Egypt, India,
Persia are shaken by internal upheavals. The toilers of the colonies are adopting
the slogan of the Soviet Federation from the advanced workers of Europe and
America.
Official, national, civilized bourgeois Europe — after it emerged from the war
and the Versailles peace — is like a lunatic asylum. The petty states artificially
dismembered, economically stifled within their boundaries, wrangle and fight with
one another over seaports, provinces, and small towns. They seek the protection
of the bigger states whose mutual antagojiism is increasing from day to day. Italy
stands in a hostile iiosition against France and is ready to side with Germany
against her as soon as the latter is capable of raising her head. France is rancor-
ous with envy towards England, and would not hesitate to set the whole of Europe
on fire if that would only enable her to get back her interests. Assisted by France,
England maintains a state of chaotic impotence in Europe, in order that no one
202 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
shall be able to interfere with her imperialistic plans against America. The United
States allows Japan to involve herself in Etistern Siberia so that she may mean-
while get her navy into a condition to get her the upper hand of Great Britain —
provided England should not in her turn attempt to have a trial of strength with
America before 1925.
It is in keeping with this state of international relations that the oracle of the
French bourgeoisie, Marshal Foch, predicts that the coming w^ar is going to begin
where the preceding war left off: aeroplanes, machine guns, mitrailleuses instead
of rifles, and grenades instead of the bayonet.
Workers mid peasants of Europe, America, Asia, Africa. Australia! This is
what ymi have achieved at the cost of ten iiiiJiiniis of killed, twenty miUions of
wounded and maimed !
II. THE ECONOMIC POSITION
Meanwhile the ruination of mankind is going on.
The war has mechanically destroyed those universal ecomonical ties, the develop-
ment of which was one of the most important conquests of capitalism. In 1914
England, Frjince and Italy were separated from Central Europe and from the
near East, in 1917 — from Russia.
During the few years of the war which has destroyed all that has been created
by many generations, human labor which had been reduced to a minimum, was
applied principally in those spheres where it was necessary to transform the
reserves of raw material into goods, chiefly into arms and weapons of destruction.
In those basic branches of economy where man must enter into a direct struggle
against the hardness and inertness of Nature, namely fuel and raw materials
which have to be excavated and brought out from the bowels of the earth — ^produc-
tion progressively died down. The victory of the Entente and the Versailles
Treaty have not stemmed the economic process of economic disorganization and
decay, but have changed its ways and forms. The blockade of Soviet Ru.ssia
and the artificial kindling of civil war against her fertile bordering states have
l)een and are causing incalculal>le damage to the welfare of humanity at large.
If Russia had the minimum technical support this country could, under the condi-
tions established by the Soviet form of production, provide two and three times
the quantity of provision and raw material to Euroiie than that which was pro-
vided by Czaiist Russia ; — the International states this in the face of the entire
W(»rld. Instead of this Anglo-French Imperialism is compelling the Labor Repub-
lic to direct all its forces towards defense. In order to deprive the Russian work-
ers of fuel England held firm in its claws that source of fuel, — Baku, from which
only an insignificant part of this wealth could be exported. The richest coal basin
of the Donetz was periodically devastated by the white guard bands of the Entente.
French instructors and sappers have worked hard over the destruction of Russian
bridges and railroads. Up to the present moment Japan is robbing and ruining
Eastern Siberia.
German technique and the high productivity of German labor — these most
important factors in tlie renaissance of the system of production are now after the
Ver.sailles peace, being paralyzed much more than was the case during the war.
The Entente is faced with contradictions. In order to extract payment it is indis-
pensable that work be supplied. In order to supply work it is indispensable that
life be made possible. To let devastated, dismembered, exhausted Germany live,
means to give her the opportunity to become capable of resistance. The policy of
Foch of keeping Germany in an ever tightening military vise, which is to prevent
Germany's revival — is being dictated by tear of (Germany's revenge.
There is a general shortage and a general need. The trade balance not only of
Germany alone but also of France and England is of a decidedly passive character.
The French State debt has reached the sum of 300 billion francs. It must be
mentioned that the reactionary French Senator Gaudin de Yillaine asserts that
two-thirds of this sum has been lost by embezzlement, thieving and general chaos.
The work of re-establishment of the French districts ruined by the war is a
mere drop in this sea of devastation. The shortage of fuel and raw material as
well as of labor power is the cause of insurmountable obstacles.
France wants gold, France wants coal. The French bourgeoisie points to the
innumerable graves of the war cemeteries and demands its dividends. Germany
must pay ! It nuist l)e remembered that (general Foch has suflicient negroes foV
the occupation of German cites. Russia nmst pay ! In order to inoculate the
Russian people with this idea the French Government spends billions upon the
devastation of Russia ; money which was originally collected and intended for
the revival of France.
APPENDIX, PART 1 203
The international financial compact which was to ease the tax bunlen of France
by a more or less coniiJlete annulment of war debts did not talio place ;— the
Unired States gave no evidence whatever of a desire to make Europe a present of
10 billions of dollars.
The issue of paper currency is continuing to an ever growing extent. While
in Soviet Kussia the extensive introduction of paper currency and its devaluation
is, coincident with the development of a systematic communal distribution of
products and an extensive introduction of payment in kind, only the result of the
gradual death of the conunodity-money system of production, in caiiitalist coun-
tries on the otlier hand, the spread of paper currency signifies the growth of
economic chaos and the approach of inevitable collapse.
The Entente Conference travels from place to place seeking inspiration at all
the European resorts. Dividends are demanded all round in accordance with the
number of men killed in the war. This traveling stock exchange of dead men, an
exchange which fortnightly decides the question of wliether Prance should receive
rjC^^'r or 55% of the contribution which Germany is unable to pay, is a splendid
example of the much-advertised "organization" of Europe.
In The process of the war capitalism has become a new thing. The systematic
extraction of surplus value in the process of production, which is the basis of
economic profits, seems too elementary to the bourgeoisie who liave become accus-
tomed to increase their capital twofold and tenfold within a few days, by means
of speculation on the basis of international robl)ery.
The bourgeoisie has lost certain pre.iudices which stood in its way and has
acquired certain habits which it did not possess formerly. The war has accus-
tomed it to the application of the hunger blockade to whole countries, to air raids,
to burning cities and villages, to the deliberate distribution of cholera bacilli, to
the transportation of dynamite in diplomatic valises, to counterfeiting the paper
■currency and credit notes of the enemy, to bribery, esiiionage and contT'aband to an
extent unheard of before. The methods of war have become upon the conclusion
of peace trading methods. The principal trading operations are now merged in
the activity of the state, whicli acts like a band of robbers armed with every
means of violence. The narrower the universal base of production grows the
more furious, cruel and extravagant the methods of acquisition.
To rob and to loot ! This is the last word of the policy of capitalism, which
has taken the place of free trade and protection. The raid of the Roumanian
bandits upon Hungary from which country they exported locomotives and golden
rings is a good symbol of the economic philoso])hy of Lloyd George and of
Millerand.
The internal economic policy of the bourgeoisie is remarkable for its fluctua-
tion between the program of further nationalization, regrouping and control on
the one hand and protests against State intervention — which has developed during
the war, — on the other hand. The French piirliament is occupied with the sensible
business of squaring the circle : viz. the formation of a 'united connnand" on the
railway net of the Republic without damage to the interests of ^he capitalist
private railway companies. At the same time the capitalist press is conducting
a vicious campaign against "statism", against State intervention which tends to
limit private property.
The condition of the American railways, which were disorganized by the state
during tlie war became still worse with the abolition of state control. At the
same time the Republican party, in its platform promises to safeguard the eco-
nomic life from arbitrai-y state intervention. That old watch dog, Samuel
Oompers, the head of American Trade Unions, is conducting a campaign against
the nationalization of railways, which is being advocated as a panacea b.v the
fools and charlatans of reformism. As a matter of fact the dis.1o)nted violent
intrusion of t!ie State vies with speculation in increasing the chaos in the system
of capitalist production during the period of capitalist decay. To transfer the
principal branches of production and transport from the hands of individual
trusts into the hands of the "nation", i. e., into the hands of the bourgeois State,
the most powerful and greedy capitalist trust, signifies not the abolition of the
evil but its unification.
The fall of prices and the rise of the rate of exchange is but a superficial and
temporary state of things caused by the continuing disorganization. The fluctu-
ation of prices does not affect the principal facts, namely the shortage of raw
material and the fall of productivit.v. Having passed through a period of extreme
tension due to the war, the working masses are incapable of working at the
former rate and under pre-war conditions. The destruction Avithin a few hours
of values which it had taken years to create, tbe rabid, stupendous gambling of
204 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
the financial clique, ever rising on the heaped bones and ruins caused by the
war,— these object lessons of History are hardly helpful in maintaining an
automatic discipline in tlie wage slavery of the working classes.
Bourgeois economic writers and publicists speak of a "wave of idleness" which
is sweeping over Europe, undermining its economic future. The employers are
endeavoring to mend matters by granting privileges to the upper strata of the
working classes. But that is in vain ! In order to revive and to increase the pro-
ductivity of labor it is indispensable that the worker be fully guaranteed that
evei'y blow of the hammer will tend to increase his own welfare and enlighten-
ment, without sul)jecting him to the danger of extermination. Only a Social
Revolution is able to inspire him with tliis confidence.
The increase of the cost of living is a powerful factor of revolutionary agitation
in all countries. Tlie bourgeoisie of France, Italy and Germany and other States
is endeavoring to ameliorate by charity the destitution caused by the high price-^
and to retard the growth of the strike movement. To recompense the agricultural
class for a part of its expenditure of labor power the State, steeped in debt,
indulges in dishonest speculation and the enjbezzlement of its own funds, making
every effort to delay the hour of settlement. Even if there is a certain category
of workers whose standard of life is somewhat higher than it was prior to the war
this fact has no real relation to the actual economic position of the capitalist
countries. True enough some ephemeral results are often obtained today by
cheating out the morrow, but there is little doubt tliat this will lead to catastrophic
destitution and poverty.
And the United States? "America is the hope of humanity" — this phrase of
Turgot is being repeated in the person of Millerand by the French bourgeoisie in
the hoi)e that its debts will be annulled, in spite of the fact that it itself never acts
in this way. But the Government of the United States is not capable of leading
Europe out of the economic impasse. During tlie last six years America has
exhausted its reserves of raw material. The adoption of her capital to the
requirements of the world war has resulted in a narrowing of her industrial
foundations. European immigration has stopped. The counter current of emi-
gration has deprived American industry of hundreds and hundreds of thousands
of Germans. Italians, Poles, Serbians. Bohemians, who were withdrawn by war
mobilization or were attracted by the vision of a newly acquired fatherland. Tlie
shortage of raw material and of labor power hangs over the Republic; owing to
this the American proletariat is now entering upon a new revolutionary phase of
struggle. America is rapidly Europeanizing.
Nor have the neutral countries escaped the consequences of war and blockade :
like liquid in connected retorts,- — the economic system of production of inter-
connected states, whether large or small, fighting or neutral, victorious or
defeated, established a uniform level. — tliat of poverty, starvation and degen-
eration.
Switzerland lives from hand to mouth and every unforseen event menaces its
equilibrium.
In Scandinavia the abundant fiow of gold does not solve the food problem.
Coal has to be begged for in parcels, hat in hand, from England. In spite of
starvation in Europe the fishing industry is passing through an unprecedented
crisis in Norway.
Spain remains in an extremely critical position as regards the food question
owing to her having been drained of men and horses by France. This state of
things leads to stormy manifestations and strikes of the starving masses.
The bourgeoisie firmly relies on the agricultural districts. The bourgeois
economists assert that the welfare of the peasantry has improved very mucii.
But this is an illusion. It is true that the trading peasantry of all countries had
to some extent enriched themselves during the war. Products have been sold by
them at high prices, whilst their debts which were made at the period when
money was dear, must now be paid with cheap currency. That is its advantage.
But it should be mentioned that the whole agrarian economy was dilapidated and
disorganized during the war. It is in need of manufactured goods, while prices
for these have increased in proportion to the reduced value of money. The
demands of state taxes have become great and in the extreme and threaten to
devour the peasant with all his land and products. Thus after a period of tem-
porary improvement of the welfare of the small peasantry their condition beconit^s
more and more dithcult. Their dissatisfaction with the results of the war will
continually increase and because they constitute the permanent army, — the small
peasantry has many unpleasant surprises for tlie bourgeoisie.
APPENDIX, PART 1 205
Tbe economic restoration of Europe made so nuicli of by iier ministers, is a lie.
Europe is being ruined and the whole world along with her.
There is no salvation in the capitalist system. The policy of Imperialism
iloes not lead to the abolition of destitution, but to its intensitication owing to the
plundering of reserves.
Raw material and fuel are International questions. They can be solved only
oji the basis of systematic, socialized production.
The state debts must necessarily be annulled. Labor and its products must
be freed from the inordinate tribute to the world plutocracy. This plutocracy
roust be overthrown. All state barriers which tend to subdivide the entire system
of production, must be removed. The Supreme Economic Council of the Im-
perialists of the Entente must be replaced by the Supreme Economic Council of
the world proletariat, to effect a centralized exploitation of all the economic
resources of mankind.
It is essential to destroy Imperialism in order to give mankind an opportunity
to live.
III. BOURGEOIS REGIME AFTER THE WAS,
The entire power of the privileged classes has been concentrated upon two
questions : to maintain their place in the international struggle, and to prevent the
proletariat from becoming the owner of the country. This has led to the fact
that the former political groupings of the bourgeoisie have lost their power. Not
only in Russia where the banner of the Constitutional Democratic Party, at the
decisive moment of the struggle became the banner of all propertied classes against
the Workers' and Peasants' Revolution, but even in countries with an older and
deeper rooted political culture, the former programs which divided the different
strata of the bourgeoisie had lost their sharp distinction before the proletarian
revolution broke out.
Lloyd George is the spokesman for the amalgamation of the Conservatives, the
Friionists and Liberals for a mutual struggle against the approaching domination
of the working class. This old demagogue strives to establish the church as a
central electric station which is to feed all the parties of the propertied classes.
In France the recent and notorious epoch of anti-clericalism has now become
a mere phantom ; the radicals, royalists and catholics have formed a bloc of a
national character against the proletariat which is lifting its head. The French
Government, being ready to assist every reactionary force, supports the reac-
rionary blackhundred Wrangel and re-establishes diplomatic relations with the
Vatican.
Giolitti, neutralist and pro-German, has taken the helm of the Italian Gov-
ernment as the general leader of the interventionists, tlie neutralists, the cleri-
cnjist, Mazzinists, ready to nmnouvre with regard to the different questions of
foreign and home policy, in order to offer a stiff resistance to the attack of the
1 evolutionary proletarians of town and country. The Government of Giolitti
justly considers itself the last stake of the Italian bourgeoisie.
The policy of every German Government and all the government parties since
the overthrow of the Hohenzollerns has been an attempt to establish in conjunc-
tion with the Entente ruling classes a general basis of hatred of Bolshevism,
i. e., a united force against the Proletarian Revolution.
While the Anglo-French Shylock is making endeavors to garrote the German
nation — the German bourgeoisie, without distinction of parties, entreats its
enemy to loosen the noose just enough to enable it to strangle the vanguard of
the German proletariat with its own hands. This is what the porifxlical con-
ferences and agreements with regard to disarmament and the transfer of war
material amounts to.
In the United States the line of division between the Republicans and the
Democrats has been wiped out. Tiiese powerful political organizations of the
exploiters, adapted to the narrow circle of American interrelations, showed their
complete lack of policy the instant the Anverican bourgeoisie appeared upon the
arena of world plunder. At no other time have the intrigues of individual leaders
and cliques — both in the opposition and in the Cabinet, — been marked by such
open c.vnicism as now. But at the same time all leaders, all cliques, the bourgeois
parties of all countries, form a general front against the revolutionary proletariat.
At the time when the Social Democratic dullards persist in opposing dictator-
ship of democracy, the last vestiges of this democracy are being trodden upon and
demolished in every part of the world.
206 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVmES
Since the war, during which national representation played the part of an
ineffective though ostentatious screen for the ruling imperialist clique, the
parliaments fell into a state of complete prostration. All questions of importance
are now decided without the parliament. Little is changed in this respect by the
apparent widening of the parliamentary prerogatives as solemnly proclaimed
by the Im-perialist jugglers in Italy and in other countries. The actual masters
of the fates of states are Lord Rothschild and Lord Weir. Morgan and Rockefeller,
Schneider and Lusher, Hugo Stinnes and Felix Deutch, Rizello and Agnelli, the
gold, coal, petroleum and metal kings— these are the men who pull the strings
and who send their men to parliament to direct their work.
Amusing itself with the procedure of reading thrice insignificant acts the
French parliament — most discredited for its rhetoric of lies and the cynicism of
its prostitution — unexpectedly learns that the four billion which it had appro-
priated for the restoration of the devastated provinces in France, had been used
by Clemenceau for entirely different purposes, in particular for the further
devastation of Russian provinces.
The majority of members of the supposedly all-powerful British Parliament
are no more aware of the actual intentions of Lloyd George and Curzon with
regard to Soviet Russia, or even with regard to France than are Hindoo hags in-
Bengal villages.
In the United States, Congress is a docile or grumbling chorus for the President,
who is himself the figurehead of the electoral machine, which is in its turn the
political apparatus of the trusts. This is so, by the way, to a far greater extent
since the war than previously.
Belated German parliamentarism^ — an abortion of the bourgeois revolution, in
itself an abortion of history. — this parliamentarism suffers in its infancy from
every illness peculiar to senile decay. "The most democratic" Reichstag of the
Republic of Ebert is powerless, not only before the iron Marshal Foch, but even
before the Stock Exchange machinations of their own Stiuueses, as well as
before the military conspiracies of their war clique. German parliamentary
democracy is a void space between two dictatorships.
The composition of the bourgeoisie itself underwent a great change during rhe
war. In the general atmosphere of the impoverishment of the entire world, the
concentration of capital suddenly made a great step forward. Firms which
were formerly in the background now become pronwnent. Solidity, stabiliry. a
tendency to "reasonable" compromise, the maintenance of a certain decorum,
both in exploitation and in the utilization of this exploitation — all this was
washed away by the waves of the Imperialist flood.
A new class of rich men has come to the f(»reground. It consists of military
contractors, mean profiteers, parvenues, international adventurers, contrabandists,
well-clad crooks — all the unbridled canaille hunting for luxury and ready to com-
mit all kinds of atrocities against the Proletarian Revolution, from which they
can expect nothing but the gallows.
The existing order, the rule of the rich, stands now fully exposed before the
masses. The post helium period in America, France and England has been
marked by an indulgence in luxury which has assumed the nature of a mania.
Paris, tilled with international patriotic parasites, as admitted by the "Temps",
resembles Babylon on the eve of its destruction.
This new bourgeoisie puts its stamp upon politics, courts, tlie press, art and
the Church. All restraint has been thrown to the winds. Wilson, Clemenceau,
Millerand, Lloyd George and Churchill do uot shrink from the most brazen
deceit, the most transparent falsehood, and when exposed they calmly go on to
new criminal deeds. In comparison with the policies of the modern bourgeois
statesmen, the classic rules of jjolitical cunning expounded by old Machiavelli
become mere aphorisms of a provincial simpleton. The law courts, which for-
merly concealed their bourgeois essence under democratic finery, have now openly
become the agency of class brutality and counter-revolutionary provocation. The
judges of the Third Republic have passed a verdict of not guilty upon the
murderer of Jaures without a quiver. The law courts of Germany, which has
been prodainved a Socialist Reiwblic, are encouraging the assassins oif Liebknecht,
Rosa Luxemburg and othei- proletarian martyrs. The courts of Justice of the
bourgeois democracies solemnly legalize all the crimes of tlie White Terror.
The bourgeois press bears the impress of the golden calf like a trade mark.
The leading newspapers of the international bourgeoisie represent a monstrous-
fabrication of lies, slander and moral adultery.
The state of mind of the bourgeoisie is just as feverish and urispttled as are
the prices on its markets. I)uriiig the first few months following the teriniua-
APPENDIX, PART 1 207
lion of the war, the international bourgeoisie, especially the French, trembled
with fear before the oncoming Communism, measuring the degree of its imme-
diate peril by the enormity of the bloody crimes it had connnitted. It has.
liowever, sustained the first onslaught. The Socialist Parties and Trade Unions
i]f the Second International, bound by ties of common responsibility to the
bourgeoisie, shielded the bourgeoisie and made themselves the object of the first
wrathful onslaught of the toiler.'j. The bourgeoisie bought a temporary respite
at the price of the utter collapse of the Second International. The counter-
revolutionary elections to the French parliament puslied through by Clemenceaii,
a few months of unstable equilibrium, the failure of the May strike — all this
(was sufficient to mal^e the bourgeoisie feel confident of the security of its regime.
Its class arrogance is as great today as was its fear yesterday.
The only method of persuasion used by the bourgeoisie today is that of intimida-
tion. It believes no more in words, it demands action — arrests, confiscations,
I raids, executions. Wishing to play up to the bourgeoisie, the bourgeois ministers
and parliamentarians pose as men of steel. Lloyd George drily recommends to
the German ministers to shoot down their Communists, as Fiance did in ISTl. It
is sufficient for any third rate official to accompany his inane report liy defiant
threats against the working class, to receive the loud approval of the Chamber.
The official government apparatus has become transformed into a bloody
weapon to crush the labor movement. Alongside with it and under its auspices
various private counter-revolutionary organizations have been organized and
have started to work. They resort to violence in order to break strikes, to pro-
voke disturbances, to trump up charges, to raid revolutionary organizations and
wreck Conniiunist institutions, to organize massacres and incendiarism, to nnirder
tlie revolutionary leaders and perform similar deeds for the purpose of safe-
guarding private property and democracy.
Scions of the landlords and of the big bourgeoisie, petty bourgeois who have
lost their bearings and the declassed elements among which the emigrants of the
Russian nobility occupy the most prominent place, form an inexhaustible reser-
voir for the formation of counter-revolutionary bands. The connnand of these
bands, is in the hands of officers who have gone through the school of the
imiierialist slaughter.
Following the rebellion of Kapp-Lutwitz. several thoiisand professional officers
of the Hohenzollern army formed themselves into a strong counter-revolutionary
detachment, which cannot be overcome by the German democracy, and which
could be crushed only by the sledge-hammer of the proletarian dictatorship.
The centralized organization of the old regime terrorists obtains its reserves
from the white partisan bands foi'med on the Junker estates.
In the United States the "Nati<tnal Security League'", the "Loyal American
League", and similar organizations constitute the picked armies of capital, at
the extreme wings of which operate ordinary bands of brigands in the person
of private detective agencies.
In France the "Ligue Civique" represents a fa.shionable organization of strike-
breaker;?, while the reformist "Confederation du Travail" has been outlawed.
The officers Mafia of white Hungary and the counter-revolutionary executioners
patronized by England, have shown to the proletariat of the world a sample of
that civilization and humaneness advocated by Wilson and Lloyd George in
opposition to the Soviet government and revolutionary violence.
The "Democratic" governments of Finland and Georgia, Latvia and Esthonia
are trying by all means to live up to this Hungarian model.
In Barcelona there is a band of assassins working under the control of the
police. And so it is everywhere.
Even in defeated and devastated Bulgaria the officers, without employment, are-
uniting into secret societies, ready at the first opportunity to demonstrate their
patriotism upon the heads of the Bulgarian workingmen.
The program of the smoothing over of contradictions, of the cooperation of
classes, of parliamentary reforms, of gradual socialization, of national unity,
represents a grim jest in face of the bourgeois regime such as it has emerged
from the world war.
The bourgeoisie has entirely abandoned the idea of reconciling the proletariat
by means of reform. It contents itself with demoralizing the few labor aristo-
crats by means of bribery and holding the great masses in subjection bv blood
and iron.
There is not a single serious problem today which is decided by voting. Democ-
racy has left but a memory of itself in the minds of the reformists-. The entire-
208 UN-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ACTIVITIES
state organization has been reduced to its primitive form, i. e., armed force.
Instead of counting the votes, the bourgeoisie counts tlie bayonets, machine guns
and cannons, which will be at its disposal at the moment when the question of
power will be finally decided. . .
There can be no room either for cooperation or for mediation. Ihe only salva-
tion is in the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. This can be achieved only by the
rising of the proletariat.
IV. SOVIEn- RUSSIA
Amidst the unbridled passions of chauvinism, avarice and destruction, it has
been the principle of Communism alone that has manifested a high degree of
vitality and constructive force. In the course of historical development the
Soviet" government has for the first time been established in the most backward
and exhausted countrv of Europe, surrounded by a host of mighty foes. But m
spite of all that, it has not only maintained itself in the struggle against such
great odds, but it has also demonstrated in reality the great possibilities inherent
in Communism. The development and consolidation of the Soviet power in
Russia is the most momentous historical event of the period succeeding the
foundation of the Communist International.
In the eyes of class society the creation of an army has usually been regarded
as the supreme test of industrial and State construction. The weakness or the
strength of the army has been regarded as evidence of the weakness or strength
of industry and the State.
In the midst 
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