Alfred Rosmer, then on the Executive Committee of the Communist International, reviews the tasks on the agenda of the coming Third World Congress. In his view, the Comintern had successfully differentiated itself politically at the Second Congress from the Social-Democrats, unions and mass organizations were still in their hands. The Third Congress needed an orientation to win those based on an understanding of the changes in the global economy. Transcribed here for the first time.

‘The Third Congress of the Communist International’ by Alfred Rosmer from Communist International. No. 16-17. May, 1921.

WHEN the Second Congress met a year ago it had among other tasks before it to determine and define precisely the conditions for the affiliation to the Communist International. Paradoxical as it may seem, the Communist International which had only existed one year was threatened by an invasion of undesirable elements: centrists, reformists, both open and secret, equilibrists, etc. At the moment of its creation it was welcomed most sarcastically by the majority of the leaders of the Socialist parties; they pretended that it would never be a real International, it was a simple demonstration of no importance and with no future before it. But the working masses proved to be of a different opinion. They were disgusted with the old parties and the Second International which had collapsed so miserably August 2nd 1914. In the same way as they had greeted enthusiastically the Russian revolution, they now welcomed the Communist International. The movement was an irresistible one and the centrists were compelled to follow it. They tried to manoeuvre and while attesting publicly and formally their intention and wish to go to Moscow, they organised conferences among themselves in order to prepare a joint plan of action; they were willing to go to Moscow provided however that under the pretext of the autonomy of the sections they might continue each of them the policy of inactivity that they had been following hitherto, and which consisted in admiring Soviet Russia from a distance, in talking from time to time of the Revolution, in acting as reformists and in systematically dissuading the masses from all revolutionary action.

These artless tactics the malice of which was only too evident failed most pitifully. It is not only the formal conditions for affiliation which have closed the doors of the Communist International to the centrists; it is the aggregate of the theses voted by the Congress which determine the doctrine and the methods of action of the Communist International. The reformists who had been hiding behind the revolutionary phraseology were suddenly compelled to lay aside their masks and these ardent artisans of the journey to Moscow became transformed into embittered critics of the Communist International and of Soviet Russia.

The national congresses established by the decisions of the Second Congress of the Communist International resulted everywhere in the unavoidable split: on the one hand the proletarian masses who had never thought of discussing their affiliation to the Communist International, on the other, mostly delegates, lawyers, Intellectuals, labour union leaders and such of the workers who are still their dupes. The first of these congresses of liquidation, that of Halle, in splitting the party of the independents of Germany into a right and left wing, established a precedent which was followed everywhere. Centrism, a temporary and unstable grouping, is now completely dislocated; its left faction is joining Communism, the rest will sooner or later join the right wing. In France the operation has already been accomplished: the rupture between the two groups lasted only during the space of one morning. The Two and a Half International that the centrist elements have endeavoured to create is trying vainly to live; it has just met for me first time at Amsterdam with the Second International and the International of Labour Unions, The union did not take place officially, although it had been established that the ideas of these three organisations were almost identical: the union will take place the next time, and the situation will thus be made perfectly clear. On this point one of the tasks of the Congress has been accomplished and the Third Congress will be composed of Communist parties cleared and freed from the dead weight of the reformists who under the pretext of unity wished at whatever cost to be affiliated to them. It will have first of all to examine the appeal addressed to the Central Committee by the Communist. Party of Germany against the admission of the Communist Labour Party of Germany as a sympathising party, and by the “Unitary Communists” of Italy against the decision of the Executive Committee to recognise only the new Communist Party formed after Livorno, as a section of the Third International.

It is probable that these two resolutions which have been passed unanimously by the Executive Committee will be approved without much discussion by the Congress. The fact that the Constitution admits of the affiliation of sympathising parties shows that the case of the adhesion of parties consisting of bona fide revolutionary and proletarian elements but not accepting all the theses of the Communist International has been foreseen. Such is the case of the C.A.P.G. The Congress will probably demand that the latter should work in complete unity with the C.P.G., which will be the best preparation fer their ultimate fusion.

In Italy the situation is quite simple: an extremely significant fact predominates over all the rest: Serrati and his partisans who call themselves “Unitary Communists” have refused to severe with Turatti, Modigliani and their adherents and at the same time they agreed to separate from all the bona fide communist elements of the party. Turatti who is not in the least Communist, he says and writes so, is in reality the predominating personage of this party of “Unitary Communists“ and at the moment when the Unitary Communists did not wish to break with him he had taken under his protection the book of the deputies Nofri and Pozzoni, entitled “The Hell of Soviets“, the chapters of which bear the titles of: “A ferocious dictatorship,” “The triumph of bribery,” “The social agony of a peoples,” etc.

When the above two points will be decided, the Congress will be able to pass over to the order to business and first of all to the principal question: the world economic crisis and the new tasks of the Communist International.

This crisis which has today attained its full development did not break out immediately after the conclusion of the imperialist war. On the next day after the signing of the armistice and during a comparatively long time the great victorious Powers passed through a kind of industrial Renaissance which helped to create illusions for some time.

But the catastrophe was bound to take place. The factory owners discovered suddenly that they could not find purchasers; they had been producing commodities in great quantities, profiting by the technical improvements in the machinery and the organisation of labour brought about during the war and their stocks of goods were accumulating without finding a sale. Thus, in Europe, impoverished and ruined by the war, half the population of which was suffering from lack of food, clothes and even dwellings in some parts, the manufactured articles were clogging the market and the workers could not find employment. The economic consequences of the war were fully revealed. There was a moment of panic, of shock among the industrial and commercial circles; the most solid firms were shaken. bankruptcy stared them in the face. Lloyd George gave the following explanation of the crisis to the manufacturers who appealed to him: “Our stores are filled to overflowing with merchandise, our consumers are in rags, but they have no money”.

In England the crisis was felt immediately with great intensity. In November the numbers of unemployed amounted to about 500.000 and besides in many of the factories the workers were only working half time. On the other hand the cost of living is constantly increasing. The number of unemployed also augmented regularly and soon attained one million. The awakening was cruel. It was especially so in England, as immediately after the war she had enjoyed a privileged position. Mistress of the coal market she had had the possibility of crushing and oppressing her allies, France and Italy, selling them for a very high price the coal that they needed and could not obtain anywhere else, while supplying it to her own factory owners at a much tower rate, thus enabling them to produce their goods at a lower price then their competitors on the continent. The British plutocracy was beginning to think that in spite of what the prophets of evil had been saying the war was “paying” the balances over the budgetary estimates constituted quite appreciable surplus profits and the optimists were already talking of the amortization of the debt. But this Golden Age did not last long. In the same way as England could not find purchasers for her manufactured goods, she could not find any for her coal; France was receiving from Germany more than she could consume and the export of the United states developed rapidly. At the same time the conflicts between the employers and the workers were becoming more frequent and acquiring a very serious character. Strikes of railway men, strikes of miners were breaking out; the false prosperity was disappearing giving up its place to the threat of a collapse of the whole regime.

In France although the crisis presents identical features in general, matters developed more slowly and in a totally different fashion. Unemployment also began to be felt from the month of October and increased progressively while the stocks of goods continued to accumulate. The banks reduced the credits, the enterprises, even some of the oldest, were threatened. with the necessity of liquidation from day to day. The Stock Exchange passed through serious panics, the financial situation of the country grew very grave; Ribot, a former Minister of Finance, declared: “I do not think that any country at any time has found itself in a more difficult position than we in at present since our victory’.” France had reckoned on a victory and on one that should pay. All her policy was based on this expectation. And today the only formula is: Germany must pay.

A crisis of this nature had necessarily to extend rapidly over the whole world and this is what really happened. All the countries, neutral as well as the combatant ones, both European and those beyond the seas, have seen their factories cease working, their commercial turnover stop.

Will capitalism succeed in overcoming this crisis and come out of the difficult situation untouched? Certain socialists centrists, particularly the Independents of Germany, pretend that it has never been so powerful as today; that during the war and the period immediately following it, capitalism has strengthened its organisation. It is true, that in some countries at least the large trusts have extended their power and their operations, But it is no less true that they are working at present in a world which has not regained its equilibrium and that the latter can again be completely upset at any moment. The capitalists who see brilliant prospects for themselves and the socialists who deem that their power has been strengthened reason as though the world had found peace whereas the war is still continuing; a strong militarist party in France is demanding more insistently every day that the army should march to Berlin—even though it should have to go alone—and menace is planning all around.

Frightened at the extent of this crisis and the constant danger that it presents, the bourgeoisie has tried to utilise it by declaring a general offensive against all the workers. The bourgeois economists and journalists discovered simultaneously that the cause of the crisis lies in the high wages received by the workers and the eight hours’ day. The occasion was a favourable one. The slackening of the work permitted the employers to make a selection among their men, to get rid of the “leaders” and especially to revise and reduce the wage scale. The workers were told: Work may be resumed provided you will agree to a diminishment of the pay. And at this moment of great unemployment the ten hours day was reestablished. The bourgeois economists are never at a loss: for them all crises must be solved at the expense of the workers; the eight hour day, they say, is the cause of the high cost of living and the high cost of living is the cause of the economic crisis. The workers thus find themselves frustrated of a reform which had been consented to by the capitalists only because they were afraid of the Bolshevist infection and now after the great war for the rights of peoples and justice, those who have escaped the imperialist slaughter find themselves in a worse situation than they were before 1914.

What have the labour organisations done to resist this capitalist offensive? Never has international action been more necessary. New means of struggle must correspond to new situations; it is necessary chiefly to study and determine jointly the tactics which would be most adaptable to the actual revolutionary situation. It is necessary to see how the joint action should be regulated in respect to the local and special demands which must not be neglected and for the preparation of the revolutionary assault which is to overthrow the bourgeoisie.

The International of labour unions which had collapsed August 2nd 1914 as ignominiously as the Second International, has been reconstructed with the authorisation of the governments; its principal task had been to defend the workers from the international capitalist rapacity but it has not done anything to assist the workers in their struggle. It has on the contrary tried to render all the questions more obscure and to weaken the resistance of the proletariat because its policy had been in all cases not the policy of struggle, but of the collaboration of classes. Tho employers are organising everywhere; they are redoubling the number of the white guards; it is they who always assume the offensive. The labour union leaders of the International of labour unions are disarming the workers and preaching conciliation.

That is why the Communist International has denounced the Amsterdam International of labour unions as a yellow one, as an appendix of the International Bureau of Labour in the League of Nations. That is why the Communist International has started a relentless struggle against it and is preparing the formation of an International of Red Labour Unions which will unite together all the revolutionary elements of the labour organisations of all countries.

The struggle against the reformist leaders of the labour unions is at the present moment most urgent and necessary. During the war the labour unions of all the larger countries have become simple appendices of their governments owing to the treacherous conduct of their leaders. A tacit agreement was formed between the governments and the leaders of the labour organisations: the labour leaders would not be sent into the trenches provided they could ensure tranquility at the base and allow the authorities to use the workers and peasants as cannon fodder as long as they liked. Some of them became Ministers. After the war the leaders of the labour unions found themselves together with the employers and representatives of the government at the peace conference and after that in Washington where they created their International Bureau of Labour, of which one of the most reactionary of French reviews was able to say that if it disappeared “the employers would lose infinitely more than the workers.” These are the same men who are now at the head of the yellow Amsterdam International of Labour unions.

Under the convenient formula of “No politics in the labour unions” these leaders have been able to pursue a policy of social peace and collaboration of classes. Although the majority have become discredited in the eyes of the more class conscious workers, they still manage to dupe the masses who enter the labour unions hoping to find there protection and defense of their interests. Gradually however under the pressure of the revolution they are compelled to resign their places. Thus, last November the following communiqué appeared in the English papers: “The Minister of the Mines with the approval of the Minister of Commerce has nominated William Bruce as Chief Councillor of Labour. The position that Mr. Bruce has accepted is a permanent post to which he will have give up all his time and it implies the renunciation of his seat in the House of Commons and his function as Chairman of the Mining Federation of Wales and of the Executive Commission of the Miners Federation of Great Britain. His appointments will be 2,250 pounds (about 135,000 francs at the present rate).”

Mr. Bruce had felt that the miners were wanting to get rid of him and he had been before them in seeking a more definite post. The governments who find that the workers are earning too high salaries are quite ready to welcome and pay generously those who betray their class.

Jack Jones, a Socialist deputy. who is not a Bolshevik, but who sometimes calls things by their names has been able to qualify such labour union leaders before the whole Chamber of Commons as “political prostitutes of labour,” and to say that when the government finds itself in a fix, it can always count on them to help it out. (The debate was on the subject of Ireland and the “political prostitutes” in question were the Kolchakist “Colonel“ John Ward, secretary of the Labourers Union, and J A. Seddon secretary of the employees union).

In spite of all, the revolutionary propaganda which has to be carried on in the labour unions is not the same as the one which is developing within the political parties. It had been quite easy for the Communist International to break up the old Socialist parties. It will be a more difficult task to unmask and drive away the leaders of the labour unions, traitors of the working class. The discredited leaders of the old socialist parties had understood this and they had sought a refuge in the labour unions. A typical case is that of Albert Thomas, formerly Minister of Munitions, who during the war demanded from the workers socialists that they should be the first to allow themselves to be killed for the glory of the Allied imperialism and from the working women to work until they were completely exhausted. Now he is the inspirer of the General Confederation of Labour and a leader of the International Bureau of Labour.

However the events which are developing at present will end by showing up all men in their true colours and it is possible to hope that the ignominious breakdown of the British Labour Triple Alliance, which we have just witnessed will help largely to make the workers of all countries understand that so long as the labour unions will remain in the hands of the old leaders, so long will the best means for the struggle, the surest comb nations be sabotaged at the decisive moment.

The British miners started a struggle against the employers’ offensive for a reduction of pay The transport workers and the railwaymen with whom they form a triple alliance promised to support them. They voted a general strike for a fixed date. Suddenly, a surprise, there was to be no general strike, the miners would have to continue the struggle themselves. How could such treachery happen at the very last hour? It could happen because J.H. Thomas is the general secretary of the railway union, because although the strike of solidarity had been voted, he did not wish it to take place, because he had maneuvered, solicited and provoked hostile demonstrations against the strike in certain railway centres and because he had finally declared that the Miners Federation, being under the influence of the extremists, the railway men refused to participate in the strike.

This J.H. Thomas is the Chairman of the yellow Amsterdam International. A worthy Chairman of such an International, one could not find a more symbolic one.

Such a lesson, so dearly paid for, must bring some good. It is sad to think that J.H. Thomas is not a novice, that he has already shown several times that he is capable of any treachery and that in spite of all he is still continuing to exercise his malevolence.

During a preceding strike of the miners last October the question of the strike of the railway men as a sign of solidarity had been raised. A national assembly of miner’s delegates had pronounced itself in favour of the strike. What did J.H. Thomns do? He charged the “Press Association” agency to declare that he disapproved of the resolution passed by the assembly! Naturally J.H. Thomas is a democrat, a dire enemy of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But he went so far this time that a moderate magazine, the “New Statesman,” which defends the ideas of the Webbs, writes:

“This question of the relations between a leader and those who elect him was raised in its most acute form last week after the action of J.H. Thomas in regard to the decision of the railway men delegated in favour of the strike. There is no doubt that the act of Mr. Thomas after the decision had been passed was of a nature to make of the whole strike not only a partial strike which would inevitably have ended in defeat if it had broken out, but it was in reality an invitation to the labour unions not to obey the order for the strike…One may pretend that the decision was neither wise nor necessary, but this opinion does not in any way affect the question raised by the act of Mr. Thomas as the general secretary of the railway Union. If he differed in the matter from his union, he had honestly either to obey the instructions as a servant of the union, or to tender his resignation. But to keep his post while he openly acted against instructions is a proceeding which in our opinion cannot be defended, whatever idea one may have of the functions of a secretary of a union.”

In spite of the habitual moderation of the “New Statesman” this estimation of the role of J.H. Thomas is such that we have nothing to add to it.

In fact this clique of higher functionaries in the labour unions, always ready to fulminate against the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes its own ‘dictatorship on the proletariat.’ These great democrats accept the law of the majority so long as the majority is in their favour but they do not hesitate to act as autocrats when the majority in the labour unions ventures to differ from them.

Nominated for long periods, entrenched behind a powerful bureaucracy, surrounded by creatures who are devoted to them, they constitute the worst of oligarchies. Considering their role in ordinary times as the brokers of the workers dealing in compromises and agreements with the employers they pass over quite naturally to treachery in serious cases.

The Third Congress will have to look upon its task of struggling against the yellow Amsterdam International, this refuge of all the traitors to socialism and the labour unions, as one of the greatest importance. The bourgeoisie frightened by the disconcerting and bewildering resistance of Soviet Russia and the unceasing and rapid progress of Communism understood very well that the labour unions might serve as organs for the preservation of the social order. It hastened to set the unions against the parties. The bourgeois Capus, the royalist Maurras and the low politician Barthou have met in “touching accord” to celebrate the “wisdom” and the “realism” of the labour unions which are resisting the “Soviet myth” and the “Communist disorganiers.” It is necessary to show them that the revolutionary spirit which is bona fide realism, can also animate the labour unions. The Third Congress will also have to determine the position of the Communist International in regard to the International of Red Labour Unions which will be definitely constituted after the special Congress which will meet on July 1st.

The call sent out by the Consul of the International of Red Unions has received the approval of all the revolutionary labour organisations which are not affiliated to Amsterdam and the minorities of the central organisations adhering to Amsterdam. Some of the delegates who will meet in Moscow to establish the basis of the new organisation and work out joint tactics will be Communists, and some of them will be representatives of other revolutionary labour organisations. Amongst the former some will be members of the Communist parties, others will be greatly prejudiced against all political parties and do not belong to any party at all, and all their revolutionary activity is carried out on the lines of the labour unions. These prejudices against parties are justified by the practices of the old socialist parties which were almost all of them parties of reform, not of revolution; we see them dwindling away as soon as a real Communist party appears and acts. This is what is going on in France where the revolutionary minority of the General Confederation of Labour said, in its resolution submitted to the last Congress of the Confederation after a formal declaration of adhesion to the International of Red Labour Unions, that it was ready to collaborate with such political party which would act as a revolutionist.

It is the duty of the Communist International to favour these elements of different origin, and the prejudices will disappear definitely during the course of the revolutionary struggle in common.

The field of operations of the Communist International extends practically over the whole world and the echo that it found in the peoples the East is one of the phenomena which are most pregnant with consequences in the present moment. These peoples which before the war had been kept in a state of slavery by the British or the Czarist imperialism, or by both together when they agreed, were profoundly agitated by the Russian revolution. Two powerful motives attracted them to Soviet Russia: the fact that henceforth far from oppressing them and hampering their free development their powerful neighbour would be their sure support in their work of liberation, and further, the idea of the soviet power. All these people do not possess an equal degree of development. When one reads the history of the strike in Bombay and the incidents that it provoked, it is quite clear that Communism must find a favourable soil in these countries. In other regions, almost exclusively agricultural ones, the process of liberation must necessarily be different. The Second Congress has for the first time put these questions in a new light and submitted them to the study and discussion of all the Communist parties. The Third Congress will have the results of these studies, of these discussions, and the information furnished by the representatives of the peoples of the East; it will be able to complete the theoretical work by the elaboration of a plan for definite action.

The Communist International has shown itself as an international of action. All its methods and its structure itself bear witness to this fact. By this it differs essentially from the Second International which was radically incapable of action. It was Incapable because not one of the parties composing it felt itself really bound by the decisions of the congresses. It was clearly shown by the now famous resolution of the Stuttgart Congress of 1914. The Communist International does not wish to experience the same failure. It is following actively the life and actions of the parties composing it, it gives its support and assistance to all the great movements which they become engaged in, it does not hesitate to intervene and sharply denounce, if necessary, any weaknesses which may show themselves.

In creating the international organisation which the proletariat lacked, the First Congress provided a rallying point for all the revolutionary and Communist groups and parties. Its call was heard everywhere and obtained a rapid success.

In giving to the Communist International a solid basis and in imposing clearness and sincerity the Second Congress provoked a great agitation among all the proletariat. It has upset and dislocated the old parties.

The Third Congress will not meet with a less hearty response: it will extend the activities of the Communist International to the labour organisations, determine and coordinate them and give to the workers the means of struggle which will be the most suitable to the great problems of the actual moment.

March 19th 1921.

The ECCI published the magazine ‘Communist International’ edited by Zinoviev and Karl Radek from 1919 until 1926 irregularly in German, French, Russian, and English. Restarting in 1927 until 1934. Unlike, Inprecorr, CI contained long-form articles by the leading figures of the International as well as proceedings, statements, and notices of the Comintern. No complete run of Communist International is available in English. Both were largely published outside of Soviet territory, with Communist International printed in London, to facilitate distribution and both were major contributors to the Communist press in the U.S. Communist International and Inprecorr are an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/ci/old_series/v01-n16-n17-apr-may%201921-grn-goog-r3.pdf