A fascinating document responding to the Soviet-Polish war and the conflict in Ukraine by the Communist International in which the territories, responsibilities, and relationships of the nationally constituted Communist Parties of the region are outlined.
‘An Agreement between the Communist Party of Ukraina and the Communist Labour Party of Poland’ from Bulletin of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. Vol. 1 No. 2. September, 1921.
AN EXPLANATION.
In addition to the above agreement the representatives of the Communist Labour Party of Poland (C.L.P.P.) are giving the following explanation in the name of their party:
As a party working in an imperialist state that embraces a number of forcibly annexed national minorities, the C.L.P. of Poland considers the struggle against the oppression of these national minorities by the Polish bourgeois government to be one of its most pressing political tasks.
A most decisive resistance to Polish nationalism in all its manifestations is the special duty of the Polish Communists, as belonging to the ruling nationality; by their whole activity they must persuade the peoples of the oppressed nations that the final aim of the Communists, namely, the dictatorship of the proletariat, will simultaneously overthrow both the poltical oppression of the working class by the bourgeoisie and the oppression of the enslaved peoples by the bourgeoisie of the ruling nationality. With regard to East Galicia annexed to bourgeois Poland by force of arms, the C.L.P.P. most decidedly stands up for the national rights of the Ukrainian population which is the predominating one in that country. The C.L.P.P. is struggling for the rights of the Ukrainian peasants to the land, as against the colonisation policy of the bourgeoisie which is ever seeking to rob the peasants of all nationalities both of their nationality as well as of their land.
In advancing the slogan of amalgamation of Soviet Poland and Soviet Ukraina, the C.L.P.P. thereby points out the fact that the question of frontiers, so important a one for the bourgeois imperialist governments, will lose its acute character under the soviet regime and be replaced by the fraternal agreement and collaboration of the liberated peoples.
Already in 1918-1919 the C.L.P.P. had protested against the campaign against Lemberg that was being undertaken by the imperialists for the crushing of the uprising of the Ukrainian peasants, and it will struggle also in the future against all attempts to crush by armed force and governmental violence any Ukrainian movement directed against the Polish State, or tending to separate from it.
One of the main tasks of the Communist Party of East Galicia, occupying the same platform as the C.L.P.P. and constituting a component part of the same, and especially one of the chief tasks of the Ukrainian Communists of East Galicia is to struggle against the Ukrainian nationalist tendencies in the party, which are exploiting the national and social enslavement of the Ukrainian population of East Galicia, fooling it by means of nationalist phraseology, keeping it from the revolutionary class struggle, instigating it against the workers of other countries, thus driving it under the yoke of its own bourgeoisie and making it an object of the imperialist and counter-revolutionary intrigues and adventures of different capitalist governments.
The amalgamation of the proletariat of all nationalities into one military party which is being carried out in an atmosphere of national baiting and excited national passions, is the indispensable and best weapon for the struggle against nationalism, the greatest enemy of the revolution.
Czerniakovsky, Glinsky, Valetsky, Brand
An Agreement between the Communist Party of Ukraina and the Communist Labour Party of Poland.
Between the Communist Party of Ukraina represented by comrades F. Kon, D. Manuilsky and A. Shumsky, members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraina, and the Communist Labour Party of Pcland, represented by comrades Czerniakovsky, Glinsky, Valetsky and Brand, members of the Central Committee of the Communist Labour Party of Poland—the following agreement has been concluded on the question of regulating the Communist work in East Galicia.
In accordance with the resolutions of the Second Congress of the Communist International the conditions of the revolutionary struggle are demanding the amalgamation of the whole revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat of each country into one centralised Communist militant body. Consequently, it is necessary that, so long as East Galicia forms a component part of the Polish state, the Communist Party of East Galicia should form also part of the Communist Labour Party of Poland. With a view to carry out this resolution the Communist Party of Ukraina and the Communist Labour Party of Poland have adopted the following decisions:
1. The Communist Party of East Galicia is to be considered as a local territorial organisation of the Communist Labour Party of Poland.
2. The Communist Party of East Galicia shall take part in all the party conventions and conferences of the Communist Labour Party of Poland on the general basis of the party constitution, and it shall submit to its resolutions. The party and organisations leadership shall belong to the Central Committee of the Communist Labour Party of Poland. The Communist Party of East Galicia shall convene its own regional conferences for the discussion of all political and organisational questions within the limits of the constitution and resolutions of the Communist Labour Party of Poland. These conferences shall elect a regional committee that shall be named: “Central Committee of the Communist Party of East Galicia“.
3. The chief political slogan of the Communist Party of East Galicia shall be: Long live Soviet Poland in fraternal union with Soviet Ukraina and Soviet Russia.
4. A representative of the Communist Party of East Galicia shall be included among the delegates of the Communist Labour Party of Poland to the Congresses of the Communist International.
5. All the Communists working in East Galicia must be members both of the Communist Party of East Galicia and of the Communist Labour Party of Poland.
6. Any assistance to the Communist work in East Galicia (workers, literature, technical means, transport) shall be rendered on the part of the Communist Party of Ukraina only on a definite demand of the Communist Labour Party of Poland or its empowered organ (the Central Committee of the Communist Party of East Galicia, the representatives of the Communist International, etc.).
7. Any foreign groups recognised by the Communist Party of Ukraina shall be entitled to work in or for East Galicia only provided they shall be empowered thereto by the Communist Labour Party of Poland. All foreign auxiliary groups for East Galicia (Vienna and others) shall exist only with the consent of the Central Committee of the Communist Labour Party of Poland, and they shall be subordinated in all respects to its direction and control.
8. The budget of the Communist Party of East Galicia shall be confirmed by the Central Committee of the Communist Labour Party of Poland, which will determine the requisite sums and control all the rights and expenditure of the Communist Party of East Galicia.
9. This agreement which is to take effect immediately, renders null and void all other regulations on Communist work in East Galicia that have existed up to now.
Moscow, July 9th, 1921.
F. Kon, D. Manuilsky, A. Shumsky, Czerniakousky, P. Glinsky, Ch. Valetzky, S. Brand.
The above agreement is hereby confirmed by the Executive Committee of the Communist International and recognised as the regulation on the organisational question in East Galicia.
Moscow, July 20th, 1921. For the Executive Committee: Bela Kun, Fritz Heckert.
The ECCI published the magazine ‘Communist International’ edited by Zinoviev and Karl Radek from 1919 until 1926 irregularly in German, French, Russian, and English. 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.
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