Manifesto of the founding conference of the League Against Imperialism held in Brussels on February 10, 1927. Called by the Communist International, the meeting gathered 175 delegates, the majority from the colonial world and its liberation movement. Aside from Communists, representatives from the Kuomintang (soon to violently leave the alliance with the CCP), The Indian National Congress (including Nehru), the African National Congress (by its President, Josiah Tshangana Gumede), and Albert Einstein. The role of Zionism was a major debate, with Poale Zion being expelled from the Congress as having politics incompatible with anti-imperialism. The League never attained its aspirations and did not survive the Popular Front, however its efforts remain a milestone in the international struggle against imperialism. Full list of delegates below.

‘Against Imperialism and for National Independence! Oppressed Peoples and Oppressed Nations, Unite!’ from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 7. No. 17. March 3, 1927.

The representatives of the oppressed peoples and of the working class who are assembled together in the congress from all parts of the earth in order to guarantee their elementary rights and the mutual development of brotherly fellowship, have resolved:

A position, in which hundreds of millions of men are condemned culturally and violently to suffer material and moral stagnation and to remain the involuntary victims of foreign capitalist exploitation, whereby struggle to which this exploitation gives rise, constantly threatens the peace of the nations with new and bloody conflicts—this dangerous, critical, debasing and barbarous position can really no longer be tolerated. History has expressed its irrevocable sentence upon this shame, which as already lasted for centuries, and which in our own epoch has been strengthened afresh by the policy of imperialism and has attained dimensions hitherto undreamed of. For hundreds of years the unprotected, cruel and relentless exploitation of the overseas Asian, African and American peoples and races has always been one of the chief sources from which European capitalism has fed itself. The indescribable yoking, enslavement and compulsory labour, the simple destruction and not only that, exploitation of all nations and races so that their very name did not remain, was necessary in order to construct the proud fabric first of all of European -and then of European-American capitalism and of its so very cultured material and spiritual civilisation. However the young states which arose on the other side of the ocean partly on the grave of other nations, of other civilisations and partly through amalgamation with native-born peoples, were compelled to defend their right to independent national existence against the aggressive self-seeking egoism of the capitalist mother-countries by war. And it was chiefly only the mutual hostilities of these capitalist mother countries which provided the possibility ‘for this struggle for national independence to be crowned with success.

Every new capitalist state which appeared upon the arena of history, as happened at the end of the last century, in the case of Germany and later Italy, considered it necessary to pursue itself the course of oppressing and enslaving colonial peoples. No single capitalist state considered itself to be an equally qualified capitalist power until it had brought other weaker defenceless nations into subjection to itself. This subjection was characterised by a complete hierarchy, by a graduated system which leads from simple de facto control, from the veiled forms of dependence to unveiled slavery, and latterly also in geographically distant countries to the traditional forms of medieval feudalism and bodily ownership.

As the present time of the highest development of capitalist nations, at this epoch of imperialism, this barbarous cruel system has reached its highest pitch of perfection. The surplus of capitalist accumulation in the new shape of finance-capital categorically required the final subjection of all parts of the world which are not yet capitalist. The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th brought with them the final division of the world between a small group of imperialist powers. A few great powers and in them a few individuals, supported by the strength of accumulated capital and upon the strength of the bayonets and cannons of the most modern and perfect murder-machine, began to control the world. The conquest and enslavement-of some nations led to the conquest and enslaving of others. The struggle of the groups of imperialist powers for the last stretches of territory which had not yet been finally parceled out, for a fresh division of the world led finally to the greatest catastrophe and to the greatest crime in the history of humanity, to the world war.

But this terrible catastrophe which drenched two continents with blood did not destroy that awful system of which it was itself the fruit. The imperialist powers have clung like limpets to the booty, which threatened to slip from their hands and which they had so dearly purchased. The murder of millions of men, among whom were hundreds of thousands of colonial slaves from India and from the French-African colonies, who on all the fields of battle had fallen in the interests of the slave owners, did not lead to any diminution of the number of the powers, which are laying claim to colonial booty. Fascist Italy hastened to take the place of Germany and clamours ever more loudly and more shrilly for a share of the colonial territories, and even in Germany itself the privileged classes, which have restored their economic and political power and have already forgotten the bitter taste of foreign rule, are now striving to win for themselves the right to oppress other peoples. That is the inexcusable logic of that system under which mankind is suffocating. Less than ever can the present economic system, which has exhausted the European masses during the war, continue to exist and to grow without colonial excess profits and without the subjection of whole nations and whole continents. The less the old capitalism is in the position to ensure the well-being of the European masses, and above all of the proletarian masses, the more is it compelled to seek in foreign continents for markets for its goods and its capital which can be controlled by force. The development of the monopoly of capital which was extraordinarily accelerated by the war, changed the small clique of the privileged classes of a few great powers—above all of Anglo-Saxon powers— into masters and despots of the whole world.  

The world war and its consequences clearly showed, however, that imperialist-colonial capitalism, and capitalism in general was its own gravedigger. The explosion of the world war not only revealed the amazing internal dissensions by which capitalist society was torn, but millions of men had to lose their lives in the attempt to adjust and smooth over these dissensions. This is not all that the world war revealed. In their inexcusable struggle against each other the imperialist powers were themselves forced to announce the slogan of self-determination. The oppressed, enslaved peoples took the imperialists at their word so to speak. The belated and deceptive concessions, which were followed by a relapse into still more cruel oppression, all the methods of the cruel unsystematic patriarchal rule of postwar imperialism threw the masses which had already been upset by the war and by the whole economic development, into a still greater state of unrest. A mighty wave of the movement for national emancipation passed over immense regions of Asia, Africa and America. The banner of the revolt against slavery and conquest was raised in China and in India, in Egypt as in Northwest Africa, in Indonesia and also in the Philippines. The hatred of slavery and oppression, the longing for a better, freer and cultured life awoke in all corners of the exploited world.

After the world war, the national world freedom movement received a mighty push forward from the Russian revolution, which established the power of the proletariat and the peasant, which did not rest on exploitation and led to the transformation of the former robber-empire of Russia which had oppressed hundreds of people, into a free federation of equal peoples. The greatest house of oppression in the world has been irreparably overthrown. The historical example of the workers’ state which rests upon the free league of nations and races, which has been built up upon the ruins of this house of oppression, lights up like a torch the path of the struggle for freedom of the oppressed and enslaved nations.

No one can throttle again this mighty will for freedom and independence. Only fools and miserable philistines and routine-men can believe that the civilisation today and the whole future of. the world can be confined to Europe and the United States of America. The national freedom movement of the Asian, African and American peoples is in its extent a world miracle. And it alone—organically connected. and associated in growth with the struggle for freedom of the proletariat of the old capitalist society—will be able to change our planet into a civilised world. It alone will open a new chapter in the history of the world through the liberation of the world—the history of which for the first time will be a real world history, the history of mankind throughout the whole world. Already the Chinese revolution alone, the movement for freedom on the part of 400,000,000 oppressed people—is a fact of world historical importance, which throws many of the “great” outstanding facts of European history completely into the shade. Let the rulers of the old small part of the world renounce their antiquated illusions which no longer correspond to the present time, and which today inevitably make a miserable and ridiculous impression. The whole world is moving and the smallest jolt in any part of it causes a mighty repercussion over an immense extent of territory. The example of tiny Nicaragua showed that lasting opposition even against the most powerful giant is possible, thanks to the publicity which this opposition awakes among a number of stronger peoples which are equally concerned with the necessity of defending their own independence. Without the most bitter opposition, however, the imperialist oppressors will not give up their booty. The young Turkish republic had to use the whole of its strength in a new war. She had to transfer her capital to the interior of the country in order to protect her independence from the attacks of the robbers. Already since the world war we. have witnessed new. colonial wars in Morocco and Syria. Under pressures of the national movement Great Britain has. finally found itself obliged to grant, on paper, a kind of independence and self-government to Egypt. Britain continues, however, with the help of the military forces which: have been left behind in this country, to violate the rights of the Egyptian people in the most brutal manner, and clings all the tighter to Sudan, which has never forgotten the bloodstained, “heroic deeds” of Lord Kitchener.

In order to maintain their power, and at the same time in the name of so called “prestige”, one of the most hypocritical, one of the most base and shameless of imperialist conceptions, the robbers of today, who are so proud of their culture and of their Christianity, show themselves capable, now as formerly, of the most inhuman cruelties and most barbarous acts of revenge. Who can forget the recent cruel dealing of the Dutch planters-government with the rebels of Dutch India? There compulsory labour and slavery still exist. Who can forget the bestial cannon salvo at a distance of six metres upon unarmed Chinese at Wanhsien, by whose blood the Yangtsekiang river was coloured red? Who does not remember the cannibal and triumphant tone of the descriptions given by. the leading organs of the press of the highly cultured English nation, of this unheard of massacre? Who in India has forgotten with what brutality on unarmed crowd on the marketplace of Amritsar, of which the gates had been closed, was fired upon? Who has. forgotten that general O’Duyer received an honourable distinction from the adherents of the brutal proceedings?

The necessity of restoring the disturbed foundation of economic life, the fear of revolution and the exhaustion of the world war, which has not yet been overcome, compelled the imperialist powers to maintain some kind of peace in their mutual relations. For this reason “pacifism” has become the favoured expression both of European and of American diplomacy, which had prepared the greatest war in the history of mankind. “Pacifism”, is, however, not an exportable commodity, it serves so to speak for the internal need of imperialist powers. It is not applicable to those countries which imperialism’ regards as its colonies or semi-colonies. Here, on the contrary, the unveiled and unrestricted violence of the mailed fist is dominating, here European-American militarism can make its highest show and prepare for big battles.   

The official European-American pseudo-pacifism is the expression of these facts (except those already mentioned), that by the wedge of world antagonisms which separate the imperialist powers from each other, the principal stage of world war has been removed from west to east—to the Pacific ocean. Here on the shores of the great ocean we find the most important and the most valuable objects of imperial interest, and the struggles going on on both sides of the ocean in which the armed forces of the imperialist powers and their assistants are engaged, are only the preliminary: fights which announce the great collusion which brings intense misery to mankind.

British diplomacy is constantly, indefatigably and energetically busy drawing other imperialist powers into an armed conflict with China. After the visit to Rome of the worst adventurer of our time, the hero of Gallipoli, Mr. Churchill, to that other ruthless adventurer, Mussolini, fascist Italy, though it has very little interest in China, is doing its utmost, naturally, to raise its prestige and to get sooner or later some other advantage in the world. It is trying its best to offer its services to England by sending dreadnoughts to the Chinese waters. England itself is actually in a condition of war with the forces fighting in China on behalf of their liberation represented by the Canton government and the Kuomintang.

Only the success of the South Chinese armies, only the fear of complete defeat, only the misfortune of the first effort to create an armed conflict against revolutionary China, have compelled the London government to enter into negotiations with the Canton government. At the same time, however, while these negotiations are in progress, they support the worst enemies of Chinese freedom (as one of the worst examples, we mention Chang Tso-lin who has transformed himself from a simple robber and political dandy to a military “satrap”) and fearful campaign has been set on foot against the Soviet Union, the only friend of young China. But above all, these negotiations are accompanied by extensive transportation of military troops to Shanghai which the victorious armies are approaching.

The whole of the working class in England is already protesting energetically against this new war danger. The national struggle for the freedom of this greatest nation of Asia is threatened to be strangled and there is the danger that a new crusade will begin also against. Soviet Russia. This because in the eyes of the imperialist world there. is no greater crime than moral solidarity with the liberation movement of an Asiatic nation.

On the other side of the ocean North-American imperialism is, by open hostility, securing for itself power over all transport routes which will enable it to mobilise its naval forces, It threatens the independence of Mexico, where for the first time democratic power has established itself and makes efforts to protect the sovereignty of the country against the shameless and continual aggressions of foreign powers, especially against that of North-American monopolistic capital.

Thanks to the protests in democratic circles in the United States, to the growing indignation of Latin-American countries upon which North-American capital would also force its domination, and above all, thanks to the firm attitude of the Mexican government itself, Kellogg and Coolidge have been forced into a provisional retreat.

It would be ridiculous, however, to be blind to the danger of war which is threatened here. The imperialist powers buy and sell whole nations and populated continents like cattle. Always and everywhere, we see the same picture—on the one side dozens and hundreds of millions who strive for independence and freedom, and on the other side small but powerful minorities of exploiters who strive to secure extra profits in underhand ways of privileged trade, by export of capital and by monopolist control of the most important raw material, such as cotton, oil, copper, iron, etc.

Military action in Europe has ended. Before the war recommences on the plains of Europe and the coast of the Pacific ocean, still wet with blood, it will be continued in one form or another in Asia, Africa and Central America where already a collision is in course of preparation.

No pacifist alarm will mask the cruel and shameful fact that the world will not get out of the war conditions and that slavery and exploitation of the colonial and semi-colonial countries will remain the ceaseless source of war.

Under these conditions, this Brussels conference has decided to found the “League Against Imperialism and for National Independence”. We announce to all oppressed people and all oppressed classes of the dominating . nations, – the foundation of this League. We appeal to all who do not profit from the oppression of others and who do not live on the fruits of this oppression, and to all who hate modern slavery and are longing for their own freedom and the freedom of their fellowmen, to affiliate to us and to support us. The oppressed and enslaved people have confidence above all in the support of the advanced working class of all countries who, like themselves, have nothing to lose but their chains. But also the broadest masses of peasants and the mass of the middle class and intellectuals in the dominating countries are also victims of the suppression. of colonial countries because this oppression at best, only brings to them miserable sops on the one hand while on the other hand it brings to them the increasing burden of militarism accompanied by all the horrors of warfare. The emancipation of the oppressed colonial peoples, vassals and those subjugated by violence, will not diminish the great accomplishments and possibilities of the material and spiritual culture of mankind, but will increase them on, a scale never yet experienced. And in this sense the oppressed and enslaved nations, which represent the overwhelming majority of mankind like the proletariat, can conquer the world, the world of the future.

Oppressed Peoples and Oppressed Nations, Unite!

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1927/v07n17-mar-03-1927-inprecor-op.pdf