The International Communist Opposition was founded in 1930 by those expelled from the Communist International as it moved to the Third Period. The so-called ‘Right Opposition,’ originally influenced by the positions of Nikolai Bukharin, charged the Comintern with being bureaucratic and ultra-left. Those charges were particularly aimed at the situation in Germany, where the I.C.O. was centered. The I.C.O. held its second international conference in Berlin during July, 1932 attended by representatives from Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Spain and the U.S., where it was most associated with Jay Lovestone. Below is the main resolution from the conference, “The Relation of the International Union of the Communist Opposition to the Communist International and to Its Sections and to the Soviet Union.”

‘The Communist Opposition and the Communist International’ from Workers Age. Vol. 1 Nos. 28 & 29. September 3 & 24, 1932.

1. The organizations affiliated to the International Union of the Communist Opposition comprise an internationally organized tactical tendency of Communism, which arose in the struggle against the ultra-left course of the Comintern and its sections. The basic aim of the I.C.O. is to overcome the ultra-left course in the C.I. and in its sections, in the political, organizational and inner-party fields, and to replace it by really Leninist tactics, i.e., by the correct application of the fundamentals and aims of Communism to the international class struggle of the proletariat and of the other oppressed and exploited classes.

An extremely effective means for the achievement of this end is for the International Communist Opposition to win a broad mass influence. By winning the support of masses of workers not belonging to the Communist Party, we are creating a broader basis for winning the Communist International. By winning the support of masses of workers not belonging to the Communist Party, we are creating a broader basis for winning the non-Communist masses for our aims, for Communism.

Reflecting the conditions under which they work, the organizations of the I.C.O. can be divided into three main types: (a) Where the organization of the I.C.O. is the Communist Party, as in Sweden; here our task is to extend our role as the party of Communism, to liquidate the existing split organizations of the Comintern and finally to bring it about that in the respective country only one Communist Party should exist. (b) In countries, such as Germany and the United States, where the organization of the I.C.O. is only a group; here our task is to win the Communist Party but also to take over the role of the Communist Party in every case and in every question possible. (c) In countries, such as India, where the official section of the C.I. exists only on paper; here our task is to build up a real Communist Party on the basis of the tactical fundamentals of the I.C.O.

The Communist Opposition clearly understands that in any single country only one Communist Party must exist. The official bodies of the C.I. are splitting the Communist movement. The Communist Opposition desires to reestablish the unity of the Communist International and to strengthen it.

The organizations affiliated to the I.C.O. stand on the basis of the principles developed by Marx and Lenin, that is, on the basis of the section and fundamentals of the program of the Communist International, as well as on the basis of the tactical and organizational decisions of the first three congresses of the Communist International.

2. The decisive aims of the struggle of the I.C.O. are:

I. ON THE POLITICAL FIELD

(a) The reapplication of the tactics of the united front, which have been abandoned in fact by the ultra-left course. The sphere of the tactics of the united front is the leadership of the daily struggles of the working class and the bringing of the whole class to the struggle for power. The tactics of the united front demand the combination of an appeal to the members of the lower organizations with an appeal to the district and central leaderships of the reformist, centrist and, in various circumstances, Christian labor organizations. The application of the tactics of the united front requires the setting up of such partial demands and revolutionary transition slogans as correspond to the necessities and the understanding of the working class at the particular moment, it requires the spread of these slogans, worked out with the greatest care, among the masses of the proletariat and the toiling people. The agitation and propaganda of slogans of action must always be connected up with the propaganda of the fundamentals and aims of Communism. The objective of the tactics of the united front is to break the ideological, political and, ultimately, organizational hold of reformism, etc., over the workers and to win them for Communism on the basis of their experience of struggle.

Communist leadership of united front actions cannot be placed as the prerequisite or condition for such actions but must be the result of correct and carefully planned Communist direction in struggle. The tactics of the united front do not aim to set up permanent alliances between Communist and non-Communist organizations nor to fuse them organizationally; they aim to set up alliances of struggle for concrete, temporary purposes. The tactics of the united front demand, for the Communist organizations, the full possibility of defending their fundamental principles and of criticizing within the bounds of the discipline of action. These tactics, as a means of winning the majority of the working class in the struggle for Communism, reach their limit as soon as this aim is achieved. They are an indispensible means of drawing the majority of the working class into the struggle for power and of making the influence of Communism decisive among the workers. The struggle for power itself presupposes that these results have already been achieved. It (the struggle for power), therefore, falls outside the bounds of the united front tactics but bases itself on their results.

(b) The liquidation of the ultra-left trade union course of the C.I. of the R.I.L.U., and of their sections, i.e., the course involving the creation of “revolutionary” trade unions outside of and against the already existing reformist and other mass organizations, the immediate leadership of economic struggles by the C.P., the setting up, in the trade unions, of dual strike leaderships embracing only a section of workers involved in the struggle, etc. The ultra-left trade union course must give way to the struggle for winning the reformist and other organizations to the revolutionary struggle of the working class for power, for the triumph of Communism. In order that this may be achieved Communist fractions must be organized under the leadership of the Party and its organs.

The already organized “Red” unions must, after an open and complete abandonment of the policy of splitting the trade unions by the C. P., fight for their admission into the mass unions. The Party must at the same time urge and organize, on the basis of the slogans of the revolutionary class struggle on the trade union field, the entrance of all those ready to fight for the revolutionization of the trade unions into the trade unions, for the purpose of strengthening them organizationally, defending them against all reactionary attacks and reestablishing and defending their unity.

(c) The same holds good for the tactics of the Communist Party in all other proletarian mass organizations.

(d) The abandonment of the false and dangerous “theory” of “social-fascism”, which is only a pseudo-Marxist repetition of the liberal theory of Fascism, according to which Fascism cannot suppress the traditional bourgeois parties, including also the reformist parties, but must always constitute an auxiliary for them. The theory of “social-fascism” is able only to prevent any real analysis of Fascism and of the Social-democracy and to weaken the recognition of the real danger of Fascism. It constitutes an obstacle in the way to winning the Social-democratic workers to Communism.

(e) The abandonment of all deviations in the direction of petty bourgeois nationalism (“national-bolshevism,” etc.), of all ideological adaptations to Fascist ideology in place of a struggle against it on the basis of the Communist conception of the subordination of the national to the social struggle for the emancipation of the working class and the other sections of the toiling masses.

II. ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL FIELD

The reestablishment of democratic centralism and of inner party democracy in the Comintern and in the sections. This includes:

(a) The conducting of discussions on disputed tactical questions with the participation of the entire membership. These discussions must be limited only by the fundamentals of Communism and by the necessity of assuring discipline in action.

(b) The election of functionaries, under legal conditions, by the membership and a constant and effective control (supervision) over their activities by the membership. The complete liquidation of the burocratic distortions of democratic centralism.

(c) The active leadership of the C.I. and its sections on the basis of collective collaboration of the representatives of all sections in the Executive of the Comintern and in its organs.

Already in March 1930 the German Communist Opposition (and other organizations of the I.C.O.) addressed an Open Letter to the Comintern in which it was declared:

“The C.I. finds itself in a crisis threatening its existence, making it incapable of fulfilling its historical tasks.”

And further:

“The danger is threatening that the Communist Parties will be completely destroyed as political mass factors in their countries, that nothing will remain of them except sects, Party apparatus, stagnating outside of the great movement of the working class.” Subsequent development has not only fully confirmed the correctness of this estimation but has even sharpened to an extraordinary degree these dangers.

In order to overcome these dangers and to provide the conditions for a victorious struggle of the revolutionary class, the C.P.G.-O., at that time, placed the following demands:

The immediate withdrawal of all expulsions and disciplinary measures against the opponents of the ultra-left course.

An immediate international discussion on the basis of democratic centralism for the purpose of working out the political course of the Communist International.

The new election of Party leaderships and Party functionaries, including the Executive of the C.I., on the basis of this discussion.

The carrying out of the fundamental idea that the sections of the C.I. are bound, under legal conditions, to raise the necessary means for their regular work out of the contributions of their members. Subsequent developments have only emphasized the indispensability of these demands.

3. The I.C.O. rejects the attempt to look upon the theory of “socialism in one country” (concretely, the affirmation of the possibility of building up socialism in the Soviet Union before the victory of the proletarian revolution in other countries) as the source of the ultra-left course in the C.I. It rejects, likewise, the attempt to find this source in a necessary contradiction between the interests of the Soviet Union and those of the international proletariat; on the contrary, it is of the opinion that the interests of the first country in which the working class rules and in which socialism is being built, coincide fundamentally and are in complete harmony with the interests of the struggle for the emancipation of the working class and the other sections of the toiling people in the rest of the world. It is the duty of every Communist to defend against all attacks of the counter-revolution the Soviet Union as a workers state upon a socialist foundation, as the bulwark of the proletarian revolution.

Altho the interests of the Soviet Union and those of the world revolution coincide fundamentally, it is nevertheless quite possible that methods and forms of struggle in countries in which the working class has not yet achieved power should not coincide with those in which this has already been accomplished. The application of the fundamentals and aims of Communism as well as of tactical and organizational fundamentals must be adapted to the concrete relations of the class struggle in the various countries.

The real basic source of the ultra-left course is seen by the I.C.O. in the false transference of the methods and forms of struggle, corresponding to a country in which the working class has already triumphed and in which socialism is being built, to the Communist Parties of those countries in which the majority of the working class has still to be won and the prerequisites for taking up the struggle for power have still to be created. This false transference is accompanied by the destruction of the possibility of properly evaluating and turning to account the experiences of the Communist Parties outside the Soviet Union. A further cause is the mechanical transference of the factional struggles within the C.P.S.U. to the Comintern and its sections.

The basis of all this is the monopoly of leadership of the C.P.S.U. in the Comintern. Until Lenin’s death, this was still a positive factor; it has now, however, become outlived because the gap between the tasks of the C.P.S.U. (tasks of socialist construction) and the tasks of the other sections of the Comintern (the tasks of the preparation and the carrying thru of the struggle for power), has been continually growing, especially in recent years in view of much greater tempo of socialist construction in the U.S.S.R. as compared with the advance of the revolution in the capitalist countries. For these reasons the monopoly of leadership must be abolished and there must be created a collective leadership for the Communist International which will direct the forces of the revolution of the whole world (the victorious workers of the Soviet Union and the still oppressed workers of the rest of the world) according to uniform fundamentals but with consideration for the special conditions of their activity.

The I.C.O. therefore, sees in the ultra-left tactics of the Comintern, not the inevitable and permanent effect of an alleged contradiction between the interests of the Soviet Union and of the proletarian revolution in other countries, but rather the effect of a temporary but serious failure, on the part of the leadership of the C.P.S.U., to understand the tactical necessities of the Communist movement outside of the Soviet Union.

4. The I.C.O. and its sections did not separate voluntarily from the C.I. and its sections but were expelled in violation of democratic centralism and inner-Party democracy because they refused to surrender their Communist right of criticizing the ultra-left course.

The I.C.O. fights for the rehabilitation of the C. I. and of its sections. The basic condition for this is the reestablishment of inner-Party democracy and of democratic centralism in the individual sections of the C.I. and in the Comintern as a whole.

The I.C.O. recognizes that the reestablishment of inner-Party democracy and of democratic centralism (as they are given in the demands of the March 1930 Open Letter of the C.P.G.-O.) is only a part of the liquidation of the ultra-left course. It, however, regards the reestablishment of normal Party life as sufficient to allow it to work, within the C.P. and in the limits of Communist discipline, for the complete and open liquidation of the ultra-left course-which would make this liquidation possible at minimum cost and damage to the Party and would stimulate the quickest and most extensive reestablishment of the confidence of the working class in the Party, today so badly damaged by the ultra-left course and the leadership responsible for it.

The rehabilitation of the Communist International demands, from a positive viewpoint, that the leadership of the Comintern develop its activities within the following limits:

(a) To assure the maintenance of Communist fundamentals in the Comintern and in all its sections. (b) To organize international actions and campaigns. (c) To coordinate the activities of the various sections.

In the working out of specific questions in the individual countries the important and most decisive role must fall to the parties of those countries themselves. However, the highest and final decision in these questions belongs to the leadership of the Communist International. It must take care that, in the settlement of these questions, the Communist fundamentals and the tactical principles are maintained. But, on the other hand, the leadership of the Comintern must not replace the leaderships of the individual sections.

6. The I.C.O. and its affiliated organizations reject the manouvers of the leading bodies of the C.I. and of its sections, having for their object to play off individual national organizations of the I.C.O., local groups and single members against each other by calling upon them to rejoin the Party. With such manouvers the Party leaders show that they do not themselves take seriously their accusations against the Communist Opposition and recognize that the latter has not left the basis of Communist principles.

On the other hand, however, the I.C.O. greets the increasingly frequent honest desires of the members of the sections of the C.I. for the readmission of the Opposition; it emphasizes the necessity for the members who honestly desire this to take a stand for it in the C.I. and the C.P. The Communist Opposition, which has carried on a four year struggle for the liquidation of the ultra-left course, is conscious of the fact that it has rendered the Communist movement an indispensible service. It declares that its criticism and action, carried out in bitter struggle and under greatest difficulties, have already had and are now having deep-going and wholesome effects in the C.P. and the C.I., as well as in the labor movement generally. It declares that its estimation of the effects of the ultra-left course has been fully justified by the facts and, in a number of cases, has even been recognized by the leading committees, even if these latter have hitherto been either unwilling or unable to recognize the ultra-left course as the cause of the trouble and to remove this cause. On the basis of these facts the Communist Opposition is confident that it will finally overcome all difficulties and emerge victorious. But this victory can only be achieved thru the active intervention of the Party members who will draw the necessary lessons from the negative experiences. It is for this cooperation that the Communist Opposition appeals above all.

7. The Communist Opposition declares to the leadership of the C.I. that, in face of the extremely acute danger of a Fascist seizure of power in Germany as well as of an intervention war against the Soviet Union, no time must be lost in giving up completely and openly the ultra-left course, thereby creating the decisive and indispensable prerequisite for the C.I. and the C.P. winning leadership of the working class for the overthrow of Fascism, for the achievement of the revolutionary way out of the crisis, and for the defense of the Soviet Union and thereby also bringing about a revival of the declining labor movement outside of the Soviet Union, a consequence of the ultra-left course.

In order to achieve the aim of Communism, the consolidation of the working class of the whole world for the overthrow of the bourgeois State, for the destruction of the capitalist system, and for the construction of a socialist order of society, the organizations of the I.C.O. have always been and are now ready to stretch out a hand to reestablish the unity of the Communist movement under the above mentioned indispensable conditions, which alone assure the elaboration of correct Communist tactics on the basis of the collective experience and the collaboration of all sections of the C.I. and which alone provides for the rapid correction of the tactical mistakes thru the participation of the membership.

Workers Age was the continuation of Revolutionary Age, begun in 1929 and published in New York City by the Communist Party U.S.A. Majority Group, lead by Jay Lovestone and Ben Gitlow and aligned with Bukharin in the Soviet Union and the International Communist (Right) Opposition in the Communist International. Workers Age was a weekly published between 1932 and 1941. Writers and or editors for Workers Age included Lovestone, Gitlow, Will Herberg, Lyman Fraser, Geogre F. Miles, Bertram D. Wolfe, Charles S. Zimmerman, Lewis Corey (Louis Fraina), Albert Bell, William Kruse, Jack Rubenstein, Harry Winitsky, Jack MacDonald, Bert Miller, and Ben Davidson. During the run of Workers Age, the ‘Lovestonites’ name changed from Communist Party (Majority Group) (November 1929-September 1932) to the Communist Party of the USA (Opposition) (September 1932-May 1937) to the Independent Communist Labor League (May 1937-July 1938) to the Independent Labor League of America (July 1938-January 1941), and often referred to simply as ‘CPO’ (Communist Party Opposition). While those interested in the history of Lovestone and the ‘Right Opposition’ will find the paper essential, students of the labor movement of the 1930s will find a wealth of information in its pages as well. Though small in size, the CPO plaid a leading role in a number of important unions, particularly in industry dominated by Jewish and Yiddish-speaking labor, particularly with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Local 22, the International Fur & Leather Workers Union, the Doll and Toy Workers Union, and the United Shoe and Leather Workers Union, as well as having influence in the New York Teachers, United Autoworkers, and others.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/workers-age/1932/v1n28-sep-03-1932-WA.pdf

PDF of issue 2: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/workers-age/1932/v1n29-sep-24-1932-WA.pdf