The debate on ‘stages’ in 1928. Left Communist Avetis Sultan-Zade was founder of the Communist Party of Persia and on the Executive of the Comintern. Side-lined through much of the mid-20s for favoring land collectivization and hostility to the Comintern’s orientation to progressive nationalists, he returned to leadership as the Comintern moved to the ‘Third Period.’ Here is his speech to the 6th World Congress of the Comintern where he challenges the theses of Kuusinen on the status of Persia and the possibility of a workers’ revolution there. He was expelled from the Party in 1932 and later a victim of the purges, executed on June 18, 1938.

‘Speech on Persia to the Sixth Comintern Congress’ by Avetis Sultan-Zade from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 8 No. 74. October 25, 1928.

Comrades, when I received the Theses and began to read them, I imagined for a moment that I was not in Moscow, but in one of the colonies with which Comrade Kuusinen’s Theses are dealing. And as much as I endeavoured to get Persia into this scheme which divides all colonial and semi-colonial countries into four groups, I did not succeed in this. How does it stand with Persia in reality? Can Persia skip over the capita- list development? Is it possible to establish immediately the Soviet regime in Persia, or must one proclaim there on the day after the Revolution the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry? Can we develop in Persia the agrarian revolution, or should we abstain from this there also? Unfortunately, I have received no answer to these questions which are of such great interest to us.

I think that Comrade Kuusinen’s scheme is on too general lines, there is no concretisation whatever; the countries are grouped in a manner which makes it very difficult to give every country its proper place. I do not think that I stand alone in regard to this. I am convinced that the Turkish comrades are in the same boat. I am sure that the comrades from the Arabian countries are as badly off in this respect as I. Syria is dealt with in several places together with India and China and gets thereby directly into the first group. I think that there is no justification for this. All this has happened because the scheme has not been sufficiently thought out.

Comrades, we know that to draw up a scheme especially for such enormous masses of people living in most diverse parts of the globe is a very difficult matter. It is difficult because these countries live under conditions where we see the highest social forms side by side with the most backward. Under these conditions it is extremely difficult to give a schematic picture of all these various countries.

Now a few words about tactic and strategy. Comrades, in order to elaborate a correct tactic in this or that country one must first of all study conscientiously the driving forces of the revolution in the said country. It must be ascertained what ails this country, what direct consequences the predatory imperialist policy has there, what classes are the greatest sufferers under the imperialist yoke. In this respect the theory of the pauperisation of enormous masses of people in the gigantic Eastern countries is one of the most serious theories to which we must turn our attention and in regard to which very little is said in the theses. Only on page 16 it is casually mentioned that the pauperisation of the peasant masses is a general phenomenon in the colonial countries. Comrades, it goes without saying that imperialism does not only pauperise the peasantry. Conditions in the colonies, the transformation of backward countries into purveyors of raw material for the industrial centres of Europe have brought about a state of affairs where these enormous continents have really become the rural districts of the capitalist town. At the same time thousands of workers employed in handicraft are unable to compete with the cheap articles of the European countries. Owing to this these sections of the population have become destitute, and this pauperisation process is steadily developing in all Eastern countries. In Persia even the simple fact of the import of a few thousand motor cars resulted in throwing tens of thousands of people employed as carriage drivers onto the streets. They are carrying on now a miserable existence. It frequently happens that these ruined starving masses come under the influence of reactionaries. Especially in Persia the reaction is doing its utmost to utilise this discontent for its own purposes. The clergy is particularly busy in this direction. In this respect the work of our Communist Parties consists in getting cleverly in touch with the masses in order to get them away from the influence of the reactionaries and to mobilise them for revolutionary purposes.

Much has been said here about the role of the export of capital and the industrialisation of the colonies. Already Marx has pointed out that in countries which have not yet gone through the epoch of original accumulation, foreign loans and import of capital can play this role of original accumulation. Marx used the United States as an example to show that transition to a higher stage of capitalist development is possible by means of import of capital. In that period the export of European capital to America has played a truly progressive role. But it would be a mistake to imagine that this export of capital has a progressive character also in the epoch of imperialism. In this connection it must be emphatically pointed out that at present not a single penny is exported from the mother countries to the colonies without a very definite aim. The imperialis countries base the export of their capital on entire strategical systems. The export of capital to backward countries is a peculiar form of strategy for the conquest of the commanding positions of the economic and political life of the respective country. The import of capital into this or that country has been for decades the source of terrible suffering because the imperialist countries interested in that country compel it to grant concessions of all kind, organise continually insurrections and assassinations and use threats and extortions till the aim which they pursue has been achieved. In many backward countries the foreign settlements have long ago transformed themselves into military strongholds which are the base for the further expansion of the imperialists.

The example of Mexico, Persia and a whole series of other countries is sufficient to explain the role of export of capital under present circumstances. We must set our revolutionary strategy against the strategy of the imperialists. We must pay special attention to the centres from where we can extend our revolutionary base. But the Theses do not make it clear which of the colonial and semi-colonial countries are to be considered the most important from the strategical viewpoint. It has already been mentioned here that the enormous masses of the Arabian people who have been torn apart by some of the imperialist big powers are even now an object of unprecedented oppression by these powers. There is hardly any indication in the Theses what tactics we must apply in the Arabian countries: in Syria, Mesopotamia, Tunis, Algiers and Morocco. These colonial countries are so dismembered geographically that hardly any hope exists to create a united Arabian State. What tactic must we adopt in Persia, which is situated between the country of proletarian dictatorship and the great colony, India? The Theses point out correctly that the forces of the social world revolution are the only reliable support and guarantee for the ultimate liberation of the colonies and semi-colonies from the imperialist yoke. These Theses must become an instrument in the hands of the oppressed colonial slaves with the help of which they will be able to enter upon the path of their liberation. But we find nothing of the kind in the Theses. It has been, for instance, pointed out that an important question such as that of the transformation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution, that this enormously important theoretical question. especially in the initial period of the struggle in China, India and other countries, is not dealt with in the Theses. We welcome that part of the Theses which proposes to the Executive Committee of the Comintern to take up energetically the organisation of Communist Parties in the colonial countries, to take measures for the consolidation of such Parties so as to strengthen the objective revolutionary conditions by something subjective, namely, by the subjective organisational will of the revolutionary masses of these countries. This is really of the utmost importance for the preparation of the coming struggles when the revolutionary masses will have to put up a decisive struggle against the imperialists.

As to the role of the bourgeoisie in the agrarian revolution, the Theses admit that agrarian revolution is possible also in the framework of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. I think that the bourgeoisie will steer clear of this. Where the proletariat is acting together with the peasantry, where it brings forward its special class demands, the bourgeoisie will not be in favour of an agrarian revolution, because it has learned something from the Russian Revolution. It knows that the agrarian revolution is a powerful base for the further development of the revolution. But even if the bourgeoisie were for the agrarian revolution, the imperialist countries would not tolerate it.

Several comrades have already pointed out here that in some countries enormous areas are owned by foreign capitalists, especially where the country possesses mineral wealth and natural resources. It goes without saying that the imperialist countries interested in this or that colonial or semi-colonial country, will endeavour to prevent the development of an agrarian revolution with all the means at their disposal. I am convinced that as soon as the proletariat comes forward energetically in the revolution with its own class demands, the bourgeoisie will look for allies among the landlords and foreign imperialists. It is therefore not so easy for the bourgeoisie to show an interest in the agrarian revolution.

As to the role of the petty bourgeoisie in the agrarian revolution, I am convinced that at the decisive moment it will betray the agrarian revolution just as the big bourgeoisie. Therefore we must not set our hopes on the petty bourgeoisie supporting us during the revolutionary struggles. The only force capable of making the agrarian revolution a reality is firstly, the proletariat and secondly, those sections of the peasantry which organise themselves under the leadership of the proletariat and the Communist Parties. It is only by organising the workers and peasants, by the energetic revolutionary struggle of the millions that we will achieve the liberation of the oppressed colonial peoples and will bring about the overthrow of the entire capitalist order.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecor” 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. Inprecor’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 Inprecor, 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/1928/v08n74-oct-25-1928-inprecor-op.pdf