Continuing our look at how various left groups in the U.S. viewed 1935’s Seventh, and last, Comintern Congress as it formally abandoned its ‘class against class’ orientation to embrace a ‘Popular Front’ campaign of state-level international diplomacy and alliances with ‘progressive forces’ outside of the working class with an aim was to prevent the far right and fascism from taking power. Weisbord, a former leading member of the Communist Party, denounces the move as not just a betrayal of class independence, but a suicidal false hope that the ‘democratic’ bourgeoisie was capable, let alone interested, in stopping fascism.

‘The Seventh World Congress: The Comintern is Dead’ by Albert Weisbord from Class Struggle (C.L.S.). Vol. 5 No. 9-10. October, 1935.

THE STINKING STALINTERN

The Seventh Congress of the Stalinist parties is eloquent witness that the Communist International is indeed dead. The delegates met simply to throw the stinking corpse into the shallow grave and hastily depart. Not even a tear was shed, nor a flower thrown upon the bier.

In the days of Lenin the C.I. was a real revolutionary body. It met yearly. The delegates discussed all the important problems of the day in full. The policies were worked out by the Congress itself with the full hearted help of Lenin. The Congress was snot adjourned until all the business had been done in the most democratic and cooperative manner. The Russian Party was then only the first among equals and not the master of the others.

In the Stalintern everything is on its head. The Congress did not meet for seven full years, although during this time there occurred the Peasants’s War and Soviets in China, the Spanish and Cuban revolutions, the rise of Fascism in Europe and its victory in Germany, Austria and central Europe, the development of the deepest depression that the world had ever seen, bringing in its wake untold misery and revolutionary possibilities, the adventure of Japan in Manchuria, the smashing of the trade union organizations by Fascism, the Italo-Ethiopian war situation as a prelude to a world war, the accomplishments and defects of the Five Year Plan in Russia, the change of front in American political and social life, etc., etc. None of these questions had been discussed by a gathering of the Stalinist parties in international congress assembled all this time.

One might think that now there would be plenty to discuss and that the Congress would last a long time. Far from it. The Congress lasted only three weeks. Most of the time was taken up with the eulogies of the great Stalin, and with cheering and ringing of his name. Stalin himself did not condescend to speak. The Congress failed to touch on the perspectives of the crisis and the future of the revolutionary movement, it made no analysis of the reasons for the obvious failure of the Stalinist parties throughout the entire world, not within russia nor outside of it. The Congress was faced with the fact that the only force that could take the initiative was the apparatus of the Russian party of Stalin and that all the Congress could do was to put its stamp of approval upon the facts already accomplished by Stalin. Such questions as the Franco-Soviet Pact were not even discussed. Nor such matters as the dissolution of the Old Bolshevik organization in the Soviet Union and the arrest of some of its leaders. Some of the delegates might have questioned to themselves: Where was Manuilsky? Where was Ordjonikidse? Where was the power of Lozovsky? But they did not speak of it openly. The singing and cheering of the delegates each time Stalin’s name was mentioned was either the whistling in the dark of every delegate who was afraid to question what was really taking place or the ballyhoo of the professional clackers paid by Stalin to whoop it up.

The Seventh World Congress completely wiped out all the basic decisions of the Sixth Congress held in 1928, but there was nobody brave enough even to whisper that this was the case, no less to ask why the decisions were changed. In the Sixth World Congress, in the midst of a general prosperity, the Congress under Stalin had announced that this was a new period of revolutionary upsurge and advance, that the Communist must storm the streets for power and face the bourgeoisie with the final slogan of class against class. The Socialists were denounced as Social-Fascists. No united front could be made with the Socialist Parties which represented the chief enemies of the workers. Democracy must be overthrown immediately and parliament dissolved. The reformist unions must be split and broken up and Communist unions set up at once. No unite fronts could be established except from “below” that is, made up of workers who would leave their organizations and break discipline in order to go with the Communists. The world revolution was on the immediate order of the day and Russia was already building Socialism in one country and did not have to rely on any help from the outside.

And all this was in 1923, when feverish prosperity existed, when the mass of workers were still unorganized in unions and when the great danger was the victory of Fascism. At this time the Internationalist Communists declared that what was necessary was the united front of all workers’ organizations to fight Fascism, each organization of course keeping its organizational and political independence. The unions of Europe should not be split up, but the Communists must learn how to work within the reformist unions so as to change them into real militant organizations in the face of the Fascist attack. We demanded that the line of the Communists in joining forces with the Fascists (as for example, in the Referendum calling for the dissolution of the Prussian Land tag in 1930) be put to an end immediately. We demanded that the Communist party prepare for insurrection together with the Socialist Party to prevent Hitler’s rise to power and if necessary the Red Army of the Soviet Union be mobilized to help the embattled German insurrectionary workers in case the capitalist armies of Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Belgium and other countries should invade Germany to put down the proletarian revolution.

Needless to say our views were ridiculed by the Stalinist parties as counter revolutionary. They said it would jeopardize the Soviet Union. Fascism was not much of a threat. There was no revolutionary situation that would warrant such action. There could never take place a united front between the Communists and the Socialists, who were but a branch of Fascists. If Fascism were to come to power in no time it would be overthrown (Rerimelle). The real key to the world revolution lay in the Yaroslavl cow (Manuilsky), etc., etc., Thus in a thousand ways, the Stalinist parties actually cooperated and aided the Fascists to seize the power in Germany and elsewhere.

For all these crimes on the part of Stalin and company there was no criticism at the Congress. A list was given by Dimitrov that perhaps the German Party had made some mistakes but it was all thrown on to the shoulders of the German C.P. The C.I. apparatus of Stalin was absolved and glossed over.

At the Seventh World Congress the pendulum swings to the opposite opportunist extreme. Russia, no longer resting on the workers’ organizations, which have been smashed, now relies on the “democratic” bourgeoisie and forces all the Stalinist parties to make peace with their “democratic” capitalist classes in their respective countries. Russia, here again, sacrifices the World revolution for her temporary safety and turns all the Stalinists into rank traitors and renegades to Communism, to the ultimate detriment of the workers’ revolution in Russia itself.

II

The following decisions, unprecedented in the entire history of the revolutionary proletariat, were made at the Seventh congress:
1. The Communists, under Stalin, were to cease fighting capitalism but to unite with all capitalists (compare the “People’s Front”) who were for democracy as against Fascism. In pursuit of this aim, the Communists were even to join the capitalist government (The “People’s Front Government”) and build up the capitalist armies provided they would stand for democracy.
2. In foreign policies the Stalinists must support the “democratic” countries in time of war against the Fascist countries.
3. In regard to the situation within the ranks of labor, the Communist Unions were to liquidate and join the reformist unions under any conditions. The Red International of Labor Unions was to disappear. The Communist Parties must form united fronts with the Socialist Parties and no longer criticize the Socialist leadership for betrayals (French non-aggression pacts). The Communists Parties must try to join the Socialist parties and form one single party. The Communist International in certain countries, then would be completely liquidated.
4. In order to accomplish all this better, each party was to be given organizational independence and to be uncontrolled by the opinions of the other Stalinist parties elsewhere. The Communist International was officially to be transformed into a sort of letter box, except that Stalin, who holds the subsidies in his hands would have the real final control at all times.

These unheard of and almost unbelievable decisions emanate from a body that calls itself Communist and marks the lowest point of revolutionary servility in the entire history of the working class movement. The Stalintern has truly become a corpse that stinks to the highest heavens. The proletariat must bury the body so deep that its gangrenous, leprous cadaver will never be able to pollute the atmosphere again.

Let us examine some of these decisions.

THE PEOPLE’S FRONT. All the crimes that Stalin committed in the Chinese revolution in his alliance with Chiang Kai Shek and his theories that the proletariat should subordinate itself to the “democratic” “nationalist” “revolutionary” bourgeoisie, these crimes are now to be repeated on a world wide scale. In France, the People’s Front is an alliance with the bourgeois parties, the Radicals, and the Radical Socialists, who correspond in the U.S. to the Democratic Party of the Sinclair variety and to the “Third Party” movement of the La Follette stripe. Just as the German Socialists formed their “Weimar Coalition”, their alliance with the Centrist Party and other liberal groups that stood for the maintenance of the German republic and for democracy, so today, Stalinism has completely capitulated to this viewpoint of the Socialist bureaucracy and will unite with the bourgeoisie which is “democratic” and support it.

Of course there can be no alliance of the Stalinists with the “democratic” bourgeoisie without the workers paying heavily for it. The “democratic” bourgeoisie cannot permit the “democratic” capitalists to suffer strikes in their plants. They cannot allow the “democratic” army and navy to become corrupted with anti- capitalist propaganda. They cannot suffer their “democracy” to be disturbed by riots, or demonstrations of any threatening character. Thus, in order to stave off Fascism, the Communists have voluntarily agreed to class collaboration with the capitalist class of countries that they call “democratic”. This is going far to the right even of the right wings of the Socialist parties. The “Communist” parties have lost their revolutionary roles, but they have not yet lost their counter revolutionary roles and so they can jump in to replace the entirely discredited Socialist parties to save the bourgeoisie.

Which are the “democratic” countries? They are the countries, on the whole, the capitalists of which have been the beneficiaries of the robber Versailles Treaty, and who have seized the world’s loot in their hands and can afford to talk peace so that the status quo of which they are the gainers should never be disturbed. Here is how the Soviet Union supports the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty which only a short time ago the Communist parties were denouncing. In Germany, the Communist Party shouted: “Down with the Versailles Treaty”, at a time when this played right into the hands of the German ruling class and Fascists. Now in France, the Stalinist Party shouts: Support the “Democratic Versailles Treaty”, and thus now too, plays right into the hands of the French capitalists and Fascists. Since in either case only the complete militarization and mobilization of the forces of the country could either overthrow or defend the Versailles Treaty. In both cases the Stalinist Parties show themselves to be but the unofficial agencies paving the way for the victory of Fascism and arousing national hatreds to their highest pitch leading to war.

In defending democratic countries the Stalinists idealize bourgeois “democracy”. They spread illusions that under democracy the basic problem of the proletariat can be solved peacefully and legally. They in fact give up the struggle of the workers to take up the struggle for capitalist democracy, declaring that the latter is more important than the first. The truth of the matter is, of course, that the only way to save whatever exists of the “democracy” is through the struggle of the workers against the capitalists as a class. The Stalinists, at the same time, spread the illusions that there are capitalists, who are willing to “fight for democracy”, that the capitalists can lead the revolutionary proletariat in the struggle for the progress and advancement of the human race. Here is forgotten absolutely the fact that the capitalists, in an era of imperialism and the decay of capitalism as a whole can only play a reactionary role and cannot be fighters for the advancement of the proletariat. The very fact that the proletariat can advance and change the system, forces the capitalists to turn to Fascism.

Of course this turn to Fascism does not occur with the same speed and directions in all the layers of the capitalist class. The heavy trusted industry is the first to turn to Fascism. The light, competitive, older capitalist layers retain their “democratic” tendencies longer. But it is precisely these layers of the capitalists which do not have the decisive weight in capitalist affairs, which are futile and impotent. And it is precisely in these secondary capitalists that the Stalinists have faith and who, they declare, will join their “people’s front” to defend the democratic revolutionary proletariat!

But the Stalinists have gone much further than the mere formation of a “People’s front”. They have declared their willingness to become part of a “people’s front government” or to support it in every possible way. Such a government can only be of the type that the Socialists formed in Germany with the democratic bourgeoisie there and which all Marxists have condoned. Such a policy is a bid to the Lavals and Co. in France, to Benes and Co. in Czechoslovakia, etc. that the Stalinists are now going to support the capitalist state and armed forces to their utmost.

In order to dispel any doubt as to what the Stalinists intend to do the various delegates rose up on their hind feet and told the world explicitly what their policy was to be in each country.

1. In Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, where the Socialists are in the government, the Communists are to support the Socialists and to support the government.
2. In Czechoslovakia, “The biggest mistake of the Czechoslovakia Communists is their insufficient consideration for the national feelings of the masses in their struggle against the Fascist Home Front,” said Comrade Koehler of Czechoslovakia. (Daily Worker of August 13th). So it is the Communists, who have become the defenders of Czechoslovakia nationalism and follow the Czechoslovakia patriotic bourgeoisie!
3. In England, the Communists are to work for the Labor Party and for a Labor Government. Whereas in the days of Lenin the Communists were to criticise the Labor Party and if the Labor Party were to enter the government to attack it as a capitalist agency, now the Communists are to be the vanguard agitating for such a Labor Party capitalist government.
4. In France, to support the democratic state and to try to form a coalition people’s front government; to try also to win the army for democracy. Here where impending civil war is on the order of the day and the Fascists are armed to the teeth, the answer of the Communists is not to call for a struggle against the decree laws of Laval (the French Bruening) in the form of general strike, arming of the people, workers’ militia, workers’ control over production, etc., but support of the democratic capitalists to prevent Fascism from rising. How different is this from the Socialist Party of Germany’s slogan: Vote for Hindenburg and keep out Hitler. Only the Socialist Party of Germany had not prattled at the same time of Soviets, and Dictatorship of the proletariat etc.
5. Roumania, Poland, Yugoslavia, etc. Here the Communists are to form their “people’s front” with the reactionary peasant parties, headed by big capitalist agrarians and to try to win these layers of the capitalists to fight against Fascism and for “democracy”? In as much as these countries are predominantly agrarian, this policy internally means a united front with the agrarian capitalists to prevent the organizations of the revolutionary agricultural laborers for struggle.
6. Arabia: “Radical changes are necessary in our attitude towards the national reformist Arabian bourgeoisie. We must support their anti imperialist demands.” (Rossi quoted in Daily Worker of August 13th). As though the Arabian bourgeoisie is not, like Chang Kai Shek, intimately connected with imperialist forces!
7. Mexico: The Communist Party is to support President Cardonas as against Calles of the “lesser evil” and the representative of the “people’s front”.
8. China: “I declare from this world platform that the Central Committee of the Communist party of China and the Soviet Government of China are prepared to form a government of all who are unwilling to be colonial slaves, on the basis of a universally acceptable program for armed resistance against Japan regardless of divergent opinions on other important problems.” (Wan Min in Daily Worker of August 10th) and in another part of his statement he declares: “The Red Army is ready to fight in the front ranks of a united army.”

So the Chinese Communist Party is no longer to fight ALL the imperialism but only Japanese imperialism (because, you see, Japan is Russia’s aggressor, while the other “democratic” imperialists are Russia’s friends!) Again the Chinese Communist Party is to call on the “left” bourgeoisie for a “block of four classes” to fight, not all imperialism, but only Japanese imperialism. And, if this is done, the C.P. will forego its struggle against Chinese capitalism and for Communism.
9. In the United States the Communist Party will be for a Labor Party. It will also be for Roosevelt as against any fascist attacks against him and his democratic republic.

When we consider the monstrous crimes that this program implies, words absolutely fail us. Within the ranks of labor there can be no more deadly enemies than the Stalinists. Of course, this program is to be connected with the war program of the Stalinists. The workers of France are to be mobilized to fight for French capitalism against German Fascism and to shoot down German workers on the theory that such a war is not an imperialist war. The Stalinists drop their cries of “Peace” and turn out to be full throated war mongers, best recruits for capitalist armies. Wilson’s slogans are now taken over by the Stalintern and again workers will be urged to shoot down workers “to make the world safe for democracy”!

Hand in hand with its policy of the most servile capitulation to world imperialism, the Stalinists perforce have had to adopt other measures within the ranks of the labor movement. Says Losovsky (Daily Worker, August 12th), “We stand for one trade union international.” The R.I.L.U. is to be liquidated. Without further ado, all the “red unions” and other trade union organizations are to be liquidated and handed over unconditionally to the reformists. But what is more important, whereas before this resulted in the “boring from within” of the Communists, now the Stalinists propose to do no “boring” whatsoever since their whole idea is now to make peace with the bourgeois democratic reformist forces against Fascism. The trade union bureaucracy has nothing further to fear from these Stalinists.

Finally, the Stalinists mean to liquidate their Stalintern wherever they can and fuse with the socialist parties. As Dimitrov said (Daily Worker, August 5th), “The Communist Party must determinedly and boldly seize the initiative of combining the Communist Party and the Socialist Party.” How courageous is the bold brave Dimitrov to seize…not the power…but the initiative to merge with the Socialist Parties. The situation in France is hailed as a model, although that situation has resulted in the worst betrayal of the French working class and the turning over of the entire proletariat to the French bourgeoisie lock, stock and barrel.

However one must not believe that the Stalintern is going to liquidate all over the world. In order to adapt itself to its new policies, it is going to let each party act individually without control from the other parties. This is because in some countries there is a bad bourgeoisie and in other countries a good Bourgeoisie. Where there is a bad bourgeoisie, it is necessary to keep revolutionary action. Where there is a good bourgeoisie it is necessary to act together with the socialist parties agencies for the bourgeoisie. All this is to be tested according to the time- honored formula, what is best for Russia. All the Communist parties have become mere unofficial agencies for the espionage of the Russian state department. The whole world revolution has been sacrificed for this noble function.

In some countries, the Socialist parties will not want to fuse with the Communists since they are in the government and will be able to control the workers without the Stalinists. In other countries the Socialists will shy away as being in favor of their own bourgeoisie and not in favor of Russian nationalism. In a third set of countries the Socialist parities may be even to the left of the Stalinists and will not be willing to come to terms with them. In a fourth set of countries such a fusion will be able to take place. But in each case, Stalin wishes to be assured that his nationalism will be safeguarded.

All of this must teach us that there is but one thing to do and this is to annihilate the influence of Stalinism from the ranks of the working class, to thoroughly purge the working class of this poison and to work for the building of the Fourth International. And here we cannot forget nor forgive the crimes of Trotsky in sending his forces into the French, S.F.I.O. and other centrist and reformist organizations and giving the illusion that the Socialist parties can become revolutionary. Because of Trotsky the movement of internationalist Communism and the Fourth International has been sent into interminable confusion and the movement set back at a most decisive moment.

This is all the more reason for the real internationalist Communist forces to get together, to cement their nuclei, to develop their program, and to prepare a center to aid in the building of the new parties.

The Communist League of Struggle was formed in March, 1931 by C.P. veterans Albert Weisbord, Vera Buch, Sam Fisher and co-thinkers after briefly being members of the Communist League of America led by James P. Cannon. In addition to leaflets and pamphlets, the C.L.S. had a mostly monthly magazine, Class Struggle, and issued a shipyard workers shop paper,The Red Dreadnaught. Always a small organization, the C.L.S. did not grow in the 1930s and disbanded in 1937.

PDF of full issue: n/a