The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 5, 1924, Page 5

“The idea becomes power when it pene- trates the masses.” —Karl Marx. The Com [THE Communist International was | loose organization. born in March, 1919, in Moscow. Now, in March, 1924, it is celebrat- ing its fifth anniversary, The Communist International was born in bloody and stormy days. Kolchak from the east, Denikin from the south, were approaching dan- gerously near to Moscow. In Ger- many Spartacus received one bloody blow after another upon its body. In Hungary the proletarian revolution lifted its head, victorious arid full of promise. Everywhere on the whole long front of the world reyolution— clash of arms and bloody struggles. The capitalist class disorganized by the world war, and the working class awakened, stretching out its limbs everywhere. Moscow itself, the capital: of the first. victorious proletarian revolu- tion, was in danger in March, 1919; the dictatorship of the capitalist class was menacing Russia; but the Communist International blew mighty notes thru the trumpets of the world revolution and its bugle call was heard everywhere, where- ever workers were strug{gling. Mighty slogans came from the Communist International to the masses. We are living in the period of the world revolution! Upon the ruins of deceptive capi- talist democracy we must establish the dictatorship of the proletariat! The workers must employ the mighty weapon of civil war against the capitalist class! The victorious working class must destroy the capitalist state and set up its own rule in the form of the Soviets! The laboring masses can venture the final struggle only when they drive out of their midst the treach- '-erous labor bureaucrats and yellow socialists, the agents Of the capital- ists, and choose a new revolutionary leadership! The Third International was born in the fight against the Second In- ternational, and its first cry was the battle call of revolution, the cry against the socialist lackeys of im- perialism, the outcry against the op- portunism of the social traitors. The Third International took the name Communist International because the word socialist had become the word of shame, of betrayal, of selling out to the capitalists. The Communist International can only be conceived of, as the succes- sor and the contrary of the Second International. The Second International was and is the international of words pe ea neh hag gs and it seeks to utilize SIs | Cal] by converting imperialist war into and was always under the ve of conservative socialist parties trade union bureaucrats. The The Second International was a Every party in it did what it wished. The decisions of its international congresses were never binding. The Second. Interna- tional sailed under the. slogan of “complete democracy.” The Third International is a real, centralized and disciplined organization. It is not a tion of parties, but is.a real-world party with forty-two sections in forty-two countries. The Communist International has un- masked the swindle of “complete democracy,” and its slogan is demo- cratic centralization. The Third International .is born from the womb of the Second Inter- national, but as its antithesis and as the direct -heir of the First Inter- national of Marx. The Communist International is and could become the general staff of the world revo- FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL Special Magazine Supplement [own |THE DAILY WORKER. ==: munist International national, ~The first iod, from its founda. tion in March, 1919, till the middle of 1921. This period was the time of immediate, direct, advancing on- slaught of the working class. The capitalists were disorganized. The laboring masses everywhere were filed with the will for power. The tactics and slogans of the Commun- ist International, in keeping with the period, were the direct, revolu- tionary, armed fight for the dicta- torship of the working class. The second period began in the middle of 1921, and lasted to the summer of 1923. The collapse of the offensive of the Italian. workers in September, 1920, and the failure of the March action in Germany in March, 1921, showed clearly that the offensive of the working class was lution because its strategy is noth-j at “an end, and that a world of- Foster Calls on All Workers To Follow Communist International By WILLIAM Z. FOSTER, Chairman of the Workers Party. (By telegraph) New York City, March 4, 1924. ‘TH birth of the Communist International five years ago was an event of first magnitude in the historic struggle of the world’s working class. For many years the Second International had attempted to lead the international proletariat in the battle against capitalism, but its betrayal of the workers in the war, and in the revolutionary Sie oreo hy but ii terete melon: te enemy of capitalist system its 4 "Then came the formation of the Communist International and the rallying of the scattered forces of revolutionary labor betrayed by the yellow leaders of the Second International. The Communist International is now marshalling its forces for the final assault upon capitalism. Its advent marks the beginning of the end of the capitalist system. . All revolutionary workers must and will support the Communist International. eee ee a a eee Marxism to our. present.period._' real cementing stuff of the Commun- ist International is not Moscow’s money, as the caluminators say it is, and not simply the prestige of the victorious Russian revolution. The discipline in the Communist” Inter- national is a voluntary discipline but an iron one, because the Communist International has proven its real leadership on the field of battle it- self. Under the intellectual leader- ship of Lenin and Zinoviev the Com- munist International analyzes cor- rectly the world situation and the Situation in the various countries with the aid of the Marxist method, and proposed again and again the correct tactics, International js| The changed its tactics when the situa- tion changed. But it never cha its correct Marxist, Leninist method and in every situation its tactics remained the revolutionary one. We can see three big periods in the history of the Communist Inter- s WwW: telegraph) difficulties for the ruling ing else than the application offensive of the capitalists was in the The ; For the World Soviet Republic ; By BENJAMIN GITLOW Editor, The Freiheit, Jewish Communist Daily New York City, March 4, 1924. . The World War has completely society and has ORLD capitalism is tottering demoralized capitalist ascendancy. The great masses of workers were no longer actuated by the desire for seizing power. They wanted to fight for a bigger piece of bread. The Communist Interna- tional grasped the new situation im- mediately. It perceived that the vanguard of the working class, the Communist Party, would be lost if it dared to undertake the final struggle without the active support of the broad masses. The Communist International recognized that the new period called for new tactics, that the Communist parties must be- git’ a “tenacious, systematic fight to win over the majority of the work- The first period was the direct struggle for power. The second period was the struggle to win over nged |the majority of the working class, The slogan of the first perfid was the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the second period there was born the transitional slogan of workers’ and farmers’ government. In the created unsurmountable powers. The situation for the unable to SECOND SECTION March 5th, 1924. This magazine supplement will appear every Saturday ce) ene aes 9 eee os By JOHN PEPPER first period we conducted a direct fight against the Second Interna- tional only from the bottom. In the second period we employed the tac- tics of the united front which aimed at the winning over of the majority of the working class, not only thru. a direct attack on the yellow leaders from the bottom, but also thru nego- tiations and compromises with them from the top: But they are greatly mptaken— those who believe that the tactics of the second period are ‘@ negation of the tactics of the first period. They believe that the “too stormy” Com- munhist- International “had now be- come more- “sensible,” that it aban- doned ‘the revolutionary tactics and was employing opportunist tactics, The Communist International in the second period was just as revolu- tionary as in the first period. The task of winning over the majority of the working class for the revolution is just as revolutionary a task as the carrying out of the revolution itself, And_ the opportunists who were glad that the Communist. Interna- tional had become “sensible,” and the sectarians who accused the Com- munist International of having be- come opportunjst, both experienced bitter disillusionment as the third period began in the tactics of the Communist International. The third period of the world revo- lution is ‘marked by an ebb of the offensive of capital and new at- tempts at offensive on the part of the working class. The offensive of the working class'makés its advent everywhere again. .The events in the second period of 1923 in Ger- many, the armed fighting in Bul- garia and Poland are just as much stations of the advancing working class as are the growth*of the Labor Party in the United States, the great election victory of the Labor Party in England, and the arming and increased consciousness of power of the workers. in Mexico as a result of the De la Huerta counter-revolu- tion, In the first moment. that. the new wave of world revolution became ap- parent, the Communist International changed its tactics. As the Fascists in Bulgaria overthrew the peasant government, the Communist Interna- tional immediately issued the slogan of armed alliance of workers and farmers, and criticized severely the Communist Party of Bulgaria be- cause it had remained neutral during the civil war and did not take up arms. As in Germany the laboring masses awoke, as the Ruhr occupa. tion. by the French and the driving out of the Cuno government by the general strike created a new revo- lutionary situation, the Communist International issued the slogan = armed struggle, and criticized German Communist Party severely because its tactics were not suffi- Soviet Russia, and that it buried the tactics of the world revolution long ago in the grave of the New Eco- nomic Policy. But the truth is that Communist International in Soe perenne course, tl ing role every acquisition of the Russi z ian revolu. tion, and was ready to mobilize all the forces of Sovict Russia and of the whole International for the sup- Port of the German revolution. The Communist International” in all three periods of the world revo- lution, has shown itself the real gen- eral staff of world revolution. Of- fensive or defensive, or again offen- sive, the tactics of tf unist the correct eaneete anal of con correct of con- crete siesta is the real secret of the leadership of the Com- munist International. Fighting Hat, Sppertanitm and elisainating from ranks, correctin 4 the Communist Inter- a fi A 2g