The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 5, 1924, Page 7

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} wanna, the stifling atmosphere of The Third Communist International "=u (From a speech on March 6, 1920 before the Moscow Soviet) Bee angie since the foundation of the Communist ‘International a year has gone by. In the course of this year the Communist Inter- national won victories which we would have never expected, and it may be said that at its foundation no one expected such tremendous successes, At the beginning of the Revolu- tion many cherished the hope that the Socialist Revolution in West Europe would begin at the moment that the imperialist war would come to an end, for at that time, when the masses were armed, the Revolu- tion could have gone ahead in a few countries of the West with the. greatest success, This could have | happened if it had not become evi, | dent that the split of the working | class of Western Europe was deep- er, that the betrayal of the former Socialist leaders there had taken on greater proportions. If the International had not been critical moment saved the capitalist class, there would have been many a chance for the revolution to fol- low very quickly in many of the warring countries and in a few neu- tral countries where the people were under arms, and then the outcome would have Ont... 6s Comrades, _ before the war it seemed as if the essential division in the labor movement was the divi- sion into Socialists and Anarchists. And it did not only seem so, but it was actually the case, For a long time, until the imperialist war and until the revolution there was no ob- jective revolutionary situation in the great majority of European coun- tries. The task was to utilize this slow work for preparing the revolu- tion. The Socialists set about this been entirely differ- N ORDER to understand the his- torical significance of the Com- munist International, it is neces- sary to know the background of its development.. When the war came the Second International with its powerful na- tional organizations collapsed. Ex- cept for the Italian and Russian par- dies, the leading national units of the SecondMnternational fell an easy prey to the capitalist imperialists. For some time there was no sign of the Second International ever having existed, except for the occa- sional effort of the Belgian, Huys- man, secretary of the bureau. Then came the unofficiah Zimmer- wald conference in Switzerland. This gathering was almost exclu- sively pacifist and not revolutionary, It was the first cry against the war that assumed international dimen- sions. The Kienthal Conference. As a result of this conference, there was called the Kienthal Con- gress, in April, 1916. Here the master hand of Lenin was plainly evident. One need but read the Kientha!-ivanifeste to find the first invigorating breath of evism ig ist world slaughter. Here “we “have proclaimed the solidarity of the pro- letariat, a scathing denunciation of the great betrayal of the social- democrats and a rousing call for united working class action for peace and socialism. “The conquest of po- litical power and the ownership of capital the people themselves; the real able peace that will be the fruit of triumphant socialism”— these were the essence of the pro- posals of the Kienthalists. But the revolutionary, «nd pacifist forces were” still closely interlaced. Then came the first decisive battle class, Millions of working men : te) peace rogram ro of the again making attempt to alists of the of work, the Anarchists had no under- standing for this task, The war cre- ated a revolutionary situation, and it became evident that this old divi. sion died away. On the one hand the elite of Anarchism and Social- ism had become chauvinist, show- ing what it means to defend one’s own capitalist robbers against other robbers of the capitalist class for whose sake the war snatched away millions of people, On the other hand, in the lower strata of the old parties new currents were formed— against the war, against imperial- ism, for the social revolution. Thus, as a consequence of the war the deepest crisis arose, and the An- archists as well as the Socialists split because the elite of the parlia- mentary leaders of the ‘Socialists proved to be with the chauvinist wing and only a constantly growing minority held back and began to go over to the side of the revolution. Thus the labor movement in all countries entered upon a new road, not the road of the Anarchists and Socialists, but the way which led to in the hands of betrayers, who in the |the dictatorship of the proletariat. . This split had made itself felt and ‘had made its advent thruout the whole world even before the crea- tion of the III International. If we have had success that was because we came when the situa- tion was revolutionary and there was. already a labor movement in all countries, and that is why within Socialism and Anarchism there has come a split. This leads thruout the world to the co-opera- tion of the Communist workers in the creation of new organizations and their unification into the III International. This is the way the work can best be ‘understood... . If we take into consideration the present state of affairs we can say that the III International is dead and that the laboring masses in Germany, England and France are geing over to the side of the Com- grlurfists. . 2. The collapse of the capitalist governments is inevitable. For ey- eryone sees that a new war is un- avoidable if the imperialists and the capitalist class remain in power. - » No one knows where and how On the Death of Lenin| Dear comrade of the lowly ones of earth, Teday, upon your Wi bier, you passed me by th cold face upward turned to a cold sky, The gilded trappings could not ery your worth So surely as the tears that came to birth In grief-clenched hearts and sprang from every eye. ‘The comrades that you loved,—they bore you high On straining breasts, to give yoa back to earth. *Twas so you bore upon your grieving heart The sorrows of the toiling multitude . . . They mourn your loss, who glimpsed the rosy dawn Of Freedom thru the gates you flung apart. Now, rest you for a gentle interlude “- The Rise of the Third International - preventing such a gath-sia and the small communist groups ; of their own, the Two-and-a-Half One month | International, succeeded in ering. : The Stockholm Call. The Russian Revolution, however, was not Thomases and Vanderveldes. On May 9, 1917, the Petrograd Soviets issued a call for,the convening of all socialist partiés at Stockholm on July 8 A rift in the war clouds was noticed by the imperialist clique strangling the various suffering countries. Forthwith, the capital- ist governments began to rush so- cialist jingoes to Russia to convince the masses of the war-stricken coun- tries to remain in the war and dis- continue their agitation for world peace. _ Thru the interference of such so- cial patriots as Renaudel in France and Thorne in England, the Stock- holm Conference fizzled out. The imperialist governments of England and France, with the able assistance of these renegades, prevented hold- iMg of this convention. On Sept. 12, 1917, the Zimmerwald Commis- sion met and decided that a new Interpational was necessary.’ Soon the Belshevik Revolution came and all this delay in the international organization of the proletariat was ended. The Russian Communists having conquered the state power of Russia immediately issued a call for the holding of an international congress of the revolutionary work- ers of the world on March 2-5, 1919. The Third International. ‘At the first congress of the newly organized, the Third Communist In- ternational, there were thered mainly the Bolshevik Party of Rus- (By taking” notice of these Sentiments on ‘Fifth Anniversary By ALEXANDER BITTLEMAN Secretary, Jewish Section, Workers Party , Soa: bid cokienhia liberation Tho love you loosed on earth flows swiftly on. BEATRICE CARLIN, Moscow, Jan. 23, 1924. of the nearby countries, the outbreak (of a new war) will come, but everyone sees and knows and says that the war is unavoid- able and is being prepared anew. This fact in the Twentieth Cen- tury gives us the assurance that there can be no thotght any more of the old Reformism and Anarch- ism. They were killed by the war. To reshape capitalist society thru reformism—of that there can bé no thought. Whoever speaks and thinks that way loses all significance for us. The Commynist International is strong becapse it is based on the lessons of the imperialist world slaugiter. In pPvery country the correctness of this stand is being born out thru the experience of mil- lions of people, and the movement towards the Communist Internation- al is now a hundred-fold broader and deeper than hitherto. In the course of oge year it has brought to maturity the complete collapse of the III International. In the whole world there ig not a_ single country so backward that all thinking workers in it have not entered the Communist Internation- al, have not adhered to it ideologi- cally. Therein lies the full guar- antee that the victory of the Com- munist International in the whole world will come after a not too long - interval—that this victory is certain. CURRENT FICTION. (The Week's Best Smeller.) “We tell every Jew to live ac- cording to the highest teachings of his rabbi. We encourage every Cath- olie to respond to the spiritual sum- mons of his priest. We tell every Protestant to measure up as far as he can to the appeals of his pastor. We desire to strengthen in every young man the moral and spiritual forces within his reach.”—William J. ee Secretary, Chicago Y. M. Cc. By JAY LOVESTONE failed. The subse- ybefore, Feb. 3, the Berne Conference ' quent attempts to reunite all the of the Second International was held with all but the Italian and Russian Parties participat.ng. The differences between the two Congresses and Internationals at this early, formative period of work- ing class reorgamzation after the war foretold the fate of the two bodies. At the Congress of the Third International there were gath. ered the revolutionary workers; at the Berne conclave the revolutionists were banned. Now that the war was over, the Berne social-patriots wanted peace and unequivocally de- clared themselves against proletar- ian revolution. On the other hand, the Communist International em- phatieally declared and pledged it- self for the inclusion within its ranks only of revolutionary work- ers, and the substitution of relent- less class war for the national im- perialist capitalist wars. Within one year the Setond In. ternational became a “decrepit rel- ie.” All the parties, except the British Labor Party and the Ger- man Social Democrats, deserted it. The German Independents, the French Socialist Party and the In- dependent Labor Party of England detached themselves from, this corpse. Then came the winning over of a large proportion of the .masses of these centrist bodies by the Com- munist International. The desper- ate attempts of the Centrist lead- ers to hold their followers by an effort to maintain an International New York City, March 4, 1924. determination fi social-patriotic groups into one in- ternational against the Communist world party of revolutionary work- ers and to galvanize the dead Sec- ond International into life once more have not succeeded. The Hamburg Congress of the Second International was more a gathering of the ghosts of the old association than of living groups in struggle against the capitalist class. Significance of Communist Interna- tional, Today the Communist Interna- tional is the mightiest political or. ganization that the world -has ever seen, the Third International count- ing its millions of adherents in prac- tically every country on earth is on the international mass ac- tion of the working class. The Communist International, un- like the group still adhering to what is left of the Second International, bases its tactics on the fundamen- tal recognition that capitalism has reached and is today in its final stage, the imperialist stage. The tactics of the Communist In- ternational in the united front, the struggle of the Communists to or- ganize the oppressed colonial peo- ples for a war against their eapi- talist imperialist oppressors, the in- sistent demand of the Communists International that the workers must unite with the expropriated, dispos- sessed farmers against the big cap- italists dominating the gigantic ba- sic industries of the country, the or- ganization of the proletarian dicta- torship thru the Soviet State—these are but a few of the outstanding features of the Communis: ste | tional’s tactics arising from its fun- damental recognition of the imper- ialist stage of capitalism under which the workers of the world find themselves today. It is these tactics that strike ter- ror into the hearts of the im l- ists. It is just these revolutionary tactics that have established the his- torical significance of the Commun- ist International—its role of undis- puted leadership of the exploited working and farming masses of every country struggling against capitalist oppression and for the or- ganization of the Communist Soci-

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