The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 9, 1929, Page 2

— oy: — _ growing Anglo-American _ anti-Soviet military bloc, by the fe- ——=s' The Plenum of the E.C.C.I. states that the course of events after the completély confirmed the analysis of the world economic and political . situation given by the Sixth Con- gress as well as the correctness of the line mapped out by it for the international Communist movement. ~ Despite the prophesies of social democracy and of the right and conciliationist elements in unison with it, the stabilization of capital- ism has not only not become firm, but, on the contrary, it being morp’and more shaken. Ever more cleatly is being confirmed the cor- Sixth Congress of the present, the 1 jr@ period of post war capitalism risis, cf an accelerated sharpening of fundamental outer and inner cont¥adictions of imperialism in- evitably leading to imperialist wars te the greatest cl conflicts, to a period of the unfolding of a new revolutionary up-grade movement in the principal capitalist countries, to great anti-imperialist revolutions in the colonial countries. I. Sharpening of Fundamental Con- traditions of Capitalism. 1, During the ten years that have passed after the end of the world war, the bourgeoisie, with the direct and active aid of the parties of the Second International, has been sys- tematically deceiving the toilers with the legend that the war of 1914-1918 was the “last” war, that now, after Germany has been van- cuished and disarmed, a stable peace ought to be established among the capitalist states (the League of Na- tions as an “instrument of peace”; innumerable bourgeois “disarma- ment” projects; the hypocritically pacifist Kellogg pact; the Young plan as a method of “peacefully solving” the reparation problem and other imperialist contradictions that have grown after the war). In re- ality it has been shown that never since the end of the war of 1914- 1918 has the menace of a new world imperialist war been as acutc as at present. The wild struggle for markets, for sources of raw mate- rials, for export of capital and for | spheres of its investment inevitably leads to a war among the mightiest imperialist nations for the purpose of widening their economic terri- tory at the expense of one another, to a war for a new re-division of the world. War is being actively prepared by the League of Nations which is an instrument of Anglo-French impe- rialism. By rejecting the plan of the U.S.S.R. concerning a real gen- eral disarmament, the League of Nations exposed itself as an instru- ment for the preparation of war. Under the hypocritical mask. of “re- runciation of war” there is in reality idden :n the Kellog pact an attempt for itself the right and the possi+ ity of being the final judge de- the date of the new war. The voli growth of armaments in the col ies of imperialism, and the formation of new military and po- jitical alliances (England and France, England and Japan, France and Poland, etc.), once more testify to the fact of the approach of a new amperialist war more grandiose end More destructive even than the war of 1914-1918, The new regulation of the repara- ‘e American imperialism to secure plan by no means signifies, as the pacfists assert, a weakening of the impefialist contradictions; on the cont¥ary it leads to a further sharp- ening of the conflicts in the camp of the imperialists (the Anglo-Ameri- cantstruggle for the repgrations bank, the Franco-German antagon- ism); at the same time it increases the danger of a financial blockade, which means also of an intervention against the U.S.S.R. in consequence of Germany being increasingly Grawn into the front of the anti- Soviet military policies of imperial- ism. The “small” wars that are Leing fought in the colonial and semi-colonial countries (in China the Hvansiists and Nanking, Feng-Hue Siang) behind which is hidden the rivalry, @re an overture to the great war be- tween the U. S. A. and England for werld hegemony. After the Paris conference the reparations problem looms n:ore sharply than before, it being a point where the chief contra- dictions of the deminating capital- ist powers are crossing each other— a problem connected with the sharp- ening of the struggle among the im- Perialist groups and powers for mar- kets, for sources of raw material ond for capital export. The inter- national linking up of the monopoly combinations of finance capital (in- ternational cartels, financing com- nanies. the Young plan of a suner- bank for reparations) not only fails to lessen the menace of war; on the contrary, it strengthens that men- nee by ercating prerequisites for the transformation of the approaching war into a world war. a war fought for 2 new redivision of the world. At the same time. notwithstand- ing the rivalry and the bitter strug- le inside of the imperialist camp, the fundamental world contradiction hetween the covitalist world and the US.S.R., as the two economic and political systems opposed to each ‘more sharpenc” An attack ¢” the imperialists on R. is the main danger. ‘This is testified to by the new at- tempts at creating and enlarging the verish armine of the states adjoin- wg the U.S.S.R. (reorganization of Rumanian Army; mad rush in Sixth World Congress has fully and| recthess of the estimation hy the| a! period of its growing general | tions problem through the Young | ,coup d’etat in Afghanistan with the | participation of England, etc.) and by the systems provocation of cenflicts with the R. through | attacks on the Soviet diplomatic rep- |resentatives. The attack of the Chi- nese counter-revolutionist on the Soviet consulate in Harbin, an attack provoked by the imperialist powers; the brazen breach of treaty relations | with the U.S.S.R.; the seizure of the | Chinese stern Railroad by the} Chinese militarist; the mass arrests and violence against the Soviet workers and employees represent, on the part of international finance | capital, a direct provocation of war against the Soviet Union. | All this preparation for new impe- |rialist wars are being carried out | with the active aid and all-around ticipation of the “socialist par- whose “left” wing plays the most hideous role by covering up th preparations with pacifist | phrases. 2. At the same time the hopes of the bourgeoisie for a capitalist de-| generation of the Soviet Union, for | its gradual subjection to the capi- talist world and for its being trans- | | formed, in this way, into a colony | of international capital, have proven | |futile. Despite the greatest diffi-| culties (the technical and economic | backwardness inherited from the |past, the extremely low level of peasant economy, the hostile capi- | talist encirclement) the U. S. S. R., junder the leadership of the Com- |munist Party of the Soviet Union, has developed a victorious offensive | jagainst the capitalist elements of | \city and village, thus securing a de-! sive preponderanée of the socialist forms of economy over the capitalist elements. The powerful sweep of mass collectivization of agriculture on the basis of raising its technical level; the building of collective farms, of machine and tractor cen- ters; finally the impetuous growth of socialist industry—all this creates |the new forms—production—forms— of the bond (smytchka) that ties to- gether the peasantry and the work- ing class, thus strengthening the | main positions of proletarian dicta- |tership. The enthusiasm of the pro- |letariat engaged in building up so- cialism now finds an ever more pow- erful expression in the spread of so- | cialist emulation tending to increase | the productivity of labor, to increase the industrial cutput; in the inten- sified struggle against bureaucrat- ism, in the cleansing of the state ap- paratus from elements alien to the Soviet power, etc. The five-year plan of socialist construction, adopted with a view of further carrying into life the rapid tempo of industrialization of the U.S. S. R.; of developing the pro- duction of means of production to the highest maximum possible; of decisively strengthening the social- ist section in urban and rural eco- nomy at the expense of the capitalist elements; of raising agriculture to a substantially higher level which is connected with drawing millions of peasants into the work of socialist construction; of considerably raising the material and cultural staridards of the preletariat and of the toiling masses of the village——are the greatest achievement not only of the toiling masses of the U. S. S. R., but also of the entire international prcletariat. The successful realiza- tion of this great plan, as already begun, strengthens the socialist | foundations of proletarian dictator- ship, increases its defensive power and, consequently, strengthens the \fighting position of the worl3 pro- letarian revolutionary movement. The successful movement of the U.| S. S. R. along the road of socialism | |is the most important factor under- |mining erpitalist stabilization and | | ties, sharpening the general crisis of eapi- | talism. | 8. The attempts of the bourgeoi- sie to establish “industrial peace” | in the chief capitalist countries have also proven futile. Under circum- stances where the broadest masses of the population are becoming im- poverished, there looms before the bourgeoisie in an ever sharper form the insoluble problem of markets, a problem becoming more acute not only due to the growth of the pro- duction apparatus, but also to the high prices established by monopoly trusts and cartels, to the barbed wire tariff barriers, to the industrial development of the economically backward countries, to the general instability of the situation in the colonies, etc, The attempts of the bourgeoisie to circumnavigate this decisive contradiction by means of carrying outa broad capitalist ra- tionalization, has remained futile. The carrying out of rationalization still further deepens this contradic- tion. By increasing the production capacities of its industrial apparatus, by squeezing out mililons of hands from the industrial process, hy svill further sharpening competition in |the world market, capitalist ration- alization leads to a sharpening of the social conflicts. Resting with all its weight on the working class, it low- ers its standard of living and, by |Jengthening the workday and intro- |ducing the belt system, it makes |labor exhausting to the last possi- ble degree. All the social conquests of the working class hardly won by decades of struggles, particularly curing the revolutionary wave of 1918-1920, are either being abclished or placed under threat of abolish- ment (8 hour workday, social insur- ance, unemployment aid, labor leg- islation, trade union rights, right to strike). In some countries the socio- political conquests of the proletariat are being liquidated with the aid of social democracy under the hypocri- | gime fascist “compulsory arbitration” in Italy and other countries, the bour- geoisie, aided by social democracy and the reformist trade union bu- reaucracy, is carrying out with the greatest brutality a system of shameless robbery and enslavement, a system of barbarous oppression of the working class. As a consequence of capitalist rationalization, we have a gigantic growth of unemployment (12-18 million of unemployed in the main capitalist countries). The ruin of the middle strata, the decrease in the number of officials in the capitalist states, all this swells the ranks of the city poor. The situation of the main mass of the peasantry not only has not im-/ proved, but, on the contrary, the pauperization of the middle and poor peasantry has considerably grown. The situation of these strata of the village population is becoming still worse in consequence of the growing j agrarian crisis and the growth of reaction in all the countries The bankruptey of the famous “prosper- ity” slogan proclaimed by the Amer- iean bourgeoisie is becoming ever more apparent. To withstand Eu- ropean competition, the American bourgeoisie conducts a planned of- fensive against the standards of liv- ing of the American working class, thus swelling the ranks of the un- employed (over 3,000,000 unemploy- ed in the U. S. A.). The concilia- tors’ conception of softening inner contradictions in the capitalist coun- tries and of the possibility of organ- izing the internal market while an- archy prevails in the foreign mar- ket alone, is refuted by the entire development of capitalism during the last years and in reality signifies capitulation before reformist ideol- ogy. Side by side with the policy of economically throttling the work- ing class there goes on the growth of political reaction: Fascisization of the state apparatus of the bourgeoi- sie; growth of repressions and white terror; Fascist coups d’etat with the aid of world capital (Jugoslavia); mass arrests of workers (France, Poland, ete.); closing of revolution- ary organizations (closing of the Red Front Fighters Organization in Germany); shooting down of strike demonstrations (India, U. S. A., Ber- lin); assassinations of revolutionists by court sentence and without court; long, cruel terms of imprisonment (Italy, Balkan States, Poland, etc.); taging white terror against the workers’ and peasants’ movement (in Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Vene- zuela and other countries of Latin- America). Under conditions where the im- perialist contradictions grow and the class struggle becomes sharper, fascism is becoming a more and more widespread method of bour- geois-domination. A special form of fascism in countries with strong social-democratic parties is. social- fascism which even more frequently serves the bourgeoisie as a means of paralyzing the activity of the masses in their struggle against the regime of fascist dictatorship. By all this monstrous system of politi- cal and economic oppression, sup- ported. by international social demo- cracy, the bourgeoisie attempts to liquidate. the revolutionary class movement of the proletariat for many years to come. But here, too, its labors are doomed to failure. The growing fighting activity of the working class, the oncoming. of the new rising tide of revolutionary proletarian movement signalize the inevitable collapse of this regime \of unheard of exploitation of and violence against the toilers, a re- which international social democracy cynically proclaimed as the era of the “democracy in flower” and of capitalism growing into “So- cialism.” 4, Neither has the bourgeoisie succeeded in suppressing the revo- lutionary movement in the colonies. The antagonism between im- perialism and the colonial world pears ever sharper in the most im- portant colonial and semi-colonial countries. After the temporary de- feat of the revolutionary movement of the workers and peasants in China, the Chinese bourgeoisie, whose economic interests are most closely linked up with the finance capital of the various imperialist coyntries (USA, England, Japan), and who was in alliance with the feudal reaction, proved absolutely bankrupt as far as defending the in- dependence of China is concerned, and it has in practice passed over into the camp of the imperialist en- emies of this independence, The present inner war in China among three militarist cliques that are the instruments of the various imperialist governments shows clearly that the interests of the ruling cliques of China are funda- mentally opposed to the interests of the national unification of China, The unification of China and its liberation from under the yoke of imperialism are inseparably bound up with an agrarian revolution and with the annihilation of all the rem- nants of feudalism. The realization of these funda- mental tasks of the bourgeois-demo- cratic revolution, however, can be achieved only on the basis of a new powerful rise of the workers and peasants revolution with the work- ing class at its head, This rise, for which conditions are undoubtedly ripening, cannot fail to lead to the creation of Soviets as organs of the tical mascot “new reforms” (social insurance and housing laws in France). Under the banner of “in- dustrial peace” in England, “eco- nomie democracy” in Germany, the As revolutionary - democratic dictator- ship of the proletariat and the pea- santry. At the present moment a powér- ful revolutionary movement is | | “ling into power of the social de- democracy and of the DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 1929 ‘Tenth Plenum of the Executive y |on the Agenda: | 1, The international situation |International. Reporters: Comrade ee 8. Reporter: Comrade Barbe. The Plenum decided to relieve | (United States), and Gussev (Sovie! Moscow, July 20, 1929. STATEMENT BY THE POLITICAL SECRETARIAT OF THEE.C.C.1 | The Tenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist | |International has just been concluded. The economic struggles and the tasks of the Communist Par-| Reporters: Comrades Thalmann and Lozoysky. 3. The International Day Against Imperialist War (August Ist). The discussion of the reports was actively participated in by |representatives of all the important Communist Parties, and Humbert-Droz of their duties as members of the Presidium of the | Executive Committee of the Communist International. The Plenum excluded Jilek (Czechoslovakia), Lovestone (United | States), and Spector (Canada) from the E. C. C. I. The Plenum extended the Presidium of the E. C. C. I. by adding |to it Comrades Garlandi (Italy), Gottwald (Czechoslovakia), Randolf |promoted Comrade Lenski (Poland), who had hitherto been a candi- date of the Presidium, to membership of the Presidium, and elected Comrade Americo Ledo (South America) member of the Presidium and Comrade Reimann (Czechoslovakia) candidate of the Presidium. The Political Secretariat of the E. C. C. IL. The following questions were and the tasks of the Communist s Kuusinen and Manuilsky. Comrades Bukharin, Gitlow, Serra t Union). In addition, the Plenum spreading in India, The heroic strike , of the Bombay proletariat; the | struggle of the toiling masses against the Simon commission; the | street demonstrations and fights; | the growing agrarian movement,— all this bespeaks the fact that India is becoming one of the most impor- tant battle-grounds of colonial revo- | lutions. The open betrayal by the | Indian bourgeoisie of the cause of | national independence (the decision | of the national congress of the) Suaradgists concerning dominion | rights for India), and its active aid) in the bloody suppression of the| striking workers, expose the| counter-revolutionary character of | the Indian bourgeoisie. This means that the independence of India, the | improvement of the situation of the | working class, the solving of the | agrarian problem can be conquered | only by the revolutionary struggle | of the workers and peasant masses under the leadership of the prole-| tariat in the struggle against Eng- lish imperialism, the Indian feudal lords, and national capital. The/| tasks of the Indian revolution can be achieved only in the struggle for| a revolutionary-democratic dictator. | ship of the proletariat and the pea- santry under the banner of the So- viets. Simultaneously with the growing revolutionary wave in India, their spreads again a struggle in the col- onies and dependent countries against the foreign oppressors (Morocco, Congo, countries of Latin- | America, etc). Under conditions | where the wave of the revolutionary labor movement is rising in the | mother-countries, and the USSR is/ strengthened, the revolutionary | movements in the colonies will grow | stronger and with a more rapid tempo than heretofore, thus bring- nig nearer the collapse of the entire capitalist system, Il. The Parties of the Second In- ternational in Power. | 5. The incapacity of the bour- | geoisie to find a way out of the! sharpening outer and inner contra-| dictions; tse necessity of preparing | new imperialist wars; and of se- curing the rear by way of a maxi- mum oppression on the working class as an “escape” from the sit- uation created; the impossibility to carry out these tasks with the means of the bourgeoisie alone without the aid of the social dem-| ocratic parties; finally, the need of covering up such a policy with the flag of democracy and pacifism, have brought about the necessity of | open cooperation between the bour- | geoisie and the parties of the Sec-| ond International. Hence the cém- mocracy in Germany and of the “Labor” Party in England. The po- litical mission of MacDonald’s and Mueller’s governments consists in putting into effect the plans of the bourgeoisie both internally (maxi-| mum pressure on the working class; exertion of a double pressure over the working class in Germany in connection with the reparations; ra- tionalization in England) and in the realm of foreign policy (prepara-| tions of new wars and increased op- pression of the colonies). In Germany we have the latest experience of the strongest party of the Second International, the so- cial democratic party, in power. Through their own experience the German. working masses are out- growing their illusions concerning social democracy. Social democracy proved to be a party which, after assuming power, strangled strikes with the rope of compulsory arbi- tration, helped capital to carry out lock outs and to liquidate the con- quests of the working class (8 hour workday, social insurance, etc.). By building an armed cruiser as well as by adopting its new militarist program that breaks with all the remnants of pre-war traditions of socialism, social democracy prepares war. The leading cadres of social reformist trade unions, in carrying out the orders ‘of the bourgeoisie, now threaten the German working class, through the mouth of Wels, with an open fascist dictatorship. Social democracy prohibits May First dem- onstrations. It shoots down un- armed workers during a May First demonstration, It shuts down the |the first place, in India. jup with pacifist phraseology. | negotiations, | agreements workers’ press (Rote Fahne); it closes revolutionary mass organi- zations; it prepares the ban on the Communist Party of Germany, and organizes the suppression of the working class by fascist methods. Such is the road of German coa- litionist social democracy towards social fascism. Such is the outcome of the largest party of the Second International being in power. All the policies of the “Labor” Party, particularly in the last years, have showed that MacDon- ald’s government will follow the road of German social democracy in power. It will carry out capi- talist rationalization with a brutal hand, suppressing every kind of strike movement. It will strangle the national revolutionary move- ment in the colonial countries, in It will jconduct an aggressive imperialist , in the first place against S. S. R., while covering this No not even temporary between MacDonald’ government and America, will do away with the inevitable armed conflict between the U. S. A, and England, but they will be a stage in preparing this conflict, just as in their time were the attempts at agreement between the imperialist powers on the eve of the world war of 1914-18, The illusion that the assumption of power by the govern- ment of the “Labor” Party means the assumption of power by the working class, an illusion wide- spread among the English workers, will be dissipated by the imperialist and anti-working class policy of MacDonald's government. Only now will a rapid political differentiation among the masses, and their with- drawing from the bourgeois “La- bor” Party, begin. The more de- war policy, the U. jcisively the Communist Party of England will eradicate all remnants of right and opportunist deviations in its own ranks and carry out a correct Bolshevik policy, sharpening the struggle of the workers against the “Labor” government, the sooner will the working masses of Eng- land realize that only the policy of the English Communist Party, the policy of “class against class,” as proclaimed during the last elections, is the only correct one, that only this policy aids the liberation of broad masses of the workers from parliamentary-pacifist illusions and shows the real road towards the vic- tory of the working class. The Plenum of the E. C. C. 1 states that the present formation of governments by the most important parties of the Second International in circumstance of an approaching war and the growing miseries of the working class, creates conditions for the deépest crisis of social de- mocracy within the proletarian masses, This crisis finds its ex- pression in the quickening of the process of radicalization of the broad working masses. It inevita- bly leads social democracy to a loss of influence over broad working masses and thereby creates favora- ble conditions for the Communist Parties to conquer the majority of the working class. The Plenum of the E. C. C. I. makes it the duty of all the sec- tions of the Communist Interna- tional to strengthen their struggle against international social democ- racy as the most important buttress of capitalism. The’ Plenum of the E, C. C. 1. proposes that particular attention be given to the struggle against the “left” wing of social democracy, which halts the process of disinte- gration of social democracy by spreading illusions to the effect that this wing is in opposition to the policy of the leading social demo- ocratic bodies, whereas in reality it supports in all possible ways the policy of social fascism. III. Oncoming of a New Rising Tide of Revolutionary Proletarian Movement, 6. What is new after the Sixth World Congress, is the sharply out- lined radicalization of the interna- tional working class and the oncom- ing of the new rising tide of revo- lutionary proletarian movement. The worsening of the situation of Committee of ploitation; the self-exposure of so- cial democracy that openly under- |takes steps together with the bour- |geoisie against the working class |and carries out a social fascist pol- jiey; the growth of the influence of Communism among the working |masses to adopt the methods of a more active struggle against the bourgeoisie. The offensive of capi- tal already comes up against in- creased power of resistance of the working class. The class battles, from being offensive on the part of the bourgeoisie, begin to be trans- formed into counter-offensive fights and partly into direct offensive bat- tles of the proletariat. Movements such as the Lodz general strike, revealing a high degree of class |consciousness and a revolutionary (activity on the part of its partici- ‘pants; battles like those in the Ruhr where the offensive of a triple al- liance in the form of the capitalist state, the employers and the re- formist bureaucracy, met with a stalwart and decisive resistance on the part of the working class; also large scale successes like the suc- cess of the Communist Party at the elections to the shop and factory committees in Germany show the oncoming of a new revolutionary tide. The reparations burden leads in Germany to a rapid increase of the class struggle, expressing it- self, on the one hand, in a merciless offensive of the employers; on the other, in the form of mass actions of the proletariat. The double bur- den resting upon the German prole- tariat — reparation payments and the increased pressure of the home bourgeoisie on the working class— hasten the maturing of the revolu- tionary crisis in Germany. The strike wave is rising everywhere; in France a strike of miners, tex- tile workers, dock workers, postal employees; in the U. S, A., a strike of textile workers where the strug- gle of the masses reached the point of armed bloody clashes between the workers and the police; tremendous strike movement in Australia; strikes in South America (Argen- tine, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia); the strike of the long- shoremen, the strike and lock out in the Ruhr, the four months’ long strike of the textile workers in Ger- many; a general strike in Lodz and a strike of agricultural workers in Poland; a general strike in Greece; a tremendous strike of agricultural workers in Czecho-Slovakia; a gen- eral strike of tobacco workers in Bulgaria; a powerful revolutionary strike wave in India; a new revival of the strike struggle in China. There is almost no country in the world where the first months of 1929 have not gone far ahead com- pared with the previous years either as regards the number of strikes or as regards the number of strik- ers. This strike movement has re- vealed the active role played {n them by the unorganized masses whose fighting mood often leaves far behind the workers organized in the reformist trade unions, There take place a number of solidarity strikes and strikes of pro- test against the reactionary perse- cutions of workers. Simultaneously there is going on (in a number of countries) a growth of revolution- ary spirit among the oppressed na- tionalities and the peasant masses — expressing themselves in some countries in the form of mass ac- tions and armed clashes (participa- tion of the peasants in the May Day demonstrations; strikes and revolutionary actions of the village poor and the agricultural laborers in Western Ukraine and Poland; a peasant movement against taxes in Greece; agrarian movements in Ru- mania; peasant unrest in some lo- calities of Jugoslavia and Italy; strikes of agricultural workers in Czecho-Slovakia, Holland, France, etc.). In the face of a far developed pro- cess of employers’ organizations and reformist trade union apparatus becoming one with the bourgeois state; under conditions where the class contradictions in the present period have become extraordinarily sharpened, the economic strikes in many cases grow into mass politi- cal strikes (Lodz, Bombay). All this forces the working masses to link up the economic struggle with the political struggle, with the struggle against the entire italist sys- tem. The bourgeoisie employs against the strikers all the repres- sive means of the capitalist state (arrests, victimization, shooting). This calls forth and will still more call forth strikes of protest, strikes of solidarity, which assume a very pronounced political character. This poses before the Communist Parties the problem of a political mass strike as a decisive problem for the next period. The application of the instrument of a mass political strike will help the Communist Parties to bring more unity into the atom- ized economic activities of the work- ing class, to carry out a broad mo- bilization of the proletarian mas: in all ways to enrich their political jexperience, bringing them face to face with the direct struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. 7. Against the background of spreading strike battles and the new revolutionary tide, the action of the Berlin proletariat on May First as- sumes the greatest significance. This action showed not only the fighting initiative of the German proletariat, but ‘also the power of the influence of the German Com- munist Party whichy notwithstand- the working class, coupled with a,ing the ban put on the demonstra- strengthening of the pressure over it and the growth of capitalist ex- tion by Zoergiebel and the reform- ist trade unions, was able to lead the Comintern esis on. the International Situation and the Current Tasks ot the Comin into the street about two hundred thousand workers. The Party has not receded one step before reac- tion, and has not allowed the bour- geoisie to provoke it to an armed uprising which, under the given sit- uation, would have led to isolation and to the revolutionary vanguard being hurled back, The May Days in Berlin are a turning point in the class struggle of Germany and they accelerate the tempo of the revolutionary rise of the German labor movement, Not only was it not a defeat of the German prole- tariat, as all the defeatists and the renegades of Communism assert, | but on the contrary, it demonstrated the successfulness of the battle tac- ties of the Communist Party which mercilessly fought against all lag- gard tendencies in its own ranks. The political significance of the ac- tion of the Berlin proletariat con- sists in having defeated the attempt of the bourgeoisie and social democ- racy to deprive the working class of its May Day; in having forced the German bourgeoisie and its so- cial democracy to capitulate before the onslaught of the working class as regards the question of prohib- iting demonstrations; in finding its reflection in the struggle for the streets in other countries; in having aroused in other countries the pro- letarian masses, who in mass dem- onstrations expressed their solidar- ity with the German proletariat. In so far as this action took place under conditions where the fighting character of the May Day demon- strations and strikes in countries other than Germany (Poland, France, Bombay) was more pro- nounced than in the past years, it testifies to a tendency of the eco- nomic movement of the proletarian masses to grow into the highest forms of revolutionary struggles. The Plenum of the E. C. C. L, ex- pressing its solidarity with the he- roic proletariat of Berlin, the cou- rageous defenders of the barricades of Neukoeln and Wedding, states its full agreement with the tactical line of the German Communist Party followed during the Berlin events. IV. The Comintern and the Current Tasks of the Communist Parties. 8. The oncoming of the new ris- ing tide of the revolutionary prole- tarian movement, and the coming to power of social-democracy in Ger- many and England, place before the Comintern and its sections with es- pecial sharpness the task of deci- sively strengthening the struggle against social-democracy, particular- ly against its “left”? wing as the most dangerous enemy of Commu- nism in the ranks of the labor move- ment and the chief brake upon the growth of the fighting activity of the laboring masses. In connection with this it has become the central task of the Comintern in the realm of inner Party policy to struggle against opportunism which is a con- ductor of bourgeois influence to the working class, and against social- democratic tendencies inside of the Communist movement. Without cleansing the Communist Parties both of overt and covert opportunist elements, the Communist Parties cannot successfully move ahead on the road of solving the new prob- lems placed before them by the sharpening class struggle in this new stage of the proletarian move- ment. The significance of this new stage in relation to the Communist Par- ties consists in its having helped, in the course of the spreading class battles, to uncover the rotten, op- portunist elements that have played a strikebreaking role in these bat- tles. Therewith was corroborated the correctness of the Sixth Con- gress of the Comintern when it pointed out that the main danger in the Communist Parties is at pres- ent the Right opportunist deviation. 9. The Plenum of the ECCI states with satisfaction that the in- fluence of the Comintern has grown during the past time, that its sec- tions have become stronger, organ- izationally and ideologically; that they have cleansed themselves of op- portunist elements (Brandler, Hais, Lovestone), The cries of the Right renegades about the degeneration of the Comintern, cries taken up by the philistine conciliators, only prove how very necessary it was to cleanse the Communist movement in order to forestall the corrupting work of the opportunist elements and to guarantee a true Bolshevization of the Communist Parties. The most important results of this Bolsheviza- tion are already apparent in a num- ber of Communist Parties, in the first place in Germany, France and Poland: Their cleansing themselves of the opportunists has increased the fighting capacity of the Communist Parties and brought them nearer to carrying out the task of leading the economic and political struggle of the proletariat; new forces have come to the fore, forces that took Political shape and grew in condi- tions of increasing activity of the working class and in the struggle against opportunism; Bolshevik dis- cipline has grown in conditions where inner Party democracy is be- coming more fully developed; the leading cadres of the Communist Parties have become proletarianized. The Plenum notes the consolidation of the Communist Parties on the basis of the political and tactical line of the Sixth Congress. The Plenum of the ECCI states that the leadership of the Comintern in the person of the Political Secretariat and the Presidium has correctly put into effect the line of the decisions of the Sixth Congress, has reacted in time to the most important poli- tical events, and has successfully conducted the struggle against the Right deviation and conciliationism. tern . In order to create a more firm guar- antee for the carrying out of the decisions of the C. I, the Plenum instructs the Presidium to take steps towards strengthening the apparatus of the ECCI by drawing in new, growing Party workers from the sections and by cleansing itself of | opportunist elements. Under the leadership of the ECCI and on the basis of its Open Letter, the Communist Party of Germany has ideologically and politically de- feated the renegade group of Brand- |ler-Thalheimer and has completely undermined its influence among the workers. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia has, with the active participation of the ECCI, quickly overcome the base attempts of Hais and Company to split the Red Trad= Union Movement in Czechoslovakia and has emerged stronger ideologi- cally and politically out of the strug- gle with liquidationism, Under the leadership of the ECCI the American Communist Party is ssfully liquidating the unprincipled faction- jalism and the demoralizing influ- ence of the opportunist faction lead- ers (Lovestone, Pepper) over the | | Party cadres. A strengthening of the struggle against the right deviations is also |necessary in the Communist Parties jof the colonial countries where the opportunist eleménts are the con- ductors of bourgeois and petty- bourgeois influence to the prole- \tariat, and are hampering its class struggle. Fully and completely approving the decisions of the Presidium of the ECCI concern::+ the American question, the decisions concerning the German question, the Open Let- ter to the German Communist Party, the decisions of the Presi- dium of the ECCI concerning the Czechoslovakian .question, the Plenum of the ECCI considers as in- compatible with belonging to a Com- munist Party the defense by some of its members of the opinions of the right deviations condemned by the Comintern as an anti-Party trend deeply hostile to the interest of the proletarian revolutionary movement. At the same time the Plenum states that conciliationism which made its appearance as cowardly opportunism covering up open liqui- dationism, has recently sunk in all fundamental questions of the Com- munist movement to the positions of the Right and inside the Comin- tern has taken upon itself the role of the right elements. After the expulsion of the Right liquidation- ists it became a center of attraction for all the Right elements inside the Communist Parties, mouthpiece for all defeatist moods and opportunist views. In view of this the Plenum of the ECCI demands (a) that the conciliators should openly and de- cisively cut themselves off from the Right deviationists; (b) that they should conduct, not in words but in deeds, an active struggle against the Right deviation; (c) that they should without reservation submit to * all the decisions of the Comintern and of its sections and should carry them out actively. Non-fullfilment jot any one of these stipulations will place whosoever breaks them out- side the ranks of the Communist In- ternational, t The Plenum of the ECCI considers that without putting these decisions into effect, without destroying the Right and the “Left” (Trotzkyite) liquidationists, without a decisive overcoming of conciliatism it is im- possible to fulfill the tasks of the Comintern and its sections during the new rising tide, the tasks of a struggle against the war danger and of defending the USSR, of a struggle against social demo- cracy and particularly against its “left” wing, of preparing the Com- jmunist Parties and the working class for the coming revolutionary battles, of selecting the true revo- lutionary leaders of the working class capable courageously and un- flinchingly to lead the proletariat into the struggle for overthrowing capitalism and establishing the dic- tatorship of the proletariat. 10. The struggle against liquida- tionism, and against the concilia- tionist attitude towards it, acquires particular importance ag regards the carrying out by the Communist Parties of the task of winning the majority of the working class. By weakening the struggle against so- cial democracy, by over-estimating its forces and by diminishing the role of the Communist Party, those elements break the struggle of the Party for the winning of a majority of the working class and they pre- vent the workers, who are on the way from social-democracy to the Communist movement, from making the last step in the direction of Communism. The Plenum of the ECCI, in noting this strikebreaking 4 role of the right opportunist ele- ments, appeals to all the sections of the Communist International to ' concentrate all their forees on the task of winning a majority of the working class. The Plenum of the ° ECCI emphasizes that before the new rising tide of the revolutionary proletarian movement, it is the cen- ¥ tra! task of the Communist Party | to win the majority of the working class. This task presupposes the winning by the Communist Parties of a leading role in the labor move- ment, i.e, leadership in all the ace * tions of the working class, in eco- nomic strikes, street demonstrations, ~ shop and factory committees, which ' is necessary in orde~ thus to secure the leadership of the Communist Parties in the decisive battles of the proletariat. The Communist Parties will be able to approach the carrying out of this central task only in the pro- cess of great class battles of the Coontinued on Page Sis sel | ' th I lt