Arthur Rosenberg 1934
An apoplectic stroke in 1922 brought to a close Lenin’s active life. Although his condition improved towards the close of 1922 and again early in 1923 sufficiently to enable him to deliver a few speeches and write some articles, it soon became worse again and he died in January 1924. After carrying out the Russian Revolution Lenin had assured peace for his fellow countrymen by making an end of both the Civil War and the war with Russia’s external enemies. Through the adoption of the NEP he overcame famine and restored a quiet daily life to towns and villages. As ruler of Russia Lenin kept up the same modest and simple habits of life which he had pursued in his furnished room in Zürich. His life-work was characterised throughout by an unvarying regard for reality and he never once permitted himself to be swayed by personal feelings. In the eyes of the nation Lenin was a simple son of Russia who shared the anxieties of his compatriots and was accessible to everyone. He abhorred all theatricality because it was unnecessary for his purpose. Hegel said: ‘Robespierre declared virtue to be the greatest of all moral qualities and it can with truth be said that he practised what he preached.’ The same may be said of Lenin. In the last years of his life Lenin enjoyed unbounded respect among the Russian nation. His body was embalmed and placed in a public mausoleum in the Red Square in Moscow. People come there daily to gaze upon the features of the ‘Saint of the Russian Revolution’. No one would have been more astonished than Lenin himself if this posthumous reverence had been prophesied to him. His realism and modesty, nevertheless, did not avail to prevent his becoming the embodiment of all that was mystic in the Russian Revolution.
The great motivating force in Lenin’s life was his passionate desire to liberate Russia from the thraldom of the Tsars. Marxism provided him with a weapon ready to his hand. Although his life-work was accomplished on Russian soil, Lenin saw the Russian Revolution against the background of the greater world revolution. Throughout the thirty years of his political activity Lenin remained faithful to himself and despite tactical changes in matters of detail he never changed his opinions on matters of principle. Thus it would be a mistake to see in the NEP an admission on Lenin’s part that his socialist ideal was shattered. On the contrary, the NEP belonged organically to the body of opinion formed by Lenin before 1917 on the subject of the Russian Revolution and the economic future of Russia. The Wartime Communism of 1918-20 was not Lenin’s work, but was a temporary change of plan which circumstances forced him to make. Lenin never denied, at least in theory, during the years 1918-20 his fundamental principle of state capitalism.
Lenin bequeathed to the Bolshevik Party the task of holding together the Russian peasants and workmen. An economic link necessary for this purpose was to be forged between the state administration of heavy industry, transport, banks and foreign trade on the one hand and private interests in the form of peasant ownership of land and retail trade on the other. Conditions in Russia had been stabilised by the NEP to such an extent that no great disturbance occurred during Lenin’s illness and the Bolshevik Party could continue to rule Russia unopposed after his death. The most important economic consequence of the NEP was the return of Soviet Russia to a stabilised currency. After lengthy preparations inflation was successfully overcome and a new and stabilised rouble placed in circulation by 1924. At the same time the state monopoly of foreign trade enabled the government to maintain a careful control over Russia’s international trade balance. Soviet Russia only bought from abroad goods payment for which could be covered by the proceeds of its own export trade. The Soviet government punctually discharged its obligations to foreign suppliers and never contracted debts beyond its capacity to pay. It was thus able to prevent foreign speculators from tampering with the Russian rouble. The circulation of money within Russia itself was in 1924 brought into relation with the volume of trade, and arbitrary printing of new notes ceased. Naturally Russia suffered after 1924 from the distresses attendant upon this process of deflation. Strictest economy was enforced upon government offices and all undertakings. State industry was to be made to pay its way. The various state trusts were enjoined to take the greatest care in making their calculations; the working capacity of the workmen was to be increased as far as possible; and wages were to be brought into relation with profits.
The reconstruction of Russian industry went on apace after the adoption of the NEP. In 1920 the output of Russian industry was only 15 per cent of its prewar output. This figure had increased by 1924 to 45 per cent. It must not, however, be forgotten that even in 1924 Russian industry was still in a backward condition from a technical standpoint. Money and material were wanting to modernise the older factories. In consequence the rate of production was slow and the cost of production unduly great. The number of workers employed in factories rose from 1,200,000 in 1922 to 1,600,000 in 1924. After enormous difficulties had been overcome the railway system was reorganised during these years and a reliable service of trains put into operation.
A bad harvest in 1921 retarded improvement in Russian agriculture. After that year, however, its progress was rapid. The light taxes imposed upon the Russian peasant were at first payable in produce and only after 1924 in money. Since 1920 ownership of land had been put on an ordered footing and no further state interference took place. It is true that new social distinctions gradually grew up in the country districts. The restoration of free trade and money payments brought into existence a new and well-to-do class of big peasant proprietors who carried on the traditions of the kulaks. The poor peasants had no land to spare for their younger sons, who therefore emigrated to the towns, flooded the labour market and contributed to the unemployment so typical of Russia under the NEP. In 1924 there were already one million unemployed in Russia. With the assistance of a small dole from the state they endeavoured to make a living by doing casual labour. A new class of agricultural labourers also came into existence.
The social equality characteristic of the period of Wartime Communism disappeared completely in the early years of the NEP. Money had again become an influential factor. People began once more to distinguish themselves from their neighbours by the amount and manner of their earnings. At the head of the social scale came the small governing clique of Bolshevik Party leaders. Next came the millions of public servants and officials employed by the soviets, the Bolshevik Party, trade unions and cooperative societies, office-workers of all descriptions, engineers and technicians in state industries, teachers in higher and lower schools, officers and NCOs of the Red Army. Rykov, a leading member of the Soviet government and Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars in succession to Lenin, said in 1924 on the subject of the state administration:
The Soviet administration is of the greatest importance for our work. It employs many hundreds of thousands of officials of whom the overwhelming majority were educated in and imbibed the traditions of the former government. These characteristics are brought by them into their new work of construction. These Soviet officials, who are for the greater part indifferent to the vital concerns of the party and the working class, have neither the planning capacity nor the unwearying resolution in its execution that are required for a swift discharge of the tasks which the party has set before them. Bureaucratic and lower middle-class strikes and bureaucratic divergences are inevitable in the Soviet administration in these circumstances.
Lenin himself wrote in May 1923 on the subject of ‘the great and epoch-making task of reorganising our practically worthless administrative apparatus that has been taken over in its entirety from a previous age. We have not, and could not, achieve anything worthy of mention during the five years of warfare.’ The state machinery of Soviet Russia is nevertheless far better than the Tsarist bureaucracy and if circumstances be taken into account can be compared not unfavourably with administrations in other countries. The violent criticism of the Soviet administration voiced by leading Bolsheviks like Lenin, Rykov and others is to be explained by the fact that these men found in it a foreign element, that is, the middle-class ideal as opposed to the proletarian ideal of the state. The Soviet administration cannot be other than it is as long as the government uses it as an instrument for maintaining its dictatorship over the nation. The choice is either true democracy in the form of effective government by the soviets or bureaucracy in the form of government by the state apparatus. A third alternative was and is impossible in Russia. Moreover, it is no less inevitable that in the course of years these government officials will take on the appearance of a new middle-class society through being the more educated and materially secure upper class of brain-workers controlling the administration of the state and of the means of production.
Beside this great army of state officials in the widest sense of the term there stood in Russia in 1924 the richer and poorer peasants, merchants and manual workers, the professional classes (doctors, artists, writers, etc), and — finally — the factory-workers. Nor was the proletariat in 1924 any longer an entity. Instead there existed a long scale of wages graded according to occupation and qualification. A million unemployed formed the base of this social pyramid.
The dreams of communist equality that had haunted the minds of Russian workmen for years past were thus dissolved, and it was no easy matter to effect an intellectual change in the Russian proletariat without running the risk of endangering the existence of the Soviet state. This change was rendered possible by the fact that, even after 1921, Lenin continued to reiterate that he regarded the Soviet system of government as a dictatorship of the proletariat. It bears that name to the present day. The government and the Bolshevik Party continually assure the Russian workers that the existing state is their state — not, indeed, a state organised in accordance with the chance interests of individual workmen but the state of the working class as a whole. Further, they sought to maintain that all that happened in Russia was done in the interests of proletarian government. Compromises, apparent injustices in individual instances, the sacrifices that were continually being demanded of the workers — all these were necessitated by the demands of the proletarian state. Nevertheless, it was difficult for the ordinary factory worker to persuade himself that he exercised a class dictatorship over his technical manager, for the tram-conductor to feel that he was master of the well-paid official whose fare he collected, and for an unemployed man to imagine himself the ruler of the owner of the provision store before whose window he stood and gazed hungrily. Ever since 1921 Lenin’s Russia was in truth a compound of state capitalism with a proletarian myth. The most extraordinary aspect of the situation was that no special attempt was made to conceal the real state of affairs. Lenin and his successors have always sincerely and openly discussed the true facts. If, however, the complicated existing governmental system is depicted as a dictatorship of the proletariat, the picture will belong to the realm of fantasy and not of truth.
The beginnings of the proletarian myth stretch back to 1918, to the time when soviet democracy was replaced in Russia by a party dictatorship, although no attempt was made to change the name of the state from that of a Soviet state, and the fiction was maintained that everything that was done in Russia was done in the name of and by the self-governing soviets. The real roots of the Bolshevik myth of the proletariat are, nevertheless, to be found in the works of Marx and Engels. According to Marx it was for communism to point the right path to the proletariat, and the actions of the communists are those of the proletariat as a class in the historical sense of the term, even though any number of ‘backward’ workmen protest against them. It is not for the proletariat to seek to improve the condition of the individual workman. Its great mission is the liberation of mankind. And in executing this mission it will be called upon to make greater sacrifices than the other classes. This was the interpretation placed by Marx and Engels upon their policy — for example, in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung — in styling it a proletarian policy; and in a similar manner Lenin and the Bolshevik Party leaders could claim that their state was a proletarian state and all their actions were acts done in the name of the proletariat.
The completion of the middle-class revolution, the liberation of the peasants, and the restoration of liberty to oppressed peoples, etc, are in Marx’s and Engels’ view tasks to be fulfilled by the working class. These, however, are simple and obvious matters of fact. The fable first appeared in the moment in which the proletariat falsely identified the completed phase of middle-class evolution with the coming proletarian and socialist phase. The dictatorship of the proletariat is simultaneously the realisation of socialism. Nevertheless, Lenin had always admitted that Soviet Russia was not a purely socialist state but a form of state capitalism in which both middle-class and socialist elements were present. The fable here conflicts glaringly with the truth. In his famous essay in 1923 on the organisation of cooperative societies, however, Lenin had pointed out a way by which this conflict might one day be resolved: socialism would be realised when once the cultural level of the Russian peasants had been raised and they had been united in cooperative societies. At the same time no effort must be spared to enlarge the state-controlled industries, to place them on a higher technical level, and to increase the number of workmen employed by them. A state-controlled industry of greater productivity and efficiency — Lenin was specially interested in plans for the electrification of Russia — should form the foundation for the peasant cooperative societies and engage with them in an exchange of commodities. The result would be socialism.
Such was the testament in an economic sense left by Lenin to his party and the Russian nation. If Lenin was right, Russia certainly was not a socialist state in the years 1921-24, but it could become one if the difficulties arising out of deflation and currency stabilisation had once been overcome; and become one in a few years without any specially dramatic events and, above all, by an organised evolutionary process in Russia itself that paid no regard to the progress of world revolution.
‘Socialism’ is capable of many interpretations. The term is defenceless against those who misuse it. Lenin laid a strict interpretation upon it in the sense of Marxism and his whole attitude to socialism can only be criticised by bearing in mind Marx’s definition. The meaning attached by Marx to socialism in an economic sense can be discerned quite clearly in his Capital and other works. Marx distinguished between three phases: a primitive phase in which the producers — manual workers and peasants — are also owners of the means of production; a second phase — capitalism — in which the working man finds himself severed from the means of production that are now the property of a minority in whose interest the dispossessed working man must labour; and a third phase — socialism — in which the working man recovers his control over the means of production. The spoiler is now himself despoiled. Nevertheless, there is no return to the primitive phase, and no fresh division of the means of production among small proprietors, but instead centralised production is maintained — this time in the interests of all. In a socialist organisation of society barter in the barest necessities of life would replace trading in goods with its exploitation of markets, striving after profits and accumulations of unwanted goods.
The Russian Revolution in 1917 destroyed agriculture on a large scale. It also resulted in the return to a system of small ownership and small farms. This was a development that had nothing in common with socialism and that did not take on a more socialist character merely through the incorporation of ten or a hundred peasant proprietors in a cooperative society. For such a society produced goods, made and accumulated profits, and would be a middle-class organisation in a middle-class monetary system. Indeed Lenin’s theory of the peasant cooperative societies as a form of socialism is irreconcilable with Marxian economics. Nevertheless, Lenin had received absolution in anticipation of his ‘sin against Marxism’ from the hands of no less a person than Marx himself.
During the last years of his life Marx had followed with intense interest the revolutionary movement in Russia that led to the assassination of Alexander II. It has already been stated that the Narodniki were in those days the leaders of revolution — intellectuals inspired with the ideal of liberating the Russian peasants. The industrial proletariat at that time played no political part in Russia. The Narodniki persuaded themselves that certain remains of communal property still to be found in Russian villages were capable of further development and that a peasant socialism based on village councils would one day replace the Tsars. In this manner Russia would avoid passing through the phase in the evolution of Western Europe characterised by fully developed industrial capitalism and proletarian socialism, and would pass direct from Tsarist feudalism to a nationalist Russian peasant socialism. During these last years Marx was often asked by Russian revolutionaries for his opinion on this question. If Marx had been nothing more than a socialist doctrinaire, he would have been forced to reply to the Narodniki that their ideas had nothing in common with his. Marx, however, was a revolutionary first and foremost, and a theoretical economist only in the second place. Hence it was that he hailed the Narodniki movement with enthusiasm and made possible a reconciliation between their ideals and his own theories. A Russian translation of the Communist Manifesto appeared in 1882 with a preface by Marx and Engels, in which they say:
The purpose of the Communist Manifesto was to proclaim the inescapable and approaching disappearance of the present system of middle-class ownership. In Russia, however, in addition to a feverish development of capitalism and the beginnings of middle-class property ownership, the greater part of the land is to be found in the communal possession of the peasants. The problem is: can the Russian village community — an already much dilapidated relic of the primitive communal ownership of land — develop directly into a higher communist type of landownership, or must it undergo the same dissolution that took place in the historical evolution of the West? The only possible answer today to this question is: if the Russian revolution is the signal for a workers’ revolution in the West, and if these complement one another, then the present-day system of communal ownership in Russia can serve as the starting-point for a communist development.
The Narodniki grossly exaggerated the extent of communal ownership in Russia. It had completely vanished by the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. It is of importance, however, to find that in 1882 Marx assented to the existence of peasant socialism in Russia at the side of proletarian socialism in Western Europe. Moreover, if the victory of the revolution over the Tsar could be accomplished in no other way, then Marx was also prepared to concede to Russia a separate national development on a peasant basis. It is true that Marx only considered peasant communism possible in Russia if the true socialist workers’ revolution had simultaneously proved victorious in Western Europe — if, in other words, an agrarian socialist Russia could find its support in a proletarian socialist Western Europe. Thus, when Lenin found a new way to socialism for Russia in 1923 through peasant cooperative societies, he was able to link up his ideas with those of Marx. At the same time his ideas implied a return to Narodniki theories. There is indeed an element of tragedy in the fact that after fighting a ruthless political battle with the Social Revolutionaries for thirty years Lenin was forced at the close of his life to bring his system into some sort of agreement with their ideals. The force of social evolution is indeed stronger than the will of any party organisation. When the Russian Revolution destroyed feudalism together with the bigger private capitalists, and when it could not be carried on by the industrial proletariat alone, then it was forced of necessity to seek a middle path that led it by way of state capitalism and peasant cooperative societies to a nationalist Russian ‘socialism’ wearing Narodniki colours. In his old age Lenin was prepared to tread this path. Stalin has followed it.
Marx, as a Western European, could only conceive of a Narodniki revolution in Russia as parallel to and in alliance with the workers’ revolution in the West. On the other hand Lenin was forced after 1921 to content himself with a Russian Revolution in the midst of a world that had remained capitalist. If the last speeches and writings of Lenin are read with care, it will be seen how he came to concentrate his thoughts wholly upon Russia and how he was determined to achieve what he called socialism in Russia alone. International connexions are only of importance for Russia in so far as they are able to protect her from foreign invasion. There is no longer any mention of Russia’s receiving definite support from a world revolution. All justification for the existence of the Third International was therewith destroyed and it only remains to ask why Lenin and his successors maintained it. Enemies of Bolshevism frequently declare that Soviet Russia makes use of the Third International in the interests of its foreign policy or that it is used as a magnet to attract the attention of foreign workers to Russia. An impartial study reveals both views to be false. It would indeed be serviceable from the standpoint of Russian foreign policy if a Communist party dependent upon Russia were to become the government of a foreign country. Since 1921, however, Communists have not achieved power in any non-Russian country; they never had any hope of doing so; and they have nowhere exercised any real influence upon the existing government. If it is to be successful, Russian foreign policy must be prepared to treat with existing governments and parties. The existence of Communist parties in the countries themselves, far from lightening only helped to render more difficult Russia’s relations with Mussolini, Kemal Pasha, Germany, England, etc. Russian diplomacy would work better and be more fruitful of results if it was not compromised by the existence of the Third International. Russian diplomacy and foreign trade are wholly independent of the Third International, even though they both have a common base in the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Moscow. Nevertheless, the rulers of Russia are well aware that if they wish their foreign policy to be successful they must not identify it with the Communist International.
Moreover, Soviet Russia is deeply concerned to gain the friendship of the working class throughout the world. Now the majority of the international proletariat since 1921 has once more belonged to the Social-Democrat party and the continual attacks made by Communists on Social-Democrat party officials have not been calculated to promote feelings of friendship for Russia. It is in spite of and not because of the local Communist party that a Social-Democrat remains friendly to Soviet Russia. The path leading to the friendship of the majority of European and American workmen is closed and not opened to Soviet Russia by the activities of the Communist International. It will be shown below that the existence of the Third International has exercised a prejudicial effect even upon the relations between Soviet Russia and the Asiatic peoples engaged in a struggle against imperialism. Moreover, the Communist parties in foreign lands can be of little real assistance to Soviet Russia in its upward path and only do harm to its international position. For all these reasons it appears all the more extraordinary that the Soviet government should not have long ago cast off the Third International. As a matter of fact two attempts have been made by the Bolshevik rulers of Russia in the past decade to dissolve the Communist International: the policy of a united front on the part of the international proletariat that was pursued from 1921 to 1923, and the attempt to achieve the unification of the trade unions in an international sense that was made from 1925 to 1927. Both these attempts ended in failure because they were pursued by Moscow in a hesitant and contradictory manner.
What is the mysterious force that has time and again bound together Soviet Russia and the Communist International during the past decade? It is the proletarian and socialist fable which even Russian Bolshevism cannot dispense with and whose importance for Russian domestic policy has grown even greater since 1928. If a dictatorship of the proletariat really existed in Russia, the fact would be recognised by the international proletariat or at least by its revolutionary element. If all the international labour organisations were to certify that Soviet Russia is a middle-class state, their testimony would not overthrow the Soviet government but would certainly prejudice its relations with the Russian proletariat. The recognition and moral support of international opinion has always been of great importance to Russian revolutionaries. The fact of least importance was that Russian exiles received money or other assistance from citizens of the countries in which they found an asylum. What was of extreme importance was that the revolutionaries became convinced that they formed a part of the great international movement for the liberation of mankind. This was the reason that led the Narodniki in the 1870s and 1880s to seek the blessing of Marx and Engels for their work. This was the reason why the Russian Social-Democrats in prewar days were enthusiastic members of the Second International. This was the reason why Lenin at the time of the World War sought to find in the Zimmerwald movement a moral support for the coming revolution in Russia. In the years 1918-20 the Bolsheviks expected their material salvation to come to them directly from the hands of the Third International. It was of decisive importance during the Kronstadt rebellion in 1921 not only that all White Guards and Monarchists in foreign countries supported the rebels but that the entire revolutionary working class in Europe stood behind the Soviet government.
The Third World Congress in the summer of 1921 and the Fourth World Congress towards the close of 1922 expressly approved the NEP in Russia and declared its adoption to be necessary in the interests of the international proletariat and socialism. Lenin and his successors were sincerely convinced that the Russian Revolution in 1917 was a great historical achievement of the world proletariat and that workers in every country were under an obligation to recognise and support Soviet Russia. The Social-Democrats in Europe very naturally sought to defend themselves against the continuous Bolshevik attacks by criticising Soviet Russia and by adopting the views of exiled Menshevik leaders. The rulers of Soviet Russia were therefore anxious to find some thoroughly reliable means of combating Menshevism and anti-Bolshevism in Social-Democracy throughout the world. The first demand made by the Bolsheviks of every Communist party abroad was its recognition of the proletarian and socialist character of the Soviet state. The Communist International was therefore not to lay stress in its propaganda on the state capitalist character of the Soviet state with its system of compromises but rather on the revolutionary and proletarian legend. A classic witness to the existence of this Soviet Russian legend is to be found in the resolution passed by the Third World Congress in July 1921 on the subject of the tactics to be pursued by the Russian Communist Party. The resolution ran:
The Third World Congress of the Communist International looks back in admiration upon almost four years of struggle by the Russian proletariat for the capture and retention of political power. The congress unanimously approves the policy pursued by the Russian Communist Party, which from the outset has accurately judged the dangers implicit in each situation as it occurred and, true to the principles of revolutionary Marxism, has always found ways and means to overcome them; and which — after the temporary conclusion of the Civil War — by its policy towards the peasants, and in the questions of concessions and industrial reconstruction, has concentrated under its leadership all the energy of the proletariat upon maintaining its dictatorship in Russia until the proletariat in Western Europe shall be able to come to the assistance of their brothers.
In thus giving expression to its conviction that it is only thanks to this resolute and purposeful policy on the part of the Russian Communist Party that Soviet Russia will continue to be regarded as the first and most important fortress of the world revolution, the World Congress brands as treachery the conduct of the Mensheviks in all countries who by their attacks upon Soviet Russia and the policy of the Russian Communist Party have strengthened the hands of the capitalist reactionaries in their war against Russia, and have attempted to delay the coming of the socialist revolution throughout the world. The World Congress calls upon the proletariat in all countries to place itself unanimously at the side of Russian workmen and peasants and to make the October Revolution a reality throughout the whole world. Long live the war for the dictatorship of the proletariat! Long live the socialist revolution!
A marked contradiction thus came into existence in the years 1921-23 between the Russian revolutionary manner of speech of the Communist International and its revisionist actions. Communist policy in these years was inspired by the idea of the united front. The argument ran somewhat as follows: Communists and Social-Democrats are not agreed in their aims. But the international proletariat is confronted with urgent problems of the day. The workmen must defend their political freedom, hours of work, social gains and wages, against the attack of their employers. The Communist workman is as much interested in these matters as is the Social-Democrat, Christian socialist, or non-party workman. And this great struggle for daily needs cannot be led by the Communist minority among the workers alone but must be waged by the proletariat as a whole. For this reason Communists should go to the Social-Democrats and the trade unions and say to them that, even if agreement did not exist in the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, it existed in that of the daily bread of the working class, and that they should therefore join together in the struggle for ‘the price of bread’.
Even in the days when it was pursuing this policy of a united front the Communist International sought to find a revolutionary alibi by demonstrating that the Social-Democrat leaders were incapable of fighting for the smallest social reforms. Common action would result in bringing the entire proletariat under the control of the Communists, and out of the lesser struggle for economic objects there would slowly evolve again the revolutionary struggle for power. These arguments, nevertheless, failed to alter the fact that a systematic pursuit of the policy of a united front must result in the disappearance of the Communist parties. It is indeed possible for a party to ally itself with another for a definite time without losing its individuality. It is not possible for a party to change its principles to suit those of another for a long period of time; nor can it declare that the other party merely exists to formulate a policy which it will itself carry out. What has been the effect of the pursuit of a policy of a united front with the Conservatives upon the English Liberal Party since the World War? What doom awaits the German National and German Peoples’ Parties in consequence of their pursuance of a similar policy with the National Socialists in the years 1930-32? It was obvious that the Communists must be the sufferers as a result of the pursuit of a common platform with the Social-Democrats in Europe; for they were the weaker party in the alliance and the policy to be followed by the ‘united front’ would be a Social-Democrat and not a Communist policy. The leaders of the Communist International also found a political excuse for the economic aspect of their policy of a united front in the existence of a labour government. In association with Social-Democrats, Communists were to try to capture a majority in parliament and then form a coalition government with them.
The following definition of a labour government was formulated at Leipzig in 1923 at the congress of the German Communist Party: ‘It [a labour government] is neither the dictatorship of the proletariat nor a constitutional approach to it. It denotes an attempt on the part of the working class within the framework and employing the methods of middle-class democracy to pursue a labour policy with the support of proletarian institutions and a proletarian mass movement.’ This was in effect the translation to the Continent of the policy which Lenin had recommended in 1920 for adoption in England. A labour government that attains to power by peaceful and legal means can only govern within the framework of the middle-class social and political order. The economic policy of a government of this type cannot be socialist. It must consist in a middle-class radical financial policy combined with participation by the state in great industrial undertakings — the so-called theory of real values. The existence of a labour government even within the limits of a middle-class democratic state is an important victory for the working class. The history of Labour government in England witnesses to the truth of this statement. When, however, the Communists came forward with proposals of this nature, they immediately abandoned their claim to be looked upon as a separate party; for a parliamentary labour government is in its essentials entirely a Social-Democrat institution. Even the distinction between Communists and Social-Democrats — that the Social-Democrats were prepared to enter a coalition with the middle-class parties whereas the Communists were only prepared to coalesce within the boundaries of socialism — did not continue to operate. For the policy of a united front in Germany was extended to cover the Christian Socialist workmen and thus a completely representative German labour government would have included leaders of the Christian trade unions under the influence of the Centre Party. And when the Executive of the Communist International extended the term ‘labour’ government to cover the workers’ and peasants’ government that was the ideal to be pursued in every land — then, indeed, the theoretical possibilities of coalitions became indefinite. What could not be comprised under the term ‘peasant party’ in Central and Western Europe?
At this distance of time it is a cause for astonishment that the same members of the Communist International who in 1919-20 were animated by the ideal of insurrection and world revolution accepted Communist revisionism in 1921-23. It must not, however, be forgotten that after the World War the Communist International became the meeting-place of all workmen and officials who were desirous of carrying on the formal prewar radicalism. The reconstructed postwar Social-Democrat International pursued a revisionist policy. The result was that the Social-Democrat parties did not always display sufficient energy in keeping their policy free from middle-class capitalist ideas. An important advance had been made, nevertheless, by the abandonment of the superficially radical phraseology of prewar days. On the other hand the Communist International after 1921 returned to the official prewar radicalism characterised by political passivity, camouflaged reformist practices, and intoxication with the ultimate aim. The ideal state pictured by radical workmen before 1914 had now been realised in Soviet Russia. The vision of Soviet Russia as it revealed itself to the eyes of these workmen afforded them consolation in their daily cares and embodied their hopes of a better future. And they consoled themselves for the compromise and tactical manoeuvres of Soviet Russia and the Communist International by saying: the Bolsheviks are the leaders of the world revolution. What they do cannot be inspired by motives of expediency. One must trust them, even if one cannot always understand their policy, and one must time and again seek inspiration in the Russian Revolution.
After 1921 the Communist International was thus permeated simultaneously from above and below by a belief in the revolutionary proletarian legend. This is the secret of its existence. It is a singular and yet comprehensible paradox that the Communist International at one and the same time sharply criticises the Second International in its prewar form and continues its work. For the Communist criticism of the Second International washes away the ‘sin’ of 1914, and thus makes ready the path for the continued use of the old phraseology, whilst the postwar Socialist International must in some form or other accept the responsibility for the ‘sin’ of 1914 and cannot therefore continue to use the old pseudo-radical catchwords. It was precisely its combination of non-revolutionary, revisionist action with a pseudo-radical habit of speech that had for its subject Soviet Russia that enabled the Communist International, even after 1921, to retain a large proportion of its supporters. This combination was successful in satisfying not only the workers desirous of carrying on prewar radicalism but also up to a certain degree the utopian radical proletarian who found in it a means of ventilating his vague hopes of revolution and his hatred of state and society and Social-Democrats. Nevertheless, it is impossible for a great labour movement to subsist, in the present stirring and truly revolutionary condition of the world, upon a legend alone. The crisis would come in the same moment that the hard hailstones of actual facts fell upon the glass-house of the Communist International and compelled at least a part of its members and officials to think for themselves.
The Communist International subsisted upon a mixture of Russian revolutionary theories and reformist practice. And the International would collapse the moment either of these elements was taken seriously. If a Communist was sincerely convinced that the working class could strive for reform and not revolution in the existing state of the world, then the phrases emanating from the Russian Revolution must be unwelcome in his ears and he must become aware of the existence of reformist practice in Soviet Russia itself. He would be forced to ask himself the question whether there was any justification for a separate existence of a Communist Party beside the Social-Democrat Party. If, however, a Communist believed seriously in the revolutionary phrases, and wished to bring about a revolution in his own country, then he must speedily be brought to the recognition of the fact that the Executive of the Communist International with its policy of a united front was an obstacle in the way of revolution. Thus he would be led to see through the contradictions inherent in the Communist International and to discover their cause in the system of state capitalism in Russia that concealed itself beneath the cloak of a dictatorship of the proletariat. These two trends of Communist opinion resulted in the development after 1921 of a ‘Left’ and a ‘Right'-wing group within the Communist International in distinction to the loyal ‘Centre’. Each trend had its own starting-point and they only came together in their common matter-of-fact Marxian criticism of conditions in Soviet Russia. The leaders of the Communist International saw in these two trends of opinion nothing more nor less than the invasion of their domains by anti-Bolshevism and they sought to strangle this opposition by all the means available to them.
The iron discipline imposed upon the Communists for the purpose of the Civil War was now used to crush subversive opinion in their own ranks. The rulers of Russia feared in even the slightest divergence from the official tenets the beginning of the end — namely, the growth of a doubt as to the proletarian-socialist character of the Soviet state. For this reason they have branded every form of opposition both in the Communist International as well as in Russia itself since 1921 as counter-revolutionary and anti-Bolshevik, and as something to be destroyed by all the means that lay in their power. Ever since 1921 all independent critical thought has been stifled by official persecution both in Soviet Russia and in the Communist International. The Bolshevik empire resembles the empire ruled over by the emperor in Andersen’s immortal fairy-tale. The emperor can walk about naked because everyone who fails to see his supposititious clothes is a moral outcast. Similarly the emperor walks through the Bolshevik empire and to his right and left go party officials driving away everyone who dares to cry aloud: ‘The emperor is naked!’ Thus in 1921 Paul Levi and his friends were expelled from the German Communist Party. Levi was one of the very few German Socialists who had given Lenin his unconditional support before the Bolshevik Party came into power. He began as early as the winter of 1920-21 to entertain doubts about the imminence of a proletarian revolution in Germany and in doing so anticipated the decisions taken by the Third World Congress. In the days of the March Action in 1921 Levi was no longer Chairman of the party but he was one of its outstanding leaders and a member of the Reichstag. He strongly disapproved of the March Action and wrote a pamphlet in which is to be found everything that was subsequently said in criticism of the March Action by Lenin and other important Bolsheviks at the Third World Congress.
It might have been expected that as a result the Executive of the Communist International would have ceremoniously invested Paul Levi after the World Congress with the leadership of the German Communist Party as being the outstanding Bolshevik in Germany. Instead Levi was expelled from both the party and the International. The explanation was that, in addition to pointing out the mistakes of the German Communist Party, Levi had gone on to depict the mistakes of the Executive and to tell the truth about the condition of Soviet Russia. Moreover, he refused to be a party to the traditional veneration for anything and everything that happened in Russia. His presence could therefore no longer be tolerated in the Communist International. Paul Levi subsequently returned to the Social-Democrat Party. The greater number of members of the KPD had also strongly opposed Levi’s action owing to a fundamental political difference of opinion. In opposition to Levi these members still believed in the imminence of a German working-class revolution and wished to promote it by every means available to them. The trend of opinion in the Communist International which rejected the revisionist policy of the Executive since 1921, and which was opposed to a united front and labour governments, constituted the so-called Left. This Left comprised practically the whole Italian Communist Party led by Bordiga, who was noted for his high character and his keen ideological mind. The circles in Italy upon whose support the Executive might have counted in its pursuit of the new policy had already fallen away under the leadership of Serrati. It is noteworthy that Serrati rejoined the International in its changed condition. The Executive devoted all its energies to driving Bordiga out of the Italian Communist Party and to establishing a Central Committee that would be subservient to it. Meanwhile the Fascists marched from victory to victory. In 1922 Mussolini became dictator of Italy.
In Germany the Central Committee of the KPD, under the chairmanship of Brandler, sought to carry out punctiliously the policy laid down by the Executive and the World Congresses. Although, in 1923, under the influence of the occupation of the Ruhr and inflation, the disintegration political and economic of middle-class Germany proceeded apace, the Central Committee of the KPD forbade propaganda in favour of a dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist revolution. It remained faithful to the policy of a united front and labour government. And this policy led to practical results in Saxony and Thuringia, where Social-Democrat governments came into power and maintained themselves with the help of the Communist votes in the Landtag. In October the Communists themselves accepted several portfolios. For the first time a labour government in the sense preached by the Communists had come into existence. The Central Committee hoped to see this system of government extended from Saxony and Thuringia to cover all Germany. The Left wing in the KPD, supported by the party organisation in Hamburg and Berlin, refused to support this policy, in the belief that it would destroy all possibility of a revolution in Germany. Although the Left complained to Moscow, the rulers of Soviet Russia remained true to their revisionist policy; and it was not until August 1923 that a change in opinion made itself apparent in Russia. Meanwhile, the Soviet government watched the steadily increasing discontent in Germany, especially after a general strike had resulted in the fall of Cuno’s middle-class and conservative government. Stresemann succeeded Cuno at the head of a coalition government of Social-Democrats and the Centre. The French were firmly established in the Ruhr and the Rhineland. The Kahr–Hitler putsch was in preparation in Bavaria. The mark became valueless. Germany was threatened with a dissolution of the Reich and civil war.
The Bolsheviks now began to believe once more in the possibility of a German proletarian revolution and demanded that the KPD should lead it. Nevertheless, Soviet Russia in 1923 was no longer vitally interested in the victory of a proletarian revolution in Germany, since the conclusion of the Treaty of Rapallo rendered possible friendly relations with a middle-class German government. At the same time if revolution should break out in Germany the Third International did not wish to lose an opportunity for refurbishing its revolutionary laurels. But it was soon shown that the Communist International was no longer capable of leading a revolution. The Central Committee of the KPD continued even after August 1923 its revisionist, non-revolutionary agitation for the establishment of a labour government, etc; and simultaneously made secret preparations for revolution in the form of a conspiracy without the cooperation of the great masses of the proletariat. This led to the presence in the Communist secret organisations of all possible types of adventurers and spies. When, however, in October 1923, open warfare was to begin, the Central Committee realised its unfitness for the struggle and the whole preparations exploded like a toy balloon. In Saxony and Thuringia the government of the Reich dissolved the labour governments with the help of the Reichswehr and without meeting with any opposition. In consequence of a misunderstanding several hundred of Communist workmen in Hamburg took up arms. They were defeated after a sanguinary battle with the police. Nothing of a political or military nature occurred anywhere else in Germany. After the cessation of the Ruhr conflict and the stabilisation of the mark the German middle class was able in the winter of 1923-24 to strengthen its hold on the government of Germany.
The collapse of the revolutionary movement in Germany in October 1923 was the second — this time decisive — defeat sustained by the Communist International. The first was Mussolini’s accession to power in Italy. Nor was the fact that a proletarian revolution had proved unsuccessful in Germany the most depressing aspect of this second defeat. It is possible to hold very various opinions on the subject of whether a revolution of this type would have been possible in Germany in 1923 and in what manner it should have been carried out. The most discouraging aspect was the inefficiency and weakness displayed by the Communists in their tactics and strategy. For two long years no opportunity for revolution in Germany had presented itself to the rulers of Russia. Then suddenly they discovered the imminence of a German revolution, and instead of a great popular movement they produced a conspiracy. The bureaucratic officials of the German Communist Party kept their eyes obediently turned on Russia. They never permitted themselves an independent idea and their sole desire was to follow precisely the policy laid down for them by the Executive. That such a mechanical body of subservient party officials could not lead a revolution is obvious. Ever since the parties composing the Communist International have served solely as disseminators of Soviet Russian legends they have ceased to be capable of real political activity. After October 1923 the Communist International refrained from any further attempts to promote revolution in Europe.
The members of the KPD were embittered as a result of the failure of their party’s policy. They supported the Left-wing opposition that had sharply criticised the conduct of the Central Committee from 1921 onwards. The Executive of the Communist International also attempted to beat a retreat by admitting some mistakes on their own part at the same time as they placed the principal share in the responsibility for the defeat in October upon the shoulders of Brandler. Yet Brandler had never for an instant deviated from the instructions given by the Executive, and his policy was approved by the leading men in Russia up to the very last. These men now hoped by unjustly blaming Brandler and by effecting a compromise with the Left to retain the working-class members of the KPD within the Third International. For the complete break-up of the KPD was possible at the close of 1923 and the beginning of 1924, and would have been followed by that of the Third International.
Owing to his illness Lenin had no share in the detailed work of the leaders of the Third International in 1923-24. Nevertheless, the course followed by the Third International that led to defeat and paralysis was laid down by Lenin himself at the Third World Congress. The downfall and break-up of the Third International is no less the work of Lenin than was the resuscitation of Soviet Russia as a result of the NEP.