Third Congress of the Comintern 1921

Resolution on the Organization of the Communist International
Adopted at the 24th Session of the Third Congress of the Communist International,
12 July 1921

The Executive of the CI shall be enlarged so as to enable it to take a position on all questions demanding action by the proletariat. Above and beyond the general calls issued on such critical questions up to now, the Executive shall increasingly go over to finding ways and means to initiate in practice a unified organizational and propagandistic intervention in international issues by the various sections. The CI must mature into an International of the deed, into the international leadership of the common daily struggle of the revolutionary proletariat of all countries. The prerequisites for this are:

1. The member parties of the CI must do their utmost to maintain the closest and most active ties with the Executive: they must not only provide the best representatives of their country for the Executive but must judiciously and persistently supply the Executive with constant and reliable information so that the Executive can take positions on political problems that arise based on actual documents and comprehensive materials. In order to use this material productively, the Executive must organize departments for all specialized fields. In addition, an international economics/statistics institute for the workers movement and communism is to be established, attached to the Executive.

2. The member parties must maintain the closest informational and organizational ties among themselves, particularly when they are in neighboring countries and therefore have an equally intense interest in the political conflicts arising from capitalist antagonisms. This relationship of common action can at present be initiated most effectively by sending representatives to each other’s most important conferences and by the exchange of suitable personnel. This exchange of suitable personnel must immediately become a permanent arrangement for all sections which are in any way capable of it.

3. The Executive shall promote the necessary fusion of all national sections into a unified international party of common proletarian propaganda and action by publishing a political correspondence in western Europe in all major languages, through which the application of the communist idea must be made steadily clearer and more uniform, and which, by providing reliable and steady information, will create the basis for active, simultaneous intervention by the various sections.

4. By sending fully empowered representatives of the Executive to the sections, the Executive can give effective organizational support to the effort to achieve a genuine International of the common daily struggle of the proletariat of all countries. The task of these representatives is to acquaint the Executive with the particular conditions under which the Communist Parties of the capitalist and colonial countries must struggle. They must also make sure that these parties maintain the most intimate ties both with the Executive and with one another, increasing the striking power of each. The Executive, along with the parties, shall ensure that communication between it and the individual member parties-both in person through trusted representatives and by means of written correspondence-shall take place more frequently and more quickly than it has to date, so that a common position on all major political questions will be arrived at.

5. To be able to take on this extraordinarily increased activity, the Executive must be considerably expanded. The sections which were granted 40 votes by the Congress shall each have two votes in the Executive, as shall the Executive of the Communist Youth International; the sections which had 30 and 20 votes at the Congress shall each have one vote. The Communist Party of Russia shall have five votes at its disposal, as in the past. The representatives of the remaining sections shall have consultative votes. The president of the Executive shall be elected by the Congress. The Executive is instructed to appoint three secretaries, to be drawn from different sections if possible. In addition to them, the members of the Executive sent by the sections are obligated to take part in carrying out the ongoing work through their particular national departments or by taking over the handling of entire specific fields as rapporteurs. The members of the administrative smaller bureau are elected specially by the Executive, as a rule from among the members of the Executive; exceptions are permissible in special cases.

6. The seat of the Executive is Russia, the first proletarian state. The Executive shall, however, attempt to expand its sphere of activity, including organizing conferences outside of Russia, in order to more firmly centralize the organizational and political leadership of the entire International.