Vol. 76/No. 6      February 13, 2012

Below is an excerpt from Revolutionary Continuity: Birth of the Communist Movement, 1918-1922 by Farrell Dobbs. Dobbs was a leader of the 1934 Minneapolis Teamster strikes, central organizer of the campaign to organize over-the-road truck drivers, and national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party from 1953 to 1972. The excerpt describes the 1921 debate in the Communist International—the organization of proletarian parties that rallied around the Russian Revolution and organized to extend that historic victory—over how to organize work in the trade unions and other mass struggles. Copyright © 1983 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

The reports and resolutions at the third Comintern congress analyzed the current stage of the class struggle in Europe along the following broad lines. When capitalism entered its imperialist phase during the last years of the nineteenth century, a deepgoing social crisis had been precipitated that could not be resolved under the existing system. Therefore, new revolutionary explosions could be expected to occur. It would be wrong to base day-to-day communist tactics solely on this correct general perspective, however, just as it was wrong to think that the need for anticapitalist propaganda had now been bypassed by revolutionary mass action.

“The world revolution does not develop along a straight line,” the third congress theses on tactics stressed.

As matters stood in the first half of 1921, communist tactics had to focus on a steady and systematic effort to win the majority of the working class to a revolutionary perspective. As a means to that end, communists had to be part and parcel of the workers’ resistance to the employers’ offensive, pointing to the working-class road out of the worldwide capitalist economic crisis that had begun toward the end of 1920.

Throughout Europe the bosses were attempting to force workers to produce more for less pay and to give up social gains won in the past. Workers were not willing to make those sacrifices without a struggle, however. In fact, they wanted to improve their living standards, an aspiration that stood in direct contradiction to measures being taken by the employers to restore capitalist economic profitability and impose a new class equilibrium. Proletarian struggles would continue to erupt.

Not all layers of the working class would move into action at the same time and in the same ways, however. There would be ebbs and flows, advances and retreats. Whenever struggles did break out, communists should fight shoulder to shoulder with rebellious workers, shaping tactics to fit these defensive battles. In this way, communist workers would best be able to influence militants deceived by class-collaborationist misleaders and win recognition in the labor movement as leaders who knew how to take on the capitalists and who had an alternative program to that of the sell-out officials.

Only along this line of march could the workers be led to advance, step by step, toward revolutionary objectives. As defensive struggles extended in scope and were coordinated in action, the new experience gained by the masses would shatter old illusions that held sway among them. Such changes in political consciousness, together with the insecurity of their livelihood under capitalism, would push workers toward becoming a powerful combat force. As that was accomplished, the working class could shift from the defensive onto the offensive and take the leadership of other exploited toilers in a struggle that would eventuate in a bid for political power.

If these aims were to be realized, the Russian leaders emphasized, the shortcomings shown in practice by the European Communist parties had to be corrected. These parties didn’t yet fully understand the kind of program and strategy needed by the working class, and flowing from that the kind of vanguard party the workers had to construct. Nor did most European communists comprehend how such a party must be tested and tempered in the fires of the class struggle.

Some in the young Communist parties sought to bypass the task of preparing the majority of the proletariat and its allies for united action against the propertied classes. Revolutionary impatience often predominated at the expense of tactical flexibility. Many communists had yet to learn how to maneuver according to a given class-struggle situation, and how to take into account different levels of political consciousness among various layers of the working class. Lacking in class-struggle experience, they had yet to grasp how to conduct an offensive at an opportune time, and how to organize a temporary retreat when the odds turned against the workers.

These misconceptions were most pronounced in the political line of various “leftist” tendencies in the European Communist parties. They contended that militant action by a minority of workers could galvanize the masses into a revolutionary fighting force. They put forward the concept of an uninterrupted proletarian offensive as the only correct communist strategy. Actually, this rigid, adventurist course would alienate rather than mobilize the masses, who would suffer its consequences.

The Bolshevik leaders believed that this ultraleft political line had to be repudiated by the Comintern in order to prevent communists from being sidelined into sectarian isolation. As a signal that they intended to lead a fight against “leftism,” Russian CP leaders such as Lenin and Trotsky proclaimed themselves to be on the “right wing” of the world movement.

A political confrontation with the ultralefts occurred at the third Comintern congress, where many delegates took issue with the Russian Communists on the questions of revolutionary strategy and tactics and party organization. Following a sharp debate, the majority of delegates adopted the reports and resolutions advocated by the leaders of the world’s first workers’ state.

These documents set forth the measures needed by communists to guide the working class and its allies to a revolutionary victory. The overriding immediate task was captured in what became the central slogan of the congress—“To the masses!”  
 
 
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