First Published: Class Struggle, No. 12, Summer 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Today the struggle to unite the Marxist-Leninists of the U.S. into a single party has great importance for our movement. Several new developments have taken place in the trend toward regroupment both here and in other countries. These include the merger of existing parties and organizations, breakaways from opportunist groups and trends, and the continued growth of Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations through mass campaigns and internal struggle.
Such a regroupment trend is not unique in the history of the international communist movement. A similar struggle for communist unity was waged in the period following World War I. It was necessitated by the collapse of the Second International and the destruction of its parties by revisionism and social-chauvinism. The process surged forward with the October Revolution and was consolidated through the work of the Communist International.
The regroupment of Lenin’s time was a complex process. It involved an ideological struggle focused on the questions of war, revolution and defense of the new Soviet power. At times, more than one revolutionary party existed in a country, often with only minimal differences and similar strengths and weaknesses. Lenin himself spoke on the unity efforts in a number of countries and suggested basic principles and conditions for unification. Various types of unity congresses and mergers culminated these efforts.
Today the stand taken on questions of war and revolution are also playing an important role in the unity struggle. This includes one’s view toward the theory of three worlds formulated by Mao Zedong and toward the defense of the People’s Republic of China. Communists must unite, of course, mainly on a program for revolution in their own country and in accordance with the actual conditions today. While the history discussed in this article provides many valuable lessons, we should bear in mind that it should not be copied blindly or mechanically. Only by grasping our own conditions and tasks can we succeed in our own efforts to unite.
The Second International lasted from 1889 to 1914. It was made up of representatives from the various socialist or social-democratic parties throughout Europe and America. It contained within its ranks virtually all of those who called themselves socialists. Its history encompasses the period of capitalism’s growth into imperialism.[1]
From the time of its formation, there were contradictory tendencies in the Second International. While its orientation was a generally Marxist one, the parties of the International did not have a clear-cut program of proletarian revolution. For the most part, they were broad-based mass parties organized along electoral lines. An ideological struggle was waged from the outset between those who mainly upheld Marxism and those who betrayed it. This conflict sharpened initially in the struggle against the ideas of the German revisionist, Edouard Bernstein.
Bernstein put forward the theory that Marxism no longer applied under the “new conditions” of capitalism. He attacked the theory of surplus value, the necessity of class struggle, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. He hailed capitalism as progressive, as steadily improving the conditions of the people rather than leading to their greater and greater exploitation and impoverishment. He projected that this trend would gradually result in socialism. This was stated clearly in his book, Evolutionary Socialism, published in 1899. Here> Bernstein set forth his infamous view that the day-to-day movement is everything, the final aim of socialism, nothing.
These views were criticized and defeated within the International. But it was done so by a coalition of forces which was to emerge later, during World War I, as centrist and genuine revolutionary trends. For example, Karl Kautsky opposed Bernstein, but also revealed the seeds of his later centrism and class collaboration. He failed to resolutely uphold the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, projected a peaceful seizure of power by the proletariat, and opposed expelling the revisionists from the International. Only the Bolsheviks, under Lenin’s leadership, upheld the necessity of a disciplined party with a consistently revolutionary line and program. They waged a thorough-going struggle against revisionism, which in Russia took the form of economism and Menshevism. Thus, despite the struggle that was waged against Bernstein, the Second International remained an agglomeration of various shades of revisionists and revolutionaries coexisting side by side in the name of party unity.
By 1912 all of the basic contradictions of imperialism were rapidly sharpening and coming to a head in a clear danger of war. The International took a firm stand on the question in the Basle Manifesto of 1912, declaring that the “very thought of the monstrosity of a world war would inevitably call forth the indignation and the revolt of the working class.”[2] This Manifesto was enthusiastically supported by many workers of different countries, so much so that even the open rightists in the labor movement were forced to support it in words.
However the real test was soon to come. On July 28, 1914, war broke out. It was a war among the big imperialist powers for division and control of the world, the logical and inevitable outcome of capitalism’s growth into imperialism. In this cauldron of class struggle, the shadings and tendencies that had coexisted for so long in the International emerged as clear, definite and antagonistic trends.
One trend was characterized by open and enthusiastic support for the war policies of the respective bourgeoisies of its adherents. This naked social-chauvinism was represented by such well-known “socialists” as Scheidemann in Germany and Plekhanov in Russia. The second trend was centrism, represented best by Kautsky, who mouthed platitudes against the war while covering for social-chauvinism and opposing revolutionary struggle. The third trend was revolutionary internationalism, led by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
The German Social-Democratic Party, the largest and most influential in the Second International, took the lead in betraying the proletariat. The overwhelming majority of its representatives in the German parliament lined up solidly behind the war, declaring that “in the hour of danger, we shall not desert the fatherland.”[3] They voted in favor of war credits to finance the slaughter. The centrists called for abstention on the question of war credits, thereby collaborating in the war effort. Only a handful of the leadership, headed by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Leibknecht, opposed the war and the war credits. This situation was repeated in other belligerent countries, as the opportunist cry for “defense of the fatherland” echoed throughout the International.
Thus the death knell of the Second International was sounded. Only the Bolshevik Party, which had expelled the Mensheviks at the Prague Conference in 1912, was ready and able to carry out a revolutionary opposition to the war. In a series of brilliant articles and polemics written between 1914 and 1917, Lenin laid bare the nature of imperialism and the war, the fight for national self-determination and against annexations, and the revolutionary tasks of the proletariat in the imperialist war. In most of the other countries, the revolutionary forces were relatively small and divided.
As the war progressed, the trend toward opposition to it grew rapidly, both among the masses and among the socialist parties. International conferences of socialists from several countries were held at Zimmerwald in 1915 and Kienthal in 1916 (both in Switzerland). These gatherings took a mainly good stand against the war, but at the same time were dominated by centrists. Lenin organized the left wing of these conferences, known as the Zimmerwald Left. He fought for a consistently revolutionary line on the war–conversion of the imperialist war into a civil war, and defeat of one’s own imperialist government in the war, and the formation of the Third International. Although Lenin’s positions did not prevail, these conferences were important in crystallizing the internationalist elements of whom the Third International was subsequently formed.
How did Lenin sum up the conditions which had led to the domination of the Second International by opportunism and social-chauvinism? He put it this way:
The relatively “peaceful” character of the period between 1871 and 1914 served to foster opportunism first as a mood, then as a trend, until finally it formed a group or stratum among the labor bureaucracy and petty-bourgeois fellow-travellers.[4]
Opportunism, Lenin pointed out, had its economic basis in the bribery and corruption of the labor aristocracy, which allied itself with its own bourgeoisie against the working-class masses in exchange for a share of the superprofits of imperialism. Its political content was:
Class collaboration, repudiation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, repudiation of revolutionary action, unconditional acceptance of bourgeois legality, confidence in the bourgeoisie and lack of confidence in the proletariat.[5]
The conclusion was inescapable. The unity of the revolutionaries and of the working class could only be built on the basis of a complete and unequivocal break with opportunism:
The complete organizational severance of this element [opportunism and social-chauvinism–ed.] from the workers’ parties has become imperative. The epoch of imperialism cannot permit the existence, in a single party, of the revolutionary proletariat’s vanguard and the semi-petty-bourgeois aristocracy of the working class, who enjoy morsels of the privileges of their “own” nation’s “Great-Power” status. The old theory that opportunism is a “legitimate shade” in a single party that knows no “extremes” has now turned into a tremendous deception of the workers and a tremendous hindrance to the working-class movement. Undisguised opportunism, which immediately repels the working masses, is not so frightful and injurious as this theory of the golden mean [referring to centrism–ed.], which uses Marxist catchwords to justify opportunist practice...[6]
Thus the task of establishing revolutionary Marxist parties along new lines was clearly put forward by Lenin throughout the period of World War I. But it was not until the October Revolution ushered in a new period of sharp revolutionary struggle that the full unfolding of the two-line struggle in the international Marxist movement occurred.
As World War I dragged on, it left in its wake the death and ruination of millions of working people in Europe and Russia. Throughout the war, the Bolsheviks carried on systematic revolutionary work among the Russian masses. By 1917, some 14 million Russian men had been drafted into the war. The Czar had suffered a series of military defeats; corruption abounded; the Russian soldiers were left with barely any rifles to fight with; starvation spread throughout the country.
In February 1917 the Russian working class engaged in a series of strikes, which culminated in a general political strike. In a matter of days, the strike movement had been transformed into an armed uprising of the workers and soldiers. The struggle toppled the regime of the Czar.
At the time of the 1905 revolution, the Russian proletariat created workers’ councils or “soviets” as insurrectionary organs of mass political power. In 1917 these councils sprang once more into existence, this time as Soviets of workers and soldiers. Although the Bolsheviks were influential in the Soviets, the opportunists–the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries–initially held sway. It was only after several months of patient educational and practical work that the Bolsheviks were able to persuade the broad masses that these traitors were only a cover for the continuation of bourgeois rule and imperialist war. By October 1917, the Bolsheviks had gained a majority in the Soviets and led the armed uprising which seized political power in a matter of days.
Thus was born the first dictatorship of the proletariat since the short-lived but historic Paris Commune of 1871. The working class, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, rallied around itself the poor and working people of the whole country. The Soviets carried out the agrarian revolution and expropriated the bourgeoisie and the landlords.
This great victory had a tremendous effect on the workers in every country. While all the imperialist countries intervened in Russia– sending in troops, supplies, and other support for the counterrevolutionary White-guards–workers in the West came to the support of the revolution and opposed the intervention of the imperialists. From 1918 to 1920, a fierce civil war ensued, in which the Russian people drove out the foreign imperialists and defeated the domestic counter-revolutionaries.
Wielding the powerful instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the new Soviet power systematically suppressed the bourgeoisie, using revolutionary violence against the counterrevolutionary violence of the reactionaries. It smashed the old bourgeois state apparatus and replaced it with proletarian democracy, thus providing the masses with real democracy for the first time.
In the West the new communist wind was blowing among the masses of workers with ever greater vigor. The old-line Social-Democrats, however, including both the open rightists and the centrists, jumped to the defense of the bourgeoisie and condemned the young Soviet regime. Karl Kautsky took the “theoretical” lead and in 1918 published his book, The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, which was a thoroughly bourgeois attack on the October Revolution. Lenin replied to this attack in his book, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky. Lenin showed that Kautsky, instead of talking about democracy for what class and dictatorship over what class, put forward the bourgeois concept of “democracy in general.” Kautsky obscured the fact that state power of necessity means the dictatorship of one class over another, thus defending the bourgeoisie which had been suppressed by the Soviet state. He opposed the transition to the proletarian revolution, on the supposedly scientific grounds that the Russian Revolution was still in its bourgeois-democratic stage.
Kautsky had the reputation of the greatest Marxist theoretician of the Second International. But he showed himself to be a thorough traitor to the working class and to Marxism, snivelling before the bourgeoisie. He used a “Marxist” sleight of hand to justify the continuing rule of imperialism and to promote a cowardly reformism in opposition to revolution.
Thus history made clear what were the fundamental dividing lines between revolutionary Marxism and all the various shades of opportunism. In this period it was mainly whether or not one opposed the imperialist war on a revolutionary basis, and whether or not one stood for the proletarian revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat and Soviet power.
In March 1919 an important meeting took place in Moscow. It included representatives of communist and left socialist parties and groups from most of the European countries, as well as from the U.S.A., the Middle East and Asia. This conference declared the formation of the Third or Communist International (also called the Comintern). This was the re-constitution of the International on a new, revolutionary basis, which called for a complete break with the opportunism of the Second International. The conference*recognized that much struggle had to be waged to consolidate the gains that the communists had made in splitting the revolutionary-minded workers away from the influence of the opportunists.
Various communist groups or parties had been formed in most of the capitalist countries. The prestige of the Communist International grew rapidly and attracted ever larger numbers to its side. But precisely because of the swift growth of communist sentiment and influence, many unreliable or confused elements were trying to enter the ranks of the Comintern. Some opportunists of the Second International also tried to gain entry. In addition, the communists in most countries were not sufficiently organized, ideologically clear, steeled in struggles or tied to the broad masses to be able to immediately bring about the proletarian revolution in their respective countries. This was the case even where the objective conditions existed to do so.
From the beginning of the Comintern, Lenin recognized that uniting the revolutionaries who had broken away from the Second International was a protracted process. He spoke to the importance of unity and the inevitability of differences among the communists at the time in his 1919 letter, “Greetings to the Italian, French and German Communists”:
The savage persecution to which the German Communists have been subjected has strengthened them. If at the moment they are somewhat disunited, this testifies to the breadth and mass character of their movement, to the vigor with which communism is growing out of the very midst of the masses of workers. It is inevitable that a movement so ruthlessly persecuted by the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and their Scheidemann-Noske henchmen and forced to organize illegally should be disunited.
And it is natural, too, that a movement which is growing so rapidly and experiencing such desperate persecution should give rise to rather sharp differences. There is nothing terrible in that; it is a matter of growing pains....
The differences among the Communists are of another kind [than those between the reformists and centrists on the one hand and the communists on the other–ed.]. Only those who do not want to cannot see the fundamental distinction. The differences among the Communists are differences between representatives of a mass movement that has grown with incredible rapidity; and the Communists have a single, common, granite-like foundation–recognition of the proletarian revolution and of the struggle against bourgeois-democratic illusions and bourgeois-democratic parliamentarism, and recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat and Soviet power.
On such a basis differences are nothing to worry about, they represent growing pains, not senile decay. Bolshevism, too, has experienced differences of this kind more than once, as well as minor breakaways caused by such differences, but at the decisive moment, at the moment of taking power and establishing the Soviet Republic, Bolshevism was united; it drew to itself all that was best in the trends of socialist thought akin to it and rallies around itself the entire vanguard of the proletariat and the overwhelming majority of the working people.[7]
By the time of the Comintern’s Second Congress, held in the summer of 1920, the various trends had emerged more clearly. Speaking of the need to guard against alien ideological trends trying to merge into the Comintern, Lenin said:
Two errors, or failings, are to be observed in the very rapidly growing international communist movement. One, which is very grave and constitutes an immense and immediate danger to the success of the cause of proletarian emancipation, is that a section of the old leaders and of the old parties of the Second International–some yielding half-unconsciously to the wishes and pressure of the masses, and some deliberately deceiving the masses in order to retain their function of agents and assistants of the bourgeoisie within the working-class movement–declare their qualified or even unqualified adherence to the Third International, while actually remaining in all their practical party and political work, on the level of the Second International. Such a state of affairs is absolutely intolerable... .The other error, which is far less significant and is more in the nature of growing pains of the movement, consists in a tendency towards “Leftism” which results in a wrong appraisal of the role and the tasks of the party with regard to the class and the masses, and a wrong attitude towards the revolutionary Communists’ obligation to work in bourgeois parliaments and reactionary trade unions.[8]
Lenin went on to discuss the need for the communists to get organized and to engage in preparatory work which was necessary prior to a successful seizure of power:
It is the Communist parties’ principal task at the present moment to unite the scattered Communist forces, to form a single Communist Party in every country (or to reinforce, or renovate the already existing Party) in order to increase tenfold the work of preparing the proletariat for the conquest of political power–political power, moreover, in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The ordinary socialist work conducted by groups and parties which recognize the dictatorship of the proletariat has by no means undergone that fundamental reorganization, that fundamental renovation, which is essential before this work can be considered communist work and adequate to the tasks to be accomplished on the eve of proletarian dictatorship.[9]
At this same Congress, Lenin proposed that the fundamental points of unity of the international communist movement be expressed in a document entitled, “Conditions of Admission to the Communist International.” This document drew clear lines of demarcation between the communists and the social-democrats and centrists. It also set forth certain points which had been subjects of controversy with the ultra-“left” trend which had begun to develop.
These “21 Conditions” required: that all affiliated parties organize themselves along democratic-centralist lines and combine legal and illegal work; that all parties call themselves Communist Party of each country; that all parties recognize the dictatorship of the proletariat in word and deed; that all parties give unconditional support to the Soviet Republic; that reformists and centrists be removed from all positions of responsibility in the workers’ movement, and that systematic agitation and propaganda be carried out against them and in favor of revolution; that systematic work be carried out in the army, the countryside, and the trade unions; that each party exercise direct leadership over the activities of its representatives in bourgeois parliaments; that genuine support for the struggles of the colonies and the oppressed peoples, particularly against one’s “own” bourgeoisie, be given; and that the decisions of the Comintern be binding on each party (at the same time the Comintern was required to take into account the varying conditions of work of the individual parties, and to make decisions of general validity only when possible).[10]
Lenin personally utilized every opportunity he could to learn about the communist unity struggle in different countries and to encourage its development.
For example, he urged the British communists to unite on several occasions. The process of uniting the British communists was completed by the spring of 1921. In January of that year, a Unity Convention was held at which all the main groups united with the previously formed Communist Party of Great Britain, and shortly thereafter, the left wing of the Independent Labor Party went over to the recently united Communist Party.[11]
Germany provides another example. In Germany, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was formed in December 1918 and was composed of forces which had broken away from the United Socialist Party (USPD). However this breakaway group brought only a relatively small number of the several-hundred-thousand-member USPD with it. Then, in October 1919, there was a split in the KPD, and a minority left and formed the Communist Workers Party (KAPD). Finally, there was a large-scale split in the USPD, and its left wing went over to the KPD after the holding of a Unity Congress between the KPD and the USPD left wing. (Despite the urging of the Comintern, the KAPD refused to enter into these unity efforts, and eventually degenerated into a small sect.) The united KPD had a membership of approximately 350,000 members (of which 300,000 were from the USPD left wing and 50,000 were from the original KPD). This made the KPD a genuine mass party, the largest outside of the Soviet Union. It was capable of exercising great influence in the German working class movement.[12]
Similar processes of regroupment went on in country after country where previously there had been large socialist parties. In Italy, France, Spain, Yugoslavia, Poland, etc., new parties were formed from the revolutionary elements of the old socialist parties. And in countries where there had previously been no socialist parties (e.g., China), parties were also formed from among newly emerged revolutionary forces. Thus, by 1921-22, the communists succeeded in uniting into a single party in countries throughout the world.
This overview can tell only part of the story. In each country there were specific conditions and struggles which shaped the unity efforts and posed particular questions which had to be answered. In order to get a better picture of the struggle for unity, it will be helpful to go into the history of one of the newly formed parties in greater depth. Since it is of special relevance for us to understand the history of our own movement, the next section will discuss the struggle for unity among the American communists, which finally resulted in the formation of the Communist Party, U.S.A. (CPUSA).
The Marxist movement in the United States began in the period immediately following the German Revolution of 1848. Capable and dedicated Marxists like Joseph Wedemeyer and F.A. Sorge spread Marx’s ideas in America, especially among German immigrants, and participated in the main mass struggles of the emerging American working class. They organized the Proletarian League and later the Communist Club in the 1850s. They actively worked in the trade union, unemployed and anti-slavery movements. After the Civil War, they worked in the American section of the International Workingmen’s Association, which was founded in 1864 by Marx. Later, in 1876, the American Marxists helped to found the Socialist Labor Party (SLP). It, however, never succeeded, in establishing itself as a genuine Marxist party, wracked as it was by reformism on one side and by anarcho-syndicalism and sectarianism on the other.[13]
In 1901 the Socialist Party of America (SP) was founded. Its membership came from two main groupings–a large split-off from the Socialist Labor Party (led by Morris Hillquit) and the Social Democrat Party (led by Eugene V. Debs). This development represented the broadest unification of socialist forces in U.S. history. Until the time of the formation of the Communist Party, the SP was the main center of the revolutionary working-class movement.
Like the Social Democratic parties of the Second International, the SP was a diverse body, composed of genuine revolutionaries as well as opportunists of various stripes. Although it stood squarely for socialism, it never had a clear revolutionary analysis. The ideas of Bernstein’s revisionism were supported by such well known and influential leaders of the party as Victor Berger. Organized along very decentralized lines, the party put its main energy into local and national electoral activity and into the trade union movement. It never had a correct view of the national question and took up minimally at best the fight for Black liberation. Even among immigrants, who constituted a significant section of the membership, the party did very little to fight for their interests. This resulted in the formation of over a dozen nationality (also called language) federations within it, made up of different Central and Eastern European nationalities. Despite these severe limitations, the party did a great deal to propagate socialism among the masses. In 1912 it had 323 periodicals, including 13 daily newspapers (5 English and 8 non-English language), and polled just under 900,000 votes in the 1912 presidential election. The party had a large working-class membership, which was the base of its left wing and which fought against the increasingly petty-bourgeois character and outlook of much of the party leadership.
In addition to the SP, there were at least two other important revolutionary organizations which contributed to the eventual building of the Communist Party. One was the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which, although plagued by anarcho-syndicalism and dual unionism, was nonetheless based on a clear perspective of class struggle and revolution. Many SP militants were active in the I WW, and William (Big Bill) Haywood was the leader of this trend. The other was the Syndicalist League of North America, which was organized and led by William Z. Foster (who later became Chairman of the Communist Party). Although syndicalist, this group criticized dual unionism and advocated working within the established unions and revolutionizing them. (This was the forerunner to the Trade Union Educational League later founded by Foster.) While both of these groups made contributions to the eventual establishment of the Communist Party, the central struggle occurred in the SP.
On the eve of World War I, the SP found itself with an already developing schism between a left and right wing. Although theoretically unclear on many questions, the left had a militant and revolutionary orientation. The right wing had a reformist orientation similar to the European social-democrats. At the outbreak of the war, the party adopted a resolution denouncing it, largely from a pacifist perspective. The party leadership also exonerated the European parties of guilt for their role in the war, saying that it did “not presume to pass judgment upon the conduct of our brother parties.”[14]
The party’s left wing, however, actively took up antiwar agitation. By 1916, a left-wing group based in Boston, the Socialist Propaganda League, made a clear condemnation of the war and of the chauvinist European social-democrats.
When the United States entered the war in April 1917, the party sentiment against this was overwhelming. There was only a small right wing which openly supported the U.S. involvement. The main forces attending the SP Emergency Convention of April 1917 were the left, led by Charles Ruthenberg, and the centrists (with a line similar to Kautsky’s) led by Morris Hillquit. Under the influence of the left wing, the original Hillquit draft resolution, which was merely pacifist, was altered to contain some clauses which spoke of the legitimacy of the workers taking up arms for their own emancipation and called for active mass action against the war.
The years 1917 and 1918 saw the success of the October Revolution, the growth of the antiwar movement in the U.S. and Europe and the mounting of a systematic government attack aimed at the antiwar forces, especially the left. Within the Socialist Party, the right and centrist forces increasingly soft-pedaled their stand against the war. Meanwhile the left threw itself wholeheartedly into the antiwar fight and bore the brunt of the government’s repression. The SP welcomed the Russian Revolution. As with the war, however, two general trends could be determined–the right-center kept its distance while the left enthusiastically supported and tried to draw revolutionary lessons from the Bolshevik’s success.
Thus the stage was set for a split which had been brewing for many years. This came to a head in the fall of 1919. At this time, the dominant party leadership had crystallized into two opportunist groupings–the open rightists typified by Victor Berger and the centrists typified by Morris Hillquit. In the struggle against the left, these trends tended to merge. The left had few positions of organizational leadership. Still it was the clearly growing trend within the party and undoubtedly had a majority of the membership behind it. Its main strongholds were in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois, especially in the “language federations.”
In the spring of 1919, national elections were held in the party. The result was a left-wing sweep, with its forces winning 12 of the 15 seats in the National Executive Committee. Both Berger and Hillquit were defeated in their bids for top organizational positions. However Hillquit quickly organized a counter-attack. He refused to announce the results of the election and proceeded to expel left-wing centers from the party. Various state organizations, whole groups of locals and numerous language federations were all expelled in a period of a few weeks. Approximately 55,000 members were expelled, with the total membership dropping from some 110,000 in January to 40,000 in July.
The main issues that the split emerged over were: the war and how opposition to it was mobilized; support for the Russian Revolution; affiliation to the Third International; and the need to build a fighting program against capitalism, particularly against the current capitalist offensive. (The Seattle general strike, the Winnipeg general strike, and the great steel strike all occurred during 1919.) Because of the centrist cover of the dominant opportunist leadership led by Hillquit, these differences took time to come out clearly. For example, Hillquit and the Socialist Party voted to apply for membership in the Third International even after the split (and while simultaneously maintaining contact with the Second International).
The left wing was now faced with the clear task of building a genuine communist party and with resolving the questions of what program and tactics to adopt. The left wing called a national conference which was held in June. This met with a great deal of response from the party rank and file. Delegates representing the majority of the old party attended. While united on the main issues of building a genuine proletarian party, the delegates were divided over what tactics to use with regard to the SP. One group held the view that the left wing should be done with the Socialist Party and move directly to form a communist party. The other group argued that an effort should first be made to capture the SP itself. Although a majority of delegates favored an effort to seize the SP, the opposing view declared its intention to go ahead and form the new party. This then resulted in a split in the ranks of the majority, which had argued for trying to win the SP.
The result was that two separate communist parties were formed a day apart from each other. The group which favored trying to win the SP found itself unable to wrest control away from the opportunist leadership. It formed the Communist Labor Party (CLP) on August 31. The group which had argued in favor of immediate party formation organized the Communist Party of America (CP) on September 1. The CP, which contained the language federations, was much the larger of the two and claimed a membership of 58,000. The CLP never published membership figures, but the CP estimated its size at 10,000.
The two parties had almost identical views. They both took a good stand on the general questions of communist principle and upheld Lenin’s teachings. They condemned imperialism and the imperialist war, gave complete support to the Soviet Union and socialism, and unequivocally assailed the capitalist state and called for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Both declared affiliation with the Third International and upheld in principle the leading role of the party.
Both were also afflicted by similar weaknesses. Neither recognized the special character of the national question in the U.S. revolution.[15] Both parties reflected a “leftist” tendency which had a long history in the American left (later soundly criticized by Lenin in his famous Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder). This included the rejection of the struggle for partial demands and immediate reforms and support for the policy of dual unionism. Both fell into subjective and dogmatic errors by projecting an impending revolution in the U.S. in the near future. They based this analysis not on a concrete grasp of U.S. conditions, but on a mechanical transferral of the experiences of the Russian Revolution and of the revolutionary upsurges in many parts of Europe.
Sectarianism was also a serious problem in the two organizations. Although there were some forces that fought hard for unity, they were unable to prevail at that time. (One of these was Charles E. Ruthenberg, who was elected executive secretary of the CP, and also held that position after the eventual merger of the two parties.) The CLP rejected a motion to consider uniting with the other convention scheduled for the next day, although it did elect a committee to negotiate with the other convention.
The CP took an even more divisive stand. It rejected a proposal for the formation of a committee to negotiate with the CLP, offering instead to accept any CLP delegates found acceptable to the CP credentials committee. The CP generally tended to label the CLP as centrist and opportunist.
Nineteen-nineteen was a critical year for the U.S. working class. On the one hand, it was a time of broad mass upsurge, especially in the strike movement and the Afro-American struggle. Over four million workers (25% of the whole working class) went out on strike, including some of the most bitterly fought in U.S. history. On the other hand, it was the year of the notorious Palmer Raids, which were directed against the revolutionary sections of the labor movement. These attacks resulted in the deportation of several thousand radicals, and the arrest and conviction of the leading members of both parties, as well as countless other activists. It was also the year of the U.S. intervention into the Russian Revolution. The communists were driven into a situation of semi-legality, which they exaggerated into a full-blown “underground.” The result was large losses of membership in the wake of the repression against them.
These conditions obviously made the question of communist unity more urgent than ever. Both the CLP and the group led by Ruthenberg within the CP favored a renewed effort to unite the two parties immediately. This move was opposed by the majority section of the CP, resulting in a split within it led by Ruthenberg in April 1920.
The Ruthenberg group and the CLP then entered into unity negotiations which resulted in their uniting into the United Communist Party (UCP) a month later. The two groups which united into the UCP were roughly comparable in size, with the Ruthenberg group being slightly larger. A Central Executive Committee made up of five members from each group was elected.
The debate between Ruthenberg and the majority of the CP from which he split illuminates one of the main questions facing the whole movement at that time, i.e., how to view the task of integrating the party with the masses. Ruthenberg characterized the differences as follows:
Since the beginning of the party there have been two viewpoints represented in the Central Executive Committee. The majority members of the committee considered themselves “great theorists.” They constantly talked about the word “principle,” but never about how to relate Communist principles to the working class movement of this country and to make these principles a living reality in action. ...
The Executive Secretary [Ruthenberg–ed.] and the minority group, on the other hand, stood for a policy which would make the Communist Party in reality the “party of action” which its Manifesto so proudly proclaims it. They endeavored to relate the party to the life struggle of the workers. They sought to inject the party viewpoint in every struggle of the masses. They believed that a Communist Party should be, not a party of closet philosophers, but a party which participates in the every day struggles of the workers and by such participation injects its principlesinto these struggles and gives them a wider meaning, thus developing the Communist movement.
The CP answered:
This cry of “contact with the masses” holds in itself the seeds of future compromise, vacillation, and betrayal. It is the cry of confusionists and sentimentalists who seem to think that a Communist Party must have “contact with the masses” at all stages of its development. They do not see, that if they attempt to run after the masses, at a time when the masses are not ready for them, they will, in their zeal, reduce Communist to a theory and practice that will meet with the approval of the politically immature masses. They will compromise principles and tactics in order to get “contact with the masses.”[16]
This debate, in which Ruthenberg’s stand was clearly more correct, reflects the difficult process of mastering the body of Marxist-Leninist theory in a living way and applying it to the particular conditions of each country. To the extent that this was not grasped, it contributed strongly to an atmosphere of sectarianism.
Aside from this general question, the main issue dividing the UCP from the CP was the role of the language federations. The CP was made up overwhelmingly of immigrant workers who were members of various federations which had been carried over from the Socialist Party. These federations had a high degree of autonomy, elected their own officials and held their own conventions. This loose organizational structure was opposed by the UCP, which argued correctly that it undermined the functioning of the party on centralist lines. At the same time, it must be recognized that the federations arose in response to the legitimate need to organize large numbers ot immigrant workers, most of whom did not speak English, and lived and worked in tight-knit communities.
Around this time, the Comintern entered actively into the efforts to unite the American communists. As the previous section of this article discussed, Lenin and the Comintern placed great weight on the need for communist unity. The Comintern proposed a six-point plan for uniting the two American groups, but negotiations between the two were still not successful. The Comintern then proceeded to establish an American Agency whose task it was to break the deadlock in the unity efforts. The Comintern, which was organized in effect as an international party whose individual parties were considered sections subsidiary to the whole, stated that it would not accredit either party separately. In April 1921 it empowered its American Agency to forge unity between the two, or to proceed to establish a party “without regard to the existing parties.”[17]
Within both parties, the rank-and-file sentiment for unity was very strong. In early 1921 Alexander Bittelman, a leader of the CP, left it and formed a Communist Unity Committee. This grouping criticized both parties in certain respects and strongly urged unity. In May 1921 the combination of this rank-and-file pressure and pressure from the Comintern culminated in the holding of a unity convention in Woodstock, New York. The UCP reported a dues paying membership of some 5,700, and the CP one of some 6,300. This convention was very significant in that it not only united the two parties. It also represented a break from the sectarian policies of dual unionism and of rejecting the fight for partial demands. The issue of the role of the language federations was resolved by maintaining them and allowing them a certain amount of autonomy. Still they were put under clear party leadership and their previous dues-collecting function was eliminated. The fused organization was called the Communist Party of America,[18] and Charles Ruthenberg was elected its executive secretary. The Central Executive Committee was made up of five members from each group.
The official report carried in the party newspaper, The Communist (the paper’s name had previously been used by both parties), described the general enthusiasm when the final goal of unity was achieved:
Party lines melted away. Comrades, who had been separated for years, embraced each other; hands clasped hands; the delegates sang the International with as much energy as could be mustered after the trying 48-hour continuous session.[19]
In the next period of the party’s history, revolutionaries from other areas of the movement united with it. Many activists from the IWW came over to the party. In the summer of 1921 William Z. Foster and other militants from the Trade Union Education League joined the party. Those forces within the SP who had sincerely wanted affiliation with the Comintern eventually came over, as did a few people from the SLP.
The establishment of a united party was an absolutely critical step in the development of the American communist and workers movements. In this process, the Comintern played a positive role in stressing the importance of unity. At the same time, there were weaknesses in the role of the Comintern. The unity of the communists of any country can only come about on the basis of the internal struggle for unity within each movement. To the extent that the unity of the American communists was imposed from without, the soil remained fertile for continuing sectarianism and factionalism. In fact this remained a serious problem for the U.S. party throughout the whole period of the 1920s.[20] Of course sectarianism can never be completely eliminated. But a communist party must be built through a process of uniting on the basis of a political line and program which applies the principles of communism to the specific conditions of each country. The struggles in the CPUSA were struggles over exactly such questions: the character and position of U.S. imperialism, the analysis of the particularities of the U.S. working class and labor movement, the development of a revolutionary position on the national question in the U.S., etc. The debate in the initial period focused on re-establishing communist principles and fighting for a revolutionary stand on the overthrow of imperialism and the defense of socialism. Later, however, it shifted to grasping the specific tasks of the U.S. revolution. When the party had a good grasp of communist principles and of the overall international situation–and was able to apply this understanding to the concrete conditions here–it was successful in spreading its influence and building its ranks. When it did not, opportunism and sectarianism spread, and the party and mass movement suffered.
The CPUSA and the Comintern are a proud part of our revolutionary tradition. Whatever their deficiencies, they stand as an example to our generation of revolutionaries. By learning from their experience and summing it up in an all-sided way, we can greatly enhance the party-building process today.
The struggle for communist unity in the period following World War I contains some important lessons for the U.S. communist movement today.
As with drawing any historical lessons, of course, it would be wrong to try to make exact parallels. There are differences as well as similarities in the periods, and there are negative lessons as well as positive ones.
Still, the fundamental factor that gave rise to the need for the formation of new parties after the October Revolution is basically similar to the situation here and now–revisionism had seized control of the formerly Marxist parties, liquidated their revolutionary character, and turned them into a reactionary force.
But even this situation had its dissimilarities with today. None of the parties of the Second International held state power. Nor were any of them, except the Russian party, organized as a Leninist party, a disciplined proletarian vanguard. Prior to the split in the international movement in the 1950s, however, Marxist-Leninist parties had been organized in most countries of the world and several had held state power.
The Second International, moreover, collapsed with the outbreak of a world war. The split in the 1950s, however, came to a head in much different circumstances. The Khrushchev revisionists seized power in the Soviet Union and brought about a restoration of capitalism in the world’s first socialist country. A full exposure of this betrayal and its consequences is considerably more protracted and complicated than Lenin’s exposure of Kautsky.
There are also differences in the nature of the regroupment period. Many of the parties of the Comintern were formed or united at a time of revolutionary upsurge at the conclusion of a world war. Under the spur of the October Revolution and the devastation of the war and immediate post-war period, large breakaways occurred from all of the established parties. These forces then formed the core of the new parties.
The present regroupment period, however, is taking place at a time of relative ebb in the class struggle and at a time prior to the outbreak of a new world war. During the late 1950s in the U.S., a large portion of the CPUSA’s membership quit the organization, but most did so in a scattered and disorganized way. The anti-revisionists among them were not able to unite successfully at that time into a new revolutionary party, although some individuals have played an important role in building the movement today.
The 1960s, of course, was a period of mass upsurge, at least among some sections of the population. The main forces of our movement emerged from these struggles and others since then. The 1960s revolt revealed the bankruptcy of the CPUSA widely among the most active elements, who came to see the need to restore Marxism-Leninism to the American scene.
But since there was no mass revolutionary breakaway from the revisionist party, in the sense of an organized center with its leadership more or less intact and united around the elements of a revolutionary program, it was only natural that many different groupings, tendencies and trends developed in the 1970s. Our movement had to go through a relatively protracted and complex process of breaking with modern revisionism and learning to apply Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions of the U.S. revolution.
With all these qualifications in mind, the similarities between the two regroupment periods still contain important lessons. After World War I, for instance, there were two main questions which demarcated Marxism from opportunism on an international scale. First was the stand on the imperialist war and the revolutionary struggle against it. Second was the strategic aim of the dictatorship of the proletariat and proletarian revolution, including the concrete defense of the new Soviet power in Russia.
Similar lines of demarcation exist today. The initial break with modern revisionism was over the question of the nature of imperialism, of whether or not it had to be replaced by the dictatorship of the proletariat won through armed struggle, of whether or not to support people’s war in the third world against imperialist aggression.
In today’s conditions these lines of demarcation have become crystallized around two main points–support for Chairman Mao’s theory of three worlds and opposition to the superpower war drive, especially Soviet aggression; and support for socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, particularly in China. As was true in the post-WWI period, agreement on these fundamental points constitutes a solid foundation for propelling forward communist unity.
Lenin also pointed out the need to combat both right and “left” opportunism, and this has been similarly true for our movement. While the main question has been breaking with modern revisionism, the immature features of our movement provided fertile soil for “leftist” lines which held themselves out as the “most revolutionary” and “anti-revisionist.” Progressive Labor Party, the “Revolutionary Wing” and the Revolutionary Communist Party–to name a few–all showed the influence of this ultra-“leftism.” To develop the trend toward unity it has been and still is necessary to wage a consistent struggle on both fronts.
If one thing stands out from the history we have reviewed, it is the absolute necessity of building a united communist party. Lenin, in 1920, called the uniting of the scattered communist forces into a single party the principle task of the communists. In the initial period of communist activity in the U.S., communist unity was the central question. The reason for this emphasis is clear. The task of preparing for or carrying through the proletarian revolution cannot be accomplished in a scattered condition of disorganization or disunity. Today this task of uniting the communists has emerged concretely as the central one facing us in the U.S.
We can learn from history not only the need for unity, but also some points about how to build it. In this regard one important lesson, especially from the formative years of the CPUSA, is the need to combat subjectivism and sectarianism.
Much of the struggle in the early CPUSA focused on understanding the actual conditions in the U.S. and their relationship to the overall international struggle. A failure to understand the concrete conditions under which we are working, or to see only one side of them, invariably leads to mistakes. This in turn gives rise to differences and confusion over strategy and tactics.
This was true in the CPUSA when there were differences over how close to revolution the country was and consequently over what approach to take to :he non-revolutionary masses or mass movements. The theories of “American Exceptionalism”–the view that the U.S. was immune from the general laws of imperialism promoted by Lovestone in the 1920s and Browder in the 1940s–proceeded from a superficial and one-sided view of the particularities of U.S. imperialism.
Subjectivism, or one-sidedness, is the opposite of dialectics. It distorts a materialist view of concrete conditions and thus serves as the philosophical basis of revisionism. Thus all communists, to assist the struggle for unity, must pay special attention to understanding our own conditions and to using Marxism-Leninism to master the laws of the U.S. revolution. It is not adequate to re-state the general principles of communism.
Sectarianism is rooted in subjectivism. Put simply, it takes the form of one-sidedly evaluating others’ weak points and one’s own strong points. It results in an inability to unite with those who have differences with you. Where it holds sway, it keeps the communist forces small, divided among themselves and isolated from the masses. In the CPUSA’s history, sectarianism was a serious problem, and was closely related to the fight against revisionism. Those who adhered to sectarianism also tended to promote and consolidate around an opportunist political line. In general, those forces within the CP which worked hard to overcome sectarianism always won the respect of the party rank and file and the masses. Those who pushed sectarianism persistently were eventually isolated.
In our movement sectarianism is also an important problem and creates unnecessary barriers to unity. Groups like the RCP have consolidated around a sectarian and Trotskyite political line, but we also must wage struggle against sectarianism within our own ranks. In the early history of the CP, moreover, the internal struggle for unity was not fully waged and consolidated. To some extent unity was imposed from without through the Comintern. But this was not able to solve decisively the actual problems of sectarianism and factionalism and the party’s work remained hampered. We should learn from this. No one but ourselves can decisively overcome the obstacles to unity. It is the responsibility of every comrade to treasure the party spirit and criticize the circle spirit, and to view themselves, other comrades and other organizations in an objective and two-sided way.
Differences among the communists are perfectly natural, especially when breaking with the old to create the new. It is a law of development that there are both unity and struggle in all things. To bring all the Marxist-Leninists to a single party, the communist policy is to emphasize unity. We must seek common ground and utilize the points of unity to overcome differences step by step, always working in the interests of the vast majority. We must set aside minor differences. Unity on everything is neither possible nor necessary, so in striving for unity, we should stress the main questions and allow secondary ones to be reserved or resolved at a later time.
A further lesson from the past is that there is no single procedure for building a united party. In some countries all the communists united into a pre-existing party (e.g., the KPD in Germany and the CPGB in Great Britain); in others a new party was formed when two or more parties or groups united (e.g., the CPUSA in the U.S.). The path to communist unity can only be determined by carefully analyzing the specific conditions, and through promoting the trend toward unity within each movement.
Today there are several Marxist-Leninist organizations in the U.S. communist movement. Some are nationwide and are based in factories in many different cities. They have their own press and several years of experience in the class struggle. Others are still organized as local collectives in one or two cities.
The process of forging a single party must take into account the strong points and contributions of all the different communist forces. Such an effort should proceed from reality and recognize that several important advances have been made in recent years in the task of party building.
Obviously the step of uniting all the main communist forces into a single party will represent a new qualitative advance for our movement. And in reaching this stage, naturally, we should keep what is best from each organization.
The post-WWI parties all placed such weight on the achievement of unity. When the main communist groups united, unity congresses were held. These congresses were of special significance precisely because they represented the forging of a new level of communist unity. At these congresses new leading bodies were elected which ensured substantial leadership participation from the previously separate forces. The most viable mass organizations and newspapers associated with the different groups continued, or merged with others, in accord with the conditions. These congresses focused on the questions that needed to be resolved with respect to the line and work of the party. They did not try to resolve the right and wrong of all the past differences so long as unity on questions of basic principle could be achieved.
The further development of the trend towards communist unity is inevitable. Two or three years ago some people did not understand or clearly grasp the viewpoint that unity was the main trend. Today this trend of regroupment is clearer and easier to recognize. Now the conditions exist to resolve the remaining differences relatively quickly, and to translate the heightened level of communist unity into the concrete reality of party unity.
This unity is a most urgent task, especially given the growing war danger and the sharpening attacks on the people. It is realizable in the near future. Mao Zedong brilliantly summed up the path to unity in his famous phrase: “Practice Marxism, not revisionism; unite, and don’t split; be open and above board, and don’t intrigue and conspire.” So long as we all practice these teachings, we will surely unite for greater struggles and greater victories in the future.
[1] The historical material in the first two sections of this article is taken primarily from the following sources: William Z. Foster, History of the Three Internationals (New York: International Publishers, 1955); History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Short Course), (New York: International Publishers, 1939); Laidler, History of Socialism (Apollo edition, 1968). Individual footnotes will only be used if direct quotes are used, or information comes from source material other than the above.
[2] Quoted in William Z. Foster, History of the Three Internationals, p. 218.
[3] Ibid., p. 229.
[4] V.I. Lenin, “Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International,” Collected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964), vol. 22, p. 111.
[5] Ibid., p. 112.
[6] V.I. Lenin, “The Collapse of the Second International,” Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 257.
[7] V.I. Lenin, “Greetings to Italian, French and German Communists,” Collected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), vol. 30, pp. 53-56.
[8] V.I. Lenin, “Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Second Congress of the Communist International,” Collected Works, vol. 31, pp. 184-185.
[9] Ibid., p. 189.
[10] See Communism in Action, a Documentary History, p. 62, for the complete text of the “21 Conditions.” See Lenin’s Collected Works, vol. 31, pp. 206-212, for Lenin’s drafts.
[11] See L.J. MacFarlane, The British Communist Party; E.H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol. 3. For Lenin’s discussion of the British communists, see Collected Works, vol. 29, p. 561; vol. 31, pp. 202, 235, 257.
[12] See G.D.H. Cole, History of Socialist Thought, vol. 4: Communism and Social-Democracy, 1914-1931, Part 1; E.H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol. 3. For Lenin’s discussion of the German communists, see Collected Works, vol. 30, pp. 79, 87, 337.
[13] The information in the third section of this article is taken mainly from the following books: William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States (New York: International Publishers, 1952); Draper, The Roots of American Communism (Viking Press, 1957); and Howe and Coser, The American Communist Party. The last two are written by well-known anti-communists, but nonetheless contain certain well-documented information. Individual footnotes will only be used for direct quotations, or if source material other than these is used.
[14] Foster, History of the CPUSA, p. 131.
[15] Although there were large numbers of immigrant European workers in the communist movement, the issue of the oppression of the Afro-American and other non-white minorities was virtually ignored in this period. This changed decisively only in the late 1920s.
[16] Draper, Roots of American Communism, pp. 215-216, quoting from original sources.
[17] Ibid., p. 270, quoting from original sources.
[18] The Communist Party of America went through several name changes. In 1923 it was changed to the Workers Party; in 1925 to the Workers (Communist) Party; and finally in 1930 to the Communist Party of the United States.
[19] Quoted in Foster, History of the CPUSA, p. 182.
[20] For an extensive discussion of factionalism and sectarianism within the CPUSA in the late 1920s, see Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik (Chicago: Liberator Press, 1978), chapters 9-10.