HOW THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL FORMULATES AT PRESENT THE
PROBLEM OF ORGANIZATION
(By B. Vassiliev)
The Enlarged Presidium of the E. C. C. I. (February 1930), summing
up the international situation, called upon all Communist Parties
to fundamentally change the methods and pace of their work by
concentrating their chief attention on the problems of the
preparation and the carrying out of mass REVOLUTIONARY ACTIONS OF
THE PROLETARIAT--strikes, demonstrations, etc., while at the same
time continuing as far as possible to promote their agitational
and propaganda work. Consequently, in the present conditions, the
Party apparatus, in response to the demands which the direction of
the Comintern puts forward, should in the first place be fitted
for the organization of demonstrations, strikes and other mass
actions of the proletariat. Party leaders who are not capable of
organizing demonstrations and strikes do not answer to the demands
which the circumstances of the class struggle are now placing
before the Communist Parties, and therefore should be replaced by
others who have shown these qualities in the course of the class
battles of the most recent period.
Why did the Enlarged Presidium put the question in this way? The
political resolution of the Enlarged Presidium states that the
growing new economic crisis is hastening the process of upsetting
capitalist stabilization (it has already led to the beginning of
the collapse of capitalist stabilization) and the growth of class
contradictions, thus accelerating the rise of a new revolutionary
wave. The resolution further states that the working class
movement in the period since the 10th Plenum of the E. C. C. I.
had been raised to a higher stage. The revolutionary activity
of the proletarian masses has grown stronger, the fighting
capabilities of the Communist Parties have been heightened.
The whole position of the class struggle has placed before the
Communist Parties and the Communist International as a whole, a
number of new fighting tasks. In the process of the growth of a
new revolutionary upsurge there are present already in certain
capitalist countries elements of a gathering political crisis
and of a revolutionary situation, as for example, in Poland,
Italy, Spain, partly in Rumania, in Yugoslavia, and in Greece.
A deep political crisis is present in China and India, being
the starting point of a revolutionary situation. In Germany the
process of the radicalization of the masses of the working class
is proceeding at a swift pace. In France, another country of
powerful capitalism, the number of strikers grew from 222,000 in
1928 to 431,000 in 1929, whilst these strikes assumed a more and
more clearly expressed political character and were characterized
by the growing tenacity of the workers. In England, in spite
of extraordinary difficult conditions for the growth of a
revolutionary movement, in spite of the extraordinary weakness of
the Communist Party (on the 1st January 1930, 2,800 Party members
and 120 members in the Y. C. L.), the number of strikers in 1929
compared with 1928 grew from 124,000 to 534,000 comprising the
most important sections of industry, such as mining and textiles.
At the same time, the gigantic successes of socialist construction
in the U. S. S. R. are sharpening in the most extreme way the
contradictions between U. S. S. R. and the entire capitalist world
and are forcing the leaders of the capitalist world to strengthen
and hasten to the highest degree their military preparations of
a new armed attack on the U. S. S. R. The 10th Plenum of the E.
C. C. I. showed that the danger of new Imperialist wars and of
new attacks of the imperialists on the U. S. S. R. never was so
imminent from the time of the imperialist war of 1914-18 as it was
at the moment of the 10th Plenum. By March 1930 that danger had
increased still more.
In these conditions of growing economic crisis and heightened
threat of war against the U. S. S. R. all measures will be taken
by the ruling classes of the capitalist countries to guarantee
their rear before declaring war, that is, everything will be done
by them to weaken, disorganize and, as far as possible, liquidate
completely all revolutionary proletarian organizations, and in the
first place the Communist Parties.
Moreover, the elections themselves in illegal Parties must, as
a rule, take place in such a way that even the members of the
conference do not know who is elected on to the Party Committee.
At the present time two methods of electing leading organs in
illegal Parties are practised. The first method. The Party
Conference elects a special commission for counting the votes
cast for candidates for members of the Party Committee. Then the
candidates are named and the election of the Party Committee
proceeds by secret vote. The commission checks the results of the
voting, whilst it does not report to the conference as to the
personnel elected. Another method of election. The conference
elects a narrow commission in which a representative of the higher
Party Committee takes part and this narrow committee elects the
new Party Committee. In strictly illegal Parties, as for example,
the Italiana Communist Party, the latter method of election is
the only one which more or less guarantees strict conspirative
conditions.
Self-criticism of the mistakes of the Party direction in illegal
Parties must also be organized through narrow conferences and
must take place in such a way that the names of the Party leaders
and the functioning of the Party apparatus, do not lose their
conspirative character.