In the year of the Centennial of its foundation, it is worth remembering that during its existence between 1919 and 1943 the Communist International played an inspiring and leading role in the international communist movement and that, despite the difficulties of relationships that arose, contributed positively to the ideological and political maturity of the PCP and to its affirmation as the vanguard of the working class and the leading force of the anti-fascist struggle.
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Proletarian internationalism is a basic principle inherent to the very nature of the working class and the Marxist-Leninist conception of its historical mission as the «gravedigger of capitalism». The working class, unlike the bourgeoisie, has the same interests and aims in the different countries, is by nature internationalist, a fact that the Manifesto of the Communist Party stresses with great force in the inspired slogan «Proletarians of all countries, Unite!» which continues to appear in the header of Avante!
Of course, the forms of articulation and the organic expressions which the international solidarity of the communists assumed changed over the times, in accordance with the growth of the working class and the strengthening of the communist parties, the development of the capitalist system, worldwide evolution, the lessons of experience (1).
The foundation of the Communist International, in March 1919, culminated a long process begun in 1848 with the creation of the Communist League, the first independent revolutionary party of the working class (2). A process marked by the development of capitalism and the growth of the working class as a powerful social force, by the exacerbation of the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, by periods of great progress and revolutionary afflux and of dramatic regression and counter-revolution, by permanent ideological struggle both in confrontation with capital as within the worker and communist movement itself.
The Communist International was the Third International. Before, there existed the International Workingmen’s Association, founded in 1864 by Marx and Engels, which went down in history as the First International (3). The IWA fulfilled an irreplaceable role in spreading scientific socialism, in the fusion of Marxism with the labour movement, in combating idealist and petty-bourgeois currents within the working-class movement - namely Proudhon's reformism and Bakunin's anarchist theses - which enabled the creation of strong Marxist parties. The terrible repression following the defeat of the Paris Commune forced the transfer of the General Council of the CI to the United States and its activity ceased a few years later in 1876 when its fundamental objectives had already been achieved.
The creation of the Second International in 1889 by Engels (Marx had passed away in 1883) is already an expression of the growing rooting of Marxism at the national level, particularly in Germany where the Social Democratic Labour Party, founded by William Liebknecht and Bebel (4), became a great mass party. However, a long period of peaceful evolution of capitalism led to the development of reformist illusions and the revision of fundamental theses of Marxism, headed by Bernstein («the movement is everything, the ultimate goal is nothing») and subsequently by Kautsky. The collaboration of the main leaders of the Second International with their national bourgeoisies in the war of 1914-18 is a particularly serious expression of their opportunist degeneracy persistently opposed by Lenin and by the Bolshevik Party (5).
To synthesize this evolution in the organic expression of internationalism and historically situate the Third International, there is nothing better than to quote Lenin himself: «The First International laid the foundations of the international proletarian struggle for socialism. The Second International marks the time of preparation of the ground for a broad extension of the movement among the masses in a number of countries. The Third International welcomed the fruits of the work of the Second International, amputated the corrupt, opportunist, social-chauvinist, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois part and began to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat». (6)
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The Communist International arises from the demand for a rupture with the opportunist and revisionist orientation of the Second International and the need to create true vanguard forces of the working class in a situation of the exacerbating crisis of capitalism due to the war and the rise of the revolutionary activity of the popular masses stimulated by the triumph of the October Revolution.
Having exhausted the attempts by the Bolshevik Party and the Marxist movement of other parties for the unity of the workers' movement around class positions, and in view of the hostile position of the leaders of the Second International regarding the Russian revolution, there was no other way but to cut at its root any organic link with the dominant opportunism and to organise on a new basis the already existing cooperation among communist parties and groups.
After months of contacts and preparatory meetings promoted by Lenin, an international communist conference was convened on 2 March 1919, in the Kremlin, gathering 35 left-wing communist and socialist parties and groups from 21 countries from Europe, America and Asia which decided to create a new international, constituting itself, as of March 4, as the First (Founding) Congress of the Communist International. The theses on bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat presented by Lenin (7), as well as the draft resolution on the tasks of the Communist parties, were adopted unanimously. The central objective was to stimulate and unify the action of the proletariat at the international level, linking the tasks of class struggle at the national level with the tasks of the world revolution, a revolution which was then considered to be the order of the day. It was decided to create the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) as the governing body.
In the closing speech of the Congress, Lenin said: «If we have been able to meet despite all the difficulties and persecutions of the police, if we have been able, without substantial differences, to make important decisions in a short time about all the pressing issues of the current revolutionary era, this was thanks to the fact that the proletarian masses of the world put practically all these issues on the agenda for their actions and began to solve them practically». (8)
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There were then real possibilities for revolutionary transformation in several European countries, and it was a matter of endowing the working masses with the vanguard political force capable of guiding their discontent and their struggle for the achievement of power. The creation of «parties of a new type», Leninists, was the immediate task in which the Communist International became engaged. In a short period of time new communist parties were founded, either as a result of the split of the old socialist and social-democratic parties or of other currents of the labour movement (as was the case with the PCP stemming from the revolutionary syndicalism of the anarchist model), or by the transition to Leninist positions of already existing parties (as in the case of the French Communist Party, which at the historic Congress of Tours in 1920 voted to join the CI).
The widespread expectation that the Russian Revolution would be followed by other victorious socialist revolutions was then justified (9). In March, Hungarian communists and socialists also created the Republic of Councils, a workers’ and peasants’ government that lasted almost six months before being defeated by the forces of internal and external counter-revolution. In several countries and regions of Europe, like Bavaria and Slovakia, there emerged Soviets, albeit very short lived. Great mass actions took place in Britain (like the powerful «hands off Russia campaign»), in Italy (with the movement of insurrectional occupation of factories) and in other countries. This gigantic wave of struggles was essential to prevent the imperialist powers from furthering their aggression against Soviet Russia.
But, as so often happens in relation to the most well-founded outlooks, history followed a different path. The defeat of the German revolution at the hands of the right-wing government of the Social Democratic Party (10), the counter-offensive of the European reaction to crush the revolutionary upsurge, the still embryonic state of the communist movement, all this left isolated the first victorious socialist revolution. What followed is well-known. The forces of capital regrouped. The terrorist dictatorship of financial capital, fascism, was implanted in Italy, Germany and other countries, like Portugal. The Spanish Revolutionary Republic was drowned in blood. World War II was unleashed.
During this period of extraordinary exacerbation of the class struggle, in the context of a deep crisis of capitalism, which had its most spectacular expression in the October 1929 Wall Street crash, on the one hand, and the extraordinary successes achieved by Soviet power in the construction of a new society, on the other, the Communist International witnessed important changes in its policies and even methods of organisation and functioning, always with the aim of strengthening the different components of the communist movement, strengthening its ties with the working masses, defending the first victorious socialist revolution.
The ideological and political struggle against right-wing opportunism continued in the forefront. At the same time it was necessary to struggle against dogmatic, sectarian and leftist tendencies that at certain moments constituted the main deterrent to the strengthening of the communist movement. In this aspect, Lenin’s work, Left-wing communism, an infantile disease, presented as a report to the Second Congress (July / August 1920), had (and still has) particular importance.
The Communist International began as an international party, with a centralised leadership and guideline. The different national parties constituted themselves as «sections» of the CI and their governing programs and bodies were decided in articulation with the ECCI, which had the power to intervene in the internal life of the parties, be it in matters of political line, or to settle any divergences and conflicts. The participation in the CI implied adherence to the «21 conditions» adopted in the Second Congress, conditions which, having initially been justified, were subsequently relaxed and several progressively abandoned, either because they were too rigid or because of the very growth of the communist movement and by the requirement to encourage the initiative and make the different parties responsible for defining their own guideline and activity according to the concrete conditions of the respective country. In this sense, the VII Congress of the CI, in 1935, marks a turning point that favoured the rooting of the communists in the working class and the popular masses and the extension of their political and organisational influence. The very dissolution of the CI in 1943, beyond the circumstances of the war that made international contacts unfeasible, and the controversial considerations on relations between states in the fight against Nazi-fascism, is fundamentally due to the expansion of the communist movement, the need to adapt the forms of international cooperation of the communist parties to the new realities (11).
From the outset, the Communist International paid close attention to the colonial question and to internationalist aid for the struggle of colonised or semi-colonised peoples, as in the case of India, China and Indonesia. The 1st. Congress of the Peoples of the East, attended by some 2,000 delegates from the Soviet Republics of Central Asia, India, China, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran and other countries, was attended by Lenin. It had great importance in consolidating the great impetus given by the October Revolution to the national liberation struggle.
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The VII Congress of the Communist International (12) holds a prominent place in the history of the international communist movement. This, which was the last Congress of the CI, held in the context of the rise of fascism to power in various countries and the climate of preparation for war, was very important to provide the communist parties with an in-depth analysis of the international framework, outlining the corresponding political guideline. George Dimitrov's report, «The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle for Unity of the Working Class against Fascism», is a document of great value.
The struggle against fascism, defined as a terrorist instrument of the monopolies, was placed as the main task and defined the policy of the united front of the working class and broad popular unity. Criticizing sectarian tendencies that led to the communist back down and isolation, the Congress deepened the line of the masses, laid out guidelines for action everywhere where workers are, including within organisations promoted by fascism, stressed the need to emphasise autonomous initiative of each party. All of this proved to be of the utmost importance for the struggle. Contrary to what certain analyses (of Maoist and Trotskyite roots) claim, internationalism was not weakened. It is worth remembering the International Brigades in the Spanish War and solidarity with the USSR invaded by Nazism.
The PCP owes much to the VII Congress (13), since the practical application of its main guidelines contributed greatly to its transformation into a great national party, closely linked with the masses, the real vanguard force of the working class and the leading force of the anti-fascist opposition. They helped the Party to overcome entrenched sectarian tendencies, to turn resolutely to work among the masses, to intervene within the fascist trade unions and other organisations, to promote the united front of the working class through the struggle over concrete and immediate objectives, to develop unity with all democratic and anti-fascist forces - of which the Portuguese Popular Front was an embryonic expression, later followed by MUNAF, MUD and others - to combine the struggle in the legal, semi- legal and illegal fronts.
It is true that the guidelines of the VII Congress could not be immediately implemented. Bento Gonçalves, together with two other members of the Secretariat, José de Sousa and Júlio Fogaça, was arrested a few days after his return from Moscow and sent to the fortress of Angra and to the concentration camp of Tarrafal, where he died in 1942. And two years later the CI's relations with the Party were broken (14). It was only with the1941-42 reorganisation, with the decisive contribution of Álvaro Cunhal, that it was possible to carry out the new guidelines in a consistent way. The III and IV Congresses of the PCP, in 1943 and 1946 respectively, translate this reality.
The VII Congress is undoubtedly the highpoint of the PCP's relations with the Communist International.
Not everything was positive in this relationship. There were even serious errors committed by the CI in relation to our Party, notably in the 1920s, through its representative for Portugal, Humberto Droz, and in 1938 with unjustified suspicions that led to a breakdown in relations with the international communist movement, relations that were only re-established in 1947. But, as Alvaro Cunhal put it, «without the support and help of the Communist International, it would have been extraordinarily more difficult and certainly more time-consuming, in the existing situation, for the ideological and political formation and maturing of the PCP." (15)
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The Communist International was succeeded, already in the midst of the "cold war", by the Information Bureau (16), a shorter form of cooperation with more limited objectives, which was short-lived. The rise of the labour movement that accompanied the victory over Nazi-fascism, the creation of the socialist camp, and the expansion of the national liberation movement resulted in an extraordinary diversification of the paths of the revolutionary process. Against the materialisation of centralizing tendencies and an artificial generalisation of experiences, imposed the reality of a great diversity of national situations and phases and stages of the revolution, demanding forms of cooperation and solidarity that could safeguard the autonomy of the communist parties, based on the principles of equality, independence, mutual respect, non-interference, mutual solidarity.
The path followed since then, based on a multifaceted network of contacts and bilateral and multilateral initiatives, including the World Conferences of 1957, 1960 and 1969, is neither linear nor free of difficulties in the construction of the unity. Just think of the serious damage that Maoism, «Eurocommunism», or the liquidationist tendencies that followed the defeats of socialism, caused to the international communist movement. Experience has shown that in the revolutionary struggle nothing can replace the rooting in national reality and that the best contribution that each party can make to strengthen the international communist and revolutionary movement is to strengthen its influence in its own country. But it also showed the dangers of isolation and overstatement of national particularities, the need to value what unites and not what divides and permanently nurture the bonds of internationalist solidarity. The times of the existence of a ruling «centre» have finally passed and attempts to restore it can only complicate and delay the recovery of the communist movement. Also the tendencies towards the export or mechanical copy of experiences, against which Lenin had continuously warned, have already shown the damage and deadlocks to which they can lead. Faced with the process of globalisation of capital and the violent onslaught of imperialism against the workers and against the peoples, it becomes more necessary to articulate the communists and other revolutionary forces and even to move towards stable forms of exchange of experiences, cooperation and common action.
Global developments with the enlargement of the anti-imperialist camp and the diversification of the processes of social and national emancipation have broadened the concept of internationalist solidarity. However, this reality does not mean that the ties of cooperation between communists are diluted within the framework of broader convergences and alliances. Proletarian internationalism, class solidarity, the identity of workers' interests throughout the world, remain the core of the internationalist solidarity of the communists. It is in this spirit that the PCP intervenes for the unity of the international communist and revolutionary movement and by strengthening the anti-imperialist front, develops a wide range of bilateral and multilateral relations and considers the International Meetings of Communist and Workers Parties as a valuable space for exchange of experiences, frank and fraternal debate of opinions, adoption of common stands and initiatives.
Notes
(1) «Internacionais e internacionalismo – subsídios para a história», Albano Nunes, in O Militante n.º 302, Sep.-Oct./2009.
(2) «Um momento na história do movimento comunista. A criação da Liga dos Comunistas», Maria da Piedade Morgadinho, in O Militante n.º 228, May-Jun./1997. «O II Congresso da Liga dos Comunistas e os fundamentos do movimento comunista internacional», Domingos Abrantes, in O Militante n.º 357, Nov.-Dec./2018.
(3) «O significado histórico da fundação da AIT (1864-1876), Domingos Abrantes, in O Militante n.º 332, Sep.-Out./2014. On the same subject also see the articles in O Militante n.ºs 272 e 320, and in Avante! n.º 2349, 6 Dec./2018, «Marx, o internacionalismo e a Associação Internacional dos Trabalhadores».
(4) Which in 1875 merged with Lassalle's "General Workers’ Union of Germany" in the famous Congress of Gotha, with serious ideological concessions pointed out by Marx in «Critique of the Gotha Program», Selected Works of Marx and Engels in three volumes, «Avante!» Editions. V 3, p. 5
(5) Adopted, in 1912 by all socialist and social-democratic parties, the Basel Manifesto against the war declared explicitly that in case it should break out, the position of the labour movement should be to turn the arms against the bourgeoisie. But at the moment of truth, the German SDP deputies voted the war credits, as did the Social Democrat deputies in other countries. The main exception was the Bolshevik deputies in the Duma who were for this reason banished to Siberia.
(6) V. I. Lenin, «The Third International and its place in History» Selected Works in six volumes, Edições «Avante!, v. 4, p. 235.
(7) V. I. Lenin «Thesis and Report on bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat», Selected Works in six volumes, Edições «Avante! v.4, p. 165.
(8) V. I. Lenin, «Closing speech of the Congress», Selected Works in six volumes, Edições «Avante!», v. 4, 1986, p. 181.
(9) The words with which Lenin ends the short speech that concludes the Congress are particularly significant as regards the state of mind surrounding the creation of the Third International: «The victory of the proletarian revolution throughout the world is assured. The founding of the international Soviet republic is near».
(10) The vile murder on 15 January 1919 of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, leaders of the Spartacist movement and founders of the Communist Party of Germany, is one of the most significant moments of the Social-Democratic betrayal of the revolution.
(11) The decision to dissolve the Communist International, because it was impossible to convene a Congress, was taken by consultation with the parties that formed it, having won the support of 31 parties and no demonstration to the contrary, only reservations from the Communist Party of China. As of June 10, 1943, the bodies of the CI ceased to exist. The PCP supported the decision (see the Avante! edition of the 1st and 2nd fortnights of June 1943).
(12) The VII CI Congress met in Moscow from 25 July to 20 August, with 513 delegates from 65 Communist parties and 10 international organisations. At that time the number of communists in the world was 3 140 000, around 750 000 being from capitalist countries. The PCP was represented by a delegation composed of Bento Gonçalves, General Secretary of the Party, Francisco Paula de Oliveira and Roque Jr. Álvaro Cunhal, delegate to the VI Congress of the Communist Youth International, was called to participate in the delegation.
(13) See O PCP e o VII Congresso da Internacional Comunista, Edições «Avante!», 1985. Contains texts by Bento Gonçalves, Álvaro Cunhal and Sérgio Vilarigues.
(14) The escape from Aljube prison of Paula de Oliveira, a member of the Secretariat who had previously represented the Party in the International in Moscow, created misunderstandings and unfair distrust in the CI. See: Álvaro Cunhal, Duas Intervenções numa Reunião de Quadros, Edições «Avante!», 1996, p. 112
(15) Álvaro Cunhal, O Partido com Paredes de Vidro, Edições «Avante!», 1985, p. 251.
(16) Founded in 1947 in Warsaw, including representatives of the Communist parties of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union, France and Italy. It was dissolved in 1956
Portuguese version:
http://www.omilitante.pcp.pt/pt/359/Efemeride/1329/No-Centen%C3%A1rio-da-Internacional-Comunista---Viva-a-Solidariedade-Internacionalista!.htm?tpl=142