(Bursts of thunderous applause.) Comrades, we were unable to gather representatives from every country—those countries where this organization has its staunchest friends, where workers wholeheartedly sympathize with us—to attend the First Congress of the Communist International. Allow me, therefore, to begin with a brief quotation that will show you just how many more friends we truly have than we see, than we know, and than we could assemble here in Moscow, despite all persecution, despite every attempt by the seemingly omnipotent bourgeoisie to unite against us. These persecutions went so far as to try to encircle us like a Chinese wall—and to expel Bolsheviks by the dozens and even by the score from the most “liberal” republics in the world, as if they feared that a mere dozen or score of Bolsheviks might somehow infect the entire globe. But we know full well that such fear is laughable, for these very Bolsheviks have already infected the entire world; for the struggle waged by Russian workers has already ensured that the working masses of every country now know that it is here, in Russia, that the fate of the global revolutionary movement is being decided.

Comrades, I hold in my hands the newspaper L’Humanité{205}, a French publication whose orientation most closely aligns with that of our Mensheviks or Right Socialist-Revolutionaries. During the war, this very paper relentlessly vilified those who stood on our side, attacking them with the utmost ruthlessness. Today, however, this same paper champions those who, during the war, sided with the bourgeoisie of their own nations. And in its issue dated January 13, 1919, L’Humanité reports that a massive gathering—so large, the paper itself admits, that it was the largest assembly of party activists and trade union leaders ever held in the Seine Department, the district closest to Paris, the very heart of the proletarian movement and the center of France’s entire political life—was convened in Paris. The primary speaker at this meeting was Brack, a socialist who had consistently upheld the positions of our Mensheviks and Right Defenseists throughout the war. He had since grown quiet, almost invisible—speaking not a word on any of the burning issues of the day! In his closing remarks, he declared himself opposed to his government’s intervention in the struggles of the proletariat in other countries. His words were met with stormy applause. Next to speak was one of his fellow travelers, a certain Pierre Laval. The topic at hand was demobilization—the most agonizing question facing contemporary France, a nation that, perhaps more than any other, suffered grievous losses in this criminal war. And now this very nation sees that demobilization is being delayed, obstructed; there is no real desire to carry it out—and what is emerging instead is the preparation for a new war, one that will undoubtedly impose fresh sacrifices upon French workers, as French and British capitalists vie once again for ever greater spoils. Yet the newspaper declares that while the crowd listened intently to Pierre Laval’s speech, his anti‑Bolshevik pronouncements provoked such vehement protests, such intense agitation, that the assembly could no longer continue. After that, when Citizen Pierre Renouard sought to take the floor, he was denied the opportunity—and the meeting came to a close with a brief intervention by Citizen Peric. This man is among the few representatives of the French labor movement who remain, for the most part, in solidarity with us. Thus, the newspaper is forced to acknowledge that the assembly did not allow the speaker to utter a single word—no sooner had he begun to speak against the Bolsheviks.

Comrades, we were unable, at this time, to send even a single delegate directly from France; only one Frenchman, Comrade Gilbo, managed to make his way here—with great difficulty. (Rousing applause.) He will be speaking today. For months he sat imprisoned in Swiss jails—this “free” republic—where he was accused of maintaining contact with Lenin and of plotting a revolution in Switzerland. Through Germany, he was escorted by gendarmes and officers, clearly fearing that he might drop a match that would set Germany ablaze. But Germany is already aflame, even without such a match. And in France, as we can see, there are those who sympathize with the Bolshevik movement. The French masses, perhaps, are among the most experienced, the most politically mature, the most vibrant and responsive of all working-class communities. They will not permit a speaker at a popular assembly to strike a single false note—they will stop him in his tracks. It is fortunate, indeed, that with the French temperament, they did not drag him down from the podium! Therefore, when a newspaper hostile to us acknowledges what transpired at this great assembly, we may say: the French proletariat stands with us.

I will now offer yet another brief quotation from an Italian newspaper. We have been so thoroughly cut off from the rest of the world that receiving issues of socialist newspapers from other countries has become a rare and precious occurrence. By way of such rarity, a single issue of the Italian newspaper “Avanti!”{206}—the organ of the Italian Socialist Party, which had taken part in Zimmerwald, fought against the war, and which has now resolved to decline participation in the Yellow Congress in Bern, the congress of the old International where individuals, together with their respective governments, conspired to prolong this criminal war—made its way to us. To this day, “Avanti!” continues to appear under strict censorship. Yet in this particular issue, which somehow found its way into our hands, I read a report from the party life of a small town called Cavriago—a place that must be quite remote, since it cannot even be found on a map—and it turns out that the workers gathered there adopted a resolution expressing their solidarity with their own newspaper for its uncompromising stance, while also declaring their endorsement of the German Spartacists. And then come words that, though written in Italian, are nonetheless comprehensible across the globe: “Sovietisti russi”—a warm greeting to the Russian “Sovietists,” accompanied by the hope that the program of Russian and German revolutionaries will be embraced worldwide and will serve to bring the struggle against the bourgeoisie and military domination to a decisive conclusion. And when one reads such a resolution from some obscure corner of Italy, one can rightly say to oneself: the Italian masses stand with us; the Italian masses have understood what the Russian “Sovietists” are, what the program of the Russian “Sovietists” and the German Spartacists truly entails. And yet at that time, we did not even possess such a program! We had no common program with the German Spartacists—and still, the Italian workers cast aside everything they had seen in their bourgeois press, which, printed in millions of copies and bought off by millionaires and billionaires, spread slander about us. But the Italian workers were not deceived. The Italian workers understood what the Spartacists and the “Sovietists” were, and they declared their sympathy for the latter’s program—even though that program did not yet exist in any fully formed or articulated form. This is why our task at this congress was so easy. All we had to do was enshrine in our program what had already taken root in the minds and hearts of workers, even those hidden away in some remote backwater, cut off from us by police and military cordons. This is why, with such ease and complete unanimity, we were able to reach unanimous decisions on all the major questions at hand—and we have every reason to believe that these resolutions will find a powerful echo among the proletariat of every country.

Comrades, the Soviet movement is the very form that was first won in Russia, a form that is now spreading across the globe, and whose very name alone offers workers an entire program. Comrades, I hope that we, who have been blessed with the great fortune of developing the Soviet form to the point of victory, will not fall into the position of those whom one might accuse of having grown arrogant.

Comrades, we know full well that we were the first to take up arms in the Soviet proletarian revolution—not because we were equally prepared, or better prepared, than other workers, but precisely because we were less prepared. It was this very circumstance that placed before us the most savage, the most rotten of enemies—and it was this same circumstance that gave the revolution its vast, global scope. Yet we also know that Soviets have existed among us ever since, struggling against colossal difficulties born of insufficient cultural development and the crushing burdens that have weighed upon us for more than a year, as we stood alone in our posts, surrounded on all sides by enemies—and as you know only too well, unimaginable torments, the agonizing grip of famine, and bestial suffering descended upon us.

Comrades, those who, directly or indirectly, align themselves with the bourgeoisie often try to appeal to workers and stir their indignation by pointing out just how severe the sufferings now inflicted upon them are. But we tell them: yes, these sufferings are indeed severe—and we make no attempt to hide them from you. That is what we tell the workers, and they know it with absolute certainty through their own lived experience. You see, we are not fighting merely for the victory of socialism for ourselves, nor simply for the day when our children will look back on capitalists and landowners as prehistoric monsters—but we are fighting for the day when workers around the world will triumph alongside us.

And this First Congress of the Communist International, which demonstrated that Soviets everywhere are winning the sympathy of workers, shows us that the cause of the victory of the international communist revolution is secure. (Applause.) The bourgeoisie will continue to rage in many lands; in some places, the bourgeoisie is only now beginning to prepare the doom of the finest men, the noblest champions of socialism—as the brutal murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht by the White Guards vividly illustrates. Such sacrifices are inevitable. We seek no compromise with the bourgeoisie; we march into the final, decisive battle against it—but we know that after the torments, the anguish, and the calamities of war, when the masses around the world are striving for demobilization, feeling betrayed, realizing just how immense the burdens of taxation have become—taxes imposed by capitalists who killed tens of millions of people in pursuit of greater profits—when the hour of these bandits’ rule has passed!

Now that the term “Soviet” has become comprehensible to everyone, the victory of the communist revolution is assured. Comrades present in this hall have witnessed the establishment of the first Soviet republic; they are now seeing the founding of the Third Communist International (applause); and they will all see the day when the World Federation of Soviet Republics is brought into being. (Applause.)

Newspaper reports were published on March 7, 1919, in Pravda, No. 52, and in Izvestia of the VTsIK, No. 52.

The text was fully printed in May 1919 in the pamphlet “The Solemn Joint Session of the VTsIK, the Moscow Council of Workers’ and Red Army Deputies, the Moscow Committee of the RCP, the All‑Russian Council of Trade Unions, and the Factory and Plant Committees of the City of Moscow on the Day Honoring the Opening of the Communist International.”

Printed from the stenographic record, verified against the text of the pamphlet.