V. I. Lenin

Theses on Fundamental Tasks of

The Second Congress Of The Communist International

Intro

The Essence of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and of Soviet Power

What Immediate and Universal Preparation for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat Should Consist of

Rectification of the Political Line—Partly Also the Composition—of Parties Affiliated or Desiring to Affiliate to the Communist International

Endnotes

1.The present stage in the development of the international communist
movement is marked by the fact that the finest representatives of the
revolutionary proletariat in all capitalist countries have fully
grasped the fundamental principles of the Communist International,
viz., dictatorship of the proletariat and Soviet power, and have
ranged themselves with unbounded enthusiasm on the side of the
Communist International. An even bigger and more important step
forward is the definite sympathy with these fundamental principles
that has everywhere taken shape among the broadest masses; not only of
the urban proletariat, but of the advanced section of the rural
workers as well.

On the other hand, 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, because it leads to downright
corruption of the masses, detracts from the Third
International’s prestige, and threatens a repetition of the same
acts of treachery as were perpetrated by the Hungarian
Social-Democrats, who so hastily assumed the title of Communists. 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.

Communists are in duty bound, not to gloss over shortcomings in
their movement, but to criticise them openly so as to remedy them the
more speedily and radically. For this purpose it is necessary: first,
to define as concretely as possible, particularly on the basis of the
practical experience already acquired, the content of the concepts
“dictatorship of the proletariat” and “Soviet power”; second, to specify the precise content of the immediate
and systematic preparatory work to be carried on in all countries so
as to give effect to these slogans; and third, to specify the methods
and means of rectifying the faults in our movement.

The Essence Of The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat and of Soviet Power

2.The victory of socialism (as the first stage of communism) over
capitalism requires that the proletariat, as the only really
revolutionary class, shall accomplish the following three
tasks. First—overthrow the exploiters, and first and foremost
the bourgeoisie, as their principal economic and political
representative; utterly rout them; crush their resistance; absolutely
preclude any attempt on their part to restore the yoke of capital and
wage-slavery. Second—win over and bring under the leadership of
the Communist Party, the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat,
not only the entire proletariat, or its vast majority, but all who
labour and are exploited by capital; educate, organise, train and
discipline them in the actual course of a supremely bold and
ruthlessly firm struggle against the exploiters; wrest this vast
majority of the pqpulation in all the capitalist countries from
dependence on the bourgeoisie; imbue it, through its own practical
experience, with confidence in the leading role of the proletariat and
of its revolutionary vanguard. Third—neutralise, or render
harmless, the inevitable vacillation between the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat, between bourgeois democracy and Soviet power, to be seen
in the class of petty proprietors in agriculture, industry and
commerce—a class which is still fairly numerous in nearly all
advanced countries, although comprising only a minority of the
population—as well as in the stratum of intellectuals, salary
earners, etc., which corresponds to this class.

The first and second tasks are independent ones, each requiring its own special methods of action with regard to the
exploiters and to the exploited respectively. The third task
follows from the first two, and merely requires a skilful,
timely and flexible combination of methods of the first and
second type, depending on the specific circumstances in each
separate instance of vacillation.

3.In the concrete situation created throughout the world, and
above all in the most advanced, powerful, enlightened and free
capitalist countries, by militarism, imperialism, the oppression
of colonies and weak countries, the world wide imperialist
butchery and the “Peace” of Versailles—in that situation the very idea of the capitalists peacefully submitting
to the will of the majority of the exploited, the very idea of a
peaceful, reformist transition to socialism, is not merely sheer
philistine stupidity but also down right deception of the
workers, embellishment of capitalist wage-slavery, and concealment of the truth. That truth consists in the
bourgeoisie, even the most enlightened and democratic, no longer
hesitating at any fraud or crime, even the massacre of millions
of workers and peasants, so as to preserve private ownership of
the means of production. Only the forcible overthrow of the
bourgeoisie, the confiscation of its property, the destruction
of the entire bourgeois state apparatus from top to bottom—parliamentary. judicial, military, bureaucratic,
administrative, municipal, etc.—right down to the wholesale deportation or internment of the most dangerous and
stubborn exploiters and the institution of strict surveillance
over them so as to foil their inevitable attempts to resist and
to restore capitalist slavery—only such measures can ensure real submission of the whole class of exploiters.

On the other hand, the idea, common among the old parties
and the old leaders of the Second International, that the
majority of the exploited toilers can achieve complete clarity
of socialist consciousness and firm socialist convictions and
character under capitalist slavery, under the yoke of the
bourgeoisie (which assumes an infinite variety of forms that
become more subtle and at the same time more brutal and ruthless
the higher the cultural level in a given capitalist country) is
also idealisation of capitalism and of bourgeois democracy, as
well as deception of the workers. In fact, it is only after the
vanguard of the proletariat, supported by the whole or the
majority of this, the only revolutionary class, overthrows the
exploiters, suppresses them, emancipates the exploited from
their state of slavery and-immediately improves their conditions
of life at the expense of the expropriated capitalists—it
is only after this, and only in the actual process of an acute
class strugg]e, that the masses of the toilers and exploited can
be educated, trained and organised around the proletariat under
whose influence and guidance, they can get rid of the selfishness, disunity, vices and weaknesses engendered by
private property; only then will they be converted into a free
union of free workers.

4.Victory over capitalism calls for proper relations between
the leading (Communist) party, the revolutionary class (the
proletariat) and the masses, i.e., the entire body of the
toilers and the exploited. Only the Communist Party, if it is
really the vanguard of the revolutionary class, if it really
comprises all the finest representatives of that class, if it
consists of fully conscious and staunch Communists who have been
educated and steeled by the experience of a persistent revolutionary struggle, and if it has succeeded in linking
itself inseparably with the whole life of its class and, through
it, with the whole mass of the exploited, and in completely
winning the confidence of this class and this mass—only
such a party is capable of leading the proletariat in a final,
most ruthless and decisive struggle against all the forces of
capitalism. On the other hand, it is only under the leadership
of such a party that the proletariat is capable of displaying
the full might of its revolutionary onslaught, and of overcoming
the inevitable apathy and occasional resistance of that small
minority, the labour aristocracy, who have been corrupted by
capitalism, the old trade union and co-operative leaders,
etc.—only then will it be capable of displaying its full
might, which, because of the very economic structure of
capitalist society, is infinitely greater than its proportion of
the population. Finally, it is only after they have been really
emancipated from the yoke of the bourgeoisie and of the
bourgeois machinery of state, only after they have found an
opportunity of organising in their Soviets in a really free way
(free from the exploiters), that the masses, i.e., the toilers
and exploited as a body, can display, for the first time in
history, all the initiative and energy of tens of millions of
people who have been crushed by capitalism. Only when the
Soviets have become the sole state apparatus is it really
possible to ensure the participation, in the work of administration, of the entire mass of the exploited, who, even
under the most enlightened and freest bourgeois democracy, have
always actually been excluded 99 per cent from participation in
the work of administration. It is only in the Soviets that the
exploited masses really begin to learn—not in books, but
from their own practical experience—the work of socialist
construction, of creating a new social discipline and a free
union of free workers.

What Immediate And Universal Preparation for the Dictatorship of
the Proletariat Should
Consist of

5.The present stage in the development of the international
communist movement is marked by the fact that in the vast
majority of capitalist countries, the proletariat’s preparations to effect its dictatorship have not been completed,
and, in many cases, have not even been systematically begun. From this it does not, however, follow that the
proletarian revolution is impossible in the immediate future; it
is perfectly possible, since the entire economic and political
situation is most inflammable and abounds in causes of a sudden
flare-up; the other condition for revolution, apart from the
proletariat’s preparedness, viz., a general state of crisis in all the ruling and in all bourgeois parties, also
exists. However, it does follow that the Communist
Parties’ current task consists not in accelerating the revolution, but in intensifying the preparation of the
proletariat. On the other hand, the facts cited above from the
history of many socialist parties make it incumbent on us to see
that “recognition” of the dictatorship of the proletariat shall not remain a more matter of words.

Hence, from the point of view of the international proletarian movement, 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 recognise the dictatorship of the proletariat has
by no means undergone that fundamental reorganisation, 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.

6.The proletariat’s conquest of political power does not put a stop to its class struggle against the bourgeoisie; on
the contrary, it renders that struggle most widespread, intense
and ruthless. Owing to the extreme intensification of the
struggle all groups, parties and leaders in the working-class
movement who have fully or partly adopted the stand of reformism, of the “Centre”, etc., inevitably side
with the bourgeoisie or join the waverers, or else (what is the
most dangerous of all) land in the ranks of the unreliable
friends of the victorious proletariat. Hence, preparation for
the dictatorship of the proletariat calls, not only for an
intensification of the struggle against reformist and “Centrist” tendencies, but also for a change in the
character of that struggle. The struggle cannot be restricted to
explaining the erroneousness of these tendencies; it must
unswervingly and ruthlessly expose any leader of the working-class movement who reveals such tendencies, for
otherwise the proletariat cannot know who it will march with
into the decisive struggle against the bourgeoisie. This
struggle is such that at any moment it may—and actually
does, as experience has shown—substitute criticism with
weapons for the weapon of criticism. [6] Any inconsistency
or weakness in exposing those who show themselves to be
reformists or “Centrists” means directly increasing the danger of the power of the proletariat being overthrovn by
the bourgeoisie, which tomorrow will utilise for the counter-revolution that which short-sighted people today see
merely as “theoretical difference”.

7.In particular, we must not restrict ourselves to the usual
repudiation, in principle, of all collaboration between the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie, of all “collaborationism”. Under the dictatorship of the
proletariat, which will never be able, at one stroke, to abolish
private property completely, mere defence of “liberty”’ and “equality”, while
private ownership of the means of production is preserved, turns
into “collaboration” with the bourgeoisie, and undermines the rule of the working class. The dictatorship of
the proletariat means that the state uses its whole machinery of
power to uphold and perpetuate “no-liberty” for the exploiters to continue their oppression and exploitation,
“inequality” between the owner of property (i.e., one who has appropriated for himself certain means of production
created by social labour) and the non-owner. That which, prior
to the victory of the proletariat, seems merely a theoretical
difference on the question of “democracy” inevitably becomes, on the day following victory, a question that is
settled by force of arms. Consequently, even preliminary work in
preparing the masses to effect the dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible without a radical change in the entire
character of the struggle against the “Centrists” and the “champions of democracy “.

8.The dictatorship of the proletariat is the most determined
and revolutionary form of the proletariat’s class struggle
against the bourgeoisie. This struggle can be successful only
when the most revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat has the
backing of the overwhelming majority of the proletariat. Hence,
preparation for the dictatorship of the proletariat entails not
only explanation of the bourgeois character of all reformism, of
all defence of democracy, while private ownership of the means
of production is preserved; it entails, not only exposure of
such trends, which are in fact a defence of the bourgeoisie
within the labour movement; it also calls for old leaders being
replaced by Communists in proletarian organisations of absolutely every type—not only political, but also trade
union, co-operative, educational, etc. The more complete,
lengthy and firmly established the rule of bourgeois democracy
has been in a given country, the more the bourgeoisie will have
succeeded in securing the appointment to such leading posts of
people whose minds have been moulded by it and imbued with its
views and prejudices, and who have very often been directly or
indirectly bought by it. These representatives of the labour
aristocracy, bourgeoisified workers, should be ousted from all
their posts a hundred times more sweepingly than hitherto, and
replaced by workers—even by wholly inexperienced men, provided they are connected with the exploited masses and enjoy
their confidence in the struggle against the exploiters. The
dictatorship of the proletariat will require the appointment of
such inexperienced workers to the most responsible posts in the
state; otherwise the workers’ government will be impotent
and will not have the support of the masses.

9.The dictatorship of the proletariat means that all toiling
and exploited people, who have been disunited, deceived,
intimidated, oppressed, downtrodden and crushed by the capitalist class, come under the full leadership of the only
class trained for that leadership by the whole history of
capitalism. That is why the following is one of the methods
whereby preparations for the dictatorship of the proletariat
should be started everywhere and immediately:

In all organisations, unions and associations without exception, and first and foremost in proletarian organisations,
but also in those of the non-proletarian toiling and exploited
masses (political, trade union, military, co-operative,
educational, sports, etc., etc.), groups or cells of Communists
should be formed—preferably open groups, but underground
groups as well, the latter being essential whenever there is
reason to expect their suppression, or the arrest or banishment
of their members on the part of the bourgeoisie; these cells,
which are to be in close touch with one another and with the
Party centre, should, by pooling their experience, carrying on
work of agitation, propaganda and organisation, adapting
themselves to absolutely every sphere of public life and to
every variety and category of the toiling masses, systematically
educate themselves, the Party, the class, and the masses by
means of such diversified work.

In this connection, it is of the utmost importance that
necessary distinctions between the methods of work should be
evolved in practice: on the one hand, in relation to the
“leaders”, or “responsible representatives”, who are very often hopelessly beset with
petty-bourgeois and imperialist prejudices—such “leaders” must be ruthlessly exposed and expelled
from the working-class movement—and, on the other hand, in
relation to the masses, who, particularly after the imperialist
holocaust, are for the most part inclined to listen to and
accept the doctrine that the guidance from the proletariat is
essential, as the only way of escape from capitalist slavery. We
must learn to approach the masses with particular patience and
caution so as to be able to understand the distinctive features
in the mentality of each stratum, calling, etc., of these
masses.

10.In particular, there is a group or cell of Communists
that deserves exceptional attention and care from the Party,
i.e., the parliamentary group of Party members, who are deputies
to bourgeois representative institutions (primarily the
national, but also local, municipal, etc., representative
institutions). On the one hand, it is this tribune which is held
in particular regard by large sections of the toiling masses,
who are backward or imbued with petty-bourgeois prejudices; it
is therefore imperative for Communists to utilise this tribune
to conduct propaganda, agitation and organisational work and to
explain to the masses why the dispersal of the bourgeois
parliament by the national congress of Soviets was legitimate in
Russia (and, at the proper time, will be legitimate in any
country). On the other hand, the entire history of bourgeois
democracy, particularly in the advanced countries, has converted
the parliamentary rostrum into one of the principal, if not the
principal, venues of unparalleled fraudulency, financial and
political deception of the people, careerism, hypocrisy and
oppression of the working people. The intense hatred of
parliaments felt by the best representatives of the revolutionary proletariat is therefore quite justified. The
Communist parties and all parties affiliated to the Third
International—especially those which have not arisen by
splitting away from the old parties and by waging a long and
persistent struggle against them, but through the old parties
accepting (often nominally) the new stand—should therefore
adopt a most strict attitude towards their parliamentary groups;
the latter must be brought under the full control and direction
of the Central Committees of the Parties; they must consist, in
the main, of revolutionary workers; speeches by members of
parliament should be carefully analysed in the Party press and
at Party meetings, from a strictly communist standpoint;
deputies should be sent to carry on agitational work among the
masses; those who manifest Second International leanings should
be expelled from the parliamentary groups, etc.

11.One of the chief causes hampering the revolutionary working-class movement in the developed capitalist countries is
the fact that because of their colonial possessions and the
super-profits gained by finance capital, etc., the capitalists
af these countries have been able to create a relatively larger
and more stable labour aristocracy, a section which comprises a
small minority of the working class. This minority enjoys better
terms of employment and is most-imbued with a narrow-minded
craft spirit and with petty-bourgeois and imperialist prejudices. It forms the real social pillar of the Second
International, of the reformists and the “Centrists”; at present it might even be called the
social mainstay of the bourgeoisie. No preparation of the
proletariat for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie is possible,
even in the preliminary sense, unless an immediate, systematic,
extensive and open struggle is waged against this stratum,
which, as experience has already fully shown, will no doubt
provide the bourgeois White guards with many a recruit after the
victory of the proletariat. All parties affiliated to the Third
International must at all costs give effect to the slogans:
“Deeper into the thick of the masses”, “Closer links with the masses”—meaning by the masses all
those who toil and are exploited by capital, particularly those
who are least organised and educated, who are most oppressed and
least amenable to organisation.

The proletariat becomes revolutionary only insofar as it
does not restrict itself to the narrow framework of craft
interests, only when in all matters and spheres of public life,
it acts as the leader of all the toiling and exploited masses;
it cannot achieve its dictatorship unless it is prepared and
able to make the greatest sacrifices for the sake of victory
over the bourgeoisie. In this respect, the experience of Russia
is significant both in principle and in practice. The proletariat could not have achieved its dictatorship there, or
won the universally acknowledged respect and confidence of all
the toiling masses, had it not made the most sacrifices, or
starved more than any other section of those masses at the most
crucial moments of the onslaught, war and blockade effected by
the world bourgeoisie.

In particular, the Communist Party and all advanced proletarians must give all-round and unstinted support
especially to the spontaneous and mass strike movement, which,
under the yoke of capital, is alone capable of really rousing,
educating and organising the masses, of imbuing them with
complete confidence in the leadership of the revolutionary
proletariat. Without such preparation, no dictatorship of the
proletariat is possible; those who are capable of publicly
opposing strikes, such as Kautsky in Germany and Turati in
Italy, cannot possibly be tolerated in the ranks of parties
affiliated to the Third International. This applies even more,
of course, to those trade union and parliamentary leaders who so
often betray the workers by using the experience of strikes to
teach them reformism, and not revolution (for instance, in
Britain and in France in recent years).

12.In all countries, even in those that are freest, most
“legal”, and most “peaceful” in the sense that the class struggle is least acute there, it is now
absolutely indispensable for every Communist Party to systematically combine legal and illegal work, legal and illegal
organisations. Notwithstanding their false and hypocritical
declarations, the governments of even the most enlightened and
freest of countries, where the bourgeois-democratic system is
most “stable”, are already systematically and secretly drawing up blacklists of Communists and constantly
violating their own constitutions so as to give secret or
semi-secret encouragement to the whiteguards and to the murder
of Communists in all countries, making secret preparations for
the arrest of Communists, planting agents provocateurs among the Communists, etc., etc. Only a most reactionary
philistine, no matter what cloak of fine “democratic” and pacifist phrases he may don, will
deny this fact or the conclusion that of necessity follows from
it viz., that all legal Communist parties must immediately form
illegal organisations for the systematic conduct of illegal work
and for complete preparations for the moment the bourgeoisie
resorts to persecution. Illegal work is most necessary in the
army, the navy and the police because, since the imperialist
holocaust, governments the world over have begun to stand in
dread of people’s armies which are open to the workers and
peasants, and are secretly resorting to all kinds of methods to
set up military units specially recruited from the bourgeoisie
and equipped with the most up-to-date weapons.

On the other hand, it is likewise necessary that, in all
cases without exception, the parties should not restrict
themselves to illegal work, but should conduct legal work as
well, overcoming all obstacles, starting legal publications, and
forming legal organisations under the most varied names, which
should be frequently changed if necessary. This is being
practised by the illegal Communist parties in Finland, Hungary,
partly in Germany, Poland, Latvia, etc. It should be practised
by the Industrial Workers of the World in the U.S.A. and by all
Communist parties at present legal, should public prosecutors
see fit to take proceedings against them on the grounds of
resolutions adopted by Congresses of the Communist
International, etc.

A combination of illegal and legal work is an absolute principle dictated, not only by all features of the present
period, that of the eve of the proletarian dictatorship, but
also by the necessity of proving to the bourgeoisie that there
is not, nor can there be, any sphere of activity that cannot be
won by the Communists; above all, it is dictated by the fact
that broad strata of the proletariat and even broader strata of
the non-proletarian toiling and exploited masses still exist
everywhere, who continue to believe in bourgeois-democratic
legality and whom we must undeceive without fail.

13.In particular, the conditions of the working-class press
in most advanced capitalist countries strikingly reveal the
utter fraudulency of liberty and equality under bourgeois
democracy, as well as the necessity of systematically combining
legal work with illegal work. Both in vanquished Germany and in
victorious America, the entire power of the bourgeoisie’s
machinery of state and all the machinations of the financial
magnates are employed to deprive the workers of their press,
these including legal proceedings, the arrest (or murder by
hired assassins) of editors, denial of mailing privileges, the
cutting off of paper supplies, and so on and so forth. Besides,
the news services essential to daily newspapers are run by
bourgeois telegraph agencies, while advertisements, without
which a large newspaper cannot pay its way, depend on the
“good will” of the capitalists. To sum up: through skulduggery and the pressure of capital and the bourgeois state,
the bourgeoisie is depriving the revolutionary proletariat of
its press.

To combat this, the Communist parties must create a new type
of periodical press for mass distribution among the workers:
first, legal publications, which, without calling themselves
communist and without publicising their links with the Party,
must learn to make use of any legal opportunity, however slight,
just as the Bolsheviks did under the tsar, after 1905; secondly,
illegal leaflets, even the briefest and published at irregular
intervals, but reprinted at numerous printshops by workers
(secretly, or, if the movement has become strong enough, by the
revolutionary seizure of printshops), and providing the
proletariat with outspoken revolutionary information and
revolutionary slogans.

Preparations for the dictatorship of the proletariat is
impossible without a revolutionary struggle, into which the
masses are drawn, for the freedom of the communist press.

Rectification Of The Political Line—Partly Also Of The Composition—Of Parties
Affiliated Or Desiring To Affiliate To The Communist
International

14.The measure in which the proletariat in countries most
important from the viewpoint of world economics and politics is
prepared to establish its dictatorship can be seen with the
greatest objectivity and precision in the fact that the most
influential parties of the Second International, viz., the
French Socialist Party, the Independent Social-Democratic Party
of Germany, the Independent Labour Party of Great Britain and
the Socialist Party of America, [7] have withdrawn from this yellow International, and have decided—the first
three conditionally, the latter even unconditionally—to
affiliate to the Third In ternational. This proves that not only
the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat but its majority
too have begun to come over to our side, convinced by the entire
course of events. The main thing now is the ability to consummate this process and to consolidate firmly in point of
organisation what has been achieved, so as to advance all along
the line, without the slightest wavering.

15.All the activities of the parties mentioned (to which
should be added the Socialist Party of Switzerland, [8] if the telegraph reports of
its decision to join the Third International are true)
show—as any periodical of these parties will strikingly confirm—that they are not yet communist,
and quite often run directly counter to the fundamental
principles of the Third International, viz., the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat and
Soviet government in place of bourgeois democracy.

Accordingly, the Second Congress of the Communist
International must resolve that it cannot immediately accept the
affiliation of these parties; that it endorses the reply given
by the Executive Committee of the Third International to the
German “Independents” [9] ; that it confirms its readiness to conduct negotiations with any party that
withdraws from the Second International and desires to enter
into closer relations with the Third International; that it will
admit the delegates of such parties in a deliberative capacity
to all its congresses and conferences; that it sets the
following conditions for the complete adhesion of these (and
similar), parties with the Communist International:

1)All decisions of all Congresses of the Communist
International and of its Executive Committee to be published in
all the periodicals of the parties concerned; 2)These decisions to be discussed at special meetings of all
sections or local organisations of the parties; 3)After such discussion, special congresses of the parties
to be convened to sum up the results, and for the purpose
of—

4)Purging the parties of elements that continue to act in
the spirit of the Second International; 5)All periodical publications of the parties to be placed
under exclusively Communist editorship.

The Second Congress of the Third International should instruct its Executive Committee formally to accept these and
similar parties into the Third International after ascertaining
that all these conditions have actually been met and that the
activities of the parties have assumed a communist character.

16.As to the question of the conduct of Communists now holding a minority of the responsible posts in these and similar
parties, the Second Congress of the Communist International
should resolve that, in view of the obvious growth of sincere
sympathy for communism among working men belonging to these
parties, it would be undesirable for Communists to resign from
the latter, as long as they can carry on work within them for
the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat and
Soviet government, and as long as it is possible to criticise
the opportunists and Centrists who still remain in these
parties.

At the same time, the Second Congress of the Third
International should declare in favour of Communist groups and
organisations, or groups and organisations sympathising with
communism, joining the Labour Party in Great Britain, despite
its membership in the Second International. As long as this
party ensures its affiliated organisations their present freedom
of criticism and freedom to carry on work of propaganda,
agitation and organisation in favour of the dictatorship of the
proletariat and Soviet government, and as long as this party
preserves the character of a federation of all trade union
organisations of the working class, it is imperative for
Communists to do everything and to make certain compromises in
order to be able to exercise their influence on the broadest
masses of the workers, to expose their opportunist leaders from
a higher tribune, that is in fuller view of the masses, and to
hasten the transfer of political power from the direct representatives of the bourgeoisie to the “labour
lieutenants of the capitalist class”, so that the masses
may be more quickly weaned away from their last illusions on
this score.

17.Concerning the Socialist Party of Italy, the Second
Congress of the Third International considers that the criticism
of that party and the practical proposals submitted to the
National Council of the Socialist Party of Italy in the name of
the party’s Turin section, [10] as set forth in
L’Ordine Nuovo of May 8, 1920, are in the main correct and are fully in keeping with the fundamental principles
of the Third International.

Accordingly, the Second Congress of the Third International
requests the Socialist Party of Italy to convene a special
congress to discuss these proposals and also all the decisions
of the two Congresses of the Communist International for the
purpose of rectifying the party’s line and of purging it,
particularly its parliamentary group, of non-Communist elements.

18.The Second Congress of the Third International considers
erroneous the views on the Party’s relation to the class
and to the masses, and the view that it is not obligatory for
Communist parties to participate in bourgeois parliaments and in
reactionary trade unions. These views have been refuted in
detail in special decisions of the present Congress, and
advocated most fully by the Communist Workers’ Party of
Germany, and partly by the Communist Party of Switzerland [11] , by Kommunismus , organ of
the East-European Secretariat of the Communist International in
Vienna, by the now dissolved secretariat in Amsterdam, by
several Dutch comrades, by several Communist organisations in
Great Britain, as, for example, the Workers’ Socialist
Federation, etc., and also by the Industrial Workers of the
World in the U.S.A. and the Shop Stewards’ Committees in
Great Britain, etc.

Nevertheless, the Second. Congress of the Third
International considers it possible and desirable that those of
the above-mentioned organisations which have not yet officially
affiliated to the Communist International should do so immediately; for in the present instance, particularly as
regards the Industrial Workers of the World in the U.S.A. and
Australia, as well as the Shop Stewards’ Committees in
Great Britain, we are dealing with a profoundly proletarian and
mass movement, which in all essentials actually stands by the
basic principles of the Communist International. The erroneous
views held by these organisations regarding participation in
bourgeois parliaments can be explained, not so much by the
influence of elements coming from the bourgeoisie, who bring
their essentially petty-bourgeois views into the movement—views such as anarchists often hold—as by
the political inexperience of proletarians who are quite
revolutionary and connected with the masses.

For this reason, the Second Congress of the Third
International requests all Communist organisations and groups in
the Anglo-Saxon countries, even if the Industrial Workers of the
World and the Shop Stewards’ Committees do not immediately
affiliate to the Third International, to pursue a very friendly
policy towards these organisations, to establish closer contacts
with them and the masses that sympathise with them, and to
explain to them in a friendly spirit—on the basis of the
experience of all revolutions, and particularly of the three
Russian revolutions of the twentieth century—the erroneousness of their views as set forth above, and not to
desist from further efforts to amalgamate with these organisations to form a single Communist party.

19.In this connection, the Congress draws the attention of
all comrades, particularly in the Latin and Anglo-Saxon
countries, to the fact that, since the war, a profound ideological division has been taking place among anarchists all
over the world regarding the attitude to be adopted towards the
dictatorship of the proletariat and Soviet government. Moreover,
a proper understanding of these principles is particularly to be
seen among proletarian elements that have often been impelled
towards anarchism by a perfectly legitimate hatred of the
opportunism and reformism of the parties of the Second
International. That understanding is growing the more widespread
among them, the more familiar they become with the experience of
Russia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Poland and Germany.

The Congress therefore considers it the duty of all
Communists to do everything to help all proletarian mass
elements to abandon anarchism and come over to the side of the
Third International. The Congress points out that the measure in
which genuinely Communist parties succeed in winning mass
proletarian elements rather than intellectual, and petty-bourgeois elements away from anarchism, is a criterion of
the success of those Parties.

July 4, 1920

Endnotes

[6]
Lenin is quoting from Marx’s work “Zur Kritik der
Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie” (see Marx/Engels, Werke , Bd. 1, S. 385).

[7]
The American Socialist Party was formed in July 1901 at a
congress held in Indianapolis, as the result of a merger of groups
that had broken away from the Socialist Workers’ Party and
the Social-Democratic Party of the U.S.A. Among the new
party’s organisers was Eugene Debs, a popular figure in the
U.S. labour movement. The social composition of the party was not
uniform, it contained native-born and immigrant workers, as well
as small farmers and people of petty-bourgeois origin. The
Centrist and the Right-wing opportunist leaders of the party
(Victor Berger, Morris Hillquit and others) denied the necessity
of the proletarian dictatorship, renounced revolutionary methods
of struggle, and reduced all party activities to participation in
election campaigns. During the First World War (1914-18) three
trends appeared in the Socialist Party: the social-chauvinists,
who supported the imperialist policy of the Administration, the
Centrists, who opposed the imperialist war only in word, and the
revolutionary minority, who took an internationalist stand and
struggled against the war.

The Socialist Party’s Left wing, headed by Charles Ruthenberg, William Foster, William Haywood and others,
relying on the proletarian elements, waged a struggle against the
party’s opportunist leadership, for independent proletarian
action and the formation of industrial trade unions based on the
principles of the class struggle. In 1919 a split took place in
the Socialist Party. The party’s Left wing broke away, bccoming the initiator and nucleus of the Communist Party of the
U.S.A. At present the Socialist Party is a small sectarian
organisation.

[8]
The Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland (known as the Swiss Socialist Party) was formed in the seventies of the
last century and affiliated to the First International. The
party was re-formed in 1888. The opportunists were very
influential in the party, and during the First World War took a
social-chauvinist stand. In the autumn of 1916, the
Party’s Right wing broke away to form their own organisation. The majority, headed by Robert Grimm, took a
Centrist, social-pacifist stand, while the Left wing of the
party adhered to an internationalist stand. The Great October
Socialist Revolution in Russia influenced and strengthened the
Left wing which, in December 1920, broke away and joined the
Communist Party of Switzerland in 1921 (see Note 69).

[9]
“Draft (or the Theses) of the R.C.P.’s Reply to a
Letter from the German Independent Social-Democratic Party”
(see present edition, Vol. 30, pp. 337-44).

[10]
The Turin section accused the Italian Socialist Party with its conciliatory leadership, of failing to give a correct
analysis of events, in the conditions of the revolutionary upsurge
in Italy (1919-20) that had created the possibility of the seizure
of political power by the proletariat, and of having failed to
advance any slogan acceptable to the revolutionary masses, and
expel the reformists from its ranks. The section made a number of
practical proposals: the expulsion of the opportunists from the
party; the formation of communist groups in each factory, in the
trade unions, co-operatives, and army barracks, the setting-up of
factory T.U. committees to organise control of production in
industry and agriculture. The section demanded that work to
prepare the working masses for the creation of Soviets should be
begun at once.

[11]
In October 1918, part of the Social-Democrat Left wing united to
form the Communist Party of Switzerland. It was not a big party at
the time, being represented by two delegates at the Second
Congress of the Comintern.

In December 1920, the Left wing of the Swiss
Social-Democratic Party broke away from it, and raised the
question of forming a strong section of the Communist
International in Switzerland. At a congress held in Zurich in
March 1921, attended by 28 delegates from the Communist Party and
145 delegates representing the former Left wing of the
Social-Democratic Party, the two groups officially united to form
a single Communist Party of Switzerland.