V. I. Lenin

The Second Congress Of

The Communist International

The Second Congress of the Communist International ended on August 7. A little over a year has elapsed since its
foundation, during which brief period immense and decisive
successes have been achieved.

Held a year ago, the First Congress only unfurled the banner of
communism, around which the forces of the revolutionary
proletariat were to rally. War was declared on the yellow Second
International, which unites the social-traitors, who have sided
with the bourgeoisie against the proletariat and are in alliance
with the capitalists against the workers’ revolution.

The huge measure of success achieved in a year can be seen,
among other things, in the fact that the growing sympathy with
communism among the masses of workers has compelled the withdrawal
from the Second International of some of its leading European and
American parties, namely, the French Socialist Party, the German
and the British “Independent” parties, and the
American Socialist Party.

In every country of the world the finest representatives of the
revolutionary workers have already ranged themselves on the side
of communism, Soviet rule and the dictatorship of the proletariat. In all the advanced countries of Europe and America,
there already exist Communist parties or numerous Communist
groups. At the Congress which ended on August 7, it was not only
the heralds of the proletarian revolution who joined forces, but
delegates from strong and powerful organisations linked with the
proletarian masses. A world army of the revolutionary proletariat-that is what now stands for communism, and, at the
Congress just ended, received organisational form and a clear,
precise and detailed programme of action.

The Congress refused to admit immediately into the Communist
International such parties that still retain in their ranks
influential representatives of “Menshevism”, social-treachery and opportunism, similar to the abovementioned
parties which have withdrawn from the yellow Second
International.

In a number of precisely worded resolutions, the Congress
blocked every avenue of access for opportunism, and demanded a
total break with it. The incontestable facts reported to the
Congress showed that the working-class masses are with us, and
that the opportunists shall now be utterly routed.

The Congress rectified the errors committed in certain countries by Communists who were bent on turning to the
“Left” and denied the need to work in bourgeois parliaments, reactionary trade unions, and wherever there are
millions of workers who are still being duped by the capitalists
and by their lackeys from among the workers, i.e., by members of
the yellow Second International.

The Congress created a degree of unity and discipline among the
world’s Communist parties such as has never before existed
and will make it possible for the vanguard of the workers’
revolution to march forward with giant strides to its great goal,
the overthrow of the yoke of capital.

Thanks to the international conference of working women which
was organised simultaneously, the Congress will strengthen ties
with the communist women’s movement.

Communist parties and groups in the East, in the colonial and
backward countries, which are so brutally robbed, oppressed and
enslaved by the “civilised” league of predatory nations, were likewise represented at the Congress. The
revolutionary movement in the advanced countries would in fact be
nothing but a sheer fraud if, in their struggle against capital,
the workers of Europe and America were not closely and completely
united with the hundreds upon hundreds of millions of “colonial” slaves, who are oppressed by that
capital.

Great are the military victories of the workers’ and peasants’ Soviet Republic over the landowners and the
capitalists, over the Yudeniches, the Koichaks, and the Denikins,
the Polish Whites and their accomplices-France, Britain, America
and Japan.

But greater still is our victory over the minds and hearts of
the masses of the workers, of all those who toil and are oppressed
by capital-the victory of the communist ideas and communist
organisations all over the world.

The revolution of the proletariat, the overthrow of the yoke of
capitalism, .is on the march and shall come about in every country
in the world.