INTERNAZIONALE. – An association formed by intellectuals and workers with the aim of coordinating the anticapitalist struggle internationally. The “League of Communists” asserted its internationalist aims as early as 1848. The “International Workingmen’s Association,” however, was established only between 1862 and 1864. Historically, three Internationals succeeded one another or coexisted, along with a fourth, represented by Trotzki, a secessionist from the third, or Comintern, not to mention the Kominform (v.).
I. THE FIRST I. – It is called, par excellence, the « I. » and was established in London in the autumn of 1864, following contacts between French and English workers’ organizations that had taken place on the occasion of the London Exhibition of 1862 and in which representatives of other countries, including Marx, subsequently participated. On 1 November 1864, an organizing committee approved the program and statutes, drafted by Marx, of an international league of workers which was to direct the struggle of the proletariat in the various countries and disseminate the principles of communism. A general council was created, on which the workers of the various participating countries were represented. Marx, representing Germany, was its leading figure.
At the First Congress (Geneva, 1866), three fundamental principles were sanctioned, formulated by Marx as early as 1864 in his Inaugural Address, which would form the central core of the discussions at subsequent congresses: the liberation of the workers from economic slavery must be their own work; international collaboration among workers and rejection of all warmongering policies; conquest of political power in order to control the means of production. At Geneva, the first significant divergences emerged between the Marxists on the one hand and lesser though vigorous currents (including the French Proudhonists) on the other. Nevertheless, Marx had an agenda approved which, in addition to dealing with child labor, trade unions, the reduction of working hours, and cooperation, expressed support for international collaboration among workers in the struggle between capital and labor. At Lausanne (1867), where the political tasks of the proletariat were discussed, both on the domestic plane and in the international sphere, as well as the function of the State and the problem of war, the divisions became more evident: while the Marxists, in the majority, had Marx’s proposal approved, affirming the « necessity of the struggle for political freedom », the Proudhonists offered fierce opposition, both there and at the subsequent Congresses of Brussels (1868) and Basel (1869), to principles of more pronounced communism, such as the attribution to the State of ownership of the land and of the means of production and transport, or the conception that saw in the strike a means of struggle not only for social gains but also for preventing war. Although these principles were likewise approved at Basel, the fate of the first I. was by then sealed, all the more so because it had failed to prevent the war of 1870 and the defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871. As each group of workers tended to act on its own, the split became complete at the Congress of The Hague in 1872, where Bakunin’s anarchist principles clashed with the unified discipline of Marxist communism. Bakunin, expelled, established his own I. at St-Imer, with followers in Spain and Italy; he went so far as to organize an insurrection that was easily suppressed in southern Spain, but it soon petered out. The « orthodox » I. led a precarious existence; after the General Council had moved to Nuova York, it decided on its general dissolution in Philadelphia in 1876, following the Congress of 1874.
II. THE SECOND I. – The end of the first I. naturally did not bring the associational movement of the socialist currents in the various countries to an end; in Germany first, and later in the other States, between 1872 and 1888 strong parties with a common social-democratic tendency were formed, distinct from the ordinary workers’ leagues of resistance, cooperation, mutual aid, etc. In July 1889 the second I. was created in Paris, internationally linking all these parties. From its founding congress onward, it advocated the formation of proletarian political parties and urged the avoidance of any understanding with bourgeois parties, even if revolutionary. Unlike its predecessor, it possessed no effective central authority.
At the Congress of Brussels (1891), while the necessity of political struggle for the conquest of the State was reaffirmed, the exclusion of the anarchists was sanctioned once again. This was followed by the Congresses of Zurich (1893), which took a position against militarism, and those of London (1896) and Paris (1900); at Amsterdam in 1904 the discussion of the problem of war and peace was continued. Resumed in 1907 at the Congress of Stuttgart, it gave rise to the first clash between the moderate tendency, led by Bebel and Volmar, and the intransigent tendency, to which Hervé, Lenin, and Rosa Luxemburg adhered. When Hervé spoke out against all “patriotism,” Bebel and Volmar rose in opposition, declaring that the social democrats would defend Germany in the event of an attack. Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg radicalized Hervé’s thesis by proposing that, in the event of war, the socialist parties should hasten its end and then exploit the ensuing crisis in order to bring about the collapse of capitalism.
The Congress failed to reach agreement on this point and remained divided between those who considered it necessary to “defend the fatherland” and the more extremist members who, above the fatherland, looked toward the triumph of the proletariat. As the threats of war became more acute and the socialist parties were committed to preventing it, an extraordinary congress met at Basel in 1912. Recalling the activity then being pursued by social democracy in favor of peace, it urged all workers to exert pressure on the governments of their respective countries so that they would adopt a peaceful foreign policy. The tenth Congress, which was to open in Vienna in August 1914, had the problem of peace on its agenda. It could not meet, and the war of 1914 brought about the complete split of the second I., since the working classes, against an internationalism that at that moment was purely ideal and abstract, gave precedence to the national necessity of defending the fatherland, postponing the general problem of war and peace until after the conflict. Three tendencies thus emerged: the original revolutionary and communist tendency, opposed to the war; the patriotic tendency, which saw the social revolutionaries and Right Mensheviks in Russia, the Labour Party in England, the majority of the social democrats in Germany and Austria, the Socialist Party in France, and, in Italy, part of the Socialist Party, led by Mussolini (expelled after the founding of Papalo d'Italia on 23 November 1914), align themselves with the conflict; and finally a centrist tendency (Kautsky and Adler, both Austrians), which took no position either for peace or for war and formed the International Socialist Union, which continued to bear the name of the second I. From 1914 onward, the second I. lost part of its importance. In the attempts of the Italian socialist Morgan to revive it at the Conferences of Zimmerwald (September 1915) and Kienthal (April 1916), the extremist tendency that founded the third I. prevailed (nor did the proposal of the Scandinavian committee to convene a congress at Stockholm in 1917 meet with better fortune, since it could not take place because of the Allies’ refusal to issue passports); in 1919 it sought to unite with the third I., but was rejected by it because it did not accept its conditions. The meetings at Lucerne (August 1919) and Geneva (August 1920) followed, but without appreciable results. Meanwhile, the socialist groups that did not intend to adhere either to the second or to the third I. met in the so-called Vienna I. (International Working Union of Socialist Parties), which included within it the German Independent Socialists, the Austrian social democrats, and the English Labour Party. In April 1922 they sought to achieve in Berlin the unification of all the organizations of the proletariat, but this attempt also failed. Between 1921 and 1922 representatives of the English, French, German, Italian, and Belgian socialists met in Paris and then in Frankfurt and approved the so-called “Frankfurt decisions,” which called for the cancellation of inter-Allied debts, the end of the inter-Allied occupation of former enemy territories, and the reduction of German war debts. On 27 May 1923, the adherents of the second I. and the Vienna I., meeting in Hamburg, decided to merge the two bodies, establishing, “in addition to the exclusion of the communists,” the conditions for the admission of other political parties or groups. The second I., thus reconstituted and known as the Amsterdam Socialist International, thereafter continued to hold periodic meetings, dealing with the most varied problems: from the eight-hour working day to the reform of social legislation, from peace to colonial expansion and raw materials. The peace movement expressed in the Locarno Agreements (1925) and the Kellogg Pact (1928) is attributed in part to its influence and to that of the various socialist parties belonging to II.
For the bibliography, vedi sotto al n. IV. Angelo Tamborra
III. KOMINTERN
Abbreviation for “I. communist,” as in “Third I.”1. History
The division of the international socialist movement was caused particularly by the attitude adopted during the First World War by the socialist parties of the various belligerent countries. When these parties voted in Parliament in favor of war credits, strong opposition arose within the same parties. Delegates from these groups of socialist opposition in the various belligerent countries met from 5 to 8 Sept. 1915 at Zimmerwald, and from 24 to 30 Apr. 1916 at Kienthal in Switzerland. Although these conferences met, in a certain sense, under the ideal direction of the Russian émigrés living in Switzerland—Lenin, Trotskij, and Radek—they nevertheless failed to secure acceptance of their demand for the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war, nor did they obtain consent to the formation of a new I. They had to be content with defining the imperialist character of the war, condemning the attitude of the “social patriots,” and demanding as their program a peace without annexations and without reparations.A decisive step in the development leading toward the foundation of the Third I. was the Russian Revolution of Nov. 1917. When the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party, some time after its victory, changed its name at the VII Congress (1918) to the Russian Communist Party, the name Third I. was also established; it was therefore to be founded as the “Communist I.” The effective foundation of the Communist I. took place at its I Congress, attended from 2 to 9 March 1919 by representatives from Europe, America, China, and Korea. The presence of representatives from Asia gave the Komintern a distinctive character from the time of its foundation.
The newly founded Communist I. immediately set to work, that is, it began at once the struggle to attain its goal, world revolution: the Spartacist disturbances in Germany (1919) and the foundation of the Soviet republics in Hungary (March 1919) and Bavaria (Apr. 1919) were its work. The II Congress (19 July–6 Aug. 1920) was of particular importance for the internal organization of the Komintern. At it, certain tactical characteristics already became apparent, for example, Lenin’s tendency to avert a twofold danger: on the one hand, “centrism” (the left wing of the various social-democratic parties that wished to join the Komintern), which could constitute a danger to the revolutionary spirit; and, on the other, “radicalism,” which Lenin called the “infantile disorder of communism” (for example, the German communists, who initially displayed an extremist attitude). The discussions on the agrarian question and on national and colonial problems were likewise of great importance. As the policy of the Komintern, the line was established of seeing both the peasants and the “oppressed colonial peoples” as allies of the proletariat (against Trotskij, who regarded the peasants as a “reactionary mass,” and against Rosa Luxemburg, who believed that the colonial question could be ignored). The revolutionary upheaval of the colonial peoples was placed, from that time onward, at the forefront of Komintern policy. This was all the more understandable since the revolutionary attempts made in Europe had not achieved the hoped-for success, and the absorption of the proletarian class, which in its majority was social-democratic, had made only limited progress. To attract non-communist workers by separating them from their leaders, the Komintern initiated, as early as the III Congress (Moscow, 5 Nov.–5 Dec. 1922), the last held while Lenin was still alive, the tactic of the “united front.” The Trotskyist crisis, which broke out some time after Lenin’s death within the Russian Communist Party, was already reflected in the V Congress of the Komintern (17 June–8 July 1924). The struggles that then began within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, on the one hand against Trotskyism and on the other against the deviation toward the right, were probably also the cause of the four-year interruption between the V and VI Congresses of the Komintern. The VI Congress took place only after Stalin’s triumph over Trotskij, from 17 July to 1 Sept. 1928 in Moscow, and confirmed the decision of the XV Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union concerning the exclusion of the Trotskyist opposition. This congress acquired special importance by adopting the definitive formulation of the program and statutes of the Komintern. Subsequently, especially from the time Hitler came to power in Germany, the Komintern’s principal interest turned to the struggle against fascism and National Socialism, while it returned above all to the tactic of the “united front”: thus at the VII World Congress, in Aug. 1935, which in the history of the Komintern is regarded as the “Congress of the victory of socialism in the U.S.S.R. and of the united proletarian front against fascism and war.”
At the time of the VII Congress, the Komintern comprised 76 parties (26 legal and 50 illegal). These parties had 3,141,000 members, of whom 785,000 were in capitalist countries and the remainder in the U.S.S.R. A further 3,753,000 members belonged to communist youth organizations.
In opposition to the Komintern, Germany, Italy, and Japan concluded the Anti-Komintern Pact (Rome, 6 Nov. 1937).
2. Organization, program, and tactics. – The Komintern is “a unitary world communist party” composed of the “communist parties of the various countries” (§ 1 of the statutes). This world party is bound by an “iron revolutionary discipline” (Great Soviet Encyclopedia, XXXIII [1938], col. 717); “all resolutions of the Congress of the Komintern, as well as the resolutions of the executive committee, are obligatory for all parties belonging to the Komintern” (The II Congress of the Komintern, Vienna 1920, p. 114 ff.). But not only are the individual sections subject, in the observance of the strictest obedience, to the direction of the Komintern; so too is every individual member of the Communist Party of any country, since one of the conditions for membership expressly provides that he “submits to every resolution adopted by the party and by the Komintern” (Proceedings of the VI World Congress of the Komintern, IV, Hamburg n.d., p. 101). The supreme organ of the Komintern is the World Congress and, in the interval between congresses, the Executive Committee, whose resolutions “are obligatory for all sections and must be carried out immediately” (Statutes, § 13). The individual sections may lodge protests against the decisions of the executive committee at the subsequent World Congress of the Komintern, but until that time these decisions must be carried out. The leading section of the Komintern is the Communist Party of the Bolsheviks of the U.S.S.R., whose predominant position is ensured by the fact that the number of representatives of a section has been calculated on the basis of the number of members in the section represented and, as has already been established, the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. is by far the strongest party.
The rigid unity of this world party was sought not only through blind obedience to the central leadership but also, from the outset, through an intensive and obligatory information service which, on the one hand, proceeded from the individual sections to inform the central authority and, on the other, linked the various sections to one another: “The sections of the Komintern, especially the sections of the metropolitan countries and their colonies, as well as the sections of two neighboring countries, must maintain close relations with one another, both organizational and informational” (Proceedings... cit., p. 106). It is precisely this point that suggests a continuity existing, despite all formal divergences, between the Komintern and the Kominform.
In its program, the Komintern rests entirely on the foundation of Marxism-Leninism, therefore insisting on all the specific differences between Leninist Marxism and that of the Second I. First of all, it opposes the thesis of “revisionism,” according to which Marxism as a social and economic system can be separated from its philosophical and conceptual foundation: “The Komintern defends and propagates the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels and applies it, as a revolutionary method for understanding reality, to its revolutionary transformation” (Protocollo... cit., p. 147). Moreover, the term Marxism means, for the Komintern, essentially the doctrine of the violent, revolutionary overthrow of the social order: “Basing itself on the historical experiences of the revolutionary proletarian movement of all continents and all peoples, the Komintern, in its theoretical and practical awareness, rests unconditionally upon revolutionary Marxism and its further development, Leninism, which is nothing other than Marxism in the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution” (ibid.). The conquest of power by the proletariat, in the Komintern’s conception, is “not at all a conquest achieved by obtaining a parliamentary majority... The power of the bourgeoisie can be broken only through the resolute application of violence by the proletariat” (Protocollo... cit., p. 65 ff.).
According to art. 1 of the statutes, the goal of this struggle is the “establishment of the world dictatorship of the proletariat” and “the creation of a world federation of socialist Soviet republics in order completely to eliminate the classes and to realize socialism, the first stage of communist society.”
Although, according historical materialism (v.), the formation of communist society will occur as the logical result of historical evolution, this will nevertheless not be achieved without the conscious participation of human beings; indeed, it will require the active struggle, waged with all their energies, of the communists. “A communist party must therefore, in its aim of having only truly active members, require each of them to place his strength and his time, insofar as he can dispose of them and considering the conditions in which he finds himself, at the Party’s disposal, and to devote all his efforts in favor of this service” (Tesi e risoluzioni del III Congresso mondiale del Komintern, ed. dell’I. comunista, 1921, p. 110).
The principle of the uneven development of capitalism in the various countries was the guiding rule of the Komintern’s strategy and tactics. According to this principle, the victory of communism was not to be conceived as a single act to be achieved simultaneously in all countries; rather, one ought to be content with the possibility that socialism might be realized in a few countries or even in a single country. But this does not mean that the leadership of the Komintern, and Zinoviev in particular, was not convinced—especially during the first years after the Russian revolution—of the imminent advent of world revolution. Indeed, for some time the Komintern had seen in it the only way out of the internal difficulties of the young Soviet Union. To the extent, however, that the immediate realization of world revolution proved impossible, the possibility of socialism’s advent in a single country was admitted; and this was one of the principal points of conflict between Stalin and Trotskij, who aimed directly at world revolution.
But this did not at all signify a renunciation of world revolution, for whose realization two paths were taken into consideration: the outbreak of an imperialist war and the preparation of individual revolutions in the various countries. As for the first path, it simply involved exploiting to the full the opportunity that a new war would offer communism by bringing the entire bourgeois world to collapse and complete ruin. In the second case, the principal task was seen as winning over the proletarian masses through the destruction of social democracy. The twelfth plenary meeting of the Executive Committee of the Komintern declared: “Only when the main blow is concentrated against social democracy, this principal social pillar of the bourgeoisie, will it be possible successfully to defeat and overthrow the greatest enemy of the proletarian class: the bourgeoisie” (L'I. comunista, 1932, 9-10, p. 384).
Two tactical means in particular were to serve this goal of attracting the proletarian masses by distancing them from their social-democratic leaders: the tactic of the “united front” organized from below and the tactic of “contingent demands.” In the tactic of the united front, the agreement with the leaders of social democracy was only apparently at issue, whereas in reality this united front was not to be a coalition at all; it was not to be constructed from above, but from below. The task consisted in using the tactic of paralyzing all the other leaders and expelling them by unmasking them as “mediocrities” or presenting them as “cowards,” as “ambitious men” and “social traitors.” In this sense, Molotov, at the tenth plenary session of the Executive Committee of the Komintern, in July 1929, insisted on “the extraordinary importance of the united-front tactic” in its new forms, in its precise execution “from below,” and specified: “Today more than ever, the tactic of coalitions between revolutionary and reformist organizations is inadmissible and harmful. With all the greater energy it is necessary to insist on the importance of the struggle for the predominance of the communist parties in the actions of the masses” (Protocollo della 10ª seduta plenaria del Comitato esecutivo del Komintern, Amburgo s. d., p. 417). At the Sixth World Congress of the Komintern it was decided: “The intensification of the struggle against social democracy shifts the main weight decisively toward the united front organized from below, but it does not relieve the communists of the duty to distinguish between misguided social-democratic proletarians and the leaders of social democracy who have assumed the role of servants of imperialism” (Protocollo... cit., IV, p. 30).
In the tactic of contingent demands, the communist addresses not only the proletarian masses, whom he seeks to radicalize, but also the non-proletarian masses, to whom he presents himself as the most energetic and effective defender of their interests; in this tactic, those elements of the communist program that are considered unacceptable are concealed with great skill, case by case, while a partial demand, taken from the general program, is presented as one of the essential pillars of the communist program. This system was employed especially among the peasants and colonial peoples. In relation to the peasants, the Komintern program considers the following contingent demands: «The policy of taxation, mortgage debt, the struggle against usurious capital, the lack of land for poor peasants, rent, usufruct rights, etc. Starting from these partial demands, the Communist Party must intensify its demands until bringing them together in the slogan of the confiscation of the latifundia and that of a workers’ and peasants’ government» (Protocollo... cit., p. 98). In this way, the peasant is first promised everything, being told that he will receive all the land, only for it then to be rapidly collectivized, that is, expropriated, so that the peasant ends by losing everything. Thus the communists always found something to offer to the various classes of the population: to the socialists, Marxism and the class struggle; to the democrats, «true democracy»; to the radicals, the struggle against the obscurantism of the Church and the secularization of schools; to the liberals, the struggle for human rights and, in particular, for civic freedoms (one may recall, for example, the liberal accents struck by the communist press quite recently on the occasion of the decree of the Holy Office against communism), freedoms that would later be exploited without scruple for communist propaganda; to nationalists and patriots, the most effective representation of national interests (for example, the propaganda recently unleashed by the communists, within the framework of the struggle against the Marshall Plan, against the partial renunciation of sovereignty); and even to the Christian faithful, the idea of social justice and the pathos of universal «love of neighbor»; and, in recent times, to all the peoples of Europe weary of wars, propaganda for peace. Thus all, without explicitly desiring the advent of communism, will contribute to its realization.
3. Dissolution. – This world Party of the communists, directed centrally from Moscow and striving with iron discipline toward the realization of the world revolution, was naturally bound to make the collaboration of the Soviet Union with the Allies during the Second World War more difficult. In order, therefore, to ensure in all the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition «a general national strengthening and the mobilization of the masses in favor of as rapid a victory over the enemy as possible», the presidium of the Komintern adopted on 15 May 1943 the resolution to dissolve itself. Stalin himself justified the dissolution by the need, on the one hand, to neutralize the anti-Komintern pact and the propaganda connected with it and, on the other, to eliminate any appearance that the communist parties in the various countries might act solely on the basis of orders received from Moscow.
Gustavo A. Wetter
IV. THE FOURTH I
It was formed following the separation from the Komintern of the extremist current, represented chiefly by Trotskij. When, following the October Revolution (1917), the leading communists of the third I. seized power in Russia, they felt its full weight and responsibility and were compelled to adapt revolutionary ideology and programs, both domestically and internationally, to the demands of practical life. This seemed to Trotskij incompatible with the original idea of Marx and Lenin, who envisaged the fulfilment of communism only through a world revolution and not, as Stalin understood it, through the so-called «communism in one country» (cf. La révolution trahie, Paris 1936).Shortly before Lenin’s death, in opposition to the strongly bureaucratic tendencies within the party and the Soviet state, imposed undoubtedly at that particular moment by the demands of reconstruction, Trotskij addressed a letter to the party on 8 March 1923 in which he called for freedom to discuss political and economic problems; the implementation of democracy within the party, with elections rather than appointments; free rein for the forces of youth; and so forth. Stalin, in no way inclined to place the forces of the U.S.S.R. at the service of implementing the idea of «permanent revolution», since he had assumed precise governmental responsibilities, gradually, through a struggle lasting a full five years, excluded Trotskij and his current from all political activity. Exiled to Kazakhstan in 1928, in 1929 Trotskij found refuge abroad. In France, in 1931 he founded the «Internationalist Communist League» (the so-called Leninist communists), whose doctrine was based on the «pure» and «authentic» interpretation of Lenin’s communism, as opposed to Stalin’s adaptation. From 1934 to 1936, the purges ordered by Stalin within the Russian Communist Party and the third I. intensified the defections of opponents in favour of the Trotskyist Fourth I., to such an extent that at the Paris Congress of 1936 more than 600 delegates were present, representing approximately 126 organizations. The Fourth
I. thus accentuated its extremist and revolutionary tendencies. Bound to an idea embodied by Trotskij, the assassination of the latter near Mexico City (20 August 1940) and the world war seem to have deprived it of the possibility of viable development. Nevertheless, some dissident groups still draw certain inspiration from Trotskyist ideological positions.
For the moral and religious evaluation of this entire movement, V. BOLSCEVISMO; COMUNISMO; SOCIALISMO.