The first five years of the communist international Vol. 2

521 Pages·08.454 MB·English

by  Trotsky, Leon, Wright, John G.

The first five years of the Communist International
VOLUME 2

The first five years of the
Communist International
VOLUME 2
Leon Trotsky
Pathfinder
NEW YORK LONDON MONTREAL SYDNEY
Copyright © 1972 Pathfinder Press
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-0-87348-831-0
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-92701
Manufactured in Canada
First edition, 1953
Second edition, 1972
Tenth printing, 2019
Cover painting: Morris Louis, While series II, 1961, 72 x 72 in. I 182.9 x
182.9 cm. Private collection, courtesy of Marcella Louis Brenner and
The Andre Emmerich Gallery, Inc.
Cover design: Eric Simpson
Pathfinder
www.pathfinderpress.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Contents
Foreword 9
I. From the Third to the Fourth World Congress
1. The school of revolutionary strategy 13
2. Communication from the Executive
Committee of the Communist International
to the Central Committee of the French
Communist Party 67
3. Letter to the Marseilles Convention of the
French Communist Party 77
4. Speech on Comrade Zinoviev's report on the
tactic of the Communist International at the
1921 All-Russian Conference 86
5. Summary speech 97
6. Flood-tide 104
7. Paul Levi and some 'Lefts' 119
8. On the united front 127
9. Resolution of the Enlarged Plenum of
the ECCi on the French question 152
10. The Communists and the French peasantry 156
11. The lessons of May Day 164
12. A letter from the ECCi to the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of France 170
13. French Communism and the position of
Comrade Rappoport 182
14. Letter to Comrade Ker 188
15. Resolution of the Enlarged Plenum of the ECCi 194
16. A letter to Comrade Treint 206
17. A letter of the ECCi to the Seine Federation 212
18. A letter to the convention of the
French Communist Party 220
19. A message to the Paris Convention
of the Communist Party 245
II. The Fourth World Congress
20. Report on the Fifth Anniversary of the
October Revolution and the Fourth World
Congress of the Communist International 257
21. Speech in honor of the Communist
International delivered at the parade
on the Red Square, November 7th, 1922 299
22. Report on the New Soviet Economic Policy
and the perspectives of the world revolution 303
23. Theses on the economic situation
of Soviet Russia from the standpoint
of the socialist revolution 360
24. Resolution of the Fourth World Congress
on the French question 374
25. A militant program of action for the
French Communist Party 387
26. Resolution of the French Commission 395
III. After the Fourth World Congress
27. Political perspectives 403
28. Report on the Fourth World Congress 412
29. The balance sheet of the completed period 451
30. Is the time ripe for the slogan:
'The United States of Europe'? 460
31. Is it possible to fix a definite schedule for a
counter-revolution or a revolution? 468
32. A letter to Comrade McKay 476
Explanatory notes 481
fufu ~
Publisher's note to the 1972 edition
The First Five Years of the Communist International was
first published in English in 1945 by Pioneer Publishers (the
second volume did not appear until 1953), translated, edited,
and annotated by John G. Wright. Before he died in 1956 at
the age of 52, Wright had translated many of Trotsky's works
into English. Save for the correction of typographical errors
and the 7 pages of illustrations following page 246, this edi
tion is identical to the original edition printed in 1953.
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Foreword to the 1953 edition
This is a companion volume to The First Five Years of the
Communist International by Leon Trotsky, which was pub
lished in October 1945 by Pioneer Publishers, New York, N.Y.
The documents contained in the present volume cover the
period from the Third World Congress of the Communist
International (1921) to the Fourth World Congress (1922).
Workers searching for answers to the burning issues of
our times will find the publication of Trotsky's work in the
Leninist International indispensable and irreplaceable. For the
main issues that came up before the first four Congresses of
the CI, the Third and Fourth in particular, remain essentially
the same as confront the world labor movement today.
This priceless experience of the past illuminates such is
sues as war and peace, the workers' struggle for emancipa
tion, the strategy and tactics of revolutionary Marxism. The
reader will gain an understanding why the decay of capital
ism has turned out more gangrenous and has stretched out
longer than anyone had expected; why the epoch of capitalist
decline has turned out more stormy, dramatic and bloody
than the epoch of the rise of capitalism.
Trotsky elucidates the main reasons for this development,
treating in particular the crisis of proletarian leadership,
still unresolved. The solution of this problem of proletarian
leadership is the most difficult and critical task facing world
labor. Without any fear of exaggeration we may say that the
fate of civilization hinges upon its solution today.
It is with this in mind that the new generation of Marx-
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