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Comintern: the Sixth Ikki

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Comintern: the Sixth Ikki CHAPTER 35 COMINTERN: THE SIXTH IKKI N August 20, 192 5, the presidium of IKKI decided to O eonvene a session of the enlarged IKKI for Oetober or November" 1925, little more than six months after its predeeessor: one of its preseribed tasks was to make preparations for a sixth world eongress of Comintern. 1 As eommonly hap­ pened, the time required for the organization of sueh gatherings proved to have been underestimated. On this oeeasion the uneertainties of the international situation after Loearno, and the aeute erisis in the Russian party eulminating at the fourteenth eongress in Deeember 1925, both provided reasons for postpone­ ment. The sixth enlarged IKKI finally met in February 1926 ; the sixth eongress was relegated by eommon eonsent to a remoter future. During the ten months whieh separated the end of the fifth from the opening of the sixth session of the enlarged IKKI, theoretieal diseussions had eontinued to revolve round the eon­ eeption of the "stabilization of eapitalism ". The reeognition of this stabilization by the fifth enlarged IKKI Z had been reeeived with misgivings, and none of the reservations with whieh it had been hedged around entirely reeonciled party opinion to it. In the summer of 1925 the war in Moroeeo and the outbreak of troubles in China suggested that the revolutionary tide was onee more beginning to flow, if only in extra-European ehannels. When, in June, 1925 Zinoviev was moving towards a break with Stalin, and was anxious to proclaim his 10yalty to the eause of world revolution, he published an article entitled The Epoch 0/ Wars and Revolutions,3 whieh insisted, with far more emphasis than anyone had done in the enlarged IKKI three months earlier, " on the limits of stabilization, on the relativity of the stabilization I Internationale Presse-Korrespondenz, No. 124, August 25, 1925, p. 1796. • See pp. 288-290 above. 3 See Vol. 2"p. 61, note 1. 490 E. H. Carr, Socialism in One Country 1924–1926 © E. H. Carr 1964 CH. XXXV COMINTERN: THE SIXTH IKKI 491 of capitalism", and harped on the expanding revolutionary prospect; the essence of the condusions reached by the enlarged IKKI was graphically, though tendentiously, described as "a penn'orth of stabilization, a dollar's worth of Bolshevization ". But this revival of optimism did not last. For the capitalist countries of Europe, and for the United States of America, the year 1925 was, in spite of minor " colonial " set-backs, a time of achievement and reassurance. The Dawes plan had begun to work, and was endorsed almost everywhere by the non-communist Left as a contribution to economic recovery. Locarno was a triumph for those who sought to heal the rifts between the European Powers, actually or potentially at the expense of the Soviet Union. The signs of growing tension in so me of the capitalist count ries, and the growing friendship for the Soviet Union among so me elements of the Left, did not alter the sense of the increasing isolation of the Soviet Union and of increasing danger from the west. When the fourteenth party congress met in December 1925, Stalin spoke in his main report of a " provisional equilibrium of forces ", and of " a phase of ' peaceful co-existence ' between the land of the Soviets and the lands of capitalism ". A" stabilization of capitalism " had been secured in Europe " at the cost of the financial subordination of Europe to America". Western and central Europe had witnessed "an ebb in the revolutionary move­ ment ", though " an evident Leftward movement of the European working dass" was now in progress. I The general resolution of the congress noted "the consolidation and extension of the , breathing-space " wh ich has been converted into a whole period of so-called peaceful co-existence of the USSR with the capitalist countries ".1 Agreement still held between the warring factions to keep international issues, induding the affairs of Comintern, outside the arena of party strife; and Zinoviev introduced the customary debate on Comintern. He struck a cautious, even pessimistic, note, wh ich may in part have reflected his own predicament, but led up to approved conclusions. He admitted that Comintern could register "no great successes" since its last congress. So me people talked as if a new era had dawned J Stalin, Sochineniya, vii, 261-268. 2 VKP(B) v Rezolyutsiyakh (1941), ii, 48. 49Z FOREIGN RELATIONS PT. V for capitalism: this was the result of "simplifications" and " exaggerations " of the thesis of the stabilization of capitalism. Nevertheless, "the partial stabilization of capitalism is a fact ". Zinoviev, anxious to propitiate his Left wing supporters without breaking away from the party Hne, admitted that " some comrades in our party and in other parties thought that we were wrong in Ußing the word ' stabilization " that it grates on the ear, that it is too pessimistic, that it gives undue credit to international capi­ tal"; he supported it by the analogy of Lenin's recognition of " a relative balance of forces .. at the third congress. In difficult times it was all the more necessary to compete with sodal­ democratic parties in using everyday economic demands to win over the workers. "The tactic 0/ the united front is only just beginning ".1 Manuilsky slyly suggested that, since Zinoviev was throwing over the policy of the united front with the peasantry in the Soviet Union, he could no longer pursue united front policies in Comintern. and that the appearance of the Zinoviev opposition in the Russian party was bound to encourage the ultra-Left in Comintern.1 But nobody else took up this point. In one of the shortest resolutions on record on so important a subject, the congress approved the work of the Russian party delegation to IKKI in helping, "in conditions of the partial stabilization of capitalism ", to overcome " dangerous deviations .. in other parties, and encouraged it to intensify the struggle for trade union unity and for the winning over of " the broad masses of non-party and social-democratic workers ".3 A few weeks tater, in the economic theses issued on the second anniversary of Lenin's death, IKKI declared confidently " that we onee more stand on a rising curve 0/ the revolutionary movement, that large parts 0/ the world are even in an immediately revolutionary situation ". But this belief was based mainly on the outlook in China, and it was again admitted that "in Europe the situation is not immediately revolutionary "." In the preparations for the enlarged IKKI, which met on February 17, 1926, the first preoeeupation of the Bolshevik leaders was to prevent the dissensions in the Russian party from repro­ J XIV S"ezd Vsesoyuznoi Kommunisticheskoi Parti; (B) (1926), pp. 639-681. Z Ibid. pp. 693-695 i see also p. JJ7 above. J VKP(B) f} Rezolyutsiyakh ([94[), ii, 58-59. • Internationale Prcue-Korrespondenz, No. 10, January [4, [926, p. u8. eH. xxxv COMINTERN: THE SIXTH IKKI 493 ducing themselves in foreign parties or from in any way diminish­ ing the prestige and inftuence of the Russian party in Comintern. Wide publicity was given to a circular letter addressed by the Russian party on January 13, 1926, to other member parties. The letter admitted that the delay in the international revolution and the relative stabilization of capitalism had bred ce some moods of depression" in the party. It gave abrief and reasonably fair synopsis of the issues dividing the minority from the majority (internal evidence pointed to Bukharin as the author), and invited the parties to study these questions in the light of the documents. But it ended with the firm pronouncement that ce a carrying of the discussion of the Russian question into the ranks of the Communist International is undesirable ".1 In order to enforce this ban, it was essential for the party to speak in Comintern with a single voice. Zinoviev, though cast out from the inner circle of party leaders and prohibited from opening his mouth on controversial party affairs, Z was still the president of IKKI and party spokesman in Comintern: in this capacity it was inevitable that he should preside over the session of the enlarged IKKI and make the principal report. Trotsky, no longer a member of IKKI, was not adelegate. But he participated as a member of the Politbüro in the preparation of the lengthy set of theses on ce Current Problems of the International Communist Movement ", which were as usual published in advance, and formed the basis of the main resolution of the session. 3 When the session opened, Zinoviev's principal speech" was balanced and colourless. The year 1924 had been the era of I PrafJda and l:ttfJestiya, January 14, 1926. a See Vol. 2, p. 153. 3 They were published in PrafJda, February 16, 1926, in the fonn approved by the Politburo; the original draft submitted to the Politburo was not pub­ Iished, but two notes on it by Trotsky dated February 13, 1926, are in the Trotsky archives (T 2979, 2980). The first sought to amend the section relating to the united front by stipulating that cooperation was out of the question ce ao long as the social-democrats work hand-in-glove with the bourgeoisie in coali­ tion governments "; this was not adopted. The second proposed that, with the revival of the slogan of the United States of Europe, the slogan of the ce worker-peasant government .. should also be revived, ce at any rate for some countries "; this found its place in the Politburo text of the theses. For the theaes as adopted by the enlarged IKKI see p.
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