Program of the Communist International DRAFT ADOPTED at the FIFTH WORLD CONGRESS
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“The idea becomes SECOND SECTION power when it pene- SPECIAL UAQAZINE SUPPLEMENT This magazine supple- trates the masses." ment will appear every Saturday In The Daily ■—Karl Marx. THE DAILY WORKER. Worker. OCTOBER 25, 1924. Program of the Communist International DRAFT ADOPTED AT THE FIFTH WORLD CONGRESS. ly to world crises; the local wars are bourgoedria es didtawan erjnaflMS of INTRODUCTION. replaced by alliances and world wars; industry to .uiita, also gives rise to dtangea. type In tha revolutionary fight against capitalist domination, the the class war develops from isolated substantial! to the <cf actions of single groups of workers, competitive struggte.. fnscseai at onnrn- international proletariat must unite the efforts of its separate detach* first to a national struggle, and then peting by means off few 'prices, tilbere ments and merge these detachments Into international proletarian one to an international struggle of the is a growing tendency to use force army. The organization, fighting revolutionary which unites the prole- world proletariat ag&inst the world openly: boycotts and other forms of tariat, regardless of state boundaries, nationality, race, creed, sex, or bourgeoisie. pressure within the country itself; occupation, is the International Workers’ Association, the Communist The inevitable aggravation of class high protective duties, tariff wars, the International. The Communist International, uniting all the Commun- antagonism is accompanied by a sim- employment of armed force backed by ist parties and constituting in Itself the militant world party of the ultaneous consolidation of the antag- state power—in international rela- proletariat, aims at the emancipation of labor from the yoke of capi- onistic class forced. On the one hand, tions. This increasing acuteness of competition is, in international eco- tal; it openly advocates the violent overthrow of the bourgeois order the capitalist bourgeoisie forms its as- sociations, state power, nomic relations, largely due to two by means of the Communist revolution, and thus continues the revo- secures its and organizes forces; on the facts: fii3t to (he general division of lutionary tradition of the Communist association, and the First Inter- its armed other hand, the working class, brought the colonies among the greatest capi- national founded by Marx. It entirely and unreservedly maintains into one camp and united by the me- talist slates; secondly, to the extra- the standpoint of Marxism, revolutionary which found its most com- chanism of capitalist production itself, ordinary increase in the export of plete expression in Leninism which is pure and simple Marxism of creates its own powerful organiza- capital, accompanied by the increased the epoch of the direct proletarian fight for the conquest of power. tions, which are sooner or later trans- endeavor to occupy ane control the The Communist International is fighting on this basis for clarity in formed into weapons of the prole- territories fully to which the exported the dtass consciousness of the masses by placing its dialectic material- tariat in the war against the bour- capital flows. ism in opposition to the teachings of the bourgeois Ideology, and geoisie and its main support—state Under such conditions state power power. thereby leading the fight against any kind of bourgeois influence over and its armed forces assume a s:.e- The capitalist the proletariat, such as religion, idealistic and non-materialist dialectic natural course of evo- cial significance for the bourgeoisie. lution thus Inevitably sharpens the capital philosophy, the doctrine of harmony between capital and labor, The policy of finance is direct- contradictions of the capitalist sys- rapacious activity the socialistic opportunism—thereby consistently maintaining the basis ed to of utmost tem, and finally renders the existence intensity (imperialism), requiring of the class struggle. The Communist International formulates its of the system itself impossible. The reinforcements ror armies, entire enormous fundamental principles, aims and fundamental methods for living force which overthrows the air fleets, and every description of struggle on this basis, and in the program, which unites millions of capitalist system is the proletariat, means of annihilation. The gigantic toilers, explains the position of the oppressed under capitalist rule, which revolts against its bondage, an- development of competition is one of and shows them the way to victory over the bourgeoisie, and to the nihilates the regime of capital, and the causes of the increasing acuteness construction of the Communist society. organizes the systematic economics of the competitive struggle which ends of socialism, the premises of which in disastrous wars. are created by capitalism itself. I. Capitalist The process of the centralization of Wage Slavery. an anarchic character to production, These pre-requisites of the new form capital a world scale has thos led 1. General Characteristics of Capital- and leads to blind production regulat- of society which have to replace capi- on creation of great powers of ism as a System of Exploitation. ed by no conscious power. This is talism, are: the concentration of the Ito the capital, At the present time almost the shown on the one hand in the severe means of production, the powerful finance which have become the center capitalist pressure whole globe is under the rule of capi- conflicts between various competing capitalist technique, the science creat- of the ex- tending world, capi- talism. Only in the Soviet Union has concerns and groups of concerns, caus- ed by capitalist evolution, the work- thruout the ot the predatory raids, ex- the domination of capital been super- ing an enormous waste of energy; on ers’ organizations which will be able talist and of the ploitation and enslavement of seded. the other hand the unregulated pro- to furnish the first organizers of the enorm- This rule is based upon private duction-absence of proportion be- new order of society; finally, the ous numbers of proletarian, semi-pro- letarian, and peasant elements. The property and the production of com- tween its various branches, and the Marxian theory, the greatest weapon bourgeois states modities for the market. result of this anarchy of production—- of the proletarian struggle, which is weaker exist in direct or indirect dependence on A small group of persons is in pos- the contradiction between the increas- becoming a powerful force, as soon these mighty powers, and mercy. session of the monopoly of the means ed production and the restricted con- as it captures the masses. are at their A definite object of producing these goods, and of the' suming ability of the proletarian mass- for enslavement and 3. Imperialism the Last Stage of exploitation means of distributing them, this es—causes periodically recurring cris- is supplied by the colo- Capitalism. nies, possess group is the capitalist class. This is, accompanied by destruction of pro- which hundreds of mil- working exploited monopoly assures to this class an un- ductive forces and mass unemploy- The last decades of the rule of lions of and inhabi- divided economic domination over ment among the proletariat. capital are characterized by special tants. features of millions of proletarians, who possess The struggle of the capitalists for evolution, rendering the There are two main forces being no means of production, ana wno are world domination leads to a special internal contradictions intensely acute, organized under the hegemony of the resulting forced to-sell their labor power. form of competition among the capital- in the unheard-of war crisis proletariat against the mighty organ- The relation of wage-labor to capi- ist states, finally expressed in wars of 1914, and leading to the mighty ized forces of finance capital; the revolutionary tal forms the basis of bourgeois so- which are inevitable accompaniments crisis (beginning with workers of the capitalist states, and the Russian October, ciety. of capitalism, as are crises and unem- 1917, revolution) the peoples of the colonies oppressed The economic domination of the ployment. and the general capitalist crisis. by foreign capital. The basic revolt bourgeoisie is Capitalism became world capital- tionary secured by its political The extension of capitalist produc- tendency is, however, tempo- rule, and by its ism; a universally dominant force. state organization, tion, involving the development of rarily paralyzed by the corruption of The survivals of the social which secures it a monopoly over productive forces, is accompanied by relations a considerable section of the Europ- arms applying of the past— primitive Communism, proletariat and all other means of the decay of pre-capitalist economic ean and American by the physical feudal relations, chattel slavery, mer- imperialist bourgeoisie. force. forms in the competitive struggles, The Bour- The rule of the chant capital, the simple exchange of bourgeoisie is also the decay of a part of the peasantry, geoisie of the most powerful imperial- culturally, for possesses commodities of the handicraftsman, states, secured it the by the disappearance of handicrafts, ist which have reapod enorm- monopoly of education, peasant barter and commodity ex- which is in by the economic defeat of small and ous profits by plundering colonies and hands of the capitalists. change—all these forms, scattered in the middle capital, and by the open plun- semi-colonies, have raised the wages working