Communist International

“ The programme of the Communist Party is a scheme not only for the liberation of the proletariat of one country, but for the emancipation of the proletariat of the whole world: for it is a programme of international revolution. ”

“ Every party desirous of belonging to the Communist International shall be bound to carry on a systematic and persistent Communist work in the labour unions, cooperatives and other labour organizations of the masses. It is necessary to form Communist nuclei within these organizations, which by persistent and lasting work must win over the labour unions to the side of Communism. ”

“ In every Soviet of Workers' Deputies, in every labour union, every cooperative institution, workshop, house committee, in every government institution, everywhere, even though there may be only three people sympathising with Communism, a Communist nucleus must be immediately organised. It is only the power of organisation of the Communists that enables the advance guard of the working class to be the leader of the whole class. ”

“ In a thousand ways, the Communists have a life which is happier than that of the rest of the community. Above all, they are less exposed to the unwelcome attentions of the police and the extraordinary commission.
The Communist theory of international affairs is exceedingly simple. ”

“ Any discussion of group political behavior would be incomplete without mentioning international Communism. Since Stalin’s ascendancy over his domestic opponents in the late 1920s, the Communist movement has increasingly become an instrument of Russian national policy rather than a worldwide movement receiving help from the Soviets. Concomitantly, Communism and Communists in England, the United States, Germany, France, Greece, and China have much in common. ”

“ Against this international of impotence, confusion, subservience to the bourgeoisie ... we must oppose an international of revolutionary vigor, of class activity ... an international which will seize all the means of production and establish the Communist commonwealth. ”

“ Here we have a clear model for an International Communist Party, tasked with the creation of a visible organization whenever this is possible, but with an invisible structure of missionaries, recruiters, controllers, policemen and agents, since any bourgeois state must, once it discovers the party's true aims, forbid it and drive it underground. To the Christian dream of an eternal life in heaven or hell, the communist movement has its promise of a millenary on earth contrasted by the immediate annihilation of any traitor or dangerous opponent. ”

“ The main aims of the people's socialist state are: to lay the material and technical foundation of communism, to perfect socialist social relations and transform them into communist relations, to mould the citizen of communist society, to raise the people's living and cultural standards, to safeguard the country's security, and to further the consolidation of peace and development of international co-operation. ”

“ The recognition of internationalism verbally and its substitution in practice, in all the propaganda, canvassing and other practical work by petty bourgeois nationalism and pacifism, constitute a habitual occurrence not only among the parties of the Second International but among those who have left it, and even frequently among such who now call themselves Communists. ”

“ The Communist theory of international affairs is exceedingly simple. The revolution foretold by Marx, which is to abolish capitalism throughout the world, happened to begin in Russia, though Marxian theory would seem to demand that it should begin [32] in America. In countries where the revolution has not yet broken out, the sole duty of a Communist is to hasten its advent. Agreements with capitalist States can only be make-shifts, and can never amount on either side to a sincere peace. ”

“ Led by intellectuals hardened by revolutionary experience, it was a more sophistic&ted, dynamic and realistic movement. Establishing a base in the Soviet Union, it founded an aggressive international Communist apparatus which has modeled and directed a revolutionary movement able only to harass our own country. ”

“ Radio Free Europe broadcasts tell the people behind the iron curtain that communism is bad–as if they did not know this better than the RFE broadcasters do; but the broadcasts consistently support the programs, and present the ideology, of international socialism, always advocating the equivalent of a one-world socialist society as the solution to all problems. This is, of course, the communist solution. And it is also the solution desired by the Council on Foreign Relations. ”

“ Little groups, surrounded by a foreign people, exiles are rarely able to affect the movement at home or influence the national movement amid which they are thrust. There is little, therefore, noteworthy about the Communist League. It had, to be sure, gathered together a few able and energetic spirits, and some of these in later years exercised considerable influence in the International. But, as a rule, the groups of the Communist League were little more than debating societies whose members were filled with sentimental, visionary, and insurrectionary ideas. ”

“ This position, the fundamental principles of which were laid down in the Communist Manifesto, is today accepted by the Socialist movements of all countries. Upon it rests the whole great international Socialist movement of our time. ”

“ Alone among these would-be agents of violent change one broadly based movement was proceeding systematically and with ruthless clarity of purpose towards the goal of world revolution. The Communist Party, deriving both its intellectual thrust and an unshakeable confidence in its ultimate triumph from the writings of the nineteenth century ideologue Karl Marx, had succeeded in establishing groups of committed supporters throughout Europe and various other countries. ”

“ The international organisation of the proletariat will be strong only if in all the countries where the Communists are living and working these conditions of party organisation and activity are accepted. ”

“ Grace to their splendid organization, discipline, and well-thought-out programs, the Communists ordinarily have but little difficulty in winning the general bodies around to their point of view.
In the industries Communist organization is no less thorough than elsewhere. ”

“ Communism will not be beaten by a policy that is the common denominator of the foreign policies of 80-odd nations, some of which are our enemies, nearly all of which are less determined than we to save the world from Communist domination. ”

“ All is not bad in communist countries. Western nations could learn from communist experiments. We should study ways to make changes in both systems–communist and western–in order to bring them nearer together. ”

“ Our foreign aid does not finance freedom in foreign lands; it finances socialism; and a world socialist system is what communists are trying to establish. As early as 1921, Joseph Stalin said that the advanced western nations must give economic aid to other nations in order to socialize their economies and prepare them for integration in the communist's world socialist system. ”

“ Beginning with the Russian Revolution of 1917, Marxism became a basic state doctrine, first in the Soviet Union and subsequently in more than a dozen other nations of East Europe and Asia. The area of Marxist influence, as expressed in socialist construction, spread slowly from 1917 to 1943 and rapidly during and immediately after the war of 1936-1945.
Today about a billion human beings live in countries of East Europe and Asia calling themselves socialist-communist. ”

“ Putting it brutally, so as to offend Trades Unionists and Communists alike, they are an important part of the Communist system of internal propaganda, and their whole organization acts as a gigantic megaphone through which the Communist Party makes known its fears, its hopes and its decisions to the great masses of the industrial workers. ”

“ Hard core American communists know (and some admit) that any move toward American membership in any kind of supra-national government is a move toward the Soviet objective of a one-world socialist dictatorship; but all other American advocates of international union claim their schemes are intended to repeat and extend the marvelous achievement of 13 American states which, by forming a political union, created a free and powerful nation. ”

“ So is the whole continent divided. And so, too, is all the world.
The divisive force is International Communism and the power that it controls.
The designs of that power, dark in purpose, are clear in practice. It strives to seal forever the fate of those it has enslaved. It strives to break the ties that unite the free. And it strives to capture—to exploit for its own greater power—all forces of change in the world, especially the needs of the hungry and the hopes of the oppressed. ”

“ We, the organized Socialists of America, pledge our support to the revolutionary workers of Russia in the maintenance of their Soviet Government, to the radical Socialists of Germany, Austria and Hungary in their efforts to establish working-class rule in their countries, and to those Socialist organizations in England, Italy and other countries who during the war, as after the war, have remained true to the principles of uncompromising international Socialism. ”

“ In nearly every case in which we have called upon the United Nations to do our thinking for us, and to make our policy for us—whether during the Korean War, or in the Suez crisis, or following the revolution in Iraq—we have been a less effective foe of Communism than we otherwise might have been. ”

“ Our communism will insure all political and creative freedoms; we will be tolerant towards our dissidents."
Then the Western Communists will be asked: But why should we believe you? You yourselves say that practice is the criterion for judging the truth of a theory. And practice has shown that the two greatest Communist powers (the USSR and China) have carried out and continue to carry out policies that you yourselves have condemned and are condemning. ”

“ Perhaps the Communist, with all his faults, his wastefulness and ugliness of method, has something vital to teach the world, if it is no more than discipline and devoted subordination to large ideas. Perhaps the whole European system, like Russia, may after all need to be regrafted upon this new strange root of Communism before it enters upon a fresh creative phase. I do not know. But it is plain to me that the years pass and the recovery of Europe does not begin. ”

“ It would be absurd to commence an argument about the question as to whether we have guarantees for the construction of Socialism under any international situation in the event, say, of intervention on the part of the capitalist countries. It is clear that the sole guarantee against dangers from without is international revolution. ”

“ But in actual fact the psychology of the working man in any of the Western democracies is totally unlike that which is assumed in the Communist Manifesto. He does not by any means feel that he has nothing to lose but his chains, nor indeed is this true. The chains which bind Asia and Africa in subjection to Europe are partly riveted by him. He is himself part of a great system of tyranny and exploitation. ”

“ If Communism is to have a fair chance, it must be inaugurated in a prosperous country. But a prosperous country will not be readily moved by the arguments of hatred and universal upheaval which are employed by the Third International. It is necessary, in appealing to a prosperous country, to lay stress on hope rather than despair, and to show how the transition can be effected without a calamitous loss of prosperity. ”

“ Communism understands itself as a universalist movement of global conquest, and communist dictatorships eventually seized power through much of Europe and Asia, and in significant parts of Africa and South America. ”

“ In this respect the Soviet power is influenced partly by the right wing of the Communist Party and to a considerable extent by the Socialists of Western Europe, to whose utterances the Communists, despite their assertions to the contrary, listen attentively. ”

“ The Communists envision three types of conflict to be produced by the contradictions of imperialism: intra-national class war, international class war, and inter-imperialist war. The first is the struggle of the proletariat of the whole world against the various national bourgeois governments; the second, the struggle of the oppressed peoples, under revolutionary bourgeois or proletarian leadership, against the oppressions of Western imperialism ”