The Documents of the First Congress of the Communist International

This is Lenin’s literature which elaborated the main ideas of the First Congress of the Communist International, which was written in early March. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 35 of the second revised edition of Complete Works of Lenin.

After the World War I broke out, most socialist parties and Social-Democratic parties sided with their governments and supported the imperialist war. The Second International was split and went completely bankrupt. In order to resist the world proletarian revolution, a Yellow International composed of renegades and counterrevolutionaries was soon announced to be founded. It was the most dangerous enemy of the revolution which controlled a large part of the working class. To fight against this, Lenin called on the communists of all countries to join the Russian Communist Party (B) in rejecting to participate in this congress under the banner of socialism, which was in fact a betrayal of the working class.

At the same time, the World War I put the entire world capitalist system in a state of disintegration and collapse. The urgent task of the proletariat was to complete the world revolution and seize state power. This required that the revolutionary proletariat of all countries unite and that countries that have won the victory of the socialist revolution unite with each other. In order to unify our thinking, it was imperative to hold international congresses of revolutionary proletarian parties in various countries. The First Congress of the Communist International was held in Moscow from March 2 to 6, Lenin presided over the meeting and made a report.

“Documents of the First Congress of the Communist International” include: the “Opening Speech”, “Theses and Report on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, “Resolution to the Thesis on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” and “Closing Speech”. The first two documents set forth important theoretical viewpoints.

In the “Opening Speech” Lenin pointed out the significance of the communist international congress. It proved that all illusions about bourgeois democracy have been shattered and the civil war has become a reality. The developments after the imperialist war inevitably promoted the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, and the revolution has begun and was intensifying all over the world. In this struggle, a practical form was found for the proletariat to rule, that is, the Soviet system under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The proletariat now could actually use its own right to rule.

“Theses and Report on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” was Lenin’s report at the congress. It is divided into three parts.

The first part is the key of the report. It has revealed the essence of bourgeois democracy and expounded the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the truth of proletarian democracy.

(1) The essence of bourgeois democracy.

First of all, Lenin clarified the class nature of bourgeois democracy and the essence of oppression. On the one hand, he pointed out that democracy and dictatorship had class nature. There was no “general democracy” in a capitalist country, but bourgeois democracy of this class. The so-called dictatorship was not a “general dictatorship”, but a dictatorship upon the oppressed class or the proletariat, that is, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. However, the dictatorship of the proletariat was the dictatorship of the oppressed class or of the proletariat, over the bourgeoisie. Its purpose was to fight against the resistance of the exploiters who tried to maintain their dominant position. On the other hand, Lenin exposed the class nature of bourgeois civilization, bourgeois democracy and bourgeois parliamentary system. Even the most democratic bourgeois republic was nothing more than a machine for the bourgeoisie to suppress the working class and a machine for a handful of capitalists to suppress the working masses. Those who vigorously defend “general democracy” were in fact defending the bourgeoisie and its exploitation privileges.

Secondly, Lenin discussed the “freedom of assembly” and “freedom of the press” as examples to expose the falsity of the so-called “pure democracy”. On the one hand, he exposed the falsity of bourgeois “freedom of assembly”. Lenin pointed out that when the bourgeoisie was still a revolutionary class, they did not give “freedom of assembly” to the exploiters. After seizing power, even in the most democratic bourgeois republic, “freedom of assembly” was just empty talk.

As long as that state of affairs prevailed, “equality”, i.e., “pure democracy”, was a fraud. The first thing to do to win genuine equality and enable the working people to enjoy democracy in practice was to deprive the exploiters of all the public and sumptuous private buildings, to give to the working people leisure and to see to it that their freedom of assembly is protected by armed workers, not by heirs of the nobility or capitalist officers in command of downtrodden soldiers. On the other hand, Lenin exposed the falsity of bourgeois’ “freedom of the press”. Lenin pointed out that as long as the best printing house and a large amount of paper stocks were controlled by capitalists, as long as capital remained in control of newspapers, bourgeois freedom was just a fraud. To win real equality and genuine democracy, the working people, workers and peasants must deprive capital of the possibility of hiring writers, buying publishing houses and bribing newspapers. And to do that the capitalists and exploiters had to be overthrown and their resistance oppressed. The capitalists had always used the term “freedom” to mean freedom for the rich to get richer and for the workers to starve to death. And capitalist usage, freedom of the press meant freedom of the rich to bribe the press, freedom to use their wealth to shape and fabricate so-called public opinion. In this respect, the defenders of “pure democracy” prove to be defenders of an utterly foul and venal system that gave the rich control over the mass media. They prove to be deceivers of the people, who, with the aid of plausible, fine-sounding, but thoroughly false phrases, divert them from the concrete historical task of liberating the press from capitalist enslavement. Lenin pointed out the way to realize freedom of the press. Genuine freedom and equality would be embodied in the system which the Communists are building

(2) The rationality of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the truth of proletarian democracy.

Firstly, Lenin clarified the rationality of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin spoke highly of the Paris Commune. He pointed out that the significance of the Commune lied in the fact that it endeavored to crush, to smash to its very foundations, the bourgeois state apparatus, the bureaucratic, judicial, military and police machine, and to replace it by a self-governing, mass workers’ organization in which there was no division between legislative and executive power. Lenin pointed out that proletarian dictatorship was not only an absolutely legal means of overthrowing exploiters and suppressing the resistance, but also absolutely necessary to the entire mass of working people, being their only defense against the bourgeois dictatorship which led to the war and was preparing new wars. Proletarian dictatorship should be a forcible suppression of the resistance of the exploiters who has lost its political power, i.e., of an insignificant minority the population, the landlords and capitalists.

Secondly, Lenin clarified the truth of proletarian democracy. Dictatorship of the proletariat not only generally changed the form of democracy and democratic institutions, but also enabled the working class oppressed by capitalism to enjoy democracy in an unprecedented and extensive way, thus enabling the working class, which accounted for the majority of the population, to truly enjoy democratic rights and liberties. This real democracy was based on the elimination of private ownership.

Thirdly, Lenin clarified the substance and function of the Soviet. Lenin pointed out that the substance of Soviet government was that the permanent and only foundation of state power, the entire machinery of state, was the mass scale organization of the classes oppressed by capitalism, i.e., the workers and semi-proletarians. It was the people while possessing equal rights by law, had in fact been debarred by thousands of devices and subterfuges from participation in political life and enjoyment of democratic rights and liberties, that are now drawn into constant and unfailing, moreover, decisive, participation in the democratic administration of the state.

Lenin also explained the role of the Soviet government: The first was to destroy the Army’s subordination to bourgeois commanders and really merge the proletariat with the Army, to disarm the bourgeoisie. Unless this was done, the victory of socialism would be impossible. The second was to unite and lead the scattered and backward sections of the working and exploited population. The third was to prepare for the withering away of state. In the second part, Lenin criticized Mensheviks’ thought of combining the Soviet system with the Constituent Assembly and to incorporate the Soviets into the state structure.

In February, right-wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries and Centrists of the former Second International held a meeting in Berne, so as to restore the bankrupt Second International, the so-called “Berne International”, also known as “Yellow International”.

The declaration issued by the meeting not only recognized the bourgeois nature of the Scheidemann government, but also proposed to legalize the Soviets giving it the right to govern the country and demanded the right to submit a referendum. Lenin severely criticized this attempt to “peacefully” combine the Soviet system, that is, the dictatorship of the proletariat, with the national assembly, that is, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. He pointed out that the yellow socialists and social democrats fought against the proletariat on the side of bourgeois during the civil war. They failed to understand the new democracy, that is, the democracy of the proletariat, nor did they understand the new movement of the proletariat and its conditions of struggle.

In the third part, Lenin gave three specific suggestions: firstly, explain to the masses the significance, importance and inevitability of the Soviet system. Secondly, on the spread of the Soviet system. The idea of Soviets is spreading in Germany, and even in Britain, it is very important evidence that the proletarian revolution will be victorious. Since little had been done to implement the Soviet system in rural areas, it was absolutely necessary to implement this system among rural residents in new forms. In Western Europe things will proceed differently, and that is why we must emphasize the absolute necessity of spreading the Soviet system also to the rural population in proper, perhaps new, forms.

Thirdly, Lenin commented: winning a Communist majority in the Soviets is the principal task in all countries in which Soviet government is not yet victorious. It is quite likely that the revolution will come very soon in many West-European countries, but we, as the organized section of the working-class, as a party, must strive to gain majority in the Soviets. Then our victory will be assured and no power on Earth will be able to do anything against the Communist revolution.

In this literature wherein Lenin expounded on the essence of bourgeois democracy and on the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat, has greatly enriched Marx and Engels’ democracy and state theory.