Notes on Contemporary Themes

Stalin’s article on global international affairs and the situation in China which was written on July 24-27, 1927, and was first published in Pravda issue No. 169, July 28, 1927. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 9 of the Complete Works of Stalin.

In April 1927, the international situation became quite complicated, globally anti-Soviet activities occurred one after another, also the Soviet embassy in Beijing was attacked, Britain and the Soviet Union severed diplomatic relations and all business contacts, the Soviet ambassador to Poland was assassinated in Warsaw and so on. At the same time, the Chinese revolution suffered setbacks one after another, on April 12, 1927, Chiang Kai-shek launched a counter-revolutionary attack, and on July 15 of the same year, the Wuhan National Government also openly betrayed the revolution, suppressed the CPC and massacred many of CPC members.

Under the background of this situation, the opposition alliance within the C.P.S.U. (B) took this opportunity to attack the principles and policies of the Communist International, especially after the nationalist government in Wuhan led by Wang Jingwei ordered the purge of communists, the opposition alliance accused the Communist International’s policies for causing temporary setbacks in the Chinese revolution. Stalin wrote this article in order to unify the Party’s thoughts, help the whole Party to understand the current situation and the path of Chinese revolution more clearly, and refuted the ideological attacks of the “opposition faction” within the Party.

The article is divided into two parts, in which Stalin discusses both the threat of world war across the world and the questions of the Chinese revolution, respectively.

About the threat of world war. Stalin pointed out that the main issue of the present day is that of the threat of a new imperialist war, due to the unbalanced development of capitalism and the change in the correlation of major world powers, which triggered the fight for the spheres of influence and this new power comparison has made the former spheres of influence defined by the First imperialist war “obsolete”. The contradictions between imperialist forces for markets, for regions of capital export, for the sea and land routes to those markets were intensifying, i.e., the contradictions between the major imperialist countries world the dependent countries were sharpening, which all signified a growth of the crisis of world capitalism, while the existence and strengthening of the USS.R. deepened and aggravated the crisis of capitalism.

Stalin analyzed: imperialism is preparing for a new world war, in which it sees the only way out of the crisis, however, due to the existence of the Soviet Union who pursues a peaceful policy, especially the imperialists’ fear that the war between them will lead to facilitate a new breach of the imperialist front, they relegate the contradictions in their own camp to the background, to create a united front, make war on the USS.R., and solve the deepening crisis of capitalism at the expense of the USS.R. The first to initiate to create a united front of the imperialists against the USS.R. has been assumed by the British bourgeoisie and its general staff, the Conservative Party, and as the chief conspirator, they prefer to make war through the hands of other countries and planned a series of reactionary, especially anti-Soviet operations. After the failure of three attacks on the Soviet Union, the British Conservative Party began to plan new anti-Soviet activities, including organizing a financial blockade of the USS.R., secretly conferring with the powers on a policy hostile to the USS.R., instigating internal reactionary revolts, and undermining the socialist construction of the Soviet Union. The task of the Soviet Union is to sound the alarm in all the countries of Europe over the threat of a new war, to rouse the vigilance of the workers and soldiers of the capitalist countries, to work to prepare the masses to counter with the full strength of revolutionary struggle every attempt of the bourgeois governments to organize a new war. The Soviet Union should unwaveringly continue its policy of peace, regardless of the provocative acts of the enemies and the damage to its prestige. The USS.R. should increase its defensive capacity, expand its national economy, improve its military and non-military industry, and enhance the vigilance of the workers, peasants and soldiers in defending the socialist motherland. It should not hesitate to punish “terrorists” and “incendiaries”. It is meaningless and irresponsible for the opposition to attack the party when the party and the country are faced with the threat of a new war.

About China. Stalin pointed out that the revolution in China has entered a new phase of development, so we can to some extent sum up lessons of the path already travelled and proceed to verify the line of the Comintern in the Chinese revolution. Stalin criticized the opposition for ignoring the tactical principles of Leninism, refuted the opposition’s accusations, and criticized the opposition’s mistakes on the issue of Chinese revolution. He pointed out that to lead the revolution correctly, we should rely on the tactical principles of Leninism: First, the principle that the national peculiarities and specific features in each separate country must unfailingly be taken into account by the Comintern when drawing up guiding directives for the working-class movement of the country concerned; second, the principle that the Communist Party of each country must unfailingly avail itself of even the smallest opportunity of gaining a mass ally for the proletariat, even if a temporary, vacillating, unstable and unreliable ally; and third, the principle that unfailing regard must be paid to the truth that propaganda and agitation alone are not enough for the political education of the vast masses, that what is required for that is the political experience of the masses themselves. The Communist International led the Chinese revolution according to these tactical principles, but some “leaders” have forgotten these principles:

Firstly, they sincerely believe that this revolution, so as to speak, can be directed by telegrams, just only on the basis of the general principles of the Comintern, disregarding the national peculiarities of China. They do not understand that after the Communist Parties have grown and become mass parties, they need to combine peculiar national features of each country with Comintern’s general policy and principles, rather than adopting ready-made formulas regardless of the concrete conditions, an attitude contrary to this approach will cause the conflicts between the Comintern and the actual revolutionary movements and as well as setbacks in their revolutionary struggles. The opposition’s views on the nature, main tasks of the Chinese revolution and on the issue of cooperation between the KMT and the CPC were constantly denied in the practice, they had no alternative but acknowledge the correct line of the Communist International.

Secondly, the question of allies of the proletariat in the revolution was one of the basic questions of the Chinese revolution. According to the tactical principles of Leninism, the Communist International has advocated that in the period of the first stage of the revolution, when it was a revolution of an all-national united front (the Canton period), the proletariat’s allies were the peasantry, the urban poor, the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, and the national bourgeoisie. One of the specific features of the Chinese revolutionary movement is that the representatives of those classes worked jointly with the Communists within a single, bourgeois-revolutionary organization, called the Kuomintang. During this period, territory of the revolution were expanded, open proletarian organizations were established, peasant organizations were created, and communist penetrated into the army. Comintern’s leadership during that period was quite correct. In the period of the second stage, both Chiang Kai-shek and the national bourgeoisie deserted to the camp of counter-revolution, and the center of the revolutionary movement shifted from Canton (Guangzhou) to Wuhan. The policy of the Communists towards the Kuomintang at that time was to impel it leftwards and to transform it into the core of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. During this period, the Communist Party grew from a small party into a large mass party with many thousands of members, trade unions grew into a huge nation-wide federation of workers’ unions, primary level small size peasant organizations expanded into huge peasant associations, and the agrarian movement of the peasantry grew to gigantic proportions, and the Communist Party gained the possibility of openly leading the revolution and became the leader of the agrarian-peasant revolution. Although CPC failed to exploit all the possibilities of that period, and committed a number of grave errors, it became a true Bolshevik party; and although CPC lost the alliance of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, it achieved to rally the broad masses of the peasantry and urban poor more closely around the proletariat, so Comintern’s leadership during that period was in fact correct As for the opposition asserting that the swing of the Wuhan Kuomintang leadership to the side of the counterrevolution indicates that the policy of a forming bloc with the Wuhan Kuomintang at the second stage of the revolution was incorrect, Stalin pointed out that a correct policy is by no means bound to lead always direct victory over the enemy, but it is determined by the correlation of class forces, a marked preponderance of strength on the side of the revolution, disintegration in the enemy camp, and a favorable international situation, which demonstrates that the opposition lacks the understanding of the tactical principles of Leninism.

Thirdly, the order and methods of changing slogans. It concerns the question how to convert a slogan for the party into a slogan for the masses, so as to bring the masses to the revolutionary positions, and convince the masses of the correctness of the Party’s slogans, and the masses cannot be convinced by propaganda and agitation alone, but by the political experience of the masses themselves, just like after the February Revolution, the Bolshevik Party’s slogans changed according to the masses’ ability and consciousness to accept these slogans.

The Chinese Communists were right to support the Kuomintang government in Wuhan six months ago, but today “Down with the Wuhan Kuomintang leadership” slogan is the correct option, because six months ago the Wuhan Kuomintang government was still playing a revolutionary role, had not yet fully played its role as a bourgeois revolutionary government, and had not completely lost its prestige and reputation among the people, and to oppose it at that time would only have detached the party from the masses. Now that its counter-revolutionary character has been exposed and it and it stands in opposition to the masses of workers and peasants, the slogan "Down with the Wuhan Kuomintang leadership" will receive a positive response from the masses.

On the other hand, the “opposition faction” did not recognize this policy and consistently violated this tactic since the beginning of 1927, and they forget about the state of the vast masses of the people, about their level of understanding, they didn’t consider their readiness and will for determined action. Stalin analyzed the prospect of the Chinese revolution and pointed out that the failure of the Chinese revolution was similar to the failure of the Russian Communist Party in July 1917, and if there is a new upsurge of the Chinese revolution in a short period of time, the formation of Soviets will be an issue that has become fully mature, but we must not run too far ahead, and we must conduct the widest propaganda for the idea of Soviets among the broad masses without running too far ahead and forming Soviets immediately regardless of reality. Stalin concluded that the opposition has departed from Leninist tactics, and its policy was one of “ultra-left” adventurism.

Stalin’s article has played a positive role in unifying the thoughts of the C.P.S.U. (B) and helped correct understanding of the international situation. The tactical principles of Leninism set forth in this article made an important guiding significance for the Communist parties of various countries to formulate policies in line with their own national conditions according to their own actual conditions during the revolution.