Theses Presented to the Second World Congress of the Communist International/Chapter 4
Preliminary Draft of some Theses on the National
and Colonial Questions.
The abstract or formal raising of the question of equality in general, including national equality, is inherent in bourgeois democracy by its very nature. Under the aspect of equality of human beings in general bourgeois democracy proclaims the formal or juridical equality of the proprietor and the proletarian, the employer and the employed to the great deception of the oppressed classes. This idea of equality, which is a reflection of the relations of industrial production, is transformed by the bourgeoisie into an instrument of struggle against the abolition of classes on the pretext of an absolute equality among human beings. A real demand for equality can be expressed only by a demand for the abolition of classes.
2. In conformity with its task of a struggle against bourgeois democracy and the denunciation of its lies and hypocrisy, the Communist Party, as the conscious leader of the struggle of the proletariat to cast off the yoke, must in the national question also consider chiefly not the abstract and formal principles, but, first, make a precise record of the historical and first of all the economical conditions of a people; second, it must distinctly separate the interests of the oppressed classes, the worker, the employed, from the general conception of national interests as a whole, which only mean the interests of the ruling class; third, it must make a similar clear separation of the oppressed-dependent nations not possessing equal rights with other nations, from the oppressing and ruling sovereign nations, as a counterweight to bourgeois-democratic lies, which screen the colonial and financial enslavement of a tremendous majority of the earth's population, by an insignificant minority of the richest and most intellectually advanced capitalist countries, such enslavement being inherent in the epoch of capitalism and imperialism.
3. The imperialistic war of 1914–1918 has shown with especial clearness to all the nations and oppressed classes of the world the deceitfulness of bourgeois-democratic phrases, practically proving that the treaty of Versailles of the illustrious "western democracies" is a still more barbarous and base violation of the weaker nations than the Brest-Litovsk treaty of the junkers and the Kaiser. The League of Nations and the entire post-war policy of the Entente demonstrate this truth even more sharply and clearly, strengthening everywhere the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat of the advanced countries, and the worker masses of the colonial and dependent countries and accelerating the dissipation of all bourgeois-national illusions regarding the possibility of a peaceful existence and the equality of nations under capitalism.
4. It follows from the above fundamental propositions that the cornerstone of the Communist International's national and colonial policy must be the uniting of the proletarian and working masses of all nations and countries in a joint revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the landowners and the bourgeoisie. Only such a union can guarantee the victory over capitalism without which it is impossible to suppress national inequality and oppression.
5. The world political situation has placed the dictatorship of the proletariat on the order of the day, and all the events of international politics are inevitably concentrated around one central point, namely, the warfare of the world bourgeoisie against the Russian Soviet Republic, which is grouping around itself on the one hand the Soviet movements of the advanced workmen of all countries, and on the other hand all the national-liberation movements of the colonies and the oppressed nationalities, which have passed through a bitter experience and see that there is no help for them except in the victory of the Soviet power over world imperialism.
6. Consequently at the present moment one cannot stop at a simple recognition or proclamation of the necessity for a union between the workers of different nations, but it is necessary to carry out a policy for a close union between all the national and colonial liberation movements and Soviet Russia, determining the form of such union in conformity with the development of the Communist movement among the proletarians of each country, or the bourgeois-democrat liberation movement of the workmen and peasants in the retrograde countries, and among the backward nationalities.
7. Federation is the transitional form towards a complete union of the workers of different countries. Federation has proved its efficiency in practice in respect to the relations between the R. S. F. S. R. (Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic) and other Soviet republics (Hungary, Finland, Latvia, in the past, and Aserbeidjan, Ukraine at present), as well as inside the R. S. F. S. R., in respect to nationalities which had neither a separate state order nor autonomy (for instance. the Bashkir and the Tartar autonomous republics within the R. S. F. S. R., created in 1919 and 1920.
8. The duty of the Communist International in this respest consists in the further development and in stuby and verification by experience of these new federations, arising outside the Soviet order and Soviet movement. Acknowledging federation as a transition form towards a complete union, it is necessary to make efforts to attain a closer federative union, bearing in view, first, the impossibility of defending the existence of Soviet Republics, surrounded by the imperialistic countries of the whole world, incomparably stronger in military power, without a close union of all the Soviet Republics; second, the necessity of a close economic union of Soviet Republics, without which the restoration of the productive forces destroyed by imperialism, and the guaranteeing of the well-being of the workers, is irrealisable; third, the tendency towards the creation of a single economic management regulated on a general plan by the proletariat of all nations, as a whole; this tendency visibly manifested itself already under the capitalist order, and undoubtedly deserves further development and final perfection under Socialism.
9. In respect to internal state relations, the national policy of the Communist International cannot be limited by the simply formal, purely declarative and in no wise binding recognition of the equality of nations, like that of the bourgeois-democrats—either calling themselves such openly, or passing under the name of Socialists like the Socialists of the Second International.
Not only in the whole propaganda activity of the Communist Party—both in the parliaments and out of them—must the constant violations of the rights of nations and guarantees of rights of nationalist minorities occurring in all the capitalist states, not withstanding their "democratic" constitutions, be infallibly denounced, but it is necessary also, first, to explain constantly that the Soviet order can alone be in a position to establish the equality of nations, uniting first the proletarians, and afterward the whole mass of workers, in the struggle against the bourgeoisie; second, all the Communist Parties must render a direct assistance to the revolutionary movements of the dependent or subordinated nations (for instance, in Ireland, to the negroes in America, etc.), and in the colonies.
Without this last and specially important condition, the struggle against the oppression of the dependent nations and colonies, and likewise the recognition of their rights to a separate existence as states, is only a deceitful signboard, such as we see in the parties of the Second International.
10. 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 struggle against this evil, against the more deeprooted petty bourgeois-national prejudices, becomes of paramount importance the more pressing the necessity becomes to transform the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national basis (i. e., in one country only, not capabIe of exercising an influence over world politics) into an international one, a dictatorship of the proletariat of at least several advanced countries, capable of exercising a decisive influence over world politics. Petty bourgeois nationalism declares that internationalism is a recognition of the equality of the rights of nations and nothing else, preserving (without mentioning the purely verbal nature of such a declaration) intact all national egoism; whereas proletarian internationalism demands, first, the subordination of the interests of the proletarian struggle in one country to the interests of such struggle on a world scale secondly, the capacity and readiness on the part of a nation realising a victory over the bourgeoisie to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capitalism.
Thus in the countries of the capitalist order, without labour parties representing ready the advance guard of the proletariat, the struggle against the opportunist and bourgeois-pacifist perversions of the idea and policy of internationalism, is the first and most important duty.
11. In respect to the more backward countries and nations with prevailing feudal or patriarchal and patriarchal-peasant relations, it is necessary to bear in mind especially:
(a) The necessity for all Communist parties to render assistance to the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement in such countries; especially this duty falls to the lot of the workers of such countries upon which the backward nation depends, colonially or financially;
(b) The necessity of a struggle against the clergy and other reactionary and mediaeval influences possessing an influence in such backward countries;
(c) The necessity of a struggle against Pan-Islamism and such tendencies, which strive to unite the liberation movement against European and American imperialism with a strengthening of the position of the khans, landowners, moolahs, etc.
(d) The necessity of supporting the peasant movement in backward countries against the landowners, against the possession of large estates, against all customs and remnants of feudalism, and of striving to give the peasant movement a revolutionary nature, bringing about a closer union between the West European Communist proletariat and the revolutionary movement of the peasants in the countries in the east, the colonies and in the backward general;
(e) The necessity of a decisive struggle against the tend ency to dress up the bourgeois-democratic liberation tendencies in the backward countries in the colours of Communism; the Communist International must support the bourgeois-democratic national movements in the colonies and backward countries only on the condition that the elements of the future proletarian parties, Communist in name only, should be grouped and educated in the knowledge of their special tasks-those of a struggle against the bourgeois-democratic movements within their nation; the Communist International may enter into a temporary union with the bourgeois-democracy of colonies and backward countries, but not intermingle with it, and invariably preserve the independence of the proletarian movement even in its most primitive form;
(f) The necessity of an ever-constant explanation and denunciation among the working masses of all countries and especially all backward countries, of the deceit which is systematically practised by the imperialistic powers; which, under the pretext of creating politically independent nations, really create countries completely depending on them economically, financially and in a military respect; under the present international conditions there is no other help for dependent and weak nations than a union of Soviet Republics.
12. The century-long oppression exercised over the colonial and weaker nationalities by the imperialistic powers has left in the worker masses of the oppressed countries not only a bad feeling but a mistrust towards the oppressors in general, including the proletariat of such nations. The base betrayal of Socialism by the majority of the official leaders of this proletariat in 1914–1918, when, under the term "defense of the fatherland," the social-chauvinists concealed the defense of the "rights" of their "own" bourgeoisie to oppress and rob the colonies and financially dependent countries, could not but strengthen this perfectly just mistrust. On the other hand, the more backward a country is, the stronger developed is its small agricultural production, its patriarchality and provincialism inevitably reinforcing the especial strength and stubborness of the deepest of petty bourgeois prejudices, namely, national egoism and national narrowmindedness. As such prejudices can only disappear with the disappearance of imperialism and capitalism in the more advanced countries, and after a radical change in the whole basis of the economic life of the backward countries, the dying out of such prejudices cannot but proceed very slowly. Hence, the duty of the communist proletariat in all countries is to deal very carefully and attentively with such survivals of national feeling in the longer oppressed countries and nationalities, likewise to make even certain concessions for the purpose of a more rapid conquest of the above-mentioned mistrust and prejudices. Without a voluntary striving after union and unity on the part of the proletariat, and of all the worker masses of all countries and nations of the whole world, the victory over capital ism cannot be successfully brought about.