NOTES
[12] Vorwärts (Forward
)‹a daily newspaper, Central Organ of the German Social-Democratic Party. In accordance with a decision of the Halle Congress of the party, it was published in Berlin from 1891 under the name of
Vorwärts Berliner Volksblatt as a continuation of the newspaper Berliner Volksblatt issued since 1884. Engels used the columns of this paper to combat all manifestations of opportunism. In the late nineties, after the death of Engels,
Vorwärts was controlled by the Right wing of the party and regularly published articles by opportunists. During the First World War
Vorwärts
took a social-chauvinist stand; after the Great October Socialist Revolution the paper carried on anti-Soviet propaganda. It was published in Berlin till 1933.
Lenin refers to Friedrich Stampfer's article "Kautsky gegen Spartakus" published in
Vorwärts No. 457 of September 7, 1919.
[p. 27]
[13] Scheidemann -- one of the leaders of the extreme Right, opportunist wing of German Social-Democracy. In February-June 1919 he was the head of the coalition government of the Weimar republic. He was one of those who organised the suppression of the German workers' movement which was drowned in blood between 1918 and 1921.
[p. 27]
[14] Berne International is the name given to a union of the social chauvinist and Centrist parties formed at the conference in Berne in February 1919 with the aim of restoring the Second International.
[p. 28]
[15] See record of Karl Marx's speech on the Barry Mandate (Minutes of the Hague Congress of 1872
, Madison, 1958); Engels's Preface to the English edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England, Preface to the second German edition of
The Condition of the Working Class in England ; Engels's letters to Marx of September 24, 1852 and of October 7, 1858; letters by Engels to Sorge of September 21, 1872 and of October 5, 1872; Marx's letter to Sorge of August 4, 1874; Engels's letter to Marx of August 11, 1881; Engels's letters to Kautsky of September 12, 1882 and to Sorge of December 7, 1889.
[p. 34]
[16] In 1919 two Communist Parties were founded in the U.S.A.‹their core was the Left wing of the Socialist Party‹the Communist Labour Party headed by John Reed and the Communist Party of the United States headed by Charles Ruthenberg. The two parties had no programme disagreements. Both parties passed decisions at their inaugural congresses on affiliation to the Third International. In May 1921 they united to form one Communist Party. At the end of the Second World War the Communist Party of the United States suffered a severe crisis as a result of the anti-party activity of Earl Browder who advocated the theory of "American exceptionalism" and of establishment of "class peace" in the U.S.A. In 1944 he succeeded in carrying through a decision on the substitution of the non-party Communist Political Association for the Communist Party. Thanks to the efforts of the Marxist core of the party the Communist Party of the United States was restored in July 1945. From the first days of its existence the Communist Party suffered persecution which was intensified after the Second World War.
[p. 35]
[17] The Committee for the Re-establishment of International Contacts was formed in January 1916 by French internationalists. This was the first attempt to set up in France an internationalist revolutionary organisation of socialists to counterbalance the social-chauvinist organisations. Lenin regarded the Committee as a
page 536
factor in rallying the internationalist forces; he proposed that Inessa Armand participate in the Committee.
Under the influence of the October Revolution in Russia and the growth of the French labour movement, the Committee became ~he centre of the revolutionary internationalist forces in France, and in 1920 merged with the Communist Party of France.
The Syndicalist Defence Committee was formed in autumn of 1916 by a group of syndicalists who broke away from the Committee for the Re-establishment of International Contacts because they rejected parliamentary activity. In May 1919 it resolved to join the Communist International.
[p. 35]
[18] L'Internationale -- a weekly newspaper of the French syndicalists, organ of the Syndicalist Defence Committee, appeared in Paris from February to July 1919; edited by Raymond Péricat.
[p. 35]
[19] The British Socialist Party was founded at Manchester in 1911 by the union of the Social-Democratic Party with other socialist groups. The B.S.P. conducted its agitation in the sprit of Marxism, it was not opportunist and was
really independent of the Liberals (see present edition, Vol. 19, p. 273 [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Exposure of the British Opportunists". --
DJR]). The small membership of the party and its poor contacts with the masses made for a certain sectarianism.
During the First World War there was a sharp struggle between the internationalists (William Gallacher, Albert Inkpin, John Maclean, Theodore Rothstein and others) and the social-chauvinist trend headed by Hyndman. Some of the internationalists followed an inconsistent policy and adopted a Centrist position on certain questions.
In February 1916, a group of B.S.P. members founded a newspaper, The Call, which played an important part in mustering the internationalists. In April 1916, the party's annual conference, held at Salford, condemned the social-chauvinist position of Hyndman and his supporters, and they left the party.
The British Socialist Party welcomed the October Revolution, and its members were active in the British workers' movement in defence of Soviet Russia against the interventionists. In 1919 most of the party's local organisations (98 against 4) voted for affiliation to the Communist International. The B.S.P., together with the Communist Unity Group, formed the core of the Communist Party of Great Britain. At the First (Unity) Congress in 1920 almost all local B.S.P. organisations entered the Communist Party.
[p. 35]
[20] The Shop Stewards Committees and
Workers' Committees‹elected working-class organisations which were set up at many factories in Britain during the First World War. In conditions of the rise of the workers' movement and the mounting dissatisfaction with the reformist policy of the trade union leaders, the shop stewards, united in district and town committees and in the National Committee, led strikes for the improvement of the workers' living conditions
page 537
and carried out propaganda against the imperialist war. The centre of the shop stewards' movement was the Clydeside where the Clydeside Workers' Committee was set up, a body whose influence was felt by all the workers of that district. The programme of the Clydeside Committee called for the organisation of the workers on a class principle and the continuation of the struggle until the wage-labour system was completely abolished. Similar committees sprang up in other towns.
In the period of foreign armed intervention against the Soviet Republic, the Shop Stewards Committees came out actively in support of Soviet Russia. A number of leaders of the shop stewards' movement (William Gallacher, Harry Pollitt, Arthur McManus and others) became founder members of the C.P.G.B. Lenin described the shop stewards' movement as a mass and profoundly proletarian movement.
[p. 35]
[21] The Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland (known as the Socialist Party) was founded in the 1870s and affiliated to the First International; a new party was founded in 1888. The party was strongly influenced by opportunists, who took a social-chauvinist position during the First World War. In the autumn of 1916 the Right wing broke away from the Party and founded its own organisation. The party majority, led by Robert Grimm, followed a Centrist social-pacifist policy. The Left wing adhered to the internationalist stand. After the October Revolution in Russia the Left wing became much more influential. In December 1920 the Left withdrew from the party and in 1921 merged with the Communist Party of Switzerland.
[p. 35]
[22] The Socialist Party of Italy was founded in 1892 and from the very start was the scene of a sharp struggle on all basic political and tactical issues between the opportunist and revolutionary trends. At its Congress in Reggio-Emilia (1912), the more outspoken reformists, who supported the war and co-operation with the government and the bourgeoisie (Ivanoe Bonomi, Leonida Bissolati and others), were expelled from the party under pressure from the Left. Prior to Italy's entry into the First World War, the party opposed war and advocated neutrality. In December 1914 it expelled a group of renegades (among them Mussolini) for supporting the imperialist policy of the bourgeoisie and urging Italy's entry into the war. In May 1915, when Italy did enter the war on the side of the Entente, the party split into three distinct factions: (1) the Right wing, which helped the bourgeoisie prosecute the war, (2) the Centrists who made up the majority of the party and pursued the policy of "non-participation in the war and no sabotage of the war", and (3) the Left wing, which took a more resolute stand against the war but failed to organise a consistent struggle against it. The Lefts did not realise the necessity to convert the imperialist war into a civil war, or to break resolutely with the reformists. The Italian socialists held a joint conference with the Swiss socialists in Lugano (1914), took part in the international socialist conferences at Zim-
page 538
merwald (1915) and Kienthal (1916), where they sided with the Centrist majority.
After the October Soclalist Revolution in Russia the Left wing of the Italian Socialist Party became more influential. The 16th party congress, held October 5-8, 1919 in Bologna, passed a decision to join the Third International. The I.S.P. delegates took part in the Second Congress of the Communist International. After the Congress, Serrati, head of the delegation and a Centrist, declared against the break with the reformists. In January 1921, at the 17th party congress in Livorno the Centrists who were in the majority refused to break with the reformists and to recognise all the terms of admittance to the Communist International. On January 21 the Left-wing delegates left the congress and founded the Communist Party of Italy.
[p. 35]
[23] Spartacists -- members of a revolutionary organisation of German Left Social-Democrats formed at the beginning of the First World War by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring, Clan Zetkin, Julian Marchlewski, Léon Jogiches (Jan Tyszka) and Wilhelm Pieck. They carried on revolutionary propaganda among the people, organised mass anti-war manifestations, led strikes, and exposed the imperialist character of the world war and the treachery of the opportunist leaders of Social-Democracy. The Spartacists, however, made grave blunders in certain important questions of theory and practical policy. Lenin criticised the errors of the German Left Social-Democrats many a time, thus helping them to take the correct position (see present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 305-19 and Vol. 23, pp. 77-87 [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "The Junius Pamphlet" and "The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution", respectively. --
DJR]).
In April 1917, the Spartacists joined the Centrist Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany in which they retained their organisational independence. In November 1918, in the course of the revolution in Germany, however, they formed the Spartacus League, published their own programme on December 14, 1918 and broke with the Independents. At its inaugural congress, held from December 30, 1918 to January 1, 1919, the Spartacists founded the Communist Party of Germany.
[p. 35]
[24] La Feuille -- a daily newspaper published in Geneva from August 1917 to 1920. Its editor was Jean Debrit. The newspaper did not formally belong to any party, but in fact it adhered to the positions of the Second International.
[p. 36]