NOTES
[73]
The First Congress of the Communist International was held on March 2-6, 1919, in Moscow. Fifty-two delegates attended, 34 with the right to vote and 18‹with voice but no vote. The following Communist and Socialist parties, organisations and groups were represented: the Communist Parties of Russia, Germany, German Austria, Hungary, Poland, Finland, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Byelorussia, Estonia, Armenia, of the German colonies in Russia, the Swedish Left Social-Democratic Party, the Nor-
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wegian Social-Democratic Party, the Swiss Social-Democratic Party (Opposition), the Revolutionary Balkan Federation, the United Group of the Eastern Tribes of Russia, the French Zimmerwaldian Left, the Czech, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, British, French, and Swiss Communist groups, the Dutch Social-Democratic Party, the American League of Socialist Propaganda, the American Socialist Labour Party, the Chinese Socialist Labour Party, the Korean Workers' League, the Turkestan, Turkish, Georgian, Azerbaijan and Persian Sections of the Central Bureau of Eastern Nations and the Zimmerwald Commission.
   
The first meeting of the Comintern passed a decision "to consider this meeting as an international communist conference", and adopted the following agenda: 1) the inauguration, 2) reports, 3) the platform of the international communist conference, 4) bourgeois democracy and prolotarian dictatorship, 5) the Berne Conference and the attitude towards socialist trends, 6) the international situation and the policy of the Entente, 7) the Manifesto, 8) the White terror, 9) elections to the Bureau, and various organisational questions.
   
The conference, whose work centred on Lenin's theses and report on bourgeois democracy and proletarian dictatorship, unanimously expressed solidarity with Lenin's theses and adopted a decision to refer them to the Bureau for dissemination in the various countries. The conference also adopted a resolution tabled by Lenin, in addition to the theses.
   
On March 4, after the theses and the resolution on Lenin's report had been adopted, the conference decided to constitute itself as the Third International, and to take the name of the Communist International. On the same day a rosolution was unanimously passed to consider the Zimmerwald Left dissolved, and the Comintern platform was approved, on the following main principles: 1) the inevitability of the capitalist social system being replaced by a communist system; 2) the necessity of the proletariat's revolutionary struggle to overthrow bourgeois governments; 3) the abolition of the bourgeois state and its replacement by a state of a new type, i.e., the state of the proletariat, of the Soviet type, which will ensure the transition to a communist society.
   
One of the most important documents of the Congress was the Manifesto to the world proletariat, which declared that the Communist International was the successor of Marx's and Engels's ideas as expressed in the Communist Manifesto. The Congress called upon the workers of the world to support Soviet Russia, and demanded non-interference by the Entente in the internal affairs of the Soviet Republic, the withdrawal of the interventionist troops from Russian territory, recognition of the Soviet state, the raising of the economic blockade, and the resumption of trade relations.
   
In its resolution on "The Attitude Towards the 'Socialist' Parties and the Berne Conference", the Congress condemned the attempts to re-establish the Second International, which was "an instrument of the bourgeoisle only", and declared that the revolutionary proletariat had nothing in common with that conference.
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The establishment of the Third, Communist International played a tremendous part in restoring links between the working people of many countries, in forming and consolidating Communist partles, and in exposing opportunism in the working-class movement.
[p.206]
[74]
The Amsterdam "International" of yellow trade unions (the International Federation of Trade Unions) was established by reformist trade union leaders of a number of countries, at a conference held in Amsterdam on July 26-August 2, 1919. The trade union organisations of 14 countries merged to form this federation, viz., Britain, France, Germany, the U.S.A., Belgium Denmark, Holland, Luxemburg, Norway, Sweden, Austria Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and Spain. The reactionary trade union leaders of Britain and France were predominant in the Amsterdam International of trade unions, whose entire activities were connected with the policies of the opportunist parties of the Second International. The Amsterdam International came out in favour of the proletariat's collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and rejected revolutionary forms of the proletariat's struggle. The leaders of the Amsterdam International pursued a policy of splitting the working-class movement, excluded Left-wing trade unions from the organisation, and rejected all proposals by the Red International of Labour Unions for joint action against capital, the threat of war, reaction and fascism, and to establish world-wide trade union unity. The leaders of the Amsterdam International supported the anti-Soviet policy of the ruling circles of the imperialist states.
   
During the Second World War the Amsterdam International's activities ceased.
[p.209]
[75]
The Red International of Labour Unions (the Profintern ) -- an in ternational organisation of revolutionary trade unions. It was organised in 1921, and existed till the end of 1937. It amalgamated trade union centres which had not entered the reformist Amsterdam International of trade unions, i.e., the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions, the Unitary General Confederation of Labour of France, the national revolutionary trade union centres of Australia, Belgium, Holland, Indonesia, Ireland, Canada, China, Colombia, Korea, Lithuania, Mongolia, Iran, Peru, Uruguay, Czechoslovakia, Chile and Estonia, as well as opposition groups and trends within the reformist trade unions in a number of capitalist countries. The Red Trade Union International waged a struggle for unity in the trade union movement, on the basis of a revolutionary struggle, in defence of the demands of the working class, against capital and fascism, against the danger of imperialist war, and for solidarity with the working class of Soviet Russia.
[p.210]
[76]
This article was proposed by Lenin at a sitting of the commission of the Comintern Second Congress on July 25, 1920, during
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the discussion of his theses on the terms of admission into the Communist International. Both the commission and the Congress approved the article. Lenin's theses entitled "The Terms of Admission into the Communist International" and published before the Congress met contained 19 articles. The Congress adopted 21 articres, the last article reading as follows: "Party members who reject in principle the obligations and theses laid down by the Communist International shall be expelled from the Party.
   
"This shall also apply to delegates to extraordinary Party congresses."
[p.212]