A study of the "International of Deeds"
Part One
1. Organization and Control
The defunct Commintern declared to confine itself to liaison work and dictated the mass movement in a methodical manner. In practice, its power extended far beyond the liaison mission; it exercised effective control over all organizations and individual members. The power structure consisted of a Congress, an Executive Committee, a Presidium and a Bureau of Organization. The applicant for membership must pledge to fulfil the following requirements; a) the adherent party must bear the name of communist, and only one party in each country could be recognized for membership; b) when organizations applied for membership, they were obligated to accept the programme and the statutes of the national communist party as well as that of the Commintern, and to agree to abide by all the decisions thereof; c) all members of the party should belong to organized groups in factory, workshop, or mine where they carried out the orders of their superiors. The function of the Congress was to debate and pass resolutions and receive reports from its affiliated members. The Executive Committee directed the Commintern when the Congress adjourned; it controlled the activities of the affiliated organizations, and its directions were binding upon them. Its power of control was strengthened by the provisions that it could drop from the Commintern any group, party and individual member who tended to weaken or assail the programme and decisions of the World Congress. The Executive Committee further extended its control by sending agents to the local communist groups to "explain its own views", and these agents, incidentally, could apply the executive decisions overriding the opposition of the local communists.(1) Moreover, every organization desiring to join the Commintern was bound to substitute the loyal communist and rank and file workmen for all reformists of responsible positions within the local communist party, committee, editorial staff, trade union, municiple council, cooperative society and parliamentary organ. In doing so, the adherent organization was virtually subject to the control of the Commintern, whose command could directly reach down from the highest to the lowest level. To ensure execution of superior orders, it resorted to coercive measures by administering stern discipline over the members and demanding their absolute obedience. The Commintern also paid considerable attention to the national educational institutions which were regarded as intermediary for spreading communist ideas and as reservoir of training cadres.
2. Who Gets What
The Commintern programme visualized that the conquest of power by the proletariat implied that only the industrial workers were capable of leading the entire mass of toiler for revolutionary movement. The proletariat constantly recruited fresh elements from various social strata. As a result of industrialism, the proletarian force was reinforced by the disintegration of the ruling class, who gradually precipitated into the proletariat. Within the framework of the Commintern, the agrarian proletariat played an auxiliary role; they were distinct from both the bourgeoisie and the urban proletariat. Karl Marx once pointed out, "the agricultural population, in consequence of its dispersion over a great space and of the difficulty of bringing about an agreement among any considerable portion of it, never can attempt a successful independent movement; they require the initiatory impulse of the more concentrated, more enlightened, more easily moved people of the towns."(2) The proletariat delimited various groups among the peasantry, weighed their relative importance and gave support only to the propertyless and semi-proletarian sections of the peasantry. With respect to technical intelligentsia, the proletariat utilized their skill for the purpose of social reconstruction. This raises the question when the working class will terminate its "tutelage", and the vast mass, may participate in the real power process. The ambiguous reference as contained in the Commintern programme did not clarify the situation, except a vague remark, to wit, "the proletariat holds power not for the purpose of perpetuating it, nor of protecting narrow craft and professional interests, it is for the purpose of uniting the backward and scattered rural proletariat, the semi-proletariat and the toiling peasants to overcome systematically the class divisions."(3)
After the conquest of power by the proletariat, they would take over political offices of different levels and all means of production. It secured political equality to all proletariat, without regard to the distinctions of sex, religion and nationality, thus eliminating inequalities of citizenship. In terms of wealth, the Marxists resort to suppression of private property in the means of production, and transfer it to the working class under the custody of the proletariat state. They promise to develop all ramifications of economic activities in a methodical manner. Accordingly, measures of centralization would replace laissez faire or individualism, including the confiscation of landed property of owner, the socialization of large industry, the banks, the agricultural production and the prohibition of large trading corporations. When all these productive enterprises were socialized, they would be transferred to the working class under the proletarian dictatorship. In the field of enlightenment, the Marxists denounced the current educational institutions as the monopoly of the bourgeoisie for the furtherance of class interests. With the disappearance of classes when the proletariat seized power, the Marxists promised the elimination of the monopolistic regime. Culture would be shared by all people, and class ideologies subordinated to the scientific materialist philosophy. It follows that all educational institutions and mass media of communications would be owned and directed by the proletariat government. For the extensive sharing of respect-value, the Marxist platonic free society transcends discrimination on the basis of race, blood, colour and nationality. As previously indicated, the impact of industrialism would precipitate the lower strata of the middle class—the small trades people, shopkeepers and peasants—to the proletariat, because of their diminutive capital and the specialized skill which no longer suited the needs of the violent changing industrial society, Even the ruling class would not survive the profound social changes, and the proletariat expected to recruit new members from various social layers. It follows that the class division would gradually be shaded off, and eventually eliminated with the conclusion of the international proletarian revolution.
In the course of conquest of power, the Marxists visualized that the bourgeoisie would resort to every possible means of violence to safeguard their vested property and the domination of political power. In view of this social antagonism the proletariat could only reify their goal through countervailing measures of violence. For equitable sharing of wealth value, the Marxists regarded the elimination of "financial oligarchy" as the effective means to realize liberty for the working class. On the one hand, the technical and economic advantages of mass production would inevitably result in the destruction of the pre-capitalist economic forms and in the increasing concentration of wealth in a handful of persons. On the other hand, the labourers were under constant deprivation of the employer, and received less than they actually had produced. The wage-earning class was primarily concerned to sell their labor as dearly as they could, while the employer desired to purchase at the lowest possible price.(4) The possessing class was, in the course of industrial development, destined to confront with a stream of crises, and in order to survive, they had to adapt themselves to the changing circumstances by revolutionizing the means of production and industrial relationship. The constant adjustment would also provoke unceasing disturbance of social conditions, and accentuate the crisis. The wealth symbol of paper money tended to become a means of exploitation, and the practices of dumping cheap goods in colonial countries turned capitalism to imperialism, thus creating a discrepancy between the capitalist countries ill the com petition for markets and the distribution of raw-materials.
3. How
As visualized by the Commintern programme, the proletarian seizure of power was to be accomplished by means of violence or by employing the tactics of softening up the political solidarity of the enemy. The latter was largely dependent upon the strategy of symbol persuasion. At national level, the primary task for the proletariat was to dislocate the national defence forces, ranging from army units con trolled by the "bourgeois-junker officers", the police and gendarmes to jailers and judges, priests and governmental officials. To accomplish these, the World Congress required its members conduct systematic and persistent campaign in various organizations within law or without law. Under stern party discipline, the individual members were virtually left with no alternative other than absolute obedience, failing which they would be punished for treason the revolutionary cause and acts incompatible with membership of the Commintern. The Commintern, on the other hand, lulled the followers into false belief that as the bourgeois armed forces were formed mostly by the proletariat, they naturally tended to sympathize with the revolutionary cause in a civil war and revolt against the bourgoeis domination. It follows that dislocation should be largely a task for the agitators and propagandists to foment internal dissension and soften up the strength of resistance. In the event of attacks against communist nations, particularly the U. S. S. R., the international proletariat were obligated to retaliate and defend it, by all means at its disposal. In the colonies, retaliation should take the form of mass action and struggle for the overthrow of the government, or diversion of the armed forces to develop an "anti-imperialist" struggle and to organize revolutionary action for national independence. In the capitalist countries, the international proletariat would resort to concerted action to stage strike, boycott, and blockade to foment national crises, sterilize fighting power and discourage morale. At the international level, the Commintern attempted to manipulate nationalism or patriotism in the backward countries to disrupt the political and economic stability, and paralyze the social order of the colonial powers.(5) It is noted that during nationalist movements, the Marxists only support that which tend to promote the proletarian revolution. In Lenin ism, Stalin pointed out,
"The proletariat should support nationalist movements which tend to weaken and subvert imperialism, not those which tend to strengthen and maintain it. In certain oppressed countries, nationalist movements may run counter to the general interests of the proletarian movement. Obviously, there can be no question of our helping such movements as these. The problem of national rights does not stand alone; it is part of the general problem of the proletarian revolution, is subordinate thereto, and can only be considered by the proletariat from that angle."(6)
Parallel with this, the national communist would certainly foment the discontentment of the minority groups in defiance of the constituted authority. In a system of power politics in the present international society, the manipulation of the minority issue may further the communist-imperialist interest in time of peace as well as create national crisis in time of war.(7)
Following the Marxists aspiration for con quest of power: the World "system of communism" would come to appear after conversion of all private wealth to social property and replacement of competitive processes by planned economy. They also visualized a planned utilization of material resources to replace collossal waste of productive forces and spasmodic development of society. With the abolition of private property and socialization of the means of production, the work people cease to be subservient to the interest of the master, and toil would not be a means of livelihood but a necessity of life.
(To be continued)
(1) X. The Sources of Soviet Conduct, 25 Foreign Affairs 566; Hu Shih. China in Stalin's Grand Strategy Foreign Affairs, Oct. 1950; Ethan Colten. Four Patterns of Revolution; Tilak. Rise and Fall of the Commintern; C. L. R. James, World Revolution 1917-36, the Rise and Fall of the Communist International; R. Palme Dutt. The Two Internationals; U. S. Congress. Committee on Foreign Affairs, National and International Movements Reports - The Strategy and Tactics of World Communism (1948); Harold Laski, Communism
(2) U. S. Congress, op. cit. supra, p. 12
(3) Ibid
(4) Harold Laski, op. cit. p. 28
(5) X, op. cit.; U. S. Congress, op. cit. p. 18
(6) Ibid
(7) Franklin Chi-ch'ing Yao, The Impact of Power Politics on the Protection of Human Rights. Free China Review, July, 1951, p. 16; August. 1951. p. 13