Leon Trotsky: The World Economic Crisis

and the New Tasks of the Communist International

2nd Session, 23 June 1921

[My own translation of the German text in “Protokoll des III. Weltkongresses der Kommunistischen Internationale. Vol 1, Hamburg 1921, p. 48-90”. Corrections by English native speakers would be extremely welcome]

Comrades! At the First and Second Congresses of the Communist International we characterised the world situation in appeals, in manifestos, without entering into a more detailed discussion of it. At that time it was a question of characterising the new situation, as created by the war, in general concise outlines and of engraving it in the consciousness of the working class. Now the same question presents itself before us in a much more complicated way. The third post-war year is nearing its end. Most important phenomena of an economic and political nature have occurred. Capital still sits on the throne almost all over the world, and we must give an account of whether our attitude on the whole, the attitude towards world revolution, still remains correct now under the given circumstances. A change in the balance of power has occurred which cannot be denied. The only question is whether this change is based on deeper shifts in the relations of forces or whether it is more superficial in nature. When we go back to the mood that prevailed in 1919 – that was the most critical year for capital after the war – and then compare the psychological situation, the mood of the classes, the parties, the state power, etc., with the relevant phenomena of today, we will have to state that the bourgeoisie still feels strong today. Yesterday it was perhaps even stronger – but in any case it feels much stronger today than it felt in 1919. I have put together a folder of publications from the leading newspapers, etc., on the communist, revolutionary world danger, and I will present a few of these very instructive quotations immediately.

The "Neue Züricher Zeitung", a Swiss bourgeois, very conservative and rather clever paper, which follows with great interest and with a certain understanding the political development of Germany, France and Italy, said about the March action in Germany on March 26 (unfortunately I could not find this issue again and have to translate it back from my Russian translation into German, but the sense is preserved). It said:

"The Germany of 1921 is quite different from that of 1918, The state consciousness has strengthened to such an extent that the Communist methods meet with resistance in all strata of the people, although the strength of the Communists, who in the days of the revolution were only a small group of determined people, has since increased more than tenfold."

On April 28, where preparations were being made on both sides for the May Day celebration, we find the following remarks in "Le Temps":

"II suffit de considérer le chemin parcouru depuis un an pour être pleinement rassuré: l'année dernière le 1-er mai devait marquer le début de cette grève générale qui devait être, elle, la première étappe de la révolution. Aujourd'hui, la confiance est absolute dans l'effort de la nation pour surmonter toutes les crises consécutives à la guerre.” [It is enough to look at the road travelled since last year to be fully assured: the First of May last year was to be the beginning of a general strike, which in turn was to be the first stage of the revolution. Today, confidence in the nation's effort to overcome all the crises that followed the war is absolute].

The same "Neue Züricher Zeitung" writes about the situation in Italy, also in April this year:

"1919: the bourgeois parties in complete dissolution, in helpless fragmentation and suicidal resignation giving way to the united onslaught of the well-disciplined red army masses; 1921: the bourgeois multitudes united in a firm coalition confident of victory entering the struggle, while the Bolshevists divided and discouraged hardly dare to show themselves. The credit goes to fascism."

I will then take an example from quite another sphere, namely, a quotation from a resolution of our Polish Communist fraternal party. It had, if I am not mistaken, a party conference this spring where it was decided to take part in the parliamentary elections. The justification reads:

"After the struggle turned in favour of the bourgeoisie in the winter of 1919, which then built up its state apparatus; after the workers' councils are strangled by the government thanks to the PPS, the party is obliged to take advantage of the electoral campaign and the parliamentary tribune."

After all, there can be no question of the Polish Communist Party intending to change its principled attitude. It is just that it assesses the situation today differently than it did in 1919.

The objective situation of the social democratic parties vis-à-vis the state and vis-à-vis the bourgeois parties has changed accordingly. The Social Democrats are being forced out of government everywhere. Only temporarily are they drawn back into the governments, as happened in Germany under foreign pressure. The Independent Party has made a complete swing to the right, also under the pressure of this new situation or the psychological reflection of this new situation, the importance of which it overestimates. We find the same thing in the trade unions. A consolidation has occurred; the Independents of all countries and the Social Democrats of all countries, whose opposition was so great 1 to 1½ years ago, have come closer together through the mediation of Amsterdam.

The old opposition of Social Democracy now lives in bigamy with the International II and II½ and the two ladies are not at all disgruntled about it. This triangular marriage now best characterises the disappearance of those oppositional tendencies towards the state which also appeared among the Independents in 1919 and 1920.

These three post-war years were the time of the greatest mass movements the world has ever seen. Russia, that suffer most and most deeply in the war, as the first country entered into the current of revolution through the revolution of March 1917.

Already in 1917 the great mass strikes of an economic nature were developing in England. At the end of the same year, the Russian proletariat seized power. At that time, I will not conceal it from you, the road from our seizure of power in this country to the seizure of power in the countries of Central and Western Europe seemed to us much closer than it has turned out to be. This fact also belongs to the examination of the world situation. In 1918 we had great strikes in the neutral countries, at the end of the year the revolution in Germany and Austria-Hungary, brought about by military collapse. The proletarian, rather chaotic, economic mass movement spread more and more. In 1919 in Germany we have the bloody January and March days. At the end of 1919 in the United States, the great strikes of the miners and railway workers. And then the raging fury of the bourgeoisie, the extermination of the workers' organisations, the arrests, etc. In 1920 in Germany we see the Kapp putsch and then the great struggles of the armed workers and the vendetta of "democracy". For the workers in France, the most critical moment is the May Day celebrations and the subsequent general strikes of the railway workers and other workers. In Russia, the Red Army tried an offensive against Warsaw, which was also in some respects related to the expectations and hopes of the international situation. The action failed, as did the great mass action in Italy in September 1920, where the workers occupied the factories but the party completely failed. The movement roused the bourgeoisie from its demoralisation and directly pushed it to the attack by the behaviour of the workers' party, and when Mr. Turati says that this movement allegedly failed because the Italian workers were not mature enough to occupy the factories and take over production, he is right because up to that moment the Italian workers did not purge their ranks of Turati and the Serratists.

The Czechoslovak general strike takes place in December 1920. In 1921 we have the March struggles in Germany, the miners' strike in England, the general strike in Norway – the greatest struggles the world has ever seen. As a result of these struggles – this is the main thing – the bourgeoisie still remains on top. And Mr. Otto Bauer, the theoretician of the II½-International, says that the fact that the bourgeoisie still retains power means the bankruptcy of the III. International. For we had always expected that the world revolution would take place in the last epoch of the war or immediately after the war. Now this assessment or prophecy or hope is completely false and misplaced. After all, we have not made a bet with the Second International by which we would be obliged to complete the revolution directly at the conclusion of the war. Therefore, we do not feel obliged to pay the stake of this bet, i.e., to hand over the leadership of the proletariat to the II½-International. It was not and is not a purely objective fact, independent of us, which is foreseen and prophesied like an astronomical phenomenon, and in which we made a calculation error; it is a fact – the seizure of power – which must happen through human beings.

This is the goal that we are striving for, and if we do not reach this goal by a certain date, this does not mean the bankruptcy of the III. International.

It is only necessary to examine more closely the economic and political world situation and our principled attitude towards the revolution. Why did we, in the course of the war, even before the war, at the Stuttgart Party Congress of the II International [1907], associate the international proletarian revolution with the war? Because the war, which was only foreseen at that time, presented a phenomenon which had to throw the whole economic structure of society out of balance. The question is whether this fact occurred and, if it did, whether the bourgeoisie, the ruling class, capital, in the course of the three post-war years, was already able to restore the shattered and undermined equilibrium.