The Dilemmas of Lenin by Tariq Ali

Author:Tariq Ali
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 2017-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

10

The Third International

For most of September and October 1917, it appeared that Lenin saw the success of the October Revolution mainly as a springboard for revolutions throughout Europe. The war was still raging and he hoped it would create prerevolutionary crises in Germany, France, Italy and the possessions of the Habsburg Empire. For him this was the most efficient way of defeating the counterrevolution. In order to do so, it was necessary to set about organising a new International that would mark a definitive break with the federalism and political cowardice of the Second International, and its social-chauvinist sections that had capitulated to and defended their respective capitalist governments in the war. For this purpose, agreement with the statutes (and with the twenty-one conditions that Lenin had instituted in 1920 for joining the Comintern) was necessary to be part of the new organisation.

Lenin strongly believed that civil wars were about to break out all over Europe and, for that reason, a Communist International was required as the general staff of the world revolution. He was particularly contemptuous of the Second International for prioritising ‘white skins’ and not caring about the rest of the world, including the victims of the imperialist countries. The Communist International would fight with Asian and African comrades to defeat the stranglehold of the European empires. The war had ended and the balance sheet could be seen in cemeteries, hospitals and psychiatric clinics across Europe. The figures were horrific: 30 million dead and wounded, mass starvation, huge war debts. The creation of a League of Nations by the victorious powers was denounced by Lenin as ‘a league of bourgeois robbers’ established to rubber-stamp colonial and other crimes.

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