Written: See below.
Published:
See below.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
2nd English Printing,
Progress Publishers,
1971,
Moscow,
Volume 42,
pages 199-203a.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup:
D. Walters
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2003).
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[1] The Second Congress of the Communist International, which laid the foundations of the Comintern’s programme, tactics and organisation was held from July 19 to August 7, 1920, in Soviet Russia. The opening session was held in Petrograd and the subsequent sessions, beginning with July 23, in Moscow. The congress was attended by 169 voting delegates and 49 delegates with a consultative voice representing 67 workers’ organisations of 37 countries. Apart from delegates representing the Communist Parties and organisations of 31 countries, there were delegates from the Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany, the socialist parties of Italy and France, Industrial Workers of the World (Australia, Britain and Ireland), the National Confederation of Labour of Spain and other organisations. The R,C.P.(B.) was represented at the congress by 64 delegates.
All the preparatory work for convening the congress was directed by Lenin, who attached great importance to this international congress of communist and workers’ organisations. An important role in defining the tasks and working out the political line of the Comintern was played by Lenin’s book “Left-Wing” Communism-an Infantile Disorder, written for the opening of the Second Congress. Lenin wrote the “Preliminary Draft Th(Ç,ses on the National and Colonial Questions (For the Second Congress of the Communist International)”, “Preliminary Draft Theses on the Agrarian Question (For the Second Congress of the Communist International)”, “Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Second Congress of the Communist International” and “The Terms of Admission into the Communist International” (see present edition, Vol. 31, pp. 144-51, 152-64, 184-201, 206-11).
The congress adopted the following agenda: 1) The International Situation and the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International; 2) The Role and Composition of the Communist Parties Before and After the Conquest of Power by the Proletariat; 3) The Trade Unions and the Factory Committees; 4) the Question of Parliamentarism; 5) The National and Colonial Questions; 6) The Agrarian Question; 7) The Attitude to the New “Centrist” Trends and Terms of Admission Into the Communist International; 8) The Charter of the Communist International; 9) Organisational questions (legal and illegal organisations, women’s organisations, etc.); 10) The Communist youth movement; 11) Elections; ’12) Miscellaneous.
At the opening session of the congress Lenin delivered a report on the international situation and the fundamental tasks of the Communist International (see present edition, Vol. 31, pp. 215-34).
Lenin took an active part in the work of most of the committees-those on the national and colonial questions, on the agrarian question, on terms of admission into the Communist International, and on the international situation and the tasks of the Comintern.
Lenin also made a speech at the congress on the role of the Communist Party, delivered a report of the Committee on the National and Colonial Questions, speeches on the terms of admission into the Communist International, on parliamentarianism and on affiliation to the British Labour Party (ibid., pp. 235-63). The congress adopted Lenin’s theses as a resolution, passed a resolution “On the Role of the Communist Party in the Proletarian Revolution”, in the formulation of which Lenin took an active part, and adopted other resolutions, the “Terms of Admission Into the Communist International” and the Charter of the Comintern. The congress also adopted the Manifesto of the Second Congress of the Communist International. In addition it published a number of appeals: “The Third International to the Trade Unions of All Countries”, “To the Workers of Petrograd”, “To the Red Army and Red Navy of the R.S.F.S.R.”, “Against the Executioners of Hungary”, “To the Proletarian Men and Women of All Countries”, and others.
The Second Congress of the Comintern played a tremendous role in the development of the international communist movement After the congress Lenin pointed out that “communism has become the central to the working-class movement as a whole” (see present edition, Vol. 32, p. 180).
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