Second İnternational - INTRODUCTION
J Lenz
Over forty years ago, in 1889, the Second International was founded at the International Workers’ Congress in Paris. In the space of twenty-five years it grew and developed into a powerful mass organisation, to which millions of workers in capitalist countries paid allegiance. It was the pride and hope of countless class conscious workers. In numerous resolutions, appeals and speeches, the leaders of the Second International declared in favour of interna- tional proletarian solidarity, of determined struggle against imperialist war. In August 1914 the Socialist International was the first victim of the war. Without any attempt at resistance, the proud edifice fell in ruins, like a house of cards. The leading parties in the International, above all the German Party, went over with flying colours into the camp of the capitalist war criminals.
This collapse taught the international working class a sanguinary lesson:
to renounce militant international organisation is death for the working class. The experience of every great struggle between capital and labour demonstrates the necessity of international proletarian solidarity. When capital is closely knit on an international scale, when international cartels and trusts, which serve also as international organisations for capitalism’s fight against the working class, dominate the world, a united proletarian international is doubly necessary.
The belief that the war of 1914-1918 was the war to end all wars is re- vealed more and more clearly as an empty illusion. Now, as in the period pre- ceding 1914, feverish competition in armaments is proceeding. The question of how the working class shall, by joint action in all countries, fight against the danger of war, occupies the mind of every class conscious worker.
At the present time it is more than ever necessary to consider thoroughly the question of the international policy and organisation of the working class. Out of the fight against the Imperialist War and the treachery of the Second In- ternational there arose, under the leadership of the Russian Bolsheviks, the Third, the Communist International. Through many years of struggle it has de- fended the dictatorship of the proletariat over one-sixth of the earth’s surface, adopting a united revolutionary attitude in all imperialist conflicts, rallying un- der its banner the most resolute revolutionary class fighters in all countries.
But in a number of the most important capitalist countries the majority of the organised workers regard Communism partly with hostility, partly with distrust. After the end of the war various attempts were made again to organise on an international scale the parties of the Second International, which had broken apart when the first shot was fired. At the Congress held in Hamburg in 1923 the formal unity of all Social Democratic parties was established. The “Labour and Socialist International,” as this new body was called, claimed to carry on the traditions of the First and Second Internationals. It promised the workers that in the event of a future war the Social Democratic leaders who had failed them in 1914 would not fail them again. Millions of workers still rely on this promise, as they relied on the promises of their leaders before 1914.
But while, in 1914, even the best revolutionaries and Marxists were astonished by the profoundly opportunist and chauvinist corruption of the Second Inter- national, today it re quires only a critical examination of the theory and practice, the social and political character of the patched-up International of re- formism, to see that the part which it is playing now, in “peace” time, is but the consistent continuation of the treachery of 1914 that in a future war this “In- ternational” will play a part even worse than it did in 1914.
The Third, the Communist International, on the other hand, is the only guarantee that in the new slaughter of the peoples which the imperialists of every country are preparing, the proletariat will not again be left defenceless, that the international revolutionary proletariat has now forged a weapon which will not fail it in its hour of need, that the promises which the Second International could not keep will be carried out in the coming war.
What has been said above is proved by a study of the history of the in- ternational labour movement in the period from 1889 to 1929. But it is not the object of this book to give in detail the story of those forty years. The history of the Second International has yet to be written. The work here published, writ- ten amidst the turmoil of daily life, does not claim to give the reader that which can only be the result of a thorough historical investigation. It merely attempts, on the basis of historical facts, to explain some problems which every worker who wishes to carry out his duty in the international proletariat’s great struggle for freedom must understand. Why the Second International was bound to fail; why, in the present period, it is necessary for the proletarian International to be organised in a body fundamentally different from that which collapsed in 1914; why the “International” which claims to be a replica of the old Interna- tional can at the present time only serve as an auxiliary force of imperialism; why it was essential to establish a new International capable of carrying out the tasks indicated by Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto — these are the questions with which we shall deal in the following pages.
Our object has been, not complete historical description, but selection of the most important points. One defect, of which the author is fully conscious, consists in the impossibility of giving an adequate account of the attitude adopted by the left wing of the Second International towards all disputed ques- tions. That will possible only when we have the complete edition of Lenin‘s works in the German language. For as Rosa Luxemburg represented the most advanced section of the German working class movement, Lenin stands in the same position in regard to the international movement. On the question of the attitude of the revolutionary wing of the Second International to the imperialist war, the only comprehensive work at our disposal was Zinoviev‘s The War and the Crisis of Socialism. The development of the Third International is there por- trayed only in so far as it was considered necessary to an understanding of the historical development of reformism.
Quotations of which the source is not given are taken from the reports of the International Congresses or Party Congresses referred to in the text.
We hope that this book will prove a useful weapon in the struggle of the only proletarian International of our day, the Communist International, against the most dangerous forces of imperialist reaction, against the International of social-imperialism and social-fascism.
J. L.
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