The Communist International, Anti-Imperialism and Racial Equality in British Dominions

Oleksa Drachewych

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351131971
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book analyzes the stance of international communism towards nationality, anti-colonialism, and racial equality as defined by the Communist International (Comintern) during the interwar period. Central to the volume is a comparative analysis of the communist parties of three British dominions, South Africa, Canada and Australia, demonstrating how each party attempted to follow Moscow's lead and how each party produced its own attempts to deal with these issues locally, while considering the limits of their own agency within the movement at large.

Part I The context

1 The Comintern and the national and colonial questions

The First World War threw socialism into chaos. Many socialists dropped any pretence of internationalism and supported their nations’ war efforts.¹ Lenin and the Zimmerwald Left saw this nationalism as a betrayal of revolutionary Marxism, rendering the Second International ideologically bankrupt.² In turn, Lenin and the Zimmerwald Left reclaimed the socialist lineage of ideas on anti-imperialism and self-determination of nations, aiming to represent what socialists should have stood for when war broke out. In doing so, as represented by such works as Lenin’s Imperialism, the Bolsheviks became the leaders of this repaired socialism.

Fighting imperialism and supporting colonial liberation became important campaigns of the Comintern and underpinned the worldview promoted by the Bolsheviks. It became a prominent part of Bolshevik diplomacy, such as in its response to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk negotiations of 1917–1918, and to the Allied Intervention and Russian Civil War of 1918–1921. In the Comintern, this worldview influenced the 1920 “Theses on the National and Colonial Question,” the 1922 “Theses on the Eastern Question,” and several congresses of the Peoples of the East. The Comintern expected member parties to follow these resolutions. Each party had different ways of responding to these theses but, when looking at colonial liberation, nationality and race, every party needed to be aware of these platforms.

Lenin’s role in these early congresses is impossible to ignore and he was a prominent figure in supporting these early tactical formulations. Others, such as Indian communist M.N. Roy, also developed their own interpretations and maintained a significant level of influence. However, following Lenin’s death, the Comintern’s commitment to colonial liberation became less pronounced. Typically, events in India and China were important to the Comintern, given the prominence of these countries in the spread of communism and breaking important links in the imperialist chain. Otherwise, in terms of colonial matters, the Comintern started to drift towards a more generalized approach but member parties often wanted something more substantial.

In general, by the Sixth Congress and thereafter, the Comintern’s structural Eurocentrism was hard to shake. Whereas communist parties in Europe made some effort to promote colonial liberation and some sent members to colonies, they rarely made a consistent effort. In general, specific figures such as Jacques Doriot in France or Shapurji Saklatvala in Britain were the main motivators for maintaining some attention on colonial affairs. Individuals such as Willi Münzenburg were central in forming front organizations like the League Against Imperialism. Even when the Comintern sought to force parties to place greater attention on colonial affairs in Europe, it tended to back off before any firm action could be taken. In 1929, for example, the Comintern planned a colonial conference but did not undertake it. The priorities of the Comintern become the important motivator. Its general tendency to follow Soviet foreign policy and to prioritize European affairs in the 1930s limited direct opposition to British or American imperialism. Instead, the Comintern focused on combatting fascism, as well as the militarism and aggression of Germany, Italy and Japan.

Communism, anti-imperialism and the First World War

The communist critique of imperialism built on a lineage of ideas accepted by Lenin and the Zimmerwald Left. This body of work, and resolutions of the Second International, included certain works and ideas of Karl Kautsky, the Basel Manifesto and the Stuttgart Resolution.³ Lenin enunciated the most notable statement of the accepted perspective towards imperialism when he wrote Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916. The scope and influence of this work cannot be denied. The Communist International, the Comintern’s tactical journal, advertised it frequently as Lenin’s “most important” work. When war broke out in the summer of 1914, Lenin, incensed by the actions of his socialist colleagues, criticized them and called for a break with the Second International and the formation of a new International founded upon revolutionary principles.⁴

He believed that his colleagues had sullied the tactics of socialism. During the war, he strengthened his positions on international issues. Imperialism borrowed from critics of imperialism, including some prominent socialists, and attacked alternative socialist ideas promoted during the war.⁵ Borrowing from J.A. Hobson and socialist Rudolf Hilferding, Lenin developed the worldview that capitalism was stagnating, as a result of the rich getting richer through the exploitation of colonies.⁶ Echoing Rudolf Hilferding, he added that banks, through tariffs, encouraged the accumulation of territory. Therefore, imperialism and finance capital were one and the same, Lenin argued.⁷

He also adopted socialist positions on self-determination and forwarded them as important concerns for his brand of revolutionary communism. Some prominent socialists supported imperialism and the economic benefits from colonial exploitation, a problem Lenin noted in their works on imperialism. But Lenin remained intellectually indebted to Kautsky who argued that, if Marxists were against “capitalist colonial policies,” they must be against exploitative colonial policies.⁸ He linked the success of the proletariat revolution to the end of colonialism. Kautsky argued that colonial exploitation could not be combatted on every occasion. Revolution must come when a region was “ripe.” This correct timing would prevent further exploitation from an imperial power, but also from the “barbarism” occasioned by the lack of readiness for socialism.⁹ Kautsky concluded that:

Revolutions in Europe and North America cannot fail to affect the states in the rest of the world. The shifts of power between classes must be accompanied by shifts of power between races and states, just as it is probable, on the other hand, that internal revolutions are started off by external revolutions, world wars.¹⁰

A world revolution, and one of significant scope, would be necessary in order to make all possible benefits a reality. Colonial liberation could occur with the end of capitalist regimes in Europe, just as colonial liberation could enhance the strength of revolution in Europe. In this prewar article, Kautsky also suggested a war, akin to the eventual First World War, could awaken revolution.¹¹

Lenin built on this position to formulate a prominent theme of his regime after the October Revolution. He defined the right of self-determination of nations as the “right to secession.”¹² Lenin argued for unanimous acceptance of the right to political self-determination. He, however, held a specific definition for “nation:”

Recognising equality and equal rights to a national state, it values and appreciates above all the alliance of the proletariat of all nations, evaluating any national demand, any national separation, from the angle [emphasis in original] of the workers’ class struggle.¹³

Lenin positioned self-determination as freedom from oppression and a desire for full equality, but only if the proletariat demanded it. Upon receiving independence, the proletariat would merge its new nation with the international “nation,” unifying the international working class. All would be free from exploitation.¹⁴ It was a creative way to link proletarian internationalism with nationality and equality.

Buoying this formulation was Lenin’s contempt of chauvinism, the oppression of a greater nation over a lesser one.¹⁵ Even if several nationalities existed in a given nation-state, they should be protected and free from national, ethnic or racial oppression. This position, coupled with Lenin’s analysis of imperialism, underpinned the Bolshevik and, eventually, Comintern worldview. It was familiar to many socialists, building on socialist platforms established before the war.¹⁶ It reflected the changing international situation and maintained the revolutionary spirit of those disenchanted by the Socialist International.

Facing imperialism: the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the Russian Civil War

The Bolsheviks’ seizure of power forced them to consider the practical aspects of these ideological tenets formed when not in power. One of the first orders of business for Lenin and his comrades was to end Russian involvement in the First World War. Almost immediately, they called for peace negotiations. Only the Central Powers obliged, beginning to negotiate what became the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. During the negotiations, the Bolsheviks demanded the application of self-determination of nations in any former Tsarist Russian territory and a non-annexationist peace. They used the negotiations as a stage to reach the wider European audience and propagandize their views.¹⁷

The Bolsheviks were willing to open the doors to complete and total self-determination – at least when applied to political entities other than those under their control. Begrudgingly they did the same within their own borders, accepting a fait accompli as the Bolshevik Revolution had destabilized the Russian Empire, allowing regions to secede.¹⁸ The Central Powers knew they held the leverage in the negotiations, especially due to the fact that the other Allied Powers had no intention of joining the negotiations. As a result of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Central Powers took control over roughly a third of the former Russian Empire’s population, significant agricultural lands, industrial centres and coal mines.¹⁹

Many Bolsheviks disagreed with the signing of the treaty, citing it as oppressive and, at worst, selling the soul of the revolution to an imperialist state. Brest-Litovsk, however, provided “breathing space,” allowing the new regime to turn its attention to domestic issues and to the civil war that had begun. The treaty was also the first of a series of diplomatic moments that gave communism credibility when it turned to the colonized world. Lenin was keenly aware of this fact, suggesting the treaty affirmed that Russia no longer was participating “in the plunder and suppression of other countries.”²⁰ A year later, the Bolsheviks hailed it as a necessary peace. They needed to pull themselves out of a war against “half of world imperialism” and “retreat” in order to regroup, consolidate the revolution at home and work towards their goal of undermining imperialism through the education of the international working classes.²¹ Brest-Litovsk also showed that the imperialist aims of European powers were broadly held.

In a new preface to Imperialism written in 1920, Lenin claimed that the series of harsh peace treaties, which now included the Treaty of Versailles along with Brest-Litovsk, were Exhibit A in illustrating the persistence of imperialist states. He reframed Brest-Litovsk as an imposed treaty on Russia. Lenin argued that both treaties “opened the eyes of the millions and tens of millions of people who are downtrodden, oppressed, deceived and duped by the bourgeoisie with unprecedented rapidity.” For the Bolsheviks, the postwar settlements showed that the people of the world had been awakened to the immorality of imperialism and Wilsonianism. Lenin implied that Wilsonianism was a fraudulent claim that reform and peace could occur under an imperialistic system. This new awakening would inevitably lead to proletarian revolutions.²²

The Bolsheviks, therefore, declared themselves the vanguard in the fight against imperialism. Echoing Imperialism, they stated their “firm determination to wrest mankind from the clutches of finance capital and imperialism” and “at all costs, by revolutionary means, [establish] a democratic peace between nations … on the basis of the free self-determination of nations.”²³ When the Entente nations entered the Russian Civil War, cooperating with White counter-revolutionary forces, it only further established the Bolshevik’s revolutionary and anti-imperial credentials. The Bolsheviks, and especially Lenin, took the opportunity to show how they practiced what they preached by combating imperialism on its own territory.²⁴ By making clear their desire to recreate the Tsarist Empire, white commanders such as Anton Denikin provided the Bolsheviks with propaganda fodder. Since many counterrevolutionaries sided with the British and the French, two of the most prominent imperial powers, any promotion of self-determination rang hollow – if they had even considered it. In areas like Ukraine, where the Treaty of Versailles significantly hampered and deflated independence efforts, and the Caucasus, where the Germans, Ottomans and British all ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Note on translation and transliteration
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I The context
• Part II Case studies
• Bibliography
• Index