History Of The International: World Socialism 1943-1968

Julius Braunthal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429727092
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia mondiale

With this volume the history of the first century of the International reaches its conclusion. Originally I had intended that the trilogy would come to a close with the centenary of the founding of the First International in September 1964. But before I could finish writing the third volume the tragedy of the Communist revolution in Czechoslovakia had played itself out. 'The Spring of Prague' of 1968, having set in motion a process of change from a Communist dictatorship to a Socialist democracy, was followed within a few months by the invasion of the armies of the five Warsaw Pact powers to forestall reformation in Czechoslovakia. Both revolution and counter-revolution were events of the utmost significance for the history of Socialism-the revolution, for showing that it was possible for a Communist system of totalitarian dictatorship to be transformed without resort to force; and the counter-revolution, for showing how the regime in the Soviet Union has remained essentially unaltered since Stalin's death. The invasion of Czechoslovakia brutally called in question any optimistic perspective of development within the Soviet Union itself.

Part One
The Destiny of Socialism

Introduction

When Stalin concluded his pact with Hitler on 25 August 1939, the unity of the international labour movement was shattered. The United Front of Socialists and Communists against the menace of Nazism, for which the Communist International had campaigned so single-mindedly since 1935, was laid in ruins. While throughout the world Social Democrats stood firmly in the camp for war against Hitler, Stalin placed the Communist International at the disposal of Hitler's psychological war effort.¹

It took Germany's invasion of Russia on 22 June 1941 to rectify Stalin's momentous blunder. Now the Soviet Union and the Western Allies found common cause in the fight for democracy against Fascism; once again Social Democrats and Communists stood shoulder to shoulder in the face of a common enemy. The heroism shown by the Red Army in first holding back the Nazis at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad, and then dealing them a numbing defeat at Stalingrad, aroused an enthusiastic response among Social Democratic workers everywhere. The bitter political quarrels of the past twenty years were forgotten. It seemed that an era of unity within the international labour movement had dawned at last.

The hopes entertained by many Socialists that the split could indeed be overcome received new impetus from the dissolution of the Communist International in May 1943. The Socialist International had ceased to exist after the last meeting of its Bureau early in April 1940,² and the disappearance of the Communist International seemed to remove the last obstacle to reconstituting a united International. Harold Laski (1893-1950), who was among the most renowned intellectual leaders in the British Labour movement, spoke for many thousands of its members when he welcomed the dissolution as 'one of the most hopeful political developments since 1919' from the viewpoint of re-establishing working-class unity throughout Europe and Asia.¹

In all of Europe—with the exception of Britain, which had successfully resisted invasion, and Sweden and Switzerland, which were both spared invasion altogether—Fascism had crushed Socialist and Communist parties alike. Now, having participated in the defeat of Fascism, would they renew their struggle to lead the working class, or might a united workers' party at last emerge from their common ruin? This was the question which preoccupied Socialists of every shade of opinion when, towards the end of the war, the outlines of a new Europe began to emerge.

The potentiality of a triumphant Socialist renaissance seemed very real. The old bourgeois parties had been discredited. World war had been preceded by a world economic crisis condemning millions in the leading industrial countries to the hunger and demoralization of long-term unemployment. And the bourgeois parties, confronted by this crisis, were at a loss how to overcome the disaster. They had also been surprisingly quick in abandoning their own liberal, humanitarian values when faced with a working-class threat to property and privileges. In Italy, Germany and Austria, they had joined forces with Fascism. In Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Baltic States, they had been ready to back semi-Fascist dictatorships. Nor could they avoid responsibility for the war itself. In Britain and France, instead of resisting Hitler, they had tried to appease him with concession after concession, and in France capitulation was followed by collaboration. In the lifetime of a single generation the old bourgeois parties had plunged Europe into two world wars. It seemed hardly conceivable that millions of people would ever again be willing to leave their fate in such hands, and to many it seemed far more likely that the finish of the war would witness the dawn of Socialism in Europe.

Against this background, the question of mending the split in the international labour movement took on new significance. No Socialist government emerging after the war could hope to revive exhausted economies on a fresh, Socialist basis without freely-given and self-sacrificing co-operation from the whole working class. Should the labour movement remain divided and the old pre-war rivalries be allowed to reassert themselves, then, it was clear, working-class governments would founder and the bourgeois parties return to power.

It is true that in Britain, whose Labour party had the unchallenged allegiance of the organized working class and whose Communist party was practically negligible, the question of the reunification of the labour movement was not crucial. But in France, Germany and Czechoslovakia there had been mass Communist parties before the war and it was impossible to predict the increase in strength likely to be obtained by the Communists in these and other countries which had experienced the war and Nazi occupation at close quarters and been affected by the immense prestige gained by the Soviet Union's war effort. The problem of reuniting the workers' parties had assumed the utmost importance.

This problem was, however, inextricably bound up with the issue of East-West relations. Most particularly, the continuing friendly relationship between Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union in the task of establishing a lasting peace settlement was essential to a united labour movement. For it became clear that, in the event of any conflict developing between the Soviet Union and a non-Communist country, then that country's Communists, even if they were within a united workers' party, would continue to pursue their policy of unquestioning allegiance to the Soviet Union, regardless of whether or not their country had a Socialist or non-Socialist government; for they would continue to see in the Soviet Union the leading genuinely Socialist state, on whose strength and survival, they believed, all the hopes of the world revolution depended.

The idea of reunifying the international labour movement could therefore only be realized on the solid foundation of a community of mutual interests existing between the Great Powers. Only if the great war-time alliance between the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union were to be carried over into the post-war world and made the basis of a lasting peace settlement could the international labour movement be reunited. But if the alliance broke down, then the split would inevitably recur.

The destiny of international working-class unity had therefore come to depend on friendly relations between Communist Russia and a United States whose social system and political ideology formed an antithesis to Communism. They were united only by the vaguely formulated agreements concerning the future division of Europe into spheres of influence that were reached at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. It was on the conflicting interpretations of these agreements, made as the war approached its climax, that the alliance was to founder within barely two years of peace. Cohesion between Socialists and Communists quickly followed suit. Their unity had not lasted long enough to put down roots, and the concept of an all-embracing International was buried beneath the rubble of the Grand Alliance.

It was not long, however, before the disintegration of the international labour movement reached a new stage. International Communism itself, whose monolithic unity had seemed forged in steel, began to break up. In Europe the Communist party of Yugoslavia, faced with the crucial choice between national independence and subjugation to Soviet imperialism, came into open conflict with Moscow. Of incomparably greater moment was the breach in relations between the Communist parties of the Soviet Union and China when, after a few honeymoon years of common triumph, they came into conflict over their rival claims to the leadership of the world Communist movement. Even as the disintegration of the Grand Alliance had broken the links between the Socialists and the Communists, so did the imperialistic rivalries between the two Communist super-powers, only thinly veiled by ideological slogans, destroy the unity of world Communism.

Socialism had emerged from the war with immense prestige and considerable political power. A Labour government was in command of the British Empire. Scandinavia had for long been under Social Democratic rule. Elsewhere in Europe, Socialists were prominent in coalition governments. And whereas Socialist movements had in the past largely been confined to the white races, now, for the first time in history, Socialism was to become influential in Asia and Africa. Yet, as had so often happened in the past, when the concept of international solidarity seemed to clash with national self-interest, it was the latter which was to triumph.

1. Julius Braunthal, History of the International, 1914-1943, pp. 504-26.

2. For the dissolution of the Communist International and the end of the Socialist International, see ibid., pp. 529-30 and 491-2.

1. Quoted in Milorad M, Drachkovitch (ed)., The Revolutionary Internationals 1864–1943 (Stanford, 1966).

1 . The British Labour Initiative

The initiative for ending the split in the international labour movement was taken by the British Labour party. In their opinion the key lay in Moscow. As early as the spring of 1942, a year before the dissolution of the Communist International, the National Executive Committee of the Labour party had decided to send a delegation to Moscow in order to reach an understanding with the Soviet government towards solving the problems which had divided the international labour movement so as to lay down foundations for what Harold Laski, speaking at the party's annual conference in 1942, described as 'the permanent and unshakeable unity of the Labour movement for ever'.

The timing of the discussion had of necessity been left to the Soviet government, and it seemed improbable that any invitation would be issued in 1942. The German assault on Moscow had been halted in the winter of 1941, but in 1942 Leningrad was still under siege. That summer, German forces broke through into the Caucasus, while simultaneously in the Don basin forces were deployed against Stalingrad in a vast semi-circle that stretched from Voronezh to Rostov. In the autumn the decisive battles began for this fortress on the Volga. It was to prove one of the bloodiest battles in all the annals of war, and it ended, in January 1943, with the destruction of the German forces and the capture of 350,000 German soldiers. With this, Germany's power to take the offensive was broken and the way cleared for the Soviet counter-attack.¹

Even if Stalin had wished for a discussion with the British Labour party, this was hardly the most propitious moment. The British Labour party patiently awaited the Russian leader's decision. At its annual conference of June 1943, it reaffirmed its desire for a discussion to settle the main differences in the international labour movement. 'It would be a tragedy of the first order,' Laski declared in an address to the conference, 'if the twenty-five postwar years, like the twenty-five inter-war years, were to be characterized by destructive conflicts.'¹ In its Report to the next annual conference, in December 1944, the executive recorded that it had requested the Soviet Ambassador in London to arrange for the delegation's visit, and at its next conference, in May 1945, Hugh Dalton once again reaffirmed the executive's wish for talks with the Russians.

No such discussion was to take place. An official Labour party delegation, led by Harold Laski, did in fact visit Moscow in July 1946 and conducted an interview with Stalin. But the Soviet leader pointedly refrained from any mention of mending the split in the world labour movement.² While the Labour leadership genuinely wished to reach an understanding with the Russians, it had no particular desire to establish closer relations with the British Communist party. In Britain, the Communists had little popular support. The party had been badly compromised by its opposition to the war during the first two years, and its already small membership had dropped by a third. After the Soviet Union had been drawn into the war and international Communism changed its line, the British Communists had not had the chance given to their comrades in France, Italy and the other occupied countries to cancel out the stigma by a heroic record of resistance. While the heroism of the Red Army evoked immense sympathy, from which British Communists to some extent benefited, no Nazi occupation had occurred to consolidate solidarity between Socialists and Communists in the shared risks and sufferings of an underground movement. While the Communists no longer made open attacks on 'bourgeois democracy' or voiced their belief in proletarian dictatorship, this was seen as a temporary tactic, and most Labour party members considered the objectives of Communism as being incompatible with their own.

Yet there was no way of avoiding discussion with the Communists. As early as 18 December 1942, six months before the dissolution of the Communist International, the central committee of the Communist party had sent a letter to the Labour party executive requesting that Communist affiliation be placed on the agenda for the forthcoming annual conference.³ This letter stated that the Commu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• PART ONE: The Destiny of Socialism
• PART TWO: The Reopening of the Split
• PART THREE: Socialism and Communism in Asia
• PART FOUR: The Moral Crisis of Communism
• PART FIVE: The First Hundred Years
• Appendix One: Socialism as a World Movement: an attempt at a numerical assessment
• Bibliography
• List of Abbreviations
• Name Index