Comintern-dominated Soviet Union

[TrueFactsUnstated]

It was the view held by the Italian Marxist theoretician,
Amadeo Bordiga, that the recently formed Comintern (Third International), the multinational body unifying Marxist-oriented parties sympathetic to the Bolshevik Revolution from each state across the world, should in fact control the decision-making process behind the domestic and foreign policy of the USSR, rather than the opposite in which the Centeral Committee of the RSDLP (b) controlling the Comintern, which was actually what was occurring.

So, how would such a dramatically altered Soviet Union operate as? Would the Supreme Soviet of the Comintern function sort of the the bicameral nature of the U.S. Congress? Which, in one house of the legislature, each communist party is granted two or three fixed seats to act as delegates representing their party. And for the other house of the legislature, the number of seats each communist party is allowed is proportionally determined through either the number of card-carrying members each party has, or the population size of the nation-state which the communist party is based in, or even the level of industrialization of the nation-state in which communist party operates in.

How efficient would this form of government be? Would there be resentment from the predominant ethnic-groups of the Soviet Union (Russians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, etc.), having governmental affairs be charted by "people who don't even live here"?

 

[Johnrankins]

This is near ASB, why would the Russians allow their policies be made by a bunch of foreigners? If they did they would lose all credibility in Russia outside the most ardent supporters of the Bolsheviks. Why would the peasants and workers of Russia want their laws made by people in Germany and France? If somehow they didn't rise up against foreign rule it would be disastrous. A German intellectual has no conception on what life on State Farm #145 is like . How is he going to come up with decent policies for a country he hasn't spent day one in? He is going to be so out of touch of what the average peasant on State Farm #145 or a factory worker in Moscow is going through he might as well be living on Mars.

 

[Miss Teri]

Would there be resentment from the predominant ethnic-groups of the Soviet Union (Russians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, etc.), having governmental affairs be charted by "people who don't even live here"?

Really now? I assumed they would be happy letting a bunch of foreign intellectuals with little administrative experience dictate the policies of a country they have lived and worked in their whole lives.

 

[WotanArgead]

Comintern - the union of the parties, not the government.

 

[TheSpectacledCloth]

I'm sure that not even Trotsky would accept these terms, far less Stalin.

 

[lionhead]

Perhaps it could work if Stalin dies during WWII and the resulting power vacuum causes multiple political opponents to kill eachother whilst the war is raging and when its won not even a general like Zhukov is able to take full control so its decided to leave it up to the entire comintern, now including the Warsaw pact.

 

[David T]

The only thing that could make the Comintern anything other than a Russian-dominated organization would be an early and successful Communist revolution in Germany--and that was always unlikely. As long as Russia was the only state where Communists were in power, she was bound to dominate the Comintern.

"At the Fifth Congress in 1924, the German delegate, August Thalheimer, declared: 'It is absolutely necessary, a historic necessity, for the Russian party to have the leadership of the Third International--of this there is no need to speak any further--and other parties will rank with it as equals only when they also take power, and know how to hold on to power and to make the transition to socialism.' The Japanese, Katayama, exclaimed, 'I affirm that I am opposed to the statement of Bordiga that the leading position of the Russian Communist Party in the communist international can be called into question.'

"At the Seventh Plenum, toward the end of 1926, the Italian, Palmiro Togliatti (Ercoli), brought the unwritten law into the open: 'Of course, we have the statutes of the International which guarantee certain rights to certain comrades; but there is something which is not in these statutes. That is the position of the Russian party in the International, its leading function — that goes beyond the limits of the statutes.'" Theodore Draper, *American Communism and Soviet Russia,* pp. 165-66. https://books.google.com/books?id=SlRc3KqcDygC&pg=PA165

And this would be true regardless of who controlled the Russian Communist Party--indeed all these statements were made before Stalin's rise to absolute power. (In fact, once Stalin really did rise to absolute power, such statements disappeared for the simple reason that everyone assumed implicitly that the Russian Communist Party, i.e., Stalin, was infallible.) Why would Trotsky, in the unlikely event he rose to power, tolerate anti-Trotskyist parties in the Comintern any more than Zinoviev or Stalin would tolerate parties hostile to themselves?

 

[naraic]

The only thing that could make the Comintern anything other than a Russian-dominated organization would be an early and successful Communist revolution in Germany--and that was always unlikely. As long as Russia was the only state where Communists were in power, she was bound to dominate the Comintern.

WHe Germany in paticular, if French or Italian communists came to power would they be considered partners in the cominterm.

 

[David T]

WHe Germany in paticular, if French or Italian communists came to power would they be considered partners in the cominterm.

I singled out Germany because it was always considered the most likely state for a successful Communist revolution--especially if the Red Army were to establish contact with Germany by defeating Poland. Italy and especially France were less likely to undergo successful revolutions--though IMO even in Germany a successful Communist revolution was unlikely.

 

[TheSpectacledCloth]

I singled out Germany because it was always considered the most likely state for a successful Communist revolution--especially if the Red Army were to establish contact with Germany by defeating Poland. Italy and especially France were less likely to undergo successful revolutions--though IMO even in Germany a successful Communist revolution was unlikely.

France is actually more likely to have a successful communist revolution because the initial French Revolution did technically install the first communist government, under Robespierre. And communist movements were very popular in France up until the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

 

[David T]

France is actually more likely to have a successful communist revolution because the initial French Revolution did technically install the first communist government, under Robespierre. And communist movements were very popular in France up until the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

(1) You are wrong about Robespierre. As people of the most diverse political views have noted, the Jacobins were definitely not communists or socialists:

"The Jacobins were not communists. Although they abandoned the original laissez-faire tenets of the Jacobin Club for interventionism, they remained strong defenders of private property." https://mises.org/library/fascism-left-and-right

"Yet, as even their most enthusiastic admirers acknowledged, the Jacobins were not socialists. If their cause was that of the regeneration of humanity and the privileged were their enemies, they were supporters of private property and favoured moral equality over material equality. Nowhere was this more evident than in the summary punishment meted out to the faction constituted by the Hébertists...." https://books.google.com/books?id=G5_tdrlGPOQC&pg=PA391

"But Robespierre was no socialist. He was as horrified as anyone by the suggestion of an "Agrarian Law" (or equal division of goods)..." https://www.google.com/#tbm=bks&q="robespierre+was+no+socialist.++he+was"

(2) it is even doubtful that the Paris Commune was socialist or communist. It included some socialists but also some people who simply thought of themselves as radical republicans in the tradition of 1793. The word "commune" in French has nothing to do with communism--it's just the name for a local administrative body.

In any event, Marx wrote in 1881 (in a letter to the Dutch socialist Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis) that socialism could only come to power when the conditions for it had sufficiently developed, and that the Paris Commune was not a counter example because "apart from the fact that this was merely the rising of a town under exceptional conditions, the majority of the Commune was in no sense socialist, nor could it be. With a small amount of sound common sense, however, they could have reached a compromise with Versailles useful to the whole mass of the people -- the only thing that could be reached at the time." https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/letters/81_02_22.htm

(3) As for the stregnth of communism in post-1917 France, the PCF got 9.82 percent of the vote in 1924 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_legislative_election,_1924 11.26 percent in 1928 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_legislative_election,_1928 and only 8.32 percent in 1932. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_legislative_election,_1932 Its 1936 showing of 15.26 percent was considered something of a breakthrough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_legislative_election,_1936 yet even then it did not do as well as the social democratic SFIO. And the PCF's performance in 1936 was the result not of a revolutionary mood but on the contrary of the PCF's new commitment to reformism through the Popular Front with the SFIO and even the Radicals.

In any event, the reason revolution seemed far more likely in Germany than in France cirica 1919-20 was simply that the machinery of the French Republic had been virtually unshaken by the war. In Germany, OTOH, the trauma of loss led to the sweeping away of the monarchy, and there was a widespread belief that as in Russia this would be only the first step. There was indeed a short-lived Bavarian "Council" (or "Soviet") Republic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_Soviet_Republic While the newly established Communist Party did not do well in the 1920 elections, the USPD who were to the left of the Social Democrats and who showed "strong support for the introduction of a system of councils (Räterepublik) instead of a parliamentary democracy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Social_Democratic_Party_of_Germany got 17.9 percent of the vote. Lenin's belief that if only the Red Army could defeat Poland and establish contact with Germany, there would be a Communist revolution in Germany was at leat plausible (though IMO wrong).

 

[Max Sinister]

A German intellectual has no conception on what life on State Farm #145 is like .

Often, the Soviet bureaucrats didn't seem to know either.

 

[lionhead]

snip

I disagree about your assesment of the Jacobins and Robespierre, who were most definitly socialist in the most basic sense of the word. Not Marxists, as that hadn't been developed yet, but a clear early version of socialism since they were mostly anti-royalist and egalitarians. Its the birthplace of socialism most likely.

I agree the idea that they were also like communists is false though, people always take the radical actions and violent nature of the Jacobins as being communist but its not fair to place it like that. The revolution was to thank for that, not the political ideology of the Jacobins.

Anyway, not the right thread to discuss it i guess.

 

[David T]

I disagree about your assesment of the Jacobins and Robespierre, who were most definitly socialist in the most basic sense of the word. Not Marxists, as that hadn't been developed yet, but a clear early version of socialism since they were mostly anti-royalist and egalitarians. Its the birthplace of socialism most likely.

I agree the idea that they were also like communists is false though, people always take the radical actions and violent nature of the Jacobins as being communist but its not fair to place it like that. The revolution was to thank for that, not the political ideology of the Jacobins.

Anyway, not the right thread to discuss it i guess.

"Anti-royalism" is hardly the same thing as socialism; and Robespierre never fully extended his political egalitarianism to the economic field. I'll just repeat what Peter McPhee said in *Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life*, p. 152:

"Despite his fascination with Plutarch's description of Lycurgus' Sparta and its forced equality of landholdings, however, he was intransigent in his opposition to the idea of the 'agrarian law' applied to rural property oe to resticting manufacture and commerce. Controls on the economy were essential for the war effort and to provide security for the poor, but the well-to-do could only be penalized by the law if their acitivities were demonstrably antisocial or illegal. He did not wish to 'throw the French Republic into the mould of Sparta'. As he put it, 'it is much more a matter of making poverty honourable than of proscribing opulence. Fabricius's cottage need not begrudge the palace of Crassus.' 'Virtuous' behaviour would both create and sustain his ideal Republic, not wholesale property seizure and redistribution. On this issue there would be an ongoing tension with the more militant of the *sans-culottes,* whatever the general similarity of their social outlook." https://books.google.com/books?id=kYLu7-cPJTYC&pg=PA152

But I agree that we are getting away from our subject. My real point is that there was less prospect of a communist revolution in France than in Germany because France had won the war and was in a much less chaotic state. And even that is somewhat removed from my original point that without a successful communist revolution in *some* advanced capitalist nation--most likely Germany--the Comintern was bound to be dominated by Russia.

 

[Johnrankins]

Often, the Soviet bureaucrats didn't seem to know either.

True enough.

 

[Brundlefly]

Difficult. This requires basically a much weaker Soviet-Russian leadership or less influence on other Communist parties.

I think this works only in two ways:

1) Successful Communist revolutions happening in several European countries. Not among the small scale of the Soviet republics of Bavaria or Hungary, but maybe in France, Germany, Italy at the same time (which would also mean that the Hungarian Soviet Republic manages to survive due to foreign support). This would make Soviet Russia as only one of several Communist countries, and with Germany, Italy and even France having a bigger industrial base then Russia, they would have more influence in the Comintern, possibly leading to a quasi-internationalist council.

2) The Bolsheviks fare less well in the civil war, and their territory is basically restricted roughly to the areas they had around the time of the early stages of the civil war (or possible even a smaller area):

This new Soviet state is constantly threatened by the Whites, and the foreign intervention troops. The civil war goes on longer (possibly with a little more Allied support for the Whites), and eventually ends up in a stalemate leading to the establishment of White Russia and a proto-Soviet Union. With the ideological splits between Social Democrats and Communists, and the formation of the Comintern happening more or less the same like IOTL, you'd have strong Communist parties in Italy, France and Germany. The leading figures of those form the ideological backbone of the Comintern, whereas Soviet Russia becomes the 'safe haven' that is nevertheless under constant threat from a new offensive of the Whites. That would end up in a closer and more egalitarian relationship between the Soviet Russian leadership and the Communist parties under the roof of the Comintern.