Right Opposition
Encyclopedia
The Right Opposition was the name given to the tendency made up of Nikolai Bukharin
, Alexei Rykov
, Mikhail Tomsky
and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s. It is also the name given to "right-wing" critics within the Communist movement internationally, particularly those who coalesced in the International Communist Opposition, regardless of whether they identified with Bukharin and Rykov. Note that the designation "Right Opposition" refers to the position of this movement relative to the other Communist movements on the traditional spectrum. Relative to the political mainstream, the Right Opposition is still very firmly on the Left.
saw the development of three major tendencies within the Communist Party
. These were described by Leon Trotsky
as representing left, right and centre tendencies, each based on a specific class or caste. Trotsky argued that his tendency, the Left Opposition
, represented the internationalist traditions of the working class
. The tendency led by Joseph Stalin
was described as being in the centre, based on the state and party bureaucracy, tending to shift alliances between the left and the right. The right tendency was identified with the supporters of Nikolai Bukharin and Rykov. It was asserted that they represented the influence of the peasantry and the danger of capitalist
restoration. Their policy was closely identified with the New Economic Policy
developed by Bukharin.
It was further argued that these three tendencies (a working-class "left", a bureaucratic "centre" and a peasant-oriented "right") could be found in many of the major Communist Parties throughout the world. Indeed, a "left wing" which agreed with Trotsky and supported world revolution could be found in almost every section of the Communist International (Comintern), just as representatives of Stalinism
and the idea of "Socialism in One Country
" could also be found. But a "right wing" only developed in a limited number of countries, and in each country where it did develop it stood between the left and the centre factions. This was because the right tendencies were usually not critical of the Comintern or of Stalin's regime but only of the leaderships of their own Communist parties
.
Alexander has questioned whether the various "Right Oppositions" could be described as a single international tendency, since they were usually concerned only with the issues relevant for their own countries and their own Communist Parties. Therefore, the Right Opposition was far more fragmented than the Left Opposition. Nevertheless, the various right opposition groups did come together to form an International Communist Opposition (ICO). Unlike the Left Opposition, they did not tend to form separate parties, as they considered themselves as loyal to the Comintern.
Bukharin was isolated from his allies abroad, and, in the face of increasing Stalinist repression, was unable to mount a sustained struggle against Stalin. Unlike Trotsky, who built an anti-Stalinist movement, Bukharin and his followers within the Soviet Union capitulated to Stalin and admitted their "ideological errors". They were temporarily rehabilitated (though they were not returned to their former prominence, but kept in minor posts), only to be ultimately liquidated during the Great Purge
trials.
were forced to form their own organisations when they were, in their turn, purged from the national sections of the Comintern. In Europe, the most important and substantial of these new organisations was the Communist Party Opposition
(KPO) in Germany, led by Heinrich Brandler
. In the United States, Jay Lovestone
, Bertram Wolfe
and their supporters founded the Communist Party (Opposition) and published the newspaper Workers Age. In Canada, the Marxian Educational League was formed as part of Lovestone's CP(O), and it became affiliated with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
. However, by the end of 1939, both the Toronto
and Montreal
groups of this organization had ceased to function.
In a few places, communist groups affiliated with the ICO achieved more success than the Comintern-affiliated organizations. For example, in Sweden, the Socialist Party
of Karl Kilbom
, affiliated with the ICO, received 5.7% of the vote in the 1932 elections
to the Riksdag
, outpolling the Comintern section which received 3.9%.
In Spain, the ICO-affiliated Bloque Obrero y Campesino (BOC), led by Joaquin Maurin
, was for a time larger and more important than the official Spanish Communist Party. Later, the BOC merged with Andrés Nin
's Izquierda Comunista in 1935 to form the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM
) which was to be a major party backing the Second Spanish Republic
in the Spanish Civil War
. Maurin became general secretary
of the POUM but was arrested early in the Civil War. As a result, Nin, a former Trotskyist, became the POUM's new leader.
In all, the ICO had member parties in fifteen countries during the 1930s. However, the ICO and its affiliates did not consider themselves a new international, but a "faction" that was involuntarily excluded from the Comintern and that was anxious to return to it if only the Comintern would change its policies and allow ICO members the freedom to advocate their positions.
Despite being identified with Bukharin, the ICO generally supported Stalin's economic policies (which Bukharin opposed), such as the Five Year Plans to achieve rapid industrialization, and the collectivization of agriculture. Furthermore, they even supported the early Moscow Trials
. Their main difference with Stalin and the Comintern was over the issue of democracy within the Communist International and the influence of the CPSU in the Comintern and its sections, and over Stalin's international policy, particularly the Third Period
and the subsequent Popular Front
policies.
In addition, as the Moscow Trials entered their second phase and turned against Bukharin and his supporters, disputes broke out within the ICO regarding whether there was any point in continuing with the concept of being an opposition within the Communist movement rather than openly create a new international rival to the Comintern, like Trotsky did with his Fourth International
.
(or London Bureau) established in Paris that August. The Czechoslovak affiliate was weakened by the defection of its Czech members in December, making the party a largely Sudeten German group while that community was becoming increasingly attracted to the Nazis. The Austrian group had to go underground after the Dollfus putsch
of March 1934, and the majority of the Alsatian section was expelled that summer for its pro-Nazi sympathies. The Swiss affiliate went over to the Social Democrats in 1936, and M.N. Roy took his Indian group out in 1937. Furthermore, the suppression of POUM in May 1937 and the execution of Bukharin and other "rights" in the Soviet Union had convinced many that the Communist International could not be reformed and the idea of being an "opposition" within it was untenable.
At a conference in February 1938 the International Communist Opposition affiliated with the London Bureau. This led to some confusion as to whether affiliates of the ICO were also affiliates of the London Bureau as organizations themselves. To straightened out this overlapping another conference was held in Paris in April 1939 which dissolved both entities into a new organization, the International Revolutionary Marxist Center, to be headquarted in Paris. Membership in the new group was quickly ratified by the ILLA, the KPO, POUM, PSOP, the ILP and the Archaio-Marxists. It ceased to exist after the fall of France.
.
expelled Willi Schlamm
, A Reisinger, Joseph Klein
and Richard Vovesny. They had their own periodical, Der Neue Mahrruf until the Dolfuss dictatorship came to power in 1934. Jay Lovestone happened to be in Austria at the time of the anchluss in early March 1938 at the invitation of a group called De Funke and was able to arrange eight fake passports for eight leaders of the Austrian opposition. They left Vienna on March 14, the day before Hitler arrived in the city. Schlamm later edited a paper for Austrian exiles in Prague, Weltbuehne, then emigrated to the US.
. However the group was faction prone along ethnic lines. The Czech element seceded in December 1933 to join the Social Democrats
, and from then on the membership was largely confined to the ethnic German Sudetenland
. There they face tense competition with Konrad Henlein
s pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party. In the June 1938 elections the Oppositionists joined a coalition with the Social Democrats and Communists to oppose the SdP, but the Nazis won by wide margins. After the Sudetenland was annexed to Nazi Germany, the Oppositionists went into exile.
The party's trade union centre, meanwhile, was hurt by the defection of CP loyalists who set up another trade union federation. In the mid-1930s the Mezinárodní všeodborový svazvoluntarily merged with the Social Democratic Odborové sdružení československé
in order to advance labor unity.
, Henryk Walecki
, Maria Koszutska (pseud. Wera Kostrzewa). As the Party was already underground in Poland, and the communists already weak the group decided not to create a formal organization, though they were often depicted as followers of Brandler and Thalheimer by the leadership. All three died in Stalinist gulags.
, was sympathetic to the right Opposition, but he remained loyal to the Comintern leadership until he was expelled in the 1940s. One cantonal section of the Swiss Communist Party, in Schaffhausen
, did secede and form a Communist opposition group. For awhile it was quite successful, dominating the local labor movement, especially among tool and watchmakers. In the Oct 20, 1933 election the CPO elected 10 of the 30 local councilors and the CPOs leader, Walter Bringolf, was chosen as mayor. The CPO joined the Swiss Socialist Party by 1936.
, Auffay
, Saint-Denis
, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine
, Villetaneuse
and Paris. The party's general secretary and the editor of L'Humanité
were also demoted. However not all of the expelled necessarily adhered to the ICOs positions; the Parisian councilors, for instance, formed their own party, Workers and Peasants Party
, which in turn joined the Party of Proletarian Unity
in December 1930. The small national Opposition group joined the expelled Seine Federation of the SFIO
in 1938 to from the Workers and Peasants' Socialist Party
.
(KPO), was created in Alsace
. The Alsatian KPO campaigned for autonomy for Alsace, and formed an alliance with clerical autonomist. The Alsatian KPO was led by Charles Hueber
(mayor of Strasbourg
1929–1935) and Jean-Pierre Mourer
(member of the French National Assembly
). It ran a daily newspaper of its own, Die Neue Welt
. The Alsatian KPO gradually moved towards pro-Nazi positions, and was expelled from ICO in 1934. A small group remained loyal to the ICO and published a weekly, Arbeiter Politik, but had little influence.
. Oppositionists joined the Revolutionary Policy Committee
which represented their line within the ILP. An independent Opposition group was formed in 1935, but had little influence. By 1938 the line of the ICO had turned toward the "centrist" position of the ILP leadership under Fenner Brockway and the need for independent factions within the party became less tenable.
was an early and outspoken supporter of the Right Opposition. While he never had more than a marginal following, he wielded extraordinary influence on the left wing of the Indian National Congress
and played an instrumental role in the election of Subhash Chandra Bose
to the leadership of Congress. However, after Bose split with Congress and formed the All India Forward Bloc
, Roy sharply diverged to the point where he even came to oppose the Congress-led Quit India campaign. The split between Bose and Roy was in many ways analogous to the American split between Bertram Wolfe and Jay Lovestone.
in 1928 led by Jose Penelon. Penelon formed the Partido Comunista de Region Argentina, which was later renamed the Partido Concentracion Obera. It merged with the Social Democrats in 1971.
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
, Alexei Rykov
Alexei Rykov
Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician most prominent as Premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924–29 and 1924–30 respectively....
, Mikhail Tomsky
Mikhail Tomsky
Mikhail Pavlovich Tomsky was a factory worker, trade unionist and Bolshevik leader. He was the Soviet leader of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions.Tomsky attempted to form a trade union at his factory in St...
and their supporters within the Soviet Union in the late 1920s. It is also the name given to "right-wing" critics within the Communist movement internationally, particularly those who coalesced in the International Communist Opposition, regardless of whether they identified with Bukharin and Rykov. Note that the designation "Right Opposition" refers to the position of this movement relative to the other Communist movements on the traditional spectrum. Relative to the political mainstream, the Right Opposition is still very firmly on the Left.
Emergence
The struggle for power in the Soviet Union after the death of Vladimir LeninVladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
saw the development of three major tendencies within the Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
. These were described by Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
as representing left, right and centre tendencies, each based on a specific class or caste. Trotsky argued that his tendency, the Left Opposition
Left Opposition
The Left Opposition was a faction within the Bolshevik Party from 1923 to 1927, headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's illness and intensified with his death in January...
, represented the internationalist traditions of the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
. The tendency led by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
was described as being in the centre, based on the state and party bureaucracy, tending to shift alliances between the left and the right. The right tendency was identified with the supporters of Nikolai Bukharin and Rykov. It was asserted that they represented the influence of the peasantry and the danger of capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
restoration. Their policy was closely identified with the New Economic Policy
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
developed by Bukharin.
It was further argued that these three tendencies (a working-class "left", a bureaucratic "centre" and a peasant-oriented "right") could be found in many of the major Communist Parties throughout the world. Indeed, a "left wing" which agreed with Trotsky and supported world revolution could be found in almost every section of the Communist International (Comintern), just as representatives of Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
and the idea of "Socialism in One Country
Socialism in One Country
Socialism in One Country was a theory put forth by Joseph Stalin in 1924, elaborated by Nikolai Bukharin in 1925 and finally adopted as state policy by Stalin...
" could also be found. But a "right wing" only developed in a limited number of countries, and in each country where it did develop it stood between the left and the centre factions. This was because the right tendencies were usually not critical of the Comintern or of Stalin's regime but only of the leaderships of their own Communist parties
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
.
Alexander has questioned whether the various "Right Oppositions" could be described as a single international tendency, since they were usually concerned only with the issues relevant for their own countries and their own Communist Parties. Therefore, the Right Opposition was far more fragmented than the Left Opposition. Nevertheless, the various right opposition groups did come together to form an International Communist Opposition (ICO). Unlike the Left Opposition, they did not tend to form separate parties, as they considered themselves as loyal to the Comintern.
Fate of the Russian Right Opposition
Stalin and his "centre" faction had initially allied with Bukharin and the Right Opposition in order to defeat Trotsky and the Left. However, once Trotsky was out of the way and the Left Opposition had been sidelined, Stalin turned on his former allies. Bukharin and the Right Opposition were, in their turn, sidelined and removed from important positions within the Communist Party and the Soviet government.Bukharin was isolated from his allies abroad, and, in the face of increasing Stalinist repression, was unable to mount a sustained struggle against Stalin. Unlike Trotsky, who built an anti-Stalinist movement, Bukharin and his followers within the Soviet Union capitulated to Stalin and admitted their "ideological errors". They were temporarily rehabilitated (though they were not returned to their former prominence, but kept in minor posts), only to be ultimately liquidated during the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
trials.
Foundation of the International Communist Opposition
The various right oppositional groups loosely aligned with Bukharin within the CominternComintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
were forced to form their own organisations when they were, in their turn, purged from the national sections of the Comintern. In Europe, the most important and substantial of these new organisations was the Communist Party Opposition
Communist Party Opposition
The Communist Party of Germany was a communist opposition organisation established at the end of 1928 and maintaining its existence until 1939 or 1940...
(KPO) in Germany, led by Heinrich Brandler
Heinrich Brandler
Heinrich Brandler was a German communist trade unionist, politician, revolutionary activist, and writer. Brandler is best remember as the head of the Communist Party of Germany during the party's ill-fated "March Action" of 1921 and aborted uprising of 1923, for which he was held responsible by...
. In the United States, Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
, Bertram Wolfe
Bertram Wolfe
Bertram David "Bert" Wolfe was an American scholar and former communist best known for biographical studies of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, and Diego Rivera.-Early life:...
and their supporters founded the Communist Party (Opposition) and published the newspaper Workers Age. In Canada, the Marxian Educational League was formed as part of Lovestone's CP(O), and it became affiliated with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...
. However, by the end of 1939, both the Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
and Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
groups of this organization had ceased to function.
In a few places, communist groups affiliated with the ICO achieved more success than the Comintern-affiliated organizations. For example, in Sweden, the Socialist Party
Socialist Party (Sweden, 1929)
The Socialist Party , initially known as the Communist Party of Sweden , was a political party in Sweden active from 1929 to 1948. The party was founded in 1929 by the major faction of the Communist Party of Sweden, led by Karl Kilbom and Nils Flyg, as the party split into two parties with the same...
of Karl Kilbom
Karl Kilbom
Karl Kilbom was a Swedish Socialist politician.-Youth:As the son of a blacksmith, Karl Kilbom grew up in a working-class family of Walloon origin in the small town of Österby outside Uppsala, where he started working in the steel mills at an early age.In the year 1900, a socialist agitator visited...
, affiliated with the ICO, received 5.7% of the vote in the 1932 elections
Swedish general election, 1932
Elections to the second chamber of the Riksdag held September 17-18 1932. They resulted in the Social Democrats regaining government after six years in opposition, and it marked the beginning of 44 years of near-uninterrupted rule for the Social Democratic Party.The results of the election were...
to the Riksdag
Parliament of Sweden
The Riksdag is the national legislative assembly of Sweden. The riksdag is a unicameral assembly with 349 members , who are elected on a proportional basis to serve fixed terms of four years...
, outpolling the Comintern section which received 3.9%.
In Spain, the ICO-affiliated Bloque Obrero y Campesino (BOC), led by Joaquin Maurin
Joaquín Maurín
Joaquín Maurín Juliá was a Spanish Communist politician and revolutionary, leader of the Workers and Peasants Bloc and of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification...
, was for a time larger and more important than the official Spanish Communist Party. Later, the BOC merged with Andrés Nin
Andrés Nin
Andreu Nin i Pérez was a Spanish Communist revolutionary.- Early life :...
's Izquierda Comunista in 1935 to form the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM
Poum
Poum is a commune in the North Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The town of Poum is located in the far northwest, located on the southern part of Banare Bay, with Mouac Island just offshore....
) which was to be a major party backing the Second Spanish Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. Maurin became general secretary
General secretary
-International intergovernmental organizations:-International nongovernmental organizations:-Sports governing bodies:...
of the POUM but was arrested early in the Civil War. As a result, Nin, a former Trotskyist, became the POUM's new leader.
In all, the ICO had member parties in fifteen countries during the 1930s. However, the ICO and its affiliates did not consider themselves a new international, but a "faction" that was involuntarily excluded from the Comintern and that was anxious to return to it if only the Comintern would change its policies and allow ICO members the freedom to advocate their positions.
Despite being identified with Bukharin, the ICO generally supported Stalin's economic policies (which Bukharin opposed), such as the Five Year Plans to achieve rapid industrialization, and the collectivization of agriculture. Furthermore, they even supported the early Moscow Trials
Moscow Trials
The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials conducted in the Soviet Union and orchestrated by Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge of the 1930s. The victims included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, as well as the leadership of the Soviet secret police...
. Their main difference with Stalin and the Comintern was over the issue of democracy within the Communist International and the influence of the CPSU in the Comintern and its sections, and over Stalin's international policy, particularly the Third Period
Third Period
The Third Period is a ideological concept adopted by the Communist International at its 6th World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928....
and the subsequent Popular Front
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
policies.
In addition, as the Moscow Trials entered their second phase and turned against Bukharin and his supporters, disputes broke out within the ICO regarding whether there was any point in continuing with the concept of being an opposition within the Communist movement rather than openly create a new international rival to the Comintern, like Trotsky did with his Fourth International
Fourth International
The Fourth International is the communist international organisation consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky , with the declared dedicated goal of helping the working class bring about socialism...
.
The end of the Right Opposition
The ICO began to disintegrate in 1933. With the coming to power of the Nazis, the German party had to go underground and establish an exile branch in Paris. Paris was also the new home of the international ICO headquarters, which became dominated by the Germans. The Norwegian and Swedish groups left later that year to join the new "centrist" International Buro for Revolutionary Socialist UnityInternational Revolutionary Marxist Centre
The International Revolutionary Marxist Centre was an international association of left-socialist parties. The member-parties rejected both mainstream social democracy and the Third International.-Organizational history:...
(or London Bureau) established in Paris that August. The Czechoslovak affiliate was weakened by the defection of its Czech members in December, making the party a largely Sudeten German group while that community was becoming increasingly attracted to the Nazis. The Austrian group had to go underground after the Dollfus putsch
Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Serving previously as Minister for Forest and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government...
of March 1934, and the majority of the Alsatian section was expelled that summer for its pro-Nazi sympathies. The Swiss affiliate went over to the Social Democrats in 1936, and M.N. Roy took his Indian group out in 1937. Furthermore, the suppression of POUM in May 1937 and the execution of Bukharin and other "rights" in the Soviet Union had convinced many that the Communist International could not be reformed and the idea of being an "opposition" within it was untenable.
At a conference in February 1938 the International Communist Opposition affiliated with the London Bureau. This led to some confusion as to whether affiliates of the ICO were also affiliates of the London Bureau as organizations themselves. To straightened out this overlapping another conference was held in Paris in April 1939 which dissolved both entities into a new organization, the International Revolutionary Marxist Center, to be headquarted in Paris. Membership in the new group was quickly ratified by the ILLA, the KPO, POUM, PSOP, the ILP and the Archaio-Marxists. It ceased to exist after the fall of France.
Meetings
- The first gathering of the opposition Communists was held in Berlin March 17–19, 1930. It was attended by the oppositions of Germany, Czechoslovakia, Sweden and by M. N. Roy. The meeting decided to set up an information center in Berlin to co-ordinate international activities and publish a bulletin, International Information of the Communist Opposition, which had previously been published by the KPO.
- The first official conference of the ICO was held in Berlin in December 1930. It was attended by representatives from Germany, Alsace, Sweden, the United States, Switzerland, and Norway, with letters from sympathizers in Austria, Finland, Italy and Canada. Adopts the "Platform of the International Communist Opposition"
- the second official congress was held in Berlin, July 2–5, 1932, attended by representatives from Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Spain and the US.
- An "enlarged session of the Bureau" was held in July 1933 to discuss the Nazi triumph in Germany and the Paris conference of "centrist" groups. Attended by representatives from Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the US. The Norwegians and Swedes did not attend, as they favored participation in the Paris conference. The ICO itself declined invitation to the conference. ICO headquarters moved to Paris.
Germany
See Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands - OppositionCommunist Party Opposition
The Communist Party of Germany was a communist opposition organisation established at the end of 1928 and maintaining its existence until 1939 or 1940...
.
Austria
The Communist Opposition of Austria was established in late 1929 when the politburo of the official Communist Party of AustriaCommunist Party of Austria
The Communist Party of Austria is a communist party based in Austria. Established in 1918, it was banned between 1933 and 1945 under both the Austrofascist regime, and German control of Austria during World War II...
expelled Willi Schlamm
Willi Schlamm
William S. Schlamm was an Austrian-American journalist. Born in Przemyśl, then part of the Austrian Empire, the son of a wealthy Jewish merchant, he became a Communist, being received when he was 16 years old by Vladimir Lenin in the Kremlin, After completing his Abitur , he became a writer...
, A Reisinger, Joseph Klein
Joseph Klein
Joe Klein is a well-known American audio producer, voice over artist and voice director. While in high school, Klein was at the helm of a closed circuit radio station which spawned several major media figures. After a brief stint as a teenage disc jockey he was hired by jazz singer and producer...
and Richard Vovesny. They had their own periodical, Der Neue Mahrruf until the Dolfuss dictatorship came to power in 1934. Jay Lovestone happened to be in Austria at the time of the anchluss in early March 1938 at the invitation of a group called De Funke and was able to arrange eight fake passports for eight leaders of the Austrian opposition. They left Vienna on March 14, the day before Hitler arrived in the city. Schlamm later edited a paper for Austrian exiles in Prague, Weltbuehne, then emigrated to the US.
Czechoslovakia
A Czechoslovak Opposition was formed in 1928. At first it was quite large with about 6,000 members and control of the communist trade union, Mezinárodní všeodborový svazMezinárodní všeodborový svaz
Mezinárodní všeodborový svaz was a national trade union centre in Czechoslovakia. MVS was founded in October 1922, after communists had been expelled from the Odborové sdružení českoslovanské...
. However the group was faction prone along ethnic lines. The Czech element seceded in December 1933 to join the Social Democrats
Czech Social Democratic Party
The Czech Social Democratic Party is a social-democratic political party in the Czech Republic.-History:The Social Democratic Czechoslavonic party in Austria was founded on 7 April 1878 in Austria-Hungary representing the Kingdom of Bohemia in the Austrian parliament...
, and from then on the membership was largely confined to the ethnic German Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
. There they face tense competition with Konrad Henlein
Konrad Henlein
Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein was a leading pro-Nazi ethnic German politician in Czechoslovakia and leader of Sudeten German separatists...
s pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party. In the June 1938 elections the Oppositionists joined a coalition with the Social Democrats and Communists to oppose the SdP, but the Nazis won by wide margins. After the Sudetenland was annexed to Nazi Germany, the Oppositionists went into exile.
The party's trade union centre, meanwhile, was hurt by the defection of CP loyalists who set up another trade union federation. In the mid-1930s the Mezinárodní všeodborový svazvoluntarily merged with the Social Democratic Odborové sdružení československé
Odborové sdružení ceskoslovenské
Czechoslovak Trade Union Association , abbreviated to OSČ, was a national trade union center, founded in 1897 in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire...
in order to advance labor unity.
Hungary
An Opposition group was established in Hungary in 1932. At that time the Hungarian Communist Party was already an underground movement, and the opposition claimed about 10% of its membership.Poland
While never a formal organization, there was a tendency within the Polish Communist Party usually known as the "three Ws" after the leaders -- Adolf WarskiAdolf Warski
Adolf Warski, born Jerzy Adolf Warszawski , was a leader and theoretician of the Polish communist movement....
, Henryk Walecki
Henryk Walecki
Maksymilian Horwitz was a leader and theoretician of the Polish communist movement.He was a member of the Polish Socialist Party - Left from 1906 and the Communist Party of Poland from 1918 and sat on its Central Committee and politburo...
, Maria Koszutska (pseud. Wera Kostrzewa). As the Party was already underground in Poland, and the communists already weak the group decided not to create a formal organization, though they were often depicted as followers of Brandler and Thalheimer by the leadership. All three died in Stalinist gulags.
Switzerland
In Switzerland the official Communist Party's leader, Jules Humbert-DrozJules Humbert-Droz
Jules Humbert-Droz was a Swiss Communist and a founding member of the Communist Party of Switzerland. He held high Comintern office through the 1920s and also acted as Comintern emissary to several west European countries. Prior to his becoming a Communist, Humbert-Droz was a pastor...
, was sympathetic to the right Opposition, but he remained loyal to the Comintern leadership until he was expelled in the 1940s. One cantonal section of the Swiss Communist Party, in Schaffhausen
Canton of Schaffhausen
The Canton of is a canton of Switzerland. The principal city and capital of the canton is Schaffhausen.- History:Schaffhausen was a city-state in the Middle Ages, documented to have struck its own coins starting in 1045. It was then known as Villa Scafhusun. Around 1049 Count Eberhard von...
, did secede and form a Communist opposition group. For awhile it was quite successful, dominating the local labor movement, especially among tool and watchmakers. In the Oct 20, 1933 election the CPO elected 10 of the 30 local councilors and the CPOs leader, Walter Bringolf, was chosen as mayor. The CPO joined the Swiss Socialist Party by 1936.
Italy
There was some resistance in the Italian Party to the new Third Period line. At first the two Italian ECCI members, Palmiro Togliati and Angelo Tasca opposed the Cominterns actions with regard to the German party. However, at the Tenth Plenum in June 1929 Togliatti capitulated to Stalins wishes while Tasca was expelled. Later, at a May 1930 plenum of the Party, politburo members Pasquini and Santini were removed for opposing the Third Period and "organizational measures" were taken against lower cadres.Denmark
A Danish Opposition group was founded in 1933. It lasted at least until February 1938 when it representative attended the ICO unity conference with the London Bureau.France
In France the initial purge of the Communist Party in 1929 took mayors or city councilors from ClichyClichy, Hauts-de-Seine
-Administration:The canton covers a part of the commune; the other is in the northern part of Levallois-Perret-Twinnings: Heidenheim, Germany, since 1959 Sankt Pölten, Austria, since 1968 Santo Tirso, Portugal, since 1991 Rubí, Spain, since 2005 Southwark, United Kingdom, since 2005Clichy has also...
, Auffay
Auffay
Auffay is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.-Geography:A village of farming and associated light industry, situated in the valley of the Scie River of the Pays de Caux, some south of Dieppe at the junction of the D50, D22, D3 and D301...
, Saint-Denis
Saint-Denis
Saint-Denis is a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Saint-Denis is a sous-préfecture of the Seine-Saint-Denis département, being the seat of the Arrondissement of Saint-Denis....
, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine
Pierrefitte-sur-Seine
Pierrefitte-sur-Seine is a commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis department and Île-de-France region of France. Today forming part of the northern suburbs of Paris, Pierrefitte lies from the centre of the French capital.- Heraldry :-Transport:...
, Villetaneuse
Villetaneuse
Villetaneuse is a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.- Heraldry :-University:Villetaneuse is well known for its university named "Université Paris XIII or Paris Nord", in particular: the Polytechnique Science Institut "Institut Galilée" where...
and Paris. The party's general secretary and the editor of L'Humanité
L'Humanité
L'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
were also demoted. However not all of the expelled necessarily adhered to the ICOs positions; the Parisian councilors, for instance, formed their own party, Workers and Peasants Party
Workers and Peasants Party (France)
The Workers and Peasants Party was a short lived communist splinter party in France in 1929-1930.On November 24, 1929 six municipal councilors were expelled by the French Communist Party, Louis Sellier , Jean Garchery, Charles Joly, Louis Castellaz, Camille Renault, Louis Gélis...
, which in turn joined the Party of Proletarian Unity
Party of Proletarian Unity
The Party of Proletarian Unity was a French socialist political party.-History:It was formed on December 21, 1930 by leftists expelled from the French Communist Party , together with some who had previously belonged to the left-wing of the Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière...
in December 1930. The small national Opposition group joined the expelled Seine Federation of the SFIO
Sfio
Sfio, or Safe/Fast String/File I/O, is a C programming language I/O library developed by David Korn and Kiem-Phong Vo AT&T Labs Research, intended as a replacement for the standard C standard I/O library....
in 1938 to from the Workers and Peasants' Socialist Party
Workers and Peasants' Socialist Party
The Workers and Peasants' Socialist Party was an ephemeral socialist organisation in France, formed on June 8, 1938 by Marceau Pivert...
.
Alsace
A separate ICO party, the Opposition Communist Party of Alsace-LorraineAlsatian Workers and Peasants Party
The Alsatian Workers and Peasants Party , initially the Opposition Communist Party of Alsace-Lorraine , was a political party in Alsace-Lorraine. The party was led by Jean-Pierre Mourer and Charles Hueber. The party was founded in late October 1929...
(KPO), was created in Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
. The Alsatian KPO campaigned for autonomy for Alsace, and formed an alliance with clerical autonomist. The Alsatian KPO was led by Charles Hueber
Charles Hueber
Charles Hueber was an Alsatian politician. He was the mayor of Strasbourg between 1929 and 1935, and a member of the French National Assembly twice....
(mayor of Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
1929–1935) and Jean-Pierre Mourer
Jean-Pierre Mourer
Jean-Pierre Mourer was an Alsatian politician. He was elected to the French National Assembly in 1928, 1932 and 1936....
(member of the French National Assembly
French National Assembly
The French National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. The upper house is the Senate ....
). It ran a daily newspaper of its own, Die Neue Welt
Die Neue Welt
Die Neue Welt was a newspaper issued from Alsace, France. It was founded in the end of January 1921 by Charles Hueber, a local leader of the French Communist Party in Alsace...
. The Alsatian KPO gradually moved towards pro-Nazi positions, and was expelled from ICO in 1934. A small group remained loyal to the ICO and published a weekly, Arbeiter Politik, but had little influence.
Great Britain
During most of its history the right Opposition in the United Kingdom was represented principally within the Independent Labour PartyIndependent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
. Oppositionists joined the Revolutionary Policy Committee
Revolutionary Policy Committee
The Revolutionary Policy Committee was a faction within the former political party Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom.The RPC was formed in 1931 by members of the Independent Labour Party who were especially unhappy with the gradualist policies of the Second Labour Government...
which represented their line within the ILP. An independent Opposition group was formed in 1935, but had little influence. By 1938 the line of the ICO had turned toward the "centrist" position of the ILP leadership under Fenner Brockway and the need for independent factions within the party became less tenable.
India
The leading Indian Communist Manabendra Nath RoyManabendra Nath Roy
Manabendra Nath Roy , born Narendra Nath Bhattacharya and popularly known as M. N. Roy, was an Indian nationalist revolutionary and an internationally known radical activist and political theorist. Roy was a founder of the Communist Parties in both Mexico and India and was a delegate to...
was an early and outspoken supporter of the Right Opposition. While he never had more than a marginal following, he wielded extraordinary influence on the left wing of the Indian National Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
and played an instrumental role in the election of Subhash Chandra Bose
Subhash Chandra Bose
Subhas Chandra Bose known by name Netaji was an Indian revolutionary who led an Indian national political and military force against Britain and the Western powers during World War II. Bose was one of the most prominent leaders in the Indian independence movement and is a legendary figure in...
to the leadership of Congress. However, after Bose split with Congress and formed the All India Forward Bloc
All India Forward Bloc
The All India Forward Bloc is a leftwing nationalist political party in India. It emerged as a faction within the Indian National Congress in 1939, led by Subhas Chandra Bose. The party re-established as an independent political party after the independence of India...
, Roy sharply diverged to the point where he even came to oppose the Congress-led Quit India campaign. The split between Bose and Roy was in many ways analogous to the American split between Bertram Wolfe and Jay Lovestone.
Argentina
While never an official member of the ICO, a Right Oppositionist group split from the Communist Party of ArgentinaCommunist Party of Argentina
The Communist Party of Argentina is a communist party from Argentina. It was founded in 1918.At the 2005 legislative elections, the Party joined the Encuentro Amplio with other left-wing parties in Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires Province...
in 1928 led by Jose Penelon. Penelon formed the Partido Comunista de Region Argentina, which was later renamed the Partido Concentracion Obera. It merged with the Social Democrats in 1971.
Mexico
The Marxist Workers Bloc of Mexico was founded in early 1937. It issued a paper called La Batalla, after POUMs journal and announced its adherence to the ICO. It was never heard from again.Further reading
There is little information available on the International Communist Opposition in English. The only book length study is Robert J Alexander's The Right Opposition; The Lovestoneites and the International Communist Opposition of the 1930s (ISBN 0-313-22070-0). Issues of Revolutionary History journal have reprinted a number of texts from members of Right Oppositional groups of the 1930s.External links
- For unity of the world Communist movement : a letter to the Independent Labor Party of Great Britain from the Communist Party USA (Opposition)
- A webpage devoted to the American branch of the Right Opposition
- What is the Communist Opposition? by Bertram Wolfe
- International Class Struggle Vol 1 #1 Summer 1936
- International Class Struggle Vol 1 #2 Winter 1936
- International Class Struggle Vol 1 #3 Spring 1937