The daily worker., 1931-07-27
By 0. ". KUUSINEN.

We Communists are all very fond OF talking
about the development of the Comintern into
strong international of common action, into a
real Bolshevik world party But when it comes
to the Communist Parties making the decisions
of an important Conintern session, such as those
of the recent Plenum of the ECCI, their very
own, and putting them into practice, most OF
the CT Sections still display a great lack OF
genuine live internationalism.
The Congresses of the Second International
can only make decisions with the purpose of
letting them remain on paper. Our Congresses
and Plenums make decisions of different kind,
and with another object. These decisions are
intended to serve as drectiyes for the revolu-
tonary practice of the proletarian class struggle.
Therefore merely formal acceptance and pub
ucation of these decisions through our Sections
is absolutely inadmissable and goes against their
whole spirit and essence.
And yet it is unfortunately fact that the de-
cisions of the XI Plenum of the ECCI have
been up till now, over two months after the
Plenum only formally adopted by most Of the
CT Sections without leading to further meas
ures
This is naturally not a question OF lnterna-
tional Party discipline in the mechanical sense
of the term. Only the enemies of Communism
represent the internal discipline of the COMM
TERN as DllDQ super -CCIlJA dALo4, elOCOAOAAAS W
which the Moscow Executive of the Comintern
dictates everything that the Communists of the
various countries have to do or leave undone,
This is a mendaciouS caricature of Comintern
discipline BY international development of our
Sections we mean something quite different, as
shown by the following:
An international session of the Conintern
such as the recent Plenums OF the ECCI, per-
forms important political work The members
of the Executive Committee, elected by the World
Congress and in addition, a considerable number
of other representatives of other Sections from
many countries, come together, in order to study
once more collectively in the course of fort
night the old fighting experiences, analyze the
economic and political situation and lay down
the immediate main tasks of the Comintern. The
result of this collective work, laid down in care
fully considered resolutions, and theses of the
Plenun, constitutes a result of great political
Importance for the Communist movement of the
world But this result can be lost to a. great
extent, if the Sections of the individual coun-
tries do not know HOW TO UTILIZE 1T.
What does this utilization mean?
An international session makes chiefly only
s:ENERAL decisions, appropriated to all the i'm
srtant countries. it gives the characteristics of
fle INTERNATIONAL situation and lays down
n its -directiyes the GENERAL COURSE of the
Communist Parties for the immediate future.
This is practically its task. 1t cannot analyze
in detail the conditions of all the individual
countries and still less work out whole CON-
CRETE drectives for the individual countries
and situations which are rapidly changing. This
should be the work of the individual Sections,
which they are to carry out on the basis of the
decisions of the international session.
But it is precisely regarding this point that we
encounter one of the most characteristic de-
fects in the work of our Sections, to the removal
Of which the Executive of the Comintern has
paid considerable attention lately, and will have
to continue to do So The XI Plenum of the
ECCI. also called special attention to it by Civ
ing prominence among the serious weaknesses
and defects noticeable in the work of most sec
tons and Indicating as special danger in the
conditions Of the present, higher stage of the
clsss struggle" also to the following defect:
"a mechanical application of GENERAL di-
receives without their CONCENTRATION.
with regard to the respective country and the
respective and concrete case of the class
struggle"
But there seems to be now the danger of the
general directives given by the XI ECCI Plenum
being also mechanically carried out by many
Comintern Sections. The CP of Germany alone
went Immediately and seriously to work regard
ing the concentration of the decisions of the XT
Plenum in accord with conditions in Germany