2. The First World Congress

The First World Congress

Editor’s note

The First Congress convened in Moscow, 2-6 March, 1919, with fifty-one delegates present: thirty-five with decisive votes representing seventeen countries; sixteen with consultative votes representing sixteen countries. Because of the Allied blockade, not all those sent arrived. Thus, the Italian Socialist Party and a number of oppositional groups in France, Great Britain and America were not represented at the Congress. One of the German delegates was arrested at the German border. Others suffered great hazards and arrived only after the Congress was already in session.

The agenda was as follows: (1) The Founding of the Third International; (2) Reports from Various Countries; (3) Platform of the Congress (reporters: Eberlein, Bukharin); (4) Bourgeois Democracy and the Proletarian Dictatorship (reporters: Lenin, Rakhia); (5) The Berne Conference and Our Attitude Toward Socialist Tendencies (reporters: Platten, Zinoviev); (6) The World Situation and the Policy of the Entente (reporters: Ossinsky, Platten); (7) Manifesto (reporter: Trotsky); (8) The White Terror (reporter: Sirola); (9) Election of the Bureau, and Other Organisational Questions.

On the organisational question, the Congress favoured two directing organs: an Executive Committee to be composed of representatives from Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Balkan Federation, Switzerland and Scandinavia; and a Bureau consisting of five members to be elected by the Executive Committee.

The elaboration of the statutes of the new International was laid over until the next Congress.

The Russian Bolshevik Party was represented by Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Chicherin and two alternates: Vorovsky and Ossinsky.