3. From the First to the Second World Congress

From the First to the Second World Congress

Editor’s Note:

The interval between the First and Second Congress covers approximately eighteen months from 7 March 1919 to 18 July 1920. This was the decisive period of the Civil War in Russia marked by the liquidation of Kolchak’s armies, the defeat of Denikin and the crushing of Yudenich’s second offensive against Petrograd (October 1919). The military danger to Soviet Russia was, however, far from liquidated. In March 1920, Poland resumed military operations and, by May, Kiev was in Polish hands. By the time the Second Congress convened, the Red Army had passed to the counter-offensive, recapturing Kiev and marching into Poland, but suffering defeat at Warsaw just as the Second Congress concluded its work (August 1920).

These eighteen months marked at the same time the period of greatest post-war ferment in Europe. A great strike wave marked by uprisings swept over Europe. On 21 March 1919, the Soviet Republic was formed in Hungary (overthrown 1 August 1919).

On 14 April 1919, after an uprising in Munich, the Bavarian Soviet Republic was established, lasting until 1 May of the same year.

On 28 June 1919, the German delegation signed the Versailles Treaty. On 31 July, the Weimar Republic was inaugurated in Germany.

November of that year marked another important victory for the bourgeois counter-revolution in the electoral triumph of the National Bloc in France.

In Germany the counter-revolution first attempted to pass to an open offensive in the early part of 1920 (Kapp-Lüttwitz putsch, 12-19 March 1920).

Throughout this period, however, the Communist International recorded major successes. In one country after another, sections of the world Communist movement were organised.