Editor’s Note:¶
Core Argument¶
This editor’s note situates the ten-month interval between the Second and Third Congresses of the Communist International (August 1920 to June 1921) as a decisive turning point in both Soviet domestic affairs and the European revolutionary conjuncture. In Soviet Russia, the period marks the close of the Civil War, the Red Army’s definitive victory, and the onset of the transition to a peacetime economy. The Kronstadt mutiny of March 1921 is cited as the immediate catalyst for the first steps toward the New Economic Policy (NEP), a strategic retreat forced by internal pressures. The note also records the first trade agreements concluded by the Soviet government—with Britain on 16 March 1921 and with Germany on 8 May 1921—signalling the beginnings of a cautious re-entry into international economic relations.
In Europe, the revolutionary wave suffered two decisive setbacks. In Italy, the movement reached its zenith in the autumn of 1920 with the occupation of factories, mills, and estates by workers, only to be betrayed by the treacherous leadership of the Socialist Party (SP). In Germany, a further defeat followed the so-called ‘March action’ of 1921, an ill-timed insurrectionary adventure that ended in disaster. These defeats are presented not as evidence of the inherent weakness of the working class, but as the consequence of treacherous or adventurist leadership.
The note’s central political observation concerns the changing character of the world economy. Despite the eruption of an economic crisis in the capitalist world, the first signs of a temporary capitalist stabilisation had become manifest. This objective shift in the balance of forces necessitated an abrupt change of tactics by the Comintern on the world stage. The implication is clear: the revolutionary optimism of the Second Congress, which anticipated an immediate European revolution, had to be replaced by a more sober assessment and a corresponding adjustment of strategy. The note thus frames the Third Congress as the moment when the Comintern was forced to reckon with the reality that the revolutionary wave had receded, and that a period of defensive struggle and tactical reorientation lay ahead.