Flood-Tide¶
Core Argument¶
Flood-Tide
Following the ebb of the post-war revolutionary wave in 1919–1920, the bourgeoisie consolidated its positions and the working class was thrown onto the defensive. Communist Parties found themselves reduced to a minority, precipitating a crisis within the Third International. The economic conjuncture—driven by the sharp zigzags of capitalist development—underpins this succession of stages. The bourgeoisie initially mitigated the demobilisation crisis through a fictitious boom built on state subsidies, currency debasement, and mounting debt, postponing the unavoidable commercial-industrial crisis by twelve to eighteen months. When the crisis finally arrived in mid-1920, reaching its depth in May 1921, the working class had already undergone defeat, internal differentiation, and disillusionment. The crisis alone could not restore revolutionary unity; its political effects depend on the preceding situation, battles, and failures of the class.
The Third World Congress rejected the theory of the offensive, which held that the crisis must deepen until proletarian victory. Instead, it recognised that cyclical oscillations—boom and crisis—continue even in capitalist decay. A crisis clears the way for industrial revival. The coming boom will not restore pre-war conditions but will raise workers’ self-confidence, fuse them together in production, and sharpen revolutionary struggle. Prolonged crisis, by contrast, fosters anarchist and reformist moods. The tempo of capitalist development slackening and a period of prosperity following the crisis would not signify an ‘organic’ epoch; cyclical oscillations are inevitable under capitalism and will continue during its death agony. If the proletariat is forced to retreat during the crisis, it will resume the offensive with any improvement in the conjuncture, under slogans of revenge for war deceptions and crisis plunder, tending toward open civil war. Capitalist press claims of economic ‘rehabilitation’ and a new epoch of stability are groundless, as are leftist fears that revolution requires uninterrupted crisis. While prosperity brings economic riches for the bourgeoisie, political advantages accrue to the proletariat. Workers demanding Communist agreements with Independents and Social Democrats will become convinced that only the Communist Party offers revolutionary leadership. The first wave of the flood-tide lifts all labour organisations, but Social Democrats and Independents will be engulfed in subsequent waves. It is not the crisis but the coming economic revival that may lead to proletarian victory, though this is not a categorical certainty. The break in the conjuncture opens the possibility of an offensive. If the Communist Party fails to grow and the proletariat fails to resist and pass from defence to offence, capitalist equilibrium could be restored, but this perspective is abstract given obstacles like world market chaos, disrupted currencies, militarism, and war threats. The working class accumulates experience and consolidates its party even when retreating. The tempo of development depends considerably upon the party and its tactics.