[.ca] First Five Years of the Communist International: Volume 1 (ISBN 087348830X)

A school from the 1920s that's of great usefulness today:
A deep political and economic crisis shook the world during the years leading up to and immediately following World War I and the Russian Revolution. Millions of workers and peasants were disgusted with the bloodletting of the war (made possible, in large measure by the betrayal of revolutionary internationalism by almost all the best-known leaders of the pre-war socialist movement). Millions were further angered by the rapacious, so-called "democratic" peace of Versailles, which saw the victorious allies fall viciously on the already war-ravaged economies of Germany and its allies. Many of these workers began to radicalize, inspired by the positive example of the achievements possible even in one of the most backward countries in Europe when the government of the Tsar was overthrown and replaced by a government of workers and farmers led by a genuinely communist party. They sought to build such revolutionary organizations in country after country to emulate the Bolshevik road to power. For its part, the Soviet Communist Party looked to politically organize these advanced workers of the world--knowing that by themselves they could not sustain indefinitely the work of building socialism in an isolated USSR without additional revolutionary victories. These advanced workers from around the world joined together to form the Communist International. These two volumes feature speeches and articles by Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky prepared for the first five congresses of this new organization. These are the congresses that took place before the political degeneration signified by the rise of Stalin. Their relevant and helpful discussions can be a big boost to an understanding of the challenges facing fight-minded workers and farmers today. What economic and political conditions on top of the regular boom-bust cycles of capitalism give rise to a working-class radicalization? How do the economic concessions made by the ruling rich, which can slow down such a radicalization for a certain length of time, only contribute to the deepening of the crisis of bourgeois rule in the longer term? A particularly interesting aspect of these discussions is the debate over the shift in class relations that took place around 1921 when the immediate possibilities of emulating the Soviet revolution in Germany, Hungary, Italy and some other parts of Europe were supplanted by a new, though temporary, stage of capitalist stabilization. This period also saw the victory of fascism in Italy. The Soviet communists led a fight to shift tactics under these circumstances, urging the development of what they called the united front, an approach by which still-small communist parties could fight to win the allegiance of workers still looking to larger, reformist formations. Grasping the lessons of the weaknesses of the new communist parties and the defeats these contributed to was essential to moving forward in a sober and effective manner. The early history and development of the Communist Party in France is discussed in substantial length, offering great insights into the kinds of lessons in party-building the Russians offered to their co-thinkers around the world. There is also an important discussion of the deepening rivalries between Europe and America that characterized this period. These play an increasingly important role in world politics today, where economic and social conditions increasingly resemble those of the early 1920s that gave rise to the world depression of the 1930s.