United Communist Party of Germany
Source: The Communist Review, May 1921, Vol. 1, No. 1.
Publisher: Communist Party of Great Britain
Transcription/HTML Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2006). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
1. The U.K.P.D. supports the decision of the Second Congress of the Communist International declaring the necessity for Communist Parties to clear themselves of their reformist elements, which are a dead weight in the struggle of the proletariat for the Socialist revolution.
2. When it demanded of the Italian Socialist Party that Reformists’ elements should be expelled, the Executive of the Communist International was acting, not only in accordance with the decisions of the Second Congress, but also in harmony with all the affiliated Communist Parties and as much in the interests of the Italian Labour movement as in those of the International Labour movement.
3. The majority of the Italian Socialist Party, under the leadership of Serrati, accepted the twenty-one conditions of Moscow, demanding, however, the right to discuss with the Executive the measures to be taken with a view of expelling the reformists. Several months have gone by since the Moscow Congress, but the Serrati group has made no practical proposal as to the measures for such expulsion. On the contrary, Serrati has denied the existence of a Reformist element in the Italian Party. That is why it was necessary to face him with a choice between the Reformists and the Communist International.
4. The Serrati group has perverted a section of the party and caused a break with the Communist International. It proved thereby that it was not yet a strongly unified Communist Party, and that it contains centre elements which stand between the Reformists and the Communists. The U.K.P.D. recognises, however, that a considerable portion of the Serrati group is animated by an obvious desire to take its stand on the principles of the Communist International. The Italian Communist Party (Bordiga-Bombacci group) had shown itself consistent in taking up its stand on those principles. It must consequently be recognised by the Communist Parties of other countries as the only Communist Party in Italy; and it must be supported as such.
5. The U.K.P.D. considers possible a union between the Communist Party of Italy and that section of the Serrati group which is firmly resolved upon forming an active fighting group of the Communist International, providing, that it definitely breaks away from all the centre elements. The U.K.P.D. consequently expects that the Executive Committee of the Communist International will attempt to create an understanding and a union between the two groups, with the preliminary condition of the execution of the decisions of the Second Congress.
6. The U.K.P.D. refutes the demagogic campaign of calumny carried on by the Independent Press against the Communist International and its Executive Committee on the occasion of the split in the Italian Party. It declares that there was no question of a split provoked by a decree from Moscow, but of executing an International decision at the taking of which the Italian comrades had the opportunity and the duty of assisting. When they represent the execution of an International decision as a decree of the Moscow Executive, and the expulsion of the Reformists as an attack on the Labour movement, the German Independents show that they are agitating in favour of a so-called International in which opportunist elements would have a free hand, and that they consider necessary unity with men of the type of Scheidemann.
Exploité, February 16th.