(Chapters presented at the general meeting in May 2025)

6. The Communist Party of Italy and the Profintern

The PCI fully agreed with and applied the resolutions of the First Congress of the Profintern on Proletarian Unity and the United Front from below. Indeed, it anticipated them, having already reached those conclusions. An article of exemplary clarity appeared in Il Comunista on October 28, 1921, entitled “The United Front”:

"The Communist Party supports (...) the need for ‘proletarian unity’ and the proposal for a proletarian ‘united front’ for action against the economic and political offensive of the ruling class. This attitude, perfectly consistent with the principles and methods of the Party and the Communist International, is not always clearly understood (...) It is a gross misunderstanding to confuse the formula of trade union unification and the united front with that of a bloc of proletarian parties, or of the leadership of the action of the masses (...) by committees arising from a compromise between various parties and political currents".

The lack of clarity, which later became ambiguity and then outright betrayal, present in the Communist International on this issue, had already manifested itself in January 1921 with the famous “open letter” from the VKPD (Vereinigte Kommunistische Partei Deutschland, United Communist Party of Germany), on the initiative of Levi and with the support of Radek, sent to trade union organizations and all German “workers’ parties.”

Even earlier, in May 1920, the Executive Committee of the International, responding to a letter from the Independent Labour Party, had responded favorably to the possibility raised by the latter of remaining within the Labour Party.

The same ambiguity became more evident in the Executive Committee’s Theses on the United Front of December 18, 1921, where in point 20 we read: “While launching the slogan of the united front of the workers and allowing agreements between individual sections of the Communist International with the parties and associations of the Second International and the Two-and-a-Half International, it is clear that the Communist International cannot refuse to conclude agreements of this kind on an international scale. The Executive Committee of the Communist International made a proposal to the Amsterdam International in relation to relief action for the famine in Russia. It repeated this proposal in relation to the white terror and persecution of Spanish and Yugoslav workers".

Such errors and ambiguities were not yet betrayal, motivated by the illusion of being able to reverse the ebb of the workers’ movement through maneuvers between parties. The counter-revolution would later turn them into principles and tools to justify its interclassist and gradualist ideology. Communism would remain a beautiful red dress covering a monstrous body, hiding the reality of capitalism and counter-revolution from the world proletariat.

7. The Profintern between the 1st and 2nd Congresses

Meanwhile, the Trade Union International in Amsterdam continued its line of class collaboration and a fierce anti-communist campaign, both by expelling individuals and groups from the unions and by splitting the unions whenever the proletariat took a decisive stand on class issues.

Between February and April 1922, the following meetings were held: in Moscow, the enlarged Central Council of the Profintern; in Berlin, the Conference of the Three Political Internationals; in Rome, the Congress of the Amsterdam International.

The enlarged Central Council of the Profintern, between February and March 1922, was attended by delegations from over twenty countries, as well as delegates from the Far East as guests. The Norwegian Workers’ Party, having declared its acceptance of the 21 conditions of Moscow, without a congress or split, had joined the Third International en bloc. On the contrary, the Norwegian Trade Union Confederation remained in the Yellow International, despite the overwhelming majority of proletarians feeling solidarity with the Red International in Moscow. It was a strange position, reminiscent of that of Italy in 1919/20.

The Norwegian trade union leaders had proposed to the two Internationals, the Red and the Yellow, a joint action against the capitalist offensive. The first resolution of the Profintern Central Council was inspired by the Norwegian initiative, considered an attempt, at the international level, at a united front of the proletariat, in line with “the steps taken by the ISR Executive Office, which had already, on several occasions, invited the Amsterdam Steering Committee to take joint action on certain current issues, without, however, these requests being understood and accepted.” Despite this, the Profintern declared its willingness to participate in a joint conference of the two Internationals and entrusted the Norwegians with the task of drawing up a basic plan for joint action.

The second resolution concerned the unity of the proletarian front in response to the capitalist offensive. The Profintern set itself the goal of “acting in concert with all workers’ organizations, whatever their political opinions” in order to achieve “a united front in the defense of the economic interests of the working class,” for objectives that could be shared by all: the struggle against wage cuts, against the extension of the working day, against the intensification of the exploitation of women and children, etc. But even these objective elements of struggle met with energetic opposition from Amsterdam, which refused to support anything that could compromise capitalism’s emergence from the crisis.

The third resolution concerned “The Work of the Amsterdam Split.” One of the effects of the attitude of Amsterdam and the national confederations affiliated to it, aimed at the total subjugation of the proletariat to the needs of capitalism, was the abandonment of the trade unions by millions of exasperated workers. On the contrary, the Profintern encouraged the proletariat to join and remain in the trade unions, and to fight tirelessly for their transformation into revolutionary organizations.

The fourth resolution examined the relationship between the ISR and the anarcho-syndicalists. It specified that the ISR united anarcho-syndicalist, communist, and politically neutral workers under its banner and warned that the formation of an anarcho-syndicalist international would in fact be an attack on proletarian unity.

The fifth resolution referred to the “International Propaganda Committees.” They were entrusted with the task of “doing everything in their power to safeguard the organizational unity of the international federations and to admit all trade union organizations without exception.”

The sixth and final resolution concerned “the relations of the Executive Committee.” All measures taken by the EC for the proletarian united front were approved; the need for a central organ of the ISR, an indispensable weapon of organization and propaganda, was recognized; intensified activity among the proletarian masses of the Far East and the energetic defense of the interests of working-class youth were proposed.

The ambiguities regarding the attitude towards the Amsterdam International, and consequently regarding the slogan of the “united front,” are absent in the exemplary “Resolution of the First Plenum on the tasks of communists in trade unions” of March 4, 1922.

However, in the same month of March 1922, in contrast to what had just been decided, there is a “Contribution of the Presidium of the Executive to the draft program of the Communist Party of Italy,” where in point 4, on the united front, we read: “It is the duty of a communist party to attempt to undertake the struggle for the common interests of the proletariat in collaboration with other workers’ parties, in order to compel the latter to join the united front.”