Paul Levi and Moscow

Paul Levi and Moscow
E ditors’ I ntroduction — Paul Levi, president of the German Com

munist Party— the most important section of the Communist Inter
national after the Russian Communist Party— was the first to become
embroiled in a conflict with Moscow and to incur its wrath. The
deterioration of his relations with the Comintern leadership is best
illustrated by two dates, which are very close together: in July—August
1920, he was one of the presidents of the Communist International’s
Second Congress (and confirmed president of the German Com
munist Party by December of that same year) and in April 1921, he
was excommunicated by the Comintern’s Executive Committee.
During this period of less than a year, Paul Levi was involved in
a number of quarrels with the Comintern leadership, several of which
had public repercussions. In January 1921 he wrote an article in the
German Communist Party organ Die Rote Fahne expressing his
opinion on what had happened at the congress of the Italian Socialist
Party in Leghorn, which he had fust attended (thereby provoking a
three-article reply, written by Karl Radek, but signed with the initials
P. B.); in February, his disagreements were discussed by the German
Communist Party’s executive committee (and he was in a minority
position); in March, he opposed the “March action” instigated in
Germany by Bela Kun and his team.
These three events gave rise to open polemics which, however,
did not go to the heart of the issues that put Levi at odds with the
maneuvers of the Executive Committee or, more precisely, with the
maneuvers of the Russians inside the Comintern. The Bolshevik
leadership had reasons for concealing what was happening behind
the scene, and Levi in turn felt restrained by Communist discipline,
which deprived him of some of his best arguments in his controversy
with Moscow. These restraints apply particularly to the problems
which arose between him and Moscow in January 1921, before the
disagreements became more serious and degenerated into a public
conflict.
271
272 PAUL LEVI AND MOSCOW
The following two confidential documents, published for the

first time, provide— after forty years— some valuable insights into
the relations between Moscow and the German Communist Party.
DOCUMENT No. 1:
REPORT OF COMRADE LEVI TO THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE

THIRD INTERNATIONAL ON THE ITALIAN PARTY CONGRESS,
BERLIN, JANUARY 20, 1921
E ditors’ I ntroduction — Like any political organization, the Com

munist International had a public face and one reserved for the initi
ates. But in the Comintern the clandestine, undercover part consti
tuted its essence. Hence the revelation of the Comintern’s secret
documents is particularly important. Stalin, whom Khrushchev ac
cused of “personality cult,” has had his share of truths told about
him. But while Stalin was “unmasked” by his heirs, Lenin has been
more and more deified. Thus historical research is confronted by two
different situations: while the “negative sides” of the Stalinist years
are admitted today in the Soviet Union, no “negative sides” are
acknowledged for the “heroic” Leninist period of the Comintern.
This report by Paul Levi to the Executive Committee of the
Comintern on January 20, 1921 lifts part of the veil which covered
the events at the 1921 Leghorn congress of the Italian Socialist party,
whose split gave birth to the Italian Communist Party. Although this
split took place on January 21, Levi’s report, drafted in Berlin the
day before, after his return from Leghorn, gives a complete account
of the event, as though it had been written in retrospect, rather than
before the split. The report shows political clear-sightedness and intel
lectual honesty— two qualities with which Paul Levi was endowed to
a much higher degree than the other Communist leaders in Europe at
that time.
Paul Levi grasped from the beginning that the Leghorn affair
was not purely an Italian concern but had implications for the Comin
tern as a whole. His interventions at Leghorn, his strong reactions
upon his return to Berlin, and his speech on the same subject the
following month (February 1921) before the German Communist
Party’s “Zentrale,” can be understood only in this light. The methods
used and the goal set (and attained) in Leghorn must have made a
deep impression on Levi, particularly in relation to the French Social
PAUL LEVI AND MOSCOW 273
ist party congress in Tours twenty days earlier and the Congress of
the German Independent Socialists in Halle in October 1920.
Levi subscribed to the Comintern’s aim at both of these con
gresses— to provoke a split in two parties that were not Comintern
members and to attract their majorities into the Comintern (an aim
which was achieved in both cases). But the aim at Leghorn was to
provoke a split in a party that had belonged to the Comintern since
1919 and, besides, to attract only a minority to the Comintern and
lose the large mass of adherents, who had previously been in the
Comintern. This tactical error seemed unforgivable to Levi, because
he was aware that the accusation raised by the Comintern delegates
Kabakchiev and Rakosi (especially the latter)— that Serrati had re
fused to break with the reformist Turati faction— had no foundation.
Serrati’s position, as Levi had found out from the Italian leader him
self, was that this break was premature since the fermentation among
Italian Socialists was still in process. Serrati’s entire subsequent con
duct, despite the accusation by the Comintern that he had been a
“renegade” since the time of the Leghorn congress, only confirmed
Levi’s judgment: after Leghorn and despite the Comintern’s hostile
attitude, Serrati separated from the reformists, came to Moscow as
early as November 1922, during the Fourth Congress of the Comin
tern, and shortly thereafter joined the Italian Communist Party.
During his three or four days’ stay in Leghorn, Levi was able to
draw other conclusions which went counter to the fixed ideas pre
vailing in Moscow. Thus, in this report, when he quoted Serrati’s
statement about the cordial conduct of two Italian Communist
leaders, Bombacci and Graziadei, toward Turati, he was trying to
demonstrate that in Italy, among Italians, things did not happen the
way the Bolsheviks imagined. He observed also that inside the Italian
Communist Party, which was about to be formed, violently hostile
factions already existed, since the iron Bolshevik discipline did not
manifest itself in the same way under the Moscow skies as on the
Mediterranean. Finally— and this was most important at that
moment— Levi recognized that the majority of the Socialist prole
tariat would not follow the Communist dissidents, while in Moscow
the notion was that all that was needed to gain the allegiance of the
proletarian masses was to speak over the heads of the leaders and
condemn them.
But Levi’s report is important not only because of his assess
ment of what happened in Leghorn but because of his opinion of
Moscow’s role in this event. Of course Paul Levi was addressing him
self to this same Moscow forum, and he was the victim of the classic
illusion of all non-Russian Communist leaders: knowing that he was
right on this particular point and that Moscow was wrong, he be
lieved that he could make the Bolsheviks understand this mistake and
change their minds. A t that moment Levi was not addressing the
Executive Committee as an opponent, even less as a dissident, but as
the leader of the German Communist Party and as a member of this
same Executive Committee, to which he had been elected by the
Second Comintern Congress. For this reason he was much more im
plicit than explicit in his criticism of the Comintern’s conduct.
After Levi had left Berlin for Italy following the publication of
the January 8, 1921 letter in which the proposition to form a united
front was first made to the Socialists (with Radek’s direct participa
tion), and after Levi had discussed with Radek what attitude to take
in Leghorn, he discovered that not only was his position at variance
with that of the two emissaries from Moscow, but that even Radek
switched sides and attacked Levi for his attitude in Leghorn. Once
more Levi displayed the typical opposition attitude, at least in what
he wrote, although it is likely that deep down he had already lost all
his illusions: he proceeded to blame not so much the real head, that
is, Zinoviev (and Lenin himself), but Zinoviev’s emissaries.
Thus Levi revealed two characteristic Comintern methods in
this report. The first concerned the tactic against Serrati engineered
in Moscow: at the Second Congress, in the summer of 1920, Serrati
was still a member of its Presidium and had been elected at the end of
the congress a member of its Executive Committee, but by January
1921, two obscure Comintern emissaries, neither of them even
elected members of the Comintern’s Executive Committee, had
arrived to “liquidate” Serrati. This they proceeded to do on the basis
of a decision taken in Moscow, while Serrati did not know— even
after the opening of the proceedings of the Leghorn congress— that a
Moscow delegation was present in the hall. The second revelation
made by Levi concerns the role of a Comintern secret emissary who
appeared in Italy before the Leghorn congress under the cover name
of “Comrade Carlo.” This emissary (he was, in fact, a Russian Com
munist, Liubarsky, who later joined the diplomatic service of the
Soviet Union), behind Serrati’s back, sent to Moscow reports whose
contents the Italian leader discovered during his stay in Moscow
during the Second Congress, July-August, 1920. Levi added dis
creetly by a parenthetical remark that “this had also happened to

other comrades,” thinking doubtless of himself and of reports by
Moscow’s emissary in Berlin (one “Comrade Thomas”) of which
reports Levi learned by chance in Moscow during the Second
Congress.
THE REPORT
Dear Comrades,
As you surely know, I went to Leghorn as representative of the
German party and do not want to be remiss in giving you a report on
my impressions there. When I arrived in Leghorn, the first thing that
struck me was that the relations between the Communist and the Ser-
rati factions were exceedingly strained— so strained that there existed
no political or even personal contact between the two groups. As
soon as I arrived, I first had a conference with Comrade Bombacci
and then with Kabakchiev. Bombacci was of the opinion that, as
matters now stood, a split in the party, in Serrati’s direction, was un
avoidable. If I understood him correctly, Bombacci felt that the split
at this point would be regrettable, but that it was too late to avert it.
Comrade Kabakchiev, with whom I talked next, went even further
and believed that the split in Serrati’s direction was a desirable objec
tive at the Congress for the Third International. With the agreement
of the two comrades, I then asked Serrati for a conference the follow
ing morning. I started this conference by saying that I had talked
matters over in Germany with Comrade Klara [Zetkin] and your
friend. The three of us might not be properly informed about the
party situation in Italy, and I asked him to give me his interpretation.
This is what Serrati told me: He and his parliamentary group were
determined to eliminate the reformists. However, as things now stood
in Italy, it would be extremely difficult to do this presently and
abruptly. The conflicts between the two wings of the Italian party had
not come to a head sufficiently for that, and he felt that the required
steps had not yet been taken by everyone to make these conflicts
apparent. By way of example, Serrati described a scene during a par
liamentary debate about a shooting incident in Bologna between the
Fascists and the Communists. When this matter was discussed, the
Communist wing itself had asked Comrade Turati1 to act as spokes
man for the parliamentary group. Turati had done this in a manner
which he, Serrati, did not approve. Turati had even advocated a col
laboration between parties. After Turati’s speech, Bombacci and
Graziadei had jumped to their feet and— I presume this is an Italian

custom— embraced Turati in parliament and congratulated him
openly and publicly for his speech. Serrati said he only related this to
prove that the differences between the reformists and the left wing
had not as yet come to a head. In this connection he also referred to
the letter of the Executive of January 9 which mentioned that because
the situation in Italy was extremely revolutionary, even the reformists
took a relatively leftist position there. Serrati’s opinion was that this
was not correct. The reformists in the party were relatively leftist in
Italy because the most blatant reformists had already been excluded
in Regio Emilia in 1912. He stated with due firmness that he was
determined to exclude the reformists from his parliamentary group,
but that this had to be done in such a way that the masses would
understand the reasons for this exclusion. He would favor and support
the exclusion of any member of the reformist wing who gave expres
sion to his reformist views.
For my part, I insisted to Serrati that I agreed with the Execu
tive Committee and considered the exclusion of the reformist wing
absolutely indispensable, and that I did not go along with his en
visaged method of eliminating the right wing, because it did not serve
the purpose. Particularly in the light of its impact on the masses, the
break with the right wing should be made in a public, clear and, if
necessary, brutal form.
After taking leave of Serrati, I had another discussion with
Comrades Kabakchiev and Rakosi. I described my conversation with
Serrati to both of them and explained to them my impression that
there was an extremely strained relationship between Serrati and the
Communists, and that I had not succeeded in obtaining any positive
proposal from Serrati: to that extent the conference had been unsuc
cessful. We tackled the question of what to do under the circum
stances. I proposed to make no concessions in demanding the im
mediate exclusion of the reformists, but to leave open the possibility
of altering the resolution asking for this exclusion. The Bordiga reso
lution stated that all those who took part in the Regio Emilia con
ference should be excluded. My proposal was that if the Serrati
followers and the Communists could not get together on the basis of
this resolution, a different wording should be drawn up. I thereby
wanted to avoid creating the impression in the Serrati camp that the
Bordiga resolution represented in some way a stinging humiliation,
and that as a result they would lose face by accepting this resolution,
with which they actually agreed in principle. This method, of course,

would make sense only if the splitting off of the Serrati camp was not
precisely the object of the party congress.
My efforts were furthered by a suggestion on the part of Com
rade Graziadei. He proposed that the resolution be phrased as fol
lows (I do not have the draft at my disposal, but I remember it well
enough to quote nearly verbatim ): “Exclude from the Party those
who, either out of conviction or by their votes or action, do not place
their allegiance with the Third International.” Comrade Kabakchiev
raised the objection that such a resolution could be equally accept
able to the Turati camp, so that it would misfire. I expressed the
opinion that the Turati camp could not possibly go along with such a
resolution. There was no denying that not only the Third Inter
national but also the Second International was making efforts to rally
the proletarian camp to its side. If the Turati group accepted this
resolution, they would, on the one hand, sooner or later be misfits in
the Communist party, and, on the other, they would no longer be fit
allies for the Second International. I therefore did not share this
apprehension. Comrade Graziadei, whose proposal also had the ob
ject of keeping the Serrati camp within the Third International, left
after a lengthy discussion without having accomplished his purpose.
Comrade Bordiga then joined our subsequent conversation; Com
rade Kabakchiev formally assured him that the representatives of the
Communist International approved of Bordiga’s intransigence
toward Serrati and fully supported it, and that they proposed to ad
here unalterably to Bordiga's resolution as it now stood. For my part,
I declared that, as I had made clear at the beginning of the conversa
tion, I was merely the representative of the German party, and that,
although I personally judged this rigid adherence to the wording of
the Bordiga resolution unwise, the Executive Committee and its rep
resentatives had the final responsibility for making the decision and
that I would of course go along with it.
After the discussion was concluded, the following incident
occurred. Comrade Serrati appeared and declared that he had in
formed his comrades of his conversation with me. His comrades also
wished to talk to me, if I were willing. I replied that I would be glad to
do so, but wished to know whether they desired that a representative
of the Executive Committee also should attend; I personally favored
his presence. Comrade Serrati expressed surprise at the presence of a
representative from the Executive Committee. I was taken aback by
this reaction and did not know whether I had been hasty in revealing
the presence of a representative of the Executive to Comrade Serrati,
and therefore gave an evasive reply. Serrati stated that in any case it
did not matter to him. I then gave this information to Comrades
Kabakchiev and Rakosi. These two suggested that a member of the
Bombacci-Bordiga group also should be present. Serrati was willing
to let them attend as well, but only reluctantly, so that we finally gave
up this idea. The conference took place that evening. The comrades
accompanying Serrati expressed a point of view similar to Serrati’s.
They too insisted on the exclusion of the reformists, but believed that
the proper preconditions had to be created, and that these precondi
tions surely did not exist at the moment. The conference, which lasted
one and a half hours, was ineffective in terms of the decisions made
by the representatives of the Executive Committee that morning,
since neither side made any proposal to which both sides could agree.
After this conference, there was a meeting later in the evening of the
two representatives of the Executive Committee, the steering com
mittee of the Bombacci-Bordiga group, and myself. I once more
exposed my own views in the fight of the experience in Germany and
said nearly verbatim that the exclusion of the Turati group should be
made crystal clear, and that we must be absolutely resolute on that
point, but I advised that we be more conciliatory as to the wording in
order to create the basis for agreement on that score. I drew the com
rades’ attention to the fact that they should not underestimate to such
an extent the value of a party organization. While party cohesiveness
in Italy was admittedly not as strong as in Germany, the organization
as such had an inherent strength which was not negligible; the com
rades would complicate their task immeasurably if, under the condi
tions prevailing in Italy, they excluded not only the reformists but
also the Serrati camp. I believe I made some impression with my
remarks, since the steering committee of the parliamentary group
resolved to adhere to their intransigent stand but, if the Serrati group’s
statement showed any evidence of assent, the question of the wording
might be viewed in a new fight.
The next morning Kabakchiev made his statement in the name
of the Executive Committee. I feel compelled to say that this state
ment was unfavorably received, if only for purely external reasons. It
covered twenty-six typewritten pages and was too long to be effective
when read before a congress, and an Italian one at that. Another
negative aspect was that this long declaration was directed almost
exclusively against Serrati. This fact aroused extremely bad feeling in

a party congress where this group represented by far the majority of
the gathering, and the Serrati camp surely comprised numerically a
three-quarter majority of the delegates. I myself had made up my
mind to intervene in the discussion and to defend, as agreed with
Kabakchiev, our thesis that the reformists must be excluded at once,
giving our reasons for this decision. I was forced, however, to end my
stay before that time, since the time I had been allotted for this Italian
trip had been extremely brief and had run out already. Under the
impression of the unfavorable effect of Comrade Kabakchiev’s state
ment, I did request another conference with Comrade Serrati and
gave him word for word the following explanation: I still believed the
separation should be carried out at once and in the form of an open
break. However, neither I nor Klara Zetkin nor other friends in Ger
many shared other aspects of Kabakchiev’s views. Without giving Ser
rati further details as to what I meant, I wanted to convey that I had
in mind the hostile attitude displayed by Kabakchiev toward Serrati’s
group. I proceeded to explain to Serrati that after my return to Ger
many I would draw up a report on my interpretation of the Italian
situation. I also asked him to postpone any decision with respect to
his position toward the Third International until the Executive Com
mittee in Moscow had had time to reconsider its stand. Serrati there
upon reiterated what he had already declared when I first spoke to
him— namely, that the thought did not even enter his mind to make
contact with the Second-and-a-Half International in Vienna: he and
his group were Communists, and Communists they would remain. If
the Third International excluded them, he would remain at the door
step of the Third International, even on his knees, but under no condi
tion would he go to the Second International. I replied that in the
long run this situation would be untenable, and that one way or an
other he ultimately would be compelled to take a stand. In this final
conference I once more assured him of the necessity of excluding the
reformists at once and explained to him that even though I admitted
that on the basis of past developments an immediate break would be
hard to explain and that there were some flaws in the declaration of
the Third International read by Kabakchiev, because it wished to
prove that the need for an immediate break with the reformists could
be adduced from past development, I was still convinced that in the
interest of the future an immediate break was indispensable. Nobody
could foresee when a revolutionary movement would set in in Italy,
and it would be fatal if at such a time struggles and differences should

arise within the leadership of the Communist party. Such struggles
should be concluded beforehand. I had the feeling that this last argu
ment made some impression on Serrati, and I broke off the con
ference at that point.
It is unfortunate that I had to leave the congress at that time and
before the Serrati group had taken a definitive stand. Now that I have
made this detailed report, I would still like to assess briefly conditions
in Italy as I see them. The conference made an excellent overall
impression. Not only the Italian temperament was responsible for
some very powerful scenes; they were due as well to the genuine prole
tarian element assembled there. As to the composition of the different
groups, I was assured by various of our close Italian friends that the
Serrati group is composed overwhelmingly of radical and revolu
tionary men and comprises the same element as the left wing of the
Independents in Germany. Our friends have the fond hope that these
elements will switch over shortly (they envisage a period of two
months) to their group. I spoke up against this view and this op
timism. I drew their attention to our experiences in Germany and the
significance of party limits, even where the views of the mass of the
Party members are in harmony. Our relations with the left-wing
Independents in particular, before the break, served as a pertinent
example. I pointed out to them that their relations with the Serrati
group would be much less favorable than ours with the left-wing In
dependents. For there never arose any split or sharp struggle between
us and the mass of the left-wing Independents, whereas they were just
now separating themselves from this mass after a sharp conflict and a
sharp disagreement, a fact which would influence their relations with
the revolutionary masses for quite some time, certainly more than two
months. I also explained to our comrades, in reply to their statement
that it was better to be few in number but firm in principles rather
than the reverse, that in order to be a party capable of leading a large
movement, both elements were needed; principles without followers
constitute a party no more than followers without principles. My
opinion is that our people, when they view their chances, err in their
optimism, and that Serrati’s speculation— one could say unfor
tunately— will be vindicated. For Serrati says that if the split now
takes place on that basis— Serrati’s people versus the Communists—
the former then would make a break with the reformists, and thereby
they would be the wing around which the Italian proletariat would
rally. In this Serrati is clearly and obviously speculating on the inner

dissensions of the Communist wing.
As I said, I am afraid that Serrati’s speculation will be vin
dicated. Bordiga seems to be extremely resolute, energetic, and
purposeful, but the Communist wing comprises a large number of
groups, tendencies, and so on. My answer to the question whether a
party without a clear and firm core resting only on these diverse tend
encies, directions, and views can be viable is more likely to be nega
tive than affirmative. I am firmly convinced that without the left wing
of the Serrati group the party will lack a core and am also convinced
that if this left wing can be won only by paying the price of accepting
Serrati, Serrati must be taken in the bargain, even if one views his
person with more distaste than I do.
My judgment is not colored by moods aroused in the heat of
battle, which I know diminish the value of such judgments. This
could not apply to me, since I am not involved in the struggles. In this
connection, and in order to contribute to a proper assessment of the
Serrati group and Serrati as a person, I would like to add that there is
an extremely sharp personal antagonism between Serrati and Com
rade Carlo. The antagonism stems from the fact that Comrade Ser
rati, like some other comrades, happened to come across some reports
in Moscow which had been sent by Comrade Carlo from Italy to Mos
cow, and which Serrati asserts showed the grossest abuse of the polit
ical and personal trust which existed between Serrati and Comrade
Carlo before Serrati’s trip to Russia. My purpose in bringing up this
matter is not to act as an informer (far be it from me to judge, let
alone to identify myself with Comrade Serrati’s judgment in a matter
about which I know nothing). I am mentioning this matter just in
case you might want to take it into account in reaching an unbiased
opinion.
All in all, I think that we will greatly weaken our position in
Italy for a long time to come if we now and under these circumstances
carry out a break with Serrati, and that we will almost perforce hand
a victory to the Vienna International. For there unfortunately can be
no doubt that no matter how often Serrati vows that he is not thinking
of going to Vienna and is even, as I assume, perfectly sincere at the
moment, if we forcibly knock him to the right, he will gradually have
no choice but to go to the right. I am not referring here to Serrati
personally but to the large masses of revolutionary proletarians, who
will remain estranged from us for many years. I will even be so bold
as to point out to you what effect this split will have in other coun
tries, where we already must bear the onus of splitting the proletariat.
Without wishing to anticipate the judgment of the Executive Com
mittee, I am of the opinion that it would be most sensible on the part
of the Executive Committee, which now, after the Communists have
split from Serrati and the latter still claims that he wishes to remain
within the Communist International, will have to reach a new deci
sion, to send to Italy a special emissary with special authority— of
course no one belonging to the German party— to make an on-the-
spot decision. Serrati is quite right that we have lost important power
centers by this split. Serrati pointed out, for example, that in Italy
2,500 out of 8,000 communities have a Socialist mayor. Serrati
rightly says that this fact implies an immense opportunity for bringing
in arms and doing undercover work. These 2,500 mayors have police
powers in their localities. The mayors are decisive when it comes to
hiring armed Carabinieri, storing arms, and so on. Something I read
in the newspaper during my stay in Italy proves that these mayors do
not look at their position in the same way as the German Social
Democratic mayors, who only think of hanging on to their jobs. The
mayor of Ferrara together with another comrade was arrested at the
station as he was about to leave for the Leghorn party congress
because they were suspected of having favored or actively encouraged
the elimination of several Fascists in Ferrara. This one example
points up the opportunities which the Serrati group fully realizes, and
which it will exploit. But there would be nothing gained in losing
these positions, and it would do us no little harm in the eyes of the
proletariat if it looked as though we were to blame for this loss.
DOCUMENT No. 2:
A CONTROVERSY BETWEEN RADEK AND LEVI
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
E d it o r s ’ I n t r o d u c t i o n — The
second document on Levi’s relations
with the Comintern leadership is even more confidential than the first.
In the Leghorn affair Levi had written an article in the German Com
munist Party newspaper and Radek had made his reply in a series of
three articles, which implied that their controversy was at least partly
public. But secrecy was complete with respect to this second docu
ment: not only was it kept from the press, but Radek’s presence itself
was not divulged.
This controversy behind closed doors between Levi, the leader

of the German Communist Party, and Radek, Comintern representa
tive for German affairs, took place, as the title of the document indi
cates, in the presence of the Zentrale of the German Communist
Party, that is, of the leadership elected after the unification of the
Communists— Spartakists and the left wing of the German Inde
pendent Socialist party. The Zentrale consisted of the following
members: presidents Paul Levi and Ernst Daurnig,' members Hein
rich Brandler, Otto Brass, Wilhelm Koenen, Wilhelm Pieck, Her
mann Remmele, Walter Stoecker and Klara Zetkin/ alternates Otto
Gabel, Curt Geyer, Fritz Heckert, Adolf Hoffmann and August Thal-
heimer. One of these fourteen members was certainly absent: Curt
Geyer, sent to Moscow as a representative of the party to the ECCI.
The document, drawn up in a telegraphic style not meant for
publication, includes a series of admissions and revelations on
Radek’s part, generally in contradiction to the Comintern s public
stand on various questions of that moment. The Comintern had
greeted the Leghorn split and the founding of the Italian Communist
Party as a success, but Radek was closer to reality in Berlin than his
colleagues in Moscow: “It is an illusion to believe that we have a
Communist party in Italy.” Radek characterized the German Com
munist Party, the best organized party in the entire Comintern (ex
cept the Russian Communist Party) at the time with the categorical
remark: “The party does not yet exist as a working machine.” (This
observation did not prevent Zinoviev from hurling this same party
into the “March action” two months later.)
Radek makes other interesting statements. He describes the in
tentions, the state of mind, and the illusions prevailing in Moscow at
the time of the Russian-Polish war of 1920 when he puts his faith in
the contradictions of capitalism and when he reiterates Moscow s
firm confidence in a political offensive against the capitalist world.
The remarks on the Comintern’s internal situation are also in
teresting: Radek tells of his quarrels with Levi (and admits that after
he had accused Levi of telling “deliberate untruth,” he had been
compelled to retract before the Zentrale); Levi tells about his
strained relations with Zinoviev. This oratorical duel shows in dis
pute two ranking members of the Comintern who, though in general
agreement in their assessment of the political events in Germany dur
ing 1919-20, were about to cross swords and thenceforth go their
separate ways. A s human beings, they were already worlds apart.
Levi was a skeptical intellectual with strong artistic interests; Radek

was a journalist absorbed by politics. Levi was guided by a rare moral
rectitude; Radek, as everyone knew, was morally indifferent. Levi
had doubts and apprehensions on the manner in which the Russian
Bolsheviks were running the Comintern; Radek already definitely
had thrown in his lot with Moscow and chosen Soviet Russia as his
adopted country.
Different though they were, both debaters had the political in
sight not to overlook the basic issue— the relations between the Ger
man Communist Party and the ECCI. Radek said bluntly: “What
mostly instigated my sharp polemics against Levi was not the dis
agreement on the Italian question, but rather the relation with the
Communist International.” A nd Levi stated: “We are confronted
with a certain mistrust, and any attempt on our part to criticize mis
takes will be interpreted only as opposition against the Communist
International.”
This central issue was of historic importance and had symbolic
character. For ever since then, nearly all conflicts between Western
Communist leaders and Moscow have stemmed from Moscow’s
ceaseless ambition to dominate and the refusal on the part of foreign
Communist leaders to obey unconditionally. This is largely the reason
for Levi’s defense of Serrati, who was not completely willing in
1920-21 to bow to Moscow’s dictates, and for Levi’s own break with
Moscow several months later.
From the very beginning of the Comintern, foreign Communist
leaders did not have enough prestige and power to take the entire
Party with them into opposition. Ultimately Moscow won out, and
these rebels were reduced to leadership of a dissident minority. The
Bolsheviks transplanted into the Comintern two techniques they had
mastered before the October Revolution: the splitting technique,
which was tested at the Halle and Leghorn congresses, and the fac-
tionist technique, which was applied to defeat Paul Levi. Radek had
not been sent to Berlin by Moscow to discuss the matter before the
Zentrale; he had only one mission— to prepare Levi’s elimination
whenever the need arose. There was thus nothing accidental about the
formation of an anti-Levi faction within the Zentrale, a faction with
which Radek was to keep in touch by circumventing the official
governing body of the party. Nor was it accidental that the “left
wing” faction, including Ernst Reuter (Friesland), Ruth Fischer,
and Arkadi Maslow, became active at that time and began its attacks
on Levi in Die Rote Fahne. Levi’s case was soon settled, but the
same fate was to befall first the Radek and then the “left-wing” fac
tions which came to the helm of the German Communist Party one
after the other. The reason was identical: such was Moscow’s will.
The document, probably written in haste by someone who
wanted to capture the essentials, has a few passages which were diffi
cult to translate because of the unclear meaning in the German origi
nal. These passages are followed by [j / c].
THE TEXT
Session of the Zentrale with the Representative of the

Executive Committee for Germany
Friday, January 28,1921
After a lengthy debate on whether or not a concrete discussion

should be part of the agenda the decision is reached to ask Comrade
Max [Radek] to give an analysis of the political situation.
C om rade M ax:I believe that we pay too little attention to con

crete facts in Western Europe. Besides tactical and organizational
questions, we should not forget that the Red Army is now one of the
most important power factors. We must not disregard its existence in
our assessment of the situation. That would be a mistake which would
prevent our viewing the mistakes of the Executive in the light of the
true facts. In 1919 our position was much weaker and different from
what it is today. During the Polish war, the Executive believed that
the revolutionary movements were maturing in Western Europe, that
in the drive toward the West the aim was not to impose Bolshevism at
bayonet point, but only to break through the crust of the military
might of the ruling classes, since there were already sufficient internal
forces unleashed in Germany to keep things under control. The sec
ond cornerstone of the policy of the Executive was its assessment of
the concrete situation in Germany. The Executive believed that in
Germany things were already ripening for the seizure of political
power. It was believed that if we held Warsaw, there would be no
further need to advance all the way to Germany. By occupying the
Corridor, the German government would find itself at loggerheads
with the Entente. Kopp2 came to Moscow at that time with a treaty
draft of the German government. However, that crafty Mr. Simon
managed to pull his neck out of the noose in the nick of time [j /c].
There was another school of thought in the Executive Committee—
the so-called South-Eastern tendency, which held that the break
through must be attempted not in Germany but somewhere else
altogether, in countries with an inflammatory agricultural setup, [such
as in] East Galicia, Rumania, Hungary, and which was convinced
that if we stood at the Drava and Sava [rivers], the revolution in the
Balkan states would be accelerated and the requisite agrarian hinter
land would be created for the Italian revolution. The creation of an
agrarian hinterland is as crucial for the Italian revolution as for the
German revolution.
The Serrati group did not consider the situation revolutionary
and still does not. First, there is the danger of a blockade. Serrati did
not believe that it could be carried out; we were more skeptical. But
everyone agreed that the establishment of an agrarian hinterland was
essential. Our conversations with Serrati on that score continued and
then concerned themselves with the implementation of the revolu
tion. The entire democratic-illusionist section remained in the Party
— particularly hundreds of union leaders. For Serrati the trade-
union bureaucracy was a sacred cow. For him it was important to
leave the whole apparatus intact rather than to clear out the re
formists. He admitted that they were reformists, but he said that they
would submit to discipline. He could not be persuaded to tighten his
grip on the Party. The Congress decided to send the Italian party a
letter. Its purpose was to further the immediate preparation of the
revolution. The letter was not published until three months later. No
attempts were made to reach an understanding of how the resolution
could be implemented. On the contrary, Serrati’s agitation in defense
of the reformists began. I have already quoted the letter, which is
bound to dispel all doubts. We are convinced that the underlying
assumption of Serrati’s policy is that he does not think the time is ripe
for a revolution. He says: In Italy we have favorable conditions for
fighting the bourgeoisie. At the same time, like Hilferding,3 point by
point, he describes the consolidation of the bourgeoisie on a world
wide scale. The situation in the Balkan countries is important for the
assessment of his perspective. Therein lies the paradox; thereby one
can explain Serrati’s stand. He says: If I were convinced that it is only
a matter of the leaders . . . and so on. In assessing the situation, there
are no moral issues involved. There would thus be no sin against com
munism if he asserted that revolution is not possible. But his con-
elusion shows that it is not his assessment which is different. If revolu

tion is not imminent, there is still the gradual advance of communism,
for which separation from the reformists is required. His relation to
the reformists is very peculiar.
Half of the things we may expect in the near future hinge on
developments here in Italy and in the Balkans. We will not tilt at
windmills. The Red Army will not be demobilized; it will be made
more flexible and brought to the southwestern and western borders.
We will not wage war in winter. With a nation the size of Germany, a
direct, aggressive intervention would in any case be a blunder. It
would strengthen nationalism and the bourgeoisie to such an extent
that the workers would be rebuffed. But if we occupy the Corridor
and stand at the border, this creates a different and much more favor
able condition for the struggle. I must admit that at this point we have
a stronger inclination toward an aggressive foreign policy than
before. We are skeptical about the commercial treaty negotiations
with England. But everything hinges on whether independent large-
scale movements will take shape in Western European countries, and
whether they will have a firm core.
I am convinced the split in Italy has greatly impaired the
chances for a revolution in the near future. It is an illusion to believe
we have a Communist party in Italy. The objective now is to shape
the Communist wing of the workers in such a way that it is capable of
exerting some influence on the masses. The situation is more favor
able in Poland. It is true that there are 7,000 comrades in jail. But
there are strikes everywhere. Pilsudski has gone to Paris to seek help.
It is a fact that we have no Communist party in Bohemia. But if a
strike there could break out spontaneously with 900,000 partici
pants, conditions would lean very strongly in our favor. The wild
wave of persecutions in Yugoslavia, which came not in the wake of a
revolution but [comes] now, two years after the end of the war,
against a strong Party, proves that this Party is indeed strong and that
the government fears it. In Croatia the Radic party is creating an
agrarian revolutionary movement.
This is how I see the German situation: leaving out of account
the effects of our own action, everything depends on whether com
promise is reached between the Entente and Germany. If it is
reached, the question still remains whether the bourgeoisie will re
ceive economic help sufficiently fast to contain the revolutionary
movement. But by then prospects for the German bourgeoisie will be
so favorable that they will attack us with ten times as much determi
nation even before they are economically consolidated. If the En
tente pursues a hostile policy, the radicalization of the working class
must go forward. But here, unfortunately, a basic difference exists on
our part. In a country with such strong trade-union organizations, it
is unlikely that spontaneous movements will break out and toss the
leadership into our hands. The organizations act as the breakwaters
of this movement. I therefore feel it is most important to bring in
other parties. The Party’s activation is still very slight. Just look at
this simple technical matter: the Reichsausschuss did not bother even
to discuss the most important step in the drive for a united front— the
open letter4— and its agenda did not even include organizational
measures to make the letter effective. As matters stand now, I believe
that the conscious will of the Party to bring about a revolution is a
much less crucial factor for the future than the question whether the
Entente will come to an agreement with the German bourgeoisie or
not. The Party as a machine is still nonexistent.
It is too early to say today whether we will be involved in con
flicts. All we can say is whether we want to bring them about or to
avoid them. And the Executive says: We do want to bring them
about! History must be driven forward.
I am convinced that because of the internal situation in Russia,
we will have great difficulties with the peasants, but we will stand
firm. Our motive for activation does not lie in the internal Russian
situation; the reason for it is that the longer it takes us to attain power
in Western Europe the more serious will be the disintegration. Power
would then be in our hands, but we would lack the barest essentials to
give to the workers. That is the guiding motive for our insisting on
activation.
This leads to the following conclusion for Germany: in the eyes
of the Executive, relations with the KAPD5 must take into account
the fact that in spite of the KAPD’s immature elements, its core still
contains a discontented proletarian segment which will be willing to
fight whenever there is an active conflict. And that is why the Execu
tive did not want to create an abyss between itself and these people. If
we foresaw a tranquil evolution, we would say: Let us thrash them
until they see the light. But since the Executive thinks that things
ought to be speeded up it says: We cannot take them into our fold,
because they will not submit, but we must not let the thread be
broken. Shortly before I left, our people read what the KAPD press
was writing about Russia. Everyone realizes that our material situa
tion is terrible. But the important criterion is whether one is repelled
by it. An additional consideration is the fact that Riihle and Wolff-
heim6 were kicked out, which proves that these people have a sound
core.
On an international scale, the relation with the syndicalists is
clear. We cannot make out without ties with the French and Ameri
can syndicalists and shop-stewards. The English Communists are
completely out of touch with the masses. This Left really must be
drawn into the fold. But because these unions do not yet see things
clearly, our idea was to found a Zimmerwald-like trade union which
is not yet the Communist International, but a transitional stage. On
the strength of my 1919 views. I opposed the admission of the
KAPD; I do not believe that we will assimilate this party. If the Exec
utive now does its duty, if it now calls attention to the conditions for
admission and raises its voice in the KAPD press, it may meet with
considerable success. It will surely have some impact on some of the
KAPD members.
Now for the situation in the trade unions. I have not yet been
able to obtain an analysis. When we passed out the watchword “Infil
trate the Unions,” all of us believed that this would entail splitting.
That possibility was always kept in mind. It was obvious the union
bureaucracy would kick us out; that is why we indicated in the resolu
tion at which point the splitting was appropriate. The conduct of the
bureaucracy proves we are now a power factor in the unions, and
they do not wish to give us enough time to organize. It would be
stupid if we now got out of the unions. We will have to fight for each
position. We will have to consider carefully the possible spots where
we will be followed by a large part of the union members when we are
expelled, and then the job will be to pull together these unions and to
carry out a process of concentration. We must take care to safeguard
what we have already achieved in the unions, but on the other hand,
we must not take an anti-union stand. If we are accused of splitting,
we must insist that we are actually doing this in order to bring
workers to the unions.
Now for the Italian question. I am convinced that Levi has not
grasped the heart of the matter. I have said Levi told a deliberate
untruth. I already have written him that I would take this back ex
pressly before the Zentralc, and I will repeat this statement. It seemed
incredible to me that a man as clever as Levi would not grasp the
meaning of these two facts: Serrati declared on the one hand that he
would get rid of the reformists only gradually, and Serrati was willing
on the other hand to risk a break with the International. So it is my
well-considered opinion that the conflict with respect to the Italian
matter signifies a sort of interlude. It can be traced back to inad
equate information on the part of the German Zentrale. Thalheimer
said, when I was reading him Serrati’s letter, “It is perfectly obvious
that this is straight Hilferding.” I believe that the matter will become
perfectly plain: Serrati does not wish to make a break with the re
formists, and since that is the case, he must be fought. We will have to
make our way over Serrati’s political corpse to get Turati’s scalp. I
believe there are no miracles in politics. If [there are] 89,000 mem
bers of the Italian party— new members admittedly— after these
differences of opinion (for the entire last half year the party has been
torn by conflict), how can it be due to chance that they do not want it
[5 7 c]? The majority of the workers in the Italian movement are not
yet Communists. The overwhelming majority favor the Third Inter
national insofar as they equate it with the Soviet Star. But in terms of
concrete policies, they still have a long way to go. Is there any pos
sibility of winning these masses by negotiations? Zetkin claims that
we must make contact with the masses. The only way to do that is
through their representatives. Serrati is not willing— and you can
reach the masses only through an open and bitter struggle. Does that
mean that we should not try it at the moment? Of course not. We
must tell them: You turned the thing down. We must say to them:
What is it that you actually want? I told Levi before his trip to Italy
that the masses will come to us in this manner. Today we must form a
small Communist party. And then Levi said a few times: “We have
Bordiga, and the others are not entitled to criticize” [j/c].
What did you [German Communists] propose in the matter of
the seizure of the factories? When we were all stuck in the mud, they
[Italian Communists] did not manage to unite as a party group. It is
not a matter of doctrinal unification. Serrati will fail when the time
for action comes. But you must not fail now. I am far from delighted
with the tactics of the Italian Communists. The Executive was hesitat
ing whether to send a telegram. Zinoviev was inclined to wait a little,
but the telegram was sent off anyway under the influence of Lenin,
who shared Thalheimer’s conviction after reading the letter. We must
reckon that we will have a weak party in Italy for some time. In Ger
many the Italian business may provoke some difficulties in the fight
against the centrists, but it may have great impact in France. The
French party is rough-hewn; it includes many heterogeneous ele
ments. Lafont’s7 entering the party proves that things are still un
clear. Here in Germany it is possible that some elements will switch
over to the right; in France it is probable. As to the other points at
issue, I am to tell you that the Executive, after having read your
letter, completely agrees with the official answer that I gave you on
the KAPD matter. You have to live with things as they are. Now it is
a matter of urging on the Executive to do its duty and of working on
the KAPD and to show that we are trying to reach the left-wing
workers. As for the unions, the problem is that some of the old USP
[Independent Socialists] comrades are unwilling to submit to the
general directives and to accept the line of approach to the trade
unions. You must clean up this mess. I am making no personal
attacks. If the comrades are disciplined, individuals should not be
singled out. But it is clear that the Party should say explicitly what
needs to be done and transfer to other positions [comrades who] dis
regard directives.
Activation requires an altogether different attitude on the part
of the press. Your press is anything but an action press. The central
organ is incapable of conducting a single concrete drive for even one
week. Then other special matters must be considered, such as the
M.P. affair.8
Now as to external organizational matters. What mostly in
stigated my sharp polemics against Levi was not the disagreement on
the Italian question, but rather the relation with the Communist Inter
national, which came to the surface not so much in what was printed
as in the actual discussions. Needless to say, I have no blind alle
giance to the Executive Committee. I have dealt out and received my
share of blows. But there is criticism and criticism.
First question: Is the general political line of the Executive
correct? If in individual discussions things come up which make one
draw the conclusion that one must continue to fight against the left, to
postpone conflict against the right, would Levi go along with the
policy of the Executive? But even that is not the whole story. A finer
differentiation must be made. A left wing and a right wing will spring
up. But the second question is the most crucial.
Second question: If Levi were to put the disagreements in
these terms: “The Executive favors a rigid tactic; I favor a flexible
one,” that would be acceptable. But if he says “a large and healthy
Party was destroyed”; and if in reply to my question “How do you

visualize relations of the Executive with Europe,” he says, “It is no
use; you cannot make yourself heard,” then I say that this constitutes
an inadmissible relationship.
The Communist International is not a single act, but rather a
continuous process. In 1919 it was merely a rallying cry; today it is
backed up by a German party of half a million members; there is
progress in Bulgaria, in Serbia. The French Socialist Party is evolv
ing in a favorable direction, since it is seeking for the first time to
establish closer ties with a large segment of the trade unions. Under
these circumstances, it is inadmissible to assume that the Executive
cannot be brought to correct political mistakes with an open, clear
and unequivocal policy, with the words “We disagree.” It is still
worse to believe that we cannot even change its organizational setup.
To that there could never be an answer, because that answer would
amount to a negation of the Communist International. If the German
party sends two men, not great geniuses but two workers from the
ranks, why should that be ineffective? Or the Executive might be
asked to send four members to Western Europe. These are feasible
things which would alleviate many difficulties. In my opinion the
trouble afflicting the Executive is that it is situated in a state involved
in revolutionary action. One should blame it not for issuing ukases,
but for failing to intervene. It only intervenes when there is an acute
crisis. The matter of the open letter is typical. If I were in Moscow,
this idea would never even come to me. Let us insist that the Execu
tive have representatives, experienced comrades, in Europe, and
then we will have an Executive which is ten times as effective. Such a
concrete and positive attitude is what is lacking. I know it is difficult
to put through any changes, but there is no alternative. Either we say
that we will soothe our consciences from time to time and then pull
them out of our pockets at the congress and display them publicly, or
we must put aside any sort of skepticism and send responsible com
rades— though they should not stay there [in Moscow] too long and
should be rotated frequently so that they are not cut off too much
from the party. The disagreement lies in the fact that I believe that we
are dooming our Communist efforts if we further tolerate skepticism
of this sort. We must voice criticism and we must express our opinion
positively. These questions must be resolved organizationally. Next
to the Russian party, you are the strongest Communist party. You
bear the same amount of responsibility as the Russian party. You
must find people to send to Moscow. You must take active measures.
P aul L e v i : My letter contains a very concrete question: Does

the Executive favor my removal from the post of chairman? I am in
general agreement with Max’s views. We held these views when we
were in Moscow. The Red Army must be counted as an important
factor. I reject the idea of transferring the seat of the Executive from
Moscow because for me the pursuit of proletarian international
policy is of overriding importance. The Executive should have its seat
not in a place where there is merely the best general orientation, but
rather in that place where international proletarian political leader
ship is really centered.
I also agree with the remarks about the deployment of the Red
Army. The succinct formula— the revolution cannot be advanced at
bayonet point— originated at a time of hardship. The other formula
also originated in a special situation last summer in Moscow: the Red
Army could be deployed, not in a mechanical fashion and without
link to the masses in other countries, but only as an organic instru
ment. In that way it can be a decisive factor in Germany. It can crack
the cover by military means. Taken in this light, the remarks just
made are absolutely correct in my opinion. In this way we would be
safeguarded against a totally nationalist attitude, and at the same
time we would be assured that the Red Army would not be deployed
purely in the military interests of the Soviet Republic.
Now as to the special disagreements which have arisen in Ger
many. Comrade Max blames me for viewing the mistakes of the Com
munist International with a certain skepticism. That there are such
mistakes we both agree; I am not sure that we agree on what they are.
For my part, I deny any skepticism. I do diagnose each illness indi
vidually. I have seen illnesses to which I applied remedies. But I also
have seen illnesses for which I thought waiting seemed necessary. My
relations with Zinoviev have improved slightly since his stay in Ger
many, but still I must reiterate: We are confronted with a certain
mistrust, and any attempt on our part to criticize mistakes will be
interpreted only as opposition against the Communist International.
That is not in the least my intention. The Third International must
keep its center in Moscow. What I say is this: This discussion has
been an eye-opener for me. Comrade Max let his horse get away from
under him, and there re-emerged trains of thought which are strong
and alive in Moscow. In the light of all these facts, I believe that we
would aggravate the malady instead of fostering the healing process
by voicing any so-called active criticism and making positive pro
posals on specific questions in a more outspoken manner. Not all ill
nesses require operations. There are illnesses which heal much faster.
After the last session, I was more certain than ever that it would make
matters even worse if we took up this other attitude toward the Execu
tive. I think that we should maintain essentially our present attitude
toward the Executive. I think that we should instruct our representa
tive in Moscow not to get involved in sharp discussions under any
condition. He should state our views emphatically, note the diver
gence, but desist from sharp discussions.
The queston is raised: Do we deviate from the line of the Execu
tive or not? Max himself said that if I had called the alternatives rigid
or flexible, he would have had no objections, but I said that a strong
Party had been destroyed. But does that not amount to the same
thing? I said that the rigid method did nothing to prevent this result.
Now the general question: Does our stand differ from the over
all behavior [of the Executive]? Max tried to prove that this was the
case. On the one side there is a sharp struggle to the left, on the other
the desire to keep doors open to the right. I am not sure whether any
basic disagreement exists between me and the Executive if I say I
have learned one thing from the appalling collapse of the first act of
the German revolution, and that is that a resolute Communist Party is
absolutely indispensable and is the most precious thing with which
one can endow a proletariat for making a revolution. If we had had a
resolute Communist party in Germany, even if it had been numer
ically weak, the first act of the revolution would have taken a different
course. In all my thoughts, on the national and international plane,
my overriding concern is this: How can we shape a proletarian or
ganization that is distinct and Communist? The Executive of the
Communist International does not adhere to this line intransigent^
enough to suit me. I have expressed this point of view already in Mos
cow. In Germany, we had to initiate our campaign to set up militant
Communist groups after Rosa’s [Luxemburg] death. First of all, we
had to lead the struggle toward the left. The fact that our struggle, in
which our unit organized itself, was directed primarily toward the left,
not against the leftist USP [Independent Socialists], was not due to
any forethought or clear plan on our part: it resulted rather from the
backwash of the revolutionary tide. This objective situation brought
us up most sharply against leftist elements, and our party was shaped
by this struggle. And now I know that Moscow firmly believes that I
waged this struggle for a lark. I can only state once more I did not, for
our part, let it come to an exacerbated conflict at all. The fight was
PAUL LEVI AND MOSCOW 29 5
carried out in Heidelberg9 without insults. The organizational

threads were not severed in Heidelberg but elsewhere, without my
participation. We never once conducted ourselves in a manner which
could be interpreted as a total rejection of the left. The others were
always the aggressive party. There always remained the possibility
for cooperation.
What kind of relation should we establish with [the left]?
Should it be one which facilitates cooperation in concrete situations?
We were in the process of establishing such a relation, since the
proper people were again being drawn into our orbit. The Executive
by its action did not eliminate the best solution for the KAPD ques
tion, but it did delay it. But a further point is this: Should our relation
with these leftist elements, with whom, as I say, there should be no
conflict, immediately be converted into an organizational one? I do
not think so, because if the relation becomes organizational rather
than purely political, the building up of a Communist party, which I
consider the prime objective, will be impeded. Its most important
function is not the issuing of resolutions and ukases; its most potent
influence lies in its mere existence and in Russia’s influence. The
mere fact that it exists and how it exists— that Russia is fighting on,
etc.— these are its major contributions. And by admitting into this
unified Communist party elements that are not Communist, we are
disturbing this process. The comrades from the Executive realize this
danger and seek to avert it by recognizing these people only as sym
pathizers, or else they recognize them as members and then pass res
olutions against them. But in my opinion this deflection by means of
resolutions, theoretically, does not counterbalance the fact that they
have established an organizational link, which covers up everything
else in the eyes of the masses. These are my main considerations with
respect to Germany, Italy, and so on.
My considerations are the same regarding agreements with the
syndicalists and the unionists. In Western Europe the relation of the
Communists with the organized masses is much more significant than
their relation with the unorganized masses (although the importance
of the latter should not be underestimated either), much more so than
in other countries. In countries with less highly developed capitalism
the readiness of the proletariat for revolution hinges on the relation
ship between the Communists and the unorganized masses. In Ger
many the relationship to the organized masses is much greater and
more important. In Germany, too, the unorganized play a certain
role. They are an important factor, but their significance is not as

overwhelming as in other countries. In Germany we are now engaged
in a bitter struggle for the masses in the trade unions. We are at a
particularly difficult juncture, and if we do not exploit it shrewdly, we
may be heading straight toward a catastrophe. And it is exactly this
moment that the Communist International picks for accepting the
syndicalists and the unionists into the Trade Union International on
the premise, it is said, that the Red Trade Union International is
really only like Zimmerwald. That is a point of view which can be
justified theoretically, but which is completely irrelevant for purposes
of agitation in the masses. The fact which strikes the German proletar
ian is that syndicalists and unionists have been admitted to the Trade
Union International which we are asked to join. Now for us Com
munists, there is no need to fear syndicalists and unionists. But if we
want to fight for the masses whom we want to win over, we are
terribly handicapped by having an organizational relationship with
them. It is the most powerful weapon the Majority Socialists and the
Independents have in attacking us. One might well say, “This is all
petty-bourgeois nonsense.” But in a treacherous situation this may be
the most dangerous slogan. Let me say one thing: Moscow is not at
the root of this but rather these commissions which are sent to Europe
and which are inevitably busybodies; they are very much inclined to
be satisfied with a common sparrow if they fail to catch the dove.
That is why they take steps which they certainly could not take if they
saw things from a larger perspective. If Belinky10 had a broader per
spective, he would not put us into such a dangerous situation for the
sake of 100,000 unionists. In short, we are faced with a difficult situa
tion, which arises from the fact that the Executive gives priority to
establishing organizational ties with non-Communist elements rather
than trying to reach some sort of political accord with them.
Now to the matter of accepting things as they are. I am con
vinced that the resolution in the KAPD matter and in the union
matter cannot be brushed aside. But as things now stand, with the
eyes of all Germany on us, we have been compelled to emphasize our
stand against the KAPD. We had to do so, in order to avoid being
thrown into one pot with the KAPD, even if this rejection meant a
more strained relation with the KAPD. This second step followed
inevitably from the first, whether we wanted it or not. I believe that
Moscow should take the initiative in correcting these mistakes. We
did not become aggressive against the KAPD. Now that things stand
as they do, it is the Executive’s duty to take the consequences and

face the KAPD leaders with the question: Which way are they head
ing in such a hurry? I am not saying that we did anything to counter
act this development, which was inevitable. We had to save face in
the eyes of the German workers.
Now to come back once more to the Italian question. I repeat: I
do not have the least intention of identifying myself with and uniting
with Serrati. I told him emphatically that I considered it imperative
that the exclusion take place at once, and I believe that the reasons
that I gave him for this step impressed him more strongly than
Kabakchiev’s. But I am convinced that the nucleus which in Ger
many constitutes the left-wing USP remained loyal to the Serrati
group. I consider it a serious mistake for the Communist Inter
national to knock this nucleus forcibly and obstinately toward the
right. And what is more, the best hope for retaining this nucleus was
forfeited by the way things were done at the Italian congress. The
Executive gave up trying to retain this nucleus. Max said that Serrati
would have to give his consent. The congress did offer the possibility
of talking with these people. I remember how Graziadei came and
said, “The left wing might be pried loose from the Serrati group if one
makes concessions in the formulation.” And the representatives of
the Communist International there just said no, they wanted to fight
for it, and that is how the business miscarried. I insist that this was a
mistake and remain convinced that undoing this mischief will be
much harder, but that the possibility still exists and that it should be
exploited. Quite possibly, if one were to present the Serrati group
with the kind of resolution Graziadei proposed, Serrati might make
an about-face and cross over with his followers. Kabakchiev re
mained adamant about the wording; I do not know whether that was
the plan, since the plan was to drive off Serrati. I think that if winning
over the left wing really hinges on having Serrati come along too, he
should be taken in the bargain. In my opinion, Serrati’s person is not
too high a price to pay for the left wing. Then one still has opportuni
ties to come to an understanding with him. Max and I agree on how
seriously the development of the Italian Communist Party is now
endangered. He himself says that the revolutionary strength in Italy
and the growth of the Communist Party have received a setback for
some time to come. Nobody can deny that. And I anticipate even
more serious troubles than Max, because I expect that in the Bom-
bacci-Bordiga group no real nucleus will emerge and the Inter
national will not be able to exert such a strong influence because

Borgi is in the Party, and the syndicalists and anarchists, who abound
in Italy, belong to the old school and will be intractable. These people
will not become Communists merely by belonging to the Party. There
is a third consideration. In Italy tactical rigidity has put a large share
of the onus of the split on us. That was the consequence of clumsy
tactics. And the onus will be even greater when the consequences of
the split make themselves felt. Some very bright people in the com
munal administrations, and elsewhere, will be lost to the Communist
Party. For all these reasons I am absolutely in favor, now as before,
of using any means and paying any price except that of the exclusion
of the reformists to retain the Serrati wing in the Communist fold.
K o en en : I think that there are no further disagreements regard

ing our perspectives on world policies. That is essential. It is also
obvious with respect to the trade-union question that the German
syndicalist movement must be evaluated differently from that in other
countries. There is no possibility of negotiating with German syn
dicalists. To create a Zimmerwald from Moscow is itself nonsense.
The way it looks now, the matter must be handled quite differently.
There is no Zimmerwald but rather there are two Internationals. If
some comrades are willing to go along, that is fine; I am not intran
sigent in the union question either. I want to say this to Paul: I can
not approve of the tendency to let illnesses run their course. We must
do all in our power to make our influence felt regularly in Moscow by
means of a more energetic delegation. We also must see to it that such
illnesses do not break out.
C omrade M ax : I only wish to reply to the question whether in

the opinion of the Executive or my own, Levi’s stand makes it desir
able for him to give up his post as chairman. The Executive will never
try to influence the choice of leaders in the Communist parties, as long
as the party does not transgress against the tactics of the International.
I have spoken up only to give Levi some food for thought on these
matters. But I am certain that Levi can retain his chairmanship as
long as he does not differ from the Party on essential matters. I per
sonally consider it very expedient that he continue as chairman, but
I do think it is harmful if he writes articles on the basis of incorrect
facts and impressions.
B randler : I do not share either Max’s or Levi’s point of view.

I completely agree with Paul about his assessment of the syndicalist
and the union movements. But there is absolutely no point any more
in deploring and bemoaning these things. I have urged that we hit the
KAPD on the head three times a day and that we do the same with the
unions. I do not believe that we will succeed in altering the stand of
the Executive by means of a delegation. And since I cannot alter that
stand, I am taking it as a point of departure for working.
With Comrade Max’s consent, it was decided to inform the joint

Zentrale of Comrade Max’s presence and identity and to pass resolu
tions only in the session of the joint Zentrale.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
To make the preceding documents more meaningful, the editors have

prepared biographical data (alphabetically arranged) about key per
sons in the documents.
N icola B ombacci. Schoolteacher, secretary of the chamber of

labor before the First World War, radical Socialist (“Maximalist”)
during the war, elected Socialist deputy in 1919 and subsequently
named secretary of the Socialist party. In this twofold party capacity,
he was sent as a member of the Italian Socialist delegation to take
part at the Second Comintern Congress in 1920. He and Graziadei
were the two leaders won over by Moscow to implement its anti-
Serrati strategy. He played an important role at the Leghorn congress
of the Italian Socialist party in January 1921, was elected to the
central committee of the newly established Italian Communist Party
in which initially he was the second most prominent leader, after Bor-
diga. He was reelected to the same post at the next party congress in
Rome, in March 1922. After Mussolini’s victory and the establish
ment of diplomatic relations between Moscow and Rome, Bombacci
began to speak of “two revolutions”: the Bolshevik and the Fascist.
As a consequence he was censured on several occasions by both the
Italian Communist Party and the Comintern: in March 1924 the
ECCI passed a resolution aimed specifically at Bombacci. In 1926 he
was asked by the party to emigrate; he refused and finally in 1928
was expelled from the party because of his ambiguous attitude toward
fascism. Afterward, his rapprochement with fascism went all the
30 0 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
way: he remained loyal to Mussolini even when fascism was over

thrown in Rome in 1943, served as a leader of Mussolini’s “Social
Republic,” and was fatally shot on April 28, 1945, in Dongo, where
Mussolini was hanged on the same day.
H einrich B randler . Born in 1881, a construction worker by

trade, he was active in the German Social Democratic and trade-
union movements before 1914, took a leftist stand during the war,
and was the organizer of the Communist party in Chemnitz imme
diately after the German Communist Party was founded. He was
elected to the central committee in 1920, identified himself with the
anti-Levi group formed by Radek in early 1921, and was Levi’s suc
cessor as president of the German Communist Party, only to be
arrested shortly thereafter as a result of the “March action” in April
1921. Thrown into jail and convicted, he was named one of the
honorary presidents in absentia of the Third Comintern Congress.
After his release, he left for Moscow at the end of 1921 as a repre
sentative of the German Communist Party and was elected a member
of the Presidium of the Executive Committee in March 1922, at the
close of the First Enlarged Plenum of the Comintern. He returned to
Germany in August 1922 and became political secretary of the Ger
man party’s central committee. He remained titular head of the
German Communist Party until after the abortive insurrection of
autumn 1923, the failure of which the Comintern leadership decided
to blame on Brandler, Radek and Thalheimer. Brandler was stripped
of all his functions, and called to Moscow, where he was given the
opportunity to address the Fifth Comintern Congress. He then was
retained in Moscow, together with Thalheimer, as an official of the
Comintern’s central apparatus. He was a target of Comintern attacks
at the Fifth Plenum in 1925 and the Seventh Plenum in 1926, but
was not excluded from the German Communist Party until 1929.
A ntonio G raziadei (1873-1953). Professor of political

economy, deputy of the Italian Socialist party, he belonged to the
right wing of that party until the outbreak of the First World War. In
the wake of the October Revolution, he went along with his party in
joining the Comintern. He was a member of his party delegation and
a speaker at the Second Comintern Congress in 1920. He was one of
the men entrusted by Moscow with the task of creating a Communist
and anti-Serrati group.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 301
Graziadei was closely linked with the splitting operation which

took place at the Leghorn congress, although he did not become one
of the fifteen members of the central committee elected when the
Italian Communist Party was constituted. At the party congress in
Rome in March 1922, he again did not number among the members
of the central committee. He did, however, participate in the delega
tion sent to the Fourth Comintern Congress, where he was one of the
speakers. He was criticized for relapsing into rightist deviation, par
ticularly in his analysis of the Comintern’s tactical instructions re
garding the workers’s government. This tactical revisionism was
added to his theoretical revisionism; in his writings, Grazaidei pro
posed revising certain basic Marxist concepts, such as the theory of
value. He was excluded from the Italian Communist Party in 1929.
Later, however, he made his “self-criticism” and was readmitted to
the Party. He remained a member until his death.
C hristo K abakchiev (1878-1940). A militant of the Bul

garian Socialist party from early youth, Kabakchiev came into con
tact with Socialist ideas and leaders in Europe as a student in
Geneva. When the Bulgarian Social Democratic party split up, he
became a leader of the “Tesniaks” (narrow ones) and served as a
member of the central committee, editor-in-chief of the party organ,
and deputy in parliament.
He joined the Comintern along with all the other “Tesniaks,”
and attended the Second Comintern Congress in 1920 in Moscow,
where he presented the report on the statutes of the Communist Inter
national. In October 1920 he was a member of the Comintern delega
tion at the Halle congress of the German Independent Socialist party,
and in January 1921 he was the Comintern spokesman at the Leg
horn congress. In November 1922, at the Fourth Comintern Con
gress, he was one of the three reporters on the program of the
Communist International. In January 1923 he became political sec
retary of the Bulgarian Communist Party. He was arrested im
mediately after the September 1923 insurrection. Released in 1926,
he became a political refugee and remained in this status for the rest
of his life. After a brief stay in Vienna, he returned to Moscow,
where he was first active as a member of the International Control
Commission, to which he had been elected in absentia during the
Fifth Comintern Congress in 1924. He then held a professorship at
the Lenin School and was a “scientific worker” at the Marx-Engels-
302 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Lenin Institute, the Historical Institute, and elsewhere. His book on

the birth and development of the Comintern, published on the
occasion of the organization’s tenth anniversary, dates from this
period. In 1937, at the time of the “big purge,” he was thrown into
prison once more, but escaped a prolonged prison term only to fall
seriously ill in 1938.
Wilhelm K oenen (1886-1963). Starting out as a member
of the German Social Democratic party, Wilhelm Koenen (not to be
confused with his brother Bernard Koenen, who was also a high
Party and Comintern official) joined the Independent Socialist party
in 1917 and became a member of the German Communist Party’s
central committee at the time of the fusion of the Communist-
Spartakists with the left wing of the Independent Socialists. Early in
1921, he went to Moscow as a representative of the new anti-Levi
majority, became one of the presidents of the Third Comintern Con
gress and was even promoted to membership in the “Little Bureau”
(the future Presidium) of the ECCI before the opening of the con
gress. After the Third Congress, he was named a member of the Inter
national Control Commission, but soon thereafter was dropped as a
member of the German party’s central committee. He reappeared
later, in 1927, as a Communist deputy at the Reichstag. Koenen
emigrated from Hitler Germany, reached London via Prague and
Paris, and took part in the activities of the Communist emigration
(such as the 1937 appeal for a German popular front which he
signed for the German Communist Party). He returned to East Ger
many in 1945 and held various posts, serving at the same time as
member of the central committee of the Socialist Unity party.
B ela K un (1886—1939). Born in a small town in Transyl
vania, Kun was attracted to Socialist ideas early in his youth, became
a Socialist while studying law, and continued his Socialist militancy
until the outbreak of the First World War, when he was mobilized
and sent to the Russian front. He had attained the rank of junior
lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian army when he was captured and
interned in a camp near Tomsk. After the Revolution of February
1917, he got in touch with a nearby Bolshevik organization, and
after the Bolshevik victory in Petrograd he went there, became per
sonally acquainted with Lenin and other revolutionary leaders and
was put in charge of organizing foreign communists (mostly former
prisoners of war) who espoused the Bolshevik cause. In March 1918
he founded the Hungarian Federation attached to the Russian Bol

shevik party and was elected its president; a month later he was pro
moted to chairmanship of the Confederation of Foreign Communist
Groups with the Bolshevik party. He also took an active part in a
Bolshevik action to crush a mutiny of Socialist-Revolutionaries in
Moscow in the summer of 1918.
In November 1918 he returned to Budapest and became head
of the Hungarian Communist Party when it was established on No
vember 25. February 20, 1919, he was arrested together with a
group of Communist leaders. On March 21, however, after a delega
tion of the Hungarian Social Democratic party visited him in prison
and established with him a political accord, Kun was released from
prison and the Hungarian Soviet Republic was proclaimed. Bela Kun
immediately assumed the actual leadership of the Republic, although
he was officially only a people’s commissar of foreign affairs.
The Republic lasted only 133 days. After its collapse Kun
escaped to Austria, where he was interned until the summer of 1920.
He reached the Soviet Union shortly after the conclusion of the
Second Comintern Congress (1920), and in the fall of the same year,
he took part in the liquidation of General Wrangel’s troops in the
Crimea (he distinguished himself by his brutality toward the pris
oners, which provoked protest even among the Russian Bolsheviks).
At the end of February 1921, Kun was co-opted to the Little
Bureau (Presidium) of the ECCI and was sent to Germany where he
was in charge of the famous “March action.” At the Third Comin
tern Congress in the summer of 1921, his behavior in Germany was
severely criticized by Lenin. As a consequence, Kun was dispatched
to work on the regional Bolshevik committee in the Urals. In Feb
ruary 1922, the First Enlarged Plenum of the ECCI was about to
establish a commission of inquiry to examine the accusations against
Kun made by certain Hungarian Communists, but the matter was
dropped.
As early as at the Fourth Comintern Congress, in November
1922, Kun resumed his place in the Comintern hierarchy; he was
chosen as rapporteur on the same point of the agenda— the Fifth
Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Prospects of World
Revolution— as Lenin, Trotsky, and Klara Zetkin. Thereafter, Kun
took an active part in all the congresses and in nearly all the enlarged
plenums of the Comintern from 1924 to 1935. He was at various
times member or deputy member of the ECCI, deputy member of its
Presidium, member of the organizational bureau (Org-Bureau) of

the Comintern, head of the Comintern’s secretariat for the Balkans,
head of the Agitprop section of the Comintern, and speaker on in
numerable occasions at various Comintern meetings (congresses, en
larged plenums, committees, etc.). During the same period he wrote
numerous pamphlets, from the one on Soviet Hungary, published in
1920 under the pseudonym “B. Koloszvary,” to the one on unity of
action which appeared in 1934.
Bela Kun followed faithfully and promptly every turn in Soviet
policies and hailed the downfall of each Soviet leader who lost favor
during that period. He assailed Trotsky from 1924 on, disassociated
himself from Zinoviev after 1926, survived Bukharin, and became a
member of the Stalinist leadership of the Comintern. All this, how
ever, could not save him during the great purge. He was elected a
member of the ECCI at the last Comintern congress in 1935, but in
1937 he was summoned before a Party tribunal composed of his col
leagues (Manuilsky, Dimitrov, Togliatti, etc.) as a prelude to his
delivery into the hands of Stalin’s police. When Kun fell victim on
November 30, 1939, the Second World War had already begun and
the German-Soviet pact was in full force.
He was rehabilitated in an article signed “E. Varga,” published
in Pravda, February 21,1956.
P aul L evi (1883-1930). A lawyer by profession, Levi was

active in the German Social Democratic Party, belonged to the
Spartacus League during the First World War, and came into contact
with Lenin and the Zimmerwald Left during his stays in Switzerland
in 1915-17. He happened to be there at the time that Lenin and
other Russian revolutionaries started out on their journey through
Germany and was among the ten European Socialists International
ists to sign under the assumed name of Paul Hartstein the text under
writing this trip. As a leading member of the Spartacus League in the
final phase of the war, on very close terms with Rosa Luxemburg and
Leo Jogiches, Levi automatically belonged to the central committee
of the German Communist Party from its founding. After Rosa
Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and Leo Jogiches were assassinated,
Levi became the effective head of the party and was in charge of the
German delegation to the Second Congress of the Comintern in
July-August, 1920. At this congress he was a member of the Pres
idium and was elected a substitute member of the Executive Com
mittee. At the congress of October 1920 at Halle, where the fusion of

the left wing of the Independent Socialist party and the German Com
munist Party took place, he was elected one of the two presidents of
the unified party.
Having inherited Rosa Luxemburg’s and Leo Jogiches’ ideas—
including their distrust of Bolshevik methods of operation— he soon
came into conflict with Moscow on a series of issues. The breaking
point came in the wake of the “March action” of 1921, of which he
strongly disapproved. On April 15, 1921, the Zentrale of the Ger
man Communist Party expelled Levi from the Party, and eleven days
later the ECCI’s confirmation of that decision finally put Levi out of
every connection with the Comintern.
At first, he and his political friends formed a Communist opposi
tion group; he then joined the Independent Socialist party (the group
which had refused to become part of the German Communist Party in
1920); and finally, along with the Independent Socialists, he re
joined the German Social Democratic party. He was a parliamentary
deputy from 1920 on (he and Klara Zetkin had been elected that
year, the only two Communist deputies to the Reichstag), and re
tained his mandate as a Social Democrat until his death in 1930. As a
member of the left wing of the Social Democratic party, he was one of
the editors of the periodical Der Klassenkampf.
K arl R adek (1885-1939). (His real name was K. Sobel-

sohn; his other pseudonyms: Parabellum, Paul Bremer, A. Stru-
thahn.) Born in L’vov, Galicia, Radek took part from his early youth
in the Socialist movement, first within the Social Democratic party of
Poland and Lithuania, then in the German Socialist party, and finally
in the Russian revolutionary movement. He was a political journalist
and a gifted analyst and polemicist, but became a target of political
and moral attacks in all three of these workers’ movements. When he
was expelled in 1912 from the Social Democratic party of Poland and
Lithuania following an internal split, he was accused of having mis
managed the funds of the party. In 1913, at the Yena Congress, the
German Socialists also denounced him; his case ultimately was
brought before a special committee composed of different factions of
Russian Social Democracy which met in Paris (Lenin himself in a
letter published for the first time in 1930 confirmed this fact).
In Switzerland, where he lived after the outbreak of the First
World War, Radek adopted an internationalist attitude and took part
in the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences. At this time he joined

the Zimmerwald Left, although he did not adhere to the Bolshevik
party until 1917. Because the Provisional Government (established
after the Russian revolution of February 1917) refused to grant him
permission to enter Russia, Radek established himself in Stockholm
as a member of the foreign delegation of the Bolshevik central com
mittee. He went to Petrograd after the Bolshevik victory early in
1918 and entered the commissariat of foreign affairs dealing with
Central Europe. He joined the left-wing Communists during discus
sions concerning the conclusion of Brest-Litovsk peace treaty.
Shortly after the November 1918 revolution in Germany,
Radek entered Germany clandestinely and took part in the congress
at which the German Communist Party (Spartakists) was founded,
late in December 1918. After the revolutionary days of January
1919, a warrant for his arrest was issued by the police. He was appre
hended in February and held first in prison, then under house arrest
(first in the home of a baron and then in the house of a policeman)
before being deported to the Soviet Union in January 1920.
In March 1919 he had been appointed in absentia to the central
committee of the Russian Bolshevik party, and after his return from
Germany he was named secretary of the Executive Committee of the
Comintern. From that time until the beginning of 1924, Radek
occupied a prominent place in the Comintern hierarchy— partic
ularly in his role as its representative in charge of affairs of the Ger
man Communist Party, which was the most important section of the
Comintern. He was speaker and rapporteur at the Second, Third, and
Fourth Comintern congresses and at the first three enlarged plenums.
In April 1922, with Bukharin, he headed the Comintern delegation
during negotiations with the Socialist internationals in Berlin.
In October 1923, Radek was representative of the Comintern
during the unsuccessful attempt to provoke a revolution in Germany.
Since he opted for Trotsky at the beginning of Kremlin’s internal
strife, Radek was accused by the “troika” (Zinoviev, Kamenev,
Stalin) of failure in his mission in Germany and of “rightist devia
tion.” At the beginning of 1924 he lost at the same time his high
function within the Comintern and his post in the Bolshevik central
committee.
In 1926 he became rector of the Sun Yat-sen Communist Uni
versity for Chinese and other Oriental students in Moscow, but was
dismissed from that post a year later. At the Fifteenth Congress of the
Bolshevik Party in December 1927, he was expelled from the Party;
in January 1928, he was deported (Trotsky was deported at the same

tim e). In 1929, however, he broke with Trotsky, made public his self
criticism, and was readmitted to the Bolshevik Party in 1930. Al
though he was not reinstated into high Comintern or Party positions,
he did become chief foreign affairs commentator in the leading Soviet
papers. In 1935 he was a member of the commission charged with the
preparation of a new, “Stalinist,” constitution, and at the beginning
of 1936 he publicly approved the preparations for the first trial of
Zinoviev and Kamenev. But in the same year he again was expelled
from the Party, and in January 1937 he appeared among the defend
ants charged with adherence to the “Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Center”
at the second Great Purge Trial. There he played the role assigned to
him by Stalin and Vyshinsky: he incriminated Marshal Tukhachev-
sky, who was arrested soon afterward and executed in June 1937. Of
the group of seventeen accused in the trial of the “Anti-Soviet Trot
skyite Center,” thirteen were sentenced to death and executed.
Radek, however, received a relatively mild sentence: ten years in
prison, where he died in 1939.
Radek was the author of numerous pamphlets. His articles on
the Comintern were published in two volumes entitled Piat’ Let
Cominterna, and his articles on the German Communist movement
appeared in three volumes entitled Gennanskaia Revoliutsia.
M atyas R akosi. Born in 1892, Rakosi joined the Socialist

youth movement in 1911 and studied in Budapest, and in Germany
and England. He was mobilized in 1914, captured on the Russian
front, and imprisoned until 1917. In autumn 1917, he was among a
group of Hungarian prisoners of war who, under Bela Kun’s leader
ship, rallied to Bolshevism. At the beginning of 1918 he returned to
Hungary. After that country had been proclaimed a Soviet republic,
he was named assistant commissar for commerce and communica
tions, and later commissar for production.
When the Soviet Republic collapsed, Rakosi followed Bela Kun
into exile in Vienna, and from there reached Moscow. He attended
the Second, Third, and Fourth congresses of the Communist Inter
national. At the Third Congress, in 1921, and the Fourth Congress
in 1922, he was named to the secretariat of the Communist Inter
national’s Executive Committee. On one of his several trips as a
Comintern emissary, he attended the Leghorn congress of 1921 in
Italy, at which the Italian Communist Party was constituted.
In 1925, on orders from Moscow, Rakosi was sent to Hungary
to reorganize the Communist party which had been outlawed in

1919. In Hungary he was arrested in September 1925 and con
demned to nine years of prison; on the eve of his release he was sen
tenced once more— this time for life. The Communist International
thereupon turned Rakosi into one of the heroes of the world prole
tariat, alongside Dimitrov. The Hungarian Communist batallion in
the International Brigades in Spain carried his name. In 1940, how
ever (at the time of the Hitler-Stalin pact), he was exchanged for
some old Hungarian flags dating back to the Revolution of 1848,
which the Soviets handed over to the Hungarian government.
From 1940 to December 1944, Rakosi, who had become a
Soviet citizen, resided in the USSR. His signature appears on the
act of dissolution of the Communist International.
Rakosi was named secretary-general of the central committee of
the Communist party when he returned to Hungary along with the
Soviet troops. Subsequently, on November 15, 1945, he became vice
president of the government, and in that capacity he accompanied
the prime minister, Ferenc Nagy, on his visit to the United States in
1946. Rakosi attended the second and third meetings of the Comin-
form in 1948 and 1949. He also was head of his party’s delegation at
the Nineteenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party in 1952.
On August 14, 1952, he became head of the Hungarian government,
a post he retained until July 4, 1953, when he turned over the pres
idency to Imre Nagy in line with the principle of “collective leader
ship” newly proclaimed in Moscow. He did, however, retain his
position in the secretariat of the central committee, and he was re
elected to this post at the third congress of the Hungarian Communist
Party in 1954. On July 18, 1956, after a trip to Moscow, he resigned
as party secretary. His resignation was understood to be a gesture to
appease popular dissatisfaction with his rule. After the Hungarian
October 1956 revolution, Rakosi took up permanent residence in the
Soviet Union. On August 19, 1962, he was expelled from the Hun
garian Socialist Workers’ (Communist) party on the ground that he
was chiefly responsible for “the unlawful trials conducted in the
years of the personality cult against personages of the workers’ move
ment on trumped-up accusations.”
O tto R uhle . Born in 1874, Riihle was a political and literary

figure first active in the German Social Democratic party. He was
elected a deputy in 1912, and was the second deputy (after Karl
Liebknecht) to vote against military credits in the Reichstag. He

joined the German Communist Party early in 1919, soon opted for its
left wing, and became one of the founders of the Kommunistische
Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (KAPD) after the Heidelberg congress
of the German Communist Party in October 1919. In 1920, he made
a trip to Moscow in the name of the KAPD and took part in the
Second Comintern Congress. He maintained, however, a critical at
titude toward Moscow’s policies, especially in regard to German
problems. In 1921 Riihle came into conflict with the KAPD leader
ship because of his opposition to rigidity in the organization of the
party. Later he devoted his time and interest to research in pedagogy
and history and published a well-known biography of Marx. Riihle
escaped to Mexico after Hitler’s rise to power. He died there during
the Second World War, and his widow committed suicide a few hours
after his death.
G iacinto M enotti Serrati (1874-1926). A militant

Socialist from his youth, Serrati became one of the leaders of the
“Maximalist” left wing of the Socialist party during the First World
War. In 1915 he became editor-in-chief of the party organ Avanti
and was a delegate of his party to the international Zimmerwald and
Kienthal conferences. Arrested in 1917 on charges of “anti-mil
itarist propaganda,” he then became an ardent proponent of his
party’s withdrawal from the Second International and of its joining
the Third International in 1919. At the Second Congress of the Com
intern, July-August 1920, he was elected a member of the Executive
Committee and served on the Presidium. From the start, however, he
expressed such disagreement with certain ideas and methods of the
Russian Bolsheviks in the Comintern administration that by the
autumn of 1920 he had become the object of a full-scale attack in
which Lenin and Zinoviev personally participated.
At the Socialist congress in Leghorn, in January 1921, when
the Italian party split into three factions, the largest portion of the
members remained loyal to Serrati. The Serrati group refused to join
either the Second or the Second-and-a-Half International, in order
to leave open the way for a reconciliation with the Communists which
was accomplished in the period between the Fourth Congress (which
he attended) and the Fifth Congress of the Comintern. He joined
the Communist party, was appointed to its central committee, and
remained an active member of the Party until his death.
K lara Zetkin (1857-1933) was bora in a village in Saxony,

daughter of a schoolteacher. Attracted to Socialist ideas in her youth,
she married a Russian revolutionary, Ossip Zetkin. During the
period of illegality of the German Socialist party, she lived abroad
and took part in the Socialist movements of France, Austria and
Italy. She was well acquainted with Engels and participated in the
preparation and work of the founding congress of the Second Inter
national in Paris in 1889. She attended all congresses of the Inter
national before 1914, and belonged to its left wing. In March 1915,
she organized in Bern an international Socialist women’s conference
against the war. On her return to Germany she was arrested and
briefly imprisoned. In later phases of the war she was militant in both
the Spartacus League and the Independent Social Democratic party.
In 1919 she joined the German Communist Party and was elected a
member of its central committee, a post she held until the end of her
life. On several occasions, however, she was close to those in the
German party who were critical of Moscow’s leadership of the Com
intern (she agreed initially with Paul Levi’s attitude), but she never
decided to break officially.
Klara Zetkin was elected delegate of the German party at the
Second Comintern Congress but reached the Soviet Union for the
first time in September 1920. Beginning with the Third Comintern
Congress, she was a member of the ECCI and of its Presidium. She
also headed the international women’s secretariat of the Comintern
and was active for many years in the organization of the Inter
national Worker’s Red Aid.
From 1920 on, Klara Zetkin was a Communist deputy in the
Reichstag. In August 1932, while living in Moscow, she fell gravely
ill, but recovered enough strength to return to Berlin to open the
session of the newly elected Reichstag, in which she was the oldest
deputy. She died on an estate near Moscow on June 30,1933. She had
received highest Soviet decorations, and the urn with her ashes is
immured within the Kremlin wall.

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Paul Levi and Moscow

E ditors’ I ntroduction — Paul Levi, president of the German Com­

The following two confidential documents, published for the

REPORT OF COMRADE LEVI TO THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE

E ditors’ I ntroduction — Like any political organization, the Com­

creetly by a parenthetical remark that “this had also happened to

Graziadei had jumped to their feet and— I presume this is an Italian

with which they actually agreed in principle. This method, of course,

exclusively against Serrati. This fact aroused extremely bad feeling in

and it would be fatal if at such a time struggles and differences should

rally. In this Serrati is clearly and obviously speculating on the inner

This controversy behind closed doors between Levi, the leader

Levi was a skeptical intellectual with strong artistic interests; Radek

Session of the Zentrale with the Representative of the

After a lengthy debate on whether or not a concrete discussion

C om rade M ax:I believe that we pay too little attention to con­

elusion shows that it is not his assessment which is different. If revolu­

Party was destroyed”; and if in reply to my question “How do you

P aul L e v i : My letter contains a very concrete question: Does

carried out in Heidelberg9 without insults. The organizational

role. They are an important factor, but their significance is not as

as they do, it is the Executive’s duty to take the consequences and

national will not be able to exert such a strong influence because

K o en en : I think that there are no further disagreements regard­

C omrade M ax : I only wish to reply to the question whether in

B randler : I do not share either Max’s or Levi’s point of view.

With Comrade Max’s consent, it was decided to inform the joint

To make the preceding documents more meaningful, the editors have

N icola B ombacci. Schoolteacher, secretary of the chamber of

way: he remained loyal to Mussolini even when fascism was over­

H einrich B randler . Born in 1881, a construction worker by

A ntonio G raziadei (1873-1953). Professor of political

Graziadei was closely linked with the splitting operation which

C hristo K abakchiev (1878-1940). A militant of the Bul­

Lenin Institute, the Historical Institute, and elsewhere. His book on

he founded the Hungarian Federation attached to the Russian Bol­

Presidium, member of the organizational bureau (Org-Bureau) of

P aul L evi (1883-1930). A lawyer by profession, Levi was

mittee. At the congress of October 1920 at Halle, where the fusion of

K arl R adek (1885-1939). (His real name was K. Sobel-

in the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences. At this time he joined

in January 1928, he was deported (Trotsky was deported at the same

M atyas R akosi. Born in 1892, Rakosi joined the Socialist

to reorganize the Communist party which had been outlawed in

O tto R uhle . Born in 1874, Riihle was a political and literary

Liebknecht) to vote against military credits in the Reichstag. He

G iacinto M enotti Serrati (1874-1926). A militant

K lara Zetkin (1857-1933) was bora in a village in Saxony,

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E ditors’ I ntroduction — Paul Levi, president of the German Com

E ditors’ I ntroduction — Like any political organization, the Com

C om rade M ax:I believe that we pay too little attention to con

elusion shows that it is not his assessment which is different. If revolu

K o en en : I think that there are no further disagreements regard

way: he remained loyal to Mussolini even when fascism was over

C hristo K abakchiev (1878-1940). A militant of the Bul

he founded the Hungarian Federation attached to the Russian Bol