Adopted at the Sixth World Congress, Moscow, 1 September 1928
Foreword by the Editorial Committee
The Programme of the Communist International was adopted unanimously at the Sixth World Congress on September 1, 1928, after extensive discussion at the Congress itself and in a programme commission that had worked on successive drafts over the preceding years. It remains the foundational programmatic document of the International.
The Programme has been supplemented and in certain respects amended by resolutions adopted at subsequent World Congresses and enlarged plenums of the E.C.C.I. These amendments have addressed, among other questions, the strategy of the united front against fascism, the changed conditions of the colonial and national-liberation struggle following the wave of formal decolonization, the political economy of capitalist restoration in the former socialist states, the ecological crisis as a consequence of capitalist production, and the transformation of the global working class under conditions of deindustrialization, financialization, and mass migration.
The foundational analysis of the Programme—its characterization of the epoch as one of imperialism, wars, and proletarian revolutions; its identification of the general crisis of capitalism as a permanent and deepening condition; its analysis of the colonial and national questions; its critique of social democracy as the principal agency of bourgeois influence within the workers’ movement; and its insistence on the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the form of transition to socialism—has not been superseded. Readers of this publication will recognize the Programme’s categories in every editorial, correspondence, and analysis we publish. This is not because we have failed to develop our theory in ninety-eight years. It is because the system the Programme analyzed has not been overthrown, and its fundamental laws of motion remain operative.
The full text is reproduced below in abridged form. Section headings follow the original. Passages of particular relevance to the present period are presented in full; other sections are summarized. The complete text of the 1928 Programme is available in numerous editions and archives.
— Editorial Committee of International Correspondence
Introduction
The epoch of imperialism is the epoch of moribund capitalism. The World War of 1914–1918 and the general crisis of capitalism which it unleashed, being the direct result of the sharp contradictions between the growth of the productive forces of world economy and the national state barriers, showed and proved that the material prerequisites for socialism had already ripened in the womb of capitalist society, that the shell of capitalism had become an intolerable hindrance to the further development of mankind, and that history had brought to the forefront the task of the revolutionary overthrow of the yoke of capitalism.
Imperialism subjects large masses of the proletariat of all countries — from the centers of capitalist might to the most remote corners of the colonial world — to the dictatorship of the finance-capitalist plutocracy. With elemental force, imperialism exposes and accentuates all the contradictions of capitalist society; it carries class oppression to the utmost limits, intensifies to an extraordinary degree the struggle between capitalist states, inevitably gives rise to worldwide imperialist wars that shake the whole prevailing system of relationships to the foundations, and inexorably leads to the world proletarian revolution.
Binding the whole world in chains of finance-capital, forcing its yoke by blood-letting, by the mailed fist and starvation upon the proletariat of all countries, of all nations and races, sharpening to an immeasurable degree the exploitation, oppression, and enslavement of the proletariat and confronting it with the immediate task of conquering power — imperialism creates the necessity for closely uniting the workers of all countries, irrespective of state boundaries and of differences of nationality, culture, language, race, sex, or occupation, in a single international army of the proletariat. Thus, while imperialism develops and completes the process of creating the material prerequisites for socialism, it at the same time musters the army of its own grave-diggers, compelling the proletariat to organize into a militant international workers’ association.
On the other hand, imperialism splits off the best provided-for section of the working class from the main mass of the workers. Bribed and corrupted by imperialism, this upper stratum of the working class constitutes the leading element in the Social-Democratic parties, which has a stake in the imperialist plunder of the colonies and is loyal to “its own” bourgeoisie and “its own” imperialist state.
Basing itself on the experience of the revolutionary labor movement on all continents and of all peoples, the Communist International, in its theoretical and practical work, stands wholly and unreservedly upon the ground of revolutionary Marxism and its further development, Leninism, which is nothing else but Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution.
Advocating and propagating the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels and employing it as the revolutionary method of the cognition of reality, with the view to the revolutionary transformation of this reality, the Communist International wages an active struggle against all forms of bourgeois philosophy and against all forms of theoretical and practical opportunism. Standing on the ground of consistent proletarian class struggle and subordinating the temporary, partial, group, and national interests of the proletariat to its lasting, general, international interests, the Communist International mercilessly exposes all forms of the doctrine of “class peace” that the reformists have accepted from the bourgeoisie.
The Communist International is the only international force that has for its programme the dictatorship of the proletariat and communism, and that openly comes out as the organizer of the international proletarian revolution.
Chapter One: The World System of Capitalism, Its Development and Inevitable Downfall
The Programme’s first chapter traces the development of capitalism from the epoch of industrial capital through the epoch of finance capital (imperialism), analyzing the concentration and centralization of production, the formation of monopolies and trusts, the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, the export of capital to the colonies and semi-colonies, and the division of the world among the great imperialist powers.
It identifies the fundamental contradiction of capitalism as the contradiction between the social character of labor and the private appropriation of its products — a contradiction that expresses itself in the antagonism between the tendency toward the unlimited expansion of production and the restricted purchasing power of the proletarian masses, in crises of overproduction, in unemployment, and in the anarchy of the capitalist system as a whole.
In the epoch of imperialism, the Programme argues, these contradictions are intensified to the breaking point. Monopoly capital tends to retard the further development of the productive forces. The exploitation of the colonies and semi-colonies sharpens the antagonism between the imperialist powers and the oppressed peoples. The labor aristocracy — the upper stratum of the metropolitan working class, bribed by the surplus profits extracted from colonial exploitation — constitutes the social base of reformism and of the Social-Democratic parties, which function as agencies of bourgeois influence within the workers’ movement.
The chapter concludes:
Imperialism has greatly developed the productive forces of world capitalism. It has completed the preparation of all the material prerequisites for the socialist organization of society. By its wars it has demonstrated that the productive forces of world economy, which have outgrown the restricted boundaries of imperialist states, demand the organization of economy on a world, or international, scale. The law of the uneven development of capitalism renders firm and durable international combinations of imperialist powers impossible. Imperialist wars are accompanied by so much destruction and place such burdens upon the shoulders of the working class and of the millions of colonial proletarians and peasants, that capitalism must inevitably perish beneath the blows of the proletarian revolution long before this goal is reached.
Chapter Two: The General Crisis of Capitalism and the First Phase of World Revolution
The second chapter analyzes the consequences of the First World War: the October Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet state, the splitting of world economy into capitalist and socialist sectors, the wave of revolutions and revolutionary actions across Europe and the colonial world, and the subsequent temporary stabilization of capitalism achieved through the suppression of the revolutionary movements, the rationalization of industry, and the intensification of colonial exploitation.
The Programme identifies the general crisis of capitalism as a permanent condition — not a single event but a continuing process in which the contradictions of the system deepen, even during periods of apparent stabilization. Technical progress and rationalization lead to chronic mass unemployment. The absolute deterioration of the condition of the working class becomes a fact even in certain highly developed capitalist countries. The growing competition between imperialist states and the constant menace of war prepare the ground for a new and higher stage of the general crisis and of the world proletarian revolution.
The chapter establishes a framework that the International continues to employ: the distinction between the objective maturation of the revolutionary crisis (the deepening of capitalist contradictions) and the subjective readiness of the proletariat (the development of revolutionary organization, consciousness, and leadership). The crisis of capitalism does not automatically produce revolution. It produces the conditions for revolution. The transformation of conditions into action requires the party.
Chapter Three: The Ultimate Aim of the Communist International — World Communism
The third chapter outlines the communist goal: the abolition of private property in the means of production, the elimination of classes, the withering away of the state as an instrument of class rule, and the establishment of a planned world economy organized for the satisfaction of human needs rather than the accumulation of profit.
The Programme distinguishes between the lower stage of communism (socialism), in which society has only just emerged from capitalism and still bears its economic, ethical, and intellectual birthmarks, and the higher stage, in which the productive forces have developed sufficiently to inscribe on its banner: “From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs.”
Chapter Four: The Period of Transition from Capitalism to Socialism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
This chapter contains the Programme’s analysis of the forms and tasks of proletarian state power.
The transition from the world dictatorship of imperialism to the world dictatorship of the proletariat extends over a long period of proletarian struggles with defeats as well as victories; a period of continuous general crisis in capitalist relationships and the maturing of socialist revolutions; a period of national wars and colonial rebellions which, although not in themselves revolutionary proletarian socialist movements, are nevertheless, objectively, insofar as they undermine the domination of imperialism, constituent parts of the world proletarian revolution; a period in which capitalist and socialist economic and social systems exist side by side in “peaceful” relationships as well as in armed conflict.
The Programme analyzes the dictatorship of the proletariat as a form of state power in which the working class, organized through soviets or comparable mass organizations, exercises direct political authority. It distinguishes proletarian democracy from bourgeois democracy:
Bourgeois democracy, with its formal equality of all citizens before the law, is in reality based on a glaring material and economic inequality of classes. By leaving inviolable, defending, and strengthening the monopoly of the capitalist and landlord classes in the vital means of production, bourgeois democracy, as far as the exploited classes and especially the proletariat is concerned, converts this formal equality before the law and these democratic rights and liberties, which in practice are systematically curtailed, into a juridical fiction and, consequently, into a means for deceiving and enslaving the masses.
The chapter outlines the economic measures of the transitional period: the expropriation of the capitalist class; the nationalization of large-scale industry, transport, and banking; the monopoly of foreign trade; the development of cooperatives among the peasantry; the reduction of the working day; and the repudiation of state debts to foreign and domestic capitalists.
Chapter Five: The Dictatorship of the Proletariat in the U.S.S.R. and the International Social Revolution
[The fifth chapter addresses the specific experience of socialist construction in the Soviet Union and its international significance. Its analysis of Soviet development has been substantially reconsidered in light of subsequent historical experience.]
Chapter Six: The Strategy and Tactics of the Communist International in the Struggle for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
The sixth chapter—the longest in the Programme—addresses the forms of struggle, the types of revolution, the conditions of alliance and opposition, and the ideologies within the working class that impede revolutionary organization.
On the types of revolution, the Programme distinguishes three principal categories according to the level of capitalist development:
In the highly developed capitalist countries with powerful productive forces, a high degree of concentration of production, a relatively insignificant proportion of small-scale enterprise, and a long-established bourgeois-democratic political system—the principal political demand is the direct transition to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In countries of medium capitalist development with semi-feudal agrarian relations—the bourgeois-democratic revolution, rapidly growing over into proletarian revolution.
In colonial and semi-colonial countries and dependent countries, with the rudiments of, and in some cases considerably developed, industry, but in the majority of cases inadequate for independent socialist construction—the central tasks are the fight against feudalism, against pre-capitalist forms of exploitation, and against foreign imperialism, and for national independence.
On social democracy, the Programme is categorical. It identifies social democracy not as a wing of the workers’ movement but as the principal agency through which the bourgeoisie maintains its influence over the proletariat:
In the sphere of theory, Social-Democracy has utterly and completely betrayed Marxism, having traversed the road from revisionism to complete liberal bourgeois reformism and avowed social-imperialism: it has substituted in place of the Marxian theory of the contradictions of capitalism, the bourgeois theory of its harmonious development; it has pigeonholed the theory of crises and of the pauperization of the proletariat; it has turned the flaming and redoubtable theory of class struggle into the mean advocacy of class peace; it has exchanged the theory of growing class antagonisms for the petty-bourgeois fairy-tale about the “democratization” of capital.
On fascism, the Programme identifies it as the terrorist dictatorship of big capital, employing demagogic appeals to the petty bourgeoisie, the lumpenproletariat, and certain strata of the peasantry. It notes that fascism and social democracy are not antithetical but complementary instruments of bourgeois rule, and that the transition from democratic to fascist forms of governance occurs when the democratic form can no longer contain the class struggle within limits acceptable to capital.
[The analysis of fascism in the Programme was substantially developed by the Seventh World Congress in 1935, in Comrade Dimitrov’s report on the fascist offensive and the tasks of the International. The resolution on the united front against fascism adopted at the Seventh Congress supplements the Programme on this question.]
On the united front, the Programme outlines the tactics of temporary alliance with non-revolutionary forces against a common enemy—particularly against fascism and imperialist war—while insisting that such alliances must never compromise the organizational independence of the Communist Parties or the criticism of their temporary allies.
On the colonial and national question, the Programme insists on the right of all nations to self-determination, including the right of separation, while subordinating the national question to the general interests of the proletarian revolution. It distinguishes between the nationalism of oppressor nations (which is reactionary) and the nationalism of oppressed nations (which, insofar as it is directed against imperialism, is objectively a component of the world revolutionary movement). It warns against the treachery of the national bourgeoisie in the colonies and semi-colonies, which, frightened by the revolutionary mass movement, is driven to seek rapprochement with the imperialist powers.
A Note on the Programme and the Present
The Programme was written in 1928. The world it analyzed has been transformed. The colonial empires have been formally dissolved. The Soviet Union, which the Programme treated as the fortress of the world proletariat, no longer exists. The Chinese revolution, the Cuban revolution, the Vietnamese revolution, and the anti-colonial revolutions of Africa produced outcomes the Programme could not have anticipated in all their particulars. The working class itself has changed—in its composition, its geographic distribution, its forms of organization, and the character of its exploitation.
And yet the system the Programme describes—a world economy dominated by finance capital, structured by the antagonism between imperialist states and oppressed nations, generating wars, crises, and mass immiseration as necessary consequences of its own laws of motion—this system has not been replaced. It has developed. It has adapted. It has survived the collapse of the Soviet alternative and the integration of the formerly colonial world into the circuits of global capital. Its contradictions have not diminished. They have intensified and assumed new forms: the ecological destruction of the planetary commons, the financialization of every domain of social life, the concentration of wealth at a scale without historical precedent, and the reappearance of inter-imperialist rivalry in an epoch of nuclear weapons.
The Programme remains in force not because we fetishize old documents. It remains in force because the enemy it identified has not been defeated. When it is defeated, the Programme will become a historical artifact. Until then, it is a weapon.
The Communist International 