Congress of the Peoples of the East

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The Chairman of the Comintern Zinoviev

The Congress of the Peoples of the East was a multiliteral congress held in Baku in September 1920 . The congress, which was organized by the Communist International (Comintern), was attended by around 1900 delegates from countries in Asia and Europe.

background

Based on the resolutions of the Second World Congress of the Comintern in July / August 1920 , the invitation to the Congress in Baku was published in The Communist International , the Comintern's monthly magazine. The call to the congress was signed by Comintern chairman Grigory Zinoviev and 25 other members of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. The meeting was announced as a congress of workers and peasants and a call was made to avoid any effort to appear at the congress so that as many people as possible could be present. The original start date of the Congress was set for August 15, but was postponed to September 1 shortly after the announcement.

The congress presented the organizers with great logistical challenges. The infrastructure of the region was largely destroyed after the Russian Civil War, so that the transport of many people was difficult. Many participants traveled from the World Congress of the Comintern in Moscow directly to Baku for the Congress of the Peoples of the East. In order to be able to transport these people, a train was put together for the occasion to bring the delegates from Moscow to Baku. In addition, at the time of the Congress, Soviet Russia was the subject of a British blockade . The British wanted to prevent the delegates from traveling to Baku by all means, so that this became a dangerous business. Two deaths and many injuries occurred when British fighter jets attacked a ship carrying delegates from Iran across the Caspian Sea to Baku. The journey across the Black Sea was also made difficult by patrolling British warships .

Despite the dangerous journey, almost 1900 delegates met in Baku on September 1, 1920, making the Congress of the Peoples of the East the largest event to date that the Comintern had hosted in its young history.

aims

The slogan of the congress was " Workers of all countries and oppressed peoples, unite!". The goals were to support national movements in colonized states and to strengthen the international labor movement .

Delegates

In 1891 delegates took part in the congress, of which almost 1300 were registered as "Communists". In addition, there were Marxist revolutionaries who fought for the independence of colonies under communist leadership.

The extremely heterogeneous composition of the delegates made the organization of the congress difficult. Because of the many different languages, many translators were required and there was tension between representatives of different ethnic groups .

Delegates by ethnicity

A survey among the delegates revealed the following composition of the participants at the congress:

Ethnicity / group Number of delegates
Turks 235
Persian 192
Armenians 157
Russians 104
Georgians 100
Chechens 82
Tajiks 61
Kyrgyz 47
Jews 41
Turkmen 35
Kumyks 33
Greed 25th
Ossetians 17th
Uzbeks 15th
In the 14th
Ingush 13
Jamshidi 12
Hazara 11
Sart 10
Cabardines 9
Chinese 8th
Kurds 8th
Avars 7th
Poland 5
German 3
Hungary 3
Kalmyks 3
Korean 3
Arabs 3
Tekintsy 2
Abkhazians 2
Bashkirs 1
Ukrainians 1
Croatians 1
Czechs 1
Latvians 1
Not specified 266
Not asked > 100

The majority of the Congress was attended by men, 55 female delegates were present.

Prominent participants

The congress was attended by prominent communists:

course

The congress was divided into several parts. After the grand opening on September 1, there were seven meetings within eight days:

An orchestra at the Congress of the Peoples of the East

opening

The opening ceremony began on September 1, 1920 at 1:30 am. The communist celebrities were given a solemn reception. An orchestra played Die Internationale , the battle song of the international labor movement. Nariman Narimanov from the Azerbaijani Communist Party gave a speech at the opening of the congress . Grigory Zinoviev then formulated the basic ideological ideas of the Congress in his speech. Karl Radek and Bela Kun also gave longer speeches. Shorter speeches were also given by Tom Quelch , a communist activist from Great Britain, Alfred Rosmer, a leading figure in the French Communist Party, John Reed, the founder of the United States Communist Party, and Karl Steinhardt , co-founder of the Austrian Communist Party.

First session

The first session was opened on September 1st by Nariman Narimanov. First, the existence of communist parties and groups around the world was established and their representatives, who were present at the congress, were introduced. Zinoviev was elected Chairman of the Congress, and Lenin , Trotsky and Zinoviev were named "Honorary Chairmen." Then Zinoviev gave a detailed speech on the subjects of communism worldwide, the importance of Congress, decolonization and the so-called Second World. He also highlighted the special importance of the Indian and Chinese communist movements and called for the proclamation of a holy war against the Anglo-French capitalists . His speech was greeted with applause. Then translations into Persian and Turkish were read out.

Second session

The session began with a speech by Karl Radek, who read a report on the situation of the working class in the East. He called for the cooperation of all communist groups and stoked hatred of capitalism. He saw the difference between British and German capitalism as the reason for the outbreak of the First World War and the resulting suffering of the working class . He also drew attention to the enormous economic weakness of the capitalist countries of the West and declared all victorious capitalist countries with the exception of the USA to be losers of the war. He subsequently expressed his support for the uprisings of the working class against the colonial rulers in their countries and stressed the need for a holy war against capitalism, especially British capitalism. In his final sentence he called for the creation of a new civilization out of the communist east and the workers of Europe under the banner of communism. After a five-minute break, the speech was translated into Turkish and Uzbek . This was followed by a speech by Buniat-Zade of the Communist Party. He went into some of the events of the First World War and spoke of the great Russian Revolution . A Turkish delegate then gave a speech about Turkey's role in World War I and the current political orientation of its state. Delegate Gaidarkhanov was the next speaker. He cited several examples of European colonial powers suppressing freedom movements in the east and stated that the peoples of the east had already woken up and would soon free themselves from the yoke of capitalism . This meeting closed shortly after midnight with some organizational announcements.

Third session

The third session of the Congress began with a speech by delegate Narbutabekov, a revolutionary from Turkestan . He supported the idea of ​​the communist revolution in colonized countries and explained the situation in Turkestan. Delegate Korkmasov gave another speech on the fight against capitalism in the North Caucasus .

Fourth session

At the beginning of the fourth session, the timetable for the further work of the congress was announced. Tom Quelch, who attended Congress as a delegate from the British Communist Party, then gave a speech. In this he called the British capitalists enemies of the British working class and the oppressed peoples of the East . He criticized British imperialism and cited Ireland as an example of the negative consequences of British rule. Quelch praised the Congress, as it proved from his point of view that the peoples of the East are fighting on the side of the Soviet Union for the liberation of humanity. At the end of his speech he demanded: "Down with capitalism, long live the Soviet Union!". The speech Quelch gave in English was translated into Turkish, Russian, and Persian. The next speaker to take the stage was Alfred Rosmer, a French delegate. At the beginning of his speech, which he gave in French , he greeted Congress on behalf of French workers and peasants. He denounced what, from his point of view, were false promises that the capitalist powers had made before World War I and called for an end to the oppression of entire peoples. At the end of his speech he called on the delegates to raise the banner of the revolution and to start the holy war against capitalism. The next speaker was Fazli Kadyr from India . He stated that Indian society was suffering from British colonial rule and was hoping for help from the Soviet Union to end the oppression. A letter from the Communist Federation of the Balkans, signed by the Bulgarian , Yugoslav , Romanian and Greek CPs, was then read out . Due to lack of time, the speeches of the delegates from the USA, Spain , Japan , the Netherlands and Austria were not given. Afterwards, two statements were read out by Turkish freedom fighters , in which the role of Turkey in World War I as an ally of the Germans was addressed. Based on the statements read out, Bela Kun read a resolution of the Presidium of the Congress of the Peoples of the East in which the Congress declared its support for the fight against imperialism in Turkey. The resolution was approved by vote. The meeting then closed.

Fifth session

The theme of the fifth session was the question of colonialism and nationalism in the countries of the East. The opening speech on this topic was given by delegate Pavlovich. He condemned the imperialism of Western countries and saw the First World War as a direct result of the rivalry between the great European powers in the colonization of Asian and African states. For him, the oppressed peoples of the East were natural allies of the Soviet Union. Using a few examples from colonial history, he tried to illustrate what he saw as the dire consequences of the colonization of a state. He called on the delegates to the class consciousness out of which the holy war should be waged against the carrion crows of capitalism . After translating Pavlovich's speech, the delegate Mutushev gave a speech. He urged the delegates either to go under on the side of Soviet Russia or to lead a brilliant new life under communist principles by their side. He also referred to Versailles as the center of bourgeois rule and Red Moscow as the center of the communist struggle, the centers of the earth. The last speaker at the meeting was delegate Turar Rysqulov . He accused the European colonial powers of only pursuing colonial policy on paper and not in practice and invoked the connection between the communist East and the European proletariat . He also called for the decisive support of the freedom movement by the Comintern. In doing so, he referred to statements made by Lenin about decolonization . At the end of the session, statements from various communist groups were read out.

Sixth session

The sixth session of the Congress of the Peoples of the East was opened with a speech by the Hungarian revolutionary Bela Kun. Kun described his struggle against capitalism in Hungary and the attempt by major European powers to suppress the labor movement. In his view, the 1917 Russian Revolution created a system that puts power in the hands of the working class, not just through words, but through deeds and destroys the people's enemies. He demanded that the fruits produced by the work of the proletariat should be consumed exclusively by the latter. He put forward six theses on the Soviet influence in the states of Asia and Europe, which formulated the course and goal of a communist revolution. The paper was supported by the delegates without a dissenting vote. As a result, Delegate Skachko made a report on agricultural issues. In the report he described the high status of industrial workers in Europe and, in contrast, the agricultural Asian countries. A paper was also presented on this subject, which comprised three theses, and which the delegates approved without dissenting.

Seventh session

The seventh and final session was opened with a short address from Chairman Zinoviev, who summarized the ideological ideas of the congress and expressed the hope that this congress would not be the last of its kind. The delegates then sang the Internationale. The first speech of the session was given by delegate Rodzhabov, who reported on the progress of the socialist revolution in Bukhara , which had gained momentum during the congress. He described that the red flag of the revolution had already been hoisted in the cities of Bukhara, Karschi , Chardzhui , Khatyrchi and Kerki . After translating his speech, the delegate Shabanova went to the lectern and spoke about the emancipation of women . She put forward the thesis that all socialist efforts would be unsuccessful if women were not emancipated as real workers. She described the exclusion of women from the workforce as inappropriate and inefficient. The Bibinur delegate then gave a speech on the role of women in Turkestan and brought greetings from working women to Congress. After this speech the members of the newly formed Council for Measures and Propaganda in the East were announced. The Council was thus established and the International was re-elected. The delegate Yegiriv then read a statement from the Baku workers. At the end of the seventh session and thus the entire congress, chairman Sonviev held the closing speech, in which he described the congress as successful. He said that the first ringing of the chairman's bells was the grave bells for the bourgeoisie and that the congress was a historically very significant event that had never been done in this form before. He described the last years of the tsarist empire as dark, sad years, but now Russia is the country that was the first in the world to raise the red flag and help people to emancipate themselves. He reported that the Comintern was doing everything possible to remove the weeds from their garden and to clean up their own ranks. He mentioned Karl Marx's saying "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" and extended it to the demand "Proletarians and oppressed peoples from all over the world, unite!". Then the seventh session and the congress ended.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andy Blunden: History of the Communist International. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b taz: Article - LMd. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  3. ^ Seventeen Moments in Soviet History: Congress of the Peoples of the East (1920). March 30, 2014, accessed November 7, 2017 .
  4. ^ Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  5. ^ A b John Riddell: To see the dawn: Baku, 1920 - First Congress of the Peoples of the East . Pathfinder Press, New York, pp. 20th ff .
  6. ^ Congress of the Peoples of the East. Retrieved on November 7, 2017 (German).
  7. ^ Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  8. ^ Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  9. ^ Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  10. ↑ D. BUNIAT-ZADE . ( prabook.com [accessed November 2, 2017]).
  11. ^ Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  12. ^ Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  13. ^ Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  14. ^ Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  15. ^ Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .
  16. ^ Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East. Retrieved November 7, 2017 .