Socialism, and in turn Communism, are inherently internationalist tendencies. Internationalism, in brief, is the tendency for Communists to view the totality of the proletariat as a single unit, regardless of national or regional origin. While there are many revisionist ideologies that may put forward ideas such as Socialism in one Country – the idea that it is possible for a total communist revolution to happen within a single country and the state itself will wither away within that single territory, it’s simply not the case and misses the point of Communism entirely. The communist progression may be able to begin within the borders of a single country, but to stop the internationalist approach in favor of socialism in one country opens the revolution up to existential threats that are simply not present when taking an internationalist approach.
While internationalism has long been a core tenet of communism, after the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Comintern, this was challenged by the USSR using the concept of Bolshevization. This trend in the Comintern, put forward by Stalin and the Russian Communist Party in the 1920s, stated that, to fully achieve revolution in other states, those state’s communist parties must adopt the bolshevik mode of political organization, in which workplace-based cells must be at the forefront of the party’s organizational structure, with direction from the Russian Communist Party. Communist theorist Amadeo Bordiga, in his speech at the Sixth Enlarged Executive Committee of the Communist International, lays out how this can be detrimental, mainly due to its rigidity. Bordiga explains that this catch-all form of political organization worked especially well in the Russian Revolution, as the fledgling Bourgeoisie was antagonistic to the Tsar, which made workplaces a safer area to organize than anywhere else. This was due to the police being unwelcomed within factories and other workplaces at the time. The circumstances of the Russian Revolution, as Bordiga explains, made this mode of organization especially effective, as the Russian Bourgeoisie did not have real political power before Kerensky’s provisional government. Factory cells had a unique power in this regard, as the bourgeoisie weren’t inclined to work with the tsarist power base to stop the Communists. This, however, was not the case in the vast majority of the world.
Bordiga argues against the blanket proscription of workplace cells, not in that they’re ineffective in all cases, but that they are distinctly effective in societies where the workplace is safe from police presence. This was simply not the case in the developed western states, where the bourgeoisie had either total or extremely high levels of power and police cooperation. Bordiga also railed against the rigid structure of the Comintern, stating that the organization was becoming subordinate to the Russian Communist Party due to it being the only party to achieve revolution during this time.
In contrast, Bordiga explains that the entire structure of the Comintern must be reexamined to achieve socialist revolutions throughout the world. The Comintern was by and large controlled by the Russian Communist Party, which exerted a singular view on revolution onto the wider Comintern by way of denouncements and favoritism. These tactics only bred more and more factions within various communist parties looking to vye for power over their constituent parties, with the Russian Communist Party patronizing one and vilifying the rest. This led to further division between constituent parties, as well as within the parties themselves, instead of creating a unifying movement.
Bordiga instead asserts that the process for revolution must be tailored to the locale where it’s happening. There is no point in using tactics that are uniquely effective in only one state, especially when it was proven to be unfeasible almost everywhere else. This, as Bordiga explains, would allow for more flexibility for both ideas and tactics, which would in turn enable revolutions to flourish. This would, when joined with the self-reflective nature that the Comintern should’ve enacted, allow for factions to be more heard, and in turn, be more unified in their actions. The main issue with factions, as Bordiga explains in Against Ideological Terrorism Within the Party, is that they represent their constituents and not the wider proletariat. If, however, these groups were given the ability to voice their concerns with the wider functioning of the Comintern, there would be a greater chance for unity, as all problems could be addressed instead of being denounced as revisionist. Marxism itself is ever-changing in tactics and approach, but the Comintern of the 1920s was unable to realize this.
Bolshevization marked a wider trend in the Comintern that was started by Stalin, one of Russian bureaucratic control over the international Communist movement. This trend culminated in the proclamation of “socialism in one country” by Stalin, which would mark the end of the Comintern’s communist path. Socialism in one country, quite simply, is the abandonment of the global proletariat for a national faction. While Socialism in one Country is not, in rhetoric, linked to nationalist movements, it certainly leads to them. Bordiga warns in his 1926 letter to Karl Korsch that this line of thinking would lead to a slew of problems for the wider revolution, from counter revolution to internal degradation of the party itself.
The international nature of Communism must be paramount, else the entire movement falls apart to factionalism. We saw this happen with Stalin’s insular focus in dominating the Warsaw Pact as opposed to working in congress with the other so called socialist states. This, along with the deviations from Marxism, such as the complete abandonment of the global proletariat in favor of national ones, would lead to the slow but damning degeneration of the Soviet Union and its allies into State Capitalist failstates.
Simply speaking, the Stalinist states recreated bourgeois dividers in society. By recreating national borders and clear divides in ethnicity, the Soviet Union and its allies would abandon the Communist view that the worker has no homeland, only boundaries placed on them by the bourgeoisie. This would lead to the reemergence of bourgeois interests in parts of the Warsaw Pact that were neglected, such as the Solidarity movement in Poland. Not only that, but real world resource competition would begin as well, as each constituent state of the Warsaw Pact was autonomous in unnecessary ways, while under the thumb of the Kremlin where freedom would matter most.
One of the most important tenets of communist movements has to be unity of party. Section seven of the International Communist Party’s Thesis on Tactics states this. Without a concerted effort to enact a communist revolution, there might as well be no real movement at all. It’s the duty of the party to have a united understanding of Marxism, else everything would factionalize into oblivion. By allowing the difference of opinion to be discussed freely within the party, would-be factions would be heard out instead of dismissed outright for having anything contrary to say.