Charting New Paths: The Comintern in 1922-1923

In multiple ways then The Communist Movement at a Crossroads is a highly appropriate title for a published collection of Comintern materials from these years.This volume, edited by Mike Taber and translated by John Riddell, is the latest addition to the monumental multi-volume series,"The Communist International Publishing Project," with titles published by Pathfinder Press, Brill, Haymarket and LeftWord Books.1 It consists of proceedings (mostly extensive summaries of speeches) and resolutions from the enlarged meetings of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI), translated primarily from the German versions of the official public record. In an open letter the KPD called upon other socialist parties and trade unions to join it in demanding higher wages, reduced living costs and workers' defense.That summer the Comintern's Third World Congress endorsed the open letter as a model for campaigns that would enable the working class to struggle for its immediate interests.2 Then in December 1921 the First Enlarged Plenum unanimously adopted theses proclaiming that Communist parties of the world must strive everywhere for "unity of [the] masses, as broad and complete as possible, in practical action." The Comintern briefly discussed the issue at the Fourth World Congress in November 1922, shortly after Mussolini's appointment as prime minister. [...]masses in their thousands" streamed to the fascists, who courted them with anti-capitalist demagogy and promises of salvation by a strong, authoritarian state towering above social classes.