Yang Tailong: Lenin, Roy and the National Colonial Theory Revisited
March 2022 First Published in the Journal of China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong.
Yang Tailong
Abstract : The “Draft Theses on the National and Colonial Question” and “Supplementary Theses on the National and Colonial Question” drafted by Lenin and Roy for the Second Congress of the Communist International laid the foundation for the Marxist theory of national colonies. Although the two are not without contradictions and conflicts in specific content, they not only agree on the issue of supporting the peasant movement, but also complement each other in application. Together, they constitute the theoretical framework and strategic principles of the Communist International in dealing with national issues at different levels of development, such as capitalist countries, colonial countries and regions without industrial proletariat, and colonial countries and regions with industrial proletariat. They not only laid the cause of the contradiction between the land revolution and the united front during the Chinese Revolution, but also implied the choice.
Keywords : Lenin; Roy; national colonial theory;
The basic principles of the Communist International’s guidance of the national revolutions in colonial and semi-colonial countries were based on Lenin’s theory of national colonies. This theory has far-reaching influence and great significance, and has attracted much attention in the academic community. Regarding the specific content of this theory, whether it is based on the documents and reports of the Second Congress of the Communist International or extended to the ideological propositions of Marx, Engels and Lenin, scholars have conducted in-depth and detailed research and interpretation. The “Resolution on the National and Colonial Question” and “Supplementary Theses on the National and Colonial Question” adopted by the Second Congress of the Communist International constitute the basic framework and main content of the theory of national colonies, and determine the overall strategic principles of the Communist International in dealing with the world’s national issues. [ 1 ] The resolution and the supplementary theses were adopted on the basis of the “Draft Theses on the National and Colonial Question” and the “Supplementary Theses on the National and Colonial Question” drafted by Lenin and Roy (hereinafter referred to as the “Draft Theses” and the “Supplementary Theses” respectively). Interestingly, it is a fact recognized by the academic community that there are differences in the views and opinions of Lenin and Roy. In previous studies, there have been various opinions, including denying the differences between the two, emphasizing the differences between the two, supporting Lenin and denying Roy on the basis of acknowledging the differences, and even defining the scope of application of the two as “Near East” and “Far East” respectively. [ 2 ] However, these wise views have not yet touched the root of the problem. Although Lenin and Roy’s views on the colonial issue are different in detail, they are generally similar and each has its own purpose. Correctly understanding and interpreting the strategies of the two on the issue of national colonies is not only the basis for understanding Marxist national colonial theory, but also the key to understanding the root cause of the contradiction between the land revolution and the united front during the Chinese Revolution.
1. Disagreements and Doubts
The “Draft Theses” and “Supplementary Theses” drafted by Lenin and Roy for the Second Congress of the Communist International were not entirely consistent in content and even had conflicting views. This sparked a heated debate at the conference, causing representatives with Eastern and Western tendencies to become barriers to each other. [ 3 ] 122
This also “laid the seeds for the subsequent long-lasting debate within the Communist International.” [ 2 ]
The arguments in the “Supplementary Theses” drafted by Roy were very different from Lenin’s policy proposals on backward countries. The principled differences were mainly reflected in the following two aspects.
First, the importance of the national revolutionary movement of Eastern colonial countries to the Western proletarian revolution. Roy believed that colonies and dependent countries were “one of the main sources of European capitalism’s basic strength” and were indispensable to the European capitalist powers. To this end, Roy used Britain as an example and elaborated on the view that without its vast colonies, “Britain’s capitalist system would have been crushed by its own burden long ago.” At the same time, Roy pointed out that “the extra profits obtained from colonies are the main source of modern capitalist financial resources. Before this source of extra profits is exhausted, it will be difficult for the European working class to overthrow the capitalist system.” [ 4 ] 119
Therefore, “it is impossible to overthrow the European capitalist system without destroying the colonial empire.” [ 5 ] 76 Roy regarded the overthrow of the colonial rule of Western capitalist countries by colonial countries as a necessary prerequisite for the victory of the European proletarian revolution. This view was completely contrary to Lenin’s and even the mainstream view of the Communist International. [ 6 ] 24
For a long period before and after the founding of the Communist International, the liberation of Eastern colonies was regarded as a “by-product” that would come with the victory of the Western proletarian revolution. [ 3 ] 119
Second, should we support the bourgeois national democratic movement in backward countries?
Lenin explicitly advocated that we should support the national revolutionary movement in backward countries. In his Supplementary Theses, Roy pointed out that “in many countries, especially in India, the masses are not with the leaders of bourgeois nationalism”, and that the bourgeois nationalist movement cannot reflect “the feelings and aspirations of the entire population”.
On this basis, Roy criticized Lenin’s strategy of supporting the democratic revolutionary movement in backward countries and denied the idea that “due to economic and industrial backwardness, the people of colonial countries will inevitably go through the stage of bourgeois democracy”. [ 5 ] 74
In Roy’s view, the bourgeois national revolutionary movement in the colonies “has the sole purpose of driving out foreign exploiters and exploiting the working people themselves”. [ 4 ] 128
Therefore, Roy regarded “the democratic movement of bourgeois nationalism” and “the mass struggle of workers and peasants to get rid of all forms of exploitation” as two “far-flung” and even “opposing forces” in colonial countries. [ 4 ] 120-121 [ 5 ] 75
Since the workers’ and peasants’ mass movement and the democratic movement were in opposition to each other, the Communist International should not support the bourgeois democratic movement, but should do its utmost to support the workers’ and peasants’ mass revolutionary movement.
According to Roy’s recollection, during the Second Congress of the Communist International, Lenin discussed the issue of the “Draft Theses” with him, and Roy expressed a different view. Lenin knew that he knew very little about the colonial situation and that the strategy he proposed was mainly “based on theory”, so he suggested that Roy should“draft an alternative theses”. [ 7 ] 393-394
According to Roy’s statement, the reason why the “Draft Theses” and the “Supplementary Theses” showed a principled difference in the strategies for backward countries or colonial countries was that Lenin knew little about colonial countries, while Roy was born in India and had a better understanding of Eastern colonial countries. Therefore, Roy was commissioned by Lenin to draft the “Supplementary Theses”, and the relationship between the two theses was “alternative”.
However, if there is a choice, one should make a choice. The Communist International knew that the “Draft Theses” and the “Supplementary Theses” had many opposing views, but they still passed both documents at the same time without any special explanation, which shows that the two were not actually in a “selective” relationship.
After all, Roy’s statement was a recollection which was made many years later, so it is normal to have some deviations in his memory. Some scholars believe that the cognitive basis of Lenin and Roy’s “Draft Theses” and “Supplementary Theses” was one in the Near East and the other in the Far East, so “Lenin’s strategy of uniting with the bourgeoisie to carry out the national liberation movement” was aimed at “the Near East and the Middle East”, while Roy’s “Supplementary Theses” was mainly aimed at the Far East. [ 2 ] This view means that the relationship between the two is geographically applicable and complementary.
However, although the basis and targets of the draft theses and the supplementary theses were indeed different, neither in the discussion of the conference nor in the relevant documents did they raise the distinction between the Far East and the Near and Middle East.
If the Communist International did have such a distinction between the two regions, it would not have remained silent on such a key issue. In June 1921, Zhang Tailei pointed out in his draft theses to the Third Congress of the Communist International on the Colonial Question: “Comrade Roy’s suggestion that peasants and handicraft workers in economically backward countries in the Near and Middle East should immediately and simultaneously fight on two fronts against imperialism and the bourgeoisie is completely wrong.”[ 4 ] 181-182
The paper seeks to demonstrate that in the early 1920s Zhang Tailei served as the main liaison between the Communist International (CI) and the Chinese Bolsheviks. In March 1921, before the First CCP Congress, he moved to Soviet Russia where he became a secretary of the Chinese section of the CI’s Far Eastern Secretariat.
In June 1921, he became the first Chinese Communist with full voting rights to attend a CI congress and in July of that year a congress of the Young Communist International (YCI). He also was the first Chinese Communist to present a written report on the Chinese Communist movement to the CI and to be elected a member of both the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI) and the Executive Committee of the YCI. In addition, he also was the first Chinese Bolshevik who grasped the meaning of the Comintern’s United Front policy and one of the first who drew close attention to the peasant question in China. He did it under the direct influence of the Soviet leaders. Long before Mao, Zhang also emphasized the role of an army in the Chinese revolution, the one that is created out of bandits, the poorest peasants, paupers, and rural lumpen proletarian elements. In 1927, he led the famous Canton Commune. Thus, Zhang’s contribution to the Chinese revolution and the spread of Bolshevik ideas in China deserves detailed investigation.
This statement reflects that in the eyes of people at the time, Roy’s supplementary theses were not only not aimed at the Far Eastern colonial countries, but were even the opposite.
To answer the question of why the Communist International adopted both the “Draft Theses” and the “Supplementary Theses”, we need not only to fundamentally explore the standpoints and scope of application of the two analyses, and the revisions made by Lenin and others in the Communist International to Roy’s “Supplementary Theses”, but also to consider the contradictory mentality of Marxist revolutionaries on the issue of the attributes of the peasant class.
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