Clara Zetkin

Fraternal Greetings from Clara Zetkin


Source: Communist Unity Convention: Official Report
Date: September 1920
Publisher: Communist Party of Great Britain
Transcription/Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2006). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.


Dear Comrades,—

To our thanks for your kind invitation we join our congratulations on the progress achieved in bringing about this very important Congress. We are sorry not to be able to send a fraternal delegate, but the political situation is so loaded up with the elements of conflicts, above all is so rich in tasks and duties which are imposed on us by the struggle in which we are engaged, that the Party cannot spare anyone for any length of time, at least, for the present.

Yet, dear comrades, we are aware of the very great importance of your Congress, which is to give to the growing revolutionary movement of the British working class a leading Communist Party, whose force will be unity of action, based on and guaranteed by a unity of principle, tactics and organisation. Such a Party will have the consciousness and the power to use all weapons in the hands of the proletariat—parliamentarism included—as revolutionary means for the revolutionary aim, overthrowing capitalist order and building up Communism by Soviet order. And it will largely contribute to bring the Communists into the closest touch and connection with the labouring masses themselves. This Party will realise the revolutionary actions of the labouring masses and can never share the childish ambition to replace such actions by revolutionary trifling. The international political situation makes most urgent the international revolutionary collaboration of Communists in all countries. The Entente Imperialists continue their criminal efforts to crush Communist Soviet Russia by all means. For this purpose they now sustain and arm the rapacious Polish Imperialism. At Spa the counter-revolutionaries of the victorious Entente and of vanquished Germany have come to a fraternal understanding in order to disarm and kill the proletarian revolution in Germany and to re-establish the weakened and crumbling capitalist system by aggravating the exploitation and servitude of the working class people. Against international capitalism and international counter-revolution—international Communism, the Third International, the world revolution. We are quite sure the British Communist Party will be a very strong force in the struggle, while the Third International will have to fight against the counter-revolution all over the world and not least against the Capitalists and Imperialists of Great Britain.

Dear comrades, we trust in the good solid work which the Congress will achieve in this respect. We know by hard experience how great the difficulties are which confront those who wish to constitute a Communist Party, united in principles and tactics. But we have learned to deal with those difficulties and to overcome them. All our Party’s discussions and splits have served to increase the consciousness and power of the Party. We are convinced you will have the same experience. By fighting confusions and illusions we arrived at clearness and strength and succeeded in becoming all the more powerful against our national and international foes.

Our most hearty wishes for the work of the Congress, for the development of the young British Communist Party.

We are, dear friends and comrades, with you in your efforts, with the fighting proletarian class of Great Britain, with the exploited and struggling wage-slaves in all countries. For the world revolution!

Sincerely yours,
For the Communist Party of Germany,
(by order) CLARA ZETKIN.