Twenty-one Conditions

The Twenty-one Conditions refer to the conditions given by Lenin to the adhesion of the socialists to the Third International (Comintern) created in 1919 after the 1917 October Revolution. Little was demanded in terms of ideology or strategy; the primary concerns were organizational. Some of these were:

To actively campaign in favor of communist ideas, both in the cities and the countryside
To remove reformists and centrists from positions in the labour movement
To combine legal and illegal methods of struggle, in countries with prohibitive anti-socialist laws
To supervise the activities of any members in parliament
To denounce excessive pacifism and accept that armed struggle is sometimes necessary
To support liberation movements in the colonies
To ensure their affiliated trade unions join the 'red' trade union international rather than the 'yellow' Amsterdam one.
To organise on the basis of democratic centralism
To support all existing Soviet republics
To revise its party program by including the general policies of the International
To accept all decisions of the Comintern as binding
To expel all members who voted against any of the 21 conditions (or, if the majority of their party voted against them, to resign and form a new party)
To take the name 'Communist Party'

During the December 1920 Tours Congress of the French SFIO, the 21 conditions were rejected although the majority, led by Fernand Loriot, Boris Souvarine, Marcel Cachin, and Ludovic Frossard, adhered to the Third International, creating the Section française de l'Internationale communiste (SFIC), which would later take the name of the French Communist Party (PCF).

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