The Third International took the name of Communist International in conformity with that of the Communist Federation which had been headed by Karl Marx. In all its works the Third International shows that it is following in the footsteps of Marx, that it is on the revolutionary road towards the forcible overthrow of the capitalist system. It is not surprising that all who are live, trusty, and revolutionary minded members of the international proletariat are turning more and more eagerly towards the new International, and are joining forces to form the workers’ vanguard.
The very name Communist International suffices to show that the organisation has absolutely nothing in common with the traitors to socialism.
Marx and Engels considered the name “social democrat” unsuitable for the party of the revolutionary proletariat. “Democrat” signifies one who advocates a particular form of rule. But, as we have previously seen, in the society of the future there will be no “State” of any kind. During the transitional period there will have to be a dictatorship of the workers. Those who have betrayed the working class look no farther than a bourgeois republic. We are out for communism.
In the preface to the 1888 edition of the Communist Manifesto, Engels wrote that the name socialist had in 1847, when the manifesto was penned, signified “men outside the working-class movement, and looking rather to the ‘educated’ classes for support”; but communism in 1847 was a working-class movement. We see the same thing to-day. The communists look for support to the rank and file of the workers; the social democrats look for support to the aristocracy of the workers, to the professional classes, to the small shopkeepers, and to the petty bourgeoisie in general.