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[141]
The Eighth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International was held in Moscow, May 18-30, 1927. It discussed the tasks of the Comintern in the struggle against war and the war danger, the
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tasks of the British Communist Party, questions of the Chinese revolution, and other items. J. V. Stalin delivered a speech on "The Revolution in China and the Tasks of the Comintern" at the tenth sitting of the plenum, on May 24. The plenum assessed the international situation, outlined a programme of struggle against the threat of war, and, in connection with Great Britain's severance of diplomatic and trade relations with the U.S.S.R., adopted an appeal "To the Workers and Peasants of the World. To All Oppressed Peoples. To the Soldiers and Sailors." The leaders of the anti-Party Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc took advantage of the sharpened international position of the U.S.S.R. to launch slanderous attacks at the plenum on the leadership of the Comintern and the C.P.S.U.(B.). In a special resolution, the plenum sharply condemned the splitting tactics of the opposition leaders and warned them that if they persisted in their factional struggle they would be expelled from the Executive Committee of the Comintern.
[p.696]
[142] This refers to the appeal entitled "To the Proletarians and Peasants of the World. To All Oppressed Peoples," adopted by the Executive Committee of the Communist International on April 14, 1927. The appeal was published in Pravda, No. 85, April 15, 1927. [p.698]
[143] See Frederick Engels, "Die Bakunisten an der Arbeit," in Der Volksstaat, Nr. 105, 106, 107, 1873. [p.720]