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Communist International

February 16, 2024

"Third International" redirects here. For the government proposed by Muammar Gaddafi, see Third International Theory.
For the magazine, see Communist International (magazine).

The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was an international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism, and which was led and controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[3][4][5] The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress in 1920 to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state".[6] The Comintern was preceded by the dissolution of the Second International in 1916.

Communist International
General SecretaryGeorgi Dimitrov
Founders
Founded2 March 1919; 104 years ago (1919-03-02)
Dissolved15 May 1943; 80 years ago (1943-05-15)
Preceded by
Succeeded byCominform
NewspaperCommunist International
Youth wingYoung Communist International
Ideology
Political positionFar-left
AnthemKominternlied/Гимн Коминтерна
The Communist International published a namesake theoretical magazine in a variety of European languages from 1919 to 1943.

The Comintern held seven World Congresses in Moscow between 1919 and 1935. During that period, it also conducted thirteen Enlarged Plenums of its governing Executive Committee, which had much the same function as the somewhat larger and more grandiose Congresses. Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, dissolved the Comintern in 1943 to avoid antagonizing his allies in the later years of World War II, the United States and the United Kingdom. It was succeeded by the Cominform in 1947.

Organizational history edit

Failure of the Second International edit

Differences between the revolutionary and reformist wings of the workers' movement had been increasing for decades, but the outbreak of World War I was the catalyst for their separation. The Triple Alliance comprised two empires, while the Triple Entente was formed by three. Socialists had historically been anti-war and internationalist, fighting against what they perceived as militarist exploitation of the proletariat for bourgeois states. A majority of socialists voted in favor of resolutions for the Second International to call upon the international working class to resist war if it were declared.[7]

But after the beginning of World War I, many European socialist parties announced support for the war effort of their respective nations.[8] Including the British Labour Party who issued a manifesto stating, “the victory of the Germans would mean the death of democracy in Europe”[9] while making no such criticisms of the Russian Tsar. There were exceptions, such as the socialist parties of the Balkans[which?]. To Vladimir Lenin's surprise, even the Social Democratic Party of Germany voted in favor of war. After influential anti-war French Socialist Jean Jaurès was assassinated on 31 July 1914, the socialist parties hardened their support in France for their government of national unity.

Socialist parties in neutral countries mostly supported neutrality, rather than totally opposing the war. On the other hand, during the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference, Lenin, then a Swiss resident refugee, organized an opposition to the "imperialist war" as the Zimmerwald Left, publishing the pamphlet Socialism and War where he called socialists collaborating with their national governments social chauvinists, i.e. socialists in word, but nationalists in deed.[10]

The Second International divided into a revolutionary left-wing, a moderate center-wing, and a more reformist right-wing. Lenin condemned much of the center as "social pacifists" for several reasons, including their vote for war credits[clarification needed] despite publicly opposing the war. Lenin's term "social pacifist" aimed in particular at Ramsay MacDonald, leader of the Independent Labour Party in Britain, who opposed the war on grounds of pacifism but did not actively fight against it.

Discredited by its apathy towards world events, the Second International dissolved in 1916. In 1917, after the February Revolution overthrew the Romanov Dynasty, Lenin published the April Theses which openly supported revolutionary defeatism, where the Bolsheviks hoped that Russia would lose the war so that they could quickly cause a socialist insurrection.[11]

Impact of the Russian Revolution edit

 
The Bolshevik by Boris Kustodiev, 1920

The victory of the Russian Communist Party in the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 was felt throughout the world and an alternative path to power to parliamentary politics was demonstrated. With much of Europe on the verge of economic and political collapse in the aftermath of the carnage of World War I, revolutionary sentiments were widespread. The Russian Bolsheviks headed by Lenin believed that unless socialist revolution swept Europe, they would be crushed by the military might of world capitalism just as the Paris Commune had been crushed by force of arms in 1871. The Bolsheviks believed that this required a new international to foment revolution in Europe and around the world.

First Period of the Comintern edit

During this early period (1919–1924), known as the First Period in Comintern history, with the Bolshevik Revolution under attack in the Russian Civil War and a wave of revolutions across Europe, the Comintern's priority was exporting the October Revolution. Some communist parties had secret military wings. One example is the M-Apparat of the Communist Party of Germany.

The Comintern was involved in the revolutions across Europe in this period, starting with the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. Several hundred agitators and financial aid were sent from the Soviet Union and Lenin was in regular contact with its leader Béla Kun. The next attempt was the March Action in Germany in 1921, including an attempt to dynamite the express train from Halle to Leipzig. After this failed, the Communist Party of Germany expelled its former chairman Paul Levi from the party for publicly criticising the March Action in a pamphlet,[12] which was ratified by the Executive Committee of the Communist International prior to the Third Congress.[13] A new attempt was made at the time of the Ruhr crisis in spring and then again in selected parts of Germany in the autumn of 1923. The Red Army was mobilized, ready to come to the aid of the planned insurrection. Resolute action by the German government cancelled the plans, except due to miscommunication in Hamburg, where 200–300 communists attacked police stations, but were quickly defeated. In 1924, there was a failed coup in Estonia by the Communist Party of Estonia.

Founding Congress edit

Main article: 1st Congress of the Comintern

The Comintern was founded at a Congress held in Moscow on 2–6 March 1919.[14] It opened with a tribute to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, recently murdered by the Freikorps during the Spartacist Uprising,[15] against the backdrop of the Russian Civil War. There were 52 delegates present from 34 parties.[16] They decided to form an Executive Committee with representatives of the most important sections and that other parties joining the International would have their own representatives. The Congress decided that the Executive Committee would elect a five-member bureau to run the daily affairs of the International. However, such a bureau was not formed and Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Christian Rakovsky later delegated the task of managing the International to Grigory Zinoviev as the Chairman of the Executive. Zinoviev was assisted by Angelica Balabanoff, acting as the secretary of the International, Victor L. Kibaltchitch[note 1] and Vladmir Ossipovich Mazin.[18] Lenin, Trotsky and Alexandra Kollontai presented material. The main topic of discussion was the difference between bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat.[19]

The following parties and movements were invited to the Founding Congress:

Of these, the following attended (see list of delegates of the 1st Comintern congress): the communist parties of Russia, Germany, German Austria, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Byelorussia, Estonia, Armenia, the Volga German region; the Swedish Social Democratic Left Party (the opposition), Balkan Revolutionary People's of Russia; Zimmerwald Left Wing of France; the Czech, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, British, French and Swiss Communist Groups; the Dutch Social-Democratic Group; Socialist Propaganda League and the Socialist Labor Party of America; Socialist Workers' Party of China; Korean Workers' Union, Turkestan, Turkish, Georgian, Azerbaijanian and Persian Sections of the Central Bureau of the Eastern People's and the Zimmerwald Commission.[16][note 2]

Zinoviev served as the first Chairman of the Comintern's Executive Committee from 1919 to 1926, but its dominant figure until his death in January 1924 was Lenin, whose strategy for revolution had been laid out in What Is to Be Done? (1902). The central policy of the Comintern under Lenin's leadership was that communist parties should be established across the world to aid the international proletarian revolution. The parties also shared his principle of democratic centralism (freedom of discussion, unity of action), namely that parties would make decisions democratically, but uphold in a disciplined fashion whatever decision was made.[22] In this period, the Comintern was promoted as the general staff of the world revolution.[23]

Second World Congress edit

Main article: 2nd World Congress of the Communist International
 
Second Congress of the Communist International
 
Painting by Boris Kustodiev representing the festival of the Comintern II Congress on the Uritsky Square (former Palace square) in Petrograd

Ahead of the Second Congress of the Communist International, held in July through August 1920, Lenin sent out a number of documents, including his Twenty-one Conditions to all socialist parties. Congress adopted the 21 conditions as prerequisites for any group wanting to become affiliated with the International. The 21 Conditions called for the demarcation between communist parties and other socialist groups[note 3] and instructed the Comintern sections not to trust the legality of the bourgeois states. They also called for the build-up of party organisations along democratic centralist lines in which the party press and parliamentary factions would be under the direct control of the party leadership.

Regarding the political situation in the colonized world, the Second Congress of the Communist International stipulated that a united front should be formed between the proletariat, peasantry, and national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries. Amongst the twenty-one conditions drafted by Lenin ahead of the congress was the 11th thesis which stipulated that all communist parties must support the bourgeois-democratic liberation movements in the colonies. Notably, some of the delegates opposed the idea of an alliance with the bourgeoisie and preferred giving support to communist movements in these countries instead. Their criticism was shared by the Indian revolutionary M. N. Roy, who attended as a delegate of the Mexican Communist Party. The Congress removed the term bourgeois-democratic in what became the 8th condition.[24]

Many European socialist parties were divided because of the adhesion issue. The French Section of the Workers International (SFIO) thus broke away with the 1920 Tours Congress, leading to the creation of the new French Communist Party (initially called French Section of the Communist International – SFIC). The Communist Party of Spain was created in 1920, the Communist Party of Italy was created in 1921, the Belgian Communist Party in September 1921, and so on.

Third World Congress edit

Main article: 3rd World Congress of the Communist International

The Third Congress of the Communist International was held between 22 June–12 July 1921 in Moscow.[25]

Fourth World Congress edit

Main article: 4th World Congress of the Communist International

The Fourth Congress, held in November 1922, at which Trotsky played a prominent role, continued in this vein.[26]

In 1924, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party joined the Comintern.[27] At first, in China both the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang were supported. After the definite break with Chiang Kai-shek in 1927, Joseph Stalin sent personal emissaries to help organize revolts which at this time failed.

The Fourth World Congress was coincidentally held within days of the March on Rome by Benito Mussolini and his PNF in Italy. Karl Radek lamented the proceedings in Italy as the "largest defeat suffered by socialism and communism since the beginning of the period of world revolution", and Zinoviev programmatically announced the similarities between fascism and social democracy, laying the groundwork for the later social fascism theory.[28]

Fifth to Seventh World Congresses: 1925–1935 edit

Second Period edit

 
The Comintern membership card of Karl Kilbom

Lenin died in 1924 and the next year saw a shift in the organization's focus from the immediate activity of world revolution towards a defence of the Soviet state. In that year, Joseph Stalin took power in Moscow and upheld the thesis of socialism in one country, detailed by Nikolai Bukharin in his brochure Can We Build Socialism in One Country in the Absence of the Victory of the West-European Proletariat? (April 1925). The position was finalized as the state policy after Stalin's January 1926 article On the Issues of Leninism. Stalin made the party line clear: "An internationalist is one who is ready to defend the USSR without reservation, without wavering, unconditionally; for the USSR it is the base of the world revolutionary movement, and this revolutionary movement cannot be defended and promoted without defending the USSR".[29]

According to Russian historian Vadim Rogovin, the leadership of the German Communist party had requested that Moscow send Leon Trotsky to Germany to direct the 1923 insurrection. However, this proposal was rejected by the Politburo which was controlled by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev who decided to send a commission of lower-ranking Russian Communist party members.[30]

The dream of a world revolution was abandoned after the failures of the Spartacist uprising in Germany and of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the failure of all revolutionary movements in Europe such as in Italy, where the fascist squadristi broke the strikes during the Biennio Rosso and quickly assumed power following the 1922 March on Rome. This period up to 1928 was known as the Second Period, mirroring the shift in the Soviet Union from war communism to the New Economic Policy.[31]

At the Fifth World Congress of the Comintern in July 1924, Zinoviev condemned both Marxist philosopher Georg Lukács's History and Class Consciousness, published in 1923 after his involvement in Béla Kun's Hungarian Soviet Republic, and Karl Korsch's Marxism and Philosophy. Zinoviev himself was dismissed in 1926 after falling out of favor with Stalin. Bukharin then led the Comintern for two years until 1928, when he too fell out with Stalin. Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov headed the Comintern in 1934 and presided until its dissolution.

Geoff Eley summed up the change in attitude at this time as follows:

By the Fifth Comintern Congress in July 1924 [...] the collapse of Communist support in Europe tightened the pressure for conformity. A new policy of "Bolshevization" was adopted, which dragooned the CPs toward stricter bureaucratic centralism. This flattened out the earlier diversity of radicalisms, welding them into a single approved model of Communist organization. Only then did the new parties retreat from broader Left arenas into their own belligerent world, even if many local cultures of broader cooperation persisted. Respect for Bolshevik achievements and defense of the Russian Revolution now transmuted into dependency on Moscow and belief in Soviet infallibility. Depressing cycles of "internal rectification" began, disgracing and expelling successive leaderships, so that by the later 1920s many founding Communists had gone. This process of coordination, in a hard-faced drive for uniformity, was finalized at the next Congress of the Third International in 1928.[32]

The Comintern was a relatively small organization, but it devised novel ways of controlling communist parties around the world. In many places, there was a communist subculture, founded upon indigenous left-wing traditions which had never been controlled by Moscow. The Comintern attempted to establish control over party leaderships by sending agents who bolstered certain factions, by judicious use of secret funding, by expelling independent-minded activists and even by closing down entire national parties (such as the Communist Party of Poland in 1938). Above all, the Comintern exploited Soviet prestige in sharp contrast to the weaknesses of local parties that rarely had political power.[33][34]

Communist front organizations edit

Main article: Communist front

Communist front organizations were set up to attract non-members who agreed with the party on certain specific points. Opposition to fascism was a common theme in the popular front era of the mid 1930s.[35] The well-known names and prestige of artists, intellectuals and other fellow travelers were used to advance party positions. They often came to the Soviet Union for propaganda tours praising the future.[36] Under the leadership of Zinoviev, the Comintern established fronts in many countries in the 1920s and after.[37] To coordinate their activities, the Comintern set up international umbrella organizations linking groups across national borders, such as the Young Communist International (youth), Profintern (trade unions),[38] Krestintern (peasants), International Red Aid (humanitarian aid), Sportintern (organized sports), and more. Front organizations were especially influential in France, which in 1933 became the base for communist front organizer Willi Münzenberg.[39] These organizations were dissolved in the late 1930s or early 1940s.

Third Period edit

In 1928, the Ninth Plenum of the Executive Committee began the so-called Third Period, which was to last until 1935.[40] The Comintern proclaimed that the capitalist system was entering the period of final collapse and therefore all communist parties were to adopt an aggressive and militant ultra-left line. In particular, the Comintern labelled all moderate left-wing parties social fascists and urged the communists to destroy the moderate left. With the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany after the 1930 federal election, this stance became controversial.

The Sixth World Congress also revised the policy of united front in the colonial world. In 1927 in China, the Kuomintang had turned on the Chinese Communist Party, which led to a review of the policy on forming alliances with the national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries. The Congress did make a differentiation between the character of the Chinese Kuomintang on one hand and the Indian Swaraj Party and the Egyptian Wafd Party on the other, considering the latter as an unreliable ally yet not a direct enemy. The Congress called on the Indian Communists to utilize the contradictions between the national bourgeoisie and the British imperialists.[41]

Seventh World Congress and the Popular Front edit

Main article: 7th World Congress of the Comintern
 
Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai's Delegates' Card at the 1935 Comintern's 7th Congress as she was a delegate representing the Indochinese Communist Party

The Seventh and last Congress of the Comintern was held between 25 July and 20 August 1935. It was attended by representatives of 65 communist parties. The main report was delivered by Dimitrov, other reports were delivered by Palmiro Togliatti, Wilhelm Pieck, and Dmitry Manuilsky.[42] The Congress officially endorsed the popular front against fascism. This policy argued that communist parties should seek to form a popular front with all parties that opposed fascism and not limit themselves to forming a united front with those parties based in the working class. There was no significant opposition to this policy within any of the national sections of the Comintern. In France and Spain, it would have momentous consequences with Léon Blum's 1936 election which led to the Popular Front government.

Stalin's purges of the 1930s affected Comintern activists living in both the Soviet Union and overseas. At Stalin's direction, the Comintern was thoroughly infused with Soviet secret police and foreign intelligence operatives and informers working under Comintern guise. One of its leaders, Mikhail Trilisser, using the pseudonym Mikhail Aleksandrovich Moskvin, was in fact chief of the foreign department of the Soviet OGPU (later the NKVD). Numerous Comintern officials were also targeted by the dictator and became victims of show trials and political persecution, such as Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin. At Stalin's orders, 133 out of 492 Comintern staff members became victims of the Great Purge. Several hundred German communists and antifascists who had either fled from Nazi Germany or were convinced to relocate in the Soviet Union were liquidated, and more than a thousand were handed over to Germany.[43] Wolfgang Leonhard, who experienced this period in Moscow as a contemporary witness, wrote about it in his political autobiography, which was published in the 1950s: "The foreign communists living in the Soviet Union were particularly affected. In a few months, more functionaries of the Comintern apparatus were arrested than had been put together by all bourgeois governments in twenty years. Just listing the names would fill entire pages."[44] Fritz Platten died in a labor camp and the leaders of the Indian (Virendranath Chattopadhyaya or Chatto), Korean, Mexican, Iranian, and Turkish communist parties were executed. Out of 11 Mongolian Communist Party leaders, only Khorloogiin Choibalsan survived. Leopold Trepper recalled these days: "In house, where the party activists of all the countries were living, no-one slept until 3 o'clock in the morning. [...] Exactly 3 o'clock the car lights began to be seen [...] we stayed near the window and waited [to find out], where the car stopped".[45]

Among those persecuted were many KPD functionaries, such as members of the KPD Central Committee, who believed they had found safe asylum in the Soviet Union after Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Among them was Hugo Eberlein, who had been present at the 1919 Comintern founding congress.

Trotsky, who was also marginalized and persecuted by Stalin, and other communists founded the Fourth International in 1938 as an oppositional alternative to the Stalin-dominated Comintern. In the years that followed, however, their sections rarely got beyond the status of the smallest cadre or splinter parties.

Although the General Association of German Anti-Communist Associations had existed in Berlin since 1933 as part of the Nazi government's propaganda against the Soviet Union and the Comintern, a treaty of assistance was concluded between Germany and Japan in 1936, the Anti-Comintern Pact. In it, the two states agreed to fight the Comintern and assured each other that they would not sign any treaties with the Soviet Union that would contradict the anti-communist spirit of the agreement. However, this did not prevent Hitler from signing the Nazi-Soviet Pact with Stalin in August 1939, which in turn meant the end of the Popular Front policy and, in fact, that of the Comintern as well.

Dissolution edit

The German-Soviet non-aggression treaty contained far-reaching agreements on spheres of interest, which the two totalitarian powers implemented over the next two years using military means. On 3 September 1939, France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany after its invasion of Poland, beginning World War II in Europe. The Comintern sections now found themselves in the politically suicidal situation of having to support, for example, the Soviet invasion and subsequent annexation of Eastern Poland. The Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov declared on October 31 that it was not Hitler's Germany but rather Britain and France that were to be regarded as the aggressors[citation needed]. The weakened and decimated Comintern was forced to officially adopt a policy of non-intervention, declaring on November 6 that the conflict was an imperialist war between various national ruling classes on both sides, much like World War I had been, and that the main culprits were Britain and France.[46]

This period, during which the Comintern enabled Hitlerite fascism,[47] only ended on 22 June 1941 with the invasion of the Soviet Union, when the Comintern changed its position to one of active support for the Allies. During these two years, many communists turned their backs on their Comintern sections, and the organization lost its political credibility and relevance. On 15 May 1943, a declaration of the Executive Committee was sent out to all sections of the International, calling for the dissolution of the Comintern. The declaration read:

The historical role of the Communist International, organized in 1919 as a result of the political collapse of the overwhelming majority of the old pre-war workers' parties, consisted in that it preserved the teachings of Marxism from vulgarisation and distortion by opportunist elements of the labor movement. But long before the war it became increasingly clear that, to the extent that the internal as well as the international situation of individual countries became more complicated, the solution of the problems of the labor movement of each individual country through the medium of some international centre would meet with insuperable obstacles.

Concretely, the declaration asked the member sections to approve:

To dissolve the Communist International as a guiding centre of the international labor movement, releasing sections of the Communist International from the obligations ensuing from the constitution and decisions of the Congresses of the Communist International.

After endorsements of the declaration were received from the member sections, the International was dissolved.[48] The dissolution was interpreted as Stalin wishing to calm his World War II allies (particularly Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill) and to keep them from suspecting the Soviet Union of pursuing a policy of trying to foment revolution in other countries.[49]

Successor organizations edit

The Research Institutes 100 and 205 worked for the International and later were moved to the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, founded at roughly the same time that the Comintern was abolished in 1943, although its specific duties during the first several years of its existence are unknown.[50][51][52]

Following the June 1947 Paris Conference on Marshall Aid, Stalin gathered a grouping of key European communist parties in September and set up the Cominform, or Communist Information Bureau, often seen as a substitute to the Comintern. It was a network made up of the communist parties of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (led by Josip Broz Tito and expelled in June 1948). The Cominform was dissolved in 1956 following Stalin's 1953 death and the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

While the communist parties of the world no longer had a formal international organization, they continued to maintain close relations with each other through a series of international forums. In the period directly after the Comintern's dissolution, periodical meetings of communist parties were held in Moscow. Moreover, World Marxist Review, a joint periodical of the communist parties, played an important role in coordinating the communist movement up to the break-up of the Eastern Bloc in 1989–1991.

British historian Jonathan Haslam reports that even after in Moscow archives:

all references to the Communist International and later the international department of the central committee, which drove the revolutionary side of foreign policy, were removed from published diplomatic documents, in order to fit in with the prevailing dogma established by Vladimir Lenin that the Soviet Government had nothing to do with Comintern. I gave up co-editing a series of documents on Russo-American relations because my Russian colleague could not or would not get over that hurdle....Even today [2020], when the Russians are more liberal in their censorship of documentary publications, one has to verify where possible through other sources independent of Moscow. And although Comintern's archives are available on the web, most of it them are still closed to the reader, even though officially declassified, and much of it is in German only. One always has to ask, what has been cut out deliberately?[53]

Comintern-sponsored international organizations edit

Several international organizations were sponsored by the Comintern in this period:

International Liaison Department edit

Main article: International Liaison Department (Communist International)

The OMS (Russian: Отдел международной связи, otdel mezhdunarodnoy svyazi, ОМС), also known in English as the International Liaison Department (1921–1939),[54][55] was the most secret department of the Comintern. It has also been translated as the Illegal Liaison Section[56][57] and Foreign Liaison Department.[58]

Historian Thomas L. Sakmyster describes:

The OMS was the Comintern's department for the coordination of subversive and conspiratorial activities. Some of its functions overlapped with those of the main Soviet intelligence agencies, the OGPU and the GRU, whose agents sometimes were assigned to the Comintern. But the OMS maintained its own set of operations and had its own representative on the central committees of each Communist party abroad.[57]

In 2012, historian David McKnight stated:

The most intense practical application of the conspiratorial work of the Comintern was carried out by its international liaison service, the OMS. This body undertook clandenstine courier activities and work which supported underground political activities. These included the transport of money and letters, the manufacture of passports and other false documents and technical support to underground parties, such as managing "safe houses" and establishing businesses overseas as cover activities.[54]

World congresses and plenums edit

Congresses edit

Event Year held Dates Location Delegates
Founding Congress 1919 2–6 March Moscow 34 + 18
2nd World Congress 1920 19 July–7 August Petrograd and Moscow 167 + ~53
3rd World Congress 1921 22 June–12 July Moscow
4th World Congress 1922 5 November–5 December Petrograd and Moscow 340 + 48
5th World Congress 1924 17 June–8 July Moscow 324 + 82
6th World Congress 1928 17 July–1 September Moscow
7th World Congress 1935 25 July–21 August Moscow
Delegate figures are voting plus consultative.[59]

Plenums of ECCI edit

Event Year held Dates Location Delegates
1st Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1922 24 February–4 March Moscow 105
2nd Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1922 7–11 June Moscow 41 + 9
3rd Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1923 12–23 June Moscow
4th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1924 12 June and 12–13 July Moscow
5th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1925 21 March–6 April Moscow
6th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1926 17 February–15 March Moscow 77 + 53
7th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1926 22 November–16 December Moscow
8th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1927 18–30 May Moscow
9th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1928 9–25 February Moscow 44 + 48
10th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1929 3–19 July Moscow 36 + 72
Enlarged Presidium of ECCI 1930 25–? February Moscow
11th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1931 26 March–11 April Moscow
12th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1932 27 August–15 September Moscow 38 + 136
13th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1933 28 November–12 December Moscow

Related meetings edit

Event Year held Dates Location Delegates
Conference of the Amsterdam Bureau 1920 10–11 February Amsterdam 16
1st Congress of the Peoples of the East 1920 1–8 September Baku 1,891
1st Congress of Toilers of the Far East 1922 21 January–2 February Moscow and Petrograd
World Congress Against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism 1927 10–15 February Brussels 152
2nd Congress of the League Against Imperialism 1929 July Frankfurt
1st International Conference of Negro Workers 1930 7–8 July Hamburg 17 + 3

Bureaus edit

[60]

See also edit

Lists
Internationals

Notes edit

  1. ^ Kibaltchitch would later take the name Victor Serge. A former anarchist, he was not even a member of the RCP(b) at the time. He believed he was included because of his knowledge of European languages.[17]
  2. ^ Delegates with deciding votes were: Hugo Eberlein (Communist Party of Germany), Vladimir Lenin (Russian Communist Party), Leon Trotsky (RCP(b)), Zinoviev (RCP(b)), Joseph Stalin (RCP(b)), Bukharin (RCP(b)), Georgy Chicherin (RCP(b)), Karl Steinhardt (Communist Party of German Austria) K. Petin (CPGA), Endre Rudnyánszky (Communist Party of Hungary), Otto Grimlund (Social Democratic Left Party of Sweden), Emil Stang (Norwegian Labour Party), Fritz Platten (the opposition within the Swiss Social Democratic Party), Boris Reinstein (Socialist Labor Party of America), Christian Rakovsky (Balkan Revolutionary Social Democratic Federation), Jozef Unszlicht (Communist Party of Poland), Yrjö Sirola (Communist Party of Finland), Kullervo Manner (CPF), O. V. Kuusinen (CPF), Jukka Rahja (CPF), Eino Rahja (CPF), Mykola Skrypnyk (Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine), Serafima Gopner (CPU), Karl Gailis (Communist Party of Latvia), Kazimir Gedris (Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia), Hans Pöögelmann (Communist Party of Estonia), Gurgen Haikuni (Communist Party of Armenia), Gustav Klinger (Communist Party of the German Colonists in Russia), Gaziz Yalymov (United Group of the Eastern Peoples of Russia), Hussein Bekentayev (UGEPR), Mahomet Altimirov (UGEPR), Burhan Mansurov (UGEPR), Kasim Kasimov (UGEPR) and Henri Guilbeaux (Zimmerwald Left of France). Delegates with consultative votes were: N. Osinsky (RCP(b)), V. V. Vorovsky (RCP(b)), Jaroslav Handlíř (Czech Communist Group), Stojan Dyorov (Bulgarian Communist Group), Ilija Milkić (Yugoslav Communist Group), Joseph Fineberg (British Communist Group), Jacques Sadoul (French Communist Group), S. J. Rutgers (Dutch Social Democratic Party/Socialist Propaganda League of America), Leonie Kascher (Swiss Communist Group), Liu Shaozhou (Chinese Socialist Workers Party), Zhang Yongkui (CSWP), Kain (Korean Workers League), Angelica Balabanoff (Zimmerwald Committee) and the following delegates representing the sections the Central Bureau of Eastern Peoples: Gaziz Yalymov (Turkestan), Mustafa Suphi (Turkey), Tengiz Zhgenti (Georgian), Mir Jafar Baghirov (Azerbaijan) and Mirza Davud Huseynov (Persia).[21]
  3. ^ For example, the thirteenth condition stated: "The communist parties of those countries in which the communists can carry out their work legally must from time to time undertake purges (re-registration) of the membership of their party organizations in order to cleanse the party systematically of the petty-bourgeois elements within it". The term purge has taken on very negative connotations because of the Great Purge of the 1930s, but in the early 1920s, the term was more ambiguous. See J. Arch Getty's Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933–1938 at p. 41 for discussion of the ambiguities in the term, including its use in the 1920 Comintern resolution.

References edit

  1. ^ Blanc, Paul Le (15 April 2015). Leon Trotsky. Reaktion Books. pp. 1–224. ISBN 978-1-78023-471-7.
  2. ^ Allen, Barbara (8 January 2015). Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885–1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik. BRILL. p. 233. ISBN 978-90-04-24854-0.
  3. ^ Legvold, Robert (2007). Russian Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century and the Shadow of the Past. Columbia University Press. p. 408. ISBN 978-0-231-51217-6. However, the USSR created an entirely new dimension of interwar European reality, one in which Russia devised rules of the game and set the agenda, namely, the Comintern.
  4. ^ Conquest, Robert (1990). The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Oxford University Press. p. 399. ISBN 978-0-19-507132-0. It became instead a set of parties founded strictly on the Bolshevik model, and constitutionally subordinated to the Comintern - which always remained under effective Soviet control.
  5. ^ "Third International". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 3 December 2020. Though its stated purpose was the promotion of world revolution, the Comintern functioned chiefly as an organ of Soviet control over the international communist movement.
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  9. ^ Clough, Robert (1992). Labour, a party fit for imperialism (2nd ed.). Croydon: Larkin publications (published 2014). p. 48. ISBN 978-0-905400-27-3.
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  23. ^ William Henry Chamberlin Soviet Russia: A Living Record and a History 1929, chapter 11; Max Shachtman "For the Fourth International!" New International, Vol. 1, No. 1, July 1934; Walter Kendall "Lenin and the Myth of World Revolution", Revolutionary History. 28 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  24. ^ M.V.S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. pp. 48, 84–85.
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  28. ^ Saage, Richard (2007). "Sowjetmarxistische Interpretation des Faschismus". Faschismus: Konzeptionen und historische Kontexte. Eine Einführung (in German). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. pp. 24–48. ISBN 978-3-531-15387-2.
  29. ^ David Priestland, The Red Flag: A History of Communism (2009) p. 124.
  30. ^ Rogovin, Vadim Zakharovich (2021). Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years. Mehring Books. p. 272. ISBN 978-1-893638-97-6.
  31. ^ Duncan Hallas, The Comintern, chapter 5.
  32. ^ Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000 (Oxford University Press 2002). p. 228.
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  39. ^ Julian Jackson, The Popular Front in France (1990) p. x.
  40. ^ Duncan Hallas The Comintern, chapter 6; Nicholas N. Kozlov, Eric D. Weitz "Reflections on the Origins of the 'Third Period': Bukharin, the Comintern, and the Political Economy of Weimar Germany" Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Jul., 1989), pp. 387–410 JSTOR.
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  55. ^ Lazitch, Branko; Milorad M. Drachkovitch (1986). Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern. Hoover Press. pp. xxix (description), 120 (Flieg), 319 (Mirov-Abramov), 479 (Trilisser). ISBN 978-0-8265-1352-6.
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Further reading edit

  • Barrett, James R. "What Went Wrong? The Communist Party, the US, and the Comintern." American Communist History 17.2 (2018): 176–184.
  • Belogurova, Anna. "Networks, Parties, and the" Oppressed Nations": The Comintern and Chinese Communists Overseas, 1926–1935." Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 6.2 (2017): 558–582. online
  • Belogurova, Anna. The Nanyang Revolution: The Comintern and Chinese Networks in Southeast Asia, 1890–1957 (Cambridge UP, 2019). focus on Malaya
  • Caballero, Manuel. Latin America and the Comintern, 1919–1943 (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
  • Carr, E.H. Twilight of the Comintern, 1930–1935. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982. online free to borrow
  • Chase, William J. Enemies within the Gates? The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934–1939. (Yale UP, 2001).
  • Dobronravin, Nikolay. "The Comintern, 'Negro Self-Determination' and Black Revolutions in the Caribbean." Interfaces Brasil/Canadá 20 (2020): 1–18. online
  • Drachkovitch, M. M. ed. The Revolutionary Internationals (Stanford UP, 1966).
  • Drachewych, Oleksa. "The Comintern and the Communist Parties of South Africa, Canada, and Australia on Questions of Imperialism, Nationality and Race, 1919–1943" (PhD dissertation, McMaster University, 2017) online.
  • Dullin, Sabine, and Brigitte Studer. "Communism+ transnational: the rediscovered equation of internationalism in the Comintern years." Twentieth Century Communism 14.14 (2018): 66–95.
  • Gankin, Olga Hess and Harold Henry Fisher. The Bolsheviks and the World War: The Origin of the Third International. (Stanford UP, 1940) online.
  • Gupta, Sobhanlal Datta. Comintern and the Destiny of Communism in India: 1919–1943 (2006) online
  • Haithcox, John Patrick. Communism and nationalism in India: MN Roy and Comintern policy, 1920–1939 (1971). online
  • Hallas, Duncan. The Comintern: The History of the Third International. London: Bookmarks, 1985.
  • Hopkirk, Peter. Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin's Dream of a Empire in Asia 1984 (1984).
  • Ikeda, Yoshiro. "Time and the Comintern: Rethinking the Cultural Impact of the Russian Revolution on Japanese Intellectuals." in Culture and Legacy of the Russian Revolution: Rhetoric and Performance–Religious Semantics–Impact on Asia (2020): 227+.
  • James, C.L.R., World Revolution 1917–1936: The Rise and Fall of the Communist International. (1937). online
  • Jeifets, Víctor, and Lazar Jeifets. "The Encounter between the Cuban Left and the Russian Revolution: The Communist Party and the Comintern." Historia Crítica 64 (2017): 81–100.
  • Kennan, George F. Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin (1961) pp. 151–93. online
  • Lazitch, Branko and Milorad M. Drachkovitch. Biographical dictionary of the Comintern (2nd ed. 1986).
  • McDermott, Kevin. "Stalin and the Comintern during the 'Third Period', 1928–33." European history quarterly 25.3 (1995): 409–429.
  • McDermott, Kevin. "The History of the Comintern in Light of New Documents", in Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe (eds.), International Communism and the Communist International, 1919–43. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1998.
  • McDermott, Kevin, and J. Agnew. The Comintern: a History of International Communism from Lenin to Stalin. Basingstoke, 1996.
  • Melograni, Piero. Lenin and the Myth of World Revolution: Ideology and Reasons of State 1917–1920, Humanities Press, 1990.
  • Priestland, David. The Red Flag: A History of Communism. 2010.
  • Riddell, John. "The Comintern in 1922: The Periphery Pushes Back." Historical Materialism 22.3–4 (2014): 52–103. online
  • Smith, S. A. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism (2014), ch 10: "The Comintern".
  • Taber, Mike (ed.), The Communist Movement at a Crossroads: Plenums of the Communist International's Executive Committee, 1922–1923. John Riddell, trans. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2019.
  • Ulam, Adam B. Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1973. (2nd ed. Praeger Publishers, 1974). online
  • Valeva, Yelena. The CPSU, the Comintern, and the Bulgarians (Routledge, 2018).
  • Worley, Matthew et al. (eds.) Bolshevism, Stalinism and the Comintern: Perspectives on Stalinization, 1917–53. (2008).
  • The Comintern and its Critics (Special issue of Revolutionary History Volume 8, no 1, Summer 2001).

Historiography edit

  • Drachewych, Oleksa. "The Communist Transnational? Transnational studies and the history of the Comintern." History Compass 17.2 (2019): e12521.
  • McDermott, Kevin. "Rethinking the Comintern: Soviet Historiography, 1987–1991", Labour History Review, 57#3 (1992), pp. 37–58.
  • McIlroy, John, and Alan Campbell. "Bolshevism, Stalinism and the Comintern: A historical controversy revisited." Labor History 60.3 (2019): 165–192. online
  • Redfern, Neil. "The Comintern and Imperialism: A Balance Sheet." Journal of Labor and Society 20.1 (2017): 43–60.

Primary sources edit

  • Banac, I. ed. The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov 1933–1949, Yale University Press, 2003.
  • Davidson, Apollon, et al. (eds.) South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History. 2 volumes, 2003.
  • Degras, Jane T. The Communist International, 1919–43 3 volumes. 1956; documents; online vol 1 1919–22; vol 2 1923–28; vol 3 1929–43.
  • Firsov, Fridrikh I., Harvey Klehr, and John Earl Haynes, eds. Secret Cables of the Comintern, 1933–1943. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2014. online review
  • Gruber, Helmut. International Communism in the Era of Lenin: A Documentary History , Cornell University Press, 1967.
  • Kheng, Cheah Boon, ed. From PKI to the Comintern, 1924–1941, Cornell University Press, 2018.
  • Riddell, John (ed.):
    • The Communist International in Lenin's Time, Vol. 1: Lenin's Struggle for a Revolutionary International: Documents: 1907–1916: The Preparatory Years. New York: Monad Press, 1984.
    • The Communist International in Lenin's Time, Vol. 2: The German Revolution and the Debate on Soviet Power: Documents: 1918–1919: Preparing the Founding Congress. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1986.
    • The Communist International in Lenin's Time, Vol. 3: Founding the Communist International: Proceedings and Documents of the First Congress: March 1919. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1987.
    • The Communist International in Lenin's Time: Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples Unite! Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress, 1920. In Two Volumes. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1991.
    • The Communist International in Lenin's Time: To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920: First Congress of the Peoples of the East. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1993.
    • Toward the United Front: Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 1922. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

External links edit

  • Comintern History Archive Marxists Internet Archive
 
Wikisource has original works by or about:
Communist International
 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Comintern.
  • Lenin's speech: The Third, Communist International (recordingⓘ)
  • Site Comintern Archives (in English)
    • Site Comintern Archives (in Russian)
  • Program of the Communist International. Together With Its Constitution (adopted at 6th World Congress in 1928)
  • The Communist International Journal of the Comintern, Marxists Internet Archive
  • Outline History of the Communist International
  • The Internationale by R. Palme Dutt, 1964
  • Report from Moscow, 3rd International congress, 1920 by Otto Rühle
  • Article on the Third International from the Encyclopædia Britannica

February 16, 2024
communist, international, third, international, redirects, here, government, proposed, muammar, gaddafi, third, international, theory, magazine, magazine, comintern, also, known, third, international, international, organization, founded, 1919, that, advocated. Third International redirects here For the government proposed by Muammar Gaddafi see Third International Theory For the magazine see Communist International magazine The Communist International Comintern also known as the Third International was an international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism and which was led and controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 3 4 5 The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress in 1920 to struggle by all available means including armed force for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state 6 The Comintern was preceded by the dissolution of the Second International in 1916 Communist InternationalGeneral SecretaryGeorgi DimitrovFoundersVladimir Lenin Leon Trotsky 1 Grigory Zinoviev Karl Radek Nikolai Bukharin 2 Founded2 March 1919 104 years ago 1919 03 02 Dissolved15 May 1943 80 years ago 1943 05 15 Preceded bySecond International Zimmerwald LeftSucceeded byCominformNewspaperCommunist InternationalYouth wingYoung Communist InternationalIdeologyCommunismMarxism LeninismLeninismPolitical positionFar leftAnthemKominternlied Gimn KominternaThe Communist International published a namesake theoretical magazine in a variety of European languages from 1919 to 1943 The Comintern held seven World Congresses in Moscow between 1919 and 1935 During that period it also conducted thirteen Enlarged Plenums of its governing Executive Committee which had much the same function as the somewhat larger and more grandiose Congresses Joseph Stalin leader of the Soviet Union dissolved the Comintern in 1943 to avoid antagonizing his allies in the later years of World War II the United States and the United Kingdom It was succeeded by the Cominform in 1947 Contents 1 Organizational history 1 1 Failure of the Second International 1 2 Impact of the Russian Revolution 1 3 First Period of the Comintern 1 4 Founding Congress 1 5 Second World Congress 1 6 Third World Congress 1 7 Fourth World Congress 1 8 Fifth to Seventh World Congresses 1925 1935 1 8 1 Second Period 1 8 2 Communist front organizations 1 8 3 Third Period 1 9 Seventh World Congress and the Popular Front 1 10 Dissolution 1 11 Successor organizations 2 Comintern sponsored international organizations 3 International Liaison Department 4 World congresses and plenums 4 1 Congresses 4 2 Plenums of ECCI 4 3 Related meetings 5 Bureaus 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 Further reading 9 1 Historiography 9 2 Primary sources 10 External linksOrganizational history editFailure of the Second International edit Differences between the revolutionary and reformist wings of the workers movement had been increasing for decades but the outbreak of World War I was the catalyst for their separation The Triple Alliance comprised two empires while the Triple Entente was formed by three Socialists had historically been anti war and internationalist fighting against what they perceived as militarist exploitation of the proletariat for bourgeois states A majority of socialists voted in favor of resolutions for the Second International to call upon the international working class to resist war if it were declared 7 But after the beginning of World War I many European socialist parties announced support for the war effort of their respective nations 8 Including the British Labour Party who issued a manifesto stating the victory of the Germans would mean the death of democracy in Europe 9 while making no such criticisms of the Russian Tsar There were exceptions such as the socialist parties of the Balkans which To Vladimir Lenin s surprise even the Social Democratic Party of Germany voted in favor of war After influential anti war French Socialist Jean Jaures was assassinated on 31 July 1914 the socialist parties hardened their support in France for their government of national unity Socialist parties in neutral countries mostly supported neutrality rather than totally opposing the war On the other hand during the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference Lenin then a Swiss resident refugee organized an opposition to the imperialist war as the Zimmerwald Left publishing the pamphlet Socialism and War where he called socialists collaborating with their national governments social chauvinists i e socialists in word but nationalists in deed 10 The Second International divided into a revolutionary left wing a moderate center wing and a more reformist right wing Lenin condemned much of the center as social pacifists for several reasons including their vote for war credits clarification needed despite publicly opposing the war Lenin s term social pacifist aimed in particular at Ramsay MacDonald leader of the Independent Labour Party in Britain who opposed the war on grounds of pacifism but did not actively fight against it Discredited by its apathy towards world events the Second International dissolved in 1916 In 1917 after the February Revolution overthrew the Romanov Dynasty Lenin published the April Theses which openly supported revolutionary defeatism where the Bolsheviks hoped that Russia would lose the war so that they could quickly cause a socialist insurrection 11 Impact of the Russian Revolution edit nbsp The Bolshevik by Boris Kustodiev 1920The victory of the Russian Communist Party in the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 was felt throughout the world and an alternative path to power to parliamentary politics was demonstrated With much of Europe on the verge of economic and political collapse in the aftermath of the carnage of World War I revolutionary sentiments were widespread The Russian Bolsheviks headed by Lenin believed that unless socialist revolution swept Europe they would be crushed by the military might of world capitalism just as the Paris Commune had been crushed by force of arms in 1871 The Bolsheviks believed that this required a new international to foment revolution in Europe and around the world First Period of the Comintern edit During this early period 1919 1924 known as the First Period in Comintern history with the Bolshevik Revolution under attack in the Russian Civil War and a wave of revolutions across Europe the Comintern s priority was exporting the October Revolution Some communist parties had secret military wings One example is the M Apparat of the Communist Party of Germany The Comintern was involved in the revolutions across Europe in this period starting with the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 Several hundred agitators and financial aid were sent from the Soviet Union and Lenin was in regular contact with its leader Bela Kun The next attempt was the March Action in Germany in 1921 including an attempt to dynamite the express train from Halle to Leipzig After this failed the Communist Party of Germany expelled its former chairman Paul Levi from the party for publicly criticising the March Action in a pamphlet 12 which was ratified by the Executive Committee of the Communist International prior to the Third Congress 13 A new attempt was made at the time of the Ruhr crisis in spring and then again in selected parts of Germany in the autumn of 1923 The Red Army was mobilized ready to come to the aid of the planned insurrection Resolute action by the German government cancelled the plans except due to miscommunication in Hamburg where 200 300 communists attacked police stations but were quickly defeated In 1924 there was a failed coup in Estonia by the Communist Party of Estonia Founding Congress edit Main article 1st Congress of the Comintern The Comintern was founded at a Congress held in Moscow on 2 6 March 1919 14 It opened with a tribute to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg recently murdered by the Freikorps during the Spartacist Uprising 15 against the backdrop of the Russian Civil War There were 52 delegates present from 34 parties 16 They decided to form an Executive Committee with representatives of the most important sections and that other parties joining the International would have their own representatives The Congress decided that the Executive Committee would elect a five member bureau to run the daily affairs of the International However such a bureau was not formed and Lenin Leon Trotsky and Christian Rakovsky later delegated the task of managing the International to Grigory Zinoviev as the Chairman of the Executive Zinoviev was assisted by Angelica Balabanoff acting as the secretary of the International Victor L Kibaltchitch note 1 and Vladmir Ossipovich Mazin 18 Lenin Trotsky and Alexandra Kollontai presented material The main topic of discussion was the difference between bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat 19 The following parties and movements were invited to the Founding Congress Russian Communist Party Bolsheviks Spartacus League later became the Communist Party of Germany Communist Party of German Austria Hungarian Communist Workers Party in power during Bela Kun s Hungarian Soviet Republic Communist Party of Finland Polish Communist Workers Party Communist Party of Estonia Communist Party of Latvia Communist Party of Lithuania Communist Party Bolsheviks of Byelorussia Communist Party Bolsheviks of Ukraine Ukrainian section of Russian Communist Party The revolutionary elements of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party who founded the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Social Democratic and Labour Party of Bulgaria Tesnyatsi Left wing of the Socialist Party of Romania who would create the Romanian Communist Party Left wing of the Serbian Social Democratic Party later formed the League of Communists of Yugoslavia Social Democratic Left Party of Sweden Norwegian Labour Party For Denmark the Klassekampen group Communist Party of the Netherlands Revolutionary elements of the Belgian Labour Party who would create the Communist Party of Belgium in 1921 Groups and organizations within the French socialist and syndicalist movements Left wing within the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland later formed the Communist Party of Switzerland Italian Socialist Party Revolutionary elements of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party formed the Spanish Communist Party and the Spanish Communist Workers Party Revolutionary elements of the Portuguese Socialist Party formed the Portuguese Maximalist Federation British socialist parties particularly the current represented by John Maclean Socialist Labour Party United Kingdom Revolutionary Workers Groups in Ireland Revolutionary elements among the Shop stewards United Kingdom Socialist Labor Party United States Left elements of the Socialist Party of America the tendency represented by the Socialist Propaganda League of America later formed the Communist Party USA Industrial Workers of the World international trade union based in the United States Workers International Industrial Union United States The Socialist groups of Tokyo and Yokohama Japan represented by Sen Katayama Socialist Youth International represented by Willi Munzenberg 20 Of these the following attended see list of delegates of the 1st Comintern congress the communist parties of Russia Germany German Austria Hungary Poland Finland Ukraine Latvia Lithuania Byelorussia Estonia Armenia the Volga German region the Swedish Social Democratic Left Party the opposition Balkan Revolutionary People s of Russia Zimmerwald Left Wing of France the Czech Bulgarian Yugoslav British French and Swiss Communist Groups the Dutch Social Democratic Group Socialist Propaganda League and the Socialist Labor Party of America Socialist Workers Party of China Korean Workers Union Turkestan Turkish Georgian Azerbaijanian and Persian Sections of the Central Bureau of the Eastern People s and the Zimmerwald Commission 16 note 2 Zinoviev served as the first Chairman of the Comintern s Executive Committee from 1919 to 1926 but its dominant figure until his death in January 1924 was Lenin whose strategy for revolution had been laid out in What Is to Be Done 1902 The central policy of the Comintern under Lenin s leadership was that communist parties should be established across the world to aid the international proletarian revolution The parties also shared his principle of democratic centralism freedom of discussion unity of action namely that parties would make decisions democratically but uphold in a disciplined fashion whatever decision was made 22 In this period the Comintern was promoted as the general staff of the world revolution 23 Second World Congress edit Main article 2nd World Congress of the Communist International nbsp Second Congress of the Communist International nbsp Painting by Boris Kustodiev representing the festival of the Comintern II Congress on the Uritsky Square former Palace square in PetrogradAhead of the Second Congress of the Communist International held in July through August 1920 Lenin sent out a number of documents including his Twenty one Conditions to all socialist parties Congress adopted the 21 conditions as prerequisites for any group wanting to become affiliated with the International The 21 Conditions called for the demarcation between communist parties and other socialist groups note 3 and instructed the Comintern sections not to trust the legality of the bourgeois states They also called for the build up of party organisations along democratic centralist lines in which the party press and parliamentary factions would be under the direct control of the party leadership Regarding the political situation in the colonized world the Second Congress of the Communist International stipulated that a united front should be formed between the proletariat peasantry and national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries Amongst the twenty one conditions drafted by Lenin ahead of the congress was the 11th thesis which stipulated that all communist parties must support the bourgeois democratic liberation movements in the colonies Notably some of the delegates opposed the idea of an alliance with the bourgeoisie and preferred giving support to communist movements in these countries instead Their criticism was shared by the Indian revolutionary M N Roy who attended as a delegate of the Mexican Communist Party The Congress removed the term bourgeois democratic in what became the 8th condition 24 Many European socialist parties were divided because of the adhesion issue The French Section of the Workers International SFIO thus broke away with the 1920 Tours Congress leading to the creation of the new French Communist Party initially called French Section of the Communist International SFIC The Communist Party of Spain was created in 1920 the Communist Party of Italy was created in 1921 the Belgian Communist Party in September 1921 and so on Third World Congress edit Main article 3rd World Congress of the Communist International The Third Congress of the Communist International was held between 22 June 12 July 1921 in Moscow 25 Fourth World Congress edit Main article 4th World Congress of the Communist International The Fourth Congress held in November 1922 at which Trotsky played a prominent role continued in this vein 26 In 1924 the Mongolian People s Revolutionary Party joined the Comintern 27 At first in China both the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang were supported After the definite break with Chiang Kai shek in 1927 Joseph Stalin sent personal emissaries to help organize revolts which at this time failed The Fourth World Congress was coincidentally held within days of the March on Rome by Benito Mussolini and his PNF in Italy Karl Radek lamented the proceedings in Italy as the largest defeat suffered by socialism and communism since the beginning of the period of world revolution and Zinoviev programmatically announced the similarities between fascism and social democracy laying the groundwork for the later social fascism theory 28 Fifth to Seventh World Congresses 1925 1935 edit Second Period edit nbsp The Comintern membership card of Karl KilbomLenin died in 1924 and the next year saw a shift in the organization s focus from the immediate activity of world revolution towards a defence of the Soviet state In that year Joseph Stalin took power in Moscow and upheld the thesis of socialism in one country detailed by Nikolai Bukharin in his brochure Can We Build Socialism in One Country in the Absence of the Victory of the West European Proletariat April 1925 The position was finalized as the state policy after Stalin s January 1926 article On the Issues of Leninism Stalin made the party line clear An internationalist is one who is ready to defend the USSR without reservation without wavering unconditionally for the USSR it is the base of the world revolutionary movement and this revolutionary movement cannot be defended and promoted without defending the USSR 29 According to Russian historian Vadim Rogovin the leadership of the German Communist party had requested that Moscow send Leon Trotsky to Germany to direct the 1923 insurrection However this proposal was rejected by the Politburo which was controlled by Stalin Zinoviev and Kamenev who decided to send a commission of lower ranking Russian Communist party members 30 The dream of a world revolution was abandoned after the failures of the Spartacist uprising in Germany and of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the failure of all revolutionary movements in Europe such as in Italy where the fascist squadristi broke the strikes during the Biennio Rosso and quickly assumed power following the 1922 March on Rome This period up to 1928 was known as the Second Period mirroring the shift in the Soviet Union from war communism to the New Economic Policy 31 At the Fifth World Congress of the Comintern in July 1924 Zinoviev condemned both Marxist philosopher Georg Lukacs s History and Class Consciousness published in 1923 after his involvement in Bela Kun s Hungarian Soviet Republic and Karl Korsch s Marxism and Philosophy Zinoviev himself was dismissed in 1926 after falling out of favor with Stalin Bukharin then led the Comintern for two years until 1928 when he too fell out with Stalin Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov headed the Comintern in 1934 and presided until its dissolution Geoff Eley summed up the change in attitude at this time as follows By the Fifth Comintern Congress in July 1924 the collapse of Communist support in Europe tightened the pressure for conformity A new policy of Bolshevization was adopted which dragooned the CPs toward stricter bureaucratic centralism This flattened out the earlier diversity of radicalisms welding them into a single approved model of Communist organization Only then did the new parties retreat from broader Left arenas into their own belligerent world even if many local cultures of broader cooperation persisted Respect for Bolshevik achievements and defense of the Russian Revolution now transmuted into dependency on Moscow and belief in Soviet infallibility Depressing cycles of internal rectification began disgracing and expelling successive leaderships so that by the later 1920s many founding Communists had gone This process of coordination in a hard faced drive for uniformity was finalized at the next Congress of the Third International in 1928 32 The Comintern was a relatively small organization but it devised novel ways of controlling communist parties around the world In many places there was a communist subculture founded upon indigenous left wing traditions which had never been controlled by Moscow The Comintern attempted to establish control over party leaderships by sending agents who bolstered certain factions by judicious use of secret funding by expelling independent minded activists and even by closing down entire national parties such as the Communist Party of Poland in 1938 Above all the Comintern exploited Soviet prestige in sharp contrast to the weaknesses of local parties that rarely had political power 33 34 Communist front organizations edit Main article Communist front Communist front organizations were set up to attract non members who agreed with the party on certain specific points Opposition to fascism was a common theme in the popular front era of the mid 1930s 35 The well known names and prestige of artists intellectuals and other fellow travelers were used to advance party positions They often came to the Soviet Union for propaganda tours praising the future 36 Under the leadership of Zinoviev the Comintern established fronts in many countries in the 1920s and after 37 To coordinate their activities the Comintern set up international umbrella organizations linking groups across national borders such as the Young Communist International youth Profintern trade unions 38 Krestintern peasants International Red Aid humanitarian aid Sportintern organized sports and more Front organizations were especially influential in France which in 1933 became the base for communist front organizer Willi Munzenberg 39 These organizations were dissolved in the late 1930s or early 1940s Third Period edit In 1928 the Ninth Plenum of the Executive Committee began the so called Third Period which was to last until 1935 40 The Comintern proclaimed that the capitalist system was entering the period of final collapse and therefore all communist parties were to adopt an aggressive and militant ultra left line In particular the Comintern labelled all moderate left wing parties social fascists and urged the communists to destroy the moderate left With the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany after the 1930 federal election this stance became controversial The Sixth World Congress also revised the policy of united front in the colonial world In 1927 in China the Kuomintang had turned on the Chinese Communist Party which led to a review of the policy on forming alliances with the national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries The Congress did make a differentiation between the character of the Chinese Kuomintang on one hand and the Indian Swaraj Party and the Egyptian Wafd Party on the other considering the latter as an unreliable ally yet not a direct enemy The Congress called on the Indian Communists to utilize the contradictions between the national bourgeoisie and the British imperialists 41 Seventh World Congress and the Popular Front edit Main article 7th World Congress of the Comintern nbsp Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai s Delegates Card at the 1935 Comintern s 7th Congress as she was a delegate representing the Indochinese Communist PartyThe Seventh and last Congress of the Comintern was held between 25 July and 20 August 1935 It was attended by representatives of 65 communist parties The main report was delivered by Dimitrov other reports were delivered by Palmiro Togliatti Wilhelm Pieck and Dmitry Manuilsky 42 The Congress officially endorsed the popular front against fascism This policy argued that communist parties should seek to form a popular front with all parties that opposed fascism and not limit themselves to forming a united front with those parties based in the working class There was no significant opposition to this policy within any of the national sections of the Comintern In France and Spain it would have momentous consequences with Leon Blum s 1936 election which led to the Popular Front government Stalin s purges of the 1930s affected Comintern activists living in both the Soviet Union and overseas At Stalin s direction the Comintern was thoroughly infused with Soviet secret police and foreign intelligence operatives and informers working under Comintern guise One of its leaders Mikhail Trilisser using the pseudonym Mikhail Aleksandrovich Moskvin was in fact chief of the foreign department of the Soviet OGPU later the NKVD Numerous Comintern officials were also targeted by the dictator and became victims of show trials and political persecution such as Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin At Stalin s orders 133 out of 492 Comintern staff members became victims of the Great Purge Several hundred German communists and antifascists who had either fled from Nazi Germany or were convinced to relocate in the Soviet Union were liquidated and more than a thousand were handed over to Germany 43 Wolfgang Leonhard who experienced this period in Moscow as a contemporary witness wrote about it in his political autobiography which was published in the 1950s The foreign communists living in the Soviet Union were particularly affected In a few months more functionaries of the Comintern apparatus were arrested than had been put together by all bourgeois governments in twenty years Just listing the names would fill entire pages 44 Fritz Platten died in a labor camp and the leaders of the Indian Virendranath Chattopadhyaya or Chatto Korean Mexican Iranian and Turkish communist parties were executed Out of 11 Mongolian Communist Party leaders only Khorloogiin Choibalsan survived Leopold Trepper recalled these days In house where the party activists of all the countries were living no one slept until 3 o clock in the morning Exactly 3 o clock the car lights began to be seen we stayed near the window and waited to find out where the car stopped 45 Among those persecuted were many KPD functionaries such as members of the KPD Central Committee who believed they had found safe asylum in the Soviet Union after Adolf Hitler s rise to power Among them was Hugo Eberlein who had been present at the 1919 Comintern founding congress Trotsky who was also marginalized and persecuted by Stalin and other communists founded the Fourth International in 1938 as an oppositional alternative to the Stalin dominated Comintern In the years that followed however their sections rarely got beyond the status of the smallest cadre or splinter parties Although the General Association of German Anti Communist Associations had existed in Berlin since 1933 as part of the Nazi government s propaganda against the Soviet Union and the Comintern a treaty of assistance was concluded between Germany and Japan in 1936 the Anti Comintern Pact In it the two states agreed to fight the Comintern and assured each other that they would not sign any treaties with the Soviet Union that would contradict the anti communist spirit of the agreement However this did not prevent Hitler from signing the Nazi Soviet Pact with Stalin in August 1939 which in turn meant the end of the Popular Front policy and in fact that of the Comintern as well Dissolution edit The German Soviet non aggression treaty contained far reaching agreements on spheres of interest which the two totalitarian powers implemented over the next two years using military means On 3 September 1939 France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany after its invasion of Poland beginning World War II in Europe The Comintern sections now found themselves in the politically suicidal situation of having to support for example the Soviet invasion and subsequent annexation of Eastern Poland The Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov declared on October 31 that it was not Hitler s Germany but rather Britain and France that were to be regarded as the aggressors citation needed The weakened and decimated Comintern was forced to officially adopt a policy of non intervention declaring on November 6 that the conflict was an imperialist war between various national ruling classes on both sides much like World War I had been and that the main culprits were Britain and France 46 This period during which the Comintern enabled Hitlerite fascism 47 only ended on 22 June 1941 with the invasion of the Soviet Union when the Comintern changed its position to one of active support for the Allies During these two years many communists turned their backs on their Comintern sections and the organization lost its political credibility and relevance On 15 May 1943 a declaration of the Executive Committee was sent out to all sections of the International calling for the dissolution of the Comintern The declaration read The historical role of the Communist International organized in 1919 as a result of the political collapse of the overwhelming majority of the old pre war workers parties consisted in that it preserved the teachings of Marxism from vulgarisation and distortion by opportunist elements of the labor movement But long before the war it became increasingly clear that to the extent that the internal as well as the international situation of individual countries became more complicated the solution of the problems of the labor movement of each individual country through the medium of some international centre would meet with insuperable obstacles Concretely the declaration asked the member sections to approve To dissolve the Communist International as a guiding centre of the international labor movement releasing sections of the Communist International from the obligations ensuing from the constitution and decisions of the Congresses of the Communist International After endorsements of the declaration were received from the member sections the International was dissolved 48 The dissolution was interpreted as Stalin wishing to calm his World War II allies particularly Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill and to keep them from suspecting the Soviet Union of pursuing a policy of trying to foment revolution in other countries 49 Successor organizations edit The Research Institutes 100 and 205 worked for the International and later were moved to the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union founded at roughly the same time that the Comintern was abolished in 1943 although its specific duties during the first several years of its existence are unknown 50 51 52 Following the June 1947 Paris Conference on Marshall Aid Stalin gathered a grouping of key European communist parties in September and set up the Cominform or Communist Information Bureau often seen as a substitute to the Comintern It was a network made up of the communist parties of Bulgaria Czechoslovakia France Hungary Italy Poland Romania the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia led by Josip Broz Tito and expelled in June 1948 The Cominform was dissolved in 1956 following Stalin s 1953 death and the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union While the communist parties of the world no longer had a formal international organization they continued to maintain close relations with each other through a series of international forums In the period directly after the Comintern s dissolution periodical meetings of communist parties were held in Moscow Moreover World Marxist Review a joint periodical of the communist parties played an important role in coordinating the communist movement up to the break up of the Eastern Bloc in 1989 1991 British historian Jonathan Haslam reports that even after in Moscow archives all references to the Communist International and later the international department of the central committee which drove the revolutionary side of foreign policy were removed from published diplomatic documents in order to fit in with the prevailing dogma established by Vladimir Lenin that the Soviet Government had nothing to do with Comintern I gave up co editing a series of documents on Russo American relations because my Russian colleague could not or would not get over that hurdle Even today 2020 when the Russians are more liberal in their censorship of documentary publications one has to verify where possible through other sources independent of Moscow And although Comintern s archives are available on the web most of it them are still closed to the reader even though officially declassified and much of it is in German only One always has to ask what has been cut out deliberately 53 Comintern sponsored international organizations editSeveral international organizations were sponsored by the Comintern in this period Young Communist International 1919 1943 Red International of Labour Unions Profintern formed in 1920 Communist Women s International formed in 1920 International Red Aid MOPR formed in 1922 Red Peasant International Krestintern formed in 1923 Red Sport International Sportintern International of the Proletarian Freethinkers 1925 1933 League against Imperialism formed in 1927 Workers International ReliefInternational Liaison Department editMain article International Liaison Department Communist International The OMS Russian Otdel mezhdunarodnoj svyazi otdel mezhdunarodnoy svyazi OMS also known in English as the International Liaison Department 1921 1939 54 55 was the most secret department of the Comintern It has also been translated as the Illegal Liaison Section 56 57 and Foreign Liaison Department 58 Historian Thomas L Sakmyster describes The OMS was the Comintern s department for the coordination of subversive and conspiratorial activities Some of its functions overlapped with those of the main Soviet intelligence agencies the OGPU and the GRU whose agents sometimes were assigned to the Comintern But the OMS maintained its own set of operations and had its own representative on the central committees of each Communist party abroad 57 In 2012 historian David McKnight stated The most intense practical application of the conspiratorial work of the Comintern was carried out by its international liaison service the OMS This body undertook clandenstine courier activities and work which supported underground political activities These included the transport of money and letters the manufacture of passports and other false documents and technical support to underground parties such as managing safe houses and establishing businesses overseas as cover activities 54 World congresses and plenums editCongresses edit Event Year held Dates Location DelegatesFounding Congress 1919 2 6 March Moscow 34 182nd World Congress 1920 19 July 7 August Petrograd and Moscow 167 533rd World Congress 1921 22 June 12 July Moscow4th World Congress 1922 5 November 5 December Petrograd and Moscow 340 485th World Congress 1924 17 June 8 July Moscow 324 826th World Congress 1928 17 July 1 September Moscow7th World Congress 1935 25 July 21 August MoscowDelegate figures are voting plus consultative 59 Plenums of ECCI edit Event Year held Dates Location Delegates1st Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1922 24 February 4 March Moscow 1052nd Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1922 7 11 June Moscow 41 93rd Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1923 12 23 June Moscow4th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1924 12 June and 12 13 July Moscow5th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1925 21 March 6 April Moscow6th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1926 17 February 15 March Moscow 77 537th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1926 22 November 16 December Moscow8th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1927 18 30 May Moscow9th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1928 9 25 February Moscow 44 4810th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1929 3 19 July Moscow 36 72Enlarged Presidium of ECCI 1930 25 February Moscow11th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1931 26 March 11 April Moscow12th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1932 27 August 15 September Moscow 38 13613th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 1933 28 November 12 December MoscowRelated meetings edit Event Year held Dates Location DelegatesConference of the Amsterdam Bureau 1920 10 11 February Amsterdam 161st Congress of the Peoples of the East 1920 1 8 September Baku 1 8911st Congress of Toilers of the Far East 1922 21 January 2 February Moscow and PetrogradWorld Congress Against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism 1927 10 15 February Brussels 1522nd Congress of the League Against Imperialism 1929 July Frankfurt1st International Conference of Negro Workers 1930 7 8 July Hamburg 17 3Bureaus editThis section needs expansion You can help by adding to it April 2022 Amsterdam Bureau of the Communist International Far Eastern Bureau of the Communist International Scandinavian Bureau of the Communist International Southern Bureau of the Communist International Balkan Bureau of the Communist International Vienna Bureau of the Communist International 60 See also editAnti Comintern Pact Bolshevization Communist University of the National Minorities of the West Communist University of the Toilers of the East Communist Workers International Executive Committee of the Communist International Foreign affairs of the Soviet Union Foreign relations of the Soviet Union International Communist Opposition International Entente Against the Third International International Lenin School International relations 1919 1939 International Revolutionary Marxist Centre International Working Union of Socialist Parties 2 1 2 International founded by Austro Marxists Moscow Sun Yat sen University Spanish Civil War StalinismListsList of communist parties List of delegates of the 1st Comintern Congress List of delegates of the 2nd Comintern Congress List of left wing internationals List of members of the CominternInternationalsFirst International Second International Fourth International Fifth InternationalNotes edit Kibaltchitch would later take the name Victor Serge A former anarchist he was not even a member of the RCP b at the time He believed he was included because of his knowledge of European languages 17 Delegates with deciding votes were Hugo Eberlein Communist Party of Germany Vladimir Lenin Russian Communist Party Leon Trotsky RCP b Zinoviev RCP b Joseph Stalin RCP b Bukharin RCP b Georgy Chicherin RCP b Karl Steinhardt Communist Party of German Austria K Petin CPGA Endre Rudnyanszky Communist Party of Hungary Otto Grimlund Social Democratic Left Party of Sweden Emil Stang Norwegian Labour Party Fritz Platten the opposition within the Swiss Social Democratic Party Boris Reinstein Socialist Labor Party of America Christian Rakovsky Balkan Revolutionary Social Democratic Federation Jozef Unszlicht Communist Party of Poland Yrjo Sirola Communist Party of Finland Kullervo Manner CPF O V Kuusinen CPF Jukka Rahja CPF Eino Rahja CPF Mykola Skrypnyk Communist Party Bolshevik of Ukraine Serafima Gopner CPU Karl Gailis Communist Party of Latvia Kazimir Gedris Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia Hans Poogelmann Communist Party of Estonia Gurgen Haikuni Communist Party of Armenia Gustav Klinger Communist Party of the German Colonists in Russia Gaziz Yalymov United Group of the Eastern Peoples of Russia Hussein Bekentayev UGEPR Mahomet Altimirov UGEPR Burhan Mansurov UGEPR Kasim Kasimov UGEPR and Henri Guilbeaux Zimmerwald Left of France Delegates with consultative votes were N Osinsky RCP b V V Vorovsky RCP b Jaroslav Handlir Czech Communist Group Stojan Dyorov Bulgarian Communist Group Ilija Milkic Yugoslav Communist Group Joseph Fineberg British Communist Group Jacques Sadoul French Communist Group S J Rutgers Dutch Social Democratic Party Socialist Propaganda League of America Leonie Kascher Swiss Communist Group Liu Shaozhou Chinese Socialist Workers Party Zhang Yongkui CSWP Kain Korean Workers League Angelica Balabanoff Zimmerwald Committee and the following delegates representing the sections the Central Bureau of Eastern Peoples Gaziz Yalymov Turkestan Mustafa Suphi Turkey Tengiz Zhgenti Georgian Mir Jafar Baghirov Azerbaijan and Mirza Davud Huseynov Persia 21 For example the thirteenth condition stated The communist parties of those countries in which the communists can carry out their work legally must from time to time undertake purges re registration of the membership of their party organizations in order to cleanse the party systematically of the petty bourgeois elements within it The term purge has taken on very negative connotations because of the Great Purge of the 1930s but in the early 1920s the term was more ambiguous See J Arch Getty s Origins of the Great Purges The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered 1933 1938 at p 41 for discussion of the ambiguities in the term including its use in the 1920 Comintern resolution References edit Blanc Paul Le 15 April 2015 Leon Trotsky Reaktion Books pp 1 224 ISBN 978 1 78023 471 7 Allen Barbara 8 January 2015 Alexander Shlyapnikov 1885 1937 Life of an Old Bolshevik BRILL p 233 ISBN 978 90 04 24854 0 Legvold Robert 2007 Russian Foreign Policy in the Twenty First Century and the Shadow of the Past Columbia University Press p 408 ISBN 978 0 231 51217 6 However the USSR created an entirely new dimension of interwar European reality one in which Russia devised rules of the game and set the agenda namely the Comintern Conquest Robert 1990 The Great Terror A Reassessment Oxford University Press p 399 ISBN 978 0 19 507132 0 It became instead a set of parties founded strictly on the Bolshevik model and constitutionally subordinated to the Comintern which always remained under effective Soviet control Third International Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved 3 December 2020 Though its stated purpose was the promotion of world revolution the Comintern functioned chiefly as an organ of Soviet control over the international communist movement Fisher Harold Henry 1955 The Communist Revolution An Outline of Strategy and Tactics Stanford UP p 13 North David Kishore Joe 2008 The Historical amp International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party Mehring Books p 13 ISBN 978 1 893638 07 5 Tucker Spencer C 2005 The Encyclopedia of World War I A Political Social and Military History ABC CLIO pp 883 85 ISBN 978 1 85109 420 2 Clough Robert 1992 Labour a party fit for imperialism 2nd ed Croydon Larkin publications published 2014 p 48 ISBN 978 0 905400 27 3 R Craig Nation 1989 War on War Lenin the Zimmerwald Left and the Origins of Communist Internationalism Duke University Press Service Lenin A Biography p 262 Broue P 2006 The German Revolution 1917 1923 Chicago Haymarket Books p 516 Broue P 2006 The German Revolution 1917 1923 Chicago Haymarket Books p 531 Berg Nils J 1982 I kamp for Socialismen Kortfattad framstallning av det svenska kommunistiska partiets historia 1917 1981 Stockholm Arbetarkultur p 19 a b Glossary of Events Congresses of the Communist International marxists org Serge Victor Memoirs of a Revolutionary First Congress of the Communist International The Organisation of the Communist International Marxist Speeches at the First Congress of the Communist International March 1919 Marxists Leon Trotsky First Congress of the Communist International Letter of Invitation to the Congress 24 January 1919 Marxists First Congress of the Communist International Lenin V 1906 Report on the Unity Congress of the R S D L P William Henry Chamberlin Soviet Russia A Living Record and a History 1929 chapter 11 Max Shachtman For the Fourth International New International Vol 1 No 1 July 1934 Walter Kendall Lenin and the Myth of World Revolution Revolutionary History Archived 28 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine M V S Koteswara Rao Communist Parties and United Front Experience in Kerala and West Bengal Hyderabad Prajasakti Book House 2003 pp 48 84 85 The Black Book of Communism pp 275 276 Minutes of the Seventh Session Blunden Andy History of the Communist International marxists org 1 Archived September 13 2006 at the Wayback Machine Saage Richard 2007 Sowjetmarxistische Interpretation des Faschismus Faschismus Konzeptionen und historische Kontexte Eine Einfuhrung in German VS Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften pp 24 48 ISBN 978 3 531 15387 2 David Priestland The Red Flag A History of Communism 2009 p 124 Rogovin Vadim Zakharovich 2021 Was There an Alternative Trotskyism a Look Back Through the Years Mehring Books p 272 ISBN 978 1 893638 97 6 Duncan Hallas The Comintern chapter 5 Geoff Eley Forging Democracy The History of the Left in Europe 1850 2000 Oxford University Press 2002 p 228 David Priestland The Red Flag A History of Communism 2009 pp 124 125 Robert Service Comrades a history of world communism 2007 pp 164 173 Archie Brown The Rise and Fall of Communism 2011 pp 88 89 Michael David Fox The Fellow Travelers Revisited The Cultured West through Soviet Eyes Journal of Modern History 2003 75 2 pp 300 335 JSTOR 10 1086 380140 Robert Service Comrades a history of world communism 2007 pp 173 174 Ian Birchall Profintern Die Rote Gewerkschaftsinternationale 1920 1937 Historical Materialism 2009 Vol 17 Issue 4 pp 164 176 review in English of a German language study by Reiner Tosstorff Julian Jackson The Popular Front in France 1990 p x Duncan Hallas The Comintern chapter 6 Nicholas N Kozlov Eric D Weitz Reflections on the Origins of the Third Period Bukharin the Comintern and the Political Economy of Weimar Germany Journal of Contemporary History Vol 24 No 3 Jul 1989 pp 387 410 JSTOR M V S Koteswara Rao Communist Parties and United Front Experience in Kerala and West Bengal Hyderabad Prajasakti Book House 2003 pp 47 48 Institute of Marxism Leninism of the CPCz CC Institute of Marxism Leninism of the CPS CC An Outline of the History of the CPCz Prague Orbis Press Agency 1980 p 160 The Black Book of Communism p 298 301 Wolfgang Leonhard Die Revolution entlasst ihre Kinder Ullstein Frankfurt a M Berlin Taschenbuchausgabe 10 Auflage 1968 S 44 Radzinski Stalin 1997 Beide Zitate nach Wolfgang Leonhard Eurokommunismus Bertelsmann Munchen 1978 ISBN 3 570 05106 4 S 48 Third International Marxist Leninist Political Parties Britannica 24 November 2023 Dissolution of the Communist International marxists org Robert Service Stalin A biography Macmillan London 2004 pp 444 445 Mark Kramer The Role of the CPSU International Department in Soviet Foreign Relations and National Security Policy Soviet Studies Vol 42 No 3 Jul 1990 pp 429 446 H Net Discussion Networks h net msu edu Stalin and the Cold War in Europe The Emergence and Development of East West Conflict 1939 1953 Jonathan Haslam The Road Taken International Relations as History H DIPLO 2020 online a b McKnight David 2012 Espionage and the Roots of the Cold War The Conspiratorial Heritage Routledge pp vii Rudnik 52 Trilisser 60 OMS 61 62 dissolution 119 120 Ducroux Rudnik ISBN 978 1 136 33812 0 Lazitch Branko Milorad M Drachkovitch 1986 Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern Hoover Press pp xxix description 120 Flieg 319 Mirov Abramov 479 Trilisser ISBN 978 0 8265 1352 6 Krivitsky Walter 2013 1939 In Stalin s Secret Service An Expose of Russia s Secret Polices by the Formem Chief of the Soviet Intelligence in Western Europe Harper amp Brothers Enigma Books p 125 ISBN 978 1 936274 89 5 a b Sakmyster Thomas L 2011 Red Conspirator J Peters and the American Communist Underground University of Illinois Press pp 37 translation 38 organization 40 Browder 62 Russian counterpart 63 process West Nigel 2015 Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence Rowman amp Littlefield p 77 ISBN 978 1 4422 4957 8 The Communist International 1919 1943 Marxist History Retrieved March 22 2010 Kokai Karoly 2017 The Communist International and the Contribution of Georg Lukacs in the 1920s Social Scientist JSTOR 26405282 Further reading editBarrett James R What Went Wrong The Communist Party the US and the Comintern American Communist History 17 2 2018 176 184 Belogurova Anna Networks Parties and the Oppressed Nations The Comintern and Chinese Communists Overseas 1926 1935 Cross Currents East Asian History and Culture Review 6 2 2017 558 582 online Belogurova Anna The Nanyang Revolution The Comintern and Chinese Networks in Southeast Asia 1890 1957 Cambridge UP 2019 focus on Malaya Caballero Manuel Latin America and the Comintern 1919 1943 Cambridge University Press 2002 Carr E H Twilight of the Comintern 1930 1935 New York Pantheon Books 1982 online free to borrow Chase William J Enemies within the Gates The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression 1934 1939 Yale UP 2001 Dobronravin Nikolay The Comintern Negro Self Determination and Black Revolutions in the Caribbean Interfaces Brasil Canada 20 2020 1 18 online Drachkovitch M M ed The Revolutionary Internationals Stanford UP 1966 Drachewych Oleksa The Comintern and the Communist Parties of South Africa Canada and Australia on Questions of Imperialism Nationality and Race 1919 1943 PhD dissertation McMaster University 2017 online Dullin Sabine and Brigitte Studer Communism transnational the rediscovered equation of internationalism in the Comintern years Twentieth Century Communism 14 14 2018 66 95 Gankin Olga Hess and Harold Henry Fisher The Bolsheviks and the World War The Origin of the Third International Stanford UP 1940 online Gupta Sobhanlal Datta Comintern and the Destiny of Communism in India 1919 1943 2006 onlineHaithcox John Patrick Communism and nationalism in India MN Roy and Comintern policy 1920 1939 1971 online Hallas Duncan The Comintern The History of the Third International London Bookmarks 1985 Hopkirk Peter Setting the East Ablaze Lenin s Dream of a Empire in Asia 1984 1984 Ikeda Yoshiro Time and the Comintern Rethinking the Cultural Impact of the Russian Revolution on Japanese Intellectuals in Culture and Legacy of the Russian Revolution Rhetoric and Performance Religious Semantics Impact on Asia 2020 227 James C L R World Revolution 1917 1936 The Rise and Fall of the Communist International 1937 online Jeifets Victor and Lazar Jeifets The Encounter between the Cuban Left and the Russian Revolution The Communist Party and the Comintern Historia Critica 64 2017 81 100 Kennan George F Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin 1961 pp 151 93 online Lazitch Branko and Milorad M Drachkovitch Biographical dictionary of the Comintern 2nd ed 1986 McDermott Kevin Stalin and the Comintern during the Third Period 1928 33 European history quarterly 25 3 1995 409 429 McDermott Kevin The History of the Comintern in Light of New Documents in Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe eds International Communism and the Communist International 1919 43 Manchester England Manchester University Press 1998 McDermott Kevin and J Agnew The Comintern a History of International Communism from Lenin to Stalin Basingstoke 1996 Melograni Piero Lenin and the Myth of World Revolution Ideology and Reasons of State 1917 1920 Humanities Press 1990 Priestland David The Red Flag A History of Communism 2010 Riddell John The Comintern in 1922 The Periphery Pushes Back Historical Materialism 22 3 4 2014 52 103 online Smith S A ed The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism 2014 ch 10 The Comintern Taber Mike ed The Communist Movement at a Crossroads Plenums of the Communist International s Executive Committee 1922 1923 John Riddell trans Chicago Haymarket Books 2019 Ulam Adam B Expansion and Coexistence Soviet Foreign Policy 1917 1973 2nd ed Praeger Publishers 1974 online Valeva Yelena The CPSU the Comintern and the Bulgarians Routledge 2018 Worley Matthew et al eds Bolshevism Stalinism and the Comintern Perspectives on Stalinization 1917 53 2008 The Comintern and its Critics Special issue of Revolutionary History Volume 8 no 1 Summer 2001 Historiography edit Drachewych Oleksa The Communist Transnational Transnational studies and the history of the Comintern History Compass 17 2 2019 e12521 McDermott Kevin Rethinking the Comintern Soviet Historiography 1987 1991 Labour History Review 57 3 1992 pp 37 58 McIlroy John and Alan Campbell Bolshevism Stalinism and the Comintern A historical controversy revisited Labor History 60 3 2019 165 192 online Redfern Neil The Comintern and Imperialism A Balance Sheet Journal of Labor and Society 20 1 2017 43 60 Primary sources edit Banac I ed The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov 1933 1949 Yale University Press 2003 Davidson Apollon et al eds South Africa and the Communist International A Documentary History 2 volumes 2003 Degras Jane T The Communist International 1919 43 3 volumes 1956 documents online vol 1 1919 22 vol 2 1923 28 vol 3 1929 43 Firsov Fridrikh I Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes eds Secret Cables of the Comintern 1933 1943 New Haven Connecticut Yale University Press 2014 online review Gruber Helmut International Communism in the Era of Lenin A Documentary History Cornell University Press 1967 Kheng Cheah Boon ed From PKI to the Comintern 1924 1941 Cornell University Press 2018 Riddell John ed The Communist International in Lenin s Time Vol 1 Lenin s Struggle for a Revolutionary International Documents 1907 1916 The Preparatory Years New York Monad Press 1984 The Communist International in Lenin s Time Vol 2 The German Revolution and the Debate on Soviet Power Documents 1918 1919 Preparing the Founding Congress New York Pathfinder Press 1986 The Communist International in Lenin s Time Vol 3 Founding the Communist International Proceedings and Documents of the First Congress March 1919 New York Pathfinder Press 1987 The Communist International in Lenin s Time Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples Unite Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress 1920 In Two Volumes New York Pathfinder Press 1991 The Communist International in Lenin s Time To See the Dawn Baku 1920 First Congress of the Peoples of the East New York Pathfinder Press 1993 Toward the United Front Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International 1922 Leiden Brill 2012 External links editComintern History Archive Marxists Internet Archive nbsp Wikisource has original works by or about Communist International nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Comintern Lenin s speech The Third Communist International recording Site Comintern Archives in English Site Comintern Archives in Russian Program of the Communist International Together With Its Constitution adopted at 6th World Congress in 1928 The Communist International Journal of the Comintern Marxists Internet Archive Outline History of the Communist International The Internationale by R Palme Dutt 1964 Report from Moscow 3rd International congress 1920 by Otto Ruhle Article on the Third International from the Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Communist International amp oldid 1206346420, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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