The Communist International published
a theoretical magazine in a variety of European languages from 1919
to 1943.
The
Comintern ("Communist
International", also known as the Third
International) was an international Communist organization founded in Moscow
in March
1919. The International intended to fight
"by all
available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the
international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international
Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of
the State." The Comintern was founded after the dissolution of
the
Second International in
1916, following the 1915
Zimmerwald Conference in which
Vladimir Lenin had led the "
Zimmerwald Left" against those who supported
the "
national union" governments
in war with each other.
The Comintern held seven World Congresses between 1919 and 1935. It
also held 13 "Enlarged Plenums" of its governing
Executive
Committee, which had much the same function as the somewhat
larger and more grandiose Congresses. These gatherings gradually
assumed the role of ceremonial
rituals rather
than serving any decision-making function and were discontinued.
The Comintern was subsequently officially dissolved in 1943.
Organizational history
Failure of the Second International confronted with World War
I
While the fissures had been evident for decades, World War I was to
prove to be the issue which finally and irrevocably separated the
revolutionary and
reformist wings of the
workers movement. The socialist movement had been historically
antimilitarist and
internationalist, and was
therefore opposed to being used as "cannon fodder" for the
"bourgeois" governments at war.
This especially since the Triple Alliance gathered two empires,
while the Triple Entente itself
gathered the French Third
Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland
with the Russian Empire
. The
Communist Manifesto had stated that "the working class has
no
country", and exclaimed "
Proletarians of all countries,
unite!" Massive majorities voted in favor of resolutions for
the Second International to call upon the international working
class to resist war should it be declared.
Despite this, within hours of the declaration of war, almost all
the socialist parties of the combatant states had announced their
support for their own countries. The only exceptions were the
socialist parties of the Balkans, Russia and tiny minorities in
other countries. To Lenin's surprise, even the
German SPD voted the war
credits. Finally, the assassination of
French
socialist Jean Jaurès on July
31, 1914, killed the last hope of peace, by removing one of the few
leaders who possessed enough influence on the international
socialist movement to block it from aligning itself on national
policies and supporting
National
Union governments.
Socialist parties of
neutral
countries for the most part continued to argue for neutrality,
and against total opposition to the war. On the other hand, Lenin
organized the "Zimmerwald Left" opposed to the "
imperialist war" during the 1915
Zimmerwald Conference, and published
the
pamphlet Socialism and War, in
which he called all socialists who collaborated with their national
governments "
Social-Chauvinists"
(socialist in their words but chauvinist in their deeds).
The International was being divided between a revolutionary left, a
reformist right and a centre wavering between each pole. Lenin also
condemned much of the centre, which often opposed the war but
refused to break
party discipline
and therefore voted war credits, as social-pacifists.
This latter term was
aimed in particular at Ramsay
MacDonald (leader of the Independent Labour Party in
Britain) who did in fact oppose the war on grounds of
pacifism but had not actively resisted
it.
Discredited by its passivity towards world events, the Second
International was henceforth dissolved in the middle of the war, in
1916. In 1917, Lenin published the
April Theses, which openly
supported a "
revolutionary
defeatism": the Bolsheviks pronounced themselves in favour of
the defeat of Russia in the war which would permit them to pass to
the stage of a revolutionary
insurrection.
Impact of the Russian Revolution
The victory of the
Russian
Communist Party in the
Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917
truly shook the world. An alternative path to power to
parliamentary politics was demonstrated in
broad stokes. With much of Europe on the verge of economic and
political collapse in the aftermath of the carnage of the Great
War, revolutionary sentiments bubbled forth from a hundred hidden
streams. The Russian Bolsheviks, headed by
V.I. Lenin, firmly
believed that unless socialist revolution swept Europe that 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. To this end, the organization of a new
international to foment revolution in Europe and around the world
became to the Bolsheviks an iron necessity.
Founding Congress of the Communist International
The Comintern was thus founded in these conditions at a
congress March 2-6,1919,
against the backdrop of the
Russian
Civil War. There were 52 delegates present from 34 parties.
They decided that an Executive Committee would be formed with
representatives of the most important sections, and that other
parties joining the International would get 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 constituted and
Lenin, 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 Balbanoff, acting as the
secretary of the International,
Victor
L. Kibaltchitch and
Vladmir Ossipovich Mazin. Material
was presented by Lenin, Trotsky and
Alexandra Kollontai. The main topic of
discussion was the difference between "
bourgeois democracy" and the "
dictatorship of the
proletariat".
The following parties and movements were invited to the Founding
Congress:
Of these, the following attended: 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.
The first Chairman of the Comintern's Executive Committee was
Grigory Zinoviev, 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", i.e. that
parties would make decisions democratically, but uphold in a
disciplined fashion whatever decision was made. In this period, the
Comintern was promoted as the "
General
Staff of the
World
Revolution".
2nd World Congress of the Communist International
Ahead of the Second Congress of the Communist International, held
in July-August 1920, Lenin sent out a number of documents,
including his
Twenty-one
Conditions to all socialist parties. The Congress adopted the
21 conditions as prerequisites for any group wanting to become
affiliated to the International. The 21 Conditions called for the
demarcation between Communist parties and other socialist groups,
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 bourgeosie 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
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
Communist Party of Mexico.
The congress removed the term ‘bourgeois-democratic' in what became
the 8th condition.
Many European socialist parties went through splits on the basis of
the adhesion or not to the new International. 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, etc.
3rd World Congress of the Communist International
Writings from the Third Congress, held in June-July 1921, talked
about how the struggle could be transformed into "civil war" when
the circumstances were favorable and "openly revolutionary
uprisings". The Fourth Congress, November 1922, at which
Leon Trotsky played a prominent role, continued
in this vein.
During this early period, 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. On
example is the
M-Apparat of the
Communist Party of Germany. Its
purpose was to prepare for the civil war the Communists believed
was impending in Germany, and to liquidate opponents and informers
who might have infiltrated the party. There was also a
paramilitary organization, the
Rotfrontkämpferbund.
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. Soon an official "Terror Group of
the Revolutionary Council of the Government" was formed,
unofficially known as "
Lenin Boys". The
next attempt was the "
March Action" in
Germany in 1921, including an attempt to dynamite the express train
from Halle to Leipzig. When this failed Lenin ordered the removal
of the leader of the
Communist Party of Germany,
Paul Levi, from power. 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
Estonian
Communist Party.
In 1924, the
Mongolian People's
Revolutionary Party joined Comintern. In China at first both
the Chinese Communist Party and the
Kuomintang were supported. After the definite
break with
Chiang Kai-shek in 1927,
Stalin sent personal emissaries to help organize revolts which at
this time failed.
From the Fifth to the Seventh World Congress
The Second Period
Lenin died in 1924. 1925 signalled a shift from the immediate
activity of world revolution towards a defence of the Soviet state.
In that year,
Joseph Stalin 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. The perspective of a
world revolution was dismissed after the
failures of the
Spartacist
uprising in Germany and of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, and
the reflux of all revolutionary movements in Europe, such as in
Italy, where the
fascist squadristi broke the strikes 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 USSR from
war communism to the
New Economic Policy.
At the 5th World Congress of the Comintern in July 1924, Zinoviev
condemned
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, who already held considerable power by this
time. 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.
The Third Period
In 1928, the 9th Plenum of the
Executive
Committee began the so-called "
Third
Period", which was to last until 1935. The Comintern proclaimed
that the capitalist system was entering the period of final
collapse, and that as such, the correct stance for all Communist
parties was that of a highly aggressive, militant,
ultra-left line. In particular, the Comintern
described all moderate left-wing parties as "
social fascists", and urged the Communists
devote their energies to the destruction of the moderate left. With
the rise of the
Nazi movement in Germany after
1930, this stance became somewhat controversial with many such as
the Polish Communist historian
Isaac
Deutscher criticizing the tactics of the
Communist Party of Germany of
treating the
Social
Democratic Party of Germany as the principal enemy.
The 6th World Congress also revised the policy of united front in
the colonial world. In 1927 the
Kuomintang had turned on the Chinese communists,
which led to a review of the policy on forming alliances with the
national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries. The congress did
however make a differentiation between the character of the Chinese
Kuomintang on one hand and the Indian Swarajist Party and the
Egyptian
Wafd Party on the other,
considering the latter as an unreliable ally but not a direct
enemy. The congress called on the Indian communists to utilize the
contradictions between the national bourgeosie and the British
imperialists.
7th World Congress and the Popular Front
The seventh and last congress of the Comintern was held between
July 25 and August 20 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. 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 in particular, 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 USSR 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). 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.
Fritz Platten died in a labor camp; 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. A great number of German Communists were handed over to
Adolf Hitler.
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."
Dissolution
At the start of
World War II, the
Comintern supported a policy of
non-intervention, arguing that the war was
an imperialist war between various national ruling classes, much
like
World War I had been (see
Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact). But when
the Soviet Union itself was invaded on 22 June 1941, the Comintern
changed its position to one of active support for the
Allies.
On May 15, 1943, a declaration of the
Executive
Committee was sent out to all sections of the International,
calling for the dissolution of Comintern. The declaration
read:
"The historical role of the Communist International,
organised 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.
Messages between Tito
and Dimitrov the Secretary-General in Moscow were intercepted and
decrypted by the British GC&CS (Bletchley Park
) from 1943, though the volume of messages was not
great (the first message from "Walter" (Tito) was intercepted on 21
April, though not decrypted until many months later). They
showed
the level of control exercised over him (Tito) by
Moscow and
continued with Dimitrov after June 1943, when
the Comintern itself was dissolved.
Usually, it is asserted that the dissolution came about as Stalin
wished to calm his World War II
Allies (particularly
Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Winston Churchill) and keep them from
suspecting the Soviet Union of pursuing a policy of trying to
foment revolution in other countries.
Successor organisations
The
International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union was 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.
In September 1947, following the June 1947 Paris Conference on
Marshall Aid, Stalin gathered a
grouping of key European communist parties 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, it was
expelled in June 1948). The Cominform was dissolved in 1956,
following Stalin's 1953 death and the
XXth Congress of the CPSU.
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 dissolution of Comintern, 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
Socialist Bloc
in 1989-1991.
Comintern and Communist Party of China
The complicated relationship between the Comintern and the
Communist Party of China (CPC) is
an important chapter in the history of Comintern.
1921 to 1927
The CPC was established in 1921 with the help of Comintern. The CPC
declared itself as a branch of the Comintern. At that time, China
had a big revolutionary party called The National Party of China
(
Kuomintang). Its leader, Dr.
Sun Yatsen, frustrated by the refusal of help
from western countries, quickly turned to the Soviet Union and
Comintern. Under the instruction of the Comintern, the CPC joined
the Kuomintang. Kuomintang applied for membership in Comintern, but
was not accepted. However, the Comintern viewed Kuomintang as a
quasi-Communist Party. Sun Yatsen’s successor,
Chiang Kai-shek, was once elected as an
honorary member of the standing committee in Comintern.
1927 to 1935
After the success of the joint revolution of the Kuomintang and
CPC, they split. The Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek turned into
an anti-communist force. The Comintern instructed the Communists to
initiate urban riots, but all failed. A group of “native
Communists”, such as
Mao Zedong, used
peasant riots to establish the
Soviet Republic of China in remote
mountain villages. The Comintern sent a German,
Otto Braun, as the military adviser, who
became the real highest commander later.
Zhou
Enlai, once the Comintern's favorite, was the chairman of the
military committee of CPC. After being besieged by Chiang
Kai-shek’s army, the
Chinese Red
Army had to escape to try to find a new base - this came to be
known as the
Long March
(1934-1935).
1935 to 1942
During
the Long March, the party leadership re-examined its policy in
Zunyi
(January 1935). Mao
Zedong blamed their failure on blindly following the
Comintern's instructions. During the heated debate,
Zhou Enlai unexpectedly accepted the criticism
and sided with Mao. Otto Braun was dismissed from his commanding
position.
After they resettled in
Yanan, the native
Communists, such as Mao and
Zhu De, gained
power. Those who were loyal to the Comintern, such as a group
called
28 Bolsheviks, fell from
important positions. Zhou Enlai became an assistant to Mao in
political affairs, such as
United Front
and diplomacy. The Comintern and Soviet Union could no longer
control the CPC. The Comintern continued to give advice, but much
was ignored.
An exception was the
Northeast Anti-Japanese
United Army, organized by the
Manchuria branch of the CPC in 1932.
Geographically separated from the CPC headquarters in
Yenan, this
guerrilla army
did not report directly to the CPC center, but was still led and
supported by the Soviet Union under the name of Comintern until it
was defeated by Japanese occupation force and fled to the Soviet
Union in 1942.
Comintern-sponsored international organizations
Several international organizations were sponsored by the Comintern
in this period:
World Congresses of the Comintern and Plenums of ECCI
- :{| class="wikitable"
Delegate figures are VOTING + CONSULTATIVE. Source:
http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/comintern.html
See also
Footnotes
- MI5 History, The Inter-War Period
- Berg, Nils J. I kamp för Socialismen - Kortfattad
framställning av det svenska kommunistiska partiets historia
1917-1981. It opened with a tribute to Karl Liebknecht and
Rosa
Luxemburg who had recently been murdered by the Freikorps during the
Spartakus Uprising. Stockholm: Arbetarkultur, 1982.
p. 19.
- Marxist Internet Archive
- Kibaltchitch would later take the name 'Victor Serge'. A former
anarchist, he was not even a member of the RCP(b) at the time. In
his own words, he considered that it was his knowledge of various
European languages that motived his inclusion into the Comintern
apparatus. See: Serge, Victor. Memoirs of a Revolutionary.
- First Congress of the Communist
International
- Marxist Internet Archive
- First Congress of the Communist
International
- Delegates with decisive vote were: Hugo Eberlein (Communist Party of Germany),
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),
Yrjö Sirola
(Communist Party of Finland),
Kullervo
Manner (CPF), O. V. Kuusinen (CPF), Jukka Rahja (CPF),
Eino Rahja (CPF),
Mykola
Skrypnyk (Communist Party of
Ukraine), Serafima Gopner (CPU), Karl Gailis (Communist Party of Latvia),
Kazimir
Gedris (Communist Party of
Lithuania and Belorussia), Hans Pöögelman (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 vote: N. Osinsky (RCP(b)), V. V. Vorovsky
(RCP(b)), Jaroslav Handlir (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).
Source:[1]
- 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).
- For example, the thirteenth condition stated that "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
organisations 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. In
the early 1920s, however, the term was more ambiguous. See J. Arch
Getty Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party
Reconsidered, 1933-1938 p.41 for discussion of the ambiguities
in the term, including its use in the 1920 Comintern
resolution.
- M.V.S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front -
Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad:
Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 48, 84-85
- The Black Book of Communism pp.
275-6; Minutes of the Seventh Session
- Marxist Internet Archive
- The Black Book of Communism pp.
282; Marxist Internet Archive
- The Black Book of Communism pp.
272-5
- The Black Book of Communism pp.
276-7
- The Black Book of Communism pp.
277-8
- The Black Book of Communism pp.
278-9
- [2]
- The Black Book of Communism pp.
280-82
- Duncan Hallas The Comintern, chapter
5
- 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. p. 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.
- Radzinski, Stalin, 1997
- Dissolution of the Communist International
- Mihailović or Tito? How the Codebreakers Helped Churchill
Choose by John Cripps; Chapter 13 (pages 237-263) of
Action This Day edited by Michael Smith & Ralph
Erskine (2001, Bantam London) ISBN 0593 049101 p. 242, 253,
257
- 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
Further reading
- C. L. R. James, World Revolution 1917-1936: The
Rise and Fall of the Communist International Humanities Press,
New Jersey, (Revolutionary Series), 1993, ISBN 1573925837
- Marcel Liebman, Leninism Under Lenin Humanities Press,
New Jersey ISBN 085036261X
- Piero Melograni, Lenin and the Myth of World Revolution:
Ideology and Reasons of State 1917-1920, Humanities Press, New
Jersey, 1990
- The Comintern and its Critics (Special issue of
Revolutionary History Volume 8, no 1, Summer 2001)
External links
|
| Event |
| Year Held |
| Dates |
| Location |
| Delegates |
|
| Founding Congress of the Communist International |
| 1919 |
| March 2-6 |
| Moscow |
| 34 + 18 |
|
| Conference of the Amsterdam Bureau |
| 1920 |
| February 10-11 |
| Amsterdam |
| 16 |
|
| 2nd World Congress of the Comintern |
| 1920 |
| July 19 to Aug. 7 |
| Petrograd & Moscow |
| 167 + ≈53 |
|
| 1st Congress of the Peoples of the East |
| 1920 |
| September 1-8 |
| Baku |
|
|
| 3rd World Congress of the Comintern |
| 1921 |
| June 22 to July 12 |
| Moscow |
|
|
| 1st Congress of Toilers of the Far East |
| 1922 |
| Jan. 21 to Feb. 2 |
| Moscow & Petrograd |
|
|
| 1st Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1922 |
| Feb. 24 to March 4 |
| Moscow |
| 105 |
|
| 2nd Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1922 |
| June 7-11 |
| Moscow |
| 41 + 9 |
|
| 4th World Congress of the Comintern |
| 1922 |
| Nov. 5 to Dec. 5 |
| Petrograd & Moscow |
| 340 + 48 |
|
| 3rd Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1923 |
| June 12-23 |
| Moscow |
|
|
| 5th World Congress of the Comintern |
| 1924 |
| June 17 to July 8 |
| Moscow |
| 324 + 82 |
|
| 4th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1924 |
| June 12 and July 12-13 |
| Moscow |
|
|
| 5th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1925 |
| March 21 to April 6 |
| Moscow |
|
|
| 6th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1926 |
| Feb. 17 to March 15 |
| Moscow |
| 77 + 53 |
|
| 7th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1926 |
| Nov. 22 to Dec. 16 |
| Moscow |
|
|
| World Congress Against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism |
| 1927 |
| February 10-15 |
| Brussels |
| 152 |
|
| 8th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1927 |
| May 18-30 |
| Moscow |
|
|
| 9th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1928 |
| February 9-25 |
| Moscow |
| 44 + 48 |
|
| 6th World Congress of the Comintern |
| 1928 |
| July 17 to Sept. 1 |
| Moscow |
|
|
| 10th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1929 |
| July 3-19 |
| Moscow |
| 36 + 72 |
|
| 2nd Congress of the League Against Imperialism |
| 1929 |
| July |
| Frankfurt |
|
|
| Enlarged Presidium of ECCI |
| 1930 |
| February 25-?? |
| Moscow |
|
|
| 1st International Conference of Negro Workers |
| 1930 |
| July 7-8 |
| Hamburg |
| 17 + 3 |
|
| 11th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1931 |
| March 26 to April 11 |
| Moscow |
|
|
| 12th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1932 |
| Aug. 27 to Sept. 15 |
| Moscow |
| 38 + 136 |
|
| 13th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI |
| 1933 |
| Nov. 28 to Dec. 12 |
| Moscow |
|
|
| 7th World Congress of the Comintern |
| 1935 |
| July 25 to Aug. 21 |
| Moscow |
|
|
)
social democracy
, the Klassekampen
group
and Yokohama (Japan
, represented
by Comrade Katayama)
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