Comintern Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
and Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) in May 1919. The slogan at the top says "proletarians of all countries, unite!"]]The Comintern (from Communist International), also known as the Third International, was an international Communist organization founded in March 1919 by Lenin and the Russian Communist Party (bolshevik), which 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 represented a split from the Second International in response to the latter's failure to form a unified coalition against the First World War, which the Third Internationalists regarded as a bourgeois imperialist war.
The Comintern held seven World Congresses, the first in March 1919 and the last in 1935, until it was dissolved in 1943. Left Communists today recognise only the first two congresses, and groups coming out of the Bolshevik Leninist or Trotskyist movement recognise the decisions of the first four only. Communist Parties of the Stalinist or Maoist persuasion, however, recognize all seven congresses.
Before the Comintern was formally established, Lenin had already written of his extreme disgust with the way in which many European Social-Democrats had failed to oppose World War I, and was particularly critical of individuals such as Karl Kautsky and Ramsay MacDonald, disparagingly describing them as Social-Chauvinists (socialists in words, chauvinists in deeds), as in the case of the latter, and social pacifists, as in the case of the former.
The socialist movement soon split in two, with the Social Democrats on one side and the Communists on the other. As noted above, the original reason for this split was a difference of vision regarding the First World War and associated events, but the rift grew wider over the years, with the two groups opposing each other on many other issues.
The split was initiated by the Russian Bolsheviks, who adopted the name "Communists". It was made official by the First Congress of the Comintern.
A central policy of the Comintern was that Communist parties should be established across the world to aid the international proletarian revolution. They also shared the idea of democratic centralism, which essentially boils down to the principle that all decisions must be made democratically and all voices must be heard in the process, but party members should not continue to dispute a decision after it has been adopted.
The following parties and movements were invited to the First Congress of the Communist International:
Origins of the Communist International
For a party to join the Comintern, it had to accept the Twenty-one Conditions, which were intended to delimit revolutionary communists from the reformist and centrist forces which sought to join the Comintern in the wake of the success of the Russian revolution.
The first Chairman of the Comintern's Executive Committee was Grigory Zinoviev, from 1919 to 1926 (when he was dismissed after falling out of favor with Stalin, who already held considerable power by this time). Nikolai Bukharin led the Comintern for two years, until 1928, until he too fell out with Stalin. Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov headed the Comintern in 1934 and presided it until its dissolution.
Several international front organizations were set up by Comintern:
The last Congress of the Comintern was held in 1935 and officially endorsed the Popular Front against fascism. This policy argued that the 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 on the working class. There was no significant opposition to this policy within any of the national sections of the Comintern and in France and Spain in particular it would have momentous consequences.
As the Seventh World Congress officially repudiated the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism as it purpose Leon Trotsky was led to state that it was the death of the Comintern as a revolutionary International and that therefore a New International would need to be built. he also argued that the Stalinist parties were now to be considered reformist parties similar to the social democratic parties but also playing a role as border guards for the Russian state.
Whether or not his analysis was correct is best judged by looking at the actuality of the sections of the Comintern under the Popular Front policy. Most important being the sections in France and Spain in this period due to the Popular Front governments formed in these countries. However even in countries where the local Communist party was either small or marginal the working out of the logic of the Popular Front can be observed for example in the USA where Popular Frontism dictated supporting Roosevelt's Presidency.
However the Communist Parties were pulled between their loyalty to the regime in the Kremlin and their bases in theior own countries which duality was put to the test in 1939 with the opening of the Second World War. The war saw the Communist parties swing to the left as the USSR signed a pact with Nazi Germany. The Commuist Parties would between 1939 and 1941 spend their time denouncing the war as an Imperialist War which they had to oppose as unjustified. However in 1941 Germany invaded the USSR and the Communist Parties swung back to an anti-fascist policy and support for the war.
The Comintern was officially dissolved on May 15 1943, by Stalin, who wished to reassure his World War II Allies (particularly Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill) that the USSR was no longer pursuing a policy of trying to foment revolution.
In 1947 the Cominform or Communist Information Bureau was created as a substitute. It was a network made up of the Communist parties of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. It too was dissolved in 1956.
While the pro-Moscow Communist parties of the world no longer had a formal international organisation, they still looked to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for leadership, and would have periodic meetings in Moscow, the most notable one being in 1962 when the Sino-Soviet split became public for the first time. There was especially close coordination between the CPSU and the Communist Parties of the Warsaw Pact.
See also: List of Communist Parties, List of members of the Comintern, World Communist Movement
This is an Article on Comintern. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Comintern The First Four World Congresses of the Communist International
From the Fifth to the Seventh World Congress
From the Last Congress to Dissolution
After the Comintern
See also
External links