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Third International redirects here. See also Webster's Third New International Dictionary.

The Comintern (Russian: Коммунистический Интернационал, Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional – Communist International, also known as the Third International) was an international Communist organization founded in March 1919, in the midst of the "war communism" period (1918-1921), by Vladimir 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 was founded after the dissolving of the Second International in 1916, following the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference in which Lenin led the "Zimmerwald Left" against those who supported the "national union" governments in war with each other. The new International thus represented a response to the latter's failure to form a unified coalition against the First World War, which the founders of the Third Internationalists regarded as a bourgeois imperialist war and which the whole of the anti-militarist socialist movement had been completely opposed to until the beginning of the war itself.

The Comintern held seven World Congresses, the first in March 1919 and the last in 1935, until it was officially dissolved in May 1943. In 1938 the Trotskyists, opposed to the Soviet Union which they qualified as a "degenerated workers' state", created the Fourth International. Groups coming from the tradition of Left Communism today recognize only the first two congresses, and groups coming out of the Trotskyist movement recognize the decisions of the first four only. Communist parties of the Stalinist or Maoist persuasion recognize all seven congresses. At the start of World War II, the Comintern supported a policy of pacifism and non-intervention, arguing that this was an imperialist war between various national ruling classes, much like World War I had been. In fact, Stalin was instrumentalizing it, in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed with Germany in August 1939, a year after the Munich Agreement in which the Soviet Union hadn't been invited and during which Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland had been delivered to Hitler by the French and British democratic regimes in a measure of "appeasement". However, when the Soviet Union itself was invaded on June 22, 1941, during Operation Barbarossa, the Comintern switched its position to one of active support for the Allies. The Comintern was subsequently officially dissolved on May 15 1943. Its successor, the Cominform, was created in September 1947, following the Paris Conference on Marshall Aid in July 1947. The Cold War had officially began.

Origins of the Communist International

From the First to the Second International

Although divisions between revolutionary and reformist-minded elements had been developing for a considerable time, the origins of the Communist International derive from the split in the workers' movement that surfaced in 1914 with the beginning of the First World War. The First International, founded in 1864, had split between the socialists and the anarchists who preferred not to enter the political arena, setting their sights instead on the creation of a strong anarcho-syndicalist movement (a.k.a. the "International Workingmen's Association"). The Second International, founded in 1889, followed, but tensions surfaced again in the new International.

The question of the "socialist participation in a bourgeois government"

For example, as far back as 1899, reformist or right-wing elements in the socialist movement had supported the entry of French independent socialist Millerand into Waldeck-Rousseau's republican cabinet (1899-1902), which included as Minister of War none other than the marquis de Galliffet, best known for his role during the repression of the 1871 Paris Commune. On the other hand, revolutionary or left-wing elements were fiercely opposed to this development. In France, this was represented by the debate between Jules Guesde, whom opposed himself to socialist participation in a "bourgeois government", and Jean Jaurès, considered as one of the founder of social-democracy. Thus, Jules Guesde declared in 1899:

"Wherever the proletariat, organized in a class party -- which is to say a party of revolution —- can penetrate an elective assembly; wherever it can penetrate an enemy citadel, it has not only the right, but the obligation to make a breach and set up a socialist garrison in the capitalist fortress! But in those places where it penetrates not by the will of the workers, not by socialist force; there where it penetrates only with the consent, on the invitation, and consequently in the interests of the capitalist class, socialism should not enter." Jules Guesde's speech to the 1899 General Congress of French socialist organizations

Criticizing the belief "that by a portfolio granted to one of his own socialism has truly conquered power — when it’s really power that conquered him", Jules Guesde thought that "such a state of affairs, if we don’t quickly put an end to it, would bring on the irremediable bankruptcy of socialism. The organized workers considering themselves duped, some will lend an ear to propaganda by the deed.", thus fostering "anarchy". The same controversy arose the next year, when Guesde opposed himself to Jean Jaurès who advocated socialist participation to the bourgeois government, during a famous November 29, 1900 speech in Lille on the "Two Methods", held during several hours before 8,000 persons.

The revisionists

Also of importance was the literary controversy over the publication of Eduard Bernstein's Evolutionary Socialism, which espoused a reformist path to socialism and received powerful criticism from, among others, Karl Kautsky and the young Rosa Luxemburg, who criticized him as a revisionist.

The aftermaths of the 1905 Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution of 1905 had the effect of radicalizing many socialist parties, as did a number of general strikes in pursuit of universal suffrage in Western European countries. At this point the Second or Socialist International appeared to be a united body that was growing at every election and in every advanced country. Karl Kautsky, aptly dubbed the Pope of Marxism, was at his most radical as the editor of the highly influential Die Neue Zeit (New Times), the theoretical journal of the massive Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) which was the flagship of the International.

However, by 1910, divisions were appearing in the left of Social Democracy (as the Marxists who dominated the International described themselves), and left-wing thinkers such as Rosa Luxemburg and the Dutch theoretician Anton Pannekoek were becoming ever more critical of Kautsky. From this point onwards then it is possible to speak of there being a reformist right, a centre and a revolutionary left within the International. Interestingly, from the point of view of later events, both the Menshevik and Bolshevik wings of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party were counted amongst the revolutionary left wing. The quarreling groups of Russian emigres were not held in high regard by the leaders of the International and were unknown to the general public.

The failure of the Second International confronted to World War I

World War I was to prove 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 (in particular when 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 Czar's Russia). Didn't The Communist Manifesto already state that "workers' do not have any fatherland", and exclaimed "Proletarians of all countries, unite!?

However, despite massive majorities voting in favor of resolutions that stated the Socialist International would call upon the international working class to resist war should it be declared, 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 being 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 taking out one of the few leader who possessed enough influence on the international socialist movement to block it from aligning itself on national policies and supporting National Union governments. The socialist parties of the neutral countries for the most part continued to argue for neutrality and against total opposition to the war. Lenin, on the other hand, 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 did nothing to resist it. Discredited by its passivity towards world events, the Second International was henceforth dissolved in the middle of the war, in 1916, its internationalist ideals having obviously been defeated by the nationalist ideology in force in each country. In 1917, Lenin published the April Theses, which openly supported a "revolutionary defeatism": the Bolsheviks pronounced themselves in favour of the defeat of Imperial Russia in the war which would permit them to pass to the stage of a revolutionary insurrection.

The foundation of the Comintern

The Comintern was thus founded in these conditions in March 1919 by the Russian Bolsheviks, whom adopted the name "Communists". Lenin then sent his Twenty-one Conditions (which included democratic centralism) to all socialist parties, which splitted on the basis of the adhesion or not to the new International. The French SFIO ("French Section of the Second International") thus splitted in the 1920 Tours Congress, leading to the creation of the new French Communist Party (called "French Section of the Communist International" - SFIC); the Communist Party of Spain was created in 1920, the Italian Communist Party was created in 1921, the Belgian Communist Party in September 1921, etc;

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 revolutions must be based on "grass roots" efforts, but the Comintern could intervene as necessary. It was organized by Lenin, whom had already displayed his strategic aims in What Is to Be Done? (1902), in an attempt to make of the new International the "General Staff of the World Revolution" (in the Comintern Electronic Archives' words *).

The following parties and movements were invited to the First Congress of the Communist International in March 1919 :

The First Four World Congresses of the Communist International

The first Chairman of the Comintern's Executive Committee was Grigory Zinoviev, from 1919 to 1926. Marxist philosopher Georg Lukacs' History and Class Consciousness, published in 1923 following his involvement in Bela Kun's Hungarian Soviet Republic, was condemned on charges of revisionism, along with Karl Korsch's Marxism and Philosophy, during the Vth Comintern Congress in July 1924, by Grigory Zinoviev. The same year 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; following the failures of the Spartacist uprising in Germany and of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the reflux of all revolutionary movements in Europe (including in Italy, where the fascist squadristi broke the strikes and quickly assumed power following the 1922 March on Rome), the perspective of a world revolution was dismissed. Zinoviev was dismissed in 1926 after falling out of favor with Stalin, who already held considerable power by this time). Nikolai 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.

From the Fifth to the Seventh World Congress

Several international organizations sponsored by the Comintern:

From the Last Congress to Dissolution

The last Congress of the Comintern was held in 1935 and 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.

As the Seventh World Congress officially repudiated the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism as the purpose of the Comintern, Leon Trotsky was led to state that it was the death of the Comintern as a revolutionary International - and therefore a New International needed to be built. Trotsky 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). The Stalin purges of 1930s affected Comintern activists living in the USSR. Fritz Platten died in a labor camp; the leaders of the Indian, Korean, Mexican, Iranian and Turkish Communist parties were executed. The only German communist leaders to survive were Pieck and Ulbricht. Out of 11 Mongolian Communist Party leaders, only Choibalsan survived. A great number of German communists were handed over to Hitler. Leopold Trepper has 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 find out, where the car stopped. (Radzinski, Stalin, 1997)

As a result, in 1938 the Fourth International was founded in opposition to the Comintern. The communists of the Fourth International believed that the Third International had become thoroughly bureaucratized and Stalinized, and was no longer capable of regenerating itself into a proper revolutionary organization. In particular, they saw the calamitous defeat of the communist movement in Germany (at the hands of the National Socialists) as evidence that the Comintern was effectively irrelevant and fully under Stalin's control.

At the start of World War II, the Comintern supported a policy of pacifism and non-intervention, arguing that this was an imperialist war between various national ruling classes, much like World War I had been. However, when the Soviet Union itself was invaded on 22 June 1941, the Comintern switched its position to one of active support for the Allies. Nevertheless, a document dated 11 July 1941 making a strategic assessment for the United States War Department entitled Military Intelligence Estimates Prepared by G-2 (p. 1341) states "The Comintern through the Soviet Regime is striving for a world revolution in the interests of Communism." *

The Comintern was officially dissolved on May 15 1943, by Stalin. Membership of the Comintern gave national parties the reputation of being Soviet stooges. By abolishing the Comintern, Stalin hoped to alleviate this problem and facilitate the route to power of European communist parties after the end of the war. Usually, it is asserted that he wanted his World War II Allies (particularly Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill) to believe that the USSR was no longer pursuing a policy of trying to foment revolution. Service, Stalin. A biography. (Macmillan - London, 2004), pp 444-445

Alleged Independence

Although the Comintern was an officially “independent” organization, it was, in fact, a part of the Soviet State apparatus. Lenin described the Comintern’s directives in a speech at the Third Communist International

"In order to placate the deaf-mutes, proclaim the fictional separation of our government ... from the Comintern, declaring this agency to be an independent political group. The deaf-mutes will believe it.
"Express a desire for the immediate resumption of diplomatic relations with capitalist countries on the basis of complete non-interference in their internal affairs. Again, the deaf-mutes will believe it. They will even be delighted and fling wide-open their doors through which the emissaries of the Comintern and Party Intelligence agencies will quickly infiltrate into these countries disguised as our diplomatic, cultural, and trade representatives.

(Stalin : The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives, 1997, p. 205, Edvard Radzinsky) ; (The Lufkin News, King Features Syndicate, Inc., 31 July 1962, p. 4, as quoted by the Freeman Report, 30 Sept. 1973, p. 8). *.)
* Please note that from antiquity (as noted in the Code of Hammurabi) until recent (and more enlightened) times *, the terms "deaf-mute" and "deaf and dumb" were analogous to "idiot."

After the Comintern

In September 1947, following the June 1947 Paris Conference on Marshall Aid, Stalin gathered the socialist parties and set up the Cominform, or Communist Information Bureau, as a substitute of 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 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 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, or CPSU, for leadership, and had periodic meetings in Moscow. The most notable of these was 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

External links

  • * Comintern Archives (in English)
  • * Comintern Archives (in Russian)

1919 establishments | 1943 disestablishments | Comintern | Communism | Communist parties | Left-wing internationals

Tercera Internacional | Комунистически интернационал | III Internacional | Komintern | Komintern | Internacional Comunista | 3-a Internacio | III. Internazionala | Troisième Internationale | 코민테른 | Komintern | Comintern | קומינטרן | Kominternas | Comintern | コミンテルン | Komintern | Tredje Internasjonalen | Międzynarodówka Komunistyczna | Comintern | Comintern | Коминтерн | Коминтерна | Komintern | Tredje internationalen | องค์การคอมมิวนิสต์สากล | 第三国际

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Comintern".

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