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. Groups coming from the tradition of Left Communism 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.

Contents

1 Origins of the Communist International 2 The First Four World Congresses of the Communist International 3 From the Fifth to the Seventh World Congress 4 From the Last Congress to Dissolution 5 After the Comintern 6 See also 7 External links

Origins of the Communist International

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:

• Spartacus League (Germany)
• The Communist Party (Bolshevik) Russia
• The Communist Party of German Austria
• The Hungarian Communist Workers' Party
• The Finnish CP
• The Polish Communist Workers' Party
• The Communist Party of Estonia
• The Latvian CP
• The Lithuanian CP
• The Belarusian CP
• The Ukrainian CP
• The revolutionary elements of the Czech social democracy
• The Bulgarian Social-Democratic Party (Tesnjaki)
• The Romanian SDP
• The Left-wing of the Serbian SDP
• The Social Democratic Left Party of Sweden
• The Norwegian Labour Party
• For Denmark, the Klassenkampen group
• The Dutch CP
• The revolutionary elements of the Belgian Workers Party
• The groups and organisations within the French socialist and syndicalist movements
• The social-democratic Left of Switzerland
• the Italian Socialist Party
• The revolutionary elements of the Spanish SP
• The revolutionary elements of the Portuguese SP
• The British socialist parties (particularly the current represented by MacLean)
• The Socialist Labour Party (Britain)
• Industrial Workers of the World (Britain)
• The revolutionary elements of the workers' organisations of Ireland
• The revolutionary elements among the shop stewards (Britain)
• The Socialist Labor Party of the United States
• The Left elements of the SP of America (the tendency represented by Debs and the League for Socialist Propaganda)
• IWW (United States)
• IWW (Australia)
• Workers' International Industrial Union (America)
• The Socialist groups of Tokyo and Yokohama (Japan, represented by Comrade Katayama)
• The Socialist Youth International (represented by Comrade Munzenburg)

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 Four World Congresses of the Communist International

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.

From the Fifth to the Seventh World Congress

Several international front organizations were set up by Comintern:

• Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern)
• Red Peasant International (Krestintern)
• International Red Aid (MOPR)
• Communist Youth International
• Red Sports International (Sportintern)

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 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 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).

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 bureaucratised 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 nazis) 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 in 1941, the Comintern switched its position to one of active support for the Allies.

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.

After the Comintern

In 1947 the Cominform or Communist Information Bureau was created 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. 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

See also

• Anti-Comintern Pact

External links

• Comintern Archives http://www.komintern-online.ru/