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86-726: In 1919, the Balkan Communist Federation was established as an umbrella group for the various Balkan communist parties and had the official endorsement of the Soviets . Its first meeting was called in Sofia to promote Bulgarian communists Macedonian Question policy. It was heavily influenced by the policy of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP), which had the strongest following of either the Greek or Yugoslavian parties. The BCP agenda

172-617: 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 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,

258-463: A creation of a Macedonian state for the reasons of: "endowed with the most varied natural riches and a favorable climate; with its ethnically diverse population of upwards of 2,302,000 persons; with a strategic and economic position in the middle of the Balkans [...] has all the rights and conditions necessary for an independent political existence. Forming an independent and self governing state". Once again

344-790: A defense 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

430-666: A disciplined fashion whatever decision was made. In this period, the Comintern was promoted as the general staff of the world revolution . 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

516-408: 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

602-867: A higher proportion of the KPD Politburo membership had died in the Soviet Union than in Nazi Germany. Weitz also noted that hundreds of German citizens, most of them Communists, were handed over to the Gestapo by Stalin's administration. 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

688-544: 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. This period 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

774-508: A rallying point to overthrow the existing social and political order. For the communists, Macedonia was to be a political entity of various nationalities. The BCP took full advantage of this bias. To further its goals, the BCP enlisted the support of the leftist in former Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO), who espoused pro- Balkan Federation views. They changed their name to Macedonian Federative Organization (known as

860-641: A revenge action against the immediate perpetrators, there is some doubt that Mihailov himself might have been responsible for the murder. The result of the murder was further strife within the organisation and several high-profile murders, including those of Petar Chaulev in Milan and ultimately Protogetov himself. The IMRO led by Mihailov took actions against the former left-wing assassinating Todor Panitsa in Vienna in 1924. Dimo Hadjidimov , Georgi Skrizhovski, Alexander Bujnov, Chudomir Kantardjiev and many others were killed in

946-761: 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. 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

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1032-610: The Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang were supported by the Comintern. However, 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

1118-593: 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. 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. The well-known names and prestige of artists, intellectuals and other fellow travelers were used to advance party positions. They often came to

1204-672: The Far Eastern Bureau of the Communist International was established in Siberia to develop their political influence in the Far East . Soon after its establishment, the bureau's manager Grigori Voitinsky arrived in Peking and established contact with local communist vanguard Li Dazhao . Li arranged for Voitinsky to meet with another Communist leader, Chen Duxiu , in Shanghai and began to establish

1290-537: 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

1376-759: 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. 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

1462-636: 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. 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

1548-644: The Popular Front led by Manuel Azaña winning the 1936 election in Spain , and with Léon Blum 's 1936 election which led to the Popular Front government in France . 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

1634-832: 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. The victory of the Russian Communist Party in the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917

1720-619: The State Council and proposed multiethnic patriotism as a replacement for the idea of "the Soviet people". Comintern 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 . The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress in 1920 to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for

1806-928: 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 . 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

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1892-402: 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. It would have momentous consequences, with

1978-716: The "Federalists") and in 1918 outlined their policy in a manifesto . Its main points being the restoration of Macedonia to its original geographical boundaries. Their policy led them into open confrontation with the right-wing faction of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). At the Balkan Communist Conference in Vienna in May 1922, the Bulgarian delegate Vasil Kolarov first raised

2064-713: 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

2150-522: The Chairman of the Executive. Zinoviev was assisted by Angelica Balabanoff , acting as the secretary of the International, Victor L. Kibaltchitch and Vladmir Ossipovich Mazin. Lenin, Trotsky, and Alexandra Kollontai presented material. 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

2236-628: The Comintern China Branch, which evolved into the Communist Party of China in 1921. The Third Congress of the Communist International was held between 22 June–12 July 1921 in Moscow. The Fourth Congress, held in November 1922, at which Trotsky played a prominent role, continued in this vein. In 1924, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party joined the Comintern. At first, in China, both

2322-495: The Comintern labelled Social Democracy as social fascists and urged aligned parties to work to their destruction as the 'moderate wing of fascism'. Especially with the rise of the National Socialist Workers' Party in Germany after the 1930 federal election , this stance gave rise to some opposition inside. The Sixth World Congress also revised the policy of united front in the colonial (colonized) countries. China

2408-460: 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

2494-766: 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, Azerbaijani, and Persian Sections of the Central Bureau of the Eastern Peoples, and the Zimmerwald Commission. Zinoviev served as

2580-618: 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, and the Volga German region; the Swedish Social Democratic Left Party (the opposition), Balkan Revolutionary People's of Russia; Zimmerwald Left Wing of France;

2666-469: The IMRO explicitly states Macedonia is multi-ethnic. It also declares its goal to be the "liberation and reunion of the separated parts of Macedonia in a fully autonomous and independent political unit within its natural geographic and ethnic frontiers". The new position of the IMRO was identical to that of the Balkan Communist Federation and won for the BCP the endorsement of its policy by the Comintern at its fifth congress that summer. The Congress considered

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2752-420: 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 organizations along democratic centralist lines in which the party press and parliamentary factions would be under the direct control of the party leadership. Regarding

2838-418: 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. The Comintern

2924-480: The Russian Tsar. There were exceptions, such as the socialist parties of the Balkans . 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

3010-424: The Second International to call upon the international working class to resist war if it were declared. But after the beginning of World War I, many European socialist parties announced support for the war effort of their respective nations. Including the British Labour Party who issued a manifesto stating, "the victory of the Germans would mean the death of democracy in Europe" while making no such criticisms of

3096-436: 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

3182-413: 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. 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

3268-446: The Soviet Union . This demonym was presented in the ideology of the country as the "new historical unity of peoples of different nationalities " ( новая историческая общность людей различных национальностей ). During the history of the Soviet Union , different doctrines and practices on ethnic distinctions within the Soviet population were applied at different times. Minority national cultures were never completely abolished. Instead

3354-536: The Soviet Union as a colonial empire ( Soviet empire ), applied the " prison of nations " idea to the USSR. Thomas Winderl wrote: "The USSR became in a certain sense more a prison-house of nations than the old Empire had ever been." In an interview with Euronews in 2011, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recalled the use of the term "Soviet people" as a "unified community" in the Soviet Union but added that "these constructions were largely theoretical". In contrast to Soviet national identity politics, which declared

3440-576: The Soviet Union for propaganda tours praising the future. Under the leadership of Zinoviev, the Comintern established fronts in many countries in the 1920s and after. 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), Krestintern (peasants), International Red Aid (humanitarian aid), Sportintern (organized sports), and more. Front organizations were especially influential in France, which in 1933 became

3526-499: The Soviet Union were liquidated, and more than a thousand were handed over to Germany. 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

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3612-447: The Soviet definition of national cultures required them to be " socialist by content and national by form", an approach that was used to promote the official aims and values of the state. The goal was always to cement the nationalities together in a common state structure. In the 1920s and the early 1930s, the policy of national delimitation was used to demarcate separate areas of national culture into territorial-administrative units, and

3698-412: The Soviet people as a supranational community, the post-Soviet Russian Constitution speaks of a "multinational people of the Russian Federation ". From the outset, the idea of the "Russian nation" as a community of all Russian citizens has met with opposition. In December 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pointed out the lack of an all-Russian unifying idea as a problem during a discussion in

3784-404: The Soviet people represented a civil nation." The philosopher and sociologist B. A. Grushin noted that sociology in the USSR "recorded a unique historical type of society that had already gone into oblivion". At the same time, according to the sociologist T.N. Zaslavskaya, it "did not solve the main task associated with the typological identification of Soviet society". Some historians evaluating

3870-421: 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 in 1921, the Belgian Communist Party in September 1921, and so on. In 1920,

3956-449: The base for communist front organizer Willi Münzenberg . These organizations were dissolved in the late 1930s or early 1940s. In 1928, the Ninth 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 therefore all communist parties were to adopt an aggressive and militant 'left' line. In particular,

4042-427: 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

4128-444: 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. Many European socialist parties were divided over

4214-414: 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

4300-420: The document and its leaders even denied endorsing it. This did not spare them from the wrath of the Bulgarian government and the communists. In August 1924, IMRO chief Todor Alexandrov was assassinated. IMRO came under the leadership of Ivan Mihailov , who became a powerful figure in Bulgarian politics. While IMRO's leadership was quick to ascribe Alexandrov's murder to the communists and even quicker to organise

4386-427: The events on 1925. As for Dimitar Vlahov , together with the survivors of Ivan Mihailov 's purge, formed the IMRO (United) in 1925; a socialist offshoot which took the official communist line. Although it supported Macedonian independence it drew little popular support. Soviets The Soviet people ( Russian : сове́тский наро́д , romanized :  sovetsky narod ) were the citizens and nationals of

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4472-582: 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

4558-408: The issue of Macedonian and Thracian autonomy . Knowing the proposal was a threat to their countries borders, the Greek and Yugoslav delegates were unable to endorse it at this stage; however, in order for any chance of success, the communists needed the support of the IMRO. In June 1923, the IMRO collaborated with a nationalist military clique and overthrew the Bulgarian government. The government

4644-482: The middle class of the occupier countries, not an ethnic struggle. Continuing into 1924, the secret negotiations between the Federalists, BCP and IMRO representatives were conducted to unite all groups under the same goal: the independence or autonomy of a Macedonian state. In May 1924 party leaders Alexandrov, Protogerov and Petar Chaulev issued a new manifesto about the new orientation of the Macedonian Revolutionary Movement. This communist-influenced document reads for

4730-406: 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". 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

4816-414: 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

4902-444: The names would fill entire pages." 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

4988-445: 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

5074-548: The other, considering the latter as an unreliable ally yet not a direct enemy. The Congress called on the Indian Communist Party to utilize the contradictions between the "national bourgeoisie" and the British Empire . 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 . The Congress officially endorsed

5160-399: 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

5246-564: 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". The Comintern was preceded by the dissolution of the Second International in 1916. Vladimir Lenin , Leon Trotsky , and Joseph Stalin were all honorary presidents of the Communist International. 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

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5332-466: 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". According to Russian historian Vadim Rogovin , the leadership of the German Communist Party (KPD) had requested that Moscow send Leon Trotsky to Germany to direct

5418-448: The policy of korenizatsiya (indigenisation) was used to promote involvement non-Russian nationalities in government on all levels and strengthen non-Russian languages and cultures. By the late 1930s, however, the policy was changed to a more active promotion of the Russian language and later to more overt Russification , which accelerated in the 1950s, especially in Soviet education . Although some assimilation did occur, it did not on

5504-425: 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 21 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

5590-445: 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 in an October 31 speech that "as far as the European great Powers are concerned, Germany is in the position of a State which is striving for the earliest termination of war and for peace, while Britain and France [...] are in favour of continuing

5676-474: 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

5762-435: 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. Lenin died in 1924 and the next year saw a shift in the organization's focus from the immediate activity of world revolution towards

5848-526: 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

5934-436: 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. Differences between the revolutionary and reformist wings of the workers' movement had been increasing for decades, but

6020-494: The slogans formulated by the sixth Balkan Communist Federation Conference: "United Independent Macedonia" and "United Independent Thrace" wholly correct and truly revolutionary. The revelation that the formerly pro-Bulgarian patriotic IMRO officially sanctioned such a separatist document caused uproar in its ranks as well as the Bulgarian government. It was first published in Dimitar Vlahov 's communist-inspired rag Federation Balcanique . The IMRO officially rejected its support of

6106-404: The spring of 1924, at the sixth conference of the BCP, they unveiled their Macedonian resolution, which stated that an autonomous Macedonia can “assure right and liberty to all its nationalities”, and hails the “Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, the real leader of the Macedonian slaves". Macedonian autonomy was portrayed in light of a class struggle of its inhabitants against the oppression of

6192-463: 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,

6278-471: 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. The Second International divided into

6364-402: The war." This position has been described as a way for the Soviet government to explain its refusal to honour proposals for economic assistance to Poland, which had been made before and at the start of the war, since "it was found impossible to determine with any degree of certainty who was the aggressor and who the victim." The weakened and decimated Comintern was then forced to officially adopt

6450-465: The whole succeed. The continued development of the many national cultures in the Soviet Union led to the drafting of the New Union Treaty in 1991 and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union . Assessments of the success of the creation of the new community are divergent. On the one hand, the ethnologist V. A. Tishkov and other historians believe that "for all the socio-political deformities,

6536-665: Was a failed coup in Estonia by the Communist Party of Estonia . The Comintern was founded at a Congress held in Moscow on 2–6 March 1919. It opened with a tribute to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg , recently executed by the Freikorps during the Spartacist Uprising , against the backdrop of the Russian Civil War . There were 52 delegates present from 34 parties. They decided to form an Executive Committee with representatives of

6622-505: 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

6708-582: Was condemned by the Communist International , as well as the absent communist resistance to it. When the communists did try to revolt during the September Uprising , they were quickly crushed by the government and its IMRO allies. The new premier, Alexandar Tsankov , released the imprisoned IMRO chiefs Todor Alexandrov and Alexander Protogerov who were arrested by the old regime as part of their IMRO crackdown agreement with Yugoslavia . During

6794-586: Was considered to be one of such countries. However, in 1927, the Kuomintang turned on the Chinese Communist Party , which led to a review of the policy on forming alliances with the 'national bourgeoisie' in the 'colonizal 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

6880-509: 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

6966-472: Was dissolved. 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. According to historian Eric D. Weitz , 60% of German exiles in the Soviet Union had been liquidated during the Stalinist terror and

7052-673: Was endorsed by the Soviets, who felt it best served their goals of spreading communism in the Balkans. They felt the Bulgarians were the most revolutionary in desiring an overthrow of the First World War peace settlements enforced by the national bourgeois establishment of the Balkan states . They could also play the 'Macedonian card' as a source for revolution. Macedonia was used by the Balkan communists as

7138-620: 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

7224-431: 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

7310-545: 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

7396-630: 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 criticizing the March Action in a pamphlet, which was ratified by the Executive Committee of the Communist International prior to the Third Congress. A new attempt

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