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92-607: The Rosal Column was a republican militia column created during the Spanish Civil War . It was the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo 's (CNT) largest unit, with 835 men, in 1936. This anarchism -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Republican faction (Spanish Civil War) The Republican faction hardly received external support from the Allied powers of World War II , due to

184-580: A concentration camp at Meheri Zabbens . Defeated members of other branches of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces who escaped were arrested by French authorities and interned in concentration camps in Southern France, such as the Camp de concentration d'Argelès-sur-Mer which at one time held about 100,000 defeated Spanish Republicans. From there some managed to go into exile or went to join

276-617: 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,

368-790: 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

460-666: 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

552-408: 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

644-867: 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

736-431: A new branch of the military was created especially for Spain, most of the weapons and artillery sent to Spain were antiques. Stalin also used weapons captured in past conflicts. However, modern weapons such as BT-5 tanks and I-16 fighter aircraft were also supplied to Spain. Many of the Soviet deliveries were lost, or were smaller than Stalin had ordered. He only gave short notice, which meant many weapons were lost in

828-544: 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

920-579: A potential transfer of French aircraft to Spanish Republican forces. The Blum government feared that the success of Francoist forces in Spain would result in the creation of an ally state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy that would allow German and Italian military forces to be based in the Canary and Balearic Islands . Right-wing politicians, however, heard of the French government's intention to send military support to

1012-762: A small number of American-made aircraft such as the Bellanca CH-300 and Spartan Zeus that had previously served in the Mexican Air Force . Not all of these aircraft reached the Republicans. The Soviet Union primarily provided material assistance to the Republican forces. In total the USSR provided Spain with 806 planes, 362 tanks, and 1,555 artillery pieces. The Soviet Union ignored the League of Nations embargo and sold arms to

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1104-761: 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

1196-610: 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

1288-593: 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

1380-672: 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

1472-651: The International Non-Intervention Committee . The support of the USSR stands out, fundamentally. At the beginning of the war, Mexico, France, and Poland contributed large amounts of military material and advisers to the Republicans. The support of what came to be called the International Brigades was also noteworthy. The Soviet Union was the main ally of the Second Spanish Republic, contributing tanks and armored cars (especially

1564-537: 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

1656-759: 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

1748-552: The POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification), as well as the anarchists in Catalonia . The Mexican government maintained good relations with the Spanish republic at the beginning of the conflict, and President Lázaro Cárdenas assured that he was fully in solidarity with the Spanish socialist government in the face of the disloyalty of the army. Besides that the workers' solidarity with Spain

1840-636: 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

1932-644: 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

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2024-832: 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

2116-451: The T-26 tank, BA-6 armoured car and BT-5 tank), hundreds of airplanes, several hundred thousand firearms and artillery pieces, as well as sending huge amounts of ammunition and several hundred Soviet professional pilots, tankers and sailors. Joseph Stalin would later order the purge of the communists that were anti-Stalinist. The Stalinist Communist Party of Spain subsequently exterminated

2208-666: The armies of the Allies to fight against the Axis powers , while others ended up in Nazi concentration camps . 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

2300-928: 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

2392-402: 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

2484-713: 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

2576-778: The Balearic Islands, and Spanish Morocco. Towards the end of the Civil War, most seagoing vessels of the Spanish Republican Navy were evacuated to Bizerte in the French protectorate of Tunisia where the fleet was impounded by the French authorities and later handed over to the Francoist faction. Except for a few crewmen who were put on guard duty on the ships, the Spanish Republican seamen and their officers were interned in

2668-522: 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

2760-406: 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

2852-427: 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

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2944-413: 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

3036-403: 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

3128-420: 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;

3220-420: 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

3312-419: The Republic when few other nations would do so; thus it was the Republic's only important source of major weapons. Joseph Stalin had signed the Non-Intervention Agreement but decided to break the pact. However, unlike Hitler and Mussolini who openly violated the pact, Stalin tried to do so secretly. He created a section X of the Soviet Union military to head the operation, coined Operation X . However, while

3404-508: The Republic, especially since the major Latin American governments—those of Argentina , Brazil, Chile , and Peru —sympathized more or less openly with the Nationalists. But Mexican aid could mean relatively little in practical terms if the French border were closed and if Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy remained free to supply the Nationalists with a quality and quantity of weapons far beyond the power of Mexico. Mexico furnished $ 2,000,000 in aid and provided some material assistance, which included

3496-403: The Republican side. The vast majority of these, an estimated 32,000 men and women, served in the International Brigades , organized in close conjunction with the Comintern . About another 3,000 foreign volunteers fought as members of militias belonging to the anarcho-syndicalist labor/trade union CNT and the anti-Stalinist Marxist POUM . Those fighting with POUM included one of

3588-418: 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

3680-480: 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

3772-424: 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

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3864-436: 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

3956-413: 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

4048-576: 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

4140-499: 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

4232-439: The Spanish Republicans at the same time as right-wing politicians attacked Blum for supporting the Republic and being responsible for provoking Fascist Italian intervention on the side of Franco. Nazi Germany informed the French ambassador in Berlin that Germany would hold France responsible if it supported what it described as "the maneuvers of Moscow" by supporting the Spanish Republicans. Finally, on 21 August 1936, France,

4324-501: The Spanish Republicans in the war and opposed the French government's actions by means of a vicious campaign against the Blum government for its alleged support of the Republicans. On 27 July 1936, British officials had discussed with Prime Minister Blum their position on the war and convinced Blum not to send arms to the Republicans. Therefore, on 27 July, the French government declared that it would not send military aid, technology, or forces. However Blum made clear that France reserved

4416-654: The UK, and Italy (under pressure from both France and the UK) signed the Non-Intervention proposals involving the Spanish Civil War. However, the Blum government provided military assistance to the Spanish Republicans through covert means by supplying obsolete Potez 54 , Dewoitine and Loire 46 aircraft to the Spanish Republican Air Force from 7 August 1936 to December of that year. Often with their weapons removed, these almost useless and vulnerable planes rarely survived three months of air missions. Also, until 8 September 1936, aircraft could freely pass from France into Spain if they were bought in other countries. Although

4508-421: 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,

4600-449: 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,

4692-427: 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

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4784-422: The civil war gave asylum to thousands of exiled veterans and intellectuals from the Republican side. However, many of the Mexican citizens and a group of peasants called the Cristeros favored Franco and the Nationalists. At the beginning of the war, France, also with a popular front government, made the decision to send war materiel to the Second Spanish Republic (in part because of the agreements signed for

4876-444: 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

4968-414: 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

5060-576: The delivery process. Lastly, when the ships did leave with supplies for the Republicans, the journey was extremely slow. Stalin ordered the builders to include false decks in the design of ships. Then, once the ship left shore it was required to change its flag and change the color of parts of the ship to avoid capture by the Nationalists. However, in 1938, Stalin withdrew his troops and tanks as Republican government policy floundered. Historian Hugh Thomas comments "had they been able to purchase and transport good arms from US, British, and French manufacturers,

5152-582: 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

5244-427: The fourth-largest in the world. The remaining 27%, or 176 tonnes, was transferred to France. The Soviet Union also sent a number of military advisers to Spain (2,000 –3,000 ). While Soviet troops amounted to no more than 500 men at a time, Soviet volunteers often operated Soviet-made Republican tanks and aircraft, particularly at the beginning of the war. In addition, the Soviet Union directed Communist parties around

5336-400: The half-hearted and largely ineffective support by France to the Republicans ended in December 1936, German intelligence reported to Franco and his faction that the French military was engaging in open discussions about intervention in the war. Allegedly in 1938 Franco feared an immediate French intervention against a potential Francoist victory in Spain through French occupation of Catalonia ,

5428-456: The left-wing government of French Prime Minister Léon Blum was sympathetic to the Republic. Blum considered both sending military aid and technology to the Republicans including aircraft and utilizing the French Navy to blockade the Franco-led Spanish Army of Africa from crossing from Spanish Morocco to Spain. Also upon the outbreak of civil war the Spanish Republican government and the government of France in diplomatic messages discussed

5520-406: 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

5612-443: The most famous veterans of the war, George Orwell . The Mexican government supported fully and publicly the claim of the Madrid government and the Republicans. Mexico refused to follow the Anglo-French non-intervention proposals. President Lázaro Cárdenas saw the war as similar to Mexico's own revolution, although a part of Mexican society and the people wanted a Nationalist victory. Mexico's attitude gave immense moral comfort to

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5704-414: 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

5796-444: 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

5888-445: 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

5980-548: 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

6072-399: 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

6164-564: 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

6256-466: 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

6348-425: 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

6440-445: 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

6532-474: 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

6624-435: 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

6716-679: 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

6808-568: The republican government in Vitoria began a reorganization process of the fragmented army. The self-denominated People's Republican Army ( Spanish : Ejército Popular de la República , EPR) consisted of those Spanish Republican Army units that had remained loyal to the Republic and militia members who were integrated into the new structure. At least 40,000 individual volunteers from 52 nations, usually socialists, communists or anarchists, fought for

6900-489: The right to provide aid should it wish, and indicated also indicated his support for the Republic, saying: We could have delivered arms to the Spanish Government [(Republicans)], a legitimate government...We have not done so, in order not to give an excuse to those who would be tempted to send arms to the rebels. On 1 August 1936, a pro-Republican rally of 20,000 people confronted Blum demanding that he send aircraft to

6992-475: The sale of weapons, because of the friendships between the governments and to get rid of the obsolete material from World War I). On July 30, the first consignment of arms for the Republic arrived from France through the Pyrenees . It consisted of several hundred rifles with ammunition, six Renault FT tanks, and several bombers and fighters. In August 1936 the no-intervention pact ended this support. In October 1936

7084-543: 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

7176-454: The socialist and republican members of the Spanish government might have tried to cut themselves loose from Stalin ". The Republic paid for Soviet arms with the gold reserves of the Bank of Spain , in an affair that would become a frequent subject of Francoist propaganda afterward (see Moscow Gold ). The cost of Soviet arms was more than US$ 500 million (in 1936 prices); 72% of Spain's gold reserve,

7268-463: 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,

7360-471: 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

7452-402: 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

7544-681: The world to organize and recruit the International Brigades. The French position towards the Spanish Republic was characterized by its hesitant attitude and its ambivalence. Thus the government of France did not send direct support to the Spanish Republicans and towards the end of the beleaguered republic ended up turning against it, instead recognizing the Francoist State. President Albert Lebrun opposed direct assistance, but

7636-665: 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

7728-505: 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

7820-586: 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

7912-509: 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

8004-472: 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

8096-620: 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

8188-431: 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

8280-563: Was immediate; workers and unions made donations to the Spanish ambassador. The Cárdenas government, unlike the other countries, did not sign the International Non-Intervention Committee, and therefore, it was the only country that officially gave aid in the Spanish Civil War. He sent some 28 million rounds of ammunition, 28,000 rifles, 70 antiaircraft guns, some 55 planes (mainly French) and food to Spain, and after

8372-545: 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

8464-630: 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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