Communist International
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second International during World War I, the Comintern was founded in March 1919 at a congress in Moscow convened by Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Communist Party , which aimed to create a new international body committed to revolutionary socialism and the overthrow of capitalism worldwide.
Initially, the Comintern operated with the expectation of imminent proletarian revolutions in Europe, particularly Germany, which were seen as crucial for the survival and success of the Russian Revolution. Its early years were characterized by attempts to foment and coordinate revolutionary uprisings and the establishment of disciplined communist parties across the globe, often demanding strict adherence to the "Twenty-one Conditions" for admission. As these revolutionary hopes faded by the early 1920s, the Comintern's policies shifted, notably with the adoption of the "united workers' front" tactic, aiming to win over the working masses from reformist socialist parties. Throughout the 1920s, the Comintern underwent a process of "Bolshevisation", increasing the centralization of its structure and the dominance of the RCP within its ranks. This process intensified with the rise of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union.
The "Third Period" saw the Comintern adopt an ultra-sectarian line and denounce social democratic parties as "social fascism". From 1934, the Comintern shifted to the Popular Front policy, advocating broad alliances with socialist and even liberal parties against fascism. This was formally adopted at its Seventh World Congress in 1935. The Comintern played a significant role in organizing support for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, including the formation of the International Brigades. However, this period also coincided with the Great Purge in the Soviet Union, during which many Comintern officials and foreign communists residing in Moscow were arrested and executed.
With the signing of the Nazi–Soviet Pact in August 1939, the Comintern again changed its line, denouncing the war between Nazi Germany and the Western Allies as an "imperialist war" and abandoning its anti-fascist stance until the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. As a gesture to its Western Allies in World War II, Stalin unilaterally dissolved the Comintern on 15 May 1943. While its formal structures were dismantled, mechanisms of Soviet control over the international communist movement persisted and were later partially revived through the Cominform.
Background
The Comintern, or Third International, was a direct descendant of the First International and the Second International. The First International, of which Karl Marx was a leading figure, aimed to coordinate the proletariat in its worldwide struggle against capitalism, based on the premise that "the working men have no country" and that horizontal class allegiance would supersede vertical national divisions. By the late 19th century, however, the Western labour movement had largely abandoned the revolutionary zeal of the First International. Powerful trade unions and socialist parties emerged which, while often adhering to Marxist revolutionary theory, in practice pursued gradual, constitutional reforms, improving the workers' lot within the existing capitalist framework. This created a manifest contradiction between revolutionary rhetoric and peaceful practice.The Second International, created in 1889, was a looser federation of autonomous socialist parties, comprising "left", "right", and "centrist" factions divided on issues such as bourgeois democracy, the national question, general strikes, and, crucially, war. It foundered in August 1914 on the rock of national chauvinism when most of its constituent parties chose to support their respective national governments in World War I by voting for war credits. Vladimir Lenin, a key figure in the Russian Bolshevik Party, viewed this as a "sheer betrayal of socialism" and declared the Second International dead, calling for a Third International by the autumn of 1914.
During the war, anti-war socialists attempted to regroup at the Zimmerwald Conference in 1915 and the Kienthal Conference in 1916. At Zimmerwald, a divide emerged between a pacifist majority, which sought an immediate peace without annexations or indemnities, and Lenin's left-wing minority, which advocated turning the imperialist war into a revolutionary civil war. Lenin's position gained more support at Kienthal, and the Zimmerwald Left laid the ideological foundations for the future Third International.
The Bolsheviks emerged from a distinct Russian revolutionary tradition. Unlike the mass-based, reformist parties of the West, Russian revolutionaries operated in a clandestine underground, organized in small, disciplined groups of "professional revolutionaries". Drawn largely from the intelligentsia, this movement possessed a quasi-religious devotion to the cause of revolution itself, an enthusiasm that contrasted sharply with the practical, matter-of-fact nature of Western labour movements. The October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, led by the Bolsheviks, was seen by Lenin as the first act of a global drama, with European workers expected to follow suit. To achieve this, a new International, purged of reformist "traitors", was deemed an absolute necessity.
Foundation and early years (1919–1923)
The Communist International was founded at a congress of revolutionaries in Moscow from 2–6 March 1919. The impetus for its creation came from the Bolsheviks' belief in the imminence of world proletarian revolution, spurred by the perceived collapse of capitalism after World War I and revolutionary upheavals across Europe, particularly the German "November Revolution". The mission of the Comintern was to build a "world party" of communists dedicated to the armed overthrow of capitalist private property and its replacement by a system of collective ownership.First (Founding) Congress
On 24 January 1919, a "Letter of Invitation to the First Congress of the Communist International" was sent by wireless from Moscow, identifying thirty-nine communist parties and revolutionary groups eligible to attend; it was deliberately timed to pre-empt the Berne Conference, held in early February by reformist socialists attempting to revive the Second International. The congress convened in the Kremlin on 2 March 1919. Of the fifty-one delegates, only nine arrived from abroad due to the Allied blockade of Russia; the rest resided in Soviet Russia, and many lacked authorized credentials. Hugo Eberlein, the delegate of the Communist Party of Germany, was mandated to oppose the immediate formation of a new International, reflecting Rosa Luxemburg's earlier concerns that a premature founding would allow the Bolsheviks to dominate the new organization. Despite Eberlein's abstention, the congress voted overwhelmingly to establish the Third International on 4 March 1919.The principal document of the congress was Leon Trotsky's "Manifesto to the Proletariat of the Entire World", which emphasized soviets as the instrument of working-class unity and action, deeming the Russian model universally applicable. It dismissed "bourgeois democracy" and reiterated Lenin's insistence on the dictatorship of the proletariat. Unusually, the Manifesto made no explicit reference to the role of national Communist Parties, instead placing its emphasis on the soviets on one hand and, on the other, the "International Communist Party" whose task was to overthrow the capitalist order. The improvised nature of the congress meant that no formal statutes or rules were adopted, but an Executive Committee was elected, with Grigory Zinoviev as its first President. While provision was made for foreign party representation on the ECCI, Bolsheviks predominated due to the prestige of the Russian Revolution and the weakness of foreign parties.
Universalisation of Bolshevism
The foundation of the Comintern institutionalized the split in the international labour movement between revolutionary communists and reformist social democrats. This schism was rooted in fundamentally different conceptions of the path to socialism. Karl Kautsky, a leading theoretician of the Second International, condemned the Bolshevik coup in The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, arguing that socialism was inseparable from democracy and that a revolution in backward Russia could only result in a terroristic dictatorship. Lenin, in his reply The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, excoriated Kautsky, asserting that parliamentary institutions were a sham concealing bourgeois class rule and that "proletarian democracy is a million times more democratic than any bourgeois democracy". He proclaimed that Bolshevism could "serve as a model of tactics for all". Rosa Luxemburg, while a committed revolutionary, also criticized the Bolsheviks from a democratic standpoint, warning that their centralist organizational model would lead to a bureaucratic dictatorship over the proletariat, not of it.The Second World Congress, held in Petrograd and Moscow from 19 July to 7 August 1920, is considered the true founding congress of the Comintern. Many delegates undertook hazardous, illegal journeys through the Allied blockade and civil war to attend, with some travelling for weeks to reach Russia. The congress itself took place amidst the privations of War Communism, but the Bolsheviks staged impressive cultural spectacles, such as a mass performance depicting the history of class struggle, to foster revolutionary enthusiasm among the delegates and the domestic population.
The congress adopted the famous "Twenty-one Conditions" for admission, drafted primarily by Zinoviev under Lenin's guidance. These conditions, a "much more stringent and deterrent set" than the initial platform, aimed to split the rank-and-file of European socialist parties from their "opportunist" leaders and enforce Bolshevik organizational principles. Key conditions included: systematic removal of reformists and centrists from all responsible posts; combining legal and illegal activity; a complete break with figures like Kautsky and Ramsay MacDonald; establishing communist cells in trade unions; adherence to democratic centralism based on iron discipline and periodic purges; unconditional support for every Soviet republic; and changing party names to "Communist Party". Point sixteen stated that all decisions of Comintern congresses and the ECCI were binding on all parties. The congress also ratified the Statutes of the Comintern, which established the annual world congress as the supreme body and the ECCI as the directing body between congresses. Point 8 of the Statutes stipulated that the work of the ECCI was performed mainly by the party of the country where it was located, which had five representatives with full voting rights, while other major parties had only one.
This "universalisation of Bolshevism" was further elaborated in Lenin's pamphlet "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, which argued that "certain fundamental features of our revolution have a significance that is not local... but international". The Third and Fourth Congresses reinforced the centralist Bolshevik model, creating ECCI bodies like the Presidium, Secretariat, Organisational Bureau, and International Control Commission that paralleled Russian party structures. The Comintern also began dispatching "agents" and "emissaries" to intervene in the affairs of national parties. Funding for foreign communist parties and the Comintern's clandestine activities, managed by the International Liaison Department from 1921, came from the Soviet state treasury, creating economic dependence.
Despite the trend towards Russian dominance and centralisation, the Comintern in Lenin's era displayed a degree of pluralism and open debate not seen later. Figures like Paul Levi of the KPD and the Italian Amadeo Bordiga were not docile, and some national parties resisted or reinterpreted Moscow's directives.