The Comintern and the Western Communist Parties 1930-1949 презентация

University of Geneva

its establishment to its dissolution in 1943 formed a specific worldwide network of devoted communist cadres. This course examines the relations of the western communist parties with the Comintern. The goal is to understand the way national communist parties interact with the supranational authority of the Communist International. Topics include the centre-periphery debate; the process of Bolshevization; the popular front; the Spanish civil war; the transition from Comintern to Cominform.

French communist Party: the popular front.
The Spanish civil war and the Comintern.
The Greek Communist Party: 1924-1949.
Seminar I: The General secretaries of KKE, PCD’I, PCF and PCE: (Zachariadis, Togliatti, Thorez, Diaz).
The Comintern and the “Great Terror”.
The education of the cadres: KYNMZ and KYTV.
Seminar II: (OMS and Bolshevization).
Exam.

Macmillan, 2008. 
Charles R. Shrader, “The withered vine: logistics and the communist insurgency in Greece, 1945-1949”, London: Praeger, 1999.   
Daniel Kowalsky, “Stalin and the Spanish Civil War”. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. 
E.H. Carr, “Wilight of the Comintern, 1930-1935”. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982.
Elena Agarossi, Victor Zaslavsky, “Stalin and Togliatti: Italy and the Origins of the Cold War”, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.

from Lenin to Stalin”, London: MacMillan, 1996.
Mikhail Narisky, Jürgen Rojahn (Dir), “Centre and Periphery, The History of the Comintern in the light of New Documents”, Amsterdam: International Institute of Social History, 1996.
N. LaPorte (Ed), K. Morgan (Ed), M. Worley (Ed), “Bolshevism, Stalinism and the Comintern: Perspectives on Stalinization, 1917-53”, New York: MacMillan, 2008.
Tim Rees, Timothy Rees (Ed), Andrew Thorpe (Ed), “International Communism and the Communist International, 1919-43”, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999.  
Tom Kemp, “Stalinism in France: The first twenty years of the French Communist Party”. London: New Park, 1984. 
William J. Chase, “Enemies within the Gates? The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934-1939”. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.

Аиро-ХХI; Крафт, 2007. 576 с.
История Коммунистического Интернационала : 1919-1943 : документальные очерки / отв. ред. А. О. Чубарьян ; Ин-т всеобщей истории РАН.  - Москва : Наука, 2002. - 413 с.
Политбюро ЦК РКП(б) — ВКП(б) и Коминтерн. 1919-1943. Документы, Москва : Росспэн, 2004, 961 с.

The Russian Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, believed that unless socialist revolution swept Europe, they would be crushed by the forces of world capitalism, just as the Paris Commune had been crushed by force of arms in 1871.

of the proletariat

Moscow March 2–6, 1919.
Executive Committee of five members. However, Lenin, Trotsky and Christian Rakovsky later delegated the task of managing the International to Grigory Zinoviev as the Chairman of the Executive.
Grigory Zinoviev served as the first Chairman of the Comintern's Executive Committee from 1919 to 1926. Lenin however was the brain behind the scenes. (What is to be done?).

character and  correspond to the program and decisions of the Communist International. All the party's press organs must be run by reliable communists who have proved their devotion to the cause of the proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat must not be treated simply as a current formula learnt off by heart. Propaganda for it must be carried out in such a way that its necessity is comprehensible to every simple worker, every woman worker, every soldier and peasant from the facts of their daily lives, which must be observed systematically by our press and used day by day

institutions must be subordinated to the party leadership, regardless of whether, at any given moment, the party as a whole is legal or illegal. The publishing houses must not be allowed to abuse their independence and pursue policies that do not entirely correspond to the policies of the party In the columns of the press, at public meetings, in the trades unions, in the co-operatives – wherever the members of the Communist International can gain admittance – it is necessary to brand not only the bourgeoisie but also its helpers, the reformists of every shade, systematically and pitilessly.

must regularly and methodically remove reformists and centrists from every responsible post in the labour movement (party organisations, editorial boards, trades unions, parliamentary factions, co-operatives, local government) and replace them with tested communists, without worrying unduly about the fact that, particularly at first, ordinary workers from the masses will be replacing 'experienced' opportunists.

phase of civil war. Under such conditions the communists can place no trust in bourgeois legality. They have the obligation of setting up a parallel organisational apparatus which, at the decisive moment, can assist the party to do its duty to the revolution. In every country where a state of siege or emergency laws deprive the communists of the opportunity of carrying on all their work legally, it is absolutely necessary to combine legal and illegal activity.

of forceful and systematic propaganda in the army. Where this agitation is interrupted by emergency laws it must be continued illegally. Refusal to carry out such work would be tantamount to a betrayal of revolutionary duty and would be incompatible with membership of the Communist International.

working class will not be able to win if it does not have the backing of the rural proletariat and at least a part of the poorest peasants, and if it does not secure the neutrality of at least a part of the rest of the rural population through its policies. Communist work in the countryside is taking on enormous importance at the moment. It must be carried out principally with the help of revolutionary communist workers of the town and country who have connections with the countryside. To refuse to carry this work out, or to entrust it to unreliable, semi-reformist hands, is tantamount to renouncing the proletarian revolution.

has the obligation to unmask not only open social-patriotism but also the insincerity and hypocrisy of social pacificism, to show the workers systematically that, without the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, no international court of arbitration, no agreement on the limitation of armaments, no 'democratic' reorganisation of the League of Nations will be able to prevent new imperialist wars.

have the obligation of recognising the necessity of a complete break with reformism and 'centrist' politics and of spreading this break among the widest possible circles of their party members. Consistent communist politics are impossible without this. The Communist International unconditionally and categorically demands the carrying out of this break in the shortest possible time. The Communist International cannot tolerate a situation where notorious opportunists (Turati, Modigliani, Kautsky, Hilferding, Hillquit, Longuet, MacDonald), etc., have the right to pass as members of the Communist International. This could only lead to the Communist International becoming something very similar to the wreck of the Second International

of the colonies and oppressed nations is necessary on the part of the communist parties of those countries whose bourgeoisies are in possession of colonies and oppress other nations. Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International has the obligation of exposing the dodges of its 'own' imperialists in the colonies, of supporting every liberation movement in the colonies not only in words but in deeds, of demanding that their imperialist compatriots should be thrown out of the colonies, of cultivating in the hearts of the workers in their own country a truly fraternal relationship to the working population in the colonies and to the oppressed nations, and of carrying out systematic propaganda among their own country’s troops against any oppression of colonial peoples.

must systematically and persistently develop communist activities within the trades unions, workers’ and works councils, the consumer co-operatives and other mass workers’ organisations. Within these organisations it is necessary to organise communist cells which are to win the trades unions etc. for the cause of communism by incessant and persistent work. In their daily work the cells have the obligation to expose everywhere the treachery of the social patriots and the vacillations of the 'centrists'. The communist cells must be completely subordinated to the party as a whole.

to wage a stubborn struggle against the Amsterdam 'International' of yellow trade union organisations. It must expound as forcefully as possible among trades unionists the idea of the necessity of the break with the yellow Amsterdam International. It must support the International Association of Red Trades Unions affiliated to the Communist International, at present in the process of formation, with every means at its disposal.
Solidarity in action…

the obligation to subject the personal composition of their parliamentary factions to review, to remove all unreliable elements from them and to subordinate these factions to the party leadership, not only in words but also in deeds, by calling on every individual communist member of parliament to subordinate the whole of his activity to the interests of really revolutionary propaganda and agitation.

on the basis of the principle of democratic centralism. In the present epoch of acute civil war the communist party will only be able to fulfil its duty if it is organised in as centralist a manner as possible, if iron discipline reigns within it and if the party centre, sustained by the confidence of the party membership, is endowed with the fullest rights and authority and the most far-reaching powers.
The complementarity of the Bolshevik party and the Comintern.
Center / Periphery.

can carry out their work legally must from time to time undertake purges (re-registration) of the membership of their party organisations in order to cleanse the party systematically of the petty-bourgeois elements within it.

has the obligation to give unconditional support to every soviet republic in its struggle against the forces of counter-revolution. The communist parties must carry out clear propaganda to prevent the transport of war material to the enemies of the soviet republics. They must also carry out legal or illegal propaganda, etc., with every means at their disposal among troops sent to stifle workers’ republics.
The first priority : protect the soviet revolution unconditionally.

have the obligation of changing those programmes as quickly as possible and working out a new communist programme corresponding to the particular conditions in the country and in accordance with the decisions of the Communist International. As a rule the programme of every party belonging to the Communist International must be ratified by a regular Congress of the Communist International or by the Executive Committee. Should the Executive Committee of the Communist International reject a party’s programme, the party in question has the right of appeal to the Congress of the Communist International.
The right of initiative.

decisions of its Executive Committee are binding on all parties belonging to the Communist International. The Communist International, acting under conditions of the most acute civil war, must be built in a far more centralist manner than was the case with the Second International. In the process the Communist International and its Executive Committee must, of course, in the whole of its activity, take into account the differing conditions under which the individual parties have to fight and work, and only take generally binding decisions in cases where such decisions are possible.

to the Communist International must change their names. Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International must bear the name Communist Party of this or that country (Section of the Communist International). The question of the name is not formal, but a highly political question of great importance. The Communist International has declared war on the whole bourgeois world and on all yellow social-democratic parties. The difference between the communist parties and the old official 'social-democratic' or 'socialist' parties that have betrayed the banner of the working class must be clear to every simple toiler.
The Identity= passport example.

country have the duty of printing all the important official documents of the Executive Committee of the Communist International.
19 All parties that belong to the Communist International or have submitted an application for membership have the duty of calling a special congress as soon as possible, and in no case later than four months after the Second Congress of the Communist International, in order to check all these conditions. In this connection all party centres must see that the decisions of the Second Congress are known to all their local organisations.

but have not yet radically altered their previous tactics must, before they join the Communist International, see to it that no less than two thirds of the central committee and of all their most important central institutions consist of comrades who even before the Second Congress of the Communist International spoke out unambiguously in public in favour of the entry of the party into the Communist International. Exceptions may be permitted with the agreement of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. The Executive Committee of the Communist International also has the right to make exceptions in relation to the representatives of the centrist tendency mentioned in paragraph 7.
No recess, no capitulation in terms of principles…

laid down by the Communist International are to be expelled from the party.

and the creation of the PCF (Congress of Tours and the creation of SFIC). (1920).

The communist party of Italy (1921).

KKE in 1924 (transformation of the SEKE).

1924-1928

Third Period: 1928-1935

Popular Front: 1935 – 1943

the exportation of the revolution, the exportation of the October paradigm. The First period, the wave of revolutions, the years of faith.

Lenin died in 1924. Since then all the revolutionary attempts had completely failed: the Spartacist uprising in Germany (1919), the Hungarian soviet Republics (led by Bela Kun.).

1922).
The process of bolshevizisation… : rules of conspiracy, party discipline, fight against fractionism, the creation of a monolithic party structure, fight against trotskism. (1924-1931).
The period of Institutional change : 1928-1935.
1935-1943: The popular front as a political methodology against fascism.

exportation of the revolution, the exportation of the October paradigm. The First period, the wave of revolutions, the years of the faith.
Protect the Soviet Revolution.
Fight against fascism.
Protect the Soviet Union.

communist international’s bureaucracy that quite officially was described as secret, as illegal, as conspiratorial.
Various departments and sections where not pair such names but in fact they were absolutely secret, and this happened because no one, even a narrow fellow was not supposed to believe the existence of such organisations.

For many years it was called the department of international communication.
It seems quite innocent department but in fact it was the special and the secret department and the conspiratorial department.
(OMS: Отдел международной связи: Department of International relations, or communications.

was responsible right for the transfer of money and other valuables including gold and precious stones from Moscow to the individual national communist parties abroad.
The OMS task was also to fold directives, instructions, weapons, ammunition and propaganda materials and explosives to the individual communist parties.

of various kinds of confidential information concerning not only the capitalistic enemy but also the internal affairs of the foreign-national communist parties themselves. In order to carry out all these functions, the OMS maintained a comprehensive career service:
intelligence section
a radio station
a propaganda section
various laboratories for things like photographic techniques and the production of false passports and other identity papers.
The particular character of its work was quite similar to the work of soviet secret police and soviet military intelligence.

when a new secret instruction section was established within the framework of the OMS department in Moscow.
Secret Instruction section: This new section developed into a separate special department – designated as extremely secret topics and issues. The job of these institutions was to impose the rules of secrecy everywhere in the Comintern Bureaucracy.
The mentality of secrecy: конспирация.

the Comintern changed three times: in 1920, on the occasion of the Second Congress, the apparatus formed its essential features; in 1924, at the beginning of the “bolshevization” period on the occasion of the 5th Congress, and in 1928, during the 6th Congress, when Stalin consolidated his power over the international apparatus.
The Togliatti (Ercoli) Commission proposed a number of changes :

supposed replace the Politsecreteriat and the Politcommission which were dissolved. Dimitrov is its chirman and his deputy Palmiro Togliatti.
The Regional Secretariats were abolished. We have from now on personal or individual secretariats: for instance Togliatti took on responsibility for countries that were previously assigned by the Central European Regional Secretariat.
The practice of dispatching ECCI representatives and instructors was de facto abolished.
Therefore, as a counter-move, the party representatives were assigned to the Secretariat. Their duties were indeed important.
The auxiliary apparatus was tightened up and tied closer to the Secretariat, too as its organs. These encompassed the Cadre section, the Department of Propaganda, the Liaison Service and so on. Centralization. These measures set in motion a process of centralization.

out by the above mentioned institutions was partly taken over by a Cadre department, in other words by an important and specially educated personnel. The main tasks of these new departments was to accumulate biographical information about all leading communists (center and abroad) with the obvious aim of detecting black spots or political problems in the carriers of the Comintern personnel. This department used to have its own special section and was never mentioned in the Comintern official publications, very few people knew its existence and even fewer had any idea of its actual work

real hart of the Comintern secret apparatus. During the Great Terror when the entire communist staff was purged from top to bottom, the particular cadres department became the main weapon for Stalin simply because of the size and the wealth of the confidential information that it had in stock.

(1936-1938) and was applied not only within the soviet Union but also throughout the entire world of the communist movement. In other words, all the internal problems of the soviet internal policy (within the party of the Bolsheviks) was reflected to the different sections and the special departments of the Comintern.

changed its named. It became the communication service. This service and the cadre department where severely paid a big price because the purges eliminated a lot of people of its personnel. But afterwards, the whole department was restructured and worked under the guidance of a new Russian personnel, predominantly Russian personnel.

and then in became the Scientific Institute no 100. The cadre department remained the same name and integrated into the soviet communist party of the international information.

nature
illegal narrow commission
conspiratorial cadre
work in the army
subversive activities and sabotage in the capitalistic countries
the budget of this commission, allocated money and other forms of supports to the foreign communist parties.

work carried out in other countries

We have contact points of the OMS in:

Paris, Berlin London, Amsterdam
Hamburg, Zagreb, Athens, Brussels
Vienna, Prague, Madrid, Instambul
Riga, and Copenhegen, Shangai, Singapoor
Talin, San Paolo, Oslo, Stocholm

the other communist Parties.
OMS’s responsibilities:
secret directives and orders
technical equipment’s: carrier service, network of agents of different nationalities travelling with secret names decoded letters and confidential materials.

had to code and decode a lot of messages and control the local communist parties. These were referred directly to Moscow and they did not have any contact with the local communist party.

Policy of the USSR