In March
1919 leading members of the Communist Party
in Russia founded the Communist International (later known as Comintern).
The aim of the organization was to fight "by all available means,
including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie
and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition
stage to the complete abolition of the State".
To be admitted
to the Comintern the Communist parties had to accept twenty-one conditions.
This included: (1) conduct truly Communist propaganda and agitation
and uphold the ideal of a dictatorship of the proletariat before the
masses; (2) remove all reformists and supporters of centrists opinions
from responsible posts; (3) create an illegal (in addition to the
legal) organization for subversive work.
Gregory
Zinoviev, was elected chairman of the Comintern. He held the post
for seven years before being dismissed by Joseph
Stalin because of his support for the ideas of Leon
Trotsky. Zinoviev was replaced by Nickolai
Bukharin but he was dismissed in 1928 and Stalin, as General Secretary
of the Communist Party, became the head of
Comintern. He then purged all members of
the organization who supported Trotsky and his views on world revolution.
(1)
Walter
Krivitsky, I Was Stalin's Agent
(1939)
For many years, while revolutionary
prospects there seemed promising, the Comintern poured the greater
part of its money into Germany and Central Europe. But when it became
more decisively an appendage of the Soviet Government, and revolutionary
objectives were side-tracked in favour of Stalinizing public opinion
and capturing key
positions in the democratic governments, Moscow's budgets for France,
Great Britain and the United States were enormously increased.
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