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Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties Информационное бюро коммунистических и рабочих партий | |
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| Founder | Joseph Stalin |
| Founded | 5 October 1947 |
| Dissolved | 17 April 1956 |
| Preceded by | Comintern |
| Succeeded by | Comecon Warsaw Pact |
| Headquarters |
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| Newspaper | For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy! |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-left |
| Colours | Red |
| Eastern Bloc | ||||||||
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Allied and satellite states
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Cold War events
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TheInformation Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (Russian:Информационное бюро коммунистических и рабочих партий,romanized: Informatsionnoye byuro kommunisticheskikh i rabochikh partiy), commonly known asCominform (Коминформ), was a co-ordination body ofMarxist–Leninistcommunist parties in Europe which existed from 1947 to 1956. Formed in the wake of the dissolution of theCommunist International in 1943, it did not replace that body, but instead mainly served as an expression of solidarity and as a means of disseminatingStalinist propaganda. The Cominform initially included the communist parties ofthe Soviet Union,Bulgaria,Czechoslovakia,Hungary,Poland,Romania,Yugoslavia (expelled in 1948),France, andItaly. The organization was dissolved in 1956, duringde-Stalinization, largely replaced in function by theWarsaw Pact formed in 1955 andComecon formed in 1949.
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties was unofficially founded at a conference ofMarxist–Leninistcommunist parties from acrossEurope inSzklarska Poręba,People's Republic of Poland, in September 1947.Joseph Stalin, the leader of theSoviet Union (USSR), called the conference in response to divergences among communist governments on whether or not to attend theParis Conference on theMarshall Plan in July 1947. It was founded with nine members: theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union, theBulgarian Communist Party, theCommunist Party of Czechoslovakia, theHungarian Communist Party, thePolish Workers' Party, theRomanian Communist Party, theCommunist Party of Yugoslavia, theFrench Communist Party, and theItalian Communist Party. The organization was commonly known as Cominform, an abbreviation of "Communist Information Bureau", itself a shortened version of the official name.
The Cominform was officially established on 5 October 1947 to coordinate actions among European communist parties under the direction of the Soviet Union. Cominform was not intended to be a replacement or successor to theCommunist International (Comintern), the international organization that advocatedworld communism and dissolved in 1943, but was considered a type of successor. However, starting in 1950, Stalin began pushing for the Cominform's functions to be greatly expanded, almost to the scale of the Comintern. This push ceased after his death.[1] Cominform was not a world communist party and did not have subordinates or power, limiting itself to its newspaper,For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy!, published in several languages, and to one goal: "to organize an exchange of experience, and where necessary to coordinate the activity of the Communist parties, on the basis of mutual agreement."[2] A vast array of articles was published, including some not published by members such as theCanadian Communist Party.[3] Cominform was to organize the propagation of communist interests and repel the expansion ofanti-communism in the aftermath ofWorld War II and the subsequentCold War, dividing the world (per theZhdanov Doctrine) intoimperialist and anti-imperialist factions.[4][5] Cominform specifically tasked the French and Italian communist parties with the obstruction of the implementation of the Marshall Plan and theTruman Doctrine inWestern Europe.[6] From a global standpoint the Cominform strived/ventured to unite the Communist parties against the copious policies which threatened to empower Western Europe to oppose communism, mainly through pinpointing/underlining the importance of national independence and peace. More importantly, though, was that the Cominform had to remain small in size (Eurocentric Organization),[citation needed] in order to preserve its maneuverability and efficient centralisation, mainly because it operated as a propaganda tool controlled by the International Communist movement to instruct and inform the leading members of the different national parties. Its members were communist parties and, as such, would guarantee the safeguarding of the monolith of the communist movement.[7] The primary reason for theCommunist Party of Greece not being a member was fears of Western powers using this to paint the KKE as foreign insurgents. However, they did contribute to Cominform publications.[8] Because of theChinese Civil War, theChinese Communist Party (CCP) was also not invited for a similar reason as Greece.[8] The CCP nonetheless adhered to Cominform policy. In a conversation withLiu Shaoqi, Stalin indicated that he was not opposed to the CCP joining the Cominform, only that it was unnecessary at the time.[9] There were plans for the CCP to lead an Asian Cominform of some sort,[10][11] but this idea was seemingly forgotten withdeath of Joseph Stalin and weakening of the Cominform.[citation needed]
Cominform was initially located inBelgrade,Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia, but after theTito–Stalin split expelled Yugoslavia from the group in June 1948, the seat was moved toBucharest,Romanian People's Republic. Officially, Yugoslavia was expelled for "Titoism" andanti-Sovietism, based on accusations of deviating from Marxism–Leninism. Yugoslavia was consideredheretical for resisting Soviet dominance over its affairs and for its integration into the Eastern Bloc as aSoviet satellite state.[12] It is believed that one of the most decisive factors that led to the expulsion of Yugoslavia was their commitment to supporting communist insurgents[citation needed] in theGreek Civil War, in violation of the "Percentages Agreement" between the Soviet Union andUnited Kingdom, and their decision to station troops inPeople's Republic of Albania.[13] However, this was not the official line of reasoning from the USSR. In fact, Cominform publications accused Yugoslavia of supporting the anti-communist insurgents in the Greek Civil War.[14][15] The expulsion of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia from Cominform initiated theInformbiro period of Yugoslavian history. The Cominform's newspaper was initially printed in Belgrade; printed initially expulsion, it was moved to Bucharest.[7]
From 1950, the Cominform became rapidly irrelevant after the victory of thePeople's Republic of China in theChinese Civil War, weakening Europe as the center of communism. Cominform, composed entirely of European parties, was rendered essentially useless in Soviet influence over the international communist movement.[citation needed] No attempts were made to reorganize the Cominform, and its decline accelerated drastically after the death of Stalin in March 1953. Meanwhile, the Soviets had gradually replaced Cominform with more effective and specialized organizations to exert their influence, such as theCouncil for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) in 1949 and theWarsaw Pact in 1955. Cominform was officially dissolved on 17 April 1956 in a decision by theCentral Committee of the CPSU, prompted by the Sovietrapprochement with Yugoslavia and thede-Stalinization process following the rise ofNikita Khrushchev as Stalin's successor.[6]
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There are four recorded meetings of the Cominform before 1956.
This founding meeting took place on 22–23 September 1947 inJelenia Góra, Poland. Members present at the first meeting wereEdvard Kardelj andMilovan Djilas for theFederative People's Republic of Yugoslavia;Valko Chervenkov andVladimir Poptomov for theBulgarian People's Republic;Gheorghiu-Dej andAnna Pauker for theRomanian People's Republic;Mihály Farkas andJózsef Révai for theSecond Hungarian Republic;Władysław Gomułka andHilary Minc for Poland;Andrei Zhdanov andGeorgy Malenkov for theUSSR;Jacques Duclos andÉtienne Fajon for France;Rudolf Slánský andŠtefan Bašťovanský for theThird Czechoslovak Republic; andLuigi Longo andEugenio Reale forItaly. Zhdanov was chairman, and Gomułka was appointed vice-chairman.[16]
Gomułka was given the task of making the first report, titledOn the interchange of experience and co-ordination, with the second being a report by Zhdanov on the global status quo. In the former report, the key points, apart from Poland's evaluation, seem to be criticisms of the French and Italian communist parties after the emancipation, due to their missing the opportunity to seize power, contrary to the Eastern Europeans, who proved their political superiority by quickly dealing with the issue of ensuring their dominance in the government. The significance of this criticism is shown by the regret of the French and Italian representatives, accompanied by the following statement in the final resolution: "the need for interchange and voluntary co-ordination of action in the various parties is particularly keenly felt at the present time".
Zhdanov's report was of critical importance to communist ideology. After mentioning the original disbandment of the Communist International in May 1943, Zhdanov pointed out the fact that "the present position of the communist parties had its shortcomings. [...] The need for mutual consultation and voluntary co-ordination had become particularly urgent at the present juncture". The reason for this, according to Zhdanov, lay in the newglobal state, which led to new tasks being passed down to the communist parties of the new democratic states, as well as to the "fraternal communist parties of France, Italy, Great Britain and other countries". Furthermore, given that some understood the dissolution of the Comintern as the subsequent elimination of all ties, "continued isolation" led "to a slackening of mutual understanding and at times even to serious blunders".[citation needed]
The first part of Zhdanov's report was included in a published declaration that designated the task of the communist parties as "taking into their hands the banner of defense of national independence and sovereignty of their countries". The following part, in combination with Gomułka's report, formed the preamble of the resolution, which underlined the following five key points:
The two Western communist parties (the French and the Italian) were assigned two tasks: to claim the leadership of their countries once again and prepare for a fierce fight, and to take whatever measures were necessary to ensure that the "American Policy" would not be implemented in Western Europe. Their ineffective policy had to be replaced by one of strikes, mass action, and sabotage. The first general "attack" waslaunched in France on 18 November 1947, and in Italy on 12 November. Both turned out to be quite violent. The wave of attacks ended by the end of the year because the workers had failed to carry out the communist instructions, and the two communist parties were unwilling to continue the fight. Strikes continued sporadically, but without public support.[citation needed]
The second meeting occurred in Belgrade on 1 February 1948. During the meeting, a permanent editorial board was chosen for the newspaperFor a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy!, which was first issued in Belgrade on 1 November 1947. The editorial board was under the leadership ofPavel Yudin, who was succeeded byMark Borisovich Mitin after the Yugoslavian expulsion from the Cominform.[citation needed]
A third meeting was held in Romania on 28 June 1948. It was during this meeting that the Yugoslav Communist Party was expelled. Furthermore, the Cominform's headquarters were relocated toBucharest, and the group initiated a campaign to transform the programs and cadres of Eastern European communist parties. In a unanimous resolution, the eight communist parties agreed that the Yugoslav Communist Party had "pursued an incorrect line on the main questions of home and foreign policy, a line appropriate only to nationalism, and which represented a departure from Marxism-Leninism". The parties approved the actions of the Russian communist party and condemned Yugoslavia's agricultural policy, which sidelined class differentiation—"regarding the individual peasantry as a single entity and even asserting that the peasantry was the most stable foundation of their state"—a role meant for theproletariat. Because Yugoslavia refused to abide by the Cominform's discipline and ignored its criticism, it had receded from the "family of fraternal communist parties". Anything that Tito could have "infected" was meant to be eliminated. The decisive action against him had been agreed upon by the end of June. At the beginning of July, two communist parties, namely the Polish and the Bulgarian ones, were summoned to reconsider their ideologies. Gomułka, Kostov, Rajk, Markos and Xoxe immediately aroused suspicion. On 6 July 1948, aPlenum of the Central Committee of thePolish Workers' Party was convened to discuss Gomułka's considerable deviations from Party doctrine.Aleksander Zawadzki andRoman Zambrowski presented a "clear Marxist–Leninist analysis". The Plenum met again from 31 August to 3 September. Gomułka accepted responsibility for his wrongdoing and was replaced by Minc.
Gomułka was arrested, set free, then re-incarcerated. On 12–13 July 1948, the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party "unanimously declared that the leadership of our party has never doubted the leading role played by the Russian communist party and the Soviet Union in the democratic camp". It noted that it had not been sufficiently vigilant towards the Yugoslav Communist Party. In June, a new wave of retaliation against perceived supporters of Tito emerged. On 10 June,Koçi Xoxe was hanged in Albania, and on 15 June,László Rajk was arrested in Hungary. Another wave of attacks was carried out in the autumn of the same year, during which Rajk was hanged, Gomułka was arrested, andTraicho Kostov's indictment was published. These attacks seem to have originated from the conflict between Tito and the Russians.[citation needed]
Lastly, the fourth meeting was held inHungarian People's Republic on 27 November 1949. Two reports were presented, resulting in three resolutions. The Soviet delegate,Mikhail Suslov, presented a report titledOn the Defence of Peace and the fight against warmongers, which urged the people of Western countries to oppose any imperialist measures taken by their governments against the Eastern Bloc.Palmiro Togliatti presented a report about theworking class and the tasks of the communist and workers' parties. This resolution pinpointed the "particular attention which should be devoted to the mass of Catholic workers". Finally, the Romanian delegate,Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, concluded that, as Tito's establishment had not been dealt with, it was the duty of the communist parties to strengthen the fight against it by making more noticeable the net of economic and diplomatic pressure and by urging Tito's opposition within Yugoslavia to start secret activity.[7][17][18]
The fortnightly journalFor a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy! was published by the Cominform in Russian, French and English.[19]
