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TheInternational Lenin School (ILS) (Russian:Международная Ленинская школа (МЛШ),romanized: Mezhdunarodnaya Leninskaya shkola (MLSh)) was an official training school operated inMoscow,Soviet Union, by theCommunist International from May 1926 to 1938. It was resumed after theSecond World War and run by theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union; it continued until thedissolution of the Soviet Union. The ILS taught both academic courses and practical underground political techniques with a view to developing a core disciplined and reliablecommunist political cadres for assignment in communist parties around the world.
The International Lenin School (ILS) was founded in 1926 as an instrument for the "Bolshevization" of theCommunist International (Comintern) and its national sections, following the resolutions of the Fifth World Congress of the Comintern.[1] The school was established, in the formal language of the Comintern:
To assist the Comintern sections in raising the qualifications of leading Party workers whose revolutionary experience must be strengthened by general theoreticalMarxist–Leninist preparation on the one hand; and, on the other, by direct and active study of the organizational and political experiences of theRussian Communist Party and of the experiences and current work of the Communist Parties in the capitalist and colonial countries."[1]
That goal was to be achieved through an intensive one-year course of study including economics and history, Marxist theory, and the strategy and tactics employed by the world communist movement.[1] Its teachers were leading intellectuals of the Comintern and Soviet Union. Its first director wasNikolai Bukharin. Students for the International Lenin School were hand-picked by the various communist parties.[1]
The first class of students, which began instruction in May 1926, consisted of 70 individuals from around the world.[2] A matter of major difficulty was the variety of languages spoken by participants, a situation that necessitated the extensive use of interpreters.[1] Four languages were used by participants: Russian, German, English, and French.[3]
Academic courses taught at the ILS during its first year of existence includedpolitical economy, the history of the Russian Communist Party, the history of the world labor movement, party construction, and the Russian language.[3] Instruction was largely based upon intensive directed reading, followed by individualized discussion with lecturers.[3] In addition, with a view to making contact with the Sovietworking class, the inaugural class of ILS students were divided into groups of between three and five and were sent out to perform manual labor in the Orecho-Zuovo Textile Mill and the Colmna Locomotive and Car Works as part of their educational experience.[4] About 8 hours per week were spent at such factory labor.[4]
Between May 1926 and its termination in mid-1938, the International Lenin School provided academic, practical, and ideological training to some 3,500 communist students from 59 countries.[5] The great majority of the students hailed from Europe and North America, and another Comintern-affiliated training institution, theCommunist University of the Toilers of the East, catered to the majority of students from colonial countries.
The greatest number of students at the ILS came from Germany (370), followed by Czechoslovakia (320), and France, Poland, Italy, the United States, and China each supplied between 200 and 225 participants.[5] Austria provided about 180 students, with Great Britain adding another 150, and Spain and Finland supplied about 135 students each.[5] Other countries providing more than 60 students included the Soviet Union, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Ireland, and Canada.[5]
Instruction was conducted by exiled veteran communists residing in Moscow, including in particular exiles from Germany, Italy, and Hungary, as well as Russian instructors.[6]
According to the ILS graduateJoseph Zack Kornfeder, the ILS included courses on Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Trade Union Organization, Party Organization, Military Organization, and the Agrarian Problem.[7] Particular attention was paid to study of the History of theAll-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) as well, including the policies, organizational structure, and procedures of that organization.[6]
At the end of each school semester, students were required to write a paper on a topic chosen by them to demonstrate their mastery of the subject matter.[6] Successful students were to be returned home to assume executive or editorial positions or were placed in the service of the Communist International in other countries.[6]
Internationally, Lenin School students can be traced as late as the 1960s and beyond exercising significant responsibilities either as heads of communist governments, such asYugoslavia'sJosip Broz Tito,Poland'sBolesław Bierut andWładysław Gomułka andEast Germany'sWalter Ulbricht andErich Honecker, or as leaders of significant oppositional parties elsewhere, such as Vietnamese Communist Leader and First PresidentHo Chi Minh, the general secretaries of theUnited States,French,Greek,Irish, andSouth African Communist Parties,Gus Hall,Waldeck Rochet,Nikolaos Zachariadis,Ernő Gerő,Sean Murray andMoses Kotane, respectively. Other important students of the Lenin School include such figures asHarry Haywood,[8]James Larkin Jr,[8]Markus Wolf[9] andDavid Alfaro Siqueiros.[citation needed]
After the closure of the ILS, the Comintern operated a cadre school, camouflaged as an agricultural school, inKushnarenkovo from 1941 to 1943.[10][11]Wolfgang Leonhard described his studies there in his bookChild of the Revolution.[11]
The ILS was re-established after the war and continued until theend of the Soviet Union. It was located at 49 Leningradsky Prospekt, Moscow, in a purpose-built complex with lecture halls, film theatres, library, shops, restaurants and residences. Also called the Institute of Social Sciences, it was a semi-clandestine institution, and many of its students went by pseudonyms, primarily for security reasons because they were members of then-illegal parties. The school was under the auspices of the International Department of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union. Graduates from that period, who later held prominent positions, includeAlexander Dubček,Thabo Mbeki,John Dramani Mahama,Demetris Christofias, andNadia Valavani. First-person accounts of the ILS have been written byJohn Mahama,[12] Jim Riordan,[13]Helena Sheehan[14] and Kevin McMahon.[15] After the end of the Soviet Union, its premises were given to theGorbachev Foundation for a time but were later transferred to aFinancial University.
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