The Presidential Library highlights the centenary of the Comintern

The Third International, also known as the Communist International, or Comintern, was founded on March 2, 1919. This international organization, which united communist parties in different countries, existed until 1943 and had a significant impact on the labor movement worldwide.

There are a lot of materials, which shed light on the First, Second, and Third Internationals in the electronic collections of the Presidential Library. These documents are available for study in about 900 centers of remote access in all 85 regions of our country and in 30 foreign countries.

The Communist League, founded in London in 1847 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was the predecessor of international organizations of workers. Members of this association proposed a well-known slogan “Proletarians of all Countries, Unite!”, Yury Steklov’s “The International” (1920), which is available in the collections of the Presidential Library, reads in part.

The Communist League was followed by the International Working Men’s Association, or the First International, which was founded in 1864 and existed until 1876. One of the reasons for its dissolution was the disagreement between Marxists and anarchists.

The monograph authored by Vsevolod Gorokhov “The First International and Russian Socialism” (1925) gives a chance to learn about the way the ideas of the international labor movement gradually inspired Russia’s prominent figures, in particular, Russian emigrants in Europe.

The International Association of Workers' Parties, or the Second International, existed from 1889 through 1914. The publication “The International Socialist Workers’ Congress in London” (1896) highlights the main issues on the agenda: the agrarian and military issues, education and physical development; economic, political and industrial struggle.

It is worth noting that the view on the war was one of the major issues that interested members of the labor movement both in Russia and abroad. There are a lot of books in the collections of the Presidential Library, which focus on this matter: books by Alexey Ustinov, Christian Rakovsky, Viktor Chernov,  “The International and War” (1919) by Carl Grünberg, “The Second International and Coming War” by H. Günther, “Collapse of the International” (1917) by Lev Kamenev, “War and Revolution: Collapse of the Second International and Preparation of the Third” by Leon Trotsky.

The fact that at the beginning of World War I some communist and socialist parties supported governments of different opposing countries, and not the international union of workers, was the reason for the dissolution of the Second International.

The Third Communist International, or the Comintern, soon emerged from the ruins of the Second International. This happened after the conference in Bern, Switzerland in February 1919. Assessment of the October Revolution in Russia was high on the agenda. Some left-wing parties that attended it entered the Comintern in March 1919.

Such prominent Soviet figures as Grigory Zinovyev, Nikolay Bukharin etc., became leaders of the organization. Monographs by A. I. Gurevich “Emergence and Development of the Comintern” (1925) and I. S. Yuzefovich’s “Foundation of the Communist International” (1940) spotlight different aspects of activities of the Comintern.

Researchers may take an interest in “Fifteen Years of the Comintern” card index featuring 227 topics, which briefly reveal the entire history of the organization. Each card focuses on an individual question, like: "Why did Marxism-Leninism originate in Russia?" At the dawn of the Comintern, its leaders, in particular Grigory Zinovyev, believed that very soon communism would conquer the whole world. Karl Radek in his book “Five Years of the Comintern” summed up these vain hopes.

The article by Nikolay Punin is about a project of a monument in commemoration of the Third International in Petrograd, which was made by artist Vladimir Tatlin in 1919.

The journal “Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional” (The Communist International) was the organ of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. The publication provided extensive coverage of the rise to power of the National Socialist Party in Germany, the Civil War in Spain. The last issue, which came out in the summer of 1943, featured a resolution on dissolution of the Comintern.