Ever since the advent of the studies of the Communist International, the crucial question was always, “when and how did the Comintern transform from an army of the world revolution into a mere tool of Soviet foreign policy?” My presentation was about the attempt to articulate a new answer to this question, using as its case study the Balkan Communist Federation, an umbrella section of the Comintern which gathered the parties from Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia, and which existed from 1920 until 1933. Using a mid-level organization between the International and its constituent sections, I hoped to achieve a new perspective on the issue of “Comintern Control,” as it is usually termed in historiography. In this talk, I divide the history of the International into three distinct periods. The first one is called “Grassroots Bolshevization,” and it lasted from 1917 until 1923. It was a time of a spontaneous global articulation of the communist doctrine based on the experience from several revolutionary contexts. It was followed by a “Russification” from 1923 until 1926, when the Bolsheviks first attempted to impose their organizational model and to codify Leninism in the wake of Lenin’s demise. It was still a time of genuine revolutionary impulse, seeking a dialectical unity of the internationalist project and the reality of the only workers’ state in the world. The final period was “Stalinization,” from 1926 until 1931, which resulted in bitter factional struggles reflecting conflicts within the Bolshevik Party. Its ultimate consequence was increased Moscow control and greater complementarity of the International’s politics with Soviet diplomatic interests. For all practical purposes, all communist parties were fully Stalinized by 1931, when they accepted the organizational and ideological tenets of “Leninism” as narrowly defined by Stalin and his leadership. However, even the Stalinized Comintern (1931–1943) was not one of absolute conformity and uniformity previously imagined by the Cold Warriors of the Totalitarian School.
The talk was delivered at the University of Ljubljana on March 8th, 2022.
