THE COMINFORM FIGHTS REVISIONISM (A paper prepared for the Stalin Society in London by Bill Bland);
ca 1998.
Web placed by Alliance June 21st 2002
INTRODUCTION
As we have seen, the Marxist-Leninists in the leadership
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist International
had no interest in saving a Communist International dominated by revisionists,
but worked to create a new international, based on Marxist-Leninist
principles and free of all revisionist trends.
THE FIRST CONFERENCE OF THE COMINFORM (1947)
The Founding of the Cominform (1947)
In October 1947 it was announced that the Communist
Parties of nine European countries -- Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France,
Hungary, Italy. Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia -- had
set up, at a secret conference held in September at Szklarska Poreba in
Polish Silesia during September, an 'Information Bureau of the Communist
Parties' (Cominform), with its headquarters in Belgrade. Its purpose
was to:
". . . organise the exchange of experiences".
('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 6; p. 8,864).
and,
" . . . where necessary, to coordinate the activities of the Communist
Parties on the basis of mutual agreement".
('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 6; p. 8,864).
It should be noted the Communist Party of Albania was
not invited to join the Cominform. The reasons for this omission will be
discussed later.
The Cominform, it was stated, would consist of two
members from each participating Party and would issue a publication, the
title of which was later stated to be 'For a Lasting Peace, for a People's
Democracy'.
The principal initiative in forming the new organisation
was taken by Stalin:
"He (Stalin -- Ed.) founded the so-called Cominform in September 1947".
(Isaac Deutscher: 'Stalin: A Political Biography'; Harmondsworth; 1968;
p. 570).
"As early as June 1946, Stalin had spoken with Dimitrov* and Tito* about
the need of establishing an Information Bureau . . . rather than simply
reviving the Comintern, on which Stalin heaped a torrent of insults and
abuse which caused Dimitrov to become alternately pale and flushed with
repressed anger".
(Eugenio Reale: 'The Founding of the Cominform', in: Milorad M. Drachkovitch
& Branko Lazitch (Eds.): 'The Comintern: Historical Highlights: Essays,
Recollections, Documents'; Stanford (USA); 1966;; p. 260).
The anti-revisionist programme of the new organisation
required a new leadership. The Italian revisionist Eugenio Reale*,
one of the two Italian delegates to the founding conference, notes:
". . the absence . . . of those old veterans of the Comintern. . .
The most notable leadere of the last period of the Comintern was Manuilsky*.
. . . who during the final ten years had held more actual power than Dimitrov
the titular secretary-general. Manuilksky was removed from the arena of
international communism shortly after the dissolution of the Comintern
in 1943". (Eugenio Reale: ibid; p. 257).
At the founding conference of the Cominform, on the
spot leadership was effected by Andrey Zhdanov* and Georgi Malenkov*, of
the Soviet Union:
"The Soviet delegation was headed by . . . Zhdanov and Malenkov".
(Adam B. Ulam: 'Stalin: The Man and his Era'; London; 1989; p. 660).
with Zhdanov taking the leading role:
"It was Zhdanov who appeared in the role of master of ceremonies at
the founding session of the Cominform".
(Eugenio Reale: op. cit.; p. 257).
but behind the scenes the real leadership was carried
out by Stalin:
"Stalin was its (the foundation conference's -- Ed.) absolute master,
without even condescending to put in an appearance. We were made conscious
of this fact in the course of our debates by the existence of a direct
telephone line between our Szklarska Poreba castle and the Kremlin. Zhdanov
was at our end of the line (or sometimes Malenkov) and from the other end
came orders from Stalin personally, as I was to learn during a brief conversation
with Zhdanov".
(Eugenio Reale: ibid,; p. 258-59).
The main report at the conference, delivered by Zhdanov,
laid down the line of the Marxist-Leninists for the next five years:
"The report made by Zhdanov . . . has a special importance for the
course followed by the Communist movement until the death of Stalin. .
. . The tactical and strategic line of the Communist Parties . . . was
defined for the next five years by Zhdanov's report and the statement of
the nine Parties, which did no more than sum up the main ideas of the report".
(Fernando Claudin: 'The Communist Movement: From Comintern to Cominform';
Harmondsworth; 1975; p. 466-77).
The manifesto agreed upon at the founding conference
analysed the postwar international situation as one in which two mutually
antagonistic camps had come into being, namely:
". . . . . the imperialist anti-democratic camp with the basic
aim of establishing the world domination of American imperialism
and the routing of democracy, and the anti-imperialist, democratic camp
with the basic aim of disrupting imperialism, strengthening democracy and
eliminating the remnants of Fascism. The struggle between the two is taking
place in an atmosphere of the intensification of the general crisis of
capitalism, the weakening of the f orces of capitalism, and the strengthening
of the forces of socialism and democracy". (Manifesto of Communist
Information Bureau (September 1947), in: 'Keesing's Contemporary Archives',
Volume-6; p. 8,864).
The manifesto described the Marshall* Plan as
". . . only the European part of a general plan of world expansion
being carried out by the USA".
(Manifesto of Communist Information Bureau (September 1947); in 'Keesing's
Contemporary Archives', Volume 6; p. 8.664).
and condemned the role of right-wing social-democracy in striving to conceal
the true character of imperialism:
"The Right-wing socialists . . . strive to conceal the true predatory
essence of the imperialist policy . . ., bringing disintegration into the
ranks of the working class and poisoning their outlook".
(Manifesto of Communist Information Bureau (September 1947), in: 'Keesing's
Contemporary Archives', Volume 6; p. 8,664).
Criticism of French and Italian Revisionism (1947)
A main political content of the first conference of
the Cominform was a strong criticism of the revisionism of the French and
Italian Communist Parties.
"The conference served largely as a platform from which issued forth
vigorous, scathing criticism of opportunism, legalism, bourgeois parliamentarism
and other such ailments with which the French and Italian Communist Parties
were said to be afflicted".
(Eugenio Reale: op. cit.; p. 254).
For this reason, the French and Italian Commnunist Parties
had received only a few days notice of the meeting:
"We Italians were not kept informed of preparations for the establishment
of the Cominform. . . . The French and Italian Parties were given notice
just a week before the meeting".
(Eugenio Reale: ibid.; p. 259).
but Parties which were to play an accusatory role were
given longer notice, arrived earlier and had discussions on the plan of
campaign:
"When Longo* and I arrived at the conference site, we learned that
nearly all the delegates of the other Parties had already arrived, some
of them several days earlier. Only later did I realise with what care preparations
had been made: everything had been arranged with minute precision and consummate
skill. The work was to begin upon arrival of the French representatives,
Stalin's two envoys already were conferring with the members of the other
delegations, and I was conscious of some embarrassment on the part of our
colleagues when we appeared on the scene".
(Eugenio Reale: ibid.; p. 259-60).
The criticism of the French and Italian Communist Parties was opened by
Zhdanov:
"At the foundation conference, Zhdanov castigated the French and Italians
for allowing inertia to govern their conduct, for collaborating with the
bourgeoisie of their countries, and for meekness towards the Catholics
and the Social-Democrats".
(Isaac Deutscher: op. cit.; p. 570).
However, for reasons which will be discussed later,
the representatives of the Yugoslav Communist Party -- Milovan Djilas*
and Edvard Karelj* -- were allotted a prime accusatory role in relation
to the French and Italian Communist Parties:
"The Yugoslavs . . . had spent three or four days deliberating with
the Soviet delegates on the spot. . . .
The Yugoslavs alone gave the impression of having
assumed the role of Soviet partners. . . . Two special honours were accorded
the Yugoslavs: Djilas and Kardelj shared the distinction of opening fire
on the lopportunism' of the French and Italian Parties, and Belgrade was
selected as the capital of the Cominform. . . .
The Soviets had come well supplied with material
suitable for denouncing French and Italian 'opportunism', and had put it
at Kardelj's and Djilas' disposal at the preliminary meetings just before
the conference. Thus the Yugoslavs were amply provided with ammunition
to attack us. . . .
Many years after our Szklarska Poreba conference,
Kardelj told me that his violent attack .... had been prepared with
Zhadnov's & Malenkov's assent. . . . This was the reason for the later
arrival of the French and Italian delegations, the Russians having arranged
it this way to allow sufficient time for determining the proper attitude
to be adopted towards us".
(Eugenio Reale: op. cit.; p. 260, 261).
"Kardelj admonished the French and the Italians. The new revisionism,
he explained, could be found in Togliatti's* and Thorez'* hope for a new
epoch of peaceful parliamentary action and in their subservience to the
Vatican and Gaullism. . . . Djilas was even more categorical:
'The French Party has yielded step by step to reaction and has permitted
the disbandment and disarmament of the Resistance".'
(Isaac Deutscher: op. cit.; p. 570-71).
"At the September 25 session Kardelj delivered his indictment of the
Italian Communist Party. . . . A people's democracy -- as the Italian and
French comrades should have borne in mind -- could never be initiated by
Communist participation in a bourgeois government. Furthermore, Kardelj
asserted, the Italian Communist Party had realised too late the real meaning
of American policies and had coined the opportunist slogan 'Neither London,
nor Washington, nor Moscow!', when it was obvious that liberty could not
be secured without Moscow. . . .
The attack by Djilas was even more aggressive and
violent than Kardelj's. He began by asserting that the French and Italian
Communists had placed their countries at the mercy of American imperialism,
first by permitting the resistance forces to be dissolved, then by making
one concession after another to the forces of reaction, and finally by
tolerating their own exclusion from the government. The two parties had
committed their major error when they declared that they would never sway
from the path of parliamentarism. According to Djilas, the French Communist
Party was completely undisciplined; anyone could join or quit it at will;
the Party members did not feel themselves bound by any pledge. There was
only one guiding principle: increase the membership at any price. The defeats
suffered by the two Western Parties could be accounted for, above all,
by this 'political and ideological liberalism' of the leaders, by their
fear of assuming responsibilities, and by the absence of genuine revolutionary
vigilance".
(Eugenio Reale: op. cit.; p. 265-66).
"If the workers' parties drown in parliamentarism, everything is done
for. It is no overstatement to say that there has been a tendency towards
revision of Marxism-Leninism, towards a deviation -- as Browderism in the
United States was a deviation. After the war, certain communists thought
that a peaceful, parliamentary period of appeasement of the class struggle
was ahead -- there was a deviation towards opportunism and parliamentarism.
in the French Party, the Italian Party, as in other Parties".
(Edvard Kardelj: Statement at Cominform Meeting (September 1947), in:
Phlip J. Jaffe: 'The Rise and Fall of Earl Browder', in: 'Survey', Volume
18, No. 12 (Spring 1972); p. 56).
The representatives of the French and Italian Communist
Parties accepted the criticisms unreservedly:
"In their public statements, the French and the Italians admitted they
had erred gravely". (Adam B. Ulam: op. cit.; p. 661).
"The next day Longo spoke briefly, admitting the validity of the criticisms
levelled against the Italian Party, and promising that they would be taken
into account.
. . . Then Duclos* replied to the criticisms and accusations. . The
secretary of the French Communist Party behaved like a small shopkeeper
caught in a swindle: he humiliated himself, admitted his mistakes, made
innumerable excuses and promises".
(Eugenio Reale: op. cit.; p. 266).
In his final speech to the conference, representative
of the French Communist Party Jacques Duclos admitted:
"There was opportunism, legalitarianism and parliamentary illusions.
. . If we courageously carry out this self-criticism before the Party,
we shall arouse among the masses a state of mind favourable for the fight.
The French people must be mobilised against American imperialism". (Jacques
Duclos: Statement at Cominform Meeting (September 1947), in: Philip J.
Jaffe: op. ci; p. 57).
The question arises: why was it arranged that the representatives
of the Yugoslav Communist Party -- shortly itself to charged with revisionism
-should be allotted the leading role in the criticism of the revisionism
of the French and Italian Communist Parties? For one reason, it involved
the Communist Party of Yugoslavia setting the precedent for intra-party
criticism within the Cominform, so making it more difficult for that
party to object to criticism of itself:
"In the ensuing months another of Stalin's objectives for the Cominform
of which nothing was said during our meeting -- and for good reason --
became apparent: the groundwork had been laid for Stalin's move against
Tito".
(Eugenio Reale: op. cit.; p. 261).
Thus, when the Yugoslav Communist Party, in the following
year, refused the invitation to a meeting of the Cominform to participate
in a critical discussion of its own policies, the Cominform could strengthen
its case by pointing out that the party had made no bones about criticising
other Parties:
"When the Information Bureau was set up, the Communist Parties based
their work on the indisputable principle . . . that any Party had the right
to criticise other Parties. At the first meeting of the nine Communist
Parties, the Yugoslav Communist Party took full advantage of this right".
(Communique: Meeting of Information Bureau of the Communist Parties
(June 1948), in: 'The Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute'; London; 1948; p. 68).
Undoubtedly, the anticipated dispute with the Yugoslav
Communist Party, was responsible for the failure to invite the Communist
Party of Albania to join the Cominform since, at the time the organisation
was established, this Party was dominated by Titoite revisionists. The
8th Plenum of the CC of the CPA, which was held in February 1948,
" . . . agreed to such forms of economic ties between Albania and Yugoslavia
which would have led to the elimination of the Albanian state".
('History of the Party of Labour of Albania'; Tirana; 1982; p. 234).
Thus:
". . . the condemnation of Tito offered an explanation for the absence
of the Albanians (from the Cominform - Ed.). They were much under the influence
of their Yugoslav comrades, and it was thought wiser not to include them
in the Cominform, in order to isolate Tito better and thus settle his case
more easily".
(Ivan Avakumovich: 'The Dissolution of the Cominform', in: 'Contemporary
Review', Volume 190; No. 1,087 (July 1956); p. 29).
THE SECOND CONFERENCE OF THE COMINFORM (1948)
The second conference of the Cominform was held in Yugoslavia
in January 1948. Only one item was on the agenda, namely,
"...press and propaganda".
(-----: "The Evolution of the Cominform', in: 'The World Today', Volume
6, No. 5 (May 1950); p. 217).
For the Cominform journal 'For a Lasting Peace, for
a People's Democracy', a new editorial board was appointed, headed by:
"Yudin*, the Russian delegate to the second Cominform meeting".
( --- : 'The Evolution of the Cominform'; ibid.; p. 217).
who represented
. . . the conception of the new generation of Soviet ideologists, for
whom Marxism is inseparable from Stalinism".
( --: 'The Evolution of the Cominform'; ibid.; p. 218).
THE THIRD CONFERENCE OF THE COMINFORM(1948)
The Expulsion of the Communist Party of Yugposlavia
On 18 March 1948 the Yugoslav government was notified:
" . . . that the Government of the USSR had decided immediately to
withdraw all military advisers and instructors".
('Correspondence between the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of Yugoslavia and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks)'; Belgrade; 1948 (herafter listed as 'Correspondence'); p.
21).
from Yugoslavia, on the grounds:
" . . . that they were not being treated in a friendly spirit in Yugoslavia".
('Correpondence'; p. 21).
On the following day, 19 March 1948, the Yugoslav government
was informed of a decision to the effect that the Soviet government:
. . . orders the recall of all their civilian specialists from Yugoslavia".
('Correspondence'; p. 21).
These actions on the part of the Soviet government were
followed -between March and June 1948 -- by a mutually critical correspoondence
between the leaderships of the two Parties.
On 4 May 1948 the Central Committee of the CPSU proposed:
" . . . that this question be discussed at the next meeting of the
Inform Bureau". ('Correspondence'; op. cit.; p. 64).
Tito* and Kardelj rejected the proposal on 17 May 1948:
"We are not able to accede to the suggestion that this matter be decided
by the Cominform Buro".
('Correspondence'; op. cit.; p. 65).
The CC of the CPSU replied on 22 May 1948, pointing
out that:
". . . at the time of the organisation of the Inform Buro all Communist
Parties started from the uncontested policy that each Party should submit
reports to the Inform Buro; and similarly that each Party had the right
to criticise other Parties. . . .
The Yugoslav comrades . . . think that the Yugoslav
Party and its leadership should be placed in a privileged position and
that the statutes of the Inform Buro do not apply to them; that they have
a right to critice other parties, but they themselves should not be subjected
to a criticism by others. . . .
By refusing to appear before the Inform Buro thay
mean to say that the CC of the CPY . . . are now preparing their party
and the Yugoslav people for the betrayal of the united front of People's
Democracies and of the betraval of the united front of People's Democracies
and of the USSR".
('Correspondence'; op. cit.; p. 66, 67, 68).
The Second Conference of the Cominform was thus held
in June 1948 in the absence of any representative from the Communist Party
of Yugoslavia. Here the leading role in the criticism of the CPY was taken
by the representatives of the French and Italian Communist Parties which
had been so strongly criticised at the first conference of the Cominform:
"At the second conference of the Information Bureau, Togliatti* emerged
as the most uncompromising enemy of the Yugoslavs, anxious to avenge the
previous year's insults by a frontal assault upon the Yugoslav Communist
Party. The French Party acted similarly. Etienne Fajon, the second-place
French delegate at Szklarska Poreba, was given the task of drawing up the
indictment against the Yugoslavs at the plenary session of his Party".
He pointed out that those who had attacked the French and Italians last
year as deviationists had just been unmasked themselves, and with good
reason".
(Eugenio Reale: op. cit.; p. 262).
On June 28 1948, the Cominform announced that the Communist
Party of Yugoslavia had been expelled from the organisation.
The Cominform statement asserted that the leadership
of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had gravely deviated from Marxist-Leninist
principles.
Firstly, it had followed a policy of hostility
to the socialist Soviet Union:
"An undignified policy of defaming Soviet military experts and discrediting
the Soviet Union has been carried out in Yugoslavia. A special regime was
instituted for Soviet civilian experts in Yugoslavia, whereby they were
under surveillance of Yugoslav state security organs and were continually
followed. The representative of the CPSU (B) in the Information Bureau,
Comrade Yudin, and a number of official representatives of the Soviet Union
in Yugoslavia, were followed and kept under observation by Yugoslav state
security organs.
All these and similar facts show that the leaders
of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia have taken a stand unworthy of Communists,
and have begun to identify the foreign policy of the Soviet Union with
the foreign policy of the imperialist powers, behaving towards the Soviet
Union in the same manner as they behave towards bourgeois states. Precisely
because of this anti-Soviet stand, slanderous propaganda about the 'degeneration'
of the CPSU (B), about the 'degeneration' of the USSR, and so on, borrowed
from the arsenal of ounter-revolutionary Trotskyism, is current within
the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. . .
The Yugoslav leaders think that by making concessions
they can curry favour with the imperialist states. . . . In this they proceed
tacitly from the well-known bourgeois-nationalist thesis that 'capitalist
states are a lesser danger to the independence of Yugoslavia than the Soviet
Union'. . .
Such a nationalist line can only lead to Yugoslavia's
degeneration into an ordinary bourgeois republic, to the loss of its independence
and to its transformation into a colony of the imperialist countries".
(Resolution of Information Bureau of the Communist Parties (June 1948),
in: 'The Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute: Text of the Political Correspondence';
London; 1948; p. 62, 69, 70).
Secondly, it had based itself not on the working
class but on the peasantry and was neglecting the struggle for socialism
in the countryside:
"In home policy, the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia are
departing from the positions of the working class and are breaking with
the Marxist theory of classes and class struggle. They deny that there
is a growth of capitalist elements in their country, and consequently a
sharpening of the class struggle in the countryside. This denial is the
direct result of the opportunist tenet that the class struggle does not
become sharper during the period of the transition from capitalism to socialism.
as Marxism-Leninism teaches, but dies down, as was affirmed by opportunists
of the Bukharin* type, who propagated the theory of the peaceful growing
over of capitalism into socialism. . . .
In the conditions obtaining in Yugoslavia, where
individual peasant farming predominates, where the land is not nationalised,
where there is private property in land, and where land can be bought and
sold, where much of the land is concentrated in the hands of kulaks,
and where hired labour is employed -- in such conditions there can be no
question of . . glossing over the class struggle and of reconciling class
contradictions without by so doing disarming the Party. .
The leaders of the Yugoslav Communist Party, by affirming that the peasantry
is 'the most stable foundation of the Yugoslav state', are departing from
the Marxist-Leninist path and are taking the path of a populist kulak
party. Lenin taught that the proletariat, as the 'only class in contemporary
society which is revolutionary to the end . . . must be the leader in the
struggle . . . of all working people and the exploited against the oppressors
and exploiters".
(Resolution of Information Bureau of the Communist Parties (June 1948),
in: ibid.; p. 62-63).
thirdly ', the leaders of the Party, which should
have been the leading force in society, had dissolved it into the multi-class
People's Front, which was the leading force in society:
"According to the theory of Marxism-Leninism, the Party is the main
guiding and leading force in the country . . . . the highest form of organisation
and the most important weapon of the working class.
In Yugoslavia, however, the People's Front, and
not the Communist Party, is considered to be the main leading force in
the country. The Yugoslav leaders belittle the role of the Communist Party
and actually dissolve the Party in the non-party People's Front, which
is composed of the most varied class elements (workers, peasants engaged
in individual farming, kulaks, traders, small manufacturers, bourgeois
intelligentsia, etc., as well as mixed political groups, which include
certain bourgeois parties. .....
The fact that in Yugoslavia it is only the People's
Front which figures in the political arena, while the Party and its organisations
do not appear openly before the people in its own name, not only belittles
role of the Party in the political life of the country, but also undermines
the Party as an independent political force. . . .
This policy . . . threatens the very existence of
the Communist Party, and ultimately carries with it the danger of the degeneration
of the People's Republic of Yugoslavia".
(Resolution of Information Bureau of the Communist Parties (June 1948),
in: ibid.; p. 64).
fourthly, the Yugoslav Communist Party does
not operate on the basis of democratic centralism and had rejected fraternal
criticism from the Cominform:
"The bureaucratic regime created inside the Party by its leaders is
disastrous for life and development of the Yugoslav Communist Party. There
is no inner-Party democracy, no elections, and no criticism and self-criticism
in the Party. . . . The majority of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of Yugoslavia is composed of co-opted, and not of elected members.
The Communist Party is actually in a position of semilegality. Party meetings
are either not hald at all, or meet in secret a fact which can only undermine
the influence of the Party among the masses. This type organisation of
the Yugoslav Communist Party cannot be described as anything but a sectarian-bureaucratic
organisation. It leads to the liquidation of the Party as an active, self-acting
organisation. . . .
The most elementary rights of members in the Yugoslav
Communist Party are suppressed, . . . the slightest criticism of incorrrect
measures in the Party is brutally repressed. . . .
Such a disgraceful, purely Turkish, terrorist regime
cannot be tolerated. . . .
The criticism made by the Central Committee the
Communist Party of the Soviet (B) and Central Committees of the other Communist
Parties of the mistakes of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of Yugoslavia . . . . rendered fraternal assistance to the Yugoslav Communist
Party. . .
However, instead of honestly accepting this criticism
and taking the Bolshevik path of correcting these mistakes, the leaders
of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, suffering from boundless ambition,
arrogance and conceit, met this criticism with belligerence and hostility".
(Resolution of Information Bureau of the Communist Parties (June 1948),
in: ibid.; p. 64-65).
The resolution concluded with the announcement of the
expulsion of the Yugoslav Communist Party from the Cominform:
"The Information Bureau unanimiously concludes that by their antiParty
and anti-Soviet views, incompatible with Marxism-Leninism, by their whole
attitude and their refusal to attend the meeting of the Information Bureau,
the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia have placed themselves
in opposition to the Communist Parties affiliated to the Information Bureau,
have taken the path of seceding from the united socialist front against
imperialism, have taken the path of betraying the cause of international
solidarity of the working people, and have taken up a position of nationalsm.
The Information Bureau considers that, in view of
all this, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia has
placed itself and the Yugoslav Party . . . outside the ranks of the Information
Bureau".
(Resolution of Information Bureau of the Communist Parties (June 1948),
in: ibid.; p. 68-69).
THE FOURTH CONFERENCE OF THE COMINFORM (1949)
The 4th Conference of the Cominform was held in Hungary
in November 1949, and adopted three resolutions.
The first resolution, entitled 'The Defence of Peace
and the Fight against the Warmongers', was introduced by Mikhail Suslov*
(Soviet Union). It confirmed the basic analysis of whe world situation
made at the 1st Conference in 1947, but stated that since that time the
danger of war had increased:
"The entire policy of the Anglo-American imperialist bloc is subordinated
to the preparations for another war. . . .
The Anglo-Anerican bloc is conducting its preparations for a new war
along every line".
(Resolution of the Information Bureau on 'Defence of Peace and the
Fight against the Warmongers', in: 'Meeting of the Information Bureau of
Communist Parties in Hungary in the Latter Part of November 1949'; Prague;
1950; p. 8, 10).
But, declared the resolution,
" . . . the people do not want war and hate war".
(Ibid.; p. 10).
Therefore,
". it is of the utmost importance today to unute all genuine peace
supporters, regardless of religious beliefs, political views or party affiliation,
on the broadest platform of fighting for peace and against the danger of
a new war with which mankind is threatened".
(Ibid.p. 12).
so that
". . . the struggle for stable and lasting peace. . should now become
the pivot of the entire activity of the Communist Parties and democratic
organisations".
(Ibid.; p, 11).
The second resolution, entitled 'Class Unity and the
Tasks of the Communist and Workers' Parties', moved by Palmiro Togliatti
(Italy), declared that:
". . . unity of the working-class movement and solidarity of all the
democratic forces is not only necessary for the accomplishment of the daily
and current tasks of the working class and labouring masses generally,
it is also necessary for the solution of the fundamental problems confronting
the proletariat, as the class which leads the struggle for the abolition
of the power of monopoly capital and for the reorganisation of society
on socialist lines".
(Resolution of the Information Bureau on 'Working Class Unity and the
Tasks of the Communist and Workers' Parties', in: ibid.; p. 21).
This programme necessarily involves:
". . irreconcilable and consistent struggle in theory and practice
against the right-wing Socialists and reactionary trade-union leaders".
(Ibid.; p. 20-21).
and
" . . . will make it possible to develop the struggle in the capitalist
countries for the formation of governments which would rally all the patriotic
forces opposed to the enslavement of their countries by American imperialism".
(Ibid.; p. 21).
This
" . . . unity of the working class can be won only in an irreconcilable
and consistent struggle in the realm of theory and practice against the
Right Socialists and reactionary trade-union leaders".
(Ibid.; p. 20-21).
A third resolution, entitled 'The Communist Party of
Yugoslavia in the Power of Assassins and Spies', was introduced by Gheorghe
Gheorghiu-Dej* (Romania). It characterised the leaders of the Yugoslav
Communist Party as:
". . . enemies of the working class and the peasantry, enemies
of the peoples of Yugoslavia. (Resolution of the Information Bureau on
'The Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the Power of Assassins and Spies'
(November 1949), in: 'Meeting of the Information Bureau of Communist Parties
in Hungary in the Latter Half of November 1949'; Prague; 1950; p. 27).
who had
" . . . betrayed the interests of the country and destroyed the political
sovereignty and economic independence of Yugoslavia".
(Ibid.; p. 27).
In consequence:
" . . . the fight against the Tito clique of hired spies and assassins
is the international duty of all the Communist and Workers' Parties".
(Ibid.; p. 28).
The Dissolution of the Cominform
After Stalin's death in 1953, the Cominform ceased to
be active in the struggle against revisionism:
"After 1953, the Cominform in practice eased to exist (though its formal
disbandment did not take place until April 1956)".
(Fernando Claudin: op. cit.; p. 467).
Indeed, between 1953 and 1956 the Cominform journal
some articles favourable to Tito regime:
"The anti-Tito campaign died down as relations between Moscow and Belgrade
improved after Stalin's death. The Cominform journal followed suit and
began to publish again articles favourable to Marshal Tito's regime".
(Ivan Avakumovich: op. cit.; p. 29).
In April 1956, an announcement in 'Pravda' stated that:
. . the eight Communist Parties in membership of the Cominform (those
of the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, France
and Italy) had unanimously agreed that the organisation should be dissolved
because it had 'exhausted its function', and had also agreed to cease publication
of the Cominform journal 'For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy".
('Keesing's Contemporary Archives'. Volume 10; p. 14,829).
The statement gave as the reasons for the dissolution
basically the same reasons given by the revisionists for the dissolution
of the Comintern, namely:
". . . the fact that Socialism had passed beyond the framework of a
single country, and had been transformed into a 'world system'; the formation
of a wide 'peace zone' that included non-Socialist as well as Socialist
countries . . . ; and the strenthening of Communist Parties in capitalist,
dependent and colonial countries".
('Keesing's Contemporary Archives'; Volume 10; p. 14,829).
In fact, the dissolution was a gesture of appeasement
towards the Tito revisionists:
"Its (the Cominform's -- Ed.) dissolution precedes Tito's coming visit
to Moscow. It is yet another concession to him in an attempt to improve
relations".
(Ivan Avakumovich: op. cit.; p. 30).
The news of the dissolution:
" . . . was warmly welcomed in Yugoslavia".
('Keesing's Contemporary Archivest, Volume 10; p. 14,829).
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
BROZ, Josip ('TITO'), Yugoslav revisionist politician (1892-1980); in Balkan
secretariat of CI (1935-37); secretary-general, YCP/LCY (1937-66); marshal
(1943); Premier (1945-53); President (1953-80); chairman, LCY (1966-80).
BUKHARIN, Nicolay I., Soviet revisionist politician (1888-1938); deputy
chairman, ECCI (1919-26); member, ECCI political secretariat (1926-29);
editor-in-chief, 'Izvestia' (1933-37); found guilty of treason and executed
(1938).
DIMITROV, Georgi M., Bulgarian revisionist politician (1882-1949); director,
West European Bureau CI (1929-33); arrested in connection with Reichstag
Fire (1933); to Soviet Union (1934); secretary-general, CI (1935-43); to
Bulgaria (1945); secretary-general, BCP (1945-49); Premier (1946-49),
DJILAS, Milovan, Yugoslav revisionist politician (1911- ); Vice-President
(1953-45); expelled from Party (1954); imprisoned (1956-61, 1962-66).
GHEORHIU-DF.J, Gheorghe, Romanian revisionist politician (1901-65);
General/First Secretary, Roman Workers' Party (1945-65); Minister of Communications
(1944-46); Minister of Economy (1946-52); Premier (195261); President (1961-65).
KARDELJ, Edvard, Yugoslav revisionist politician (1910-79); to Soviet
Union (1934); to Yugoslavia (1937); Vice-President (1945-53); Minister
of Foreign Affairs (1948-53); President, Federal Assembly (1963-67); secretary,
CC, LCY (1958-66); President, CC, LCY (1966-69).
LONGO, Luigi, Italian revisionist politician (1900-80); ICP representative
on CI (1933-36); to Spain (1936); inspector-general, International Brigades
(1936-39); to France (1939); in Italian concentration camp (1942-43); deputy
secretary-general, ICP (1945-64); secretary-general, ICP (195472); president,
ICP (1972-80).
MALENKOV, Georgi, Soviet Marxist-Leninist politician (1901-88); member,
Defence Council (1941-45); USSR Deputy Premier (1946-53); secretary, CPSU
(1953); USSR Premier (1953-55); USSR Minister of Power Stations (195768);
expelled from CPSU by revisionists (1961).
MANUILSKY, Dmitry Z., Soviet revisionist politician (1883-1959); member,
political secretariat, ECCI (1926-43); Ukrainian Deputy Premier and Minister
of Foreign Affairs (1944-50).
MARSHALL, George C., American military officer and politician (1880-1959);
chief-of-staff with rank of general (1939-45); President's special representative
in China (1945-47); Secretary of State (1947-49); Secretary of Defence
(1950-51).
MOLOTOV, Vyacheslav M., Soviet Marxist-Leninist politician (1890-1986);
member, ECCI political secretariat (1928-30); USSR Premier (1930-41); USSR
Deputy Premier and Commissar/Minister for Foreign Affairs (1939-49); USSR
Minister of State Control (1956-57); Ambassador to Mongolian People's Republic
(1957-60); USSR Representative on International Atomic Energy Committee
(1960-62); expelled from CPSU by revisionists (1962); readmitted (1984).
REALE, Eugenio, Italian surgeon, diplomat and revisionist politician
(1905); Ambassador to Poland (1945-47); expelled from IPC (1956).
THOREZ, Maurice, French revisionist politician (1900-64); secretary-general,
FCP (1930-64); Minister of State (1945-46); Deputy Premier (1945-46).
TOGLIATTI, Palmiro, Italian revisionist politician (1893-1964); secretary-general,
ICP (1927-64); member, CI secretariat (1935); Minister without Portfolio
(1944); Vice-Premier (1945).
YUDIN, Pavel F., Soviet Marxist-Leninist philosopher and politician
(1899- ); director, Institute of Red Professors (1932-38); director, Institute
of Philosophy, USSR Academy of Sciences (1938-44); director, RSFSR Association
of State Publishing Houses (1937-47); editor-in-chief,
'Sovetskaia Kniga'; Deputy High Commissioner in Germany (1953); Ambassador
to People's Republic of China (1953-59).
ZHDANOV, Andrey A., Soviet Marxist-Leninist politician (1896-1948);
secretary, Leningrad, CPSU (1934-44); secretary, CPSU (1944-48); murdered
by revisionists (1948).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Avakumovich, Ivan: 'The Dissolution of the Cominform', in: 'Contemporary
Review', Volume 190; No. 1,087 (July 1956).
Claudin, Fermando: 'The Communist Movement: From Comintern to Cominform';
Harmondsworth; 1975.
Deutscher, Isaac: 'Stalin: A Political Biography'; Harmondsworth; 1968.
Jaffe, Philip J. 'The Rise and Fall of Earl Browder', in: 'Survey',
Volume 18, No. 12 (Spring 1972).
Reale, Eugenio: 'The Founding of the Cominform', in: Milorad M. Drachkovitch
& Branko Lazitch (Eds): 'The Comintern: Historical Highlights: Essays,
Recollections, Documents'; Stanford (USA); 1966.
Ulam, Adam B.: 'Stalin: The Man and his Era'; London; 1989.
___'Correspondence between the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of Yugoslavia and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks)'; Belgrade; 1948.
'The Evolution of the Cominform', in: 'The World Today', Volume 6,
No. 5 (May 1950).
'History of the Party of Labour of Albania'; Tirana; 1982.
'Meeting of the Information Bureau of Communist Parties in Hungary
in the Latter Half of November 1949'; Prague; 1950.
'The Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute: Text of the Political Correspondence';
London; 1948.
'Keesing's Contemporary Archives'
ALSO SEE: Cominterns, History of Three Cominterns Alliance
19 Comintern and Take-over of by Revisionism Stalin
& Comintern Comintern, Dissolution
of & Revisionist Take-Over of & also see Stalin
Society Comintern Betrayal
of the Popular Front Comintern Second Congress; Alliance
5 Comintern Sixth Congress: & the colonial revolution Alliance
5 Communist Information Bureau:Cominform
Documents & Commentary by NS Dimitrov Page Dimitrov
Page GO TO ALLIANCE: SUBJECT
INDEX GO TO ALLIANCE: CATALOGUE GO TO ALLIANCE: "WHAT'S
NEW PAGE"; GO TO ALLIANCE: HOME
PAGE ALLIANCE