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84-567: The gathering is best remembered for its endorsement of a Popular Front of communist and non-communist forces against the growing menace of fascism in Europe, paving the way for advocacy of collective security between the Soviet Union and the various capitalist states of Europe. This marked a dramatic reversal of the Comintern's previous orientation towards class warfare endorsed by

168-678: A defensive alliance , and in August 1935, the 7th World Congress of the Comintern officially endorsed the Popular Front strategy. In the elections of May 1936 , the Popular Front won a majority of parliamentary seats (378 deputies against 220), and Blum formed a government. In Fascist Italy , the Comintern advised an alliance between the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party , but

252-554: A facade "used to mask" the identity/true character/activity of "the actual controlling agent", (examples being the World Federation of Democratic Youth , International Union of Students , World Federation of Trade Unions , Women's International Democratic Federation , and the World Peace Council ). Communist front was a label frequently applied to political organizations opposed by anti-communists during

336-643: A "chronic danger of famine" in 1928-1929. The Left Opposition had opposed the continued marketization of agriculture through the NEP, and, since 1924, had repeatedly called for investment in industry, some collectivization in agriculture and democratisation of the Party. Threatened by the growing power and revolt from the countryside led by the Kulaks and the strengthening bourgeoisie, the Fifteenth Congress of

420-511: A book written in 1977, the eurocommunist leader Santiago Carrillo offered a positive assessment of the Popular Front. He argued that in Spain, despite the excesses attributable to the passions of civil war, the period of coalition government in Republican areas "contained in embryo the conception of an advance to socialism with democracy, with a multi-party system, parliament, and liberty for

504-565: A class". A distinction was made between the elimination of the Kulaks as a class and the killing of the individuals themselves; nevertheless, at least 530,000 to 600,000 deaths resulted from dekulakization from 1929 to 1933, and Robert Conquest has estimated that there could have been as many as five million deaths. Kulaks could be shot or imprisoned by the GPU , have their property confiscated before being sent into internal exile (in Siberia ,

588-482: A condition of their continued existence. For example, East Germany was ruled by a "National Front" of all parties and movements within Parliament ( Socialist Unity Party of Germany , Liberal Party , Farmers' Party , Youth Movement , Trade Union Federation etc.). At legislative elections, voters were presented with a single list of candidates from all parties. The People's Republic of China 's United Front

672-666: A joint Socialist-Communist ticket with Norman Thomas 's Socialist Party of America in the 1936 presidential election , but the Socialists rejected the overture. The communists also then offered support to Franklin D. Roosevelt 's New Deal . The Popular Front saw the Communist Party taking a very patriotic and populist line, later called Browderism. The Popular Front has been summarized by historian Kermit McKenzie as: ...An imaginative, flexible program of strategy and tactics, in which Communists were permitted to exploit

756-615: A joint struggle. Preparations for a 7th World Congress of the Comintern began in Moscow late in 1934, with the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) establishing a commission to draft programmatic resolutions for that body. This body was divided between Dimitrov and others advocating a move towards a "general democratic, anti-Fascist" orientation and hardliners who continued to argue that

840-601: A nascent fascist movement there convinced Bulgarian Communist Georgi Dimitrov , a leading figure in the Communist International that the Comintern's hostility towards joint action between Communists and Socialists was ill-considered. Dimitrov made his triumphant return to Moscow in April 1934 following acquittal in the Reichstag Fire trial determined to change the Comintern's fundamental strategy from one of antagonistic opposition to social democracy to one of cooperation in

924-560: A result, the Communist International , or Comintern, expected national communist parties to base their political style on the German example. That approach, known as the "class against class" strategy, or the " Third Period ", expected that the economic crisis and the trauma of war would increasingly radicalise public opinion and that if the communists remained aloof from mainstream democratic politics, they would benefit from

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1008-502: Is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition especially of leftist political parties against a common opponent". However, other alliances such as the Popular Front of India have used the term, and not all leftist or anti-fascist coalitions use

1092-724: Is perhaps the best known example of a communist-run popular front in modern times. It is nominally a coalition of the Chinese Communist Party and eight minor parties. Though all parties had origins in independent parties prior to the Chinese Civil War , noncommunists eventually splintered out to join the Nationalists, and the parties remaining in Mainland China allied with either Communist Party sympathizers or, in some cases, actual members. In

1176-940: The People's Republic of China , and the countries of Central , and Eastern Europe , it was common to do so at the head of a "front" (such as the United Front and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in China, the National Front in Czechoslovakia , the Front of National Unity in Poland , the Democratic Bloc in East Germany , etc.) containing several ostensibly-noncommunist parties. While it

1260-604: The 6th World Congress of 1928, the aggressive line of the so-called " Third Period ." Throughout the early 1930s the Soviet Union's People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs , headed by Maxim Litvinov , had pursued a policy of attempting to win a broad international agreement to bring about military disarmament. This initiative had clearly reached a terminal impasse from the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, however, with

1344-593: The April 9 tragedy had radicalised society and so it was unable to play the compromise role of similar movements. In the other republics, such organisations existed but never posed a meaningful threat to the incumbent party and economic elites. The French Front populaire and the Spanish Frente Popular popular fronts of the 1930s are the most notable ones. These are non-socialist parties unless indicated otherwise. These were established after

1428-513: The Cold War . The strategy of creating or taking over organizations that would then claim to be expressions of popular will, and not manipulation by the Soviet Union or communist movement, was first suggested by Vladimir Lenin . These would not be political coalitions seeking power in opposition to fascist movements, but groups designed to spread the Marxist–Leninist message in places where

1512-470: The Comintern was that after the "First Period" of revolutionary upsurge in 1917 and the following years, a "Second Period" had followed in which capitalism stabilised itself and the international proletariat was pushed onto the defensive. In foreseeing a "Third Period", Bukharin sketched out the weaknesses inherent in capitalism which would lead to renewed class conflict. Principal among these, he argued,

1596-511: The Russian Communist Party in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution , went through a number of ideological strategies to advance proletarian revolution. Its 1922 congress called for a " United Front " (the "Second Period") after it became clear proletarian revolution would not sweep aside capitalism in the rest of the world, whereby the minority of workers who supported communist revolution would join forces against

1680-475: The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991: Third Period The Third Period is an ideological concept adopted by the Communist International (Comintern) at its Sixth World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928. It set policy until reversed when the Nazis took over Germany in 1933. The Comintern's theory was based on its economic and political analysis of world capitalism , which posited

1764-484: The republics of the Soviet Union , between around 1988 and 1992 (when the USSR had dissolved , and the republics were all independent), the term "Popular Front" had quite a different meaning. It referred to movements led by members of the liberal-minded intelligentsia (usually themselves members of the local Communist Party), in some republics small and peripheral but in others broad-based and influential. Officially, their aim

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1848-712: The All-Union Communist Party passed resolutions that supported for some of the planks of the Opposition's platform, and on paper, the Congress' views appeared very left, politically. However, the Left Opposition was expelled. The new policies of industrialisation and collectivisation now adopted were given the slogan " socialist accumulation ". The Communist party had publicly proposed collectivisation to be voluntary; however, official policy

1932-658: The Comintern felt that conditions were strong enough, it demanded that its political positions within the workers' movement be consolidated and that all " reactionary " elements be purged. Accordingly, attacks and expulsions were launched against social democrats and moderate socialists within labour unions where the local CP had majority support, as well as Trotskyists and united front proponents. The All-Union Communist Party also encouraged armed rebellion in China , Germany , and elsewhere. Although shortcomings and crippling ideological vacillations brought this Period to an end,

2016-770: The Comintern's orientation, when on May 2, 1935, the two countries most concerned about the implications of growing German militarism — France and the Soviet Union — concluded the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance , a mutual aid pact in which each promised to come to the other's defense in the event that aggression violating the Covenant of the League of Nations was suffered. Shortly thereafter, two days of consultations in Moscow between French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval and Soviet chiefs Joseph Stalin , Viacheslav Molotov , and Maxim Litvinov helped to solemnify

2100-453: The Comintern's work because they entailed different tactics on the part of communist parties outside the USSR. The "Second Period" was characterised by the " united front " policy (1923–28) within which communist parties strove to work together with social democratic parties to defend the wages, jobs and rights of working-class people and build the political basis for the future dictatorship of

2184-556: The Communist International. The stage was therefore set for the belated convocation of the Comintern's 7th World Congress. The 7th World Congress of the Communist International opened on the evening of July 25, 1935 in the Hall of Pillars of the House of the Unions in Moscow. The gathering, which was convened almost exactly seven years since the conclusion of the last Comintern World Congress,

2268-472: The Communist party was either illegal or distrusted by many of the people the party wanted to reach. It was used from the 1920s through the 1950s, and accelerated during the popular front period of the 1930s. Eventually there were large numbers of front organizations. The international communism , in the form of the Communist International (Comintern), the international communist organization created by

2352-661: The Communists and Socialists in Austria, Spain, and Italy" with additional mass actions taking place between rank-and-file party members without the blessing of Socialist leaders in Great Britain, the United States, Poland , and Czechoslovakia . After Pieck's keynote report and the extended discussion which ensued came on August 2 a second watershed report, this by Georgi Dimitrov on the task of building unity of

2436-578: The Communists had done "everything in their power to mobilize the laboring masses for a revolutionary struggle to prevent the fascist dictatorship," only to be stymied when the Social Democrats "did not abandon their hostile attitude to the united front and the struggle." Only now, Pieck declared, had a new era been ushered in with a "turn of the Socialist workers towards a united front with the Communists." A variety of factors had contributed to

2520-667: The Communists in the matter of mobilizing the masses. The communists had attempted to change the situation by proposing a united front with the Social Democratic Party of Germany and its associated trade union federation, the Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (ADGB). This effort had been rebuffed, Pieck said, with the failure of the Social Democratic political and labor movement to join general strikes following

2604-602: The Labour Party, which was seething with anger over communist efforts to take over union locals. In addition, the incompatibility of liberal and socialist approaches also caused many Liberals to be hostile. The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) had been quite hostile to the New Deal until 1935, but it suddenly reversed positions and tried to form a popular front with the New Dealers. It sought

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2688-477: The Nazi triumph would be brief and that it would be a case of "after Hitler – our turn"; however, as the brutality of the Nazi government became clear and there was no sign of its collapse, communists began to sense that there was a need for a radical alteration of their stance, especially as Adolf Hitler had made it clear that he regarded the Soviet Union as an enemy state. In several countries over

2772-567: The Nazis with his defence against charges of involvement in the Reichstag fire became the general secretary of the Comintern, and its officials became more receptive to the approach. Official acceptance of the new policy was first signalled in a Pravda article of May 1934, which commented favourably on socialist-communist collaboration. The reorientation was formalised at the Comintern's Seventh Congress in July 1935 and reached its apotheosis with

2856-564: The North , the Urals , or Kazakhstan ), or be evicted from their houses and sent to work in labour colonies in their own district. There is debate amongst historians as to whether the actions of the Kulaks and their supporters helped lead to famine, or whether the policy of collectivisation itself was responsible. (See Collectivisation in the USSR , Holodomor .) In the West, the crisis of capitalism

2940-410: The Popular Front had existed, such as in the (later-renamed) World Committee Against War and Imperialism , but they sought not to co-operate with other parties as equals but instead to draw potential sympathisers into the orbit of the communist movement, which caused them to be denounced by the leaders of other left-wing associations. It was thus not until 1934 when Georgi Dimitrov , who had humiliated

3024-589: The Soviet Union and the Communist party line reversed yet again) was not a fight against Nazi aggression, but "the Second Imperialist War". Many party members quit the party in disgust at the agreement between Hitler and Stalin, but many communists in France and other countries refused to enlist in their countries' forces until June 1941 since until then, Stalin was not at war with Hitler. Leon Trotsky and his far-left supporters roundly criticised

3108-590: The Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany in August 1939, dividing Central and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, and leading to the Soviet takeover of the Baltic Republics and Finland . Comintern parties then turned from a policy of anti-fascism to one of advocating peace with Germany, maintaining that World War II (until Germany invaded

3192-550: The Soviet firmament. Despite his absence, Stalin was lauded in a cult-like manner, with every mention of the Soviet leader's name being met by "tumultuous applause" from the gathered delegates. Setting the stage for the 7th World Congress was the keynote report on the Activities of ECCI, delivered on the second day by Wilhelm Pieck of the Communist Party of Germany. While lauding the 1928 tactic of "class against class" which

3276-687: The Third Period occurred at the 9th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (E.C.C.I.) in February 1928. This helped in dovetailing the "Left" of the All-Union Communist party with that of the Comintern itself. To the Comintern, a decisive and final revolutionary upheaval was afoot and all its sections had to prepare for the immediate advent of world revolution . As part of this theory, because

3360-574: The Third Period towards the establishment of radical dual unions under communist party control rather than continuation of the previous policy of attempting to radicalize existing unions by "boring from within". The rise of the Nazi Party to power in Germany in 1933 and the annihilation of the organized communist movement there shocked the Comintern into reassessing the tactics of the Third Period. From 1934, new alliances began to be formed under

3444-523: The Third Period. Some authors like Robin D. G. Kelley and John Manley have penned local histories that portray Communist Party members as effective activists, heroic in many cases because their revolutionary zeal helped them confront extremely adverse circumstances. Despite the shadow of Stalinism , in this perspective, the important positive contributions Communist organizers made in working class history should not be discounted. Critics of this perspective argue that these histories gloss over or ignore both

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3528-592: The Workers' International (SFIO) signed a pact of united action with the French Communist Party . By October, the Communist Party had begun to suggest that the republican parties that had not sided with the nationalist government might also be included, and it accepted the offer the next July after the French government tilted even further to the right . In May 1935, France and the Soviet Union signed

3612-604: The aegis of the " Popular Front ". The Popular Front policy was formalized as the official policy of the world communist movement by the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in 1935. Although the term "Third Period" is closely associated with Stalin, it was first coined by Bukharin in 1926, at the Seventh Plenum of the ECCI to describe the conditions for further revolutions outside Russia. The view of

3696-408: The agreement through a joint communique in which the parties agreed "not to allow their means of national defense to weaken in any respect" and which recognized France's right to "maintain her armed forces at a level consonant with her security. The May 1935 treaty and formal communique between France and the USSR tilted the scale decisively towards a new Comintern policy for the Communist Parties of

3780-418: The battle against fascism was inseparable from the task of overthrowing the bourgeoisie , implying a simultaneous fight against the fascist right and the reformist constitutionalist and socialist movements. With no rapid agreement forthcoming, on March 8, 1935, the scheduled opening of the 7th Congress was moved back to the end of July. It would be the exigencies of Soviet foreign policy which ultimately shaped

3864-484: The bourgeoisie with workers outside the communist parties. This was followed by the " Third Period " starting in mid-1928, which posited that capitalism was collapsing and militant policies should by rigidly maintained, As the Nazi Party came to power in 1933 in Germany , and annihilated one of the more successful communist movements in that country, it became clear fascism was both on the rise and saw Communism as an enemy to be destroyed, and that opposition to fascism

3948-472: The collapse of a leftist government coalition of social-democrats and left-liberal republicans , followed by the far-right riots , which brought to power an autocratic right-wing government , changed the equation. To resist a slippery slope of encroachment towards authoritarianism , socialists were now more inclined to operate in the street and communists to co-operate with other antifascists in Parliament. In June 1934, Léon Blum 's socialist French Section of

4032-409: The coming of the Great Depression the bourgeoisie sought to solve its problem of a collapsing internal market and declining profits with a move towards seizure and plunder of foreign territory under the banner of fascism, with the aggression of militarist Japan in Manchuria and the rise of Nazi Germany said to epitomize the new trend. "These preparations are simultaneously and primarily designed for

4116-417: The destruction of the Soviet Union, the home, the basis, and the bulwark of the proletarian revolution," Pieck declared. Pieck identified the "defeat of the German proletariat" and the rise of Nazism as the "greatest event that marked the first years of the crisis in the capitalist countries," stating that from the spring of 1932 it had "already become evident that the fascists had a considerable advantage over

4200-526: The division of recent history into three periods. These included a "First Period" that followed World War I and saw the revolutionary upsurge and defeat of the working class, as well as a "Second Period" of capitalist consolidation for most of the decade of the 1920s. According to the Comintern's analysis, the current phase of world economy from 1928 onward, the "Third Period", was to be a time of widespread economic collapse and mass working class radicalization. This economic and political discord would again make

4284-456: The establishment of fascism as a definite break in the fundamental form of governance from "one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie — bourgeois democracy — by another form — open terrorist dictatorship." Fascism's victory would suppress the "democratic liberties of the working people," curtail "the rights of parliament," and intensify repression of the revolutionary movement, Dimitrov warned. Popular Front A popular front

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4368-421: The expulsion of socialist ministers from the government of Prussia in July 1932 and the coming to power of the Hitler government in January 1933 singled out for specific criticism. Omitting the fact that the Comintern's "class against class" line had been targeted directly at the Social Democrats, who had been castigated as " social fascists " in no way better than the actual fascist movement, Pieck declared that

4452-509: The faction of the Party led by Stalin had supported the continuation of the New Economic Policy (NEP). However, in the cities, industry had become undercapitalized, and prices were rising. In the countryside, moreover, the NEP had resulted in an enrichment of certain privileged sections of the Russian and Ukrainian peasantry (the Kulaks ) because of deregulation of prices for grain. These events were leading to growing economic and political instability. The towns were being threatened with

4536-417: The initiative from the more radical dissident organisations established earlier by moving their republics towards greater autonomy and then independence. They also became the main challengers to the communist parties' hegemony in Byelorussia , Moldavia , Ukraine , Armenia and Azerbaijan . A Popular Front was established in Georgia but remained marginal, compared to the dominant dissident-led groups, since

4620-405: The latter rejected the idea. There were attempts in Great Britain to found a popular front, against the National Government 's appeasement of Nazi Germany , between the Labour Party , the Liberal Party , the Independent Labour Party , the Communist Party and even rebellious elements of the Conservative Party under Winston Churchill , but they failed mainly because of opposition from within

4704-614: The new attitude of the Socialists towards the Communists, according to Pieck, including the "final and irrevocable victory of socialism in the Soviet Union" on the one hand and the brutal reality of fascist dictatorship in Germany on the other. The defense of Communism made by Dimitrov at the Leipzig trial, a general strike in France in February 1934, and armed battles against the fascists in Austria in February 1934 and in Spain in October 1934 had further consolidated this trend towards interparty cooperation, Pieck declared. Consequently, Pieck noted, "United Front agreements have been reached between

4788-410: The new political reality writ large by the October 1933 departure of Nazi Germany from the Geneva disarmament negotiations. Still, there was little motion among the world communist movement towards construction of a broader united front with the socialist movement and their affiliated trade unions, with the Comintern continuing to train its rhetorical guns on the social democratic movement, which

4872-453: The opposition". Carrillo, however criticised the Communist International for not taking the Popular Front strategy far enough, especially since French communists were restricted to supporting Blum's government from without, rather than becoming full coalition partners. After World War II , most Central and Eastern European countries were ruled by coalitions between several different political parties that voluntarily chose to work together. By

4956-486: The overthrow of capitalism through revolution remaining unchanged. Cultural historian Michael Denning has challenged the Communist Party-centric view of the US popular front, saying that the "fellow travelers" in the US actually composed the majority of the movement. In his view, Communist party membership was only one (optional) element of leftist US culture at the time. The period suddenly came to an end with another abrupt reversal of Soviet or communist policy, where

5040-444: The populist mood and be swept to power. As such, non-communist socialist parties were denounced as " social fascist ". After a series of financial crises in 1926 , 1929 and 1931, public opinion in Europe was certainly radicalising but not to the benefit of left-wing anticapitalist parties. In the weeks that followed Hitler's rise to power in February 1933, the German Communist Party and the Comintern clung rigidly to their view that

5124-623: The previous years, a sense had grown within elements of the Communist Parties that the German model of "class against class" was not the most appropriate way to succeed in their national political contexts and that it was necessary to build some alliance to prevent the greater threat of autocratic nationalist governments; however, figures such as Henri Barbé and Pierre Célor in France and José Bullejos and Adama in Spain, who advocated greater flexibility by co-operating loyally with social-democratic parties and possibly even left-wing capitalist parties, were removed from positions of power. Predecessors to

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5208-461: The proclamation of a new policy: "The People's Front Against Fascism and War". Communist parties were now instructed to form broad alliances with all antifascist parties with the aim of securing social advance at home as well as a military alliance with the Soviet Union to isolate the fascist dictatorships. The "popular fronts" thus formed proved to be successful politically in forming governments in France, Spain and China but not elsewhere. In France,

5292-431: The proletariat . The Third Period, in contrast, saw a sharp turn against these tactics in favour of "class against class" (1928–34); here communist parties actively rejected collaboration with social democrats, attacking them as "social fascists" or, in Stalin's own formulation, "the moderate wing of fascism". In December 1927, the All-Union Communist Party held its Fifteenth Party Congress ; prior to this Congress,

5376-424: The rise of Nazism because it precluded unity between the German communists with the German Social Democrats . Hitler's rise to power, consequently, was also a reason for the abandonment of the policy in favor of the Popular Front strategy because Germany became the biggest security threat to the Soviet Union. Historians of the left have debated the contribution made by Communist activism in North America during

5460-406: The social consequences. According to figures given by Deutscher, the peasants opposed forced collectivisation by slaughtering 18 million horses, 30 million cattle, about 45 per cent of the total, and 100 million sheep and goats, about two thirds of the total. Those who engaged in these behaviours, deemed Kulaks, were dealt with harshly; in December 1929, Stalin issued a call to "liquidate the Kulaks as

5544-544: The strategy. Trotsky believed that only united fronts could ultimately be progressive and that popular fronts were useless because they included bourgeois forces such as liberals. Trotsky also argued that in popular fronts, working-class demands are reduced to their bare minimum, and the ability of the working class to put forward its own independent set of politics is compromised. That view is now common to most Trotskyist groups. Left communist groups also oppose popular fronts, but they came to oppose united fronts as well. In

5628-419: The symbols of patriotism, to assume the role of defenders of national independence, to attack fascism without demanding an end to capitalism as the only remedy, and, most important, to enter upon alliances with other parties, on the basis of fronts or on the basis of a government in which Communists might participate. McKenzie asserted that to be a mere tactical expedient, with the broad goals of communists for

5712-457: The term "popular front". The term was first used in the mid-1930s in Europe by communists concerned over the rapid growth of fascist movements in Italy and Germany, which they sought to combat by coalescing with non-communist political groupings they had previously attacked as enemies. Temporarily successful popular front governments were formed in France , Spain, and Chile in 1936. When communist parties came to power after World War II in

5796-399: The time ripe for proletarian revolution if militant policies were rigidly maintained by communist vanguard parties , the Comintern believed. Communist policies during the Third Period were marked by pronounced hostility to reformism and political organizations espousing it as an impediment to the movement's revolutionary objectives. In the field of trade unions , a move was made during

5880-403: The time that the countries in what became the Eastern Bloc had developed into Marxist–Leninist states, the non-communist parties had pushed out those members not willing to do the communists' bidding and were taken over by fellow travellers . As a result, the front had turned into a tool of the communists. The non-communist parties were required to accept the communist party's " leading role " as

5964-415: The tone of the "Third Period" resonated powerfully with the mood of many militant workers of the time, especially following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the ensuing crises of the 1930s. In many countries, including the United States , local Communist Parties' membership and influence grew as a result of the "Third Period" policies. One notable development in this period was that Communists organized

6048-503: The unemployed into a political force, despite their distance from the means of production . Another distinguishing feature of this policy was that Communists fought against their rivals on the left as vehemently as their opponents on the right of the political spectrum, with special viciousness directed at real or imaginary followers of Leon Trotsky . Social Democrats were targeted by Communist polemics, in which they were dubbed " social fascists ." Trotskyists have blamed Stalin's line for

6132-511: The working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia." With respect to its foreign policy, Dimitrov condemned fascism as "jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations." In marked juxtaposition to the previous international communist line, which intentionally muddied the difference between "fascism" and "social fascism" in an effort to break common workers away from their social democratic political and trade union leadership, Dimitrov depicted

6216-588: The working class in opposition to fascism. The appearance of Dimitrov on the platform, a great hero of the communist movement since his victory at the Leipzig trial, was met by a resounding ovation of the gathered delegates and a rousing singing of " The Internationale ." Dimitrov began with an analysis of fascism, which he characterized as "the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of finance capital," intent upon wreaking organized "terrorist vengeance against

6300-492: The world, casting aside the old Third Period line of "class against class" for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie in favor of a new policy of realpolitik , defending the Russian revolution by supporting mutual defense agreements between the USSR and various capitalist states. Further marking this shift in the international political line of the Comintern was the appointment of Popular Front adherent Georgi Dimitrov as new head of

6384-527: Was "directed against the bloc of the Social Democrats with the bourgeoisie and aimed at destroying the bloc of the Social Democratic leaders with the bourgeoisie," Pieck nevertheless acknowledged that "a certain number of sectarian mistakes were committed." This push for ideologically pure leadership divided the workers' movement during the strike movement of the late 1920s, gaining the support of some workers while alienating others and ultimately failing owing to "clumsy and sectarian tactics." Pieck argued that with

6468-426: Was a struggle for markets which would lead to intense pressures to reduce costs of production. These reductions would involve Taylorism as well as longer shifts and wage-cuts, driving wages down and unemployment up. The consequent lowering of living standards amongst the working class would lead to the intensification of class struggles and greater support for communism. These periodic distinctions were important to

6552-443: Was almost always ignored in practice; threats and false promises were used to motivate peasants into joining the communes. Eventually, in what Issac Deutscher calls "the great change", the policies of industrialisation and collectivisation were carried out in a ruthless and brutal way, via the use of the security and military forces, without the direct involvement of the working class and peasantry itself and without seeming regard for

6636-414: Was attended by 513 delegates, of whom 371 were accorded full voting rights, representing 65 Comintern member parties as well as 19 sympathizing parties. In keeping with his personal tradition and relative lack of interest in Comintern affairs, the proceedings were not attended by All-Union Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, who had by this time risen to a position of unquestioned supremacy in

6720-520: Was coming to a head with the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929, and the Communist International 's Sixth Congress viewed capitalism as entering a final death agony, its "third period of existence" where the first had been capitalism during its rise prior to World War I , and the second was the short period after the crushing of the post-World War I revolutions when capitalism seemed again to have stabilised. The formal institution of

6804-510: Was disorganized and divided. A new, less extreme policy was called for whereby Communists would form political coalitions with non-Communist socialists and even democratic non-socialists – "liberals, moderates, and even conservatives" – in "popular fronts" against fascism. Until early 1933, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was regarded as the world's most successful communist party in terms of membership and electoral results. As

6888-673: Was held to have sabotaged the effort of the Communist Party of Germany to wage battle against fascism by propagating what the communists characterized as its "anti-Marxist theory of a 'peaceful,' 'democratic' road to socialism" among the German workers' movement. There were some within the communist movement who began feeling their way to a new more collaborative orientation, however. The February 1934 Uprising of Socialists against right wing forces in Austria and movement towards cooperation between Socialists and Communists in France in fighting

6972-425: Was the communist party—not the fronts—that held power in these countries, the alleged coalitions gave the Party the ability to maintain that it did not have a monopoly on power in that country. Another use of the word "front" in connection with communist activity was " Communist front ". This phrase used "front" not in the sense of a political movement "linking divergent elements to achieve common objectives", but as

7056-462: Was to defend perestroika against reactionary elements within the state bureaucracy, but over time, they began to question the legitimacy of their republics' membership of the Soviet Union. It was their initially cautious tone that gave them considerable freedom to organise and to gain access to the mass media. In the Baltic republics , they soon became the dominant political force and gradually gained

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