Book Review: U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, the Forming of the Communist International
| Date | 01 June 1965 |
| Author | T. H. Rigby |
| Published date | 01 June 1965 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000226 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
270
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
THE
FORMING
OF
THE
COMMUNIST
INTERNATIONAL.
By
James
W.
Hulse.
1964.
(Stanford:
Stanford
University
Press.
xii,
275pp.
$6.50)
The Third
International,
whose
creation
Lenin
had
predicted
after
the
parties
of
the
Second
had
degenerated
into "social
patriotism"
during
the
First
World
War,
became
a
formal
reality
in
March
1919.
According
to
the
Chairman
of
its Executive Committee,
Zinoviev,
the
Comintern
in
its
first
months
was
little
more
than
"an
organ
of
propaganda
and agitation."
This
evaluation
is
generally
shared
by
historians
of
the
Comintern,
who
tend
to
date
its
inception
as
a
"general
staff"
of
the
international
communist
movement
from the
Second
Comintern
Congress
in
July
1920.
Nevertheless, as
Mr.
Hulse
shows,
the
Comintern's
transformation
from a
propaganda
to
an organiza-
tional
instrument
began
well
before
the
Second
Congress,
and
its
sub-
sequent
evolution
cannot
be
properly
understood
without
reference
to
the
problems
encountered
by
the
Bolsheviks
in
their
attempts
to
influence
revolutionary
developments
in
Europe
during
1919.
Mr.
Hulse's account
certainly
confirms
the organizational
irrele-
vance
of
the
Comintern
during
its
earliest
phase.
It
could
claim
no
credit
for
the
main
socialist achievements
of
the
period-the
shortlived
Soviet
Republics of
Hungary,
Slovakia
and
Bavaria
and
the
defeat
of
the
Kapp Putsch
by
the
Berlin
workers-nor
was
it
able
to
capitalize
on
these
events
significantly.
Moreover,
in
so
far
as
the
Russians
did
influence
these
developments,
it
was
Lenin
in
Moscow
rather
than
Zinoviev
and
his
Comintern
headquarters
in
Petrograd
that
mattered.
Difficulties
of
communication
played
an
important
part.
While
Pravda
was
acclaiming
the
establishment
of
the
first
Soviet
Republic
in
Bavaria
as
a
victory
for
the
International,
the
German
Communist
Party
was
condemning
it
as
a
bourgeois
trick.
The
many
such
examples
adduced
by
Mr.
Hulse
suggest
that
the
later
shift
to
tighter
organiza-
tion
was
as
much
a
matter
of
changed
opportunities
as
changed
concepts.
Nevertheless,
there
was
undoubtedly
more
to
it
than
this.
Through-
out
western
Europe and
North
America
sharp
conflict
developed
among
the
socialist groups
which
were
actual or
potential
collaborators
with
the
Bolsheviks,
and
more
often
than
not
the
groups
offering
greatest
revolutionary potential
were
those
least
in
agreement
with the
tactics
recommended
by
the
Comintern. The
experience
of
the
West European
Bureau
showed
that
without
tighter
discipline
the authority
of
the
Comintern
could be
employed
to
foster
"incorrect"
policies.
The
Bol-
shevik
leaders
could
not
fail
to
blame
such
difficulties
for
the
failure
of
"proletarian"
r~gimes
to
establish
themselves
in
a
situation
which
they
regarded
as
no
less
revolutionary
than
that
obtaining
in Russia
in
1917;
and
the
obvious
remedy
was to
extend
the
benefits
of
"demo-
cratic
centralism"
to the
international
movement,
with
themselves
acting
as
the
guardians
of
unity and
correct tactics.
The
criterion
of
a
good
communist
thus
became
willingness
to
accept Comintern
(i.e.
Soviet)
discipline.
Mr.
Hulse has
written
a
careful and
readable
account
of
these
developments,
which
will
be
much
appreciated
by
both
the historian
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