A comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the Communist International, from its founding by Lenin after the Russian Revolution to its eventual collapse under Stalinism.
The Communist International (or ‘Comintern’) was launched in 1919 to promote worldwide extension of the 1917 workers’ and peasants’ revolution in Russia. During the Comintern’s first years under the leadership of V.I. Lenin, it proposed and tested strategic and tactical concepts that retain their value and continue to be studied. While the Communist International was soon to be deformed and destroyed by the rise of bureaucracy and authoritarianism associated with Stalinism, its perspective on the fight for international revolutionary change still presents a compelling vision, and is an inspiring example for millions throughout the world.
Publication date: October 30, 2026
Foreword
The Comintern Publishing Project
1 Introduction: The Comintern Publishing Project
2 The Second International: Birth and Death
3 Toward a New International
4 Founding the New International (1919)
5 Achieving a Mass International (1919–1920)
Addendum: Theses on the Conditions of Admission to the Communist International
6 National Freedom and the Baku Congress (1920)
7 Advances and Setbacks (1920–1921)
8 Impatience for Bolder Initiatives: The March Action (1921)
9 ‘To the Masses’: The Third World Congress (1921)
10 Toward the United Front
11 Adoption of the United-Front Policy (1921–1922)
12 Party Organisation: Shaping a Policy
13 Implementing International Centralism (1922–1923)
14 The Communist Women’s Movement
15 Comintern Outreach: The Auxiliary Organisations
16 Fascism: The Search for a Response
17 For Global Black Liberation
18 The Comintern in 1922: The Periphery Pushes Back
19 The Soviet Republic and World Communism
20 The Workers’ Government – Evolution of a Concept
21 The Comintern as a School of Strategy
22 The Comintern and Asia 1919–1925: Fruits and Perils of the ‘Bloc from Within’
23 The Democratic Character of Socialist Revolution
24 Fateful Choices (1922–1923)
25 The ‘German October’ of 1923: A Failed Bid for Workers’ Power
26 The Emergence of Stalinism
27 Legacy of an International
References
Index
Edited by John Riddell
Edited by John Riddell
