Cominform: what it was and its characteristics

We explain what the Cominform was and which communist countries were part of this organization, as well as its role during the origins of the Cold War.

Through the Cominform, Stalin maintained his influence over the communist governments of the Eastern Bloc.

What was the Cominform?

Cominform is the name given to the Information Office of the Communist and Workers’ Parties (as translated from Russian). The Cominform was an international communist organizationfounded in 1947 with the aim of grouping the communist parties of different countries under a single association.

Your creation It was promoted by Joseph Stalin (leader of the Soviet Union) as a response to the Truman Doctrine promoted by the United States and its implementation in Europe through the Marshall Plan.

Initially, it consisted of the communist parties of Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union. In the following years, the ruling parties of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, East Germany and Hungary joined. In addition, the Italian Communist Party and the French Communist Party were members of the organization, although their countries did not belong to the Eastern Bloc and did not have communist regimes.

Stalin sought to coordinate the actions of the different Eastern Bloc countries under a common guideline at the beginning of the Cold War. The Cominform allowed him to exercise control and influence over the parties that governed the different communist countries that formed part of the Eastern Bloc.

Background of the Cominform

Since the mid-19th century, the different communist groups in Europe created international associations with the aim of coordinate actions and strengthen the communist movement worldwide.

In the 1860s, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and others Communist leaders created the International Workers’ Association, later known as the First Communist International. Differences of opinion on what the lines of action should be, the internal organization of the association and the foundations of socialist ideology finally led to its breakup and dissolution.

At the end of the 19th century, the communist parties united again with the same objective and created the Second Communist International. However, with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, divided positions over whether the working class should support the nationalist causes of the war or not led to the dissolution of the Second International.

In 1919, at the end of the First World War, those communist groups that remained against the war created the Comintern. They were mostly revolutionary left-wing parties; that is, they were made up of the most radical groups within the world socialist scene.

With the triumph of communism in Russia, the Comintern took the Bolshevik model for the direction of actions and the organization of the communist movement. During the 1930s, the Comintern became a tool of the Soviet Union’s control over communist parties in other parts of Europe. With the outbreak of World War II, the Soviet Union allied itself with the governments of the United Kingdom and France and dissolved the Comintern.

The creation of the Cominform

The Cominform was created in September 1947, under the direct order of Stalin.. Its first meeting was held in Szklarska Poręba, Poland. There the foundations of the new organization were laid, which had its offices in Belgrade (capital of Yugoslavia) until 1948 and in Bucharest (capital of Romania) from 1948 until its dissolution in 1956.

During the first meeting were present representatives of the communist parties of the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, France and ItalyThere, the “Jdanov Doctrine” was communicated as a new central line of action of communism, which defended the need for cooperation between the countries of the Communist Bloc and abandoned the previous position in which national paths were prioritized for achieving communism.

The end of the Cominform

During the first years, there was great propaganda against the Cominform in the Western Bloc. However, the organization did not have much influence and its activities were quite limited. Furthermore, its ability to act was profoundly limited when Stalin and Tito, leader of Yugoslavia, formally severed diplomatic relations.

After Stalin’s death in 1953, the Cominform began a process of decline.When Nikita Khrushchev assumed power in the Soviet Union, he finally dissolved the Cominform in 1956. By then, two other Eastern Bloc organizations had gained greater importance: Comecon, created in 1948, and the Warsaw Pact, founded in 1955.

The Zhdanov doctrine

At the inaugural meeting of the Cominform, the Soviet representative and member of the Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Andrei Khdanov gave a speech in which he enumerated the bases of Soviet doctrine in international politicsThis doctrine is known as the Jdanov Doctrine.

In his speech he established that the essential lines of action of the Cominform were based on the exchange of information and experiences, in the coordination of actions and in mutual aid between the communist parties of the different member countries.

The speech and the Jdanov Doctrine were part of the events that established the division of the world into two blocks and gave rise to the Cold War. In 1946, Winston Churchill had given a speech at Fulton in which he defined the notion of the “iron curtain.” Jdanov finished consolidating the idea of ​​​​dividing the world into two blocks.

According to Zhdanov, there was an “imperialist and anti-democratic” bloc comprising the United States, Western Europe, Turkey, Greece, Latin America, the Middle East and China. In contrast, the “anti-imperialist and democratic” bloc consisted of the USSR and the countries of Eastern and Central Europe.

The Jdanov Doctrine and the Truman Doctrine

The Zhdanov Doctrine is seen as a response to the Truman Doctrine (1947) promoted by the United States, which established the need to “contain” the communism of the Eastern Bloc.

The United States saw the need to help reactivate the economy of Western European countries, to prevent populations from becoming radicalized and communism from expanding. Thus, since 1948 he implemented the Marshall Plan, through which he invested millions of dollars in the reconstruction and development of European industry.

Andrei Zhdanov’s speech. The Jdanov doctrine was based on the idea that the Bloc of Western countries should identify themselves as flags of antidemocratic imperialism that sought to impose its power and control over all societies in the world. This foundation seeks to explain the new international policies that would guide the actions of the Soviet Union in the following years.

The understanding of the international situation that led Zhdanov to develop these ideas can be seen in the reports and speeches he delivered to his communist comrades. In September 1947, he published a speech explaining the basis of these fundamental ideas.

Speech at the Information Conference of Representatives of the Communist Parties

Poland, September 22, 1947

“The end of the Second World War has produced essential changes in the global situation as a whole (…)

The main result of the Second World War It was the military defeat of Germany and Japan, the two most militaristic and aggressive countries of capitalism. The reactionary and imperialist elements of the entire world, and particularly of England, the United States and France, had placed certain hopes in Germany and Japan (…)

Consequently, the world capitalist system, as a whole, has once again suffered a severe setback (…) the result of the last conflict, with the crushing of fascism, with the loss of the world positions of capitalism and with the strengthening of the anti-fascist movement, has been the separation from the capitalist system of a whole series of countries in central and southeastern Europe (…)

The importance and authority of the USSR has increased considerably after the war. The USSR has been the guiding force and soul of the military crushing of Germany and Japan. The progressive democratic forces of the entire world are grouped around the Soviet Union. (…)

The aim of the new expansionist trend in the United States is to establish universal domination of American expansionism. This new trend aims at consolidating the monopoly position of the United States on international markets, a monopoly that has been established as a result of the disappearance of its two biggest competitors – Germany and Japan – and the weakness of the capitalist partners of the United States: England and France.

This new trend has a broad programme of military, economic and political measures, the application of which would establish political and economic domination of all countries targeted by US expansionism, reduce these countries to the status of satellites of the United States and establish internal regimes which would eliminate all obstacles on the part of the workers’ and democratic movement to the exploitation of these countries by American capital. The United States of America is currently pursuing the application of this new political trend not only to yesterday’s war enemies or neutral states, but also, and increasingly, to the war allies of the United States of America.

Particular attention is paid to the use of the economic difficulties of England, a long-standing ally and at the same time capitalist rival and competitor of the United States. The American expansionist trend is based on the consideration that it will not only be necessary not to loosen the grip of economic dependence on the United States, into which England fell during the war, but, on the contrary, to intensify the pressure on England in order to successively take away its control over the colonies, eliminate it from its spheres of influence and progressively reduce it to a situation of vassalage. (…)

But in the path of its aspirations for world domination, the United States has…