Click here to view the 61 documents in The Comintern and the International Communist Movement Project.

The rich and heterogeneous array of materials in the Stalin Digital Archive, specifically in fond 558, opis’ 11, make impossible any effort to present a ‘definitive’ or ‘representative’ selection of documents that encapsulates how Stalin viewed the international communist movement. In part, that is due to the nature of the international communist movement, which was in fact never a singular, unified movement. From the founding of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1919 to its dissolution in 1943 on Stalin’s recommendation, the interests of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government predominated in that so-called headquarters of world revolution. Such was also the case with the Comintern’s postwar incarnation, the Communist Informational Bureau or Cominform, which was founded in 1947. In the years after 1917, virtually every independent country had a Communist Party that affiliated with the Comintern. The materials on many of these parties indicate that Stalin not only sought to remain informed—routinely or as the situation warranted—about their activities, but also about how the Comintern’s leaders advised and managed those parties. In the case of some parties, the documents make clear how Stalin sought to influence their affairs; other documents make clear that they often sought his advice The Comintern, Cominform, and national Communist parties represented the best organized and funded groups within the international communist movement.

Stalin kept a close eye on the Comintern as a political organization. Given that he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (referred to by the English acronym ECCI or by the Russian acronym IKKI), this is hardly surprising. But even a casual perusal of the very numerous and heterogeneous documents make it clear that Stalin was not simply ‘keeping abreast’ of the activities of and debates within the Comintern’s headquarters or those of a given national party. The archive contains many documents that were sent to Stalin (as originals or copies) or that he sent to particular people or offices. The former allowed him to be well informed; the latter make clear that he actively intervened in the affairs of the Comintern or a national party. This was especially true during the 1920s when the struggle for power within the USSR on occasion involved the Comintern. Selecting which documents to include here, of necessity, involved excluding materials related to the Comintern as an office and many communist parties as well as the key players, debates, and policies in those parties.

But the international communist movement was not the same as the Comintern or Cominform. In various countries, rival Marxist parties arose or split away from their national communist party. When they did, they broke all affiliations with the Comintern or Moscow. The documents in the Stalin Digital Archive make clear that Stalin kept informed about those factions that left or were expelled from the most important of the national communist parties, as well as those parties or groups that ceased pledging their allegiance to Moscow. Documents relating to both cases are included in the selections below.

Further complicating the selection of documents is the absence of materials that a researcher might expect to find in Stalin’s ‘personal archive. This forces one to consider the important question: What was Stalin’s ‘personal archive’ during his lifetime and how different is it from what is in the Stalin Digital Archive? Or to pose the question somewhat differently—who took what materials and when from this archive? For example, given that relations between Moscow and the Yugoslav Communist Party remained as fractious after Stalin’s death as they did before, one can easily imagine that appropriate representatives of other offices (e.g. the Politburo (the Presidium from 1952 to 1956), Central Committee, or Ministry of Foreign Affairs) removed materials that were relevant to making policy decisions or to political debates. This might explain why some materials in the archive indicate that Stalin had received certain documents that are not in the archive. One can imagine that occasionally, perhaps even periodically, Stalin’s staff sent materials in his files that he or his staff no longer considered useful to the appropriate office or organization. The point is that while there is an immense amount of material in the Stalin Digital Archive, one must not think of it as the ‘definitive’ or ‘complete’ archive, but rather as an archive, like any other archive, in which one can find—or not find—documents that a researcher needs. The presence of copies of many documents in Stalin’s ‘personal archive’ from or to an office, agency or individual serves as reminder that researchers often need to work in various archives.

But of course, this is not just ‘any other archive’, it is Stalin’s ‘personal archive’. Whether complete or not, its contents offer insight into what interested or concerned Stalin about the Comintern, Cominform, the international communist movement, and the parties and personalities who made up that movement.

In selecting the documents included here, I took into consideration several factors. One is that I tried not to include documents that are available in English elsewhere. For example, there are documents in the Stalin Digital Archive about the Spanish Civil War that have been published in the Annals of Communism volume Spain Betrayed. The same is true for the U.S. Communist Party, many documents of which have been published in the Annals of Communism volumes about that party. Likewise, many materials relating to the repression of Comintern officials and members of national parties are already available in the Annals of Communism volume Enemies within the Gates?

Another factor that affected the selection of documents contained herein is that I made an effort to include a cross-section of the types of documents in the archive. In the documents below, one can find: letters, telegrams or documents written by Stalin; letters, telegrams or documents written by others and sent to Stalin; letters, telegrams or documents written by and to others, but which nonetheless wound up in Stalin’s ‘personal archive’. I also chose to not include material that I thought another editor might include in his/her selections. For example, there are only a few documents in this selection on the Communist Party of China because David Wolf has compiled materials on “Stalin and the Far East.” I excluded entirely published works (e.g. books or pamphlets by Stalin’s rivals, such as Trotsky or Zinoviev) in the archive that related to the Comintern or international communist movement because of Geoffrey Roberts’ contribution on “Stalin’s Library.” Because the Stalin Digital Archive Project is a collective effort, in selecting the documents, I resisted the temptation to try to do everything and focused instead on materials that offered insight into the types of material in the Stalin’s ‘personal archive’.

I also chose to select documents that related to a common issue so that putting them together would be useful for users. So, for example, there are quite a few documents relating the German Communist Party in the 1920s. In the post-WWI period, Moscow pinned great hopes on the prospect of a German revolution. That did not occur. But because it was the largest communist party outside of the USSR during the 1920s, Soviet leaders closely followed the debates and divisions within the German CP in the 1920s. The materials in the Stalin Digital Archive make clear that Stalin followed events within the German party carefully. Why he did so is discussed in the introduction to those documents. The archive contains material on virtually all of the national communist parties that existed before Stalin’s death in 1953, but the number of documents related to those parties and the dates when those documents were created vary considerably and made it difficult to justify including them. This too accounts for my decision to select materials that cohered around a given party or issue.

Finally, I selected only materials that Stalin had clearly read, either because he marked up or wrote marginalia on them, or he reacted to them in writing, or he signed or initialed them. The reason for doing this is obvious—just because something is in one’s files does not mean that it had any importance to the owner. This may not have applied in Stalin’s case, but I opted to adhere to the view that silence is not evidence.

Others may have used different criteria and chosen very different documents; such is normal when scholars conduct research in a given archive. This selection of documents is but a ‘first offering’, a ‘tip of the iceberg’. It is hardly definitive. For researchers interested in the international communist movement, a particular communist party, or the Comintern, the Stalin Digital Archive provides materials on a rich variety of research topics.