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Soviet Union [USSR] Communist Parties Abroad
By 1984 the Soviet Union had recognized communist and workers'
parties in ninety-five countries. Fifteen of these were ruling
communist parties. The Soviet Union considered these most
ideologically mature parties as part of the world socialist system.
The select group included the ruling parties of Albania, Bulgaria,
China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Laos, Mongolia,
North Korea, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and
Yugoslavia. Besides these ruling parties, the Soviet Union
perceived other less ideologically mature ruling parties as
"Marxist-Leninist vanguard parties," a label that distinguished
them from "true" communist parties. These vanguard parties existed
in several Third World "revolutionary democracies," which have
included Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and the
People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen). Nonruling
communist parties (of greater or lesser ideological maturity) that
existed in developed capitalist and in Third World states "on the
capitalist path of development" made up another category of
parties.
Lenin founded the Comintern in 1919 to guide the activities of
communist parties and communist front organizations abroad. The
Comintern's first act was a manifesto urging workers abroad to
support the Bolshevik regime in Russia. Later the Comintern became
a tool the Soviet Union used to direct foreign communist parties to
execute policies of benefit to the security of the Soviet Union.
The Comintern was formally dissolved by Stalin in 1943 as a gesture
of cooperation with the wartime allies, but the International
Department was created to carry out its responsibilities. Another
organization--the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform)--was
created in 1947 to carry out liaison and propaganda duties, and it
included as members the communist parties of Albania, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Romania, the Soviet Union,
and Yugoslavia. The Cominform expelled Yugoslavia as a member in
June 1948 for ideological deviation. With the thaw in relations
between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in 1955 and 1956, the
Soviet Union formally dissolved the then-moribund Cominform as a
gesture to the Yugoslavs.
The Cominform conflict with Yugoslavia in 1948 signaled the
breakup of what in the West was perceived as "monolithic communism"
and the emergence of "polycentrism." Polycentrism (literally, many
centers), a Western term, describes the relative independence from
Soviet control of some nonruling and ruling communist parties.
Polycentrism was further in evidence following the Sino-Soviet
split that became evident in the late 1950s and early 1960s. More
recently, some foreign communist parties have successfully resisted
Soviet efforts to convene a conference of world communist and
workers parties, the last of which occurred in 1969. The emergence
in the early to mid-1970s of a broad and somewhat disparate set of
ideological beliefs, termed "Eurocommunism," was further evidence
of polycentric tendencies. Eurocommunist beliefs were espoused by
nonruling communist parties in France, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere
in the West that criticized Soviet attempts to assert ideological
control over foreign communist parties and even denounced Soviet
foreign and domestic policies.
Despite polycentric tendencies in the world communist movement,
the Soviet Union was able to influence many parties through
financial and propaganda support. This influence varied over time
and according to the issue involved. The influence that the Soviet
Union was able to exercise through the local nonruling communist
parties was seldom significant enough to affect the policies of
foreign governments directly. Local communist parties have reported
on the local political situation to Moscow, have engaged in
subversive activities of benefit to the Soviet Union, have served
as conduits for Soviet propaganda, and have attempted to rally
local populations and elites to support Soviet policies. During the
late 1980s, the
united front (see Glossary) strategy of alliances
between nonruling communist parties and other leftist,
"progressive," and even "petit bourgeois" parties received new
emphasis. The goal was for communists to exercise influence through
participation in electoral politics and through holding posts in
legislatures and executive bodies. The global trend toward
democratization was assessed by the Soviet Union as providing
opportunities for the united front strategy. As was noted in
Pravda in 1987, "The struggle for democracy is an important
way of weakening monopolistic state capitalism, and the results of
this struggle can be a starting point for the preparation of
socialist transformation."
Data as of May 1989
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