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OXFORD STUDIES in MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY General Editors SIMON DIXON, MARK MAZOWER, and JAMES RETALLACK

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OXFORD STUDIES in MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY General Editors SIMON DIXON, MARK MAZOWER, and JAMES RETALLACK OXFORD STUDIES IN MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY General Editors SIMON DIXON, MARK MAZOWER, and JAMES RETALLACK Pons200114OUK.indb 1 8/8/2014 9:16:11 PM Pons200114OUK.indb 2 8/8/2014 9:16:11 PM The Global Revolution A History of International Communism 1917–1991 SILVIO PONS Translated by ALLAN CAMERON Pons200114OUK.indb 3 8/8/2014 9:16:11 PM Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries First published in Italian as Stato e Rivoluzione © Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino 2012. English translation © Oxford University Press 2014 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2014940483 ISBN 978–0–19–965762–9 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. The publication of this book was assisted by a grant made by the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci. Pons200114OUK.indb 4 8/8/2014 9:16:12 PM For Chiara Pons200114OUK.indb 5 8/8/2014 9:16:12 PM Pons200114OUK.indb 6 8/8/2014 9:16:12 PM Contents Abbreviations ix Introduction xi Prologue: War and Revolution 1 1. Time of Revolution (1917–1923) 7 Lenin, the Soviet State, and the Comintern 7 Victory in Russia, Defeat in Europe 16 The Birth of the Communist Parties 24 The End of European Revolution 35 2. Time of the State (1924–1939) 43 World Revolution and ‘Socialism in One Country’ 43 Between East and West 54 Stalin, the ‘Revolution from above’, and the Psychosis of War 65 Communists and Anti-fascism 75 The Total-Security State 86 The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 91 3. Time of War (1939–1945) 102 The Alliance with Hitler 102 The Patriotic War and the End of the Comintern 111 Spheres of Influence, National Fronts, and ‘People’s Democracy’ 124 Victory without Revolution 137 4. Time of Empire (1945–1953) 144 The Birth of the ‘External Empire’ 144 The Founding of the Cominform 155 The Break between the USSR and Yugoslavia 167 Revolution in China and War in Korea 175 The ‘Revolution from above’ in Eastern and Central Europe and the Pacifist Mobilization 184 Communists and the Cold War 193 5. Time of Decline (1953–1968) 206 The Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe 206 The End of Communist Unity 218 Expansion in the Third World and the Rift between the Soviet Union and China 231 The Limits upon Soviet Influence 244 Pons200114OUK.indb 7 8/8/2014 9:16:12 PM viii Contents 6. Time of Crisis (1968–1991) 255 1968 and the Prague Spring 255 The Break-Up of the Movement 265 The Global Superpower 273 Eurocommunism 284 The Crisis of Legitimacy 293 Reform and Collapse 305 Epilogue: The End of Soviet and European Communism in World History 315 References 323 Index 353 Pons200114OUK.indb 8 8/8/2014 9:16:12 PM Abbreviations ARCHIVES APCF Archive du Parti communiste français [Archive of the French Communist Party] APCI Archivio del partito comunista italiano [Archive of the Italian Communist Party] AVPRF Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoy Federatsii [Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation) RGANI Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Noveishei Istorii [Russian State Archive of Contemporary History] RGASPI Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsial’no-Politicheskoy Istorii [Russian State Archive of Social and Political History] SAPMO Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv [Foundation Archives of Parties and Mass Organizations of the GDR in the Federal Archives] DOCUMENT COLLECTIONS KIMR Komintern i ideya mirovoy revoliutsii: dokumenty [The Comintern and the Idea of World Revolution: Documents], ed. J. S. Drabkin (Moscow: Nauka, 1998) KVMV Komintern i Vtoraya Mirovaya Voyna [The Comintern and the Second World War], ed. N. S. Lebedeva and M. M. Narinskii (2 vols, Moscow: Pamyatniki Istoricheskoy Misly, 1994; 1998) PBKI Politburo CK Rkp(b)–Vkp(b) i Komintern 1919–1943: dokumenty [The Central Committee Politburo of the Rkp(b)–Vkp(b) and the Comintern 1919–1943: documents], ed. G. M. Adibekov and K. K. Shirinya (Moscow: Rosspen, 2004) Prezidium Prezidium TsK KPSS 1954–1964. Chernovye protokol′nye zapisi zasedanii. Stenogrammy. Postanovleniya [The Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1954–1964] (3 vols, Moscow: Rosspen, 2003–8) SFVE Sovetskii faktor v Vostochnoy Evrope 1944–1953: dokumenty [The Soviet Factor in Eastern Europe: Documents](2 vols, Moscow: Rosspen, 1999, 2002) VEDRA Vostochnaya Evropa v dokumentakh rossiiskikh arkhivov 1944–1953 [Eastern Europe in the Documents of the Russian Archives] (2 vols, Moscow/ Novosibirsk: Sibirskii Khronograf, 1997–8) Pons200114OUK.indb 9 8/8/2014 9:16:12 PM x Abbreviations INSTITUTIONS AND POLITICAL PARTIES CCP Chinese Communist Party Cheka Special Commission Comecon Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Cominform Communist Information Bureau Comintern Communist International CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union CPUSA Communist Party of the United States of America CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe ECCI Executive Committee of the Communist International Gulag Main Camp Administration ICP Indonesian Communist Party KGB Committee for State Security KKE Kommunistiko Komma Ellados [Greek Communist Party] KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands [German Communist Party] KSČ Komunistická Strana Československá [Czechoslovak Communist Party] MPLA People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola Narkomindel People’s Commissariat for External Affairs NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NEP New Economic Policy NKVD People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs OGPU Joint State Political Directorate PCE Partido comunista de España [Spanish Communist Party] PCF Parti communiste français [French Communist Party] PCI Partito comunista italiano [Italian Communist Party] PCP Partido comunista portugués [Portuguese Communist Party] Politburo Political Office RCP(b) Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) SED Socialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands [United Socialist Party of Germany] SPD Sozial-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands [Social Democratic Party of Germany] Pons200114OUK.indb 10 8/8/2014 9:16:12 PM Introduction During the twentieth century, communism left its mark on the life, death, hopes, fears, dreams, nightmares, identity, and choices of a large part of humanity. It is not easy to find a single significant aspect of world history in the past century that was not in some way connected to it and did not come under its influence. Communism was many things together: a reality and a mythology, a state system and movement of parties, a closed elite and a mass politics, a progressive ideol- ogy and an imperial dominion, a project for a just society and an experiment on humanity, a pacifist rhetoric and a strategy of civil war, a liberating utopia and a system of concentration camps, an antagonist of world order and a form of anti-capitalist modernity. Communists were victims of dictatorial regimes and the creators of police states. Protagonists in social struggles, national liberation movements, and campaigns for citizens’ rights, they invariably founded totalitar- ian, oppressive, and liberticidal regimes. Their dogmatism, discipline, leadership cults, and organization were proverbial, as was their adaptability to very different social, political, and cultural contexts. The attraction or repulsion evoked by the states, parties, and societies that grew out of the communist experience for a long time defined individual lives, intellectual orientations, and collective psychology. Communism displayed a formidable ability to expand in the first half of the cen- tury and went into a precipitous decline in the second half. From the very begin- ning it presented itself as a demiurge of the modern world pursuing a rational and irreversible historical progress founded on Marxist doctrine, but it ended up emp- tied of meaning in relation to the tendencies and nature of modernity itself—in its institutions, customs, culture, and economy. Its collapse in Europe, Russia, and Central Asia has only left room for political heirs who have either become marginal or undergone a democratic or nationalist metamorphosis. It is remembered for some of the worst crimes against humanity in the last century. Its continuing exist- ence in China and Vietnam has been entrusted to one-party states, which however constitute the political framework of an economic and social system turned on its head and based on the market and integrated into the capitalist world. The survival of more traditional regimes in Cuba and North Korea continues in a state of isola- tion without any prospects. Authors who take up the challenge of a general his- torical narrative have to confront the paradox of revolutionary events on a global scale that appear to have left no clear traces of themselves.1 Communism seems to belong to a past that has been buried—plunged into a different time, distant from us and our world.
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