. This had seen the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, seize power in Russia and establish the world’s first socialist state. Fearful that the world’s capitalist countries might crush the fledgling communist government, the Bolsheviks sought to spread the ideals of communism and support revolutionary movements in other countries.
The
Communist International (Comintern), also known as the
Third International, was an
international organization founded in 1919 that advocated
world communism, and which was led and controlled by the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress in
1920 to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international
bourgeoisie and the creation of an international
soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state". The Comintern was preceded by the dissolution of the
Second International in 1916.
Vladmir Lenin and
Leon Trotsky were both honorary presidents of the Communist International.
The Comintern held
seven World Congresses in Moscow between
1919 and
1935. During that period, it also conducted
thirteen Enlarged Plenums of its governing
Executive Committee, which had much the same function as the somewhat larger and more grandiose Congresses.
Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, dissolved the Comintern in
1943 to avoid antagonizing
his allies in the later years of
World War II, the United States and the United Kingdom. It was succeeded by the
Cominform in
1947.
During its existence, the Comintern provided financial and ideological support to communist parties in around the world, and helped them to organise campaigns for proletarian revolution. It also served as a forum for debate and discussion among communist leaders and intellectuals.
However, the outbreak of World War II and the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany saw the Comintern’s influence began to wane. When Germany invaded the USSR two years later, Stalin begin actively seeking to improve relations with capitalist powers in order to focus on the war effort against the Axis forces.
In this context, the decision was made to dissolve the Comintern in May 1943 as a gesture of goodwill towards the Western Allies, particularly Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. He also sought to demonstrate the Soviet Union’s commitment to cooperation in the fight against fascism. While the dissolution of the Comintern was a prudent move in the context of the Second World War, communist parties across the world continued to maintain close relations with each other and established the Cominform in 1947.
The
Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (Информационное бюро коммунистических и рабочих партий, Informatsionnoye byuro kommunisticheskikh i rabochikh partiy), commonly known as Cominform (Коминформ), was a co-ordination body of
Marxist-Leninist communist parties in
Europe during the
early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the
Communist International. It worked to ensure that communist governments in the
Soviet bloc operated according to
Stalinist principles, rather than those of alternative forms of communism. The Cominform was dissolved during
de-Stalinization in 1956.
Sary Shagan (
Сары-Шаган;
Сарышаған) is an
anti-ballistic missile testing range located in
Kazakhstan.
On
17 August 1956 the
Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union authorized plans for an experimental facility for missile defence located at
Sary Shagan, on the west bank of
Lake Balkhash. The first missile launched from the facility was a
V-1000 on 16 October 1958, but the facilities for full-scale testing were not ready until 1961. Sary Shagan remains in use, with the latest known launch on 2 December 2022. The town of Sary Shagan was a
closed city until 2005. The administrative centre,
Priozersk remained a closed city. The length of the site is 480 km. The Sary Shagan range was the intended landing site for the sample return canister of the Russian
Fobos-Grunt mission.
