THE INFORMBUREAU or COMINFORM

The Cominform was established in 1947, at the proposal of the Soviets, as an organization of certain European communist and workers' parties, to be "a means of information sharing."

At the opening conference, Kardelj and Djilas, the Yugoslav representatives, were entrusted with critical expositions on the work of the Italian and French communist parties. They did it with relish and energy. The members decided that the headquarters of the Cominform were to be located in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Yugoslav communists felt this was an acknowledgement of the uncompromising works of Kardelj and Djilas, and a further proof of the excellent standing of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the workers' movement.

The second meeting of this organization was held in Bucharest, in 1948, without the participation of the representatives of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which declined to attend. The meeting was preceded by several letters, which were exchanged between the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Party of Bolsheviks. The correspondence had been getting progressively worse in tone. Stalin and Molotov signed the Soviet letters.

In Bucharest the Cominform adopted a Resolution about the state of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. The Resolution was a summary of the above-mentioned Soviet letters. Further Cominform activities consisted mainly of a propaganda war with the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

Comment: Stalin dissolved the Third International in 1943 to show his sincerity to the Western allies. In return he received the Yalta agreement, military supplies, and a firm promise about the second front. Some parties took the dissolution of the Third International seriously and started to spread their wings - especially the parties which were not under direct Soviet control (France and Italy).

Militant communism does not tolerate differences. Stalin was preparing for a battle with these schisms, so he warmed up the corpse of the Third International in the shape of the Cominform. But he was losing his grip. He did not recognize the onset of old age, but rather thought that the doctors were poisoning him.

Stalin died in 1953. His successors used different methods with varying degrees of success, but finally they dissolved the Cominform 1956, thus extending an olive branch to Yugoslavia.