The Comintern

by Duncan Hallas

This history of the Communist (Third) International, from its beginnings in 1919 as the center of world revolution through its degeneration at the hands of the Stalinist bureaucracy, draws out lessons valid today to the work of building bridges to unite and rebuild a Left capable of fighting for radical social change.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics

220 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2008

About the author

Duncan Hallas was a prominent member of the Trotskyist movement and a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party in Great Britain. Born into a working class family in Manchester, Duncan Hallas joined the Trotskyist Workers International League while still a young worker during World War II. Conscripted into the army in 1943 he was involved in the great mutiny in Egypt after the end of the War.

Back in Britain he was one of the small number of comrades who rallied around Tony Cliff’s critique of “orthodox” Trotskyism and was a founder member of the Socialist Review Group, the forerunner of today’s British Socialist Workers Party and the International Socialist Tendency.

During the long boom of the 1950s and early 1960s he lost contact with the group although he remained politically active in the teachers’ union and elsewhere. During the great upheaval of 1968 he rejoined the International Socialists, as the organisation was then called. From that time he was a leading member of the organisation, a great populariser of Marxism and an inspired speaker, until ill health forced him out of active politics in 1995.

Reviews

[Justin Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently, this "draws out lessons valid today to the work of building bridges to unite and rebuild a Left capable of fighting for radical social change."

The lessons would be to falsify history and insist that neither Lenin nor Trotsky ever did or got anything wrong, slander anyone who isn't an orthodox Bolshevik (on your understanding of Bolshevism, which weirdly excludes almost all the Bolsheviks). You'll learn nothing about the Comintern from this; you'll learn plenty about the (bunker) mentality of Anglo-Trots of the 1980s.

[Mitch · Rating 1 out of 5]

Heavy sectarian shit-talking. Hard to swallow this as history with how much we're supposed to trust the author in his brash denunciations.

[Williams Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great and incisive history of the Communist International throughout its complex and highly political existence. The perspective that Hallas brings to this topic is both sharp and informative. I wish that the author would have included notes, or concise explanations of the various factions and international affiliates working within the framework of the International itself, but the sheer depth and volume of information is incredibly valuable. This book is not only useful to understand the tragic destruction of an ambitious revolutionary institution, but why historical understanding of it is essential to the revolutionary project facing activists of any strip.

[Andrei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and clear Trotskyist view on the history of Comintern, but it might be worth to combine with Peter Hopkirk's Setting the East Ablaze and David McKNight's Espionage and the Roots of the Cold War (the history of Comintern's intelligence) to get the broader picture

[Sugarpunksattack Mick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Duncan Hallas book The Comintern starts off promising with Hallas explaining that his perspective, that of a 'revolutionary socialist', is underepresented when it comes to books on the Comintern or the Communist International. Hallas doesn't say outright, but what he means by revolutionary socialism is that he is a Trotskyist in orientation. In terms of the text this means that he sees Trotsky as the inheritor of Lenin's revolutionary legacy and Stalin the degenerate.The book follows this course pretty consistently as it traces the history of the comintern and the parallel history of the USSR, as well as the german revolution, and other movements occurring at the time.

If you are only looking for a barebones trotskyist history of what happened when and who was involved and what went wrong (Trotsky says it was Stalin!) then this is a decent overview. However, if you are looking for more than a very surface level analysis when it comes to explaining various movements and the logic of policies then I would look else where. Hallas' analysis is very weak and he glosses over many of the policies while asserting definitively which ones were correct and which ones were wrong. For instance, he explains early that the 'United Front' polices was correct while the later 'popular front' was a disaster. He doesn't clearly explain the difference between the two policies that appear to be the same and it makes it seem like he doesn't approve of the policy simply because it was Stalin putting the policy in place instead of Trotsky.

[Shovan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read into the highs and lows of the Comintern, from earnest international trying to spread global revolution to Stalinised weapon of the USSR bureaucracy. Particular highlight chapter that best captures this contradiction is on the tragic outcome Chinese revolution of 1925-27. The whole book is written in a clear, accessible, condensed way, and the history it covers wholly confirms the argument of marxists that history is not determined. The cards of history could have played out in a very different way, and the tragedy of the Comintern is that it sealed the fate again and again against the revolutionary upsurges of the early 20th century

[Elan Garfias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely need to reread this slowly. Hallas offers a concise history of the parties that went on to form the Third International and charts a clear path through the ideological zigzags it went through, from immediate revolutionism to social fascism to the popular front. The style is pretty straightforward, so what you see is what you get. The descriptions of some of the revolutionary upswings (the Turin factory occupations especially) are enough to really put you in the moment, and the sheer ineptitude and/or duplicitousness of the folks running the org will have you cursing people like Bukharin and Thalmann.

[Ella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic concise history of the comintern. Good complement to The Fight For Workers Power. Particularly clarifying on the nature of centrism as a mass phenomena of the post-WW1 revolutionary period.

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

1980’s Trotskyism. The book has value in its historical content if you can stomach Trotskyist diatribes.

[Shaun Richman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Standard Trotskyist interpretation, with little interest developing a more complete story.

[Radostinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is probably the only one of its kind - a history of the Comintern out of a genuine revolutionary perspective. In a relatively short account of the political events of the 1920s and 30s, Duncan Hallas traces the ups and motsly downs of the organisation, which was supposed to help Communism take over the world.