Cominform

Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) is the common name for what was officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties. It was the first official forum of the international communist movement since the dissolution of the Comintern, and confirmed the new realities after World War II - including the creation of an Eastern Bloc.

Cominform was a Soviet-dominated organization of Communist parties founded in September, 1947 at a conference of Communist party leaders in Szklarska Poręba, Poland. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin called the conference in response to divergences among eastern European governments on whether or not to attend the Paris Conference on Marshall Aid in July 1947.

The initial seat of Cominform was located in Belgrade (then the capital of the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia). After the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the group in June 1948, the seat was moved to Bucharest, Romania. The expulsion of Yugoslavia from Cominform for Titoism initiated the Informbiro period in that country's history.

The intended purpose of Cominform was to coordinate actions between Communist parties under Soviet direction. As a result, Cominform acted as a tool of Soviet foreign policy and Stalinism. It had its own newspaper (titled For Lasting Peace, for People's Democracy!), and it encouraged unity of Communist parties under Soviet direction.

Cominform was dissolved in 1956 after Soviet rapprochement with Yugoslavia and the process of De-Stalinization.

Member Parties

• Bulgarian Communist Party
• Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
• French Communist Party
• Hungarian Working People's Party
• Italian Communist Party
• Polish United Workers' Party
• Romanian Workers' Party
• Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• Communist Party of Yugoslavia (until its expulsion in June 1948)
• Communist Party of Free Territory of Trieste (until Yugoslavia's expulsion of 1948)

See also

• Comintern
• Comecon
• Warsaw Pact

References

• P. M. H. Bell, The World Since 1945, London, Arnold, 2001, pp.89

v • d • e Eastern Bloc Annexed as, or into, SSRs Estonia · Latvia · Lithuania · Eastern Poland · Eastern Finland · Moldavia Satellite states People's Republic of Hungary · People's Republic of Poland · Czechoslovak Socialist Republic · Romanian People's Republic/Socialist Republic of Romania · East Germany · People's Republic of Albania (to 1961) · People's Republic of Bulgaria · Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (to 1948) Annexing SSRs Russian SFSR · Ukrainian SSR · Byelorussian SSR Related organizations Cominform · COMECON · Warsaw Pact · WFTU · WFDY Revolts and opposition Uprising of 1953 in East Germany · Poznań 1956 protests · Hungarian Revolution of 1956 · Prague Spring and Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia · Solidarity Cold War events Marshall Plan · Berlin Blockade · Tito-Stalin split · Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 · Berlin Wall Crisis of 1961 Conditions Eastern Bloc emigration and defection · Eastern Bloc information dissemination · Eastern Bloc politics · Eastern Bloc economies · Telephone tapping in the Eastern Bloc · List of Eastern Bloc defectors Decline Revolutions of 1989 · Fall of the Berlin Wall  · Singing Revolution · Collapse of the Soviet Union · Dissolution of Czechoslovakia · January 1991 events in Lithuania · January 1991 events in Latvia