The importance of being Third

The First and Second Internationals were not real ones, but a federation of groups and parties. For Lenin, the Third International had to be in earnest – it had to be a real party. It was, and it survived for twenty-four years. Being the Third, it was also the most important.

Just as it is impossible to study twentieth-century history without referring sooner or later to the Russian Revolution, it is also impossible to understand its development without understanding the ubiquitous role of the Communist Party. Even if the Soviet Union had wanted the revolution to remain only a national uprising confined to the boundaries of the ancient Tsardom of All the Russias, the huge extent of its land, not to mention other elements, would have given in any case an international dimension to the process. But the confessed internationalism of the Bolsheviks added a particular dynamism to what, as with all revolutions, was dynamic in itself: the Russian outburst was not only the Russian Revolution, but the starting point of world revolution. The Bolshevik Party was not only a Russian party, but the embryo of the World Communist Party.

This World Communist Party was named the Communist International (Comintern) and it was not conceived as a loose federation of national parties, but as a single body, centrally organized and, in fact, one party.

Such a party governing such a country and with such an aim, naturally provoked strong reactions, both positive and negative.