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 Communist International published a namesake theoretical magazine in a variety of European languages from 1919 to 1943.
The Bolshevik by Boris Kustodiev, 1920
Second Congress of the Communist International
Painting by Boris Kustodiev representing the festival of the Comintern II Congress on the Uritsky Square (former Palace square) in Petrograd
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), at some points known as the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet Communist Party (SCP), was the founding and ruling political party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the sole governing party of the Soviet Union until 1990 when the Congress of People's Deputies modified Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, which had previously granted the CPSU a monopoly over the political system. The party's main ideology was Marxism–Leninism.
A neighborhood in the Kozhukhovsky Bay of the Moskva River with a large sign promoting the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Moscow, 1975
Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union and the leader of the Bolshevik party.
Leon Trotsky, founder of the Red Army and a key figure in the October Revolution.
The Brezhnev era is commonly referred to by historians as the Era of Stagnation, a term coined by CPSU General Secretary Gorbachev.