On Soviet Russia’s western border was Estonia, a tiny nation, then apparently in the throes of a crisis. Zinoviev and the executive committee of the Comintern decided to throw all Marxian theory to the wind. Summoning the chief of the Intelligence Department of the Red Army, General Berzin, Zinoviev spoke to him along these lines: Estonia is in a revolutionary crisis. We will not act there as we did in Germany. We will use new methods—no strikes, no agitation. All we need is a few courageous groups under the command of a handful of Red Army officers, and in two or three days we will be masters of Estonia.
General Berzin was a man who obeyed orders. In a few days a group of about sixty reliable Red Army officers, mainly Baltic Russians, was organized under Zhibur, one of the heroes of the civil war. They were directed to enter Estonia through different routes, some through Finland and Latvia, others by slipping across the Soviet border. Awaiting them in Estonia were scattered special Communist units totaling about two hundred men. By late November all preparations were ready.
On the morning of December 1, 1924, a “revolution” struck at specified focal points in Reval, the capital. The country remained completely calm. The workers proceeded to their factories as usual. Business moved at a normal pace, and in about four hours the “revolution” was completely crushed. About one hundred and fifty Communists were shot on the spot. Hundreds of others not connected with the affair in any way, were jailed. The Red Army officers returned quickly to Russia along pre-arranged routes. Zhibur reappeared at his desk in the offices of the General Staff, and the Estonian “revolution” was hushed up as quickly as possible.
In Bulgaria, the Comintern enjoyed a period of prosperity while Stambouliski, the leader of the Peasant Party, was in power. Stambouliski was friendly to Moscow. The remnants of General Wrangel’s White Army, which the Bolsheviks had driven out of the Crimea, were on Bulgarian territory, and the Soviet government was anxious to break up this force. With Stambouliski’s consent Russia sent a group of secret agents into Bulgaria for this purpose. These agents used every method of propaganda, including the publication of a newspaper, and every means of terror, including assassination. To a considerable extent they were successful in demoralizing this potential anti-Soviet army.
Despite these friendly relations between Stambouliski and Moscow, when in 1923 Tsankoff executed a military revolt against Stambouliski’s government Moscow directed the Bulgarian Communist Party to remain neutral. The Communist leaders hoped that as a result of the death struggle between the army reactionaries and Stambouliski, they would gain full power for themselves.
Stambouliski was overthrown and slain. Tsankoff established a military dictatorship. Thousands of innocent people went to the gallows, and the Communist Party was driven underground.
Two years passed and the Comintern decided that the time had come for a Communist putsch against the Tsankoff government. A conspiracy was organized in Moscow by the leaders of the Bulgarian Communist Party with the assistance of Red Army officers. One of these Bulgarian leaders was George Dimitrov. The Communists learned that on April 16, 1925, all the ranking members of the Bulgarian government would attend services in the Sveti Cathedral in Sofia. They decided to use the occasion for their uprising. By order of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Party, a bomb was exploded in the cathedral during the religious services. About one hundred and fifty persons were killed. But Premier Tsankoff and the important members of his government survived. All the direct participants in the bombing were executed.
Dimitrov himself continued to work for the Comintern in Moscow. He became its representative in Germany. Late in 1932 he was ordered back to Moscow, and people on the inside said that his career was at an end. Before he could obey the order he was arrested in connection with the historic Reichstag fire. His bold and clever behavior before the Nazi court, where he succeeded in fixing the guilt on the Nazis themselves, made him the Communist hero of the day.
It is one of the inimitable ironies of Comintern history that Dimitrov, one of those responsible for the Sofia bombing, later became, as president of the Comintern, the official spokesman of “democracy,” “peace,” and the popular front.
Moscow had elaborate theoretical explanations for its failures in Hungary, Poland, Germany, Estonia and Bulgaria. These filled volumes of theses, resolutions and reports. In no case, however, was it suggested that Bolshevism and its Russian leaders were responsible. The myth of the infallibility of the Comintern leaderhip was preserved with ecclesiastical stubbornness. The clearer became the fact of failure, the more grandiose became the plans for the future, and the more complicated the international structure of the Comintern.
Although the Communist International never accomplished its primary aim, the establishment of a Communist dictatorship, in a single country, it became—especially after it turned to the stratagem of the popular front—one of the most important political agencies in the world.
The general framework of the Comintern is no secret. It is widely known that there are Communist Parties, legal or illegal, in every country of the world. The world knows that the headquarters are in Moscow. But it knows almost nothing of the real apparatus, and its intimate connection with the Ogpu and Soviet Military Intelligence.
The general staff of the Comintern is located in a building facing the Kremlin and heavily guarded by Ogpu agents in civilian attire. It is no spot for curious Muscovites to congregate. Persons who have business within the building, whatever their rank, are subjected to the very closest scrutiny from the moment they enter until they depart. To the left of the main entrance is the office of the commandant, staffed by Ogpu agents.
If Earl Browder, general secretary of the American Communist Party, desires an audience with Dimitrov, he must obtain a pass in the commandant’s office, where his papers will be thoroughly examined. Before he is permitted to leave the Comintern building his pass will again be examined. It must bear, in Dimitrov’s hand, the exact moment when their interview ended. If any time has elapsed since the end of the interview, an investigation is conducted on the spot. Every minute spent in the Comintern building must be accounted for and recorded. Informal chats in the corridors are severely discouraged and it is not unusual for an Ogpu agent to reprimand a ranking official of the Comintern for violation of these rules. This system provides the Ogpu with a comprehensive file regarding the associations of Russian and foreign Communists, which can be put to use at the proper time.
The heart of the Comintern is the little known and never publicized International Liaison Section, known by its Russian initials as the O.M.S.* Until the purge got under way, the O.M.S. was headed by Piatnitsky, a veteran Bolshevik, trained during the Czarist regime in the practical business of distributing illegal revolutionary propaganda. Piatnitsky had been in charge of the transport of Lenin’s paper, Iskra, from Switzerland to Russia in the early part of the century. When the Communist International was organized Lenin’s choice for head of the all-important Foreign Liaison Section naturally fell upon Piatnitsky. As the chief of the O.M.S. he became, in effect, the Finance Minister and Director of Personnel of the Comintern.
He created a world-wide network of permanently stationed agents responsible to him, to act as the liaison officers between Moscow and the nominally autonomous Communist Parties of Europe, Asia, Latin America and the United States. As resident agents of the Comintern, these O.M.S. representatives hold the whip over the leaders of the Communist Party in the country in which they are stationed. Neither the rank and file, nor even the majority of the leaders of the Communist Parties, know the identity of the O.M.S. representative, who is responsible to Moscow, and who does not participate directly in party discussions.
In recent years the Ogpu has gradually taken over many of the O.M.S. functions, especially the hunting down and reporting to Moscow of cases of heresy against Stalin. However, in the immensely complicated work of subsidizing and co-ordinating the activities of the Communist Parties, the O.M.S. is still the chief instrument.
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