Communist International (Comintern)

The Communist International (known as Comintern or the Third International) had it’s first congress in 1919 in Moscow.

The first Irish party affiliated to the Comintern was the Socialist Party of Ireland, which changed it’s name to the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) on affiliation in 1921. This party was defunct within a few years and was superceded by James Larkin’s Irish Worker League (IWL).

The IWL had limited organisation and was dominated by Larkin. A brief attempt to form an alternative Comintern affiliate, The Workers’ Party of Ireland, by a group including former members of the first CPI such as Roddy Connolly, was unsuccessful when it was refused entry to the Comintern in February 1927 and instructed to disssolve into the IWL.

Other short-lived groups during this period include International Class War Prisoners’ Aid and the Labour Defense League, both linked to International Red Aid; and Peadar O’Donnell’s Anti-Tribute League, which was affiliated with Krestintern.

As the IWL became defunct in the late 1920s, the next concerted effort to form an Irish affiliate was the formation of the Revolutionary Workers’ Groups, which later formed the foundation for the Communist Party of Ireland (1933).

The Comintern was dissolved by Stalin in 1943.