The VKP(b) and the Political Situation in China after the Dissolution of the Comintern

Abstract

The article is devoted to the influence of the dissolution of the Comintern on the events in China, as well as to the activities of the Department of International Information (DII) formed instead of the Comintern under the Central Committee of the VKP(b). The self-dissolution of the Comintern was positively received by both political forces in China — the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang. This decision of the ECCI (Executive Committee of the Communist International) allowed Mao Zedong to secure a leading position in the party and isolate the Comintern in the Politburo from the CPC Central Committee. Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek took advantage of the disappearance of the "International Communist Headquarters" to discredit the CPC as a "foreign product" hostile to China.   However, quite quickly, China found itself on the brink of civil war, threatening the collapse of the anti-Japanese national united front. Only the position of the USSR, the USA and the democratic forces in China did not allow Chiang Kai-shek to start a punitive campaign against the Special Region of China and the Communist Party. For more than two years, relations between the two parties remained extremely tense. G. Dimitrov, the actual head of the DII, had neither the authority nor the opportunity to somehow influence the political events in the neighboring country. The functions of his department were reduced mainly to the collection of information. Moreover, the main role in obtaining information was played by representatives of the Soviet special services located at the headquarters of the Central Committee of the CPC in Yan'an, as well as in Chongqing, the country's temporary capital, where the negotiations between the CPC and the Kuomintang took place. The defeat of Japan and the end of World War II changed the form and the possibilities of relations between the VKP(b) and the CPC.