Cominform

[kom-in-fawrm]

Cominform [acronym for Communist Information Bureau], information agency organized in 1947 and dissolved in 1956. Its members were the Communist parties of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. The Cominform attempted to reestablish information exchanges among the European Communist parties that had lapsed since the dissolution (1943) of the Comintern. Its decisions were not binding, nor was membership obligatory for Communist parties. It was not a reconstitution of the Comintern, only a setting up of information contacts. Its chief function was the publication of materials designed to demonstrate the unity of its members. In 1948 the Cominform expelled the Yugoslav Communist party because of the defiance by Marshal Tito of Soviet supremacy. In 1956, as a gesture of reconciliation with Tito, the Cominform was dissolved.

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Cominform

in full Communist Information Bureau

Agency of international communism founded under Soviet auspices in 1947. Its original members were the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, France, and Italy, but Yugoslavia was expelled in 1948. The Cominform's activities consisted mainly of publishing propaganda to encourage international communist solidarity. It was dissolved by Soviet initiative in 1956 as part of a Soviet program of reconciliation with Yugoslavia.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Cominform

Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) is the common name for what was officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties. It was the first official forum of the international communist movement since the dissolution of the Comintern, and confirmed the new realities after World War II - including the creation of an Eastern Bloc.

Cominform was a Soviet-dominated organization of Communist parties founded in September, 1947 at a conference of Communist party leaders in Szklarska Poręba, Poland. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin called the conference in response to divergences among eastern European governments on whether or not to attend the Paris Conference on Marshall Aid in July 1947.

The initial seat of Cominform was located in Belgrade (then the capital of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). After the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the group in June 1948, the seat was moved to Bucharest, Romania. The expulsion of Yugoslavia from Cominform for Titoism initiated the Informbiro period in that country's history.

The intended purpose of Cominform was to coordinate actions between Communist parties under Soviet direction. As a result, Cominform acted as a tool of Soviet foreign policy and Stalinism. It had its own newspaper (titled For Lasting Peace, for People's Democracy!), and it encouraged unity of Communist parties under Soviet direction.

Cominform was dissolved in 1956 after Soviet rapprochement with Yugoslavia and the process of De-Stalinization.