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.
The most delicate job entrusted to the O.M.S. resident agents is the distribution of money to finance the Communist Parties, their expensive propaganda and their false fronts—such, for instance, as the League for Peace and Democracy, the International Labor Defense, the International Workers’ Aid, the Friends of the Soviet Union, and a host of ostensibly non-partisan organizations, which became especially important cogs when Moscow embarked upon the popular front.
For many years, while revolutionary prospects there seemed promising, the Comintern poured the greater part of its money into Germany and Central Europe. But when it became more decisively an appendage of the Soviet government, and revolutionary objectives were sidetracked in favor of Stalinizing public opinion and capturing key positions in the democratic governments, Moscow’s budgets for France, Great Britain and the United States were enormously increased.
At no time has any single Communist Party in the world managed to cover more than a very small percentage of its expenses. Moscow’s own estimate is that it must bear on an average from ninety to ninety-five per cent of the expenditures of foreign Communist Parties. This money is paid from the Soviet treasury through the O.M.S. in sums decided upon by Stalin’s Political Bureau.
The O.M.S. resident agent is the judge, in the first instance, of the wisdom of any new expenditure which a Communist Party wishes to make. In the United States, for example, if the Political Bureau of the American Communist Party contemplates the publication of a new newspaper, the O.M.S. agent is consulted. He considers the suggestion, and if it merits attention he communicates with the O.M.S. headquarters in Moscow. From there, in important cases, it is referred to the Political Bureau of the Russian Bolshevik Party for decision. In minor matters, of course, the O.M.S. representative has wide discretion.
One of the favorite methods of transmitting money and instructions from Moscow to a foreign country for the use of the local Communist Party is through the diplomatic pouches, which are immune from search. For this reason the O.M.S. representative is usually employed in a nominal capacity in the Soviet Embassy. From Moscow he receives, in packages bearing the seal of the Soviet government, rolls of bank notes together with sealed instructions for their distribution. He personally delivers the roll of bills to the Communist leader, with whom he maintains direct contact. Through carelessness, American, British and French bank notes have several times been sent abroad for Comintern use bearing the telltale stamp of the Soviet State Bank.
In the first years of the Comintern the financing was done even more crudely. I recall a time when the procedure was for the Political Bureau to order the Cheka (Ogpu) to deliver sacks of confiscated diamonds and gold to the Comintern for shipment abroad. Still other methods have since been developed. Convenient blinds are the Soviet Trading Corporations, such as the Arcos in London and the Amtorg in the United States, and connected private business firms. The constant displacement of leaders in the foreign Communist Parties
