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Bolshevism, Stalinism and the Comintern pp 22–44Cite as

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The Stalinization of the KPD: Old and New Views

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Abstract

Ever since 1959 and my earliest investigations into the history of the German Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands; KPD) I have pointed to its ‘Stalinization’.1 This ‘section of the Communist International’ (Comintern) copied the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) step by step until, by 1929, it had become ‘an appendage’ of the ‘Stalinist’ Soviet party.2 As I stated in the introduction to the first extensive documentary collection on the history of German communism, published in 1963, ‘Stalinism, imported into the KPD through the channel of the Comintern, completely ruined the party’s political character and its capacity for intellectual leadership’.3

Keywords

  • Communist Party
  • Party Leadership
  • World Communism
  • Social Democratic Party
  • Soviet State

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Notes

  1. H. Weber, Der deutsche Kommunismus. Dokumente ( Cologne: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 1963 ).

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  2. H. Weber, Die Kommunistische Internationale. Eine Dokumentation (Hanover: Dietz, 1966), p. 19ff.

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  3. H. Weber, Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus. Die Stalinisierung der KPD in der Weimarer Republik, 2 volumes ( Frankfurt/M: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1969 ).

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  4. S. Neumann, Die deutschen Parteien. Wesen und Wandel nach dem Kriege ( Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1932 ).

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  5. M. Hildermeier, Die Sowjetunion 1917–91 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001 ), p. 34; L. Luks, Geschichte Russlands und der Sowjetunion ( Regensburg: Pustet, 2000 ).

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  6. H. Weber and A. Herbst, Deutsche Kommunisten. Biographisches Handbuch 1918–45 ( Berlin: Dietz, 2004 ).

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  7. K-M. Mallmann, Kommunisten in der Weimarer Republik. Sozialgeschichte einer revolutionären Bewegung ( Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1996 ).

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  8. H. Weber, ‘Zehn Jahre historische Kommunismusforschung. Leistungen, Defizite, Perspektiven’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 19, 4 (2002), 611ff.

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  9. H. Weber and B. H. Bayerlein (eds.), Der Thälmann-Skandal. Geheime Korrespondenzen mit Stalin ( Berlin: Aufbau, 2003 ).

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  10. E. Reuter, W. Hedeler, H. Helas and K. Kinner (eds.), Luxemburg oder Stalin. Schaltjahr 1928. Die KPD am Scheideweg ( Berlin: Karl Dietz, 2003 ).

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  11. R. Mayntz (ed.), Bürokratische Organisationen ( Cologne: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 1968 ).

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  12. W. Rist, ‘Die innere Krise der KPD’, Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus, 3 (March 1932), 145.

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Authors
  1. Hermann Weber
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Glamorgan, UK

    Norman LaPorte (Senior Lecturer in Modern European History) (Senior Lecturer in Modern European History)

  2. University of Manchester, UK

    Kevin Morgan (Professor of Politics and Contemporary History) (Professor of Politics and Contemporary History)

  3. University of Reading, UK

    Matthew Worley (Lecturer in History) (Lecturer in History)

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© 2008 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Weber, H. (2008). The Stalinization of the KPD: Old and New Views. In: LaPorte, N., Morgan, K., Worley, M. (eds) Bolshevism, Stalinism and the Comintern. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230227583_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230227583_2

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-28252-4

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