The “International of Moscow” or the “International of Buenos Aires”? The Comintern and the Paraguayan Communist Party

Abstract

This article retraces the almost unknown and ideologically distorted history of the Communist Party of Paraguay. It describes the particularities of the small, early communist movement and analyses the process of expulsion of the first party leader Lucas Ibarrola triggered by Vittorio Codovilla in the name of the South American Secretariat of the Communist International. Unexpectedly, the Bolivian-Paraguayan „Chaco“-War highlighted the international role of PCP but served as a blueprint of the didactics and inconstancies of the new Stalinist standards.

St Petersburg State University