The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.

Third Period refers to the ultra-left policy adopted by the Comintern, following the end of the New Economic Policy in the Soviet Union in 1928 up to the adoption of the Popular Front policy in 1934. The Third Period policy came to an abrupt end with the inauguration of the Popular Front policy in the period beginning in 1934. The sudden 180° turn in the policy of the Comintern in 1934 caused considerable confusion among those workers who had been drawn in by the ultra-left rhetoric of the "Third Period". Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... Ultra-leftism is a term used initially to the Ultra Left current of Marxist communism closely related to council communism and left communism and, later, to identify and criticise positions, especially by those within the mainstream historical Marxist parties, to describe a position which is adopted without taking notice of... The Comintern (Russian: Коммунистический Интернационал, Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional – Communist International, also known as the Third International) was an international Communist organization founded in March 1919, in the midst of the war communism period (1918-1921), by Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), which intended to fight by all available means, including... The New Economic Policy (NEP; in Russian Новая экономическая политика - Novaya Ekonomicheskaiya Politika or НЭП) was officially decided in the course of the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party. ... Popular Fronts comprise broad coalitions of political and other groups, often made up of oppositioners or left wingers, and often united against particularly stringent circumstances. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Popular Fronts comprise broad coalitions of political and other groups, often made up of oppositioners or left wingers, and often united against particularly stringent circumstances. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

In December of 1927, the Russian Communist Party held its Fifteenth Party Congress; prior to this Congress, the faction of the Party led by Stalin had supported the continuation of the New Economic Policy. Industry had become undercapitalized, and prices were rising, leading to growing political instability. The NEP had resulted in an enrichment of certain privileged sections of the Russian and Ukrainian peasantry (the Kulaks) because of deregulation of prices for grain. An embryonic new bourgeoisie was meanwhile growing up on the basis of the market relations introduced under the N.E.P. and gaining increasing influence both within the Party and in the state apparatus. The crisis of capitalism was coming to a head with the beginning of the Great Depression, and the Communist International's Sixth Congress viewed capitalism as entering a final death agony, its "third period of existence" where the first had been capitalism during its rise prior to World War I, and the second was the short period after the crushing of the post-WWI revolutions when capitalism seemed again to have stabilized. The formal institution of the Third Period occurred at the 9th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (E.C.C.I.) in February of 1928. This helped in dovetailing the "Left" of the Russian Communist Party with that of the Comintern itself. 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( Russian: Коммунисти́ческая Па́ртия Сове́тского Сою́за = КПСС) was the name used by the successors of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from 1952 to 1991, but the wording Communist Party was present in the partys name since 1918 when... A Party Congress is a general conference of a political party. ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი; see Other names section) (December 21, 1879[1] – March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and leader of the Soviet Union. ... In a detail of Brueghels Land of Cockaigne (1567) a soft-boiled egg has little feet to rush to the luxuriating peasant who catches drops of honey on his tongue, while roast pigs roam wild: the 16th century was a good time for European peasants A peasant, from 15th... Kulaks (from the Russian кулак (kulak, fist)) is a pejorative term extensively used in Soviet political language, originally referring to relatively wealthy peasants in the Russian Empire who owned larger farms and used hired labor, as a result of the Stolypin reform introduced since 1906. ... Deregulation is the process by which governments remove restrictions on business in order to (in theory) encourage the efficient operation of markets. ... bourgeoisie is basically a trem that meens middle class. ... A market is, as defined in economics, a social arrangement that allows buyers and sellers to discover information and carry out a voluntary exchange. ... For other uses, see Capitalism (disambiguation). ... The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn, starting in 1929 (although its effects were not fully felt until late in 1930) and lasting through most of the 1930s. ... The first edition of Communist International, journal of the Comintern published in Moscow and Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) in May 1919. ... Combatants Allied Powers: British Empire French Empire Italy Russian Empire Kingdom of Serbia United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary Bulgaria German Empire Ottoman Empire Commanders Douglas Haig Sir John Jellicoe Ferdinand Foch Nikolay II Nikolay Yudenich Radomir Putnik Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Wilhelm II Reinhard Scheer Franz Josef I Oskar... It has been suggested that Revolutionary be merged into this article or section. ...

To the Comintern, a decisive and final revolutionary upheaval was afoot and all its sections had to prepare for the immediate advent of world revolution. As part of this theory, because the Comintern felt that conditions were strong enough, it demanded that its political positions within the workers’ movement be consolidated and that all "reactionary" elements be purged. Accordingly, attacks and expulsions were launched against social democrats, socialists within labor unions where the local CP had majority support, Trotskyists, and those advocating a united front with other parties professing communist ideas. The CPSU encouraged armed rebellion in China, Germany, and elsewhere despite these countries not objectively possessing the mass support needed for a successful communist revolution. It has been suggested that Revolutionary be merged into this article or section. ... World revolution is a Marxist concept of a violent overthrow of capitalism that would take place in all countries, although not necessarily simultaneously. ... Reactionary (or reactionist) is a political epithet, generally used as a pejorative, originally applied in the context of the French Revolution to counter-revolutionaries who wished to restore the real or imagined conditions of the monarchical Ancien Régime. ... Social democracy is a political ideology emerging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from supporters of Marxism who believed that the transition to a socialist society could be achieved through democratic evolutionary rather than revolutionary means. ... Socialism is any economic system in which the means of production are owned and controlled collectively or a political philosophy advocating such a system. ... Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ... In Leninist bogus, a united front is a coalition of Clinton likeleft-wing working class forces which put forward a common set of demands and share a common plan of action, but which do not subordinate themselves to the front, retaining their abilities for independent political action and continuing to... A communist revolution is a social revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, normally with socialism (public ownership over the means of production) as an intermediate stage. ...

Despite shortcomings and crippling ideological vaccillations, the tone of the "Third Period" resonated powerfully with the mood of many militant workers, especially following the Stock Market Crash of 1929. In many countries, including the United States, the Communist Parties grew as a result of the "Third Period" policies. The 1929 stock market crash devastated economies worldwide The Wall Street Crash refers to the stock market crash that occurred on October 29, 1929, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed, leading eventually to the Great Depression. ... The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is one of several Marxist-Leninist groups in the United States. ...

Source

Adapted from a public domain article by David Walters for the Marxists Internet Archive's Encyclopedia of Marxism.