The Peasant International (), known most commonly by its Russian abbreviation Krestintern (Крестинтерн), was an international peasants' organization formed by the Communist International (Comintern) in October 1923. The organization attempted to achieve united front relations with radical peasant parties in Eastern Europe and Asia, without lasting success. After failing to make headway with important initiatives in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and China in the 1920s, the organization was placed on hiatus at the end of the decade. The so-called Red Peasant International was formally dissolved in 1939.
Organizational history
Background
The idea for a Red Peasant International is commonly credited to Polish Communist Tomasz Dąbal, a former member of the Polish Peasant Party and representative elected to the Polish parliament. On 19 June 1923, Dąbal published an article in the Soviet Communist Party's daily newspaper, Pravda, noting a surge in popularity of peasants' political parties, particularly in Eastern Europe, and arguing that these organizations might provide fertile soil for the sowing of Communist ideas among the peasantry. One of these ministers, K. Todorov, travelled to Moscow early in January 1924 where he conducted negotiations with Georgi Dimitrov and Vasil Kolarov regarding joint action between their organization and the Communist Party of Bulgaria for the overthrow of the newly imposed Aleksandar Tsankov regime.
The close relations between Radić's organization and the Soviets led to a banning of the Croatian Republican Peasant Party and its official publication, the magazine Radnik (The Worker), were officially banned on 12 July 1924. The journal continued to be issued illegally for a short time before being terminated at the end of September. Rather than bolstering the political position of his organization, Radić's dalliance with the Red Peasant International seemed to have gone far to bringing about its demise. Four months after his release from prison in July 1925, Radić and his party endorsed the monarchy and the Yugoslav constitution and joined the government. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia was left to curse Radić for having made a "shameful capitulation."
In 1926 the Krestintern attempted to help broker cooperative relations between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT) headed by Chiang Kai-shek. The presidium of the International Peasant Council, the top leadership of the Peasant International, issued an open letter to the Kuomintang and its peasant section at the end of April of that year, expressing supreme confidence in that organization as "the center which rallies, unites, and organizes all the revolutionary forces against the pressure of the reactionaries and imperialists." Chiang parlayed this relationship into Soviet aid and a list of CCP members — assets which were later used in a formidable and partially successful effort to annihilate the CCP in the Shanghai massacre of 1927. The Krestintern's activities in China once again proved ineffective for advancing Comintern policy interests. Also in 1926 the Krestintern established a research facility in Moscow for the study of agrarian problems and the publication of books on these topics, known as the International Agrarian Institute. This subdivision of the Peasant International actually continued to exist for several years past the demise of its parent organization, publishing books through 1942, when the German invasion in World War II forced its termination.