ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the situation of the Communists in most of East-Central Europe between the world wars was similar to that of the Finnish Communists. The conditions for the establishment of Communist parties in the region of East-Central Europe between the wars, in terms of Stefano Bartolini's three criteria outlined at the beginning of the chapter: delayed industrialization, a non-homogenous working class, and class polarization of the countryside. The majority of Communist parties in Europe were founded after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, and by the early 1920s they had appeared in almost every European country. Communist traditionalism is to a certain degree explainable by its opposition to the reformist course. In Hungary the party was pushed underground after the Hungarian Councils Republic, headed mainly by Communists led by Bla Kun. The most visible display of an impending transformation of identity among the Western Communist movements was the Euro communism of the 1970s.
