This book explores the history of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) during the period 1918–1956, showing how domestic communism was linked to international developments.

The history of the KKE reveals the role that Moscow played within the various communist parties of southeastern Europe, as Nikos Marantzidis shows that the international institutions of communism (leadership center in Moscow, Comintern, Balkan Communist Federation, Cominform, brother parties in the Balkans) were not mere external factors influencing their orientation and political choices.

Based on research of unpublished and published archival materials located in Greece, Russia, Eastern and Western Europe, as well as in the Balkan countries, the book traces the interactions of the Greek communist movement with the brother parties of neighboring states and with their notorious top leaders in Stalin's Soviet Russia.

Marantzidis demonstrates that, as the boundaries between the national and the international in the communist world were not clear-cut, international institutions, Soviet geopolitical interests, and the strategies of brother parties significantly shaped the leadership of the KKE, its character as a party, its decision-making process, and the way of life of its supporters over time.