[7] On April 22, 1920, the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) voted to hold a 2nd World Congress of its member parties at some indefinite date in the near future.

[8] War between Soviet Russia and Poland raged in the summer of 1920 and wrecked locomotives and derailed freight cars lined the tracks, further complicating the transportation situation.

[11] Three French delegates lost their lives in transit, when a small fishing boat setting sail from Murmansk in an attempt to run the Allied blockade went down in stormy weather.

[11] The Congress was scheduled to open on July 15, but owing to rampant transit difficulties, many delegates had not arrived in Soviet Russia by that date.

[12] Following a meal in the Great Hall of Smolny, the delegates, accompanied by thousands of Petrograd workers, marched to the Uritsky Theater where they heard a keynote address on the international situation and the tasks of the Comintern delivered by Lenin.

[12] Afterwards the delegates participated in a mass demonstration before gathering at the former stock exchange to see a costume drama called "Spectacle of the Two Worlds" performed by a cast of 3,000.

[14] Voting strength of each delegation was based upon the relative importance of each national party to the international communist movement rather than the actual size of the membership of these groups.

[15] Two sessions were dedicated to discussion of the structure and role of Communist parties, with a summary report and theses delivered to the body by Comintern Chairman Grigorii Zinoviev.

Such so-called "Centrist" parties, with the German USPD in the first rank, sought a more inclusive and advisory role for the Comintern, in line with the model utilized by the ill-fated Second International.

[16] On July 25, the Commission on Conditions for Admission voted 5–3 on a proposal by Lenin that only parties with a clear majority on their governing Central Committee favoring affiliation to the Comintern prior to the 2nd World Congress would be permitted membership in that organization.

[22] Ultimately, the majority of the 2nd World Congress moved to support Lenin's policy, detailed at length in his recently published book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder.

[24] Theses on colonial issues were presented to the Congress by Indian radical M. N. Roy, formally a delegate from the fledgling Communist Party of Mexico, Avetis Sultan-Zade of Persia, and Pak Chin-sun of Korea.

[24] The final resolution of the Congress directed communists in colonial countries to support the "national-revolutionary" movement in each, without regard to the fact that non-communist and non-working class elements such as the bourgeoisie and the peasantry might be dominant.