The International Agrarian Bureau (IAB; Czech: Mezinárodní Agrární Bureau, French: Bureau International Agraire), commonly known as the Green International (Zelená Internacionála, Internationale Verte), was founded in 1921 by the agrarian parties of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia. The creation of a continental association of peasants was championed by Aleksandar Stamboliyski of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, but originated with earlier attempts by Georg Heim. Following Stamboliyski's downfall in 1923, the IAB came to be dominated by the Republican Party of Farmers and Peasants in Czechoslovakia, whose member Karel Mečíř served as its first leader. Mečíř was able to extend the IAB beyond its core in Slavic Europe, obtaining support from the National Peasants' Party in Greater Romania; as an ideologue, Milan Hodža introduced the Green International to European federalism. Hodža also redefined international agrarianism as a "Third Way" movement. The Bureau was thus a key competitor with the Krestintern, or "Red Peasant International", which existed as a proxy of the Communist International (or Comintern). In 1929 to 1934, the IAB also gathered allegiances from parties in other areas of the continent, managing to draw the Croatian Peasant Party away from the Krestintern, and helping to create the French Agrarian and Peasant Party. This drive was interrupted by the spread of fascism, which identified Greens as its enemies—although some sections of the IAB came to favor cooperation with the various fascist movements. From 1933, Nazi Germany also interfered directly in the politics of IAB countries. Germany's occupation of Czechoslovakia, and subsequently its takeover of Continental Europe, put an end to IAB activities, though attempts were still made to revive it from London. In 1947, the Bureau was reestablished as the International Peasant Union (IPU), grouping agrarianist refugees from the Eastern Bloc. This group incorporated the Polish People's Party and the Hungarian Smallholders Party, whose leaders Stanisław Mikołajczyk and Ferenc Nagy were successively IPU presidents. Primarily anti-communist, this Green International fought a propaganda war against the Soviet Union, exposing its involvement in mass murders and its brutal oppression of agrarian movements. This new Green International was powerless in effecting political change in Soviet-dominated countries, although its activities attracted the attention of communist regimes, who described the IPU as "fascist". In 1952, authorities in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic indicted a number of political and intellectual figures during a show trial of the Green International; the sentences were overturned in the 1960s. Beset by financial troubles, apathy, and disagreements between its leaders, the IPU itself was inactive from 1971.
IAB
Origins The concept of a "Green International" in the service of peasant interests dates back to the 1900s: in 1905, an Italian Socialist Party newspaper voiced hopes that such a movement would be formed around the International Institute of Agriculture. In 1907, an International Confederation of Agricultural Associations was formed in the German Empire, but it failed to survive World War I. It was later partly revived as a Pan-German Peasants' Association, which received memberships from the Low Countries and Scandinavia. The notion of a "Green International" was again explored during the early interwar period, being embraced by Georg Heim of the Bavarian People's Party (BVP). From late 1918, at a height of a revolutionary upheaval in Europe in 1918, Heim worked on the unification of "peasant and conservative forces from all countries." His effort only touched the former Central Powers and countries that had been neutral in World War I: a conference at Berlin in mid 1919 had delegates from Weimar Germany, German Austria, Hungary, and the Netherlands; Swiss and Belgian politicians sent messages of support, although the Dutch delegation itself remained skeptical about the possibility of Heim's movement being successful. In November 1920, Heim was in Budapest, advocating for a parallel rapprochement between the Hungarian Kingdom, the Austrian Republic, and Bavaria. He also channeled support for the Green International, described by one of his Hungarian disciples as an effective way to combat Comintern influence—since "the so-called 'bourgeois' classes proved incapable of toppling Bolshevism on their own." According to the same source, the International was supposed to diffuse the "ideas of order" among the peasant class, while endorsing the cooperative movement and regulating the market for the benefit of all classes, "not just peasant producers". The emerging organization was centered on Vienna, selected by Heim because of its location, but also because of his belief that Austria needed to be kept distinct from Germany; another factor was that Austria was governed by the Christian Social Party, whose members were "principally recruited among the peasant masses". Heim earned pledges of support from throughout Central and Eastern Europe; his project therefore superseded a rival attempt by the Farmers' League (BdL) in Sudetenland to form a Pan-German "Congress of Peasants". He was unable to prevent competition by the International Peasant Congress, which was centered on Strasbourg and reserved membership for countries that had also joined the League of Nations—thus excluding Weimar Germany. This group, itself dubbed a "Green International", held its second meeting in Paris in November 1920. During its sessions, Angelo Mauri of the Italian People's Party proposed a merger with Heim's group, which Heim himself welcomed. Reports of the following year suggest that Heim had also earned promises of support from Venstre in Denmark, from the Peasants' League (PB) of the Netherlands, and from the Agrarian Party in Hungary. The Peasants' Party (PȚ) of Greater Romania and the Agrarian Party (ZS) of Yugoslavia were also participants in Heim's exchange. In mid 1921, Hungarian agrarianist János Mayer made an effort to mediate between the French- and German-centered peasant Internationals, but the former adamantly refused. Managed by Swiss farmer Ernst Laur, the International Peasant Congress survived to at least 1929, when its European and American members met in Bucharest. However, it had by then evolved into a non-political movement.
Creation
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