in full Communist Information Bureau
Agency of international communism founded under Soviet auspices in 1947.
Its original members were the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, France, and Italy, but Yugoslavia was expelled in 1948. The Cominform's activities consisted mainly of publishing propaganda to encourage international communist solidarity. It was dissolved by Soviet initiative in 1956 as part of a Soviet program of reconciliation with Yugoslavia.