Bolshevization was the process starting in the mid-1920s by which the pluralistic Comintern and its constituent communist parties were increasingly subject to pressure by the Kremlin in Moscow to follow Marxism–Leninism. The Comintern became a tool of soviet foreign policy. That policy downplayed autonomy in favor of support for the Soviet Union and its foreign policy. In the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci took the lead in promoting Bolshevization. In Prague, it was Klement Gottwald who came to power in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia by taking charge of Bolshevization.