At the Beginning of a History: Visions of the Comintern After the Opening of the Archives

Abstract

For a long time the history of communist organizations was primarily written from a party or partisan viewpoint, influenced by topical questions and subjects; 1 the interpretation or judgements offered were closely linked to the political stance of the author at the time of writing. Even works of a later date and conforming to serious academic standards often came from authors who had experienced communism at first hand. Many of them had been forced to leave Soviet Russia after the revolution. In contrast, others were close to a Communist Party or belonged to disappointed adherents or dissidents of communism -"renegades", as the communist organizations were wont to label those they had expelled and vilified.2 The usefulness of works of this kind was not necessarily diminished by virtue of

`For a Revolutionary Workers' Government': Moscow, British Communism and Revisionist Interpretations of the Third Period, 1927—34

“…The new CPGB leadership, installed at the behest of the Russians, was very much part of this 'Stalin generation'. 44 The attitude of the rank-and-file is more problematic. Worley suggests that support for the Comintern in 1928 was either 'unanimous' or 'overwhelming' in the districts, and concludes that the new line 'excited the revolutionary fervour of many a militant Communist'.…”

Comparative Communist History and the ‘Biographical Turn’

“…5 For the Comintern historian, as Studer and her collaborator Berthold Unfried put it, it felt like the beginning of history. 6 The issue, however, was what sort of history. A few years before the opening of the archives Sheila Fitzpatrick had initiated a major controversy among historians of stalinism in Soviet Russia by launching a sort of unauthorised manifesto for a putative new cohort of 'revisionist' historians.…”

Latin American Materials in the Comintern Archive

“…Daniela Spenser-Grollova of Mexico has written a brief•description of the Comintern Archive in the context of the Mexican materials in Spenser-Grollova (1995). For another recent analysis of the archive, see Studer and Unfried (1997). of relations between Moscow and Latin America, although these collections may be more valuable as sources of local history. Parties forwarded information on their own activities, local economic conditions, political campaigns, and labor movements.…”