Socialist Internationalism and National Classifications at the Comintern Schools (1922–1943)

Abstract

Communist internationalism has been studied either as a Soviet foreign policy tool or, recently, as a "transnational" space. This article suggests that for Marxism-Leninism, "socialist internationalism" implied a shared project of independent nations as political units, a paradigm the Communist International (Comintern) sought to foster in several schools that trained thousands of foreign revolutionaries between 1922 and 1943. The article argues that the Comintern tried to forge these students not only as Marxists but also as national subjects, showing how they adopted, negotiated, or rejected national classifications through different strategies that actually enhanced the national principle imposed on them.