Abstract
This article examines how anti-imperialist thought in Mexico City inspired internationalism in the 1920s. It uses the concept of “tricontinentalism” to refer to the idea that Latin America, Africa, and Asia should stand in solidarity with each other and argues that tricontinentalist thinking originated not in the Cold War, but in the aftermath of the First World War. The Mexican and the Russian Revolution had demonstrated that radical social change was imaginable. Together with the First World War, which for many in the Americas signaled the demise of European global hegemony, these revolutions represented a new era of political possibilities as well as a tectonic shift in global politics. Consequently, many anti-imperialists in Mexico looked to “the East”, drawing inspiration from the anticolonial revolutions in Africa and Asia. The central question of this article is how anti-imperialist political activists, intellectuals, and artists engaged in tricontinental thinking by writing about China and Morocco. The examined transnational interactions constitute a radical version of an imagined internationalism in the 1920s.
Highlights
After the First World War had shuttered European supremacy over global politics, the system of colonialism seemed badly shaken
The concept of tricontinentalism implies a radical vision of social change on a global level and is more suited to describe the form of radical internationalism than other terms such as “Global South” or “Third World” (YOUNG, 2001, p. 5)
Most Latin American anti-imperialists had since the mid-nineteenth century insisted that their continent suffered from imperialist oppression, but they faced an intricate situation after the First World War: They saw the power of global anticolonialism, but they had to acknowledge that Latin American countries, mostly independent nation-states by the 1920s, had unique aims and unique histories that did not automatically include them into the anticolonial project
Summary
After the First World War had shuttered European supremacy over global politics, the system of colonialism seemed badly shaken. Most Latin American anti-imperialists had since the mid-nineteenth century insisted that their continent suffered from imperialist oppression, but they faced an intricate situation after the First World War: They saw the power of global anticolonialism, but they had to acknowledge that Latin American countries, mostly independent nation-states by the 1920s, had unique aims and unique histories that did not automatically include them into the anticolonial project. This tension could be addressed, but to a certain extent be bridged by anti-imperialism. In Mexico City, like in other metropolises of the time, antiimperialism became a universal language, a lingua franca connecting local, national, and continental struggles to a global problem: the existence of empire
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