Communist Activity Research Articles

Działalność Michała Żymierskiego w czasie okupacji niemieckiej w świetle akt Ministerstwa Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego

The Activity of Michał Żymierski during the German Occupation in the Light of the Records of the Ministry of Public SecurityThe article was based on material used by officers of the Ministry of Public Security and the Main Directorate of Information of the Polish Army during the 1950s in connection with a struggle waged against the so-called rightist-nationalist deviation in the Party and the Army. One of the chief examined motifs was an attempt at establishing the nature of the activity pursued by Żymierski at the time of the German occupation. Apparently, from the very onset Żymierski maintained steady contacts with German secret agents in Warsaw. Other symptoms indicate that he could have established contacts with officers of the German secret police. During the first years of the occupation Żymierski tried to take an active part in the Polish Underground but initially found himself on the margin of conspiracy work (as the head of the Reserve Officers’ Association); with time, he also made contacts with members of larger conspiracies, such as “Miecz i Pług” (Sword and Plough). In addition, Żymierski attempted to join the main current of the Polish Underground and become a member of Związek Walki Zbrojnej/Armia Krajowa (Union for Armed Struggle/Home Army). In the spring of 1942 the future communist marshal renewed his links with the Soviet Intelligence for which he had worked already in the 1930s. Until 1945 he sent from the occupied Polish capital information concerning acquaintances in political and military Underground organisations. The Soviet Intelligence headquarters in Moscow used him for work in the communist underground military organisation – Gwardia Ludowa (People’s Guard – GL); on 1 January 1944 Żymierski became head of GL’s successor – Armia Ludowa (People’s Army). In this manner, he found himself within a small group of communist activists who after the war seized power in Poland.

Joseph Berger: Communist Activist in Palestine and Victim of Stalinism (1904–1978)

The Polish-born Joseph Berger took part in the founding of the Palestine Communist Party. The party had to operate under illegal conditions. Berger became deputy secretary of the party that joined the Comintern in March 1924. After the first Arab-Jewish civil war in August 1929 he became secretary of the party, but was, in 1930, expelled from the country by British mandate authorities. In Berlin he worked for the League against Imperialism. In 1932 he headed the Comintern’s Near Eastern Department in Moscow. In 1934 he was dismissed from his post and expelled from the party without any given reason. In January 1935 Berger was arrested and charged with being a Trotskyite agitator. He refused to “confess” and spent the next sixteen years in various Siberian labor camps. In 1951, he was released, only to be banished to life-long exile in Siberia. His wife and his son were also persecuted on his account, and they could see him only when they were allowed to visit him in Siberia. In 1956 Berger was officially rehabilitated and allowed to leave the Soviet Union for Poland. Soon the family decided to immigrate to Israel. Berger was invited to give lectures at Bar Ilan University. Later the university appointed him as an associate professor of political science. Berger had completely abandoned his communist faith and had become religious. He nevertheless considered himself left-leaning. In the late 1960s he dictated his memoirs to friends about his time in Soviet camps and prisons.

From Stars and Stripes Editor to FBI Informant

By the time Sgt. Kenneth Pettus became managing editor of the Tokyo edition of the Stars and Stripes military newspaper in 1945, he had spent years involved in low-level Communist Party activities in the United States. But it wasn't until Pettus was accused of disloyalty and removed from his post that the FBI began tracking him, in an effort that lasted for the next decade. After initially denying his Communist activities, Pettus eventually became an FBI informant who divulged the names of ninety-five others whom he revealed as Communists or Communist sympathizers, including writer and activist Louis “Studs” Terkel. What the FBI really wanted, however, was for Pettus to induce the cooperation of his brother Terry Pettus, a much more prominent Communist activist who got his start leading a Newspaper Guild strike in Seattle. While Ken Pettus named names, Terry Pettus refused, costing him seventy-three days in jail on contempt charges.

Roman Zambrowski. Biografia komunisty – źródła i metodologia badań

The example of the biography of Roman Zambrowski is used to highlight the troubles with recreating the story and views of the Polish communist. First of all, the base of sources for such work must be characterised, especially the Comintern archives, memoirs and personal accounts. Discussing the specific content of Polish communists’ personal files drawn up in Moscow is essential. Moreover, I will also discuss the biography as a pretext to outline the political environment, i.e. a group of communist activists from the “Polish Communist Party generation”, through the perspective of Zambrowski’s life.

The rise of the national-popular and its limits: communism and the cultural in Kerala

The emergence of the communist movement in Kerala, India in a society that was characterized by immense divisions of caste and class is significant for understanding social transformation. What is of particular importance is the ways in which the communist activists who spoke the language of a supposedly alien ideology engaged with a populace that was predominantly agrarian and poor. This paper will look at the communist engagement with certain aspects of culture, specifically songs, folk arts and theater, in the initial years of the movement, and will argue that something akin to a national-popular will was constructed, which broke down many existing hierarchies and created new unities. But this engagement was equally characterized by many contradictions and spectacular failures, which dented the emerging national-popular will. The cultural, and the communist engagement with it will played a crucial role in laying the seeds of a substantive postcolonial democracy but only in relative terms and without necessarily conferring on the most exploited classes equal rights.

Anticipation of Civil War: The Polish Government in Exile and the Threat Posed by the Communist Movement During the Second World War

After the occupation of Polish territories by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939 a Polish government was formed in exile. At the same time in occupied territories underground resistance organisations emerged. All pre-war parties, to some extent, collaborated with each other. Throughout the war the government, its agencies in occupied Poland and the armed resistance prepared to take power after the war. They assumed that the end of the war would be followed by a civil war, or at least by revolutionary activities, as had happened after the First World War. Since the Communist party remained outside the consensus formed by the war time organizations, the government in exile and those loyal to it in occupied Poland feared that it would spearhead Soviet entry into Poland. Moreover they were anxious that the Communists would act as a catalyst for the revolutionary upsurges, which they anticipated. Thus throughout the war, but in particular from 1943, they gathered intelligence information on Communist activities in occupied Poland. They also investigated the likelihood of the Communists acting as a focal point for the disaffected radical elements from the peasant and the Socialist parties. This article suggests that contrary to the assertion that the main aim of war time policies was the restoration of an independent Poland, planning for the capture of power played an important role in war-time debates.

Labour Ministers, intelligence and domestic anti-Communism, 1945–1951

Relations between the post-war Labour Government and Britain's Security Service (MI5) have often been seen as strained. Utilising recently released material, the article argues that, rather than view the Service with disdain, Labour Ministers saw MI5 as an important instrument of Government, relying upon it for information on Fascist and Communist activities to inform government policy, particularly with the development of vetting procedures. It also details the development and early activities of the Committee on Communism (Home) and the involvement of the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD) in domestic propaganda. As such it can be seen that, by 1951 and the end of their tenure in office, Labour Ministers had overseen the development of a complex anti-Communist strategy aimed at protecting the British Cold War state.

From Sensation to Oblivion: Boven Digoel in Sino-Malay Novels

Abstract The so-called ‘Sino-Malay literature’ has often been characterized as literary publications that were commercial and very rarely political. This essay however draws attention to three novels written by prominent Indies Chinese authors on the colonial internment camp for communist activists, Boven Digoel. Written in three different decades, Kwee Tek Hoay’s Drama di Boven Digoel (Drama in Boven Digoel, 1928-1932), Liem Khing Hoo’s Merah (Red, 1937), and Njoo Cheong Seng’s Taufan gila (Mad typhoon, 1950) reflect not only individual journeys of Digoel-bound activists, but also the political landscapes in which they were written.

In This Issue

In This Issue

Oskarżeni o współpracę z bolszewikami i działalność komunistyczną przed siedleckim Sądem Okręgowym w latach 1918-1939

Interwar period in Poland was full of many phenomena, which are elements of the development of the new state. Among them was also condemn those that interfere destructively on the general public, and even were the factors threatening the sovereignty of the newly liberated country. In the former Polish Kingdom, attention is the problem of Polish citizens cooperate with the Bolsheviks during the 1920 war phenomenon is met with strong opposition of the broad masses of society and special interest of justice. The case list the Criminal Division of the District Court of Siedlce, early 20s Twentieth century, was the site of many processes, accused of favoring the Bolsheviks, against the Polish state. Each of the pending issues here, reveals another reason to establish this collaboration. Frequently it was the fear, the defendants rarely reveal ideological reasons. With time, these processes took place Lawsuits brought accused of belonging to a communist organization. Although the scale of their operations within the jurisdiction of the District Court of Siedlce was not large, it is especially in the early 30s became prominent among the workers and artisans. Also carried out active propaganda among young people, with an affected by unemployment and lack of prospects. Their goal was to overthrow the existing regime and take power in Poland. Therefore, any Communist activity, increase its vigilance of law enforcement and justice.

The American Communist Party and the “Negro Question” from the Founding of the Party to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International

The American Communist Party and the “Negro Question” from the Founding of the Party to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International J. A. Zumoff During the Great Depression, the Communist Party (CP) of the United States was in the forefront of denouncing anti-black racism and discrimination. “However one judges their motives,” one historian wrote, “communists were often at the front in the battle for black rights.” In the South, communists organized black and white workers and sharecroppers and bravely fought against Jim Crow racism and capitalist oppression. In the urban North, black and white communists fought against eviction and for relief. Communists fought against the frame-up of the Scottsboro Boys, exposing and fighting Jim Crow “lynch law justice.”1 Despite this work in the 1930s, the CP’s approach to what it called the “Negro question” during the first decade of its existence would not indicate the likelihood of such a development. Upon its founding in 1919, the CP had one black member, and throughout the 1920s it probably [End Page 53] counted less than 100 black members out of a total membership of at least 15,000. In 1929, it still had no more than 300 black members. As a result, much of the historical studies of the intersection between blacks and communists have dealt lightly with the 1920s and focused on the 1930s, such as Mark Naison’s Communists in Harlem During the Depression and Robin Kelly’s Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. However, Winston James has argued that the history of black Communists from the 1930s onward “cannot be separated from the earlier existence and efforts of black socialists,” a history he labeled “understudied and largely unknown.” James’s article, as well as his earlier study of Caribbean radicalism in the United States, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia, offer invaluable insight into the history of black radicalism that was the antecedent of communist activity. Nonetheless, the question is still left, how did the communists, starting from a position of such weakness, tap into this historic substratum and end up playing such an important role in black politics in the 1930s?2 The archives of the Communist International (Comintern), made available after the destruction of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, provide historians rich material with which to attempt to answer this question. Mark Solomon’s The Cry Was Unity (1998), that used sources from the Comintern archives to update the work begun in his 1972 doctoral dissertation, showed that these archives could yield important finds. Nonetheless, the bulk of Solomon’s study focused on the 1930s. Randi Storch’s Red Chicago made extensive use of Comintern sources in its fascinating treatment of the Chicago communists in the early 1930s, but neither made the issue of party policy on black oppression its emphasis, nor focused on the party’s early years. Finally, a recent article by Hakim Adi, on “The Communist International and Black Liberation in the Interwar Years,” has shown the importance of Comintern in the fight for black liberation internationally during this period, but did not focus on the details of Comintern intervention in the early party.3 Using sources from Comintern and other archives, this article examines the evolution of the communist position on the American Negro question from the formation of the communist movement in 1919 through 1924, emphasizing the interaction of a trinity of historical agents in the early communist movement. First, it examines the history and [End Page 54] views of the early communist leadership in the United States, which was almost entirely white and largely indifferent to the Negro question. Second, it examines the first black communists who struggled to make the CP address black oppression. Finally, it examines the intervention of the leadership of the Comintern into the American CP to make its leadership understand the importance of the Negro question. It argues that the original, largely white, leadership of the CP maintained the traditional social-democratic color-blind approach of ignoring black oppression until the Comintern forced them to address the issue. At the same time, the presence of a small black communist cadre served as a mechanism within the...

Encuentros y desencuentros entre dos grandes obras: El río Oscuroy Las aguas bajan turbias (Argentina, 1943/1952)

Much of Argentine cinema of the 40's and 50’s echoed the social transformations of that period. During the Peronist government, cinema director and tango singer Hugo del Carril included oppressed social sector of rural areas in his films, especially in Dark River (1952), film based on the novel The Dark River (1943) by the writer and communist activist Alfredo Varela. The book chronicles the life of rural native workers “mensúes”, their working conditions and the characteristicsof the Guarani and Creole culture in north-eastern Argentina. These two texts, the first by a recognized Peronist and the second by a communist militant –representing opposing lines in the political arena since 1945– coincide in contents and views on certain social and historical phenomena (expressed in cultural terms). They were and rest important for understanding the tributaries of popular culture in Argentina and its problems. This article explains the relationship between the novel and the film, pointing out similarities and differences between their narratives and the political and ideological perspectives from which they interpret social reality.

The French Communist Party and the working classes (1920s–1970s): A perspective from local activism

Drawing on research conducted in several areas in France, this article shows that the communist movement was based on the formation of a militant elite based in heavy industry. Party leadership by industrial skilled workers led to the marginalisation of certain blue-collar groups (women, low-skilled workers, immigrants) and other non-elite social groups (agricultural workers, shopkeepers, artisans). We also emphasise the fact that working-class social networks provided fertile ground for communist activism, while also constraining collective action to some degree. These networks had an impact on the forms of engagement within the party, which might be out of sync with the norms set out by the national leaders of the Communist Party. At the local level, activism drew on both political actions by party leaders and the daily activities of the working classes.

POLITICAL POLICE IN LUBELSZCZYZNA IN THE SECOND POLISH REPUBLIC AS ELEMENT OF STATE SECURITY SYSTEM. ORIGINS, ORGANISATION, ACTIVITY

Political Police in the Second Polish Republic was a secret, specialised service assigned mainly to surveying the whole of political and social life in the country and to chasing perpetrators of anti-state crimes, especially the people suspected of revolutionary activity. In the period discussed, it was completely reorganised four times and it appeared under different names: Political Defence, Information Service, Political Police and Investigation Service with specialised departments to fight against political crimes. In practice, Political Police used methods defined as investigational, e.g. arrests, temporary custody, search of people and property, questioning, chases; and operational ones, e.g. observation, surveillance, tapping or confidential enquiry.Till 1926 political services in Lublin Voivodeship were particularly interested in social and political organisations, the activity of which posed a threat to the legal order and the social arrangement of the state at that time. Full operational surveillance was carried out with respect to parties and political movements of communist nature, national minorities and radical peasant activists, whereas the parties that wanted to keep the bourgeois order were not of particular interest to political counterintelligence, but they were only under discrete operational surveillance.After the May Coup, the range of interests of information services in the fourth district changed substantially. In addition to the activity of communists and national minorities representatives, it encompassed the whole legal Pilsudski opposition.Political Police in Lublin Voivodeship had a very important role in internal politics. It worked among other things on:• exposing social tensions, anti-government atmosphere, revolutionary and anti-state actions (mainly communists and nationalists of national minorities);•observing legal groups and political parties as well as trade unions and parliament representatives.Escalation of political crimes in Lublin district was the largest in those regions where illegal communist organisations, Ukrainian national minorities (poviats: Hrubieszowski, Tomaszowski Chelmski and Wlodawski) and Jewish national minorities (poviats: Chelmski, Siedlecki, Wlodawski, and Grodzki Lubelski) were active.Accusations of communist activity were mainly made against people of Jewish nationality and somewhat less frequently against those of Ukrainian, Belarusian or Polish nationalities.

The Pan Hannian Affair and Power Struggles at the Top of the CCP (1953-1955)

ABSTRACT: Pan Hannian (1906-1977), Communist activist from 1925, former senior head of the CCP secret service and deputy mayor of Shanghai after the PRC’s founding, was arrested in 1955 for treachery and counter-revolutionary crimes. He was condemned, with his wife Dong Hui, to imprisonment and to laogai campsfor the rest of his life. His posthumous rehabilitation in 1982 transformed him into a legendary national hero. Illustrative of the political struggles in 1953-1955, the Pan Hannian affair seems to reveal the methods Mao Zedong used from time to time in managing the Party internally so as to maintain his dominant position in the leadership.

Soviet Policy, Political Parties, and the Preparation for Communist Takeovers in Hungary, Germany, and Austria, 1944-1946

A large number of similarities can be seen between Soviet and communist activities following World War II in Germany and Austria and in East Central European countries such as Hungary, which were later entirely incorporated into the Soviet bloc. In both cases, Moscow-trained communists aimed at establishing “people’s democracy” and took a leading role in rebuilding the respective country’s adminis-trative apparatus. However, while they managed, with Soviet support, to take over power in Hungary, they failed to do so in Austria. In Germany, communist and Soviet action contributed to the partition of the country. This article, on the basis of Soviet and German documents, draws the conclusion that the main reason for the success or failure of communist takeover was the Soviet factor: the power Soviet authorities had in the respective countries and the priority they assigned to communist takeover.

The Coming of the Coming Insurrection: Notes on a Politics of Neocommunism

A specter is haunting Europe: the specter of autonomous communist activism. A new party is expanding its ranks, The Imaginary Party, which has already unnerved the French establishment, rattled Sarkozy's government, and penned its own intriguing manifesto: The Coming Insurrection. Everybody agrees: current society is about to explode. Even the French daily Le Monde, was forced to admit: “one hasn't seen power become so fearful of a book for a very long time.” Semiotext(e)‘s recent English translation has rattled the Anglo-Saxon establishment, too, unleashing a spate of bourgeois paranoia, highlighting for all to see what intelligent people knew already: how very flimsy their hegemony really is, how weak their grip is on political reality. This article examines the coming of The Coming Insurrection, its theoretical basis, and its revolutionary potential. It suggests this uncompromising text is in the ‘vanguard’ of disseminating a new brand of Marxism, a non-class-based Marxism, a runaway Marxism that has at its core an incipient neocommunist impulse, one currently pitting its wits against an intransigent neoliberalism. Its card-carrying membership thrives off nonaffiliated people, whose platform is grounded in everyday life, not at the workplace. Importantly, The Coming Insurrection employs a vitality of spirit and a principle of hope, as well as the direct action anarchism necessary to reinvigorate classical Marxism. Yes, everyone agrees: an exodus from capitalism has already begun.

Reshaping a hero: The real life and times of Archibald Richards

Some time after 1964 the publication, Kampvegters was released by Nasou Publishers in Cape Town. Kampvegters (n.d.) is a collection of stories about Coloured individuals and organizations that the author, George Manuel, regarded as important figures in the history of Cape Town’s community affairs. Most of them are obscure in the annals of South African history writing and also do not feature in the popular consciousness of the broader public. One such character is Archibald Richards, a sportsmanwho contributed to the areas of trade unionism, physical culture, athletics and medicine in Cape Town. The purpose of this study was to move Archibald Richards from a historical marginal figure to the epicentre of research. It was envisaged to present a more accurate image of Richards and to highlight his strengths and weaknesses. In order to achieve this, a scientific-historical enquiry was undertaken so as to contextualize Richard’s contribution towards society in his lifetime. This entailed a literaturesurvey of published and unpublished material dealing with the social history of Cape Town and interviewing persons who lived during the time of Richards. The research focused on specific local contexts as well as the diversity of human experience through the life of Archibald Richards. The study found that George Manuel presented a selected image of Archibald Richards to suit his particular view on leadership. All Manuel’s subjects in the collection were outside the leftist political groupings thatemerged in the 1940’s in Cape Town. Further historical investigation reveals that Manuel left out important data and manipulated historical detail in order to present Richards under the title: ‘Die onoorwinlike’ (the undefeated) (p.11). Manuel was a journalist and a public figure who unambiguously expressed his opposition to what he viewed as communist activity. He therefore brought Richards to the attention of the broader public in terms of the capitalist “sport creed”. This creed includes the displayed traits of character development, loyalty, altruism, social and self-control, fortitude, advancement, physical health, mental alertness, educational achievement, religiosity (Christianity), and nationalismand patriotism (Hendricks, 1995:116).

Red Chicago: American Communism at Its Grassroots, 1928-1935

Red Chicago: American Communism at Its Grassroots, 1928-1935. By Randi Storch. (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2007. Pp. xi, 297. $25.00.) In previous accounts of American Communism during the Third Period (1928-'35), the American Communist Party (CPUSA) and its members were often painted as rigidly sectarian and staunchly dogmatic. While this was indeed often the case, Randi Storch, in Red Chicago, urges readers to move beyond this simplistic view by arguing that the period was not as sectarian as once believed, nor were orders given by party leaders in Moscow carried out unwaveringly and robotically by party faithful on the grass-roots level. Storch not only uses the records of the Chicago Communist Party to discern the degree to which local Communist Party members in Chicago did indeed accept orders, but also to what degree they dismissed these orders in favor of a more localized, personalized, and relevant agenda in the effort to organize local people, mainly workers, into the party. While Storch utilizes a multitude of primary sources in offering her analysis, most noteworthy is her use of the recently released archives of the Communist Party in Moscow organized as the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History. These archives include the records of local Communist Party chapters outside of Russia. Storch uses these records to analyze the involvement of Chicago's Communists in such organizations as the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), Trade Union Unity League (TUUL), the Young Communist League (YCL), as well as their large-scale participation in the rent strikes during the early years of the Great Depression. As a result of this analysis, Storch persuasively argues that the Third Period, on the local level, included many characteristics that have been traditionally attributed to the era of the Popular Front. She shows that Chicago Communists in the period learned to work with liberals and nonCommunists and in the process developed successful organizing tactics and fought for worker's rights, racial equality, and unemployment relief and against imperialism. (2) Storch also challenges the standard narrative offered by various revisionist scholars, many of whom over- romanticized the CPUSA by depicting] Communists as idealized, organic radicals. (3) One of the ways in which she does this is by providing a candid analysis that shows that many Communist activists in Chicago made mistakes that discredited the movement, such as physically attacking workers who were deemed social fascists because they neglected to view working conditions in step with Communists or in establishing a revolutionary trade-union policy that only served to alienate the majority of Chicago's working-class. …

“The Guiding Spirit”: Philip Loeb, the Battle for Television Jurisdiction, and the Broadcasting Industry Blacklist

This article recognizes the work of Philip Loeb (1891-1955), one of the leaders of the Actors' Equity Association, the union for stage actors, and a founder of the Television Authority (TvA), the first national trade union to represent performers in the emerging medium of television. Using his authority and experience as a member of the Equity Council, Equity's governing body, Loeb was among the first to argue for a merger of all national performers' unions involved in the field of television; to that end, he successfully campaigned for a merger plan that brought shape and form to the TvA. This research examines Loeb's sixteen-year career as a union organizer in the entertainment industry, specifically his efforts in helping bring the TvA to life. Much the result of his union work, Loeb was named in the publication, Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television, for alleged Communist activities. Accordingly, this article also reviews the details of Loeb's blacklisting, and discusses his accomplishments as a union organizer against the backdrop of political catastrophe.