Communist Activity Research Articles

Agnes Smedley and the Indian anarchists in Weimar Berlin

ABSTRACT This article examines the entangled worlds of anti-colonialism and anarchism in Weimar era Berlin. Looking particularly at Agnes Smedley and her partner in Berlin, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, as well as M.P.T. Acharya and others, the article explores the ways in which these figures approached the question of anarchism in relation to Indian anti-colonialism. While recent scholarship has focused on Smedley’s– and to some extent Chatto’s– communist activities, this article suggests that, in the early 1920s, they were much closer affiliated with anarchism than often admitted. Drawing on extensive correspondence and publications, it demonstrates that Smedley and the Indian anti-colonialists often challenged anarchists to devote more attention to the colonial question and, in fact, often facilitated such contacts.

Kauno meno mokykla ir „revoliucinių menininkų“ judėjimas Lietuvoje XX a. ketvirtajame dešimtmetyje

The article examines the history of communist activities among students (Stepas Žukas, Boleslovas Motuza, Vytautas Mackevičius, Bronius Žekonis, Petras Vaivada, Irena Trečiokaitė, Liuda Vaineikytė) of the Kaunas Art School during the interwar period in independent Lithuania. It analyzes the academic conditions, artists connections with educators and fellow communist sympathizers, delves into their backgrounds, family social and material situations, and other factors that could have influenced their radicalization and involvement in the Communist Party of Lithuania.

Communist activity in south-western Romania in November 1944

Communist activity in south-western Romania in November 1944

Alexandru Valahu (Volohov) (1909-1967)

Born in Bessarabia, Alexandru Volohov changed his name to Alexandru Valahu, forging his identity papers after 23 August 1944. He worked as a clerk at the Social Insurance House in Ismail from 1930 to 1932. From 1932 to 1934 he did his military service. At the same time, he carried out intense anti-communist activity, having been recruited as an informer by the Grand Headquarters to provide information on persons suspected of communist activities. In 1934 he was employed by the Ismail police as a public guard at the Law Office. In 1935 he shot a communist who was trying to escape from the security forces. He resigned from the police in 1937. Sentenced in 1948 to 3 years in prison for fraud at the Electric Company. After his release, he took a job as a translator of documents from Russian into Romanian at the Chemical Troops Command. On 7 January 1958, he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years' hard labour for anti-labour activities. He was released in July 1964. Having links with military representatives of several factories and plants working for the Chemical Troops Command, the security decided to recruit him as an unqualified informer. He submiteed several intelligence reports with no operative importance.

Class Conflict of the Łódź Proletariat (1905–1939) according to memoirs of the Bałuty Communist Activists. Part II: Bałuty Communist Activists in the first years of Independent Poland

Cały trzyczęściowy artykuł omawia pamiętniki działaczy komunistycznych jako ważnego źródła do dziejów „walki klasowej” w okresie od rewolucji 1905–1907 do wybuchu II wojny światowej. Druga jego część dotyczy wielkiego dylematu, przed którym stanęli w pierwszych latach po Wielkiej Wojnie: niepodległość czy rewolucja społeczna? Podczas, gdy dla starszych komunistów (weteranów 1905 roku) wybór wydawał się oczywisty, dla ich młodszych towarzyszy był to wciąż czas politycznego dojrzewania, często naznaczony rozczarowaniem ojczyzną, za którą wcześniej walczyli. Niezależnie bowiem od propagandowej funkcji omawianych tekstów, pozwalają one przyjrzeć się różnym wydarzeniom z historii Łodzi (np. strajkom i demonstracjom) niejako pod mikroskopem, oddając emocje towarzyszące ich uczestnikom, a czasem też indywidualne odczucia i charaktery autorów.

Shades of Red in the GDR: On the Identities of Jewish Communist Exiles after 1945

Discourse on Jewish life in the German Democratic Republic has often offered a clichéd portrayal of a society in which Jewishness was subsumed into the antifascist founding myth of the GDR, leaving Jews as either self-hating (Stalinist) Jews or as citizens forced to deny their Jewish origins. In particular, Cold War narratives have often differentiated between Jewish communists who were in exile in the Soviet Union, and thus seen afterwards as more loyal, and those who were in exile in the West, and thus more likely to be suspected of disloyalty. This paper focuses on non-Soviet exiles and their descendants to explore the diversity of Jewish identity, politics and culture in the GDR, ranging from assimilationist communist identity to explicit engagement with Jewish traditions and even the Jewish religion. Surveying through the generations from pre-Nazi communist activism to the GDR-born children of such activists, it finds a diversity that belies monochrome portrayals of GDR life, while also establishing that, far from being mere passive instruments in the service of an SED-led (neo-)Stalinist society, Jews in the GDR were agents in the establishing of their own multi-faceted identities.

Wczesna działalność polskich komunistów w Stanach Zjednoczonych. Przypadek Daniela Elbauma

Early activity of Polish communists in the United States. The case of Daniel Elbaum In the article the author discusses the American period in the activity of Daniel Elbaum, worker organiser and communist, participant in the 1905 revolution, activist of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania. After escaping from exile, in 1913 Elbaum went to the United States, where he became an activist in Polish socialist and then communist circles, campaigner for the separation of the Polish Section from the Socialist Party of America and its subsequent accession as a so-called language federation to the Communist Party USA, established in 1919. Elbaum was one of the founders of the Polish radical left in the USA. His activities in the context of the events taking place in America (explosion of political radicalism and repression against left-wing activists) first consisted in winning support for Polish communist circles, taking control of the Polish faction of the Socialist Party, then editing its periodical, Głos Robotniczy (Workers’ Voice), and participating, as a delegate from Michigan, in the founding convention of the Communist Party USA in Chicago in September 1919. Arrested in 1920 and threatened with deportation, Elbaum escaped from prison in March 1920, managing to get to Europe, where he continued his work as a communist activist. His career in the USA also illustrates the divisions among American socialists, growing role of immigrants among them and their gradual radicalisation, which eventually led to a split and the founding of the Communist Party USA.

Camp in Pravieniškės near Kaunas in 1941–1944

The camp in Pravieniškės was located within the administrative boundaries of Pravieniškės, located about 25 km from Kaunas. It was established during the period of the Republic of Lithuania, as a correctional facility. In August 1941 the Germans established the Pravieniškės Transitional Labour Camp (Zwangsarbeitslager Provenischken) there, which from 1943 was a branch of the Kaunas Concentration Camp (KL Kaunas) and continued to serve as a labour camp. Detainees were brought to this camp from the prisons of the General Commissariat of Lithuania, i.e. the Lukiszki Prison in Vilnius, the Kaunas Prison and Ponevezh (Panevėžys). People of various nationalities were held in Pravieniškės (Prawieniszki): Lithuanians (60%), Poles, Russians, Roma and Jews (mainly from the Kaunas ghetto). About 1,000 prisoners could be held in this camp at a time. People were sent here for a variety of offences: political prisoners, violators of forced labour orders, Soviet prisoners of war with their families, and those convicted of common crimes. Also incarcerated in Pravieniškės by administrative decision were deserters from the German army convicted of evading military service in the German army. People of Polish nationality placed in Pravieniškės were mainly accused of belonging to the resistance movement, communist activity, listening to the radio, possession of weapons, sabotage, escape from forced labour and communist activity. Guards executed prisoners on the camp grounds and in nearby forests. About 280 Jews were shot there in August 1941, and another 253 Jews in September 1941. Also, many attempts to escape from the camp were punished by execution. As the Eastern Front approached the borders of the Reich, the process of obliterating the traces of the crimes committed began. Due to the relatively small number of those murdered, it was not necessary for the notorious Sonderkommando 1005 to arrive in the area. A few dozen men directed to burn the corpses of those murdered in the nearby forest were enough. Members of the Pravieniškės camp crew were tried after the war by various organs of the Soviet justice system: courts, tribunals and collegia. Also in Poland, at the Institute of National Remembrance in Gdansk, an investigation was conducted into the case. Beginning in mid-July 1944, people convicted by Soviet tribunals were incarcerated in the camp in Pravieniškės: former camp guards, as well as members of the Vilnius Home Army arrested after Operation ‘Ostra Brama’. The prisoners were again employed to work on the peat bog and in the camp greenhouse. Today, every Lithuanian associates the name of Pravieniškės with the prison. A penitentiary facility still operates on the site of the former camp with places for 2,500 inmates, including those sentenced to life imprisonment.

Charków – przeciwdziałanie dominującej komunistycznej toponimii miasta

Kharkiv is the second largest city in Ukraine after Kiev in terms of importance and population. From 1919 to 1935, Kharkiv was the official capital of Soviet Ukraine, and therefore Lenin’s “Communist Propaganda Plan” was most often applied in it. Most streets, administrative districts, industrial plants, community centres, schools, etc. were named after communist activists or symbols of communism. In this context, the article aims to analyse a long-term process of removing the dominant communist toponymy of the city during de-communization in Kharkiv. After the declaration of independence, the Ukrainian authorities banned the Communist Party and the propagation of communist ideology, but despite this, for around thirty years Kharkiv’s toponymy continued to be dominated by names associated with the Soviet propaganda. It was only with the onset of the war in the Donbass in 2014 that real renaming of toponymic objects with communist origins began in Kharkiv. The first major change took place in May 2016, when seven city districts, five metro stations, 52 streets and a park were renamed. The process of change accelerated after the onset of a full-scale war in 2022.

Shadows in the Garden: Women Agents Underground and Communist Activism in Mid-20th Century Iran Part II

The second part of this article on the clandestine activities of Iranian female communists explores the case of Zuleykha Asadi, a young woman who earned a medical degree in Moscow just before the start of the Second World War. Her story can be told with unusual immediacy thanks to the preservation of her correspondence in the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, published here for the first time. Zuleykha’s father’s letters to her in Moscow chart the difficulties and decisions his daughter faced and are suffused with a parent’s anxious concern for his daughter and a deep belief in the Soviet Union and its mission. Upon returning to Iran, ostensibly to practice medicine, Zuleykha also acted as a Soviet operative, keeping her handlers in Moscow apprised of her activities in letters that are a striking mix of ciphered intelligence reporting and emotional frankness about her personal life and experiences, such as her feelings for her newborn daughter and absent husband. She gathered intelligence about the wartime mood, conditions and activity of Nazi agents in the country, liaised with Iranian communists, and planned to set up a safe house. Within two years, for reasons unstated, Moscow decided to cut her loose. The case file of this idealistic young woman is emblematic of the magnetic pull of Communist ideals for many in the working class of Iran in the first half of the 20th Century.

Italian and French Democracies’ Containment of Communist Unrest in the Early Cold War

After a brief interlude of legality ending in 1947, France and Italy faced violence fuelled by Communist organisations; the most important took place from the autumn of 1947 to the autumn of 1948 and greatly impressed governments and public opinion, sustaining fear of a Communist uprising. Facing this challenge to public order were resolute Ministers of the Interior Mario Scelba and Jules Moch. Their policy gained them the reputation of reso­lute anti-Communists going beyond the limits of democratic legality. This paper questions this simple picture. In fact, for centre-right and centre-left govern­ments ruling these two countries, emergency powers were linked to the state of (civil) war and both ministries’ policies relied mainly on the application of the existing penal code and the mobilisation of existing forces. Moves to strengthen repressive laws depended on a long and uncertain parliamentary process and, without wide political consensus and solid parliamentary majorities, they often proved to be too little or too late. Judiciary repression was sometimes inefficient, leaving the Ministries infuriated by impunity. With the fear of world war peaking in 1950, there were legal efforts to thwart possible Communist support for a Soviet invasion; but those did not appear any more fruitful than prior attempts, and faded when internal matters seemed more urgent than the declining “Red Threat” in the 1950s. This study also highlights the fact that the repression by the Italian state, relying on former Fascist laws and sometimes infringing on civil liberties, was more violent than in France. Casualties caused by law enforcement persisted even after the decrease of Communist activism, underlying the histor­ically higher level of social and political confrontation in Italy.

Beyond the double blind spot: Relocating communist women as transgressive subjects in contemporary historiography

ABSTRACTThis article identifies a specific historiographical gap obfuscating communist women, namely, a ‘double blind spot’ rooted in the combined effect of the scant consideration of women in histories of communism and of communist activists in accounts of the women's movement. It traces this pattern of invisibilisation back to the paradigm of communist women's ‘instrumentalisation’ and to the resulting paradox of an ‘activism without agency’. The article then provides a critique of this received image; first, through an analysis of emerging scholarship on the female communist experience; second, through recourse to actors’ own perspective on the rapport between communism and feminism and the possibilities of ‘double militancy’, drawn from sources of the post‐1968 Italian context. It closes with an argument for relocating communist women as an unexpectedly transgressive subject of twentieth‐century history.

Życie Polaków w Gdańsku i funkcjonowanie Stoczni Gdańskiej w dokumentach życia społecznego ze zbiorów PAN Biblioteki Gdańskiej

The shipyard was an important place for the residents of Gdańsk and the surrounding area, students and tourists visiting the Motława River. Its halls were used by the Polish community in Gdańsk, but also after Hitler came to power to the Nazis. After the war, there were communist activists and outstanding artists. Ephemera stored in the Gdańsk Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences are an interesting, often overlooked and underestimated material for researchers in manyfields - history, media, linguistics. They give a certain picture of language norms in force in a given period, additionally here related to one specific place. These norms are manifested in the selection of grammatical forms, polite and persuasive phrases and stylistics. Thanks to them, we can trace the artistic tastes of the society and try to shape them by the then authorities. Art posters also deserve a separate study of art historians. The article, of course, does not exhaust the subject is just an attempt to signal it. Many valuable documents are probably still in private hands and in the collections of other institutions.

Anthropology in a Nationalizing State: Three Case Studies from Interwar Poland

AbstractThree case studies depict different attitudes of anthropologists toward the politics of nationalism promoted by the prewar Polish state. Ethnographer Stanisław Dworakowski, involved in a governmental Committee for the Issues of Petty Nobility in Eastern Poland, elaborated a study on this social stratum. Although based on reliable field research, it can hardly be considered scientific work, as it has many features of political propaganda. Quite opposite is the case of folklorist Joachim Chajes, secretary of the Ethnographical Commission of YIVO. Contemporary Soviet folklore was one of the fields of his research, which Polish anticommunist and antisemitic authorities found suspicious. Accused of communist activity, he was imprisoned. Social anthropologist Józef Obrębski can be situated between those two extremes. His field research among East Slavic peasants in Eastern Poland, concerning their developing national identity, although conducted within a national scientific program and financed by the state, is an example of intellectual independence. By revealing the negative attitude of the peasants toward Polish authorities, Obrębski achieved an outcome, which did not fulfill the official political expectations. These three trajectories show competitive coexistence of the meta-field of power and the scientific field, focused on their respective stakes: power and recognition.

AHMET CEVAT EMRE'S ACTIVITIES ABROAD IN THE CONTEXT OF MEMORY (1920-1922)

Ahmet Cevat Emre, 1 Eylül 1876-10 Aralık 1961 tarihleri arasında yaşayan Cumhuriyet Dönemi’ne Geçiş Dönemi aydınlarından biridir. Yıldız Hanım ve Hasan Hulki Bey’in tek çocuğu olan Ahmet Cevat Emre Girit’in Resmo şehrinde dünyaya gelmiştir. 1897’de Harbiye Askeri Mektebi ikinci sınıf öğrencisiyken İttihatçı arkadaşı Mahir Sait Pekman’a yardım etmesi nedeniyle II. Abdülhamit tarafından yetmiş sekiz İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti üyesi ile birlikte Trablusgarp’a sürülmüştür. Sürgün hayatı, on bir sene sürmüştür. II. Meşrutiyet ile birlikte İstanbul’da gazetecilik; daha sonra 1910 yılında Satı Bey, Tevfik Fikret, Mustafa Suphi ve Ruşen Eşref gibi isimlerle birlikte Dârülmuallimîn-i Âliye’de öğretmenlik yapmıştır. Meşrutiyet yıllarında okullarda okutulan üç gramer kitabından biri olan “Lisan-ı Osmani” adlı eseriyle “Gramerci Cevat” lakabını almıştır. Sürgün hayatından itibaren düşünce yapısında değişimler gözlemlenen Ahmet Cevat Bey, Balkan Savaşları ile Osmanlıcılık akımı çerçevesinde “Balkan Mezalimi Neşri Vesaik Cemiyeti” fahri sekreteri olarak Türk halkına yapılan zulümleri Batılı devletlere anlatmak amacıyla Avrupa’ya gitmiş ve orada beklediği etkiyi alamayınca emperyalizme savaş açmıştır. Bu sırada İngiliz istihlak kooperatiflerinden de etkilenmiştir. Birinci Dünya Savaşı yılları ile ilgili hakkında detaylı bilgiler olmasa da 1914-1918 yıllarında yirmi dokuz adet okul kitap yazmıştır. Ahmet Cevat Emre, Mütareke Dönemi’nde Mustafa Kemal’in başarılarını gözlemlerken Mütareke sonrasında İstanbul’da yapılan mitinglere katılmıştır. Matbuat Cemiyeti üyesi olarak Akşam ve Tasvir-i Efkâr gibi gazetelerde İtilaf Devletleri karşıtı yazılar yazmıştır. Ayrıca Akşam gazetesinde “Atimiz İçin” başlıklı İttihat ve Terakki yönetimi ve Enver Paşa hakkında eleştirel yazılar yazmıştır. Mehmet Asım Us ile yazdığı “Anadolu Yavrusunun Kitabı”nı satmak amacıyla Bakü ve Moskova’ya gitmiştir. İstanbul’da İtilaf Devletleri tarafından aranırken, Bakü’de Enver Paşa hakkında yazdığı yazılar nedeniyle Talat Paşa tarafından İngiliz casusu olarak tutuklanmak istemiştir. Bu nedenle Dârülmuallimîn-i Âliye’den tanıştığı Mustafa Suphi’nin yanına sığınmış ve Türkiye Komünist Partisi’nde çalışmaya başlamıştır. Ahmet Cevat Emre, Mayıs 1928’den itibaren Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ile dil devrimlerinin inşasında da büyük rol oynamıştır. Ölümünden beş sene sonra “Tarih Dünyası” dergisi sahibi Niyazi Ahmet Banoğlu tarafından değiştirilerek yayımlanan “920 Moskova’sında Türk Komünistleri” adlı hatıraları gündem olmuştur. 
 Bu çalışmada, Ahmet Cevat Bey’in değiştirildiği tespit edilen Moskova hatıraları, döneme ait ilgili resmî kaynaklar ve mevcut argümanlar çerçevesinde incelenip ele alınarak eksik kısımların tamamlanması amaçlanmaktadır. Ahmet Cevat Bey’in Moskova hatıraları incelendiğinde bazı tarih hataları olmakla birlikte başlıca olayların seyrinin doğru gittiği, komünizm faaliyetlerinin ise resmî kaynaklarla karşılaştırıldığında hatıralarda yer almadığı ve bazı önemli olaylara tam olarak değinilmediği anlaşılmıştır. Bu amaçla Ahmet Cevat Emre’nin Bakü ve Moskova’da bulunduğu süre içindeki faaliyetlerine, resmî kaynaklara göre TKP faaliyetlerine ve Niyazi Nazif Tepedelenlioğlu’nun Ahmet Cevat Emre ile ilgili yaşadığı bir hatıraya yer verilerek döneme katkı sunulmaya çalışılacaktır.

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States

Communist activity in Banat in the last months of 1944

Communist activity in Banat in the last months of 1944

Władysław Bieńkowski i jego idee w dwudziestoleciu międzywojennym

The paper describes the ideological evolution of Władysław Bieńkowski (1906–1991) in the interwar period – in the Polish People’s Republic, he was first a communist activist and then a dissident. The author reconstructs the process of radicalization of Bieńkowski as an intellectual who was not a member of the Communist Party of Poland, but who after the Second World War found himself among higher-ranking communist activists. The thesis of this paper is that the dichotomy between individual freedom and participation in the communist movement, which was characteristic of Bieńkowski in the period of the Polish People’s Republic, dates back to his prewar ideas. The paper also contributes to the discussion on the attitudes of the Polish intelligentsia towards communism.

Shadows in the Garden: Women Agents Underground and Communist Activism in Mid-20th Century Iran

This article traces the careers and fates of several Iranian female communists who were not professional intelligence agents but engaged in clandestine activities. They are presented primarily through their own writings – memoirs and letters – and documents preserved in Russian archives. Socialist ideas resonated strongly in early 20th century Iran, and the women examined here were driven by a zeal to improve the hard lot faced by many of their fellow Iranians. They hailed from diverse family backgrounds: Mariam Firuz’s roots lay in the aristocracy; Zuleykhah Asadi came from the working class; and Akhtar Kiānuri’s family had been prominent in the clergy. Their husbands or fathers were also communists and spent time in jail. All of the women traveled to the Soviet Union to study, drawn to the Communist University for Laborers of the East in Moscow, known by its acronym of KUTV and called a “Red Mecca” by some Iranian students. Upon returning to Iran, these women were forced to work underground as the communist party was banned in the country for much of the 20th century, with members and sympathizers harassed, arrested and accused of espionage. These women’s accounts were produced for different readers: some feel romanticized at times, while others are brutally honest. Their fates were also very different. The wave of revolution both raised individuals to new heights and tossed them to the shore as it churned onward. While Mariam Firuz became a living legend, Akhtar and others faded into obscurity, and Zuleykha and countless others were never known.

Copland and Communism: Mystery and Mayhem

In the midst of the second Red Scare, Aaron Copland, an American composer, came under fire for his communist tendencies. Between the 1930s and 1950s, he joined the left-leaning populist Popular Front, composed a protest song, wrote Lincoln Portrait and Fanfare for the Common Man, traveled to South America, spoke at the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, and donated to communist leaning organizations such as the American-Soviet Musical Society. Due to Copland’s personal communist leanings, Eisenhower’s Inaugural Concert Committee censored a performance of Copland’s Lincoln Portrait in 1953. HUAC (The House Committee on Un-American Activities) brought Copland to the committee and questioned him on his communist connections. Copland clearly denied any and all communist activities or affiliations. This raised the questions: what impact did the contemporary political climate have on Copland’s music? What actual ties did he have to communism? Does it matter? To answer these questions, I examined the primary sources in the Copland Collection at the Library of Congress, during the fall of 2019. In addition to selected secondary sources, I focused on the relevant letters, hearing records, and other materials contained in Box 427: the box on HUAC. In addition to the Performing Arts Reading Room Aaron Copland Collection, I utilized the Folklife Collection and their resources on Aaron Copland. I will conclude there is significant external evidence Copland associated with communists, but since Copland himself continuously denied the identity, it is difficult to conclude whether Copland was or was not in fact a communist. It is much easier to conclude that Copland was, at the very least, politically left-leaning, although his political beliefs held a secondary role to the musical style in his compositions.