Early Communism Research Articles

An Examination of Marx’s Critique of Early Communism in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

An Examination of Marx’s Critique of Early Communism in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

From Communist Internationalism to a ‘New Humanism’: On M.N. Roy’s Confrontation with Fascism

This paper investigates the thought of the Indian revolutionary and philosopher M.N. Roy (1887–1954). The essay argues that Roy’s pivot from Marxism to a liberal ‘New Humanism’ over the course of the 1930s and 1940s was shaped by his thinking about fascism and represents a broader turn away from a materialist reading of history and loss of confidence in the Indian working class. The paper begins with an analysis of Roy’s early communism, and considers his later critique, elaborated from the 1930s onwards, that ‘Gandhism’ represented an Indian form of fascism, and explores how these arguments led to his rejection of Marxism.

A Communism of Intelligence: Early Communism in Late Imperial India

Goswami's essay revisits an infamous legal trial against communists in late colonial India to rethink the rapid "mondialization" of a universalistic ideology in a peripheral locale. How did a creed associated with an implacable universality obtain concrete placement across a highly differentiated capitalist world-order? How might we address the unexpected and ectopic emergence of communism in colonial and peripheral contexts? Rancière's contention of a "communism of intelligence" has particular purchase for colonial and peripheral contexts, and not only because the "masses" the Comintern was addressing were not analogous to the formally similar working classes in advanced capitalist societies. Rather the realization of the "capacity of the incapables" entailed, then as now, a wrestling with actually existing hierarchies or the historical order of imposed and inherited anachronisms. Through a close reading of an infamous legal trial that prosecuted communists for their belief, Goswami argues that the multitudinous pathways of becoming and being a communist in late colonial India underscore the dialectic between equality and the denunciation of "historian's truth."

Maia Ramnath and the Search for a Decolonised Antiauthoritarian Marxism

In her two books, Maia Ramnath attempts to construct an antiauthoritarian/anarchist anti-colonialist politics through an analysis of India’s freedom struggle. Ramnath reconstructs a history of Indian anti-colonial movements from an anarchist perspective, while seeking to locate forgotten possibilities such as the ‘libertarian Marxism’ of the Ghadar party and its successors. Haj to Utopia is an important addition to the literature on early communism in India inasmuch as it allows us to revisit said history in India in a renewed and critical manner. On the other hand, Decolonizing Anarchism is an ambitious book that seeks to unearth an antiauthoritarian account of India’s struggle for independence, but falls far short of its intended goal because of Ramnath’s inattentiveness to the implications of Hindu revivalism on caste and gender in India. Thus, she reproduces many of the characteristics of mainstream nationalist narratives.

Hungarian women toe the line: How Communist propaganda parallels corporate advertising

Abstract This article suggests that fashion communication, especially fashion advertising, is a form of propaganda, and that propaganda is sometimes disguised as a form of sartorial communication. Just as advertisers and marketers in modern corporate societies use propaganda to mobilize a target audience and to sell goods infinitely, early Communism in Hungary set its sights on women and sought to generate its ideology and practices through them. Understanding the social importance of fashion for women and aspiring to win over an apolitical female citizenry, Hungarian Communists chose a women’s magazine, Asszonyok, which existed from 1945 to 1949, to help deliver its propaganda messages. This article also discusses examples of fashion communication in Asszonyok, with special focus on shoes, to show that the Communist Party regime in Hungary used sartorial symbolism as a primary tool of political persuasion aimed at women.

Church Collaboration and Resistance under Communism Revisited: The Case of Patriarch Justinian Marina (1948-1977)

This article revisits the history of the Romanian Orthodox Church under communism and its instrumentalization after 1989 by focusing on the figure of Patriarch Justinian Marina (1948-1977). It argues that one of his successors and protégées, Patriarch Teoctist Arăpașu (1986-2007), had an interest in repainting Marina’s relation to the communist regime as opposition, more than collaboration, because he viewed the opening of the Securitate archives in 2000 with alarm, given the large number of Securitate informers among the Orthodox clergy. It then presents a debate that has taken place in post-1989 Romania about Patriarch Justinian, and concludes that a deeper understanding of the history of ROC under early communism is possible only if Justinian is seen as both a collaborator with the regime and a defender of the ROC.

Reconstructing the History of Early Communism and Armed Resistance in Romania

This article examines the role played by the armed resistance in Romania during the period of Sovietisation and Stalinisation (1944–1962) and its significance within the politics of memory and justice after 1989. One conclusion of the analysis is that opposing interpretations by political actors each in search of legitimacy correspond to attempts to manufacture plausible narratives of the specific historical discontinuity posed by the revolutionary break of 1989. A second conclusion reveals how memory and identity conflicts at group and individual levels can easily result in the translation of historical myths into enduring historical facts.

Progressives, Punjab and Pakistan: the early years

At the moment of Pakistan’s independence, the areas that constituted the territories of the new state were economically underdeveloped and lacked industrialization. Nonetheless, the Karachi dock and port workers were organized and so were the workers in the largest industrial enterprise in the country, the Moghalpura Railway Workshop in Lahore, which was in the public sector. In the Punjab and in Sind, there were some peasant-based organizations that at the time of partition had links to the Communist Party of India (CPI). This article is part of a larger study on the history of the labour movement in post-1947 Pakistan. It will trace the history of the political crisis within the CPI and the expulsion of the Teja Singh/Fazal Elahi Qurban group from the main party after the formation of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) in March of 1948. In recalling these events, this article will show how Teja Sing Swatantar and Fazal Elahi Qurban were against the central leadership of the CPI about the change of position on the Pakistan question and hence provide a lesser known history of early communism in post-1947 Pakistan. It discusses the CPI’s argument on the Muslim question as it evolved during the 1940s, gives an overview of CPI’s coalition with the Muslim League during the 1945–1946 elections and then shows how the CPP with its new ‘immigrant’ leadership consolidated itself in Lahore and conducted its politics under conditions of extreme surveillance and attack from the Pakistani state.

Inequality and living standards under early communism: Anthropometric evidence from Czechoslovakia, 1946–1966

A sample of adolescent heights and weights from the Czechoslovak city of Liberec is analyzed to shed light on the changes in biological standard of living between 1946 and 1966, the early years of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. The long-term trend in average height was upwards for all social groups but differences in stature between social groups were about as large as in Communist Czechoslovakia as in market economies, such as the UK. Sons of blue-collar fathers and of parents employed in agriculture were generally shorter than sons of clerks and professional employees (teachers, doctors, lawyers). The anthropometric record also suggests that in the immediately post-war years inequality was greater than in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928

James P. Cannon (1890-1974) helped build the American revolutionary left. Reared in a radical Midwestern household, he served a class struggle apprenticeship in the Socialist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the underground communist movement. From the founding of the Workers Party in 1921, Cannon guided the forces of United States communism. Increasingly disappointed in the international and domestic leadership of the revolutionary movement, Cannon eventually embraced Trotsky's criticisms of emerging Stalinism. When he was expelled from the Workers (Communist) Party in 1928, a particular age of U.S. radicalism had come to an end, but another was just beginning. Bryan D. Palmer's magisterial study is both a biographical treatment of Cannon's formative years as well as a richly detailed and passionately argued examination of a pivotal epoch of American radicalism. Meticulously and imaginatively researched, it brings to life a major figure in the underappreciated United States revolutionary tradition. It also recasts our understanding of those movements Cannon championed, from the Wobblies and Left-Wing of the Socialist Party to early communism and its decline under Stalinization.

Early Communism in Palestine

Early Communism in Palestine

Early Communism in Palestine

Early Communism in Palestine

The Religious Value of Social Work

Is there a connection between social work and religion? This is denied by the pietistic mind that fails to see the natural basis of the supernatural world and the materialistic mind that sees in religion only a philosophy, not a living of life. The truth holds the middle place since religion is basically the observance of the law of God in the orderly use of all material and spiritual powers. This is synonymous with social welfare. Social works benefits the individual through the group by scientific thought and action. This does not impair religious values but multiplies them. Theoretically the motive of religion and the method of social work sublimate and reinforce each other and practically this has been so in the church since the beginning. This is verified by the early communism of the church, the foundations of monasteries, the organization of parishes and gilds, and most of all by the age-long experience of the universal church, which through its hierarchy places the advantages of its organization at the disposal of every adherent. Religion exalts the organization of social work when it gives it a supernatural motive, and social work augments the practice of religion when social work properly fulfils its functions. Social work and religion alike tend to a normal life in a normal world, to the physical, mental, and moral development of man. Social work aims in particular that man have life; religion that he have it abundantly.