The framework for this article is dynamic of what Kris Manjapra has called in his article Internationalism and Transcolonial Recognition, in collection Cosmopolitan Thought Zones, the socialist global ecumene, or more specifically of transcolonial formed within it. Manjapra means by this term an in modern sense of a far-flung or worldwide community of people committed to a single cause and engaged in discussions, lobbying, and writing aimed at working toward a common program, at generating a common discourse. In Manjapras somewhat idealized account, this ecumene involves not relations between powerful centers and their dependencies but rather lateral connections of worldwide like-minded. In generating this discourse, literature, so much more valued in earlier decades, but especially in 1930s, played a major role. (1) Here I am applying Manjapras model to case of a putative, or would-be, Moscow-oriented ecumene of leftists, which was most active in 1930s. Some intellectuals were members by dint of some communist affiliation, while others, though they might toy with Marxist ideas, were not interested in affiliation but participated in networks or publishing ventures that were committed to some core common values. There was, then, a lot of lateral connection among its members, but Moscow, and more specifically Comintern, played an important role in fostering and mustering what they hoped would become an ecumene of those committed to socialism, antifascism or struggle against imperialism, and generally to a nexus of all three. My article aims to complicate both vertical and horizontal models for functioning of ecumene by suggesting that to some extent it functioned in both directions and not always in unilinear fashion. It also shows that ecumene did not operate in an intellectual silo but overlapped and interacted with other, contiguous thought zones. In looking at this dynamic, my focus is on writers, because they more than any other category were most engaged in developing a common discourse. Moreover, as I have argued elsewhere, in Soviet Union (and by no means uniquely) during 1930s a close symbiotic relationship between literature and culture was at heart of official culture, and government accorded literature and writers a particularly privileged place in its society. (2) A similar attitude inflected its activities abroad. A great deal was invested in fostering an international community of writers who might look to Moscow as their metropole: a series of international conferences of writers was organized (Moscow 1927, Khar'kov 1930, and, effectively, Paris 1935 and Valencia--Madrid--Barcelona--Paris, July 1937J; writers' organizations affiliated with central bodies established at these congresses were set up in many countries; and Soviet Union began to publish a journal, eventually titled Internatsional'naia literatura, which after Khar'kov conference appeared in semi-parallel versions in English, French, German, and for a time Chinese and Spanish. (3) Much of this international activity in literature was fostered by Comintern, though after Paris Congress of 1935 it was on Soviet end run by Foreign Commission of Writers' Union, if by much same cast of characters. Such bodies and publications facilitated development of multinational networks of writers who continued to associate for decades, while other Comintern institutions, such as international section of Communist University for Toilers of East (KUTV) also fostered such networks among their alumni who were writers. One should not just dismiss ecumene as yet another example of an insidious Soviet imperialism with foreign participants as unwitting pawns. In 1930s when Soviet Union was a patron of anticolonialist movements and one of few governments actively standing up to fascism, it attracted to its various noncommunist but Moscow-oriented literary organizations large numbers of leftists who were, given this orientation, also confronted by possibility of buying in, to some degree at least, to new Soviet literary method of Socialist Realism, purveyed at time as an alternative to Modernism; they were swept up in a wave of 1930s that was meant to be carrying them back--or forward? …