Brigitte Studer. Travellers of the World Revolution.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Revolution and Organization

Local Beginnings of a Global Project

Revolution as an Employment

The Global in the Local

Women, Men and the Revolutionary Self

Situated Action

Sources and Structure

1 – Moscow 1920: Revolutionary Rendezvous

Through the Allied Blockade to Soviet Russia

Revolutionary Enthusiasm and the Experience of Transnational Solidarity

The Search for Shared Principles and a Common Language

Revolutionaries of a New Type?

2 – Baku and Tashkent: The Revolution Goes East

The ‘Oppressed Peoples of the East’

Force of Arms, Force of Propaganda: Exporting the Revolution

Modernity and Tradition?

Daily Life in the Early Days of the Comintern Apparatus

3 – Berlin: Bridgehead in Europe and Hub of Transnational Circulation

Transfers of Money and Knowledge

An Early Comintern Agent and His Team

Interacting Apparatuses

An Organ of Party Control in the West

The Working Day on a Foreign Mission

A Rigorous System of Coordination and Supervision

4 – Berlin, Cultural Capital of International Communism

Cosmopolitan Intellectuals

Changing Personnel Policy

Euphoria and Sadness, Integration and Isolation

Between Ascesis and Bohemia

A Communist Entrepreneur

Avant-Garde Culture and Prop-Art

5 – Paris, Brussels, Berlin: Anti-Imperialism and Transcolonial Networks

Anticolonialism Reaches the Metropole

China: New Epicentre of the World Revolution

Building Global Anticolonial Solidarity

From Anticolonialism to Anti-Imperialism

Mobilizing Friends and Sympathizers

Coordination with the Eastern Department

‘Negro Workers’: The Internationalization of the International

6 – Guangzhou and Wuhan: On Missions for the Comintern in China

Disunion and Deadlock

In the New Capital

Communicating the Line

Departure and the Political Consequences of the Debacle

7 – Shanghai: The Perilous Life of the Comintern Agent

Rallying Point for Professional Revolutionaries

Smashing of the Comintern Network

Conspiracy as an Occupation

Sowing Confusion

Improvised Cooperation Between Apparatuses

A Communist Enclave amid the Foreign Concessions

8 – Cities of Refuge: Paris, Basel, Zurich, Moscow

Paris: A Disorganized Effort to Rebuild the Apparatus

Basel and Zurich: Precarious Safety

Moscow: Caught in the Trap

9 – The Last Big Mission: Barcelona, Madrid, Albacete, Valencia

Advent of the Comintern Representatives

Solidarity with the Spanish Republic … and the Revolution

Recruitment and Conveyance of Volunteers

Establishment of a Military Base in Albacete

(Proto-)Humanitarian Aid

Security and Surveillance in Spain

Fatigue and Conflict among the Comintern Advisers

10 – Conclusion: A Life with Bags Packed

Conditions, Duties, Job Requirements

Personality Types, Career Opportunities and Cadre Policy

Violence and Imprisonment

Political Commitment: Gains and Losses

Stalin and the Transformation of the Comintern

The Dead on Leave: The Great Massacre

Aftermath

A Brief Epilogue: The Survivors