The Communist International, Anti-Imperialism And Racial Equality In British Dominions 0815354789, 9780815354789, 1351131974, 9781351131971

Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
Half Title......Page 2
Series......Page 3
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgements......Page 7
Note on translation and transliteration......Page 9
List of abbreviations......Page 10
Introduction......Page 12
Part I The context......Page 24
1 The Comintern and the national and colonial questions......Page 26
2 The Comintern and fighting racial oppression......Page 56
Part II Case studies......Page 84
3 A prioritized battleground: the Communist Party of South Africa and the Native Republic Thesis......Page 86
4 Correction and reminders: the Communist Party of Canada, Canada’s position in the world and ethnicity......Page 109
5 Showing initiative from the periphery: the Communist Party of Australia, White Australia, anti-imperialism and civil rights for Aboriginal and Melanesian peoples......Page 134
6 Conclusion: the communist parties of South Africa, Canada and Australia in comparison......Page 158
7 Epilogue: echoes of the Comintern......Page 168
Bibliography......Page 173
Index......Page 182

Citation preview

The Communist International, Anti-Imperialism and Racial Equality in British Dominions

This book analyses the stance of international communism towards nationality, anti-colonialism and racial equality as defined by the Communist International (Comintern) during the interwar period. Central to the volume is a comparative analysis of the communist parties of three British dominions, South Africa, Canada and Australia, demonstrating how each party attempted to follow Moscow’s lead and how each party produced its own attempts to deal with these issues locally, while considering the limits of their own agency within the movement at large. Oleksa Drachewych received his PhD in History from McMaster University, Canada.

Routledge Studies in Modern History

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The Communist International, Anti-Imperialism and Racial Equality in British Dominions Oleksa Drachewych

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Oleksa Drachewych The right of Oleksa Drachewych to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-8153-5478-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-13199-5 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Acknowledgements Note on translation and transliteration List of abbreviations

Introduction

PART I

vi viii ix 1

The context

13

1 The Comintern and the national and colonial questions

15

2 The Comintern and fighting racial oppression

45

PART II

Case studies

73

3 A prioritized battleground: the Communist Party of South Africa and the Native Republic Thesis

75

4 Correction and reminders: the Communist Party of Canada, Canada’s position in the world and ethnicity

98

5 Showing initiative from the periphery: the Communist Party of Australia, White Australia, anti-imperialism and civil rights for Aboriginal and Melanesian peoples

123

6 Conclusion: the communist parties of South Africa, Canada and Australia in comparison

147

7 Epilogue: echoes of the Comintern

157

Bibliography Index

162 171

Acknowledgements

This project began as my doctoral dissertation at McMaster University. I would like to thank my supervisory committee for guiding me through that process, helping me determine how this project would take shape, offering advice and feedback every step of the way and encouraging me to continue forward with this project in its current form. I would also like to thank the Department of History at McMaster University for their support, feedback and encouragement. To those that attended my departmental talk, I am appreciative of all those who asked questions or gave advice, forcing me to think more on certain issues. In particular, I was fortunate to be a part of an amazing graduate cohort. Chelsea Barranger, Curran Egan, Andrew Kloiber, Kelsey Hine, Scott Johnston, Jaqui Kirkham and Shay Sweeney were great soundboards for early versions of the analysis contained in this book, but a better group of friends and colleagues. Parts of this study have been presented at the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies and the Canadian Association of Slavists Conventions, the Transnational Leftism Workshop at the L.R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History and Pogrankom, a local meeting of Russian historians, where I was convinced to keep going on this project and got crucial feedback. After one of these presentations, I was told by a colleague that Ronald Grigor Suny, who was in the audience, had told them that he liked my talk. Knowing that a scholar I greatly respect enjoyed my work helped instill confidence that I was on the right track. Further discussions with R. Carter Elwood, Ruth Frager, Alastair Kocho-Williams, Bonny Ibhawoh, Stuart Macintyre, Ian McKay, Alison Rowley, Ian Thatcher, John Weaver and others helped me refine the analysis in this monograph. Michel Beaulieu and Evan Smith both turned my attention to certain archival documents and shared their insight to help me ensure my analysis was complete, while also offering me very helpful feedback. Samantha Clarke graciously translated some documents from German so I could complete some of my analysis. Tracy McDonald, my doctoral supervisor, and Lars Lih, both of whom have been academic mentors to me, reviewed early drafts of the entire book manuscript and I cannot thank them enough for their many suggestions and feedback, and generously giving up their time to provide them. Tracy once told me that she viewed books based on dissertations as a reflection of that scholar’s PhD

Acknowledgements  vii supervisor. I hope that this book reflects well on her. Of course, any errors in this book are mine and mine alone. This project was funded in part by an Ontario Graduate Fellowship, the L.R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History and the Department of History at McMaster University. I would also like to thank the archival staff at Library and Archives Canada, the Hoover Institution and Hoover Library at Stanford University, the Mitchell Library at the State Archives of New South Wales, the Noel Butlin Archives Centre at the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne Archives. I need to thank my father, who read parts of this book more times than I am sure he wanted. He instilled a love of history in me at an early age and he was always helping me ensure that I had written clearly, while lending a supportive ear. My mother unfortunately passed away before she could see the final product, but her love and support were invaluable. This book is dedicated to both of them. Finally, my partner Andrea has been by my side through this entire project and gave the manuscript a thorough copyedit at the very end to ensure it was ready for submission likely at the cost of some grey hairs. She knew how important seeing this project through to the end was to me. I know I am lucky to have her in my life.

Note on translation and transliteration

I have endeavoured to use the Library of Congress standard for any transliterated Russian titles. For figures that have names that have widely standardized spellings, those spellings have been retained (e.g. Trotsky).

Abbreviations

ABB ACTU ANC ANLC BNA CCF CCP CDRN

African Blood Brotherhood Australian Council of Trade Unions African National Congress American Negro Labor Congress British North America Co-operative Commonwealth Federation Chinese Communist Party Comité de défense de la race nѐgre (Committee for the Defence of the Negro Race) CEC Central Executive Committee CPA Communist Party of Australia CPC Communist Party of Canada CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain CPSA Communist Party of South Africa CPUSA Communist Party USA ECCI Executive Committee of the Communist International ICU Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union IISH International Institute of Social History ISL International Socialist League (South Africa) ITUCNW International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers KMT Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) KUTV Kommunisticheskii universitet trudyashchikhsya vostoka (Communist University for the Toilers of the East) LAC Library and Archives Canada LADLA Liga Antiimperialista de las Americas (Anti-Imperialist League of the Americas) LAI League Against Imperialism LAR League of African Rights LDRN La ligue de défense de la race nѐgre (League for the Defence of the Negro Race) LPP Labour-Progressive Party (Canada) LzVN Liga zur Verteidigung der Negerrasse (German Section of the League for the Defense of the Negro Race)

x  Abbreviations NBAC NWA PCF PKI PPTUS RGASPI

Noel Butlin Archives Centre Negro Welfare Association Parti communiste français (French Communist Party) Partai Komunis Indonesia (Communist Party of Indonesia) Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii (Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History) RILU Red International of Labour Unions South African Communist Party SACP SANSW State Archives of New South Wales, Mitchell Library Union Intercoloniale (Intercolonial Union) UIC UMA University of Melbourne Archives UTN Union des travailleurs nѐgres (Union of Negro Workers) WCAWF World Committee Against War and Fascism Worker’s Party of Canada WPC

Introduction

The Soviet Union, faithful to the policy of peace and support for the struggle of oppressed peoples for their national independence, the policy proclaimed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, founder of the Soviet State, calls upon the United Nations to raise its voice in defence of the just liberation of the colonies and to take immediate steps towards the complete abolition of the colonial state of government. – Nikita Khrushchev, 23 September, 19601

Nikita Khrushchev intimated the Soviet Union’s continued support for colonial independence as multiple African nations had shed the chains of colonial rule by the mid-twentieth century. Khrushchev also highlighted how “Africa [was] seething and bubbling like a volcano,” listing a number of colonies on the cusp of independence.2 His language echoed the response of Lenin and the Communist International following the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 when observing how many colonial delegates attended in hopes of taking advantage of then-American president Woodrow Wilson’s calls for self-determination in what historian Erez Manela has termed “The Wilsonian Moment.”3 In the shadow of that event, where the Paris Peace Conference reinforced the old order, including the redrawing of borders to serve Allied partners, exemplified in the Balkans and in China. International communism offered these delegates an alternate vision for the world, one which sought to end imperialism, support colonial liberation and, eventually, included calls for racial equality. This vision was a hallmark of the efforts of the Communist International, or Comintern, which the Bolsheviks formed in March 1919 to organize communist parties across the world. From its founding, the Comintern held anti-imperialism as a core tenet. By the summer of 1920, when it held its Second Congress, the Comintern had ballooned, welcoming delegates from all over the world. Indeed, its first colonial delegates attended in hopes of taking advantage of the message that the Bolsheviks spread. Led by Lenin, the Comintern developed its first tactics on what it termed the national and colonial question, an applied methodology for self-determination of nations and the spread of communism to the “East,” its catch-all term for the colonial world.

2  Introduction Attention to these issues grew as other subgroups attended Comintern Congresses. At the Third Congress in 1921, South African delegates spoke for the first time, highlighting the racial makeup of their nation. One year later, at the Comintern’s Fourth Congress, black communists, representing American radicals, promoted the first theses on the “Negro Question,” hoping to turn international communism’s attention to the plight of blacks worldwide. The increased attention to these issues ensured greater interest in organizing communist parties in the colonial world. The Comintern existed from 1919 to 1943 and, at its height, boasted over seventy member parties throughout the world and a membership of over three million.4 The organization’s influence cannot be denied. Prominent nationalist leaders, such as Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh or Indonesia’s Tan Malaka spoke at Comintern Congresses. Others, such as Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta and India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, though not communists themselves, attended meetings of organizations backed by the Comintern and, in some cases, travelled to Russia when Comintern representatives invited them. The ideas of the Comintern resonated well after its demise too. Nelson Mandela is one such notable example, as he was a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and took many communist ideas to heart. The SACP backed anti-apartheid efforts during the 1960s, developing the militant form of its resistance, uMKhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation).5 Marxist ideas, and echoes of the Comintern, can be found in the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s.6 I take a transnational approach to analysing international communism’s prominent trains of thought and tactics on the issues of anti-imperialism, self-­determination of nations and race during the interwar period. The ideas of prewar socialism, which Lenin built on, formed the foundation of the Comintern’s approach to antiimperialism. As Marxists and radicals from around the world joined the movement, the Bolsheviks gave their ideas an audience. Indeed, the Comintern was happy to take advantage of the colonial world’s growing desire to find willing partners in its efforts to meet nationalist goals. Through the involvement of figures such as Indian communist M.N. Roy, the Comintern developed its first set of tactics to apply in the colonial world. Others, such as German communist Willi Münzenburg, convinced the Comintern to back his front organization, the League Against Imperialism (LAI). Founded in 1927, the LAI sought to unite anti-imperialists of all ideologies under its banner. The organization was successful before international communism changed tactics, owing in part to Joseph Stalin’s rise to power, communist failures in China and increased concerns of war with Europe shedding any appearance of appearing ideologically neutral. Individuals played a more pronounced role on issues of race. Black communists attended Comintern congresses and demanded greater attention to racial issues. The “Negro Question,” could not be ignored. In early meetings of the Anglo-American Colonial Group in 1921, a committee of the Comintern apparatus formed to oversee the two “most important” imperial nations and their spheres of influence, delegates discussed race extensively. These debates moved to Negro Commissions, formed by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), which saw racism as gravely important and initially focused

Introduction  3 on the plight of African Americans. By the late 1920s, black communists had become powerful voices in the efforts to extend self-determination as a response to the “Negro Question,” defining African Americans and black Africans as distinct nations. The Comintern thus carried out important campaigns for colonial liberation and racial equality. Individual communists proved deeply important to advancing certain conceptualizations or popularizing communist campaigns internationally. These campaigns were deeply entangled with the transnational movement of people and ideas. But a focus only on this big picture of the Comintern obscures the fact that speaking of a general campaign is difficult in light of the different forms those campaigns took at the local level. Comparative histories are few and far between in Comintern studies, although, more recently, they have started to appear more frequently.7 The second half of this study takes this big picture, the context in which communist parties were expected to operate, if not follow, and investigates it at the local level. The study compares three parties which, at a glance, one may have thought would have developed more similarly than they did: the Communist Parties of South Africa, Canada and Australia. At its formation, each party accepted its nation’s colonial status as part of the British Empire. Officially, each nation had dominion status, meaning it had some degree of governmental autonomy from Britain. Each dominion had to deal with the problem of racial and national minorities or immigration. In South Africa, the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) had to consider a significant Afrikaaner population along with many Asian workers, and a black African and coloured worker population oppressed by imperial policies and the continued limitation of civil rights. In Canada, the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) could not ignore the French Canadian population and foreign workers, reflected in the high numbers of Ukrainians, Finns, Jewish and Asian workers. As well, Canada had Indigenous communities which were oppressed by governmental regulations, neglected and deprived of equal rights. In Australia, The White Australia policy meant that the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) needed to consider the foreign workers, given the significant Italian, Yugoslav and Greek populations, among others, working in the dominion’s industries. Australia, like Canada, had Indigenous populations that had few rights and poor living conditions. In Australia, race also played a role with the Melanesian workers in Queensland or the Australian mandate of Papua New Guinea. The League of Nations criticized Australia for its treatment of the Indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinea, as well as its treatment of Melanesian workers, who many Australian industries had long used as sources of cheap labour. This study details the evolution of each party during the interwar period in conjunction with the context in which it operated. I examine the development of communist approaches to combatting colonial, national and racial oppression, both locally and within the Comintern’s apparatus, responding to its tactics, ideas and, sometimes, its interventions. In taking a comparative approach, this study seeks to delineate similarities and differences between each party. Through a transnational approach, examining how ideas or people migrated from Comintern Congresses

4  Introduction and committees, and from other communist parties, this book also explains the development of each party’s tactics on its nation’s position in the world, on colonial liberation and on racial equality. In taking this multifaceted approach, more can be said about the Comintern itself and how it operated compared to studies focusing only on one party or the apparatus. One prominent concern in the historiography of the Comintern revolves around the control Moscow imposed upon member parties. Did Moscow force every party to conform to the centralized edicts of the Comintern apparatus and its executive committee, turning the International into a monolith?8 Or, did parties and individuals have the freedom to operate and deviate from the alleged centralized line when responding to local conditions?9 By comparing three parties, while keeping in mind the alleged “line” imposed from Moscow, I suggest that the better question is what the ECCI prioritized, as opposed to what Moscow demanded or expected parties to do. By focusing on prioritization, we can consider why intervention occurred on some issues and why other parties could undertake significant deviations with only a slap on the wrist. Consider, for example, how each party responded to the tactical shift from the United Front to Class against Class following the Sixth Congress of the Comintern. On issues of anti-imperialism and race, the Comintern reconsidered the position of Canada, Australia and South Africa in the world. Canada and Australia became secondary imperialist nations and these shifts are key points in the evolution of all three parties. Each party responded differently. Whereas the Communist Party of Australia largely fell into line, at least on these issues, Comintern representatives had greater involvement in the Communist Party of South Africa and the Communist Party of Canada. As the Comintern became more aware of South African racial issues in 1927, with the arrival of James La Guma in Moscow, the Negro Commission and the Sixth Comintern Congress agreed that selfdetermination for black Africans and calls for independence, a platform named the Native Republic Thesis, were appropriate. South African communist leaders felt this approach to be premature. Their hesitation to wholeheartedly follow the new thesis led the Comintern to back specific communist members and send multiple loyal communists to South Africa to ensure the CPSA followed the Comintern’s decisions. The party removed many leaders, including its chairman, Sidney Bunting, from the party. In Canada, when the CPC attacked the Comintern for inconsistencies, such as its shift on Canada’s position in the world, the ECCI summoned CPC leader Stewart Smith, to Moscow for self-criticism for six months, before returning to his post. Despite concerns in the party and in the Comintern that he continued to hold to his positions, viewed as incorrect by the communist consensus, he returned to his post and remained influential in the CPC until 1956. The Comintern focused on ensuring the correct assessment of every nation’s place in the world. In the case of South Africa, however, given its prominence with regards to the “Negro Question,” the CPSA’s hesitation was a serious breach of Comintern discipline and thus demanded significant intervention and membership turnover. The Canadian and Australian parties did not see any significant turnover of its leadership or its membership, at least on these issues, and the Comintern

Introduction  5 generally remained engaged from afar once CPC and CPA leadership committed to the tactics they preferred. Prioritization also helps one understand the limited consequences European parties faced for their apparent collective failure to appropriately campaign on colonial or racial issues. When the ECCI considered the big picture, these issues were not major priorities. These factors add a consideration of another problem some historians have noted of the Comintern – its Eurocentricity. Contemporaries, such as M.N. Roy, argued that the Second International ignored the colonial world; the Comintern attempted to rectify these issues, along with re-establishing a proper respect for revolutionary Marxism.10 Though the Comintern held influence globally, including in the colonial world, historians have questioned whether and, if so, when the Comintern succumbed again to a focus on Europe (or the West). Typically, scholars link this shift to Soviet foreign policy aims, which under Stalin in the 1930s, were calibrated to combating fascism in Germany and Italy and mitigating the potential of an imperialist war.11 I argue this tendency was never shaken from the start. The Comintern made a good faith effort, and a general desire to promote colonial liberation and racial equality. Many parties, however, had domestic issues with which to deal and focused these issues while still promoting colonial affairs when they could. Prioritization of certain local issues in each party, along with the fact that most of the Comintern bureaucracy was European, tended to ensure that their concerns took precedence. In countering this trend to Eurocentricity, the role of individual leaders in promoting anti-imperialism, colonial liberation or racial equality cannot be understated. Often, their efforts proved necessary for the Comintern to maintain a consistent, if not flawed, presence. Without such individuals as Willi Münzenburg, James Ford or George Padmore, one could question whether some of the Comintern’s front organizations or campaigns on anti-imperialism or race would have lasted as long as they did. Individual communists also played prominent roles in guiding their parties. Each party developed its own response to imperialism, its nation’s role in the world and, in some cases, racial oppression. By looking at the history and evolution of each party, ideas that were influenced by Moscow but were generally locally developed and defended can be explained. The CPSA applied a classical Marxist approach to race and reacted to local conditions. The party intentionally ignored Comintern directives, seeing them as inapplicable to South Africa. In fact, the Comintern did not seem to mind, only intervening when a CPSA member came to Moscow claiming it was a problem and criticized CPSA leadership in 1927. In Canada, party leadership placed emphasis on the country’s position, geographically next to America while under British influence. The CPC attempted to develop an approach to French Canadian nationalism. Stewart Smith, a leader educated at the Comintern’s Lenin School, proved to be more than capable of formulating his own viewpoints and interpretations, even if they clashed with Comintern tactics. In Australia, the CPA’s platforms on Aboriginal and Melanesian rights seemed to be entirely developed in house, without Comintern guidance. Only in South Africa did the Comintern have

6  Introduction any significant concerns about race relations; it briefly mentioning a desire for the CPA to more seriously deal with immigration and only once was concerned with the party platform on Aboriginal peoples. Through a transnational and comparative approach, while speaking to the monolithism of the Comintern and its priorities, this study also adds to our knowledge of its campaigns on the National, Colonial and Racial Questions. Histories that have focused exclusively on colonial issues typically examine certain phases of their development, whether it is Stephen White’s work on the Comintern under Lenin or John Callaghan’s insight on the Third Period.12 Often, the Comintern’s efforts in Asia become the focal point.13 On the “Negro Question,” American communism remains the focus, although that tendency has begun to change.14 More historians are focusing on communism in Latin America in the interwar period and transnational studies have made great strides in showing the networks that developed among anti-imperial activists and in promoting racial equality, especially in the Americas.15 Recent works by Hakim Adi on Pan-Africanism and its influence on international communism, by Holger Weiss on the communism’s efforts to organize the black Atlantic and by Fredrik Petersson on the League Against Imperialism show a growing trend towards explaining the reach of communism in the interwar period.16 This study builds on this work and seeks to recontextualize these efforts in a broader history of the Comintern. It is also one of the first studies to consider the Comintern’s approach to Indigenous peoples, explaining the Comintern’s approach to race broadly and beyond only the “Negro Question.” Finally, this is the first comparative analysis of communism in South Africa, Canada and Australia. By focusing on anti-imperialism, on each dominion’s place in the world and on issues of race and ethnicity, this book presents new conclusions about each party and their place within the Comintern. Many histories of the CPSA rightly focus on race and this study offers new conclusions as to why the Comintern forced the Native Republic Thesis upon South African communists.17 The study of Canadian communism and ethnicity emphasizes its attempts to win over French Canadian workers, while grappling with the Finnish and Ukrainian immigrant groups who strongly supported and bankrolled the party.18 In the Canadian communist context, scholars have typically not discussed interwar communism and race and this is the first study to look into that subject. In terms of the CPA, historians have noted the party’s response to the White Australia Policy and recently, have begun to discuss the party’s platforms for Aboriginal peoples and Melanesian peoples.19 This study gives more detail about its efforts, and places it in the broader context. This work also highlights how Australia communists tended to develop their platforms without much guidance from Moscow.

Structure of this study This study is divided into two sections. The first part reconsiders the Soviet Union and the Communist International and the National, Colonial and Racial Questions. In doing so, this work builds upon transnational scholarship and ties it to an organizational and ideological history of the Comintern. This study also speaks

Introduction  7 to the priorities of the Comintern. Section one is divided into two chapters. The first chapter  details the Comintern’s positions on anti-imperialism and colonial liberation. It reviews the worldview developed by Lenin and accepted by the Zimmerwald Left which adopted key planks of prewar socialism and underpinned the Comintern’s platforms. The chapter outlines the tactics drawn up by Lenin and M.N. Roy at the Second Congress, and the uneven development and consideration of the colonial world at Comintern Congresses after Lenin’s death. This chapter also explains the formation and evolution of such front organizations as the League Against Imperialism, established by communists throughout the world to organizing anti-imperial sentiment. Finally, it discusses the problem of European parties’ involvement in colonial affairs and the challenges that resulted from their priorities and other obstacles. The second chapter  examines the Comintern’s approach to racial oppression. Initially, in 1919, the Comintern tended to approach racism as a bourgeois construction, accepting the classical Marxism approach. With the rise of Pan-­ Africanist movements, the Comintern felt the need to respond. Some communists felt organizing blacks and raising racial consciousness could help them overcome racism and racial inequality, challenging classical Marxism. Black communists travelled to Moscow and helped increase communism’s attention to the “Negro Question” during the mid-1920s. Over time, thanks to a comment by Lenin in the Theses on the National and Colonial Question in 1920, the Comintern felt selfdetermination for black Africans was a way to overcome their racial oppression. While communists applied this platform in other contexts, such as with Indigenous peoples in Latin America, it was not broadly applied. The Comintern tended to ignore Indigenous peoples in white settler colonies, such as the United States and Canada, and often downplayed racial difference in some colonies with racialized, colonized peoples. Furthermore, as it did with colonial matters, the Comintern supported front organizations for organizing racialized groups, such as the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers. Individual communists also created organizations for similar purposes in Europe. The second section examines the communist parties of South Africa, Canada and Australia. The third chapter  details the history of the Communist Party of South Africa on issues of anti-imperialism, nationality and racial equality. It explores the role of Sidney Bunting and David Ivon Jones in establishing early positions on racial equality and anti-imperialism, on which the entire party did not initially agree. Bunting became Party Chairman in 1925 and he ascribed to a traditional Marxist position on race: racial issues would be resolved if class inequality was eliminated. Bunting’s rise to the Party Chairmanship caused the party to shift to supporting black Africans more prominently and led to a swelling in the number of African party members. When James La Guma, a coloured trade unionist, travelled to Moscow, the Comintern began to develop the Native Republic Thesis. This platform demanded that the CPSA promote self-determination on racial lines and increase its commitment to colonial liberation. The Comintern always considered South Africa to be a colony. Typically, historians have ignored the role of Max Petrovsky, a British communist who was present at every major

8  Introduction meeting in Moscow regarding the Native Republic Thesis, outside of his animus towards Bunting at the Sixth Comintern Congress in 1928. I argue, however, that he was crucial in developing the controversial programme and ensuring the Comintern’s confirmation of it. The CPSA eventually relented in its obstinacy against the Thesis and the Comintern backed certain members of the CPSA. In the process, it forced Sidney Bunting out, causing the party to fracture and its membership to collapse. The party started to rebuild itself with the turn to Popular Front tactics. The Comintern tried to salvage its program with a general call for self-determination, including Afrikaaners and other minorities in its propaganda while still demanding the party focused on black African issues. With the rise of Moses Kotane and the return of the party’s first Chairman, Bill Andrews, the party regained some importance in South African affairs. By the Second World War, it devoted great attention to racial issues in South Africa, presaging its later antagonism to apartheid. The fourth chapter details the Communist Party of Canada and its consideration of anti-imperialism and self-determination of nations. The party initially failed to reflect on its position in the world and required prodding from the Comintern to do so. Later, Tim Buck, Stewart Smith and others developed the platform demanding Canadian independence. The CPC had a party membership that skewed heavily towards immigrants and the Comintern repeatedly expressed its desire for the participation of more “native-born” English or French Canadian. The most significant clash between the Comintern and the CPC came because of Canada’s international position. The Comintern defined Canada as a secondary imperial power at the Fourth Comintern Congress. The Comintern enforced this designation after the Sixth Comintern Congress. Therefore, the CPC could not discuss Canadian independence. A series of miscommunications and ideological differences led to a yearlong row between the Comintern and CPC members at the Lenin School in the Soviet Union, and the CPC leadership, predominantly Stewart Smith. This chapter details the Comintern’s intervention its consequences, namely the CPC’s general parroting of Comintern edicts while still doing all it could to win over French Canadians to its cause. With the outbreak of the Second World War, some party members revived their Canadian independence line and also called for selfdetermination for French Canadians. Comintern intervention in the CPC seemed likely before the Comintern’s dissolution in 1943. The chapter  highlight’s the party’s lack of consideration of Indigenous peoples. The CPC also maintained a general platform for foreign workers. These positions were the precursors to later CPC positions in the 1960s and beyond. The fifth chapter details the CPA’s responses to the White Australia policy and Australian imperialism, and its programmes for racial equality for Aboriginal peoples and Melanesian workers. Initially, during the 1920s, the impetus to attack the White Australia policy came entirely from Moscow. The party focused primarily on trade unions and affiliation with the Australian Labor Party. Moscow’s suggestions underpinned many of the early actions of the party. In 1931, the CPA began its first campaign for Aboriginal peoples’ rights, seemingly independently of Moscow. This campaign became a key plank of the CPA’s platform when Tom Wright spearheaded the “New Deal for Aborigines” and detailed a progressive policy for

Introduction  9 respecting Aboriginal peoples. Relatedly, the CPA devoted growing attention to foreign workers and Melanesian workers. Illuminating in a comparative context is the Australian response to the Comintern’s designation of Australia as a secondary imperialist power. The CPA acquiesced with little to no disagreement. Furthermore, because of this designation, the CPA turned its attention to Melanesian workers as colonized peoples and to events in Papua New Guinea. In this chapter, I argue that the CPA was the Comintern’s willing partner on national, colonial and racial issues, happily following its lead. Occasionally, however, the CPA developed its own tactics, as demonstrated by the programmes for Aboriginal rights or Melanesian workers. The CPA also strongly supported colonial liberation campaigns in India and China, and attacked imperialism in the Pacific and fascism in Spain. By detailing the histories of these parties with specific attention to anti-imperialism, racial equality, and nationality, and considered in the context of international communism’s platforms, one can shed light on many of the historiographical ­controversies outlined earlier. The Comintern knew of local conditions, although it may not have had a clear idea of how to deal with them. In some cases, Comintern knowledge of a given region was entirely the result of individual communists bringing the matters to its attention. The Comintern offered advice to each party and showed a willingness to intervene. The level of that intervention was directly tied to the Comintern’s priorities and typically occurred after the Sixth Comintern Congress when Moscow gave the rigidity of Comintern policy practical importance. The CPSA, for example, was important with regard to racial issues, second only to the American context. When a party failed to follow the Comintern’s wishes, the Comintern could overhaul the party leadership and force it to fall into line. In Canada and Australia, Moscow’s concerns were more limited but, when a party deviated too far, as with the Canadian independence episode, the Comintern stepped in. It intervened here in a much different way than it did with the CPSA, prioritizing its platforms against racial oppression in South Africa more than antiimperialism or ethnic relations in Canada or Australia. Although the Comintern, its Eurocentrism notwithstanding, had a general commitment to anti-imperialism, anti-fascism, self-determination of nations and racial equality, each national party dealt with these issues differently and with varying levels of commitment. Individual parties had some ability to develop their own tactics, outside of Comintern direction and had much more flexibility than previously thought. While this study is not the final comment on issues of Comintern monolithism or on the National, Colonial or Racial Questions, it establishes some of the limitations of the totalitarianism of the Comintern. This work also details the role these parties had in terms of self-determination, anti-imperialism and racial equality. The study explains the precursor to the Left’s involvement in the anti-colonial and civil rights movements later in the twentieth century.

Notes 1 “Speech by Mr.  Khrushchev, Chairman of the Council of Minister of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, at the 869th Plenary Meeting of the 15th Session of the United Nations General Assembly,” 23 September, 1960, History and Public

10  Introduction

2

3 4 5

6

7

8

Policy Program Digital Archive, United Nations Document A/PV.869: 74. http://digital archive.wilsoncenter.org/document/155185 (Accessed August 6, 2018). “Speech by Mr.  Khrushchev, Chairman of the Council of Minister of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, at the 869th Plenary Meeting of the 15th Session of the United Nations General Assembly,” 23 September, 1960, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, United Nations Document A/PV.869: 73. http://digital archive.wilsoncenter.org/document/155185 (Accessed August 6, 2018). Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe eds., International Communism and the Communist International 1919–1943 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1998), 2. Stephen Ellis, “Nelson Mandela, the South African Communist Party and the Origins of Umkhonto We Sizwe,” Cold War History 16, no. 1 (2016): 1–2; Irina Filatova and Apollon Davidson, The Hidden Thread: Russian and South Africa in the Soviet Era (Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2013), Kindle edition, loc. 6305–6334. Others still suggest he cooperated with many communists and was willing to work with any group that supported African nationalism. Tom Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 67–108; Peter Limb, Nelson Mandela: A Biography (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2008), 24–32. In light of this study, I  will only focus on Canada and Australia for examples. For Canada, see Ian McKay, Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada’s Left History (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2005), 183–192. For Australia, see Douglas Jordan, “Conflict in the Unions: The Communist Party of Australia, Politics and the Trade Union Movement, 1945–1960” (PhD diss., University of Victoria, 2011), 160–245; Bob Boughton, “The Communist Party of Australia’s Involvement in the Struggle for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Rights 1920–1970,” in Robert Hood and Ray Markey eds., Labour and Community: Proceedings of the Sixth National Conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 2–4 October 1999 (Wollongong, 1999), 37–46; Jennifer Clark, Aborigines & Activism: Race, Aborigines & the Coming of the Sixties to Australia (Crawley: University of West Australia Press, 2008), 55–63. A notable piece is that of John Manley. See John Manley, “Moscow Rules? ‘Red’ Unionism and ‘Class against Class’ in Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1928– 1935,” Labour/Le Travail 56 (Fall, 2005): 9–49. Many have called for more comparative studies of different communist parties. Silvio Pons, The Global Revolution: A History of International Communism, 1917–1991, trans. Allan Cameron (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), xiv. Matthew Worley, “Courting Disaster? The Communist International in the Third Period,” in Matthew Worley, ed., In Search of Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third Period (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 15. Fredrik Petersson, “Historiographical Trends and the Comintern  – The Communist International (Comintern) and How it has been Interpreted,” CoWoPa – Comintern Working Paper 8 (2007): 14; Sabine Dullin and Brigitte Studer, “Introduction Communisme + Transnational: L’équation  retrouvée de l’internationalisme (premier xxe siѐcle),” Monde(s), no. 10 (Nov., 2016): 9–32. Isaac Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 386–413; William J. Chase, Enemies Within the Gates?: The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934–1939 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 1–36; Theodore Draper, The Roots of American Communism (New York: Viking Press, 1957); Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Firsov, The Secret World of American Communism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995); Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Kyrill Anderson, The Soviet World of American Communism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); John McIlroy and Alan Campbell, “ ‘Nina

Introduction  11

9

10 11

12

13 14 15 16

Ponomareva’s Hats’: The New Revisionism, the Communist International, and the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1920–1930,” Labour/Le Travail 49 (Spring, 2002): 147–187; John Newsinger, “Recent Controversies in the History of British Communism,” Journal of Contemporary History 41, no. 3 (Jul., 2006): 557–572; Pons, The Global Revolution, xv; Silvio Pons, “Response to ‘Débat autour de The Global Revolution: A History of International Communism, 1917–1991’ de Silvio Pons,” Monde(s) 2, no 10 (2016): 177–183. Eric Hobsbawm, “Problems of Communist History,” Australian Left Review 1, no 23 (Feb.–Mar., 1970): 9–15; Perry Anderson, “Communist Party History,” in Raphael Samuel, ed., People’s History and Socialist Theory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), 145–156; Andrew Thorpe, “Comintern ‘Control’ of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1920–43,” The English Historical Review 113, no.  452 (Jun., 1998): 637–662; Worley, “Courting Disaster?,” 1–17; Norman LaPorte, Kevin Morgan and Matthew Worley, eds., Bolshevism, Stalinism and the Comintern: Perspectives on Stalinization, 1917–53 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Kevin Morgan also presents a compelling polemical article questioning the value of even focusing on the dichotomy itself. Kevin Morgan, “The Trouble with Revisionism: or Communist History with the History Left In,” Labour/Le Travail 63 (Spring, 2009): 131–155. John Riddell, ed., Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite!: Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress, 1920 (New York: Pathfinder Press, 2013), 1:282. Pons, The Global Revolution, 118–123. Pons, “Response to Débat,” 177–183; Fernando Claudin, The Communist Movement: From Comintern to Cominform, Part One: The Crisis of the Communist International, trans. Brian Pearce (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975), 260; Kevin McDermott, “The History of the Comintern in Light of New Documents,” in Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe eds., International Communism and the Communist International, 1919–1943 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 31–40; Archie Brown, The Rise & Fall of Communism (Doubleday Canada, 2009), 82–92; Donald Priestland, The Red Flag: A History of Communism (New York: Grove Press, 2009), 124; Alastair Kocho-Williams, Russian and Soviet Diplomacy, 1900–39 (Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 139–141; Helmut Gruber, Soviet Russia Masters the Comintern: International Communism in the Era of Stalin’s Ascendancy (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1974), 508–509. Edward Hallett Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution: 1919–1923: Volume 3 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966), 232–271; Stephen White, “Communism and the East: The Baku Congress, 1920,” Slavic Review 33, no. 3 (Sep., 1974): 492–514; Stephen White, “Colonial Revolution and the Communist International, 1919–1924,” Science & Society 40, no. 2 (Summer, 1976): 173–193; Stephen White, “Soviet Russia and the Asian Revolution, 1917–1924,” Review of International Studies 10, no. 3 (Jul., 1984): 219–232; John Callaghan, “Storm Over Asia: Comintern Colonial Policy in the Third Period,” in Matthew Worley, ed., In Search of Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third Period (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 18–37. For example, Michael Weiner, “Comintern in East Asia, 1919–39,” in Kevin McDermott and Jeremy Agnew eds., The Comintern: A History of International Communism from Lenin to Stalin (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 158–190. For example, Jacob A. Zumoff, The Communist International and US Communism, 1919–1929 (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015), 287–364. A great recent example is Margaret Stevens, Red International and the Black Caribbean: Communists in New York City, Mexico and the West Indies, 1919–1939 (London: Pluto Press, 2017); Hakim Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism: The Communist International, Africa and the Diaspora, 1919–1939 (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2013); Holger Weiss, Framing a Radical African Atlantic: African American Agency, West African

12  Introduction Intellectuals, and the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (Leiden: Brill, 2014); Fredrik Petersson, Willi Munzenberg, the League Against Imperialism, and the Comintern, 1925–1933 (New York: Edward Mellen Press, 2014). 17 Sheridan Johns, Raising the Red Flag: The International Socialist League and the Communist Party of South Africa, 1914–1932 (Bellville: Mayibuye Books, 1995); Allison Drew, “The New Line in South Africa: Ideology and Perception in a Very Small Communist Party,” in Matthew Worley ed., In Search of Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third Period (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 337–359; Allison Drew, Between Empire and Revolution: A Life of Sidney Bunting, 1873–1936 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2007); Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003); H.J. Simons and R.E. Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa 1850–1950 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969), 389–390; Filatova and Davidson, The Hidden Thread, Chapter 4. 18 William Rodney, Soldiers of the International: A History of the Communist Party of Canada 1919–1929 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968); Ivan Avakumovic, The Communist Party of Canada: A History (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975); Ian Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party of Canada (Montreal: Vanguard Publications, 1981); Norman Penner, Canadian Communism: The Stalin Years and Beyond (Toronto: Methuen, 1988); Marcel Fournier, Communisme et Anticommunisme au Quebec (1920–1950) (Laval: Éditions cooperatives Albert Saint-Martin, 1979); Robert Comeau and Bernard Dionne, eds., Le droit de se taire: Histoire des communistes au Quebec, de la Premiere Guerre mondiale a la Revolution tranquille (Outremont: VLB Editeur, 1989); Andrée Lévesque, Red Travellers: Jeanne Corbin and Her Comrades, trans. Yvonne M. Klein (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006); Michel Beaulieu, Labour at the Lakehead: Ethnicity, Socialism, and Politics, 1900–35 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011); 19 Stuart Macintyre, The Reds (St. Leonard’s: Allen & Unwin, 1998); Stuart Macintyre, “The New Line in the Antipodes: Australian Communists and Class Against Class,” in Matthew Worley, ed., In Search of Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third Period (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 247–269; Boughton, “The Communist Party of Australia’s Involvement in the Struggle for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Rights 1920–1970,” 37–46; Robert Bozinovski, “The Communist Party of Australia and Proletarian Internationalism, 1928–1935,” (PhD diss., Victoria University, 2008); Drew Cottle, “The Colour-line and the Third Period: A Comparative Analysis of American and Australian Communism and the Question of Race, 1928– 1934,” American Communist History 10, no. 2 (2011): 126–131; Jon Piccini and Evan Smith, “The ‘White Australia’ policy must go”: The Communist Party of Australia and immigration restriction,” in Jon Piccini, Evan Smith and Matthew Worley, eds., The Far Left in Australia since 1945 (London: Routledge, 2018).

Part I

The context

1 The Comintern and the national and colonial questions

The First World War threw socialism into chaos. Many socialists dropped any pretence of internationalism and supported their nations’ war efforts.1 Lenin and the Zimmerwald Left saw this nationalism as a betrayal of revolutionary Marxism, rendering the Second International ideologically bankrupt.2 In turn, Lenin and the Zimmerwald Left reclaimed the socialist lineage of ideas on anti-imperialism and self-determination of nations, aiming to represent what socialists should have stood for when war broke out. In doing so, as represented by such works as Lenin’s Imperialism, the Bolsheviks became the leaders of this repaired socialism. Fighting imperialism and supporting colonial liberation became important campaigns of the Comintern and underpinned the worldview promoted by the Bolsheviks. It became a prominent part of Bolshevik diplomacy, such as in its response to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk negotiations of 1917–1918, and to the Allied Intervention and Russian Civil War of 1918–1921. In the Comintern, this worldview influenced the 1920 “Theses on the National and Colonial Question,” the 1922 “Theses on the Eastern Question,” and several congresses of the Peoples of the East. The Comintern expected member parties to follow these resolutions. Each party had different ways of responding to these theses but, when looking at colonial liberation, nationality and race, every party needed to be aware of these platforms. Lenin’s role in these early congresses is impossible to ignore and he was a prominent figure in supporting these early tactical formulations. Others, such as Indian communist M.N. Roy, also developed their own interpretations and maintained a significant level of influence. However, following Lenin’s death, the Comintern’s commitment to colonial liberation became less pronounced. Typically, events in India and China were important to the Comintern, given the prominence of these countries in the spread of communism and breaking important links in the imperialist chain. Otherwise, in terms of colonial matters, the Comintern started to drift towards a more generalized approach but member parties often wanted something more substantial. In general, by the Sixth Congress and thereafter, the Comintern’s structural Eurocentrism was hard to shake. Whereas communist parties in Europe made some effort to promote colonial liberation and some sent members to colonies, they rarely made a consistent effort. In general, specific figures such as Jacques

16  The context Doriot in France or Shapurji Saklatvala in Britain were the main motivators for maintaining some attention on colonial affairs. Individuals such as Willi Münzenburg were central in forming front organizations like the League Against Imperialism. Even when the Comintern sought to force parties to place greater attention on colonial affairs in Europe, it tended to back off before any firm action could be taken. In 1929, for example, the Comintern planned a colonial conference but did not undertake it. The priorities of the Comintern become the important motivator. Its general tendency to follow Soviet foreign policy and to prioritize European affairs in the 1930s limited direct opposition to British or American imperialism. Instead, the Comintern focused on combatting fascism, as well as the militarism and aggression of Germany, Italy and Japan.

Communism, anti-imperialism and the First World War The communist critique of imperialism built on a lineage of ideas accepted by Lenin and the Zimmerwald Left. This body of work, and resolutions of the Second International, included certain works and ideas of Karl Kautsky, the Basel Manifesto and the Stuttgart Resolution.3 Lenin enunciated the most notable statement of the accepted perspective towards imperialism when he wrote Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916. The scope and influence of this work cannot be denied. The Communist International, the Comintern’s tactical journal, advertised it frequently as Lenin’s “most important” work. When war broke out in the summer of 1914, Lenin, incensed by the actions of his socialist colleagues, criticized them and called for a break with the Second International and the formation of a new International founded upon revolutionary principles.4 He believed that his colleagues had sullied the tactics of socialism. During the war, he strengthened his positions on international issues. Imperialism borrowed from critics of imperialism, including some prominent socialists, and attacked alternative socialist ideas promoted during the war.5 Borrowing from J.A. Hobson and socialist Rudolf Hilferding, Lenin developed the worldview that capitalism was stagnating, as a result of the rich getting richer through the exploitation of colonies.6 Echoing Rudolf Hilferding, he added that banks, through tariffs, encouraged the accumulation of territory. Therefore, imperialism and finance capital were one and the same, Lenin argued.7 He also adopted socialist positions on self-determination and forwarded them as important concerns for his brand of revolutionary communism. Some prominent socialists supported imperialism and the economic benefits from colonial exploitation, a problem Lenin noted in their works on imperialism. But Lenin remained intellectually indebted to Kautsky who argued that, if Marxists were against “capitalist colonial policies,” they must be against exploitative colonial policies.8 He linked the success of the proletariat revolution to the end of colonialism. Kautsky argued that colonial exploitation could not be combatted on every occasion. Revolution must come when a region was “ripe.” This correct timing would prevent further exploitation from an imperial power, but also from

The national and colonial questions  17 the “barbarism” occasioned by the lack of readiness for socialism.9 Kautsky concluded that: Revolutions in Europe and North America cannot fail to affect the states in the rest of the world. The shifts of power between classes must be accompanied by shifts of power between races and states, just as it is probable, on the other hand, that internal revolutions are started off by external revolutions, world wars.10 A world revolution, and one of significant scope, would be necessary in order to make all possible benefits a reality. Colonial liberation could occur with the end of capitalist regimes in Europe, just as colonial liberation could enhance the strength of revolution in Europe. In this prewar article, Kautsky also suggested a war, akin to the eventual First World War, could awaken revolution.11 Lenin built on this position to formulate a prominent theme of his regime after the October Revolution. He defined the right of self-determination of nations as the “right to secession.”12 Lenin argued for unanimous acceptance of the right to political self-determination. He, however, held a specific definition for “nation:” Recognising equality and equal rights to a national state, it values and appreciates above all the alliance of the proletariat of all nations, evaluating any national demand, any national separation, from the angle [emphasis in original] of the workers’ class struggle.13 Lenin positioned self-determination as freedom from oppression and a desire for full equality, but only if the proletariat demanded it. Upon receiving independence, the proletariat would merge its new nation with the international “nation,” unifying the international working class. All would be free from exploitation.14 It was a creative way to link proletarian internationalism with nationality and equality. Buoying this formulation was Lenin’s contempt of chauvinism, the oppression of a greater nation over a lesser one.15 Even if several nationalities existed in a given nation-state, they should be protected and free from national, ethnic or racial oppression. This position, coupled with Lenin’s analysis of imperialism, underpinned the Bolshevik and, eventually, Comintern worldview. It was familiar to many socialists, building on socialist platforms established before the war.16 It reflected the changing international situation and maintained the revolutionary spirit of those disenchanted by the Socialist International.

Facing imperialism: the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the Russian Civil War The Bolsheviks’ seizure of power forced them to consider the practical aspects of these ideological tenets formed when not in power. One of the first orders

18  The context of business for Lenin and his comrades was to end Russian involvement in the First World War. Almost immediately, they called for peace negotiations. Only the Central Powers obliged, beginning to negotiate what became the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. During the negotiations, the Bolsheviks demanded the application of self-determination of nations in any former Tsarist Russian territory and a non-annexationist peace. They used the negotiations as a stage to reach the wider European audience and propagandize their views.17 The Bolsheviks were willing to open the doors to complete and total self-­ determination – at least when applied to political entities other than those under their control. Begrudgingly they did the same within their own borders, accepting a fait accompli as the Bolshevik Revolution had destabilized the Russian Empire, allowing regions to secede.18 The Central Powers knew they held the leverage in the negotiations, especially due to the fact that the other Allied Powers had no intention of joining the negotiations. As a result of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Central Powers took control over roughly a third of the former Russian Empire’s population, significant agricultural lands, industrial centres and coal mines.19 Many Bolsheviks disagreed with the signing of the treaty, citing it as oppressive and, at worst, selling the soul of the revolution to an imperialist state. BrestLitovsk, however, provided “breathing space,” allowing the new regime to turn its attention to domestic issues and to the civil war that had begun. The treaty was also the first of a series of diplomatic moments that gave communism credibility when it turned to the colonized world. Lenin was keenly aware of this fact, suggesting the treaty affirmed that Russia no longer was participating “in the plunder and suppression of other countries.”20 A year later, the Bolsheviks hailed it as a necessary peace. They needed to pull themselves out of a war against “half of world imperialism” and “retreat” in order to regroup, consolidate the revolution at home and work towards their goal of undermining imperialism through the education of the international working classes.21 Brest-Litovsk also showed that the imperialist aims of European powers were broadly held. In a new preface to Imperialism written in 1920, Lenin claimed that the series of harsh peace treaties, which now included the Treaty of Versailles along with Brest-Litovsk, were Exhibit A in illustrating the persistence of imperialist states. He reframed Brest-Litovsk as an imposed treaty on Russia. Lenin argued that both treaties “opened the eyes of the millions and tens of millions of people who are downtrodden, oppressed, deceived and duped by the bourgeoisie with unprecedented rapidity.” For the Bolsheviks, the postwar settlements showed that the people of the world had been awakened to the immorality of imperialism and Wilsonianism. Lenin implied that Wilsonianism was a fraudulent claim that reform and peace could occur under an imperialistic system. This new awakening would inevitably lead to proletarian revolutions.22 The Bolsheviks, therefore, declared themselves the vanguard in the fight against imperialism. Echoing Imperialism, they stated their “firm determination to wrest mankind from the clutches of finance capital and imperialism” and “at all costs, by revolutionary means, [establish] a democratic peace between nations . . . on the basis of the free self-determination of nations.”23 When the Entente nations

The national and colonial questions  19 entered the Russian Civil War, cooperating with White counter-revolutionary forces, it only further established the Bolshevik’s revolutionary and anti-imperial credentials. The Bolsheviks, and especially Lenin, took the opportunity to show how they practiced what they preached by combating imperialism on its own territory.24 By making clear their desire to recreate the Tsarist Empire, white commanders such as Anton Denikin provided the Bolsheviks with propaganda fodder. Since many counterrevolutionaries sided with the British and the French, two of the most prominent imperial powers, any promotion of self-determination rang hollow – if they had even considered it. In areas like Ukraine, where the Treaty of Versailles significantly hampered and deflated independence efforts, and the Caucasus, where the Germans, Ottomans and British all had forces present, the Bolsheviks appeared to be the lesser of many evils.

The First Congress of the Communist International Against this backdrop of civil war and intervention, the Bolsheviks began the ambitious project of taking leadership of international communism, forming the Communist International in March  1919. Allied blockades and interception of invitations meant that the Comintern’s founding Congress had few representatives from outside of Bolshevik Russia. Those individuals present represented the Zimmerwald Left and a desire to lead revolutionary Marxism.25 The Congress absorbed the lineage of orthodox Marxism and, taking place a month after the Second International reformed, the Congress restated that the reformed socialist organization was still ideologically bankrupt.26 Communists condemned the Second International frequently, especially when discussing anti-imperialism and colonial liberation. Self-determination and combating imperialism became a common resolve for the Comintern, unlike it had been under the Second International. S.J. Rutgers, representative of the Dutch Socialist Party, recommended putting the colonial world front and centre, but also wanted to avoid patronizing it. For example, he took issue with Comintern declarations claiming to reveal imperialism’s “banditry,” suggesting that this situation was hardly a new experience in the colonial world. He also criticized some wording which suggested racial inferiority, echoing old problems of the Second International.27 The most vociferous condemnation of imperialism came in Nikolai Osinsky’s Theses on the International Situation and the Policy of the Entente, and Leon Trotsky’s Manifesto of the Communist International. Both resolutions highlighted the bankrupt, duplicitous nature of imperial nations and Wilsonianism while lauding the efforts of the Bolsheviks. Referencing the immediate backdrop of the First Congress, the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the Russian Civil War and the Paris Peace Conference taking place, the Theses on the International Situation and the Policy of the Entente argued Bolshevik Russia was the only state outside the new European order of “victorious imperialism.” As a result, the only true counter to imperialism was Bolshevik Russia. The Communist International and communism needed to fight against imperialism.28

20  The context The Manifesto echoed the same themes albeit with specific mentions of the colonies: [Proletarian revolution] liberates the productive forces of all countries from the closed vise of the national state, uniting nations in close economic cooperation through a general economic plan, and gives the smallest and weakest nation the opportunity, the freedom and independence to develop its national culture, without any damage to the unified and centralized economy of Europe and the entire world. The last war, which was significantly a war over colonies, was also a war fought with the help of the colonies. The colonial peoples were involved in the European war as never before. Indians, Negros, Arabs and Malagasy fought on the European continent. In whose name? In the name of their right to remain slaves of England and France. Never has the picture of the dishonour of capitalist rule shown itself more shamelessly. Never has the problem of colonial slavery been posed more sharply as now.29 Lenin’s definition of self-determination underpinned the Manifesto, which promoted the value of every nation having autonomy. The document outlined the goals of international communism for colonial liberation and self-determination of nations, while acting as a propaganda piece to promote nationalism and win over those individuals uncertain about the results of losing colonies. The Manifesto also coupled colonial liberation with revolution in imperial countries, concluding its section on the colonial world by proclaiming the benevolence of proletarian revolution: Capitalist Europe forced the underdeveloped parts of the world into the capitalist maelstrom; socialist Europe will come to help the freed colonies with its technology, organization, and intellectual insight to accelerate the transition to a systematically organized socialist economy. Colonial slaves of Africa and Asia! The hour of proletarian dictatorship in Europe will also be the hour of your liberation!30 While developing no tactics, the First Congress established a common worldview with significant attention to nationality and independence movements, while positioning the Comintern as a distinct alternative to the imperial powers and the Second International. Nationalists in the colonies could hear or read these resolutions and find hope in the Comintern.

Developing tactics: the Second Congress of the Communist International The First Congress established the anti-imperial worldview of the Comintern; the Second Congress of the Comintern, held in July and August  1920, developed tactics that communists and nationalists could employ in their struggles for

The national and colonial questions  21 colonial liberation. Two documents were significant: The Conditions for Admission and The Theses on The National and Colonial Question. The Conditions made colonial liberation a priority for communist parties throughout the world. The Theses developed the tactics the Comintern would use to support independence movements. The Conditions of Admission came out of a need to avoid the ideological inconsistency and splintering that occurred under the Second International. Especially with many parties seeking membership in the Comintern at the Second Congress, this concern required a solution. The Conditions have acquired infamy for the level of submission required by the Comintern to the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI). They guaranteed that the resolutions and edicts of Comintern Congresses and the ECCI would be followed by all affiliated parties.31 In regard to the problems of imperialism and colonialism, two conditions stand out. Condition Six focused on the perceived natural inability of imperialism to bring peace. It called upon all parties to attack “patriotism,” a form of nationalism that prevented internationalism, and “social-pacifism” to expose the inherent hypocrisies in imperialism and, presumably, social democracy. Condition Nine was even more relevant. The Comintern required all affiliate parties in an imperial nation to have a clearly defined position on colonialism. Furthermore, it mandated these parties to support independence movements in their countries’ colonies in words and actions.32 These Conditions seemed a natural extension of the Comintern’s worldview but, by the end of the 1920s, the ECCI used them to bring parties into line or to demand more attention to colonial or racial affairs. The Conditions demanded a focus on imperialism and colonialism and the fight against them became a major aspect of the Comintern’s efforts. The Theses on the National and Colonial Question considered how to achieve revolution and selfdetermination in the colonial world and developed much needed tactics. Before the Second Congress, Lenin drafted a preliminary set of the Theses which aimed to explain how to extend communism to the colonial world. Much like the Conditions, they called for an unrelenting attack on imperialism and its supporters through parliament and propaganda. They highlighted a need to act, not just proselytize, to support independence movements. The Theses called on communists to counter sources of religious support for national movements, particularly those motivated by Christianity and the civilizing mission, or unifying movements like Pan-Islam or Pan-Asianism, which Lenin saw as an extension of Turkish or Japanese imperialism.33 One of Lenin’s greatest challenges was to explain how a socialist revolution could take place in a region which lacked a true proletariat. As a result, he elaborated two formulations. The first was to suggest that colonies, with help from Bolshevik Russia and other communist parties, could progress to communist revolution without a prior capitalist revolution. This approach ensured the applicability of communist theory to the colonies and placed experience as the guiding principle in these situations.34 Most delegates generally agreed with this formulation.

22  The context The second formulation, however, led to disagreement. Initially, in his preliminary theses distributed before the Congress, Lenin suggested that communist parties in the colonies, and presumably those in the appropriate imperial powers, work with the bourgeois-democratic movements in the colonies.35 As Lenin would later explain at the Congress, the parties needed to consider the realities on the ground. Bearing in mind the concept of oppressor versus oppressed, the situation in the colonies led to a different combination of forces than those seen in Europe. Lenin claimed that assuming the consciousness of the peasantry in the colonial world was problematic due to their lack of revolutionary development. As a result, he said, communists needed to work with “bourgeois-democratic” groups.36 This concept drew fire, particularly from M.N. Roy, an Indian communist representing the Mexican Communist Party at the Congress. Roy’s issue with aligning with bourgeois-democratic forces was that they, in his mind, exposed potential independence movements to unwanted motivations. Lenin, therefore, suggested that Roy write his own theses.37 Roy’s theses echoed the Comintern’s worldview about imperialism. However, they added a clear distinction between bourgeois-democratic groups and national-liberation parties. The former group might genuinely want independence for its region from its respective imperial power, but it also sought to reaffirm capitalism and subjugate the peasant population. The latter parties, in contrast, had no such plans and were mass movements seeking to end colonial rule and oppression. Roy convinced Lenin of this formulation and he adopted it in his theses. By working with these appropriate groups, the Comintern could help independence movements while growing the consciousness of the colonized before developing a truly proletarian party.38

Mobilizing “the East” The Second Congress developed the foundations of the Comintern policies on imperialism, colonial independence, self-determination and race. The Cominternorganized Congress of the Peoples of the East in Baku, Azerbaijan, a rally held in September 1920, kept the momentum going. The location was significant, as Russian, Turkish and British forces controlled Baku over the course of the First World War. As such, the city was a fine example of imperialism in action, a point Bolshevik Karl Radek highlighted in his speech. The Congress drew representatives from various Middle Eastern regions, British colonies and former Tsarist territories. Grigory Zinoviev opened the Congress proclaiming the Bolsheviks as the vanguard against capitalism, adding that the relationship between the proletariat of the West and the colonized in the East could undo imperialism.39 Radek stressed that the Bolsheviks approached the matter differently from imperial nations, desiring not to oppress or exploit, but to liberate the peoples of the East “from the yoke not only of capital but also of medieval relations, from the yoke of feudalism and ignorance, and to give them the opportunity to begin living as human beings.”40 The rhetoric was almost a new interpretation of the civilizing mission, steeped more in socialist opportunity, offering revolution as a way to

The national and colonial questions  23 escape imperialism. If those oppressed by colonialism turned to socialism, they would reach their potential, as equals with the rest of the international proletariat. The event turned into a pep rally. Each delegate or representative revealed how British imperialism had wronged them to motivate all present to unite under the Bolshevik flag to bring about the end to the capitalist world order. Attendees mixed these denunciations with the new sectarian hallmarks of lengthy speeches clarifying the Bolshevik struggle against imperialism, and condemnations of the false socialists of the Second International. Delegates largely spent the sessions praising the frankness and novelty of the Bolshevik approach and criticizing the exploitative nature of British imperialism. The Manifesto enumerated the crimes Britain had committed in each region represented at the Congress.41 It ended with an almost religious appeal to arms: Long live the battle headquarters of this united movement – the Communist International! May the holy war of the peoples of the East and of the toilers of the entire world against imperialist Britain burn with unquenchable fire.42 The Comintern did not have another Congress of the Toilers of the East, but did hold a Congress of the Toilers of the Far East in January and February 1922, in Moscow and Petrograd, responding to the Washington Naval Conference.43 The Bolsheviks used the event to gain a foothold in the Far East. Bolshevik representatives such as Zinoviev and Dmitri Kalinin focused on the commonalities of the “toiling populations” of Russia and the Far East and the genuine revolutionary spirit of Russia. Sen Katayama, who later founded the Japanese Communist Party and was a key figure in the Comintern’s policies on race, alleged that the Washington Naval Conference was an effort by the imperial powers to dismantle and exploit the Far East.44 The remainder of the Congress operated in a matter similar to the Baku Congress, although the British were not the sole target; Japanese imperialism was criticized too. The Chinese, Korean and Mongolian delegates who attended expounded upon their regions’ respective realities. Attendees accomplished little of substance at this Congress, outside of a resolution affirming what delegates had stated at the Second Comintern Congress.45 When presenting their colonial platform, the communists offered potential allies a choice. The Comintern was a clear alternative to the imperialist powers but, if nationalists sided with the communists, the Comintern required loyalty. This loyalty did not require alignment with communism, though.46 The Comintern and communists would work with and support the national-revolutionary movement in a given region if that movement protected the proletariat and communism and made them a priority.47 In these early years, the complete package that the Bolsheviks promoted (antiimperialism, support of self-determination of nations and successful revolution) helped encourage like-minded individuals to flock to communism. Colonial parties emerged during the 1920s as some nationalists saw the Bolsheviks as the best chance to help them undo the colonial regimes that oppressed their people. The

24  The context Communist Parties of South Africa, Canada and Australia, which are the focus of the second half of this study, formed during these early years. The Bolsheviks influenced party members in each of these countries as news trickled to their nations of revolution in Russia and what Bolshevism stood for. The Comintern had directly and indirectly given many people hope that its methods were the best step forward.

Evolving Comintern tactics The fight against imperialism and for colonial independence and self-determination continued at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern. The topic had received very little attention at the Third Congress which was preoccupied with improving the organizational structure of the Comintern.48 The Fourth Congress prioritized antiimperialism partially as a result of The Turkish War of Independence which established the Republic of Turkey. Willem van Ravesteyn of the Dutch party, who delivered the first report on the Eastern Question, saw Turkish independence as a turning point for British imperialism in the area. Along with such individuals as Indonesia nationalist Tan Malaka and Tunisian delegate Tahar Boudengha, van Ravesteyn highlighted that Pan-Islam movements should be considered strong allies. He cited these movements’ position as a counter to British imperialism in the Muslim world, attempting to move past the concerns Lenin had stressed at the Second Congress.49 This shift to accepting previously unwanted elements of nationalist movements could be seen as a sign of the general evolution within the Comintern. It had to find some grounds for optimism after defeats. In March  1921, the German Communist Party (KPD) had attempted a general strike in hopes of inciting a communist revolution to Germany. These efforts failed. As a result of the March Action, an inability to enhance revolutionary sentiment in Europe and a changing diplomatic landscape where the Bolsheviks achieved some recognition, the Comintern changed tactics. Instead of consistently promoting the theory of the offensive, it promoted the United Front. The Comintern argued that communist parties needed to build the consciousness of the workers and noted they generally had limited influence in their nations. So, the leadership encouraged communist parties to enter unions, to work with other labour groups or parties and to build this consciousness. Along with this change in tactics, the Comintern gave colonial independence further attention. More than ever before, it promoted working with groups that had limited or no leftist credentials.50 This shift helps explain why the leadership encouraged working with Pan-Islamist groups or certain nationalist groups. It also explains why, at the Congress of the Toilers of the Far East, respect for the proletariat was enough to form working relations. It also suggests the Congress had already forgotten Roy’s points at the Second Congress, as any nationalist group, regardless of its aims, could be beneficial in the communist struggle for colonial independence and undermining international imperialism. Tactics also became more complex. Some communists felt it was no longer proper to speak of the “East” or colonial world as a common mass. Roy spoke

The national and colonial questions  25 after Ravesteyn’s report to explain this new direction. He delineated three types of colonies. The first type was similar to European nations in that it had capitalist development, a conscious bourgeoisie and a proletariat. The second group had some primitive capitalist development. The third type was hampered by “patriarchal feudalism” and had no capitalist development. For Roy, the first two groups of colonies were susceptible to bourgeois conservatism and maintaining imperial rule, and thus hampered independence movements. He concluded his address by calling for “an anti-imperialist united front.” He declared the need to create communist parties in all colonies and said these parties should then work with and lead any “bourgeois-revolutionary” parties to move the process of reaching independence along. This aspect of the strategy should be united with communist agitation in imperial countries.51 The Theses on the Eastern Question included many of the items Roy highlighted, although it framed and communicated these items more moderately. Delegates at the Fourth Comintern Congress passed this resolution.52

Diverging interests The National and Colonial Question lost a significant supporter with the death of Lenin in early 1924. He was pivotal in spearheading discussion on imperialism and the colonial world, and, after his passing, many Bolsheviks focused on other affairs. For example, the Fifth Comintern Congress, held from 17 June to 8 July 1924, showed a new carelessness and ignorance to colonial affairs. Dmitry Manuilsky, a Ukrainian communist and ECCI Presidium member, presented a report that seemingly ignored the Fourth Comintern Congress and its decisions about the colonial world. He focused largely on Europe, highlighting the bad tactics of the British and French parties and calling for a generalized approach to the National and Colonial Question. Manuilsky’s report touched on the “East” generally, citing the situations in Middle East, Java and China in a general fashion. Those experiences showed the value and importance of communist collaboration with bourgeois-nationalist groups or quick response to local conditions, he said, although at the risk of diluting the revolutionary character of the movement.53 Colonial delegates, including Roy, responded with disappointment. Roy criticized the vagueness of Manuilsky’s programme, and reiterating his personal contributions at the Second and Fourth Congresses.54 Several delegates agreed with Manuilsky’s criticisms of the English and French parties, whereas others tried to defend their parties.55 The Comintern also began to emphasize a new series of wars with the imperialist powers in the mid-1920s. The “war scare” was pivotal for Stalin’s bid for power within the Soviet Union. According to Comintern rhetoric, the United States came onto the imperialist scene following the First World War as an unrivalled force and a direct challenge to British dominance. The British, fearful of communist gains in China, intensified their antagonism towards the Soviet Union. The Comintern’s publications stressed the need for a united front against imperialism. Articles in the Communist International reiterated this analysis. Grigory

26  The context Zinoviev, for example, penned a piece claiming that the British would seek to isolate the Soviet Union and recreate a coalition to destroy international communism. The Soviet Union remained the “guiding light” for the colonial world and would stand up to this challenge.56 These early proclamations stressing impending war with the imperial world did not ignore the National and Colonial Question. Reports from various colonies and mandates, such as Java or Syria, continued to be commonplace in the Communist International.57 Much as Lenin had stressed imperialism as moribund capitalism, communists pointed out that the former was in decline. While imperial rivalries intensified, communists asserted that imperial powers struggled to maintain their control of their colonies. As revolutionary and nationalist fervour increased, imperial powers spent more money to maintain order.58 The British Empire remained the focus of many of these reports.59 Imperialism’s need for a victory made it desperate and thus a threat to the Soviet Union. If imperialism remained under siege, it could be defeated. While the colonial world occupied significant space in Comintern publications, it still was focused on the end result: the defeat of European imperialism.

China Meanwhile, as the Comintern often focused on that end goal and largely remained Eurocentric, China loomed large in Comintern affairs and served as a prominent feature of the National and Colonial Question. Beginning in 1923, the Comintern, taking advantage of some of the unrest caused by the Versailles settlement regarding the Shantung province, urged the small Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to join the nationalist Kuomintang movement (KMT). The KMT, led by Sun Yatsen, had grown in power in China. The Comintern felt the KMT could be used to spread revolution and started to finance the nationalists. The Comintern sent advisors, including Roy and Mikhail Borodin, to ensure that the CCP effectively merged with the KMT to create a unified movement. These positions became a crucial issue in Soviet affairs, with Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin clashing over the best tactics to bring communism to China, while also battling for control over the Bolshevik Party. Trotsky opposed the idea of Chinese communists joining the KMT. He viewed the KMT as a bourgeois party and believed it did not align with the interests of international communism and therefore, the Comintern. An alliance was possible, but the CCP should remain separate, Trotsky said. But Stalin wholeheartedly supported the CCP merger with the KMT and the CCP consistently applied his strategy.60 Developments in China, however, called into question Comintern tactics. Beginning in March 1927, Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen’s successor, realized that CCP support was no longer necessary. In April, Kai-shek began to persecute members of the CCP, severing the partnership that was the gold standard for Stalin’s vision of Lenin’s Theses for the National and Colonial Question. Whereas the Comintern hoped that the CCP would use the KMT to gain control of China, taking over leadership at the opportune moment, the KMT betrayed the communists, exposing

The national and colonial questions  27 the worst possible result for the Comintern’s National and Colonial programme. The Comintern gave its instructions for CCP members to revolt against the KMT far too late. What remained of the CCP was forced to regroup.61 There were few successes in the colonial world, following the failures in China. Presumed revolutions in Syria, Morocco, India and Indonesia seemed unlikely.

The league against imperialism and other anti-imperial organizations Efforts regarding anti-imperialism and the colonial world, however, were not all lost. The focus on fighting imperialism and colonial oppression motivated such individuals as German communist Willi Münzenburg to develop the League Against Imperialism specifically for this purpose.62 Moscow supported Münzenburg’s concept.63 The Comintern wanted the LAI’s predecessor, the League Against Colonial Oppression (LACO), “to act as a neutral intermediary between the Communist International and nationalist movements in the colonies.”64 In instructions to Münzenburg, the Comintern dictated the agenda and a list of attendees for a conference in Brussels in 1927. The Comintern took great care to note not only its concerns over the possible existence of “opportunistic elements” among these speakers, but also that a communist wing would maintain control of the League and determine its general ideology.65 The foundation of the League occurred in Brussels on 10 February 1927. In general, the Brussels Congress was a success: 174 delegates from 134 organizations or parties, and representing 34 countries, attended. Of these delegates, 60  percent were involved in colonial independence movements. The Congress attracted a wide array of individuals, including Henri Barbusse, who gave the opening address, Upton Sinclair, Maxim Gorky and Albert Einstein. Jawaharlal Nehru, the leader of the Indian National Congress and the future first Prime Minister of India, was on the LAI’s executive committee. While these individuals were sympathetic to the proposed aim of the Congress, it would be a stretch to call them communist.66 The main goal of the conference was the call for self-determination in the colonial world.67 In particular, it developed wide-ranging networks focused on antiimperialism.68 Attendees’ response to the Congress was generally positive.69 The Second International, however, condemned the LAI as a communist-run organization. Colonial governments banned LAI literature and persecuted delegates following the conference.70 The Comintern, through its periodical Communist International, supported its aims and noted its pleasure with the attendance of the conference. To obfuscate its explicit backing of the LAI, the Comintern expressed some skepticism, highlighting that some delegates (who were obviously not communist) promoted “wrong” or social-democratic positions.71 The LAI was not the only such group. Even before the LAI formed, communists of the Americas formed the Liga Antiimperialista de las Americas (LADLA), also known as the All-American Anti-Imperialist League, in Mexico City in early 1925.72 The Worker’s Party of the United States and the Comintern were both

28  The context involved in the venture, and it soon expanded to have chapters in thirteen countries throughout the Americas. The goal of the LADLA was to free the Americas of British and American imperialism. The LADLA and its many branches in the Americas also sent delegates to the Brussels Congress of the LAI, uniting their aims. Much as the LAI would focus on the situation in China and India and support important anti-colonial activity, one of the LADLA’s defining campaigns was a Hands-Off Nicaragua campaign and support of Augusto Sandino’s efforts against the American occupation of Nicaragua.73

The Sixth Comintern congress and the dawning of the third period The Comintern developed successful front organizations, exemplifying the benefits of United Front tactics. In the process, the Comintern made a significant tactical shift, partially because of international politics, and influenced by the failure in China. The Sixth Congress of the Comintern, held in Moscow from 17 July to 1 September 1928, defined the most substantial tactical shift since the abandonment of world revolution in Europe. The Congress affirmed the beginning of the “third period” of capitalist development following the First World War. Arguing that the collapse of capitalism was imminent, the Comintern needed to aggressively mobilize the proletariat. This period, sometimes referred to as “class against class,” called for parties to establish separate trade unions and to aim for control of the workers’ movements in their countries. This shift in approach brought about an end to the United Front. The Comintern returned to criticizing Social Democrats and anyone not aligned with communism. This general tactical shift led to important doctrinal changes for the National and Colonial Questions.74 Nikolai Bukharin, President of the ECCI, promoted the new line and reconceptualized the world within it. He opened the Congress with a speech on the “international situation.” While he did not ignore these issues entirely, Bukharin limited his remarks on the National and Colonial Question to a brief discussion of China and India. The Comintern had prioritized these regions thanks to strongerthan-usual independence movements, continuing its trend of narrow discussion of colonial affairs following the death of Lenin. Bukharin asserted that German imperialism was rebounding from Versailles, Anglo-American antagonism was growing and Latin America was going to be more important in the future.75 This limited discussion of the National and Colonial Question was not lost on the delegates. Several delegates openly criticized Bukharin’s report. Particularly damning was the fact that the Sixth Congress hosted the highest number of parties in Congress history, including many colonial parties.76 The mention of Latin America pleased delegates from this continent, but they had come expecting more substantial discussion of their issues. The lack of mention of Africa troubled the South African party and others.77 Bukharin commended the criticism of his speech, but he urged delegates to focus on the bigger picture. He reinforced the danger of imperialist war and the Soviet war scare, both Eurocentric issues, as the most important concerns for all communist parties.78

The national and colonial questions  29 Debate continued in other sessions. The split in the revolutionary movement in China in 1927 brought to the fore the issues of the United Front policy with regard to the National and Colonial Question. The Third Period demanded a reconsideration of tactics, resulting in the Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semicolonies. The Theses were an amalgamation of deference to Lenin and lessons learned from the faults of the United Front. The Theses on the National and Colonial Questions from the Second Congress remained the “guiding line” for the party; the Comintern ignored the resolutions of the Fourth Congress. It reviewed the situation in China and prioritized India, Indonesia and Latin America. The Theses repeated old themes, recasting at length Lenin’s Imperialism and Stalin’s position on the National Question.79 Tactically, though, the National and Colonial Question remained a confounding problem. Many colonies still had weak communist parties and some had weak independence movements. The Comintern prepared delegates to consider this problem, including a discussion piece in Communist International just as the Sixth Congress began.80 To immediately stop United Front tactics in the colonial world would prove disastrous as it would be a drastic shift and permanently damage colonial communist parties. To blindly reaffirm these tactics was equally problematic, as the situation in China showed. Therefore, the resolution warned against ideological errors which could cause the communist parties to lag behind changing circumstances in the independence movements. Learning from China was important, but simply transferring any lessons to other regions was wrong. The Comintern still allowed parties to link with national-bourgeois groups of a revolutionary character, but these parties should recognize the problems of doing so and maintain their autonomy. The Theses demanded the communist parties understand the situation in their area and act appropriately.81 Furthermore, the resolution affirmed the view that capitalism had prevented the possibility of a bourgeois revolution in the colonies. The Comintern thus focused on the “agrarian revolution,” radicalizing the peasantry through the leadership of the proletariat, altering Lenin’s methods to mirror the October Revolution. The Theses were guidelines to help ensure communist parties remained communist in the revolutionary struggle while replacing the rigidity Manuilsky called for at the Fifth Congress with flexibility based on local conditions. While enabling local flexibility in theory, the Comintern expected parties to follow Third Period tactics. As a result, in practice, parties had difficulty making sense of the new platform. The Comintern also reaffirmed Roy’s differentiation between three types of colonies, which he first outlined at the Fourth Congress, but the Congress reconsidered at the Sixth Congress. One notable change was the acceptance that some British dominions, not all, were self-sustaining and thus capitalist. This shift meant that the Comintern now deemed Canada and Australia imperialist, whereas it considered South Africa and New Zealand semicolonies. This odd amalgamation of rigidity in general tactics, and a need to have strategies suitable to local conditions, meant that the resolutions of the Sixth Congress confused parties more than they helped. The resolutions also set the stage for the inconsistencies that manifested themselves in Comintern intervention.

30  The context The Comintern still urged communist parties in imperial countries to support colonial independence, reaffirming the resolutions of its Second Congress. It instructed parties to yet again combat the influence of socialists who had demonstrated their “bourgeois” position, such as through their support for the civilizing mission and the maintenance of imperialism. These positions had plagued the Second International since before the First World War. The Communist International also vowed to focus on national and colonial issues.82 These new tactics had practical implications. The evolution of Comintern policy made it difficult for communists to maintain the LAI under its initial mandate. The shift to third period tactics prohibited allegiance to, or cooperation with, social-democratic forces. Therefore, the LAI could no longer act as a front organization claiming neutrality.83 This new line was evident by the Frankfurt Congress of 1929, where communists criticized non-communists and introduced Comintern rhetoric, including the war scare.84 The Comintern praised the Frankfurt Congress in Communist International. It pressed the LAI to defend the Soviet Union, both as the true rival of imperialism and as opposed to the impending war, placing upon the LAI the same demands the Comintern gave to every communist party. The Comintern reminded the LAI that it needed to increase its links to the proletariat and other colonial parties.85 The League conformed to the new Comintern line and keen observers no longer considered it to be independent; the LAI was a Comintern initiative even though the Comintern continued to suggest otherwise.86 As a result, the LAI lost much of its influence and expelled non-communists, if they did not leave of their own accord.87 Despite this shift, the LAI remained a prominent feature of Comintern tactics, and it encouraged many parties to establish branches of the League in their home countries. The LAI also attempted to promote strike efforts in Africa and the colonial world, but it never returned to the level of importance, nor stirred the enthusiasm, it had had before the Third Period.88 The League’s offices in Berlin were raided in 1931. By 1933, with the rise of Nazi rule in Germany, the League had no physical location from which to operate.89 Largely ineffectual after this point, it quietly dissolved in 1937.90 Other anti-imperial groups suffered similar fates as their mandates shifted to reflect the changing international situation. For example, the LADLA’s support of Sandino quickly ended. He refused to reform his efforts to fit Comintern desires. As a result, the LADLA abandoned Sandino, cutting off its financial and propaganda support of his efforts. In the process, Mexican communists started to discredit Sandino, claiming he accepted bribes from the United States to maintain his safety.91 By 1933, as fascism became a growing concern, LADLA was dismantled and reformed into the American League Against War and Fascism. This change came partially because of another one of Münzenburg’s ventures, a World Congress Against War, which took place in August  1932. When the Nazis took control of Germany, communists turned their attention more seriously toward fascism. A year later, communists formed the World Committee Against War and Fascism (WCAWF), which in some ways acted like the original LAI. Many sympathizers of the organization were not explicitly communist, foreshadowing the Popular

The national and colonial questions  31 Front tactics following 1935. The WCAWF remained an active force until the end of the 1930s. Front organizations such as the LAI serve as important examples of individual communists taking the anti-imperialism, or anti-fascism, of the Comintern to heart and developing initiative to support colonial liberation and international communism. Individual communists could pursue pet projects based on personal motivations. Münzenburg developed a group that acted as a centre for anti-­imperialists, while also being sympathetic to communist aims. The shift to Third Period tactics hurt the concept of the League, but not enough to prevent it from having some role in Comintern tactics. It was a useful project for Moscow and one the Comintern would support until Hitler’s rise hampered its ability to do its work. As the Comintern pivoted, these interested communists sometimes went with the flow, establishing new organizations, while others, as will be seen in the next chapter, moved on entirely.

Solving the European party dilemma The Comintern made many efforts to explain its plan for the colonial world. Even with the failures in China, it attempted to provide a general platform. But as the Comintern lurched ahead with its efforts for colonial affairs following Lenin’s death, the Comintern Congresses, Plenums and bureaucracy consistently criticized the efforts of European parties. Let us go back to that report by Dmitry Manuilsky at the Fifth Comintern Congress. Whereas the report showed a general lack of familiarity with, or attention to, many parts of the world, it also dwelled on the failures of the British and French parties. Other delegates were happy to add to this chorus. Perhaps the most famous, and damning, comment came from Nguyen Ai-Quoc, the future Ho Chi Minh, who stated, “I feel that the comrades have not yet sufficiently grasped the idea that the destiny of the proletariat of the whole world . . . is closely tied to the destiny of the oppressed nations in the colonies.”92 The criticism of European parties was a trend for virtually the entirety of the Comintern’s operation. The British and French parties were the most notable targets of such condemnation, but so too, periodically, were the Belgian and Dutch parties. To the Comintern, the involvement of the imperial or metropolitan communist parties was an important facet of communist tactics, providing nascent colonial parties big brothers who could provide guidance, connections with Moscow, manpower and finances. If European parties failed to do so, they were avoiding their responsibilities to the colonial world as outlined at the Second Congress. These criticisms often were on point. The European parties cared more about labour issues or domestic affairs. Colonial issues rarely struck home except in some very specific ways. The British party had no real colonial platform until the mid-1920s with the establishment of its Colonial Commission at the Comintern’s request. Historian Neil Redfern argues that, for much of the 1920s, anti-­ colonialism took on more of an “ornamental” character in the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Whether the party leadership was genuinely interested in colonial affairs is tricky to pin down. Some historians have suggested that the

32  The context leadership was fully committed to colonial affairs, but that the rank-and-file tended to have little interest in the matter, either expressing latent racism or apathy, or reflecting the general political silence toward empire at the time.93 Others have pointed out that key figures, such as Clemens Dutt, the older brother of Rajani Palme Dutt, who was a significant colonial critic for the CPGB, or Saklatvala, a Parsi and CPGB Member of British Parliament, criticized the CPGB, in 1924 and in 1933 respectively, for its failings in colonial or imperial work.94 Racism seemed to be one potential shared reason for European parties’ limited attention to colonial affairs. During the Rif War, when Spanish and French forces sought to put down Berbers in the Rif region, French communists were hesitant to call for Moroccan independence. Instead, they tended to equivocate because of French racism towards North Africans and Berbers, refusing to alienate potential alliances in France or with the French white working class. These communists focused on organizing North Africans in France to lead the charge.95 The Dutch Communist Party, which had some colonially minded membership, was one of the few parties that embraced colonial work from the start, forging a strong partnership with the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) in the early 1920s.96 Despite this general ambivalence, whether as a result of latent racism, a desire to focus on more pressing domestic political or labour issues, a necessity to avoid unwanted police attention, or as historian John Callaghan points out, a lack of membership, Western European parties did perform some significant colonial work. The British and French parties, for example, devoted space in their publications to discuss colonial affairs and imperialism. The British party had a wealth of prominent communist critics of imperialism. Rajani Palme Dutt, R. Page Arnot and others developed a cottage industry of anti-imperialist pamphlets. These parties also supported efforts like the LAI and other ethnic or national groups within their metropoles. Each party, much like the Comintern in general, had interested members who took pains to go above and beyond the norm and ensure communists gave some attention to colonial issues. For the Parti communiste français (PCF), Jacques Doriot was virtually entirely responsible for the party’s colonial line while the rest of the leadership turned their attentions elsewhere. He maintained this function until 1934 when he was expelled from the party.97 In Britain, such figures as Saklatvala were extremely active in promoting the need to improve political and economic conditions in India and in supporting Indian independence. While the CPGB could potentially have done more, it would be problematic to ignore the party’s role in supporting Indian communism throughout the 1920s. These efforts included assisting in the establishment of the original Indian party, and sending trade unionists Ben Bradley and Philip Spratt to India to help organize workers in 1927. Bradley and Spratt became key figures in the 1929 Meerut Trial, which would lead to a major communist campaign. These two sides of European communist attention to colonial affairs have led historian Sobhanlal Datta Gupta to say that it was always “ticklish.”98 With the establishment of the Third Period, the Comintern attempted one of its few notable interventions into improving the colonial work of Western European parties. The Comintern named Arnot as the liaison between itself and the LAI.

The national and colonial questions  33 Arnot, a prominent anti-colonial activist in the Communist Party of Great Britain, became one of the most powerful voices of colonial issues in the Comintern, taking over from the expelled Roy.99 The Eastern Secretariat of the ECCI tasked Arnot to evaluate the implementation of the National and Colonial Question by the European parties, to investigate why these parties avoided colonial work, and to propose solutions to this problem. In 1929, Arnot travelled to Western Europe to meet with representatives of each communist party.100 Following this tour, Arnot filed a report with the Comintern which presented a disappointing outlook. Virtually all the parties had little to no connection with their respective home country’s colonies. Of the four parties Arnot met, France was in the best shape. The PCF had, at least, done some “negro work” in North Africa and supported the La ligue de défense de la race nѐgre (LDRN). Otherwise, the PCF largely focused on domestic issues. The British party was too small and had few connections to the LAI, appropriate trade unions and colonial emigres. The Belgian and Dutch parties had issues with the LAI, questioning its ideological makeup, while also having virtually no contact with their major colonies, the Belgian Congo and Indonesia, respectively.101 Things were as bad as they seemed with little hope of getting better without a significant change in approach. This change for Arnot came in the form of an authoritative Colonial Conference that would impose Comintern tactics on these parties. If European parties did not hold up their end of Comintern platforms, many colonial parties would be rudderless. If the regions in which the Comintern arguably had most interest had parties that could ignore some of its platforms, it should not be a surprise when other parties, such as the Communist Parties of South Africa, Canada and Australia, failed to consider combatting colonialism to be a priority. Furthermore, when the Comintern did interfere, as would be the case in South Africa, it asked European communists to oversee colonial party affairs. European ignorance of colonial affairs hampered the effectiveness of the whole Comintern enterprise. Initially, the purpose of the Colonial Conference was to put “into operation . . . the decisions of the CI on colonial questions, more especially [sic.] by means of closer coordination of all colonial activities.”102 Berlin and Cologne were proposed as locations for the Conference which would take place in April 1929.103 The Conference would help open doors, informing parties of possible colonial connections within their home countries and encourage them to use the Lenin School and other similar programmes through the Comintern to bolster their understanding of colonial questions. The Secretariat of the ECCI agreed to the creation of a Commission specifically to plan this conference. Organizers suggested 31 delegates, 19 of whom would come from Western European communist parties. The Conference was to last no longer than seven days.104 While planning the conference, Arnot and Hungarian communist Ludwig Madiar (Magyar) developed what became known as the Magyar Thesis, formally titled “The Organisation of the Colonial Work of the European Communist Parties.” The resolution delineated the many failings of the European communist parties to engage in “colonial routine work.” Many of the suggestions the pair made should have been second nature in terms of unifying the European parties to their

34  The context colonial counterparts. Articles on colonial affairs needed to be widely available and communists should send them to any trade union publications in the colonies by whatever channels were available, the Thesis said. Many colonial parties had little knowledge of party structure and organization, so Magyar suggested that European parties should take the opportunity to provide advice if requested by their colonial counterparts it, even sending representatives to the colonies if necessary. The report highlighted ship workers and students, many of whom came from colonies, as targets for agitation.105 For Magyar and Arnot, the European parties needed to do more. The Magyar Thesis outlined what European parties should aim to accomplish with regard to the colonial world. However, some of the parties were doing some of what Magyar and Arnot requested. The conference, however, never occurred. Many parties were slow in submitting reports to the Commission, halting progress, to the point that the Eastern Secretariat postponed the proposed conference until May, and then until July, before it postponed the event indefinitely.106 In part, the cancellation of the conference was also a result of Arnot’s sudden resignation from his post. The Comintern dispatched Arnot to the United States in order to resolve the factional struggles in American communism. He could not continue to organize the Conference and Alexander Bittleman, an American communist, replaced Arnot in this work. Bittleman accomplished little and, instead, the Comintern and the many delegates involved turned their attention to the Frankfurt Congress of the LAI and the Tenth Plenum of the Comintern, which both occurred in July.107 Arnot’s report and the aborted plans for the Colonial Conference clarified the priorities of European communist parties. Colonial matters barely registered. The Eurocentrism of the European parties was hard to shake. But more revealing is that this problem was structural within the Comintern. Even when it castigated European parties for their failure to support colonial independence, no noticeable change occurred. Part of this refusal to change was a function of the prioritization of European affairs in international communism. With repeated concerns about war between imperialist powers, and between those powers and the Soviet Union, maintaining strong parties that could aid the country in Western Europe was more important. If these parties tackled colonial affairs, it was a bonus, not an issue over which the Comintern was willing to upset established leadership.108 Despite this general ambivalence by European parties and the Comintern towards properly initiating the Theses on the National and Colonial Question and aiding colonial parties, several world events provided ample motivation for communism to get involved. For example, following the Indian railway strike, the British government arrested several trade unionists in Meerut, India, and declared them to be communists. Though many were not communist, the Meerut Conspiracy Trial, which took place between 1929 and 1933, became one event that showcased imperialism’s attack on communism. The Comintern, and many communist parties, agitated in support of the arrested.109 Additionally, and critically, the CPGB downplayed racial or ethnic differences in their publicity on Meerut, focusing on the proletarian character of the oppressed. Though this choice could be seen as internationalizing a movement, it is far more likely that the CPGB

The national and colonial questions  35 played to its constituency and wanted to prevent latent racism from undermining the campaign.110 The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1932, the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 and growing Italian involvement in Abyssinia beginning in 1934 added more credibility to some of the Comintern’s claims of an impending imperialist war. The Comintern developed Hands-Off campaigns for China, Abyssinia and other relevant areas and published updates on what was happening in each region. Again, some communist parties did follow through and promoted these campaigns in their home countries. However, although these events garnered more attention for the fight against imperialism, they remained Eurocentric or focused on the major colonial dominos of India and China. European parties internalized these different goals; a notable example is the Portuguese party which wholly followed the Comintern’s anti-fascist campaigns but refused to promote colonial independence.111 Furthermore, with regard to the Manchurian and Abyssinian invasions, they converged with Soviet foreign policy as the USSR’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov was trying to secure, albeit unsuccessfully, the involvement of the League of Nations to end both invasions, and leading to the end of the Third Period. Historian Neil Redfern considers the end of the League Against Imperialism in 1937 as the downfall of the Communist International’s commitment to the colonial world and the triumph of Eurocentrism.112 But Eurocentrism had dominated the Comintern since the mid-1920s and Redfern admits the “knot was not unraveled” even under Lenin.113 Though many individual communists, such as Münzenburg and Arnot, tried to draw attention to colonial affairs and individual parties did promote Hands-Off campaigns and support their fellow communists in the colonial world, many European parties did little. Many had no desire, or were unable, to move forward with greater campaigns. The Comintern would not twist the arm of its European member parties to do more than necessary as the continent remained the priority for Comintern officials. Some notable exceptions existed, however. China and India remained important, but only because of what they meant to European affairs. Ultimately, the dwindling attention to colonial affairs could be seen by the need to respond to European affairs, which in turn blunted positive efforts, no matter what interested communists wanted. The Popular Front was not the start of the end to prioritizing colonial affairs; it was its confirmation.

The Seventh Congress and decline The Third Period came to a close with the Seventh Comintern Congress in 1935. The Comintern replaced Class against Class with the Popular Front, a revised version of the United Front tactics of the 1920s. The change reflected Soviet diplomacy which promoted collective security to deal with the fascist menace. Already efforts such as the WCAWF showed the growing attention by communists to these issues. Fascism was now public enemy number one and Europe was the focus of Comintern general strategy. During this period, the Comintern intervened in the Spanish Civil War, saw a Popular Front government elected in France and continued to agitate against German, Italian and Japanese militarism.

36  The context A consequence of the shifts in Soviet diplomacy and a Popular Front government in France was that anti-imperial agitation was politically problematic. Emphasizing European affairs yet again, Soviet diplomats attempted to align with Britain and France. Therefore, the Comintern could not criticize British and French imperialism without practical consequences. The Seventh Congress navigated through this problem. On colonial liberation and anti-imperialism, it repeated the same themes, focusing on local conditions, in China and India, adding the Middle East and Brazil, before calling for a broad Anti-Imperialist United Front.114 Little evolved regarding tactics. In Europe, however, the rise of Nazi Germany forced the Comintern to finally deal with its poor response to fascism. Defined as the most extreme form of capitalism, thus skewing Lenin’s definition of imperialism, fascism became the main target of Comintern doctrine. Continued Japanese activity in China and the Italian invasion of Abyssinia further confirmed this worldview. European communist parties, spurred by the pairing of Comintern tactics with Soviet diplomacy, pushed anti-colonial matters further to the periphery. The CPGB, for example, saw the Italian invasion of Abyssinia as an imperialist and fascist war, placing more focus on the European dimension of the struggle. This focus continued even in the Comintern’s anti-imperial demonstrations.115 The war menace and combating fascism took precedence over virtually any other issue. One only needs to look at the English version of the Communist International, with articles aimed for American and English communists, to see how pervasive this campaign was in the Comintern’s literature well into the Second World War.116 Colonial issues nearly vanished from its most prominent periodical, as only two articles could be seen as reminding readers of the importance of the colonial question. Instead, European politics and the imperialism of the fascist states dominated how the Comintern disseminated information on the colonial question.117

Conclusion The Comintern played a prominent role in encouraging self-determination of nations and supporting colonial liberation during the interwar period. Longstanding trends in socialism and the Comintern’s inability to shake its focus on European affairs, however, blunted its reach. Even when non-European affairs took precedent, the Comintern was overly concerned with China or in supporting anti-colonial efforts which would cause ripples in European politics. The Comintern began with a clear goal to support the colonial world. Lenin and other Old Bolsheviks tended to be the most vocal proponents, at least within the Bolshevik party. After he died, although Russian leaders recognized the importance of colonial affairs, they turned their attention firmly towards European affairs. Moving away from the Comintern leadership, one can see the structural problems that prevented the Comintern from prioritizing colonial affairs: European parties tended to focus on their own issues. While these parties periodically referred to colonial affairs and the centrality of empire to their country’s international status, they never became issues to which most rank-and-file members, let alone the

The national and colonial questions  37 leadership, consistently attended. By the time of the Seventh Congress and the growing concern about Nazi Germany, European affairs, even when looking at the imperialistic wars of Italy and Japan, took precedence. This structural Eurocentrism did not prevent anti-imperial and anti-colonial sentiment. Many individual communists were motivated to act on behalf of the colonial world, to gain general support for colonial liberation or to shed light on colonial affairs. The efforts of Münzenburg and the influence of Roy, Arnot and others show that many individuals saw a need to agitate for these issues. Regionally, the efforts of the LAI or LADLA had some success in promoting campaigns on behalf of the “East.” Though the greater priorities of the Comintern sometimes blunted these efforts, they should not be ignored. Rather, these efforts should be mentioned when discussing decolonization efforts in the twentieth century. When several prominent nationalist leaders attended LAI congresses and even travelled to Moscow, one can sense the power of the Comintern’s networks and its influence on the developing world.

Notes 1 Terrence McDonough, “Lenin, Imperialism, and the Stages of Capitalist Development,” Science & Society 59, no. 3 (Fall 1995): 341–346; Donald Priestland, The Red Flag, 59; R. Craig Nation, War on War: Lenin, the Zimmerwald Left, and the Origins of Communist Internationalism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989), 22. 2 The Zimmerwald Left was the revolutionary left wing of the Zimmerwald Conference, held in 1915, a meeting of socialists who maintained a pacifist approach to the world and continue to promote socialist internationalism, led by Lenin. 3 For a good overview of these positions, see Lars T. Lih, “ ‘Revolutionary Social Democracy’ and the Third International,” in Oleksa Drachewych and Ian McKay, eds., Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial and Racial Questions (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019). 4 Nation, War on War, 41. Lars T. Lih, Lenin (London: Reaktion Books, 2011), 123–127. 5 In particular, he attacks Karl Kautsky’s “ultra-imperialism,” which argued that capitalism could be peaceful if all of the imperialist nations would agree to work together to protect their export markets. For more on “ultra-imperialism,” see Karl Kautsky, “Ultra-imperialism,” New Left Review 1, no. 59 (Feb., 1970): 41–47. 6 V.I. Lenin, “Imperializm, kak vysshaya stadiya kapitalizma,” Polnoe Sobranie Sochineniĭ (PSS), vol. 23 (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1962), 396–406. J.A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study (New York: Cosimo, 2005), 46–61. 7 Rudolf Hilferding, Finance Capital: A Study in the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development, ed. Tom Bottomore, trans. Morris Watnick and Sam Gordon (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981). In particular, for banks and their link to industry, see Chapter 14: Hilferding, 223–226. For how finance capital lends itself to tariffs and expansionary policies, see Chapter 21: Hilferding, 301–310. For the link to imperialism, see Chapter 22: Hilferding, 311–336. See also McDonough, “Lenin, Imperialism, and the Stages of Capitalist Development,” 348–350. Lenin himself also explicitly notes his respect for the value of Hilferding’s work. Lenin, PSS 23:309. Finally, Richard B. Day and Daniel Gaido point out Lenin’s use of Hilferding, among others. Richard B. Day and Daniel Gaido, eds., Discovering Imperialism: Social Democracy to World War I (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2011), 85–90. Hobson argued something similar. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study, 71–77, 94; Lenin, PSS 23:364–373.

38  The context 8 In specific circumstances, Kautsky argued that a colonial policy could suitable. Karl Kautsky, Socialism and Colonial Policy (Belfast: Athol Books, 1975), 58. 9 Kautsky, Socialism and Colonial Policy, 47–59. 10 Kautsky, Socialism and Colonial Policy, 57. 11 Kautsky, Socialism and Colonial Policy, 47–59. 12 V.I. Lenin, “Tezisy po natsional’nomu voprosu,” PSS 23:314. V.I. Lenin, “O prave natsii na samoopredelenie,” PSS 25:275–276, 316–320. 13 Lenin, PSS 25:274–275. 14 Lenin, PSS 23:314–322. 15 V.I. Lenin, “Sotsialisticheskaya revolyutsiya i parvo natsii na samoopredelenie,” PSS 27:252–266. See also, V.I. Lenin, “K voprosu o natsional’nostyakh ili ob ‘avtonomizatsii,’ ” PSS 45:356–362. 16 For a lengthy review of the history of some of these other positions, see Day and Gaido, 1–91. 17 Alexander Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power: The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008), 133–134; John W. Wheeler-Bennett, Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace, March 1918 (London: MacMillan & Co., 1956), 99–148. 18 Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 107–108. 19 Wheeler-Bennett, Brest-Litovsk, 269. 20 V.I. Lenin, “Rezolyutsiya o ratifikatsii brestskogo dogovora,” PSS 36:123. 21 V.I. Lenin, “Otchet tsentral’nogo komiteta 18 marta,” PSS 38:132. 22 Lenin, PSS 23:305–306. 23 V.I. Lenin, “Deklaratsiya prav trudyashchegosya I  ehkspluatiruemogo naroda,” PSS 35:222. 24 For example, V.I. Lenin, “Tovarishchi-rabochie! Idem v poslednii reshitel’nyi boi!” PSS, 37:38–42; V.I. Lenin, “Rech’ o bor’be s kolchakom na konferentsii fabrichnozavodskikh komitetov i professional’nykh soyuzov moskvy 17 aprelya 1919 g.,” PSS 38:316–319.; V.I. Lenin, “Bce na bor’bu s denikinym!” PSS 39:44–63. 25 John Riddell ed., Founding the Communist International: Proceedings and Documents of the First Congress: March 1919 (New York: Pathfinder: 1987), 21–34, 237–257; Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution: 1917–1923, 127–133. 26 Riddell, Founding the Communist International, 12–13. 27 Riddell, Founding the Communist International, 187–188. 28 Riddell, Founding the Communist International, 296–306. 29 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii (RGASPI), f. 488, d. 1, o. 9, l. 42. In Riddell’s translation, much of the vivid language has unfortunately been removed. For example, “closed vise” is translated as “narrowness.” Riddell, Founding the Communist International, 317. This vivid language was important to the Comintern as it was maintained in different translations of the Manifesto. For example, in French, “closed vise” became “tight pincers.” RGASPI, 488.1.9, 69. 30 RGASPI, 488.1.9, 43. 31 RGASPI, 489.1.16, 5–6. 32 RGASPI, 489.1.16, 5–12. For an English version, see Riddell, Workers of the World, vol. 2, 979–987. 33 V.I. Lenin, “Pervonachal’nyi nabrosok tezisov po natsional’nomu i kolonial’nomu voprosam,” PSS, 41:161–168. They were published widely in Comintern publications. See, N. Lenin, “Preliminary Draft of some Theses on the National and Colonial Questions: For the Second Congress of the Communist International,” in The Communist International Vol 1, no. 11–12 (Petrograd: Smolny Rooms 32–33, June–July 1920), 2155–2160. 34 Lenin, PSS, 41:161–168.

The national and colonial questions  39 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55

Lenin, PSS, 41:161–168. Riddell, Workers of the World, 1:271–278. Riddell, Workers of the World, 1:76. John Riddell includes in his edited conference proceedings Roy’s original theses along with annotations for changes he made to them during the Congress. Riddell, Workers of the World, 2:1077–1088. “Joint Celebration of the Baku Soviet and the Azerbaijan Trade Union Congress,” in John Riddell, eds., To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920, First Congress of the Peoples of the East (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1993), 47–52. “Joint Celebration of the Baku Soviet and the Azerbaijan Trade Union Congress,” 52–55. “Manifesto to the Peoples of the East,” in John Riddell, eds., To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920, First Congress of the Peoples of the East (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1993), 221–233. “Manifesto to the peoples of the East,” 232. This was not the only international event to which the Bolsheviks responded. The Amritsar Massacre, when Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, fearing an Indian insurrection, ordered his troops to shoot on a multidenominational crowd, was referenced repeatedly to show the violence necessary for British rule. By 1922, the establishment of the Soviet Union was an important concern; the means by which Georgia, for example, came under rule, were an issue for Lenin, who saw it as running against what the Bolsheviks were saying about imperialism. See Vladimir Lenin, “Proekt direktivy zamestitelyu predsedatelya i vsem clenam genuehzskoi delegatsii,” PSS, 44:374–376. The First Congress of the Toilers of the Far East: Held in Moscow, January 21st–February 1st, 1922. Closing Session in Petrograd, February 2nd 1922 (London: Hammersmith Books, 1970), 3–9. First Congress of the Toilers of the Far East, 9–230. A. James McAdams points out the pragmatism that the Bolsheviks and the Comintern accepted in the early 1920s, happy to be aligned with pro-communist group, even if their ideologies did not completely mesh. He cites the example of the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP), which was pro-communist, but much more radical than the Bolsheviks. A. James McAdams, Vanguard of the Revolution: The Global Idea of the Communist Party (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 138–139. Georgy Safarov’s speech outlines how the Comintern envisioned these relationships. First Congress of the Toilers of the Far East, 157–174. Theses and Resolutions Adopted at the Third World Congress of the Communist International: June 22nd–July 12th, 1921 (New York: Contemporary Publishing Association, 1921). John Riddell ed., Toward the United Front: Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 1922 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 264–265, 651–685, 703–705. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution: 1917–1923, 336–338. Riddell, Toward the United Front, 686–694. See Riddell, Toward the United Front, 1180–1190. Fifth Congress of the Communist International: Abridged Report of Meetings held at Moscow, June 17th to July 8th, 1924 (London: The Communist Party of Great Britain), 185–193. Fifth Congress of the Communist International, 196–198. Sobhanlal Datta Gupta suggests that the disagreements between Roy and Manuilsky prevented any real work from being done. Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, “Communism and the Crisis of the Colonial System,” in Silvio Pons and S.A. Smith, eds., The Cambridge History of Communism: Volume 1, World Revolution and Socialism in One Country 1917–1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 219. Fifth Congress of the Communist International, 198–211.

40  The context 56 G. Zinoviev, “Our International Position,” in The Communist International Vol I, no. 16 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1925), 3–10. 57 See K. Radek, “New Imperialist Attack on the East,” in The Communist International Vol 1, no. 9 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1925), 17–26; Pierre Semard, “The War in Morocco,” in The Communist International Vol 1, no. 12 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1925), 8–15; Andrei Chernov, “Events in Persia,” in The Communist International Vol 1, no. 17 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1925), 30–45; P. Kitaigorodsky, “Syria in the Struggle for Independence,” in The Communist International Vol 1, no. 17 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1925), 46–53; Semaon, “International Imperialism and the Communist Party of Indonesia,” in The Communist International Vol 1, no.  17 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1925), 75–82; “Chili and Anglo-American Imperialism,” in The Communist International Vol 1, no. 23 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1925), 70–80; Charles Wurm, “The Intervention of the United States in Nicaragua,” in The Communist International Vol 4, no. 3 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1927), 33–35; Kjai Samin, “The Uprising in Java and Sumatra,” in The Communist International Vol 4, no. 6 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1927), 106–109; Kjai Samin, “The Uprising in Java and Sumatra (Part 2),” in The Communist International Vol 4, no. 8 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1927), 147–151. 58 E. Varga, “Ways and Obstacles to the World Revolution,” in The Communist International Vol 1, no. 18–19 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1925–1926), 77–96. 59 John Pepper, “Britain’s Balance Sheet for 1926,” in The Communist International Vol 3, no. 5 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1926), 5–13; A British Communist, “Problems of the British Empire (Notes for a Research Worker),” in The Communist International Vol 3, no. 6 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1926), 17–20; J.T. Murphy, “After the British Empire Conference,” in The Communist International Vol 4, no. 2 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1927), 13–16. 60 Callaghan, “Storm Over Asia,” 25–26. Ronald Grigor Suny, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 163–164; Pons, The Global Revolution, 55–60. 61 Callaghan, “Storm Over Asia,” 24–26. 62 In a meeting in February 1926 in Berlin, a League Against Colonial Oppression was formed by delegates present which included a mix of European socialists, interested individuals and Münzenburg himself. This group would go on to develop and organize what became the League Against Imperialism in Brussels in 1927. Jean Jones, The League Against Imperialism (Fulwood: The Socialist History Society, 1996), 4–6. 63 Fredrik Petersson, “ ‘We Are Neither Visionaries Nor Utopian Dreamers’: Willi Munzenberg, the League against Imperialism, and the Comintern, 1925–1933” (PhD diss., Abo Akademi University, 2013), 96–114. 64 RGASPI, 542.1.3, 10–11. 65 RGASPI, 542.1.3, 15–17. 66 League against Imperialism Archives (LAIA), International Institute of Social History (IISH), “List of organisations and delegates attending the Congress against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism. Brussels. 1927;” Fredrik Petersson, “Hub of the AntiImperialist Movement,” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 16, no. 1 (2014): 50–52; Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York: The New Press, 2007), 21–22; Jonathan Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators”: Militant Anti-Colonialism in Africa and the West, 1918–1939 (London: Hurst & Company, 2008), 172–178. 67 Prashad, Darker Nations, 22. 68 Jones, The League Against Imperialism, 6–8. 69 Stephen Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics: The Left and the End of Empire, 1918–1964 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 72–73; Petersson, “We Are Neither Visionaries Nor Utopian Dreamers,” 172–175.

The national and colonial questions  41 70 Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics, 73–74; Jones, The League Against Imperialism, 8–9. 71 “Under the Control of the Struggling Masses,” in The Communist International Vol 4, no. 4 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1927), 46–48. 72 There seems to be some confusion in the literature on the subject, likely a function of the organization having been referred to by both an English and Spanish title. It has also been referred to as the AAAIL, initializing the English title. Others seem to suggest they were two separate groups, with an American version (AAAIL) helping found the Mexican-started one (LADLA). In fact, they were the same body with the Mexican organization having American involvement before inspiring an American chapter shortly thereafter. 73 Barry Carr, “Pioneering Transnational Solidarity in the Americas: The Movement in Support of Augusto C. Sandino 1927–1934,” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 20, no. 2 (2014): 148–149. 74 Nicholas N. Kozlov and Eric D. Weitz, “Reflections on the Origins of the ‘Third Period’: Bukharin, the Comintern, and the Political Economy of Weimar Germany,” Journal of Contemporary History 24, no. 3 (Jul., 1989): 387–410; Jon Jacobson, When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 268–272; McDermott and Agnew, The Comintern, 68–80; Worley, “Courting Disaster?” 1–17. 75 “The International Situation and the Tasks of the Comintern. Comrade Bukharin’s Report of the Executive Committee of the Comintern,” International Press Correspondence 8, no. 41 (30 July 1928): 725–740. 76 The Comintern also welcomed several new colonial parties at the Sixth Congress. “Resolution on the Admittance of the Communist Parties of Cuba, Korea, New Zealand and Paraguay, of the Irish Workers League, the Socialist Party of Ecuador and the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Colombia into the Communist International,” International Press Correspondence 8, no. 83 (23 November 1928): 1579. 77 “Discussion on the Report of Comrade Bukharin,” International Press Correspondence 8, no.  44 (3 August  1928): 770–791; “Discussion on the Report of Comrade Bukharin,” International Press Correspondence 8, no. 46 (8 August 1928): 811–822; “Discussion on the Report of Comrade Bukharin,” International Press Correspondence 8, no. 48 (13 August 1928): 839–862. 78 “Comrade Bukharin’s Speech in Reply to the Discussion on the International Situation,” International Press Correspondence 8, no. 49 (13 August 1928): 863–874. 79 “Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semicolonies,” Comintern and National & Colonial Questions: Documents of Congresses (New Delhi: D.P. Sinha for Communist Party of India, 1973), 59–123; Callaghan, “Storm Over Asia,” 26–30. 80 “Organizational Problems in Eastern Countries,” in The Communist International Vol V, no. 14 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1928), 336–341. 81 “Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semicolonies,” 59–123. John Callaghan suggests that the theses put the colonial communists in a very difficult situation with “impossible targets.” Callaghan, “Storm Over Asia,” 26–30. 82 “Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semicolonies,” 120–123. 83 Petersson, “We Are Neither Visionaries Nor Utopian Dreamers,” 237–247. Prashad suggested this evolution was incredibly damaging to the League’s success. Prashad, Darker Nations, 29. John Callaghan also argued that the dawn of the Third Period weakened Comintern front organizations broadly with the LAI being a particularly clear example. Callaghan, “Storm Over Asia,” 30. 84 Petersson, “We Are Neither Visionaries Nor Utopian Dreamers,” 327–338; Jones, The League Against Imperialism, 13–16; Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 184–186. 85 “The Last Session of the League Against Imperialism,” in The Communist International Vol 6, no. 8 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1929), 239–243.

42  The context 86 Despite this image of the Comintern being confirmed in the eyes of many, some individuals still were able to maintain their international contacts and remained strong allies to colonial figures. For example, historian Stephen Howe highlights CPGB member Reginald Bridgeman, who Jawaharlal Nehru continued to contact for assistance after this break. Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics, 74–77. 87 Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics, 71–77. 88 Fredrik Petersson, “Imperialism and the Communist International,” Journal of Labor and Society 20 (March 2017): 36–37. 89 Petersson, “Hub of the Anti-Imperialist Movement,” 65–69. 90 Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 375. 91 Andrew William Wilson, “Conflict Beyond Borders: The International Dimensions of Nicaragua’s Violent Twentieth Century, 1909–1990,” (PhD diss., University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2016), 40–41; Carr, 148–149. 92 One can see references to Karl Kautsky’s outlook in 1907. Quoted in Stephen Kotkin, Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 (New York: Penguin, 2014), 550. 93 Neil Redfern, Class or Nation: Communists, Imperialism and Two World Wars (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2005), 58–62, 92–93; Neil Redfern, “The Comintern and Imperialism: A Balance Sheet,” Journal of Labor and Society 20, (Mar. 2017): 46–48. For a more critical account, see Marika Sherwood, “The Comintern, the CPGB, Colonies and Black Britons, 1920–1938,” Science & Society 60, no.  2 (Summer, 1996): 137–163; John Callaghan, “Colonies, Racism, the CPGB and the Comintern in the Inter-War Years,” Science & Society 61, no. 4 (Winter, 1997/1998): 513–525; Datta Gupta, “Communism and the Crisis,” 226–227; Daniel Edmonds, “Unpacking ‘Chauvinism’: The Interrelationship of Race, Internationalism, and Anti-Imperialism amongst Marxists in Britain, 1899–1933” (PhD diss., University of Manchester, 2017), 170–171. 94 Dutt’s comments shed light that limited cadres were a likely reason as many of the CPGB members most interested in colonial affairs sat on the Colonial Commission and were also required to do other work, spreading them too thinly. Edmonds, “Unpacking Chauvinism,” 199. Saklatvala’s comments in 1933 suggest racism being a prominent reason for failings in colonial work for the CPGB. Susan D. Pennybacker, From Scottsboro to Munich: Race and Political Culture in 1930s Britain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 188. 95 David H. Slavin, “The French Left and the Rif War, 1924–25: Racism and the Limits of Internationalism,” Journal of Contemporary History 26, no. 1 (Jan., 1991): 5–32. 96 Datta Gupta, “Communism and the Crisis,” 225–226. 97 The PCF expelled him for engaging in United Front tactics with socialist groups. Datta Gupta, “Communism and the Crisis,” 224. 98 Datta Gupta, “Communism and the Crisis,” 222. 99 Petersson, “We Are Neither Visionaries Nor Utopian Dreamers,” 255. 100 Arnot travelled from Moscow to Berlin, Cologne, London, Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam as part of his tour. Petersson, “We Are Neither Visionaries Nor Utopian Dreamers,” 256. 101 RGASPI, 495.154.364, 52–54. 102 RGASPI, 495.154.406, 1–2. 103 RGASPI, 495.154.406, 1–2. 104 RGASPI, 495.18.670, 3–4, 6–7. 105 RGASPI, 495.18.670, 49–55. 106 RGASPI, 495.18.670, 101. 107 Petersson, “We Are Neither Visionaries Nor Utopian Dreamers,” 268–273. 108 Unlike, for example, Trotskyism. 109 John Callaghan, “Blowing Up India: The Comintern and India, 1928–35,” in Matthew Worley, ed., In Search of Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third Period (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 327–328.

The national and colonial questions  43 110 111 112 113 114

Edmonds, “Unpacking ‘Chauvinism,’ ” 175. Datta Gupta, “Communism and the Crisis,” 225. Redfern, “The Comintern and Imperialism,” 51. Redfern, “The Comintern and Imperialism,” 47. VII Congress of the Communist International: Abridged Stenographic Report of Proceedings (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1939), 280–313. Meanwhile, the colonial world was given minimal attention in any resolutions. Often, it was limited to declaring their primary task was to develop the anti-imperialist united front. “The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Fight for the Unity of the Working Class Against Fascism,” VII Congress of the Communist International, 570–586. Otherwise, they were a target of the new imperialisms of the world, Japanese, German or Italian. “The Tasks of the Communist International in Connection with the Preparations of the Imperialists for a New World War,” VII Congress of the Communist International, 587–595. 115 Redfern, Class and Nation, 93–95. 116 R. Palme Dutt, “The Imperialist Contradictions and the Drive to War,” in The Communist International Vol 12, no. 16 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1935), 1142–1156; D. Z. Manuilsky, “Results of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International,” in The Communist International Vol 12, no. 19–20 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1935), 1467–1492; M. Ercoli, “The Italo-Ethiopian War and the Tasks of the United Front,” in The Communist International Vol 12, no. 23–24 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1935), 1568–1579; D. Z. Manuilsky, “Results of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International (Part 2),” in The Communist International Vol 12, no.  23–24 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1935), 1580–1602; V. Molotov, “The International Situation, the Growing War Menace and the Soviet Policy,” in The Communist International Vol 13, no. 2 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1936), 239–247; “Stalin-Howard Interview,” in The Communist International Vol 13, no. 4 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1936), 487–493; “The Instigator of War in Europe,” in The Communist International Vol 13, no. 4 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1936), 494–497; George Dimitroff, “The United Front of Struggle for Peace,” in The Communist International Vol 13, no.  6 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1936), 719–727; V. Florin, “The Struggle Against Fascism Is a Struggle for Peace,” in The Communist International Vol 13, no. 9 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1936), 1108–1117; Georgi Dimitroff, “The People’s Front of Struggle Against Fascism and War,” in The Communist International Vol 13, no. 12 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1936), 1563–1575; “The Berlin Agreement of the Chief Instigators of War,” in The Communist International Vol 14, no. 1 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1937), 3–11; Wang Ming, “The New Stage of Japanese Aggression and the New Period of the Struggle of the Chinese People,” in The Communist International Vol 14, no. 10 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1937), 719–736; “The Forces of War and the Forces of Peace,” in The Communist International Vol 14, no. 11 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1937), 783–788; R. Page Arnot, “British Foreign Policy in the Pacific,” in The Communist International Vol 15, no.  2 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1938), 130–135; Karl Funk, “The Colonial Demands of German Fascism,” in The Communist International Vol 16, no. 1 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939), 58–65; “The Eighteenth Congress of the Bolsheviks and the International Working Class,” in The Communist International Vol 16, no. 4 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939), 296–311; Karl Funk, “The European Colonial Empire of German Fascism,” in The Communist International Vol 16, no. 4 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939), 336–344; E. Varga, “The Imperialist Struggle for a New Redivision of the World,” in The Communist International Vol 17, no.  7 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1940), 419–430. Following the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, the Comintern returns to relaying the negatives of

44  The context British imperialism more forcefully, while still maintaining a level of attack against German imperialism: Edgar Fielding, “Why Are the People of England Being Sent to Their Death?” in The Communist International Vol 16, no. 10 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939), 1060–1065; W. Florin, “Fight the War Criminals in Berlin as Well as London and Paris,” in The Communist International Vol 16, no. 10 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939), 1066–1073; S. Dzerzhinskaya, “The Bankruptcy of Imperialist Poland,” in The Communist International Vol 16, no. 10 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939), 1074–1083; E. Varga, “Anglo-­American Contradictions in the Second Imperialist War,” in The Communist International Vol 17, no. 1 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1940), 56–64. There also was an attempt to more effectively link Lenin and his teachings to the Second World War: A. Vladimirov, “Lenin’s Voice and the Imperialist War,” in The Communist International Vol 16, no. 11 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939), 1128–1132; “The Voice of Lenin,” in The Communist International Vol 17, no.  1 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1940), 5–12; Eugene Varga, “Monopoly Capitalism in the Second Imperialist War,” in The Communist International Vol 17, no.  4 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1940), 241–252. 117 G. Oldner, “Stalin and the National and Colonial Question,” in The Communist International Vol 17, no.  2 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1940), 124–139; W. Leitner, “The October Revolution and the Peoples of the Colonial and Dependent Countries,” in The Communist International Vol 17, no. 11 (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1940), 764–777.

2 T  he Comintern and fighting racial oppression

Upon its formation in 1919, the Comintern quickly focused on the National and Colonial Questions. As time passed, the Comintern succumbed to Eurocentrism and Soviet foreign policy aims. In the process, it blunted the effectiveness of its goals in the colonial world in favour of focusing on the imperial nations. Despite this gradual trend away from colonial affairs, the Comintern’s attention to race peaked in the Third Period, just as colonial matters seemed to decline in importance. Initially, the Comintern had some cursory attempts to appeal to all races but had no real platform and sensed a growing need to do something. Communists from regions with significant racial issues and black communists led the charge, alerting the communist movement to the need to respond to racial inequality. Seeking an answer to such Pan-Africanist movements as Garveyism, communists discussed whether a classical Marxist approach, ignoring racial difference, suggesting it was an invention of the bourgeoisie to ensure oppression, or explicitly dealing with racial oppression was the best course of action. As time passed, however, communists came to focus on Lenin’s passing reference to African American nationhood in his Theses on the National and Colonial question. The shift began as more black communists came to the Soviet Union and took part in Comintern dialogues. The establishment of a Negro Commission following the Fourth Comintern Congress and the growing attention to American affairs, where race undoubtedly played a factor, ensured that Comintern bureaucrats took notice. As a result, a golden age of sorts developed in the late 1920s and especially in the Third Period for the “Negro Question” and organizing the black Atlantic. African Americans played a pivotal role. In these shifts, the Comintern came to recognize African Americans and black Africans as colonized peoples and nations. By making this distinction, the Comintern promoted the establishment of independent black or native republics, prioritized in the United States and South Africa. This platform, while radicalizing the tactics the Comintern demanded of some communist parties, proved divisive. Some parties were unwilling or hesitant to make such drastic shifts. The Comintern also emphasized organizing black or African workers through initiatives such as the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW), hoping to take advantage of Pan-Africanist sentiment. Some European parties developed or supported similar organizations to bring black workers to the left. Even black African communists and Comintern racial theorists

46  The context disagreed about the extensiveness of black nationhood; some saw all black Africans as one nation, whereas others differentiated nationhood based on region. The attention to the “Negro Question,” however, did not necessarily mean a fuller treatment of racial issues. The Comintern had a general platform regarding foreign workers, especially considering the harsh immigration laws in some European nations and British dominions. Through the Latin American Secretariat, the Comintern demanded communists in Latin and South America consider independent native republics in their countries. But generally, the Comintern had no specific platform regarding the oppression of other racial groups. Most frequently, the Comintern downplayed racial differences of colonized groups in Comintern edicts. Furthermore, despite the Comintern’s continued general commitment to racial equality, latent racism undoubtedly blunted its efforts, much as Eurocentrism hurt anti-colonial campaigns.

Early mentions of race Socialism was poorly acquainted with the topic of race. While it had some discussion of the colonial world, the Second International tended to overlook race and the left’s record on racial issues was spotty at best. Lenin, for example, only generally referenced race. In a 1913 article, he compared the experiences of African American slaves during Reconstruction to those of Russian serfs following their emancipation. Lenin applied a classical Marxist outlook, seeing both populations as oppressed classes. While noting how a comparison of race and class seemed problematic on the surface, he said that both populations had struggled since their emancipation. He argued that the Russian serfs were more oppressed, however, because they had lower literacy rates than African Americans. Lenin did not discuss race specifically, but the thesis showed a familiarity with some of the racialized groups that the Comintern would later champion.1 Initially, the Comintern gave peripheral attention to race. Unlike the Second International and socialism’s continued ignorance to race, Comintern delegates attempted to show racial issues mattered. S.J. Rutgers, one of the first to highlight colonialism at the First Congress, made the initial references to race at a Comintern Congress, reflecting on the need for “practical resolutions” to help “the brown and yellow proletarians.”2 His mention of different races suggested that the platform of the Comintern should stand for all peoples of the world, regardless of skin colour. This position was reinforced in Trotsky’s Manifesto which specifically referenced the role of colonial and racial groups as troops for imperial powers: The last war, which was significantly a war over colonies, was also a war fought with the help of the colonies. The colonial peoples were involved in the European war as never before. Indians, Negros, Arabs and Malagasy fought on the European continent. In whose name? In the name of their right to remain slaves of England and France. Never has the picture of the dishonour of capitalist rule shown itself more shamelessly. Never has the problem of colonial slavery been posed more sharply as now.3

Fighting racial oppression  47 By specifically referencing colonial groups and races, Trotsky’s Manifesto established a general commitment to supporting all peoples. Communists did not focus on racial difference, however. Rather, they emphasized the oppression of colonized peoples, workers and racialized peoples, shared by the whole proletariat. Trotsky subtly affirmed a classical Marxist approach, but his Manifesto ensured that, upon the release of the statements of the First Congress, all in the colonial world – regardless of race – would find something to draw them to the Communist International. The Second Comintern Congress continued to speak abstractly about race. Lenin, however, made a comparison in his Theses on the National and Colonial Question that became the lynchpin of communist positions regarding blacks internationally, and especially African Americans. He explicitly mentioned the need to combat racism, which aligned with the Comintern’s general commitment to fight oppression. But he compared the African American population in the United States to the Irish under British control, suggesting both groups were oppressed nations. At the time, this connection did not seem controversial. As Lenin made this comparison in passing, it received little recognition at the Second Congress.4 In the future, however, African American communists and Comintern officials used this reference to strengthen their claims on how to respond to the racial oppression of African Americans. When the Second Comintern Congress discussed race and the plight of African Americans, US delegates differed on how to approach race in the American context. John Reed stressed a classical Marxist approach, arguing that black Americans had no national interests of their own. Louis Fraina, meanwhile, tried to downplay the importance of African Americans generally. He suggested many other populations had similar problems and that the African American racial makeup was not enough to cause undue attention. Communists knew that African Americans should be part of any communist movement, but tended to downplay their racial differences at this point and treat them as part of the oppressed peoples in the United States generally.5

The introduction of the “Negro Question” Although the Third Comintern Congress overlooked colonial issues, two South African delegates, David Ivon Jones and Sam Barlin, presented a resolution which discussed racial issues in South Africa and racism in the United States.6 Jones began his speech by making some light-hearted comments, likely attempting to ameliorate his audience, uncertain of how they would react. He noted that many attendees seemed shocked that two white delegates represented South Africa. He added that he had “seen a Negro brother in the corridor; I think he has been captured by main force for the photographer.” The audience laughed. The statement and reaction showed that communists wanted the involvement of black delegates to show the internationalization of communist platforms, while still seeing these individuals as novelties at which to gawk. Jones shared his concerns that the Congress may still be hesitant to deal with the plight of blacks, saying “I hope that the

48  The context fact that we are dealing with this vast question in the closing hours of this congress is no indication of our sense of responsibility.”7 He used religious allusions, claiming blacks must become “the Benjamin of the Communist International,” referencing the “righteous child” of Abraham of the Old Testament. He argued that the significant majority of black Africans workers made work difficult for the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). The African American minority in the United States, in contrast, showed “colony prejudices in its most frenzied form,” citing the Tulsa race riots and suggesting a racial violence akin to the violence suffered by colonized peoples in Africa and Asia. While Jones only had five minutes for his speech, it was the first notable statement regarding the “Negro Question” at a Comintern Congress.8 In the shadow of the Third Congress, the Anglo-American Colonial Section, later called Anglo-American Secretariat, discussed the “Negro Question.” Members stressed the problem of the rise of Pan-Africanism and Garveyist movements. Delegates such as Jones and Sidney Bunting promoted the need to discuss race in the colonial world; the problem was how to respond. Some delegates supported the establishment of a Negro Congress, like the Baku Congress for the Peoples of the East. Japanese communist Sen Katayama was a vocal supporter of the concept and consistently advocated for the Comintern to place more emphasis on the “Negro Question” and on race. Many representatives, however, believed the creation of a congress would inherently identify race as a legitimate unifying category, which Marxism had typically rejected. Classical Marxism argued that racism was a bourgeois construct, created to divide the proletariat. Class was the only characteristic that mattered. Those who wanted to develop a Negro Congress, and focus on racial oppression, felt it was necessary to curb the influence of Garveyism and Pan-Africanism, while also injecting revolutionary aims into the black African population. The focus on race led to other issues. For example, some delegates said focusing on one race over others could lead to other issues, such as inflaming racist beliefs in the working class.9 Jones’s position on the matter is interesting to track. At the Third Congress, he made no reference to a Negro Congress but, by 1922, he supported the concept, wanting one held in Moscow to respond to the Pan-African Congresses of W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey. Defending the idea, he suggested that “the Negroes more than any other race are a labouring race  .  .  .” With Comintern guidance, blacks could be given a “proletarian content” and the Comintern could be established as their protectors from oppression. He highlighted the benefits of interaction between black Africans from different parts of the world, mentioning South African delegates and the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), a Pan-Africanist black nationalist and communist sympathizing group led by Cyril Briggs as a countermovement to Garveyism. He suggested that the Comintern should aim to “popularise the far more inclusive and more dignified term ‘ETHIOPIAN’ as a sign of the race’s emergence to proletarian consciousness.” He noted the links of the term “Negro” to slavery and that “Bantu” only represented blacks south of the equator. Jones emphasized the project’s potential and highlighted other additional

Fighting racial oppression  49 parties who could partner with the Comintern on the matter, but that much work would be needed.10 Events in South Africa prompted Jones to reconsider his position. The Rand Revolt, a white miner’s strike in February 1922 against the weakening of the colour bar, which took on a distinctly racial character, made Jones realize a congress was premature.11 Considering the efforts of Garveyism in tandem with Rand, he argued that, until blacks realized that capitalism – not whites – was their main enemy, a congress would be ineffective. Instead, mixed race delegations should attend Comintern Congresses and communist parties should take control of black trade unions in hopes of delivering the appropriate message.12 By May  1922, Jones adopted the position of a classical Marxist. He argued the “Negro Question” was different from the Chinese or Indian questions, arguing the latter were inherently national and anti-colonial questions, where race was not the defining factor. Instead, he argued that focusing on race had “doubtful revolutionary value,” and that the “Negro Question” should be seen as a “colour question,” not a race question. Making this distinction would merge efforts against cheap labour. It would also allow black African workers to be placed alongside Asian or Southern European workers in certain struggles, such as the White Australia policy in Australia, in a completely proletarian movement that also referenced their unique plights. This approach would downplay racial difference and unite all workers against capitalism and imperialism, thus embracing solidarity instead of difference, as seen in Garveyism.13 Katayama criticized Jones for what he believed was an incorrect interpretation, marshalling Lenin’s statement in the Theses on the National and Colonial Question which referenced African Americans as a nation. The Congress, for Katayama, could radicalize blacks against capitalism. Katayama suggested that the “Negro” had been awakened and a congress could organize them under communism.14 Both men held to these positions into the next year.15 These debates provide a snapshot of the two prominent arguments on racial oppression, at least regarding blacks, that would dominate the Comintern until the Sixth Congress. Jones’s position, and shift to a classical Marxist approach, remained a prominent characteristic of the CPSA’s approach for most of the 1920s, but also reflected the internationalizing spirit of international communism. Furthermore, these discussions which focused on the intersection of colour, race and cheap labour suggested that the “Negro Question” did not have to be a separate issue. At this point, a vocal contingent of Comintern delegates remained who wanted to downplay race to unify all workers. These delegates only believed differentiation should occur when a national group needed self-determination. But the faction which saw the need to deal with the “Negro Question” as a race question, and a unique one at that, marshalled Lenin frequently. As the Comintern and international communism reified Lenin after his death, with such notable figures as Katayama forwarding his position, the kernel for the application of self-­ determination as a resolution to the “Negro Question” had already developed in these early discussions. Given Lenin’s specific mention of the American context, which was an increasingly important nation for international communism, this

50  The context group had a strong argument to convince those unsure of how to move forward on the question.

The Fourth Congress and defining tactics As the Anglo-American Secretariat had two defined factions on the “Negro Question,” black communists’ involvement led to defined tactics. The arrival of Trinidadian poet Claude McKay and American communist Otto Huiswood, both ABB members, gave a strong voice to the “Negro Question.” They presented their resolution at the Fourth Comintern Congress in November-December 1922. As with Jones, McKay and Huiswood articulated the need to respond to DuBois and Garvey, while also condemning the Comintern for its failure to develop clear tactics. These men took it upon themselves provide this direction. They saw the struggle against imperialism and that against racial oppression as linked, and highlighting imperial penetration into Africa and the racial violence suffered in the United States. McKay and Huiswood identified African Americans as the “vanguard of the struggle against oppression in Africa,” emphasizing their history of resistance to persecution, from slavery to the present. Putting the onus on the Comintern to win blacks over, the ABB delegates urged it “to show blacks that . . . the workers and peasants of Europe, Asia, and America are also victims of the imperialist exploiters.” McKay and Huiswood highlighted that such groups as Indians, Chinese and Arabs, echoing the groups Trotsky had identified at the First Congress, suffered from “racial oppression, social and economic inequality, and intensive exploitation in industry” and that they all held the same goals in their struggles. The theses said blacks were critical to the eventual revolution and that “the Fourth Congress assigns to Communists the special responsibility to apply the ‘Theses on the Colonial Question’ to the situation of blacks.” It then urged parties to organize black workers, ideally into established trade unions or blackonly ones if necessary, to fight for equality of all workers, regardless of race, and to convene a Negro Congress.16 The theses were a unique merger of key ideas from both factions in the AngloAmerican Secretariat debates, with the addition of the perspectives of the ABB. It demanded a Negro Congress but also called for unity of all races. Thus, the thesis took a classical Marxist stance by denoting the role racial difference played in defining black identity, before calling on communism to downplay that difference and promote that all workers, colonized peoples and racialized peoples suffered from the same oppression caused by capitalism and imperialism. Furthermore, by referencing the Theses on the National and Colonial Question, Huiswood and McKay subtly affirmed self-determination as a possibility. They saw the plight of blacks to be tied to imperialism. Many black populations were colonized peoples, especially in Africa, directly under imperial rule or influence. Huiswood and McKay also established a shared African American experience, which lent itself to the argument that they constituted a nation. However, Huiswood and McKay did not explicitly use the term self-determination. In fact, immediately following the presentation of resolution, Rose Pastor Stokes, the American who introduced

Fighting racial oppression  51 the theses, focused entirely on trade union issues and called for the organization of blacks in white trade unions to ensure equality and worker unity.17 Thus, these theses were only a general call to link the “Negro Question” to the “National and Colonial Questions.” Likely, this stance resulted from the focus on American leadership of black issues, perhaps akin to how British communists had special responsibilities to their colonial counterparts.18 But again, Huiswood and McKay planted seeds that show a lineage of communist ideas regarding the “Negro Question,” especially with the intervention of black communists offering their insights and some concrete tactics. At this point, the Comintern did not have self-determination explicitly on the agenda, but the Negro Congress was something in which it was interested. Furthermore, the Comintern moved forward with the creation of a Negro Commission. Unfortunately, those outside of the United States often dismissed this commission. The CPSA’s Bunting was a notable critic, as he felt it was too focused on American affairs. Advocates of the “Negro Question” were also disappointed by Dmitry Manuilsky’s much-criticized report at the Fifth Comintern Congress, referenced in the previous chapter, which failed to address race in any capacity. Some delegates took it upon themselves to remind other attendees of the role of racial issues in the colonial world, but momentum surrounding the topic seemed to have stalled within the Comintern apparatus. Despite these problems, black American communists pushed forward and took advantage of the Negro Commission. Lovett FortWhiteman of the American party and the first African American to attend the Lenin School in Moscow continued to disparage communism’s tactics on race following the Fifth Congress. Attacking the American party, he pointed out the difficulties of gaining black followers in the United States. He attributed these obstacles to racial discrimination, arguing that it was not a problem of class. Racial equality presented theoretical issues with which American communists struggled.19 One of Fort-Whiteman’s suggestions became a pet project of the Negro Commission: the establishment of the American Negro Labor Congress (ANLC), which aligned with suggestions from the Fourth Congress. Despite some resistance from American communists, the ANLC took place in October  1925 in Chicago, becoming a minor force in American labour politics for the rest of the decade. The ANLC attempted to mobilize black workers. It followed the Comintern line, articulating black issues on class lines, while also trying to link the American struggle to the broader struggle for black rights internationally. The congress continued the merger of ideas of imperialism and ideas of racial and colonial oppression. During the event planning, the Worker’s Party of America distributed leaflets which called for an “Africa for the Africans, China for the Chinese and Haiti for Haitians,” to appeal broadly to colonized and oppressed peoples. In one statement, the ANLC condemned imperialism for its oppression of blacks internationally, continuing the attempt to resonate beyond the Americas. It also brought two prominent black communists, James Ford and George Padmore, into the fold.20 The ANLC moved its headquarters from Chicago to New York, a relocation that, in part, had to do with increased Caribbean immigration to the American East

52  The context Coast. Historian Margaret Stevens argues that the move to New York, and later to Harlem in 1927, allowed the ANLC to become a notable force for anti-imperial sentiment in the Americas, building on the efforts of the LADLA. Richard Moore, representing the ANLC, attended the Brussels Congress of the LAI, building connections. He also attended the Fourth Pan-African Congress, organized by W.E.B. DuBois. In both congresses, Moore championed Haitian autonomy and attacked American imperialism. The ANLC and the LAI campaigned against the American occupation of Haiti, while stressing the links between anti-imperialism and the “Negro Question.” Both organizations established American leadership in the radical networks that developed in the Americas on these issues.21 Despite these successes in the American labour movement, and an intention to serve as an international influence, many beyond the United States saw the ANLC as an example of the Negro Commission’s America-centrism. The congress failed to resonate internationally in other critical regions.22 But the successes of Fort-Whiteman and the ANLC represent a greater legacy at work – the role of individual communists in winning the Comintern apparatus over to seeing certain causes as worthwhile. In what became a repeated pattern, similar to the efforts of Willi Münzenberg in the LAI, individual communists promoted racial equality or increased attention to the “Negro Question” through the establishment of organizations or the drafting of important resolutions. The ANLC is another early example of black communists taking a leading role in the promotion of the “Negro Question.” Their roles increased as African Americans travelled to Moscow and involved themselves further in the Comintern bureaucracy. The Comintern and American communists directly supported the ANLC, but other bodies with communist leanings that promoted black interests formed in Europe. The most notable organization was La comité de défense de la race nѐgre (CDRN), led by Senegalese communist Lamine Senghor. Formed in 1926 and based in Paris, it began as an independent organization until Senghor needed to appeal to the PCF for help due to funding issues. The CDRN was short-lived, but had a strong Caribbean émigré membership. While Senghor’s leadership was never in doubt, he had a much more Pan-Africanist outlook than his supporters, which created challenges. As a result, Senghor quickly splintered from the group he formed and started the La ligue de défense de la race nѐgre (LDRN) in March 1927. It initially promoted a Pan-Africanist approach, before quickly falling into line with international communism as, yet again, financial issues plagued Senghor’s success. In this case, the PCF took control of the organization, likely to ensure there were no further conflicts.23 The LDRN was hamstrung from the start. Senghor tended to run the organization largely by himself, controlling its funds and operations. When he died on 25 November 1927, the LDRN struggled. Tiemoko Garan Kouyaté, an educated Malian who served as the LDRN’s first secretary-general, took control. Over the course of 1928, the PCF pulled its financial assistance. Only two issues of the LDRN’s publication, La Race Nѐgre (The Negro Race), were printed in 1928, one of which memorialized Senghor’s efforts. Perhaps emboldened by the end of PCF

Fighting racial oppression  53 support, Kouyaté briefly flirted with making the LDRN independent and focusing on black militancy.24 In both cases, individual interests – mostly with communist leanings, guided the ANLC and the LDRN with the aim of organizing black workers. Both groups struggled. The overwhelming focus of the ANLC on American issues meant that it undermined its effectiveness outside of the Americas; regionally, it was a strong influence for anti-imperial agitation. The CDRN and LDRN attempted to be independent, despite Senghor’s communist leanings. His politics, however, seemed to be the main reason either organization received any support as he defined himself as a communist and the PCF was willing to work with him. Senghor’s premature death hurt the general movement for black workers in France and the French Empire, and also caused organizational chaos that left the LDRN under his successor, Kouyaté, in limbo. It did, however, have some significant local followers, although some communists doubted their revolutionary quality and its publications gained the attention of French imperial officials.25

Self-determination The desires of black communists in Moscow resonated the most in the mid- to late 1920s. As front organizations struggled to make headway and the Comintern Congresses failed to produce results, black communists attending the Lenin School in Moscow joined the Comintern bureaucracy, giving them a voice. Much as Fort-Whiteman proved critical to motivating the ANLC idea, he and other blacks pushed for tangible changes in Comintern tactics. More and more voices marshalled Lenin’s African-American/Irish comparison at the Second Congress, convincing many black communists that African Americans were a nation, requiring self-determination. Harry Haywood, an African American communist who had become displeased with the tactics of W.E.B. Dubois’s National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), met with Nikolai Nasanov, a Russian member of the Young Communist International in Chicago and major proponent of selfdetermination for African Americans.26 Nasanov convinced Haywood that the key to African American nationhood was to look at their socio-economic condition. Haywood explained in his memoirs that support for these ideas had circulated in Russia for some time. Katayama, who had promoted similar ideas in the Anglo-American Secretariat years earlier, took a similar approach in classes at the Communist University for the Toilers of the East (KUTV). Grigory Zinoviev and Joseph Stalin, allegedly, also promoted the position, but it is difficult to substantiate those claims beyond anecdotal statements.27 Regardless of this support within Russia, this stance had not become the accepted train of thought because, until 1927, the Comintern maintained that class should be placed above race. This approach meant highlighting equality for all workers regardless of race and that the Comintern’s primary goals were worker unity and organization of black workers in white trade unions.

54  The context Haywood and Nasanov framed their argument for the self-determination of blacks in the United States as follows: The generally agrarian conditions in the southern United States suggested that Lenin’s Theses on the National and Colonial Question were applicable to the African American population.28 The American Civil War and Reconstruction were “the unfinished bourgeois-democratic revolution.” Coupled with the effects of American imperialism, this unfinished revolution made African Americans a subject people. They had a common ethnicity, race, economic condition and culture, developed through the shared history of slavery and reconstruction.29 To Haywood and Nasanov, race mattered for inculcating certain values into the population, but African Americans’ shared values, experiences and economic status in the United States made them a colonized peoples and a nation. Haywood and Nasanov started to formulate a set of theses communicating these ideas and advocating self-determination for African Americans. Other approaches to the “Negro Question” were publicized at the time. Endre Sik, the Soviet Union’s most preeminent expert on race and a teacher at the Lenin School who wrote as A. Shiek, had some concerns. His criticisms were timely as his article was published as the Sixth Congress was ongoing. Sik attacked the concept of superior or inferior races as developed by exploiter classes. He argued any anthropological definition of race was irrelevant to the racial oppression that existed in the world. Circumstance, not race, defined oppression. As an example, African Americans were oppressed because of their race, whereas black Africans were oppressed as a “colonial nation.” Therefore, the “Theses on the National and Colonial Question” were acceptable for blacks in Africa, but not applicable in the American context. Surprisingly, he ignored Lenin’s comparison at the Second Congress. Sik argued self-determination, in the manner that Nasanov and Haywood proposed it, was not the proper tactic in the American context. Rather, equality should be the goal. The Comintern should strive to end racial prejudice within the American party.30 Others in the Comintern circles shared his feelings. During a meeting of the Negro Commission of the Anglo-American Secretariat in August  1928, Haywood and Nasanov presented their theses. They criticized American communists for their failures to adequately deal with black issues. Haywood and Nasanov also embraced attacks on white chauvinism, declaring that “the prerequisites of a nationalist movement exist” for African Americans, and called for self-determination.31 Initial reaction of other delegates was negative. Most disagreed with the classification of blacks as allies instead of as part of the proletariat itself.32 On the second day, discussions showed more support for the theses. Delegates reflected upon Lenin’s statements, which considered the similarities of African Americans and the Irish, and thus suggested that racial identity and national identity could be one and the same.33 More generally, however, many delegates came to see the theses as promising contributions to a discussion of race. Max Petrovsky, the Chair of the Anglo-American Secretariat, referenced Lenin’s Theses on the National and Colonial Question, and supported forwarding the Haywood-Nasanov Theses to the Sixth Congress. After three days of discussion, the committee voted, by a count of six to four, to pass the theses along to the Negro Commission of the Sixth Congress for discussion. The debate was entirely

Fighting racial oppression  55 preoccupied with American issues, but the Commission’s resolution made clear the relevance of the theses to the broader problem – it was a part of the general discussion on black issues.34 Whereas self-determination of African Americans was gaining an audience in the American context, self-determination on racial lines had already started to build momentum in the Comintern apparatus. Despite the leadership of the Communist Party of South Africa, namely Bunting, believing that the black African population had no nationalist tendencies and tactically maintained their classical Marxist outlook, some members felt the party was not doing enough. James La Guma, a coloured trade unionist, took advantage of an invitation to Moscow, stemming from his attendance at the Brussels Congress of the LAI. He spoke to several bodies of the Comintern in March 1927. Over the course of that year, the Comintern bureaucrats highlighted a need to recognize the colonial nature of South Africa, despite its dominion status. These leaders saw black Africans as a colonized people, stressing they faced racial discrimination from the white, settler bourgeoisie. In the summer of 1927, the Comintern advocated for the Native Republic Thesis, calling for the self-determination of black Africans and explicitly linking colonial liberation with racial equality in the South African context. The CPSA resisted this new line, as La Guma was tasked with winning over the party to the Comintern’s suggestion.35 By the end of the Sixth Congress, the Comintern had made the Native Republic Thesis, and its support for self-­determination of blacks, the keystone of communism’s tactics on the “Negro Question” internationally. Indeed, the Sixth Congress was the turning point for the “Negro Question.” Prior to the Congress, Fort-Whiteman, submitted a note to the Negro Commission, outlining a list of items that he felt needed to be discussed at the gathering. He said the Comintern needed to bring more black delegates into higher levels of its work and to create a bureau for the purpose of collecting materials on, and to give direction to, both the American and African struggles thereby uniting the two regions.36 The Negro Commission included delegates from a range of countries and regions including the United States, South Africa, Great Britain, France and Latin America. Five delegates were African Americans. The Comintern promptly created a sub-committee to discuss South Africa and the United States with the intention to develop individual action plans for primary areas of importance before creating a more general line regarding black issues.37 The section of the Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semicolonies on the “Negro Question” reflected this methodology. The theses linked the “Negro Question” to the “National and Colonial Question.” The Comintern offered different tactics for different regions. It emphasized the building of communism and independence movements in Latin America and across the majority of Africa. The Comintern, however, prioritized the United States and South Africa. In the United States, it encouraged American communists to promote racial equality and call for an end to segregation. The Comintern argued that African American communists needed to convince non-blacks that the success of the greater proletarian revolution relied on the end to racism. In South

56  The context Africa, the Comintern highlighted racial divisions and the colonial nature of the white government which benefitted from exploiting the black African population. Much like in the United States, the Comintern commanded the CPSA to fight for black acceptance in non-black trade unions. In both regions, the Comintern advocated for self-determination on racial lines, defining black Africans as a colonized peoples and African Americans as an oppressed nation. Echoing Haywood’s arguments in the Negro Commission and the Haywood-Nasanov Theses, the Comintern recognized black populations in both the United States and in South Africa as distinct nationalities. In South Africa, it demanded the creation of an independent black African republic, highlighting the need to make assurances to whites that their rights would not be abridged in this republic.38 For all of the ambiguity elsewhere in the Theses, not only was the Comintern more concrete in its tactics, it was more radical than ever before. The results of the Sixth Congress increased the influence of black communists. They pushed for racial self-determination and they were active in the newly developed Negro Bureau, created in the aftermath of this congress. Their voices grew louder. In the South African context, La Guma and new black African members forced some of the entrenched CPSA leadership to follow the Cominterndictated Native Republic Thesis.39 In the American context, the Comintern issued a second version of the theses in 1930 when the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) had failed to implement them initially, as factional strife in the party redirected its attention. Many members, including some African American communists, disagreed with the open call for self-determination. The Comintern’s intervention forced American communism to make the “Negro Question” an important part of its work, making it a champion of black equality by the 1940s.40

The Third Period, the “Negro Question” and front organizations The advent of the Third Period, with its stricter line, and the support of selfdetermination for blacks as a response to the “Negro Question” trickled down and influenced front organizations that focused on black workers. The Comintern’s most significant effort was the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW). Even before the Sixth Congress in March 1928, mirroring the growing involvement of black communists in the Comintern itself, the Red International Labour Union (RILU) elected black communist James Ford to its executive. Ford was to help the union increase its capabilities to deal with black issues. Together other leading African American representatives present at the Sixth Congress, he drafted a resolution which developed the ITUCNW. The ECCI fully supported the idea. The initial purpose of the ITUCNW was to unite the black Atlantic, with representatives from the United States, South Africa, Northern and Western Africa and Latin and South America.41 It would promote the organization of trade unions, ideally uniting white and black workers, although

Fighting racial oppression  57 supporting segregated unions if racism made it necessary. Much like other contemporary Comintern initiatives, the ITUCNW was responsible for establishing global connections and developing a worldwide network for the “Negro Question.” It published its own bulletin, The Negro Worker, and began planning an international conference.42 By 1929, those spearheading the ITUCNW idea placed itself within the Comintern’s Third Period way of thinking, mentioning the economic and racial struggles of blacks worldwide in the same vein as the war scare and the imminent threat of an imperialist war against the Soviet Union.43 Recognizing the issues endemic in European parties, some supporters suggested the ITUCNW was needed because the Western communist parties were unable to deal with black issues.44 Much as R. Page Arnot toured European communist parties to survey their efforts on colonial issues, Ford engaged in a similar effort, looking to establish contacts with communist-leaning allies of the “Negro Question.”45 Just as Arnot found that European communist parties grossly underperformed with regard to colonial activity, the Negro Bureau identified the same problems with regard to “negro work.” Ford affirmed this observation from his tour, adding that the French party had few links to Africa. Since a potential front organization (the LDRN) operated in France, this finding was startling news for Ford. He noted the LDRN’s usefulness and its growing contact with Africa, but also criticized its lack of strong leadership. The organization had split after Senghor’s death into a pro-communist faction and a faction led by “Negro intellectuals” such as Rene Maran, a French Guyanese novelist, whose writings would later influence notable Marxist imperial critic Frantz Fanon.46 Ford also suggested that the Negro Bureau establish a “section” in Paris in order to coordinate work, suggesting it should particular attention to France and its colonies.47 Haywood, in his report in October 1929, noted that the French and British Communist Parties failed to attend to black workers.48 The PCF’s failure to adequately deal with black workers led the Negro Bureau to make suggestions which gave the LDRN a key role. The organization worked with the eventual ITUCNW to coordinate black work in the black Atlantic, and especially in Africa. The Negro Bureau frequently criticized the PCF for failing to do more, but also demanded that it help fund and support the LDRN. The organization’s growing importance was reflected in Kouyaté’s links to Münzenburg and the establishment of the Liga zur Verteidigung der Negerrasse (LzVN), also referred to as the German Section of the LDRN. The Comintern created this organization to represent and organize blacks in Germany and its colonies. The LzVN was an autonomous organization though, directly linked to the LAI and operating out of the same building. In its statutes, the LzVN promoted black liberation and “solidarity” with the proletariat internationally, while also demanding the independence of black Africans. The body installed Joseph Bilé as its secretary and he was arguably its most important member. In the beginning, the organization had a strong Cameroonian membership, as nine of its 30 members hailed from Douala. The LzVN would later make connections with other French groups and was linked briefly with a body in London led by Jomo Kenyatta, the future leader of Kenya. The LzVN largely focused on smuggling propaganda into

58  The context Africa, and Kouyaté was interested in widely distributing the LDRN’s party organ across Germany and Africa. Bilé, particularly, was known for his focus on Cameroonian independence.49 Much like the LDRN, the LzVN had inconsistent and tense relationships with its communist counterparts. Just as the LDRN struggled to gain sufficient support from the PCF, the LzVN struggled to get the LAI to help fund its efforts. At one point, the LzVN even broke with the LAI in hopes that the Communist Party of Germany and International Red Aid would be better partners. That better relationship did not seem to occur. The LzVN struggled, even with Comintern intervention to presumably convince the LAI to do more. By 1931, it was being suggested to dissolve the LzVN entirely.50 Planners of the ITUCNW’s founding conference in 1930 expected both the LDRN and LzVN, to be involved in the event and organization. The LAI’s Frankfurt Congress in 1929 offered an opportunity for ITUCNW delegates and interested delegates from Africa to meet and discuss the conference in more detail.51 Attendees confirmed a conference date, July 1930, and location, London, owing to the large black population under British imperial rule and to undermine the new Labour government. Kenyatta was present and, after the Congress, the Comintern invited him to study at its Lenin School. This meeting also called for African independence from imperial influence, reminding delegates of the link between the “Negro Question” and the colonial question. The process showed how powerful the combination of the LAI, the ITUCNW and the Negro Bureau of the Comintern could be in organizing workers under their banner.52 Unfortunately, these organizations did little work until 1930 and even then, ITUCNW leaders spent most of the year travelling to or contacting various communist parties, trade unions and other sympathizing groups to gain support and to invite them to the conference.53 The attitude of European communist parties towards colonial work hampered efforts as they were hesitant to back the conference. Comintern advice and support were hard to obtain.54 Meanwhile, the Labour Government of Britain refused to allow the conference to take place in London, forcing organizers to move it to Hamburg, Germany. Eventually, they brought 17 delegates together, including Bilé of the LzVN.55 It reaffirmed the line of the Frankfurt meeting, and gave delegates a platform on which to share their experiences. Conference attendees also established a working committee, based out of Hamburg, to run ITUCNW affairs.56 Following the event, the Comintern invited several delegates to Moscow to attend the Fifth Profintern Congress.57 The establishment of the ITUCNW in a functional capacity with the Hamburg Conference was a significant achievement. Despite the many difficulties in getting the event off the ground, it brought together a core of black communist activists and affirmed the general direction of the ITUCNW. While historians highlight the Pan-Africanist line of the conference, which presaged the rifts between its leaders and the Comintern in later years, these scholars typically neglect to identify the Eurocentrism of the Comintern in blunting the ITUCNW’s efforts.58 Western European communist parties already lacked a concerted commitment to assist in dealing with racial issues, adding another layer of difficulties for ITUCNW

Fighting racial oppression  59 organizers. Although the Negro Commission urged these parties to assist in “negro work,” whether through the LAI, the ITUCNW or other bodies, this work never became a priority. The ITUCNW also ran headlong into the latent racism of the Comintern and its affiliates. Black Africans in Moscow faced chauvinism and stonewalling from African American comrades. For the remainder of Ford’s tenure as leader of the ITUCNW, he struggled to maintain office space due to the racism of building owners. European parties’ continued lack of engagement and the reassignment of those individuals engaged with black work in Moscow to other matters or to other apparatuses prevented them from being fully involved in the ITUCNW’s work.59 As the RILU established the ITUCNW, the LDRN faced issues as well. Kouyaté travelled to Moscow for the Fifth Profintern Congress and delivered a report attacking the PCF for its failures to support the LDRN. He delivered a similar report to the ITUCNW. The meetings in Moscow, and a meeting at the LAI headquarters in Berlin, gave him hope that the RILU and the LAI would pick up the PCF’s slack and help the LDRN. At the same time, some activists within the LDRN criticized the group’s communist leanings and several members were unhappy with the growing allegiance to Moscow. The LDRN splintered into two factions, one desiring greater autonomy and Kouyaté leading the other. The former faction sued for the name and won, reorganizing the LDRN. Kouyaté responded, beginning publication of Les Cri des Nѐgres, a project free from PCF control. Padmore, the leader of the ITUCNW, and other blacks supported this journal, and it initially followed the communist platform. In June 1932, Kouyaté formed the Union des travailleurs nѐgres (UTN) which replaced his faction of the LDRN.60 Much like the LDRN under Kouyaté’s leadership, the UTN was hamstrung in its beginnings. Kouyaté’s reputation within government circles as a radical and agitator meant the French Ministry of Colonies had its eyes on him and his new group. The UTN’s secretary-general, Thomas Ramananjato, was the ministry’s agent. Kouyaté’s autonomy, which developed through his use of ITUCNW funds and Padmore’s support, also started to also come under siege. The PCF was reluctant to work with Kouyaté during this time; for example, when Padmore wanted Kouyaté to be the ITUCNW’s representative in Paris, the PCF balked at the decision. Historian Hakim Adi notes how Kouyaté started to believe in his self-importance to the African workers’ efforts in French colonies, and felt he was necessary to any communist successes. This arrogance also led to his downfall – the PCF started to investigate his work. The organization took over the funding of Les Cris des Nѐgres and found that Kouyaté had misappropriated money from the ITUCNW. In his defence, Kouyaté attacked the Comintern and the PCF, leading to his expulsion from the party.61 Padmore’s tenure as leader of the ITUCNW also ended acrimoniously. He continued to support Kouyaté through his problems with the PCF, which made the Comintern very uneasy. When the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, they arrested Padmore and deported him to Britain.62 The Hamburg Committee ceased to operate but it relocated temporarily to Copenhagen.63 Padmore moved to Paris and used some of the UTN’s services to continue printing The Negro Worker.

60  The context His continued connection with Kouyaté led to the Comintern to dismiss Padmore as the head of the ITUCNW. Over the next year, some of his other connections gave the Comintern cause for alarm and it produced more accusations to publicly discredit Padmore. Simultaneously, Padmore attacked the Comintern for “sabotaging” any efforts to agitate amongst blacks.64 As a result of these disagreements, Padmore resigned from the Communist Party of the United States of America, becoming a staunch Pan-Africanist and anti-communist.65 A mix of Third Period tactics and limited support from national communist parties frustrated two prominent leaders on the “Negro Question,” causing both to be expelled from the movement. Both men were more pan-Africanist in outlook, so likely these tensions would have led to a rift at some point, especially considering the Comintern’s desire for the adherence of its line. The effect of the removal of Kouyaté and, especially, Padmore from these communist-affiliated or supported organizations gave communists more control. These decisions, however, also undermined communist efforts to build a mass movement, as both Kouyaté and Padmore were well-connected.66 In fact, when the Comintern placed Huiswood as the new head of the ITUCNW, reforming the body in Antwerp and overseeing its efforts, Padmore refused to turnover his contacts. As a result, Huiswood, who sought to reestablish publication of The Negro Worker, faced an insurmountable task. In spite of these difficulties, the ITUCNW was a success. Whereas historian Holger Weiss identifies its importance in giving rise to Padmore as a significant voice in Pan-Africanism and recognizes its creation as one of the most important events in Pan-Africanism, other successes were seen more immediately. The ITUCNW, with its focus on the black Atlantic, popularized some campaigns that became international causes for communists. Its initiatives regarding the Scottsboro case, defending the rights of the accused, or its promotion of a Hands-Off Abyssinia campaign, sparked by the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, resonated beyond the mandate of the ITUCNW. The organization publicized the conditions of blacks in the United States, Latin America and Africa, drawing attention to areas that communists would otherwise have ignored.67 Even though these front organizations received little enthusiastic support from western European communist parties, a cottage industry of small groups developed to support black workers in the imperial powers and colonies. The LDRN, UTN and LzVN were just a few of these organizations. In Britain, for example, the LAI helped form a Negro Welfare Association (NWA). It was based in Liverpool, starting in 1931, and shared an affiliation with the LAI and the ITUCNW. The association assisted with many of the ITUCNW’s campaigns, including, most notably, the Scottsboro case. The NWA also brought other connections into the orbit of these communist front organizations. Through Sierra Leonean Isaac ­Wallace-Johnson, the NWA and the ITUCNW formed connections in the Gold Coast, such as with the Gold Coast Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society. Kenyatta was also affiliated with the NWA and made similar connections in British East Africa. The reach of these Communist-leaning organizations cannot be discounted and, in many cases, led to transnational protests of imperial legislation, such as the Native Land Trust Ordinance in Kenya in 1933 and the Gold Coast’s 1934 Sedition Bill.68

Fighting racial oppression  61 These groups also showed some of the same fault lines that occupied previous discussions of the topic, showing that even black communists were not in full agreement on how to move forward. For example, in a series of meetings in Berlin in the fall 1930, a several African communists noted their concerns with how African American communists tackled the “Negro Question.” E.F. Smalls of Gambia criticized African American communists for focusing on uniquely American problems, such as lynching and white chauvinism, in their Moscow meeting, instead of the oppression of black workers. He noted a fundamental difference between African Americans and black Africans in how to deal with the “Negro Question” and disparaged their racial consciousness. Joseph Bilé suggested that African American comrades were chauvinistic to their African colleagues. Many African communists saw the issue as an anti-colonial fight and the plight of black workers as identical to colonial oppression. Thus, these communists believed they needed to take a distinctly anti-imperial tact. Furthermore, delegates disagreed over how to approach colonial liberation. Kouyaté promoted his pan-Africanist approach in these meetings, suggesting it was the best option due to the arbitrary borders drawn during the Scramble for Africa. Other delegates called for the colonial liberation of each region and wanted to raise the consciousness of black Africans to this call.69 Although it successfully promoted communist campaigns for black issues, the ITUCNW expired during the second half of the 1930s. It had bounced around geographically, from Hamburg to Antwerp to Amsterdam, before finally settling in Paris in November 1935, hoping to rebuild. The Seventh Comintern Congress, which took place that year, reaffirmed the longstanding problems in the Comintern’s efforts on the “Negro Question:” European and American parties did not do enough and they failed to meet the tasks required of them by the Sixth Congress. The Comintern still gave the ITUCNW support, aiming to make The Negro Worker the primary publication for “anti-imperialist Negro work.”70 This support, however, was merely talk. By mid-1936, the ITUCNW’s work was entirely The Negro Worker and, by 1937, prominent black communists began to discuss how best to move forward. Many of these men called for the dismantling of the ITUCNW, saying it no longer was a useful endeavour. Ford, Huiswood and others promoted a Pan-Africanist approach, realizing the increasing likelihood of the Second World War. The Comintern, however, had the final say in how to approach the “Negro Question” and emphatically attacked Pan-Africanist tendencies, placing importance on the work of individual communist parties, especially those in Africa, in supporting blacks.71 Despite the end to the ITUCNW, the Comintern still desired a functional body to oversee work regarding the “Negro Question.” This new body, to be based in Paris, was to continue the aims of the ITUCNW and would be coordinated with MOPR.72 The body never got off the ground. Despite high hopes, the trends of curbing Pan-Africanism by demanding unique responses to regional problems faced by black Africans and of downloading efforts to individual communist parties dominated the Comintern’s efforts beginning in 1937. But this shift to national or regional control meant that some communists could easily ignore black work.

62  The context

Foreign workers The Comintern’s focus on race was not limited to black workers. Many parties also had to deal with foreign and migrant workers. Early on, the Comintern realized that this group was vulnerable, but also extremely important. In European nations and settler colonies, migrant workers could be particularly willing to support revolutionary aims. In North America, for example, Finnish and Eastern European workers accounted for a significant proportion of early party memberships. They also had ties to other nations, making them possible vectors for the transmission of ideas. However, these workers tended to enjoy fewer rights, and served as a target for white workers, who could see the foreign workers as cheaper alternatives and thus as threats to white workers’ livelihood. Therefore, the Comintern recognized that it needed to make a concerted effort to combat xenophobia, fight restrictive immigration and cheap labour laws, and in turn represent migrant and foreign workers. The Comintern mentioned promoting the welfare and inclusion of foreign workers as early as the First Congress, identifying their status as a form of racial oppression. The Second Congress only generally noted a need to combat racial chauvinism and prejudice. The Fourth Congress, however, explicitly mentioned foreign workers. Looking at the Pacific, as restrictive immigration laws against Asian workers existed in the United States, Australia and Canada, the Comintern told communist parties to promote worker unity, to call for the end to these laws and to organize foreign workers through trade unions.73 Just as the Comintern Congress promoted more work to help immigrant workers, the Anglo-American Secretariat also debated the problem. It dealt with deliberations that mirrored concurrent discussions on the “Negro Question.” Bill Earsman, the representative of the Communist Party of Australia, explained that trade unions in his country often refused to admit foreign workers, buying into the rhetoric that these individuals were cheap labour who had different interests than the general Australian working class. To deal with this roadblock, he suggested that the Comintern promote a general fight against capitalism on the issue of cheap and migrant labour. Naturally, these discussions led classical Marxists like Bunting to advocate for the downplaying of racial or ethnic difference, and instead focus on cheap labour and general labour rights. As with the discussions regarding the “Negro Question,” delegates disagreed about whether race and ethnicity should be emphasized in their responses in migrant and foreign worker issues.74 The Congresses started to recognize the importance of the issue and the bureaucracy, reflected in discussions in the Anglo-American Secretariat, clearly shared an interest in developing a proper platform. Typically though, Comintern interest was determined on a case-by-case basis and it negotiated its tactics in the same way. For example, the Comintern understood the need to combat the White Australia policy and British preference in the Australian context. For much of the 1920s, the Comintern bureaucracy prodded the CPA to deal more substantially with these issues. In North America, both the American and Canadian parties

Fighting racial oppression  63 struggled with significant immigrant blocs that hampered the centralization of the party. While the Comintern wanted these individuals to be involved with the party, it also wanted to Bolshevize the parties. In the process, it strove to eliminate individual language groups and demanded the recruiting of “native-born” members in Canada, and African Americans in the United States. By the Seventh Congress, the threat of Nazi Germany and fascism led the Comintern to continually call on parties to combat “chauvinism,” suggesting that a unified labour movement was necessary to defeat the allure of fascism. Instead of specifically mentioning race, ethnicity or immigration, the Comintern articulated a general attack on discrimination. Parties in imperial nations needed to fight against “chauvinism” to support their colonial counterparts. They had to avoid discrimination and xenophobia towards other nations and migrant workers.75 The Comintern worded its pronouncements in such a way to avoid the commentary being used against itself as the Soviet Union sought better relations with Britain and France. The message, however, remained the same: communists should respect foreign workers and considered them to be part of the general labour movement. Individual communist parties took steps to organize migrant workers. For example, in France, the PCF helped fund and oversaw the Union Intercoloniale (UIC). Formed in 1921, this group resulted from the merger of several colonial groups. Eventually, the UIC came to represent Antillean, Vietnamese and Northern Africans. The group influenced members of these communities to take a more nationalist stance, dovetailing the desire to represent their interests in France with the PCF’s grander anti-imperial aims. Its major publication, Le Paria (The Pariah), had significant circulation of anywhere between 2,000 and 4,000 copies. The journal typically promoted the Comintern line. Over time, the organization splintered along ethnic lines. The unique nationalism of each group led to differing approaches and the desires of the PCF led to fluctuations in which groups made up the greatest proportion of the UIC’s leadership.76 Migrant workers also created subgroups as part of their involvement in communism. For example, the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS) formed in May 1927 and was based in Hankow, China. It was a subdivision of the RILU akin to the ITUCNW, aiming to represent workers across the Pacific. Asian workers were a prominent concern for the PPTUS owed to the obstructive immigration laws of Australia and the United States which placed them in a precarious position. The PPTUS faced many obstacles. Initially, it printed its publications, such as the Pan-Pacific Worker, in China, but persecution by Chinese nationalists brought that work to a screeching halt. Funding was another concern as, frequently, the Comintern slashed its budgets. The body was often understaffed. Yet the Comintern expected the PPTUS to maintain a certain level of output. Another problem was that it only printed the Pan-Pacific Worker in English to start. Eventually, the organization resolved this issue with Chinese, Japanese and Korean translations. This oversight was perhaps also a function of the racial prejudice of many key members of the PPTUS, including future American communist leader Earl Browder and, upon the body’s relocation to Vladivostok, Semen Borisovich

64  The context Yurdzik, a member of the Comintern’s notorious and clandestine section Otdel Mezhdunarodnoj Svyasi (International Liaison Department). Yurdzik was a Russian chauvinist who maintained ethnic stereotypes and fears of Asians, particularly regarding their alleged disloyalty and tendency to be spies.77 As historian Anna Belogurova has shown, Chinese diasporic networks made better progress. Chinese migrants in the Americas developed a transnational network which fought for the labour and political rights of their communities abroad, while also promoting anti-imperial sentiment in Southeast Asia and in the Americas. They embraced an internationalist approach, built on the teachings of Sun Yat-sen and promoted by the Comintern. This stance led Chinese migrants to support the Chinese Revolution and local anti-imperial struggles. Their publications promoted these sentiments, uniting the communities with shared goals and influences. These networks, along with the oversight of the PPTUS, also took the model of the American party, with its multiple language sections, and transplanted it to Southeast Asia, showing the transmission of ideas. This transportation of ideas included ideas, such as the separate language sections, that at one point the Comintern wanted quashed.78 Communists also faced a complicated racial issue with the oppression of blacks in Latin America. Many prominent theorists in Latin America, such as Jose Mariátegui, arguably the most important Marxist theorist on these issues, downplayed black oppression and their history of resistance in favour of highlighting the plight of Indigenous peoples. Historian Anne Garland Mahler emphasizes the role of Sandalio Junco, an Afro-Cuban trade unionist, in highlighting the need to deal with the “Negro Question” in Latin America. She argues that Junco saw Indigenous peoples and blacks in the Caribbean as two separate, but equally oppressed, groups. This stance was not necessarily appreciated by some communists, such as Mariátegui, who tended to stress the difference in oppression and argue that indigenous peoples suffered more in the Latin American context. Junco, meanwhile, highlighted the need to defend black migrant workers, who had to deal with racial hatred from whites as United Fruit used them as cheap, if not slave, labour. They were oppressed as a race and as a class, and communists needed to make black workers aware of this dual-level oppression. While these positions were not new, Latin Americans tended to accept that racial discrimination did not exist in the region, reflecting a position Lenin saw in the Russian peasantry. Black migrant workers were unaware of their oppression and thus required to be made aware of it. Therefore, these groups needed to develop racial consciousness to end racial oppression. As a result, Junco called for outreach as a prominent part of any platform regarding black workers in Latin America. The Caribbean Bureau, founded in 1931 and lasting until 1936, attempted to do this work.79

Indigenous peoples The Comintern legacy with Indigenous peoples is far more complicated. In many cases, by treating black Africans as colonized peoples, one could argue the Comintern had a platform for Indigenous peoples. In several colonial contexts, however,

Fighting racial oppression  65 where Indians or Chinese or black Africans were each considered as colonized peoples, the Comintern had no general platform emphasizing racial oppression. In Latin America, historian Marc Becker’s research on the Andean communist parties in Peru and Ecuador, and their methods for dealing with Swiss Communist and leader of the Comintern’s Latin American Secretariat Jules Humbert-Droz’s request to implement a Native Republic Thesis in South America, highlights that the Comintern did not enforce consistency in its approach to racial issues. Jose Mariátegui disagreed with the Comintern approach. He said that the exploitation of Indigenous peoples resulted from social and economic conditions, and argued a native republic would fail to successfully resolve those problems. Mariátegui, much like Jones and Bunting of South Africa, was a classical Marxist and believed that a native republic would only lead to an Indigenous bourgeoisie; class and race problems both needed to be resolved. In Ecuador, Mariátegui’s counterpart, Ricardo Paredes, embraced the Comintern line. He viewed Indigenous peoples as an oppressed nation and race. As a result, he believed a native republic was a suitable solution. Despite these differences, the Comintern never seemed to force parties to fall into line, suggesting limits to its intervention or influence.80 But why was the suggestion for the Native Republic Thesis even extended to Latin America? The first mentions of self-determination followed the Sixth Congress and, most notably, came at the June  1929 Buenos Aries Conference, which brought together Latin American communist parties. The following January, Joseph Humbert-Droz sought to make the race issue a primary concern of the Latin American Secretariat. He presented a report which detailed the history, intricacies and peculiarities of the race issue in Latin America. In his analysis, the Conquest of Central and South America created unique circumstances in those regions, making them different from the context of the southern United States. Indigenous peoples in Central and South America were a colonized people and therefore, self-determination should be applied. Blacks in these continents, however, suffered oppression different from that of the United States and thus communists needed to use different tactics. In the discussion that followed, some delegates seemed to question whether race was a useful metric to define oppression, echoing many of the same points Mariátegui had pointed out a year earlier. Other delegates, referencing Lenin’s definitions of self-determination and Stalin’s definitions of nationhood, attempted to win other representatives over to their point of view. Humbert-Droz and others identified the issue of mestizos and other racial intermingling, along with the problems of the slave trade. These speakers used the antiquated and racialized language of their socialist predecessors, harkening back to discussions of civilization and savages, thus betraying their European backgrounds. The discussion led the Latin American Secretariat to agree to self-determination for Indigenous peoples and also to start to develop Indigenous or black cadres for the purpose of inciting a general workers’ revolution.81 The Comintern, despite its progressiveness in promoting self-determination for black Africans or African Americans, and in promoting colonial liberation, seemed to maintain a particularly European understanding of settler colonialism in certain regions, such as the Americas.

66  The context The approach to Indigenous peoples becomes even more complex when examining British dominions. As mentioned in the first chapter, the Comintern deemed Canada and Australia to be secondary imperial powers. It saw South Africa as a traditional colony, making black Africans a colonized people who demanded self-determination and a native republic. The Comintern also saw New Zealand as a colony. Ironically, New Zealand held mandate control over Samoa, a curious oversight in the Comintern’s definition of the country. Regardless, the Comintern felt that both the Maori and the Samoans required the implementation of the Theses on the National and Colonial Question. It frequently demanded the Communist Party of New Zealand to do more and, particularly, to make inroads amongst the Maoris. In fact, underscoring the odd nature of racial oppression in Comintern theory and platforms, race was almost never mentioned in the case of New Zealand. Rather, the ECCI only worried about race when looking at Nazi Germany and the potential consequences of the Germans obtaining British colonies to form an overseas empire. The ECCI used the Nazi’s racial policies to underscore the importance of the fight against fascism.82 What of Canada, the United States, or Australia? Settler colonialism in these regions reinforced the ignorance of the Comintern toward Indigenous people. At the Sixth Congress, the Resolution on the Colonies and Semicolonies developed a worldview that suggested that such settler colonies as Canada, Australia and, presumably, the United States, formed when settlers arrived and “exterminated” the Indigenous peoples. This simplistic view suggested that Aboriginal peoples in Australia or the many Indigenous communities of Canada or the United States ceased to exist after first contact.83 Humbert-Droz reaffirmed this problematic view in his report in the Latin American Secretariat. Suggesting that communists could not use lessons from North America in Central and South America, he argued that, while the Conquest led Spanish and Portuguese settlers to loot the region and to enslave the Indigenous peoples, settlers killed off these people when the Europeans came looking for new lives in North America with their families.84 The Comintern knew that Aboriginal peoples and the Maori existed and were oppressed in the Antipodes when asking Australian communist Hector Ross for some information in 1926, wondering of their revolutionary potential.85 Outside of that mention, however, the Comintern failed to provide any meaningful guidance to Canadian, American or Australian communists on relations with Indigenous peoples, suggesting a degree of ignorance on this issue.

Conclusion The Comintern attempted to deal with race in many ways. Its most notable efforts were to resolve the “Negro Question.” Early on, the Comintern realized it needed to tackle the issue of racial oppression, but did so generally, reflecting its mission to provide hope to all exploited masses, regardless of race. When communists from South Africa and the United States travelled to Moscow, they placed more emphasis on black issues. Black communists took the next step by ensuring attention to these issues, while many communists focused on a clause in Lenin’s

Fighting racial oppression  67 Theses on the National and Colonial Question. They used it to force the resolution in communist theory of African American issues through the application of self-determination of nations. This concept extended broadly to blacks in Africa. Some African American and black African communists led front organizations that enjoyed communist support, and produced material to promote colonial liberation and black consciousness. Communist efforts ran headlong against the Pan-Africanist sentiment of such notable figures as Padmore and Kouyaté. Some communist leaders even suggested a commitment to the self-determination of nations for Indigenous peoples in South America. The Comintern, however, did not have a generalized plan for Indigenous peoples. The situation in South America was an outlier instead of the norm. Even though the Comintern knew of the plight of Aboriginal peoples, it had no standard platform. In fact, it perpetuated problematic narratives about imperial conquests that likely ensured ignorance towards Indigenous affairs. If the Comintern did apply a platform for Indigenous peoples, it was through seeing them as colonized peoples, downplaying race. As a result, however, it required self-determination of nations as the end goal. The Comintern handled the challenges of foreign workers better, demanding parties organize them into the general labour movement and to also put an end to discrimination. Though the Comintern made these strides, the Eurocentrism and priorities of Western communist parties ensured an uphill battle on these issues. Whereas individual communists tried to promote racial equality, too frequently parties downloaded their responsibilities to those members or ignored them outside of an occasional interest in race. As a result, despite some prominent black national leaders making some sojourn amongst communists, publications focusing on racial issues achieving significant circulations, and a general feeling of support for their efforts within communist circles, the accomplishments of interested people on race were limited. By the late 1930s, the Popular Front also made extensive criticisms of the imperial powers problematic, as Soviet foreign policy interests necessitated a softening of the Comintern’s stance. By the onset of the Second World War, addressing racial oppression and combating “chauvinism” tended to be limited to attacking fascism and combating Nazi ideology.

Notes The article was later published in 1925. V.I. Lenin, “Russkie i negry,” PSS, 22:345–346. Riddell, Founding the Communist International, 129–132. RGASPI, 488.1.9, 42. Lenin, PSS 41:161–168. Riddell, Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite!, 1:287–294. “Ivon Jones: The Black Question,” in John Riddell ed., To The Masses: Proceedings of the Third Congress of the Communist International, 1921 (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015), 1193–1196. 7 Riddell, To the Masses, 1193. 8 Riddell, To the Masses, 1193–1196. Riddell notes that no further action was taken but suggests that the appearance of the “Negro Question” on the agenda for the Fourth Congress should be taken as a sign of the Comintern taking Jones’s words seriously.



1 2 3 4 5 6

68  The context 9 Oleksa Drachewych, “The Comintern & Communist Parties in British Dominions and Race, 1920–1943,” in Oleksa Drachewych and Ian McKay eds., Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial and Racial Questions (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019). 10 RGASPI, 495.155.3, 1–3. 11 See Chapter 3 for more on the Rand Revolt. 12 RGASPI, 495.155.3, 4–5. 13 RGASPI, 495.155.3, 5–8. 14 LAC, K-269, 495.72.2, 135–144. 15 RGASPI, 495.155.17, 1–12. 16 Riddell, Toward a United Front, 947–951. 17 Riddell, Toward a United Front, 950–951. 18 Israel Amter, a founding member of the Communist Party of the United States of America, further described the plight of blacks throughout the world, specifically highlighting racial oppression in Africa and the United States. Largely, he echoes the resolution at the Fourth Congress, but adds that black population in the United States must “furnish the leadership for the negro race.” I. Amter, “Black Victims of Imperialism,” in The Communist International Vol 1, no. 26–27 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1923), 113–119. 19 Fifth Congress of the Communist International, 200–201. 20 Zumoff, The Communist International and US Communism, 318–329; Stevens, Red International and the Black Caribbean, 54–56. 21 Stevens, Red International and the Black Caribbean, 55–57. 22 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 29–35. 23 Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 217–219. Following the split from the LDRN, the CDRN was reorganized as La comité de défense des intérêts de la race noire (CDIRN) and took a stance which sought reforms in the French Empire, a position Jonathan Derrick ascribes to the Caribbean émigré membership who already enjoyed French citizenship and had little desire support calls for independence. 24 Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 221–222. 25 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 212–214. 26 Zumoff, The Communist International and US Communism, 346; Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist (Chicago: Liberator Press, 1978), 218. 27 Haywood, Black Bolshevik, 219. 28 Haywood, Black Bolshevik, 218–222. 29 Haywood, Black Bolshevik, 227–235. 30 A. Shiek, “The Comintern Programme and the Racial Problem,” in The Communist International Vol V, no. 16 (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1928), 407–411. 31 RGASPI, 495.155.56, 46. 32 RGASPI, 495.155.56, 46–50. 33 RGASPI, 495.155.56, 52–56. 34 RGASPI, 495.155.56, 52–56, 82–93. 35 See Chapter Three for a full overview. 36 RGASPI, 495.155.56. 96. 37 RGASPI, 495.155.56, 97–103. 38 The discussions on South Africa and “an independent native republic” had been underway since March 1927 and predate some of the American discussions. At the Sixth Congress, however, the Comintern forced the CPSA to accept the Thesis and the general acceptance of self-determination for blacks helped make disagreement impossible. “Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semicolonies,” 116–118.

Fighting racial oppression  69 39 This is discussed in detail in Chapter 3. 40 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 77–80; Zumoff, The Communist International and US Communism, 357–364. 41 Some early potential representatives listed were James Ford of the United States, James La Guma of South Africa and Ducados of Guadeloupe. Weiss, Framing a Radical African Atlantic, 131–132. 42 Weiss, Framing a Radical African Atlantic, 132. On The Negro Worker, the history of the publication was rocky at its start. Its first run began in July 1928, published in both English and French, and only lasted four editions. A second run began in March 1930. The third, and most successful run, started in January 1931, initially as The International Negro Workers’ Review before reverting to the old The Negro Worker name in March 1931. Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 88; Callaghan, “Storm Over Asia,” 30. 43 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 90. 44 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 43–44. 45 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 92; Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 196. 46 RGASPI, 495.155.77, 223–230. Jennifer Anne Boittin, Colonial Metropolis: The Urban Grounds of Anti-Imperialism and Feminism in Interwar Paris (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), 81–82. 47 RGASPI, 495.155.77, 222. 48 RGASPI, 495.155.77, 187–192. 49 Robbie Aitken, “From Cameroon to Germany and Back via Moscow and Paris: The Political Career of Joseph Bilé (1892–1959), Performer, ‘Negerarbeiter’ and Comintern Activist,” Journal of Contemporary History 43, no. 4 (Oct., 2008): 597–616. Holger Weiss, “Glimpses of African Political Engagement in Weimar Germany – The Berlin Section  of the Ligue de la Defense de Race Negre,” CoWoPa  – Comintern Working Paper 6 (2006): 1–15. 50 Aitken, “Cameroon to Germany,” 608–612. Weiss, “Berlin Section,” 8–10. 51 RGASPI, 542.1.30, 48. 52 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 93–97. 53 Weiss, Framing a Radical African Atlantic, 205–238. Pennybacker, From Scottsboro to Munich, 68–69. 54 Weiss, Framing a Radical African Atlantic, 251–267. 55 Weiss, Framing a Radical African Atlantic, 238–249. Delegates included Frank Macaulay of Nigeria, and representatives from Sierra Leone, the LDRN, the Railway Workers Union of Jamaica, the Gambian Labour Union, labour unions of the United States and the ITUCNW delegates. Many European communists were blocked from attending, as were the delegates from the CPSA. Jomo Kenyatta was to attend, but did not. Callaghan, 30–32; Pennybacker, From Scottsboro to Munich, 70; Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 199–201. Bilé ended up being the only delegate from any French-­ controlled colonies, owed to the success of French government in preventing travel to Germany. As a result, even Garan Kouyaté was unable to attend. Aitken, “From Cameroon to Germany,” 608. 56 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 107–114. 57 Bilé, E.F. Small of Gambia, and Frank Macaulay, were three delegates who accepted the invitation. Aitken, “From Cameroon to Germany,” 608. 58 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 121; Weiss, Framing a Radical African Atlantic, 251–252. 59 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 124–136. 60 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 231–236; Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 224–226. 61 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 236–242.

70  The context 62 Pennybacker, From Scottsboro to Munich, 77; Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 284–285. 63 Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 284–285. 64 Adi details the conflicting reports surrounding this meeting and its aftermath. Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 155–161; Weiss, Framing a Radical African Atlantic, 575–610; Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 285–305. 65 Pennybacker, From Scottsboro to Munich, 79–87. 66 Adi argues that one of the major successes of Padmore’s tenure as leader of the ITUCNW was his improvement of the ITUCNW’s network in Africa and Latin America, making the ITUCNW and its efforts, to some degree, relevant. Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 139–152. 67 Although limits existed. Africans wrote a few articles discussing African conditions. Weiss, Framing a Radical African Atlantic, 638–658. 68 Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 251–272. 69 I wish to thank Samantha Clarke for translating these documents for me. RGASPI, 542.1.40, 77–89. See also Aitken, “From Cameroon to Germany,” 608–609. 70 Weiss, Framing a Radical African Atlantic, 694–702; Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 194–199. 71 Adi put great focus on the split between Pan-Africanist thought and the Comintern’s position. Weiss, meanwhile, argued that Huiswood and others were still very much within the Comintern system and so the difference has been overstated. Adi, PanAfricanism and Communism, 401–411; Weiss, Framing a Radical African Atlantic, 691. 72 RGASPI, 495.20.428, 34–35. 73 Riddell, Towards the United Front, 1188–1189. 74 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-269, 495.72.2, 116–117; LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-269, 495.72.2, 148–149. 75 G. Dimitrov, The Working Class Against Fascism: Report Delivered August 2, 1935 on the Second Point of the Agenda: The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Fight for the Unity of the Working Class Against Fascism (London: Modern Books, 1935), 68–69. 76 Michael Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis: Interwar Paris and the Seeds of Third World Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 187–199; James E. Genova, “The Empire Within: The Colonial Popular Front in France, 1934–1938,” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 26, no. 2 (Apr.-June 2001): 181–183. 77 Josephine Fowler, Japanese and Chinese Immigrant Activists: Organizing in American and International Communist Movements, 1919–1933 (Rutgers University Press, 2007), 74–98. 78 Anna Belogurova, “Nationalism and Internationalism in Chinese Communist Networks in the Americas,” in Oleksa Drachewych and Ian McKay eds., Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial and Racial Questions (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019). See also Anna Belogurova, “Networks, Parties, and the ‘Oppressed Nations’: The Comintern and Chinese Communists Overseas, 1926–1935,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, no. 24 (Sept., 2017): 61–82. 79 Anne Garland Mahler, “The Red and the Black in Latin America: Sandalio Junco and the ‘Negro Question’ from an Afro-Latin American Perspective,” American Communist History (2018): 1–17. 80 Marc Becker, “The Comintern and the Question of Race in the South American Andes,” in Oleksa Drachewych and Ian McKay eds., Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial and Racial Questions (Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2019). 81 RGASPI, 495.79.95, 1–57. 82 For the example of New Zealand, see RGASPI, 495.20.430, 207–216. See also Drachewych, “The Comintern & Communist Parties in British Dominions and Race.”

Fighting racial oppression  71 83 The section referred specifically to British dominions, but reflects the carelessness of Comintern platforms on this issue. “Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semicolonies,” International Press Correspondence 8, no. 88 (12 December 1928), 1662. 84 RGASPI, 495.79.95, 1–57. 85 See Chapter 5 for more on this interaction.

Part II

Case studies

3 A prioritized battleground The Communist Party of South Africa and the Native Republic Thesis

The Native Republic Thesis, resulting from sudden Comintern interest in the Communist Party of South Africa’s (CPSA) efforts, was the most important tactical shift for the party during the interwar period. Adopted in 1928, the Comintern developed the platform a year earlier, and it was the subject of debate in South Africa and at the Sixth Comintern Congress. The thesis argued that self-­determination of nations was the most effective way to promote the rights of “natives,” or black Africans, conflating Comintern policy on colonial liberation and racial equality.1 Prior to the tactical shift, the CPSA had made strides to increase its black African membership and to support black African issues. Sidney Bunting, named Party Chairman in December 1924, was one of the main reasons for this increased attention to black African affairs. Until 1924, the CPSA attempted to build support by focusing on white worker issues. It had also avoided promoting black African workers’ rights due to the tumultuous racial divide in South Africa, fearing it would lose its support from white workers. Comintern officials and CPSA members hoping to change the direction of the party claimed Bunting was an opportunist; many others lauded him for turning the party into a legitimate force for black African rights. Bunting, however, became a victim of the Bolshevization of the CPSA and the interference by Moscow in party affairs. The Comintern’s intervention into CPSA platforms resulted from the visit of James La Guma, a coloured trade unionist, to Moscow. He was a South African delegate to the First Congress of the League Against Imperialism in Brussels in 1927. Comintern officials invited La Guma to speak with them in Moscow following the Congress. Upon his return to South Africa, the Comintern began speaking of a Native Republic Thesis and the Comintern tasked La Guma with winning the CPSA over to the new slogan. Party leaders were unwilling to move forward with the new line. The Comintern, however, led by Max Petrovsky, forced the CPSA to adopt the Native Republic Thesis by backing members willing to implement it in the party platform. The thesis altered the party’s direction and hindered its development by dissolving the party base. White workers were unwilling to support the new platform and many black workers were divided on supporting the more radical line or supporting the established leadership. As the CPSA Bolshevized, it became largely ineffective. By 1935, the Comintern began to alter the Native Republic Thesis to stop theoretical discussions about its true meaning in

76  Case studies the CPSA. Instead, the Comintern pushed a more general platform of promoting worker’s unity, defending the rights of black African workers, supporting South African independence, and protecting coloured, Indian and South Asian workers.2 While the party reverted to some older, more inclusive policies by the Second World War, the damage was done. The CPSA could not become the driving force for improved “native” rights it had hoped to be during the interwar period.

The formation of the Communist Party of South Africa The CPSA formed from the remnants of the International Socialist League (ISL) on 30 July 1921.3 The Industrial Workers of the World and other leftist currents, including a smaller communist party which ignored electoral politics, influenced this new party. Led by William H. Andrews, a trade unionist and former leader of the ISL, it sought to immediately link its efforts with those of the Communist International, hoping to follow the example of the Bolshevik Revolution.4 While the party formed during 1921, David Ivon Jones and trade unionist Sam Barlin, both former ISL members, travelled to Moscow to attend the Third Comintern Congress. Jones was a prominent supporter of black African issues in South Africa and was one of the earliest voices on this issue in the party. At the Third Comintern Congress, he and Barlin presented a statement that placed the race issue front and centre. The general labour movement was “lagging” in South Africa, especially with regard to black African workers, they said. To unite white and black workers, the party needed to promote the concept of solidarity with white workers. Jones and Barlin also noted that communication issues, such as language differences, prevented strong engagement with black workers.5 Jones promoted black interests as a major field of activity for the Comintern. He was supported by Bunting, the London-born son of a journal editor who came to South Africa to serve in the Boer War before joining the ISL and supporting its anti-war stance. He was elected as the CPSA’s first treasurer, in part due to his support of black African workers. The pro-black African positions of Bunting and Jones were not yet commonplace within the party.6 The CPSA was not opposed to equality for black Africans, though, and its approach reflected the limitations of the party and the context in which it operated. The party was small, initially having only 175 members. This low membership placed the CPSA on the periphery of South African politics. It also had a predominantly white membership. Links to the white trade unions of South Africa made reaching white workers easier.7 The small membership did not limit idealism; the CPSA’s manifesto outlined its hope that it would be a labour party representing all peoples of South Africa.8 Whereas they agreed on the need to focus on South African racial issues, Jones and Bunting differed in their views on South Africa’s position in the world. For the Comintern, despite being a self-governing Dominion, South Africa was part of the colonial world and was defined as a semi-colony in later years. Jones agreed with this assessment. Bunting did not, as his classical Marxism was a defining characteristic. Instead of focusing on race or colonialism, he worried about the

A prioritized battleground  77 oppression of the working class. This position informed his conclusion about the Theses on the National and Colonial when he argued, on 17 October 1922 in an Anglo-American Group meeting, that they were not relevant to the African context. The issues in Africa had to do with labour, not colonial oppression, he said. The prominent issues in South Africa were fundamentally caused by divisions between highly skilled European workers and low-skilled black workers.9 His perspective, especially as he became the leader of the party, defined the CPSA’s approach in its propaganda and its initiatives. The party tended to downplay colonialism and imperialism in favour of a focus on labour issues and racial unity.

The Rand Revolt of 1922 The Rand Revolt of 1922 highlighted South Africa’s racial politics, compelling the newly minted CPSA to deal with a very volatile situation. When semi-skilled mining jobs were opened to black workers and white workers suffered wage cuts because of fluctuations in the value of gold and coal, white miners went on strike. The state had to use martial law, the military and air support to put the strike down.10 It also inflamed racial tensions. The CPSA tried to guide the strike to a revolutionary end but with little success. Trying to downplay the issue of the colour bar and black African work, the CPSA emphasized turning the strike into a general strike on the issue of wage cuts. The party called for unity of all workers, regardless of race. Unfortunately for the communists, many individuals involved in the strike had neither the time for, nor the interest in, communist ideals and ignored their messages. Many white workers wanted the colour bar to remain to protect their labour rights and attacked non-whites. Banners with the slogan of “Workers of the World, Fight and Unite for a White South Africa” appeared. Many assumed the communists led the strikes, owing to the slogan’s similarity to the Comintern’s “Workers of the World Unite!”11 Newspapers and the government blamed the communist party for the strike, despite a distinct lack of evidence and a general inability of the CPSA to coordinate anything.12 These reports led to a government raid on the CPSA party headquarters in March 1922. The Rand Revolt, however, gave the CPSA some direction. Over the next two years, the party focused on dethroning the Smuts government while promoting white worker issues in a hope of making inroads into the trade unions, building on the strengths of many communist leaders. Many members either did not want to alienate white workers or, as former party member Edward Roux argued, simply disregarded black issues, seeing “workers of the world” as “the white miners, tramwaymen, building artizans [sic.], and so on.”13 The Revolt changed Jones’s stance on a prospective Comintern-sponsored Negro Congress. The party also tried to align with the South African Labour Party, employing a similar strategy to that used by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). The Labour Party, however, wanted little to do with the communists. Despite this rejection, the party stubbornly continued to support the Labour Party during 1923 and 1924, seeking to apply United Front tactics as defined by the Comintern. The CPSA hoped to increase its political significance within South Africa in the process.14

78  Case studies This overwhelming attention on organizing white workers was short-lived. The Third Congress of the CPSA, held 27–30 December 1924, represented a shift in the party. Sidney Bunting became the Party Chairman by acclamation. Bunting called on the party to tackle the problem of uniting white and non-white workers, saying that the CPSA was the only party which recognized the issue. If the party could unite all workers in South Africa, it would be a victory for the communist movement. This unification was not only a matter of winning over black workers but also needed to eliminate racial prejudice or ignorance so that white and nonwhite workers could work together for better living conditions for all. As Bunting knew, the racial tensions from Rand would not be resolved easily, but to ignore them was not an option.15 Bunting was not alone in seeking a change in the CPSA’s politics. The Youth Communist League, led by Roux, who would become a prominent member of the party until the mid-1930s, was comprised of new, inexperienced, yet very enthusiastic members. They were less wedded to work in the trade unions and wanted to see change. Many members who hoped to downplay black African issues were defeated in party elections, which also helped shift the party from its old ways. Soon after the Third Party Congress, Andrews and several of his supporters left the party, allowing the new direction to take hold.16 These tactical shifts also caused many white members to leave the party.17 The CPSA’s shift to considering black African affairs was still not fully appreciated by its membership and reflected the latent racism in South African society, similar to problems in the predominantly white British or French parties. South African labour politics also played a role in the CPSA’s new platform. After the 1924 general election that brought the Coalition government into power, it became clear that reactionary, conservative labour policies would follow. The government introduced legislation to improve conditions for white workers, appeasing many of their concerns from the Rand Revolt. These regulations made it illegal for black workers to organize, fixed a minimum wage for groups traditionally monopolized by white workers, and reaffirmed a colour bar in the mining industry. In response, the CPSA courted black African workers and promoted their interests, especially as they confirmed the inequality, and as a result, different interests of the South African working classes.18 To gain a foothold in African communities, the party relied on straight-forward messaging, training black Africans at communist night schools, or working with black unions.19 Meanwhile, non-white labour started to organize in South Africa in the 1920s. The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) was formed in 1920 and became one of the stronger unions throughout South Africa, expanding through much of Southern Africa, including South West Africa and Northern and Southern Rhodesia by the 1930s. Clements Kadalie, a black African who was born in the British Central Africa Protectorate and who moved to South Africa in 1916, headed the ICU. Within South Africa, the ICU had grown to 100,000 documented members by 1927. The ICU supported Pan-Africanism as one of its core tenets. One of its prominent ideals during the 1920s was to “emancipate” the black worker, and the ICU sought to use a general strike to do so. Until 1926, when the

A prioritized battleground  79 ICU ejected CPSA members, rejecting overt support for communism, the CPSA and ICU had a working relationship.20 During the period of CPSA and ICU cooperation, La Guma joined the CPSA. Despite his racial status, La Guma seemed to identify with black Africans, and he conflated black Africans and coloured workers as one group.21 La Guma served as secretary of the ICU’s Port Elizabeth branch and as General Secretary of its Cape Town branch. When CPSA/ICU relations soured in 1926, La Guma turned his attention to CPSA affairs and travelled to Brussels to represent South Africa at the First Congress of the League Against Imperialism.22 Meanwhile, the much smaller African National Congress (ANC), renamed from the South African Native National Congress in 1923, also slowly grew during the 1920s. It supported a platform like that of the CPSA, calling for racial unity and a removal of the colour bar. It also sought to curb the influence of Garveyism and the ICU.23 Initially hostile to communism, the ANC gradually grew closer with the CPSA. This shift resulted from the efforts of its leader, Josiah Gumede, a former anti-communist who turned left because he realized the British Government would do nothing to help the plight of black Africans. While the communists would eventually vilify the ICU, the relationship between the ANC and CPSA was cordial for a brief period beginning in 1927, owing to the CPSA’s internal shifts in policy, but also to the similarity in tactics used to achieve black rights. This relationship continued when Gumede and La Guma attended the League Against Imperialism’s First Congress in Brussels in 1927.24

The influence of James La Guma The trip to Brussels was one of the more pivotal events in the development of CPSA policy. The Brussels Congress recognized the plight of blacks worldwide and promoted racial equality.25 The South African delegates forwarded a resolution on South Africa, calling for the right of self-determination as a result of socialist revolution. The resolution, however, was unclear if whites or non-whites would benefit from this revolution. Including this reference was in the spirit of the conference which promoted self-determination broadly, but also highlighted South Africa’s colonial position more than the party line had typically. This resolution made a series of demands, many of which could be applied to all workers, promoted the CPSA and ANC’s message of solidarity among workers and centred more on the colonial nature of the Union of South Africa.26 More important to the development of the CPSA, the Congress put Gumede and La Guma in touch with Comintern representatives who invited both men to Moscow.27 La Guma’s visit precipitated the Comintern’s first significant interference in CPSA affairs. He spent a week in Moscow, 10–17 March 1927, and met with Comintern leaders, including Nikolai Bukharin. The results of these meetings cannot be over-exaggerated. These meetings birthed the Native Republic Thesis that, by 1932, derailed the development and influence of the CPSA. Some former CPSA members and historians have credited – or blamed – La Guma for this shift in tactics.28 Other historians credit Nikolai Bukharin for mentioning the

80  Case studies concept during the meetings.29 Some historians vaguely asserted that the Comintern developed the concept.30 But the Native Republic Thesis was initially a suggestion, mentioned in passing, not a bold new tactical shift. When it became just that, it took several months for Moscow to articulate a platform. It is likely that these meetings led to the genesis of the concept. When examining the context of the Comintern and the “Negro Question” as a whole, however, it is more likely that the actions of Max Petrovsky, who was also present at these meetings, ensured that the Native Republic Thesis evolved from idea to the set course the Comintern demanded the CPSA follow. Petrovsky was a major force in the Negro Commission during the Sixth Congress of the Comintern and his chairmanship of that body ensured that the “Negro Question” became a priority for the American party when it accepted the ­Haywood-Nasanov Thesis. Petrovsky, a Ukrainian Jew born as David Lipetz, was initially instrumental in the defence of Jewish peoples. He was member of the Bund and president of Burdichev province shortly after the Russian Revolution. Having many pseudonyms throughout his political career, he was known as Max Goldfarb briefly before taking on the name Max Petrovsky, the name with which he was most associated and cited in Comintern documents. Historians of South African communism will recognize him as “Bennett,” one of the foils Roux described in his account of the CPSA delegation’s trip to Moscow for the Sixth Comintern Congress. Petrovsky joined the Bolshevik Party in 1919. He soon became a functionary in the Comintern assigned to Britain, where he eventually joined the CPGB and married party founder Rose Cohen. Both had busy Comintern careers, frequently moving about Europe. Petrovsky, however, ended up in Moscow in 1927 and quickly became a key cog in the Comintern system.31 Petrovsky’s rationale for championing self-determination on racial lines is unclear. It may have extended from his support of the Jewish people in Burdichev. Regardless, his role with the Comintern helps explain its approach to race and colonialism in South Africa. How did one statement by Bukharin become so pervasive, especially if, after the meetings, no clear plan existed? How did La Guma, who was a low-level CPSA representative, come to have so much support from the Comintern? Even if we argue La Guma was the main progenitor of the Native Republic Thesis, the negative atmosphere that Bunting and the CPSA delegates faced at the Sixth Congress could not have developed without more influential people pushing a certain agenda or friendly ears that would be receptive to following a particular course. Finally, if we suggest that Bukharin influenced others to view the CPSA delegates to the upcoming Sixth Comintern Congress coolly, it is equally problematic. Many delegates of the Sixth Congress recalled that delegates attacked Bukharin and his ideas outside of committee sessions, presumably following Stalin’s orders, and giving the Congress the nickname “Corridor Congress.” Reviewing the events in Moscow in 1927, one can outline Petrovsky’s role. His insistence on developing, passing and promoting a Native Republic Thesis for the CPSA was evident in 1927 through to the Sixth Congress. He also cultivated a relationship with La Guma.

A prioritized battleground  81 To understand the development of the Native Republic Thesis, it is necessary to return to those March 1927 meetings. La Guma’s first meeting was with the British Secretariat. Here, he reported on the general situation in South Africa, giving information about political parties and the state of the CPSA.32 A resolution from his meeting with the British Secretariat called for the CPSA to advocate for South African independence and, in the process, develop a left wing of the National Party, directly applying the Theses of the National and Colonial Question.33 La Guma exposed the CPSA’s choice to not consider the colonial nature of South Africa to the British Secretariat, who castigated its efforts and felt much more needed to be done.34 Next, La Guma attended the 16 March 1927 meeting of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. The Presidium discussed the British Secretariat’s resolution with Nikolai Bukharin present. La Guma again outlined the issues of the party, referencing the Coalition Government’s oppressive legislation and noting that the CPSA was “at [its] wits end” on how to tackle the repressive regime. The CPSA was also unsure how to unify white and black workers, citing racial and class tensions, suggesting many white workers were unwilling to allow black workers equal status. Finally, La Guma underlined that the party was hamstrung in promoting black African interests or self-­determination because of a fear of alienating white workers. La Guma’s statement revolved around the shortcomings of the party, especially regarding racial issues.35 In response, other delegates limited themselves to fact-finding, asking about the CPSA’s strength and its involvement in trade unions.36 Russian communist Lazar Schatzkin, an attendee at the Second Comintern Congress, asked about self-­determination on multiple occasions. He specifically referenced a “Negro Republic,” seeking clarification on whether that was the aim, becoming the first to reference such a concept.37 La Guma never responded to Schatzkin’s questions, but Bukharin and Petrovsky referred to the concept of a black African state. Bukharin initially mentioned the concept of an independent “Negro Republic” as a potential solution to the racial issues in South Africa. He merely suggested it as an option. Petrovsky pointed out the vagueness of a call for independence for South Africa, wondering if a “Negro Republic” or a republic based on the will of the majority of people was the objective. At this point, the Presidium did not discuss a plan of action. La Guma did not make any response on record regarding an independent native republic, nor did Bukharin or anyone else firmly develop policy in that vein at this meeting.38 Before he left Moscow, Petrovsky noted the British Secretariat gave La Guma verbal instructions but the content was unknown. With regard to the resolution from the British Secretariat, only the preamble was allegedly sent with him.39 While La Guma operated in South Africa, hoping to get the party to recognize the need for a shift in tactics, Petrovsky spearheaded an initiative to produce a written platform for the CPSA. In July 1927, the Politsecretariat of the ECCI, including Petrovsky, produced a resolution which urged the CPSA to work towards “an independent black South African Republic.”40 Petrovsky presumably identified La Guma’s passion for

82  Case studies helping black South Africans. Both men were willing to consider the application of the self-determination of nations as a resolution to South Africa’s racial problem. As the Comintern warmed to the idea of self-determination on racial lines, La Guma was prepared to champion it. Petrovsky, meanwhile, backed the concept within the Comintern apparatus. The CPSA reacted negatively to the July  1927 resolution. By the end of the year, the CPSA had still not yet accepted the new line. La Guma, who had returned to Moscow to report on the party, claimed that those opposed to the new thesis argued it did not take into consideration the real situation on the ground and, at best, felt the thesis was premature. To them, the black Africans were not yet capable of this level of revolutionary spirit. La Guma dismissed these arguments in his report. He noted support in the Cape Town Branch of the party and, again, chastised the Central Committee of the CPSA for wanting to wait until white workers were ready to collaborate with black workers.41 Petrovsky, present during La Guma’s report, called on him to champion the resolution more forcefully.42 Back in South Africa, the CPSA Party Congress voted down the Native Republic Thesis.43 La Guma expressed frustration with the stubbornness of the “European” comrades, suggesting a clear split on racial lines existed towards the new platform.44 Upon hearing of the setback, Petrovsky appealed to the party directly, hoping to pressure it.45 He was particularly engrossed with the Native Republic Thesis, and was present in its discussion every step of the way. Furthermore, he chaired the Negro Commission at the Sixth Congress and ensured the Comintern would force the Native Republic Thesis upon the CPSA. To characterize the party as opposed to the Native Republic Thesis would be inaccurate. Many members, such as T. W. Thibedi, Gana Makabeni and H.L. Phooko, saw some merit in the thesis, but felt the timing was incorrect. Furthermore, Douglas and Molly Wolton, who later became significant players in the development of the CPSA, also supported La Guma. Minutes of party meetings in 1928 reveal that that the CPSA was not split on racial lines as La Guma claimed in his report to the Comintern.46 Rather, the party was split over whether seeking black African rule was appropriate, given the South African situation at the time. Critics believed that black African rule was inevitable and thus should not divert the party’s attention immediately. Supporters saw the Native Republic Thesis as a challenge to the Nationalist Party’s call for the Union’s complete independence from the United Kingdom. Black workers could adopt and enable the CPSA to become the party of the black African. Bunting and others saw that step as problematic but realized some value existed in the thesis in the long-term. The time to pull the trigger had not come, though.47 Stemming from these discussions, CPSA delegates attended the Sixth Comintern Congress, beginning July  1928, to argue against the Thesis.48 Represented by Sidney Bunting, Rebecca Bunting and Roux, they had an uphill battle. The CPSA delegates received a frosty reception, Roux said, perhaps in anticipation of the heated discussions to come over the Native Republic Thesis.49 As noted in the previous chapter, the Comintern had made the “Negro Question” a priority and established a Negro Commission to discuss it. The South African Question took

A prioritized battleground  83 up a good portion of this discussion. But it would be some time until the CPSA delegates could make their case in this commission. Bunting therefore aired his position on South African affairs from the floor of the main discussion, bringing more negative attention to himself. He promoted his classic Marxism, arguing that the Comintern should promote class unity, regardless of race. Furthermore, he argued that national liberation in the South African context was problematic as only Afrikaners held any aspirations for independence. Bunting brought his argument back to racial issues by claiming that the Comintern’s division between Europe and colonial masses was akin to how white South African workers perceived the difference between white and black workers.50 Other delegates, including Petrovsky, harshly criticized Bunting.51 Roux also reported on the Native Republic Thesis. The original thesis suggested that an independent black African republic was a transitional stage, similar to the bourgeois revolution that was required before the socialist revolution in Marxist dialectics. Roux, however, argued that this transitionary stage was unnecessary in the African context. No African bourgeoisie existed; therefore, a true bourgeois revolution was not possible. To establish his case, Roux detailed the living conditions of many African peoples before discussing the black South African movement. Here, he lauded the CPSA’s work. It had taken the lead in the South African “native” movement and started to implant a revolutionary sentiment amongst them. Roux argued that South Africa did not need a black nationalist movement, as the CPSA could radicalize the black African masses to such an extent that it could lead the entire African continent.52 Two days later, Roux made a more impassioned and direct plea. He argued the Native Republic Thesis, as constructed, was bad strategy. It would only inflame racial tensions and undo what the CPSA had accomplished. The thesis would replace worker unity, regardless of race, and instead seemingly promote a racialized slogan. The Rand Revolt undoubtedly replayed in Roux’s mind, as he recalled the pro-white worker rhetoric which developed then. The Native Republic Thesis would replace calls for a “White South Africa” with a “Black South Africa” and only continue to enhance the racial divide. Roux concluded bluntly, “This is mere perversity, not dialectical materialism.”53 Matters did not improve for Bunting or the CPSA delegates. When they could finally argue their position in the Negro Commission, chaired by Petrovsky, they found no audience for their views. Bunting stated it was unthinkable that a member of the CPSA, especially one of his standing, could stand for a “White South Africa,” given how much time he and the CPSA had spent combating racism. He recounted the outstanding record of the CPSA, that black Africans made up ninetenths of party membership, and that the party’s message was one of emancipation and equality.54 Bunting expanded on his position in a second report which stated that the situation in South Africa was very different from that in America. In South Africa, the British and Dutch peoples worked together; Indian and coloured populations added to diversity. He outlined the legal and political roadblocks to black participation and outlined the history of the CPSA, including numbers for party

84  Case studies membership. Bunting claimed the CPSA’s membership had 200 whites and 200 blacks in 1927. By the following year, the party had 158 white members and 1,600 black members, which was a direct result of its efforts in support of black African workers. He noted a need for white support to “shield” the party in its work for black Africans and cited the many the party had in reaching black workers. Finally, Bunting discussed the ECCI resolution on the Native Republic Thesis, suggesting it could not be put forward as written. He felt the thesis was irrelevant and potentially disastrous in South Africa.55 Petrovsky questioned Bunting’s claims, citing La Guma’s figures from March 1927, which specified 400 white members and 55 blacks, to discredit him. Bunting argued that the ICU and ANC were incapable of leading the charge on black African issues in South Africa. Petrovsky parroted La Guma from a year and a half earlier, pointing out the ICU and ANC’s incapability resulted from the CPSA’s failure to effectively infiltrate them or use them for its purposes. Thus, the CPSA had not done enough on black issues, Petrovsky said.56 Roux attempted to resolve matters by agreeing with Petrovsky, stating that the party needed to pay more attention to the ECCI programme. Roux argued that “[t]he Party has sort of decided to live from day to day on the immediate issues that arise and to adhere to the idea that no programme is needed. This shows the extreme youth and lack of understanding of the party.” Roux’s shift was likely an attempt to move debate forward. Instead, the commission formed a sub-commission to write a resolution to repudiate the CPSA’s line and align it with the ECCI.57 Bunting tried yet again to air his grievances regarding the Native Republic Thesis in the general sessions on colonial affairs. This time, he also discussed the Theses on the National and Colonial Question of the Second Congress. He reminded delegates that he felt, in some cases, a general proletariat movement was better than a specific colonial movement. Bunting suggested that the theses made provisions for this, as actual conditions determined the form of support. The theses promoted the development of a general class consciousness, he said, especially in the more developed regions. He restated long-held positions, highlighting the lack of a black African bourgeoisie and the need for racial unity. He argued that concentrating on nationalist forces within South Africa would lead to disastrous results for black workers. Bunting stated that the Negro Sub-­ Commission was writing a thesis for conditions that did not exist in South Africa. White workers would not understand the distinctions in a Native Republic Thesis, he argued. Instead, they would focus on the simple phrase “Native Republic” and turn against communism.58 Bunting continued his criticism in the Negro Commission. He suggested La Guma had given the wrong impression about the party, and accused him of being a “black chauvinist.” Bunting took issue with other delegates calling the CPSA being white chauvinist and the uncomradely atmosphere of the meetings. He concluded that the Native Republic Thesis was problematic and would keep white workers from having a role in whatever followed. Ultimately, Bunting wanted something simple  – a slogan that would not split the movement, a slogan that could not be misunderstood as “Pure Black Republic.”59

A prioritized battleground  85 Petrovsky, however, was not swayed. He delivered a condescending speech to the CPSA delegates, referencing the alleged racial divides in the party that La Guma had noted six months earlier. The CPSA would need to change: [The white Central Committee members of the CPSA] have to adapt their brains and feelings to this line of the Comintern resolution. They will have to work hard in order to persuade the members of the Party (I speak of the whites) to fall in with the Comintern opinion. They will have a very difficult job when they speak to workers in general, but Comrade Bunting will remember that in such countries as the United States, South America and England, there was a great difficulty to speak of the class struggle, even the workers used to be very much against it, and they used to insult our Socialist speakers, but we never told them, the best way to meet the situation is not to speak about the class struggle and socialism. . . . I think instead of trying to persuade us, the South African comrades will do a better job and will render a better service to the Comintern and the South African Party if they will try to think along the lines of the Comintern on national and racial questions, of which this resolution is a very simple application. There is nothing new and original in this resolution; nothing which is in any way outside the general line put forward by Lenin.60 Petrovsky put the Native Republic Thesis to a vote but confusion reigned. When Petrovsky read it aloud, Bunting noted that it was different from what the South African delegates had.61 Petrovsky also had the preamble stripped from the resolution, leading Bunting to exclaim “the less facts the better!?”62 Bunting and the other CPSA delegates tried to change the language, arguing for “An Independent Workers’ and Peasants’ South African Republic with Equal Rights for all Toilers Irrespective of Colour, as a Basis for a Native Government.” The amendment was shot down.63 After over a year of debate, Petrovsky ensured that the CPSA would need to integrate the Native Republic Thesis. The chapter on the Native Republic Thesis had just begun. It was the first significant time the Comintern had become involved in CPSA affairs. From the Sixth Congress on, Moscow’s interference was far more prominent in the South African party.

Moving on from Moscow Having failed to convince the Communist International to moderate its position, the CPSA reluctantly agreed to fall into line at its Seventh Party Congress.64 It passed a meandering definition that allowed the party to maintain a general classbased approach, downplaying the racial aspects. The CPSA delineated the Native Republic as a step in a general end to oppression of all peoples by any oppressor within the Union of South Africa. Historians have attributed this restatement to Bunting, who remained the Party Chairman.65 While this formulation passed, Douglas Wolton, a new executive member, attacked the CPSA for its “chauvinistic tendencies,” hinting at the tension between the Native Republic Thesis

86  Case studies boosters and the Bunting faction.66 Douglas Wolton was joined by Albert Nzula, a black African communist who had joined the CPSA in the mid-1920s, and Molly Wolton, as ardent supporters of the Native Republic Thesis.67 Meanwhile, Roux committed himself to the new line, and Bunting, despite his reservations, attempted to do so as well. Bunting, hoping to defend the shift publicly, released a statement to The Star in November 1928 which explained that the new slogan was a continuation of old lines of thinking while also pointing out that some disagreement existed in Moscow and that the Comintern had overruled the CPSA.68 The Comintern became aware of the piece and it served as the beginning of Bunting’s downfall.69 Third Period tactics also limited the CPSA’s hand and led Bunting to running afoul of the Comintern yet again. The CPSA could no longer work with the ANC nor could it take advantage of a split in the ICU ranks by infiltrating it. Instead, Bunting started the League of African Rights (LAR) through the CPSA in 1929. The LAR’s purpose was to fight for black African franchise and equal education. Supporters of the League saw it as a way to extend CPSA influence into rural areas, while also mobilizing blacks who might otherwise have no place in the movement. The LAR could also be useful in the event the South African government deemed the CPSA illegal, which was real possibility given the state’s increased repression.70 The Comintern attacked the concept and saw the LAR as too vulnerable to reformist and unwanted influences. The Comintern’s stance was likely a function of some of the individuals Bunting courted for executive positions, which included the ANC’s Josiah Gumede and other ANC and ICU members. The ECCI added that Bunting had “elevated to a theory the chauvinist views they [had given] at the VI Congress of the CI.”71 The League for African Rights situation showed how closely the Comintern had its eyes on South Africa. CPSA members sent notes to Moscow defending their ideas, but the Comintern was firm. The Anglo-American Secretariat even sent representatives, such as German trade unionist Paul Merker, to oversee the CPSA.72 Moscow’s influence grew when Douglas Wolton returned to South Africa at the end of 1929. He had been in Moscow for part of the year, meeting with Comintern officials. Wolton returned with a clear mandate – to deal with individuals in the CPSA who refused to fall into line. Wolton’s return put Bunting’s CPSA career directly in the crosshairs of his enemies.73 Douglas Wolton went to work fixing the party by printing a report from the Comintern, titled “How to build a Revolutionary Mass Party in South Africa,” in the South African communist paper Umsebenzi (Worker) over several weeks from December 1930 to March 1931. The report criticized the CPSA for its failure to properly institute the Native Republic Thesis and suggested many CPSA leaders were afflicted with white chauvinism. It specifically criticized Bunting’s philosophy of elevating the general class struggle, which in the process downplayed black African issues. The Comintern blamed the shortcomings on reformist tendencies in the party and urged the CPSA to purge these problematic members.74 At the Ninth Conference of the CPSA, held in December 1930, delegates passed a resolution in conformity with the report, promising to purge right-wing elements

A prioritized battleground  87 from the party – that meant Sidney Bunting and those who followed his lead – and Bolshevize.75 The CPSA split between those who were willing to follow the Comintern and those who defended Bunting. Several newer members, including Nzula, who had since become Party Secretary and was involved in the ITUCNW, agreed with Wolton and the Comintern’s assessment. These members were willing to use Comintern interference to take control of the party. Long-time Bunting supporters such as Gana Makabeni laid blame on the discipline of the new black membership. Rebecca Bunting supported her husband and the party, pointing out that the CPSA had done what it could to fix mistakes as directed by the Comintern. Regardless of his support, Sidney Bunting found himself losing influence. The Ninth Party Convention elected a new executive and Wolton took over the leadership of the party. Roux shifted his support to Wolton, seeing him as someone who could turn the party into a legitimate Bolshevik party with a clear platform and “a definite theory of revolution.”76 The rest of the executive was overhauled; Africans held nineteen executive positions and white members held four, this makeup pleasing the Comintern. Bunting was pushed out of the leadership of the party.77 The look of the CPSA drastically changed as the Comintern-supported members increased their influence and Bolshevized the party. Lazar Bach, a Latvian communist who was an expert on Comintern ideology and tactics, arrived in South Africa to bring the party into line. He joined the CPSA in 1931.78 The Woltons, along with Bach, strove to purge the CPSA of its “right-wing” elements, meaning Bunting. They expelled Bunting from the party in September  1931. Under the cover of “Buntingism” and right danger, the party purged anyone who had engaged in factionalism against its leadership or who had not continuously been involved in the party, which included former leader Andrews and several notable trade unionists.79 These expulsions brought a series of other purges at the regional level. Wolton even expelled former Native Republic Thesis champion, La Guma, over differences in trade union policy and for having engaged in factionalism against the party leadership in the past.80 With the removal of many of the “right-wing” members and “Buntingites,” the party now was firmly in line with the Comintern and sought to build its relationship with Moscow. The CPSA increased the number of black South Africans it sent to the Lenin School, which included future party leader Moses Kotane. The Comintern continued to send representatives to South Africa to ensure its line was followed.81 Domestically, the CPSA’s only tactical success came when it ran John Marks, a black South African, as the party representative in a 1932 byelection in Germiston, despite black Africans being prohibited from running for parliament or voting.82 These measures covered up the CPSA’s biggest problem: dwindling membership. Historian Allison Drew notes that the CPSA dropped to 100 members in 1931 and again to roughly 60 by 1932. A Comintern report in 1936 confirmed a low membership of 150, which was a stunning drop from the CPSA’s pre-Sixth Congress membership of 2,000.83 The low numbers limited the relevance of the CPSA in South African politics more generally.

88  Case studies Other problems arose. During 1932, a group of African members started to openly oppose the new leadership, criticizing its approach. These individuals first developed their concerns in November 1931, which led to disagreement on racial lines and they sought Comintern intervention. A year later, as the Comintern had not responded, this group of black Africans organized as an opposition to the Politburo of the CPSA. At a meeting of this opposition on 13 November 1932, Bunting attended, feeling compelled because of his role in the factional strife. The opposition criticized the growing ineffectiveness of the party. These black Africans also highlighted the fact that the white leadership, presumably referring to the Woltons, Bach and Roux, did little outside of writing articles and statements. But this leadership also condemned those individuals, such as Bunting, who actually helped black African workers. The opposition argued that the party was moving backwards. One member, Makabeni, felt the CPSA was “at the point of death and destruction.” Whereas some members, both black African and white, promoted the new line, the expulsion of trusted members and the CPSA’s inability to maintain white membership or undertake concrete action had alienated many black workers. Due to these problems, the CPSA went astray from its path of support for the racialized workers of South Africa. Some wanted to reinstate Bunting, but he realized this would only continue the factionalism. As a result, he accepted his fate and refused, demanding this group “cut him out of the picture and to carry on as if he did not exist,” a request some found unpalatable.84 Some of these issues took care of themselves. The party was soon without its leadership. Douglas Wolton was arrested after a demonstration, causing him to question his radicalism in South Africa and Molly Wolton suffered a breakdown in 1933. To resolve both issues, Douglas Wolton suggested Molly needed to leave South Africa; when a job offer came from his brother in Great Britain, the couple accepted and left.85 Bach remained, as did Comintern pressure. In 1934, the CPSA maintained its full support of the Native Republic Thesis and its Third Period way of thinking that included attacks on the ANC. Bach’s subordination to the Moscow line continued to dilute a weakening party. Differences between Moses Kotane and Bach, which began in 1933, illustrated the strong grip Bach held. Kotane, as editor of the party paper Umsebenzi, published articles with his interpretation of the Native Republic Thesis. He saw it as a step to socialist revolution and believed a bourgeois revolution was the first step.86 Bach emphatically attacked this view and suggested that the Native Republic Thesis could directly lead to socialist revolution in South Africa.87 Kotane and his supporters sought to make the Thesis applicable to local conditions. By moderating the approach, the party could consider United Front action. Bach, citing Comintern edicts, made clear that no room existed in the party for equivocation. In 1935, with the aid of two members who had returned from the Lenin School in Moscow, Bach had sufficient backing to force his view as party doctrine. In the process, Bach expelled Kotane and his supporters, including Roux, from the Political Bureau. Kotane and Roux challenged the decision and appealed to the Comintern. Bach, unwilling to back down, went to Moscow to defend his position. In an ironic twist of fate, after engineering many expulsions

A prioritized battleground  89 for deviations, the Comintern found Bach’s roommate in Moscow to be a “Trotskyite.” Bach, painted with the same brush, was arrested and never returned to South Africa. Presumably, he was executed in the purges.88

Moving on from the Native Republic Thesis Following the gutting of the CPSA, the remaining members attempted to rebuild. The Comintern’s shift to Popular Front tactics helped, but the rapid decline of the party may have convinced to the Comintern to intervene. Beginning with the Seventh Congress and through until 1938, Andre Marty, a member of the French Communist Party and a prominent figure in the Comintern in the 1930s, headed a commission to resolve the South African mess. Through his review, the Comintern condemned the “scholastic discussion” over the Native Republic Thesis and the factionalism it had engendered. To ensure the CPSA could return to the correct path, Marty ordered the CPSA to develop a closer relationship with the CPGB to oversee its efforts. He sent George Hardy, a British communist, to assist. Tactically, the Comintern pivoted, deciding to downplay the Native Republic Thesis. Instead, it called for a “Federation of Independent People’s and Democratic Republics of South Africa.” It emphasized that the party should focus on all workers, regardless of race, but noted a need to defend “the rights, interests and demands” of black Africans. Organizing workers was of primary importance too. The Comintern stepped back and focused on rebuilding the party, re-establishing what made it successful while adding a distinct call for independence.89 The ECCI also told the CPSA to pay more attention to Afrikaner nationalism. Fearing that Afrikaner nationalism could turn into Nazism and fascism, the Comintern saw a need to appeal to Boers, calling for their self-determination and freedom from British imperialism in tandem with black Africans. The Comintern had a clear desire to universalize the aims of the Native Republic Thesis and make it applicable to anyone who may benefit, clearly to downplay the previous “scholastic” differences. It was coupled with a broad anti-fascist platform, which included propagandizing against the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. These parallel campaigns united anti-fascism with anti-imperialism and, furthermore, forwarded the call for worker’s unity. Ironically, while this stance placed a more overt focus on the CPSA’s position in the world, it aligned with the approach of the CPSA prior to the Comintern’s intervention.90 In support of these efforts, the CPSA also changed Umsebenzi to the South African Worker. The goal was to print the Worker in English and Afrikaans and then have a version of Umsebenzi for black Africans, allowing the CPSA to publish organs for all workers. Finances and manpower limited the production of both journals.91 The advent of the Popular Front in 1935 led to some unique problems. Roux and Kotane were still tied to the party but remained on the outs with the Comintern frequently lambasting Roux as a Trotskyist and an enemy of the party, although it still urged working with any groups or parties seeking to ameliorate the plight of oppressed workers. For example, the party and the Comintern supported the efforts of the 1935 All-African Convention, which sought to fight the Hertzog Bills, the

90  Case studies name colloquially given to proposed legislation that limited black African rights in South Africa. J.B.M. Hertzog, the president of the country, supported the bills. Thabo Edwin Mofutsanyana, a member of the CPSA, represented the party at the Convention and representatives of other African groups also attended.92 The party also moved on in other important ways. Umsebenzi paid a posthumous tribute to Bunting, who died in 1936. Andrews returned in 1938, courted by the CPSA and CPGB members who hoped he would help rebuild the party. Andrews became Chairman of the party again. Kotane was re-elected to the Politburo of the CPSA in 1938 and promptly became a leading member. Both Andrews and Kotane wrote frequently in party organs, stressing the new platform of the CPSA.93 By 1940, the party had borrowed from both “eras” of its development. It merged the calls for unity of the Bunting-led party with the Comintern’s calls for national liberation and equality and combined them into a platform. Tying the defeat of fascism to national liberation and racial unity, despite the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, the party called for worker unity, the end to racial discrimination, equal wages, improved working conditions and insurance for all workers. The draft resolution was steeped in old party thinking but maintained enough of the new concepts to align with the Comintern position. Every party struggled to deal with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. In general, though, the CPSA equated fascism with imperialism, maintaining the line of the Comintern in the 1930s.94 The CPSA promoted these positions in pamphlets during the Second World War. For example, the party detailed the hazards of Nazi rule, while proposing that the People’s Front was the only way for workers to protect their rights. If victorious, the Nazis would turn South Africa into their colony, ensuring “national hatred,” the destruction of trade unions, the “enslavement of women,” religious persecution and militarism.95 Other pamphlets linked the South African government’s trade union policy, which endorsed a colour line, to fascism. To combat fascism, all workers needed to unite to resist the fascist ideals of the bosses, and pave the way for a system that would benefit all.96 Following a series of attacks on coloured workers in Stellenbosch, a pamphlet issued by the United Front laid blame on the National Party, drawing a parallel between Nazi treatment of Jews and the treatment of non-Europeans in South Africa.97 Meanwhile, the party predictably lauded the Soviet Union for having “solved” the National Question within its borders and recognized the Red Army as “liberator of peoples.”98 Early publications noted that the Soviet Union needed support for its war effort in order to defeat fascism, while also promoting that it was free from racism and chauvinism.99 During the Second World War, most of the CPSA’s pamphlets focused on achieving worker unity and racial equality, as well as an end to segregation. These positions led historian Sheridan Johns to conclude that the CPSA returned to serving as the main party for non-white workers during the war.100

Conclusion The Native Republic Thesis damaged the CPSA’s influence during the 1930s. As the ANC grew in significance in the 1940s, it became a more legitimate option.

A prioritized battleground  91 The CPSA operated for the remainder of the decade, trying to fight for black workers’ rights. However, as the National Party established apartheid following its election in 1948, the CPSA fought a losing battle. Illegality loomed large for the CPSA; it disbanded in 1950, pledging all support to the ANC. One wonders what the scope of the CPSA could have been during the 1930s had it not promoted the disastrous policy, which was influenced by La Guma’s visit and supported by Moscow. Undoubtedly, the need for strict adherence to the Comintern interpretation prevented the Native Republic Thesis from becoming a useful program. The deviations or reformulations of Bunting or Kotane could have allowed the party to build off the successes heading into the Sixth Congress, or at least stop the bleeding, in the mid-1930s. The Comintern’s first interference in South African affairs came through the enforcement of the Native Republic Thesis. The Comintern continued to meddle until its dissolution, helping the party rebuild and reset its course after it had nearly destroyed the CPSA. An underground communist party reformed in South Africa in 1953, renaming itself the South African Communist Party (SACP). It supported anti-apartheid measures and the ANC.

Notes 1 “Native” was the preferred term of the CPSA. The South African delegates noted their dislike of the term “Negro” in their statement to the Comintern. Bunting again stressed this sentiment at a later Comintern meeting. “Statement of the South African Delegation to Comintern, 16 July  1921,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919– 1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 74–77. 2 The demographic term “coloured” reflects those of mixed race descent, often some mix of black African, Western European and South Asian. 3 The ISL was a socialist party formed in 1915. 4 Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 116; Allison Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 337–338. 5 They did not mention other groups of workers, such as coloured workers, in the statement. “Statement of the South African Delegation to Comintern, 16 July  1921,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 74–77. Ivon Jones also delivered a statement in Session 23 of the Third Comintern Congress. Riddell, To the Masses, 1193–1196. 6 Roux, S.P. Bunting, Preface, 62–69. 7 Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 338; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 119–120. 8 “Manifesto of the Communist Party of South Africa Adopted at the Cape Town Conference Held on July 30–31 and August 1, 1921,” in South African Communists Speak: Documents from the History of the South African Communist Party (London: Inkululeko Publications, 1981), 62–65. 9 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-269, 495–72–3, 139–143. 10 Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 128–139; A. Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years: The Communist Party of South Africa 1921–1971 (London: Inkululeko Publications, 1971), 49–51; Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 116–117; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 271–282.

92  Case studies 11 Jeremy Krikler argues that the Rand Revolt revealed a more generalized race-based assault, where most victims were not African miners. Jeremy Krikler, “The Inner Mechanics of a South African Racial Massacre,” The Historical Journal 42, no.  4 (1999): 1051–1075. For more on the links to the Communist Party, see the following sources: Johns, 133–138; Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 338; “Statement of D.I. Jones to ECCI, 25 March 1922,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919– 1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 97–99; Roux, S.P. Bunting, 50–54; “ ‘The Fight to a Finish,’ Manifesto Issued by the Communist Party to the striking workers of the Witwatersrand on January 30, 1922,” in South African Communists Speak: Documents from the History of the South African Communist Party (London: Inkululeko Publications, 1981), 68–69; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 297–299; Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years, 51–52; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 120–121. 12 Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 139–143; Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years, 50. 13 Roux, S.P. Bunting, 62–63. 14 Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 146–160; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 136–141. 15 The document is mistitled in the collection. “Minutes of Third Congress of CPSA, 27–30 October 1924 (extracts),” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 133–138. Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 141–142. 16 Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 160–162; Roux, S.P. Bunting, 62–69; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 142. 17 Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 339; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 143. 18 Roux, S.P. Bunting, 66–67; Derrick, Africa’s “Agitators,” 120; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 141. 19 Roux, S.P. Bunting, 70–71. 20 Clements Kadalie, My Life and the ICU: The Autobiography of a Black Trade Unionist in South Africa (London: Frank Cass, 1970), 11–12; Lucien van der Walt, “The First Globalisation and Transnational Labour Activism in Southern Africa: White Labourism, the IWW, and the ICU, 1904–1934,” African Studies 66, no.  2–3 (Aug.–Dec. 2007): 237–243; Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years, 52–53, 61–62; Barbara Bush, Imperialism, Race and Resistance: Africa and Britain, 1919–1945 (London: Routledge, 1999), 161–164; Edward Roux, Time Longer than Rope: A History of the Black Man’s Struggle for Freedom in South Africa (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), 156–175; Alex La Guma, Jimmy La Guma, ed. Mohamed Adhikari (Cape Town: Friends of the South African Library, 1997), 24–29; Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 168–181; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 144–146. 21 This conflation seems to be a result of his view that both black Africans and coloured peoples were oppressed. Raymond van Diemel, In Search of “Freedom, Fair Play and Justice”: Josiah Tshangana Gumede 1867–1947, A Biography (2001), 103–104; Haywood, Black Bolshevik, 235–240. In his statements in Moscow, he articulated a concern that some South African legislation, such as the Coloured Peoples’ Rights Bill, sought to “split the coloured and native workers.” “Statement of J. La Guma to Presidium, ECCI, 16 March 1927,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 152–153. 22 Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 266–267; Martin Legassick, Class and Nationalism in South African Protest: The South African Communist Party and the “Native Republic” 1928–1934 (Syracuse: Program of Eastern African Studies, 1973),11fn2.

A prioritized battleground  93 23 Bush, Imperialism, 159–160; Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years, 63. 24 La Guma, Jimmy La Guma, 30; Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years, 63; Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 181–184; Clements Kadalie was also present, representing the ICU. Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 36. For more on Gumede’s shift to the left, see Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 217–219. 25 LAIA, IISH, “Resolutions communes sur la question negre, 1927.” 26 LAIA, IISH, “Resolution betr. Sudafrika von den Delegierten der Sudafrikanischen Union, D. Colraine, J.A. la Guma, J. Gumeda. [1927].” La Guma, Jimmy La Guma, 32; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 150. 27 La Guma, Jimmy La Guma, 30–33; Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 340; Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years, 63–64; Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 191; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 150. 28 Roux, S.P. Bunting, 88–90; Van Diemel, In Search of “Freedom, Fair Play and Justice,” 103; 29 Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 149–151. See also “Introduction,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 12; Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 339–340; Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 200–201; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 389–390; Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism, 58. 30 Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years, 63–64; Wilson Record, The Negro and the Communist Party (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1951), 54–57. 31 Branko Lazitch and Milorad Drachkovitch, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1973), 310. 32 “Report by J. La Guma to Anglo-American Secretariat, ECCI, 10 March  1927 (Extract),” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 149–151; RGASPI, 495.72.23, 12. 33 RGASPI, 495.72.23, 25. 34 RGASPI, 495.72.20, 23. 35 RGASPI, 495.2.94, 115–117. 36 RGASPI, 495.2.94, 118–121. 37 RGASPI, 495.2.94, 118, 120. The editors of South Africa and the Communist International said that Bukharin was the first to use the term. However, Schatzkin used the term before Bukharin did, at least in this session. “Remarks of N. Bukharin to Presidium, ECCI, 16 March  1927 (Extracts),” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 155fn3. 38 RGASPI, 495.2.94, 115–171. 39 RGASPI, 495.72.25, 47–48; “Memorandum of D. Petrovsky to Presidium of ECCI, 17 March 1927,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 158–159. 40 “Resolution of Politsecretariat of ECCI, 22 July 1927 (Extract),” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 161. 41 RGASPI, 495.72.25, 166–170. 42 “Report of Discussion, Meeting of Anglo-American Secretariat, ECCI, 1 December  1927 (Extract),” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and

94  Case studies

43 44

45

46

47 48

49 50

51 52

53

54 55 56 57

Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 166–168. Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 395. “Letter from J. La Guma to V. Demar, 10 January 1928,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 173–174. Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 151. “Letter from D. Petrovsky to J. La Guma, 15 February 1928,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 175. “Letter from D. Petrovsky to CPSA, 15 February 1928,” 175–176. Allison Drew also made this argument. Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 152; “Minutes of Meeting, Executive Committee, CPSA, 15 March  1928,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 177–180; “Minutes of Meeting, Central Executive Committee, CPSA, 12 April 1928 (Extracts),” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 181–183; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 152. The “Haywood-Nasanov Theses” became a significant consideration for the Negro Commission just a couple of months later. See Chapter 2 for more details. “Minutes of Meeting, Central Executive Committee, CPSA, 12 April 1928 (Extracts),” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 181–183. Roux, S.P. Bunting, 91. “Speech of Comrade Bunting, VI Congress Session 23.7.28,” in South Africa: A Collection of Miscellaneous Documents, 1902–1963 (Stanford: Stanford University Photographic Department, 1967), located at Hoover Library, Stanford University. Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 158–159. Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 219–221; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 159. E.R. Roux, “Thesis on South Africa, 28.7.28,” in South Africa: A Collection of Miscellaneous Documents, 1902–1963 (Stanford: Stanford University Photographic Department, 1967), located at Hoover Library, Stanford University; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 159. E.R Roux, “The New Slogan and the Revolution Movement among White Workers in South Africa,” in South Africa: A Collection of Miscellaneous Documents, 1902–1963 (Stanford: Stanford University Photographic Department, 1967), located at Hoover Library, Stanford University. Roux’s position may reflect what Krikler discusses in his article on the Rand Revolt. Krikler, “The Inner Mechanics,” 1051–1075. Sidney Bunting, “Declaration by South African Delegate,” in South Africa: A Collection of Miscellaneous Documents, 1902–1963 (Stanford: Stanford University Photographic Department, 1967), located at Hoover Library, Stanford University. RGASPI, 495.155.56, 117–128. RGSAPI, 495.155.56, 111–112. RGSAPI, 495.155.56, 112; “Minutes of Meeting, Negro Commission, Sixth Congress, Comintern, 11 August 1928 (Extract),” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin

A prioritized battleground  95

58

59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

79

Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919– 1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 184–186, 186fn3. “Minutes of 38th Session. VI Congress. 20.8.28,” in South Africa: A Collection of Miscellaneous Documents, 1902–1963 (Stanford: Stanford University Photographic Department, 1967), located at Hoover Library, Stanford University; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 159–160. RGASPI, 495.155.56, 129–135. RGASPI, 495.155.56, 137. RGASPI, 495.155.56, 138–139. RGASPI, 495.155.56, 136–146. They spent the remainder of the meeting discussing racial questions as put in the general colonial policies. RGASPI, 495.155.56, 146–158. “Amendment to ‘Native Republic’ Slogan Proposed by CPSA Delegation, Sixth Comintern Congress, 25 August 1928,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to Bolshevik Footsoldiers 1919–1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 188–191; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 160. Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 340. Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 233–235; Roux, S.P. Bunting, 104–105; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 164. Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 235. Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 164. Douglas Wolton even introduced the Native Republic Thesis at the Seventh Party Congress. Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years, 65; Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 231; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 164. Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 230–231. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-269, 495.72.34, 100–101. Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 240; Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 343–344; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 421–426; Legassick, Class and Nationalism, 101. RGASPI, 495.20.657, 59–68. Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 247–248. Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 262; Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 345; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 201; Legassick, Class and Nationalism, 22–23. South African Communists Speak: Documents from the History of the South African Communist Party, 112–113. “ ‘Building a Leninist Party  – Important Decisions of Johannesburg Conference,’ reported in Umsebenzi, January  9, 1931,” South African Communists Speak: Documents from the History of the South African Communist Party, 113–115. Roux, S.P. Bunting, 123. Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 346–347; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 203–204; Legassick, Class and Nationalism, 22–23; Roux, S.P. Bunting, 123–124. Sheridan Johns suggested he joined the Central Committee at the Ninth Conference. Records of the Conference are unclear if he was present. In all likelihood, he arrived in 1930, but became a factor in CPSA affairs in 1931. Johns, 268; Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 347; Eddie Roux and Win Roux, Rebel Pity: The Life of Eddie Roux (London: Rex Collings, 1970), 95–98; Brian Bunting, Moses Kotane: South African Revolutionary (London: Inkululeko Publications, 1986), 56; Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 205. Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 350; Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 278–281; Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years, 72; Roux and Roux, Rebel Pity, 101–103; Bunting, Moses Kotane, 55–57. Drew, Between Empire and Revolution, 206–207. Roux noted that many of the expulsions were for trumped up reasons that frequently surrounded

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80 81

82 83 84

85

86

87 88

89 90 91 92

minor errors, factionalism or individuals maintaining membership while distancing themselves from the party. Roux, S.P. Bunting, 132–134. Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 350–351; Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 281; Roux, S.P. Bunting, 134. Bunting, Moses Kotane, 56–60; Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 354–355; Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 291. Even before the “Buntingites” were purged, the ECCI was glowing in its appreciation of the party’s efforts to purge the right deviationists from the party. “Letter from ECCI to Central Committee, CPSA, 20 June  1931 (Extracts),” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume II: Bolshevik Footsoldiers to Victims of Bolshevisation 1931–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 9–14. Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 356; Roux and Roux, Rebel Pity, 109–126. Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 356; RGASPI, 495.20.655, 30–31. University of Cape Town Archives (UCT), BC1081, The Simons Papers, 08.1, Central Committee Minutes (formerly Central Executive Committee) 1932, 1946, 1949–1995, “Minutes of a Meeting of Communist Delegates, At the Albert Street Hall, on the 13th November, 1932.” “Report of Committee of Opponents of PB, CPSA to ECCI, 13 November  1932,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume II: Bolshevik Footsoldiers to Victims of Bolshevisation 1931–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 49–58. Drew, “The New Line in South Africa,” 356; Bunting, Moses Kotane, 64; “Letter from D.G. Wolton to ECCI, 13 March 1934,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume II: Bolshevik Footsoldiers to Victims of Bolshevisation 1931–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 90–92. “Letter from M. Kotane to ECCI, 31 October 1934,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume II: Bolshevik Footsoldiers to Victims of Bolshevisation 1931–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 117–121; Roux, S.P. Bunting, 152. Roux, S.P. Bunting, 152–153. Roux, S.P. Bunting, 153–156; Roux and Roux, Rebel Pity, 141–150; Bunting, Moses Kotane, 61–71; Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years, 72–74. See also, “Telegram from M. Kotane, J. Gomas and E. Roux to ECCI, 14 September 1935,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume II: Bolshevik Footsoldiers to Victims of Bolshevisation 1931–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 129. For the statement to the ECCI, see “Letter from E. Roux and Others Communists to ECCI, 20 September 1935 (Extracts),” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov & Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume II: Bolshevik Footsoldiers to Victims of Bolshevisation 1931–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 135–138. For more on Bach and his demise, see “Minutes of Meeting, PB of CPSA, 11 June  1937,” in Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov and Sheridan Johns eds., South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, Volume II: Bolshevik Footsoldiers to Victims of Bolshevisation 1931–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 252fn5. RGASPI, 495.20.660, 4–6; RGASPI, 495.20.655, 30–31; RGASPI 495.20.658, 140–147. RGASPI 495.20.658, 140–147; RGASPI, 495.20.662, 131–136. RGASPI, 495.20.662, 5–20; RGASPI 495.20.662, 73–79. RGASPI 495.20.662, 73–79.

A prioritized battleground  97 93 Lerumo, Fifty Fighting Years, 74; Bunting, Moses Kotane, 81. For some notable examples that highlighted these tactical shifts, see W.H. Andrews, “The NonEuropean United Front,” Freedom, no.  1 (August  1939); Moses M. Kotane, “The Africans and the War,” Freedom, no.  2 (February  1940); Moses M. Kotane, “The National Question in the Soviet Union,” Freedom (November 1940). 94 The party included coloured and Indian workers explicitly, suggesting they were being attacked like how the South African government attacked black African workers. “Document 120: Draft Programme of the Communist Party of South Africa (C.1940),” in Allison Drew ed., South Africa’s Radical Tradition, A Documentary History, Volume One: 1907–1950, www.sahistory.org.za/archive/south-africas-radi cal-tradition-documentary-history-volume-one-1907-1950-allison-drew (Accessed July 15, 2016); Bunting, Moses Kotanes, 92–95. 95 “Blackshirts! Greyshirts! Hunger! Slavery! Oppression and War!” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box 1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 1 (C734a), Hoover Institute, Stanford University. 96 “Must We Fight?” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box 1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 2 (C734b), Hoover Institute, Stanford University; “6 Point Communist Programme,” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box  1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 2 (C734b), Hoover Institute, Stanford University; “A New Year’s Message for South Africa 1941,” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box  1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 2 (C734b), Hoover Institute, Stanford University; “Organise a People’s Front in South Africa,” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box 1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 2 (C734b), Hoover Institute, Stanford University; “A New Year’s Message to South Africa for 1942,” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box  1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 2 (C734b), Hoover Institute, Stanford University. 97 “Who Caused the Riots?” August 6, 1940, Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box 1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 1 (C734a), Hoover Institute, Stanford University. 98 “Brighter Bonfires,” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box 1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 1 (C734a), Hoover Institute, Stanford University; “National Question Solved,” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box 1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 1 (C734a), Hoover Institute, Stanford University; “Soviet Russia  – Liberator of the Peoples,” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box  1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 2 (C734b), Hoover Institute, Stanford University. 99 Kotane, “The National Question in the Soviet Union.” 100 “Democratic Rights for All!” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937– 1943, Box 1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 2 (C734b), Hoover Institute, Stanford University; “Smash Hitler Now . . .” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box  1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 2 (C734b), Hoover Institute, Stanford University; “Smash Fascism Now!” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box 1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 2 (C734b), Hoover Institute, Stanford University; “Programme for Victory,” Communist Party of South Africa Issuances, 1937–1943, Box 1 (XX051–9.13), Folder 2 (C734b), Hoover Institute, Stanford University; Bunting, Moses Kotane, 95; Johns, 293.

4 Correction and reminders The Communist Party of Canada, Canada’s position in the world and ethnicity

South Africa was an important country for the Comintern because of the significance of the Native Republic Thesis and South Africa’s prominent racial issues. Though Canada was not as important as South Africa to the Comintern, it saw Canada as relevant because of its proximity and influence of the world’s two strongest imperial powers; Canada was a British dominion and shared a border with the United States. Canada also had many issues of significance for communists regarding the national, colonial and racial questions. The country had an ethnically diverse population with a significant number of migrant workers, a large French-speaking cohort and numerous Indigenous groups. In theory, this demographic makeup, coupled with Canada’s status in the British Empire, should have made the dominion a unique battleground for the Comintern’s National, Colonial and Racial Questions. In practice, the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) struggled with these issues for the entirety of the interwar period. The story of the CPC, anti-imperialism, racial equality and the Comintern was one of high hopes, confusion and limited application. Initially, Canadian communists had little time to combat imperialism. Ukrainian and Finnish workers dominated the party, and English and French Canadians accounted for a minority of memberships. During the interwar period, this composition was a constant issue: these immigrant groups had their own language sections that the Comintern and some CPC leadership wanted to end. Generally, the party defended immigrant workers, ignored Indigenous peoples and struggled to mobilize French Canadian workers to join its cause. The party also challenged some of the Comintern’s tactics. While the Comintern defined Canada as a secondary imperialist country at the end of the 1920s, the CPC disagreed and called for Canadian independence from the British Empire. The two groups also differed on whether French Canada was an oppressed nation. As a result, the Comintern interfered in the party in 1929 and 1930 and overhauled its tactics, but not its leadership. The Comintern’s involvement caused the party to avoid fully adapting Comintern tactics to the Canadian situation. Rather, the CPC followed Comintern suggestions broadly, while remaining aware of its previous tactical failings. The arrest of many party leaders in the early 1930s also diverted party efforts. The Canadian federal government targeted the CPC and sought to undermine its influence, especially as agents of Moscow. During the Second

Correction and reminders  99 World War, CPC leadership revived the party’s line on Canadian independence and promoted French Canadian nationalism. These stances clashed with the Comintern’s desires, running counter to Soviet foreign policy aims. The CPC sought to take advantage of French Canadian nationalism and general wariness towards British or American influence, while propagandizing against fascism. The Comintern brought the party into line in 1943, but, growing attention to these issues foreshadowed its later platforms during the Cold War.

The early days of the Canadian Communist Party In Guelph, on a small farm, on 23 May 1921, 22 delegates formed the Communist Party of Canada. They noted Lenin’s Imperialism and the Comintern’s charges of socialism’s bankruptcy during the war as justification for a radical CPC.1 During this convention, the delegates adopted a constitution and proclaimed their allegiance to the Comintern.2 The Comintern’s worldview became that of the CPC. Imperialism had ravaged the world, including the Americas. The CPC noted that Canada was a “so-called self-governing colon[y]” with “political autonomy and control of fiscal policy.” As a result, it was “an auxiliary of British Imperialism” and therefore supported Britain’s dominance in non-dominion colonies. Canada was a colony, yet it had a bourgeoisie that enabled British imperialism which needed to be exposed. In line with this position, the CPC supported colonial liberation.3 Support did not mean active promotion, though. Day-to-day CPC affairs and operations forced any consideration of colonial liberation to the background. The CPC needed to establish a clear trade union policy while also developing its presence in the Comintern; until the Comintern’s Fourth Congress, Canadian representation in Moscow did not exist. To support United Front tactics and to have a public face for elections, the CPC created the Worker’s Party of Canada (WPC) which further monopolized the CPC’s attention. The WPC was the CPC’s public face, as the leadership believed Canada’s political climate would not be welcoming to a “Communist Party.” The WPC only existed for a couple of years before, with the Comintern’s counsel, the CPC folded the WPC, opting to have one party serve all required functions.4 Related to the organization of the CPC, however, its ethnic makeup also required immediate attention.

The nationalities issues From the start, most of the CPC’s membership was Finnish or Ukrainian. Many of them supported the left as they had left highly oppressive societies in the late nineteenth century to come to Canada. They sympathized with anti-imperialism and socialism. When these immigrants joined the CPC in 1921, they forced the party to adopt a federative structure; each ethnic section had relative autonomy, held organizational meetings and published periodicals in its language.5 This structure, in many ways, mirrored the nationalities policy of the Soviet Union. Despite this ethnic makeup and federative structure, the Comintern was uneasy about the party’s ethnic makeup.6 In March 1925, having roughly 4,500 members,

100  Case studies the CPC took great pleasure in the fact that it had a “more than proportional” number of English members, but the Comintern was unimpressed and unconvinced. It demanded the reorganization and the Bolshevization of the CPC to form a more unified party. These demands equated to the removal of unfavourable members and dissenting groups, allowing the Comintern to exert a more direct form of control on its member parties. For the CPC, Bolshevization meant the dissolution of the language groups. The CPC attempted to follow through with this demand but, by doing so, the party had to absorb the internal issues within each ethnic group that each section had often resolved at the local district level.7 As a result, although the leadership challenged the language sections, they endured. By 1927, the Comintern remained displeased with composition of the CPC’s membership, reflecting a problem beyond the language sections: the party relied too heavily on immigrants. In a telegram dated 20 February  1927, the ECCI reminded the CPC to improve recruitment, stressing that it was “extremely necessary to increase the real Canadian and British membership of the party.” Foreign workers, however, could not be ignored. The Comintern stressed the need to avoid special sections of the party and urged the CPC to draw these foreign workers into life in Canada and the party and to teach them to speak English.8 Little changed. A year later, the Comintern resigned itself to the fact that foreign workers were a strong proportion of party membership. By 1928, when discussing the Ukrainian Worker Organization, the Comintern encouraged efforts with immigrant workers, but still emphasized a preference for increasing recruitment amongst English-speaking workers. On the one hand, the Comintern felt that party members who could not speak to most workers could hamper efforts to expand the appeal of communism; on the other hand, the Comintern felt it could not hurt the base of the CPC’s enthusiastic and zealous membership.9 The uneasy relationship with the language sections also had significant personal ramifications for the CPC’s membership. A  Finnish or Ukrainian section could represent the interests of its workers better than the party itself. While the CPC was a general party that was supposed to serve as the voice of the working class, English workers had fewer concerns than foreign-born workers. For example, immigrants could be threatened with deportation, adding another layer of danger to protests and demonstrations, something English workers did not necessarily understand.10

The new leadership and the language sections Maurice Spector, a Ukrainian immigrant who was educated at the University of Toronto, was arguably the most influential leader of the CPC. However, when the personal rivalry between Stalin and Trotsky seeped into the Comintern, Spector was unwilling to attack Trotsky. The Comintern ordered its member parties to remove any deviationists and the CPC had a leadership struggle with Spector on one side and the duo of Tim Buck and Stewart Smith, calling for greater loyalty to Moscow, on the other. Buck was a trade union specialist in the party who gradually developed a greater role in crafting policy. Smith was the first Canadian to attend the Lenin School in Moscow and, because of the prestige attached to

Correction and reminders  101 these students, he rose in the party. The CPC expelled Spector from the party as a Trotskyist, and Buck and Smith became its new leaders. Their importance to the development of the party cannot be understated. Due to their position on Canadian independence and how the CPC managed its ethnic makeup, Buck and Smith precipitated the Comintern’s most serious intervention in Canadian affairs. These men had few connections to the ethnic leaders within the party. As a result, the party’s long-time immigrant membership and the new leadership, eager to follow Moscow’s lead, would clash. With Spector gone and a desire to commit to the Comintern’s position on the CPC’s ideal organization, Buck and Smith pressed forward and, in the process, had to deal with an open revolt from the party’s language sections. The Finnish and Ukrainian sections fought against the CPC’s interference in their affairs. The Finnish section and the CPC had a particularly messy battle that saw the CPC’s Central Executive Committee replace Aarvo Vaara, a popular editor of the Finnish-Canadian communist periodical Vapaus (Freedom) with a more supportive individual. This change led the Finnish community to launch an insurrection. Vaara used his Finnish Organization of Canada contacts to return to the editorship, upsetting the CPC leadership.11 Both sides became so angry that they published lengthy tracts denouncing one another. The CPC expelled Finnish members, while the latter replaced CPC appointees and locked CPC members out from its meetings.12 The Ukrainians were also critical of the CPC leadership. But its struggle with the Ukrainian section was much less hostile, as this group of workers passively resisted the new leadership. While the Ukrainian section did not publish condemnatory tracts in anger, one member, John Stokaluk, attempted to challenge the CPC leadership. Supporters of Buck and Smith, however, denounced Stokaluk as a traitor. While other Ukrainian leaders criticized this decision, they did little more.13 The Jewish section of the CPC had a similar dispute with the new leadership. Nevertheless, these squabbles revealed the tense relations between the party leadership and the language sections during the second half of the 1920s.14 When the Comintern intervened in the CPC in early 1930, it elected to pursue compromise positions, asking all sides to engage in self-criticism. Otto Kuusinen, a Finnish communist and significant Comintern leader, dispatched a fellow Finn, who spoke no English, to arbitrate the conflict. This decision likely partially determined the resolution. The Finnish section had to pull back on its harangues and agree to the CPC line, but the party had to respect the autonomy of the Finnish section. The Comintern enforced a similar resolution for the Ukrainian situation. These incidents confirmed the issues with a federal structure.15 These sections would best represent the interests of their fellow workers, but they remained separate from the CPC due to the inability to harmonize English interests with those of foreign workers. These tensions continued for the remainder of the interwar period, especially as these ethnic sections accounted for an overwhelming majority (roughly 95 percent) of party membership. The Comintern continued to press the CPC leadership to improve its membership composition.16 The CPC’s official history downplays these challenges, especially those issues that involved the censure of the Finnish section. In fact, this history suggests that the Finnish resistance to change was rooted in the city of Sudbury and was quickly “isolated” before it

102  Case studies “transformed itself from an autonomous language section of the Communist Party into an independent progressive organization.”17

Limited effect on French Canada Beyond the concerns over the limited English-speaking membership, the Comintern and CPC leadership also had their eyes on French Canada. From the start, the CPC struggled to develop a viable French Canadian segment of the party. The CPC lacked literature and, in many cases, the ability to translate relevant works for French Canadian workers.18 Many French Canadian workers initially were hesitant to join the party, although a CPC report suggested that a genuine, yet inexperienced, movement was growing.19 The greatest obstacle in these early years revolved around the dual party system. When the party was illegal and operated through the WPC’s public, less revolutionary face, many French Canadians ignored its efforts, doubting its radical credentials. Part of the allure of communism was Comintern support and revolutionary tactics. In a letter to the Comintern, CPC leader William Moriarty said that French Canadians wanted to advocate for armed insurrection, which the WPC was hesitant to pursue openly.20 Even when the CPC dismantled the Worker’s Party in the mid-1920s, it still struggled to gain a foothold in French Canada. These workers were underrepresented in the party and language issues remained a problem. The Comintern wanted to attract French Canadian workers to the party because it saw them as native (i.e. Canadian-born) workers.21 Since Canada was a bilingual country, the CPC needed to court French Canadians in order to provide a strong base to bring the dominion’s proletariat under the party’s guidance. The ECCI dictated that French Canadians should not to be organized as a separate language section. However, the CPC lacked practical solutions, such as access to French publications. At one point, the Comintern demanded the French Communist Party provide suitable publications to the CPC to help agitate workers in Quebec, but these resources proved ineffective. The differences in local conditions between France and Quebec were too great.22 To meet this challenge, the CPC began publication of L’Ouvrier Canadien (Canadian Worker) in 1927.23 The Comintern and the CPC agreed that the party needed someone in Montreal to rouse French Canadians to the communist cause. While the Comintern tried to open communication between the French party and the CPC, the latter did not feel it had a solution until 1930.24 During this period, communists George Dubois and Emery Simard, the latter running for the Communist Party in the riding of Maisonneuve during the 1930 federal election, helped the CPC organize a foothold in French Canada.25 However, by August 1930, the CPC’s involvement in French Canadian affairs remained disappointing. Of the CPC’s roughly 3,700–4,000 members, only 44 were French Canadian.26

The Canadian question The final major issue for the Comintern and the CPC revolved around Canada’s position in the world. As noted earlier, when the CPC formed, it defined Canada

Correction and reminders  103 as a “self-governing colony” with some degree of autonomy and complicity in the British Empire. This distinction made the Theses on the National and Colonial Question relevant in the Canadian context. As with South Africa, if Canada was a colony, its Indigenous peoples were colonized peoples and thus required the application of the Comintern’s self-determination of nations. As Comintern ideology evolved, however, it no longer considered this definition correct. The Fourth Congress defined Canada as an imperial nation, owing to its settler colonial and dominion statuses. Whereas the Comintern failed to press the CPC on this shift in the mid-1920s, the CPC’s leadership under Buck and Smith developed positions that led to a volatile disagreement with the Comintern leadership in the late 1920s. During the CPC’s early years, its position on the “Canadian Question” was limited. The dominion was a colony caught between the United States and United Kingdom. The rivalry between the two seemed to be growing, aligning the general Comintern emphasis on a potential American-British clash. By mid-1925, the CPC evolved its position on the question with Buck leading the charge. In its “Resolution on the Canadian Question,” the CPC stated that Canada occupied a crucial position on the international stage. The dominion was economically linked to the United States, but politically linked to Britain. The American, British and Canadian bourgeoisie exploited Canada’s proletariat economically and politically.27 The CPC called for Canadian independence, serving as the party’s first firm consideration of the issue.28 The party’s position also ignored the Theses on the Eastern Question of the Fourth Comintern Congress. The party also began to develop other auxiliary positions that buttressed its attack on imperialism in Canada. The British North America (BNA) Act was a popular target for the CPC, which viewed it as the main policy that protected Canadian politicians, prevented fair labour legislation and limited Canada’s growth under British oversight.29 The CPC attacked political parties and specific aspects of Canada’s political system. To the communists, the Conservative Party was happy with the current arrangement on the world stage. The Liberal Party, meanwhile, wanted to pull away from Britain to gain closer ties with the United States. The CPC argued the Senate was “highly imperialistic,” as it was conservative. A report by the Information Department of the ECCI summarized the CPC’s platform: abolition of the Senate, abolition of the BNA Act, Canadian independence, neutrality in foreign wars and formal diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union.30 The party also wanted to combat sentimentalism towards Britain, suggesting that many workers were still drawn to their imperial masters.31 The CPC broadly promoted these positions through its party organs, especially the Smith-edited The Worker. Although parts of the platform, such as the promotion of Canadian independence, ran counter to Comintern resolutions, the ECCI accepted the CPC’s position.32 The CPC argued Canada was a colony since the party drafted its constitution in 1921. This situation had parallels to South Africa where, despite being aware of the country’s colonial status, the CPSA ignored that issue. Instead, the party called for worker’s rights and a fight against class-based oppression. The CPC, like the CPSA, selectively interpreted and implemented Comintern tactics. By 1927, the Comintern saw Canadian independence as “exceedingly important.” The Comintern’s United Front tactics still served as the guiding principle.

104  Case studies Given the competition between American and British imperialisms, with Canada caught in the middle, the party presumed that Canada’s bourgeoisie would either need to choose a side or make a new path. As a result, the party had to create the broadest movement possible. The party also needed to generalize the slogan of Canadian independence so all workers would follow it. To do so, the Comintern suggested trade union leaders, the Canadian Labour Party and working class and farmer’s groups should meet.33 Indeed, the CPC often called for a Workers’ and Farmers’ Government. This approach betrays the Comintern’s limited knowledge of Canadian conditions, especially since the Canadian Labour Party was exceptionally weak and disorganized. Likely, the Comintern made this suggestion due to a tendency to prescribe similar arrangements in other dominions and in Britain itself. Following the Sixth Congress in 1928, the shift to the Third Period meant a reappraisal of most Comintern ideology and policy. The war danger, with which the CPC had barely engaged, was now an important issue.34 While the CPC called for the Canadian government to recognize the Soviet Union, in terms of international matters, the party remained focused on Canadian independence. Furthermore, with the Comintern calling for parties to Bolshevize, rooting out Trotskyites was another major issue for the Canadian party. Buck and Smith, who developed the Canadian independence position, now guided the CPC entirely, but these shifts signified that everyone, including these newly minted leaders, were under the watchful eye of Moscow. In April 1929, the Comintern sent a closed letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada which criticized its policies. In line with the changes to the policies towards the colonial world, outlined at the Sixth Congress the previous year, the Comintern declared Canada a “definitely capitalist economy.” The dominion could no longer be considered a colony, meaning it was inappropriate to call for Canada’s independence or self-determination.35 The Comintern also demanded a change in tactics which considered self-­determination in a different light: The struggle for free and full independence for Canada, the guarantees for complete self-determination (French Canada) can only be achieved through revolutionary action. We must emphasise the fact that the main struggle in this connection should not be at the present moment the abstract struggle for independence, but should be concretized around the struggle against being dragged by the Canadian bourgeoisie or any section of it in either of the imperialist camps in the coming war.36 The Comintern now saw French Canadians, generally, as an oppressed people. But even still, independence was not the primary goal. Instead, the Comintern saw revolutionary action, while promoting a general anti-imperialism and anti-war sentiment, as more important.37 The Comintern reiterated its familiar criticism of the CPC’s failure to gain more native-born members, especially in French Canada. Noting that “[t]hough the French Caniians [sic] make up one-third of the total

Correction and reminders  105 population and are the most exploited section of the working class,” the Comintern saw the lack of French Canadian members and the low numbers of English members as an indictment on the “weakness and isolation of the Party.” Especially given the need for French Canada’s self-determination, the party needed to resolve these problems.38 Party members disagreed in how to respond. Correspondence between Smith and John Porter, alias of Leslie Morris, a Canadian communist who studied at the Lenin School in Moscow, illuminates the evolution of policy. These letters also show the difficulty the CPC faced in following the new line delineated at the Sixth Congress. Smith was a major proponent of the slogan of “Canadian Independence” and he stressed that Canada was a colony. He suggested that the Comintern overestimated the strength of the Canadian bourgeoisie. The struggle between American and British imperialism was far more critical, he said.39 Morris attacked Smith’s insistence that Canada was not an imperialist power. Morris suggested Smith only saw the dominion as “an American Belgium,” land to be fought over, and focused too much on American and British imperialism instead of highlighting the role of Canada’s domestic bourgeoisie. Morris argued that Smith needed to recognize the imperialism of the Canadian bourgeoisie and added that Smith publicly accepted the Comintern’s closed letter from April, while promoting something completely different.40 Smith argued that also Morris overestimated the strength of the Canadian bourgeoisie and added another disagreement with the Comintern position. Smith stated that French Canada was not a “suppressed national minority,” proposing that self-determination was not an appropriate approach.41 This correspondence shows the strict thinking of the Third Period, where the Comintern no longer allowed any deviation on the part of its membership. The Comintern intervened in the Canadian context and established its position. Morris, who was based in Moscow at the time, had become steeped in Third Period thinking and urged his colleague to fall into line. Smith, meanwhile, held onto arguments he had supported for years. By the fall of 1929, the Comintern’s pressure on the CPC increased. Morris collaborated with two other Canadian communists at the Lenin School, Sam Carr and John Weir.42 These three men submitted several reports, criticizing the party, building on – or even using – the same language Morris employed in his personal letters to Smith.43 In response, the Comintern, in a letter sent to the CPC on October 3, suggested Morris return to Canada to correct the party line.44 The Comintern remained concerned about the retention of the slogan of Canadian independence, stressing that it was a “social-democratic rightist deviation.” The Comintern also remained critical about the lack of native-born worker involvement the party. Given these issues, the Comintern demanded the CPC hold a plenum to discuss these transgressions.45 During a Pol-Buro meeting on 24 October  1929, the party attempted to figure out how to move forward. Buck and Jack MacDonald, a party founder, who ironically was already on thin ice with the Comintern as a potential deviationist, drafted a cover letter conveying their disagreement. They said letters from the Lenin School students should be “information material.”46 The pair waited two

106  Case studies months before sharing these documents with party members. Upon discovery of this delay, Morris suggested it confirmed the problems of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the CPC. During this time, Buck went to the Soviet Union, leaving Smith in charge. To assuage concerns, the Pol-Buro agreed to promptly share the April and October Comintern letters, the Lenin Students’ criticisms and the cover letter.47 The reason for this delay could be attributed to the fact the CPC was going to double down on the defence of its position and more vigorously attack the flaws in the Lenin Students’ thinking. The Political Committee of the CPC published “Strengthen the Struggle against the Right Danger: Statement of the Political Committee,” a lengthy diatribe, likely written by Stewart Smith, outlining the inaccuracies of the views of the Lenin School students. The statement argued the Lenin School letter writers were opportunist in suggesting that Canada was imperialist. Employing Lenin to defend its view, the party claimed that the “Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semicolonies,” passed at the Sixth Congress, was “irreconcilable” with Lenin’s arguments. The polemic added confusion existed in the aforementioned Comintern letters. Morris misread them to attack the CPC leadership. The CPC, meanwhile, believed the letters confirmed its position that Canada was an imperialist battleground. The party also argued the Lenin School members promoted a Kautskyian approach to define Canada as imperialist. The CPC stated that Morris and his colleagues claimed Canada was no longer predominantly agrarian in nature and, since Kautsky defined imperialism as the exploitation of “backward hinterlands,” it could no longer be a colony. Again, applying Lenin, the party attacked this approach, stating that Canada was not “an economic partner” of Britain, but remained under its imperial rule.48 The article attacked other points. Whereas Lenin School members argued that the Canadian bourgeoisie had investments abroad, the CPC saw these funds as merely US or British capital at work, not distinctly Canadian. The Canadian bourgeoisie was the extension of the British bourgeoisie, the CPC said. The piece concluded with a rousing endorsement of Smith’s line: The Communist Party of Canada stands for the separation of Canada from the British Empire, and leads the Canadian workers in the revolutionary struggle against the Canadian bourgeoisie, utilizing the growing antagonism within the Canadian bourgeoisie, and the growing conflict between British and American imperialism as a means of mass action and revolutionary struggle. As Lenin has said, we would be very poor revolutionaries, indeed, if we failed to do this.49 As can be expected, the Comintern was very upset. It condemned “Strengthen the Struggle Against the Right Danger” as a serious right deviation and an endorsement of incorrect theories about Canada being a colony. The Comintern reaffirmed its two previous letters. To ensure that no confusion existed, it confirmed that Canada was a “secondary imperialist power,” owing to “capitalist investments of the Canadian bourgeoisie abroad, especially in Central America.”

Correction and reminders  107 The CPC should move forward under the premise that Canada was capitalist. The Comintern criticized the CPC for focusing too narrowly on the Anglo-American conflict and neglecting greater trends in international capitalism.50 Buck, writing from Moscow, pointed out that the cover letter the CEC had attached to the Comintern’s corrective to CPC policies was a grave error. He stressed the party leadership needed to engage in self-criticism and accept responsibility.51 Buck warned Smith in a private letter that some individuals in the Anglo-American Secretariat wanted Smith denounced, feeling he grew too powerful within the CPC.52 The Secretariat was equally concerned with whether the CPC could even fall into line.53 The Lenin School students also threw scorn on the CPC. No disagreements existed between the Comintern letters, they said. If the party was confused, it should have contacted the Comintern.54 The Comintern and the Lenin School students were on the same side. In addition to the other issues the Comintern saw in the CPC, such as those with the Finnish and Ukrainian groups, and the recent expulsion of Maurice Spector, who had become a founder of the North American Trotskyist movement, the CPC seemed to be infected by deviationists.55 When the CPC Central Executive Committee (CEC) received these letters, it promptly agreed to repudiate the incorrect line, including the incendiary “Strengthen the Struggle Against the Right Danger,” before engaging in self-criticism. Smith motioned for the repudiation.56 But Smith was still troubled by the Canadian Question. He wrote to Morris, again on 19 May 1930. While Smith was moving towards the right understanding, Morris remained concerned that Smith held onto some old theories, particularly his insistence that the Sixth Congress had listed Canada as a colony, which created issues in defining Canada. Morris suggested that no such discrepancy existed, correctly pointing out that the Comintern used colony in the past tense in Canada’s case and that the dominion no longer had an imperial bourgeoisie that maintained the “colonial fashion of the natives.”57 In fact, Smith was an anomalous character in this period. Even in early 1930, when the leadership realized it was making mistakes, it highlighted The Worker and Smith as entities who may continue to promote the wrong line and thus needed to be disregarded.58 By the summer of 1930, the CPC formally amended its line with a series of statements that placed Morris’ correspondence and correctives, along with Buck’s actions from Moscow earlier in the year, as important to understanding that it had taken the wrong position. These statements served as the party’s open selfcriticism. Again, the CPC highlighted Smith’s role in promoting the wrong line throughout 1929.59 Yet, Smith remained with the party, only spending a brief period in Moscow as penance. Compared to how Sidney Bunting was treated in South Africa, Smith and Buck not only got off lightly, but also maintained their leadership and influence in the party. The reason for the difference can be chalked up to the Comintern’s priorities. The Native Republic Thesis and the “Negro Question” were important issues for the Comintern. Although combatting imperialism was also important, enough people existed in the CPC who would at least fall into line that the Comintern could let it be. It certainly helped that Smith and Buck, once

108  Case studies so thoroughly lambasted, backed off from their “incorrect” arguments. In South Africa, in contrast, Bunting’s influence and consistent stonewalling of the CPSA’s new tactical line was too much to ignore, especially on an issue that had become very important in some Comintern circles.

Canadian independence no more With so much interference by the Comintern, the CPC fell into line and deviated little from the Comintern’s expectations. This acquiescence, perhaps out of embarrassment for how far the party had strayed in 1929, was demonstrated as early as the CPC’s 1930 General Election Platform. No longer did the party discuss independence. The war scare was a prominent theme. The CPC not only advocated for recognition of the Soviet Union, it also detailed fears of imperialist encirclement of the Soviet Union and another “imperialist slaughter,” led by Britain and the United States as they competed for “world mastery.” Arguing that Canada would send its workers and farmers of Canada to fight, the CPC called for revolutionary class war to avoid this conflict in Canada and “other imperialist countries.” This subtle distinction shows that the CPC had taken the Comintern’s criticism to heart. The platform mentioned that the CPC would “turn the imperialist war into a class war.” It also only noted colonial independence as part of the general struggle.60 Though this response could be seen as an example of the monolithism of the Comintern, it showed the party recognized it had pushed too far from the Comintern’s direction. The party still had the freedom to move forward and adapt Comintern tactics to the Canadian context, if it followed the Comintern’s lead. The war scare became the prominent theme for the CPC from this point forward. The party declared Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s embargo against the USSR to be a war measure against the Soviet Union. The CPC also focused more attention on its anti-imperial events that usually occurred annually at the beginning of August. In 1931, for example, the CPC promoted the imperialist past of Canada by noting the dominion’s contributions to the Allied Intervention in Siberia in 1919.61 In 1933, the impending war was again the main theme, as the CPC highlighted the Soviet Union’s desire for peace and stressed that “[a] militant, organised and conscious working class is the greatest guarantee against war.”62 The CPC instructed its speakers, who were to agitate workers, to tie domestic issues to international ones. For example, the party said the Canadian bourgeoisie would promote wage cuts and a lower standard of living while the imperialist world stood up against the Soviet Union. The CPC gave speakers information about the imperial nations, such as diplomatic agreements, notes about railroads being built to the Soviet border, reports of wrecking and the Bennett budget.63 As the decade continued, the CPC continued to follow the Comintern edicts. The Comintern said the party needed to openly agitate against the British Empire Economic Conference of 1932, which took place in Ottawa. The Anglo-­American Secretariat of the Comintern told the CPC to attack the British Empire for its oppression of its colonies and dominions and for imperialism’s inability to solve

Correction and reminders  109 the economic issues of the day. The Comintern urged party members to remind workers about the joint interests of the entire proletariat and how the lack of industrial investment in British dominions caused an antagonistic relationship between the Empire and Canada.64 The CPC duly passed along these messages while also taking a moment to ensure a clear definition of Canada’s place in the world: “Canada is an imperialist country of the secondary rank which does not play an independent or leading role similar to that of the big imperialist powers.” The CPC retained some past views, but ones that ensured the Canadian bourgeoisie was front and centre. The CPC placed great importance on Canada’s position in the Anglo-American rivalry but stressed the Canadian bourgeoisie held the cards for economic independence and action.65 The party also promoted the need to hold a Worker’s Economic Congress at the same time as the Empire Conference to expose the flaws in imperialists’ plans. At this point, the problem with the CPC was that it largely regurgitated what the Comintern said to the party membership. The Comintern and the CPC both recognized that the CPC had devolved into repeating Comintern slogans with little initiative. While the party did its best to forward slogans and stage demonstrations, the Comintern accused the CPC of turning the war scare into “another campaign.”66 At one point, the report from the 12th ECCI Plenum in 1932 criticized the party for making superficial connections between Canadian and international events to promote the war scare.67 However, the party came to constant remind members of the episode of 1929–1930. The CPC began many reports by criticizing that period, reminding members of the mistakes made, but stressing that the party had accepted organizational changes and improved.68 Unfortunately, for most of the 1930s, the CPC largely parroted the Comintern line as it was afraid of another confrontation. While the CPC could take it on the chin if it failed to do enough, it refused to step too far and potentially suffer another embarrassment or stern intervention from the Comintern. The CPC decision to take this approach was not its only option, though, despite the arguments of historians who highlight the Comintern’s monolithism. The CPC allowed its fear to paralyze the party and limit its ability to adapt policies for to the Canadian context. To show how the CPC became a reactionary party that followed the Comintern’s line with little variance, one only needs to look at its resolutions and reports. Following the 12th plenum of the ECCI, the Comintern delineated the CPC’s limitations in a resolution. The party had not developed a revolutionary movement and had failed to accomplish much on the topics of the war scare or antiimperialism. Workers had not flocked to the CPC, nor had they been convinced by its slogans. The Comintern resolution was blunt in its conclusions about CPC actions, stating, “We have given lip service to the fight against imperialist war and for the defense of the Soviet Union.” The party needed to focus on this issue and undermine any person who minimized the threat against the Soviet Union. The Comintern argued that the best way for the CPC to move forward would be to fight the Canadian bourgeoisie and expose their lies, before promoting the strengths of the Soviet Union.69 Despite these notes, the CPC made little headway and continued to engage in these issues in the same limited manner as before.

110  Case studies While the party may have been reluctant to become too creative in its thinking, unwilling to risk another row with Comintern brass, the Canadian criminal justice authorities’ efforts to suppress the party further inhibited its activities. Despite the CPC’s lack of initiative in implementing Comintern tactics, the Canadian government saw communism as a serious threat. In August 1931, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided the CPC headquarters and arrested many leaders, including Buck, on charges of sedition. They were later sentenced to five years in prison for their revolutionary politics. Canada deported many communists caught in this legal repression of the party. The CPC spent a significant amount of time agitating for the release of these members and had some success with the release of Buck in December 1934. These challenges blunted the effectiveness of the party and distracted it from other issues.70 While the party sought to free some of its most important members, in January 1934, following the 13th plenum of the ECCI, the Comintern gave the CPC new marching orders. The rise of Hitler in Nazi Germany made the fight against fascism a greater priority. The Comintern highlighted the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) as a target. It was a “social-fascist” party, suggesting its connection with capitalism and militarism, and the Comintern argued the CPC’s failures to expose the CCF had allowed it to gain political influence. The Great Depression continued to expose the crisis of capitalism, with the transition to military industry allegedly typifying capitalism’s evolution. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was thriving; it had no unemployment, was balancing its budget and explicitly declared an end to class war “with the liquidation of the kulak as a class.” Internationally, the imperialists were working to take control of China, while also indirectly protecting German fascism.71 How was the CPC to respond? The ECCI said the party needed to take more initiative at the local level. The party needed to better train workers in theory, tactics and strategy to counter the chauvinism of fascism, promote the internationalism of communism and support colonial liberation throughout the world. The CPC had to educate workers about the problems of capitalism, such as wage cuts and unemployment, and attack the allure of fascism. To turn the future imperialist war into a civil war, the CPC needed to infiltrate war munitions factories and revolutionize the workers. Finally, the party had to promote the Soviet Union as its true hope with the slogan “Soviet Power is democracy for the toilers, but a stern dictatorship against exploiters.” Socialism was the only solution to the Great Depression and that outcome would be reached through confiscation of all property, land distribution and the dismantling of the capitalist army.72 The party believed these tactics led to some success. For example, in 1934–1935, the CPC emphasized that strikes across Canada proved its message was reaching the masses. Many of these strikes occurred in industries related to war material, presumed to show CPC strategies on the war scare in action. The CPC’s reports on the strike wave were self-congratulatory, but it is unclear whether it ascribed a successful strike to be the same as a successful application of its anti-imperial, anti-war tactics.73

Correction and reminders  111 Whereas the Comintern’s previous two major evaluations of the CPC seemed to build a clear consensus of what to do, the shift to the Popular Front strategy in 1935 led to tactical changes that the CPC needed to adopt or uphold. The party retained the Soviet peace program and the fight against fascism. The Comintern resurrected United Front tactics and it directed the CPC to work with the formerly social-fascist CCF to gain parliamentary control of Canada.74 No longer did the CPC hold a Soviet Canada as its goal. The party also toned down its attack on imperialism. The CPC removed the inflammatory rhetoric of the past when criticizing the Bennett government.75 But this shift in language did not mean that the CPC’s understanding of Canada’s international position was less important or even altered. Comintern information material on Canada reaffirmed the dominion to be an “imperialist country of secondary rank, possessing its own independent imperialist ambition.”76 Canada had colonial interests in Latin America and Newfoundland, represented by the Royal Bank of Canada, and the bank was symbolic of Canada’s imperialist goals and the power of finance capital.77 Meanwhile the CPC adopted the Comintern line and did its best to promote the correct messages. The CPC’s anti-war demonstrations on 1 August 1935 promoted anti-imperialism, as they criticized Japan and Italy for their armed attacks in Manchuria and Abyssinia, respectively. The party still held the British as a prominent target, due to its links to Nazi Germany and its apparent development of an antiSoviet bloc. The CPC called for entire party to hold factory meetings, organize demonstrations against armaments shipments and carry out agitation amongst the youth and war veterans to limit fascism’s allure. The party even asked the various ethnic groups within its midst to aid in the agitation, while also demonstrating against their home countries.78 For the CPC, the election campaign was equally as important as these other platforms and British imperialism remained a major theme, especially given the Italo-Abyssinian crisis. With the potential British intervention in Abyssinia, the CPC feared that Canadian workers would be sent to Africa. The CPC attempted to stir fears among workers of this most unlikely possibility throughout 1935.79 As the Popular Front concept developed, the CPC became more selective in how it approached certain issues. The Spanish Civil War was one event on which the CPC had a clear position. When the federal government declared that Canadians could not travel to Spain, the CPC fought against this policy, seeing neutrality as only helping the fascists gain control of Spain.80 Foreign policy occupied a central position in the CPC’s platform for the late 1930s. The party opposed Canadian arms buildups. It declared Canada’s need for a completely independent foreign policy, one that maintained peace.81 The Comintern, however, stepped in again and offered further suggestions. It deemed the call for an independent foreign policy to be too close to calling for Canadian independence from the British Empire, an issue that was “not the question at the present time.” The CPC should focus on coordinating Canadian foreign policy with that of the British Empire if it promoted peace, but otherwise one that focused on criticizing British foreign policy, not CanadianBritish relations, downplaying any desire for independence, if necessary.82

112  Case studies

Back to French Canada In the 1930s, French Canada often remained a separate battleground owing to the distinct problems of Quebec.83 Whereas the CPC often noted the need to continue to promote French literature and it found some individuals who could at least make inroads, French Canada was always an unstable battleground. Even with a French language periodical and a handful of Francophone leaders, the CPC struggled to attract new members. The Comintern and the party recognized a need to increase French Canadian membership. The need to appeal to French Canadians also acquired a new dimension in the 1930s. Following the explosive conflict with the Comintern regarding the Canadian Question, the CPC commonly declared French Canadians to be “the most exploited section of the working class in Canada,” accepting and forwarding the Comintern’s language. Their exploitation led the party to consider that Quebec seemed to be most susceptible in Canada to fascist ideas. For example, the CPC saw the Arcand and David Bills, legislation the party argued outlawed strikes, demonstrations and unions, as proof of fascism’s appeal in Quebec. The CPC also said that the Catholic Church, whose influence made French Canada “backward,” drew people to fascism. The weakness of the CPC in Quebec exacerbated the importance of solving these problems. Even its publication, now entitled Vie Ouvriѐre (Worker’s Life), had failed to gain traction in Quebec in the eyes of CPC members, even though it seemed to be a promising endeavour in the mid-1930s. The journal was predominantly Montreal-based, struggled to break-even and had very little content from Quebec workers to really connect it to the French Canadian working class.84 By the end of 1935, these challenges had not decreased and the party made the lack of French Canadian support one of its main priorities.85 While the CPC said French Canadians were the most exploited workers in the dominion, the party concurrently maintained that they were not an oppressed people, breaking with the Comintern’s position from 1929. The party articulated the reason for this awkward position in November 1936. The French Canadian bourgeoisie were not excluded from the “plundering of the Canadian people.” Instead of seeing the French Canadians as a nationality that English Canada had kept down, the CPC argued that the French Canadian proletariat needed to join the general workers’ struggle in the dominion which included English workers and workers of other nationalities.86 Quebec elected the Union Nationale, led by Maurice Duplessis, to office in 1936 and the CPC considered Duplessis sympathetic to fascism. This government promoted anti-communism, passing the Padlock Law against communist propaganda on 24 March  1937.87 To counter these policies, the CPC called for a “Free and Prosperous Quebec.” The party argued only a communist program could promote freedom and unlimited rights in Quebec. Communism could improve the living standards of French Canadian lower classes, again highlighting their current exploitation.88 The CPC remained concerned with French Canada for the remainder of the 1930s and the party continued to try and make inroads while looking to prevent the expansion of potentially fascist ideas in Quebec. The

Correction and reminders  113 shift to Popular Front tactics offered some help as many French Canadian youth were drawn to the CPC’s anti-war and youth movements.89 Ironically, despite its condemnation of nationalist sentiment in French Canada, a section of the party embraced nationalism during the war years as a response to the CPC’s limited ability to win over Quebec workers.

The Second World War Whereas the 1930s were typified by subservience to Comintern directives and advice following the Canadian Question fracas of 1929, the Second World War revived the old thinking of Smith and other members of the party. During the 1930s, the Comintern gave frequent reminders to the party of how badly it had erred and how it had brought the CPC back into line. Some party leaders wondered whether Stewart Smith had really learned from the events. Evidently, he had not entirely distanced himself from his “wrong line” because, during the Second World War, a revival of “the flawed” Canadian independence position occurred. While Morris completed a celebratory review of Buck’s time as leader of the CPC, reminding members of the incorrect party thought in the late 1920s and the later Comintern correctives, Smith and other CPC leaders began to speak of an independent Socialist Canada.90 An article in the 5 November 1940 edition of The Clarion articulated this position. The impetus for this line of thinking came from the belief that the British would be unable to win the Second World War, especially considering the Nazi-Soviet Pact. The piece called for Canadian neutrality in the war, while at the same time promoting a relationship with the Soviet Union. The article argued that “Canadian independence through a Socialist Canada, made possible in the fight of the masses of the people against the war and the withdrawal of Canada from the war – this is the only hope against the extending flames of world conflict.”91 The article concluded with the statement that “In our Canadian fight for Socialist Independence, we will find peace and security in friendship with the U.S.S.R.”92 Another report argued that the Canadian bourgeoisie was “a second nation” that developed within British imperialism in Canada. With the war as the backdrop, the CPC had to represent the interests of the true Canadian nation.93 Both of these statements lent themselves to a revival of the Canadian independence theses and arguing that Canada was a colony as defined by the Comintern at the CPC’s founding. Smith and his followers saw an opportunity to break from the old Comintern line by taking what seemed to be an appropriate approach following Soviet foreign policy aims after September 1939. These individuals likely saw the Second World War as the end of British imperial power and hoped to take advantage of its collapse by reviving their old position. As the Comintern and some CPC members feared in 1929, Smith had not disavowed this platform. As a result, the party leadership was split and, with control of some of the CPC publications, Smith and his allies could promote a line with which the Comintern did not agree. The Comintern became aware of the issue by early 1941 and identified several CPC members, including Smith, Morris and Stanley Ryerson, as proponents of

114  Case studies this incorrect position. Morris’s support is particularly peculiar given his strong fealty to the Comintern’s position in 1929. These individuals revived the concept of the Anglo-American struggle and how it defined Canadian contradictions, echoing the wrong line of 1929. It appears that the Comintern became aware of this issue through Tim Buck.94 Buck and Smith disagreed over the correct tactics. Smith affirmed that the correct line for Canada was “an Independent Socialist Canada” and he was aware this position would run counter to the feelings of the Central Executive Committee of the CPC. Smith, as he had done earlier, claimed he had read Comintern leaders correctly and, in his interpretation, American imperialism supported British imperialism in the Second World War to drive its rivals from the Western hemisphere and to build its power. The US was using the British and, in the process, Canada had entered the United States’ military order.95 In another note from August 1940, Smith clarified the domestic implications of his position. Smith argued that the Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King, had sold Canada’s independence to Britain. Capitalism was the sole reason that Canada was at war. Britain was on the precipice of collapse and, therefore, Smith believed some British leaders intended to flee to Canada and rule the British Empire from the dominion. Thus, the only way to attain true peace was to support the end of the British Empire. If the British lost, the empire would end, and Canadian independence and revolution would follow.96 At the very least, Smith developed a creative application of the new reality of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and positioned the British as a prominent enemy, while also engaging in fantastical applications of theory. But Smith went farther. He outlined what an Independent Socialist Canada would look like: it would mirror the Bolsheviks’ goals of 1917. It would be a workers’ government. Banks, large industry and railways would come under state ownership. Workers and farmers would obtain a greater standard of living and unemployment would be abolished. Foreign policy would be dictated solely by Canadian interests. Finally, French Canadians would have the right to selfdetermination. Previously Smith had been against this line, but nationalist sentiment in Quebec caused Smith and his followers to see the value in this long-held position of the Comintern. Through this line of thinking, French Canadians were an oppressed minority or the equivalent of a colonized people. This distinction allowed French Canada to seek secession and an Independent Socialist Canada would propose a referendum for French Canadians to determine their future.97 Ryerson, who had grown in importance in the party and became one of the CPC’s main voices for French Canadian affairs, used the war to try to convince French Canadian workers to defend their ethnic nation and to resist conscription. He also argued that English Canada and the British Empire had kept French Canada colonially beholden to them.98 It would be an error to suggest, however, that Smith and his supporters simply revived his old position and failed to learn anything from the past. In fact, he understood a need to merge his position with that held by the CPC during the 1930s. Smith asserted that Canada was not a colony and that the Canadian bourgeoisie had no imperial interests. For Smith, however, the change from his

Correction and reminders  115 previous views came from Canadian dependency on British imperialism which prevented Canada from being truly independent and thus still exploited.99 Smith continued as follows: The demand for independence of Canada from the British imperialist system does not become invalid because we face in Canada, not a bourgeoisdemocratic revolution, but a socialist revolution. It does not become invalid because Canada is not an oppressed nation but an imperialist state. Precisely because we face the Socialist revolution and because the class relations in Canada are those of a highly developed capitalist state, it will not divert the struggle of the Canadian working class and the masses away from the Canadian bourgeoisie to a foreign oppressor. On the contrary, it is a demand of the incompleted [sic.] and defeated bourgeois revolution in Canada, which becomes an essential part of the struggle for the Socialist revolution against the bourgeoisie of Canada . . .100 Smith skewed Bolshevik revolutionary theory to apply it to Canada. The dominion had not completed a bourgeois revolution thanks to the oppression of a foreign power. As a result, the CPC needed to take the process to its logical ends and promote true revolution. Smith could dictate the position of the CPC largely thanks to Buck being out of the country. As a result, Smith sent messages to different sections of the party to follow his line of thinking. His position remained unchallenged for most of 1940 and he became more self-assured in his position. Smith argued that an imperialist clash between the United States and Japan and then Britain was necessary to redraw the globe. Only a “stupid apologist for imperialism” could see otherwise.101 The British Empire was struggling in war and was close to collapse. Smith repeated this call multiple times.102 Meanwhile, Buck, who was writing in the Monthly Review, had Comintern backing for the correct line.103 He disavowed Smith’s stance, and also argued that French Canadians were not an oppressed minority. This position reflected foreign political realities, as the Soviet Union did not want to rock the boat with its allies. Ironically, Buck was one of the strongest proponents of the Canadian independence line prior to 1929 and some believed he privately still sympathized with it. He realized, however, that having Moscow’s backing was more important than having integrity in his convictions. The Comintern began to craft a response to the Smith faction in 1941. In a draft resolution, the Comintern called for the unity of the CPC under Buck. The resolution declared Smith’s position as pacifist and leftist.104 In a subsequent report, the Comintern was clearer in its criticism. It confirmed its post-1929 line and criticized the Smith faction’s plan for socialism as lip service. The Comintern also attacked the Smith faction’s lack of detail on such issues as the CCF, trade unions, farmers and youth.105 Unfortunately, the Comintern dissolved in 1943, before it formally sent a response. Meanwhile, the Canadian Communist Party maintained some of its “flawed” views. Buck, recollecting this period, said that the 1943 Party Plenum rectified these incorrect formulations.106 Following the Second World

116  Case studies War, Buck proudly noted that the party promoted keeping “Canada independent,” reviving his long-held preference, and fought against closer ties with the United States.107 Later, he admitted his favourite slogan was Canadian independence. The resolution had quick results regarding French Canada too. Ryerson, who had started the war calling for self-determination for French Canadians, published French Canada in 1944, in which he tempered some of his earlier positions. Referencing Joseph Stalin’s definition of a nation, Ryerson argued that French Canadians have a nation defined not by political sovereignty, but through historical terms and class position. This nation was part of the greater Canadian nation. Thus, he condemned separatism. Ryerson pointed to the Soviet Union and the Atlantic Charter as indications of the general movement towards ethnic and racial equality. He said socialism was the only way to provide French Canada with true equality, as class discrimination and bourgeois nationalism would cease to exist, as was the case in the Soviet Union. For Ryerson, the English and French nations of Canada had to come together to forge a common path combating capitalism. He emphasized true equality and a desire to develop a united Canadian nation that included both the English and French nations. He affirmed that French Canadians still could employ self-determination, echoing Lenin, but they had already exercised this choice.108 In a twist, Mackenzie King commended Ryerson for the book, highlighting its focus on attaining a united Canada.109 Ryerson built on this position with another pamphlet in 1944 that highlighted the dual nations of English and French Canada, and called for their unity through equality to ensure a prosperous Canada.110 Though the Comintern had disbanded, this line of thinking followed Moscow’s preference, reflecting international influences such as Soviet foreign policy and affirming that Buck had retaken control of the party.

The CPC and race To this point, race has played virtually no role in the discussion on nationality or imperialism in the Communist Party of Canada during the interwar period. Historian Ian McKay has noted that the Canadian left struggled to deal with racial issues. Its main advancements came with the rise of language groups, prior to this period.111 McKay argued that the left’s consideration of the rights of First Nations peoples as a significant issue arose with the beginning of First Nations’ rights movements in the 1960s.112 The gap regarding race in the CPC’s policies during the interwar period looms large in the history of the Canadian left. Race never truly became a major issue for the party during the interwar period, nor did the Comintern suggest the party make it a greater priority. At the Sixth Congress, the Comintern saw Canada and Australia as dominions in which the Indigenous peoples had been decimated. This position was reinforced in one of the significant communist educational publications on the history of Canada.113 Buck even reflected the position in his testimony during his federal trial, following his arrest as leader of the CPC. While the official history of the CPC points out the “outstanding record” of the party, the issue of racial

Correction and reminders  117 oppression was nearly non-existent until at least the late 1930s.114 At its Eighth Party Convention in 1937, the CPC railed against the poverty and disease that typified the reserve experience, while also noting how Indigenous culture, traditions and language were under siege as the government ignored treaties. Its Resolution on Support to the Native Indian Population called for the CPC to help the Indigenous population gain “remedial governmental assistance” and supported the extension of “statutory regulations governing other sections of the Canadian people” to Indigenous peoples. Ultimately, the resolution suggested Indigenous peoples as needing “greater . . . social assistance.”115 The CPC, however, did not define Indigenous peoples as exploited, as it did French Canadians, nor did the party marshal the concepts of self-determination or colonized peoples with reference to Indigenous peoples. In 1943, the CPC, under the banner of the LabourProgressive Party (LPP), supported the Métis people.116 Even still, the party rarely placed a prominent focus on these issues until after the Second World War. Meanwhile, the only place where racial oppression may have played any significant factor in the CPC’s policies and ideas came when discussing foreign workers. Given the uneven ethnic makeup of the CPC for most of the interwar period, as its membership was dominated by foreign-born workers and individuals who spoke different languages, their issues could have had a significant effect on the party. For the CPC, the most frequent call in support of foreign workers was to defend them from discrimination. Nationalist groups or businesses could be far crueller to those workers of a different ethnicity and especially to those belonging to a racial minority. If individuals of a racial minority demonstrated against the government, participated in the strike movements or applied for unemployment relief, the party felt they would be threatened with the loss of their jobs or deportation.117 In some cases, the CPC considered the exploitation of foreign-born workers as similar to that of the French Canadian working class. For example, the National Executive Board of the Workers’ Unity League in 1934 declared that “foreign born workers are in the worst position of all.” It suggested that many of them had been “lured” to Canada under the premise of a better life, yet, they sit in a position worse than Canadian workers, which was declared “intolerable” as it was.118 Add the possibility of deportation, which the CPC referred to as “kidnapping” at some points, foreign-born workers were a vulnerable group which the party saw as a priority at some level.119 Asian workers were the most significant racial minority for which the party fought. Especially given the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the party believed it needed to focus on Chinese and Japanese workers, both to support the Chinese peoples, and to ensure Japanese workers did not rely on nationalist sympathies and fall under the influence of Japanese imperialist ideas. Undoubtedly, the party’s concerns about fascist leanings also underpinned its efforts. As early as 1933, the CPC attempted to consider these problems. For example, the party noted that many Japanese workers in British Columbia had pride in their country of birth and these immigrants would attempt to convince Japanese Canadians to regain their pride in their home country. The CPC promoted a need to building up a comradery

118  Case studies with Japanese Canadians as a priority, given their willingness to stand with Canadians, despite being often left outside of white worker circles, especially in B.C.120 The CPC’s concern for Asian workers also came from an impetus beyond the military or diplomatic reality of the world. Rather, racism was the main target. One party report from the mid-1930s saw Asian labour as a large part of B.C.’s workforce. Whether Asian workers were immigrants or born in Canada was irrelevant to their position. Employers and bosses of the same minority often saw Asian workers as “cheap yellow labour” and discriminated them. The report specifically mentioned Japanese, Chinese and Hindu workers, and the discussion of Asian workers focused on their plight in B.C.121 The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 temporarily shelved support for Japanese workers. In British Columbia, fishermen’s unions pressured communists to promote a particularly vicious attack on Japanese workers. Historian Werner Cohn highlighted that the British Columbian situation was unique, although generally, North American communism pulled back from support for Japanese workers and their integration into the general working class. More generally, the CPC was not as harsh in its treatment of Japanese-Canadians as its British Columbian comrades, but the party still argued that Japanese-Canadians were a “Japanese fifth column.” This brief shift occurred in the immediate wake of Pearl Harbor, only apparently until early 1942, and Cohn noted it was atypical of Canadian communism’s otherwise anti-chauvinistic approach towards Asian workers.122 While the CPC gave some consideration of the plight of Asian workers, in many cases, it was a peripheral battle. Compared to the focus on the war scare, imperialism, the general national makeup or French Canadian issues, the party’s concern for foreign workers was often secondary at best. It never became a major focus for the party and, more than likely, the CPC left it to districts, such as in British Columbia, which had large Asian worker populations, or the language groups to promote these issues.

Conclusion As in South Africa, the history of the Canadian party is defined by one significant episode of Comintern intervention. But the CPC did not have the same level of consistent and direct meddling by Moscow afterwards, owing to the Comintern’s priorities. The Canadian Question and the party’s complete inability to navigate the Comintern’s new policies in the Third Period, followed by doubling down on its mistake, the firm acceptance of Canada’s colonial status and emphasizing Canadian independence, both represented the CPC’s more forceful promotion of its ideas and its gravest error. After 1930, the Comintern maintained contact from afar, ensuring that the CPC maintained the correct line. As long as the CPC did, the Comintern remained a guiding force that held many of the same criticisms as it had before the fracas on the Canadian Question. The Comintern said the party’s ethnic makeup was never appropriate and French Canada remained isolated from the CPC. The Comintern also stressed the CPC needed to promote Soviet foreign policy aims and reflect current Comintern policy. Despite these failings, the CPC

Correction and reminders  119 basically parroted Comintern policy. The CPC barely touched racial issues, given its problematic relationships with language groups to which it owed much thanks for its membership numbers and financial support. The run-in with Moscow in 1930 scared the CPC and members needed time to regain the confidence to promote their derivations of communist policy. Alternately, the arrest of key members likely distracted and stunted the CPC’s development. While the party had some active and very motivated members, on the “National, Colonial or Racial Questions” the CPC had little to show for its efforts.

Notes 1 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-271, 495.98.1, 13–15. 2 Penner, Canadian Communism, 47–48; Avakumovic, Communist Party of Canada, 21; Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 70–72; William Beeching and Phyllis Clarke eds., Yours in the Struggle: Reminiscences of Tim Buck (Toronto: NC Press, 1977), 95–108; Canada’s Party of Socialism, 16. 3 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-271, 495.98.4, 12. 4 Avakumovic, Communist Party of Canada, 27; Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 94–102; Canada’s Party of Socialism, 18–22; Penner, Canadian Communism, 44–69. 5 Canada’s Party of Socialism, 18; Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 80; Avakumovic, Communist Party of Canada, 35. 6 Avakumovic includes a lengthy discussion of the benefits and problems with such an ethnic makeup. He highlights that the inclusion of the language section gave the CPC a foothold in certain communities but propagated the appearance that the CPC was not “Canadian.” Avakumovic, Communist Party of Canada, 36–37. 7 Rodney, Soldiers of the International, 84; Avakumovic, Communist Party of Canada, 38. 8 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-274, 495.98.46, 31–34. 9 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-275, 495.98.54, 34–38. The Comintern requested the same of the American party as well. Zumoff, The Communist International and US Communism, 172–186. 10 Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 291. 11 Vaara supported Jack MacDonald, another prominent CPC leader who was under fire for some of his tactical positions. Rodney, Soldiers of the International, 157; Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 296; Beaulieu, Labour at the Lakehead, 144–145. 12 Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 296–301, 308–311; Beaulieu, Labour at the Lakehead, 142–146; Avakumovic, Communist Party of Canada, 62; Penner, Canadian Communism, 91. 13 Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 301–304; Beaulieu, 135–137; Avakumovic, Communist Party of Canada, 62; Penner, Canadian Communism, 91. 14 Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 304–305. 15 Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 308–311; Beaulieu, Labour at the Lakehead, 160; Avakumovic, Communist Party of Canada, 62–63. 16 Beaulieu, Labour at the Lakehead, 149–150; Rodney, Soldiers of the International, 152–153. 17 Canada’s Party of Socialism, 59. 18 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-272, 495.98.14, 24–26. 19 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-272, 495.98.14, 38. 20 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-272, 495.98.15, 23–24. 21 The term “native” was used to denote one’s place of birth as Canada, mirroring the Australian party’s nomenclature. While this language was also like that of the South African party, the racial component was obviously non-existent. This language also hints at the complete ignorance towards the Indigenous population.

120  Case studies 22 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-274, 495.98.46, 31–34; LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-274, 495.98.48, 5–6; LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-275, 495.98.51, 1–109. 23 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-275, 495.98.51, 1–109. While the CPC records note the publication in 1927, it appears it was only published occasionally and without regularity. It would not be until 1930 that it was able to ensure regular publication. Fournier, Communisme et Anticommunisme, 38–42. 24 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-274, 495.98.46, 15–17. 31–34; LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-279, 495.98.101, 117–125. 25 Fournier, Communisme et Anticommunisme, 37–38. 26 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-279, 495.98.101, 117–125. 27 Rodney, Soldiers of the International, 118; Penner, Canadian Communism, 85–87. 28 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-272, 495.98.23, 20–27. 29 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-273, 495.98.25, 39–45. 30 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-274, 495.98.39, 87–95. 31 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-274, 495.98.42, 49–50b. 32 Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 168–169; 33 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-274, 495.98.46, 72–77. 34 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-275, 495.98.54, 16–24. Ian Angus states the CPC began to promote the war danger in 1927 with Comintern encouragement. Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 170–171. 35 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-276, 495.98.67, 18. 36 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-276, 495.98.67, 21. 37 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-276, 495.98.67, 18–26. 38 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-276, 495.98.67, 25. 39 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-276, 495.98.72, 82–84. 40 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-276, 495.98.72, 23–24. 41 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-276, 495.98.72, 82–84. 42 The letter was written by the students under pseudonyms. They were Frank Evans (Sam Carr), John Porter (Leslie Morris) and Jack Davis (John Weir). 43 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-276, 495.98.72, 62–70. 44 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-277, 495.98.75, 80–81. 45 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-276, 495.98.67, 206–208. 46 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-277, 495.98.75, 80–81. Jack MacDonald was attacked as being a Lovestonite. The term reflected the position of Jay Lovestone, an American communist who was seen as supportive of Nikolai Bukharin, a member of the Right Opposition. He was also a proponent of American exceptionalism, a theory which suggested communism could not develop in the United States as it could in Russia or Europe. MacDonald was not expelled at first, just suspended, and remained as part of the party until 1930. That year, he was expelled for failing to attack both Trotskyites and Bukharinites in the general struggle. Rodney, Soldiers of the International, 167. 47 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-277, 495.98.75, 112–116; LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-277, 495.98.75, 117. 48 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-277, 495.98.75, 119–142. 49 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-277, 495.98.75, 141. 50 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-278, 495.98.94, 49–50, 67–69. 51 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-279, 495.98.97, 8. 52 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-279, 495.98.97, 32. 53 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-279, 495.98.97, 2–5. 54 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-279, 495.98.97, 9–13. 55 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-279, 495.98.97, 36–39. 56 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-279, 495.98.98, 47–53. 57 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-279, 495.98.97, 50–52. 58 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-279, 495.98.101, 35–62. 59 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-279, 495.98.101, 87–106, 117–125. 60 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-280, 495.98.105, 97–98.

Correction and reminders  121 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

85 86 87 88 89

90 91 92 93 94

95

LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-280, 495.98.114, 43–44. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-285, 495.98.151, 51–53. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-282, 495.98.125, 14–19. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-283, 495.98.134, 5–8. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-283, 495.98.131, 20–39. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-284, 495.98.140, 89–99. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-285, 495.98.150, 1–17. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-285, 495.98.150, 1–17, 18–62. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-287, 495.98.158, 63–75. Aloysius Balawyder, Canadian-Soviet Relations between the World Wars (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 181–185. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-286, 495.98.157, 1–79. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-286, 495.98.157, 1–79. Quote 77. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-289, 495.98.172, 1–23. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-288, 495.98.171, 60–77. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-288, 495.98.169, 40–46. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-288, 495.98.171, 60. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-288, 495.98.171, 60–77. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-290, 495.98.179, 75–76. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-290, 495.98.179, 95–100. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-291, 495.98.188, 7. For more on the CPC’s contribution to the Spanish Civil War, see Penner, Canadian Communism, 136–138. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-291, 495.98.188, 28–32. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-291, 495.98.188, 33–36. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-287, 495.98.158, 47–52. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-287, 495.98.158, 47–52. Despite the alleged successes of Vie Ouvriere, it was replaced after the move to the Popular Front tactics with a new paper, Clarte, declared to be a better broad United Front paper. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-289, 495.98.177, 174–175. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-287, 495.98.161, 63. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-290, 495.98.183A, 46–63; RGASPI 495.20.293, 21–24. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-290, 495.98.184, 71–72. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-291, 495.98.188, 24–27. Ian McKay, “Henri Gagnon, Tim Buck, Stanley Ryerson, and the Contest Legacy of the Comintern on the National Question: The Crisis of French-Canadian Communism in the 1940s,” in Oleksa Drachewych and Ian McKay eds., Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial and Racial Questions (Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019). LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.190, 32–48. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.192, 44. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.192, 45. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.193, 1–22. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 5–9. Several issues develop from the evolution of CPC policy. Firstly, Leslie Morris’ inclusion as a proponent of the revived Canadian independence slogan is interesting if only for his role in exposing its falsity in 1929. In fact, in his celebratory account of Tim Buck, he attributed the concept of Canada as colony to Trotskyist Maurice Spector and that the party had correctly seen its errors. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.190, 32–48; Meanwhile, in his Reminiscences, Buck was incredulous that such a position could even come from presumably educated people, conveniently ignoring his own role in developing such a position a decade and a half earlier. Beeching and Clarke, Yours in the Struggle, 294–299. Buck also defined this period by the “re-emergence of erroneous theories.” Tim Buck, Thirty Years 1922–1952: The Story of the Communist Movement in Canada (Toronto: Progress Books, 1952), 165. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 11–20.

122  Case studies 96 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 21–32. 97 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 21–32. 98 Ian McKay, “Henri Gagnon, Tim Buck, Stanley Ryerson.” 99 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 35–39. 100 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 38. 101 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 39. 102 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 39–41, 47. 103 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 44–45, 50–51; LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 60. 104 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 108–110. 105 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-292, 495.98.194A, 111–136. 106 The Canadian government declared the CPC illegal in 1940. To maintain a public face, much as it did with the Worker’s Party of Canada concept, Canadian communists founded the Labour-Progressive Party of Canada. Buck, Thirty Years 1922– 1952, 183. 107 Buck, Thirty Years 1922–1952, 208–210. 108 Stanley Ryerson, French Canada: A Study in Canadian Democracy (Toronto: Progress Books, 1943); McKay, “Gagnon, Buck and Ryerson.” 109 McKay, “Gagnon, Buck and Ryerson.” 110 McKay, “Gagnon, Buck and Ryerson.” 111 Ian McKay, Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People’s Enlightenment in Canada, 1890–1920 (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2008), 345–415. 112 McKay, Rebels, Reds, Radicals, 40. 113 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-291, 495.98.188B, 1–19. 114 Canada’s Party of Socialism, 272. 115 Communist Party of Canada, “Resolution on Support to the Native Indian Population,” in We Propose: Resolutions Adopted at the Eighth Dominion Convention of the Communist Party of Canada, Held in Toronto, October 8–13, 1937 (Toronto, 1937), 67; Canada’s Party of Socialism, 272. 116 Canada’s Party of Socialism, 272. 117 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-285, 495.98.151, 34, 54. 118 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-286, 495.98.153, 34–44. 119 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-286, 495.98.154, 1–3. 120 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-285, 495.98.151, 64–74. 121 LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-288, 495.98.164, 13–24; LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-291, 495.98.188, 66. 122 Werner Cohn, “The Persecution of Japanese Canadians and the Political Left in British Columbia, December 1941–March 1942,” BC Studies, no. 68 (Winter, 1985–86): 3–22.

5 Showing initiative from the periphery The Communist Party of Australia, White Australia, anti-imperialism and civil rights for Aboriginal and Melanesian peoples While the history of the Communist Party of South Africa during the interwar period necessitates a discussion of racial issues and the history of the Communist Party of Canada requires consideration of Canada’s place in the world because of the Comintern’s priorities, the history of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) on racial issues and anti-imperialism stands out in comparison. The CPA was an example of a party that happily followed the Comintern’s campaigns, with Australian communists eager to maintain Comintern support as consistently as possible. The CPA made strong efforts to follow Comintern directives, especially about imperialism, racial equality and the White Australia policy.1 While the CPA acquiesced to the Comintern line, the party did not operate entirely at the whim of the Comintern. Initially, the Comintern criticized the CPA for its listless focus on the White Australia policy but the party had little direction from the Comintern. Much as in the Canadian case, the Comintern declared Australia to be a secondary imperialist state in 1929. But unlike for the CPSA or the CPC, where both parties placed primary concern on these issues, requiring Comintern interference, the CPA was spared from intervention on this issue and took Australia’s imperial past to heart. After 1928 and the shift to Third Period tactics, the Comintern and the CPA were most concerned with strengthening the party’s continuing relationship with the Australian Labor Party. Trade union issues dominated party politics as many of the CPA’s early leadership also led trade unions. Despite this peripheral status, the CPA’s dealing with the White Australia policy and racial equality – seen through its positions on the rights of Aboriginals and foreign workers, on British, Japanese and Australian imperialism, and on fascism – were arguably the most consistent and least challenged internally. The CPA initially ignored issues of race and immigration, similar to the case of the Canadian party. Other matters, such as organizing trade unions and supporting the Australia Labor Party took precedence. The CPA’s leadership, however, recognized that the White Australia policy was a problem in dominion and went against proletariat internationalism. By the mid-1920s, the Comintern urged the CPA to develop a platform to educate workers on, and to combat the effects of, the White Australia policy. The party began to support foreign workers and bring them into the movement. Before the Sixth Comintern Congress, the CPA also overlooked imperialism. As with Canada, the Comintern told the CPA that Australia was a

124  Case studies secondary imperial power, but, despite some confusion, the CPA accepted the new line. The position underpinned the party’s increased consideration of racial issues in Australia. Beginning in 1931, the CPA developed a campaign to support Aboriginal peoples and call for better living standards and labour conditions. The party also started to consider Melanesian workers in Queensland and the Australian mandate of New Guinea. The Aboriginal and Melanesian campaigns became prominent aspects of communist work by the late 1930s and increased during the Second World War. Communist attacks on Australian imperialism also increased and the party maintained a strong attack on imperialism more generally. Following the Comintern’s lead, the CPA sent volunteers to take part in the Spanish Civil War, supported Hands-Off movements in India, China and Abyssinia. The party also detailed the ills of British, American, Japanese and Italian imperialism, and educated workers about the horrors of Nazi Germany and the threat of fascism to Australia. Unlike the CPSA or CPC, the CPA had no major rows with Comintern leadership on these issues. In contrast to the CPC, the Comintern did not have a significant intervention with the CPA over the reclassification of the latter’s home country as imperialist. Finally, the racial platform, even if influenced by a greater focus by Moscow on racial issues, was homegrown. Indeed, it was amongst the most progressive platforms on Aboriginal and Melanesian rights until the 1960s.

Early years The origins of the Communist Party in Australia can be traced to the development of two rival factions: former Australian Socialist Party members and left-wing members of the New South Wales Labor Council.2 These two blocs jockeyed for recognition from the Comintern. While the Comintern demanded unity, both groups sent members to Moscow for the Third Comintern Congress in 1921. William P. Earsman, a Scottish communist and trade unionist who represented the Labor Council attended the Congress and served as the first significant voice for Australia in Moscow. He took advantage of what historian Stuart Macintyre described as “a good hand,” owing to the misfortune that many other Australian delegates died travelling to Moscow. Earsman’s luck and ability to win over allies in Moscow gave the New South Wales Labor Council the leadership of Australian communism during this initial period. The party unified in August 1922. Earsman remained in Moscow afterwards and, during the early years of the Anglo-­American Secretariat, he represented Australia.3 Earsman delineated early positions on the White Australia policy and foreign workers. These positions were based on a need for Australia to be a tactical leader in the Pacific and on the fact that many Australia workers failed to recognize the oppression caused by the White Australia policy. In a discussion about a Pan-Pacific Workers’ Congress, a concept that Australian communism considered for the remainder of the decade, Earsman noted some of the hallmarks of Australian politics. The country had engaged poorly with other Pacific nations and the White Australia policy stood in the way of obtaining cheap labour for the country’s growing manufacturing industry.4 Earsman believed that

Showing initiative from the periphery  125 Australia should be a political and economic leader in the region and desired a new Comintern body for the Pacific.5 The Comintern’s consideration of a PanPacific Workers’ Congress underscored the importance of the coloured labour issue, and therefore cheap labour issue, to Australian labour politics.

Tackling foreign labour and White Australia The CPA began its attack on the White Australia policy by examining the increase of foreign workers. In 1924, American immigration restrictions led some Australian unions to support the immigration of Italian, Greek and Yugoslavian workers to the dominion. The CPA was split on how to respond. Some members supported racial or ethnic equality and workers’ unity, whereas others pointed out that the significant presence of foreign workers, especially those earning lower wages, was harmful to the entire labour movement. The latter group argued that the party should oppose mass immigration to protect a living wage for all workers. Despite these divisions, the CPA followed standard communist tactics of the time, urging foreign workers to join its movement. It also began to establish party branches for each nationality but had limited success.6 Moscow, however, provided the impetus for greater attention to the White Australia policy. Comintern officials gave Australian affairs some audience when Earsman was in Moscow, but they did not intervene in the CPA’s position on this policy until 1926. On 26 April of that year, the Comintern hosted CPA member Hector Ross and asked him a number of questions. Officials asked Ross about the position of Australian and New Zealand Aboriginal peoples and whether a national movement existed. He gave a general answer, suggesting the Maori were antagonistic to the British and that “[t]he Australian natives are not to be reckoned with at all.”7 The discussion of the Maori came because New Zealand communism was still tied to the CPA. New Zealand would not have its own party until 1928. The question and response reflected some of the realities of the CPA and the Comintern. In the case of the CPA, Aboriginal peoples barely registered. It had no platform or tactics, nor much knowledge of their plight. This problem remained for the rest of the 1920s. The Comintern response was more interesting. It saw Aboriginal peoples as colonized peoples, and the question suggests that the Comintern still saw Australia and New Zealand as colonies, despite their dominion status and partial independence.8 Ross also discussed foreign workers in Australia. He claimed their situation had become a new, and pressing, issue for the CPA. Although Earsman had reviewed foreign labour challenges three years earlier, the situation had changed. Now, instead of Asian workers, European workers came to Australia in great numbers. The CPA attempted to bring these European workers into the movement, Ross said, but language issues had made those efforts difficult. The party paid at least some attention to issues of ethnicity and race of foreign workers.9 In contrast to the importance of Ukrainian and Finnish supporters to the Canadian party, the Australian communists did not owe as much to immigrant members. Greek or Italian sympathizers did not bankroll the CPA. But the party had

126  Case studies settled on worker unity, adopting a general challenge to the White Australia policy. At the party’s Sixth Annual Conference in December 1926, it passed a resolution, dictated from Moscow, on the Australian Question. The party needed to attack the restrictions on immigration, stating “[i]t is one of the most important duties of the Communist Party of Australia to get a foothold not only among the masses of native-born Australian proletarians, but also to champion the interests of the foreign speaking element of the country.” The resolution urged the CPA to stand for both Australian and foreign-born workers equally. The Comintern also reminded the CPA to combat British imperialism.10 The resolution restated the conclusions the British Secretariat made after Ross’s report eight months earlier.11 In Moscow, the Anglo-American Secretariat also discussed Australian affairs. Two familiar figures intervened: Max Petrovsky and Nikolai Nasanov. The harbingers of the Native Republic Thesis and the boosters of self-determination as a response to the “Negro Question” chimed in on CPA platform disputes in the Anglo-American Secretariat, although they never discussed Aboriginal peoples. Tom Wright represented the CPA on the Secretariat. In October 1927, the Secretariat discussed how best to attack capitalism’s enthusiasm for letting more foreign workers into the dominion. Attacking immigration directly was problematic, as it would alienate foreign workers. However, the nature of capitalism’s deceit, at least to the Comintern, was that bosses desired “mass immigration” to Australia in order to lower wages. Petrovsky argued that free immigration had to be opposed. He also stressed the party’s need to promote Australian independence and the dissolution of the British Empire.12 One year later, at an Anglo-American Secretariat meeting in November 1928, Nasanov also argued in favour of Australian independence.13 The Comintern support for Australian independence came a year before the explosive clash between the Lenin School Students and the CPC over Canadian independence and the official shift to seeing Canada and Australia as second-tier imperialist nations. Heading into the Third Period, the Comintern would no longer consider the positions of Petrovsky and Nasanov to be correct for Australian affairs. Their positions, however, shows how sudden some of the shifts could be in the Comintern apparatus. The CPA’s link to the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS), a trade union organized by the Red International of Trade Unions (RILU), bolstered the party’s criticisms of racial discrimination.14 The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), representing the dominion’s labour and headed by Jock Garden, was one of the early affiliate members of the PPTUS. Although having Comintern support, Garden had a tumultuous relationship with the CPA. Since the White Australia policy affected Australian labour relations with nearby Asian countries and South Pacific colonies, the PPTUS had to consider it. Through the PPTUS, the CPA sought to attack the White Australia policy, both as a sign of solidarity with foreign workers, but also to increase opposition to the policy. Initially, the union was supposed to publish its organ, the Pan-Pacific Worker, in Australia, but due to increased government oversight, the PPTUS moved its publication to China where nationalist suppression undermined its consistency. By 1928, owing to Garden’s continued involvement and the ACTU’s “weak affiliation” to the body, the party was unsure whether the PPTUS would be able to stand against the

Showing initiative from the periphery  127 White Australia policy.15 The CPA claimed that the ACTU hesitated to zealously attack the White Australia policy.16 Meanwhile, the Comintern also supported the PPTUS in its building of connections in the struggle for colonial liberation.17 Despite these lofty goals, the PPTUS petered out quickly.

Australian independence? Much like the Canadian party, the CPA was late to considering Australia’s position in the British Empire. At first, in the mid-1920s, the party made a cumbersome link between its platforms on independence and support for foreign workers. The CPA argued that the Australian government had entered into an agreement that allowed British imperialism to send unemployed Britons to Australia. To combat this arrangement, the party encouraged foreign workers to enter trade unions, wanting to expose the system and attack British imperial policy at the same time.18 By 1928, the CPA reflected further on Australia’s role in the British Empire. The party stressed the partnership between Britain and Australia and linked it to the Comintern’s rhetoric surrounding the war scare. The Australian navy policed the Southern Pacific for the British Empire. To undermine this relationship, the CPA promoted national liberation movements across the Pacific and opposed the White Australia policy. The CPA continued to articulate the nature of the conspiracy between Great Britain and Australian capitalists and politicians. The immigration agreement with Britain would flood Australia with cheap labour which would increase the country’s unemployment and lower the standard of living for all workers.19 Some communists’ early fears about cheap labour merged with the CPA’s attack on Australian imperialism to create a coherent platform against the White Australia policy. The Comintern also became more involved in CPA affairs over the next three years, owing to the CPA’s continued desire to work with the Australian Labor Party, which ran counter to Comintern Third Period tactics.20 During this time, the CPA also shored up its position on Australia in the world, but not without some confusion. By late 1928, some Comintern officials continued to press the CPA to promote Australian independence. As in the Canadian case, the Comintern informed the CPA that it could only use the slogan “in independent Australia” in conjunction with the promotion of a Workers and Farmers’ Government, much as the Canadian party did.21 This similarity should not be surprising as Canada and Australia were both capitalist, British dominions and were semi-independent. Here, the Comintern was consistent. As in the Canadian case, the Comintern identified Australia as a second-tier imperialist power. The Comintern informed both parties of this shift during 1929. The CPA, however, accepted the edict more quickly than the CPC. After the Comintern cabled the CPA to explain to the party Australia’s imperialist position, Wright did what the Canadian party had failed to do. He asked for clarification: The role of Australia in the scheme of Empire is formulated unconvincingly. In your resolution on the Australian Question of October, 1927, you said: “The Australian bourgeoisie has not strength yet to follow an independent

128  Case studies imperialist policy.” You referred to “The dependent imperialist policy of the Australian bourgeoisie in the future.” It has been customary in our resolutions and articles to feature British imperialism as the central organising factor of the offensive against workers’ conditions in Australia. This is the point of view expressed also by Comrade Stohler in the August, 1929, issue of the “Red International of Labor Unions.” In your letter, however, you push British imperialism almost out of the picture and treat the Australian bourgeoisie as the only factor in directing the capitalist offensive. Further, you describe the Australian Labor Party as “the Party agency of British imperialism.” It is certainly a Party agency of Imperialism, but its allegiance to Australian capitalism and, to an extent, to United States capitalism, distinguishes it from the Nationalist Party which is essentially the agency of British imperialism. This suggests the need for a more careful formulation of the question, to which the C.C. [Central Committee] will contribute.22 The CPA realized the Comintern was sending Australia some mixed messages. For years, the Comintern ordered the CPA to attack British imperialism. The party now received a different explanation of the situation unique to Australia which caused consternation amongst its members. Wright was well acquainted with these debates. He had already jousted with M.N. Roy in the ECCI Politsecretariat in 1927. Roy no longer saw Australia as a colony, echoing his positions at the Fourth Congress, despite the country’s position in the British Empire. To Roy, Australia did not face the same “struggle” against imperialism that exploitative colonies did. Australia operated as an “independent, bourgeois country.”23 He hinted at what would become the next phase of Comintern doctrine which would define Australia as imperialist. Roy used Australia to demonstrate the need for revisions to the Theses on the National and Colonial Question, which occurred at the Sixth Congress the following year. Wright, responding to Roy, observed the traditional line of thinking in Australia. The country was not imperialist as it did not export materials to any other countries than England. Therefore, Wright presumed Australia to be under British control, despite the lack of colonial exploitation as demonstrated, for example, in India.24 In Canada, Stewart Smith had little background regarding these matters at the Comintern level and he led the CPC to a humiliating conflict with the Comintern and the Canadian communists present in Moscow.25 Despite the confusion, the CPA followed the Comintern’s lead. It did not send clarification immediately, nor did it send this information in time for the Ninth Annual Conference of the CPA. There, party members gave vague remarks on imperialism, referencing the international struggle between rival empires using the reports from the Sixth Comintern Congress as guidance. By the Tenth Party Congress in 1931, the CPA reflected the Comintern way of thinking. The party was in the midst of Bolshevization. Due to Labor Party affiliation and continued work in non-communist trade unions, the CPA expelled many high-profile

Showing initiative from the periphery  129 members. Australia’s international position remained on the periphery of party discussions because of the purges, but the CPA moved forward highlighting Australia’s unique position, tied to a British Empire that appeared to be disintegrating and to an American Empire that was increasing its investment into the Pacific.26 By the end of 1932, Party Chairman J.B. Miles left no doubt. Australia was a ­second-class imperialist power. It was “not an appendage of Great Britain, nevertheless, England – of the large Imperialist powers – occupie[d] a dominant position so far as Australia is concerned.” This formulation was a clever way to fall into line with the Comintern while explaining Australia’s dominion status. Miles also highlighted Australia’s growing aggressiveness in economic deals, seeking more opportunity within the British Empire.27

Linking race and imperialism The turn to Third Period tactics and the change to highlighting Australia’s imperial status emboldened the CPA. By defining Australia as an imperial nation, the CPA categorized Aboriginal peoples, South Pacific Islanders and the people of New Guinea as colonial peoples. Denouncing the treatment of these groups in Australia was only part of the CPA’s programme for racial equality. In another modification, the party saw the attack on the White Australia policy as a foreign worker issue. The CPA may have rhetorically denounced the colonial treatment of Aboriginal peoples but addressed correction of injustices as a different matter. Beginning in the 1930s, the CPA ensured that its members and the readers of its publications understood the plight of Aboriginals. The 1931 Senate election campaign demonstrated this shift. During his Senate campaign, Lawrence Sharkey, one of the party’s prominent leaders well into the Cold War, highlighted a need to end the White Australia policy and “racial discrimination” which divided workers. He also emphasized Australia’s alleged imperialist position and called for self-determination of the New Guinea and Pacific Islands peoples.28 Two years prior, when the CPA ran in multiple state elections, neither the White Australia policy nor self-determination served as notable aspects of its campaigns.29 In 1931, the CPA published an article in Worker’s Weekly entitled “Communist Party’s Fight for Aborigines.” The article amounted to the party’s first considerable effort to make the plight of Aboriginals a part of its attacks on Australian capitalism and defined Aboriginal peoples as one of the most exploited groups in the country.30 The CPA suggested they were “slaves of slaves.” The article delineated the oppressive policies that imperialists, both British and Australian, had imposed in the dominion. These policies included “exterminationist” policies, including the poisoning of water supplies and the lack of political, and in some cases, legal rights. The piece pointed to the instances of the rape of Aboriginal women by government officials and station operators. In support of these points, the article referenced the Coniston Massacre of 1928.31 The article said that “no struggle of the white workers must be permitted without demands for the aborigines being championed; no political campaigns without political programs applicable to our fellow exploited – the aborigines – being formulated.” It listed fourteen demands

130  Case studies for Aboriginals which included equal rights, political freedom, an end to slave labour, and the right to develop Aboriginal culture. The article also suggested giving Aboriginal land rights in a form reminiscent of the Native Republic Thesis. The party wanted Aboriginal peoples to be given Central, Northern and North West Australia to develop an Aboriginal territory independent of other powers. This republic also should have the right to conduct diplomacy and establish a military. “Communist Party’s Fight for Aborigines” befitted the Third Period and the Comintern’s positions. The party placed the fight for Aboriginal rights as a struggle against Australian imperialism.32 The article started a greater campaign about the oppression of Aboriginal peoples. For example, the Red Leader, the official organ of the CPA’s Minority Movement, which was the Australian Section of RILU, had multiple articles on Aboriginal affairs in September 1931.33 The first article outlined the alleged “exterminationist” policies of the Australian government in the late 1920s and underscored that many Aboriginals had few legal rights.34 Another article detailed how Aboriginal peoples in Australia could not attend schools, “preventing the aboriginal children from developing as intellectuals.” Supposedly, the police and governments worked in tandem to drive Aboriginals into slave labour.35 The paper outlined exploitative policies that other unions supported. On October 9, the Red Leader published an article discussing the low wages Aboriginals received and the purchase of Aboriginal children as slaves.36 The articles in CPA party organs outlined a platform which aimed to educate and outrage Australian workers. Along with several plenary and congressional statements from CPA leaders, the pieces showed how the new Third Period tactics defined the party’s campaign against some of Australia’s ills. The Northern Territory, along with its significant Aboriginal population, became a consistent and familiar example of Australia’s imperialism. The party gave the Northern Territory significant attention at least partially because of the CPA’s its campaign against Judge Thomas Alexander Wells and his perceived anti-Aboriginal stance during many trials. Wells gave mandatory death sentences for convicted Aboriginal peoples accused of murder.37 In 1932, at Fitzmaurice River, eight Aboriginals enacted “tribal justice” against two white prospectors who accosted an Aboriginal woman. Wells sentenced the accused Aboriginals to death. The CPA defended the accused by stating that Wells, and the system, ignored the justification of the act and Aboriginal customs. Articles highlighted Wells’s “vindictive decisions in working-class cases,” and “his race biases” against Aboriginal peoples. He was “temperamentally unfitted to try native cases,” the party said. In conjunction with the attacks on Wells, articles detailed a broken judicial system where lawyers’ best interests were to fail to defend Aboriginal clients given that lawyers relied on the government for work. Articles included quotes from A.P. Elkin, an Aboriginal rights activist. Michael Sawtell of the Association for the Protection of Native Races also wrote some pieces.38 The campaign expanded during the infamous trial of Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda. He was accused of murdering Constable McColl and several Japanese fishermen who fished on reserve land. After a trial with limited defence, Wells sentenced

Showing initiative from the periphery  131 Wirrpanda to death. The case stirred public outrage and drew international attention. The CPA joined the campaign against Wells and advertised demonstrations against him in party organs.39 The CPA had a small number of Aboriginal party members. Macintyre, however, notes that the party saw those Aboriginal members and any Aboriginal workers in Sydney and Perth not as Aboriginals, but as workers with cultural and racial differences irrelevant for the purposes of equality. Instead, “Aboriginals” were Indigenous peoples in rural Australia who were oppressed racially and culturally by capitalism.40 The party had little to lose politically as these deeds happened far from urban centres. If workers wanted to ignore these issues, they could. The Comintern’s declaration that Australia was a secondary imperialist country also led CPA members to consider the treatment of Melanesian workers in Queensland and in the mandates of Papua and New Guinea. For example, when the Sydney Sun ran an article detailing the plight of Africans in Liberia, the CPA attacked the Sun. The party said the paper should consider detailing the living conditions of Pacific Islander workers in New Guinea, suggesting Australia should “clean up [its] own backyard first.” The CPA emphasized that Melanesian houseservants lived in sheds or dirty houses with no windows; officials kept women as concubines.41 It outlined how religion was used to exploit Pacific Islanders.42 Stories of Pacific Islanders resisting British exploitation appeared in communist publications.43 Many articles also pointed out the low wages and the slave-like conditions under which Melanesian workers suffered, not only in New Guinea, but also on nearby British holdings, such as the Solomon Islands.44 The new attention the CPA gave to Aboriginal and Melanesian peoples reflected the desire to educate workers about the plight of the region’s Indigenous peoples. It also indicted the capitalist system that, the CPA argued, oppressed all workers. One curious note can be added. Apart from borrowing rhetoric similar to the Native Republic Thesis in “Communist Party’s Fight for Aborigines,” the CPA never mentioned the “Theses on the Negro Question” when discussing Aboriginal peoples or Pacific Islanders. During the election campaigns and in some further articles during the Third Period, if the CPA mentioned self-determination, it did so broadly. The party treated the concept like that of national liberation, but much vaguer. The party had begun to consider racial issues, but the Comintern’s most prevalent position on racial inequality and race-based oppression, such as those stances promoted in South Africa and the Southern United States, was not officially introduced in Australia.

The party and foreign workers in the 1930s The CPA continued to support foreign workers. Australian communists promoted worker unity, attacking the White Australia policy instead of immigration. Adopting the rhetoric of the Third Period, the party sought to endorse the statement “not Race against Race, not Nation against Nation, but, Class against Class.” Evolving from their previous concerns about free immigration, good communists now supported unrestricted movement of workers throughout the world, while standing

132  Case studies up against cheap labour and refusing to promote racial divisions, which were the goals of capitalist bosses.45 This platform resembled attempts by the Canadian party, with its efforts with foreign workers, and the South Africa party of the 1920s to build worker unity and equality for all. The CPA stood against the Empire Settlement Act of 1922 which gave preference to British immigrants in Western Australia and Queensland. The CPA continued to protect Italian, Greek and Yugoslavian workers. The Kalgoorlie race riots of 1934 illustrated why the CPA needed to remain vigilant about foreign worker issues. The riots broke out after a British worker brawled with an Italian barman. When the British man died, many British workers went on strike to protest mine operations hiring immigrant labourers. Government intervention was necessary to restore order.46 The CPA supported the Yugoslavian and Italian workers in Western Australia during the riots. At the CPA’s Fourth Plenary Session, held from 31 March to 2 April 1934, Kalgoorlie became a symbol for the CPA’s issues with White Australia, chauvinism and British Preference. The Political Report highlighted the racial divisions and growing issues between, on one hand, British and Australian workers and, on the other, foreign workers. The CPA concluded that the bosses in Kalgoorlie wanted more foreign workers to increase racial tension between these two groups.47 Attention expanded to other states. The CPA also considered the sugar industry in Queensland with its many Italians workers and challenged racial discrimination and anti-immigration sentiment in the Weil’s disease strike in 1935.48 The party began to lecture its members to avoid using racial slurs. Part of this shift reflected the increasing number of foreign workers with ties to the CPA, especially in radical southern European clubs.49 The Comintern’s growing focus on fascism added another dimension to its campaigns. Communists believed that racial differences promoted fascism in Australia, and in turn, that the heightened tensions would lead to war. This conflict could only be avoided if capitalism was destroyed.50 Class against Class policies also meant the CPA had to target the Australian Labor Party. The CPA charged the ALP with the promotion of racial discrimination and the White Australia policy in an effort to gain power.51 The CPA position, like those of the South Africa and Canada parties, was a broad assault on fascism. CPA meetings and party organs frequently discussed German, Italian and Japanese aggression. As Nazi racial policies became better known, the CPA denounced them to attack racial prejudice in general. The fights against fascism and the White Australia policy converged in other ways. The World Committee Against War and Fascism sent Egon Irwin Kisch, a Czech writer and Nazi opponent, to Melbourne in November  1934.52 The government refused to allow Kisch to land. Kisch, undeterred, attempted to enter Australia by jumping from the ship, breaking his leg on the pier. Australian officials still refused entry to Kisch and administered a dictation test in a European language, as per the Immigration Act, choosing Gaelic. Kisch declined and was arrested. The case went to the High Court where it eventually overturned his detention on the grounds that Gaelic was not considered a European language. Upon his release, Kisch delivered his message and spoke on the horrors of Nazi

Showing initiative from the periphery  133 rule. The way immigration officials treated him enabled the CPA to describe Australia’s government as opposed to freedom of speech and led some to question the democratic nature of the country’s rule.53 The party’s increased focus on racial issues was buoyed by its consistent effort to be faithful arbiters of the Comintern line on colonial independence and combating imperialism. The CPA developed an active branch of the League Against Imperialism (LAI) and produced a local LAI periodical, which included international news, covering matters related to the British Empire and Africa. The party organized several campaigns, beginning with a Hands-Off India campaign, directed against British intervention in India.54 The CPA called on communists to support Chinese workers, both those affected by the Kuomintang and later by Japanese imperialism, much as the CPC had done. The CPA protested Italian imperial ambitions in Abyssinia and attempted to ensure that fascist ideas could not gain a foothold in Australia through Italian immigrants. At the same time, the party wanted to turn them into key supporters of communism.55 The problem was a tricky one for the CPA as it had sympathy for exploited workers of Italian background, but also worried that supporters of Italian fascism existed in Australia. The party’s broad anti-imperial programme included further exposure of the links between Australia and Britain, as well as of British and American influence worldwide. The CPA attacked Australia’s economic position in the Pacific and its horrible treatment of Indigenous peoples.56 For example, the party published articles that exposed the economic imperialism in Malaya and New Guinea and discussed the operation of mining companies in those colonies.57 By the mid-1930s, when the Comintern’s once again pursued United Front policies, the CPA resumed a working relationship with the Labor Party and other trade unions. The CPA also publicized the communist efforts in the Spanish Civil War and Australians numbered among some of the most enthusiastic and numerous volunteers for the Comintern’s International Brigades.58 Generally speaking, the CPA tried to implement any programme the Comintern asked its parties to enact regarding anti-imperialism, colonial liberation and anti-fascism.

Into the Second World War By the late 1930s, the CPA still tended to neglect Aboriginal issues in its general meetings and Central Committee meetings. While reviewing communism’s fight against fascism, which included discussion of the Seventh Comintern Congress and Australian communist participation in the Spanish Civil War, CPA members also highlighted their pride in Australian heritage, defined through a history of democracy and peace, and the rejection of reactionary deeds and of pointless wars. During this shift in focus, the party ignored Aboriginal peoples.59 A year later, in 1938, perhaps realizing the problematic pride in Australia without referencing the country’s Indigenous peoples, Miles mentioned that Australians needed to defend “the original Australians – the people who are being treated to our shame, in ghastly fashion.”60 While Aboriginals were linked to Australia’s historic tradition, the party still had a habit of seeing their treatment as outside standard party

134  Case studies platforms. One report, compiled by Miles, matter-of-factly stated that the party, between November 1937 and May 1938, discussed Aboriginals affairs twice.61 In the summer of 1939, the CPA’s draft statements about living standards and peace in Australia, including independence from the British Empire, ignored Aboriginal peoples.62 The CPA referenced Aboriginal issues vaguely in other avenues, but not until the war years did it do so at a level similar that of to the early 1930s. The CPA continued to support the attack on Australian imperialism. One pamphlet, published in 1937, was entitled “Australian Imperialism.” Written by L.C. Rodd, it mentioned for the first time the territories that Australia administrated, including Nauru and Norfolk Island. Rodd argued that, despite Australia’s mandate requiring the country to prioritize the care of Indigenous peoples, it had ignored its duties in New Guinea. He cited a League of Nations report that criticized Australia’s failure to protect the peoples of New Guinea. Rodd highlighted the treatment of Aboriginal peoples and alleged that their exploitation was necessary for white Australian industries to thrive. Exploitation and neglect allegedly led to public outcry.63 He argued that Australia represented the most extreme aspects of imperialism. Aboriginal peoples were taken from their land for white people’s “pastoral and mining interests.” When Aboriginals were independent, they were seen as a threat and they became “the subject of a debate as to the humanitarian advantages of chains or handcuffs.” Grouping the oppressed Aboriginal peoples, Melanesian workers and foreign workers together, Rodd argued that Indigenous workers in Papua were a cheap source of labour but could be easily replaced by labour from Asia. Australian capitalists also ignored the rights of the Nauru peoples in order to extract phosphates. He argued that Australia must follow the terms of the League of Nations mandate, and that Australians needed to help “the natives to develop the economic potentialities of their lands.”64 The position of New Guinea as an Australian colony also led the CPA to discuss the ramifications of European diplomacy. In late 1938, with the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the minds of many communists, some communists worried that part of New Guinea, the former Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, which was stripped from Germany after the First World War, could be returned to that country.65 The Australian government denied any intention to do so and it was never likely to occur anyways. Regardless, the CPA stood against the transfer of colonies back to Germany while also calling for democratic representation and an improvement of the living standard of “natives” in New Guinea. The party, realizing that it should devote more attention to New Guinea, resolved to visit the colony and establish local contacts to improve reporting of its issues.66 The party continued to support immigrants as well. In light of the Japanese takeover of Chinese territory in the 1930s, the party linked its anti-imperial rhetoric with a fight against chauvinism and promoted the protection of foreign workers.67 Increased immigration of foreign workers to Australia in the late 1930s also led the party to reaffirm its goal to incorporate them into the CPA. This position included supporting refugees, many of whom were Jewish. To this end, the party criticized the Australian government’s quota on Jewish immigrants, suggesting

Showing initiative from the periphery  135 it benefitted richer Jews, not the working class, and thus hindered many political refugees. The party fought against any anti-Semitism generally, but also sought to ensure class equality in helping all Jews escape persecution.68 The CPA now had to deal with some of the same problems as the CPC. As multiple groups of foreign workers were present in the country, the CPA wanted to ensure not only that they were organized but also that it supported them. In the second half of the 1930s, the CPA discussed using the languages of Italian, Greek and Yugoslavian workers in its general organization and publications.69 The party remained concerned that immigrants could have fascist leanings.70

“The New Deal for Aborigines” Although the CPA’s Aboriginal work was limited, it was not non-existent. The New South Wales Labour Council, led by the redoubtable Wright, had sponsored Aboriginal activism since 1937. He organized council meetings with Aboriginal activists. He also led the council in its support of the Aborigines Progressive Association and called for an extension program for Aboriginal political, social and land rights. Wright spearheaded many CPA programmes on Aboriginal peoples’ rights. His most notable contribution was a pamphlet “A New Deal for Aborigines” originally published in 1939 and republished multiples times in the following decade, which established the CPA’s position on Aboriginal affairs.71 In “A New Deal,” Wright separated Aboriginal rights from “mixed blood” Aboriginal rights.72 Although the two issues were connected, he recognized that they required different approaches, and concentrated on addressing the former. Wright said Aboriginal peoples thrived prior to the arrival of white settlers, after which they suffered devastation at the hands of the colonizers. The immediate context of Aboriginal relations with the Australian government was the impetus for Wright’s pamphlet. He argued that the government maintained oppressive methods despite vowing to help the Aboriginal people. His position was an outgrowth of his interpretation of the Conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal Authorities held in 1937. State and federal officials met at this conference to discuss Aboriginal affairs. There, Dr. Donald Thomson, a scientist commissioned by the government to produce a “scientific survey” of the Arnhem Land Aboriginals, argued for a series of recommendations, including cultural preservation and inviolable reserves. He also called for special courts. Wright, however, claimed that the government had largely ignored these recommendations and, in February 1939, the government proposed the need to train Aboriginals to remove them from their “nomadic lifestyles.” Religion, through its role in hospitals and schools, also remained a prominent characteristic of the Commonwealth Government’s policy for Aboriginal peoples in remote areas.73 Wright declared the government’s position in early 1939 to be a restatement of old policies. He highlighted that the government still wished to convert Aboriginals, destroy their culture and exploit their labour. Consequently, Wright advocated for “a new deal.” It included ten reforms for full-blooded Aboriginals. These reforms called for inviolable reserves, including separate reserves for separate

136  Case studies tribes. The government should transfer ownership of these reserves, including mineral rights, to the Aboriginals present. Missions and religious contact must cease; any necessary services must be secular. Wright also called for a consistent nation-wide policy, ending state-by-state management of Aboriginal affairs. The government should also provide Aboriginal peoples with financial assistance to help establish their organizations.74 Another reform was also unique. Wright called for the terms “Aborigine,” “Aboriginals” and “Natives” to “apply only to full-bloods and not to persons of mixed blood.”75 This linguistic shift reflected his opinion that the issues of “mixed bloods” were different from those of full-blooded Aboriginals. He argued that “mixed blood” Aboriginals should be given the full and equal rights of other Australian citizens. Wright based his position on the Australian government’s definition of multiracial Aboriginal peoples. If they were born in wedlock, they already received the full rights of an Australian citizen. If not, the government oversaw their support. In 1937, delegates of the Conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal Authorities called for the government to give all “mixed bloods” full equality. To Wright, the solution to their issues was simple: the government should recognize them as Australian. Aboriginals were to remain separate, unique and protected and, therefore, the terms themselves also needed to be protected.76 The CPA fully embraced Wright’s platform. It promoted the new deal understanding that the Aboriginal Question required prioritization. In the summer of 1939, before the publication of the pamphlet, the CPA felt the public demanded full rights for Aboriginals. In party organs, the CPA summarized public meetings regarding Aboriginal rights.77 It also printed summaries of Wright’s pamphlet in party newspapers in order to ensure the widest readership.78 An initial boost occurred in the party’s discussions of Aboriginal living conditions in the immediate aftermath of the 1931 tactical shift but, during the war years, the CPA embarked on another extensive campaign to promote Aboriginal affairs.79 Some reports merely detailed government appointments relevant to Aboriginal issues.80 Other articles provided general information, reminding readers and party members that Aboriginal peoples still needed attention. A series of articles in 1943 declared them to be a “forgotten people,” reduced to chattel slavery in Queensland and the Northern Territory.81 The CPA’s tone, however, had shifted somewhat since the 1930s. The party was hesitant to discuss giving Aboriginals a basic wage, fearing that they would turn to gambling or have nothing to buy, reflecting racist stereotypes regarding Indigenous peoples.82 Another article clearly expressed the need to the raise the status of the Aboriginal peoples to that of whites. Arguing that Aboriginals could adapt to the way of life of white Australians, the party suggested that the country needed to be prepared for socialism. Unlike capitalism, socialism would “give them [Aboriginal peoples] the opportunity to attain intellectual and economic equality with white people.”83 The CPA published reports explaining that soldiers saw Aboriginal assistance in the war effort as helpful, but that they “by no means” were at the same stage of development. Articles described Aboriginal peoples as intelligent, good “Cobbers,” charming or even-tempered. The party claimed all

Showing initiative from the periphery  137 soldiers agreed that the Aboriginals needed to be protected.84 The articles reflected civilizing mission rhetoric, suggesting that Aboriginals were racially inferior, but that they could be uplifted. The party demonstrated an inherent contradiction between protecting their identity and assimilating them to the standard of whites.

A new deal for New Guinean workers? CPA publications also devoted more attention to the plight of New Guinean workers, attributing this increased interest to the war. As the war expanded to Papua New Guinea, Australian soldiers started to fight alongside Melanesian workers, often helping them and – more importantly – vice-versa. The CPA initially defined Melanesians as another “forgotten people,” like the Aboriginal peoples. By 1943, the CPA published reports and updates from its correspondents and members. Usually, these pieces detailed the poor wages Melanesian workers received and their low standard of living, which was common in earlier reports. The documents exposed the government’s approach to New Guinean workers. In one example, a report sardonically argued that an administrator’s conclusion that New Guinea was “a native paradise” was only the case if compared to Japanese brutality. The CPA also stressed the ability of big business to circumvent any guarantees for the Melanesian workers. But soldiers played the most crucial role in defining the party’s rhetoric. One article suggested many soldiers acknowledged the exploitation of New Guinean workers and wanted their rights to be upheld.85 Melanesian workers, much as Aboriginals, worked in slave conditions. Communists wanted to ensure a better postwar order for these groups, again referencing the “new deal” rhetoric. This new deal included aims like those for Aborigines: better medical service, higher minimum wages, and improved education. Again, the CPA’s civilizing mission rhetoric is hard to ignore. The party called for the government to make “useful goods” available to prevent Melanesian workers from solely buying liquor. The CPA also wanted the government to take over the economic development of New Guinea from the big businesses and “make the future of the country its direct paternal concern.”86 Despite saying the Melanesians were as intelligent as whites, the article stressed that the Melanesians needed guidance to be lifted up to civilization, much like the Aboriginals. Soon, the CPA started to develop a tangible platform to combat the plight of Melanesian workers. Naturally, the party claimed socialism was necessary to ensure their equal status, but the CPA could help prepare them in the interim. Discussions of worker unity reappeared in CPA texts. In an article, for example, E. Laurie called for a policy all workers could get behind, but which ensured “liberation and complete independence” for New Guinea. Laurie noted that indentured labour was a key feature of the New Guinean way of life. He argued for better wages to ensure a higher standard of living. He also called for the government to provide Australians with improved education on “New Guinea natives” and to end the use of any nicknames, such as “Fuzzy-wuzzies” to describe them. He outlined ten demands for a New Guinea programme, which sought to give Melanesians equal rights, higher wages, access to medical and educational services,

138  Case studies better governmental oversight and cultural protection.87 He also called for an end to the indentured worker system.

Racial equality and anti-imperialism during the Second World War The war made the CPA more attuned to racial, national and imperial issues. When the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the party needed to make tactical adjustments. Initially, the CPA followed contradictory policies. The party argued that the Nazi-Soviet Pact was good for peace and could lead to a multi-party pact.88 It also called for the protection of Poland, argued that appeasement led to war and proposed that all Australians should rise up to fight fascism.89 After the Comintern corrected the CPA’s approach, the party agitated against Australian assistance for the British war effort and British imperialism. It also protested Japanese imperialism and called for Indian independence.90 The party then defined the conflict as an imperialist war, one from which the Soviet Union stood aside, but that the British exploited to hold onto its colonies. Despite the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the party continued to promote the fight against fascism and employed the slogan “Defeat Hitler.”91 The contradictory policies damaged the CPA. Some long-time members, no longer able to tolerate such fluctuations, saw these discrepancies as the last straw and left the party.92 However, by attacking Japanese and British imperialism and denouncing German fascism, the CPA retained some consistency in its racial and national policies. The CPA promoted colonial independence, maintaining its long-held support for an independent India.93 It assisted the Communist Party of Malaya, offering advice and mentoring the new party through correspondence.94 The CPA upheld its progressive stance with regard to immigrants within Australia. In 1942, CPA member J.D. Blake addressed a rally at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne. He reflected on the immediate war situation. Japan had begun its invasion of Papua New Guinea, which resulted in a significant rise in Yellow Peril rhetoric. To counter this, Blake called for an end to “anti-foreign talk.” He posed a simple question: “We are not fighting the Japanese because their skins are yellow; if we were, why do we fight Hitler and his Nazi hordes although their skins are white?” Blake pivoted to promote anti-fascism. He pointed out the hypocrisy of the racialized rhetoric by comparing the skin colour of the allied Chinese and the enemy Japanese. Blake argued that Australians needed to oppose the White Australia policy as that slogan was an insult to their country’s allies. The war effort had no room for racial hatred, including anti-Semitism. In fact, the party tried to avoid racialized or national distinctions, standing against anti-Semitism and the treatment of Italians as enemy aliens.95 In Australia, some people considered many Italians fascist until proven otherwise. The CPA said that all fascists should be arrested but that every-day Italians should join the war effort.96 By 1944, the CPA stressed the importance of racial equality, nationality rights and anti-imperialism to its programme. The party adopted this programme on 16 January  1944, taking ownership of many different strands of thought on those

Showing initiative from the periphery  139 issues and creating a single platform. It called for the application of the Atlantic Charter to India. The programme condemned anti-Semitism. The platform also accepted the New Deal for Aborigines in full, and argued for “new deals” for New Guinea and surrounding islands. Non-Indigenous private business should be allowed limited interference and should be eventually banned, in favour of giving New Guinean peoples sole right to develop their own enterprise. The government should provide instruction to New Guineans and material for agricultural and medical development and establish a proper education system, complete with instruction in native languages. Indentured labour needed to be terminated, replaced with the extension of the Australian labour protection laws to Melanesian workers. For New Guinea, the CPA saw the end goal as self-determination and colonial liberation.97 The party’s establishment of this platform confirmed many of its positions forwarded since 1939 and gave the CPA a strong promotional tool that clarified its stance on these issues. For example, the party praised the Northern Territory Development League for advocating a policy similar to that of the CPA.98 Following United Front tactics, the CPA supported the Labor government of John Curtin and called for Aboriginal rights to be placed under federal administration. The CPA argued that one federal plan would best protect Aboriginal peoples.99 During 1944, in a series of connected articles by different authors, the CPA informed readers about the Aboriginal way of life and noted regional variations. Each reporter insisted the Commonwealth government should assume exclusive responsibility for Aboriginal peoples. In some cases, writers tied the progressive ideas to the war effort, comparing the treatment of Aboriginals in Australia to the racial policies of the Nazis, and calling for a universal end to racism.100 The party also considered the postwar order and especially colonial independence. It continued to call for an end to old colonial regimes. Speculating that the Australian government would have a say in the future of the Dutch East Indies, the party urged independence.101 Communists watched certain Allied Conferences closely. The Cairo Conference, for example, promised independence to Korea and called for the restoration of China, but the CPA reminded readers that the position of Indo-China, Malaya, Indonesia and Burma remained ambiguous.102 The party claimed the Yalta Conference was a victory for democracy.103 The CPA occasionally promoted the positions of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After the Comintern disbanded in 1943, the party showed creative thinking on international relations. When attacking a fascist newspaper which defended Japanese colonial claims, the CPA referenced the conclusions of the Quebec and Cairo Conferences. The party used these conferences to underpin its positions on Aboriginal peoples and self-determination.104 The CPA’s interest in colonial liberation after the Second World War was limited in New Guinea. The former Dutch holdings remained an issue, tied to Indonesian independence. The CPA argued that New Guineans needed modern agriculture and technology. The civilizing mission impetus loomed large, however the CPA wanted to ensure New Guinea remained free from imperialism, demanding that slavery be abolished and that one should not “polish up their pidgin.”105 When

140  Case studies considering Australian-controlled New Guinea, the CPA made similar demands. Its aim remained the welfare of the Indigenous peoples of New Guinea; the party typically did not mention self-determination or independence.106 This retreat on colonial liberation for Australian mandates was most likely a function of the CPA’s support for the Commonwealth Government of John Curtin and the Labor Party’s interest in improving the lot of Aboriginal and New Guinean peoples.107

Conclusion The CPA seemed to be the Comintern’s perfect partner on issues of race, nationality and imperialism. The party never ran afoul of the Comintern on these issues, outside of being criticized for not focusing enough attention on them in the midto late 1920s. The CPA engaged in all of the major campaigns the Comintern asked of it. The CPA promoted colonial liberation. It accepted Australia’s imperial status and began to consider the ramifications for subject peoples on Australian territory. Although the CPA was slow to design a credible set of proposals to improve the circumstances of Aboriginal and New Guinean peoples, Wright’s remarkable 1939 pamphlet gave the party a credible position and creative ideas. By the Second World War, the CPA had entrenched its progressive stands on racial issues. Immigration proved a tricky subject, because the CPA had to find a middle path between denouncing the “White Australia” idea and recommending limits on immigration to drive up wages. The party sought to defend foreign workers and incorporate them fully into the party. In many cases, the CPA had some of the most progressive policies in Australian politics. Even when the Comintern disbanded in 1943, the party, despite devolving into civilizing mission rhetoric, ensured that its followers knew the plight of Aboriginals, Melanesian workers and foreign labourers. The CPA could move forward without Comintern oversight. The CPA was loyal to the Comintern and its directives. Although the party rarely clashed with the Comintern on the issues of racial equality or colonial liberation, it exposed some flaws in the Comintern policies. Aboriginal or Melanesian workers had no place in the “Theses on the Negro Question” or, at the very least, were not a consideration. The CPA had moments where it drew inspiration from those theses and tried to employ them in the New Deal for Aborigines. Had the Comintern placed those races under the purview of its platforms, would the party have more adequately dealt with its issues earlier? Would the Comintern have proposed doing more for Aboriginal or Melanesian peoples? Nonetheless, the Comintern’s concern centred on the White Australia policy, generally treating it as an immigration policy. The CPA tackled it as a policy against foreign workers and worker unity.

Notes 1 The White Australia policy began in towards the end of 19th century, responding to the significant immigration of Asian populations as indentured labour or drawn by the Australian gold rushes. The policy sought to “protect” white, generally British, Australian citizens by banning Asian immigration and limiting the rights and movement

Showing initiative from the periphery  141

2

3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

of Aboriginal peoples. The legislation lasted, in some form, until the 1960s; the end of the Second World War and the realization of the horrors resulting from Nazi racial policies helped cause a shift in thinking. Andrew Markus, “White Australia,” in Graeme Davison, John Hirst, and Stuart Macintyre eds., The Oxford Companion to Australian History (Oxford University Press, 2003); Warwick Anderson, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health, and Racial Destiny in Australia (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 253–258. Stuart Macintyre, “Dealing with Moscow: The Comintern and the Early History of the Communist Party of Australia,” Labour History, no. 67 (November, 1994): 130– 133; W.J. Brown, The Communist Movement and Australia: An Historical Outline – 1890s to 1980s (Haymarket: Australian Labor Movement History Publications, 1986), 26–33; Robin Gollan, Revolutionaries and Reformists: Communism and the Australian Labour Movement 1920–1955 (Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1975), 3–12; Alastair Davidson, The Communist Party of Australia: A Short History (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1969), 3–23; Miriam Dixson, “The First Communist ‘United Front’ in Australia,” Labour History no. 10 (May, 1966): 20–31. Macintyre, “Dealing with Moscow,” 134. See also, Davidson, Short History, 21–25; Macintyre, The Reds, 53–68. Fred Wilkinson was the first Australian representative on the Anglo-American Secretariat. He mentioned White Australia as something to combat, but the Comintern focused on party unity before discussing any other issues. Earsman replaced Wilkinson in September 1922. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-269, 495.72.3, 116–117. LAC, R14860–0–3-E, K-269, 495.72.3, 139–143. Macintyre, The Reds, 126–128. SANSW, FM4–10415, 495–72–14, 49. SANSW, FM4–10415, 495–72–14, 49. SANSW, FM4–10415, 495–72–14, 50–55. SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/1, 6th Annual Conference: Communist Party of Australia, December 1926, Resolution on the Australian Question, 447–450. SANSW, FM4–10415, 495–72–14, 58–63. SANSW, FM4–10415, 495–72–27, 48–58. SANSW, FM4–10415, 495–72–43, 4. More on the PPTUS can be found in Chapter 2. SANSW, FM4–10416, 495–94–41, 57–62. SANSW, FM4–10416, 495–94–42, 86–92; Cottle, 127; Macintyre, The Reds, 112; Davidson, Short History, 35–36. SANSW, FM4–10422, 534–7–4, 115–117; SANSW, FM4–10422, 534–7–5, 46–49. SANSW, FM4–10416, 495–94–43, 7–12. SANSW, FM4–10416, 495–94–35, 55–60. SANSW, FM4–10416, 495–94–43, 7–12. The agreement referred to British Preference in immigration. See Peter D. Griggs, Global Industry, Local Innovation: The History of Cane Sugar Production in Australia, 1820–1995 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2011), 617–625. For a good overview of these clashes between the Comintern and the CPA, see Macintyre, “The New Line in the Antipodes,” 247–267. SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/3, C.E. Minutes 1926–30, “Letter to the CEC of the Australian Party, October 5, 1928,” 611–615. SANSW, FM4–10417, 495–94–53, 67–69. SANSW, FM4–10415, 495–3–39, 66–68. SANSW, FM4–10415, 495–3–39, 69–71. See Chapter 4. This evaluation was also similar to that in the Canadian situation. SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/1, “1931 Party Congress, 3rd Session, 4/3/31, Communist Party of Australia,” 890–907. SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/3, CC Minutes 1932–35, “Political Report, delivered by Com. Miles, 3rd Plenum, Central Committee of the Communist Party of Australia, December 25–27, 1932,” 905–918.

142  Case studies 28 SANSW, FM4–10419, 495–94–20, 21. 29 SANSW, FM4–10420, 495–94–54, 23–24; SANSW, FM4–10420, 495–94–54, 25; SANSW, FM4–10420, 495–94–54, 33. 30 This definition echoes the Communist Party of Canada and its position on French Canadians. See Chapter Four. 31 “Communist Party’s Fight for Aborigines: Draft Program of Struggle against Slavery – Full Economic, Political and Social Rights,” Worker’s Weekly, Friday, September 24, 1931, page 2. (Actually Friday September 25, 1931; paper has date wrong.) For more on the Coniston Massacre, see Bill Wilson and Justin O’Brien, “ ‘To infuse an universal terror’: A  Reappraisal of the Coniston Killings,” Aboriginal History 27, (2003): 59–78. 32 “Communist Party’s Fight for Aborigines: Draft Program of Struggle against Slavery – Full Economic, Political and Social Rights,” Worker’s Weekly, Friday, September 24, 1931, page 2. 33 The Minority Movement was the CPA’s front organization for trade union work during the Third Period. 34 Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University, S954, The Red Leader, “Massacre! Rape! Slavery!: The ‘White Man’s Burden’ in White Australia,” Red Leader, September 11, 1931. 35 NBAC: RL, S954, “Hands off the Aborigines!” Red Leader, September 25, 1931. 36 NBAC: RL, S954, “Real Forced Labor in Australia,” Red Leader, October 9, 1931. 37 Russell Goldflam, “The (Non-)Role of Aboriginal Customary Law in Sentencing in the Northern Territory,” Australian Indigenous Law Review 17, no. 1 (2013): 71. 38 “Aborigines Sentenced to Death,” Workers’ Weekly, no.  556, June  8, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “Aborigines Meet ‘British Justice,’ ” Red Leader, no. 145, June 13, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “Capitalism’s Atrocities against Aborigines,” Red Leader, no. 146, June 20, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “Demand New Trial For Aborigines!,” Red Leader, no. 148, July 4, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “Sydney Rally in Defence of Aborigines,” Red Leader, no. 151, July 25, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “More Trials of Aborigines,” Red Leader, no. 152, August 1, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “Brutal Sentences Against Aborigines Excused on Political Grounds,” Red Leader, no. 153, August 8, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “The Fight to Defend the Aborigines,” Red Leader, no.  155, August  22, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “More Aborigines Sentenced,” Red Leader, no. 181, February 27, 1935. Drew Cottle briefly discussed these events as well. Cottle, “The Colourline and the Third Period,” 131; Macintyre, The Reds, 265–267. 39 NBAC: RL, S954, “More Trials of Aborigines,” Red Leader, no. 152, August 1, 1934. “Mass Protest Demands Release of Aborigines,” Workers’ Weekly, no. 565, August 10, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “To Defend Aborigines,” Red Leader, no. 154, August 15, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “Campaign for Defence of Aborigines,” Red Leader, no. 154, August  15, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “The Fight to Defend the Aborigines,” Red Leader, no. 155, August 22, 1934; NBAC: RL, S954, “Aborigines Campaign,” Red Leader, no.  156, August  29, 1934. For more on the Dhakiyarr Warrpanda trial, see Peter Read, “Murder, Revenge and Reconciliation on the North Eastern Frontier,” History Australia 4, no. 1 (2007): 09.1–09.15; Marik Finnane and Fiona Paisley, “Police Violence and the Limits of Law on a Late Colonial Frontier: The ‘Borroloola Case’ in 1930s Australia,” Law and History Review 28, no. 1 (Feb., 2010): 163–164; National Archives of Australia, “Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda,” Uncommon Lives, 2017, www.naa.gov. au/collection/snapshots/uncommon-lives/dhakiyarr-wirrpanda/index.aspx (Accessed April 5, 2017). 40 Macintyre, The Reds, 265–267. 41 NBAC: RL, S954, “White Men and Black Maids,” Red Leader, no. 5, September 18, 1931. 42 NBAC: RL, S954, “Under the Lash of Australian Imperialism,” Red Leader, no. 10, October 23, 1931.

Showing initiative from the periphery  143 43 NBAC: RL, S954, “Murder in New Guinea!” Red Leader, no. 16, November 20, 1931. 44 NBAC: RL, S954, “Against Imperialism,” Red Leader, no. 18, December 18, 1931; NBAC: RL, S954, “Slavery in New Guinea,” Red Leader, no. 44, June 22, 1932. 45 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/1, Ninth Annual Conference of the Communist Party of Australia, December  1929, “Draft Resolution on White Australia,” 506–507. 46 Ted Docker and Rolf Gerritsen, “The 1934 Kalgoorlie Riots,” Labour History, no. 31 (Nov., 1976): 79–82; Sarah Gregson, “ ‘It All Started on the Mines’? The 1934 Kalgoorlie Race Riots Revisited,” Labour History, no. 80 (May, 2001): 21–40; Macintyre, The Reds, 268; Justina Williams, The First Furrow (Willagee: Lone Hand Press, 1976), 143–145. 47 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/3, CC Minutes 1932–35, “Fourth Plenary Session, March 31 – April 2, 1934,” 1084–1111. 48 Griggs, Global Industry, Local Innovation, 627–629; Macintyre, The Reds, 268. 49 Macintyre, The Reds, 267–268. For more on the relationship between Greeks and the CPA, see Con K. Allimonos, “Greek Communist Activity in Melbourne: A Brief History,” Labour History, no. 86 (May, 2004): 137–155. 50 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/3, CC Minutes 1932–35, Fourth Plenary Session held March 31st April 1st and 2nd, 1934, “Political Report,” 1084–1111. 51 SANSW, FM4–10417, 495–94–44, 106–118. 52 More on the WCAWF can be found in Chapter 2. 53 Ralph Gibson, My Years in the Communist Party (Melbourne: International Bookshop, 1966), 41–43; Macintyre, The Reds, 270–271; Macintyre, “New Line in the Antipodes,” 264. David Rose details some of the background to the group who invited Kisch, the Movement Against War and Fascism in David Rose, “The Movement against War and Fascism, 1933–1939,” Labour History, no. 38 (May, 1980): 76–90. 54 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/3, C.E. Minutes 1926–30, “CEC Meeting, June  15, 1930,” 830–833; SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/3, C.E. Minutes 1926–30, “From the Org Dept. of the CEC to all district committees, June 20, 1930,” 838–840; SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/3, C.E. Minutes 1926–30, “Meeting of the Political Bureau, July 6, 1930,” 862–863. 55 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box 5, Folder 6, “Tasks Facing the Communist Party of Australia;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box 5, Folder 6, “To All Districts, from CC of CPA, 26 August 1935;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box 5, Folder 6, “To All Distracts, from CC of CPA, 4 October 1935;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box 5, Folder 6, “Cir. No. 26–12 March 1937 from CC of CPA;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box 5, Folder 6, “Cir. No. 50, from CC of CPA, June 29, 1937.” 56 SANSW, FM4–10420, 495–94–70, 100. SANSW, FM4–10420, 495–94–73, 68. 57 NBAC, N57/1989, “Australian Imperialism in the East,” World Survey 2, no. 1, October 1, 1933; SANSW, FM4–10420, 495–94–73, “Speakers’ Notes for Elections,” 68. 58 Diane Menghetti, “North Queensland Anti-Fascism and the Spanish Civil War,” Labour History 42, (May, 1982): 63–73; Gollan, Revolutionaries and Reformists, 51–69; Davidson, Short History, 85–87. 59 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/4, Minutes of Central Committee 1936–1940, C.C.Meeting, Afternoon Session, 7.11.37, 993–1045. 60 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/1, 12th Congress Communist Party of Australia November 1938, 633. 61 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, CPA Further records, 1920–1991, Box 15, Folder – P.B. Minutes – 1933–1938, “Outline of the Work of the P.B. from C.C. Meeting Nov. 1937 to C.C. Meeting May 1938.” 62 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/4, Minutes of Central Committee 1936–1940, “For Peace, Freedom and a Better Life (Draft Statement of the CC of the CP of Australia),” 1257–1267; SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/4, Minutes of Central

144  Case studies

63 64 65 66

67 68

69

70 71 72

73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

Committee 1936–1940, “The Stronger the Community Party, the Stronger the Labor Movement (Draft of Inner Resolution of C.C. Australian C.P.),” 1268–1278. SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box  48, Folder  – 1937, L.C. Rodd, B.A., “Australian Imperialism.” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box  48, Folder  – 1937, L.C. Rodd, B.A., “Australian Imperialism.” SANSW, FM4–10415, 495–18–1212, 74–86. SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, CPA Further records, 1920–1991, Box 15, Folder – P.B. Minutes – 1933–1938, “Minutes of Political Bureau 8.11.38;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, CPA Further records, 1920–1991, Box  15, Folder  – P.B. Minutes – 1933–1938, “Minutes of Political Bureau 21.12.38.” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/4, Minutes of Central Committee 1936–1940, “CC Meeting, 5th Session, 26 July 1936,” 556–574. SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, CPA Further records, 1920–1991, Box 15, Folder – P.B. Minutes – 1933–1938, “21.7.38 Minutes of Political Bureau;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936/16, Minutes of Political Bureau 1939, “Minutes of Central Executive 23.2.39,” 44–45. SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, CPA Further records, 1920–1991, Box 15, Folder – P.B. Minutes – 1933–1938, “Minutes of P.B., November 14 1936;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, CPA Further records, 1920–1991, Box  15, Folder  – P.B. Minutes – 1933–1938, “Minutes of Political Bureau, August 2, 1938;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, CPA Further records, 1920–1991, Box  15, Folder  – P.B. Minutes – 1933–1938, “Political Bureau Meeting, September 27, 1937.” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, CPA Further records, 1920–1991, Box 15, Folder – P.B. Minutes – 1933–1938, “Minutes of Political Bureau, August 11, 1938.” Boughton, “The Communist Party of Australia’s Involvement in the Struggle for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Rights 1920–1970,” 38–39; Brown, The Communist Movement and Australia, 58–59. Tom Wright uses the term “mixed blood” to refer to those born to married “halfcaste parents” or “those born to an aboriginal mother and a non-aboriginal father.” NBAC, P3 1/166, T. Wright, New Deal for the Aborigines (Sydney: Consolidated Press, 1944), 29. NBAC, P3 1/166, Wright, New Deal for the Aborigines. NBAC, P3 1/166, Wright, New Deal for the Aborigines, 1–30. NBAC, P3 1/166, Wright, New Deal for the Aborigines, 31. NBAC, P3 1/166, Wright, New Deal for the Aborigines, 29–30. For the Conference’s conclusions on this matter, see “The 1937 Conference,” in Henry Reynolds, ed., Aborigines and Settlers (Melbourne: Cassell Australia, 1972), 172–174. UMA, 80.162, 1, 1939, “Huge Public Meeting Promises To Support Aborigines,” The Guardian, no. 22, August 23, 1939; UMA, 80.162, 1, 1939, “Town Hall Packed for Aboriginal Meeting,” The Guardian, no. 35, October 7, 1939. UMA, 80.162, 1, 1939, “Sydney Backing for ‘New Deal for Aborigines,’ ” The Guardian, no. 35, October 7, 1939. UMA, 80.162, 1, 1940, “Aboriginal Deputation to Chief Sec.,” The Guardian, no. 35, February 21, 1940. UMA, 80.162, 1, 1940, “Aboriginal Deputation to Chief Sec.”. UMA, 80.162, 1, 1943, “Forgotten People of Australia,” The Guardian, no.  121, December  10, 1943; UMA, 80.162, 1, 1943, “Forgotten People of Australia,” The Guardian, no. 123, December 24, 1943. UMA, 80.162, 1, 1943, “Diggers Want ‘Fair Go’ for Natives,” The Guardian, no. 116, November 5, 1943. UMA, 80.162, 1, 1944, “Emancipation of N.G. Natives: ‘Begin Long-Range Plans Now,’ ” The Guardian, no. 136, April 6, 1944.

Showing initiative from the periphery  145 84 UMA, 80.162, 1, 1943, “Diggers Want ‘Fair Go’ for Natives; UMA, 80.162, 1, 1943, ‘Soldiers’ Debate on Aborigines,” The Guardian, no. 123, December 24, 1943. 85 UMA, 80.162, 1, 1943, “Labor Must Ensure Freedom to New Guinea People,” The Guardian, no. 110, September 25, 1943. 86 UMA, 80.162, 1, 1943, “New Guinea People Have Right to Freedom and Happiness,” The Guardian, no. 111, October 1, 1943. 87 NBAC, P11 2/5, “A Democratic Policy for New Guinea,” Communist Review, no. 28, December 1943. 88 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, “Communist Party of Australia – Further Records,” Box 5, Folder 6, “August 23, 1939 – CPC CC; to all State Committees;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, “Communist Party of Australia – Further Records,” Box 5, Folder 6, “28th August 1939 – “Confidential for Immediate Attention” by CPA CC;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, “Communist Party of Australia – Further Records,” Box 5, Folder 6, “Circular of 4 September 1939.” 89 SANSW, FM4–10421, 495–14–308, “Declaration of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the War, September 3, 1939.” 90 SANSW, FM4–10421, 495–14–308, “Proposals for the CPA;” FM4–10421, 495– 14–308, “General Line of the Australian CP on the War Question and Proposals (3.xi.39).” 91 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box  5, Folder 6, “1940  – Slogans for ‘6 Hour Day.’ ” 92 Davidson, Short History, 79. 93 SANSW, FM4–10421, 495–14–308, “Proposals for the CPA.” 94 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box 8, Folder 12 (CC Letters to Other Countries), “Letter to the CC of the CP of Malaya, January 22, 1940;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box 8, Folder 12 (CC Letters to Other Countries), “Letter to CC of CPA from CC of CP Malaya, December 20, 1939;” SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box 8, Folder 12 (CC Letters to Other Countries), “Letter to Secretariat of the CP of Malaya from CC Secretariat of CPA, November 20, 1939;” 95 UMA, 1991.0152, Unit 85, “A People’s Defence of Australia.” 96 UMA, 80.162, 1, 1943, “New Policy for Italians in Australia,” The Guardian, no. 109, September 18, 1943; NBAC, P3 1/176, “Firm Stand by Communists Defeats Ban on Italian Workers,” Party Builder, no. 6, November 1942. 97 SANSW, MLMSS 5021 ADD-ON 1936, Box 49, Folder 1–1944, “Programme of the Australian Communist Party, 1944.” 98 UMA, 80.162, 1, 1944, “Good Policy for Aborigines,” The Guardian, no. 162, October 6, 1944. 99 NBAC, P11 2/5, Box  1, “On Policy for the Australian Aborigines,” Communist Review, no.  31, March  1944; NBAC, P11 2/5, “Some Clarity on the Question of Tribalized and De-Tribalized Aboriginals,” Communist Review, no. 34, June 1944. 100 NBAC, P11 2/2, “The Aboriginals,” Communist Review, no.  37, September  1944; NBAC, P11 2/2, “Aboriginals and Democracy,” Communist Review, no. 42, February 1945. 101 NBAC, P11 2/2, “Australia and the Indonesians,” Communist Review, no. 40, December 1944. 102 NBAC, P11 2/2, “Teheran, Cairo and the Colonies,” Communist Review, no.  36, August  1944; NBAC, P11 2/2, “Australia and the Indonesians”; UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “Qld. Unions Fighting For Indies Workers,” The Guardian, no. 180, February 23, 1945. 103 UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “Yalta Decisions Seal Doom of Nazism,” The Guardian, no. 179, February 16, 1945. 104 UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “ ‘Freedom’ Wants Japs to Retain Colonies,” The Guardian, no.  182, March  9, 1945. Attacks on Japanese imperialism continued in a series of

146  Case studies articles regarding the country’s control of Indonesia. UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “Digger’s Grim Picture of Native Suffering in Borneo,” The Guardian, no. 208, September  7, 1945; UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “Kid Gloves For Jap Fascists: Iron Hand for Indonesians,” The Guardian, no. 210, September 21, 1945; UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “Rottenness of Imperialism Exposed In Pacific,” The Guardian, no.  210, September 21, 1945. As the situation in Indonesia evolved to see a new Indonesian Republic, the CPA backed independence. UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “ ‘Hands off Indonesia’ Demand Grows: Ship Tie Up,” The Guardian, no. 211, September 28, 1945; UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “Terror Campaign Against Indonesians: Govts Aid Dutch,” The Guardian, no. 212, October 5, 1945; UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “Solidarity Wins: Indonesians Are To Go Home,” The Guardian, no. 213, October 12, 1945. On the links to the Aboriginal program, see UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “Why Our Aborigines Are ‘Vanishing,’ ” The Guardian, no. 183, March 16, 1945. 105 UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “Digger Urges New Deal for Papuans,” The Guardian, no. 176, January 26, 1945. 106 UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “Whither Our Coloured People,” The Guardian, no.  182, March 9, 1945; UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “New Guinea’s Population Is Dwindling Fast: Toll of War and Force Labor,” The Guardian, no. 197, June 22, 1945. 107 The CPA, for example, supported the Papua New Guinea Provisional Administration Bill introduced by the Minister for External Territories, EJ Ward. UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “New Deal for N.G. Natives,” The Guardian, no. 200, July 13, 1945. See also UMA, 80.162, 1, 1945, “New Deal for N.G. Natives,” The Guardian, no. 203, August 3, 1945.

6 Conclusion The communist parties of South Africa, Canada and Australia in comparison

By the end of Second World War, the CPC, CPSA and CPA had demonstrated a firm commitment to Moscow’s line. The German invasion of the Soviet Union which began on 22 June 1941 helped clear away the confusion over how to attack imperialism. International communism could again converge in its attack on fascism and Nazism. The parties supported the Soviet war effort and its allies. In the process, they built on popular front tactics, returning to the policies with which every party had flirted in the late 1930s to attack fascism and German, Japanese and Italian aggression. In their platforms, all three communist parties merged their programmes on nationality and race with the urgent campaign against fascism. The fusion was natural; the general pattern was similar in all three cases. However, the national parties necessarily retained interesting traces of localism. The CPSA and CPA saw fascism as a force of racial hatred that would ensure that the bourgeois nationalisms which underpinned racial chauvinism and racist behaviour would prevail. Due to South Africa’s significant black African population, the CPSA believed fascism guaranteed that whites would continue to exploit black South Africans. The CPSA also saw fascism as a threat to the coloured worker population of South Africa. In Australia, the CPA shared similar concerns. The party saw fascism as a threat to Australia’s many nationalities and races present. Australia needed to oppose it for a myriad of reasons – to support its Chinese brethren, to promote the unity and solidarity of workers, especially due to large numbers of foreign workers in the dominion, and to avoid succumbing to genocidal Nazism. The CPA linked fascism to the British and Australian treatment of Aboriginal peoples as part of the same lineage of oppression. Italian immigrants represented a unique problem for the CPA. Their numbers as immigrant workers, and their involvement in the sugar industry, meant that the party had to include them in its proletariat movement, while also considering them susceptible to fascist ideas. In South Africa and Australia, racial issues prominently figured in communism’s platforms during the Second World War. In Canada, though the party typically promoted the unity of all workers (both foreign- and native-born), and had a membership heavily balanced towards immigrants, it made some serious and odious deviations in its tactics during the Second World War. Due to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the party briefly

148  Case studies abandoned its accepting approach. For a couple of weeks into early 1942, the CPC promoted an anti-Japanese line, partially as a response to the concerns of British Columbian fishermen. The party also worried about fascism, although the problem in Canada was based on ethnicity instead of race. The CPC focused on French Canadian workers. The party remained alarmed that French Canada was particularly susceptible to fascist ideas and conservatism. The CPC was concerned that fascism would threaten different nationalities and races living in harmony, so it redoubled its efforts to promote an “incorrect” position, according to Moscow, of self-determination of French Canada. While the promotion of this platform helped the party gain a stronger foothold in French Canada after the Second World War, the issue was still divisive within the party. The invasion of the Soviet Union brought coherence to each party’s propaganda. After the invasion, all three parties implemented the general Comintern platform with relative consistency, only having some minor variations that reflected local conditions. Whereas the Nazi-Soviet Pact had caught the three parties off-guard, the German invasion allowed them to reset their priorities and for the Comintern to effectively communicate a shared platform. Ironically, the Soviet Union dissolved the Comintern in 1943 to ingratiate itself to its wartime allies, Great Britain and the United States. The Comintern succumbed to the interests of imperial powers and Soviet state priorities, suffering a fate like that of the Second International during the First World War. The CPSA, CPC and CPA all promoted the Soviet war effort. The latter two parties even supported the governments in power in their home countries. The paths of the three parties diverged following the Second World War, as each one dealt with issues of race and nationality as dictated by local conditions. Prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, a general Comintern line on race, nationality and anti-imperialism existed to a degree. Local conditions mattered and the Comintern made its presence felt to a varying degree in each party.

The divergences on imperialism From its beginnings, the Comintern established anti-imperialism as a central tenet in its worldview. Such individuals as Lenin, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Radek, Trotsky and Stalin shaped how communists understood the international situation and the horrors of imperialism. This commitment to combating imperialism served as the cornerstone of the Comintern’s Manifesto in 1919 and its Theses on the National and Colonial Question in 1920. The Comintern referenced this issue throughout its tactical shifts, including its campaigns against fascism and the “Theses on the Negro Question.” The communist fight against imperialism started as an attempt to destabilize Britain by attacking its empire, before becoming a general protest of American, European and Asian imperialism. The Comintern developed and supported front organizations, such as the LAI and the ITUCNW, to promote these efforts. Though Moscow made this fight a primary consideration during the Comintern’s early years, the Communist Parties of South Africa, Canada and Australia

Conclusion  149 treated imperialism as a peripheral issue, if they considered it at all, until the Comintern directed otherwise. The CPA and CPC, despite being members of the Anglo-American Secretariat, were far more preoccupied with trade union matters and local issues than with undermining the British Empire. In both cases, the Comintern had to remind the parties to increase their efforts in the stand against imperialism. Both the CPA and CPC developed similar platforms by the mid-1920s but largely limited them to propaganda. Each party called for independence of its home country from the British Empire, seeing Canada and Australia, respectively, as colonies, regardless of the autonomy afforded by their dominion statuses. The CPA and CPC also stressed a need to attack British influence in their countries. Furthermore, communists saw Australia and Canada as potential battlegrounds for the rivalry between American and British imperialisms, suggesting that this platform should be important. In the Canadian context, it resonated amongst its leadership. Maurice Spector, Tim Buck and Stewart Smith supported Canadian independence. The latter two men never shook that position from their minds. In Australia, the party seemed content to simply reference the ills of imperialism at first. Tactical shifts in the Comintern after the Sixth Congress forced the CPC and the CPA to campaign against imperialism, and accept its definition of Canada and Australia’s place in the world, respectively, prominent parts of their general platforms. Though first mentioned in 1922 at the Fourth Congress, the Comintern redefined Canada and Australia’s statuses in the world at the Sixth Congress in 1928. No longer did the Comintern consider these countries to be part of the colonial world. Rather, they were secondary imperialist nations. Initially, this shift confused both parties. The CPA, through Tom Wright, asked the Comintern for clarification before falling into line and working the new designation into the party’s propaganda and materials. In Canada, Smith led the party into conflict with Canadian comrades at the Lenin School and the Comintern. Through Smith’s platform, the CPC briefly promoted Canadian nationalism and independence, initially with some Comintern approval. When tactics changed, the Comintern ordered Smith and the CPC to conform. Instead, they opposed the new direction, criticizing the Comintern and embarking on a yearlong back and forth. Following a reprimand from the Comintern, the CPC became much more cautious in its methods, simply following direct Comintern orders. As a result, the CPC did not clash with the Comintern again until the mid-1940s. The party, however, also failed to develop the unique platforms and responses to local conditions as its counterparts did in South Africa and Australia. The CPC was plagued by arrests during the first half of the 1930s but, through the decade, the party maintained campaigns in support of the Spanish Civil War and against Japanese and Italian imperialism in China and Abyssinia, respectively. The CPA also followed Comintern orders on anti-imperialism but did so more enthusiastically that its Canadian counterparts. The party sustained significant Hands-Off India campaigns and, because it perceived itself to be in a leadership position in the Pacific, it supported Chinese communism and attacked Japanese

150  Case studies imperialism. Due to the country’s significant Italian foreign worker population, especially in Queensland, the CPA also had to protect Italian workers from xenophobia while combatting the appeal of Italian fascism. The CPA mentored the Communist Party of Malaya and maintained a strong interest in Pacific affairs. Both the CPC and CPA linked fighting imperialism to the discussion of colonized peoples of their respective nations. In Canada, the Comintern suggested that French Canada was a nation in 1929. The CPC leadership disagreed with this assertion and instead, for most of the 1930s, declared French Canadians as the “most oppressed” group in Canada. When in 1940, the CPC leadership, led by such men as Smith and Stanley Ryerson, reconsidered the tactics that led to another Comintern intervention, they saw French Canadians as a colonized people and therefore wished to support their efforts for independence. The Comintern no longer agreed with that viewpoint. This support, likely a function of growing communist membership in Quebec during the war, was short-lived. By 1943, the party no longer accepted French Canada as a nation to be granted self-­ determination. Instead, the CPC promoted Canadian unity, and the unity of its two nations: English and French. The CPA, meanwhile, used its attack on British and Australian imperialism to highlight the plight of Aboriginal and Melanesian peoples in Australia and in its mandates. During the 1930s, especially towards the end of the decade, and into the Second World War, the CPA observed the Comintern’s National and Colonial platforms as Tom Wright shaped the “New Deal for Aborigines” and calls for a “new deal” for Pacific Islanders. After the Comintern disbanded, the party toned down the rhetoric of self-determination for Melanesian peoples in favour of something reminiscent of a civilizing mission. This stance helped the party to maintain good relations with the Curtin government which the CPA supported. In both cases, the CPA and CPC implemented these approaches, evolving the attack on imperialism to promoting self-determination of certain groups, unilaterally and with very limited direction from the Comintern. Complicating previous arguments about the control of the Comintern, individual communists – such as Smith and Wright – played important roles in the development of party platforms. While Moscow often guided and advised, each party frequently developed local tactics and detailed platforms.

The differences of race The separation of the CPSA case study from that of the CPC or CPA is necessary when looking at race, as the Comintern gave significant attention to the “Negro Question.” African American communists helped write the “Theses on the Negro Question” at the Fourth Comintern Congress, making racial equality, at least for blacks, a prominent concern for communists. They remained heavily involved as the Comintern gave them a platform for their ideas. Some black communists, such as Harry Haywood, convinced other communists at the Sixth Comintern Congress of the need for self-determination for African Americans, and black Africans generally. These black communists ensured the Comintern would not

Conclusion  151 ignore racial issues. The primacy of the United States in these discussions cannot be overstated. Secondary to the American context was South Africa. While the ITUCNW sought to deal with Pan-Africanism, the black Atlantic and the rest of Africa, the Comintern prioritized the United States and South Africa in its discussion of racial issues. The Comintern did not have a general platform for racial equality; rather, it focused on Africans. At most, international communism – not always the Comintern – had a general commitment to ending racial oppression. The Comintern provided some, but often not enough, support for projects like the ITUCNW. James Ford and George Padmore struggled to deal with racism and limited finances. Tiemoko Garan Kouyaté, despite having communist support, desired the autonomy to focus on Pan-Africanist aims and clashed with communist leaders before his expulsion. These clashes did not undermine their commitment to their principles, however. If we look beyond the Comintern apparatus, many individuals had personal commitments to racial equality or anti-colonialism that was spurred on by communism, but not tied simply to the Comintern. Individual communists put a spotlight on the “Negro Question” and moved discussion along, spearheading concrete efforts to resolve racial issues. Because the Comintern prioritized the “Negro Question” by 1928, South African affairs suddenly became important. Converging with this shift was James La Guma’s trip to Moscow after serving as a delegate to the LAI. Due to that journey, the Comintern instructed the CPSA that its previous tactics were no longer acceptable. CPSA leaders such as Sidney Bunting, however, still believed in their approach. Bunting had also criticized some Comintern positions, including the applicability of the “Theses on the National and Colonial Question” to South Africa. These leaders felt the “Theses on the Negro Question” was insufficient. The CPSA, under Bunting’s leadership, followed an orthodox Marxist approach. The party saw the racial struggle as part of the class struggle; if class divisions ended, racial divisions would be minimized if not extinguished. As a result, communists did not need to focus on the colonial character of South Africa. Of the three parties discussed in this study, only the CPSA defended its lack of attention to anti-imperialism. It was not due to ignorance or prioritizing other affairs; it was because its leadership did not see anti-imperialism as a necessary focus of its efforts to better South African workers. After the Sixth Comintern Congress and Comintern interference in 1928, the CPSA placed greater attention on fighting British imperialism and promoting the rights of its black African population. The reorientation gutted the party as many members flocked to other organizations that better represented their interests or left the CPSA in solidarity with expelled members. The Comintern, shifting tactics again during the Seventh Comintern Congress in 1935, backed away from the unpopular Native Republic Thesis. Even in the most optimistic evaluation, communists dogged the thesis with “scholastic discussions” on what it meant. The CPSA’s broader desire for a democratic republic and focus on black African workers’ rights, but not to the detriment of other groups, helped resuscitate the party. Comintern-supported leaders, such as Douglas Wolton, Molly Wolton and Lazar Bach, left the party or were

152  Case studies caught in the Great Terror. Even still, as South Africa was important to its goals for the “Negro Question,” the Comintern maintained continued intervention in the CPSA’s affairs, sending European communists such as George Hardy to help rebuild the party after the Comintern’s previous intervention. From Moscow’s view, the race did not have as much importance outside of South Africa and the United States. In Canada, despite minor calls for increased rights for Indigenous peoples, neither the Comintern nor the CPC seemed to consider their plight in a meaningful way. In fact, the Comintern reasserted flawed narratives of the destruction of Indigenous peoples as a result of settler colonialism, suggesting these communities did not exist at all. The Canadian party restated these positions and taught them in its party schools. Perhaps because Australia’s Aboriginal population had a greater role in the international popular consciousness, the CPA and the Comintern were at least aware of their plight prior to the Third Period. Moscow placed Aboriginal peoples on the CPA’s radar by mentioning them in passing at a meeting in 1925. Otherwise, the CPA’s positions on Aboriginal and Melanesian peoples were self-directed and reflected the party’s growing interest in these affairs, without any direct guidance from Moscow. These efforts, in support of Aboriginal and Melanesian peoples, ran in parallel and mirrored each other in many ways. The Comintern had little role in either, likely resulting from its limited knowledge of Aboriginal peoples and complete ignorance of Melanesian peoples. Furthermore, as no Aboriginal and Melanesian peoples visited the Soviet Union, they lacked a consistent lobby for their issues within the Comintern apparatus. African Americans and black Africans, in contrast, attended Lenin Schools and visited Moscow after international Congresses. Moscow influenced each party’s appreciation of nationality issues. In South Africa, the Comintern tied nationality to race. Moscow also urged the CPC to increase its reach among French Canadian workers. Foreign workers and immigration were realities in each country and Moscow urged the CPSA, CPC and CPA to act on this issue, albeit in different ways. The CPSA often conflated the different non-white workers in its platforms and emphasized black workers until the late 1930s. Then, the Comintern said that, while the party needed to focus on improving the plight of the black population and supporting Afrikaaner nationalism to combat British imperialism, the CPSA also needed to include Indian, South Asian and other immigrant communities in South Africa in the movement. Making the party the defender of all ethnic and racial groups in South Africa and returning to a desire for the unity of all workers became an important priority for the CPSA, the Comintern said. By the Second World War, the party made a greater effort to reference all the peoples in its nation. The CPC consistently had to deal with a membership skewed heavily toward immigrants. The party’s high membership of Ukrainian, Finnish and Jewish workers, as well as, later, Asian labourers highlighted the limitations of a predominantly English leadership, the party’s inability to make inroads into French Canada, and a need to increase English and French membership. The Comintern did not want the CPC to ignore foreign workers, but their plight was never an important one for the party. Instead, it would merely agitate on their behalf, noting

Conclusion  153 that their immigrant statuses meant they were susceptible to deportation and other negative consequences. The CPA did not have Canada’s issue of skewed membership and had a much clearer policy to argue against – White Australia. The uniqueness of the Australian situation was clear in the CPA’s propaganda, as it highlighted that other dominions did not have similar policies in place. The Comintern, however, had to repeatedly remind the CPA to attack the White Australia policy, making it one of the prominent concerns of Comintern officials during the 1920s. As a result, the CPA tried to support Southeastern European workers throughout the dominion. Australian and Canadian communists also had similar fears regarding certain groups of foreign workers; the parties considered Italian or Japanese workers, respectively, as vulnerable to fascism. Thus, these groups needed to be brought into party life and supported to ensure they became “good workers.” Meanwhile, in South Africa, the CPSA always seemed to place the plight of foreign workers on the periphery. Communists knew of their presence, but the party always gave precedence to white or black African workers. Many party leaders conflated black Africans and coloured workers for simplicity.

Local conditions matter When looking at the national, colonial and racial questions and the Communist International, it is an oversimplification to speak of a rigid Comintern line. Over time, the Comintern became more inflexible in its tactics and ideology. The free-wheeling debate evident in the Comintern under Lenin evaporated as Stalin tightened his grasp on the Soviet Union. In Moscow, certain trends, such as self-determination of African Americans and the promotion of Native Republics, gained prominence. For parties to challenge these trends once they became orthodoxy was unwise. Even still, a Comintern line only existed as a general platform and parties had to follow certain key tenets to avoid running afoul of Comintern officials. In terms of the fight against imperialism, the Comintern required all parties to stand for colonial liberation, to protect oppressed peoples and to support general campaigns against the various imperialisms identified by the Comintern. Following the Sixth Congress, the Comintern was adamant that party members needed to accept the secondary imperial nature of some – not all – British dominions. Each platform was general in nature and the Comintern left parties to work out how to pass the message along to their members and workers alike, providing varying degrees of intervention. The limits of Moscow on anti-imperial issues were most evident with the failed European Colonial Conference of 1929, where European communists struggled to prioritize colonial agitation amongst their members and the Comintern relented, deciding not to force the issue. Regarding national and racial issues, local parties had considerably more power. The CPC, the CPA and the CPSA ignored anti-imperialism as a major propaganda tool until at least the mid-1920s when the Comintern urged them to reconsider that line of thinking. The parties also ignored the support of colonial liberation and the self-determination of oppressed minorities during that early period. The CPC had

154  Case studies to consider ethnicity because of its significant immigrant membership base and, thus, when it formed, the party agreed to autonomous language groups. Though the Comintern called for the dismantling of these groups, the party attempted to ignore the demand before a new leadership tried to act, seeking to gain the favour of Comintern officials. When the party required Comintern intervention to resolve its divisions, the Comintern supported the language groups and put the issue to rest. The CPC and the Comintern disagreed about French Canada. Despite seeing French Canadians as the “most exploited workers” in Canada, the Comintern and some CPC members, at different times, saw French Canada as a separate nation and the Theses on the National and Colonial Questions applicable. The Comintern forced the party to recant these beliefs in the 1940s by throwing its support behind Buck. In 1943, he regained control of the party. Most crucially, the Comintern, despite giving increased attention to racial issues in the Third Period, ignored Indigenous peoples of Canada entirely. Alone, the CPC had extremely feeble attempts to create a position on the plight of Indigenous peoples in 1937 and again in 1943. The Australian case further exemplifies the limits of Comintern intervention. The party needed multiple reminders from the Comintern to deal with immigration laws and the White Australia policy. The Comintern was most concerned with foreign workers when considering the CPA’s tactics regarding national and racial oppression. Moscow offered the CPA little guidance on racial equality for Aboriginal or Melanesian workers, even when the Comintern could have called upon the party to adopt the Native Republic Thesis or the applicable Theses on the Negro Question. The CPA exemplifies a party that put its best foot forward on many of the Comintern’s campaigns. It was also a party that had to develop its policies on Aboriginal peoples without the input of the Communist International. Furthermore, the party drafted its platform on Melanesian workers in-house, showing the initiative of Australian communists and that communist parties were not simply the Comintern’s mindless followers. Moscow had some issues – such as the imperialist nature of Australia or Canada, for example – on which it would not tolerate opposition. In many cases, however, the Comintern simply offered advice and sought to impress its priorities upon member parties; the Comintern only interfered if it had a clear tactic in mind, as was the case in South Africa. That case shows what happened when a party clearly disagreed with what the Comintern deemed necessary.

Priorities of the Soviet Union Why did the parties vary in their application of Comintern doctrine? The Communist International always had a list of priorities. This ordering generally aligns with the Eurocentrism of the Comintern. This approach reflects all the Comintern’s shifts in tactics, from the failed revolutions in Europe to the new attention on Asia and Africa to Socialism in One Country. This prioritization clarifies why foreign policy caused such wild fluctuations in Comintern doctrine in the 1930s

Conclusion  155 through to, and including, the Comintern’s demise in 1943. It explains why the Comintern undoubtedly gave certain regions greater attention than others. In the case of colonial liberation, Moscow saw China and India as the links in the imperialist chain that needed to be broken. As a result, communists’ efforts in those nations were always important. On racial issues, the United States was the Holy Grail, owing to its economic and imperial ascendency. This framework also helps explain the Comintern’s sudden interest in South Africa. Timing is sometimes everything in history and, as many African American communists arrived in Moscow during the 1920s, the Comintern developed a sympathetic ear for the “Negro Question.” La Guma’s visit turned the attention of individuals like Nikolai Bukharin and Max Petrovsky to South African affairs. The Comintern also saw the country as a convenient target for communist platforms against racial oppression. Economically, it was the most developed state in Africa with a significant proletariat. Racial tensions were central to its politics and economics. While historians Irina Filatova and Apollon Davidson argue that the number of documents on South Africa in the Comintern archive is a sign of South Africa’s importance to Moscow, it merely saw South Africa as a country in Africa prior to 1927.1 Initially, the Comintern did not prioritize this dominion. It became a priority when the Comintern recognized South Africa as its best chance to implement racial self-determination outside of the United States. Prior to this point, the CPSA was relatively obscure, much like the CPC and the CPA, and the Comintern had left the South African organization to its own devices. But when the Comintern saw a region as a battleground of increased importance, it ensured that its tactics were followed. Analysing the Comintern’s priorities also helps to explain the timing of its interference in Canadian and Australian party affairs. In the Canadian case, the Comintern had many reasons to enforce a correct interpretation of the dominion’s position in the world. Moscow often positioned Canada as a key battleground in the growing feud between American and British imperialisms. But when the Comintern deemed Canada to be a player on its own, it needed the CPC to fall into line. Stewart Smith’s pamphlet “The Struggle against the Right Danger” undoubtedly helped precipitate Moscow’s intervention, as Lenin School students appealed to the Comintern, as did some language group leaders. These issues also led the Comintern to expulse Maurice Spector, a noted Trotskyist, and, eventually, Jack Macdonald, who sympathized with some “incorrect” views. The attention Moscow gave Canada’s imperial status, and to the calls for self-determination of French Canadians, was necessary for tactical coherence at the Comintern level. A  focus on the Comintern’s priorities also explains why communism simply ignored Indigenous peoples. They were not a significant enough issue to warrant comment from Moscow. When the CPC corrected its position, the Comintern summoned Smith to Moscow for six months before he returned to lead the party with Buck. Despite Smith’s forceful criticism of Moscow, he remained part of the CPC leadership. In contrast, the Comintern-sponsored members expelled most of the dissenting leadership from the CPSA. The difference between the two parties was clear – the CPSA’s Native Republic Thesis mattered more in the Comintern’s

156  Case studies international strategies than any Canadian issue. The Comintern needed to ensure the CPSA followed the right path; although prompting concerns, the Comintern saw deviations in Canada to be less serious. The role of tactical coherence and consistency comes into play with the CPA and the Comintern’s need for the party to accept the designation of Australia as a second-tier imperialist nation. That shift was far less difficult for the CPA to accept, even if the party did not fully understand it at first. Moscow never needed to intervene extensively in the CPA on these issues. The party’s immediate acceptance likely pleased the Comintern. The bigger issue was that Moscow wanted to ensure that communists fought the White Australia policy. This stance served as a subtle attack on anti-internationalism and the Comintern felt the White Australia policy undermined the dominion’s potential to be a future leader in the Pacific. Tactically, though, the Comintern offered solutions inconsistently. Neither Australia’s imperialism or its White Australia policy were enough to lead the Comintern to place much, if any, emphasis on the CPA. The Comintern’s most prominent intervention resulted from the “incorrect” tactics the CPA used by cooperating with the Labor Party. This intervention reflected the Comintern’s general commitment to implement the Third Period tactics of Class against Class after years of calling on parties to work with Labor. Then what of the successes of international communism in promoting racial equality, and drawing colonial radicals into their orbit during the interwar period? The Comintern’s Eurocentrism undoubtedly triumphed by the Second World War, as Soviet foreign policy concerns dictated how strongly the Comintern would promote certain platforms. The priorities of individual communist parties hampered some efforts in the colonial world, especially in terms of shaping how much support the European parties provided. Although parties or rank-and-file ignored colonial or racial affairs at times, some communists had pet projects or campaigns they strongly wanted to make successful. Without Willi Münzenberg, for example, the Comintern likely never would have supported the LAI and the subsequent WCAWF, nor would the organizations have been as effective as they were, if only for a brief period. Padmore’s ability to cultivate contacts throughout the black Atlantic allowed him to shape the ITUCNW into a notable force and a significant network. Other leaders in front organizations gave those projects a chance and, in many cases, the Comintern allowed the organization to function until they no longer coincided with its greater priorities or until it refused to financially support them. Just as the Comintern had priorities, so did individual communists. By examining the actions of individuals, from those mentioned in front organizations, to those serving as party leaders, we can better understand how different approaches in international communism led to variations in party approaches to similar issues. Sometimes, a significant member or two could drive and develop important campaigns.

Note 1 Filatova and Davidson, The Hidden Thread, loc. 1716.

7 Epilogue Echoes of the Comintern

While this study has revealed and analysed differences among the three parties during the interwar period, an important similarity existed into the postwar period. The CPSA, CPC and CPA built on the tactics they developed during the interwar period, evolving or learning from them later in the century. These parties were new, all formed in the early 1920s. They tried to apply an ideology that originated in Russia but that seemed out of place in their respective countries, with different labour movements, political climates, as well as nationality and racial politics. The most important link between the interwar period and the Cold War is evidenced in the role of the CPSA in combatting apartheid. The party that initially refused to emphasize anti-imperialism in its country eventually played a significant role in the destruction of arguably the longest-lasting colonial regime. The CPSA folded in 1950, citing its illegal status and difficulty in organizing. Former members threw their support behind the ANC.1 When communists formed the South African Communist Party (SACP) in 1953, it worked with the ANC to undermine apartheid. CPSA members from the 1930s, including Moses Kotane, who was Party Secretary from 1939 until 1978 and a member of ANC, and Sidney Bunting’s son, Brian Bunting, were prominent communists who helped organize the protest against the regime.2 Yusuf Dadoo, a prominent member of the SACP and Chairman of the party during the 1970s, helped broker increased support from the Soviet Union for the ANC and for the struggle against apartheid.3 Finally, international communism had an effect on Nelson Mandela. He was a party member who became the face of the movement. Mandela was also good friends with Joe Slovo, arguably South Africa’s most important communist leader during the apartheid era.4 The centrality of racial issues cannot be denied in the struggle against apartheid, but the remnants of South African communism, as developed during the interwar period, served as the precursor to the fight. The SACP noted previous struggles under the auspices of the Native Republic Thesis. In 1962, affirming South Africa’s colonial status, the party promoted armed struggle while calling for equal rights for all peoples in the country. In 1969, SACP thinking was evident in the ANC’s tactics, which referred to the African population as the “most oppressed group.”5 The SACP continued to approach matters with Soviet guidance, but

158  Case studies determined its own best policies, including the adoption of violent methods which underpinned the efforts of uMKhonto we Sizwe.6 The CPC, despite its faults in its interwar tactics, improved its position on supporting Indigenous peoples and reached French Canada. Under its public face as the Labour-Progressive Party (LPP), members called for equal rights for Indigenous peoples. In 1954, as part of the party programme, the CPC finally had a plan which called for the return of tribal lands to Indigenous tribes, full hunting and fishing rights and cultural protection. This plan was akin to what the CPA lobbied for Aboriginal peoples a decade and a half earlier.7 In the 1960s, the CPC demanded the end to the Indian Act. By April 1969, the party fleshed out its platform more fully with a Native Bill of Rights.8 The CPC remained committed to avoiding the concept of French Canada as a separate nation following the corrective in 1944. The party, however, maintained a presence in Quebec. The CPC faced problems. Quebec communists felt they should have more autonomy within the party to meet the province’s unique challenges and briefly split from the LPP in 1947. The Canadian communists slandered some communists from Quebec, whose membership the party had long desired, were as they refused to follow the line of Canadian unity. The new Quebec-based party struggled, owing to Quebec’s Padlock Law.9 By the 1960s, the revelations of Nikita Khrushchev’s Secret Speech in 1956 gutted the CPC’s membership. The Quiet Revolution led to the growth of Quebec separatism. Canadian support of communism waned, as other Marxist and socialist trends became more popular, but the CPC acknowledged that it needed to change its outdated position towards French Canada. In January 1962, the CPC called for self-determination of French Canada and reissued an edited version of Stanley Ryerson’s French Canada to suit the tactical change. To show that its efforts were not merely lip service, the CPC also created a separate party for the Quebec “nation,” le Parti communiste du Quebec in 1964.10 Regardless of whether the CPC or communism was strong during these movements, some of its ideas were coopted or adopted by the growing civil rights and separatist movements at large.11 In Australia, the CPA had a prominent role in the civil rights movements. The party’s support of the Labor Government ended as John Curtin’s successor, Ben Chifley, hoped to maintain British Preference and the White Australia Policy. The CPA held its stance against the policy, while calling for a controlled immigration scheme which treated all races equally.12 The CPA muted its influence within Australia by continuing to follow Moscow’s line, repeating that communism promoted peace. The “imperialists,” led by Britain and the United States, in contrast, would plunge the world into economic chaos. Due to this position, the government repressed and censored the party. The Secret Speech also negatively affected the party’s membership.13 Despite these challenges, the CPA continued to fight against the White Australia policy and for an increase in the living standards of Aboriginal peoples. Through trade union activism, the CPA participated in movements for equal pay and increased rights for Aboriginal peoples.14 For example, taking a page from the American Civil Rights Movement, the CPA organized freedom rides for better treatment of Aboriginal peoples.15 By 1967, it revised

Epilogue  159 its earlier positions and passed the programme “Full Human Rights for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders,” which stood against assimilation. The party even joined with Aboriginal Rights’ organizations.16 The CPA’s ideas and the attention it gave to these issues should not be ignored. The party had a progressive nature during the interwar period and continued to emphasize the need for Aboriginal rights.17 These longer histories of engagement with colonial liberation, racial equality and nationality rights are important parts of the story of international communism.18 Historian Micheline Ishay has detailed the influence of socialism on foundational human rights concepts, such as workers’ rights, suffrage and selfdetermination, before the First World War.19 During the interwar period, communists adopted the key planks of their platforms during the twentieth century. While communist parties had limited influence to affect change, they provided new ideas and influenced some of these ideas on racial oppression, colonial liberation and national rights. Leftist ideas were evident in many of the world’s civil rights movements in the second half of the twentieth century. Human rights abuses abounded in communism under the Soviet Union or other similar regimes; these governments undermined their capabilities to be representative of the changes their ideas could make.20 But to limit the story of communism and human rights to those excesses and horrors would be a disservice to a movement that was more than the Soviet government. At times, communism genuinely influenced civil rights, human rights and anti-colonialism in the second half of the twentieth century. In an April  2017 review article for the London Review of Books, historian Sheila Fitzpatrick suggests that the Bolshevik Revolution’s relevance is no longer clear. It was far clearer in the Cold War era; communism was a prominent issue, or threat, for the world and the importance of understanding the Bolshevik Revolution was self-evident.21 I argue that another similarity between all the parties and the movements discussed in my study should be noted. The Bolshevik Revolution ignited certain beliefs in the support of egalitarianism, colonial liberation and an end to oppression. The CPSA, the CPC, the CPA and international communism maintained these principles. Historians Lisa Kirschenbaum, Brigitte Studer and others have noted the intense commitment communists had to the movement.22 This study has shown that same commitment to communism and what it represented. For example, Sidney Bunting’s family felt that Edward Roux’s biography of him, which was critical of Moscow, did Bunting no service, yet still supported communism.23 He was a communist, through and through, and felt he was doing the right thing. Through communist ideals, associated individuals learned to care about anti-imperialism, colonial liberation, racial equality and self-determination of nations. When looking at the long histories of civil rights or imperialism, historians should give the role of communism more credence and attention. Even if communism as envisaged during the twentieth century no longer exists, this movement and the Bolshevik Revolution are still relevant. The same debates and discussions continue today. These communist parties offered ideas and platforms, to varying degrees, that are part of that legacy.

160  Case studies

Notes 1 Nancy L. Clark and William H. Worger, South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 59–60. 2 Vladimir Shubin, The Hot “Cold War”: The USSR in Southern Africa (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008), 239–242; Filatova and Davidson, The Hidden Thread, Chapter 9 & 12. 3 Clark and Worger, South Africa, 61; Shubin, The Hot “Cold War,” 239–240. 4 Ellis, “Nelson Mandela,” 1–18; Filatova and Davidson, The Hidden Thread, Chapter 9 & 12. 5 Filatova and Davidson, The Hidden Thread, loc. 6467–6536. 6 Filatova and Davidson, The Hidden Thread, Chapter  12; Ellis, “Nelson Mandela,” 1–18; Stephen Ellis, “The Genesis of the ANC’s Armed Struggle in South Africa 1948–1961,” Journal of Southern African Studies 37, no. 4 (Dec., 2011): 657–676. 7 Canada’s Party of Socialism, 272. 8 Canada’s Party of Socialism, 272–274. Ian McKay notes that the Left took a greater interest in the Aboriginal Question in the 1960s. McKay, Rebels, Reds, Radicals, 40–41. 9 Ian McKay, “Henri Gagnon, Tim Buck, Stanley Ryerson;” Canada’s Party of Socialism, 258; Penner, Canadian Communism, 227–229; Avakumovic, Communist Party of Canada, 256–257. 10 Penner, Canadian Communism, 256–259; Canada’s Party of Socialism, 259–271; Avakumovic, Communist Party of Canada, 257–259. 11 McKay, Rebels, Reds, Radicals, 40, 183–192. 12 Gollan, Revolutionaries and Reformists, 196; Jordan, “Conflict in the Unions,” 160–245. 13 Davidson, Short History, 100–125, 147–162; Gollan, Revolutionaries and Reformists, 284. 14 Boughton, “The Communist Party of Australia’s Involvement in the Struggle for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Rights 1920–1970,” 40; Jordan, “Conflict in the Unions,” 246–306. 15 Boughton, “The Communist Party of Australia’s Involvement in the Struggle for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Rights 1920–1970,” 42–43. 16 Brown, The Communist Movement and Australia, 59; Boughton, “The Communist Party of Australia’s Involvement in the Struggle for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Rights 1920–1970,” 42–43; Clark, Aborigines & Activism, 55–63. 17 For more on Aboriginal rights in Australia during the second half of the twentieth century, see John Chesterman and Brian Galligan, Citizens Without Rights: Aborigines and Australia Citizenship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 156–192. 18 Historians have made efforts to show how Comintern ideals had long-lasting influences. For example, see Evan Smith, British Communism and the Politics of Race (Leiden: Brill, 2017). 19 Micheline Ishay, The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 118–172; Micheline Ishay, “The Socialist Contributions to Human Rights: An Overlooked Legacy,” The International Journal of Human Rights 9, no. 2 (2005): 225–245. 20 Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2010), 1–10, 84–176; Aryeh Neier, The International Human Rights Movement: A History (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012), 138–185. 21 Sheila Fitzpatrick, “What’s Left?” London Review of Books, 30 March 2017, accessed 28 April 2017, www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n07/sheila-fitzpatrick/whats-left. 22 Lisa A. Kirschenbaum, International Communism and the Spanish Civil War: Solidarity and Suspicion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Brigitte Studer, The Transnational World of the Cominternians, trans. Dafydd Rees Roberts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

Epilogue  161 23 Brian Bunting became one of the SACP’s most prominent members. “Letter from Rebecca Bunting to Edward Roux, August 9, 1943,” in South Africa: A Collection of Miscellaneous Documents, 1902–1963 (Stanford: Stanford University Photographic Department, 1967), located at Hoover Library, Stanford University; “Letter from A.H. Bunting to Edward Roux, December 31, 1943,” in South Africa: A Collection of Miscellaneous Documents, 1902–1963 (Stanford: Stanford University Photographic Department, 1967), located at Hoover Library, Stanford University.

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Index

African Blood Brotherhood (ABB) 48, 50 African National Congress (ANC) 79, 84, 86, 88, 90 – 91, 157 American League Against War and Fascism 30 American Negro Labor Congress (ANLC) 51 – 52, 53 Andrews, Bill 8, 76, 78, 87, 90 Anglo-American Colonial Group/ Secretariat 2, 48 – 50, 53, 54 – 55, 62, 77, 86, 107, 108 – 109, 124, 126, 149 apartheid 2, 8, 91, 157 Arnot, R. 32 – 34, 35, 37, 57 Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) 126 – 127 Australian Labor Party 8, 123, 127, 128, 132, 133, 140, 156 Bach, Lazar 87, 88 – 89, 151 – 152 Barbusse, Henri 27 Barlin, Sam 47, 76 Bennett, R.B. 108, 111 Bilé, Joseph 57 – 58, 61 black communists 2, 3, 7, 45 – 46, 47, 50 – 52, 53 – 56, 57 – 59, 61, 66 – 67, 150 – 151, 155 Blake, J.D. 138 Borodin, Mikhail 26 Boudengha, Tahar 24 British North American (BNA) Act 103 British Secretariat 81, 126 Browder, Earl 63 Buck, Tim 8, 100 – 101, 103, 104, 105 – 108, 110, 113 – 116, 149, 154, 155 Bukharin, Nikolai 28, 79 – 80, 81, 148, 155 Bunting, Brian 157 Bunting, Rebecca 82, 87 Bunting, Sidney 4, 7, 8, 48, 51, 55, 62, 65, 75, 76 – 77, 78, 80, 82 – 87, 88, 90, 91, 107 – 108, 151, 157, 159

Canadian Labour Party 104 Carr, Sam 105 – 107 Chifley, Ben 158 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) see Communist Party of China (CCP) Chinese diaspora 64 La comité de défense de la race nѐgre (CDRN) 52, 53 Communist International (Comintern): and anti-American Imperialism 16, 25, 28, 51 – 52, 105 – 107, 148 – 149, 155; and anti-British Imperialism 16, 22 – 24, 25 – 26, 28, 99, 105 – 107, 108 – 109, 148 – 149, 155; and antifascism 5, 9, 16, 30 – 31, 35 – 36, 37, 63, 66, 67, 89 – 90, 110, 111, 123, 132, 147, 148; and China 2, 15, 25, 26 – 27, 28, 29, 31, 35, 36, 49, 50, 65; Colonial Conference (1929) 33 – 34, 153; Conditions for Admission 21; criticism of European parties 25, 31 – 35, 57 – 59; Eurocentricity of 5, 9, 15, 26, 28, 31 – 35, 37, 45, 46, 57 – 59, 67, 154, 156; and foreign workers 46, 62 – 64, 67, 126, 152, 154; and India 15, 27, 28, 29, 32, 34, 35, 36, 49, 50, 65; and indigenous peoples 6, 7, 46, 64 – 66, 67, 154; Manifesto of 19 – 20, 46 – 47, 148; March Action 24; monolithism of 4, 9, 16, 108, 109, 153 – 154, 155 – 156; Popular Front 8, 35 – 36, 37, 67, 89, 90, 111, 113, 133; priorities of 4 – 9, 16, 21, 23, 24, 28, 29, 33 – 35, 36 – 37, 45, 55, 59, 67, 82 – 83, 107, 110, 116, 118, 123, 148, 151, 154 – 156; Third Period 6, 28 – 31, 32 – 35, 45, 56 – 61, 82 – 88, 104, 105, 118, 123, 126, 127, 129 – 132, 152, 154, 156; United Front 4, 24 – 28, 29, 35, 77, 88, 99, 103 – 104; war scare 25, 28, 57, 108, 109, 110, 118, 127

172 Index Communist International (congresses): Congress of the Peoples of the East 15, 22 – 23, 48; Congress of the Peoples of the Far East 15, 23 – 24; First Congress of 19 – 20, 46 – 47, 50, 62; Second Congress of 1, 7, 20 – 22, 24, 29, 30, 31, 47, 53, 54, 62, 84; Third Congress of 2, 24, 47 – 48, 76, 78, 124; Fourth Congress of 2, 8, 24 – 25, 29, 45, 50 – 51, 62, 99, 103, 128, 149, 150; Fifth Congress of 25, 29, 31, 51; Sixth Congress of 4, 8, 15, 28 – 30, 49, 54 – 56, 61, 65, 66, 75, 80, 82 – 85, 91, 103 – 105, 106, 107, 116, 123, 128, 149, 150, 151, 153; Seventh Congress of 35 – 36, 37, 61, 63, 89, 133, 151 Communist International (journal) 16, 25 – 26, 27, 29, 30, 36 Communist Party of Australia (CPA) 3 – 5, 6, 8 – 9, 24, 33, 123 – 124, 147, 148 – 149, 155, 156, 157, 159; and Aboriginal rights 5, 6, 8 – 9, 123 – 124, 125, 126, 129 – 131, 133 – 140, 147, 150, 152, 154, 158 – 159; and Australian imperialism 8, 123 – 124, 127 – 131, 133 – 135, 140, 150; and immigration 6, 8 – 9, 62, 123, 124 – 127, 129, 131 – 133, 134 – 135, 138, 140, 147, 150, 152, 153, 154, 156, 158; and Melanesian rights 3, 5, 6, 8 – 9, 123 – 124, 131, 134, 137 – 140, 150, 152, 154 Communist Party of Belgium (CPB) 31 – 35 Communist Party of Canada (CPC) 3 – 5, 8, 9, 24, 33, 98 – 99, 118 – 119, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 132, 135, 147, 148 – 149, 155 – 156, 157, 159; arrests of leaders 98, 110, 116, 119, 149; and Canadian independence 8, 9, 98, 99, 101, 102 – 111, 113 – 116, 118, 126, 148 – 150, 155; and Foreign workers 8, 62 – 63, 98, 100, 101, 117 – 118, 147 – 148, 152 – 153; formation and early days of 99; and Indigenous peoples 8, 98, 103, 116 – 117, 152, 154, 155, 158; and Language groups 6, 8, 63, 98, 99 – 102, 107, 116, 118, 119, 152 – 154, 155; and Popular Front 111 – 113; position on French Canadians 3, 5, 6, 8, 98, 99, 102, 104 – 105, 112 – 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 148, 150, 152 – 153, 154, 155, 158; and war scare 108, 109, 110, 118 Communist Party of China (CCP) 26 – 27

Communist Party of France (PCF) 31 – 35, 52 – 53, 57, 58, 59, 63, 78, 89, 102 Communist Party of Germany (KPD) 24, 58 Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) 31 – 35, 36, 57, 77, 78, 80, 89, 90 Communist Party of Holland (CPH) 31 – 35 Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) 32 Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) 138, 150 Communist Party of New Zealand (CPNZ) 66 Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) 3 – 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 24, 33, 75 – 76, 90 – 91, 107 – 108, 124, 132, 147, 148 – 149, 150 – 151, 152, 153, 155, 157, 159; and Afrikaners 83, 89, 152; under Bunting’s leadership 78 – 87; Classical Marxism of 5, 7, 47 – 50, 76, 83, 151; factional struggles 86 – 89; formation and early years 76; and Native Republic Thesis 6, 7 – 8, 55 – 56, 75 – 76, 82 – 89, 151 – 152, 155 – 156; Popular Front 89 – 90, 147; and Rand Revolt 77 – 79; and South African Labour Party 77 – 78; and trade unions 76 – 79 Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) 56, 60 Communist University for the Toilers of the East (KUTV) 53 Conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal Authorities 135, 136 Coniston Massacre (1928) 129 Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) 110, 111, 115 Curtin, John 139, 140, 150, 158 Dadoo, Yusuf 157 Doriot, Jacques 15 – 16, 32 Dubois, George 102 DuBois, W.E.B. 48, 50, 52, 53 Dutt, Clemens 32 Dutt, Rajani Palme 32 Earsman, Bill 62, 124 – 125 Elkin, A.P. 130 Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) 2, 4, 5, 21, 25, 28, 33, 56, 66, 81 – 82, 84, 86, 89, 100, 102, 103, 109, 110, 128 Ford, James 5, 51, 56 – 57, 59, 61, 151 Fort-Whiteman, Lovett 51, 52, 53, 55 Fraina, Louis 47

Index  173 Garden, Jock 126 Garveyism 45, 48 – 49, 50, 79 Gold Coast Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society 60 Gumede, Josiah 79, 86 Hands-Off campaigns 35; Abyssinia 35, 60, 124; China 35, 124; India 124, 133, 149; Nicaragua 28 Hardy, George 89, 152 Haywood, Harry 53 – 56, 57, 150 Hilferding, Rudolf 16 Hobson, J.A. 16 Huiswood, Otto 50 – 51, 60, 61 Humbert-Droz, Jules 65, 66 Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism 15, 16, 18, 29, 99 Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) 78 – 79, 84, 86 International Socialist League (ISL) 76 International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW) 7, 45, 56 – 61, 63, 87, 148, 151, 156 Jones, David Ivon 7, 47 – 50, 65, 76 – 77 Junco, Sandalio 64 Kadalie, Clements 78 Kai-shek Chiang 26 Kalgoorlie race riots 132 Kalinin, Dmitri 23 Katayama, Sen 23, 48 – 50, 53 Kautsky, Karl 16 – 17, 106 Kenyatta, Jomo 2, 57, 58, 60 Khrushchev, Nikita 1, 158 King, William Lyon Mackenzie 114, 116 Kisch, Egon Irwin 132 – 133 Kotane, Moses 8, 87, 88 – 90, 91, 157 Kouyaté, Tiemoko Garan 52 – 53, 57 – 58, 59 – 60, 61, 67, 151 Kuomintang (KMT) 26 – 27, 133 Kuusinen, Otto 101 Labour-Progressive Party (LPP) 117, 158 La Guma, James 4, 7, 55, 56, 75, 79 – 82, 84 – 85, 87, 91, 151, 155 Latin American Secretariat 46, 65, 66 League of African Rights (LAR) 86 League Against Colonial Oppression (LACO) 27 League Against Imperialism (LAI) 2, 6, 7, 16, 27 – 28, 30 – 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37,

52, 55, 57, 58 – 59, 60, 75, 79, 133, 148, 151, 156 Lenin 1, 2, 6, 7, 15, 16 – 19, 20, 21 – 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 35, 36, 45, 46, 47, 49, 53, 54, 58, 64, 65, 66 – 67, 85, 99, 106, 116, 148, 153 Lenin School, The 5, 8, 33, 51, 53, 58, 87, 88, 100, 105 – 107, 126, 149, 152, 155 Liga Antiimperialista de las Americas (LADLA) 27 – 28, 30, 37, 52 Liga zur Verteidigung der Negerrasse (LzVN) 57 – 58, 60 La ligue de défense de la race nѐgre (LDRN) 33, 52 – 53, 57 – 58, 59, 60 MacDonald, Jack 105, 155 McKay, Claude 50 – 51 Madiar, Ludwig 33 – 34 Makabeni Gana 82, 87, 88 Malaka, Tan 2, 24 Mandela, Nelson 2, 157 Manuilsky, Dmitry 25, 29, 31, 51 Mariátegui, Jose 64, 65 Marks, John 87 Marty, Andre 89 Meerut Trial 32, 34 – 35 Merker, Paul 86 Miles, J.B. 129, 133 – 134 Minh, Ho Chi 2, 31 Mofutsanyana, Thabo Edwin 90 Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact see Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact Moore, Richard 52 Moriarty, William 102 Morris, Leslie 105 – 107, 113 – 114 Münzenburg, Willi 2, 5, 16, 27, 30 – 31, 35, 37, 52, 57, 156 Nasanov, Nikolai 53 – 56, 126 Native Republic Thesis 4, 6, 7 – 8, 45, 55 – 56, 75 – 76, 79 – 91, 98, 107, 126, 130, 131, 150 – 152, 153, 154, 155 – 156, 157; in Latin America 46, 64 – 65 Nazism 30, 31, 35, 36, 37, 59, 63, 66, 67, 89, 90, 110, 111, 124, 132 – 133, 134, 138 – 139, 147 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact 90, 113, 114, 138, 148 Negro Bureau 56, 57, 58 Negro Commissions 2, 4, 45, 51, 52, 54 – 56, 59, 80, 82 – 85 Negro Congress 48 – 50, 51, 77

174 Index Negro Question 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 45, 46, 47 – 61, 62, 64, 66, 80, 82, 107, 126, 131, 140, 148, 150 – 152, 154, 155; American focus of 51, 52, 55 – 56, 151; Haywood-Nasanov Theses 53 – 56, 80; Theses on 50 – 51, 131, 140, 148, 150, 151 – 152, 154; in Third Period 56 – 61 Negro Welfare Association (NWA) 60 Negro Worker, The 57, 59, 60, 61 Nehru, Jawaharlal 2, 27 Nzula, Albert 86, 87 Osinsky, Nikolai 19 L’Ouvrier Canadien (Canadian Worker) 102 Padmore, George 5, 51, 59 – 60, 67, 151, 156 Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS) 63 – 64, 126 – 127 Pan-Pacific Worker 63, 126 Paredes, Ricardo 65 Paris Peace Conference 1, 19 Parti communiste français (PCF) see Communist Party of France (PCF) Petrovsky, Max 7, 54, 75, 80 – 82, 83, 84 – 85, 126, 155 Phooko, H.L. 82 Profintern see Red International Labour Union (RILU) Radek, Karl 22, 148 Rand Revolt 49, 77 – 79, 83 Ravesteyn, Willem van 24 – 25 Red International Labour Union (RILU) 56, 58, 59, 63, 126, 128, 130 Red Leader 130 Reed, John 47 Rodd, L.C. 134 Ross, Hector 66, 125, 126 Roux, Edward 77, 78, 80, 82 – 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 159 Roy, M.N. 2, 5, 7, 15, 22, 24 – 25, 26, 29, 33, 37, 128 Russian Civil War 15, 17 – 19, 108 Rutgers, S.J. 19, 46 Ryerson, Stanley 113 – 114, 116, 150, 158 Saklatvala, Shapurji 16, 32 Sandino, Augusto 28, 30 Sawtell, Michael 130 Schatzkin, Lazar 81 Scottsboro case 60

Second International 5, 15, 16 – 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 27, 30, 46, 148 Senghor, Lamine 52 – 53, 57 settler colonialism 7, 55, 62, 65 – 66, 103, 127 – 131, 135, 152, 153 Sharkey, Lawrence 129 Sik, Endre 54 Simard, Emery 102 Slovo, Joe 157 Smalls, E.F. 61 Smith, Stewart 4, 5, 8, 100 – 101, 103, 104, 105 – 108, 113 – 116, 128, 149, 150, 155 Smuts, Jan 77 South African Communist Party (SACP) 2, 91, 157 – 158 Soviet Union: factional struggles 2, 25, 26, 80, 100, 153; foreign policy of 5, 15, 16, 17 – 19, 25, 35, 63, 67, 90, 118, 147 – 148, 154 – 155, 156, 157 – 158 Spanish Civil War 35, 111, 124, 133, 149 Spector, Maurice 100 – 101, 107, 149, 155 Stalin, Joseph 2, 5, 25, 26, 29, 53, 65, 80, 100, 116, 148, 153 Stokaluk, John 101 Stokes, Rose Pastor 50 – 51 Theses on the Eastern Question 15, 24 – 25, 103 Theses on the National and Colonial Question 7, 15, 21 – 22, 26, 29, 34, 45, 47, 49, 50, 53, 54, 66, 67, 77, 81, 84, 103, 128, 148, 151, 154 Theses on the Negro Question see Negro Question Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semicolonies 29 – 30, 55 – 56, 66, 106 Thibedi T.W. 82 Third International see Communist International (Comintern) Treaty of Brest-Litovsk 15, 17 – 18, 19 Trotsky, Leon 19, 26, 46 – 47, 50, 100, 148 Trotskyism 89, 100 – 101, 104, 107, 155 uMKhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) 2, 158 Umsebenzi (Worker) 86, 88, 89, 90 Union des travailleurs nѐgres (UTN) 59, 60 Union Intercoloniale (UIC) 63 Vaara, Aarvo 101 Vie Ouvriѐre (Worker’s Life) 112

Index  175 Weir, John 105 – 107 Wells, Thomas Alexander 130 – 131 White Australia Policy 3, 6, 8, 49, 62, 123, 124, 125 – 127, 129, 131 – 133, 134, 138, 140, 153, 154, 156, 158 Wilson, Woodrow 1, 18, 19 Wirrpanda, Dhakiyarr 130 – 131 Wolton, Douglas 82, 85 – 88, 151 Wolton, Molly 82, 86, 87, 88, 151 Worker, The 103, 107 Worker’s Party of Canada (WPC) 99, 102

Worker’s Weekly 129 World Committee Against War and Fascism (WCAWF) 30 – 31, 35, 132, 156 Wright, Tom 8, 126, 127 – 128, 135 – 136, 140, 149, 150 Yat-sen Sun 26, 64 Zimmerwald Left 7, 15, 19 Zinoviev, Grigory 22 – 23, 25 – 26, 53, 148