Vol. XIII (2007), no 20 - The International Newsletter of Communist ...

The International Newletter of Communist Studies Online XIII (2007), no 20 108
speak, since there are many fragmentary threads to extract and pick up, it is required to
apply a methodological approach which can be understood as a cut and paste technique by
using different archives and archival collections. Further, an investigation of the activities of
the LAI enhances a deeper understanding of the nature of Comintern and it’s intertwined
political, social, and private networks with both its internal institutions (the Comintern
apparatus and its international sections), and its external elements, such as individuals active
as “international communists”. 172 Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe argue that the Comintern
“was not … a perfectly operating machine, in which humans were merely cogs. But nor was it
an irrelevance. There was … space for human agency at all levels”. 173 Not at least from this
approach, research on the LAI seems necessary.
Evidences of the Transformation of the LAI and its Relevance for the Comintern.
Which kind of empirical evidence has been found in order to sustain the hypothesis that LAI
can be regarded as the most important propaganda and network tool during the so-called
“Third Period” 174 in Comintern history? One assumption has the starting point in the results of
LAI’s Second International Congress in 1929. As previously mentioned, the decision-makers in
Moscow were principally not satisfied, but saw in the LAI a potential factor for attracting
elements that otherwise were difficult to approach (pacifists, radicals, European Labour
movements, colonial individuals and groups). The organisational independence, which the
International Secretariat in Berlin had experienced since the League’s initiation in 1927 was
no longer tolerated by the Comintern. Firmer control from Moscow had to be invested through
a “systematic continuous leadership on the part of the WEB 175 [West European Bureau]. The
apparatus of the League must be re-organised”. 176 Fundamentally, it was a question of reorganising
and moulding the LAI after Moscow’s own principles and with the chaotic situation
created after the Second congress the time was ripe to do so.
Police); the Labour Movement Archive and Library in Stockholm (ARAB).
172
The term “international communists” refers to actors that did not have a fixed geographical home
base, but instead saw the world as their international operational working field. Some of these
individuals (nationality in parenthesis) active as international communists in the LAI were Louis Gibarti
(Hungary), Virendranath Chattophadyaya (India), Bohumir Smeral (Czechoslovakia), Mechnet Schefik
(alias: Bekar Ferdi, Turkey), Hans Thögersen (Denmark/China).
173
Tim Rees & Andrew Thorpe (eds.), ”Introduction”, in International communism and the Communist
International, Manchester, 1998, p.10
174
The “Third Period” in Comintern history is often regarded as the period lasting between the Sixth
International Comintern Congress in 1928 and the Seventh Congress in 1935, and is characterised by its
class against class policy. See for example Matthew Worley’s (ed.) In Search of Revolution –
International Communist Parties in the Third Period (London, 2004) for a discussion on which effects
the “Third Period” had on the Comintern.
175
Investigation of documents, particularly at RGASPI, has shown that the link between LAI and the WEB
increased over time, and especially after the failure of the Frankfurt am Main Congress 1929. The WEB
“element” plays a significant part in the LAI network after 1929. For example, the well-known
Communist Georgi Dimitrov (active under the alias of “Helmut”) and German Communist Richard
Gyptner (active under the alias “Magnus”) were dominant features in the WEB, and as it has been
shown, in the League business. Dimitrov acted as Chief of operations, and Gyptner as Secretary. The
WEB files are gathered in fond 499 in the Comintern archive.
176
RGASPI 495/20/722, pp. 100-105, Draft resolution on results of the II World Congress of the LAI and
its direct immediate tasks (Passed by the Eastern Secretariat), 27/8-1929.