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

The International Newletter of Communist Studies Online XIII (2007), no 20 109
On 23 of December 1929, the Eastern Secretariat of the ECCI in Moscow sent directives to
the Central Committee of the German Communist Party (KPD), instructing them that LAI
needed more “attention and support” by the communists in Germany, and urging the KPD to
nominate a “reliable Comrade” to work at the German Section of the League. 177 Two months
earlier, on October 20, 1929, Bohumir Smeral, Comintern emissary and Czechoslovakian
communist, arrived in Berlin in order to overtake the position as Secretary of the
International Secretariat in Berlin. From that moment on, the League had three Secretaries;
the other two were Münzenberg and Virendranath Chattophadyaya (a national revolutionary
from India, better known as Chatto). 178 Smeral’s appointment had been decided by the Small
Commission in Moscow, a decision causing anger and frustration among the actors in Berlin,
especially Chatto, forcing him to respond to the Small Commission that “we should only be
adding a superfluous, superficial politician … instead of comrades with real knowledge of and
connections in the colonies”. 179 After Smeral had monitored the activity at the International
Secretariat, the first confidential report was sent to Moscow on January 2, 1930, in which he
stated that the League was in a “situation of crisis”. Smeral claimed that the situation at the
Secretariat had deteriorated in so far as now the question was to keep LAI alive. Only by
reorganising the LAI could it remain active, with a new political platform, that is, as an
organization promoting a more aggressive national revolutionary rhetoric, with the systematic
assistance from the Eastern Secretariat in Moscow, the WEB in Berlin, and European
Communist Parties suggested Smeral. 180
Moscow responded to Smeral’s suggestions about a month later. The ECCI Political
Secretariat in Moscow on February 16, 1930, sent new directives and suggestions to the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of France (CPF), concerning a re-organisation of
the LAI. Apart from organisational measures, the Political Secretariat expressed its view on
the LAI and its future as a non-party organization, promoting a distinct and clearly articulated
anti-imperialist agenda. Moscow “emphasize[d], that a non-party organization, like the LAI,
at the moment [struggling] in the III Period of the Post-war Capitalism” was without a doubt a
central organization. Since the LAI was not restricted, since it was not perceived as a “pure
Communist International organization” according to the Political Secretariat, it could act as a
non-party organization, a crucial modus operandi as the liberation struggle in the colonial and
semi-colonial world was growing at an increased speed. Therefore, Moscow had taken in
regard other non-party organizations, steaming from the Comintern apparatus of relief and
front organizations, for example IAH, Internationale Rote Hilfe (IRH, in English: International
Red Aid, IRA, Russian acronym: MOPR), Friends of the Soviet Union, and the Anti-Fascist
177
BArch SAPMO I 6/3/198, pp. 1-3, Confidential directives from the Eastern Secretariat of the ECCI in
Moscow to Central Committee of the KPD, 23/12-1929.
178
See Nirode K. Barooah’s extensive biography on Chatto in Chatto – The Life and Times of an Indian
Anti-Imperialist in Europe (Oxford, 2004).
179
BArch SAPMO R 1507/279, pp. 79-93, Betrifft: Durchsuchung der Räume der ”Liga gegen den
Imperialismus”, Berlin, 19/8-1932; RGASPI 542/1/30, pp. 104-106, Letter from Chatto in Berlin to the
Small Commission in Moscow, 14/10-1929. The decision to send Smeral to Berlin was taken by the Small
Commission, 28/9-1929. For biographical information on Smeral see Branko Lazitch & Milorad M.
Drachkovitch, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern (Expanded Edition), Stanford University, 1986,
p. 433.
180
RGASPI 542/1/39, pp. 5-11, Letter from Smeral in Berlin to unknown receiver in Moscow, 2/1-1930.