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

The International Newletter of Communist Studies Online XIII (2007), no 20 110
League before drawing the conclusion that none of the above would be able to reach the
same desired result as LAI. The probable liquidation of the LAI, instead of re-organisation,
would “therefore be a large mistake”. 181 Hence, Comintern headquarters regarded the LAI to
be a vital part of the anti-imperialist and colonial networks already in place, or those which
could still be constructed in the beginning of the 1930s. 182
This is only one of the organisational turns the LAI faced during its existence, and it shows
partly that Comintern headquarters regarded it worthwhile to invest energy and time in the
League, partly that the organisational and individual relationships at times were strained in
the anti-imperialist network. This is a fairly neglected paradigm, whereas greater attention
instead had been focused on the degree of success that fronts like the LAI achieved during its
existence, namely, how many (or few) followers they had.
In Agents of the Revolution (2005) Kevin Morgan et al. claimed that time finally has come to
achieve a “genuine”, or for our subject, a complete historicisation of the Comintern
phenomenon. 183 Included in this there should be a research focus on exploring and discovering
various networks, previously unknown, and to analyse the level of human agency that existed
in the Comintern. The history of the LAI provides an opportunity to do this, but also to
analyse why and how Comintern acted as it did concerning the front organizations. It would
be of equal relevance to show how the international communists active “on the field”,
became engaged in a complex structure which faced organisational turmoil within the LAI,
the Comintern apparatus, and the KPD machinery in Berlin. It is time to examine the LAI from
an inside perspective and to have a broader look out, as far as the sources allow, borrowing
Smeral’s point of view regarding the continuation of the LAI in 1930: “I regard all of the
above mentioned tasks as a possibility”. 184
181
RGASPI 542/1/39, pp.65-76, On the question of reorganising and continuity of LAI, directives sent
from ECCI Secretariat, 16/2-1930
182
RGASPI 542/1/39, p.37, Letter from Smeral in Berlin to unknown receiver in Moscow, 27/3-1930
183
Kevin Morgan, Gidon Cohen & Andrew Flinn (eds.), “Introduction”, in Agents of the Revolution – New
Biographical Approaches to the History of International Communism in the Age of Lenin and Stalin,
Bern, 2005, p.14
184
RGASPI 542/1/39, pp. 5-11, Letter from Smeral in Berlin to unknown receiver in Moscow, 2/1-1930.
The word “possibility” was underlined by the receiver of the letter in Moscow.