The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online IX

The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 37
that the realignment of the Peruvian Communists was more a consequence of their own turn towards the USSR
and towards the myth of World Revolution than a result of an institutional and ideological pressure exercised
by the Comintern and some of its emissaries. Considering this, it should not be a surprise that the pressure
exercised since June of 1929 was welcomed by some of Mariátegui’s own fellows who were unable to triumph
over the theses of their teacher with their own forces.
Klaus Meschkat, Hannover University, Germany: Revolutionary Socialism in Colombia and the
Communist International.
Among the Socialist organizations in Latin America which were inspired by the example of the October
Revolution of 1917 in Russia, the Revolutionary Socialist Party founded in 1926 presents the very important case
of successful relations between the newly born working class movement and a broad popular mobilization. It is
necessary to stress that in Colombia at the end of 1920s surged a mass party affiliated to the Communist
International, a party able, according to many of its contemporaries, to seize power. Starting with the
discussion of Colombian issues at the First Latin American Communist Conference in Buenos Aires (June1929)
there was more active penetration, by the Communist International, into the affairs of Colombia’s revolutionary
socialists. An important person in this relation is Guillermo Hernández Rodríguez who studied in Moscow from
the end of 1927 and later returned to Colombia to become First Secretary of the Communist Party pretending
to overcome supposed errors of the previous phase. On the basis of the research through the documents of
the Comintern Archive in Moscow it is now possible to discuss what were the consequences of the imposition
of a new organization of Leninist type for the destiny of the revolutionary movement in Colombia.
Peter Huber, Hannover University, Germany: Jules Humbert-Droz and Latin America
Two Swiss men played an important role in the elaboration and implementation of the political line of the
Communist International in Latin America. The first of them, Edgar Woog (known by the pseudonym »Stirner«)
never conflicted with Moscow’s »general line« and after World War II was made the General Secretary of the
Swiss Communist Party. The second one, Jules Humbert-Droz, on the other hand, since 1928 had sharp
divergences with the line laid down by Moscow; he would, later on, become the Central Secretary of the Swiss
Socialist Party. Until the year of 1966, the Soviet historians simply preferred not to mention Humbert-Droz’s
contribution to the Comintern’s policy in Latin America or they tried to hide it. In the 1970s Humbert-Droz was
still considered by the Soviets to be a »renegade« who had attempted to change the Comintern’s line toward
Latin America. However, in the same epoch, Latin American historians pointed to Humbert-Droz as Moscow’s
confidential person who, with an iron hand, ruled the Latin American sections of the Third International
carrying out the wishes of Moscow.