The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online IX

The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 41
right to participate in the activities of Communist Parties). However, this did not suit at any extent to the
Mexican ruling elite and the government of the USSR finally had to replace Pestkovsky with Alexandra Kollontai
who insisted on the necessity of a clear differentiation between the diplomatic and the Comintern’s functions.
However, subsequent changes in the Comintern rhetoric and its increasing critical attitude towards the
Mexican government (while the Soviet diplomats started to participate more actively in the work of rapidly
radicalizing the Communist PArty of Mexico in 1928-1929) resulted in the inevitable deterioration of Soviet-
Mexican relations leading to their final break in 1930. This unexpected event created, in practice, serious
problems for the communist movement.
Bernhard H. Bayerlein, Mannheim Centre for European Studies, Mannheim University, Germany:
A Glimpse of Latin America in the Humbert-Droz-Archives and the Dimitrov-Diaries
The Archives of Jules Humbert-Droz have been published in five volumes between 1970 and 2001. After the
Bulgarian version, The Dimitrov Diary (1933-1943) was issued at the end of 2000 in a new and revised German
translation by Aufbau Verlag in Berlin. While the Humbert-Droz Archives belong to the most important internal
sources of Comintern documents preserved in Western Europe, the Dimitrov-Diaries, kept secret in Bulgarian
archives, are considered by specialists like Narinskij, Besymenskij and Leonhardt belonging to the most
important sources about Stalin as a personality and politician as well as Soviet and Comintern politics before
and during the Second World War. The Humbert-Droz archives edition include documents and among them
parts of private correspondence, the Dimitrov diary is mainly a personal working journal. For the Swiss
»Tolstoist« (Lenin), Latin America was a main preoccupation. Humbert-Droz as Latin Secretary of the ECCI
relates Comintern interventions until 1930 concerning Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, the Mella-case (who as we
know now, has been expelled from the Cuban PC), and the turn to putschismo during the »third period«.
These documents reflect not only bureaucratism but also parts of the social and cultural heritage of Latin
America (the First Communist Conference at Buenos Aires and the discussions about the Indian tradition and
the role of small farmes in revolutionary transformations). Dimitrov reflects clearly the heritage of Stalinism
(also in Latin America). Some notes apparently without importance nevertheless are revealing a close
colaboration between Comintern and Soviet services. He notifies his contacts with top officials of the NKVD
like Sudoplatov, the operative reponsibles for the assassination of Trotsky on behalf of Stalin and Berija.
Caridad Mercader, mother of Ramón, who educated her son to be a murderer, was recruited by Dimitrov as a
member of the »Kaderreserve« of the Comintern. Dimitrov probably also met »Carlos« (i.e. Vittorio Vidali) when
he was leaving Moscow to perform assassinations but without explaining the type of mission. These examples
show that the notes of Dimitrov require a special form of reading (they were of course not available to the
public). Concerning Latin America there are allusions to Jesús Hernández, Earl Browder and Luís Quintanilla.
The importance of the Latin American subcontinent was increasing with the Spanish Civil War, Dimitrov asked