The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online IX

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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
The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 42 for a major role to be assumed by the Latin-American communist parties’ antifascist campaign as a consequence of the Munich pact of 1938. But the »antifascismo« was abandonned in 1939 – instead, the Dimitrov diaries show how he had to »translate« for the Comintern the consequences of the pact between Stalin and Hitler (August 1939) and the cynical so called German-Russian friendship. Under much different circumstances the »Great Patriotic War« implied that from 1941 on the new strategy of a united front of all nations against Hitler, increased the importance of Latin America for the Soviet Union and the Comintern.
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