Comintern

http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/cpgb_biblio/searchfrset.htm

Flowing out of me at the moment, and I need to log them in some way so I don’t forget these good (well ok seemingly good) ideas.

It occurred to me that there is some mileage in looking at the Comintern in Stalin’s purges in a similar vein to my work on the topic with the Soviet diplomatic corps. There is lots of material on the purges and the Comintern already, but I feel that as with my article on the diplomatic corps (forthcoming in Slavonic and East European Review, there is a contribution to be made on the way in which Comintern agents responded to the purges.

I feel that this would be a fruitful line of enquiry, and will be particularly interesting in different national contexts. Spain will present quite a different picture to Germany or Great Britain.

I’ve been thinking about a new article on the Comintern and its response to the challenge of anarchists and anarchism. One approach to adopt might be a comparison of the ways in which the Comintern dealt with anarchists in the early years after the Russian Revolution, and then in the Spanish Civil War. Clealry there is tension in both periods, not least as a result of events beyond Soviet control.

What will be of interest is why the Comintern found anarchists a threat (on the face of it this seems quite self explanatory), and how they sought to deal with them. It will also be interesting, and links well with my project to look and see if there were any anarchists agents in the Comintern or who had been in the Comintern, or if agents deserted the Comintern to join with the anarchists.

http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=156010

This one is quite interesting - the role of non-communist labour in international relations. Might not be one I propose a paper for, but definitely one I’d be interested in going to.

I’ve been invited to submit a paper proposal for this conference on the Cominform in September 2007 (to mark the 60th anniversary of its founding). I’m interested in going, and I could look at producing a paper on the transition of personell from Comintern to Cominform in the 1940s.

Worth keeping in mind, particularly as they will pay flights and accomodation for paper presenters.

Seemed to go down well…

I talked for about an hour, and they seemed to be interested. I certainly got asked some good questions which I tried to respond to as best I could. Some relae to this paper, but others have a broader significance. The jist of them was

- Are there any religious connections. Ideas of monasticism? - Certainly the ILS is culty
- Why did the school close in 1938?
- Why was there no consideration of the nationalities question in the prerequesite reading list for the ILS?
- How was the centre envisaging that ILS graduates might reintegrate into their national parties?
- How did western governments view the ILS?

Positive feedback and some good foos for thought. I’m in the process of sorting out the podcast to include the slides, but the audio is here, both the paper and the question and answer session (click buttons below).

I’m giving a paper on 16th November at UWE St. Mathias on the International Lenin School and its students.

I’m going to try to record it and upload the podcast for those who can’t make it (and for posterity…)

I didn’t get offered a postdoc, but I did get some feedback which is useful.  I got rated 5/5 (excellent) on all points (research plan, quality of doctoral dissertation, previous research experience, research environment, general assessment ) and got these comments from the two assessors (they’re Finns, so the English is a little interesting!):

Strengths:

• An innovative approach; the combination of theoretical sophistication and excellent primary material suggests that the expected result can be highly significant.
• It is a good insight to research the possible tensions between different Soviet government agencies, like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Comintern. The Imperial Russian Government was sometimes paralyzed in its actions because of the disagreements between the ministries. The study will be based on the archival sources and it will inform us about did this pattern continue into the Soviet period.

Weaknesses:

• Methodological aspects and the relationship to earlier scholarship could be more clearly spelled out.
• The applicant should have related his study to the previous literature that exists in this field.

Encouraging, and useful feedback, as well as some exposure to the wider field outside of the UK.

Thinking about a new module on this.  Possible topics to deal with would be:

• The International, it’s precursors (i.e. 1st and 2nd Internationals), and aims
• Theories of international revolution, and the personalities behind them
• Control and deviance
• Centre-periphery relationships (plus national variations)
• Spanish Civil War
• Disbandment (is that a word?)

I think this could be a module that would be interesting to students, and would fit very well with my research interests (thereby fulfilling requirements for research led teaching).  I would plan this as level 3, and would ground it in study of primary material, of which there is a sizeable amount available in English which can be supplemented by translations of documents from Russian by me.

haven’t been to active on the old posting about research (there goes my great idea about using this blog to write posts), but computer time has been limited owing to being busy with research and Moscow life.

I have found interesting material on the International Lenin School, which trained members of foreign communist parties for the Comintern.  It was based in Moscow, shrouded in secrecy, and seems to have trained a very sizeable number of agents.  I have been able to find information on the curriculums (including regional varieties) and how they changed in response to the Comintern’s needs, the Party’s desires and changes in the international situation.  I’ve also got a lot of statistical data (number crunching time) detailing students national, social, educational, gender, and political backgrounds as well as the number of students offered and denied places at the school.   All good, and very relevant to what I conceive as a broader topic, but a good start which should allow me to write an article or two.