Comintern Aesthetics in the Andes: The Indigenous Revolutionary

2021 ◽  
Vol 85 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-473
Author(s):  
Anna Björk Einarsdóttir

The fight against imperialism and racism was central to the Comintern's political and cultural program of the interwar period. Although the more immediate interests of the Soviet state would come to overshadow such causes, the cultural and political connections forged during this time influenced later forms of organizing. Throughout the interwar period (1918-39), the Soviet Union served as the core location of a newly formed world-system of socialist and communist radicalism. The origin of Latin American Marxism in the work of the Peruvian theorist and political organizer José Carlos Mariátegui, as well as the politically committed literature associated with the interwar communist left in the Andean region of Latin America, shows how literature and theory devoted to the indigenous revolutionary contributed to interwar Marxist debates. The interwar influence of Mariátegui and César Vallejo makes clear the importance of resisting attempts to drive a wedge between the two authors and the broader communist movement at the time.

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 67-106
Author(s):  
Dan La Botz

The Soviet Union and the Communist International had an adverse influence on the Latin American workers’ movement, continually diverting it fighting for a  emocratic socialist society. They subordinated the workers’ movements to the interests of the Soviet Union’s ruling class, the Communist bureaucracy. At one  oment, they led the workers’ movement in disastrous uprisings, while in a subsequent era they encouraged it to build alliances with capitalist and imperialist power.


1990 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kline

This article will argue that general agreement between Cuba and the Soviet Union on their foreign policy toward Latin America is likely over the long run, despite (a) Fidel Castro's condemnation of perestroika and glasnost, and (b) his obvious attempt to embarrass Soviet Secretary-General Mikhail Gorbachev during the latter's state visit to Cuba in April 1989. Serious obstacles — such as differences over Cuban domestic policy and Castro's personal ambitions — remain to be overcome, but foreign policy disagreements between the two countries are likely to prove less intractable than is frequently assumed.This article will start with (1) an overview of Cuban Latin American foreign policy since the 1970s; then proceed to (2) an interpretation of Soviet “new thinking;” and finally (3) argue that this particular interpretation of “new thinking” is consistent with, and not contradictory to, Castro's foreign policy.


Author(s):  
Thomas C. Field Jr.

The Cold War in Latin America had marked consequences for the region’s political and economic evolution. From the origins of US fears of Latin American Communism in the early 20th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, regional actors played central roles in the drama. Seeking to maximize economic benefit while maintaining independence with regard to foreign policy, Latin Americans employed an eclectic combination of liberal and anti-imperialist discourses, balancing frequent calls for anti-Communist hemispheric unity with periodic diplomatic entreaties to the Soviet bloc and the nonaligned Third World. Meanwhile, US Cold War policies toward the region ranged from progressive developmentalism to outright military invasions, and from psychological warfare to covert paramilitary action. Above all, the United States sought to shore up its allies and maintain the Western Hemisphere as a united front against extra-hemispheric ideologies and influence. The Cold War was a bloody, violent period for Latin America, but it was also one marked by heady idealism, courageous political action, and fresh narratives about Latin America’s role in the world, all of which continue to inform regional politics to this day.


1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodolfo Cerdas Cruz

This study explores some of the changes currently taking place in the USSR and the possible impact of changing Soviet foreign policy on Latin America. The article begins with an analysis of the possible effects of the attempts to separate Party and State on foreign policy and on the interpretation and observance of the so-called internationalist obligations of the Soviet Union towards Latin America. It goes on to investigate the possible impact of perestroika on the internal relations of COMECON countries and any weakening in the commitment of its members to political and social changes in the Latin American republics. These changes are looked at particularly, though not uniquely, with reference to Cuba and Nicaragua. Some predictions are also made as to the possible future moves the USSR might make to strengthen and improve its relations with the largest countries in the region such as Brazil and Argentina.


Author(s):  
Roman Kotsan

The article considers smuggling as economic crime in the Soviet-Polish border in the interwar period. The reasons for smuggling activities are studied and summarized. Range of smuggled goods is shown. The number of arrested smugglers, their nationality, the value of seized goods both from Poland and the Soviet Union are investigated. Smuggling as a political phenomenon in the Soviet-Polish border in 1921-1939 is under study. The use of smugglers by the intelligence agencies of both Poland and the USSR are emphasized. The role of public authorities of both abovementioned countries in the fight against smuggling, namely Border Guard Corps from Poland; border guards, customs, security services and local Soviet authorities on the part of the USSR are studied. The influence of anti smuggling measures (increased criminal liability, limitation of private capital in trade, strengthen of the state borders protection) on its amount decrease is studied. Keywords: State border, smuggling, crime, scouting, Poland, USSR


2020 ◽  
pp. 35-41
Author(s):  
A. Mustafabeyli

In many political researches there if a conclusion that the world system which was founded after the Second world war is destroyed of chaos. But the world system couldn`t work while the two opposite systems — socialist and capitalist were in hard confrontation. After collapse of the Soviet Union and the European socialist community the nature of intergovernmental relations and behavior of the international community did not change. The power always was and still is the main tool of international communication.


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Denise Getchell

This article reevaluates the U.S.-backed coup in 1954 that overthrew Guatemala's democratically elected president, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán. The coup is generally portrayed as the opening shot of the Cold War in the Western Hemisphere and a watershed moment for U.S.–Latin American relations, when the United States supplanted its Good Neighbor Policy with a hardline anti-Communist approach. Despite the extensive literature on the coup, the Soviet Union's perspectives on the matter have received scant discussion. Using Soviet-bloc and United Nations (UN) archival sources, this article shows that Latin American Communists and Soviet sympathizers were hugely influential in shaping Moscow's perceptions of hemispheric relations. Although regional Communists petitioned the Soviet Union to provide support to Árbenz, officials in Moscow were unwilling to prop up what they considered a “bourgeois-democratic” revolution tottering under the weight of U.S. military pressure. Soviet leaders were, however, keen to use their position on the UN Security Council to challenge the authority of the Organization of American States and undermine U.S. conceptions of “hemispheric solidarity.” The coup, moreover, revealed the force of anti-U.S. nationalism in Latin America during a period in which Soviet foreign policy was in flux and the Cold War was becoming globalized.


2019 ◽  
pp. 119-147
Author(s):  
Deborah Yalen

This article explores the scholarly legacy of I.M. Pul’ner, director of the Jewish Section of the State Museum of Ethnography in Leningrad from the late 1930s until the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, and considers the significance of material culture for Soviet Jewish ethnography during the interwar period. It also traces the rediscovery of Pul’ner by Soviet Jewish intellectuals in the 1970s, and the global journey of a long-lost archival document, which is now preserved at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City.


Author(s):  
Jason García Portilla

AbstractThe anti-clerical elements of the Revolution helped Cuba succeed in various indicators (e.g. education quality and coverage, equality, health). The Cuban regime seized, dismantled, and limited the institutional influence of Roman Catholicism on these areas of public life. However, a strong cultural influence of a highly syncretised Roman Catholicism persists in Cuba even if its institutional influence has been curbed. Also, the Communist regime, by adopting Marxism, “threw the baby out with the bathwater” through persecuting all types of religion, including Protestant liberals. Finally, the Cuban regime conveniently turned to Rome to legitimise itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union and to silence Protestantism with a corporatist strategy. The socialist legal tradition had an effect opposite to its claims (e.g. lack of freedom, corruption), even if its anti-clerical element was an advantage. Comparing the Cuban experience to other Latin American countries with leftist dictatorships (e.g. Venezuela) helps understand their failure to achieve the Cuban indicators (e.g. education). The crucial factor in this regard is whether or not the power and influence of the Roman Church-State are reduced.


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