From the All-Union Committee for the fight against rheumatism

At the III International Congress on the Fight against Rheumatism, which just ended in Paris, it was decided to convene the next IV International Antirheumatic Congress in the spring of 1934 in Moscow.

Interaction of the trade union organization with internal stakeholders of educational institution

This article analyzes the interaction of the trade union organization with the internal stakeholders of the educational institution on the example of the experience of the People's Ukrainian Academy. The internal stakeholders of the educational and scientific complex have been identified: the staff (teachers, teaching and support staff), students, graduates, public organizations and councils of the academy; structural subdivisions, medical service, labor protection service; departments, sports club, etc. The main directions of the work of the trade union organization are allocated: care of health preservation; labor protection; social protection; help in acute life situations; catering; conducting cultural and sports programs; explanatory and consulting work (health care, pension issues, etc.). The structure of the integral part of the Trade Union Organization of the PUA - Trade Union of Students is considered and its main functional responsibilities are indicated: creation of a pro-staff in each academic group and organization of its work; conducting projects and programs to maintain a healthy lifestyle; patronage of senior courses over juniors and schoolchildren of the Specialized School of Economics and Law; assistance to students in solving educational and housing problems; organization of cultural and sports creative projects; holding a competition for the "Best Room" in the hostel; assistance in the organization of rest and improvement of students during the winter and summer vacations. The experience of the trade union committee in using the capabilities of all internal stakeholders of KhUH "PUA" to achieve a synergistic effect that facilitates the process of human adaptation to the conditions of constant change is presented.

Comrades in Arts: The Soviet Dekada of National Art and the Friendship of Peoples

This article examines the dekady of national art, a series of Soviet festivals fi rst staged in the mid-1930s to highlight the cultures and artistic accomplishments of the various non-Russian republics of the USSR. The institution of the dekada, I contend, made considerable contributions to Soviet nationbuilding eff orts and the construction of multiethnic culture. The article unfolds in three sections. The fi rst relies on archival documents to trace the origins and evolution of the dekada of national art in the context of its bureaucratic home, the All-Union Committee on Arts Aff airs. The second draws largely on periodical sources to consider the ways in which the larger currents of Stalin-era culture are refl ected in the dekady of national art and, in particular in the national operas that served as the centerpieces of the dekady. The fi nal section turns to the Friendship of Peoples campaign, identifying one aspect of it - that Soviet citizens appreciate not only their own national art but the art of other Soviet nations - as central to the dekady. Analyzing the public rhetoric surrounding the dekady, I identify several themes that emerge and their implications for forging a common pan-Soviet culture. I conclude that it is not only national cultural production, but the consumption of national cultural products by a multiethnic audience that is central to nation-building on multiple levels as well as a means to unite the ethnically diverse Soviet people, and that the dekada festivals aimed to bring the Soviet nations closer together by providing them an opportunity to consume one another’s cultural products.

Unity and divisions on departmental select committees: A Brexit effect?

Most reports from UK departmental select committees are agreed by consensus, underpinning their reputation for non-partisan working in an adversarial House of Commons. However, divisions (formal votes) are more common than is often assumed, occurring on 9% of reports between 2010 and 2019. This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of unity and divisions on select committees. It finds that the incidence of divisions increases when opposition parties chair committees, when there are more rebellious members of parliament present and when more new members of parliament are in attendance. Brexit provoked significant inter-party and intra-party divisions in the Commons. In committees, divisions on Brexit reports are higher than those on other reports and the Exiting the European Union Committee has a clear Leave-Remain fault line. But, more broadly, the Brexit effect on select committees is limited and unanimity remains the norm even when there are policy differences between parties.

Great disappointment, shifting opportunities: a glimpse into the Comintern, Western European parties and their colonial work in the Third Period

In early 1929, Robin Page Arnot and James Ford, both sponsored by the Comintern, each set out on a trip to investigate what Western European communist parties had accomplished in their campaigns on colonialism and racial inequality. Both men issued stern reports suggesting more could be done; but following these investigations a proposed European colonial conference never happened. The League Against Imperialism petered out. The International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers formed, but consistently dealt with discrimination and received limited, if any, help from European communist parties. Using Executive Committee politsecretariat documents, this article argues that the Comintern quickly abandoned an emphasis on colonial work, instead focusing on domestic campaigns when contacting these parties between 1929 and 1935. Highlighting the migration of these ideas transnationally, while offering a comparative analysis of the Executive Committee of the Communist International's interventions into each party, this research serves as a starting point for further inquiry into why the Comintern elected to not press these European parties to do more. Was their inaction because the Comintern was always Eurocentrically-minded? Was it because Comintern leaders were only paying lip service to these concepts? Was it that the Comintern prioritized other matters, especially as the Great Depression and the rise of fascism brought new challenges to communism? This article sheds some light on these questions by exposing the way in which the Comintern instructed each party to focus on in their broader campaigns.

Framing Black Communist Labour Union Activism in the Atlantic World: James W. Ford and the Establishment of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, 1928–1931

The International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW) was a radical trans-Atlantic network for the propagation of black proletarian internationalism, established by the Red International of Labour Unions in 1928. Its key mastermind was James W. Ford, an African American communist labour union activist who was in charge of the organization and its operations until the autumn of 1931. This article critically highlights Ford's ambitions as well as the early phase of the organization. Both in terms of its agenda and objective as well as in its outreach among black workers in the Black Atlantic, the ITUCNW and its main propagators stressed the “class-before-race” argument of the Comintern rather than the pan-Africanist “race-before-class” approach. This is not surprising as the ITUCNW was one of the organizations that had been established when the Comintern and the RILU had started to apply the “class-against-class” doctrine, which left no room for cooperation between communists and radical pan-Africanists.

PLOTKIN SEMEN YAKOVLEVICH (TO THE 110TH ANNIVERSARY)

The article tells about life and fate of S.Ya. Plotkin, whose 110-th anniversary of birth was marked on March 2016. He was born in 1906 in Melitopole town (Ukraine). Having graduated at the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology in 1931, he was asked for administration works firstly as the director of the Institute and then as the member of the All-Union Committee for High School problems. During all his life S.Ya. Plotkin successfully combine administrative, scientific, pedagogical and journalistic activities. He was the expert in the problems of hard alloys and powder metallurgy, professor, editor in chief of the journal «History of Natural Sciences and Technique». He was the member of the Journalist’s Union of the USSR, Honorary member of the International Institute for the Sciences of Sintering and Honorary worker of Culture of Russian Federation.