Appendix: dramatis persona

Summary

MIKHAIL BORODIN

Born Gruzenberg to a pious Jewish family in Russia, he became a member of the ‘Bund’ (the Jewish Socialist Party) but later joined the Bolshevik Party. He was one of the first envoys of the Comintern outside Russia. He was sent by Angelica Babalanova, the first president of the Communist International, to the United States in order to smuggle some jewels for the aid of an economic delegation from Soviet Russia which had remained in the United States short of funds. He went to Mexico, where he contacted some radical American refugees as well as the Indian, M. N. Roy. Together, they founded the Mexican Section of the Comintern, which they believed was ‘the first Communist Party outside Russia’. Borodin returned to Moscow and in the twenties was sent to China to help the Communists during the period of their alliance with the Kuomintang, and witnessed the bloody reversal of Chiang Kai-shek against his former allies. Borodin was portrayed during this period, by André Malraux in his famous novel La Condition Humaine. He died in the late fifties.

VITTORIO (or VICTORIO) CODOVILLA

The most important apparatchik of the Comintern in Latin America. Born in Italy, he went to Argentina as an immigrant in his late teens, and never lost his Italian accent in speaking Spanish. He was appointed to lead the South American Secretariat of the Comintern after 1926.