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At the Beginning of a History: Visions of the Comintern After the Opening of the Archives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2009

Brigitte Studer  and
Berthold Unfried
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International Review of Social History , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , December 1997 , pp. 419 - 446
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Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1997

References

1 For reasons of space we restrict ourselves to the following works: Buber-Neumann, Margarete, Kriegsschauplätze der Weltrevolution. Ein Bericht aus der Praxis der Komintern 1919–1943 (Stuttgart-Degerloch, 1967)Google Scholar; Fischer, Ruth, Stalin and German Communism (Cambridge, MA, 1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosenberg, Arthur, A History of Bolshevism. From Marx to the First Five Years' Plan (London, 1934)Google Scholar. Interesting memoirs of participants include Buber-Neumann, Margarete, Von Potsdam nach Moskau. Stationen eines Irrwegs (Stuttgart, 1957)Google Scholar; Humbert-Droz, Jules, Mémoires, 4 vols (Neuchâtel, 1969–1963)Google Scholar; Kuusinen, Aino, The Ring of Destiny. Inside Soviet Russia from Lenin to Brezhnev (New York, 1974)Google Scholar; Tuominen, Arvo, The Bells of the Kremlin. An Experience in Communism (London [etc.], 1983)Google Scholar; Wehner, Herbert, Zeugnis. Persönliche Notizcn 1929–1942 (Bergisch Gladbach, 1984)Google Scholar; Ypsilon, , Pattern for World Revolution (Chicago [etc.], 1947)Google Scholar.

2 See the following exemplary accounts: Agosti, Aldo, Terza Internazionale. La Storia documentaria, 5 vols (Rome, 1974–1979)Google Scholar; Borkenau, Franz, European Communism (London, 1953)Google Scholar; Braunthal, Julius, History of the International, 3 vols (London [etc.], 1966Google Scholar, 1967, 1980); Broué, Pierre, Le parti bolchevique. Histoire du PC de I'URSS (Paris, 1962)Google Scholar; Kriegel, Annie, “La IHe Internationale”, in Droz, Jacques (ed.), Histoire générale du socialisme, vol. 3 (Paris, 1977), pp.73–115Google Scholar. An exception in this regard is Carr, E.H., The Twi-light of the Comintern, 1930–1935 (London [etc.], 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He is one of the few experts who place the history of the Comintern in the framework of Soviet economic and social development. See his A History of Soviet Russia, 14 vols (London [etc.], 1953–1978). Despite some ideological bias, the following article offers an informative overview of earlier works on Comintern history: Agosti, Aldo, “Historiographie de la 3e Internationale”, Les Cahiers d'histoire de I'lnstitut de Recherche marxiste, 2 (1980), pp. 7–59Google Scholar. See also Kahan's, Vilem bibliography, covering the history of the Third International until 1935, Bibliography of the Communist International (1919–1979), vol. 1 (Leiden [etc.], 1990)Google Scholar.

3 On the opening of Soviet archives see Brigitte Studer, Bayerlein, Bernhard H. and Lasserre, André, “Des archives russes en tant que sources de l'histoire suisse contemporaine”, Studien und Quellen (Bern), 20 (1994), pp. 283–313Google Scholar; Werth, Nicolas, “De la soviétologie en général et des archives russes en particulier”, Le Débat, 7 (1993), pp. 127–144Google Scholar.

4 So characterized by Eric Hobsbawm. See his “Radicalism and Revolution in Britain”, in Hobsbawm, Eric, Revolutionaries. Contemporary Essays (London, paperback, ed., 1977), p. 11Google Scholar.

5 The apposite phrase comes from Creuzberger, Stefan and Veltmeijer, Ruud, “Forschungsarbeit in Moskauer Archiven”, Osteuropa (Berlin), 43 (1993), 3, pp. 271Google Scholar. Besides archival material historical relics were also stored. In 1993, for example, the Director of the Russian State Archive showed on television the alleged skull of Adolf Hitler.

6 For reasons of space we restrict ourselves to this archive (hereafter RTsKhlDNI), as it is the most important source for Western European scholars. For references to other archives see Grimsted, Patricia, “Introduction: Russian Archives in the New World Setting”, in Archives in Russia. A Brief Directory, Part I: Moscow and St. Petersburg, International Research & Exchange Board/Committee for Archival Affairs of the Government of the Russian Federation (1992)Google Scholar; Wehner, Markus, “Archivreform bei leeren Kassen. Einige Anmerkungen zur politischen und ökonomischen Situation der russischen Archive” Ost-europa, 44, 2 (1994), pp. 105–124Google Scholar; Studer et al., “Des archives russes”.

7 Access to these archives is an eminently political matter. Although the “Kremlin” archive is closed to users, documents from there have been quoted on several occasions in Russian periodicals. That must be seen in connection with the activity of the commission appointed by Yeltsin after the coup of August 1991 to collect material for prosecuting and banning the CPSU. Some volumes of documents were obviously published to discredit Gorbachev: see Wehner, “Archivreform bei leeren Kassen”, p. 114f. General Dmitrij Volkogonov, the military historian, leading archive functionary and confidant of President Yeltsin, had a monopoly on such archival sources and used them in his biographies of Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky.

8 See Studer, Brigitte, “Verschleierungstaktik als Herrschaftspraxis. Über den Prozeβ historischer Erkcnntnis am Beispiel des Komintemarchivs” Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 1995 1995), pp. 306–321Google Scholar; Unfried, Berthold, “Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Archive fUr die Historic Stalinismusforschung und Komintern-Historiographie nach Öffnung der russischen Archive”, Zeitgcschichtc (Vienna), 22, 7–8 (1995), pp. 265–284Google Scholar.

9 Up to 1991 the following volumes of official documents were available to scholars: Agosti, Terza Internazionale; Degras, Jane, The Communist International, 3 vols (London, 1956Google Scholar. 1960, 1965); Pirker, Theo, Utopie und Mythos der Weltrevolution. Zur Geschichte der Komintern 1920–1940 (Munich, 1964)Google Scholar; Weber, Hermann, Die Kommunistische Internationale. Eine Dokumentation (Hanover, 1966)Google Scholar. For the protocols of the first two congresses see Broué, Pierre, Les congrès de l'Internationale communiste: Du premier au deuxième congrès de I'Internationale communiste, mars 1919–juillet 1920 (Paris, 1979)Google Scholar. For internal documents among private papers (Angelo Tasca), see Berti's, Giuseppe essays: “Appunti e ricordi 1919–1926”, Annali, 8 (1966)Google Scholar; “Problemi del movimento operaio. Scritti critici e storici di Angelo Tasca”, Annali, 10 (1968). Documents of a similar nature arc to be found in Humbert-Droz, Jules, Archives de Jules Humbert-Droz, vols I–III (Dordrecht, 1970Google Scholar,1983, 1988) and V (Zurich, 1996). For further bibliographical and documentary references see Sworakowski, Witold S., The Communist International and its Front Organizations. A Research Guide of Holdings in American and European Libraries (Stanford, 1965)Google Scholar, and Kahan, Bibliography of the Communist International.

10 See, for example, Sudoplatov, Pavel A., Schechter, J. and Schechter, L., The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness (Boston, 1994)Google Scholar. Other studies, while based on more serious research, follow the lines of sensational journalism:Loupan, Victor and Lorrain, Pierre, Uargent de Moscou. L'histoire la plus secrete du PCF (Paris, 1994)Google Scholar.

11 Wolton, Thierry, Le grand recrutement (Paris, 1993)Google Scholar. The book provoked a heated debate in the French press, especially the “unmasking” of the national hero Moulin led to wide-spread condemnation. The historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet led the counter-attack against Wolton, and his book (Le trait empoisonné. Réflexions sur l'affaire Jean Moulin (Paris, 1993)) found acclaim, not only in specialist circles. The family of Pierre Cot took the initative and commissioned a group of historians to examine the historical “evidence” presented by Wolton. In their conclusions they found that Wolton had ignored basic rules of critical methodology, and dismissed his theses. See “Pierre Cot n'était pas un agent soviétique”, Le Monde, 25 January 1995; Berstein, S., Frank, R., Jansen, S. and Werth, N., Rapport de la Commission d'historiens constituée pour examiner la nature des relations de Pierre Cot avcc les autorités soviétiques (Paris, 1995)Google Scholar.

12 L'événement dujeudi, 17–23 December 1992, on the basis of an article in the weekly paper The European. See also Le Nouveau Quotidien (Lausanne), 17 November 1992.

13 For example, Meyer, Fritjof, “Einsamer Wolf unter Wölfen”, Der Spiegel (nos 12, 13/ 1993)Google Scholar.

14 Klehr, Harvey, Haynes, John Earl and Firsov, Friderikh Igorevich, The Secret World of American Communism (New Haven [etc.], 1995)Google Scholar.

15 Bartosek, Karel, LesAveuxdes archives. Prague-Paris-Prague, 1948–1968 (Paris, 1996)Google Scholar. The book has immediately provoked a vivid and sometimes violent debate among French historians. As examples for the numerous pro- and contra-statements see, for instance: Peschanski, Denis in Libération, 13 11 1996Google Scholar, Adler, Alexandra in Le Monde, 15 11 1996Google Scholar, Lazar, Marc in Le Monde, 21 11 1996Google Scholar.

16 Vaksberg, Arkadi, Hôtel Lux. Les partis fréres au service de I'Internationale communiste (Paris, 1993)Google Scholar. His book Die Verfolgten Statins. Aus den Verliesen des KGB (Reinbek, 1993) is written in a similar vein.

17 For literary works in Russian on Stalinism see Keep, John L.H., “Der Stalinismus in der neueren russischen Literatur”, Neue Politische Literatur (Frankfurt a.M.), 40 (1995), pp. 421–440Google Scholar; Hedeler, Wladislaw, “Stalinismusforschung in Ruβland”, in Die PDS – Herkunft und Selbstverstiindnis (Berlin, 1996), pp. 325–333Google Scholar. The Russian historical journals Istochnik, Istoricheskii Arkhiv and Nauchno-informatsionnyi biulleten' of the RTsKhlDNI regularly publish documents of interest to Comintern scholars.

11 See Studer, “Verschleierungstaktik”.

19 Often the fact that archival material has been made available may not be revealed: “Unfortunately, the author is bound by having signed a confidentiality agreement and there-fore cannot refer to archive legends.” This introductory remark is from the essay by Popov, V.P., “State Terror in Soviet Russia 1923–1953”, Soviet Social Science Review, 35, 5 (1994), p. 48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. That Popov cannot quote his sources is especially problematical as his theme centres on the number of victims of the Terror. A sharp controversy surrounds this question: Ren6 Ahlberg, for example, has attacked the “low” Terror statistics presented by the Russian scholars Zemskov and Dugin; he accuses them of extrapolating their figures from data which were falsified by the KGB. See Ahlberg, René ”Stalinistische Vergangenheitsbewaltigung. Auseinandersetzung Uber die Zahl der GULAG-Opfer”, Osteuropa, 42, 11 (1992), Pp. 921–937, esp. pp. 924 fGoogle Scholar. Arkadi Vaksberg (Hôtel Lux) employs a justification similar to that of Popov for not disclosing his archival sources.

20 For the debate on the “commercialization” of Russian archival material see the discussion forum “Research, Ethics and the Marketplace. The Case of the Russian Archives”, Slavic Review, 52, 1 (1993), pp. 87–106.

21 For example, the papers from the Comintern Secretariats of Dimitrov, Manuilsky and Pyatnitsky, available since 1992, were again closed to scholars from January 1995.

22 For publications on German-speaking victims see Arbeiterbewegung, Institut fûr Geschichte der (ed.), In den Fângen des NKWD. Deutsche Opfer des stalinistischen Terrors in der UdSSR (Berlin, 1991)Google Scholar; Barry McLoughlin and Walter Szevera, Posthum Rehabilitiert. Daten zu 150 Ôsterreichischen Stalin-Opfem (Vienna, 1991); Schafranek, Hans (ed.), Die Betrogenen. Osterreicher als Opfer stalinistischen Terrors in der Sowjetunion (Vienna, 1991)Google Scholar. In respect of Italian victims see Bigazzi, Francesco and Lehner, Giancarlo (eds), Dialoghi del Terrore. I processi ai comunisti italiani in Unione Sovietica (1930–1940) (Florence, 1991)Google Scholar; and two volumes by Caccavale, Romolo, La speranza Stalin. Tragedia dell' Antifascismo italiano nelV URSS (Rome, 1989)Google Scholar and Comunisti italiani in Unione Sovietica. Proscritti da Mussolini, soppressi da Stalin (Milan, 1995).

23 For an overall view of these early studies see the volumes 1989/1990f. of Beitrflge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung (Berlin, [etc.]).

24 These mechanisms of the Terror have been well researched in the meantime: see the detailed analysis in the introduction to Mûller, Reinhard (ed.), Georg Lukacs, Johannes R. Becher, Friedrich Wolf et al. Die SSuberung. Moskau 1936. Stcnogramm einer gcschlossenen Partelversammlung (Reinbek, 1991)Google Scholar. Before the opening of Russian archives the effects of the Terror on the German-speaking literary emigration in the USSR were already the subject of a masterful analysis in Walter, Hans-Albert, “Die Folgen des sowjetischen Staatsterrorismus fllr die in der Sowjetunion lebenden Exilierten”, in Deutsche Exilliteratur 1933–1950, vol 2: Europaisches Appeasement und ttberseeische Asylpraxis (Stuttgart, 1984), pp. 203–247CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 In the category “biographical sketches” (biographische Skizzcn) see Borsanyi, Gyorgy, “Emo Gero. Aus dem Leben eines Apparatschiks”, Jahrbuch fiir Historische Kommunismusforschung 1994 (1994), pp. 275–280Google Scholar. However, Borsanyi based his findings not on Russian material but on documents from the archive of the Hungarian CP in Budapest. See also Schafranek, Hans, “Franz Koritschoner (1892–1941)”, Jahrbuch fiir Historische Kommunismusforschung 1995 (1995), pp. 239–261Google Scholar; Starkov, Boris A., “Narkom Ezhov”, in Getty, John A. and Manning, Roberta T. (eds), Stalinist Terror. New Perspectives (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 21–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Lazitch, Branko and Drachkovitch, Milorad, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern New, Revised and Expanded Edition (Stanford, 1986Google Scholar; lsted. 1973).

27 For example Wessel, Harald, Milnzenbergs Ende (Berlin, 1991)Google Scholar; Kuhnrich, Heinrich, “‘Ein entsetzliches Miβverstāndnis’ – oder was eigentlich dahinter steckte. Bisher unbekannte Schreiben Mlinzenbergs an Dimitroff, Oktober 1937”, Beitrdge zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung (Berlin), 34 (1992), pp. 66–82Google Scholar; “Les Komintemiens I: Dossier Willi MUnzenberg”, Communisme (Paris, 1994), pp. 38–39; Müller, Reinhard, Die Akte Wehner. Moskau 1937 bis 1941 (Berlin, 1993)Google Scholar. Also of interest are Volkogonov's biographies of Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky, as well as a life of Bela Kun based in part on selected material from Moscow's Institute for Marxism-Leninism and published after the resignation of Janos Kddar, i.e. before the rich amount of material on Kun from the Comintern Archive became generally available. See Borsányi, György, The Life of a Communist Revolutionary: Beta Kun (New York, 1993)Google Scholar. Further biographical studies include Külow, Volker and Jaroslawski, André (eds), David Rjdsanow. Marx-Engels-Forscher, Humanist, Dissident (Berlin, 1993)Google Scholar; Agosti, Aldo, Palmiro Togliatti (Turin, 1996)Google Scholar; Broue, Pierre, Rakovsky ou la Revolution dans tous les pays (Paris, 1996)Google Scholar. Biographical sketches can also be found in Watlin, Alexander, Die Komintern 1919–1929. Historische Studien (Mainz, 1993)Google Scholar; Müller, Reinhard, “Zenzl Mtlhsam und die stalinistische Inquisition”, in Frauen urn Erich Miilisam: Zenzl Miihsam und Franziska zu Reventlow. Schriften der Erich'Mulisam-Gesellschaft, no. 11 (Malente, 1996), pp. 32–88Google Scholar. Other biographical studies in preparation include Maria Osten and Heinrich Vogeler (by Reinhard Müller), and a volume of documents on Willi Münzenberg (to be published by Links-Verlag, Berlin). Television documentaries on the Comintern milieu surrounding Herbert Wehner, Maria Osten and Carola Neher have been broadcast in Germany in recent years.

28 Forthcoming is Jürgen Rojahn (ed.), The Communist International and its National Sections, 1919–1943.

29 A conference with the title “The History of the Comintern in the Light of New Documents” was held in Moscow in October 1994. See the conference report by Tosstorff, Reiner, Internationale Wissenschaftliche Korrepondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung (IWK, Berlin), 31 (1995), pp. 54–58Google Scholar. The conference papers have been published in Mikhail Narinsky and Rojahn, Jürgen (eds), Centre and Periphery: The History of the Comintern in the Light of New Documents (Amsterdam, 1996)Google Scholar.

30 See the conference findings in Centenaire Jules Humbert-Droz. Actes du Colloque sur VInternationale communiste (La Chaux de Fonds, 1992).

31 The conference findings were published in Weber, Hermann et al. (eds), Kommunisten verfolgen Kommunisten. Stalinistischer Terror und “Sauberungen” in den kommunistischen Parteien Europas seit den dreifiiger Jahren (Berlin, 1993)Google Scholar.

32 For a new overview of Comintern history see McDermott, Kevin and Agnew, Jeremy, The Comintern. A History of International Communism from Lenin to Stalin (London [etc.], 1996)Google Scholar.

33 Reinhard Müller, “Permanenter Verdacht und 'Zivilhinrichtung'. Zur Genesis der 'Siiuberungen in der KPD”, in Weber, Kommunisten verfolgen Kommunisten, pp. 243–264. In March 1996 a symposium took place in the Maison des sciences de I'homme, Paris, on “Nouvelles directions de la recherche sur les annees trente en URSS”. See the conference report by Werth, Nicolas, Le Bulletin de I'lHTP, 65 (1996), pp. 52–58Google Scholar. See also the special number of Communisme, 42–44 (1996): “Les archives: la nouvelle histoire de PURSS”.

34 The latest research findings from the German-speaking countries can be found in the Jahrbuch filr Historische Kommtinismusforschung or The International Newsletter of Historical Studies on Comintern, Communism and Stalinism (Cologne). Based on material from the Comintern and KGB archives, see a comprehensive study of Austrian political refugees and skilled workers in the Soviet Union: McLoughlin, Barry, Schafranek, Hans and Szevera, Walter, Aufbruch-Hoffnung-Endstation. Osterreicherinnen und dsterreicher in der Sowjetunion, 1925–1945 (Vienna, 1997)Google Scholar.

35 See the section “The ‘Centre’ and the Periphery” on pp. 432–434.

36 Especially in studies on those who participated in the Terror at its highest level. See Starkov, , Narkom Ezhov, Amy Knight, Beria. Stalin's First Lieutenant (Princeton, 1993)Google Scholar. The involvement of high Comintern officials in the Terror is analysed in Müller, Die Akte Wehner.

37 For a description of the Comintern's offshoot organizations (e.g. International Red Aid) see Tischler, Carola, Die UdSSR und die Politemigration. Das dcutsche Exit in der Sowjetunion zwischen KPD, Komintern und sowjetischer Staatsmacht (1933 bis 1945) (Kassel, 1995)Google Scholar. Reiner Tosstorff (Frankfurt a.M.) is preparing a major publication on the history of the International of Red Labour Unions (Profintern).

38 For the transformation of the Comintern's organizational structure see the contributions in Narinsky and Rojahn, Centre and Periphery; Studer, Brigitte, Un parti sous influence. Le Parti communiste suisse, tine section du Komintern, 1931 á 1939 (Lausanne, 1994), pp. 153–172Google Scholar; Bernhard H. Bayerlein, “Die ‘Central Bodies’ und der Internationale Apparat der Kommunistischen Internationale als Problem der Forschung”, in Rojahn, The Communist International and its National Sections (forthcoming). An overview of the different Comintern bodies, with references to their archival collections, are provided in the catalogue of the Comintern Archive in RTsKhlDNI. See Putevoditel', Kratkii, Fondy i Kollektsii sobrannye Tsentral'nym partiinym arkhivom (Moscow, 1993)Google Scholar.

39 See the publication of the internal documents drawing the details of this reorganization by Studer, Brigitte: “Die Kominternstruktur nach dem 7. WeltkongreB. Das Protokoll des Sekretariats des EKKI liber die Reorganisierung des Apparates des EKKI, 2. Oktober 1935”, Internationale Wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschcn Arbeiterbewegung, 31 (1995), pp. 25–53Google Scholar; and the essay “More Autonomy for the National Sections? The Reorganization of the ECCI after the Seventh World Congress”, in Narinsky and Rojahn, Centre and Periphery, pp. 102–113.

40 See Müller, Die Akte Wehner.

41 See Fridrikh Firsov,“Mechanism of Power Realization in the Comintern”, in Centenaire Jules Humbert-Droz, pp. 449–466. Other details are provided by Studer, Un parti sous influence, pp. 155–172, and in Peter Huber, “Der Moskauer Apparat der Komintem: Geschaätsabteilung, Personalentscheide und Mitaibcitcrstand”, Jahrbuclt für Historische Kommunismusforschung 1995, pp. 147–150.

42 Prior to the opening of Russian archives data on some 700–800 Comintern staff members were known. See Lazitch and Drachkovitch, Biographical Dictionary, and Degras, The Communist International. In two articles for theInternational Review of Social History, Kahan, Vilém offered supplementary data on Comintern officials: “The Communist International, 1919–1943: The Personnel of its Highest Bodies”, XXI (1976), pp. 151–185Google Scholar; “A Contribution to the Identification of the Pseudonyms Used in the Minutes and Reports of the Communist International”, XXIII (1978), pp. 177–192. The heavily Russian composition of key bodies, in the secretariats of the party cells in ECCI, for example, was a well-kept secret until recently.

43 The thick dossier on Herbert Wehner, for example, was the foundation for Reinhard Müller's book, Die Akte Wehner.

44 Some studies have been published on ECCI's schools. For examples of first results gleaned from Comintern documents on this complex, see Babitchenko, Leonid, “Die Kaderschulung der Komintern”, Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 1993 (1993), pp. 37–59Google Scholar, Hans Schafranek's chapter on Austrians at the International Lenin School in McLoughlin et al., Aufbruch-Hoffnung-Endstation, and Studer, (Jn parti sous influence, pp. 230–249.

45 See the essays by Stéphane Courtois (“Un été 1940. Les négotiations entre Ie PCF et 1'occupant allemand à la lumière des archives de l'lnternationale communiste”), Mikhail Narinsky (“Le Komintem et le Parti communiste français 1939–1941”) and Yves Santamaria (“Le Parti, la France et la guerre. De la paix de Moscou à l'armistice de Rethondes, mars-juin 1940”), all inCommunisme (1992–1993), pp. 11–127 and Courtois, Stéphane and Lazar, Marc, Histoire du Parti communiste français (Paris, 1995), pp. 74–76Google Scholar.

46 Narinsky, Mikhail M., “Togliatti, Stalin e la svolta di Salerno”, Studi storici (Roma), 35, 3 (1994), pp. 657–666Google Scholar. This article, by the way, is a good example of how the “hierarchization” of archival access operates in Russia. Narinsky, as Assistant Director of the Institute for World History in the Academy of Sciences, was obviously deemed high enough in rank to be allowed to quote from documents kept in the exclusive “President's Archive”. The most important document for his study was not shown to him, however, forcing him to extrapolate indirectly.

47 Agosti, Aldo, Liberazione 2 04 1995Google Scholar. See also the chapter, “Alle scaturigini della svolta di Salerno”, in Vacca, Giuseppe, Togliatti sconosciuto (Rome, 1994), pp. 67–74Google Scholar.

48 Whereas the term “centre” is useful in illuminating the relations between the national sections and the Comintern apparat, it can lead to an optical deception: within world communism ECCI was a prominently placed authority, behind which, however, the growing influence of the CPSU in international communist affairs, and the power of the Soviet Union itself and its state apparatus lay hidden from view.

49 For a more detailed account see Studer, Brigitte, “Zwischen Zwang und Eigeninteresse. Die Komintern der dreissiger Jahre als Machtsystem und Sinnhorizont”, Traverse, 3 (1995), pp. 46–62Google Scholar.

50 These levels of adherence are discussed in Studer, Un parti sous influence.

51 Extracts from Dimitrov's diary were published in Sovershenno sekretno (Moscow), 12 (1990), pp. 18–20; Novaya i noveishaya istoriya, 4 (1991), pp. 63–74; Letopisi (Sofia), 11 12 (1992), pp. 56–77; Epochi (Sofia), 3–4 (1993), pp. 114–128. See also Khlevniuk, Oleg, Le cercle du Kremlin. Staline et la Bureau politique dans les années trente: les jeux du pouvoir (Paris, 1995)Google Scholar; Lih, Lars T., Khlevniuk, Oleg V. and Naumov, Oleg V. (eds), Stalin's Letters to Molotov, 1925–1936 (New Haven [etc.], 1995)Google Scholar.

52 Rosenfeldt, Niels Erik, Stalin's Secret Chancellery and the Comintern. Evidence about the Organizational Patterns (Copenhagen, 1991)Google Scholar.

53 For example “Instruktion liber die innere Arbeitsorganisation der Kaderabteilung und die Beziehung mit der Spezialabteilung und den Lândersekretariaten”, February 1932, RTsKhlDNI, 495/18/945. See also Studer, Vn parti sousz influence, pp. 155–156.

54 See Kotkin, Stephen, Magnetic Mountain, Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley, 1995)Google Scholar and idem, “Coercion and Identity: Workers' Lives in Stalin's Showcase City”, in LewisH. Siegelbaum and Ronald Grigor Suny (eds). Making Workers Soviet: Power, Class and Identity (Ithaca, 1994), pp. 274–310.

55 Rosenfeldt, Stalin's Secret Chancellery; Fridrich Firsov, “Die ‘Säuberungen’ im Apparat der Komintern”, in Weber, Kommunisten verfolgen Kommunisten, pp. 37–51; Huber, Peter, Statins Schatten in die Schweiz. Schweizer Kommunisten in Moskau: Gefangene und Verteidiger der Komintern (Zurich, 1994), pp. 17–57Google Scholar. For an (incomplete) review of recent publications on this theme see McDermott, Kevin, “Stalinist Terror in the Comintern: New Perspectives”, Journal of Contemporary History, 30 (1995), pp. 111–130CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 See MUller, Die Säuberung, Moskau 1936, and the analysis of these rituals written by Unfried, Berthold in two articles: “Rituale von Konfession and Selbstkritik: Bilder vom stalinistischen Kader”, Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 1994 (1994), pp. 148–164Google Scholar, and “Die Konstituierung des stalinistischen Kaders in ‘Kritik und Selbstkritik’ ”, Traverse, 3 (1995), pp. 71–88.

57 MUller, Die Akte Wehner. These party meetings are treated at some length in: Leonhard, Wolfgang, Child of the Revolution (London, 1957)Google Scholar; Bonner, Jelena, Mutter und Tochter. Erinnerungen an meine Jugend 1923 bis 1945 (Munich [etc.], 1992), pp. 170–175Google Scholar. The case of the Swiss cadre Sophie Kirschbaum is described in Studer, Un parti sous influence, pp. 262–279.

58 A process delineated in Carr, Twilight of the Comintern.

59 Firsov, “Die ‘Säberungen’ im Apparat der Komintern”, in Weber, Kommunisten verfolgen Kommunisten, pp. 37–51; Starkov, Boris A., “The Trial That Was Not Held”, Europe-Asia Studies (formerly Soviet Studies), 46, 8 (1994), pp. 1297–1315CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Müller, Reinhard, “Der Fall des ‘Antikomintern-Blocks’ – Ein vierter Moskauer Schau- prozeβ?”, JahrbuchfilrHistorischeKommunismusforschung 1996 (Berlin, 1996), pp. 187–214Google ScholarPubMed; Bayerlein, B.H. and Huber, P., “Protokolle des Terrors (I): Béla Kun and Lajos Mad'jar in russischen KGB-Dokumenten”, The International Newsletter of Historical Studies on Comintern, Communism and Stalinism, 3, 7–8 (1996), pp. 53–71Google Scholar. In his polemical book about “Hotel Lux”, the Russian journalist Arkadi Vaksberg also mentions this planned trial.

61 Mülier, Der Fall des “Antikomintern-Blocks”, pp. 193–194.

62 This does not mean, of course, that similar studies were not undertaken in other countries – Italy, for example. However, because of the special conditions under which the PCI had to operate during the inter-war years, its historiography tends to concentrate on the years after 1945. See Bellone, Adriano, “Storiografia e storia del PCI”, Passato e presente, 12, 33 (1994), pp. 129–140Google Scholar, and the thematically organized bibliography in Groppo, Bruno, “Les etudes sociologiques sur le Parti communiste italien”, Communisme, 7 (1985), pp. 85–96Google Scholar. U S studies on communism including gender aspects are, for example: Schaffer, Robert, “Women and the Communist Party, USA, 1930–1940, Socialist Review, 45 (1979), pp. 73–118Google Scholar; Dixler, Elsa Jane, “‘The Woman Question’: Women and the American Communist Party, 1919–1941” (Ph.D. thesis, Yale University, 1974)Google Scholar; Van Gosse, “ To Organize in Every Neighbourhood, in Every Home: The Gender Politics of American Communists between the Wars”, Radical History Review.

63 Here there is room for only a small selection, led by Annie Kriegel, who pioneered the ethnographical approach in studies of communism. See her two volumes Communismes au miroir frangais. Temps, culture et sociétés en France devant le communisme (Paris, 1974), and Les communistes français dans leur premier demi-siècle 1920–1970 (Paris, 1985). See also Azéma, Jean-Pierre, Prost, Antoine and Rioux, Jean-Pierre (eds), Le Parti communiste français des années sombres, 1938–1941. Actes du colloque organisé en octobre 1983 (Paris, 1986)Google Scholar; Rioux, Jean-Pierre, Prost, Antoine and Azéma, Jean-Pierre (eds), Les communistes français de Munich à Chateaubriand 1938–1941 (Paris, 1987)Google Scholar; Hastings, Michel, Halluin la Rouge 1919–1939. Aspects d'un communisme identitaire (Lille, 1991)Google Scholar. For the sociology of the PCF see Molinari, Jean-Paul, Les ouvriers communistes. Sociologie de l'adhésion ouvrière an PCF (Thonon-les-Bains, 1991)Google Scholar; Pudal, Bernard, Prendre parti. Pour une sociologie historique du PCF (Paris, 1989)Google Scholar. For a review of such publications for the years 1979–1985 see “La sociologie du communisme français. Travaux parus en Iangue franchise depuis 1979”, Communisme, 1 (1985), pp. 65–83.

64 The Russian Review, 45 (1986), pp. 385–394.

65 For example the debate around Courtois, Stéphane, “Archives du communisme: mort d'une meémoire, naisssance d'une histoire”, Le Débat, 11 (1994), pp. 146–156Google Scholar. See the contributions to this discussion: Broué, Pierre, Pennetier, Claude and Wolikow, Serge, “Archives de Moscou: les enjeux”, La Revue, 7 (1994), pp. 105–110Google Scholar; Jansen, Sabine, “La bolte de Pandore des archives soviétiques”, Vingtieme Siécle, 42 (1994), pp. 97–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bédarida, François, “Du bon usage de l'histoire du temps présent”, Le Débat, 79 (1994), pp. 185–187CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, “Propos d'un me chant pamphlé;taire”, Le Débat, 79 (1994), pp. 187–192CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wolikow, Serge, “L'histoire du communisme à l'épreuve des archives russes”, Traverse, 3 (1995), pp. 19–28Google Scholar.

66 One of the early pioneers of a socio-historiographical approach to Soviet studies was Moshe Lewin. His writings preceded those of the “revisionists”, and he is not a representative of that “school”. See his The Making of the Soviet System. Essays in the Social History of Interwar Russia (London, 1985). His historical work receives due appreciation in Lew, Roland, “Grappling with Social Realities: Moshe Lewin and the Making of Social History”, in Lambert, Nick and Ritterspom, Gdbor T. (eds), Stalinism. Its Nature and Aftermath. Essays in Honour of Moshe Lewin (London [etc.], 1992), pp. 1–23Google Scholar. For the debate between “totalitarians” and “revisionists”, which took place mainly within the American scholarly community, see The Russian Review, 45 (1986), pp. 357–431, and 46 (1987), pp. 375–427. For critical remarks on the debate see Vladimir Anderle, “Demons and Devil's Advocates: Problems in Historical Writing on the Stalin era”, in Lambert, Stalinism. Its Nature and Aftermath, pp. 25–47; Schröder, Hans-Henning, “Stalinismus von unten'? Zur Diskussidn urn die gesellschaftlichen Voraussetzungen politischer Herrschaft in der Phase der Vorkriegsfünfjahrpläne”, in Geyer, Dietrich (ed.), Die Umwertung der sowjetischen Geschichte (Göttingen, 1991), pp. 133–166Google Scholar. For commentaries after the opening of the Russian archives see Berelowitch, Wladimir, “La ‘soviétologie’ après Ie putsch. Vers une guérison?”, Politix, 18 (1992), pp. 7–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nicolas Werth, “De la soviétologie en généeral et des archives russes en particulier”; Courtois, Stéphane, “Archives du communisme: mort d'une mémoire, naissance d'une histoire”, both in Le Débat, 77 (1993), pp. £127–156CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lazar, Marc, “Après 1989, cet étrange communisme”, in Boutier, Jean and Julia, Dominique (eds), Passés recomposés. Champs et chantiers de l'Histoire (Paris, 1995), pp. 243–253Google Scholar. For an informative review of new publications on Soviet history see Baberowksi, Jórg, “Wandel und Terror: Die Sowjetunion unter Stalin 1928–1941”, Jahrbücher fur Geschichte Osteuropas, 43 (1995), pp. 97–129Google Scholar. An “anti-revisionist” review of interpretations of the Stalinist Terror is provided by Wehner, Markus, “Stalinistischer Terror. Genese und Praxis der kommunistischen Gewaltherrschaft in der Sowjetunion 1917–1953”, Aits Politik und Zeitgeschichte (Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament), 6 09 1996, pp. 15–28Google Scholar.

67 Seminal works which challenged the “totalitarianism” model were Cohen, Stephen F., Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution. A Political Biography 1888–1938 (New York, 1971)Google Scholar, and Tucker, Robert C. (ed.), Stalinism. Essays in Historical Interpretation (New York, 1977)Google Scholar.

68 In comparison to general historiography in the USA, new methods or concepts were only slowly adopted in American Soviet studies. See Emmons, Terence, “Then and Now in the Pages of the American Historical Review and Elsewhere: A Few Centennial Notes”, American Historical Review, 100, 4 (1995), pp. 1136–1149CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 The dominance of teleological standpoints was underlined in a stocktaking article on Sovietology after the collapse of the Soviet Union. See King, Charles, “Review Article: Post-Sovietology: Area Studies or Social Science?”, International Affairs, 70, 2 (1994), pp. 291–297CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a general account of the employment of totalitarian models in writings on Soviet history see Gleason, Abbot, Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War (New York, 1995)Google Scholar.

70 Getty, John A., Origins of the Great Purges. The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933–1938 (Cambridge [etc.], 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rittersporn, Gábor T., Stalinist Simplifications and Soviet Complications. Social Tension and Political Conflicts in the USSR 1933–1953 (Paris [etc.], 1988)Google Scholar. It is important to recall that this new interpretation of the Terror was formulated before Russian archives became available. Before 1991 Western scholars had to rely on the so-called Smolensk party archive. For findings based on material released subsequently see Getty, John A. and Manning, Roberta T. (eds), Stalinist Terror. New Perspectives (Cambridge, MA, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Getty, John A., Rittersporn, Gábor T. and Zemskov, Viktor N., “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years. A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence”, The American Historical Review, 98, 4 (1993), p. 1043CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Fitzpatrick, Sheila (ed.), Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 (Bloomington [etc.], 1978)Google Scholar, especially the chapter “Cultural Revolution as Class War”, pp. 8–40. See also her The Cultural Front. Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (Ithaca [etc.], 1992), especially the chapter “Stalin and the Making of a New Elite”. In German-speaking countries Hans-Henning Schroder adopted a similar standpoint: see his lndustrialisierung andParteibilrokratie in der Sowjetunion. Ein sozialgeschichtlicher Versuch iiber die Anfangsphase des Stalinismus (1928–1934) (Berlin, 1988).

73 Revealing in this context are remarks by Stalin to the effect that “the secondary cadres” were decisive in pushing through the policy propagated by Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov and others against Trotsky and Bukharin, who, according to the Stalinist leadership, had not bothered about the future of these cadres. (Note from Dimitrov's diary, 7 November 1937, Sovershenno sekretno (Moscow) 1990, no. 12.) See also the series of pictures by Studer, Brigitte in “Ein BauemmSdchen wird Brigadechef. Ein stalinistischer Lebensentwurf”, Traverse, 3 (1995), pp. 63–70Google Scholar.

74 See volume, Rittersporn's, Stalinist Simplifications, and his article, “Nouvelles recherches, vieux problèmes”, Revue des Études slaves (Paris), 64, 1 (1992), pp. 9–25Google Scholar.

75 This is especially the case with Rittersporn's “revisionism”, which often seems fuelled by a taste for the surprising and the apparently contradictory. See his “The Omnipresent Conspiracy: On Soviet Imagery of Politics and Social Relations in the 1930s”, in Getty and Manning, Stalinist Terror, pp. 99–115.

76 See Khlevniuk, Le cercle du Kremlin.

77 Schrader, Fred E., Der Moskauer Prozeβ 1936. Zur Sozialgcschichte eines politischen Feindbildes (Frankfurt a.M. [etc.], 1995)Google Scholar.

78 See the thesis put forward by Getty, “Origins”, and Ritterspom, Stalinist Simplifications. See also Werth, Nicolas, Les prods de Moscou (Brussels, 1987)Google Scholar, which relies extensively on Getty's thesis. Werth also borrows central arguments of the “revisionists” in the chapters dealing with the Terror (1934–1939) in his Histoire de L'Union Soviétique. Dc I'empire russe à la Communauté des Etats indépendents 1900–1991 (Paris, 2nd ed., 1992; 1st pub. 1990).

79 Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain.

80 See the two essays by Pennetier, Claude and Pudal, Bernard, Gentses, 23 (1996)Google Scholar: “Ecrirc son autobiographic (les autobiographies communistes d'institution, 1931–1939)”, pp. 53 75, and “La ‘vérification’ (l'encadrement biographique communiste dans l'entre-deuxguerres)”, pp. 145–163. Brigitte Studer and Berthold Unfried are shortly to complete a project on this theme: “Kategorien der Kultur/Figuren der Vorstellungswelt des Stalinismus: die Komintem der dreiβiger Jahre als Lebensform”.

81 “Der Inquisitor als Anthropologe”, in Habermas, Rebekka and Minkmar, Niels (eds), Das Schwein des Häuptlings. Beiträge zur Historischen Anthropologie (Berlin, 1995), pp. 42–55Google Scholar.