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Between global aspirations and local realities: the global dimensions of interwar communism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2012

Joachim C. Häberlen
Joachim C. Häberlen*
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Centre for the History of Emotions, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores the global dimension of communism during the interwar period. It criticizes a literature that either depicts communist parties as small ‘red armies’ obeying any order from Moscow, or focuses exclusively on the local level and ignores any international aspects. The article first discusses attempts of communist leaders to create a ‘world party’ based in Moscow. It next analyses the conflicts between a globally acting communist leadership and rank-and-file members concerned about their local circumstances. Finally, it highlights the role that internationalism played on the local level. Such an approach – which locates ‘the global’ on the local level, both in terms of how internationalist ideas informed people's behaviour in local contexts and in terms of how they resisted forms of globalism – might provide a means for bridging the gap between global and local histories.

Keywords

Cominterncommunismglobal/localinterwar periodmicrohistory
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , November 2012 , pp. 415 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Jennifer Amos, Ke-chin Hsia, Susan Gaunt Stearns, Elizabeth McGuire, Moritz Föllmer and Daniel Brückenhaus as well as the three editors of the Journal of Global History and the two anonymous reviewers for critical and helpful comments on various drafts of this article.

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