Travellers of the World Revolution: A Global History of the Communist International

by Brigitte Studer

The Communist International was the first organised attempt to bring about worldwide revolution and left a lasting mark on 20th-century history. The book offers a new and fascinating account of this transnational organisation founded in 1919 by Lenin and Trotsky and dissolved by Stalin in 1943, telling the story through the eyes of the activists who became its “professional revolutionaries.”

Studer follows such figures as Willi Münzenberg, Mikhail Borodin, M.N. Roy and Evelyn Trent, Tina Modotti, Agnes Smedley and many others less well-known as they are despatched to the successive political hotspots of the 1920s and ’30s, from revolutionary Berlin to Baku, from Shanghai to Spain, from Nazi Germany to Stalin’s Moscow. It traces their journeys from revolutionary hope to accommodation, defeat or death, looking at questions of motivation and commitment, agency and negotiation, of life and love, conflict and frustration. In doing so, it reveals a forgotten Comintern, the expression of a multi-dimensional revolutionary moment, which attracted not only working-class but feminist, anti-racist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist activists, highlighting the role of women in the Comintern and the centrality of anti-colonialism to the Communist project. The book concludes with a reflection on the ultimate demise of a historically unique undertaking.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics

528 pages, Hardcover

First published June 20, 2023

Reviews

[Dan McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed history of Comintern during the interwar years. Full of sources translated from different languages and interesting characters, I sometimes found myself lost in the massive cast of agents using codenames and bouncing between countries.

The book is set up based on active cities and is mostly chronological. It keeps a narrow scope and luckily I was already familiar with some of the names and events, or I might have been lost.

[Ibrahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

God what inspirations these people were and what a travesty it is that it ended as it did. To devote your whole life to a project of international communism, always on the run, enemies everywhere, and your work environment being fractious and liable to blame and drop you when convenient. Even the members of the comintern which made blunder after blunder such as bela kun, had a dedication to international communism that is entirely alien today.

In the end the comintern failed, but it failed for the same reason that the Soviet Union stagnated and failed - the german revolution never came, and it put the interests of a geographical state on a collision course with international communism, and with no other force existing to push the lever towards internationalization, the state interests won out.

[Michael Gelb · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world of the 1920s and 1930s professionals who subordinated world revolution to Stalin's USSR

Functionalist approach to history of the Comintern. New light on the energetic and disfunctional world of 30,000 professional revolutionaries who secured Soviet dominance over revolutionary movements throughout the world's and thereby did much to discredit Marxism-Leninism, their successes notwithstanding. Includes the martyrdom of many at the hands of Stalinism and fascism, the disillusionment of many, and the obscure and often unhappy retirement of others in the USSR, the GDR, and elsewhere.

[Angel Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

a whole lot of detail on the lives of individual members of the Comintern. I didnt know much about the Third International (aka Communist International) before reading this book so I def found it helpful, especially in learning about the failed revolution in Germany in the 1920s and in China with the May 30th Movement.

[Will Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastically well researched but also written with a panache which grips the reader, well worth a read and surely material here which could be adapted for a fantastic historic novel or even a motion picture.

[giovi · Rating 4 out of 5]

honestly could be incredibly dry at times i wont lie. however truly fascinating at other parts.