Workshops > Left in the Americas during the 20th century: social issues, racial questions and political recompositions

THE LEFT IN THE AMERICAS DURING THE 20th CENTURY: SOCIAL ISSUES, RACIAL QUESTIONS AND POLITICAL RESHAPING

Organization:Olivier Maheo (Université Paris 8) et Jean-Ganesh Leblanc (Université Lyon 2).

Abstract:

The First World War, followed by the Russian Revolution, led to the break-up of the socialist movement, but also to a transformation of the militant and intellectual field of the Left throughout the Americas. The various groups, parties and unions claiming to be socialist splintered, while others were founded,1 and new theoretical, cultural and artistic orientations emerged.2

From this point of view, the discourse of the Communist International (1919-1943) in the 1920s represented a major break with the past, with its declared determination to take account of the diversity of oppressions. In addition to class struggle, the Communist movement denounced colonial, national, racial, sectarian and gendered oppression. The Constitution of the young Soviet Republic was invoked as a step forward in areas as diverse as women's rights and recognition of the right to separation and national self-determination. These positions against racism, colonialism and imperialism set in motion a complex process of alignment, rapprochement and adhesion, as well as distancing and rejection. In the Americas, these political upheavals were accompanied by long-standing reflections on racial hierarchies and racism,3 in a context of avant-garde effervescence where politics, revolution and art came together.4

What effect did the rise of communist theses and organizations have on the left-wing landscape in the Americas? What changes were made in the way racial issues were taken into account? How can we analyze this impact on the circulation of ideas, people and organizational models that carry an anti-racist and anti-colonial discourse?

Based on this set of questions, this panel proposes to examine the interwar period, which is particularly salient in this respect, in that it constitutes a pivotal moment from the point of view of the articulation between the social question and the racial question. The aim is to analyze these issues from the point of view of the American lefts, to understand their transformations, and also the ways in which they influenced each other from North to South.

We hope to shed new light on these phenomena by examining them from an American perspective. While it is true that research on these questions is long-standing, it often focuses on national5 or regional events,6 or on certain important intellectual or leading figures,7 and it is essential to complement existing approaches by crossing our views on a continental scale. This effort to broaden the framework of analysis is in line with a current trend in research on the left and communism in the Americas.8 Indeed, various transnational political currents and phenomena have played a leading role, including the dialogues between indigenism and Marxism,9 the development of African-American nationalism in relation to, but also in opposition to, Marxism,10 and the strategic issues that racial questions pose for revolutionary thought.11 We should also mention various continental proposals formulated in the militant presses of the Communist International's regional offices12 or in other magazines with a continental dimension, such as The Nation, Amauta or Repertório Americano.

This panel aims to highlight renewed formulations of the intersections between race and class in the Americas between 1914 and 1939.Embracing the multiple aspects of these points of contact implies including the circulations of ideas and models, concepts and practices that contribute to shaping original modalities of articulation between race and class. These questions are intended to take up approaches that have been profoundly renewed in the scientific literature of recent decades, following the development of intersectional13 and decolonial methodologies,14 as well as renewed interest in the development of left-wing organizations and networks in connection with the Communist International.15

The reflection we intend to carry out is therefore part of a field worked on by literature, but from a blind spot: that of a continental and transnational look at what the irruption of new forms and ideas in the interwar period does to reflections putting social and racial issues in tension in the Americas. This axis raises theoretical and strategic issues, but also configures points of encounter or conflict that can be traced in intellectual and activist history.

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1 The period was marked by the emergence of parties and trade unions claiming to be communist, thus overturning the political landscape on the left, which had been dominated by anarchist, socialist and social-democratic organizations. Michaël LÖWY (dir.), Marxism in Latin America from 1909 to the present: an anthology, New York, Prometheus, 2006.
 
2 Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, Les avant-gardes artistiques 1918-1945. Une histoire transnationale, Paris, Gallimard, 2017.
 
3 Ahmed Shawki, Black liberation and Socialism, Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2006 ; Jacques Droz, Histoire générale du socialisme 3, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1977 ; Olivier Maheo, « Não há RACA na luta de classes: A Esquerda americana e a raca 1920-1950 », Cadernos Cemarx, 10 novembre 2021, vol. 14.
 
4 The Harlem Renaissance movement comes to mind, as do Brazilian modernism, Mexican muralism and the literary avant-gardism of Buenos Aires and Lima in the 1920s.

5 Gerald Horne, Black Liberation / Red Scare. Ben Davis and the communist party, New York, International Publishers, 2021.

6 Lazar Jeifets & Víctor Jeifets, América Latina en la Internacional Comunista, 1919-1943 - Diccionario Biográfico, Santiago de Chile, Ariadna Ediciones, 2015. Víctor Jeifets & Andrey Schelchkov (dir.), La Internacional Comunista en América Latina en documentos del archivo de Moscú, Santiago de Chile - Moscou, Ariadna Ediciones - Aquilo Press, 2018.

7 See, for example, studies on Peruvian José Carlos Mariátegui or about C.L. R. James, who was born in Trinidad.

8 Transnational communism across the Americas, Urbana, Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 2023. Carlos-Miguel Herrera et Eugenia Palieraki (dir.), La Revolución Rusa y América Latina: 1917 y más allá, edición., Madrid, Guillermo Escolar Editor, Euroamericana, 2021.

9 This is particularly true of Peruvian revolutionary thinker José Carlos Mariátegui. Löwy, « L’indigénisme marxiste de José Carlos Mariátegui », Actuel Marx, 2014, no 56, pp. 12‑22. Also in Ecuador and Mexico : Adolfo Gilly, La Revolución interrompida. México, 1910 - 1920, una guerra campesina por la tierra y el poder, 8e Ed., Mexico, Ediciones « El Caballito », 1977. ; Agustín Cueva, El desarrollo del capitalismo en America latina: ensayo de interpretación histórica, 13e éd., Mexico, Siglo Veintiuno, 1990.

10 George Padmore, Pan-Africanism or communism, s.l., Doubleday, 1971 ; Sarah Fila-Bakabadio, Africa on my mind: l’afrocentrisme aux Etats-Unis, Paris, Les Indes savantes, 2016 ; W. E. B Du Bois, The Study of the Negro Problems., Philadelphia, American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1900.

11 These elements can be traced back to the internal debates of the Communist International. Jacob A. Zumoff, The Communist International and US Communism, 1919-1929, Leiden ; Boston, Brill, Historical materialism book series, n˚ 82, 2014 ; Nikolay Dobronravin, « The Comintern, “Negro Self-Determination” and Black Revolutions in the Caribbean », Interfaces Brasil/Canadá, 28 septembre 2020, vol. 20, p. 1‑18, but also in the transnational organizations fighting imperialism and colonialism that emerged in the 1920s : Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, New York, New Press, 2007 ; Fredrik Petersson, “We Are Neither Visionaries Nor Utopian Dreamers”. Willi Münzenberg, the League against Imperialism, and the Comintern, 1925-1933, Turku, Åbo Akademi University, 2013 ; Hakim Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism: the Communist International, Africa and the diaspora, 1919-1939, Trenton, NJ, Africa World Press, 2013.

12 Ricardo Melgar Bao, La prensa militante en America Latina y la Internacional Comunista, México, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Colección Historia Serie Logos, 2015 ; Jean-Ganesh Leblanc, « Quel espace théorique pour l’Amrique latine dans la révolution mondiale ? Le Komintern et l’Amérique latine 1917-1929 », Actuel Marx, 2020, n°67, no 1, p. 144 ; James R. Barrett, « What Went Wrong? The Communist Party, the US, and the Comintern », American Communist History, 3 avril 2018, vol. 17, no 2, p. 176‑184.

13 Kimberle Crenshaw, « Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color », Stanford Law Review, 1 juillet 1991, vol. 43, no 6, p. 1241‑1299 ; Patricia Hill Collins & Sirma Bilge, Intersectionality, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2016 ; Martha E. Gimenez, « Intersectionality: Marxist Critical Observations », Science and Society : A journal of Marxist thought and analysis, avril 2018, vol. 82, no 2, p. 261‑269.

14 Philippe Colin & Lissell Quiroz, Pensées décoloniales: une introduction aux théories critiques d’Amérique latine, Paris, Zones, 2023.

15  Brigitte Studer & Dafydd Roberts, The transnational world of the cominternians, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Bibliography

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Barrett James R., « What Went Wrong? The Communist Party, the US, and the Comintern », American Communist History, 3 avril 2018, vol. 17, no 2, pp. 176‑184, doi:10.1080/14743892.2018.1463743.

Becker Marc (dir.), Transnational communism across the Americas, Urbana, Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 2023, 278 p.

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Collins Patricia Hill et Bilge Sirma, Intersectionality, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2016.

Crenshaw Kimberle, « Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color », Stanford Law Review, 1 juillet 1991, vol. 43, no 6, p. 1241‑1299.

Cueva Agustín, El desarrollo del capitalismo en América latina: ensayo de interpretación histórica, 13e éd., México, Siglo Veintiuno, 1990.

Dobronravin Nikolay, « The Comintern, “Negro Self-Determination” and Black Revolutions in the Caribbean », Interfaces Brasil/Canadá, 28 septembre 2020, vol. 20, pp. 1‑18, doi:10.15210/interfaces.v20i0.19464.

Droz Jacques, Histoire générale du socialisme 3, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1977.

Du Bois W. E. B, The Study of the Negro Problems., Philadelphia, American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1900.

Fila-Bakabadio Sarah, Africa on my mind: l’afrocentrisme aux Etats-Unis, Paris, Les Indes savantes, 2016.

Gilly Adolfo, La Revolución interrompida. México, 1910 - 1920, una guerra campesina por la tierra y el poder, 8e éd., Mexico, Ediciones « El Caballito », 1977.

Gimenez Martha E., « Intersectionality: Marxist Critical Observations », Science and Society : A journal of Marxist thought and analysis, avril 2018, vol. 82, no 2, p. 261‑269.

Herrera Carlos-Miguel et Palieraki Eugenia (dir.), La Revolución Rusa y América Latina: 1917 y más allá, 1a edición., Madrid, Guillermo Escolar Editor, Euroamericana, 2021, 318 p.

Horne Gerald, Black Liberation / Red Scare. Ben Davis and the communist party, S.l., International Publishers, 2021.

Jeifets Lazar et Jeifets Víctor, América Latina en la Internacional Comunista, 1919-1943 - Diccionario Biográfico, Santiago de Chile, Ariadna Ediciones, 2015.

Jeifets Víctor et Schelchkov Andrey (dir.), La Internacional Comunista en América Latina en documentos del archivo de Moscú, Santiago de Chile - Moscou, Ariadna Ediciones - Aquilo Press, 2018.

Joyeux-Prunel Béatrice, Les avant-gardes artistiques 1918-1945. Une histoire transnationale, Paris, Gallimard, 2017.

Leblanc Jean-Ganesh, « Quel espace théorique pour l’Amérique latine dans la révolution mondiale ? Le Komintern et l’Amérique latine 1917-1929 », Actuel Marx, 2020, n°67, no 1, p. 144.

Löwy Michaël, « L’indigénisme marxiste de José Carlos Mariátegui », Actuel Marx, 2014, no 56, pp. 12‑22.

Löwy Michaël (dir.), Marxism in latin america from 1909 to the present: an anthology, New York, Prometheus, 2006.

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Petersson Fredrik, “We Are Neither Visionaries Nor Utopian Dreamers”. Willi Münzenberg, the League against Imperialism, and the Comintern, 1925-1933, Turku, Åbo Akademi University, 2013.

Prashad Vijay, The darker nations: a people’s history of the third world, New York, New Press, 2007.

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Zumoff Jacob A., The Communist International and US Communism, 1919-1929, Leiden ; Boston, Brill, Historical materialism book series, n˚ 82, 2014, 443 p.
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