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Third World activists and the Communist University of the Toilers of the East

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Third World activists and the Communist University of the Toilers of the East

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i
Third World Activists and The Communist University of the Toilers of the East

By Heather Ashby

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)

December 2014

Copyright 2014

ii

For My Family

iii

Acknowledgments

I first would like to thank my family for their love and support throughout this long
graduate process and the dissertation. Secondly, I want to thank my committee members for
allowing me to embark on such a project. Robin Kelley has been a tremendous influence on my
work and constantly challenged me intellectually. He was always there to provide encouraging
words, which were more helpful than he will ever know. I would like to thank Azade-Ayse
Rorlich for not turning me away when I told her that I wanted to write a dissertation on people of
color in the Soviet Union well into my second year of graduate school. She has pushed me
intellectually and provided me with great support for which I will be eternally grateful. So much
of this project would not have been possible without her help. George Sanchez encouraged me
to think big and to push boundaries. Thirdly, I want to thank my friends, who have been
incredibly supportive. In particular, I want to thank Max Felker-Kantor who put up with my
craziness for six years and without him I doubt I would have made it through; Monica Pelayo for
giving the best advice and her mom for all the home cooked Mexican food; Christian Paiz for
answering my ridiculous text messages; Margarita Smith for being the best cook; and Ana
Minian for always pushing me to be open and loving and of course our crazy adventures that
have spanned the entire country. Additionally, I would like to thank James Miller and Maurice
Jackson whose encouragement and support helped me get to this stage.
The Boren Fellowship offered me the opportunity to travel abroad to conduct this
research at the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History and the State Archive of the
Russian Federation. I would like to thank the kind people at both archives, who put up with my
Russian. The USC History Department provided me with tuition assistance throughout my six

iv
years and often summer support. Sandra Hopwood and Lori Rogers were monumentally helpful
and generous with their time despite my inane questions and craziness.

v
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments iii

Abstract vi

Introduction 1

Chapter One 22
The Context for the Emergence of KUTV

Chapter Two 57
Origins of KUTV and Its Structure

Chapter Three 79
Students, Teachers, and Teachings

Chapter Four 106
Organization, Discipline, and Conflict

Chapter Five 127
Organization and Theorization

Conclusion 159

Bibliography 167

vi
Abstract

The Soviet state through the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom) issued a
decree creating the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV) in April 1921. The
university emerged during a turbulent historical moment. After World War I, empires such as
the Russian and Ottoman collapsed, while the Versailles Treaty between Germany and the Allies
powers led to the creation of new colonial mandates. During the 1910s and 1920s, anti-colonial
and nationalist uprisings took place throughout the globe. Although Sovnarkom issued the
decree founding KUTV, the university was both a product of the emphasis anti-colonial activists
such as M.N. Roy placed on education as a tool in the struggle against imperialism and the
emphasis leading Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) (RKP(b)) members such as Stalin and
Lenin placed on the national and colonial questions. The university included students from the
Middle East, Africa, the Americas, Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Siberia. At KUTV,
courses focused on Marxist theory, the work of the Soviet Union in its efforts to build a socialist
country, the sciences, geography, and for some students included military training.
A study of the university offers a window into the complex relationship between the anti-
colonial left and the international communist movement. I argue that KUTV reflected and
contributed to the development of a radical anti-colonial left. KUTV was a place where students
from different parts of the world could meet each other, exchange ideas, and attempt to build
relationships across linguistic, racial, and geographic boundaries. For the Soviet state and the
RKP(b), KUTV was a critical institution contributing to Soviet state building particularly among
the Muslims of the former tsarist empire; the spread of Marxism-Leninism; the development of
communist parties outside of the West; and providing the state and Party with knowledge about
non-Western countries and peoples.

vii
KUTV was unsuccessful in building communist parties throughout Asia, Africa, the
Americas, and the Middle East as well as developing cadres that would be loyal to the Soviet
Union. However, the university was an important institution. Many leading radical anti-colonial
activists were teachers or students at the university. That list included Ho Chi Minh, M.N. Roy,
and Mirsaid Sultangaliev. Their ideas would continue to influence a new generation of activists
after World War II. The university existed during a period in which students, teachers, and
administrators were struggling to develop a language that described relationships between people
from the Americas, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. KUTV
provides insight into how the idea of what would become known as the Third World took shape
during the interwar years.

1
Introduction

On April 21, 1921, the Soviet state through the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovet
Narodnykh Kommissarov or Sovnarkom) created the Communist University of the Toilers of the
East named after Stalin (Kommunisticheskii Universitet Trudiashchikhsia Vostoka imeni Stalina,
or KUTV) by decree.
1
The university was a grand experiment aimed at teaching colonized and
oppressed people strategies and tactics of communist revolutionary struggle.
2
The university
exclusively focused on training people from what would become the Third World, which KUTV
defined as people from the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Siberia, the
Volga, and the Caucasus. Although people from outside those regions attended the university,
the majority of students arrived from countries within those geographical areas. Despite the
name of the university and its location, the university included students who were not members
of a communist party. The university’s teachers included people from what would become the
Third World as well as individuals from Europe, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
3

Although Sovnarkom issued the decree establishing KUTV, the Russian Communist Party,
Bolshevik (RKP(b)) controlled the university. KUTV’s curriculum focused on Marxist and

1
“Ofitsial’nyi Otdel (Official Business),” Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei (Life of the Nationalities), no. 10 (108), 14 May
1921, p. 4. Sovnarkom was created after the October Revolution in 1917. It was the highest government body in
the Soviet Union.
2
I use the terms colonized and oppressed not to be repetitive or give the impression that oppressed groups were
separate from people living under colonial rule. Rather I want to make sure that I demonstrate how KUTV included
people from countries that existed in unequal power relationships with the U.S., Western European countries, and
Japan even though they may not have been official colonies of those countries. Such people, who were at KUTV
included African Americans, Greeks, Albanians, Turks, and Jews from various regions of the world, but whose
country of origin was sometimes not identified in the documents. RGASPI 532/1/44/1 (January 1, 1927); RGASPI
532/2/84/25 (February 15, 1929). RGASPI is an acronym for the Russian State Archive of Socio-Politico History.
The fond 532 was the number assigned for KUTV files. The vast majority of KUTV files were located at RGASPI
in fond 532.
3
I understand that the Caucasus and Central Asia were a part of the Soviet Union. In mentioning the Soviet Union
in this sentence, I am referencing students and teachers who were Russian and Ukrainian. RGASPI 532/1/165/1-8
(February 8, 1934).

2
Leninist theory,
4
political organizing, the history of non-Western countries and peoples, the
RKP(b) and Russia, and for some students included military training.
5

KUTV was founded in response to the anti-colonial and nationalist uprisings sweeping
the globe after World War I, reflecting the emphasis Lenin and RKP(b) leaders such as Stalin
placed on the national question in the creation of the Soviet Union and the work of the Third
International.
6
The national question was central to the formation of the Soviet Union and the
“national idea [was incorporated] into the administrative-territorial structure ” of the new state.
7

According to the scholar Francine Hirsch, “The Bolsheviks did not wish to just establish control
over the peoples of the former Russian Empire; they set out to bring those peoples into the
revolution and secure their active involvement in the great socialist experiment.”
8
KUTV was a
part of that effort to bring people into the revolution, but on a global scale. The university was
founded within the context of the Soviet Union’s creation and the formation of the Communist
International and other institutions of the international communist movement such as the Red
International of Labor Unions (Krasnyi Internatsional Profsoiuzov, or Profintern).
9

4
After Lenin’s death in 1924, Leninism became more of a discipline of study in schools run by the RKP(b). See
Michael David-Fox. Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning Among the Bolsheviks, 1918-1929. Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1997, p. 75.
5
GARF 1318/1/146(3)/194 (no date but most likely 1921).
6
In this dissertation, the Third International refers exclusively to the Communist International or Comintern.
However, the use of the term Third International is not shorthand for the international communist movement tied to
the Soviet Union. The international communist movement included a network of organizations and institutions
beyond the Comintern and KUTV such as the Red International of Labor Unions or Profintern. For more on Lenin
and Stalin on the national question primarily within the Soviet Union see Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action
Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939, Ithaca ; London: Cornell University Press, 2001,
introduction. It is outside the scope of this study to provide detailed information on Soviet nationalities policy,
however nationalities policy was an important part of the creation and governmental structure of the USSR. In
chapter one, I will discuss Lenin’s approach to the colonial and national question at the Second Comintern Congress
in 1920.
7
Ibid.
8
Francine Hirsch, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge & the Making of the Soviet Union. Cornell
University Press, 2005, p. 5.
9
In describing the international communist movement, I am focusing on the organizations that the RKP(b) founded
to spread communism throughout the world. The Communist International has received the most attention in
academic scholarship. In 1919, Lenin declared the founding of the Communist International (Comintern) with the
goal of spreading world revolution. It held its first congress in 1919 in Moscow as Lenin countered Woodrow

3
In addition to the creation of the Soviet Union and the founding of the Third International
in the years after World War I, there was a wave of nationalist and anti-colonial uprisings. Old
empires that existed for centuries such as the Ottoman and Russian collapsed during World War
I. The fall of the Ottoman Empire gave rise to new countries such as Syria, Iraq, and Turkey.
Within those regions there were uprisings in Jerusalem in 1920 over the British presence in
Palestine and Jewish immigration to the area and from 1920 to 1921 people rose up against the
British imperial mandate in Iraq.
10

People from colonial countries closely followed the peace negotiations that took place in
1919 after World War I.
11
Unfortunately, representatives from colonial countries were not
allowed to participate in the meeting. The Versailles Treaty led to the establishment of new
colonial mandates and the distribution of German and Ottoman colonial territories to Britain and
France. Filled with disappointment, people from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia sought other
avenues outside of the postwar settlement to articulate their grievances and visions for a more
just world. For example, many Indians and Egyptians turned towards socialism and communism
as an alternative.
12
A number of organizations expressing different political ideologies emerged
to direct and organize the various fights for social justice taking shape throughout the world.

Wilson’s declaration of self-determination by announcing that colonial people had the right to control the resources
of their country and rule themselves. However, in looking at the role of the international communist movement in
this dissertation, I incorporate other RKP(b) created organizations such as the Red International of Labor Unions
(Krasnyi Internatsional Profsoiuzov, or Profintern). Profintern was founded in 1921. Technically it was an
independent organization, but followed the political line of the Comintern. Its task was to bring together the
working masses from trade unions and workers’ organization throughout the world to overthrow capitalism. Quite
surprisingly, Profintern managed to have the same leader, Alexander. Lozovsky, from 1921 to 1938. Information
about Profintern from Milorad M. Drachkovitch and Branko M Lazić, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern.
Stanford, Calif., Hoover Institution Press, 1973, p. xxx.
10
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922, 1st American ed. New
York: H. Holt, 1989, chapter 50; Amal Vinogradov, “The 1920 Revolt in Iraq Reconsidered: The Role of Tribes in
National Politics,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 3, no. 2 (April 1, 1972): 123–139.
11
Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial
Nationalism, Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
12
This is not to say that radical Indian or Egyptian activists did not encounter the ideas of Marxism and socialism
before World War I. The point is to emphasize the increase in the number of people exposed to those ideas after the
Bolshevik Revolution.

4
After World War I, anti-colonial movements were better organized and reflected a stronger
knowledge about European political theory.
13

I argue that KUTV facilitated and reflected the development and evolution of an
anticolonial left that extended across national borders. This dissertation examines the
relationship between radical activists from what would become the Third World and the
international communist movement. The anti-colonial left discussed in this project critiqued
capitalism, fought for an end to imperialism and racism, and envisioned a more equitable future
in which workers and peasants would play a leading role in post-colonial societies. However,
the relationship between international communism and anti-colonial leftist activists was not
harmonious, but tense. At KUTV, students (and sometimes teachers) complained about the lack
of study materials on non-Western countries and peoples at the university, while others argued
that the fight against racism should not be subsumed under the class struggle.
14
KUTV’s
administration mainly included members of the RKP(b). The Comintern and Profintern’s anti-
colonial work was often hindered by the RKP(b)’s changes in policy as well as the limitations of
Comintern and Profintern officials to adjust policy to suit conditions in countries that would
become the Third World countries. Additionally, university officials, reflecting the practices of
the centralized leadership of the RKP(b), constantly worried about nationalism among students
out of fear that it would undermine KUTV teachings.
During the university’s early years from 1921-1924, the majority of students arrived from
Central Asia, the Caucasus, China, Korea, Japan, India, Mongolia, Iran, Turkey, and Afghanistan

13
Anne L. Foster, Projections of Power: The United States and Europe in Colonial Southeast Asia, 1919-1941,
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010, pg. 21.
14
GARF 1318/7/52/13-14 (March 1, 1922); RGASPI 532/1/27/10-11 (1926); RGASPI 532/2/84/25 (February 15,
1929).

5
before the university expanded to include people from other regions of the world.
15
KUTV
divided students into two big sections: the Soviet East and the Foreign East. The Soviet East
included students from the former tsarist regions in Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Volga, and
Siberia, which had become part of the Soviet state. The Foreign East sector included people
from the Americas, Africa, Asia, the Middle East as well as Jews, Greeks, and Turks. In
September 1921, there were 700 students at the university and 300 employees.
16
That number
increased to 1200 students and 500 employees by November 1921.
17
Over the course of its
existence, KUTV's faculty included non-Russians and people from both the Soviet East and the
Foreign East. Prominent teachers included the Indian Communist, M.N. Roy, the Vietnamese
Communist, Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh), and the Tatar Communist, Mirsaid Sultangaliev.
In 1938, KUTV closed following the Soviet Union’s retreat from its strong support of anti-
colonialism and Stalin’s growing fear about war and foreign and domestic threats to the USSR’s
existence. The leftist wing of the anti-colonial struggle continued to grow throughout the 1930s
and those activists helped to pave the way for the decolonization struggles after World War II.
The independence movements from the 1940s to the 1980s can trace their antecedents to the
interwar years.
The resources of the international communist movement helped radical anti-colonial
activists to communicate across borders and exchange ideas. Those resources included some
measure of funding, printed materials, conferences, and places where people could meet. Before
World War I, there were transnational efforts at radical anti-colonial and anti-capitalist political

15
Miin-ling Yu, “Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow, 1925-1930” (Ph.d. dissertation, New York University, 1995),
16-17.
16
Statistics on the number of students at KUTV were sporadic in the files of the two main archives in Moscow I
used for this project – The Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) and the State Archive of the
Russian Federation (GARF). GARF 1318/1/146(3)/195 (1921). Overall it is difficult to determine the number of
students because the files on the university lacked consistent reporting.
17
GARF 1318/1/172(1)/1 (no date, but most likely 1921).

6
mobilization, but those efforts were not on the same geographical scale as the post-World War I
years.
18
Additionally, although colonialism greatly expanded during the second half of the 19
th

century, its tentacles started to be felt in large sections of the globe in the early 20
th
century
helping to unleash the nationalist and anti-colonial uprisings after World War I and particularly
the late 1920s. After the war, the language of Marxism and later Leninism became an important
part of the anti-colonial left. The Soviet Union provided a place where people could meet each
other and exchange ideas, while Marxism-Leninism helped to provide a language for activists to
communicate across linguistic and geographical boundaries. The creation of the Soviet Union
and the emergence of the international communist movement under the RKP(b) changed the
global radical political terrain. Regardless of whether an anti-colonial activist was a member of a
communist party or identified as a communist, Marxism-Leninism with its emphasis on political
struggle, self-determination, and the empowerment of the oppressed permeated anti-colonial
discourses along the political spectrum and reached people in the cities as well as the
countryside.
19

During the interwar period, publications, the movement of people across borders, and
international conferences such as those held by Profintern and the Comintern contributed to the
spread of Marxism-Leninism. Radical anti-colonial activists combined local knowledge and
struggles with the global, and incorporated the aspects of Marxism and Leninism they considered

18
Niroda Kumāra Baruwā, Chatto, the Life and Times of an Indian Anti-Imperialist in Europe, New York: Oxford
University Press, 2004, p. 27-28; Steven Hirsch and Lucien Van der Walt, “Rethinking Anarchism and Syndicalism:
The Colonial and Postcolonial Experience, 1870-1940,” in Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and
Postcolonial World, 1870-1940: The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Revolution, edited
by Lucien van der Walt and Steven J. Hirsch, Boston: Brill, 2010, p. xxxv-xlvi; Noor-Aiman I. Khan, Egyptian-
Indian Nationalist Collaboration and the British Empire, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, p. 40-50.
19
For example, at the League Against Imperialism Conference in February 1927 in Brussels included people from
throughout the Third World, who would play a prominent role in post-World War II decolonization and anti-
apartheid movements. Those individuals were the future Dutch East Indies leader, Sukarno, the Indian, Jawaharlal
Nehru, and the South African activist, James La Guma. Aside from James La Guma, Nehru and Sukarno never
identified as communist as well as many of the attendees at the meeting. The League Against Imperialism received
funding from the Comintern. See Vijay Prashad, Darker Nations, p. 19-21.

7
most useful for their work. For anti-colonial activists, Marxism-Leninism was a dynamic and
flexible ideology that could be adjusted. Scholar Robert C. Young has argued that, “Marxism
provided the theoretical inspiration and most effective political practice for twentieth-century
anti-colonial resistance. Its great strength was that its political discourse constituted an
instrument” that allowed activists to communicate with each other across linguistic and spatial
boundaries.
20
Young elaborated further stating that “Marxism supplied a translatable politics and
political language through which activists in very different situations could communicate with
each other; it offered a universal medium through which specificities could be discussed in a
common forum of anti-colonialism.”
21
Building on the work of Robert C. Young, I expand on
the idea of Marxism as a “translatable politics and political language.” Institutions such as
KUTV played an important role in helping introduce oppressed and colonized people to
Marxism or provided a place where individuals could develop their understanding of Marxism
further; however, not all students embraced Marxism and the university’s teachings, and many
rejected KUTV’s curriculum, but incorporated aspects of Marxism-Leninism into their political
work. The anti-colonial movement that evolved during the interwar years was intellectually
diverse. This dissertation only examines a part of that broad movement and it is not the intention
of this project to make claims about the entire anti-colonial struggle. KUTV offers a way to
touch on the ideas and the activities of a few activists, while also offering a history of the
university.
KUTV was not simply a university; it embodied multiple purposes for the state and Party.
The university’s students were an important source of information about non-Western countries
and peoples. Although the university was built to train people from oppressed and colonized

20
Robert C. Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2001, p. 169.
21
Ibid.

8
groups, KUTV students provided much needed information about their countries to the
university’s teachers and administrators, and Party and state officials. The flow of knowledge
did not simply flow from the top down, but also from the bottom up. The Unified State Political
Administration (OGPU), which was the secret police of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1934,
sent requests to KUTV administrators requesting the assistance of students.
22
KUTV students
served as translators for the OGPU’s Eastern Department in secret work.
23
For the Party, KUTV
was important for state building efforts domestically and spreading communism internationally.
The university was interwoven with Soviet nationalities policy. From 1921 to 1924, KUTV was
under Narkomnats. It is significant that KUTV was placed under Narkomnats rather than the
Communist International. While the university did recruit students from Asia, Africa, the
Middle East, and the Americas, it also included students from Central Asia and the Caucasus.
The university trained Muslims from the former tsarist empire in state building. Party and
university officials expected those students to become a part of the communist parties and
government apparatuses in the national republics. KUTV was a part of the state and Party’s
efforts to bring oppressed and colonized groups into the revolution domestically and
internationally.

Historiography and Methodology

KUTV’s students and teachers came from different countries and racial, ethnic, and class
backgrounds. This fact makes it difficult to fit the university’s history within any single
historical field. Students and teachers stayed at the university for weeks, months, or years

22
RGASPI 532/1/7/7 (May 29, 1924).
23
Ibid.

9
depending on the individual. As anti-colonial and national uprisings occurred in different parts
of the world, KUTV administrators sought to include people from those areas of the globe into
their work. The university’s history touches on a range of historical fields including, but not
limited to, Chinese history, Soviet history, and African diaspora history as well as
historiographies on anti-colonialism and international communism. As part of the international
communist movement, KUTV was linked to a network of organizations such as the Comintern,
Profintern, and the Communist Youth League (Kommunisticheskii Soiuz Molodezhi, or
Komsomol). KUTV was one of the most prominent institutions within the international
communist movement and many of the teachers and students connected to the university were
important figures within the anti-colonial left.
The literature on the international communist movement is extensive. Two seminal
works published in the late 1930s are Franz Borkenau’s World Communism: A History of the
Communist International and C.L.R. James’s World Revolution, 1917-1936: The Rise and Fall
of the Communist International continue to influence scholarship on the subject.
24
Borkenau was
a member of the German Communist Party (KPD) while James was a Trotskyist uninvolved in
the work of the Comintern. Both Borkenau and James offered critical insight into the Comintern
and its shortcomings. In particular, James argued that Stalin’s declaration of socialism in one
country in 1924 hurt the international communist movement and moved the Third International
away from world revolution.
25
James emphasized how the Third International was tied to
developments in the Soviet Union and argued that the building of National Socialism in the
USSR, with its focus on building a strong centralized and bureaucratic state, was a retreat from

24
Franz Borkenau, World Communism: A History of the Communist International, originally published in 1938,
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962; Cyril Lionel Robert James, World Revolution, 1917-1936: The Rise
and Fall of the Communist International, originally published in 1937, Westport, CT: Hyperion Press, 1973.
25
James, World Revolution, p. 15.

10
internationalism.
26
Similar to James, Borkenau linked the evolution of the international
communist movement to developments in the Soviet Union.
27
Borekanu argued that Lenin’s
emphasis on the communist party as the vanguard in revolutionary struggle hurt the international
communist movement because the proletariat was the leading force of historical change.
28
James
and Borkenau’s works were foundational for future scholarship on the international communist
movement for their focus on the links between the Third International’s evolution and the history
of the Soviet Union. This project shares Borkenau and James’ point of view that one cannot
understand the international communist movement without comprehending developments in the
Soviet Union. Although this project is largely focused on radical anti-colonial activists and
people from the becoming Third World, I would be negligent in not addressing how the
Bolshevik Party influenced and controlled KUTV.
29

As a response to the national liberation struggles in the decades after World War II,
particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, scholarship on the international communist movement
expanded to include Third World people. There was a noticeable growth in literature on that
subject in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
30
Demetrio Boersner offers one of the most

26
Ibid., p. 19-20.
27
Borkenau, World Communism, p. 163-168, and p. 188.
28
Ibid., p. 52-55.
29
By using the term Bolshevik Party I am not ignoring the fact that the Bolshevik Party became the RKP(b) in early
1918 and then the VKP(b) in 1925.
30
Alexandre A. Bennigsen, and S. Enders Wimbush, Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A
Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980; Mūsá Budeiri, The
Palestine Communist Party, 1919-1948: Arab & Jew in the Struggle for Internationalism, originally published in
1979, Chicago, Ill: Haymarket Books, 2010; Demetrio Boersner, The Bolsheviks and the National and Colonial
Question, 1917-1928, reprint ed. Westport, CT: Hyperion Press, 1981; Cosroe Chaqueri, “Sultanzade: The Forgotten
Revolutionary Theoretician of Iran: A Biographical Sketch,” Iranian Studies 17, no. 2/3 (April 1, 1984): 215–35;
Milorad M. Drachkovitch and Branko M, Lazić, Lenin and the Comintern, Stanford, CA: Stanford University,
1972; Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, Comintern, India, and the Colonial Question, 1920-37, Calcutta, India: K.P. Bagchi,
1980; John Patrick Haithcox, Communism and Nationalism in India: M. N. Roy and Comintern Policy, 1920-1939;
Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1971; Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-
American Communist, Chicago: Liberator Press, 1978; Bhagwan Josh, Communist Movement in Punjab, 1926-47,
Delhi, India: Anupama Publications, 1979; Robert E. Kanet, “The Comintern and the ‘Negro Question’: Communist
Policy in the U.S. and Africa, 1921-1941,” Survey 19, no. 4 (1973): 86-122; Hyman Kublin, Asian Revolutionary;
the Life of Sen Katayama, Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1964; Ruth McVey, The Rise of Indonesian

11
comprehensive examinations of the Third International’s approach to people from the Middle
East, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. He starts his work not with the founding of the Comintern
in 1919, but rather begins with Marx and Engels’s views on nationalism then moves to the
Second International’s approach to the national and colonial questions, and Lenin and Stalin’s
position on the national question.
31
For Boersner, European socialists did not have one approach
to the national and colonial questions and constantly debated the value of liberation struggles
outside of Western Europe. The Bolsheviks and the National and Colonial Question also
demonstrates that people from colonial countries expressed different ideas about the best
approach for overthrowing imperialism.
32
Boersner focused mainly on the resolutions of the
Comintern congresses and did not include KUTV, Profintern, or other organizations that were a
part of the international communist movement, which were actively involved with people from
non-Western countries. However, his work remains valuable for interpreting the history of
socialism and communism through the evolution of the colonial and national questions.
Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union expands the idea of the Third World to
include people from Central Asia and the Caucasus. Bennigsen and Wimbush examine the
emergence and evolution of Muslim National Communism from its antecedents in the years
before 1917 to its influence outside the borders of the Soviet Union during the second half of the
twentieth century. Muslim National Communism evolved between 1918 and 1928 among many
intellectuals from Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Volga. It combined nationalism,
socialism, and Islam into a political ideology that challenged Western and Soviet Marxists ideas

Communism, originally published by Cornell University Press in 1965, Jakarta, Indonesia: Equinox Pub, 2006; Mark
Naison, Communists in Harlem During the Depression, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1983; Edward
Thomas Wilson, Russia and Black Africa before World War II, New York: Holmes & Meier, 1974; Rostislav
Aleksandrovich Ul’ianovskii, editor, The Comintern and the East: The Struggle for the Leninist Strategy and Tactics
in National Liberation Movements, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1979.
31
Boersner, p. 2-62.
32
Ibid., p. 66-93.

12
about revolutionary struggle. During the early years of the Russian Civil War, which lasted from
1918 to 1921, Stalin and other leading RKP(b) leaders sought the support of the non-Russia
national groups.
33
As a result, Muslim National Communism had some room for development,
but the RKP(b)’s victory in the Russian Civil War and creation of the Soviet Union hurt the
expression of Muslim National Communism. Bennigsen and Wimbush demonstrate that the
ideas of Muslim National Communists, such as the Tatar Communist, Mirsaid Sultangaliev,
moved beyond the Soviet Union and influenced M.N. Roy, the Indian communist, the Indonesian
communist, Tan Malaka, and the Algerian, Ben Bella, who was a leader in Algerian struggle for
independence after World War II. Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union weaves
together the RKP(b)’s approach to the national minorities of the former tsarist empire, the
international communist movement, and the anti-colonial and national liberation struggles and
remains one of the few works that have attempted such a complex analysis.
Over the course of the 1990s and 2000s, the literature on the relationship between the
international communist movement and people of color continued to grow.
34
Many of the works

33
Non-Russian national groups included people from Central Asia, the Caucasus, and what is now considered
Eastern Europe (for example, Ukrainians and Belorussians).
34
See for example Hakim Adi, Pan-Africanism and Communism: The Communist International, Africa and the
Diaspora, 1919-1939, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 2013; Kate Baldwin, Beyond the Color Line and the
Iron Curtain: Reading Encounters between Black and Red, 1922–1963, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002;
Joy Gleason Carew, Blacks, Reds, and Russians: Sojourners in Search of the Soviet Promise, New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 2008; Stephanie Cronin, editor, Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New
Perspectives on the Iranian Left, New York: Routledge, 2004; Carole Boyce Davies, Left of Karl Marx: The
Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007; Jonathan Derrick,
Africa’s “Agitators”: Militant Anti-Colonialism in Africa and the West, 1918-1939, Columbia University Press,
2008; Barbara Foley, Spectres of 1919: Class and Nation in the Making of the New Negro, Urbana, IL: University of
Illinois Press, 2003; Josephine Fowler, Japanese and Chinese Immigrant Activists: Organizing in American and
International Communist Movements, 1919-1933, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2007; Glenda
Gilmore, Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950, New York; London: W. W. Norton &
Company, 2009; Christina K. Gilmartin, Engendering the Chinese Revolution: Radical Women, Communist Politics,
and Mass Movements in the 1920s, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995; Saime Göksu and Edward
Timms, Romantic Communist: The Life and Work of Nazım Hikmet, London, UK: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1999;
Yoshihiro Ishikawa, The Formation of the Chinese Communist Party, New York: Columbia University Press, 2012;
Tareq Y. Ismael, The Communist Movement in the Arab World, New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005; Winston
James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in America, 1900-1932, New York: Verso,
1997; Sheridan Johns, Raising the Red Flag: The International Socialist League and the Communist Party of South

13
from the 1990s and 2000s underscored the importance of the interwar years as a period in which
a global network of leftists of color developed. In particular, Minkah Makalani’s In the Cause of
Freedom tells the story of interwar black internationalism. The work moves from Harlem to
London focusing primarily on Anglophone black people’s ideas about race, colonialism, and
class struggle in pursuit of a worldwide movement centered on pan-African liberation.
35

Makalani insightfully proves in his work that anti-colonialism and ideas about pan-African
liberation did not emerge because of the founding of the Third International. Rather he argues
that “if black radicals plotted their internationalism through the corridors of international
communism, organized Marxism represented less the source and more the moment of their
politics."
36
For Makalani, the relationship between Comintern leaders and black radicals was
tense particularly in regards to race. In the Cause of Freedom reveals how black radicals pushed
against the limitations of organized Marxism to argue that race was a component part of
colonialism.
37
Works such as Makalani’s reveal the nuanced ways that scholars are approaching

Africa, 1914-1932, South Africa: Mayibuye Books, 1995; Robin D. G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama
Communists During the Great Depression, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990; Hyunh Kim
Khanh, Vietnamese Communism, 1925-1945, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986; Minkah Makalani, In the
Cause of Freedom: Radical Black Internationalism from Harlem to London, 1917-1939, Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2011; Erik S. McDuffie, Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and
the Making of Black Left Feminism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011; James A. Miller, Susan D.
Pennybacker, and Eve Rosenhaft, “Mother Ada Wright and the International Campaign to Free the Scottsboro Boys,
1931-1934,” American Historical Review 106, no. 2 (April 1, 2001): 387–430; Kate O’Malley, editor, Ireland, India
and Empire: Indo-Irish Radical Connections, 1919-64, New York: Manchester University Press, 2008; Alexander
Pantsov, The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution, 1919-1927, University of Hawaii Press, 2000; Susan
Pennybacker, From Scottsboro to Munich: Race and Political Culture in 1930s Britain, Princeton University Press,
2009; Sophie Quinn-Judge, Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years, 1919-1941. University of California Press, 2002;
Maia Ramnath, Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadar Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to Overthrow
the British Empire, University of California Press, 2011; Meredith L. Roman, Opposing Jim Crow: African
Americans and the Soviet Indictment of U.S. Racism, 1928-1937, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2012;
Mark Solomon, The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-1936, University Press of
Mississippi, 1998; Joyce Moore Turner and W. Burghardt Turner, Caribbean Crusaders and the Harlem
Renaissance, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2005. This list is by no means exhaustive and some of the
works are compilations or biographies that do not focus exclusively on the international communist movement, but
address the relationship between people of color and the international communist movement.
35
Makalani, In the Cause of Freedom, p. 3.
36
Ibid., p. 5.
37
Ibid., p. 16.

14
the relationship between interwar international communism and people of color.
Although Glenda Gilmore’s Defying Dixie extends beyond the interwar period and
primarily focuses on the United States (but with a transnational approach), her emphasis on the
importance of the interwar period on post-World War II social movements is significant. In
Defying Dixie, Gilmore suggests that “if we chart the movement against Jim Crow beginning in
World War I, if we take into account exiled white and black Southerners, and if we see both
resistance to and support for Jim Crow as international… it become s clear that the presence of a
radical Left, in this case a Communists Left, redefined the debate over white supremacy and
hastened its end.”
38
For Gilmore, the post-World War II black freedom struggle had its
antecedents in the interwar years. According to Gilmore, activists were not always located in the
U.S. South, but traveled within and outside the U.S. in their political work. While Gilmore’s
work focuses mainly on the U.S., her approach underscores the significance of the interwar
period for the social movements that emerged after World War II. This approach can be applied
to KUTV and the relationship between people from non-Western countries and the international
communist movement that I am examining through the university.
The literature on KUTV spans three decades and only includes articles. Russian
scholars were the first to discuss KUTV. Before the opening of the archives in 1991, N.N.
Timofeeva published two articles outlining the structure of the university and its curriculum.
39

Timofeeva stressed the importance of the university as a site for bringing diverse groups together
in a fight against capitalism and colonialism. Few scholars have built on the way Timofeeva
approached the study of the university. Building on Timofeeva, I examine how the university

38
Gilmore, Defying Dixie, p. 6.
39
N.N. Timofeeva, “Kommunisticheskii Universitet Trudiashchikhsia Vostoka (1921-1925)” (Communist
University of the Toilers of the East), Narody Azii i Afriki (Peoples of Asia and Africa), 1976: 47-57; N.N.
Timofeeva, “Kommunisticheskii Universitet Trudiashchikhsia Vostoka (1926-1938)” (Communist University of the
Toilers of the East), Narody Azii i Afriki, 1979: 30-42.

15
brought together individuals of various nationalities who exchanged ideas and debated the best
approaches for ending colonialism and racism. My work, however, departs from Timofeeva's in
many ways. I will highlight moments of tension at the university in addition to instances of
solidarity. Women were far outnumbered by male students. When scholars have mentioned the
university, few have analyzed the large gender disparity and how that possibly shaped social life.
Only a small number of scholars have analyzed KUTV documents from the Moscow
archives. Woodford McClellan's article on African and African American students at the
university is one of a few works that have not only discussed KUTV, but incorporated files from
the Russian archive.
40
McClellan moved away from providing a general history of the university
similar to Timofeeva. Instead he concentrated on the experiences of people of African descent at
KUTV spanning from 1925 to 1934. He presented a more complicated picture of life at KUTV
than Timofeeva. McClellan discussed the racism that African and African American students
encountered in Moscow. Those students addressed the issue of racism in petitions to school
officials and in conversations with Comintern leaders. By engaging Timofeeva and McClellan,
my dissertation will highlight the potential as well as the shortcomings of KUTV and the broader
interactions between the international communist movement and radical anti-colonial activists.
The most significant and largest source base for this project were documents from the
Russian archives in Moscow, specifically the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History
(Rossiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsial’no-Politicheskoi Istorii or RGASPI) and State
Archive of the Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiskoi Federatsii or GARF), and
from Russian language publications produced during the interwar years.
41
The documents from

40
Woodford McClellan, “Africans and Black Americans in the Comintern Schools, 1925-1934,” The International
Journal of African Historical Studies 26, no. 2 (January 1, 1993): 371-390
41
When citing documents from the above archives in Moscow, I will use the acronyms GARF and RGASPI.
Russian archival documents are organized by fond (f), opsi (op.), delo (d.), and list (l.). An example of the citations

16
GARF were in Russian, while files from RGASPI were in Vietnamese, Arabic, Russian, French,
and English.
Although KUTV included students and teachers from inside and outside the borders of
the Soviet Union, the main focus of this dissertation is on the students from what the university
called the Foreign East. I touch on a few people from the Soviet East, but the vast majority of
this work discusses the evolution and development of the anti-colonial left in relation to the
people of the Foreign East. The materials on KUTV at RGASPI primarily contained files on the
Foreign East. The government of the Russian Federation has not declassified documents on the
Soviet East making it difficult to write authoritatively about that sector of the university. It is not
my intention to exclude the people of the Soviet East, but rather this project reflects the
limitations of the KUTV archive.
The documents from RGASPI were extremely spotty. For instance, there was an
abundance of material on the years from 1927 to the closing of the university in 1938, but gaping
holes for the early years of the university, particularly between 1921 and 1924. Additionally, the
documents on the university often contained spotty biographical details about the students,
teachers, and administrators making it difficult to focus exclusively on a few individuals or
groups throughout this dissertation. I only found a few documents about the teachers at the
university for the period covering 1921-1927. As a result, I have attempted to fill-in the gaps
using other sources such as newspapers and autobiographies.
In addition to the documents from GARF and RGASPI, I have used newspapers, the
collected writings and autobiographies of radical anti-colonial activists, books, and pamphlets in
Russian and English. I examine Profintern, Comintern, and KUTV newspapers. For instance, in

that follow in the dissertation would state f. 1318 op. 1 d. 160(1) l. 31 or 1318/1/160(1)/31 for short with the date
listed after 31 such was 1318/1/160(1)/31 (1921).

17
chapter five, I include a section on the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers
(ITUC-NW), which was a part of Profintern, and its publication, the Negro Worker. I examine
autobiographies, newspapers, and pamphlets in different languages to explore the relationship
between non-Western activists and the international communist movement. The ideas expressed
in the printed materials mentioned above would continue to resonate with a new generation of
Third World activists long after the university closed, the Comintern disbanded, and World War
II devastated the globe.
A note about terminology: The majority of students at KUTV came from countries that
would become the Third World. However, the Third World was not a term that the Party, state,
students, KUTV administrators, and teachers used. During the interwar years, people struggled
to find a term to describe relations of power between the West and oppressed and colonized
peoples. In this dissertation, I struggle alongside Party, state, and KUTV administrators, as well
as students and teachers at the university in searching for a term.
The use of the term “Third World” took shape during the Cold War. It was used to
describe countries that were not a part of the West or the Soviet bloc. The scholar Peter Worsley
in 1964 discussed the various definitions for the Third World.
42
In his work, Worsley stated that
the Third World is constituted “as against the First and Second (capitalist and communist)
Worlds…In other usages, however, the Third World is defined on the basis of the shared
experience of a colonial past and a continuing ‘neo-colonial’ present, or upon the contrast
between the world of Euro-America and the rest.” During the interwar years radical anti-
colonial activists considered people in unequal power relations with the West as joined together
in a shared struggle against imperialism. Such a conception allowed, for instance, Indian and
Chinese radical activists to consider their radical political work as interconnected. The fight

42
Peter Worsley, The Third World. Chicago, I.L.: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

18
against colonialism and oppression under Western capitalism bounded people together.
However, anti-colonial solidarity was not inevitable and radical activists struggled to build
alliances and develop a language to communicate with each other. This dissertation examines
how people attempted to find a term to link oppressed and colonized peoples in a fight against
Western capitalism and imperialism.
The term Third World continued to develop during the second half of the twentieth
century. Scholar B.R. Tomlinson asserted that the “Third World grew out of the rhetoric of the
Cold War in the late 1940s and 1950s. The phrase had its origins in the idea of a ‘third force’ or
‘third way’ in world affairs (distinct from American capitalism or Soviet socialism).”
43

According to Tomlinson, the idea of the ‘third force’ or ‘third wave’ became linked with the
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) during the early 1960s. The September 1961 NAM Summit in
Belgrade “created an alternative forum for negotiating the diplomatic solidarity of countries
which saw an advantage in advertising their autonomy from the rival superpower blocs.”
44

NAM was composed of countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
In Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon discussed the Third World not in relation to the
Soviet Union or the capitalist West. He argued that the Third World “must endeavor to focus on
their very own values as well as methods and style specific to them. The basic issue with which
we are faced is not the unequivocal choice between socialism and capitalism.”
45
The Third
World emerged in the post-World War II years with a political platform that suited the needs of
the countries that composed it. That political platform evolved over time and was not
monolithic. The Third World was a work in progress.

43
B.R. Tomlinson, “What Was the Third World?” Journal of Contemporary History 38, no. 2 (April 1, 2003), p.
309.
44
Ibid.
45
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, translated by Richard Philcox, New York: Grove Press, 2004, p. 55.

19
More recently, the scholar Vijay Prashad has offered another definition for the Third
World. Vijay Prashad defined the Third World as a project that emerged primarily in the post-
World War II period as people from Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa mobilized
together in a shared struggle against colonialism.
46
Their platform was nationalist, anti-colonial,
and internationalist, and fought for class, gender, and racial equality. The Third World project
also introduced a new geographical imagining through NAM and offered alternatives to the
colonial-capitalist system. This dissertation examines how people from various regions of the
globe joined together in a fight against colonial domination and presented their own ideas for a
new world.
Students and teachers, and officials from KUTV, the Party, and the state often used the
word the “East” to describe people from what would become the Third World. I make an effort
to understand and define how various people used the term the “East” in their political work.
The “East” was an evolving concept that was never static. I understand that racialization in
countries that would become the Third World was not universal and do not intend to use the
terms Third World or East to mean that all people were racialized or suffered under imperialism
in the same way. I try to identity countries as much as possible to avoid generalizing entire
groups of people.

Chapter Outline

This dissertation is comprised of five chapters that overlap temporally and cover the late
1910s to the closure of KUTV in 1938. Each chapter primarily focuses on developments at the
university and its relationship to the students, except for chapter one. I also discuss the

46
Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, New York: New Press, 2007, p. 1-2.

20
approaches of the international communist movement towards people of color through the
Comintern and Profintern to provide a broader context.
In the first chapter, I provide necessary background on the historical period in which
KUTV was founded. The chapter is divided into two parts. The first part discusses the
RKP(b)’s approach to the national minorities within the Soviet Union and the events leading to
the creation of the Soviet Union. The second section of the chapter examines two Comintern
Congresses as well as the Baku Congress in 1920. Those congresses were important for the
discussion of the Third World that took place, particularly among non-European delegates.
Chapter two discusses the origins of KUTV through a meeting of the RKP(b)’s approach
to the formers tsarist empire’s national minorities and anti-colonialism. I also offer background
on the university’s structure and organization that connects to the historiography in chapter one.
The university’s early years were chaotic and the archival records are particularly spotty during
the period between 1921 and 1924 when the university was under Narkomnats.
In chapter three, I discuss the university’s teachers and students. I also explore the
university’s academic curriculum. I close the chapter discussing the radical anti-colonial
intellectuals who taught at KUTV or had their writings included in the curriculum. During the
university’s early years, the administration slowly developed ways of recruiting students to the
university. Profintern, Comintern, and the Komsomol helped recruit students to KUTV, but
other students learned about the university from newspapers and word of mouth underscoring
that KUTV students were not all communists. Radical anti-colonial intellectuals at the university
played a critical role in offering classes about the anti-colonial struggle and presenting various
views and opinions about revolutionary struggle.
Chapter four discusses the interactions between students, teachers, and administrators

21
over how to apply theory to practical work in the East and the role of discipline in building a
global revolutionary movement. While the majority of the chapter covers the years between
1924-1927, I also cover part of the 1930s. Overall, the chapter considers the practical work of
building a global movement. Not all students who arrived at KUTV had previous political
training or knowledge about uprisings and organizations within their countries. The practical
work served an important function because it taught students organizational skills that they could
apply to work in different political groups.
Chapter five focuses on the university’s growth during the late 1920s and into the 1930s.
During that period, people from South America, Central America, the Philippines, and West
Africa enrolled at the university. In particular, I explore how students from a variety of
backgrounds came to understand Marxism and theorize about various strategies and approaches
to the anti-colonial struggle. I examine the variety of written materials activists produced and the
ideas expressed in those publications.
In the conclusion, I offer a few thoughts on KUTV’s closing and the evolution of an anti-
colonial left. I touch on the different trajectories of the international communist movement and
the anti-colonial movement in the 1930s. The former was in retreat and decline after 1936 as it
was destroyed by purges, paranoia, and labor camps, while the latter continued its growth. That
transition would segue into the idea of the Third World, the formation of NAM, and
decolonization. Yet, the contributions of the interwar international communist movement did not
disappear and persisted with the success of communist parties in Asia and the establishment of
Marxist-Leninist and later Maoist influenced political organizations throughout the world.

22
Chapter One – The Context for the Emergence of KUTV

In this chapter, I provide context for the period in which KUTV emerged. Specifically, I
focus on the formation of the Soviet Union and the early conferences of the Comintern. This
chapter is divided into two sections. The first section focuses on the founding of the Soviet
Union and the critical role that the national question played in the Party’s efforts to build a
socialist country. The second section discusses the founding of the Communist International in
1919 and then moves to the Baku Congress of 1920, which were important events in the
evolution of the anti-colonial left as the meetings offered a place for radical non-Western
activists to discuss various approaches to revolutionary struggle.

The Formation of the Soviet Union and the National Question

In order to understand the origins of KUTV and the university’s early years between
1921 and 1924, it is necessary to provide a brief background on the formation of the Soviet
Union and the central role the national question played in the composition of the USSR. In this
section, I will focus special attention on the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities (Narodnyi
Komissariat po delam Natsional’nostei, or Narkomnats). The Soviet government created
Narkomnats in 1917 to address the demands and interests of the national minorities
1
within the

1
By using the term national minorities, I am referring to the non-Russian peoples of the former tsarist empire, who
included people from Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Volga, parts of present-day Eastern Europe, and Siberia
among other regions. I am borrowing the term from Soviet historiography and the Party’s use of the term during
the time period under examination. See “Ofitsal’nyi Otdel: Organizatsiia Vserossiiskovo Soveshchaniia po
Prosveshcheniiu Natsional’nykh Men’shinstv” (Official Business: The Organization of the All Russian Meeting on
the Enlightenment of the National Minorities), Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei 27 (35), 20 July 1919, p. 4. For secondary
sources see Adrienne Lynn Edgar, Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2004, p. 72, 83, 89, 156; Francine Hirsch, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge & the
Making of the Soviet Union. Cornell University Press, 2005, p. 30, 56, 58, 84; Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action

23
territory of the former tsarist empire.
2
Between 1921 and 1924, Narkomnats oversaw KUTV
and many of the Commissariat’s officials served as teachers and administrators at the university.
KUTV remained an extension of Narkomnats until the Commissariat was liquidated in 1924.
Following the closure of Narkomnats, the Party and the Soviet government oversaw the
university. A discussion of Narkomnats is significant for understanding how the Party’s
nationalities policy was executed and its relationship to KUTV. However, I do not provide a
comprehensive history of Narkomnats.
It should be noted that I am by no means offering an exhaustive account on the
formation of the Soviet Union and the numerous committees, congresses, and organizations that
contributed to the creation of the Soviet Union. In this chapter’s discussion about the formation
of the Soviet Union, I am not implying that the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War
(1918-1921) was inevitable or that the peoples of the former tsarist did not challenge the Party’s
seizure of power and its quest to control the country. Additionally, I am not implying that the
national minorities, who were a part of the RKP(b) were complicit in the Party’s work to seize
control of the territory of the former empire for its new socialist state. I am focusing on events,
organizations, and meetings that can offer background for the creation of KUTV and insight
into the university.

Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939, Ithaca ; London: Cornell University Press,
2001.p. 12-16, 25. Additionally, by using the term national minorities, I am not implying that all non-Russian
peoples were nations or embraced the idea of national identity. As Jeremy Smith discussed in his article on Soviet
nationalities policy, not all non-Russian peoples considered themselves nations. Jeremy Smith, “Nation Building
and National Conflict in the USSR in the 1920s,” Ab Imperio, no. 3 (2001), p. 235.
2
G.P. Makarova, Narodnyi Komissariat po Delam Natsionalʹnostei RSFSR, 1917-1923 Gg.: Istoricheskii Ocherk
(People’s Commissariat of Nationalities RSFSR, 1917-1923), Moskva: Nauka, 1987, p. 8.

24
The Bolsheviks and the National Question, Narkomnats, and the Formation of the Soviet Union

When the “Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917, they did not possess a coherent
nationalities policy” or a plan for administering a multiethnic state.
3
Bolshevik
4
leaders lacked
detailed knowledge of the former empire’s people and its vast territory.
5
The chaos of World
War I, the revolutions of 1917 (February and October), and the collapse of the old imperial
government triggered nationalist uprisings among the national minorities of the former tsarist
empire.
6
After the October Revolution, “the unexpected strength of nationalism as a mobilizing
force during the revolution” surprised Lenin even though the national question was not a new
issue in Russia.
7
Nationalities policy evolved between 1917 and 1923 through decrees, Party
congresses, and the institutions of the Soviet state such as Narkomnats.
After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks attempted to ensure that they controlled
the state apparatus. Bolshevik Party members dominated the central government body, the
Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom).
8
Lenin was head of Sovnarkom and Trotsky
became the People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs.
9
The Bolshevik domination of the
government was not an accident. In September and October of 1917, Lenin clearly “wanted the
Bolsheviks to take power, not the multiparty Soviets.”
10
One month after the October
Revolution in November 1917, Lenin continued to oppose forming a government that would

3
Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, p. 2.
4
It should be noted that the Bolsheviks formally adopted the name Russian Communist Party, Bolshevik (RKP(b))
in early 1918. I only use the term Bolshevik for the period before the adoption of the name RKP(b).
5
Francine Hirsch, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge & the Making of the Soviet Union, p. 21.
6
Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923, Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 51.
7
Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, p. 2; Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union, p. 1-40; Jeremy Smith, The
Bolsheviks and the National Question, 1917-23, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999, p. 7-28.
8
Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution. 3rd ed. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 65.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.

25
include different political parties, even socialist political organizations.
11
He wanted the
Bolshevik Party to dominate the government without significantly sharing power with other
political parties. In addition to Lenin and Trotsky occupying positions in the new Soviet
government, Stalin became head of Narkomnats. Next to Lenin, Stalin was considered the
Party’s expert on the national question.
12
Stalin was not only head of Narkomnats, but also the
Bolshevik Party’s official spokesman on the national question at all Party congresses.
13
When
KUTV was named after Stalin, it made sense that the university included his name because of
his position as head of Narkomnats and his experience with the national question.
The Bolsheviks faced numerous challenges in their efforts to control the government and
exert influence throughout the territory of the former empire after they came to power.
According to the historian Sheila Fitzpatrick, the “October seizure of power was not the end of
the Bolshevik Revolution but the beginning.”
14
The Soviet government did not control large
swaths of the former Russian empire and its people, who broke away during the chaos of war
and revolutions. The Baltic provinces, Belorussia, Finland, the Ukraine, the Don, the Kuban,
the Caucasus, Siberia, the Urals, the arctic coast, and the middle Volga were not under Soviet
control; however, many of the above regions would become part of the Soviet Union by 1922.
15

During 1917, Lenin’s declarations about the right of nations to self-determination represented
less a governing approach than an appeal for the support of Russia’s national minorities.
16
In
November 1917, the Soviet government issued a decree that demonstrated the Party’s efforts to
appeal to the country’s national minorities. The November 1917 decree was titled the

11
Ibid.
12
Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, p. 3.
13
Ibid., p. 3-4.
14
Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, p. 68.
15
Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War, p. 100-101.
16
Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, p. 2.

26
“Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia.” It stated that “During this period of tsarism
the peoples of Russia were systematically incited against one another… There can be and there
must be no return to this disgraceful policy of instigation. Henceforth the policy of a voluntary
and honest union of the peoples of Russia must be substituted.”
17
The decree sought to
distinguish the Soviet government from the actions of the former tsarist empire. Instead of
subjugating the national minorities, the Soviet system would be a “voluntary and honest union.”
The decree also stated that the people within the borders of the former tsarist empire had the
right to self-determination “even to the point of separation and the formation of an independent
state.”
18
However, the Soviet Union would not be a “voluntary and honest union.” The Russian
Civil War between 1918 and 1921 was not only a battle between the Red Army and anti-
Bolshevik opponents, but also a period of colonization in which many of the territories of the
old empire were brought under the banner of a new socialist empire.
A few months after the signing of the Brest-Litovsk treaty
19
in 1918, which ended the
war between Russia and Germany, the Russian Civil War started. During the contentious peace
negotiations between the Soviet government and the Germans, former tsarist officers were
mobilizing their forces.
20
One of the main leaders of the White anti-Bolshevik resistance,
Admiral Kolchak, established a new government in Siberia.
21
The Russian Civil War involved
the Party’s Red Army against the White armies, which was composed of former tsarist officers.

17
“Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, November 2 [15], 1917,” in The Structure of Soviet History:
Essays and Documents, editor Ronald Grigor Suny, 2
nd
edition, London: Oxford University Press, 2013, pg. 68.
18
Ibid, 69.
19
Party leaders were divided about the signing of the Brest Litovsk Treaty in 1918. During the negotiations
Trotsky, who was foreign minister in the Soviet government, refused to sign. Instead his strategy was “no war, no
peace,” which involved the Russians neither continuing the war nor signing a peace. In response, German forces
advanced and occupied large parts of Ukraine. During 1917, Party leaders argued that Russia should withdraw
from an unpopular war. In addition to Trotsky, another Party leader, Nikolai Bukharin opposed the signing of a
peace treaty. He favored a revolutionary war against the Germans. Lenin was able to push through the treaty
through the Party’s Central Committee with much effort and a threat to resign. See. Fitzpatrick, The Russian
Revolution, p. 73.
20
Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, p. 73.
21
Ibid.

27
However, there were other anti-Bolshevik forces including members of political parties the
Bolsheviks excluded from participating in the new Soviet government.
22
The Russian Civil
War also involved Russia’s Allies during World War I, who supported the White armies.
23
The
British sent troops to Arkhangelsk and Murmansk to support anti-Bolshevik forces, while the
U.S. and Japan also deployed soldiers to Russia.
24
The battle inflicted further economic and
social damage on the country. World War I, the 1917 revolutions, and the years of civil war
devastated the country’s economy and industry as well as led to the displacement of segments
of the population. The involvement of foreign forces in the Civil War contributed to lasting
fears within the Party about a “capitalist encirclement” around the entire country.
25

The RKP(b)’s position on the national question evolved after the October Revolution.
Party leaders did not have one approach to the national question. Scholar Terry Martin divides
the RKP(b)’s position on the national question between the nation builders (Lenin and Stalin)
on one side, and the internationalists (Nikolai Bukharin and Georgii Piatakov) on the other side
during the Eighth Party Congress in March 1919.
26
The two sides engaged in a contentious
debate during the meeting. Nikolai Bukharin, one of the Party’s leading theoreticians, argued
that the slogan of self-determination for developed countries should be “self-determination of
the working classes.”
27
Bukharin and Piatakov criticized Lenin’s stance on the national
question and considered their position more in line with communist theory.
28
For Piatakov,
nationalism was fictitious and the proletariat was the only group with the right to self-

22
Ibid., p. 74
23
Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War, San Jose, CA: Pegasus Books, 2011, p. 14; Fitzpatrick, The Russian
Revolution, p. 70.
24
Ibid., p. 73-74.
25
Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, p. 70.
26
Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, p. 2.
27
Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, 20; Pipes, Formation of the Soviet Union, p. 109.
28
Pipes, Formation of the Soviet Union, p. 110.

28
determination.
29

Lenin responded to Piatakov and Bukharin by calling their position unrealistic.
30
Lenin
strongly opposed Bukharin and other members who did not support national self-
determination.
31
Lenin believed Party support for the country’s national minorities was
necessary as societies such as the ones in Central Asia and the Caucasus were not developed
enough for the Party to embrace the idea of self-determination for the working masses.
32
The
theses that the Congress adopted on the national question was borrowed from Lenin and passed
because of his influence within the Party. The Congress’s national program stated,

2. In order to overcome the suspicion of the toiling masse of the oppressed countries toward the proletariat
of the states which had oppressed these countries, it is necessary to destroy all and every privilege by
whatever national group, to establish full equality of nations, and to recognize that the colonies and the
nations which possess full rights have a right to political secession. 3. For the same purpose, as one of the
transnational forms on the way to full unity, the party proposes a federative unification of states organized
on the Soviet pattern. 4. As to the question of who is the carrier of the nation’s will to separation, the
Russian Communist Party stands on the historico-class point of view, taking into consideration the level of
historical development on which a given nation stands: on the road from the Middle Ages to bourgeois
democracy, or from bourgeois democracy to Soviet or proletarian democracy and so forth.
33

The national program underscored how the RKP(b)’s approach to the national question placed
the country’s national minorities on a timeline of historical development. One of the RKP(b)’s
goals in regards to the national minorities involved moving everyone within the country towards
socialism. For the RKP(b)’s national program adopted at the Eight Party Congress not all
nations were at the same level of development and some nations needed assistance to advance.
The language of development, backwardness, and historical progression were a part of the
RKP(b)’s thinking on the national question and its approach to the national minorities despite

29
Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, p. 2.
30
Pipes, Formation of the Soviet Union, p. 110.
31
Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, p. 3.
32
Ibid.
33
Quoted in Pipes, Formation of the Soviet Union, p. 110.

29
Party members various views on the national question.
34

The Party “sought to bring the people of the former Russian empire into the revolution
and secure their involvement in the great socialist experiment.”
35
Narkomnats and the creation
of organizations that national minorities, which were linked to the RKP(b) helped to bring the
national minorities into the revolution. Formed in 1917, Narkomnats was divided into smaller
national commissariats and national sections.
36
The national sections and national
commissariats reinforced the RKP(b)’s link between territory and national identity.
37
The
sections and commissariats were responsible for carrying out Soviet power in the national
language of the section and commissariat; carrying out the decisions of Narkomnats; making all
efforts to understand the class and cultural level of the national minorities; and struggling
against the counterrevolution among the national minorities, particularly the struggle against the
national bourgeoisie.
38
The way KUTV administrators divided students borrowed from the
Narkomnats structure. The university divided students into groups based on language, race, and
national identity.
The central governing body of Narkomnats was the Collegium (Kollegiia). There was a
Large Collegium (Bolshaia Kollegiia) and a Small Collegium (Malaia Kollegiia).
39
The Small
Collegium handled all questions about the life of the nationalities, which included the problems
of governance, the specific territories and borders of the regions, democratization of religious

34
Francine Hirsch has a brilliant elaboration on this in her work Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge &
the Making of the Soviet Union, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005, p. 4-18.
35
Hirsch, Empire of Nations, p. 5.
36
“Ot Narodnovo Komissariata po Delam Natsional’nostei” (From the People’s Commissariat on Nationalities),
Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei no. 6, 15 December 1918, p. 7.
37
Ibid; Adrienne Lynn Edgar, Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2004, p. 45.
38
Ibid.
39
V. G Chebotareva, Narkomnats RSFSR: Svet I Teni Natsional’noi Politiki 1917-1924 Gg. (Narkomnats RSFSR:
The Light and Dark of Nationalities Politics, 1917-1924), Moskva: Obshchestvennaia akademiia nauk rossiiskikh
nemtsev, 2003, p. 5.

30
life, and the interaction between religious and secular education among other duties.
40
National
minorities served on the Small Collegium, but Russian RKP(b) members dominated top
leadership positions with the exclusion of Stalin, who was Georgian.
Narkomnats also published a journal, Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei (Life of the Nationalities),
to provide information on RKP(b)’s Party congresses, Soviet nationalities policy, and political
and cultural developments among the national minorities. Between 1918-1922, Zhizn’
Natsional’nostei was a weekly journal, but was published more sporadically after that time
period until the end of 1923, when Narkomnats ceased its publication. After the RKP(b)’s
victory in the Civil War in 1921, Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei usefulness declined as the Party no
longer needed to recruit the support of the national minorities and the journal became less of a
forum for the national minorities to discuss their visions of revolutionary struggle.
During the Civil War, Party leader and Narkomnats official, Stalin, gave speeches and
wrote articles to stress the idea that Soviet power (Sovetskaia vlast’) would bring a “voluntary
and honest union” of the peoples of Russia. In an article for Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei, he
outlined the tasks of Soviet power and the RKP(b) in what he called the East.
41
Stalin defined
the East to include the Muslims of the former tsarist empire.
42
According to Stalin, the people
of the East were politically, economically, and culturally backward.
43
To address the issue of
backwardness, Stalin stated that one of the tasks of Soviet power would be to “raise the cultural
level of the backward peoples, to build a broad system of schools and educational institutions,
and to conduct our Soviet agitation, oral and printed, in the language which is native to and

40
Ibid.
41
Stalin, “Nashi Zadachi na Vostoke” (Our Tasks in the East), Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei no. 7(15), 2 March 1919, p.
1.
42
Ibid.
43
Ibid.

31
understood by the surrounding laboring population.”
44
For Stalin, the spread of socialism in the
former tsarist territories would help make the non-Russian peoples modern and developed. The
elimination of backwardness and development were critical to the Party’s approach to the
national minorities, especially the Muslim people of the former tsarist empire.
45

The Narkomnats apparatus also included non-Russians. One of the most prominent non-
Russians within the Narkomnats apparatus was the Tatar Bolshevik Muslim, Mirsaid
Sultangaliev. Born in 1880, Sultangaliev studied at the Russian-Tatar Teachers’ School in
Kazan.
46
He was active in “liberal nationalist and radical nationalist periodicals of Kazan, St.
Petersburg, Orenburg, and Baku.” After the October Revolution, in November 1917
Sultangaliev became a member of the RKP(b) and participated in the first All-Russian Muslim
Congress in May 1917. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Party apparatus and was a
member of Narkomnats’ Muslim Commissariat (Muskom), chairman of the Muslim Military
Collegium, and served as editor of Zhizn’ Natisional’nostei. While Stalin was away from his
position as head of Narkomnats because of the Civil War, historian Stephen Blank has
suggested that Sultangaliev was one of two people leading the Commissariat.
47
In addition to
his administrative roles within the Commissariat, Sultangaliev frequently wrote articles for
Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei and attended/chaired conferences where he expressed his views on the
relationship between communism and national liberation. Additionally, Sultangaliev was a
professor at KUTV and he taught classes on the national and colonial questions.
48

From his position in Narkomnats, Sultangaliev played an important role in fostering a

44
Ibid.
45
See Hirsch, Empire of Nations, p. 7-9.
46
All biographical including quotes about Sultangaliev in this paragraph from Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslim
National Communism, p. 207-208.
47
Stephen Blank, The Sorcerer as Apprentice: Stalin as Commissar of Nationalities, 1917-1924, Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1994, p. 52.
48
GARF 1319/1/146(3)/194 (no date but most likely 1921).

32
network of Muslim organizations that helped to bring Muslims from inside and outside the
former tsarist territory together.
49
In November 1919, he served as chair of the Second All-
Russian Congress of Communist Organizations of Peoples of the East, which Stalin opened.
50

The First All-Russian Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East
51
was
held in November 1918. The Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East brought
together communist workers from Turkestan, Bashkir, the Volga, Kirgizistan, the northern
Caucasus, and people from countries outside the former tsarist empire including Turkey, Persia,
Azerbaijan, Bukhara, and Georgia.
52

At First All-Russian Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East,
Grigori Zinoviev, who was a leading figure in the RKP(b) and by 1920 was head of the
Comintern, presided over the meeting.
53
At the meeting, the Turkish socialist, Mustafa Subhi,
stated that the “brain of Anglo-French capitalism is in Europe, but its body rests on the plains of
Asia and Africa.”
54
Mustafa Subhi was born in 1883 in the family of an Ottoman civil
servant.
55
He studied in Istanbul and at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris. After the
Young Turk Revolution in 1908
56
he returned to Istanbul where he worked as a journalist and
professor. He became a member of the Osmanli Sosiyalist Firkasi in 1910 and was expelled
from the country in 1914 for revolutionary activity. He went to Russia where he was interned

49
Jeremy Smith, “Nation Building and National Conflict in the USSR in the 1920s - 1.” Ab Imperio, no. 3 (2001),
p. 236.
50
Branko Lazić, and Milorad M. Drachkovitch, Lenin and the Comintern, Stanford, Calif., Hoover Institution
Press, Stanford University, 1972, p. 378.
51
Unfortunately, the poor quality of the microfilm copy of Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei that I used to find information
on this meeting did not include issues for November 1918 that would provide me with additional information on
this meeting from a primary source.
52
Communist International, Pervyi Kongress Kominterna, Moskva, 1933, p. 241.
53
Edward Hallett Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution: 1917-1923, vol. 3, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966, p. 234.
54
Ibid.
55
All biographical information in this paragraph from Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslim National Communism, p.
207.
56
For more information about the Young Turk Revolution see M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution:
The Young Turks, 1902-1908, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) and M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, The Young
Turks in Opposition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

33
during World War I. In July 1918 he organized the first communist Turkish group and
published its journal. In 1919, he was a delegate to the First Congress of the Comintern and
helped to found the official Turkish Communist Party in Baku in September 1920. He served as
a member of Narkomnats and was the chairman and organizer of Narkomants’ Turkish section.
Additionally, he also translated Marxist and Leninist works into Turkish. The First All-Russian
Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East offered a space for radical
anti-colonial activists from Central Asia, the Volga, the Caucasus, and nearby countries such as
Iran and Turkey to theorize and discuss the relationship between socialism and national
liberation.
At the Second All-Russian Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the
East, Lenin and Stalin made speeches offering their opinions about the role of the East in
revolutionary struggle. During his opening speech Stalin discussed the revolutionary
environment. He stated that there were two important events taking place in the contemporary
moment: the first event was revolutionary upsurges in the West and the U.S. and the emergence
of communist parties; and the second event was the awakening of the East and its revolutionary
struggle.
57
Stalin emphasized the joining of the East and the West in a common struggle against
imperialism.
58
He considered the First All-Russian Congress of Communist Organizations of
Peoples of the East in 1918 significant for helping to lift the peoples of the East from
hibernation and the current meeting for continuing that work.
59
His remarks were short and
according to him the peoples of the East were becoming politically active.
The meeting was important for demonstrating how delegates representing various

57
“2-i Vserossiiskii S’’ezd Kommunisticheskikh Organizatsii Narodov Vostoka (Second All-Russian Meeting of
Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East),” Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei, no. 47 (55) 7 December 1919, p. 3.
58
Ibid.
59
Ibid.

34
Muslim organizations attempted to link together socialism and the national liberation struggle.
Radical anti-colonial activists did not have one set approach to fighting imperialism, but
debated and exchanged ideas about the best strategies and tactics. The meeting’s resolution
outlined an approach for revolutionary struggle in non-Western countries that most likely bore
the influence of Sultangaliev. The first point in the resolution stated that that the international
socialist revolution could not be successful without the participation of the East (Vostok), which
included the Muslim national minorities of the former tsarist empire and Muslims from nearby
countries such as Iran and Turkey.
60
The second point was no less bold when it asserted that the
RKP(b) needed to commit itself to engaging in practical work in revolutionizing the Vostok.
61

The resolution would further state that the communist parties in the Vostok needed to determine
the basic revolutionary program of the party and support the national revolutionary struggle,
which sought to overthrow imperialism.
62
The fourth point of the resolution supported the
formation of party organizations in the Vostok to carry out work.
63
The delegates argued that
the international proletarian struggle and the national liberation movement served the same
goal. Furthermore, the resolution underscored the centrality of the East to the socialist
revolution. It stated that the socialist revolution could not be successful without the
participation of the East, which was a position that radical anti-colonial activists would argue at
Comintern meetings. The publication of the resolution’s different points revealed how national
minorities openly challenged and critiqued RKP(b) policy and work including officials with
Narkomnats.

60
“2-i Vserossiiskii S’’ezd Kommunisticheskikh Organizatsii Narodov Vostoka (Second All-Russian Meeting of
Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East),” Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei, no. 47 (55) 7 December 1919, p. 3.
61
Ibid.
62
Ibid.
63
Ibid.

35
Lenin’s address differed from the meeting’s resolution, but continued the focus on the
struggle against imperialism. At the beginning of his address, Lenin stated that “It is self-
evident that this revolutionary movement of the peoples of the East can now develop
effectively…only in direct association with the revolutionary struggle of our Soviet Republic
against international imperialism.”
64
After his initial remarks, Lenin discussed the Civil War,
the anti-Bolshevik opposition, and how the Red Army’s accomplishments would benefit the
Vostok.
65
Lenin’s reference to the East most likely referred to the Muslim peoples of the former
tsarist empire, but could have included Muslims from Iran and Turkey as well. His address
spoke in generalities about the East without identifying specific struggles, countries, or
communist organizations.
66
With the progression of the Civil War, Lenin’s knowledge about
the East continued to develop. In closing his address, he told the delegates that they needed to
base their struggles on the “bourgeois nationalism which is awakening, and must awaken among
those peoples, and which has its historical justification.”
67
Lenin and the RKP(b)’s national
program believed that all peoples progressed through certain historical stages.
68

Sultangaliev was a vocal critic of the Party’s work among the national minorities. At the
meeting he criticized Lenin and the Party. He stated that the Vostok was critical to the
international socialist movement and asserted that the RKP(b) should commit itself to practical
work in the East, which he defined as referring to the Muslims peoples of the former tsarist

64
Lenin, “Address to the Second All-Russia Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East,”
(November 22, 1919) in Lenin and the National Liberation Movement in the East, 3d rev. ed., Moscow: Progress
Publishers, 1969, p. 246. I am using a copy of Lenin’s speech in this work because the copy was better than the
Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei microfilm copy of his address.
65
Ibid., p. 247-249.
66
Ibid., p. 252-254.
67
Ibid, p. 257
68
Hirsch, Empire of Nations, p. 8-9.

36
empire, but could have included Iran and Turkey as well.
69
In his speech, Sultangaliev
presented a series of concrete steps that would further the economic and political liberation of
the East.
70
At the core of his speech, Sultangaliev wanted the peoples of the East to control and
direct their own struggles and work.
71
He stated that communist organizations should serve as
the central organs for mobilizing the peoples of the East.
72
Furthermore, he argued that the
strengthening of communist organizations in the Soviet republics could serve as an important
base for launching revolutionary work in the East beyond the Soviet Union and he stated that
the establishment of stronger relations between the different Soviet republics would aid the
national liberation struggles.
73
The meeting’s resolution and Sultangaliev’s speech
demonstrated how the attendees sought to create a space for themselves and their peoples within
the international communist movement. The delegates did not want to limit their work to the
parameters that the RKP(b) established. Rather they formed organizations and developed
strategies that addressed conditions in their countries. Their struggles were both international
and local.
Sultangaliev continued to develop his ideas about the national liberation struggle and
socialism beyond the Second All-Russian Congress of Communist Organizations of Peoples of
the East. While the Soviet government used Narkomnats as a tool to gain the support of the
country’s national minorities, individuals such as Sultangaliev used the Commissariat to form
relationships with other national minorities and radical non-Western activists. In a June 1918

69
“2-i Vserossiiskii S’’ezd Kommunisticheskikh Organizatsii Narodov Vostoka (Second All-Russian Meeting of
Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East),” Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei, no. 47 (55) 7 December 1919, p. 3.
70
Ibid.
71
Ibid.
72
Ibid.
73
Ibid.

37
article,
74
Sultangaliev published his conversation with the radical Turkish activist and
Narkomnats official, Mustafa Subhi about the relationship between the Bolshevik Revolution
and colonized and oppressed peoples. The article included Subhi’s comments on the subject.
The Third Worl in the article referred to Muslim countries, particularly Turkey, the Muslim
regions of the former tsarist empire, and possibly Iran.
75
According to Subhi, the Russian
Revolution (October Revolution) should make arrangements to “revolutionize Turkey and the
different Muslim countries of the East.”
76
For Subhi, the proletariat of the “East” could use
socialism as a tool in the fight against imperialism. He placed emphasis on proletarian unity
across geographical borders in a shared struggle against a common enemy, which was
imperialism. Sultangaliev and Subhi did not appear to make a distinction between Turkey and
the Muslim countries of the East in terms of their relationship to imperialism. Rather the article
emphasized unity based on a shared Muslim and class identity. Sultangaliev ended the article
discussing Subhi’s strategy for building socialism among the Muslims of the East. Subhi stated
that Turkic revolutionary socialist organizations should be created in Soviet Russia to bring
together the revolutionary elements of the “Muslim people in the East.”
77

Sultangaliev adjusted Marxism and Leninism to suit national conditions within the non-
Western countries. In March 1918, Sultangaliev elaborated on Lenin’s idea of oppressed and
oppressor nations. In the Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-
Determination (1915), Lenin argued that imperialism heightened national oppression. Lenin
asserted that imperialism involved “the progressively mounting oppression of the nations of the

74
The article was included in a collected volume of Sultangaliev’s works see “Russkaia Revoliutsiia I Vostok
(Beseda s Professorom Mystafoi Subkhi-Beem)” (The Russian Revolution and the East (Conversation with
Professor Mustafa Subhi Beem)) (June 5, 1918), in M.S. Sultangaliev, Statʹi, Vystupleniia, Dokumenty. Kazan:
Tatarskoe knizhnoe izd-vo, 1992, p. 68-70 .
75
“Russkaia Revoliutsiia i Vostok (Beseda s Professorom Mystafoi Subkhi-Beem)” (The Russian Revolution and
the East (Conversation with Professor Mustafa Subhi Beem)), p. 69.
76
Ibid.
77
Ibid., p. 70.

38
world by a handful of Great Powers… That is why the focal point in the Social-Democratic
program must be that division of nations into oppressor and oppressed which forms the essence
of imperialism.”
78
Lenin recognized the power of nationalism as a mobilizing force and sought
to distinguish between what he considered the nationalism of “Great Powers” such as Britain,
Russia, and France, and the nationalism of the colonized. For Lenin, the nationalism of the
colonized was justified because of imperialist oppression. Lenin stated in his work that the
denial of the right to self-determination was a “direct betrayal of democracy, internationalism,
and socialism.”
79
The nationalism of the oppressed nations could be democratic and contribute
to the socialist struggle.
Sultangaliev seized on Lenin’s idea of oppressor and oppressed nations to form his
theory of proletarian nations. He stated,

All Muslim colonized peoples are proletarian peoples and as almost all classes in Muslim
society have been oppressed by the colonialists, all classes have the right to be called
‘proletarian.’… Muslim peoples are proletarian peoples. From an economic standpoint
there is an enormous difference between the English or French proletarians and the
Afghan or Moroccan proletarians. Therefore, it is legitimate to say that the national
liberation movement in Muslim countries has the character of a Socialist revolution.
80

For Sultangaliev, since the colonists oppressed all classes within Muslim societies, colonized
people of all classes had the right to self-determination and to be called proletarian. He did not
distinguish the nationalism in Muslim societies between the working-class, the peasants, and the
bourgeoisie, which marked a departure from Marxist theory. In Sultangaliev’s formulation, the
fight for national liberation had the “character of a socialist revolution.” His internationalism
linked nations together not classes. Sultangaliev’s idea made sense for countries that lacked
strong class distinctions making class solidarity difficult.

78
Lenin, Collected Works Volume 21, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964, pg. 409.
79
Ibid., p. 414.
80
Sultan Galiev at the Regional Congress of the Kazan Organization of the RCP(b), March 1918 quoted in
Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslim National Communism, pg. 42.

39
The ability for Sultangaliev and other national minorities to express their opinions
without severe RKP(b) retaliation was ending. Over the course of the Civil War, it became
apparent that the RKP(b) would not allow the national minorities self-determination to the point
of separation. Between 1918 and 1921, many of the regions that broke away following the
collapse of the tsarist empire became a part of the Soviet Union such as the Ukraine, Belorussia,
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and Turkestan among other regions.
81
Narkomats also
underwent reorganization in 1920. Stalin considered the national problem an issue of the
periphery integrating into the Moscow center.
82
In the first six months of 1921, the Narkomnats
central apparatus was strengthened contributing to the weakening of the national sections and
commissariats.
83

Nationalities policy continued to develop at the 10
th
Party Congress in 1921. At the
meeting, Party members debated the national question. According to historian Yuri Slezkine,
the 10
th
Party Congress “equated (non-Russian) nationality with backwardness.”
84
However,
the link between backwardness and “non-Russian nationality” was a critical component of
nationalities policy before 1921. During the 10
th
Congress, Stalin stated that the “main task in
the national question was to eliminate backwardness, which could be achieved through national-
territorial autonomy.”
85
National identification was linked to a territory. The language of
backwardness that emerged at the RKP(b) congresses and in the work of Narkomnats would be
transferred to KUTV and the Comintern’s engagement with radical anti-colonial activists.

81
Pipes, Formation of the Soviet Union, p. 114-221. I am not implying that the Soviet state’s conquest of those
regions occurred without contestation. It was not inevitable that those countries would become a part of the Soviet
Union.
82
Blank, The Sorcerer as Apprentice, p. 65-67.
83
Ibid., p. 74.
84
Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors, 144.
85
Stalin quoted in Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, p. 27.

40
The 12
th
Party Congress in 1923 marked a milestone in the development of nationality
policy. At the meeting, the Party solidified the borders of the Soviet Union and developed a
nationalities policy called korenizatsiia (indigenization).
86
This policy sought to make Soviet
power seem “native” by emphasizing the creation of national cadres, and supporting native
education, native languages, and native culture in the non-Russian regions of the USSR.
87
By
supporting the cultural aspects of national identification, Lenin and Stalin hoped they could
undermine nationalism.
88
In defining nationality, the Party placed emphasis on its cultural and
psychological aspects in addition to linking ethnicity with territory.
89
In relation to KUTV,
korenizatsiia served as a framework for organizing students into groups; the university’s strong
focus on translating Russian and Marxists texts into various non-European languages;
encouraging students to interpret and publish works on the history of their countries in their
own languages; and the creation of cadres, who would return to their country of origin to spread
socialism.
The same year as the 12
th
Party Congress, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee
(Vserossiiskii Tsentral’nyi Ispolnitel’nyi Komitet, or ( VTsIK) of the state government ordered
the liquidation of Narkomnats on July 7, 1923 and the Commissariat was officially liquidated in
May 1924.
90
With the establishment of korenizatsiia and the Soviet Union’s incorporation of
many of the territories of the former empire, the RKP(b) no longer needed Narkomnats. Under
korenizatsiia national territories assumed responsibility for the promotion of national culture,

86
Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, p. 1-20.
87
Ibid.
88
Ibid.
89
Ibid.
90
G.P. Makarova, Narodnyi Komissariat po Delam Natsionalʹnostei RSFSR, 1917-1923 Gg.: Istoricheskii Ocherk
(People’s Commissariat of Nationalities RSFSR, 1917-1923 years), Moskva: Nauka, 1987, p. 147.

41
language, and education with state support.
91
A department of nationalities was created under
the Presidium of the VTsIK.
92

The name of the Soviet Union avoided any ethnic or national qualifiers with the idea
that other nations would become part of the county in the future. Despite the multi-national and
multi-ethnic composition of the Soviet Union, the central Party and state apparatuses in
Moscow disproportionately dominated the USSR’s government and exercised power over the
national republics within the country.
93
However, Lenin and Stalin were careful about being
perceived as an empire.
94
To avoid such a perception, the Soviet Union’s “central state would
not be identified as Russian. Russian national self-expression would be downplayed,” but the
Russian nationalism of the “former” oppressor nation remained despite the formation of the
Soviet Union.
95
The majority of Russian Party members actively and passively resisted
nationalities policy considering it a “temporary concession” to the national minorities.
96

The Communist International Congresses and the Baku Congress,

This section briefly examines three conferences associated with the Comintern that
provided a venue for radical anti-colonial activists to exchange ideas and develop revolutionary
strategies. I focus on the first two congresses of the Comintern and the Baku Congress in 1920.
The meetings reveal how radical anti-colonialists expressed a variety of opinions about the level
of economic and cultural development within non-Western societies. These meetings should

91
Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, p. 14.
92
G.P. Makarova, Narodnyi Komissariat po Delam Natsionalʹnostei RSFSR, p. 147.
93
Ibid.
94
Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, p. 19.
95
Ibid., p. 20.
96
Ibid., p. 21.

42
not be considered as separate from meetings held within the Soviet Union involving national
minorities such as the First and Second All-Russian Congress of Communist Organizations of
Peoples of the East. Radical anti-colonial activists sought to carve a space for themselves and
their struggles within international communism. Some of the participants at the Comintern
conferences would become associated with KUTV and a discussion of the meetings provides
background for the university.

The Communist International

Lenin announced the formation of the Third International (Comintern) in 1919, two
years after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The First Congress of the Communist
International took place in Moscow during the Russian Civil War, the RKP(b)’s ongoing
debates about the national question, and the Party’s efforts to recruit the support of the national
minorities within the former tsarist empire. Through the chaos of war and revolution, Lenin
remained committed to fostering world revolution. During the First Congress of the Comintern,
Lenin’s opening speech provided insight into why he decided to create a new International.
Lenin stated that the founding of the Third International “has been brought about by the growth
of the proletarian revolution, which is manifestly developing everywhere by leaps and
bounds. It has been brought about by the soviet movement among the working people, which
has already achieved such strength as to become really international.”
97
For Lenin, the
Bolshevik Revolution and the defeat of Germany during World War I changed the international

97
Lenin’s comments in John Riddell, Founding the Communist International: Proceedings and Documents of the
First Congress, March 1919, New York: Anchor Foundation, 1987, p. 207.

43
situation.
98
Before the October Revolution, Lenin wrote an article stating that a Third
International should not be established until there was a successful proletarian revolution in one
country or the war ended.
99
Lenin expected that world revolution would then spread to the rest
of Europe after the October Revolution. Communists movements and parties started to emerge
in Europe after 1917 lending credence to his idea.
100

At the First Congress, Lenin’s speech argued that the international environment was
favorable for world revolution. Lenin stated,
The international alliance of the parties which are leading the most revolutionary
movement in the world, the movement of the proletariat for the overthrow of the yoke
of capital, now rests on an unprecedentedly firm base in the shape of several Soviet
republics, which are implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat and are the
embodiment of victory over capitalism on an international scale.
101

Soviet Russia was at the forefront of world revolution. The October Revolution and the Soviet
republics provided examples for the international revolution. Lenin was trying to further justify
the founding of the Third International by emphasizing how the RKP(b)’s efforts to build a
socialist state placed it in the global revolutionary vanguard.
Lenin was not the only person to consider the October Revolution important for the
global revolutionary struggle against capitalism. The First Comintern Congress was notable for
the inclusion of non-Western radical activists many of whom were national minorities from the
former tsarist empire and/or officials at Narkomnats. Mustafa Subhi, a Turkish socialist and
Narkomnats official reported on the situation in Turkey at the meeting. His report continued his
ideas about the significance of the October Revolution for non-European peoples. Subhi’s
report stated, “…let the heroes of the Russian social revolution, who have made so many

98
Branko Lazitch and Milorad M. Drachkovitch, Lenin and the Comintern, Stanford, Calif., Hoover Institution
Press, 1972, p. 29.
99
Ibid.
100
Franz Borkenau, World Communism; a History of the Communist International, p. 116-143.
101
Lenin’s comments were translated by and published in Riddell, Founding of the Communist International, p. 33.

44
sacrifices to the altar of the world social revolution, know that they are not alone on the field of
battle. The mass of the Turkish proletariat and with the entire intelligentsia is joined together
with them.”
102
Turkey was not a colony of European colonial powers, but rather was a colonial
power itself according to Subhi. His idea of revolution involved not only a fight against
capitalism, but also Turkish imperialism.
103
His report acknowledged the legacy of Turkish
imperialism from the Ottoman Empire.
Although Turkey was not a European colonial possession, Subhi still asserted that
Turkey was a part of what he called the East. In his report, he argued that the “head of Anglo-
French imperialism is located in Europe, then its belly rests on the rich fields of Asia. And for
us, the Turkish socialists, the first and main task is to tear out capitalism by the roots in the
East.”
104
He further asserted that if “Turkey, Persia, India, China and others close their doors to
Anglo-French industry” they will provoke a crisis.
105
“Through this crisis power will pass to
the proletariat, and the socialist order will be established. That can be achieved only by
arousing a revolutionary movement in these countries, by an uprising of the Eastern peoples”
against European imperialism.
106
While Subhi admired the October Revolution for its potential
to incite revolution, he believed that the best way to challenge imperialism would occur when
“Eastern peoples” joined together against “Anglo-French imperialism.” Subhi’s comments
underscored one of the core aspects of radical anti-colonialism, which insisted on the
revolutionary potential of what Subhi called the “East.” China, Persia (Iran), India, and Turkey
possessed the power to destroy imperialism.

102
Mustafa Subhi’s comments in John Riddell, Founding the Communist International: Proceedings and
Documents of the First Congress, March 1919, New York: Anchor Foundation, 1987, p. 208.
103
Ibid., p. 207.
104
Ibid., p. 208.
105
Ibid.
106
Ibid.

45
Subhi’s report included a preliminary plan. The core of his plan was the “organization
of a revolutionary center in the East.”
107
His statement was surprising at the First Comintern
Congress because he suggested that the Third International was not enough to provide a home
base for the “East.” In closing his report, Subhi boldly proclaimed that the “uprisings of the
peoples of the East against European capital that is necessary for Russia is just as essential for
the young German revolution.”
108
While he argued in his report about the revolutionary
potential of the October Revolution, he also considered the “uprisings of the peoples of the
East” critical and necessary for the proletarians struggle.
Other delegates at the Congress shared Subhi’s ideas. Gaziz Yalymov was a member of
the Central Bureau of the Muslim Communist Organizations along with Mustafa Subhi, which
was within the Central Bureau of Communist Organizations of Peoples of the East.
109
In his
report, Yalymov argued that the “East represents the underbelly of world imperialism, its source
of supply. If the East arises and stretches out a hand to the socialist West, imperialism will be
surrounded, and then the hour of triumph for world socialism will have sounded.”
110
Similar to
Lenin, Yalymov considered the colonies the weak link in the imperialist chain. As a result, the
joining of the proletarian struggle in the West with the anti-imperialist struggle of the “East”
would allow socialism to triumph.
Yalymov further emphasized in his report that there was an awakening taking place
among the peoples of the East, which he defined as including the people of Azerbaijan, Georgia,
Persia, Turkey, and Bukhara.
111
The use of the term “awakening” was popular among
communists such as Stalin and Lenin, who both used the term during their addresses at the

107
Ibid. p. 208-209.
108
Ibid., p. 209.
109
Communist International, Pervyi Kongress Kominterna. Moskva, 1933, p. 241.
110
Ibid., p. 242.
111
Ibid.

46
Second All-Russia Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East mentioned
in section one of this chapter. As a member of the organization, Yalymov was probably
familiar with their addresses at that meeting. During his speech at the First Comintern
Congress, Yalymov stated that the Central Bureau of the Communist Organizations of the
Peoples of the East “poses as its basic task the awakening of the peoples of the East. That is
why I say: Long live the revolutionary union of the oppressed peoples of the East with the
socialist workers of Russia and Europe!”
112
Of course Yalymov believed that his organization
could play a central role in “awakening the peoples of the East,” but his statement does reveal
how radical anti-colonial actvists wanted their own organizations to direct the struggles among
non-European peoples.
The European, U.S., and Russian delegates to the First Comintern Congress did not
spend much time discussing non-Europeans societies. However, the Manifesto of the
Communist International that Lenin read on March 6, 1919 briefly mentioned Asia and Africa.
The Manifesto proclaimed, “Colonial slaves of Africa and Asia! The hour of proletarian
dictatorship in Europe strikes as the hour of your liberation.”
113
The Manifesto took the
opposite view of Subhi and Yalymov. Liberation in Europe would free the “colonial slaves of
Africa and Asia.”
114
The Manifesto did not elaborate on a joining together of non-European
peoples with the proletariat of the West. Instead the document focused exclusively on Europe
and its potential to liberate the rest of the world. The dichotomy between Subhi and Yalymov’s
view of revolutionary struggle and the Manifesto’s emphasis on the European proletariat would
be an ongoing issue over the course of the 1920s as delegates to Comintern congresses debated
whether the triumph of the proletariat in Europe would liberate the “East” or whether

112
Ibid.
113
Ibid., p. 207
114
Ibid.

47
revolutionary upsurges among colonized and oppressed peoples could ignite the proletarian
revolution.
The Second Congress of the Comintern in 1920 continued the discussion from the
Second All-Russian Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East and the
First Comintern Congress about revolutionary struggle in the non-Western countries. The
Second Comintern Congress attracted prominent radical anti-colonial intellectuals such as M.N.
Roy. Roy was an Indian Communist who was born in 1887. During the early 20
th
century, he
participated in organizations seeking to overthrow British imperialism.
115
He came of age when
the Indian anti-colonial struggle developed expansive global networks. During World War I, he
sought the assistance of the German government in overthrowing British colonialism in India.
Shortly after the war, he came to the attention of the Comintern and Lenin due to his activities
in Mexico. While in Mexico he helped found the Mexican Communist Party. Soon thereafter
Roy traveled to Moscow to attend the Second Congress of the Comintern in 1920.
At the Second Congress, Roy challenged the Comintern’s approach to non-European
countries. His report stated that “one of the most important questions before the Second
Congress of the Third International is to determine more precisely the Communist
International’s relationship to the revolutionary movements of politically oppressed countries
dominated by capitalistic imperialism” such as China and India.
116
Roy placed colonized and
oppressed peoples at the center of world revolutionary struggle similar to Sultangaliev and
Subhi. In his theses, he argued:

115
Biographical information in this paragraph from Sibnarayan Ray, In Freedom’s Quest, volume 1, Calcutta,
India: Minerva Associates, chapter three.
116
Communist International, “Supplementary Theses on the National and Colonial Questions,” Workers of the
World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite!: Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress, 1920, volume 1,
editor John Riddell, 1st ed. New York: Pathfinder, 1991, p. 218.

48

For the overthrow of foreign capitalism, the first step toward revolution in the colonies,
the cooperation of the bourgeois-nationalist revolutionary elements is useful… The real
strength of the liberation movements in the colonies is no longer confined to the narrow
circle of bourgeois-democratic nationalists. In most of the colonies there already exist
organized revolutionary parties that strive to be in close connection with the working
masses… The revolution in the colonies will not be a communist revolution in its first
stages. But if the leadership is in the hands of a Communist vanguard from the outset,
the revolutionary masses will not be led astray but will go forward through the successive
periods of development of revolutionary experience.
117

Roy challenged the manifesto from the First Comintern Congress and Lenin who considered the
bourgeois democratic stage necessary for all societies to pass through on the march towards
socialism.
118
Roy argued that such a historical timeline did not suit the conditions in colonial
countries. He substituted bourgeois-democratic with nationalist revolutionary. Roy sought to
emphasize that the bourgeoisie in “the most advanced colonial countries, like India, as a class,
was not economically and culturally differentiated from the feudal social order; therefore, the
nationalist movement was ideologically reactionary.”
119
In particular, Roy referred to Gandhi
as an example. Roy stated that Gandhi, while garnering mass support, was socially reactionary
even though he appeared revolutionary. For Roy, Gandhi was a “religious and cultural
revivalist.”
120
Roy did not assume that the bourgeoisie in colonial countries were the natural
allies of the liberation movements. Such a distinction underscored the nuances of the national
liberation movement in the colonies. In India, the masses (peasants and workers) were
developing their own organizations that had the potential to lead the anti-colonial and anti-
capitalist struggle. Lenin’s bourgeois-democratic stage would not be necessary in India where
mass organizations filled that role. The path to socialism did not pass through the same stages as

117
Communist International, “Supplementary Theses on the National and Colonial Questions,” Workers of the
World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite!: Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress, 1920, volume 1,
editor John Riddell, 1st ed. New York: Pathfinder, 1991, p. 221; M. N. Roy, M. N. Roy’s Memoirs, South Asia
Books, 1985, p. 379.
118
Communist International, Pervyi Kongress Kominterna. Moskva, 1933, p. 207.
119
M.N. Roy, Memoirs, p. 379.
120
Ibid.

49
Western countries.
Roy’s comments at the Second Comintern Congress challenged ideas about the
universalizing aspects of capital. His theses accounted for the uneven capitalist development
that occurred with colonialism. According to Roy, “foreign imperialism, imposed on the
Eastern peoples, prevented them from developing socially and economically side by side with
their fellows in Europe and America.”
121
This process produced a differential in power
relations that allowed imperial countries to dominate Eastern peoples. If capitalism did not
impose universality on the colonies, then the solution and process of revolutionary struggle
would need to differ as well. He argued that the “this stage of the revolutionary movement of
the masses opens a new field of activity for the Communist International.”
122
Similar to Subhi,
Roy stressed the potential of the revolutionary movements in the colonies for the Communist
International. Roy challenged the premise of who could serve as the driving revolutionary force
within society with his emphasis on workers and peasants in the colonies.
Lenin strongly adhered to the idea that all people must pass through certain stages of
historical development. At the Second Congress of the Comintern, however, Lenin reworked
his ideas after speaking with Roy. Initially Lenin believed that the Comintern and communist
parties should support the bourgeois-democratic movements in the East. Lenin revised his view
after Roy argued that the bourgeoisie in Eastern countries could support the national movement
while also enjoying an alliance with the imperialist bourgeoisie.
123
After Roy’s discussion
about the bourgeoisie in colonial countries, Lenin stated that the Comintern and communists
would only support bourgeois liberation movements in the East when they were revolutionary

121
Ibid, p. 220.
122
“Supplementary Report on the National and Colonial Questions,“ in Riddell, Workers of the World and the
Oppressed Peoples, Unite!, vol. 1, pg 223-224.
123
“Report on the National and Colonial Questions,” in Riddell, Workers of the World and the Oppressed Peoples,
Unite!, vol. 1, p. 213.

50
in nature. This point posed numerous problems during the interwar period as one needed to
define and identify when the bourgeoisie in colonial countries acted in a revolutionary manner
in order to forge an alliance. In the end, KUTV continued to uphold Lenin’s idea of the
bourgeois-democratic stage of development for Eastern countries.
Other delegates from non-European countries spoke at the Second Congress as well.
Another prominent radical anti-colonial activist was Avetis Sultanzade. Avetis Mikailian,
better known as Sultanzade, was an ethnic Armenian Communist from Iran, who was born in
1890 to a poor peasant family.
124
In his youth, he was sent to an ecclesiastical college in
Armenia although his parents had embraced Islam. While in school, Avetis came into contact
with the Hnchak Party, which was the Armenian Leftist Social Democratic Party. The Russian
Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDRP) influenced the Hnchak Party. After the October
Revolution, the majority of the Hnchak Party switched to Bolshevism. In 1912, Avetis joined
the RSDLP while studying in St. Petersburg. Four years later, he became a member of the
Iranian Adalat Party, which was the revolutionary wing of the Social-Democratic Party of Iran.
During the Russian Civil War he possibly served as an adviser to Lenin and helped to organize
the Iranian Red Army. Continuing to live a full revolutionary life, Sultanzade was appointed to
a Comintern commission in charge of propaganda in non-Western countries, with a focus on
Iran and nearby countries. His activities after 1917 kept him active in Central Asia and the
Caucasus. He organized local committees of the Adalat and the First Adalat Conference in
Tashkent. The documentary record does not reveal when he met Roy; however, Roy did
mention Sultanzade in his biography. Roy stated that Sultanzade was “very talkative and
pedantic, he was very proud of his distinction as the first Marxist of Asia.”
1

124
Cosroe Chaqueri, “Sultanzade: The Forgotten Revolutionary Theoretician of Iran: A Biographical Sketch,”
Iranian Studies 17, no. 2/3 (April 1, 1984): 215–235. All biographical information for Sultanzade in this paragraph
from this article.

51
After his work in Tashkent, Sultanzade traveled to Moscow where he served as Iran’s
delegate to the Second Comintern Congress. Sultanzade believed in the dialectical relationship
between the revolution in non-European countries – countries directly under colonial rule and
others such as Iran in which the British fought for influence over the country but it was not a
British colony – and the West. He firmly thought that the people from non-Western countries
should join with the Western proletariat for the triumph of world revolution. In discussing
whether to support bourgeois-democratic movements, he argued, “we must create and support a
purely communist movement counterposed to the bourgeois-democratic movement.”
125
This
placed him alongside Roy in favoring a different revolutionary path for the East although both
men formulated different approaches. Sultanzade differed from Roy on the subject of whether
the revolution in non-Western countries was strong enough to ignite the proletarian revolution.
Sultanzade believed that the proletarian revolution was needed for the movements in non-
European countries.
Sultanzade’s remarks at the Congress discussed oppressive power relations within Third
World societies. He did not limit his discussion to countries under colonial rule. Iran was not a
colonial territory, but Sultanzade still considered it part of the struggle against imperialism. In
his short comments, he argued that the ruling classes were not united in colonial countries. He
divided the ruling classes into the clergy, the bourgeoisie, and the merchants. In contrast to the
comments Lenin made to Roy, Sultazade did not reduce the struggle in colonial countries to a
battle between the bourgeoisie and the oppressed masses. Sultanzade’s theses also included big
landowners in his description of the ruling classes.
126
For Sultanzade, the disunity among the

125
“National and Colonial Questions (Part 2),” Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite!: Proceedings
and Documents of the Second Congress, 1920, volume 1, editor John Riddell, 1st ed. New York: Pathfinder, 1991,
p. 239.
126
Riddell, Workers of the World and the Oppressed Peoples Unite!, vol. 2, p. 857

52
ruling groups and the exploitation of the peasants created a revolutionary environment for the
national revolution to become a social revolution.
127
Colonialism and the ruling classes
oppressed the peasants. As the main producing class in countries such as Iran, the peasants
could play a role in the revolutionary struggle.
The First and Second Comintern Congresses offered a venue for radical anti-colonial
intellectuals to debate various approaches for the revolutionary struggle in non-European
countries, which were under colonial rule and those countries such as Iran and Turkey that were
included as part of the anti-colonial struggle, but were not colonial territories. Subhi, Yalymov,
Roy, and Sultanzade’s comments at the two congresses underscored the limitations of the
Comintern and were connected to the thinking about revolutionary struggle in non-Western
countries that also appeared at the meetings of the Communist Organizations of the Peoples of
the East. The Baku Congress in 1920 would proceed to develop ideas about the revolutionary
struggle among colonized and oppressed peoples.

The Baku Congress 1920

Shortly after the end of the Second Comintern Congress, the Comintern sponsored the
Congress of the Peoples of the East in Baku in 1920. The meeting brought together Turkic,
Russian, Persian, Armenian, Kirghiz, Turkmen, Uzbek, Korean, and Tajik delegates among
other ethnic and national groups.
128
In total, there were nearly 2000 people in attendance.
129

This congress has received little historical attention compared with meetings devoted to anti-

127
“National and Colonial Questions (Part 2),” Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite!: Proceedings
and Documents of the Second Congress, 1920, volume 1, p. 238.
128
S’’ezd Narodov Vostoka, Stenogragicheskie Othety (Meeting of the People of the East stenographic Report), p.
5.
129
Ibid.

53
colonialism that took place in Western countries during the interwar period such as the one
organized by the League Against Imperialism in 1927. The location of the Baku Congress was
strategic. Baku was a transnational city as the oil industry attracted Russian, Tatar, Armenian,
Iranian workers.
130
During the late 19
th
century and early 20
th
century, a labor movement
emerged in Baku and there was a strong publishing industry that included journals
disseminating a mixture of socialist, anti-colonialist, and anti-clerical ideas.
131
Additionally, the
RSDRP was active in Baku at the beginning of the twentieth century helping to spread
socialism.
132
As a result, Baku was an ideal location for the Congress in 1920. During a lecture
in 1923, the Peruvian Marxist, José Carlos Mariátegui, remarked that the Baku Congress laid
the foundation for an “International of the East.”
133

The Baku Congress offered a larger space for Third World activists to discuss
revolutionary strategy and tactics than the one afforded by the Second Comintern Congress.
Attendees did not express a single approach as speakers often worked through their ideas on the
floor of the meeting. Representatives from Europe and the Soviet Union also attended the
meeting. Those delegates often expressed the opinion that non-European countries needed the
assistance of the Western proletariat. Chairman of the Comintern, Grigori Zinoviev declared,
“we are sure that those tens and hundreds of millions of peasants of Asia will now take up the
call that reached them from the organized vanguard of the Western European and American

130
Janet Afary, “Peasant Rebellions of the Caspian Region during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–
1909,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 23, no. 2 (1991), p. 141; Ronald Grigor Suny. The Baku
Commune, 1917-1918: Class and Nationality in the Russian Revolution, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1972, p. 10-12.
131
Suny, The Baku Commune, p. 17.
132
Pezhmann Dailami, “The First Congress of Peoples of the East and the Iranian Soviet Republic of Gilan, 1920-
1921,” in Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left, edited by
Stephanie Cronin, New York: Routledge, 2004, p. 88.
133
Mariátegui quoted in Robert C. Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, 2001, p. 136.

54
proletariat.”
134
The Western proletariat would uplift and the non-European people in the battle
against imperialism. Zinoviev’s remarks underscored the focus on a particular type of
organization that would be able to carry forward the revolution, which was the communist
party.
The experienced Azeri revolutionary, Nariman Narimanov, placed emphasis on the need
for delegates to learn about the different colonial regimes. Nariman Narimanov was an Azeri
born in Tbilisi.
135
He became a member of the RSDRP in 1905 and was one of the founders of
the Hummet Party. In 1906, Narimanov helped to found the Persian Social Democratic group
in Baku. He became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan
and a member of the Sovnarkom of the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan in April 1918. During
the Baku Congress, Narimanov believed that after acquiring knowledge about the oppressive
conditions in colonial countries, Third World people would join together to overthrow
imperialism. He noted that the Baku Congress offered an opportunity to learn about “each
other’s situations, [as only then] the whole picture will unfold before us. Only then will these
peoples of the East realize all the terrible, oppressive effects produced by capital. And this
knowledge will impel all these peoples to unite. They will come one conclusion: to use their
strength to throw off and smash the chains of capital.”
136
Narimanov did not consider the Third
World a homogenous space simply because the people endured similar forms of oppression.
The language of development and modernization appeared in the speeches at Baku.
RKP(b) leader, Karl Radek, stated that the Soviet Union wanted to help the non-European
countries break from “the yoke not only of capital but of medieval relations, from the yoke of

134
Zinoviev remarks quoted in S’’ezd Narodov Vostoka, p. 13.
135
All biographical information in this paragraph from Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslim National Communism, p.
56.
136
S’’ezd Narodov Vostoka, p. 27.

55
feudalism and ignorance, and to give them the opportunity to begin living like human
beings.”
137
According to Radek, socialist modernization would usher in a new consciousness
and create informed and liberated people. For Radek, Third World people could become modern
by embracing Soviet socialism.
Radek and other Western and Russian delegates were not the only people to focus on
development and modernization. Delegates from the Third World embraced the idea of moving
through historical stages and that “the movement of societies [was] contingent on the
development of the members of these societies into free, mature, fully conscious, and self-
determining individual subjects.”
138
However, in contrast to Russian and Western delegates,
many non-European delegates considered their countries and not the West as leading the way.
A delegate from the Azerbaijan government, Efendiyev, believed that Azerbaijan could serve as
the vanguard in the East. Efendiyev declared:

Soviet Azerbaijan has been freed from the groups, the parties, the puppets put
up by Turkish and German imperialism. Azerbaijan stands today as a bridge to
Soviet politics in the East…Azerbaijan should play a large role in this regard.
Culturally and materially it is one of the best and richest countries in the
East.
139

Efendiyev considered republics located in the Caucasus, specifically Azerbaijan, as leading the
way for the non-European countries. To Efendiyev, Azerbaijan was ideal for that role because
of its resources and cultural development. Since Azerbaijan had broken the chains of Turkish
and German imperialism, it could provide assistance to other countries.
The formation of the Soviet Union, Narkomnats, and the Communist International
provided a context for the emergence of the university. Those events helped to bring Third

137
S’’ezd Narodov Vostoka, p. 16.
138
María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, The Revolutionary Imagination in the Americas in the Age of Development,
Durham: Duke University Press, 2003, p. 6
139
S’’ezd Narodov Vostoka, p. 77.

56
World people into the October Revolution. However, there were limitations to the Soviet
Union, Narkomnats, and the Comintern. As radical Third World intellectuals discussed at the
various conferences addressed in this chapter, the RKP(b) and the Comintern were limited in
their approaches to the Third World. In the formation of the Soviet Union, nationalities policy
did not allow national minorities self-determination to the point of separation. Within the
Comintern, the organization failed to fully comprehend the revolutionary ability of movements
within non-European countries to propel the proletarian struggle. The founding of KUTV
would continue to represent the tensions between the RKP(b), international communism, and
the anti-colonial left.

57
Chapter Two: Origins of KUTV and Its Structure

One individual or political party was not responsible for KUTV’s founding. Numerous
people played a role in the university’s formation. In this section, I will focus on two
individuals who were connected with the origins of the university the Indian Communist, M.N.
Roy, and the RKP(b) member, Grigori Broido. It is not my intention to portray Roy or Broido
as the only people involved in KUTV’s founding. This chapter is divided into two sections.
The first section focuses on the origins of the university and the second section examines the
university’s structure.

M.N. Roy

M.N. Roy was one of the earliest radical Third World activists from outside the former
tsarist empire to form a relationship with the top leaders of the RKP(b) such as Lenin and Stalin.
In his autobiography, Roy stated that the idea to form the university originated with him. Roy
was partially correct in his statement. He played a role in pushing the RKP(b) to open the
university’s so called “Foreign East” sector, which included people of color from outside the
Soviet Union.
In October 1920, with the assistance of the Red Army, Roy opened a school in Tashkent
to train Indians in military tactics, Marxist theory, and anti-colonialism. His ultimate goal was
to build an Indian revolutionary army to overthrow British colonial rule in India. His Tashkent
school brought foreign activists into contact with Soviet power and ideas. Officials of the
Turkestan republic and the leaders of the Turkestan Communist Party attended the opening

58
ceremony of the school.
1
Roy encountered problems building his Indian revolutionary army
through the school. The revolutionaries were young and many were illiterate.
2
The school
lasted until April 1921, closing within a week of KUTV’s opening. During that short amount of
time, the number of students fluctuated, but the projected admission at one point was 110.
3
This
forgotten chapter to Roy’s time in Central Asia reveals a side of his work that extends beyond
the colonial metropoles.
4
While in Tashkent, he worked in the Central Asian Bureau with the
Russians Sokolnikov, who was Commander of the Red Army in Central Asia, and with G.
Safarov, a member of the Central Committee (Tsentral’nyi Komitet, or TsK) of the RKP(b).
5

The Bureau was tasked with carrying through a revolution in Turkestan and spreading it to
adjacent countries such as India.
6

After the Second Comintern Congress, the Small Bureau of the ECCI met to discuss the
organization’s next steps. The Small Bureau served as the supreme policy-making organ of the
Comintern.
7
Roy attended the meeting of the Small Bureau and participated in discussions
about revolutionary strategy in Asia. The members passed two resolutions deciding to hold the
First Congress of the Oppressed Peoples of the East in Baku in 1920 and establish a Central
Asian Bureau of the Comintern in Tashkent.
8
The Comintern, radical Third World activists,
and RKP(b) leaders believed that revolution was imminent.
9

Central Asia served as a strategic site for the expansion of the revolutionary struggle into

1
Roy, Memoirs, p. 468
2
M.A. Persits, Revolutionaries of India in Soviet Russia: Mainsprings of the Communist Movement in the East,
Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1983, p. 85 and p. 86.
3
Ibid, p. 241.
4
Kris Manjapra, M. N. Roy: Marxism and Colonial Cosmopolitanism, Delhi: Routledge India, 2010.
5
Ray, In Freedom’s Question, volume 1, p. 102.
6
Ibid.
7
Roy, Memoirs, p. 390.
8
Ibid., p. 391; In scholarly literature, the Central Asian Bureau has also been referred to as the Turkestan or
Tashkent Bureau. Sobhanial Datta Gupta, Sobhanial, Comintern and the Destiny of Communism in India, Kolkata:
Distributor, Sreejoni 2006, p. 72.
9
E.H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution: 1917-1923, volume 3, p. 259.

59
countries outside the Soviet Union. Located near Afghanistan, India, Iran, and China, the
RKP(b) used the region not only to extend Soviet power, but also as a staging ground for
organizing a global movement, especially among Muslims. Roy’s time in Central Asia placed
him in the midst of the expansion of the RKP(b)’s influence in the region. The Comintern’s
Central Asian Bureau mimicked the TsK RKP(b) Turk Commission, which was established in
1919.
10
Besides Roy, there were a number of Indian activists in Turkestan who resided in the
region for the purpose of planning their anti-colonial work.
11
Indian activists such as M.T.
Acharya and Mohammed Shafiq were active in Central Asia shortly after the October
Revolution. Acharya was a member of the Indian Revolutionary Association (IRA) based in
Tashkent and was part of a group of Indian Muslims who met with Lenin in 1919.
12
In May
1920, Mohammed Shafiq wrote “To the Oppressed Peoples of the East” in which he argued that
the Third World would not be free until India as the backbone of British Imperialism achieved
liberation.
13

In the fall of 1920, Roy arrived in Tashkent with the Indian activists M.T. Acharya and
Mohammed Shafiq.
14
He planned to raise an army that would march into India and occupy a
section of the country where a civil government would be established.
15
The army would be
composed of a group of Indian muhajirs, who were captured by Basmachi
16
forces in
Afghanistan, on their way to reestablish the Caliphate in Turkey.
17
The muhajirs were freed

10
G.L. Dmitriev, Indian Revolutionaries in Central Asia, p. 72.
11
Ibid, chapter 3.
12
Ibid, p. 51 and p. 111.
13
Ibid, 82.
14
Dmitriev, Indian Revolutionaries in Central Asia, p. 103
15
Roy, Memoirs, p. 420.
16
The Basmachi were an armed group of loose detachments spread across Turkestan who resisted Soviet power
and the actions of the Russian Tashkent Soviet. Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union; Communism
and Nationalism, 1917-1923, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 178-179; Jeremy Smith, “Nation
Building and National Conflict in the USSR in the 1920s,” Ab Imperio no. 3 (2001), p. 234.
17
Dmitriev, Indian Revolutionaries in Central Asia, p. 106.

60
after Roy spoke with Mikhail Frunze, the Soviet Red Army Commander of the Turkestan front,
who sent a detachment to rescue them in Bukhara.
18
Before the implementation of the New
Economic Policy (NEP)
19
and the Party’s retreat from its strong militant anti-colonialist
platform, some of the leaders of the RKP(b) considered the prospect of using military force to
overthrow colonial regimes.
20

The courses taught at the Indian Military School sought to remake the individual and
mold a new subjectivity. This involved stressing the collective over the individual, placing
importance on interpreting history through Marxism, and the role of the toiling masses
(proletariats and peasants) in revolutionary struggle. The courses at the school included history,
political economy, and Marxism.
21
Roy wanted the students to understand the “social
significance of a revolution: that, to be worthwhile, a revolution should liberate the toiling
masses of India from their present economic condition.”
22
His strategy for teaching the students
involved explaining that revolution was not the only step in liberating India. The revolution
needed to change the economic structure of the country. Roy worried that national liberation
without significant political and structural changes would simply replace the British exploiters
with native ones. Roy expressed a vision of a postcolonial India that did not consider national
liberation from the British as the ultimate goal.

18
Ray, In Freedom’s Quest, volume 1, p. 105
19
The period from the end of the Civil War (1921) to 1928 is known as the New Economic Policy. Despite its
name, NEP represented a total transformation of society economically, culturally, and politically. After seven
years of war (World War I and the Russian Civil War), the Bolshevik Party leaders engaged in heated debate about
the direction the country should take after the Red Army’s victory over the Whites and other smaller forms of
opposition. NEP created a mixed economy with some private enterprise, it introduced a fixed tax on grain, and a
centralization of cultural production. My interpretation of NEP came from a series of essays in the collected
volume Russia in the Era of NEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture, edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick,
Alexander Rabinowitch, and Richard Stites, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991, p. vii-344.
20
In my opinion, Lenin appeared more agreeable to radical activities taking place in Central Asia and the southern
Caucasus before the start of NEP and the Soviet state’s treaties with Turkey and Iran. See Roy, Memoirs, p. 418
and p. 436-437.
21
Dmitriev, Indian Revolutionaries in Central Asia, p. 120.
22
Roy, Memoirs, p. 464.

61
Additional teaching at the school included how to handle arms, preparation for
underground work, and training in military organization.
23
In retrospect, it might appear
unlikely that the school ever had the potential of building an army to invade India, but during
the period, radical activists believed they had the potential to overthrow the British empire. A
report by a British officer from November 1920 expressed fear that the Bolsheviks were
“making efforts to recruit a fresh army of Asiatics and hoped to raise a force of 100,000 men…
The Chinese… have already enlisted in considerable numbers.”
24

Roy’s school was surprisingly international in its administration. Russian Red Army
officers provided additional instruction at the school and an American Wobblie, who Roy only
called John, was the “commandant” of the school and monitored discipline.
25
The Austrian
Communist, Anton Graneder was appointed the school’s platoon commander.
26
The Soviet
military instructors primarily came from a detachment that was on its way to Kabul at the behest
of the Afghan government, but stopped in Tashkent.
27
Additionally, Roy’s wife Evelyn taught
at the school.
28

The ambitious Indian Military School closed not from a lack of students, but on orders
from Lenin. In 1921, NEP started and Lenin altered the country’s foreign policy in order to
rebuild the war torn country. The Soviet Union signed a trade agreement with Britain with a
stipulation that the RKP(b) needed to retreat from supporting anti-colonial struggles against the

23
Persits, Revolutionaries of India in Soviet Russia, p. 238.
24
“Weekly Report of the Special Bureau of Information for the Week ending the 27
th
November 1920,” in
Afghanistan Strategic Intelligence: British Records, 1919-1970, edited by Anita Burdett, London: Archive
Editions, 2002, p. 127.
25
Roy, Memoirs, p. 467
26
Persits, Revolutionaries in Soviet Russia, p. 239.
27
Ibid, p. 239.
28
Ray, In Freedom’s Quest, vol. 1, p. 106. In Roy’s autobiography, he did not state that Evelyn taught at the
school.

62
British Empire.
29

Following the closure of the Tashkent school, Roy returned to Moscow and continued to
be active in KUTV affairs before leaving the Soviet Union for Europe. Roy’s biographer stated
that Roy was involved in the university’s planning and administration, even serving as a
political director.
30
In his autobiography, Roy confidently proclaimed that he came up with the
idea for opening KUTV and that he served as a teacher at the university in 1921 and 1922.
31

Following the closure of the Tashkent school, Roy thought “about the problem of their
[muhajirs] future, I conceived the idea of establishing in Moscow a center for the political
training of revolutionaries from various Asiatic countries. Lenin enthusiastically approved the
idea and advised me to consult Stalin about its execution.”
32
The timeline for Roy’s statement
is a bit hazy. KUTV opened a week before his Tashkent school closed. Through his
connections to the RKP(b) leadership, Roy probably sent word to Lenin about his interest in
continuing his anti-colonial educational work in Moscow. The closure of the Tashkent school
most likely did not come as a surprise to Roy. He knew that the Civil War was winding down
and witnessed the increasing centralization of the RKP(b)’s work to its base in Moscow. As a
result, when the school closed, he was already set on participating in KUTV. As political
director, he could have overseen the formation of the university’s foreign sector.
It is highly likely that Roy was associated with KUTV despite the absence of archival
evidence to prove it.
33
While Roy could have used a pseudonym while teaching at the

29
“Intelligence Bureau Diary No. 21 for the week ending the 9
th
June 1921,” in Afghanistan Strategic Intelligence,
p. 263; Roy, Memoirs, p. 468
30
Ray, In Freedom’s Quest, vol. 1, p. 108.
31
Roy, Memoirs, p. 526 and p. 553
32
Ibid.
33
GARF contains files on KUTV as it related to the state apparatus, while the files at RGASPI were primarily
focused on the foreign sector, which was tied to the Comintern. However, the years between 1921-1923 were not
well represented at RGASPI. It was possible that Roy was present at the university in 1921, but considering the
absence of documentation I can only speculate about his work.

63
university, the absence is more the result of the extreme spottiness of KUTV documents
covering 1921-1924. Since Roy was not a part of Narkomnats similar to Sultangaliev, he would
not be visible in the main records covering the university’s early years that are located at the
State Archive of the Russian Federation. When Roy taught at the university, his courses
probably addressed the colonial and national questions. In his biography, Roy discussed
Lenin’s retreat with NEP and mentioned how Marx never wrote about post-revolutionary
economic reconstruction.
34
Roy’s focus on a postcolonial India put him in dialogue with
members of the Ghadar movement of Punjabis Siks and Hindus based in California, who had
established connections throughout the world.
35

Despite the closing of Roy’s school in 1921, many of the students from the Tashkent
school traveled to Moscow and enrolled at KUTV. Some of Roy’s former students continued
their activism after Tashkent. Shaukat Usmani returned to India and became a member of the
Indian Communist Party.
36
In his short autobiography, Shaukat Usmani denied attending the
military school in Tashkent, which he called “Indusky Kurs,” but he did acknowledge his
awareness of the place.
37
Usmani discussed attending KUTV in 1921 as he was joined by some
of the Indians who were active in Central Asia.
38
He described Moscow as a “magnificent
spectacle” where he studied economics, politics, trade unionism, and had military classes in the
afternoon. According to Usmani, “we did not know much Russian, and we were being coached
by Fineberg, the famous economist, M. Borodin, Tom Quelch and several others.”
39
Quelch
was a member of the British Socialist Party and a delegate to the Second Comintern Congress

34
Roy, Memoirs, p. 503.
35
Maia Ramnath, Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadar Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to
Overthrow the British Empire, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011, p. 3.
36
Roy, Memoirs, pg, 466.
37
Shaukat Usmani, I Met Stalin Twice. Bombay: K. Kurian, 1953, p. 15.
38
Ibid.
39
Ibid. I have not been able to find information on Fineberg.

64
and the Baku Congress in 1920.
40
Mikhail Borodin was an RKP(b) member who was active in
Mexico with Roy and would become involved in the Comintern’s work in China during the
1920s even serving as an adviser to Sun Yat-Sen.
41

The students from Tashkent at KUTV took different paths once they arrived in Moscow.
Abdullah Safdar, taught Urdu to British officers before enrolling at the Indian Military School,
but after Tashkent went to Moscow and graduated from KUTV.
42
He then studied Marxist
theory at the Institute of Red Professors, which was a Party graduate school to train people in
Marxist social science. He later returned to India to conduct underground work.
43

Documents in the Russian archives contain a bit of information on some of the early
Indian students at KUTV; however, it is unclear whether some of these Indians were Roy’s
students. Based on their biographical information and the time period they enrolled at the
university, it is likely the students were Roy’s. Some of them were members of the Indian
Communist Party and stayed at the university ranging from a couple of months to several
years.
44
In Tashkent, Roy and other Indian communists established an Indian Communist Party
that the students possibly joined. At KUTV, the administrators placed the students in an Indian
section. Abdul Gamid enrolled at KUTV in 1921, left in 1922, but returned to study for a year
in 1923.
45
Nazim was a chemist, a member of the Indian Communist Party, and studied at the
university for around 8 months.
46
Another student who was labeled a peasant (krest’ianin), was

40
Anthony Cox, Empire, Industry and Class: The Imperial Nexus of Jute, 1840-1940. Routledge, 2013, p. 134;
Riddell, To See the Dawn, p. 55.
41
For more on Borodin see Roy, Memoirs, part 1; Alexander Pantsov, The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution,
1919-1927, University of Hawaii Press, 2000. Roy also has an amusing story about Borodin loosing a suitcase of
tsarist jewels on his travels to Mexico that he needed to sale to provide funds for the international movement.
42
Roy, Memoirs, p. 466.
43
Ibid; David-Fox, Revolution of the Mind, p. 51.
44
RGASPI 532/1/381/7-10, March 15, 1936. Surprisingly, files concerning Indian students in the early 1920s were
in files for Indian students at KUTV in the late 1920s and 1930s.
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid.

65
not a member of a party and studied at KUTV for around 6 months. He stayed in Turkestan and
did not return to India. The different backgrounds of the Indian students reflected the diversity
of students and activists at KUTV not only in terms of race, ethnicity, and nation, but also in
education, political experience, and social position. The university desired students with
political experience, education, and a proletarian background, but quickly university officials
learned to accept most students.

KUTV’s First Rector: Grigori Broido

Grigori Broido was the first rector of KUTV and was the main official in the Party and
the Soviet government connected with the university’s founding. Broido was born in 1883 and
died in 1956.
47
After the February Revolution in 1917, he was leader of the Tashkent
revolutionary soviet from March to June of 1917. In 1918, he became a Bolshevik and was
with the Red Army on the Eastern front in 1919. From 1921 to 1923 he was member of the
Narkomnats Collegium. Although information about Grigori Broido’s role in founding KUTV
remains spotty, he was instrumental in pushing ahead the proposal for creating the university.
48

From its opening until 1921, Broido served as rector of the university until a bitter battle with
the Comintern’s Eastern Department over KUTV’s future and a Party cleansing possibly led to
his dismissal. It was unclear from the documents whether Broido had any interactions with
Roy, but if Roy was political director at KUTV Broido probably did communicate with him.

47
All biographical information in this paragraph on Broido taken from V. G. Chebotareva, Narkomnats RSFSR:
Svet I Teni Natsional’noi Politiki 1917-1924 gg (Narkomnats RSFSR: Light and Dark of National Politics, 1917-
1924), Moskva: Obshchestvennaia akademiia nauk rossiiskikh nemtsev, 2003, p. 62-64.
48
In a Narkomnats document from GARF, Broido was discussed as the founder of KUTV. GARF 1318/1/477(1)/8
(1923).

66
Broido’s role in founding KUTV demonstrated how the university was the creation of top down
and bottom up mobilization.
Although the Soviet government issued a decree establishing KUTV in April 1921, it
was first reported in Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei in January 1921.
49
Broido wrote the January
article reporting that the Party needed to create a native (tuzemnyi) communist intelligentsia.
That communist intelligentsia would have knowledge about the Party and help spread
communist ideas.
50
In the article, he stated that the most developed among the communist
tuzemnyi should be trained as lecturers, translators, and leaders from among the different
student groups at the university. At KUTV, there would be a lecturer group in which students
would prepare political literature about their regions. The article underscored the Party’s
urgency in augmenting its work among non-European people. The strength of the international
communist movement depended on instilling its values, beliefs, and ideology among the people
of the Third World. Lacking the necessary materials and knowledge about the Third World and
its peoples, the Party needed KUTV students to not only learn about the teachings of Marx and
Lenin, but also to inform the Party and the Comintern about their countries. The tuzemnyi were
both teachers and students.
The creation of a native communist intelligentsia furthered the goal of expanding the
geographical scale of the international communist movement beyond the U.S. and Europe. The
spread of Marxist and Leninist ideas was hindered by the lack of available printed material in
non-European languages. Broido stated that KUTV would address that issue through the
publication of printed materials in the languages of the students.
51
Once again students would

49
Grigori Broido, “Kommunisticheskii Universitet Trudyashchikhsya Vostoka (Communist University of the
Toilers of the East),” Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei, no. 2(100), 26 January 1921, p. 1.
50
Ibid, p. 2
51
Ibid., p. 2

67
play a critical role in that regard, particularly the lecturer group.
Broido occupied critical positions within the university’s apparatus beyond rector. He
served on a variety of KUTV councils and corresponded with different Soviet and Party
institutions.
52
Although Broido acquired political experience through his political work in
Tashkent, he also showed an interest in the Foreign East. He requested that the university
increase the number of Foreign East students. With his ties to the Party as rector, it was Broido,
not Comintern representatives who was issuing orders about augmenting the Foreign East
group. He wanted Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian Tibetans, Hindus, Turks, Persians,
Arabs, Egyptians, Moroccans, Tunisians, and other groups from North Africa, black people
from the U.S., and people from East India and the islands of the Indian Ocean.
53
There was no
documentary evidence about whether Broido and Roy interacted with each other. However,
Roy’s prominence in the international communist movement may have resulted in both men
becoming acquainted with each other. Roy may have encouraged Broido and the university to
increase the number of students from outside the Soviet Union.
The university’s administration was hierarchal and centralized. Broido served as rector
of the university and communicated with the Party and the various state institutions about
KUTV’s work. As rector, Broido oversaw the entire university – its program and intervened in
debates and issues concerning the students. For instance, a few students felt comfortable
approaching Broido about the shortage of housing and the condition of the rooms at KUTV.
54

He answered to the Party and Sovnarkom. Despite his subordinate position to state and Party

52
GARF 1318/1/172(1)/35 (April 12, 1921); GARF 1318/1/160(1)/31 (January 15, 1922); GARF 1318/1/443(2)/85
and 89 (February 25, 1922); GARF 1318/1/261(1)/45 (no date but most likely 1922); GARF 1318/1/512(4)/274
(June 30, 1923).
53
RGASPI 532/1/7/32 (no date but most likely 1924).
54
GARF 1318/7/194/4 (September 8, 1921).

68
institutions, Broido exercised a degree of influence over the university since he had the
authority to institute Party and state directives, as he considered necessary.
Broido’s role at the university evolved during the university’s first four years. He was
instrumental in ensuring the strong links between the RKP(b) and the university. In 1925, he
was part of a tense battle between the Comintern and KUTV over control of the university. The
Eastern Department (Vostochnyi Otdel, or VO) of the Central Committee of the Comintern
(ECCI) wrote a report and articles criticizing the university’s administration.
55
The main thrust
of the VO’s arguments with KUTV’s leaders concerned the students from outside the Soviet
Union. The VO was upset that it did not have more of a voice in determining the university’s
work with students from outside the Soviet Union.
56
Quite surprisingly, the VO did not have the
support of the ECCI in its battle as there were no documents stating that the ECCI supported the
VO’s position about KUTV. At one time during the 1920s, M.N. Roy was on the VO;
57

however, the documents did not reveal whether he participated in this exchange.
The VO’s complaints about KUTV were not without merit. The VO stated that the
university’s work with students from outside the Soviet Union was below the level of a Soviet
Party school.
58
According to the VO, KUTV workers were ill-equipped and ill-prepared to
direct the work.
59
On this point, the VO simply asserted opinions that the university’s
administration discussed internally. Many teachers did not have sufficient knowledge about the

55
RGASPI 532/1/17/1-3 (October 10, 1925). Unfortunately, it was unclear in which publication the articles
appeared. The report I am using to discuss the conflict between the VO and KUTV was from the point of view of
the university’s administration. The report about the fight between KUTV and the VO made reference to the
actions of VO officials that upset KUTV administrators.
56
Ibid.
57
For information about Roy and the VO see Samaren Roy, M.N. Roy: A Political Biography, New Delhi: Orient
Longman, 1997, p. 95. Samaren Roy listed M.N. Roy as a member for 1926. There is no evidence that M.N. Roy
served on the VO before 1926, but considering his relationship to top RKP(b) leaders and his work with the
Comintern and KUTV during the 1920s, I would not rule out the possibility that Roy was on the VO before 1926.
58
RGASPI 532/1/22/2-7 (1925).
59
Ibid.

69
Third World and lacked training in non-European languages. The VO further complained about
the ration of Party to non-Party members on the teaching staff. While some of the teachers at
KUTV belonged to the Party nearly 50% of the teachers were non-party members according to
the VO.
60
Additionally, the VO argued that the university treated the students as inferior
people.
61
As a final blow against the administration’s handling of the university, the VO
declared that KUTV lacked a suitable leader.
62

The leader of the university’s sector for non-Soviet students, Kuchumov, Broido, and
other high-ranking officials at the university responded to the VO reports and articles. First,
they stated that the VO approved the study plans for the students.
63
Furthermore, RKP(b)
reviewed and approved the university’s study plans. Kuchumov submitted weekly reports to the
rector about the university. For some of the study plans concerning war classes, the university
worked jointly with the Soviet state’s Revolutionary Military Council and received approval on
June 15, 1925 for its education plan.
64
By having the support of the Party and institutions like
the Revolutionary Military Council, KUTV leaders hoped to mute the VO’s complaints.
In defending their work, Broido and other leaders declared that the true master of KUTV
was the RKP(b). The Comintern and the VO had no control over KUTV. Broido boldly
announced at the meeting to discuss the VO accusations that, “it is not possible to have two
maters.”
65
Broido stated that the university only answered to the RKP(b)’s Central Committee
(TsK) and all final decisions about the university rested with the RKP(b) TsK.
66
According to
Broido, if the VO wanted to receive reports about the university, the VO needed to ask the TsK

60
Ibid.
61
RGASPI 532/1/17/1-3 (October 10, 1925).
62
RGASPI 532/1/22/2-7 (1925).
63
RGASPI 532/1/22/2-7 (1925).
64
Ibid.
65
RGASPI, 532/1/17/1-3 (October 10, 1925).
66
Ibid.

70
whether they could receive them. In attempt to further clarify the chain of command concerning
Eastern work, Broido asserted that the VO was not the Comintern and could not claim to speak
on its behalf.
67

In his role as rector, Broido demonstrated his loyalty to the Party. He never expressed
disagreement with the orders he received from the Party’s central apparatus and considered it
his duty to implement them. The rector did have power over the university as he determined
the extent of the Party and state’s influence.
Broido and Roy played prominent roles in the early history of KUTV. No single person
was responsible for KUTV’s founding reflecting how much the university was a product of the
revolutionary upsurges after World War I. The university was the RKP(b)’s response to anti-
colonial and nationalist uprisings in the Third World as well as the emphasis on revolutionary
education that activists like Roy considered critical to the anti-colonial struggle.
Roy and Broido’s roles in founding the university highlighted the convergence of
international communism and anti-colonialism. The relationship between the two movements
affected both struggles. Anti-colonial activists carved a space for themselves in the
international communist movement and vice versa. KUTV formed through the intersection of
the two struggles.

67
Ibid.

71
The University’s Organization and Structure

Scholars have mistakenly considered KUTV a part of the Comintern,
68
however the
university was directly connected to the RKP(b) and KUTV included students from the Soviet
Union. The university’s administration primarily came from Party and Soviet apparatuses.
KUTV’s academic program was subjected to the rules established by the Party’s Agitation and
Propaganda Department (Otdel Agitatsii i Propagandy, or APO) and Sovnarkom. From 1921 to
1924, KUTV was a part of Narkomnats and following its closure, the university continued to
answer directly to top leaders in the Party and state. It was not until the mid to late 1930s the
university’s administration discussed placing the university directly under the Comintern.

Organization

Over the course of the 1920s, the KUTV administrative apparatus grew. Besides the
office of rector, KUTV contained a small council on which only a few people participated at the
beginning of 1922.
69
During the university’s second year, its apparatus included a rector, a
secretary (sekretar’), an admissions commission (mandatno-priemochnaia komissiia), an
academic department (uchebnaia chast’), and a communist cell (kom”iacheik) possibly
connected directly to the Party.
70
Beyond those offices and departments, KUTV included
councils where students served on the managing board, which was called the presidium. The

68
Some of the scholars who have considered KUTV a Comintern institution are Makalani, In the Cause of
Freedom, xvii; Woodford McClellan, “Africans and Black Americans in the Comintern Schools, 1925-1934,” The
International Journal of African Historical Studies 26, no. 2 (January 1, 1993): 371–90; Meredith Roman,
Opposing Jim Crow: African Americans and the Soviet Indictment of U.S. Racism, 1928-1937, University of
Nebraska Press, 2012, p. 157.
69
GARF 1318/1/160(1)/31 (1921). The f. 1318 are the files of Narkomnats.
70
GARF 1318/1/225(2)/112 (July 19, 1922).

72
control management commission reported to the rector and submitted reports to him about the
state of KUTV’s departments.
71
The commission’s presidium consisted of thirteen people, but
the documents failed to include any additional details about who composed the presidium.
72
All
members to the presidium received their position through an election. In addition to monitoring
the activities of the university, the commission received complaints from the students and
employees about the administration. KUTV’s student council offered the students a space to
voice their concerns about the university.
73
The student council was able to directly engage
Broido about its work.
74

The university’s regulations often changed and there was flexibility in how the
administration applied KUTV policies. The admissions committee stated that students could
not bring their family.
75
Rather quickly, that policy changed. In a report covering the 1922-
1923 school year, the university requested funds to support the children of students and staff.
76

The KUTV Bulletin for Soviet and Party officials suggested that the university include a
children’s school and housing.
77
University officials did not explicitly state why they decided
to provide funds for the education and housing of the children of students and staff, but demand
possibly altered earlier policy against child support.
KUTV contained an information and editorial department. It received newspapers,
journals, books, and other relevant study material from non-European countries, specifically
from the students’ countries when possible.
78
It was unclear in the documents whether the
published materials were leftist in political orientation or not. Throughout the 1920s, the

71
GARF 1318/1/160(3)/215 (no date but most likely 1922).
72
Ibid.
73
GARF 1318/7/194/4 (September 4, 1921).
74
GARF 1318/7/194/4 (September 8, 1921).
75
GARF 1318/1/225(2)/114 (no date, but most likely 1922).
76
RGASPI 532/1/5/1 (1923).
77
GARF 1318/1/477(2)/77-79 (February 15, 1923).
78
GARF 1318/7/182/49, August 1921

73
university encountered difficulty rendering Marxist, Leninist, and Russian works into different
non-European languages. As a result, the information and editorial department was task with
the responsibility of finding materials that would provide teachers and students with information
about political developments in the Third World.
The university’s apparatus included an extension of the Party’s Central Control
Commission (Tsentral’naia Kontrol’naia Komissiia, or TsKK). The TsKK attempted to ensure
that all members of the Party fulfilled the duties and goals of their membership by adhering to
its platform and political positions.
79
At KUTV, the TsKK monitored the activity of the
university’s workers.
80
It was unclear whether the TsKK was interested in the activities of non-
Party workers and administrative staff or simply was concerned with people who belonged to
the Party. Not all teachers were Party members, particularly for general subjects such as
mathematics and Russian language.
81
Since the KUTV was a large undertaking for a country
without many resources, several of the teachers did not have Party membership and possibly
some of the administration. KUTV needed non-Party teachers.
82

The Party’s defense of the revolution and the building of socialism involved the
construction of a security apparatus. When it emerged in December 1917, the Emergency
Commission (Chrezvychainaia Komissiia or Cheka) worked to control banditry, looting, and
attacks on liquor stores that took place after the October Revolution.
83
Soon, however, the

79
Larts T. Lih, Oleg V. Naumov, L. Kosheleva, and O. V. Khlevniuk, Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 1925-1936, New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1995, p. 66.
80
GARF 374/1/453/2 (1925).
81
GARF 1318/1/512(4)/274 (June 30, 1923); RGASPI 532/1/22/2-7 (1925).
82
As the Party attempted to build Party higher educational schools by taking over tsarist institutions and creating
their own, there were a number of students and professor who did not agree with the Bolshevik’s ideals or belong
to the Party. Michael David-Fox, Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning Among the Bolsheviks, 1918-1929,
Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997, p. 49, 205, and 267. It would not be a stretch to state that KUTV
encountered similar issues finding teachers, especially for general subjects such as math and science, who belonged
to the Party and could provide a Marxist interpretation.
83
Fitzpatrick, Russian Revolution, p. 76.

74
Cheka’s duties expanded. Its broader duties involved monitoring anti-regime conspiracies,
other political parties, and rooting out enemies of the revolution such as former members of the
old regime, the Provisional Government, and other political parties.
84
From 1918 to the first
half of 1919, the Cheka shot around 8,389 people without trial and arrested 87,000
individuals.
85
The first terror that took place after the October Revolution received the support
of top Bolshevik leaders such as Lenin and Trotsky, who considered it necessary.
86
Policing,
surveillance, and terror was not an isolated incident related to the revolutionary environment,
but a part of the Soviet system and the Party.
World War I unleashed enhanced security and policing state apparatuses not only in the
Soviet Russia, but also in Europe and the U.S.
87
In defining surveillance, I borrow from
historian Peter Holquist. He defined surveillance as the gathering of information “for the
purpose not of reporting the population’s collective mood but of managing and shaping it.”
88

Surveillance was distinct from policing, but seeking to transform society rather than focusing on
order.
89
Overall, during the interwar years a stronger state arose armed with techniques of
observation, monitoring, and managing on a new scale. In the Soviet Union, surveillance and
police took place as part of the project of building socialism. For European countries and the
U.S., policing and surveillance grew with struggles against imperialism, racism, and capitalism.
Uprisings and/or the formation of organizations that challenged the oppressive structures of the

84
Ibid.
85
Ibid.
86
Ibid., p. 77.
87
Christopher Andrew, “Introduction: Intelligence and International Relations, 1900-1945,” in Intelligence and
International Relations, 1900-1945, Exeter, UK: University of Exeter, 1987, introduction; Peter Holquist,
“‘Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work’: Bolshevik Surveillance in Its Pan-European Context,” The
Journal of Modern History 69, no. 3 (September 1, 1997): 415–450; Theodore Kornweibel Jr., Seeing Red: Federal
Campaigns Against Black Militancy, 1919-1925, Indiana University Press, 1999; Martin Thomas, Empires of
Intelligence: Security Services and Colonial Disorder After 1914, University of California Press, 2008,
introduction and chapter 1.
88
Holquist, “Information is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work,” p. 419.
89
Ibid., p. 421.

75
state in the U.S., Europe, and Soviet Russia, produced a response from states. Colonialism
played a prominent role in surveillance and policing after World War I. Overall whether in the
U.S., Europe, or the Soviet Union the idea of security gained traction and factored prominently
in the interactions between the state and domestic and colonial societies.
The Party’s surveillance at the university also involved students. KUTV created a
People’s Court that was possibly intertwined with the TsKK.
90
The court handled disputes
between students when they could not be resolved without outside intervention.
91
The Party
Control Commission also intervened in student conflicts.
92

Various state departments became intertwined with KUTV affairs. Since KUTV
received funds from Narkomnats and Narkomnats received money from the state, the university
could not simply request and receive needed money without determining the correct state
agency to issue their appeal. Sometimes a financial department of the state, which could have
been representing the People’s Commissariat of Finance or a financial agency within the
Sovnarkom made decisions on KUTV property.
93
In correspondence with Narkomnats,
KUTV’s head and the leader of the university’s administrative management department asked
Sovnarkom to grant the university more property to house its growing number of students.
94

One of the dominant issues affecting and hindering the university’s operations
concerned the availability of space in Moscow for classes, housing, and administrative offices.
In a series of reports, Stalin articulated the main problems at the university that included
overcrowding and lack of facilities. One report to a Soviet institution stated that the

90
RGASPI 532/2/71/24-27 (November 1926).
91
Ibid.
92
Ibid.
93
GARF 1318/1/512(1)/55 (March 23, 1923).
94
GARF 1318/1/172(2)/164, no date but most likely 1921 considering the surrounding documents.

76
overcrowding at the university made it difficult for students to live.
95
According to the
document, “the fate of the further development of its [KUTV] activities now entirely depends
on the possibility of new facilities.”
96
The growing state bureaucracy made it difficult for the
university to receive new buildings quickly. In September 1921, about 150 students did not
have a room and many slept in the hallways as many boarding rooms held 10 people.
97
The
problem became worse by the end of 1922 when the university requested that no more students
be admitted because they were making repairs to the dormitories.
98
From Stalin to Broido,
high-ranking leaders reported on this critical issue to state institutions and the Party. The
involvement of Stalin and Broido did not greatly alter the situation for the university. For years
KUTV suffered as its ambitions to bring large numbers of students to the university encountered
the roadblock of city and state bureaucracy.
Despite roadblocks and logistical limitations, the Party continued its quest to spread
Soviet power people from the Third World. KUTV received requests from different
apparatuses in the Soviet system for its students. For instance, the People’s Commissariat of
Foreign Affairs (Narkomindel) sent a request to KUTV asking for a Persian translator, who
would be sent to the RSFSR’s General Consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan.
99
The student
needed to know Russian and would assist the RSFSR’s office in the Afghan city. In 1924, the
secretary of the Revolutionary Metalworkers’ International Propaganda Committee contacted
KUTV to ask that the university direct students with any trade union experience to its offices.
100

Additionally, the All-Union State Political Administration (OGPU), the state security agency,

95
GARF 1318/1/146(3)/192, no date but most likely 1921. This document did not contain a signature but given the
tone and the fact that it was surrounded by reports written by Stalin, I believe he wrote this report.
96
Ibid.
97
GARF 1318/7/194/4, September 8, 1921.
98
GARF 1318/7/136/1, November 4, 1922.
99
GARF 1318/1/512(1)/24, January 31, 1923
100
Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) 532/1/7/2, no date but most likely 1924 considering
the surrounding documents. KUTV files are f. 532.

77
employed KUTV students as translators for top-secret work.
101
The OGPU’s Eastern
Department submitted the request.
During KUTV’s first three years, the Comintern’s relationship with the university
primarily revolved around students from outside the Soviet Union. The organization served as
the main intermediary between students from the Third World and the university, and by
extension often the state and Party. Although the university managed to communicate with
individuals from Turkey, Iran, Mongolia, China, Japan, and India without assistance from the
Comintern, the international organization primarily took over the recruitment of students from
those countries and more. As the Comintern’s reach and work grew over geographical areas,
the number of nationalities represented from the outside the Soviet Union increased. In relation
to KUTV, the Comintern discussed students with the university’s admissions committee about
who was suitable to enroll.
102
The organization, also, contributed funds to enroll students.
103

As part of their work at KUTV, the university expected students to spend time outside the
classroom in organizations and departments connected to the Soviet state or the international
communist movement. Many KUTV students worked for the Comintern’s Eastern
Department.
104
The TsIK Russian Communist Youth League (RKSM) also provided assistance
in recruiting students and paying for their enrollment.
105
Together, the Comintern and the
RKSM, proved invaluable to KUTV by bringing students to the university.
KUTV’s origins, structure, and organization were chaotic. The university emerged after
seven years of war and revolution in a country whose population and economy were decimated.
KUTV’s opening and continued development during the 1920s was quite amazing considering

101
RGASPI 532/1/7/7, May 29, 1924
102
RGASPI 532/1/8/12, September 16, 1924
103
RGASPI 532/1/2/30, September 28, 1922
104
RGASPI 532/1/8/44, May 22, 1924.
105
RGASPI 532/1/2/33, September 30, 1922.

78
the numerous setbacks and limitations that existed. The university was far from perfect. Roy
and Broido’s involvement in the founding of KUTV underscored the evolving, complex, and
problematic relationship between international communism and anti-colonialism.

79
Chapter Three – Students, Teachers, and Teachings

KUTV provided a place where people from various non-European countries could
interact together and encounter the writings and teachings of people such as Mirsaid
Sultangaliev, Avetis Sultanzade, and M.N. Roy. In this chapter, I provide information on
KUTV students, its academic curriculum, and teaching staff. There are two sections to this
chapter. In the first section, I examine the students who attended the university, how some of
them learned about KUTV, and the organization of students into groups within the university.
The last section of this chapter examines the university’s academic curriculum and the teachers
at the university. Unfortunately, there were few archival documents about the teachers covering
the university’s early years from 1921-1924. As a result, I attempt to provide as much
information as possible from the available documents. One of the tensions that emerged in the
execution of the academic curriculum represented a broader struggle between the anti-colonial
left and the international communist movement: how to craft a strategy and approach for
revolutionary struggle in the Third World.

The Students
Minus a significant number of communist parties in most countries of the Third World,
the international communist movement needed to find ways of spreading the word about
KUTV’s existence. News quickly spread about the opening of an “Eastern” university in
Moscow. The university advertised in newspapers, and relied on organizations such as the
Komsomol and the Comintern to recruit people. With its opening, people from different parts
of the world expressed their interest in attending the university and KUTV’s potential to help

80
them become modern.

Finding Out about KUTV and KUTV’s Organization of Students

One of the reasons KUTV appealed to potential students was the belief that the Soviet
Union was a land of equality, not that the university offered training in Marxism. In a letter to
the university, Sulsi Ran S.K. wrote with joy about the opening of KUTV. Unfortunately, the
archive did not include biographical information about Sulsi Ran S.K. other than his name in
the letter to the university. He read in the Indian intellectual newspaper, Modern Review, about
KUTV. For Sulsi Ran S.K., the “most important thing which drew [his] attention is that in
Russia no difference is made on account of differences of race or the religion or the color.”
1
In
contrast to Western colonial regimes, KUTV and the Soviet Union offered equality. Such an
advertisement could not fail to fill people with hope. Sulsi Ran S.K. would further state that the
lack of racial discrimination in the Soviet Union “plainly shows that every student either he may
be of Russia or belonging to an Eastern country will be seen in one light of justice.”
2
KUTV
was more than a university; it offered another way of being in the world. Through the
university, Third World people could join together with the Russians under “one light of
justice.”
The advertisement in the Modern Review, did not inform the journal’s readership that
KUTV planned to train people in communist ideology and revolutionary struggle. To hide its
main intentions in the face of growing Western surveillance, the advertisement used the
language of equality to recruit potential students. A university and a society (the Soviet Union)

1
RGASPI 532/1/4/28 (no date, but most likely 1923).
2
Ibid.

81
promising equality was a radical concept during the early 1920s. While students, who were
recruited by communist parties, understood the primary purpose of the university, other students
who arrived in Moscow, may not have realized the true extent of KUTV’s work. For many
students, communism and the Soviet state meant equality and served as the opposite of Western
colonial rule.
KUTV also appealed to oppressed and colonized people because the university promised
to fund each student’s lessons. Many students arrived with little education, literacy, or funds.
The university’s opening offered a great opportunity for people lacking access to basic
education to receive instruction. Despite advertising in India’s Modern Review, which was a
publication utilized by the country’s intellectual class,
3
the university included students from
different economic, education, and political backgrounds. In his letter, Sulsi Ran S.K.,
expressed further enthusiasm for the university because it was free. He could not help praising
the “Russian government…[for] bearing the expenses of even fooding[sic], clothing, or sleeping
which is most rarely found in another university of the world… You know perfectly, that India
is a very poor country and cannot afford her students to go outside India with the aim of
education.”
4
The funds covered clothing, housing, education, and food. As Sulsi Ran S.K.
made clear in his letter, his circumstances made it impossible for him to pay for education at a
higher-level institution. The Modern Review article also captured the attention of K.S. Sivan
from Singapore. He wrote to KUTV requesting information about the education of foreign
students at KUTV.
5

Besides advertisements in newspapers, individuals and organizations played a critical
role in recruiting people. Nguyen Ai Quoc helped to spread the word about KUTV as well as

3
Sanjay Seth, Subject Lessons: The Western Education of Colonial India, Duke University Press, 2007, p. 57.
4
RGASPI 532/1/4/28 (no date, but most likely 1923).
5
RGASPI 532/1/4/25 (July 20, 1923).

82
the French Communist Party (PCF). Information on his involvement with the university during
its early years remains spotty, but from the documentation available he was connected with
KUTV. Similar to many radical anti-colonial activists, World War I was an important event in
the life of Nguyen Ai Quoc. He became more politically active as a result of the global battle
and the subsequent treaty negotiations. During the Paris peace conference, he came into contact
with Korean, Irish, and Chinese nationalists who arrived in the French city to fight for national
self-determination.
6
Filled with hope about the possibility of Indochina liberating itself from
French colonial rule, Nguyen Ai Quoc petitioned Wilson about the question of Indochinese self-
determination.
7
Unfortunately, like so many other petitions during the conference demanding
self-determination, the request fell on deaf ears. Leaders from a handful of countries including
Britain, France, and the United States decided the fate of the entire world. Shortly after the
conference, Nguyen Ai Quoc turned to Bolshevism joining the PCF in 1920.
8
Inspired by
Lenin’s theses at the Second Comintern Congress, he published an article on the subject in the
PCF’s newspaper, L’Humanité.
9
Bolshevism appealed to him because of its focus on the
colonial question.
The Comintern’s interest in the colonial question extended beyond the confines of the
Second Comintern Congress. The organization attempted to push European parties to become
more actively involved in the colonial and national questions. Sometime in 1921, Lenin met
with delegates of the PCF to discuss the French colonies and the party’s work on the subject.
10

He covered his theses at the Second Comintern Congress and the meeting vaguely involved

6
Sophie Quinn-Judge, Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years, 1919-1941, University of California Press, 2002, p. 16
7
Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial
Nationalism, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. ix.
8
Quinn-Judge, Ho Chi Minh, p. 7.
9
Ibid., p. 31.
10
GARF 1318/1/443(1)/31 (1921).

83
planning future party activities around the French colonies.
11
The meeting possibly contributed
to the PCF decision in June 1921 to establish the Comité d’estudes Coloniales within its Central
Committee. The Comité denounced French colonial exploitation, appealed to the French public
to arouse their indignation at the government’s treatment of colonial subjects, and involved
people from the colonies in Communist-sponsored activities.
12
In July 1921, the Comité
became the Union Intercoloniale. Nguyen Ai Quoc served as one of the executives of the
organization.
13
The Union Interncoloniale included members from throughout the French
colonies in Africa and Asia. Despite French mandates in Syrian and Lebanon, there was no
noticeable presentence from Arab-speaking countries. With its headquarters in Paris, the
organization and Nguyen Ai Quoc, interacted with a variety of Third World activists. He
served as editor and the driving force behind the oganization’s journal, Le paria, with the
subtitle “Tribune des Populations des Colonies.”
14
Nguyen Ai Quoc could have used Le paria
to publish information about KUTV and the Union Intercoloniale to recruit people to Moscow.
During the first part of the 1920s, he wrote for a number of publications based in Paris.
15
Since
the Union Intercoloniale was connected to the PCF, KUTV administrators or the Comintern
were most likely in contact with the organization or at least the PCF about sending students to
the university. By 1925, a number of students arrived at KUTV from French colonial countries
including Tunis, Algeria, Syria, Madagascar, and Morocco.
16

Nguyen Ai Quoc’s work in Paris received the attention of the Comintern and he
travelled to Moscow in 1923. Various sources speculate whether Nguyen Ai Quoc studied at

11
Ibid.
12
Hyunh Kim Khanh, Vietnamese Communism, p. 57.
13
Ibid.
14
Brent Hayes Edwards, “The Shadow of Shadows,” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 11, no. 1 (2003), p. 16.
15
Ibid., p. 33.
16
RGASPI 532/1/21/8 (1925)

84
KUTV, but regardless of his status as a student he was connected to the university. He placed
importance on the role of education and revolutionary theory in the anti-colonial struggle.
17
In
1924, he addressed a letter to Fyodor Petrov, the head of the Comintern’s Eastern Section,
asserting that KUTV should serve as the site for bringing together oppressed and colonized
peoples, who were isolated from each other.
18
In his capacity as one of the executives of the
Union Intercoloniale, a member of the PCF, and editor of Le paria, Nguyen Ai Quoc recruited
some of the Chinese French speakers into the PCF.
19
Some of those individuals could have
been a part of the first group of Chinese students to arrive from France at KUTV in April 1923,
although historian Alexander Pantsov believed they were members of the Chinese Communist
Party or its youth organization.
20
Besides French speaking Chinese, the first group of
Indochinese students arrived to KUTV from France in 1925.
21
During the 1920s, Nguyen Ai
Quoc was one of the most important figures in Indochinese communism. Historian Kim Khánh
Huỳnh has credited Nguyen Ai Quoc with helping to bring communism to Vietnam.
22
It is
highly probable that he participated in the recruitment of the early Indochinese students to
KUTV after he arrived in the Soviet Union.

Organization of Students
The university’s organization of students reinforced identification along racial, ethnic,
and national lines. Without a set of instructions about how to execute its mission, the KUTV
administration made up the rules as they went along. KUTV needed to create a system to

17
Hyunh Kim Khanh, Vietnamese Communism, p. 68.
18
Quinn-Judge, Ho Chi Minh, p. 53-54.
19
Quinn-Judge, Ho Chi Minh, p. 36.
20
Alexander Pantsov, The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution, 1919-1927, University of Hawaii Press, 2000, p.
168.
21
Hyunh Kim Khanh, Vietnamese Communism, p. 25.
22
Ibid., p. 57.

85
classify the various individuals enrolling at the university. Placing students in circles around
race, ethnicity, or nationality initially allowed the administration to better manage the influx of
students. As the university expanded over the 1920s, so did the circles. Administrators placed
students in circles that corresponded to political work such as the youth movement through the
Komsomol.
The organization of the circles also helped enforce students’ forms of identification.
The university did not simply select students for circles based on the administration’s
understanding of race, ethnicity, and nation. Students played a role, which may have trumped
the university’s approach. Black, Jewish, and Indian diasporic groups presented a conundrum
for KUTV. Would the university build circles around blackness or divide black students based
on their nationality? What about Indian students who arrived from the U.S.? Should they be
placed in an Indian circle with students from India? Without a clearly defined homeland, where
should Jewish students be placed, especially individuals not from Arab speaking countries? The
university attempted to sort through such issues. With black students from the Caribbean,
Africa, and the United States, KUTV established circles around race and language during the
1920s. For African Americans and Indians arriving from the United States, the university
created an American circle and, at one point, an Indo-American circle.
23
As a further
demonstration of the difficulties in classifying students, the university formed a “Negro group”
for black students from the United States and South Africa in the 1920s.
24
With the growth of
the black student population at KUTV, the “Negro group” would include more people from
other parts of Africa in the late 1920s and into the 1930s. Overall, black students from the
Anglophone world were placed together because of language and not just race.

23
RGASPI 532/1/84/14 (1926); RGASPI 532/1/31/15 (October 1927).
24
RGASPI 532/1/30/1 (1926).

86
Besides race, ethnicity, and nation, language factored into how administrators organized
students. Perhaps reflecting the university’s lack of knowledge about particular regions of the
world, language circles were popular. Language circles revealed the complexity of political
work. Struggles against colonialism were interconnected and individuals did not confine
themselves to fighting within national borders. Indians depending on their point of departure to
KUTV populated different circles. The administration created an English language group that
included Jews and Indians.
25
The university’s unfamiliarity with India was revealed in the
various names applied to people from India. Many people from India were labeled Indusy
(Hindus).
26
India’s diversity led university’s administrators to start to qualify students based on
regions in India. Some students considered Indusy were from India’s Punjab and Bengali
regions, while another documents from the archive revealed that students arrived from Burma,
the Dekan region, and Balochistan.
27
By the end of 1920s, KUTV contained an indiiskii
(Indian) sector rather than an Indusy sector.
28

At one point, the administration formed an Indian group with Hindus, Malays, and
Indochinese (Vietnamese).
29
The composition of the Indian group overlapped with the
Comintern’s work. The Comintern created a Middle Eastern Division within the Eastern
Department of the ECCI to direct work involving India, Indochina, and Indonesia.
30
KUTV
failed to provide information on the country of origin for the Malay students. Considering the
expansive south Asian political network that emerged in the 1920s, they could have arrived
from a number of regions.

25
GARF 1318/1/477(1)/2 (April 24, 1923).
26
RGASPI 532/1/3/10 (October 20, 1923); RGASPI 532/1/7/2 (1924); RGASPI 532/1/44/4 (June 15, 1926);
RGASPI 532/1/44/1 (January 1, 1927); RGASPI 532/1/44/12-13 (April 2, 1927).
27
RGASPI 532/1/51/49 (1928); RGASPI 532/1/62/3 (1928).
28
RGASPI 532/1/31/21A (no date but most likely 1927).
29
RGASPI 532/1/30/1 (1926).
30
Quinn-Judge, Ho Chi Minh, p. 54.

87
Some groups refused easy classification. Mexico was on the Comintern’s radar since
M.N. Roy arrived in Moscow in 1920 as a representative of the Mexican Communist Party.
However, interest in Mexico did not translate into students. As the Comintern apparatus grew
with the creation of a Bureau for Propaganda in South America in 1922 and the university’s
knowledge about Latin America increased, KUTV included more students from Latin
America.
31
During the 1920s, the university did not create a Latin American group or a
Spanish-speaking group. Mexicans were listed as part of the student population in 1926, but
their circle was not identified.
32
By 1927, the university created a Latin American group
alongside sectors for China, black people, Arabs, and Japanese-Koreans among others.
33
By the
late 1920s and the 1930s, as more students arrived from Latin America, KUTV administrators
placed them in an international circle and a Spanish-speaking circle.
34
In 1928, the Spanish-
speaking circle totaled 50 students and included Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, Argentinians,
Uruguayans, Brazilians, Chileans, Guatemalans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Ecuadoreans,
Bolivians, and Peruvians.
35

KUTV officials requested that communist parties send only members of the party or its
youth organizations; students who were active in party or youth organizations no less than one
or two years; individuals with experience and interest in basic questions of party tactics and
Marxist-Leninist teachings; people, who were workers, peasants, or represented a nationality
involved in a fight against imperialism; individuals not younger than 20 and no older than 35;
people who were healthy without fail and could pass a medical examination; knowledge of one

31
Manuel Caballero, Latin America and the Comintern, 1919-1943, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 27.
32
RGASPI 532/1/21/2 (June 4, 1925).
33
RGASPI 532/1/31/21A (no date but most likely 1927).
34
RGASPI 532/1/51/48 (no date, but most likely 1928); RGASPI 532/1/62/25 (1928); RGASPI 532/1/101/5-6
(June 1931).
35
RGASPI 532/1/62/25 (1928).

88
European language such as French, Russian, English, or German; literacy in their own
language.
36
Considering that the vast majority of countries in the East lacked a communist
party, it was quite wishful that the university expected students to arrive with experience in that
particular area. To account for that problem, the conditions for admission did seek individuals
with experience in an anti-colonial struggle. Such a requirement would include almost every
region in the East. The British, U.S., French, and Dutch parties were responsible for recruiting
students from Eastern countries corresponding to U.S. and European colonial possessions;
however, recruitment did not take place in such a manner. The university encountered difficulty
relying on Western parties for this task.
The university demonstrated flexibility in admitting students with no party experience.
KUTV administrators considered experience in national revolutionary struggles just as
important as communist membership. The university repeatedly offered slots to students, who
participated in organizations or movements challenging European and U.S. imperialism.
37
For
students from Palestine, “Arabia,” Hejaz (parts of present day Saudi Arabia and Jordan),
Turkey, Mesopotamia, the Philippines, and the Caribbean, administrators simply wanted
individuals who were active in anti-colonial and nationalist struggles.
38
The university did not
specify whether students should belong to an organization or movement that met the nationalist
revolutionary criteria vaguely established at the Comintern’s Second Congress. Once again
practical considerations overruled theoretical principles. KUTV needed students and would
take them in any political form. Overall, the administration’s requirements revealed that KUTV
sought students with some level of political consciousness. The university determined political
consciousness through level of activism. While possession of theoretical knowledge was a plus,

36
RGASPI 532/1/21/4-5 (1925).
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid.

89
the administrators appeared to favor experience over familiarity with Marxism-Leninism.
The university expanded rapidly during the early 1920s. Newspapers and people from
the Third World spread word about the university to various parts of the globe. The opportunity
to receive a free education appealed to many students while others were excited about the
chance to receive a revolutionary education. The various reasons and purposes that led students
to enroll at KUTV created a diverse student population. KUTV’s administration expanded to
include the increasing number of students as well as the geographical scale.

Academic Program and Teachers

KUTV’s academic curriculum consistently focused on three areas: history, economics,
and geography. The university’s academic program wanted students to have an understanding
of contemporary politics, histories of struggle, and a basic knowledge about the physical
geography of the world. The intention behind the program was not to simply offer students an
introductory understanding of Marx, but a revolutionary strategy for political work. History,
economics, and geography were critical components to the way students, teachers, and
administrators imagined the Third World. The courses on geography taught students to think of
themselves within a global context as history classes emphasized the role of struggle in
comprehending the past, present, and envisioning a revolutionary future.

90
Teachers and Academic Curriculum

The university needed to train teachers in the national languages and cultures of its
students. In the beginning, KUTV’s faculty primarily came from the Narkomnats apparatus,
state apparatuses such as the Cheka, and the Party, but over the course of the 1920s the faculty
would include individuals from the Comintern. The university wanted teachers who were
familiar with the colonial and national questions.
39
When the university opened in 1921, there
were a reported 150 lecturers.
40
The university divided the people who taught into different
categories. There were lecturers, then teachers, and the highest ranking were the professors.
41

Ideally, all individuals who taught at the university should have been communist; however,
KUTV included teachers from non-communist backgrounds.
42
As KUTV emerged, the RKP(b)
was only in the early stages of establishing party schools. While party schools did educate
future KUTV teachers, the university still relied on non-communist educators for general
subject courses such as math and the natural sciences.
Early classes were offered in Russian as teachers and administrators became acquainted
with the different Third World countries.
43
This would be a lingering problem at the university
over the course of its existence. Demonstrating its dual tasks of teaching and receiving
knowledge about non-European countries, KUTV created a sector to train evropeiskikh
tovarishchei (European comrades) about the Third World.
44
It was possible that the sector

39
Grigori Broido, “Kommunisticheskiĭ Universitet Trudiashchikhsia Vostoka (Communist University of the
Toilers of the East),” Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei, no. 11 (109), 28 May 1921, pg. 2
40
GARF 1318/1/146(3)/193, no date, but most likely 1921 given the surrounding documents.
41
GARF 1318/1/146(3)/226, no date, but most likely 1921 given the surrounding documents.
42
GARF 1318/1/512(4)/274, June 30, 1923. There will be more on Sultan Galiev in chapter two of this
dissertation.
43
RGASPI 532/1/2/18-19, September 20, 1922
44
Ibid.

91
included Eastern and Western Europeans, who came from the Comintern.
45
Without specific
details on this sector, the people could have worked for the Comintern such as its Eastern
Department or a state apparatus. In the sector, people became acquainted with the history and
cultures of the different Third World countries.
46

Educators at KUTV did not solely come from white and European backgrounds.
Leading figures from Narkomnats such as Sultangaliev, were professors at the university.
47
His
courses focused on colonial and national problems in the Third World.
48
Though the archive
does not provide enough details about the backgrounds of teachers at the university, it is
possible that other prominent individuals at Narkomnats from Muslim backgrounds taught at the
university.
Internal struggles within the KUTV administration led the TsK RKP(b) and the Central
Control Commission (TsKK) of the RKP(b) to intervene in the university’s affairs. At the
beginning of 1925, the two Party departments decided to revise the personnel composition of
the university.
49
They believed the university needed a stronger Party cell and faculty. An
unidentified number of teachers and workers were ordered from the university to either defend
their Party position or were removed and then replaced by someone else.
50
Additionally, the
Party’s Agitprop department was expected to review the personnel at the university. The
decisions reached by the TsK and the TsKK regarding KUTV were subjected to the approval of
the Party’s Orgbureau. The upper echelons of the Party’s discipline and control apparatus

45
For more on the Western and Eastern Europeans who populated the Comintern apparatus see Milorad M.
Drachkovitch and Branko M Lazić, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution
Press, 1973.
46
Grigori Broido, “Kommunisticheskii Universitet Trudiashchikhsia Vostoka (Communist University of the
Toilers of the East),” Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei, no. 11 (109), 28 May 1921, pg. 2
47
GARF 1318/1/225(1)/44, March 10, 1922
48
GARF 1318/1/146(3)/194, no date but most likely 1921 considering the surrounding documents.
49
GARF 374/1/453/2, January 29, 1925
50
Ibid.

92
involved themselves in KUTV’s internal squabbles. The review of the university’s a faculty
and personnel may have sought to increase the number of KUTV workers, who would be loyal
to the Party and removed those individuals, who were considered a threat.
Without notes or outlines, it is quite impossible to determine how teachers taught their
subjects at the university. Lecturers taught political economy, history, Russian language,
natural history, and the languages of Soviet national minorities.
51
The courses introduced a new
political language to the students based on Soviet Marxist terminology. One can speculate that
the courses had to correspond to the general line of the Party. Administrative meetings,
however, revealed that teachers did not necessarily cover topics that the university wanted
students to learn in the courses. The lack of materials on the Third World hindered teachers
from discussing those countries more fully.
52
The university’s administration constantly
worked to solve this problem. KUTV relied on the Soviet Institute of Oriental Studies to
provide information on the Third World and materials for its courses.
53
Additionally, the
university created departments to monitor study plans and the teaching of subjects. While state
departments and meetings established the subjects that universities in the Soviet Union should
teach, variable factors such as language, the availability of materials, and the skills of the
teachers determined how the subjects were taught.
In 1924 and 1925, the university’s apparatus was purged. After installing new workers
or reeducating the others, the Party planned to retrain educators to become better acquainted
with the Third World.
54
KUTV organized the Academic Research Institute. Its objective was
the study of Eastern countries. Through the Academic Research Institute, KUTV would

51
Ibid.
52
GARF 1318/1/477(2)/76, March 8, 1923.
53
GARF 1318/1/512(1)/46, March 10, 1923
54
RGASPI 532/1/22/8-11(November 18, 1925).

93
produce a number of classes on imperialism and the national labor movement in the different
colonies.
55
The list of topics covered in the classes included Japanese imperialism; the national
revolutionary movement in Egypt; the presence of imperialism in Turkey; the imperialist
contradictions in modern China; classes and parties in the modern revolutionary movement in
China; the agrarian question in Korea after the Japanese occupation; classes and parties in
modern Turkey; and the national revolutionary movement in Persia.
56
Reflecting the theses of
the Second Comintern Congress, many of the classes’ titles used the term “national
revolutionary.” The university did not teach the history of all Eastern countries. Courses
focused on Central Asia, Persia, Turkey, China, and Japan. The university focused on countries
that were a part of the former tsarist empire and close to the Soviet Union such as Turkey, Iran,
Korea, and China. The courses on non-European countries most likely reflected regions the
university and/or Comintern had some knowledge. Although a diverse range of students
enrolled at KUTV by the mid-1920s, the university still did not have sufficient knowledge about
non-European countries.
Students enrolled for a three-year course. Since the university lacked teachers in Eastern
languages, the administration pushed students toward learning Russian.
57
During the first year,
students studied economic geography, physical geography, political economy, and the USSR
system among other subjects.
58
The university allowed qualified students to apply for
membership to the RKP(b). The second year studies placed greater emphasis on political
economy than the previous year. Classes during that year included economic geography,
biology, physical geography, mathematics, chemistry, physics, the history of the West, and

55
Ibid.
56
Ibid.
57
GARF 1318/1/477(1)/18, 20, 21, year 1923.
58
Ibid.

94
Russian language.
59
The school employed a trimester system with classes often changing each
semester.
60
After the university grew, it soon included a one-year course and a two-year
course.
61

Courses aimed to teach students the basic fundamentals of Soviet life and construction
in addition to Marxism. The university’s academic program fell into two broad categories:
theory and practical work. Students went on excursions to museums, factories, and farms to
witness the great Soviet experiment take shape.
62
As part of the academic program, the
university placed strong emphasis on geography. The university interpreted geography in
different ways. There was physical geography and economic geography. Future revolutionaries
needed to have a basic understanding of the world historically, economically, and spatially.
Within two years of the university’s opening, KUTV included classes with works on the
economic geography of the Soviet Union’s” eastern republics.”
63
For the 1922-1923 academic
year, geography involved 86 hours, while Russian only 24 hours.
64
The content and approach to
the geography courses could have changed frequently during the university’s first two years
with the shifting national borders within the Soviet Union.
In terms of the academic structure, the university contained a number of departments
and cabinets. The cabinets were larger than departments. At KUTV, there was a physics
cabinet, cartography cabinet, and natural science.
65
The cabinets and departments changed over
time depending on the needs of the university. The university wanted students to have a well-

59
GARF 1318/1/477(1)/26 (1923).
60
GARF 1318/1/477(1)/11-17 (1923).
61
GARF 1318/1/477(1)/11-17 (1923); GARF 3316/21/865/2-3 (1928).
62
GARF 1318/1/160(1)/11 (1922); GARF 1318/1/160(1)/11 (1922); GARF 1318/1/477(2)/77–79 (February 15,
1923); GARF 1318/1/477(1)/46, 47 (1922 or 1923).
63
RGASPI 532/1/5/46 (1923).
64
GARF 1318/1/477(1)/11-17 (1923).
65
Grigori Broido, “Kommunisticheskiĭ Universitet Trudiashchikhsia Vostoka (Communist University of the
Toilers of the East),” Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei, no. 11 (109), 28 May 1921, pg. 1.

95
rounded education, which included a focus on the natural and social sciences. The university
also included a chemistry laboratory.
For study materials, the university relied on Marxist classics and the writings of Russian
communists such as Lenin, Plekhanov, and Bogdanov. Plekhanov’s Fundamental Problems of
Marxism was especially popular at the university and works expressing his ideology.
66
Another
Russian Marxist classic was Nikolai Bukharin’s ABC of Communism. The work was used in all
party schools and translated into languages such as Tatar.
67
Articles from Zhinz’
Natsional’nostei, and the journal of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Novyi Vostok, were used as
materials for the courses.
68

Students played a critical role in augmenting the university’s information on the Third
World. Since the university lacked materials on the Third World, KUTV’s teachers employed
different teaching methods in the courses. Students wrote reports and courses which
emphasized dialogue between the students and the teachers.
69
In the reports and during
conversations, students discussed their countries and political experiences. The reports and
conversations became part of the teaching materials for courses. Students served as both
authorities and recipients of knowledge.
With a dearth of teachers with experience in the various languages of the students at the
university, KUTV depended on bilingual students to transmit information to students in the
circles or groups. Usually these students were fluent in a European language, including
Russian. They attended special classes where teachers lectured in a European language. Their
classes covered the typical subjects for the university such as historical materialism, Marxism,

66
RGASPI 532/1/5/35-36, date: 1923; GARF 3316/21/865/5, April 7, 1928.
67
Grigori Broido, “Kommunisticheskiĭ Universitet Trudiashchikhsia Vostoka (Communist University of the
Toilers of the East),” Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei, no. 2 (100), 26 January 1921, pg. 1
68
GARF 1318/1/512(1)/35, March 1, 1923; GARF 1318/1/512(1), March 2, 1923
69
RGASPI 532/1/5/5 (1923).

96
revolutionary struggle, etc. These students would then return to the circle or group and teach
students in their language on the subjects they learned in their special classes.
70
During their
special classes, student-translators received literature, theses, and abstracts of lectures. To build
on the work of the student-translators, the university created a translation bureau that contained
experienced editors to correct translations. The bureaus were responsible for translating
literature on Marxism into the various languages of the students.
71
There is no information in
the archive about whether student-translators taught the subjects from their special classes in the
same manner that the university intended. It is unavoidable that the process of translation
involved “misapprehensions and misreadings, persistent blindness and solipsisms, self-defeating
and abortive collaborations, [and] a failure to translate even a basic grammar.”
72
The Soviet
state and Party did not have complete control over how its message was interpreted and then
rearticulated. There was always space for interpretation and the student-translators possibly
adjusted the ideas of the teachers from their special classes to suit not only what could be
expressed in their languages, but also in terms of the applicability of Marxist ideas to Third
World political struggle.
In addition to student translators, student circles such as the special group included a
translation bureau.
73
Beyond providing oral translations, students were also critical in
translating materials from Russian or another European language into their language. Students
translated articles and other materials not simply the writings of Lenin, Stalin, Marx, and
Engels.
74
A student in the Arab circle translated Zinoviev’s biography of Lenin, the Peasant
International’s “An Agrarian Manifesto,” and a book on International Red Aid

70
GARF 1318/1/477(1)/38, 40, 41, 42, 1923
71
Ibid.
72
Brent Hayes Edwards, Practice of Diaspora, Harvard University Press, 2002, pg. 5.
73
RGASPI 532/1/30/26 (1926 or 1927).
74
RGASPI 532/2/71/24-27 (November 1926).

97
(Mezhdunarodnaia Organizatsiia Pomoshchi Bortsam Revoliutsii, or MOPR) by Bukharin into
Arabic.
75
Without detailed documents about these individuals in the archive, it is difficult to
determine how many students served as translators within circles or translated documents. By
1927, there were 62 languages spoken at KUTV.
76
If at least one person from each of those
languages served as a translator of Marxist and Soviet materials, then there is a possibility those
students played an important role in facilitating the circulation of Marxist-Leninist texts and
ideas beyond the university.

The Writings of Teachers

There is no archival information about the number of Third World intellectuals, who
served as teachers at KUTV. However, from available documents, it appears that some of the
non-European teachers at the university were a part of Narkomnats, specifically Mirsaid
Sultangaliev.

The Writings

Sultangaliev’s article on the relationship between Islam and socialism was included in
the KUTV curriculum. In his article titled, “Methods of Anti-Religious Propaganda Among
Muslims ” (Metody Antireligioznoi Propagandy Sredi Musul’man), Sultangaliev outlined a
strategy for anti-religious activity among Muslims. KUTV circulated Sultangaliev’s article on

75
Ibid.
76
GARF 3316/42/42/17 (April 7, 1927).

98
anti-religious propaganda as part of the reading materials for its academic program.
77
The
university possibly assigned the article for its courses because of the large student population
from Muslim regions inside and outside the Soviet Union. His focus in the essay was to devise
a strategy for executing practical work among the diverse Muslims within the Soviet East. He
stated that previously RKP(b) efforts towards Islam and Muslims were insulting, lacked cultural
understanding, and was haphazard.
78
Sultangaliev argued that theoretical formulations about
the relationship between Islam and communism offered little assistance. For Sultangaliev,
Islam was a powerful force that penetrated all facets of life for Muslims more so than other
religions. Despite embracing the idea of atheism and stating that religion symbolized
backwardness, Sultangaliev argued against launching a frontal attack on Islam and favored
cultural understanding. If the Party hoped to spread its message among various Muslim
groups, it needed to understand the history and culture of the people and stop viewing them
monolithic.
His strategy involved placing a communist atheist in a village or among Muslim workers
in order for people to become acquainted with the individual.
79
Then, public discussions should
take place about the role of religion in society among Muslim workers in the city and from there
the discussions should move to the village.
80
Furthermore, Sultangaliev stated that anti-
religious work should conform to each Muslim society. In his article, he discussed how
communists should approach and execute their work among the different Muslim groups within

77
GARF 1318/1/512(1)/35, March 1, 1923.
78
Sultangaliev, “Metody Antireligioznoĭ Propagandy Sredi Musul’man,” in Sultan-Galiev, M. S. Statʹi,
Vystupleniia, Dokumenty. Kazanʹ: Tatarskoe knizhnoe izd-vo, 1992, p. 135-136. The article was originally
published in Zhizn’ Natsional’nostei 29 (127) and 30 (128) in 1921. However, the microfilm copy of the article on
was too degraded for me to understand.
79
Ibid, p. 49.
80
Ibid, p. 51.

99
the Soviet Union.
81

Sultangaliev’s ideas fit into a broader context about discussions of progress,
modernization, and development. His article provided a history of Muslim cultural reformists
that stretched throughout the world. He made references to Constantinople, Beirut, and Cairo as
providing Tatars with new ideas and progress.
82
Muslims in different parts of the world were
engaged in cultural and political projects. In Turkey, during the second half of the 19
th
century
and early 20
th
century, Turkish intellectuals under Ottoman rule began to embrace science,
progress, and modernization.
83
The Committee for Union and Progress (CUP) was one of the
leading groups within the Ottoman Empire representing various segments of the Turkish
intelligentsia. In addition to the CUP, there were Iranian Muslim intellectuals, who joined with
Iranian workers in Baku to form the Edalat Committee in 1916.
84
The Edalat newspaper argued
that Islam and social democracy were not antagonistic to each other and included verses from
the Koran.
85
Sultangaliev reflected a broader discussion occurring among Muslim intellectuals
in different parts of the world as they attempted to negotiate between Islam, culture, and
politics.
Sultangaliev’s article demonstrated the prominence of ideas about development among
radical Third World intellectuals in the anti-colonial left. He argued that anti-religious
propaganda was strongly determined by the backwardness among Muslims, their cultural level,
history, and the strength of Islam within the community. The Tatars cultural development in the
realm of literature, theatre, and publishing represented a cultural awakening that the communists

81
Ibid, p. 52-64.
82
Ibid., p. 142.
83
M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, The Young Turks in Opposition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 11, 13, 103.
84
Habib Ladjevardi, Labor Unions and Autocracy in Iran, Syracuse University Press, 1985, p. 6.
85
Pezhmann Dailami, “The First Congress of Peoples of the East and the Iranian Soviet Republic of Gilan, 1920-
1921,” in Stephanie Cronin, Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran, p. 89.

100
could use for anti-religious work.
86
However, he stated that anti-religious propaganda would
take a different form among people in the North Caucasus and Dagestan. National
backwardness, the lack of a strong national literature, and the strength of Islam in structuring
those societies would make anti-religious propaganda more difficult than among the Tatars.
87

Sultangaliev embraced a definition of development that relied on the strength of the national
consciousness as expressed through literature, culture, language, psychology, and social-
economic position.
Sultangaliev was not the only communist to critique the RKP(b)’s approach to Islam. At
the Fourth Comintern Congress, Tan Malaka’s speech criticized the Comintern and many of the
conference’s delegates for their hostility towards Islam in Asian movements. In the Dutch East
Indies,
88
two organizations emerged supporting independence, the Sarekat Islam (SI) and the
Dutch East Indies Communist Party (PKI).
89
The PKI was one of the few non-Western
communist parties to develop a mass following during the 1920s.
90
The Sarekat Islam was a
political organization that promoted economic and social progress.
91
During the Second
Comintern Congress, the theses on the Eastern question stated that it was essential to struggle
against pan-Islamic and pan-Asian movements that only served the interests of Turkey and
Japan.
92
The theses labeled religion reactionary and medieval. Malaka responded to this attack

86
Sultangaliev, “Metody Antireligioznoi Propagandy Sredi Musul’man,” p. 144-145.
87
Ibid., p. 148-149.
88
I use the term Dutch East Indies instead of Dutch East Indies to underscore the particular context of the national
liberation struggle in the country. The early 1920s were a complex period in the formation of the struggle against
Dutch colonialism as both Dutch East Indies and Dutch East Indies were used as terms to describe the country. See
Takashi Shiraishi, An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912-1926. Asia, East by South. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1990, particularly the introduction.
89
The Indies Social Democratic Association became the Dutch East Indies Communist Party (PKI) in 1920 as
Indies activists wanted a name in their own language rather than a party that was an extension of the Dutch socialist
movement. Ruth Thomas McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism, Jakarta: Equinox Pub, 2006, p. 46-47.
90
Ruth Thomas McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism, p. vii.
91
Ibid, p. 8
92
Communist International, The Communist International, 1919-1943: Documents, vol. 1, edited by Jane Degres,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 143.

101
at the 1922 Comintern meeting detailing how the decision at the Second Congress hurt the PKI
in its attempt to gain the trust and support of the population, especially the peasants, in its battle
for the masses with the SI. The communists in Dutch East Indies aimed to forge an alliance
with the SI, an organization the PKI considered neither bourgeois nor nationalist.
93
In Dutch
East Indies, other organizations in competition with the PKI, used the anti-Islamic decisions at
the Second Comintern Congress to undermine and attack of the communists.
94

Tan Malaka’s recognition that Islam was a powerful mobilizing force and his critiques
of the Comintern’s policy towards pan-Islamism underscored the problems of translating theory
to practical work. In recalling his time in Moscow during the period of the Fourth Comintern
Congress, Malaka discussed the continued debate about the Second Comintern’s decision that
communist parties in colonial countries should work with nationalist organizations against
imperialism. Malaka believed the communist-nationalist alliance could work in theory, but he
was concerned about how to actually apply such an approach. While walking around in
Moscow, he encountered the Japanese communist, Katayama Sen, who was engaged in a debate
about the merits of the Second Comintern decision on the colonial question.
95
Malaka joined
the conversation and noted about the experience that

The difference of opinion that had seemed slight in the beginning appeared great after
we descended from the abstract, airy heights of theory to the real and concrete world.
When I turned the debate to actualities, to the boycott or non-cooperation and to Pan-
Islamism, the chasm between the abstract and the concrete, between theory and
practice, became visible.
96

93
Ibid, p. 66.
94
Ibid, p. 95.
95
Tan Malaka, From Jail to Jail, translated by Helen Jarvis, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Center for International
Studies, 1991, p. 94.
96
Ibid.

102
Malaka embraced the idea of Marxism as a science, but also believed that theory should be
adjusted to suit local conditions.
97
The Russian example of revolutionary struggle could not be
replicated in countries such as Dutch East Indies and India. According to Malaka, the “only
similarities would be in the method of thinking (dialectical materialism, the spirit of inquiry).”
98

Malaka recognized how unity based on identification as a Muslim irrespective of class and such
social and political expressions were neither reactionary nor medieval. He argued that Islam
was part of the modern anti-colonial struggle and central to its development in countries with
strong Muslim populations. Malaka’s critique of opponents of Islam’s relevancy in the anti-
colonial and international communist struggle highlighted the different opinions on the subject
among anti-colonial activists. While M.N. Roy agreed with leaders in the Comintern about pan-
Islam, Malaka expressed a different opinion reflecting the conditions in his country and in areas
with significant Muslim populations.
Malaka may have been present at KUTV during Sultangaliev’s time at the university as
he was in Moscow in 1921. Evidence for the early years of KUTV is spotty, but Bennigsen and
Wimbush have suggested that Malaka attended KUTV.
99
In his autobiography, Malaka stated
that in the year he spent in Moscow he came into contact with various people and his room was
open to students, who frequently visited him.
100
If Malaka attended the university, he would
have become familiar with the ideas of Sultangaliev. The situation in Dutch East Indies
definitely shaped Malaka’s thinking, but his strong arguments in favor of communist support for

97
Ibid., p. 89.
98
Ibid.
99
Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslim National Communism, p. 110; In an email exchange with Malaka’s biographer,
Harry Poeze, he informed that he was not aware of Malaka’s presence at KUTV. However, he did state that
Malaka did influence the Dutch East Indies students at KUTV. While in Moscow, I encountered difficulty trying
to locate files on the Dutch East Indies students at KUTV during the 1920s. This is an issue both of the archive and
the fact that the Dutch East Indies communists had a major falling out with Stalin and the Comintern over the
Dutch East Indies uprising of 1926-1927 directed by the communists. This uprising will be discussed with more
detail in chapter 3.
100
Tan Malaka, From Jail to Jail, p. 95.

103
Islam placed him alongside Sultangaliev. Malaka’s political work did not confine him to Dutch
East Indies, but took him throughout Southeast Asia as Dutch East Indies communists became
one of the driving forces bringing Marxists ideas to the region alongside the Kuomintang
(KMT) branches in different countries.
101

Sultanzade and the Role of Peasants

It is unclear whether Sultanzade taught at the university, but considering his relationship
to the Comintern and the RKP(b) as well as his knowledge of languages, he probably did teach
at KUTV. He was active among the Iranian students at the university and served as one of the
main leaders of the Iranian Communist Party.
102
Sultanzade wrote many pamphlets and articles
that were published in Russian. Since he spent time in St. Petersburg, Sultanzade most likely
wrote the materials in Russian without having them translated. His work not only focused on
Iran, but also on the Third World. At KUTV, many of his writings were translated into Azeri,
Turkish, Tatar, and Kyrgyz.
103
Sultanzade enjoyed a wide readership that included both student
sectors (Soviet East and Foreign East) at the university.
Sultanzade offered KUTV students an analysis of the agrarian question, which the
university’s academic program failed to thoroughly incorporate alongside discussions of the
proletarian revolutionary struggle and political economy. In the journal for the All-Russian
Scientific Association of Oriental Studies (Vserossiiskoi Nauchnoi Assotsiatsii
Vostokovedeniia), Novyi Vostok, Sultanzade discussed the agrarian question in Iran. Similar to

101
Aloysius Chin, The Communist Party of Malaya: The Inside Story, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Vinpress, 1994, p.
20.
102
RGASPI 532/1/4/3, year 1923.
103
GARF 1318/1/512(1)/58, no date but most likely 1923 considering the surrounding documents.

104
his theses at the Second Comintern Congress, Sultanzade analyzed how capitalism developed
differently in the Third World.
104
In places such as Iran, the economy depended on taxing
peasants and their labor. He moved beyond solely identifying landowners as the primary
oppressor of peasants and discussed the different segments of Iranian society that exploited
them. The peasants paid various socio-economic groups within the country who benefited from
taxing and exploiting the peasant population. He argued that peasants suffered from double
oppression from domestic groups and foreign rule.
105
Capitalism pulled Iranian peasants into
the world economy as they supplied raw materials to European centers.
106
His article
demonstrated how domination worked in Iranian society to ensure that the most oppressed
segment of the population were deprived of power and exploited.
In addition to his article in the first issue of Novyi Vostok, Sultanzade also published an
essay on contemporary Iran. KUTV translated this article into numerous languages and it
became one of the most popular texts by a non-Russian that the university incorporated into its
academic program. In his 1922 work, Ekonomika i Problemy Natsional’nykh Revoliutsii v
Stranakh Blizhnevo i Dal’nevo Vostoka (Economy and Problems of the National Revolution in
the Countries of the Near and Far East), Sultanzade covered such topics as Islam and pan-Islam,
China, Turkey, Iran, and the national revolutionary struggle in the East. Besides this work he
also edited a text titled Kolonial Vostok (Colonial East) in 1924. Quite possibly, Sultanzade’s
works were some of the earliest attempts to write and articulate an extended history of the Third
World by a non-Westerner or Russian beyond newspaper articles. This marked an important

104
Sultazade, “Agrarnyi Vopros v Sovremennoi Persii (Agrarian Question in Contemporary Persia),” Novyi Vostok,
no. 1, 1922, p. 133-135. The semi-colonies referred to places such as China and India that were more developed in
terms of the size of the urban, the stage of political organization, and capitalist production. Colonies were regions
that had a small proletariat and a significant peasant population.
105
Ibid, p. 146
106
Ibid.

105
development in the anti-colonial left as radical Third World activists were increasingly writing
their own histories and analyses of the world, which refuted decades of Western writings that
employed science, anthropology, and medicine to justify the subordination of non-Western
people and support colonial regimes. In the introduction to Ekonomika, Sultanzade addressed
that issue when he discussed the difficulty of relying on faulty Western accounts about the
Third World; however, there was a demand for information on Third World countries and he
would continue his work despite the limitations.
107

Overall in this chapter, I have sought to offer background on the university’s students,
teachers, and its academic curriculum. The university offered a place where students could
learn communist ideas as well as receive training in general subject courses such as math,
geography, and science. The university was unique for not only incorporating Third World
teachers into its work, but also including their writings in its academic curriculum. This was of
vital importance as KUTV students were able to engage Third World intellectuals in their
courses. The ideas of Malaka, Sultangaliev, and Sultanzade travelled beyond KUTV and their
thinking represented critical aspects of the anti-colonial left. They adjusted Marxism to account
for conditions in the Third World, particularly in regards to peasants and Islam. Their ideas
challenged the limitations of Marxist and Leninist teachings. Through KUTV, students would
learn that revolutionary struggles could include religion and peasants.

107
A. Sultanzade, Ekonomika i Problemy Natsional’nykh Revoliutsii v Stranakh Blizhnevo i Dal’nevo Vostoka,
Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo, 1921, p. 5.

106
Chapter Four – Organization, Discipline, and Conflict

The university’s work reflected the growing mobilization taking place within colonial
countries and among the oppressed. From African Americans in the U.S. to the Dutch East
Indies and China, radical activists were organizing against capitalism, colonialism, and racism.
The Comintern and Profintern closely monitored developments in the Third World sponsoring
conferences and including news of anti-colonial uprisings and organizations in the pages of its
publications. The interactions between international communism and the anti-colonial left
continued to evolve.
Beyond teaching students theory, the university’s administration and teachers created an
academic program that included classes on how to apply the university’s teachings towards
revolutionary struggle. Marxism-Leninism was not limited to theory, but involved practical
work. That work adjusted theory to suit political struggles, protests, and organizations. The
various organizations of the international communist movement such as the Comintern,
Profintern, and the Komsomol played important roles at KUTV. Those organizations recruited
students for the university and over the course of the university’s existence worked with KUTV
officials and teachers to train leaders for communist parties.
I divide this chapter into three sections to capture the difficulty of and efforts at political
organizing. I begin the chapter providing background on how radical Third World activists met
and mobilized with the assistance of the Comintern and Profintern in different parts of the globe
as well as at KUTV. The second section considers the important role of discipline in organizing
that was conveyed at the university. Discipline was a critical component not only of how the
Party functioned, but also of political movements. KUTV’s attempts to teach students discipline

107
produced mix results. I close the chapter analyzing the internal conflicts among students that
underscored the problems of building and maintaining a global movement. Anti-colonial
solidarity was not inevitable and was under constant construction as people from various
backgrounds attempted to learn how to join together in a fight against imperialism.

Building Solidarity

Within the Third World, uprisings against colonial rule did not end following the signing
of the Versailles Treaty in 1919, but continued unabated. Profound changes took shape over the
course of the 1920s as activists developed new tactics to suit the historical context and found
new places to build solidarities. The expansion of colonialism over the course of the 1920s also
contributed to the growth of nationalist struggles in different parts of the world.

Circuits and Exchanges

Within the anti-colonial left there were circuits and networks that developed over the
course of the 1920s. One of the most prominent was the network bringing together different
segments of Asia including China, Indochina, Dutch East Indies, British Malaya (Singapore and
Malaysia), the Philippines, and Siam (Thailand).
During the 1920s, the Comintern and Profintern established an organizational base in
south China that would serve as one of the main offices coordinating work in Asia, especially
countries located in southern and southeast Asia. In the summer of 1924, Profintern and the
Comintern organized the Red Eastern Labor Bureau in Canton to coordinate labor movements in

108
the region. Tan Malaka served as head of the bureau after arriving in Canton in December
1923.
1
Malaka reported that he received authority to supervise and veto the policies of the
communist movements in south Asia, although this is subject to dispute.
2
Following his time in
Canton, Malaka went to the Philippines where he worked with nationalist leaders. With the aid
of sailors between Manila, Canton, and Java, he was able to stay abreast of developments.
3

Various Asian activists passed through southern China, particularly Canton. Nguyen Ai
Quoc worked in Canton on Comintern business too.
4
Since the Manchu dynasty’s collapse in
1911, Canton served as an important place for Vietnamese anti-colonialists.
5
In 1924, the
Comintern sent Ai Quoc to Canton to serve as an interpreter for Mikhail Borodin. While in
Canton, Ai Quoc acted as a liaison between the Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau and the budding
communist influenced movements in Southeast Asia.
6

Before the great Bandung Conference in 1955, radical Third World activists organized a
meeting, albeit on a smaller scale than the 1955 gathering, to join together people from the Third
World in south China in the summer of 1925. This meeting could be considered an early effort
by radical Third World activists to meet outside the Soviet Union, Europe, and the United States,
and organize their own conference. Since the meeting occurred outside a Western city, scholars
have missed this gathering and its attempt to forge a separate space for the oppressed masses. A
product of the meeting was the short-lived International Union of Oppressed Peoples. Historian
Sophie Quinn-Judge has also referred to the organization as the League of Oppressed Peoples.
7

Third World activists formed the International Union of Oppressed Peoples as a

1
McVey, The Rise of Indonesian Communism, p. 206-207.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid., p. 210.
4
Quinn-Judge, Ho Chi Minh, chapter 3.
5
Ibid., p. 72.
6
William Duiker, The Comintern and Vietnamese Communism, Athens: Ohio University, 1975, p. 7.
7
Sophie Quinn-Judge, Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years, p. 83-84.

109
challenge to imperialist powers’ plans to separate and divide them. In a report about the
meeting, the Hong Kong based activist, G. Lai-Shou wrote, “In order to frustrate this cynical
plan [of the imperial powers], the Chinese, Hindus, Annamites [Vietnamese], and Koreans have
united and formed an anti-imperialist committee of action.”
8
The International Union held two
meetings in 1925 in China. After the first gathering, the number of organizations under its
banner expanded to include the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Union for the Emancipation of
Women.
9

Despite its early focus on Asia, the International Union hoped to expand in order to unite
all oppressed peoples. The organization’s theme was unity. It issued a proclamation that boldly
declared, “You will not be free as long as we are under the imperialist yoke. And we shall not be
able to emancipate ourselves until you are free. Help us to emancipate ourselves! By helping us
you help yourselves! Our cause is yours.”
10
The national and international struggles were
connected according to the proclamation. To emphasize this point, the International Union did
not select an ethnic, national, or racial qualifier as the name of the organization. The
organization sought to be inclusive. Members planned to reach out to associations in Japan, the
Indian National Congress, the nationalist and revolutionary organizations in the Philippines,
Java, the Union Intercoloniale of the French Communist Party, the African Blood Brotherhood,
and other “Negro organizations” in the United States and Africa.
11
Instead of following the
dictates of the Comintern regarding the relationship between nationalist organizations and
communist groups, the International Union charted its own path. They did not worry about
whether a group was bourgeois-democratic or committed nationalist deviations, but instead

8
G. Lai-Shou, “The International Union of Oppressed Peoples of the East,” International Press Correspondence
(hereafter Imprecorr), no. 89, 24
th
December 1925, p. 1350.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid.

110
searched for organizations that would further the anti-colonial struggle.
As the International Union searched for alliances with other organizations, one of the
groups mentioned in the Imprecorr article disbanded. The African Blood Brotherhood, an
African diasporic radical organization that included a number of black communists, was ordered
by the American Workers’ Party (Communist) to shut down.
12
KUTV student, Lovett Fort-
Whiteman, with the assistance of the Comintern created the American Negro Labor Congress
(ANLC). The ANLC was a black radical organization that hoped to organize African Americans
against sharecropping, lynching, and employment and housing discrimination.
13

The Comintern and the Red Peasants International (Krestintern) had great hope in the
ANLC’s potential to mobilize black workers in the United States. In 1925, the ANLC held its
first conference in Chicago. The Negro Committee of the American Workers’ Party
(Communist) organized the meeting with the endorsement of the ECCI.
14
During the Fourth
Comintern Congress in 1924, the organization approved a resolution on the Negro question
calling for organizing a World Negro Congress.
15
The World Negro Congress never
materialized in that year and would not occur until Profintern provided assistance for such a
gathering in 1930.
16
The ANLC came under attack by the American Federation of Labor and
other groups for its association with communists.
17

12
Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950, New York; London: W.
W. Norton & Company, 2009, p. 51.
13
Ibid.
14
Minkah Makalani, In the Cause of Freedom: Radical Black Internationalism from Harlem to London, 1917-1939,
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011, p. 117.
15
Glenda Gilmore, Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950, New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2008, p. 51-52.
16
Report of Proceedings and Decisions of the First International Conference of Negro Workers, Hamburg,
Germany: International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workes, 1930.
17
Mark Solomon, The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-1936, University Press of
Mississippi, 1998, p. 53.

111
The ANLC’s platform at its meeting linked the domestic struggle of African Americans
with global movements against colonialism. According to an article from the Krestintern
newspaper, the ANLC conference would discuss the Rif War in Morocco involving the
indigenous population against France and Spain, the Sudanese struggle against the British, the
national liberation struggle in China and India, and the oppression of black people in South
Africa.
18
Similar to the International Union, the ANLC positioned itself within a global context.
Although the meeting in Chicago did not touch on establishing connections with other
organizations in different parts of the world like the International Union, the ANLC still was a
part of the anti-colonial movement and contributed to the anti-colonial left. In its fight against
racism and for the political mobilization of black workers and farmers, the ANLC helped to
further the discussion of race within the international communist movement.
KUTV’s student population reflected the attention the “Negro question” received from
the Comintern and Krestintern. In the mid-1920s, more black students from the U.S. and South
Africa enrolled at KUTV than in the early 1920s.
19
Black students were also placed in circles
with Hindus, Malays, and Filipinos.
20
That circle was possibly an English-speaking group with
students from territories under British and U.S. colonialism. Overall, KUTV, the Comintern,
Krestintern, and anti-colonial organizations were linked together in a complex relationship as
activists negotiated and debated political strategies and tactics.

18
“Negritianskii Nopros i Revoliutsionnaia Molodezh,’” (Negro Question and Revolutionary Youth), Krest’ianskii
Internatsional no. 1-2, 1925, p. 109-110.
19
RGASPI 532/1/30/1 (1926).
20
RGASPI 532/2/85/6 (1927 or 1928).

112
Learning to Organize

Within the context of growing mobilization and organization among people from Third
World countries, KUTV circles taught students the constitutive features of party organization.
Circles included a party organizer and some students’ circles were called party circles, even
though some individuals were not members of a communist party.
21
Besides organizing circles
on race, nationality, and ethnicity, administrators created groups focused on incorporating
students into the Soviet system. The Komsomol group included a variety of students from
Greeks and Jews to Turks and Arabs.
22
At the university, the Komsomol operated its own
bureau, which allowed the organization to directly supervise its work among the students.
23

Young people were absolutely critical to the emergence, spread, and strength of
international communism and anti-colonialism during the interwar period. The Komsomol was
ahead of the Comintern in many respects concerning the recruitment of students from various
regions of the East. In 1920, the socialists, anarcho-syndicalists, and the left wing of the
students’ movement created the Chinese Young Socialist League that turned into the Young
Communist League.
24
YCL branches emerged in Japan, Mongolia, Persia, Turkey, and Korea
during the early 1920s.
25
From the early 20
th
century, Korean students mobilized in opposition
to Japanese colonialism who continued to be active after World War I.
26
By the early 1920s,
Korean students started to organize groups to study Marxism with the intention of overthrowing

21
RGASPI 532/2/74/5 (May 26, 1927).
22
RGASPI 532/2/95/2 (November 4, 1925).
23
RGASPI 532/1/31/17 (no date, but most likely 1927).
24
N. Fokin, “The Young Communist International in the East,” Imprecorr, no. 47, 17
th
August 1927.
25
Ibid.
26
Michael Weiner, The Origins of the Korean Community in Japan, 1910-1923, Manchester University Press, 1989,
p. 123 and p. 154.

113
the state and transforming society.
27
Similar to Korea, student groups emerged in Indochina, in
particular the organization, Thanh Nien (Youth), would become the Vietnamese Communist
Party in 1930.
28
In Mongolia, the YCL was primarily non-Communist and nationalist
revolutionary with 4,000 members.
29
The Komsomol tapped into movements of young people
that already existed in different parts of the globe and it was no small wonder that the earliest
students to arrive at KUTV came from countries with active youth movements and/or YCL
branches. In the Soviet Union, Komsomol members fought in the Civil War, helped to rebuild
the country through civic projects, and performed cultural work.
30
The vast majority of students
at KUTV were under the age of 30 turning the university into a youthful space that reflected the
nature of international political struggles against capitalism and imperialism.
31

The Komsomol circle encouraged the students to consider themselves part of a growing
global youth demographic. By focusing on young people, the university could train leaders for
the future and reinforce the transformative quality of its work. According to scholar, Anne
Gorsuch, young people were essential to the Bolshevik project because they were considered
possibly free from the corruption of pre-revolutionary Russia and a “guarantor of future social
and political hegemony.”
32
The formation of the Komsomol circle at KUTV furthered the
Party’s work among the youth. At one meeting of KUTV’s international Komsomol circle,
students heard a report about the epoch of imperialism, militarism, the relationship of the
proletarian youth to war, and the tactics of the Komsomol in the army.
33
The university’s

27
Ibid., p. 123.
28
Khanh, Vietnamese Communism, p. 8.
29
N. Fokin, “The Young Communist International in the East,” Imprecorr, no. 47, 17
th
August 1927.
30
Matthias Neumann, The Communist Youth League and the Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1917-1932, New
York: Routledge, 2011, p. chapter 2.
31
RGASPI 532/1/23/1-10 (May 19, 1925).
32
Anne E. Gorsuch, Youth in Revolutionary Russia: Enthusiasts, Bohemians, Delinquents, Indiana University Press,
2000, p. 1.
33
RGASPI 532/2/95/9 (February 4, 1926).

114
students were not just part of a nationality, race, or ethnicity, but proletarian youth with a vested
interest in the fate of the world. The Komsomol circle promoted the interconnections between
multiple struggles. The fight against capitalism, imperialism, and war were part of the national
and colonial questions. To ensure that the university and the Komsomol identified and
connected with as many people as possible, the February 4, 1925 meeting of the circle discussed
the possible creation of a peasant youth union.
34

Since the university’s early years, the Komsomol helped to fund students at KUTV.
35

Technically, Komsomols existed alongside communist parties, but the funding of students
outside of the Comintern apparatus demonstrated that the organization conducted their own
international work. A cell of the Komsomol tied to the organization’s central body existed at the
university.
36
In many respects, the Komsomol played a critical role in recruiting students to the
university. A number of the Mongolian, Korean, and Greek students were members of the All-
Union Leninist Communist Youth League (Vsesoiuznyi Leninskii Kommunisticheskii Soiuz
Molodyozhi, VLKSM), which was the youth division of the All-Union Communist Party
(VKP(b)), when it changed its name from the RKP(b).
37
Students became more intertwined with
the workings of the Soviet system by joining the Soviet Union’s Komsomol. Membership was
not limited to people, who permanently lived in the country, but was open to KUTV students. At
one meeting of the Komsomol circle, participants discussed students joining the Soviet Union’s
youth organization.
38

34
Ibid.
35
RGASPI 532/1/2/33 (September 30, 1922).
36
GARF 1318/1/477(2)/77-79 (February 15, 1923).
37
RGASPI 532/1/46/1-11 (no date, but most likely 1927).
38
RGASPI 532/2/95/6 (December 8, 1925).

115
Discipline and Critique

Discipline was not simply imposed on students by the administration and teachers. It was
a concept that many students embraced and considered important to any revolutionary
organization and movement. Students learned to police each other and harnessed the power of
the university and Comintern for their own purposes. The relationship between Third World
people, and the organizations of the international communist movement and KUTV was complex
and cannot be limited to a dichotomous construction with anti-colonial activists on one side and
Soviet communists on the other side.

Instilling Discipline?

The administration’s evaluations revealed how the students encountered and processed
the academic program. KUTV’s curriculum offered an introduction to socialist and communist
ideas in addition to the general curriculum. The teachers and administrators were less concerned
about graduation rates than ensuring that students developed an understanding of the material.
Within the Arab circle, some of the teachers held a favorable opinion about a student named
Rosenberg. He was valued for his theoretical and political work as well as for his strengths as a
propagandist and agitator.
39
Rosenberg possibly acquired political experience through his
participation in a communist party or anti-colonial group. The administrators and teachers
searched for students with political experience. Politically seasoned individuals were the ideal
students for the university.
Many students embraced the discipline and rules that the university imposed. The

39
RGASPI 532/2/80/2 (February 3, 1930).

116
Filipino student, Arkhipov, was a seasoned and disciplined comrade.
40
He supported the line of
the Comintern and was actively involved in his work at KUTV.
41
After spending two years at
KUTV, his course level was satisfactory and the evaluator recommended a leadership position
for him.
42
Besides Arkhipov, the Filipino student, Mamerto exhibited good behavior becoming
of a budding communist. He demonstrated an interest in party life and actively participated.
43

Mamerto embraced the idea of self-criticism and harshly critiqued other comrades.
44

Marmerto’s use of self-criticism and critique reproduced Soviet political culture within KUTV.
He appeared to believe in the usefulness of such actions and possibly used them to target people
he genuinely felt challenged the party line or served as a retaliatory response for personal
conflict. The university and its students were never completely divorced from developments
within the Soviet Union and the international communist movement.
Before the 1930s, students often critiqued each other within circles. The fights between
students over the Party line reflected either personal tension among some students and/or a
genuine attack on individuals considered inadequate in their commitment to communist work.
Among students in the American circle, conflict arose over whether people were disciplined and
true communists. A student in the circle, Svobodin,
45
wrote a letter to the Party Commission
within the university stating that he did not critique KUTV and its academic program.
46

Comrades Alfonso and Wilson
47
in the same circle reported to the administration that Svobodin

40
RGASPI 532/1/458/10 (June 23, 1931). In this situation, the students assumed a Russian alias although he was
from the Philippines. There was little information in the archive to explain why some students selected or were
assigned Russian aliases and others did not. Other students at KUTV never used an alias and kept their name such
as Nazim Hikmet.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid.
43
RGASPI 532/1/459/21-22 (February 19, 1936).
44
Ibid.
45
It was not unusual for students to assume Russian names as their alias.
46
RGASPI 532/2/84/23 (December 21, 1928).
47
William Wilson was the African American Communist, William Patterson.

117
criticized the university and program.
48
To counter Alfonso and Wilson, Svobodin wrote to
university officials. He denied making such comments and suggested that Alfonso and Wilson
were attempting to undermine him and make sure that he became an unpopular figure in the
circle.
49
Svobodin claimed that Wilson “severely criticized and blamed the non-party students
for the violations of discipline.”
50
In hopes of defending himself from further attacks, Svobodin
declared, “my heart and my soul is communist.”
51
The situation in the circle revealed how
students monitored and reported on each other for failing to meet KUTV and Party standards.
The existence of the Party Control Commission at the university underscored the constant
surveillance that existed for students in addition to teachers. The Party’s presence attempted to
ensure that workers and students toed the line and followed policies. However, the Party Control
Commission did not simply impose itself on all students. Individuals such as Alfonso and
Wilson truly believed in the message of the Party and embraced its code of behavior. They
considered discipline and party commitment essential for the revolutionary cause. Svobodin’s
letter focused on Alfonso and Wilson, and not university administrators and teachers. He wanted
to defend himself before the Party Control Commission and students within the circle. Svobodin
possibly was a committed communist or he declared himself a communist as a way of protection.
At the university a culture of denunciations, criticism, and surveillance existed before the 1930s.
For almost every student like Rosenberg, there were also individuals critiqued for their
lack of political experience and/or lack of interest in communism. In an evaluation, an
administrator or teacher criticized a student, Tantov, for his weak political development,
particularly in elementary questions about communist party construction and the political line of

48
RGASPI 532/2/84/23 (December 21, 1928).
49
Ibid.
50
Ibid.
51
Ibid.

118
the party.
52
Tantov’s supposed weakness lay in the fact that he failed to express sufficient
interest in the work of the communist party or adhere to the Party line. While Tantov may have
embraced aspects of communism, his interpretation did not adhere to the Soviet perspective. The
evaluator measured Tantov’s progress through a small lens of whether Tantov agreed and
followed the Party’s policies. Interestingly, Tantov was criticized not for failing to comprehend
the anti-colonial struggle within Egypt, but rather for not understanding the Egyptian struggle
through a Soviet socialist perspective.
An African American student, Wells, spent three years at KUTV.
53
He displayed weak
preparation, poor theoretical training, and sectarian tendencies.
54
Surprisingly, Wells was at
KUTV for three years without having the university dismiss him despite his inadequacies.
Whether out of desperation to have students or a belief in political growth, he remained enrolled.
Wells’ evaluation further stated that he understood the need for a revolutionary dictatorship of
the proletariat, but needed discipline and initiative.
55
Rather than prepare for his courses or focus
on his studies, Wells wanted to spend his time with his girlfriend.
56
His girlfriend could have
been another student at the university or someone he encountered over the course of his studies.
It was not uncommon for male students to date Soviet women while they were in the country.
African American communist, Harry Haywood, met his second wife while studying at KUTV.
57

The teacher or administrator evaluating Wells simply objected to the amount of time Wells spent
with his girlfriend and not the fact that he had a girlfriend.
Despite the shortcomings the university identified in students, administrators and teachers

52
RGASPI 532/2/80/2 (February 3, 1930).
53
RGASPI 532/1/440/3-4 (1932 or 1933).
54
Ibid.
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid.
57
Haywood, A Black Communist in the Freedom Struggle, p. 136.

119
still recommended individuals for revolutionary work. The primary objective for the university’s
staff was to ensure that students applied their education to the revolutionary struggle against
capitalism and imperialism. Although Wells’ behavior was not becoming of a potential
communist revolutionary, his evaluation suggested that he could be used for grassroots party-
union work in the United States.
58
The Party and state’s rhetoric about discipline often fell apart
when implementation met reality. Similar to Wells, Ali Mamedov failed to meet expectations.
Mamedov was an Iranian student, who the head of the foreign group’s Sector A, A. Lazarevskii,
considered weak.
59
Mamedov was a member of the VKP(b) and the Iranian Communist Party
since 1921.
60
At the end of the evaluation, Lazarevskii recommended Mamedov for trade union
and grassroots work.
61
To a degree, the evaluations may have simply served university officials
rather than the students and the Comintern.
KUTV teachers and administrators encountered difficulty ensuring that all students were
disciplined supporters of communism and actively engaged in their academic work. Part of the
problem resulted from the challenges the university faced in adjusting the curriculum to meet
changing orders from the state and Party. KUTV leaders expected teachers to implement the
new line at the same time they were learning about those policies.

Deviations
The infighting between various leaders within the VKP(b) spilled over into the
university. Starting in the mid-1920s with the removal of Trotsky from his Red Army post and
his subsequent expulsion from the TsK VKP(b) in 1927, the university embarked on a campaign

58
RGASPI 532/1/440/3-4 (1932 or 1933).
59
RGASPI 532/1/446/12 (1929 or 1930).
60
Ibid.
61
Ibid.

120
to identify deviations and Trotskyism among students. Deviations often represented a vague
term that could cover anything that threatened the Party and its work. Stalin’s alliance with top
Party leaders, Zinoviev and Kamenev, against Trotsky led to the vilification of Trotsky. During
the Party’s struggle, the triumvirate of Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, criticized Trotsky for his
political positions and out of fear about his possible ambition to become leader of the Party.
62

His success as leader of the Red Army also contributed to the resentment the triumvirate felt
towards him.
63
Trotsky’s expulsion from the Party led to fears about the spread of Trotskyism
among the students.
The word deviation appeared with increasing frequency in KUTV reports during the late
1920s. The term’s emergence directly corresponded with Stalin’s attack on Party leaders in his
attempt to secure power. In the Iranian circle at the university, a student named Nasir received
the deviationist label.
64
His evaluation described him as active and disciplined.
65
But even his
adherence to certain requirements of good communist behavior did not insulate him from being a
labeled a deviationist. His slants and deviations were directed at the work of the Iranian
Communist Party (ICP).
66
The Reza Shah’s repressive government in Iran led many Iranian
communist to seek refuge in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s.
67
However, in the
late 1920s, ICP members directed their attention towards activities in Iran and all foreign bureaus
of the party closed.
68
From the documents it was unclear what deviationist tendencies Nasir
expressed. Considering that the ICP was in flux in terms of its work, his deviation could have

62
Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, p. 108.
63
Ibid.
64
RGASPI 532/1/46/1-11 (no date but most likely 1927).
65
Ibid.
66
Ibid.
67
Stephanie Cronin, “Introduction,” in Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the
Iranian Left, edited by Stephanie Cronin, NY: Routledge, 2004, p. 3-4.
68
Touraj Atabaki, “Incommodious Hosts, Invidious Guests: the Life and times of Iranian revolutionaries in the
Soviet Union, 1921-1939,” in Reformers and Revolutionaries, p. 152.

121
related to a variety of issues concerning the plan for increased communist activity in Iran to
rejection of the party line. The deviation blemish on his evaluation was nothing more than a
note. Nasir’s evaluation included a recommendation for organizational work. His questions
about the ICP did not exclude him from basic administrative and organizational work.
Another Iranian student’s evaluation report included the term deviation. Sandshabi
became a member of the ICP in 1922 and was a member of the VKP(b) from 1926.
69
Similar to
Nasir, Sandshabi’s position on the ICP was called a deviation.
70
His theoretical training was
average and he lacked disciple.
71
Sandshabi’s deviation appeared more serious than Nasir’s.
Instead of receiving a recommendation for organizational work or another task, Sandshabi’s
evaluation stated that the university kicked him out of the first year course.
72
Considering the
political context in the Soviet Union, Sandshabi could have embraced Trotsky and opposed
Stalin’s group. It is probable that Sandhabi was not a Trotskyist as his evaluation would have
included such an important detail.
Support for the ideas of Trotsky did not end when he was pushed out of the Party.
Indochinese students continued to discuss his ideas in theoretical debates within their circle into
1928. In an interesting theoretical interpretation, a student in the Indochinese circle articulated
the differences between Lenin and Trotsky by stating that the former was too focused on the
nation while the latter presented a theory for international struggle.
73
Lenin placed too much
emphasis on the revolution at the national level.
74
In the section, one students elaborated that the
fight against imperialism needed a revolution of the international proletariat, which Trotsky

69
RGASPI 532/1/46/1-11 (no date but most likely 1927).
70
Ibid.
71
Ibid.
72
Ibid.
73
RGASPI 532/2/87/23b (November 2, 1928).
74
RGASPI 532/2/87/24 (November 2, 1928).

122
favored.
75
According to the historian, Demetrio Boersner, Trotsky continued to think about the
fight against imperialism in terms of the proletariat and refused the idea of alliances with
nationalist leaders because of the backwardness of Third World countries.
76
Within the
Indochinese communist movement, Trotskyist ideas began to take shape in 1927 in connection
with the crackdown in the French Communist Party.
77
Inside the PCF, Trotskyists and Stalin
supporters debated revolutionary strategy, which spread to the Indochinese communists. The
fight between the two groups moved to Indochina in 1930.
78

The university wanted students to embrace whatever Party line existed at the time.
Students rarely adhered to the university’s vision. KUTV administrators worried about the
nationalist tendencies/deviations of students. One student in the Arab sector garnered the
attention of the administration. Maixlin expressed nationalist and anti-Semitic deviations.
79
The
administrative report did not specify, from which country Maixlin arrived. In regards to the
Palestinian Communist Party, the Comintern sometimes walked a fine line between its support
for struggles against Zionism, Jewish immigration to Palestine, and British imperialism and
Palestinian Arab attacks on Palestinian Jews that could be mistaken for anti-colonial actions.
While the university identified specific deviations, the term also expressed some ambiguity.
Despite concerns about nationalists within the student population, the university still accepted
and educated them.
Other deviations at the university focused on entire student sectors. In the Mongolian
sector, there were numerous deviations. According to the report, Mongolian students were prone
to deviations because all the students belonged to the People’s Revolutionary Party and not the

75
RGASPI 532/2/87/23b-24 (November 2, 1928).
76
Boersner, The Bolsheviks and the National and Colonial Question, p. 197.
77
Quinn-Judge, Ho Chi Minh, p. 117.
78
Khanh, Vietnamese Communism, p. 194.
79
Ibid.

123
VKP(b).
80
According to the administrative report, nationalists belonged to the Right while the
ultra-Leftists were described as inept. Administrators failed to elaborate on how they defined
Right and ultra-Left. Mongolian students received additional criticism because they wrote
articles for their sector’s newspaper without approval of the editorial board.
81
The
administration’s critiques of the sectors demonstrated how they did not exercise complete control
over the students. Nationalists still existed in the sectors and students formed relationships with
individuals, who the university viewed unfavorably.

Conflict among Students

Tensions emerged among students, and between students and the administration.
Students needed to learn how to communicate, interact, and form relationships with each other
across the limitations of nationality and language. KUTV provided a place where people from
various areas of the world could interact and exchange ideas. In theory, the university brought
students together to learn about revolutionary struggle. However, KUTV’s day to day reality
was often far from ideal. Chaos existed throughout the university from the administration to the
students as everyone had different visions for the KUTV and its purpose. At the university,
students learned the basic aspects of how to join together for political work.

80
RGASPI 532/1/31/13 (October 1927).
81
RGASPI 532/1/31/14 (October 1927).

124
Negotiating Problems within Circles

In May 1927, a heated debate took place within the Arab circle about whether the circle
should divide into two. There were plans to create an “Arab West” circle and an “Arab East”
circle. For many Arab students, the use of French represented the language of the imperialists,
while Arabic brought together the Arab East (vostochno-arabskii) and the Arab West (zapadno-
arabskii) students within the circle. The circle defined the Arab East as Egypt, Arabia, Palestine,
Transjordan, Mesopotamia, and Syria, while the Arab West comprised Morocco, Algeirs, Tunis,
and Tripoli.
82
Students in the circle argued that the division of the group depended on the influx
of students and from which region a student arrived.
83
In the back and forth debate, one student
argued for the unity of the circle since it was the French imperialists who sought to divide Arab
people, while the revolutionary struggle brought them back together.
84
Within the Arab circle,
Jewish students were not considered separate from the work of revolutionary struggle in Arab-
speaking countries.
Identifications during the 1920s were not set in stone and changed frequently.
Nationality was only one of a number of identifications students employed. To complicate
matters in the Arab circle, Indochinese students were present and the discussions about whether
to split the group indicated that comrades from Indochina might have been a part of the Arab
group for a few years. In addition to debates about whether to divide the circle along Arab
identity, another resolution presented at the circle’s meeting suggested separating the group
based on colonialisms.
85
Students under British colonialism would have their own group, while

82
RGASPI 532/2/74/8 (May 26, 1927).
83
RGASPI 532/2/74/9 (May 26, 1927).
84
RGASPI 532/2/74/8 (May 26, 1927).
85
RGASPI 532/2/74/12 (May 26, 1927).

125
students under French colonialism would compose the other.

In an interesting twist, some Arab
students joined with the Indochinese students to support the creation of a group for people from
the French colonies.
86
This vote took place after many students voted to create a purely Arab
circle minus the Indochinese. Oppression under French colonialism and the use of the French
language served as a unifying factor in the vote.
Many of the problems that emerged in the circles concerned conflicting personalities and
other matters outside of theory. From the Arab circle to the English speaking section numerous
problems arose over funds. In the English speaking section, a conflict arose around the selection
of party organizer and the suspicion that he stole money from the other students. The party
organizer served as leader of the students. Comrade Jones, who was the party organizer in the
group, received funds from the students within the circle.
87
On the journey from the United
States to the Soviet Union, the students entrusted him with safeguarding the money.
88
When the
students requested their funds, Jones told them that he spent their money on the journey to the
Soviet Union and would pay them back. A discussion about money became a conversation about
Jones’s leadership skills and the role of the party organizer. Within the English circle, numerous
students encountered difficulties as the party organizer.
89
For various unknown reasons, there
was a high turnover in that position. Jones was only in the position for two months before
students brought their problems before the circle.
90

The English circle’s problems with Comrade Jones led to the head of the “Foreign East”
student sector, Kuchomov, participating in a meeting with the students. He informed them that

86
Ibid.
87
RGASPI 532/2/84/4 (no date but most likely 1926).
88
Ibid.
89
Ibid.
90
Ibid.

126
they could not constantly change their party organizer.
91
Kuchumov listed the duties of the party
organizer as ensuring that the Party line was implemented.
92
The party organizer represented an
attempt by the university to translate Soviet political organizing to the students. Students
selected someone from their circle to serve as party organizer although there did not seem to be
any prerequisites for the position. While the university trained students in theory, the party
organizer position demonstrated the practical work that took place as students learned about
communist party organizing. Kuchmov noted that the party organizer could not be removed for
personal reasons.
93
Despite his comment, Kuchumov relieved Comrade Jones of his duties. At
the end of the meeting, the students selected a new party organizer. Despite the existence of
disciplinary organizations in the university’s apparatus students failed to completely transform
into ideal communists.
There were problems between students and the KUTV administration and teachers. In
this chapter, I first focused on attempts to build solidarity through various organizations. The
next section examined the role of discipline and university’s emphasis on practical work. The
last section addressed the shortcomings in solidarity that often extended beyond differing
political opinions. The anti-colonial left was not unified and students did not simply join
together because of shared oppression. Solidary was daily work.

91
Ibid.
92
Ibid.
93
Ibid.

127
Chapter Five – Organization and Theorization

This chapter covers the late 1920s through the 1930s when there were numerous
uprisings in the Third World, some of them anti-colonial and nationalist, while others such as
the situation in China was a civil war involving the communists and the nationalists. I divide
this chapter into three sections. The first section of the chapter briefly examines two important
conferences held by the Comintern and Profintern in 1928. I begin with the Profintern and
Comintern conferences to discuss the changing approach of the international communist
movement to the Third World. The next section looks at the evolution of the anti-colonial left
organizationally. In particular, I focus a great deal of attention on the International Trade Union
Committee of Negro Workers (ITUC-NW)’s publication, the Negro Worker. Despite the name
of the organization and its newspaper, it was internationalist and its geographical scale reached
beyond people of African descent. Many KUTV students were involved in the ITUC-NW and
its publication. The last section of the chapter examines the writings of students to determine
how they were thinking about revolutionary struggle.

Comintern and Profintern Congresses

The 1928 conferences of Profintern and the Comintern involved a change of course for
the two organizations’ relationship to the Third World. The Sixth Congress of the Comintern
and the Fourth Congress of Profintern expressed a strong commitment to anti-colonial work and
the overthrow of colonialism. Profintern and Comintern’s anti-colonial work was aided by the
financial crash that took place in 1929 and carried over into the 1930s. The Great Depression

128
bolstered communists’ claims that capitalism was an unjust system and that socialism provided
the path to equality and liberation. Beyond the conferences, Profintern published a newspaper
geared towards developments in the Third World and sponsored organizations such as the
ITUC-NW, which was an important organization bringing together radical activists.

The Congresses

At the Sixth Comintern Congress, the organization devoted more space to discussing the
Third World than at previous conferences during the 1920s. Part of the theses on the Third
World argued that the “vast colonial and semi-colonial world has become an unquenchable
blazing furnace of the revolutionary mass movement.”
1
The statement reflected the arguments
of countless radical Third World activists during the late 1910s and 1920s that non-European
peoples and countries were critical to the socialist struggle. However, rather than considering
the Third World a political space with its own diversity of ideas and strategies for revolutionary
struggle, the theses considered the anti-colonial movement part of the battle between socialism
and capitalism, the West and the Soviet Union. The theses declared that the “revolutionary
emancipatory movements of the colonies and semi-colonies more and more rally around the
banner of the Soviet Union, convincing themselves by bitter experience that there is no
salvation for them except through alliance with the revolutionary proletariat.”
2
The Comintern
considered the Soviet Union the ultimate ally of the anti-colonial struggle and the key to the
defeat of imperialism.

1
Communist International, The Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies: Thesis on the Revolutionary Movement
in the Colonies and Semi-Colonies: Thesis Adopted by the Sixth Congress of the Communist International, 1928,
New York: Workers Library, 1929, p. 1.
2
Ibid., p. 8.

129
With the theses of the Sixth Congress, the Comintern changed its approach to nationalist
organizations in the Third World. During the 1920s, the Comintern supported alliances
between communists and revolutionary nationalists, but the theses of the conference asserted
that the “correct tactics in the struggle against such parties as the Swarajists and Wafdists during
this stage consist in the successful exposure of their real national-reformist character. These
parties have already more than once betrayed the national-emancipatory struggle.”
3
According
to the theses, the national bourgeoisie was aligned with the imperialist class. While the above
quote referred to organizations in India (Swarajists) and Egypt (Wafdists), the statement applied
to all colonial countries. To further emphasize the direction of the international communist
movement’s approach to the national liberation struggle, the theses stated that it was “necessary
to reject the formation of any kind of bloc between the Communist Party and the nationalist-
reformist opposition… the Communists must know how at the same time to carry on the most
relentless ideological and political struggle against bourgeois nationalism.”
4
According to the
theses, activists within the anti-colonial left should reject alliances with bourgeois nationalists.
The Sixth Congress’ theses were at odds with the reality of the anti-colonial struggle in which
nationalism was a powerful mobilizing force against imperialism.
The Sixth Congress theses on the colonies divided Third World struggles into different
stages. The revolutionary course was determined by the “development of productive forces and
the socialization of labor. This circumstance, together with the fact of foreign domination and
also the presence of powerful relics of feudalism and pre-capitalist relations, determines the
character of the immediate stage of the revolution.”
5
The Comintern argued that imperialism
contributed to the underdevelopment of the colonies and semi-colonies. Foreign domination

3
Ibid., p. 34.
4
Ibid., p. 35.
5
Ibid., p. 22.

130
prevented many Third World societies from developing as the “relics of feudalism” still
remained. By going through the bourgeois democratic revolution, the East could prepare “for
the proletarian dictatorship and socialist revolution.”
6
The theses did not support the idea that
the national liberation struggle could serve as a prerequisite for the socialist revolution.
At its Fourth Congress in 1928, Profintern’s resolutions on the Third World addressed
the issue of race in the in the labor movement. Profintern was interested in the plight of black
workers in different parts of the world, particularly in South Africa and in the United States. In
a section of the report on white and black labor, the resolution criticized the Profintern affiliated
trade unions for being passive in regards to admitting black workers into organizations. The
Profintern trade unions “instead of at once starting to organize unions of negro workers, they
pass annual resolutions on the subject. These resolutions have not advanced matters a single
step. It must be realized once and for all that this is not a problem for the future, but of the
present.”
7
While the resolution continued with the tendency of the Comintern, which argued
that race was a class issue that could be solved through the proletarian struggle, the critique of
Profintern trade unions did suggest that the organization was committing itself to fighting
against racism and considered that a part of the struggle for socialism. The resolution would
further state that black people “represent an enormous potential revolutionary force, and any
disregard of the work of organizing the negroes is really an echo of the ruling classes’
influence.”
8
The statement considered racism a tool of the ruling classes that could be defeated
with the organization of interracial unions. Despite the shortcomings of the Profintern’s
interpretation of race, the organization argued that the black liberation struggle was a part of the
international communist movement.

6
Ibid.
7
Ibid., p. 23.
8
Ibid., p. 24.

131
The Fourth Congress’s resolutions on the Third World demonstrated the influence of the
anti-colonial movement on the organization. In addition to a discussion of black and white
labor, Profintern devoted part of the meeting to discussing the different colonies and semi-
colonies. Considering Profintern’s relationship to the Comintern and KUTV, it is possible that
the university and its students helped to provide knowledge to the trade union organization that
pushed it to seriously consider the role of Third World countries in the international communist
movement. The resolution on the colonies and semi-colonies covered Latin America, India,
Africa, China, Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, Turkey, and Arab-speaking countries.
9

Regarding Palestine, the Profintern took a strong position similar to the organization’s
resolution on black workers demonstrating that Profintern was fighting for greater integration
between the anti-colonial movement and the international communist movement. Another
resolution pushed for the inclusion of Arab Palestinians in worker organizations. The resolution
declared, “it is necessary to exert all efforts towards the organization of the Arab workers” and
“the revolutionary wing of the labor movement has to wage a struggle against British
imperialism and its agency in the shape of Zionism in all its aspects.”
10
Arab Palestinians were
underrepresented in workers’ organizations. Profintern wanted trade unions to be reflective of
the population, which would mean majority Arab membership. Profintern’s support for a fight
against Zionism and British imperialism made it possibly difficult for Jewish Palestinian leaders
of trade unions, who were supportive of international communism, to maintain the support of
the rank and file in worker organizations. Such a situation occurred when the Comintern
encouraged similar political work in Palestine.
11

9
Ibid., p. 30-49.
10
Ibid., p. 43.
11
Joel Beinin, “The Palestine Communist Party 1919 – 1948,” MERIP Reports, no. 55, March 1, 1977, p. 7.

132
The Fourth Congress’s strategies for assisting the struggle in the Third World
underscored one of the tensions between the international communist movement and the anti-
colonial movement. While Profintern supported the anti-colonial struggle, it did so by limiting
its support of nationalist organizations. Another resolution on the colonies and semi-colonies
stated that the revolutionary trade union movement needed to produce its own leaders because
of the “consequent danger that the trade union movement may be side-tracked from the class
struggle towards a narrow policy of bourgeois nationalism and class collaboration.”
12
From
1928 until 1935, the Comintern and Profintern argued that radical anti-colonial activists should
not collaborate with nationalists or nationalist organizations. Profintern’s strategy for the Third
World involved producing activists that would place the class struggle first before the
nationalist struggle.
The Sixth Comintern Congress and the Fourth Profintern Congress were important in
shaping the international communist movement’s approach to the Third World. KUTV’s
teachers attempted to incorporate the resolutions at those meetings into its work with the
students. Despite the Comintern and Profintern’s support for anti-colonial struggle, there were
shortcomings in the international communist movement in regards to race and nationalism that
limited the work of the movement. While many radical Third World activists supported the
resolutions at both conferences, others challenged the limitations of the Comintern and
Profintern’s approach.

12
Report of the Fourth Congress of the RILU, p. 72.

133
Forming Alliances and Building Organizations

From the late 1920s into the 1930s, radical Third World activists continued to forge
alliances with each other and organizations within the international communist movement. As
the Comintern and Profintern became more involved in the work of the KUTV, students
balanced their involvement in political organizations, their work in courses, and/or as members
and leaders of communist parties.

The International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers and the Negro Worker

The ITUC-NW emerged after the July 1930 International Conference of Negro Workers
that was held in Hamburg, Germany. The organization sought to bring together black people in
sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. Profintern supported the creation of
the ITUC-NW as a way of supporting the anti-colonial struggle. Many KUTV students
participated in the organization and wrote articles for the organization’s publication, the Negro
Worker. Prominent KUTV students, who played important roles in the ITUC-NW or with the
Negro Worker, were George Padmore, a Trinidadian Communist, Jomo Kenyatta, the general
secretary of the Kikuyu Central Association fighting for Kenyan independence, and the African
American Communist, William Patterson. William Patterson was active at KUTV
intermittently between 1928 and 1936. He was a practicing attorney in New York City before
he joined the communist movement. In addition to his time at KUTV, he traveled to Frankfurt
to attend the Second International Congress Against Imperialism and reported on the meeting

134
for KUTV’s newspaper, Revoliutsionnyi Vostok.
13
Although it is not clear to what extent other
KUTV students were involved with the ITUC-NW and the Negro Worker, it is possible that
students at least within the circles connected to Padmore, Kenyatta, and Patterson participated
in the organization and/or wrote for its newspaper.
The Negro Worker was initially published as a bulletin in 1928. After a short hiatus it
became a monthly starting in 1931 and ceased in 1937. The editorial board included members
who served in the ITUC-NW and were active in anti-colonial struggles. Editors appealed to
literate members of the black working-class who could read the publication and convey its
contents orally to the illiterate. Although the publication focused heavily on the struggles of
black people in Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States, it devoted significant space on its
pages to chronicling anti-colonial movements in India and events in China.
The Negro Worker sought to capitalize on the enthusiasm that the International
Conference of Negro Workers generated in 1930. Many of the conference attendees were
represented in the early issues of the publication. The January 1931 edition outlined the aims
of the newspaper and the ITUC-NW. The Negro Worker would provide information on black
struggles against capitalism and imperialism, while also fostering internationalism. In “Our
Aims,” the writers intended to use the publication “to raise the international outlook of the
Negro workers by on the one hand bringing to them information of the struggles and problems
of the international revolutionary labour movement – of the colonial movement, of the
movement in the capitalist countries, and of the successful building of socialism.”
14
The articles
were geared towards black people living in the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States.
Although there were discussions about struggles in North Africa, the newspaper did not include

13
Makalani, In the Cause of Freedom, p. 1-2; William Wilson, “Vtoroi Kongres Ligy Borb’by s Imperializmom”
(Second Congress of the League Against Imperialism), Revoliutsionnyi Vostok, no. 8, 1930, p. 252-258.
14
“Our Aims,” Negro Worker no. 1, vol. 1 (January 1931), p. 1.

135
those ethno-racial groups in its conception of “Negro.” “Our Aims” expressed a key piece of
anti-colonial internationalism: the bringing together of colonial movements with the “successful
building of socialism.”
The cover image of the early Negro Worker issues captured the mood of militant
struggle. The drawing of a strong black man breaking the chains connecting Africa and the
Caribbean with the United States demonstrated how the 1930s represented a time of
revolutionary possibility.
15

[Cover for the January 1931 issue of the Negro Worker]

With the damaging effects of the global economic crisis, activists needed an international
response to solve the problems affecting Third World people. The symbol of the powerful
black man sought to refashion the links connecting people of African descent. The movement
against racial and class oppression would serve as the basis for raising “the international outlook

15
Ibid.

136
of the Negro workers.” Throughout the run of the Negro Worker, the above image would
become a staple. The emphasis on strong masculinity was a part of the anti-colonial left.
In late 1931, the changes to the publication’s editorial board ushered in a new phase of
militancy. The newspaper added more individuals to its board and George Padmore, became
editor-in-chief succeeding the African American James Ford. George Padmore was an alias for
the Trindadian born Malcolm Nurse. He was active in the American Communist Party’s
Harlem branch and played an instrumental role with William Patterson and James Ford in
organizing the International Conference of Negro Workers.
16
Following the 1930 International
Conference of Negro Workers, Padmore became head of the ITUC-NW in Hamburg. Under
Padmore’s guidance, the Negro Worker increased its coverage of struggles throughout the
African diaspora as well as movements in China and India. Articles contained a heightened
level of sarcasm directed towards individuals labeled black middle-class reformists. With
Padmore setting the tone for the issues with his editorials at the beginning, the Negro Worker
stressed the need for black people to form their own organizations utilizing native leadership.
After Padmore officially assumed the editor-in-chief position, the Negro Worker
emphasized the antagonism between classes more than in previous issues. The class struggle
was not only between imperialists and capitalists on one side and black workers on the other,
but also between black toilers and the black middle-class as well. Comintern emphasis on class
antagonism was a part of its Third Period that was articulated at the Sixth Comintern Congress.
The identification of groups hostile to working-class liberation contributed to the construction
of black diasporic political identity. In the October/November 1931 issue of the publication,
Padmore argued that the black petty-bourgeois played a part in capitalist exploitation.
17
As a

16
Makalani, In the Cause of Freedom, p. 3.
17
George Padmore, “Hands Off Liberia!,” Negro Worker (October/November 1931).

137
result, black workers needed to recognize which organizations would serve their interests. The
Negro Worker identified key groups across the black diaspora that were fighting against
capitalism, imperialism, and racism.
Padmore and the Negro Worker did not blindly follow the dictates of the Sixth
Comintern Congress or the Fourth Congress of Profintern. Despite his statements supporting
the class against class approach, Padmore never ceased to support the national liberation
struggle and he used the publication to continue to express his viewpoint. In a 1933 article
about the West Indies, Padmore argued that the people in the countries of that region “must
begin to organize trade unions, peasant associations and militant anti-imperialist political
parties. They must seriously undertake the struggle not only for complete independence, but
around their immediate demands”
18
Padmore did not state that the West Indies struggle should
take place through a communist party, but rather through a range of organizations aimed at
defeating both imperialism and capitalism. For Padmore, national liberation and socialist
revolution were interconnected.
Another KUTV student published articles with the Negro Worker as the newspaper
became a site for various people connected within the anti-colonial left to express their
opinions. Jomo Kenyatta used the publication to inform the readership about British
imperialism in Kenya.
19
Although Kenyatta’s article focused exclusively on Kenya, its
publication in the Negro Worker implied that the battle in Kenya was part of the broader
revolutionary effort against imperialism. In the article, Kenyatta did not divide Kenyan society
between colonizers, middle-class reformists, and the workers. Rather he saw the division as one
between the colonized and the colonizer. The British expropriated lands belonging to

18
George Padmore, “Nationalist Movement in West Indies,” Negro Worker, no. 1, vol. 3, (January 1933), p. 6.
19
J. Kenyatta, “An African Looks at British Imperialism,” Negro Worker, no. 1, vol. 3, (January 1933), p. 18-22.

138
indigenous people as Africans were forced to work for the imperialists.
20
With “all reports of
Committees and missions, the robbery of African lands and exploitation have not been stopped.
What Africans want now is not commissions but the restitution of their land.”
21
The British
created a series of commission to address the land question.
22
Kenyatta’s article demonstrated
the variety of writings that appeared in the publication. He never claimed to be communist
despite studying at KUTV. Membership in a communist party was neither required for
admission to KUTV nor for publication in the Negro Worker. Kenyatta’s article lacked the
audaciousness of Padmore’s writing, but that did not detract from his objective of presenting the
brutality of the colonial system and the need for its destruction.
The writers for the publication continued to adjust and balance Comintern policy and
Marxist-Leninist theory. Profintern representative and black Caribbean radical, Otto Huiswoud,
wrote an article on the labor movement in South Africa and the strategies and tactics that
workers should employ to topple capitalism. Huiswoud argued, “It must be emphasized that no
attempt should be made to create new unions where the conditions do not warrant it and where
there is no basis for it, but that the AFTU [African Federation of Trade Unions] must rather
seriously begin to work in the reformist and national reformist unions.”
23
The Communist Party
of South Africa (CPSA) created the AFTU in 1928 to serve as an umbrella organization uniting
different workers’ groups.
24
Huiswoud suggested that labor organizations and communists
work with nationalist unions, even those which were considered reformist.
The Russian communist Ivan Izosimovich Potekhin, a lecturer for KUTV and an

20
Ibid., p. 21.
21
Ibid. p. 20.
22
Ibid.
23
Otto Huiswood, “The Labour Movement in South Africa,” Negro Worker no. 4, vol. 2 (November/December
1932).
24
South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, volume I: Socialist Pilgrims to
Bolshevik Footsoldiers, 1919-1930, editors Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov, and Sheridan
Johns (London: Frank Crass 2003), p. li.

139
authority on South Africa at the university, reinforced Huiswoud.
25
Following “The Labour
Movement in South Africa,” Potekhin used his article to play on the idea of the united front.
During the Twelfth ECCI Plenum in September 1932, the committee provided an outline for
how Comintern members should seek to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat. The
ECCI resolved that it would be necessary to “organize on a sound basis constant Bolshevik
work among non-communist workers in the factories, in the reformists and other trade
unions…to pursue the policy of the united front from below [emphasis in original].”
26
Building
on the plenum session, Potekhin declared, “THE WAY OUT IS THE STRUGGLE AGAINST
THE CAPITALISTS AND THEIR GOVERNMENT ON THE BASIS OF THE UNITED
FRONT OF THE UNEMPLOYED AND EMPLOYED, WHITE AND NEGRO WORKERS
TOGETHER [emphasis in original].”
27
His statement appeared similar to the language of anti-
colonial internationalism that the Negro Worker presented in previous editions; however,
Potekhin followed this statement with a critique of the AFTU for its attempt to organize the
unemployed into separate organizations under the idea of an unemployment union. He asserted,
“work has shown us, however, the entire worthlessness of this form of organisation, and this has
to be admitted now by the AFTU comrades themselves.”
28
Profintern executive officials
conveyed their disappointment to Huiswoud about the ITUC-NW lack of success in cultivating
native leaders among black workers in Africa and the Caribbean.
29
Over the course of 1932,
Profintern interest in strengthening the AFTU grew. By the end of 1932, the Profintern sent

25
South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History, volume II: Socialist Pilgrims to
Bolshevik Footsoldiers, 1931-1939, editors Apollon Davidson, Irina Filatova, Valentin Gorodnov, and Sheridan
Johns (London: Frank Crass 2003), p. xxx.
26
“The Development of the Revolutionary Upsurge and the Preparation of the Struggle for the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat,” in The Communist International: Documents, volume 3, 1929-1943, edited by Jane Degras (London:
Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 227.
27
Potechin, “How to Build the Unemployed Movement,” Negro Worker (November/December 1932), p. 21.
28
Ibid.
29
Turner, Caribbean Crusaders and the Harlem Renaissance, chapter 7.

140
Huiswoud to South Africa to assess the state of the AFTU.
The Comintern ceased publishing the Negro Worker after its August/September 1933
edition. Historians often have ended their analysis of the Negro Worker and black involvement
in the Comintern following George Padmore’s departure. Padmore was ousted from his
position as the editor-in-chief and expelled from the organization in 1934. Scholars have
debated the multitude of reasons behind his split with the Comintern. In the late 1930s and
again in the 1940s, Padmore stated that he left because the organization, in its attempt to follow
the foreign policy demands of the Soviet government, decided to pull back from supporting
anti-colonial movements.
30
The publication resumed printing in May 1934 without Padmore.
Otto Huiswoud, under the name Charles Woodson, served as editor-in-chief. Despite the
Profintern representative, Huiswoud, taking control of the newspaper, the shift to a united front
of anti-fascists forces still remained contested terrain.
In November 1933, the thirteenth ECCI plenum continued to reformulate its conception
of the united front. For the ongoing anti-capitalist struggle, the ECCI plenum called “upon all
sections of the Communist International persistently to fight for the realization of a united
militant front with the social democratic workers, in spite of and against the will of the
treacherous leaders of social-democracy.”
31
To implement this strategy, the ECCI plenum
asserted that sections should “work inside the reformist unions and the mass fascist and
Christian trade unions [emphasis in original].”
32
Without the organization of a formal
conference, the plenum assumed control for implementing and formulating Comintern policy.

30
James Hooker, Black Revolutionary: George Padmore’s Path from Communism to Pan-Africanism, New York:
Frederick A. Praeger, 1967, p. 31.
31
“Extracts from the Theses of the Thirteenth ECCI Plenum on Fascism, the War Danger, and the Tasks of
Communist Parties,” in The Communist International: Documents, volume 3, 1929-1943, edited by Jane Degras
(London: Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 303.
32
Ibid, p. 304.

141
The ECCI presidium could not unilaterally impose a new policy without the convening of an
official Comintern Congress to give the impression that the organization followed democratic
procedures.
The lack of an official policy announcement created space for the Negro Worker and its
writers to interpret Comintern policy changes in different ways. The first issue under Woodson
announced that the Negro Worker “was forced to suspend publication for a short period.
Serious technical difficulties, editorial shortcomings and the necessity to change our location,
all contributed to the necessity of discontinuing the publication for a while.”
33
“Editorial
shortcomings” referred to Padmore and the article did not mention the problem of finances that
plagued the newspaper in 1933. The June 1934 edition featured a message regarding Padmore’s
expulsion from the Comintern and the ITUC-NW. The reasons behind Padmore’s expulsion
revolved around his attempt to “lay the path for unity with the Negro bourgeois exploiters and
with their agents, the national-reformists, which could not help leading to the interests of the
toiling masses becoming subordinated to the exploiters.”
34
The publication portrayed Padmore
as a reformist working with the black bourgeoisie and against the interests of the working-class.
The newspaper criticized Padmore for being a reformist at the same time the ECCI encouraged
Comintern sections to work with reformist organizations. The explanation for his expulsion
simultaneously revealed how the Negro Worker editors attempted to negotiate the Comintern’s
evolving positions.
The editors and writers displayed strategic ambivalence about how to interpret the ECCI
plenum theses. While the number of articles on Germany increased with the growing attack of
communists on fascism, the publication did not pull back from attacking European colonial

33
“We Resume Publication,” Negro Worker (May 1934), p. 1.
34
“Expulsion of George Padmore from the Revolutionary Movement,” Negro Worker (June 1934), p. 14.

142
powers. Articles used the language of fascism to describe the conditions black workers
encountered in colonial countries. In an editorial on the struggles of colonial seamen, the writer
argued, “fascism, and the increasing fascist methods of attack, employed in the so-called
democratic countries against the working class, can be defeated… Negro workers join in the
struggle against bloody fascist rule and war, and for the freedom of the workers and colonial
toilers!”
35
Fascism was not confined to Germany, but was spreading internationally.
There were limitations to the solidarity that the Negro Worker and the ITUC-NW sought
to build. Within student circles as KUTV, conflicts arose between students that demonstrated
the limitations of not only African diasporic solidarity, but also the anti-colonial left. From the
1920s to the 1930s, s growing number of black people from different countries throughout the
world arrived at KUTV. In the literature on black people and communism, many scholars have
missed the tensions among the different black people placed within the Negro Section.
KUTV’s Negro Section primarily included black people, who spoke English, while French
speaking black people often participated in the work of other groups who were under French
colonial rule such as the Indochinese. Language factored prominently into the organization of
the Negro Section alongside race. For KUTV administrators, language was vitally important to
ensure that students within the sections could speak to each other. As black people arrived from
various countries, a number of Liberian students journeyed to Moscow. While the number of
Liberians enrolled remained small, they still formed their own group within the Negro Section
during the early 1930s. Teachers and administrators did not encourage the Liberians to form a
separate group because it discouraged the internationalism that the university sought to foster.
The existence of a separate Liberian group did not solely revolve around national
camaraderie, but also arose as a response to the presence of African Americans in the Negro

35
“Smash the Attack on Colonial Seamen,” Negro Worker (July 1934), p. 4.

143
Section. During the 19
th
century and into the 20
th
century, many African Americans immigrated
to Liberia as a form of resistance to the American slave system and resistance to racial
oppression in the U.S. that continued to evolve after the U.S. Civil War.
36
As the number of
African Americans increased in Liberia, an Americo-Liberian elite formed that came to
dominate the government and oppress the native African population.
37
The Negro Section
reflected power relations that existed in Liberia. A report on the Liberian student Smit noted
problems between African Americans and Liberians. He was a peasant, worker, and auto-
mechanic.
38
In Smit’s biographical report, an administrator noted that Smit stated he hated
(nenavidit’) all white people including the Russians. He did not distinguish between the white
people he encountered during his time in Germany and the white people he met while a student
at KUTV.
39
Smit not only expressed hatred for white people, but also African Americans. He
asserted that African Americans oppressed his people in Liberia.
40
At KUTV, African
Americans came from a range of socio-economic backgrounds. The statement from Smit failed
to make a distinction between the Americo-Liberians and African Americans. For him, the two
were the same. Smit was probably not alone in his opinion about African Americans. He
emerged as a leader within the Liberian group as administrators fretted about his influence over
other students.
41

36
There is a large literature on the relationship between African Americans and Liberia during the 19
th
century.
See Claude Andrew Clegg, Price of Liberty: African Americans and the Making of Liberia: African Americans and
the Making of Liberia, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004; Wilson Jeremiah Moses,
Liberian Dreams: Back-to-Africa Narratives from the 1850s, Pennsylvania: Penn State Press, 1998.
37
Derrick, Africa’s Agitators, p. 87; M.B. Akpan, “Liberia and the Universal Negro Improvement Association: The
Background to the Abortion of Garvey’s Scheme for African Colonization,” The Journal of African History 14, no.
1 (January 1, 1973): 105–106.
38
RGASPI 532/1/440/2 and 5 (no date but most likely 1932 or 1933).
39
RGASPI 532/1/440/2 (no date but most likely 1932 or 1933).
40
Ibid.
41
RGASPI 532/1/440/6 (no date but most likely 1932 or 1933).

144
The university could not control tensions among the students. In a report on the Negro
Section in the early 1930s, an administrator expressed concern about the existence of the
Liberian group. The administrator worried that the Liberian group posed a threat to the Negro
Section.
42
A different document underscored how the Liberians openly challenged the party
and the party leadership, derided party members, and created a toxic atmosphere for other
students.
43
Overall the students were “national reformists” and exhibited anti-Soviet and anti-
party positions.
44
The university was concerned about views and behaviors that challenged its
authority and vision of internationalism. Despite the portrayal of the Liberian group in the two
reports, the administration noted how the Liberians were strong anti-imperialists.
45
The
Liberian, Smit, critiqued communism, but was an anti-imperialist.
46
Communism did not
produce anti-colonialism. In a bold statement, Smit was reported as stating that there was little
difference in how communists and capitalists related to black people.
47
Alongside Smit, the
Liberian Nelson exerted influence over students in the Liberian group.
48
Nelson criticized the
influence of American capital in Liberia.
49
It was unclear whether Nelson referred to the
Americo-Liberian elite or U.S. capital interest in Liberia. Overall, it appeared he offered a
critique of capitalism and imperialism without having to pledge allegiance to the Soviet state or
a party.
The anti-colonial movement was not homogenous and there were a range of political
viewpoints. However, one factor that remained constant was the commitment to the overthrow
of imperialism. Despite the differences between people within the ITUC-NW and the Negro

42
RGASPI 532/1/440/6 (no date but most likely 1932 or 1933).
43
Ibid.
44
Ibid.
45
RGASPI 532/1/440/2 and 5 (no date but most likely 1932 or 1933).
46
Ibid.
47
Ibid.
48
RGASPI 532/1/440/5 (no date but most likely 1932 or 1933).
49
Ibid.

145
section at KUTV, Eastern people continued to struggle for liberation. Tensions between the
international communist movement and the anti-colonial did not disappear after the Fourth
Profintern Congress and the Sixth Comintern Congress expressed support for anti-colonialism.
Rather, radical anti-colonial activists negotiated differences among each other and with
Profintern and Comintern.

China and the Anti-Colonial Movement

Over the course of the 1920s, KUTV provided students with opportunities to acquire
knowledge about other countries and peoples within the Third World. Beyond discussing
revolutionary struggles in their own countries, students harnessed the university’s resources to
engage other circles. The university expected the different circles to formally interact with each
other by exchanging information. In 1927, the Arab circle communicated with the Chinese and
Persian circles to receive information about their work.
50
From the documents it was unclear
what kind of work took place between the Arab circle and the Persian and Chinese circles.
Considering the context, the Arab circle most likely learned about the situation in China
between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The years from 1925-1927 featured numerous uprisings. During that time, there was the
Druze uprising in Syria, the Dutch East Indies Communist-led struggle, and the collapse of the
nationalist-communist alliance in China. Different organizations of the international communist
movement were invested in developments in China. The fallout from Chiang Kai-Shek’s
slaughter of communists in 1927 helped to trigger the change in Comintern policy in 1928.

50
RGASPI 532/2/74/5b (May 26, 1927).

146
Despite the failure in China, the country continued to play a prominent role in the anti-colonial
and international communist movements.
MaoTse-tung’s growing role within the CCP gained him international attention.
Although he was not a student at KUTV, the university’s newspaper published his writings on
revolutionary struggle. In particular, Revoliutsionnyi Vostok, the newspaper of KUTV from
1927 to 1938, included an excerpt from his now famous essay about the peasant struggle in
Hunan.
51
During the 1920s, peasant uprisings took place in China. In Hunan, a few
communists helped to lead the movement starting in 1923.
52
By 1927, the membership in the
peasant associations in Hunan reached over 4.5 million people.
53
Mao’s article provided the
readership with information on an astounding mobilization of peasants. He offered a history of
peasant oppression in China that paid close attention to their history of struggle and the power
structure in rural China.
54
Mao stated that the peasants were fighting against the gentry,
tyrants, and landowners who joined forces with other state powers to oppress the peasants.
55

The writing style suited the tone and content of Revoliutsionnyi Vostok and the general work of
KUTV. The publication of Mao’s article underscored how the university was contributing to
the circulation of information about Third World countries.
Mao’s essay demonstrated the continued discussions about the role of peasants in the
radical struggle. The objective of Mao’s essay was to provide Chinese communists with
information about the peasant uprising in Hunan since many in the urban struggle possessed

51
Yokoyama Suguru, “The Peasant Movement in Hunan,” Modern China 1, no. 2 (April 1, 1975): 204–238. In his
article Suguru called Mao’s essay famous. For my discussion about Mao’s article, I will only include information
from the version in Revoliutsionnyi Vostok.
52
Suguru, p. 204.
53
Ibid.
54
Mao Tse-tung, “Kresti’ianskoe Dvizhenie v Khunani” (Peasant Revolutionary Struggle in Hunan),
Revoliutsionnyi Vostok no. 2, 1927, p. 111-112.
55
Ibid., p. 114.

147
little knowledge about it.
56
In terms of scale, the peasant movement covered large swaths of
China.
57
According to Mao, its large size made it important for the urban struggle.
58
The
information he provided served as an introduction to a region, movement, and segment of the
population that received scant coverage. Besides presenting the socio-economic structure of
rural China, Mao also discussed how peasants formed their own organizations.
59
An entire
world of peasant organization, culture, and mobilization existed outside the gaze of traditional
Marxism-Leninism. Mao argued that the peasants were critical to the anti-colonial and anti-
capitalist struggle.
Both the peasant movement and the proletarian struggle could aid each other. Mao
discussed how a peasant uprising occurred on the anniversary of the October Revolution.
60
In
presenting that information, he tied peasant movements to the broader anti-colonial struggle.
Far from representing a remnant of the past, the peasants were a part of the modern liberation
struggle. That reality was critical to the broader efforts of radical Third World activists to
challenge colonial domination and socio-economic inequality within their countries.
China’s importance in the anti-colonial movement continued to grow during the late
1920s. The Comintern and the university played an important role in helping to link China with
other regions of the world. Within the pages of Revoliutsionnyi Vostok, writers incorporated
China into discussions about India and Mongolia. The history of Mongolia involved the
complex involvement of Chinese and Russian forces during the 19
th
century and into the 20
th
.
An article in Revoliutsionnyi Vostok sought to demonstrate the role that Mongolia could play in

56
Ibid., p. 107.
57
Ibid., p. 108.
58
Ibid.
59
Ibid., p. 117.
60
Ibid., p. 118.

148
the Chinese revolutionary struggle.
61
Similar to many articles in the publication, the author
provided a cultural and economic history of Mongolia. Mongolian history was not only the
story of Genghis Khan, but the fight against “Manchurian imperialism.”
62
The article stated
that the struggle against imperialism factored into the emergence of Mongolian national
identity. The author argued that the Mongolian people possessed a defined culture, a language,
a rich culture, and territory.
63
Besides discussing the socio-economic structure in the country,
Rinchino asserted that the revolutionary elements in Mongolia should join with the
revolutionary elements in China.
64
The proximity of Mongolia to China and its history of
engagement further justified the link between the two struggles for the author.
Another article in Revoliutsionnyi Vostok moved from Mongolia to India. An article on
India’s relationship to China wanted to further emphasize how critical communist success in
China was to Third World countries. British imperialism in India was preventing strong ties
between India and China.
65
As the two largest countries in terms of population among Third
World countries, China and India were important to the anti-colonial struggle. As expressed in
the Revoliutsionnyi Vostok article, China and India served as centers for the anti-colonial
struggle. While British imperialism wanted to expand into China, the author expressed dismay
that the British were trying to use Indian soldiers to support its imperial work.
66
To prevent
British intervention in China, peasants, proletariats, and the petty bourgeoisie should mobilize
together against British imperial aspirations and realize their struggle’s relationship to the

61
Rinchino, ““K Voprosu o Natsional’nom Samoopredelenii Mongolii v Sviazi s Zadachami Kitaiskoi Revoliutsii”
(On the Question about the National Self-Determination of Mongolia in Connection with the Tasks of the Chinese
Revolution), Revoliutsionny Vostok no. 2, 1927, p. 65.
62
Ibid., p. 70.
63
Ibid., p. 67-69.
64
Ibid., p. 74.
65
Savdar, “Revoliutsionnoe Dvizhenie Indii v Sviazi s Sobytiiami v Kitae” (Indian Revolutionary Struggle in
Connection with the Events in China), Revoliutsionnyi Vostok no. 2, 1927, p. 99.
66
Ibid., p. 102-103.

149
Chinese question.
67
The common theme in many of the articles for the 1927 edition of the
publications stressed the connections between revolutionary struggles in the Third World with
China.
Beyond Revoliutsionnyi Vostok, the Negro Worker published articles about the link
between China and the black liberation struggle. The editors’ global emphasis sought to
demonstrate the conditions oppressed people shared and how the solutions to those problems
lay in international unity. For the March 1931 issue, the publication featured articles on the
Soviet Union, India, China, and South Africa. In his coverage of the movement in China, the
writer Wang stated that the struggle of Chinese workers offered an example for black laborers.
He stated that “In factories and work shops or on the plantations in America, the African
continent or the West Indies you must discuss the questions of the Chinese revolution by
combining it with your own… Negro Toilers! The Chinese Revolution is your revolution.”
68

Wang wrote the article specifically for the Negro Worker and its readership. The article
demonstrated how China were almost on par with the Soviet Union in terms of importance to
the anti-colonial left.
An image from the Negro Worker underscored the increasing interconnections between
struggles. The author, R. Doonping, wrote in article discussing Japanese imperialism in China.
His overall objective was to refute the idea that Japan was the protector of the “colored peoples
in the Far East.”
69

67
Ibid., p. 106.
68
“Development of the Chinese Workers’ Movement,” Negro Worker no. 3, vol. 1 (March 1931).
69
R. Doonping, “Is Japan the Protector of the Coloured Races?,” Negro Worker no. 1, vol. 3 (January 1933), p. 14.

150

Figure 1 Image from the January 1933 issue of the Negro Worker, p. 17.
The caption for the image stated “China Today – Africa Tomorrow.” Doonping considered
Japanese imperialism similar to European imperialism. He argued that there was no distinction
between imperialisms. Japan was a colonial power and the readership of the Negro Worker
needed to support China. Doonping referred to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the
oppression of Koreans, and the Japanese’s use of force in Formosa. He wanted to emphasize
that the struggle of the Chinese, Koreans, and the people of Formosa was not divorced from the
broader anti-colonial struggle. In closing his essay, Doonping assered that “only the unity of
the workers and peasantry, one the basis of a revolutionary program of anti-imperialist struggle,
together with the working class in the imperialist countries, can bring victory for the masses
over ALL the imperialist powers, whether white or yellow.”
70
Although it is difficult to
determine whether Doonping was connected to KUTV, Profintern, or Comintern, his article was
a product of the anti-colonial left. He used the language of anti-colonialism and Marxism-

70
Ibid., p. 18.

151
Leninism to issue a call for solidarity and unity with the proletariats in Western countries.
Publications such as the Negro Worker and Revoliutsionnyi Vostok helped to foster
interactions between Eastern people across geographical, racial, and linguistic boundaries.
Profintern, Comintern, and KUTV played prominent roles in making connections possible.
However, radical Third World activists did not blindly follow the policies laid out at the Fourth
Congress of Profintern or the Sixth Congress of the Comintern.

Understanding Marxism-Leninism

Over the course of the late 1920s and 1930s, the anti-colonial left people continued to
form their own theories about how to understand imperialism, nationalism, and revolutionary
struggle. At KUTV, student circles played an important role in helping students understand
Marxist-Leninist theory. Besides the circles, students collaborated with KUTV teachers and
researchers on drafting reports about Third World countries. Whether through circles or
collaborations, students contributed to the evolution of an anti-colonial in other ways outside of
newspapers.

Thinking Through Colonialism and the Meaning of Socialism
For many students, the establishment of colonial mandates ushered in new forms of
resistance that turned into struggles for self-determination. In the epoch of imperialism, many
students considered the advent of Western and Japanese colonialism in their country as the start
of the national liberation movement. If national history started to take shape with the

152
expression of Western and Japanese domination, then students needed to discuss the nature of
colonial rule. The student circles discussed the characteristics of imperialism. Their analyses
focused primarily on the political and economic aspects of colonialism.
In the Arab circle, students heard a report from the student, Jacob, titled the
“Revolutionary Struggle in Syria and its Perspectives.”
71
Jacob provided a brief history of Syria
in relation to French imperialist domination. Rather than provide a history of Syria that
included its centuries under the Ottoman Empire, Jacob began his report with the signing of the
Versailles Treaty, which created the French mandate over Syria.
72
According to Jacobs, Syria
represented a strategic site for communication and trade based on its proximity to Iraq and
Persia. Because of its importance, Syria became embroiled in the French and British battle for
access to the Near East. For Jacob, in order for the French to maintain control over the region,
they needed to build a system to monitor and control the population through different mandate
government institutions.
73

In his report, Jacob discussed the dialectical relationship between French oppression and
Syrian resistance. The Syrian national struggle emerged as a response to French colonialism.
74
He referenced the Druze uprising in 1925, which represented an important event in the growing
Syrian nationalist narrative. Jacob’s report considered the Druze uprising a logical response to
French occupation and domination. He believed that organizations were needed to harness the
grievances of the population and help direct the resistance against the French. The nationalist
party in Damascus could not be trusted because its members collaborated with the French.
75

71
RGASPI 532/2/74/4 (April 6, 1927).
72
RGASPI 532/2/74/4b (April 6, 1927).
73
RGASPI 532/2/74/4a (April 6, 1927).
74
RGASPI 532/1/74/4a, 4b (April 6, 1927).
75
RGASPI 532/2/74/4b (April 6, 1927).

153
However, there was a national revolutionary party that operated illegally.
76
Borrowing from
the language of the Second Comintern Congress, Jacob described the potential for a national
revolutionary organization that brought together the peasants and the workers.
77
Lacking a
strong and visible working-class, the peasants were very important to the Syrian national
struggle.
78

Jacob’s report demonstrated the increasing universalization of Marxist-Leninist terms
and categories to apply to non-Western countries. Terms such as “united front,” “national
revolutionary,” “peasant,” and “working-class” appeared throughout his report. In conceiving
of the Syrian nation in relation to French colonialism, Jacob implied that the Syrian national
liberation struggle was a product of the imperialist epoch and created a form of modern
resistance tied to capitalism. Jacob believed that the nation was a stage in the East’s historical
development. Once the nation was achieved and French imperialism destroyed then the
transition to socialism could begin. In his report, regardless of the particularities of Syrian
society during the 1920s, the Syrian people were either peasants or the working-class. The
language Jacob employed helped him to communicate with people within the circle from
different geographical regions. Although students in his circle shared a connection based on
their shared links to Arab speaking countries, the diversity of experiences and histories among
those various people necessitated the development of a shared political language to translate
ideas.

76
Ibid.
77
Ibid.
78
RGASPI 532/2/74/4a (April 6, 1927).

154
Collaboration

At KUTV, teachers and students often worked together on collaborative research
projects. Those projects were helpful in furthering the use of Marxist-Leninist language in the
anti-colonial left. In the Arab Cabinet of a research division at KUTV, a collaboration took
place between a student fSalim Abudom and a Soviet researcher, Vitol’. Salim Abudom was
listed as writing the historical part of the report and the documents did not provide any
additional biographical information about him.
79
Their work focused on the development of the
communist struggle in Iraq. Rather than simply concentrating on the Iraqi communist party,
they provided a history of Iraq underscoring the focus on struggle. Beyond the names on the
document, there was little documentation about the individuals who worked together on the
report. It was not unusual for teachers to collaborate with students. The South African
communist, Albert Nzula (under the alias Tom Jackson), worked with Ivan Potekhin and
Alexander Zusmanovich of KUTV’s African cabinet to produce a work on forced labor in
Africa.
80

Similar to Jacob’s study of Syria, the report considered the start of Iraqi history as
beginning with the national liberation struggle. Unlike Jacob’s report, Abudom and Vitol’
argued that the Iraqi national liberation struggle started during the Ottoman Empire and
continued with broader participation during World War I and under British imperialism in
1920.
81
Under the Ottoman Empire, the intelligentsia, the wealthy, and landowners were at the

79
RGASPI 532/4/3/1 (May 1937).
80
Tom Jackson, I. Potekhin, and A. Zusmanovich, Rabohee Dvizhenie i Prinuditel’nyi Trud v Negritianskoi Afrike”
(Workers’ Struggle and Forced Labor in Black Africa), Moscow, Profizdat, 1935.
81
RGASPI 532/4/3/1-2 (May 1937).

155
forefront of the liberation movement, which lacked mass participation.
82
A prominent figure in
the movement was Talib Pasha Al-Nakib.
83
Elites within that region of Ottoman rule played an
important role in starting the movement. Overall, the report focused on Iraq, but made efforts to
include the struggle within a broader Arab context. According to the report, Arab elites were
the early figures in the national movement.
84

Expressing a Leninist interpretation of history, the imperialist war and British
involvement in Iraq ignited uprisings and led to greater participation of the population in the
national liberation movement. The 1920 uprising was a monumental event in the development
of Iraqi identity. The report anticipated the writings of scholars during the second half of the
20
th
century that stressed the importance of 1920 to the birth of Iraqi national consciousness.
85

By foregrounding 1920, the report emphasized the role of struggles against oppression as a key
aspect of Iraqi history. Iraqi national consciousness existed in a dialectical relationship with
British imperial domination. In outlining the reasons for the revolt, the report focused on the
establishment of the British mandate, the worsening condition of Iraqis, the new taxes the
British imposed on the population, and the repression that occurred when the taxes were
collected.
86
The British administration also employed the services of British colonial subjects in
India to impose its rule in Iraq.
87
As early as 1906, the British considered using Iraq to absorb
the surplus population of India.
88
Vitol’ and Said Abudom pulled back the veil of British
colonial rule and revealed the economic motivations and the techniques of rule that the mandate

82
Ibid.
83
Ibid.
84
RGASPI 532/4/3/1-2 (May 1937).
85
Amal Vinogradov, “The 1920 Revolt in Iraq Reconsidered: The Role of Tribes in National Politics,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies 3, no. 2 (April 1, 1972), p. 125.
86
RGASPI 532/4/3/1-2 (May 1937).
87
Ibid.
88
Mahmoud Haddad, “Iraq Before World War I: A Case of Anti-European Arab Ottomanism,” in The Origins of
Arab Nationalism, edited by Rashid Khalidi, New York: Columbian University Press, 1991, p. 126.

156
government used to assert its domination.
After discussing Iraqi history, the report analyzed the origins of communism among
Iraqis. A club of young people formed the early nucleus to the Iraqi Communist Party in
1927.
89
Although the British mandate government repressed the activists, they continued to
meet.
90
The young people were connected with an atheistic magazine emerging in Syria during
the late 1920s.
91
After centuries under Ottoman rule, Arabs did not adhere to the boundaries the
British and French established to divide Arab people. Iraqis, Syrians, Lebanese, and
Palestinians interacted with each other and exchanged political ideas. Their political
associations extended to Egypt as well. On May 30, 1925, the Egyptian government under
Ahmed Ziwar Pasha arrested all members of the Egyptian Communist Party’s Central
Committee.
92
Those arrested included not only Egyptians, but also Jewish Palestinians.
93

Within the East, smaller transnational networks formed that proved critical for fostering
international connections without the regard at times from nationality, religion, or ethnicity.
The report placed the history of the Iraqi people at the center. Teachers and students
understood that history was a significant part of building a political movement and mobilizing
people. Individuals needed to feel connected to each other and the struggle against colonialism
served as a way for imagining a new community. Western colonial empires justified their rule
by stating that Third World people were not ready for liberation and self-rule.
94
In contrast,
Salim Abudom and Vitol’ used their report to demonstrate that the Iraqi people were capable of
determining and controlling their own destiny. Their report expressed the idea that national

89
RGASPI 532/4/3/4 (May 1937).
90
Ibid.
91
Ibid.
92
Tareq Ismael, The Communist Movement in Egypt, 1920-1988, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990,
p. 31.
93
Ibid.
94
Jane Samson, Race and Empire, New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005, p. 85.

157
liberation was the logical response of the colonized. The international communist movement
and the anti-colonial struggle was not monolithic. Although the Comintern pulled back from
strong support of anti-colonialism in favor of advocating a struggle against fascism during the
late 1930s, Vitol’ and Abudom’s report showed that the anti-colonial left did not cease to
continue the fight for the overthrow of imperialism. Some teachers at the university encouraged
a history that placed struggle and self-determination at the forefront. It was unclear who read
the report by Vitol’ and Abudom. What is likely is that the report was used by KUTV
administrators, teachers, and possibly students connected with the Arab circles. Additionally,
the Comintern and Profintern may have received the report which provided the two
organizations with additional information about Iraq.
In this chapter, I have sought to capture the circulation of ideas and people through an
examination of various written materials. From newspapers to reports in circles and in
collaboration with KUTV teachers and students used written materials to articulate connections
to each other. A global leftist anti-colonial network, which started to take shape between 1917-
1921, continued its development over the course of the 1930s. Although radical anti-colonial
activists used the resources of the international communist movement, they often challenged the
limitations of Profintern and Comintern policies regarding the anti-colonial struggle, while
others were more favorable towards those resolutions. Within the anti-colonial left people
articulated a range of viewpoints, but all remained committed to the idea that only solidarity
between oppressed people could end imperialism. The ITUC-NW played an important role not
only in advocating for African diasporic unity, but also for the anti-colonial left. China came to
represent an important site in the anti-colonial movement demonstrating that that the struggle
against imperialism had many centers beyond the Soviet Union. The 1930s represented a

158
period when the legs of the anti-colonial left planted firmly on the ground setting the stage for
the post-World War II decolonization and national liberation movements.

159
Conclusion

The international communist movement and the anti-colonial left were on two different
trajectories by the late 1930s. One was continuing to grow while the other was in a brutal
decline. The Party ordered the closure of the university in 1938. Unfortunately, there is little
documentation on why KUTV closed even though the university continued to receive students
and KUTV administrators and teachers did not stop planning its educational work in the second
half of the 1930s.
1
One can only speculate about why the university closed based on the
historical context. The Party’s focus on anti-colonialism was declining and that was seen in the
disbanding of Profintern in 1937. The Comintern disbanded in 1943, but ceased to be actively
involved in anti-colonialism around the mid-1930s.
2
Additionally, events in the Soviet Union
contributed to KUTV’s closure. The Great Terror continued to foster an atmosphere of fear and
paranoia as people were placed into labor camps and displaced.
3
Stalin increasingly feared that
there would be a European or Japanese attack on the Soviet Union.
4
The atmosphere in the
Soviet Union destroyed the international communist movement and its institutions and
organizations.
Unfortunately, students and teachers were not immune from the terror environment and
purges that took shape once Stalin took over the Party and state in 1928. Sultanzade was a

1
RGASPI 532/1/212/48 (December 28, 1936); RGASPI 532/1/212/21 (June 20, 1936); RGASPI 532/1/212/38
(November 17, 1936).
2
My statement is based on analysis of Imprecorr which emphasized the fight against fascism as the driving force
of the international communist movement. For example J. Berlioz, “The Defense of French Democracy,”
Imprecorr vol. 17, no. 7, 13
th
February 1937, p. 180; Georgi Dimitrov, “The People’s Front Against Fascism and
War,” Imprecorr vol. 16, no. 51, 14
th
November 1936. Also see for example Pennybacker, From Scottsboro to
Munich, p. 217 and p. 221.
3
Hélène Carrère d’Encausse. Stalin, Order through Terror, New York: Longman, 1981, p. 27-54; Kevin
McDermott, Stalin: Revolutionary in an Era of War, New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2006, p. 89 and p. 96.
4
Peter Kenez, A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2006, p. 130.

160
victim of the brutal environment in the Soviet Union. As one of the earliest radical anti-colonial
activists involved in the international communist movement, he came under attack in the late
1920s for representing an outdated approach to revolutionary struggle. Between 1928 and
1931, a shift occurred in all Soviet academic disciplines that favored a new generation of radical
students, who passionately attacked the old scholars.
5
By 1927, Sultanzade was part of that old
generation of scholars. Sultanzade was still active in the affairs of the Communist Party of Iran
(CPI) and the Comintern between 1928 and 1930.
6

KUTV’s journal, Revoliutsionnyi Vostok, included articles attacking Sultanzade
demonstrating the changing political environment not only within the Soviet Union, but also
within the university. In an article titled “Tov. Sultanzade, Kak Vyrazitel’ Melkoburzhuaznovo
Vliianiia v Voprosakh Persidskoi Revoliutsii” (Comrade Sultanzade, as the Mouthpiece of the
Petty Bourgeois Influence in Questions of the Persian Revolution), the writer Rendzhbar (or
Ranjbar)
7
attacked Sultanzade for his understanding of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution
between 1906-1911. Ranjbar provided a list of reasons for the weaknesses of Sultanzade’s
interpretation of the Iranian Revolution. The shortcomings in Sultanzade’s analysis included
“not explaining the Persian revolutionary connection to the Russian-Japanese War and the
Russian Revolution of 1905. He did not explain also the Persian Revolutionary connection to
democratic revolutions, which covered the start of the 20
th
century in all of Asia.”
8
Sultanzade

5
Michael Kemper, “Red Orientalism,” Die Welt Des Islams 50 (2010), p. 472.
6
Cosroe Chaqueri, “Sultanzade: The Forgotten Revolutionary Theoretician of Iran: A Biographical Sketch,”
Iranian Studies 17, no. 2/3 (April 1, 1984), p. 224.
7
His name transliterated from Russian was Rendzhbar, but Cosroe Chaqueri translates the name to Ranjbar.
Ranjbar’s real name was Gel’bras. He was an officer in the Soviet foreign service and a former Soviet trade
representative to Iran. Chaqueri, “Sultanzade: The Forgotten Revolutionary Theoretician of Iran,” p. 226.
8
Ranjbar, “Tov. Sultanzade, Kak Vyrazitel’ Melkoburzhuaznovo Vliianiia v Voprosakh Persidskoi Revoliutsii,”
Revoliutsionnyi Vostok no. 2 (1933), p. 74.

161
was guilty of distortion in his understanding of history.
9
Ranjbar’s critique of Sultanzade
required an interpretation of Iranian history that included Russia.
Beyond providing a misrepresentation of Iranian revolutionary history according to
Ranjbar, Sultanzade was guilty of being a bad communist and distorting Leninism. Ranjbar
argued that Sultanzade distorted the “Leninist study about imperialism, about national-colonial
revolutions, underestimating the forces of the proletariat, [and] disbelief at the possibility of the
proletarian class struggle.”
10
For his political career, Sultanzade supported the proletarian
struggle, the communist party, and the Soviet Union. The article’s objective was to undermine
the ideas of Sultanzade and people within the CPI. At a meeting of the CPI in 1931, Sultanzade
was harshly criticized for hurting the Iranian communist movement and destroying the party
although the exact details of the sources of those attacks are unknown.
11
The article in
Revoliutsionnyi Vostok represented a continuation of those charges. The Comintern, Party, and
the university had turned against Sultanzade as well as many members of the CPI.
There were few details about Sultanzade’s whereabouts and activities after 1931.
Between 1936 and 1938 he was arrested and disappeared.
12
Unfortunately, his disappearance
was part of a larger attack on Iranian radical anti-colonial activists. During the early 1930s, all
foreign bureaus of the CPI closed and its properties in Azerbaijan s were transferred to the
Communist Party of Azerbaijan.
13
In 1935, the Soviet government detained the first group of
Iranian communists and executed them.
14
Since the 1920s, Iranian communists lived in the

9
Ibid.
10
Ibid., p. 90.
11
Touraj Atabaki, “Incommodious Hosts, Invidious Guests: the Life and times of Iranian revolutionaries in the
Soviet Union, 1921-1939,” in Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran, p. 155.
12
Chaqueri, “Sultanzade: The Forgotten Revolutionary Theoretician of Iran,” p. 225.
13
Touraj Atabaki, “Incommodious Hosts, Invidious Guests: the Life and times of Iranian revolutionaries in the
Soviet Union, 1921-1939,” p. 152.
14
Ibid., p. 160.

162
Soviet Union with chapters of their party in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
15
The attack on
Iranian communists reflected the Soviet government’s fear about suspected nationalities. With
the threat of war looming after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Japanese-German pact
in 1936, and Hitler’s claim to Sudetenland and Austria in 1938, the regime worried about
national groups in the country that had ties to a homeland outside of the Soviet Union.
16

Suspect national groups became another threat to the state because the Party believed their
loyalty to the government could not be confirmed. Mass deportations of nationalities took
place. The deportation in late 1937 of over 100,000 Koreans to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
showed how the Great Terror involved class based state violence and nationality based state
violence.
17

The Party ordered the closure of the university as part of the country’s retreat from
supporting anti-colonialism. In the mid-1930s, the Soviet Union signed a security treaty with
France demonstrating how the USSR and Party officials were focused on protecting the state’s
interests at the expense of the international communist movement. From the archival
documents, it appeared that university administrators and teachers had little knowledge about
the Party’s plans to close KUTV. Throughout the mid-1930s, students continued to arrive.
Similar to the lack of information about student arrests, there were few documents about why
KUTV closed. The state and Party did not issue a formal declaration announcing the closure of
KUTV. In 1938, the university’s administration quietly dismantled KUTV’s apparatus. KUTV
was a victim of the Soviet regime’s sacrifice of internationalism for defending the USSR.
Despite the collapse of the international communist movement in the late 1930s and the
organizations and institutions that aided the anti-colonial struggle, radical anti-colonial activists

15
Ibid., p. 159.
16
Hirsch, Ethnographic Knowledge, 274-275.
17
Martin, Affirmative Action Empire, p. 334-335.

163
continued to mobilize. In Palestine, the communist party went against the Comintern and
formed a guerilla arm in 1935.
18
There is little information about the activities of the guerilla
unit of the party, but the information that is known provides insight into the various tactics
activists used to overthrow colonial rule. A year after the formation of the Palestinian’s party
guerilla arm, a general strike of Arab Palestinians took place that turned into a revolt.
19
The
party again went against the Comintern by supporting the revolt, whose leader al-Hajj Amin al-
Husaini, was labeled a fascist by the Comintern.
20

Palestine was not the only country in which unrest was taking place. In India, the
British worried about the political influence of Soviet educated Indians, who were returning
home. In the 1930s, Indian students, who belonged to the Ghadar movement, arrived at the
university.
21
An earlier group of Ghadarites attended the university in the mid to late 1920s.
22

The Ghadar students arrived from different parts of the world as many at KUTV were active in
Argentina before enrolling at the university.
23
In September 1935, the university listed at least
28 Ghadar members in an Indian section of 30 people.
24
A British colonial report stated, “The
agrarian unrest in the Punjab, which has been described in para [paragraph] 70, may be traced
largely to Communist influence. Forty Sikh Communists from the notorious Ghadr Party have
returned to the Punjab after training in Moscow.”
25
Although the report did not reveal whether
the Ghadar activists referenced were students at KUTV, there is a high probability that the same

18
Joel Beinin, “The Palestine Communist Party 1919 – 1948,” MERIP Reports, no. 55 (March 1, 1977), p. 10.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
21
The Ghadar movement started in 1913 in San Francisco. The Ghadar Party, which was the main organization of
the movement, included Punjabi Sikh laborers and Bengali students connected with the University of California.
Rather than representing a unified movement, various Ghadarites embraced Pan-Islamism, nationalism, and
communism. From 1913 until the early 1930s, Ghadarites were active throughout the world. Information from
Maia Ramnath, Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadar Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to
Overthrow the British Empire, University of California Press, 2011, p. 4, chapter 1, and epilogue.
22
Ibid., p. 140.
23
RGASPI 532/1/379/10-12 (September 15, 1935).
24
RGASPI 532/1/380/25 (September 1, 1935).
25
The British National Archives at Kew Gardens, Cabinet Papers (CAB) 24/281, August to October 1938, p. 25.

164
students at the university were the Sikh Communists. Throughout India, peasant uprisings took
place as communist ideology influenced peasant activists.
26
The returning KUTV students
could have played a role in spreading communism among the peasants in Punjab.
During the interwar period, radical anti-colonial activists from countries that would
become the Third World encountered each other, exchanged ideas, and formed relationships
that proved essential for the articulation of an anti-colonial leftist politics. After World War I
and advances in communication, the world became smaller. There were newspapers, books,
and other printed materials that provided critical information on struggles against colonial
powers helping to build a global network. The glue holding the anti-colonial left together was a
shared struggle against colonialism and a belief in the power of the movements in the Third
World to create a more just world.
KUTV failed in its attempt to build communist parties throughout what would become
the Third World and create an intelligentsia that would be loyal to the Soviet Union. The
university’s administration, teachers, and students were subjected to the Party and state’s
changes in policy which hindered KUTV’s work. However, the Party and state’s goal of
spreading Marxism-Leninism to non-Western countries continued after World War II. The
Soviet government established the People’s Friendship University in 1960 and in 1961 renamed
it the Patrice Lumumba University. Over the course of second half of the 20
th
century, people
from Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East arrived in Moscow to receive educational
training that exceeded the curriculum at KUTV. KUTV can be seen as a precursor to the
Patrice Lumumba University and provided the state and Party with necessary knowledge about
non-Western peoples and countries that proved helpful in the 1960s onward.

26
Bipan Chandra, India’s Struggle for Independence, London, UK: Penguin UK, 2000, chapter 27; Wendy Singer,
“India and the Comintern,” in Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe, International Communism and the Communist
International, 1919-43, Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 271-272.

165
Many KUTV students and teachers were politically active after World War II helping to
build a bridge from the interwar years to the postwar period. Additionally, the ideas of many
radical anti-colonial activists continued to resonate after World War II. While it is difficult to
determine whether Sultangaliev’s ideas travelled directly from one end of the globe to another, I
would argue that the university did play an important role in helping to spread his ideas. His
writings were published in numerous languages and the many students who passed through
KUTV could have transmitted his ideas to people in different countries. As scholars Bennigsen
and Wimbush have remarked, in the 1950s, the leader of the Algerian Liberation Movement,
Ahmed Ben Bella, was fond of quoting Sultangaliev’s ideas, particularly his idea of the
Colonial International.
27
In a 1964 interview, Ben Bella directly stated he read Sultangaliev.
28

From the early 1920s to the 1960s, Sultangaliev’s ideas survived and travelled.
Marxism-Leninism exploded throughout the world after World War II. From Asia, to
Africa and Latin America, activists and governments embraced aspects of Marxism, Leninism,
and socialism. Similar to the activists of the interwar years, they adjusted theory to suit
conditions in their countries. Terms such as Asian Marxism and African Marxism arose that
demonstrated how people envisioned a new society that combined local forms of radicalism and
activism with Marxist theory. Despite Khrushchev’s revelations about Stalin and the
archipelago of camps that the Soviet Union built during his regime, Marxism-Leninism failed to
disappear. Over the course of the 1930s a number of communist parties were founded in the
Third World from Vietnam to Malaysia. After World War II, Indonesia built one of the largest
communist parties in the world outside of the Soviet Union.
With the rise of China after World War II, Maoism also influenced countless people in

27
Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslim National Communism, p. 112.
28
Ibid.

166
the Third World. The role of China in the Third World did not emerge out of the blue, but
represented a continuation from the interwar years. The size of China and India made them
important for many anti-colonial activists after World War II. Despite the tensions between the
Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China, many of the policies Mao instituted revealed the
influence of Soviet socialism and how Marxism was practically applied.
The global leftist anti-colonial network during the interwar years provided the
foundational components for post-World War II anti-colonial and nationalist movements.
Although we do not know all the names of KUTV students or people who were active in the
anti-colonial left, their efforts to create a more just world continued through new generations of
activists during the 20
th
century. Whereas the post-World War II years were marked by the
formation of independent states in the Third World, the interwar period involved people
learning to organize, form relationships, and develop revolutionary strategies. The growing
separation between the anti-colonial movement and the international communist movement in
the second half of the 1930s continued into the 1940s and beyond as the Non-Aligned
Movement underscored how Third World people wanted to establish a space for themselves
outside the orbit of the Soviet Union and the U.S. NAM’s political platform exceeded that of
interwar anti-colonial leftist activists, but was ambitious in scale as the legacy of both efforts
continues to resonate.

167
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract The Soviet state through the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom) issued a decree creating the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV) in April 1921. The university emerged during a turbulent historical moment. After World War I, empires such as the Russian and Ottoman collapsed, while the Versailles Treaty between Germany and the Allies powers led to the creation of new colonial mandates. During the 1910s and 1920s, anti-colonial and nationalist uprisings took place throughout the globe. Although Sovnarkom issued the decree founding KUTV, the university was both a product of the emphasis anti-colonial activists such as M.N. Roy placed on education as a tool in the struggle against imperialism and the emphasis leading Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) (RKP(b)) members such as Stalin and Lenin placed on the national and colonial questions. The university included students from the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Siberia. At KUTV, courses focused on Marxist theory, the work of the Soviet Union in its efforts to build a socialist country, the sciences, geography, and for some students included military training. ❧ A study of the university offers a window into the complex relationship between the anti-colonial left and the international communist movement. I argue that KUTV reflected and contributed to the development of a radical anti-colonial left. KUTV was a place where students from different parts of the world could meet each other, exchange ideas, and attempt to build relationships across linguistic, racial, and geographic boundaries. For the Soviet state and the RKP(b), KUTV was a critical institution contributing to Soviet state building particularly among the Muslims of the former tsarist empire

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Asset Metadata

Creator Ashby, Heather Winter (author)

Core Title Third World activists and the Communist University of the Toilers of the East

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Publication Date 09/12/2016

Defense Date 09/04/2014

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Communism,KUTV,OAI-PMH Harvest,Soviet Union,Third World

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Rorlich, Azade-Ayse (committee chair), Sánchez, George J. (committee chair), Frazier, Robeson Taj (committee member), Kelley, Robin D.G. (committee member)

Creator Email hashby@usc.edu,salinger83@me.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-478015

Unique identifier UC11286628

Identifier etd-AshbyHeath-2939.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-478015 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-AshbyHeath-2939.pdf

Dmrecord 478015

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Ashby, Heather Winter

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

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