{"title":"The many lives of writer Jef Last (1898-1972) Anti-fascist, socialist, humanist and gay rights activist","authors":"Rudi Wester, With Elke Weesjes","doi":"10.3898/175864324838181281","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/175864324838181281","url":null,"abstract":"Writer, poet, painter, journalist, translator and compelling speaker: Jef Last roamed the globe, fought in the Spanish Civil War, joined the Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation, and became an outspoken gay rights activist during and after World War II. His political journey\u0000 started in 1917 when he joined the Social Democratic Workers Party. From there he had brief yet tumultuous stints in the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Henk Sneevliet and the Dutch Communist Party. Disappointed with socialism and the Soviet Union, he identified as a humanist in later life.\u0000 Last was controversial yet appealing, and both selfish and selfless. Difficult to categorise, Last insisted on the indivisibility of his identity and experiences as an antifas- cist fighter and a gay man. This biographical article explores the many social identities of Jef Last.","PeriodicalId":406143,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth Century Communism","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140524296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"At the crossroads of race and gender during the Spanish Civil War","authors":"Kathryn A. Everly","doi":"10.3898/175864324838181263","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/175864324838181263","url":null,"abstract":"Salaria Kea, the only African American nurse to serve during the Spanish Civil War, fought against racism and fascism her entire life. Her contributions during the war in Spain, as well as her legacy, have become complicated matters, as the veracity of her testimony found in archival\u0000 materials is routinely questioned and at times blatantly negated. Kea's experience as an African American woman positions her at the crossroads of racial and gender hierarchies that mark her identity in complex ways. Through the lens of various theories of intersectionality, this article will\u0000 grapple with the precarious modes of historical discourse found in the archive, and vindicate Kea's testimony, recognising it as making a crucial contribution – from a unique perspective – to the understanding of a more nuanced historical picture.","PeriodicalId":406143,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth Century Communism","volume":"19 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140520600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The leadership and legacy of a female communist resistance fighter in Paris: Danielle Casanova (1909-1943)","authors":"Amy Morrison","doi":"10.3898/175864324838181245","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/175864324838181245","url":null,"abstract":"Danielle Casanova (1909-1943) was a leading activist in the French communist movement throughout the 1930s and early 1940s. This article considers her identity as a communist woman and how this informed her action as an anti-fascist, in order to explore when and how she has been commemorated.\u0000 Her particular action as a resister during the Second World War was determined by both her commitment to communist ideology and her gender. Her identity markers have impacted upon when and how she has been commemorated both within and outside of the communist movement. Her story was widely\u0000 shared by the party because she was a communist, but the way in which her legacy was shaped and where and how she was commemorated was dependent upon her identity as a woman. In commemorations outside of the movement, Casanova's identity as a woman has been used to avoid her identification\u0000 as a communist. A consideration of the legacy of her actions beyond her identity markers helps us to gain a deeper understanding of resistance in France during the Second World War. This approach focuses on the private legacy of Casanova and the strength this can give to her past and future\u0000 public commemorations.","PeriodicalId":406143,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth Century Communism","volume":"27 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140524438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Resisting fascism: The Argentine Junta de la Victoria and its president, 1941-1955","authors":"Sandra McGee","doi":"10.3898/175864324838181308","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/175864324838181308","url":null,"abstract":"Created in 1941, the Junta de la Victoria (Victory Board, JV) was a Popular Front movement that supplied the Allies. It attracted about 45,000 diverse women throughout Argentina. The JV challenged local fascism by modelling a genuine democracy based on pluralism, intersectional solidarity,\u0000 freedom, and women's political incorporation. Members created ties across social differences. The JV's promotion of multiculturalism facilitated a shift from the Argentine ideal of a melting pot to one of ethnic diversity. Its president, Ana Rosa Schlieper, seemed an unlikely resistance fighter.\u0000 Initially her main identities were those of wife, philanthropist, and upper-class socialite. Her whiteness, beauty, and charm enhanced her prestige. In the mid-1930s Schlieper added antifascist and feminist to her intertwined identities. Seizing power in 1943, military officers suppressed\u0000 the JV, seeing it as a communist organisation. Some Argentine and U. S. officials accused Schlieper of being a communist dupe, although she was loyal to the democratic centrist Radical party. Under populist president Juan Perón (1946-1955), her class and political identities became\u0000 liabilities. Peronist hegemony and fear of being identified with an anti-Peronist and leftist group obliterated the public memory of Schlieper and the JV until recently.","PeriodicalId":406143,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth Century Communism","volume":"129 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140523490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ilektra Apostolou: A Greek female resistance fighter and a heroine of the left","authors":"Christina Chatzitheodorou","doi":"10.3898/175864324838181254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/175864324838181254","url":null,"abstract":"The Greek resistance fighter Ilektra Apostolou was executed on 26 July 1944, by the collaborationist security forces in Greece during the Second World War. Apostolou was a member of Kommounistiko Komma Ellados (KKE, Communist Party of Greece) and of Eniaia Panneladiki Organosi\u0000 Newn (EPON, United Panhellenic Organisation of Youth), and was involved in pre-war antifascist action. During the resistance, she tried to pass on the mentality she had developed from this early involvement to young women in EPON and Lefteri Nea (LT, Free Young Woman): that women\u0000 would be liberated only by actively participating in social struggles. Her biography is examined with a critical eye, taking into consideration that it was largely written after the war. This means that it not only provides a factual representation of Apostolou: it also functions as a lieu\u0000 de memoire, a site of memory. The politics of memory influences how her biography is constructed. The second part focuses on the memorialisation of Apostolou, examining it through the lens of intersectionality. Identity criteria – such as gender, race, age and political identification\u0000 – and the changing relative significance attributed to them are important both for shaping and understanding, memorialisa- tion processes. An intersectional approach seeks to reveal the hidden dimensions behind the memorialisation process. The last part focuses on Apostolou's post-war\u0000 legacy and explores how her memorialisation was intertwined with political developments from 1944 to the present, with a particular focus on the contestation over Apostolou's memory between the right and the left at various points in modern Greek history. The article draws on a combination\u0000 of secondary and primary sources, the main primary sources being those found in the Educational Centre of Charilaos Florakis (Archive of the Greek Communist Party) and the Contemporary Social History Archives (ASKI).","PeriodicalId":406143,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth Century Communism","volume":"9 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140524246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gavin Bowd, Les communismes britannique et français, 1920-1991. Un conte de deux partis; Marco Di Maggio, The Rise and Fall of Communist Parties in France and Italy. Entangled Historical Approaches","authors":"S. Hopkins","doi":"10.3898/175864323837280472","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/175864323837280472","url":null,"abstract":"In 1944 America, 41 per cent of men and 28 per cent of women read comics, plus 91 per cent of American children. By 1950, 'the comics industry generated an annual profit of almost $41 million dollars and published 50 million comics a month: everyone read comics' (pp 17-18). Resistance\u0000 to the industry came from groups such as church and parental organisations that assumed children read the texts seriously. 1954 witnessed the adoption of the Comics Code Authority (CCA), a self-regulatory body that prohibited certain content. It dealt a huge blow to the horror genre, although\u0000 it did not destroy it: it was to see a significant revival in the 1970s when the CCA reviewed their standards.Printing Terror. American Horror Comics as Cold War Commentary and Critique provides a broad history of the comics it addresses, but its key focus is on addressing the horror\u0000 genre as a cultural force and examining its commentary on the world.","PeriodicalId":406143,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth Century Communism","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129448099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editors' Introduction: Communist Anti-Racism and Anti-Colonialism In The Comintern Era","authors":"Thomas W Beaumont, T. Rees","doi":"10.3898/175864323837280553","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/175864323837280553","url":null,"abstract":"The articles assembled in this special issue of Twentieth Century Communism explore the related themes of Communist engagement with the politics of anti-colonialism and of anti-racism during the Comintern era. This special issue represents the first publication to emerge from\u0000 the AHRC-funded 'Rethinking International Communism' research network. The articles were among those presented at the workshop, 'Communist Anti-Racism and Anti-Imperialism', held at the University of Exeter in April 2022. 1 The authors approach the subject with research interests and interdisciplinary\u0000 backgrounds that illustrate the contrasting, but complementary, perspectives in the expanding body of studies on the relationships between interwar international communism and struggles for liberation from colonialism, imperialism and racial oppression. They also represent the intersection\u0000 of two mutually enriching approaches that have driven this new research and more nuanced interpretations: studies that are largely concerned with fitting communist involvement into the wider histories of interwar anti-colonialism and anti-racism; and studies focusing on the role of anti-colonialism\u0000 and anti-racism as an important aspect of interwar international communism. Together they demonstrate the myriad ways in which anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism and anti-racism were often defining elements in the commitment of a great many communists to the international communist movement.\u0000 2 They also show how pivotal their involvement in liberation struggles often was in the wider development and success of those causes in the longer term.","PeriodicalId":406143,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth Century Communism","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128142100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Julian Mischi, Le parti des communistes. Histoire du PCF De 1920 à nos jou","authors":"Romain Ducoulombier","doi":"10.3898/175864323837280535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/175864323837280535","url":null,"abstract":"The centenary of the French Communist Party (Parti communiste français, PCF), founded in December 1920 at the Congress of Tours, did not lead to any major turning points within its historiography. Despite a handful of newly published books, no central debates or major\u0000 breakthroughs have arisen from the low-intensity commemoration of the event.","PeriodicalId":406143,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth Century Communism","volume":"300 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123390956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A 'constant lurking danger'? The Comintern's Far Eastern Bureau, 1928-33","authors":"Heather Streets-Salter","doi":"10.3898/175864323837280481","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3898/175864323837280481","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the creation and operation of the Comintern's Far Eastern Bureau (FEB), which existed from 1928 to 1934 and was headquartered in Shanghai, China. It investigates why the FEB was organised, who was involved in its operations, and what its agents were doing at a\u0000 time when communism had been declared illegal by the Guomindang Party. It also offers an assessment of the FEB in terms of its impact on China and the wider region, especially on whether or not the FEB's existence influenced the development of the Chinese Communist Party and other communist\u0000 movements in East and Southeast Asia. Finally, this article assesses the level of threat the FEB posed to the Chinese Guomindang Party and to the various colonial regimes in the region, as well as its successes and failures. Its purpose is to renew interest in the FEB and to prompt a more\u0000 sustained discussion about its composition, activities, impact and legacies.","PeriodicalId":406143,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth Century Communism","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129359911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}