Gleb J. Albert

‘To help the Republicans not just by donations and rallies, but with the rifle’: militant solidarity with the Spanish Republic in the Soviet Union, 1936–1937

The article sets out to map militant Soviet solidarity with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War (1936–9). It is based on recently declassified letters that ordinary Soviet citizens addressed to the Comintern, asking its head, Georgi Dimitrov, to send them as volunteers to fight against Fascism in Spain. The articles evaluates the social profiles of these would-be volunteers, their rhetoric of militant solidarity and the social climate in which they formulated their pleas to fight abroad – namely the onset of Stalins purges in the Soviet Union.

‘GERMAN OCTOBER IS APPROACHING’: INTERNATIONALISM, ACTIVISTS, AND THE SOVIET STATE IN 1923

After the Bolshevik and Comintern leadership decided to support a communist uprising in Germany in late 1923, a large propaganda campaign in support of a ‘German October’ was unleashed in the Soviet Union. The party undertook enormous efforts to prepare the rank and file as well as the non-party populace towards the ‘coming events’. Utilizing previously unknown sources, the article sheds light on the propaganda campaign and the feedback ‘from below’, ranging from world-revolutionary enthusiasm to fears of a new war. A special focus is set on the Soviet reactions to the failure of the ‘German October’ – which was, as the article argues, a crucial moment for Soviet internationalism and its popular representations.