<i>The Communist International, Anti-Imperialism and Racial Equality in British Dominions</i> by Oleksa Drachewych

For some time now studies on the history of communism have taken a transnational and comparative turn — a development that has undoubtedly produced a range of intriguing insights into the emergence of a global movement that shaped the outlook of the twentieth century. Oleksa Drachewych’s book is another outstanding example of this overall trend.This published version of a doctoral thesis completed at McMaster University highlights the important role of the Comintern in developing communist thinking on race, imperialism, and national self-determination across the communist world. Drachewych underlines the importance of Lenin’s thought in shaping the general disposition of the Comintern toward those issues, and he highlights the vital interventions of the Indian communist M. N. Roy. He also acknowledges the crucial role of Willi Münzenberg’s League against Imperialism. But, he notes how, later on, Stalin’s priorities in international politics had a strong influence on the Comintern’s actions, turning it, in effect, into an institution pursuing the foreign policy aims of the Soviet Union. While his analysis highlights the pioneering role of the Comintern in making racial discrimination and imperialism a global concern and attracting many who were fighting for national self-determination in the colonial world, the author is also very clear that the issue of anti-imperialism ultimately would not sideline the Eurocentrism of the Comintern, as the Soviet Union’s main foreign policy concerns continued to lie in Europe.Nevertheless, the Comintern was one of the first political organizations to turn systematically to the “Negro question,” turning the plight of black people across the world into a major political issue. Its struggle against racism and imperialism gave communism a credibility in anti-imperialist movements across the colonized world that made many anti-imperialist leaders turn to communism or, at the very least, develop strong sympathies for communism.Scholars of the communist movement have for some time now explored the relationship between the centralized agency of the Comintern and the localized agencies of national communist parties. Here, Drachewych introduces an interesting new idea of prioritization (4). Combining an in-depth study of the Comintern’s actions and positions vis-à-vis imperialism and racial equality with an in-depth analysis of the positions taken by the three communist parties of South Africa, Canada, and Australia, the author shows, on the one hand, how national parties had the power to interpret the guidelines coming from the Comintern in their own ways. They could postpone the implementation of the Comintern’s directives, resist particular interpretations, or put emphasis elsewhere. However, Drachewych also emphasizes the agenda-setting powers of the Com-intern. No national party could ultimately escape positioning itself vis-à-vis statements coming from Moscow. Hence, the Comintern had the power to prioritize certain issues over others. And the Comintern also succeeded time and again in removing national communist leaders from power who continuously refused to toe the line, thereby ensuring that national parties did not deviate too much from the ideological lines formulated in Moscow.Thus, for example, each of the Communist Parties of South Africa, Canada, Australia initially accepted that their countries were part of the British Empire and their overriding concerns were not with defeating Britain but rather with issues of class and greater class equality. Eventually the Comintern’s work ensured that all three parties gave greater attention to issues of race and colonialism. The Communist Party of South Africa especially did so only after much resistance and soul-searching. Its leaders, after all, took the position that class issues were more important than race issues. They argued that once the working class had been liberated racial equality would naturally follow. Only through the interventions of the Comintern did the party take up the struggle of black people for liberation. In the end, the Communist Party of South Africa became one of the main political forces fighting against apartheid in the struggle of black (and some white) South Africans to defeat one of the longest-serving racist regimes in the twentieth century. In Canada, the Communist Party initially refused to accept that French Canadians had the right to national self-determination and it was again only through the interventions of the Comintern that a process of rethinking its position came under way. Drachewych’s study is also highly innovative in that it is among the first to discuss the Communist Parties’ positioning toward the First Nations in Australia and Canada — an issue that the Communist Parties of those countries had ignored for a long time and that the Comintern brought to their attention — often very successfully. Thus the Australian Communist Party was the first party in Australia to develop a progressive policy for improving the rights of indigenous people, in 1931. This was in marked contrast to the party completely ignoring this issue when it was founded in the early 1920s.In his comparison of the development of the Communist Parties of South Africa, Canada, and Australia Drachewych impressively underlines how the Comintern’s influence eventually turned all three local parties to anti-imperialist and antiracist strategies, something that had been peripheral to their concerns at their foundation. The Comintern was also crucial in turning their attention to the discussion of the fate of the colonized people in their own countries. However, local conditions mattered greatly in determining how the agendas of the Comintern were taken up. Overall, Drachewych’s book shows convincingly that the Comintern was of vital importance in anchoring anti-imperialism, national self-determination, and the fight for racial equality in the wider history of communism, even if these issues played out very differently in different parts of the world.

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