William J. Chase: Enemies Within the Gates? The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934-1939. New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Pr., 2001. 514 pp., ill.
The Communist International’s greatest period should have begun in the mid-1930s, when Stalin abandoned his hostility towards the German Social Democrats and stopped denouncing them as “Social Fascists.” Belatedly, he saw that the chief result of this line had been to enable the Nazi triumph. His more realistic policy did not last long, though, ending when he abruptly changed course once again by signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1939. That dealt a mortal blow to the Comintern, which lingered on until it was finally disbanded four years later.
Even during its brief heyday, if one can use the term at all, the Comintern was plagued by debilitating internal divisions. Most of its energy was spent not on fighting fascism, but on discovering and eliminating Trotskyites in its midst, both real and imagined. More than half its members were foreign-born, thus instantly making them suspect in Stalin’s mind. As is well known, his view was: Better to have some innocent people suffer rather than let a single potential enemy slip away. The charges the NKVD manufactured against them were based more on paranoia than evidence. Yet even abroad this caused no general outcry, because in some segments of the European and American left during the 1930s, the reservoir of good will towards the USSR was deep enough for sympathizers to swallow accusations of treachery that are now known to be not merely false, but entirely fabricated.
Still, one should not feel too much sympathy for the victims presented here, for they themselves had in many instances been guilty of denouncing others. When their turn came, the best that can be said in their defense is that they happened to be innocent of the particular accusation leveled against them – that of being traitors. “The Comintern itself was an agent, instrument, and victim of repression.” (pg. 6) Yezhov considered it a “nest of spies.” (pg. 7) “No spy network could have inflicted the damage that the NKVD did.” (pg. 9)
After a promising opening section, though, the story rapidly gets bogged down. “This is not a history of the Comintern but rather a study of what happened in its headquarters during the mass repression that swept the Soviet Union in the late 1930s.” (pg. 2) Here the reader gets the first hint as to what is wrong with the book. If the author had told us what happened in Comintern HQ primarily on a human level, if we could get to know and care about the personalities involved, that might have offered insights into the totalitarian mindset. What we are given, though, is first the history of an organization, followed by a detailed account of the repression of the mostly obscure functionaries who worked in it.
The author seems on the whole to be more interested in bureaucracies than the men and women who inhabit them. Chapter One, “The Comintern,” is so taken up with numbing detail as to be hard going, unless you like to read descriptions of administrative systems; for me, that ranks right up there with studying the faculty handbook. You know you should do it, but it’s hard to work up much enthusiasm for the task.
Open to a random early page, and you are more likely to find a plethora of acronyms (and not just familiar ones like “NKVD”) than recognizable personal names. Yet what personalities there are to work with! Georgi Dimitrov is the most vibrant one to emerge, as he carefully charts a narrow course between total devotion to Stalin and intervention on behalf of people he knows to be innocent. But we see him as if through a glass darkly. And the first time we hear about the intriguing Karl Radek is in the context of a technical question about issuing invitations to attend his show-trial. What about Mikhail Trilliser, to whom Stalin entrusted the job of liquidating the Comintern leadership? Not one word.
After the first chapter, the book turns into a collection of annotated documents taken from Comintern archives. These lay out in pedantic detail who was investigated and charged, what steps were taken to improve discipline, and how the apparatchiks took an increasingly harsh line. Unless readers are already well-versed in the field, they are unlikely to come across many familiar names among the victims.
The author has gone to great lengths to uncover and translate reams of documents written in ponderous party jargon. The result is thorough and comprehensive to be sure, yet most readers will find it heavy going – another contribution to the sadly vast category of tomes to be consulted as a resource, but not read cover to cover.
The volume features an extensive apparatus, including photographs of documents and people, a list of abbreviations and acronyms, a chronology, biographical sketches, an index of documents as well as a general index. Unfortunately it has no bibliography, leaving one to pick through the footnotes to find the first mention of a given book.
All in all, a missed opportunity.
The jacket illustration shows Goya’s The Colossus. The author chose this illustration with the idea that “the Colossus appear to be the people’s protector” (like Stalin) yet on closer inspection is “a threat of inhuman proportions, capable of quickly turning and, with a sweep of his clenched fist, destroying the fearful crowd.” (pg. 404)
For related reviews at this site, see: Jonathan Brent: Inside the Stalin Archives; Sheila Fitzpatrick: Everyday Stalinism; Elena Bonner: Mothers and Daughters (her father was a top Comintern official).
© Hamilton Beck
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