The Red and the Black : The Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic

The introduction sets out the ways in which the volume uses an engagement with the inspiring international reverberations of the Russian Revolution across the Black Atlantic world to understand the contested articulations of left politics and different struggles against racism and colonialism. The first section situates the volume in relation to the historiography of the Russian Revolution while outlining some of the key ways in which black radicals drew inspiration from these events. The second section positions the volume in relation to recent literatures on black internationalism, drawing attention to how the chapters in this volume take forward these debates. The final section draws attention to the implications of the book for key contemporary debates on the intersection of race and class, on the emergence of politicised forms of anti-racism, in particular those arising out of a revolutionary struggle, and on racialised forms of internationalism and agency. We conclude by positioning the introduction in relation to recent political events, including the resurgent Black Lives Matter movement. Front Matter 1 Series editors' foreword 6 Contents 8 List of figures 10 List of contributors 11 Acknowledgements 15 Introduction: Red October and the Black Atlantic 18 Part I Racism, resistance and revolution 56 Claude McKay’s Bolshevisation in London 58 From Russian colonies to black America ... and back: Lenin and Langston Hughes 98 African-American literature in the Soviet Union, 1917–1930s: contacts, translations, criticism and editorial policy 114 Part II Spreading the revolution across the Black Atlantic 138 Bolshevism and African-American agency in the African-American radical press, 1917–24 140 International Communist trade union organisations and the call to black toilers in the interwar Atlantic world 155 Firebrands, trade unionists and Marxists: the shadow of the Russian Revolution, the colonial state and radicalism in Guyana, 1917–57 174 Racialising the Caribbean Basin: the Communist racial agenda for the American hemisphere, 1931–35 191 The Left Book Club and its associates: the transnational circulation of socialist ideas in an Atlantic network 215 Part III Africa, the Soviet Union and the Cold War 232 The beginning of the Cold War in the Gold Coast? 234 Decolonisation and the Cold War: African student elites in the USSR, 1955–64 252 ‘Peoples’ Friendship’ in the Cold War: the Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University 271 Afterword: A Black journey of Red hope 290 Index 300 The Russian Revolution of 1917 was not just a world-historical event in its own right, but also struck powerful blows against racism and imperialism, and so inspired many black radicals internationally. This edited collection explores the implications of the creation of the Soviet Union and the Communist International for black and colonial liberation struggles across the African diaspora. It examines the critical intellectual influence of Marxism and Bolshevism on the current of revolutionary 'black internationalism' and analyses how 'Red October' was viewed within the contested articulations of different struggles against racism and colonialism. Challenging European-centred understandings of the Russian Revolution and the global left, The Red and the Black offers new insights on the relations between Communism, various lefts and anti-colonialisms across the Black Atlantic - including Garveyism and various other strands of Pan-Africanism. The volume makes a major and original intellectual contribution by making the relations between the Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic central to debates on questions relating to racism, resistance and social change This edited collection explores the inspiration of the Russian Revolution of 1917 for black radicals across the African diaspora. The volume challenges European-centred understandings of the Russian Revolution and the global left and enables new insights on the relations between Communism and various black radical traditions. -- .