The International Liason Department and the Global South prior to World War II

A Study of International Liaison Department Missions to the Global South Prior to the
World Revolutionary War (DeLeon-Debs:ResDev Corporation, 1972)

The ResDev Corporation is theRes earch and Dev elopment section of the Military-Industrial Complex, a federation of American state defense corporations. Incorporated in 1951, ResDev provides the Workers’ and Farmers’ Revolutionary Army and REVCOM with research and analysis on a variety of topics, ranging from nuclear weapons in space to nuclear wars to secret operations behind enemy lines. ResDev also acts as the public face of the Military-Industrial Complex, publishing its research widely and focusing on a variety of topics also pertaining to civilian government functions, such as health care and economic planning. The following was prepared as part of a study of the growth of communist movements in the Global South

[…]

With Comintern’s newfound independence from Soviet foreign policy, the OMS [otdel mezhdunarodnoy svyazi, or “International Liaison Department”] would undergo its own changes. With the increased influence of Solon DeLeon and American communists in the organization, [incumbent leader Osip] Piatnitsky was replaced by J. Peters, an Hungarian-American WCPA organizer, who had acted effectively as a Comintern liaison within the party and director of “underground activities”. Peters brought with him several other operatives from the WCPA underground, including John Abt and Alger Hiss, to reorient the organization to align with the new outlook of world revolution. They were to focus on building ties with communist parties worldwide and push a more subversive line to ensure success.
They would see only minor success in the Latin American revolutions, with the bulk of support coming from the WFRA and local organizers. However, by the late 30’s, their energies would be utilized in regions regarded as having the highest potential of revolution, being regions of high social or economic tensions. Most were colonial regions in the Global South, mostly run by the British and French empires. Indeed, between 1937 and 1940, several “missions” by the OMS were established in these regions to help build the local Communist parties, establish an “underground apparatus”, and build the resources needed for a revolution. Helping coordinate these efforts was J. Edgar Hoover, both after his retirement as Secretary of Public Safety and his eventual return to that office.

The missions were made to the following regions, among others.

Algeria (“Sinbad”)

The Communist Party of Algeria originally started as an extension of the French Section of Communist International (Section française de l’Internationale communiste, SFIC), and was eventually recognized by Comintern in 1935.

As an extension of the French party, it would largely support its stance on continued French rule over Algeria. This and its majority Pied Noir membership did not endear it to the majority Muslim population. OMS identified the possible riff as a stumbling block towards allowing the population to radicalize.

Thus, Operation Sinbad was to build up the support amongst the Muslim population. The task was made slightly difficult by the decimation of the local proletariat during the Great War, when young Algerian men were sent to the mainland to work.

Still, Sinbad had some minor success organizing wildcat strikes and successfully recruiting more Muslims into the organization. It was also relatively more successful in the region partly because the PCA was legal and supported the continued presence of the French.

However, the PCA would find itself in competition with the Algerian People’s Party (Parti du Peuple Algérien, PPA), a left-leaning nationalist party formed in 1937. The PPA was banned after its formation, but found itself far more popular amongst the populace for openly advocating for independence, and superceded the PCA in some regions.[…]

OMS would gradually come to see the PPA as the main vehicle for radicalization, and the SFIC’s (and by extension the PCA’s) pro-Dominion position insufficient. Following the war and from the beginning of the (as of writing) ongoing insurgency in Algeria in 1954, OMS has been supporting the PPA’s successor organization the National Liberation Front (Front de Liberation Nationale, FLN) and has been directing the PCA to support them and independence from Franco-British rule.

Egypt (“Ozymandias”)

OMS identified Egypt as a potential fascist hotspot, especially after the Italian occupations of neighboring Libya and Ethiopia. Indeed, the local press was increasingly pro-Italian and pro-Hitler, lauding the industrial accomplishments under fascism. Furthermore, the sovereigns Faud and Farouk were seen as pro-Italian, as were members of their government. Thus, it was necessary to ferment revolutionary thought to counteract this sympathy.

The problem? The local Communist Party had been repressed after strikes and conflicts with the ruling Wafd Party during the mid-1920’s, and Comintern had failed to reinvigorate it in the past. Indeed, Egypt would eventually be represented in Comintern by the Palestinian Communist Party. However, with the American Revolution, reviving a communist party in Egypt was seen as more possible now than after the strike.

Thus, “Operation Ozymandias” was to essentially rebuild the Egyptian Communist Party from scratch. By the late 30’s, most of the very small communist activity had centered on universities and the European emigre community, both of which were starting points for Ozymandias. Luckily, there was already somewhat of an organization in Ithiad Ansar Al-Salam or Union of Peace Partisans, founded by Swiss emigre Paul Jacquot-Descombes. Said organization was roped into the renewed efforts to revive the Communist Party.

The Egyptian Communist Party was reformed in a secret conference in Alexandria in 1937. Given previous attempts had failed in part because of overt Comintern involvement, it was decided to instead make their involvement more discreet. The leadership would consist of younger activists recruited from universities, often from the middle and intellectual class as well as many Egyptian Jews, and the membership of the Union of Peace Partisans.

Later prominent leaders of the ECP, including Hillel Schwartz, Youssef Darwish, and Henri Curiel would be among those recruited during this initial meeting.

Ozymandias would work to build this party up, recruit more activists to round it out, and build relationships with local unions. It would also publish various journals and newspapers to combat covert attempts by the Italians to pump up their propaganda and influence in Egypt.

By 1940, a sufficiently large, more robust Communist Party had arisen, in spite of continued state oppression and the rise of fascist sympathizers under Maher Pasha.

India (“Gunga Din”)

While the then-banned Communist Party of India (CPI) was the officially sanctioned Comintern party in the region, OMS recognized that the socialist inclined Indian National Congress had a wider range across the subcontinent and a greater potential to radicalize and achieve independence from British rule, especially with the formation of the Congress Socialist Party, a left wing faction, in 1934. However, the party was currently under Fabian socialist Jawaharlal Nehru, and the leadership largely supported and espoused the non-violent Satyagraha philosophy of Mohandas Gandhi, viewed as “anti-rationalist” and “spiritualist” by some on the left.

To this end, the CPI was directed to abandon its once-staunch anti-Gandhian and anti-Congress stance, and began to align with the Congress Socialist Party to radicalize Congress. Helping was the recently released former CPI leader MN Roy, who urged communists to join the Congress Socialist Party.

Under Operation Gunga Din, OMS officers recruited both native Indian communists and Indian exiles in the United Republics and Soviet Union to help this shift even further. They organized drives for the CSP and promoted leftists within Congress elections. With most communist parties in India illegal and underground, Gunga Din also provided significant funds and organizers to these underground parties to help their illegal operations and to fund the Communist affiliated All-India Trade Union Congress. Subhas Chandra Bose, an activist in exile in the United Republics since 1935 was singled out as a potential unifying figure for the disparate left-wing nationalist factions, and in 1937, was smuggled back into the country, where he rejoined Congress. OMS hoped that Bose could potentially lead the Congress away from Gandhism and more in a Marxist direction, allowing for revolutionary thought to spread further. Bose himself, while still mostly nationalist, had become very enthusiastically impressed with the example of American communism and saw it as a model for a Revolutionary India, advocating as much .

The Hindustani Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), still dealing in more aggressive action against the Dominion, were still opposed to Gandhian non-violence and despite their increased pro-American stance, felt the Popular Front strategy would be insufficient. Bhagat Singh, the leader of the HSRA, denounced the decision, and pledged to “continue the struggle against imperialism by all means necessary.” To that end, Bose and journalist (and OMS recruit) Virendranath Chattopadhyaya met with Singh and fellow head Chandrasekhar Azad to iron out any differences. While the meeting failed to get their support, Azad and Singh agreed to privately urge support for Bose, while OMS agreed to help set up the HSRA’s underground operations

By 1938, while the CSP had become thoroughly radicalized and Marxist thanks to its communist members, the leadership of the INC largely remained loyal to Gandhi and Nehru, who were suspicious of Bose and his ties with the communist party. Bose tried to run for Congress president in 1938, but lost to Gandhi’s ally Pattabhi Sitaramayya. With the rift between the Gandhian and socialist faction in Congress growing, Gunga Din shifted gears. Instead of trying to convert the Indian National Congress to the left, it would instead use the network of underground operations and left-wing parties to build a radical alliance of left-wing groups to British rule. Bose attempted one final time to shift the INC to a pro-America position, through an editorial in the party newspaper. However, that only widened the rift.

Bose would see the Congress, under the leadership of Gandhi and Nehru, as insufficient to achieving independence, and eventually began negotiations to create a new party with the CSP. The left wing parties allied under Gunga Din, including the CPI and HSRA, joined in negotiations on advice of OMS, and Bose and the CSP would eventually leave the party en masse in December of 1938.

Gunga Din would provide funds and agents as Bose and the affiliated parties attempted to build the “All-India Forward Bloc”, which would be a mass party for left wing Indians opposed to British rule and wanting complete independence, with significant ties to the All-India Trade Union. These efforts paid off on 10 February 1939, when the “Indian Workers’ Party”, modeled on the Commonwealth Workers’ Party in Britain, was formed. As the de facto legitimate front for the CPI, it was officially made a member of the Third Communist International several days later.

Indonesia (“Komodo”)

The Communist Party of Indonesia was among the first communist parties to be established in Asia. However, the organization lacked a base of party militants and connections to the broader class. Misjudging their strength based on the appeal bourgeois-nationalist rhetoric, the PKI became involved in the disastrous July Uprising in 1936. Consequently, the party was banned by the Dutch colonial government and its activities were thoroughly suppressed by the colonial garrison. However, enough party members survived in exile, under Comintern veteran Tan Malaka, Alimin and Musso remained to reconstitute the Party in Chengdu, Moscow and Hawaii.

In the meantime, the Dutch had entered a deal with Imperial Japan to “co-manage” the Dutch East Indies in a “consortium”, which eventually resulted in de facto Japanese control of the islands in 1938. Thus, OMS sought to build an underground apparatus for the PKI to actively resist Japanese rule.

Operation Komodo was, in effect, a funding of underground elements and armed resistance to Japanese rule. PKI exiles were trained by Comintern military officials and smuggled back to enact raids and encourage sabotage of Dutch and Japanese stations. The International Red Aid also clandestinely helped many political prisoners with their legal defense.

However, with the total destruction of party infrastructure, effective uprooting of remaining underground cells by the notorious PID (Politieke Inlichtingen Dienst , Political Intelligence Department) and internment of most political prisoners to remote areas such as the notorious Boven Digoel camp, the idea of a total revolution against Dutch-Japanese rule was out of the question. For the time being, minor acts of sabotage and smuggling would have to do before a revolutionary war could liberate them.

Despite these hardships, by 1940 an underground movement, the Geraf, or Gerakan Rakyat Anti-Fasis (Anti-Fascist People’s Movement) was established. Nominally a nationalist organization with an anti-Japanese bent, the organization was a front for the illegal PKI to organize strikes and other such underground actions and Japanese rule was met with more difficulty. With the outbreak of the Second World War the party in exile also helped in organizing IVA volunteers, and perhaps ironically, working alongside with the British as they entered the war in Southeast Asia. […]

These efforts would be instrumental in gaining mass support for communism in the region in the lead-up to and during the war as the tide turned against the Japanese and their Indonesian collaborators. Indeed, the political tensions and current PKI insurgency can be traced to this early support.

Iran (“Scheherazade”)

Reza Shah Pahlavi’s regime in the Imperial State of Iran was identified by the 1935 OMS circular as a probable threat to the USSR in the event of future hostilities with the British Empire. Reza Shah had done little to improve opinions of his state by warming relations with Nazi Germany. Nonetheless, Iran maintained crucial trade relations with the USSR, something the urban middle strata depended on.

Reza Pahlavi had overthrown the Qajar dynasty in 1925 and proclaimed himself Shah of a modernizing, secular regime. With the revenues provided by the Ango-Persian Oil Corporation, Reza Shah had been somewhat successful in this endeavor, but the British military presence in the Near East combined with so much extraterritorial control of the oil itself undermined the Shah’s attempts at independence.

Ultimately the Shah’s regime could appease no one. The tribes in the rural regions were subject to increased interference. The traditional power of the clerics was threatened by the new secular regime. The urban middle class chafed against the imperial bureaucracy and the subaltern status in the British sphere of influence. And the growing working class and petty-producer peasantry were being squeezed under the labor required to support the splendor of the Imperial State.

The situation in Iran was deemed ripe for revolution, and in 1936 OMS established a Near East section, chaired by Kermit Roosevelt, operating out of the American consulate in Tehran. Kermit Roosevelt’s experience in Army Intelligence during the First World War led to his recruitment by the People’s Secretariat for Public Safety, into the nascent MDSS. He spoke Farsi and Arabic fluently, a “token of a misspent youth,” and in spite of his perceived political faults as a brother of a prominent DRP politician, Roosevelt was credentialed as part of the diplomatic mission to Tehran.

Operating as a “legal” with diplomatic cover gave Roosevelt additional tools in cultivating a network of allies in Iran as part of Operation Scheherazade, massaging the opinions of liberal intellectuals in the capital and providing diplomatic pressure to ease the work of “illegals” in the operation in organizing trade unions and networks within the army.

Scheherazade provided funds and organizational talent to spearhead the formation of the Party of the Masses of Iran, or Tudeh. The new mass-based party would serve as the public face of the underground Communist Party of Iran.

But most importantly, Roosevelt found sympathizers in the army. Young men like Colonel Ahmad Zirakzadeh had become inspired by the success of modernizing socialist revolutions in the USSR and Latin America, and had sought to bring the fruits of Bolshevism to their own country.

Philippines (“Bernardo”)

The Philippine Left had significant power beforehand thanks to its close association with the independence movement and its close relations between the Socialist Labor Party of America, the International Workers’ Solidarity Union and the Congreso Obrador Filipina(COF) during the country’s time as an American colony. The political wing of the COF, the Workers’ and Farmers’ Party of the Philippines (PMMP, also known as the People’s Party, PMP), held mass appeal to common Filipinos, thanks to the use of nationalist-populist rhetoric of leading figures such as Benigno Ramos and Lope K. Santos that merged the socialist programme with the cause for independence.

Things would come to a head in the ensuing American Revolution of 1933, which became a “go signal” for the PMMP (dubbed Sakdalistas after their newspaper, Sakdal , “to accuse”) to initiate the Red February uprising, as the Revolution’s Philippine front. Unlike in the other parts of the old United States’ territorial empire though, the Philippine Islands failed to turn Red, with overt Japanese and British intervention happening. The failure of Red February and subsequent suppression of the Sakdalistas (whose influence was limited only to Luzon) became a window of opportunity to the OMS.

Operation Bernardo was initiated with the collaboration of exiled leaders Benigno Ramos and Crisanto Evangelista. Recognizing the close association of Leftism with the anti-American independence movement, it became imperative to reestablish the Sakdalistas as a moderate front org based on that idea: by co-opting the nationalist movement, the new Sakdalistas could help stem out a possible rise of fascism in the newly established Philippine Commonwealth.

Through the close collaboration of the OMS and the Sakdalistas, the Patriotic Movement (KM) was born. A “popular front” approach was laid out: there will be a main Front party, the Party of the Masses (LM), that will organize various sectors of society into mass organisations, mainly the workers (KMP), the peasants (SAMAKA), women (KK), and the youth (MPKP). In the long term, the KM was a strategy of dual power, forming a social backbone to restore the Sakdalistas until a second uprising is possible.

To further its agenda, its symbolism, rhetoric and imagery was made to echo that of the Katipunan, and its central front party, the Party of the Masses (LM) is to articulate this new populist ideology. The LM’s official programme, “National Democracy”, was an (admittedly) peculiar chimera of DeLeonism and Fabianism meant to be a cover for the Sakdalista’s political aims. The true core of the Sakdalistas however, the PMMP, was secretly refounded in Ilocos Norte as the Communist Party (PKP) by the surviving central committee. Learning from the failures of the failed Red February, a militia was also formed, the People’s Volunteers (KB, Kasapi ng Bayan) which served to provide mutual aid, self defense training and protection for the poor.

Narrowly avoiding persecution, the KM would prove to be the most dominant force in the Philippine left, and later the independence movement. By the 1940s, their influence had become strong enough to reorganize its militant and civilian sections into the People’s Army (HUKBA) and the Revolutionary Democratic Councils (KDR) during Japan’s invasion.

Somalia (“Othello”)

OMS had identified “the lynchpin of African decolonisation” in Italian East Africa. Agitation in the present “Italian East Africa” would not only secure one of the more economically developed regions in Africa for the international revolution, control of the Horn of Africa and the seas around it would block the transit of the Red Sea, rendering the vital sea lane to India through Suez impassable.

J. Peters’ Africa Commission also favored the investment of resources in covert operations in East Africa due to the large number of Italian exiles available to be utilized as intermediaries and case officers. Since the Italo-Abyssinian War, a rush of Italian land speculators and business interests had been flocking to East Africa, swamping the small community of settlers with unfamiliar faces.

OMS would recruit heavily from the recent Italian diaspora in Metropolis. Established as “Operation Othello” on 17 July 1937, the operation would scout and recruit sixty-eight Italian and Italian-American communists to serve as principle case officers. Recruits were trained in intelligence fieldcraft by the MID. Officers were given cover identities established through networks of informants in the Italian Mafia in Cuba.

Case officers were inserted gradually over the summer of 1938 representing various commercial interests. Many eagerly jumped at the chance to get back in the fight against Mussolini. Others joined because of an earnest effort to do their part in the international struggle.

[…]Amadeo Bordiga, whose influence extends beyond his work for OMS, was recruited to work as a courier for Operation Othello. His work would be typical of the project. OMS obtained him a Cuban passport with the cover identity of “Bartolomeo Mazza”, an Italian immigrant engineer raised in the former United States and now stateless after the events of the Red May Revolution.

“Mazza” would represent a small architectural firm looking to get in on the Italian land rush in East Africa and Libya. With this cover, Bordiga and other agents assigned to the project would be able to make clandestine contacts with Somali workers and nationalists.

[…]Aside from gaining important intelligence about the disposition of Italian and British military assets in the area, Operation Othello laid the groundwork for forming a cohesive resistance to the Italian colonial administration. The underground Somali Communist Party would form among this network, with its core membership base in the rapidly growing capital of Italian East Africa, Mogadishu, particularly among the dockworkers and new migrants drawn into the city’s new industrial enterprises and the new railway projects.

Othello also served as a means of identifying and cultivating future cadre leadership within Somalia. The time had proven ripe; the thin layer of affluent Somali compradors had been alienated by the heavy handed nature of Italian colonial rule. The utter failure of the largely tribal and religious based resistance movements such as the Dervish movement that petered out in the early 1920s, had demoralized traditional means of resisting colonial rule. In the 1930s, the Communist International stepped in to provide the only road forward.

As the network spread into British Somaliland and the Ogaden region in Italian-occupied Ethiopia, Operation Othello gained new contacts within the Zapité colonial auxiliaries in IEA and the British Somaliland Constabulary. Promising secondary school graduates in Mogadishu were recruited to attend the Communist University of the Toilers of Africa in Birmingham, New Afrika.

While the Italian colonial administration worked to stamp out labor organisations, the Othello mission itself managed to go unnoticed. The large influx of settlers, coupled with the state of corruption in the Fascist state apparatus enabled the well trained and supported organizers to avoid raising alarm bells. Even as Italian East Africa was mobilised as part of the broader Fascist war efforts in 1939 onwards, the existence of the Othello network remained secret.

The success of the operation owed largely to the ability of the network to push agitators away from acts of immediate resistance to more innocuous movement building. Thus, the Othello network was able to transition to active measures once fighting spread to East Africa in the World Revolutionary War…

South Africa (“Cagn”)

The potential response from the Union of South Africa, a Dominion of the British Empire dominated by a white settler minority, was viewed as a major concern by the OMS in the future development of decolonization in the African continent. As the most industrialized country in the continent at the time, it was considered a dangerous lynchpin of probable reaction in the region. Therefore, it was considered vital to focus on undermining the white minority regime from within. Simultaneously, because of its increased industrialization and the mechanization of farms (causing many to work in factories), it had a sizeable working class by which to radicalize, which made it a potential hotspot for revolution.

OMS identified several groups with the sufficient resources and outreach to oppose white minority rule: their own representative, the Communist Party of South Africa, itself increasingly influenced by American DeLeonism and Langston Hughes’ conception of a “nation of nations”, and had been multi-racial and supportive of a “Native Republic” ideal, on encouragement from Comintern; The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union, influenced by the Industrial Workers of the World; the South African Labour Party, which focused on the white working class; and the African National Congress, a black nationalist, leftist organization.

Operation Cagn, therefore, sought to unify these disparate groups to a cohesive leftist alternative to the National and United Parties. The core cadre for Cagn would be drawn from the South in the UASR. White Southern communists, who’d learned to overcome the color line in the labor struggles of the 1920s and the partisan war of 1933, would provide the outreach to white working-class groups. Black communists, meanwhile, would be the liaisons to the CPSA and ANC.

Operation Cagn brought crucial monetary and training resources to the struggle against white minority rule. Since South Africa was currently still under a liberal United Party government, organization could occur more openly, with the current political consensus in Pretoria wishing to maintain relative labor peace and avoid another Rand Rebellion.

Overall command of Operation Cagn was given to Major Walter Garland, an MID intelligence officer, until his reassignment in October 1940. Garland identified the three primary strategies of Operation Cagn in his July 1937 memorandum: subvert or otherwise destroy the Labour Party, forge an alliance between the CPSA and the ANC, and unite the disparate trade unions into a single federation that organized workers across the color line.

Early work within the Labour Party concluded it to be a lost cause. With its more moderate wing already splintered into Jan Smuts’ United Party, the rump of the party-leadership were resolutely white nationalist. Instead, work was shifted to identifying constituencies amenable to cross racial solidarity while focusing resources on the African, Indian and the mixed-race “Coloured” populations.

This work was aided by warming relations between the UASR and the British Dominions, part of the carefully coordinated charm offensive to drive a wedge between them and the Empire. In South Africa, this would be aided by the establishment of the South African/American Friendship League (SAAFL), founded by left-wing intellectuals with contacts in the trade unions. SAAFL distributed propaganda, at the behest of Operation Cagn, to mollify white fears of a race war in South Africa. Using the prosperity brought by white/black cooperation in New Afrika as a setpiece, SAAFL hoped to push white workers away from white nationalism.

These were admittedly very rosy, idealized depictions of the state of race relations in the UASR, but enough to serve as the basis for struggle among a white working class that felt increasingly betrayed by the industrialization of the Dominions.

The mechanization of agriculture and the expansion of major mining, industrial and shipping interests in South Africa had resulted in the breaking of the small white landholder class, and the ballooning of urban populations. Demand for industrial labor greatly exceeded the available white population, even with the trickle of emigres from North America. Black and “Coloured” labor had to be pulled into the cities and mining towns, and the post Rand Rebellion labor peace was totally unsustainable.

The work on establishing a congress of South African trade unions began in earnest in June 1939, with the expansion of the shipbuilding industry in Cape Town. The project, the outcome of the UK’s “Dominionisation” policy, had encouraged the Dominions to expand their native defence industries. In South Africa, this meant not just the development of a native arms industry to supply small arms and artillery, but also the establishment of a South African Navy to be supported at least in part by domestically produced corvettes for anti-submarine and convoy escort duty.

The government would use a mixture of legal and extralegal measures to suppress the formation of cross-racial trade unions with some success until South Africa’s entry into the Second World War, when the government finally gave recognition to the South African Council of Trade Unions, which would quickly subsume the remaining holdouts due to its central position in managing labor relations with the war cabinet. *[WPA]: Works Progress Administration *[NBI]: National Bureau of Investigation