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From The Volga To The Mississippi: African Americans And The Soviet Experiment, Daniel Candee Jan 2021

From The Volga To The Mississippi: African Americans And The Soviet Experiment, Daniel Candee

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This thesis investigates the role of African American Communists in the struggle for Black liberation during the interwar period. Making a vital intervention into the field, this work attempts to debunk the harmful Cold-War stereotype of African American Communists as “puppets of Moscow” while simultaneously engaging critically with the relationship between Black liberation and international Communism. Drawing on a vast array of secondary and archival sources, this work charts a course between a vision of the Comintern as an avenging anti-colonial angel, and a cynical force disinterested in Black Liberation.

Tracing the developing relationship between Black intellectuals and the Comintern …