How Communism went global. Building connections between Soviet, European, and African communists, 1920s to 1960s

PRIN 2017

Abstract
This project proposes to study the global connections constituted in the orbit of the world communist movement, thereby overcoming a vision of globalisation limited to the formation of the Western system. The aim of the project is to investigate the continuities between the international networks built by the Comintern through the interwar years and the context of decolonisation in the 1950s-1960s, in the specific area of connections between Moscow, the European communists and the African communists. In such respect, this project will represent a contribution to recent studies on global communism. While the place of Asia in global communist relations has been widely analysed, Africa is much less investigated and known in spite of its relevance to decolonization processes. The main working hypothesis is that the communist global project maintained its original Eurocentric limitations. The project intends to achieve the following objectives: improving our understanding of the relations between communism and nationalism outside of Europe as a factor in the contradictory drives to political modernity; providing a cross-section of how the variegated anti-imperialist world in the Global South entered into relation with the communist strategies elaborated in Russia and Europe.

Project duration
marzo 2020 - settembre 2023

Unibo Team Leader
Paolo Capuzzo

Coordinator
PI – Silvio Pons – Scuola Normale Superiore - Pisa
Partnership
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa – Università di Bologna – Università di Siena

Contribution
113.400 €

Level II ERC sectors **

Storia contemporanea

SH6 The Study of the Human Past: Archaeology and history

SH6_8 Modern and contemporary history

SH6_10 Global history, transnational history, comparative history, entangled histories