Goals, means, and methods of Russian intelligence agencies for provoking racial conflicts in the United States. The case of the African American community. Part I. The interwar period

Map 3

The African American population in the Black Belt region in 1930

Source: https://portalstatystyczny.pl/afroamerykieta-w-usa/, [accessed: August 23, 2021].

The basic demands of the struggle in the “Black Belt” were identified as the following (the Comintern Resolution on the Negro Question in the United States of October 26, 1930):

• confiscation of the landed property of the White landowners and capitalists for the benefit of the African American farmers,
• establishment of the State Unity of the Black Belt, where Black population form majority of the population[55]. Some CPUSA members insisted on the establishment of a Negro Soviet republic, with its highly Soviet-modeled institutions[56].
• right of self-determination, that is the complete and unlimited right of Black people to exercise governmental authority in the entire territory of the Black Belt, as well as to decide upon the relations between their territory and other nations, particularly the United States. Other ethnic, racial, and national minorities living in the Black Belt were subordinated to new government authorities in the territory[57].

Implementing the Kremlin’s guidelines

The Soviets used both economic and social hardship of African Americans to convict them to form a separate nation seeking to gain independence because it is only through statehood or autonomy that the Black population is capable of putting forward its interests. Thus Soviet intelligence outlets used the slogans of “the right to self-determination” and “the struggle for equality.” As in colonies, the Soviet Union sought to mastermind a “national liberation movement” to destabilize the United States from the inside and cripple its territorial integrity. Yet such movements identify political autonomy with the territory; for multinational states such as the United States, this could even mean disintegration. The Kremlin was behind these operations, according to William Odell Nowell, a member of the Detroit branch of the CPUSA (1929–1936). In 1929, he took part in consultations with the Negro Bureau at the Eastern Secretariat[58]. He said Moscow had devised a plan to establish a Soviet-controlled breakaway “republic” within U.S. borders. Favorable conditions, including an economic crisis or U.S. involvement in a war against Japan, would foster the creation of such a statelet. Enjoying social discontent, the Soviets sought to stage all-out strikes and then a revolution[59]. Nowell said any attempt to put this plan into practice would provoke bloody race riots and persecution of Black people in the South[60].

That in charge of executing the orders as laid out in the resolutions was the CPUSA that stalinized in the early 1930s[61]. Its members worked together with Soviet intelligence outlets to actively recruit new operatives and verify intelligence. The CPUSA, through its secret structure involving organizations and individuals, took part in Soviet-orchestrated operations to manufacture fake passports or maintain a secret liaison system. Some prominent figures of clandestine Communist structures in the United States––Sándor Goldberger (1894–1990), Stjepan Mesaroš AKA Steve Nelson (1903–1993), and Jacob Golos (1889–1943)––liaised between Soviet intelligence services and their spy ring on American soil[62]. One of the tasks of the CPUSA was to consolidate oppressed racial and ethnic communities around Communist-led non-partisan organizations. Soviet operatives penetrated social, political, and religious organizations through what was known as “transmission belts.” Behind these structures was also Wilhelm Münzenberg (1889–1940), a brilliant German Communist political activist, referred to by some as the “Red Millionaire[63].” Speaking at the Sixth Comintern Congress on July 20, 1928, in Moscow, Münzenberg set forth their goals and mission. He argued to deploy a range of propaganda techniques to interest apathetic and indifferent workers, who take no part in political life, to join the Communist movement. The idea was then to set up somewhat like a “solar system” consisting of smaller entities and committees orbiting around the communist party and serving the role of a “transmission belt” for the Kremlin and its geopolitical interests.[64]

More details on Communist front organizations within the African American population were found in FBI papers and studies. They said the CPUSA was inspired by the Comintern to establish the following organizations:

• African Blood Brotherhood,
• American Negro Labor Congress,
• League of Struggle for Negro Rights,
• National Negro Congress[65].

FBI and U.S. federal documents show that those that pulled their strings were Soviet intelligence agencies assisted by operatives or Moscow-trained U.S. Communist activists. An intriguing case study is that of the American Negro Labor Congress established in Chicago on October 25, 1925, to replace the African Blood Brotherhood. Its leader was Lovett Fort-Whiteman (1889–1939), a graduate of the Moscow-based International Lenin School[66]. It was founded in March 1925 as a branch of the Marx and Engels Institute. In fact, it secretly served as a section of the Comintern. Its first principal was Nikolai Bukharin, a member of the Politburo, replaced by Klaudia Kirsanova once he was removed from the Comintern. Initially, the course took a year and half to complete before being extended to three years in 1928[67]. William Odell Nowell, who completed a two-year curriculum at the International Lenin Schoo, described it as follows: “Our theoretical studies consisted of Marxian economics; Leninism, which is called philosophy there; trade unionism, that is trade unionism strike strategy; labor history; the history of the two internationals; the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. We studied how to dismantle the weapons of the leading countries, that is their main weapons, such as rifles and machine guns. I also studied secret service, codes. We studied strategy, beginning with the organization of a fraction––a shop fraction––clear up to the control of a trade union, or mass organization, and developed the political parallel along with it. That is, the ideological development of the people under the influence of these fractions, and when a certain strategy applies at a certain time. So hence we studied the details of how to develop street fights. I mean, how to do barricade fighting, how to seize control of a city, the most strategic, economically and technically strategic points, and so on (…). I spent some time in the Red Army myself, but I was just making a practical study of the Army, and doing international propaganda work; that is, lecturing and so on[68].”

Many African Americans studied also at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East, established in 1921[69]. Roman Zambrowski (1909–1977), a Polish Communist activist and member of the Politburo of the Polish United Workers’ Party, confirmed that African American students had enrolled at the International Lenin School. In his memoirs, he recollected the first months at the School, when he shared a large, bright room with three American Communists, of which “two were white and one was of African descent. I was given a warm welcome and I had no problems communicating with them. The youngest left Yugoslavia many years ago and easily learned Russian; the middle went to the United States before the war, but his Russian language skills were impeccable, while the Negro studied it diligently. They all studied in English[70].”

Soviet intelligence outlets had their operatives in the American Negro Labor Congress in addition to its Moscow-trained leaders: Lovett Fort-Whitman and William Odell Nowell. In 1929, Kitty Harris joined the Congress; she worked as a secretary for the Soviet trade monopoly Amtorg in New York. The company was founded on May 24, 1924. Between 1924 and 1933, before the Soviet Union had opened a permanent embassy in the United States, Amtorg served diplomatic and trade purposes as well as it was a front for Comintern espionage and propaganda operations in the United States[71]. In 1931, Harris, a propaganda officer, was recruited to Soviet foreign intelligence by Abram Eingorn (1899–1955), a member of the Young Communist International and a Soviet intelligence operative at the Foreign Department of the Joint State Political Directorate[72]. Kitty Harris, or Kathrine Harrison (May 24, 1887 – October 6, 1966), was born in London to Natan, a Jewish shoemaker from Białystok. In 1908, her family migrated to Winnipeg, Canada, where she completed four years of primary school. She began to work in a clothing factory as a seamstress, joining its trade union. In 1923, she moved to the United States. In Chicago, Harris became secretary of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers local. She joined the Communist Party of the USA. In 1925, Harris married Earl Browder, a prominent CPUSA functionary and later party leader whom she followed to Moscow in October 1927 and later to Shanghai. She began working for a clandestine section of the Red International of Labor Unions (Profintern). In 1929, she returned to Moscow and then to New York. In the U.S., Harris worked for the American Negro Labor Congress. After divorcing Browder in April 1932, she went to Berlin where she worked as a liaison officer at a rezidentura of the Foreign Department of the Joint State Political Directorate. Her code name was identified as “Gypsy.” She worked for clandestine Soviet intelligence offices in Prague, Paris, New York, and Los Angeles. She was also a liaison officer at the Cambridge Five. In 1937, Harris received Soviet citizenship. In 1942–1946, she worked in the rezidentura of the First Directorate of NKVD-NKGB in Mexico. Between 1952 and 1954, she underwent treatment at the special psychiatric hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR. She died in Gorky after she retired from active service[73].

The Soviet Union aspired to make the American Negro Labor Congress a mass organization to gather Black people under the political banner of the CPUSA. It was through agitation and propaganda targeting legal discrimination of African Americans and lynching to terrorize and control Black people. The League of Struggle for Negro Rights was organized by the Communist Party in 1930 as the successor to the American Negro Labor Congress. It was headed by James Mercer Langston Hughes (1901–1967), an American poet, social activist, and columnist for Communist-affiliated magazines[74]. In fact, its president was Harry Haywood (Haywood Hall “Black Bolshevik,” 1898–1985), who studied at the International Lenin School and the Communist University of the Toilers of the East. His military career included service in the Regimental Commissar in the XV International Brigade, siding with Soviet-backed Spanish Communists[75]. In his major work Negro Liberation, he backed Stalin’s 1948 concept of national self-determination[76]. According to Haywood, the position of the book was not new, but a reaffirmation of the revolutionary position developed at the Sixth Comintern Congress in 1928. The heart of this position, he believed, was that the problem was fundamentally a question of an oppressed nation with full rights of self-determination. Haywood emphasized the “revolutionary essence” of the struggle for Black equality arising from the fact that the special oppression of Black people is the main prop of the system of “imperialist domination” over the entire working class and the masses of exploited American people. “Therefore the struggle for Black liberation is a part of the struggle for proletarian revolution. It is the historic task of the working-class movement, as it advances on the road to socialism, to solve the problem of land and freedom of the Black masses,” he argued[77]. The League’s agenda was fully in line with what was outlined in the Comintern resolution. Its demands encompassed social, economic, and political equality of African Americans, the right of self-determination of all peoples in the Black Belt, and confiscation of the landed property of “White capitalists” for the benefit of farmers and tenants[78]. The League was involved in intensive propaganda work referring to the Great Depression of the 1930s. It regarded the anger of African Americans against structural and economic inequalities. The Russian agency brought to the focus issues such as police brutality, poverty, unemployment, and no access to schooling. An ideal opportunity to radicalize moods was mass funerals of people killed in riots or strikes. At a funeral of Chicago workers on August 3, 1931, activists distributed 20,000 Communist and anti-state leaflets. Petitions and resolutions also came in handy. On January 20, 1933, a petition was filed with the police department of the city of Chicago. It accused the police of “terrorist practices” targeting African American and White workers[79]. In addition to propaganda and agitation work, there were multiple instances of provocation and violence. More details came from Joseph Zack Kornfeder (1898–1963), a founding member of the Communist Party of USA and Comintern representative to South America. In New York, Chicago, and other cities, the CPUSA massively attacked privately held restaurants that refused service to African Americans. A group of White and Black Communist activists started a fight in a targeted restaurant. As events unfolded, Communist militias, whose members would wait outside, came to the rescue. These actions were primarily intended to exacerbate the contradiction between African-Americans and Whites and to provoke possible retaliatory actions that could escalate the conflict[80].

Using racism and racial conflicts to undermine the American reputation

The Soviet Union used its operatives to sabotage the internal situation and conduct an array of propaganda and disinformation activities to bring the United States into disrepute. A good example is here the case of the Scottsboro Boys. On March 25, 1931, the line between Chattanooga and Memphis, Tennessee, had nine Black youths aged between 13 and 20 who were riding ticket-free on a freight train. A fight broke out between the White and Black groups back then. The train was stopped at Paint Rock, some 22 miles off Scottsboro, and the African American teenagers were accused of beating and raping two white women. They were sentenced to death, then changed to life imprisonment. The case attracted much interest in U.S. media outlets, becoming a symbol of systemic racial discrimination in the South[81].

The Scottsboro case interested the Soviets, who used it to achieve a set of political goals. At a meeting of the Politburo of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks, or RKP(b) on April 1, 1932, Joseph Stalin ordered fellow Communists to develop a campaign to protest the death penalty[82]. The agency behind was International Red Aid, a social service organization established in 1922 to the directive of the Fourth World Congress of the Comintern. It rendered material and moral aid to Communist activities suffering from “terror against the revolutionary movement.” In fact, International Red Aid was a useful instrument of Comintern agitation and propaganda; instead of providing aid to “class war” political prisoners and their families, it financed Communist parties around the world[83]. International Red Aid claimed national affiliates in many countries. It worked with Soviet intelligence agencies and received financial assistance from Moscow. This fact was confirmed by the testimony of Vladimir Piatnitsky, a son of Osip Piatnitsky (1882–1938), head of the International Department of the Communist International. “The OGPU has recently taken some tasks from the International Liaison Department, in particular activities against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin. The most delicate mission of the International Liaison Department consisted in distributing money intended for Communist parties alongside their propaganda work and false front organizations, which were the League for Democracy Defense, the Association of Friends of the Soviet Union, and the International Organization for Aid to Revolutionary and many alike that came in handy when Moscow began forming a popular front. No Communist party could afford this to happen. Moscow believed it was its duty to cover between 90 and 95 percent of Communist party spending. Money in the amount set by Stalin’s Politburo came from the Soviet state budget through the Department for International Communications[84].”

Soviet-made propaganda campaign sought to perpetuate worldwide the image of the United States as a “racist” and “reactionary” state. The Soviet Union was labeled “progressive” and “modern,” a state that defends peace and protects the oppressed. In Soviet propaganda, Scottsboro boys were portrayed as revolutionaries and allies of the first state building “a socialist society.” The idea was that any active expression of solidarity with the detainees would become an alternative way of showing support for Bolshevism and the project of building socialism under the auspices of the Soviet Union. Moscow painted the death sentence to the Scottsboro defendants as escalated violence against all Black workers, pointing at an allegedly capitalist plot to start an “imperialist war” against the peacekeeping Soviet Union. The campaign covered the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Comintern and local Communist parties used their structures alongside a vast network of organizations, editorial offices, and associations[85]. In the United States, International Labor Defense, a legal advocacy organization established in 1925 as the American section of the Comintern’s International Red Aid network, prominently participated in defense through marches, press conferences, fundraising, and coordinating other operations to “reveal the system of terror” that the organization identified with state institutions. Among those who expressed solidarity with the Scottsboro boys were Russian writer and columnist Maxim Gorky, Russian revolutionary and member of the World Committee Against War and Fascism Elena Stasova, American Communist activists Lovett Fort-Whitman and George Padmore, and American poet James Mercer Langston Hughes[86]. In addition to propaganda, violence was used. With the defendants’ execution set for July 10, 1931, the Red Aid executive issued the first international appeal from Moscow. During the summer, as more European letters and telegrams reached the Alabama authorities and the White House, demonstrators broke windows at the U.S. diplomatic and trade missions in Berlin, Bremen, Dresden, Leipzig, and Cologne. A global wave of protests ensured, reaching from California to Sydney, from Montreal to Cape Horn, and from Shanghai to Buenos Aires. In consequence, the Scottsboro defendants were ultimately saved from execution by the Supreme Court of Alabama, but they languished in prison for years[87]. The Soviet involvement in the Scottsboro case eventually made the country vastly popular. Front organizations rendering legal assistance made Communist-affiliated bodies more acceptable for Western nations, notably in less developed countries, where anti-U.S. resentment continued to grow. Through the use of front organization against racial discrimination, Fascism, and National Socialism, Soviet intelligence operatives created favorable conditions for recruiting new agents[88].

The Soviet-controlled film industry was also used for propaganda and disinformation to bring the United States into disrepute[89]. In 1931, Mezhrabpomfilm (Кинематографическое акционерное общество «Межрабпомфильм), a German-Soviet film studio, offered to make a film titled Black and White, inspired by Mayakovsky’s poem of the same title. The film’s theme was the struggle of African American workers in the United States[90]. As revealed in recently disclosed Soviet documents, Mezhrabpomfilm, an allegedly independent film studio, was in fact controlled by the Comintern and the Communist party. The Department for Agitation and Propaganda of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Executive Committee of the Communist International approved all themes and scripts, which was their top-secret mission[91]. The company had its offices in Leningrad, Moscow, Tiflis, Baku, and Berlin. Some 70 percent of its films and plays were used for propaganda purposes outside the Soviet Union[92].

The proposed film cast for Black and White was selected by a group of African Americans led by Louise Thompson Patterson (1901–1999), asked by James Ford (1893–1957), an American Communist activist, who attended the Sixth Comintern Congress in Moscow on behalf of the CPUSA on July 17–September 1, 1928. U.S. left-wing newspapers widely discussed the fact that filmmakers, including Langston Hughes and other Communist thinkers, arrived in the Soviet Union, which the Soviet propaganda apparatus used to perpetuate the Soviet reputation of the defender of the oppressed. The film crew suddenly stopped working once ordered by the Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks); prominent U.S. businesspeople, who helped industrialize the Soviet Union, found the project highly offensive and perilous to the stability of the United States[93].

A man who intervened in this case in the Kremlin was Hugh Lincoln Cooper (1865–1937), an American colonel and civil engineer, known for construction supervision of a number of hydroelectric power plants in the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Egypt. Between 1927 and 1932, he supervised the construction of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station. In July 1932, he appealed to Vyacheslav Molotov, chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union. What was told at the meeting is known from a secret memo Molotov handed to Stalin on July 31, 1932. On the agenda was the issue of thirty African Americans who arrived in the Soviet Union to produce Black and White. In an hour-long talk, Cooper said that making this film a vehicle of anti-U.S. propaganda would irrevocably impair U.S.-Soviet relations. The engineer said he would quit his job in the Soviet Union if work on the film continued[94]. The Kremlin sought to maintain diplomatic ties with Washington to get access to U.S. technology and know-how. Work on the film eventually stopped, a move that the U.S. Department of State considered a success[95]. Although the Soviets sought to hide the truth on why the project was halted, some members of the film crew disbelieved the Kremlin’s official statement, chiding on it and blaming the Soviet Communist party for backing “U.S. imperialism” and “betraying a progressive ideology[96].”

The Kremlin’s policy towards African Americans was merely instrumental. It was far from liberating them, serving Moscow’s geopolitical interests instead. When the Soviet Union deemed little fruitful cooperation with the United States, its top officials would sacrifice African Americans to reap some benefits.

Conclusions

To sum up, in the 1920s and the 1930s, Soviet security authorities developed a raft of methods towards ethnic and national minorities they then employed to sow discord. This topic will be covered in more detail in the next part of this report. Operative means and methods were based on the following:

• using country- or time-specific conditions, contradictions, and conflicts or generating new strives (racism and racial segregation in the United States),
• unlocking the potential for rallies through a network of radicalized organizations of opposed political background (African American communities, the Ku Klux Klan, etc.),
• setting up a network of influential, albeit seemingly independent, organizations, including the International Labor Defense,
• selecting their top officials, in particular for agitation, propaganda, and armed struggle,
• curbing ties with intelligence services and exploiting ideology-related issues (Communists, pacifists, abolitionists),
• taking social and political momentum (workers’ strikes or funerals), referring to such values as equality, freedom, democracy, and liberation, to be filled with any content,
• taking action to destabilize the domestic situation in the United States, bring it into disrepute worldwide, and to deflect its attention from important foreign policy issues (campaign to defend the Scottsboro boys, making films to embolden the phenomenon of racism and racial discrimination in the United States worldwide).

Despite the enormous difficulties in combating the subversive activities carried out among African Americans by the Soviet secret services and related entities, the U.S. government was able to successfully neutralize certain ventures. What has proved efficient was a firm stance combined with major economic sanctions to cripple the Kremlin’s interests.

[1] Hereinafter: CPUSA.

[2] Интервью телеканалу «Россия». Владимир Путин ответил на вопросы журналиста телеканала «Россия 1» , Павла Зарубина, http://kremlin.ru/events/news/news/news/news/news/news/news2018

[3] See also: D. Gierasińska, Wiarygodność wypowiedzi Władimira Putina na temat relacji rosyjsko-ukraińskich: studium corocznych konferencji prasowych, „Refleksje” 2020, No. 21, pp. 51–69.

[4] Racism is “the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another” while racial discrimination is “any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, or racial or ethnic origin to occur because of overt prejudice, hostility or negative feelings held by someone about a racialized person or group.” M. Duda, Przestępstwa z nienawiści. Studium prawnokarne i kryminologiczne, Olsztyn 2016, pp. 26–27.

[5] O. Калугин, Вид с Лубянки. „Дело” бывшего генерала КГБ. Месяцпервый, Москва 1990, pp. 34–35.

[6] Ch. Andrew, O. Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev, New York 1990, pp. 22. Cf. B.B. Fisher, The Paris Operations of the Russian Imperial Police, Central Intelligence Agency 1997, pp. 5–6.

[7] Sergei Vladimirovich Mironenko – Reserve Colonel, intelligence officer, an electronics engineer and economist,  holder of the doctor’s degree in history, speaks English and Chinese. Member of the Association of the Study of the History of Homeland Secret Services in Moscow, a member of the editorial board of the newspaper Самарские Чекисты. After completing education at the KGB’s Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute (Academy of Foreign Intelligence), he stayed in southeastern Asia where he worked as an officer at the First Chief Directorate of the KGB responsible for foreign intelligence missions. In February 1982 he was expelled from Singapore for intelligence activities. Already as a Ph.D. holder, he served as a lecturer on intelligence and counterintelligence at the Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute. He retired as an army colonel. He is a researcher and journalist interested in cognitive aspects of social awareness, election campaigns, and Soviet-Japanese intelligence competition in the 20th century, see: K. Kraj, Interview with Colonel Dr. Sergey Vladimirovich Mironenko, Retired Officer of Soviet and Russian Civilian Intelligence, “E–Terroryzm” 2017, No. 1 (56), pp. 6-7, Мироненко CB – 70! “Самарские чекисты” 2017, No. 9, p. 3.

[8] Hereafter: USSR.

[9] K. Kraj, Rosyjska wspólnota organów bezpieczeństwa, Kraków–Wrocław 2017, p. 127.

[10] Read more on difficulties in researching secret services: K. Kraj, Badania naukowe nad służbami specjalnymi, „Studia Administracji i Bezpieczeństwa” 2020, No. 8, pp. 171–185.

[11] This study is based on the article Konflikty na tle rasowym jako narzędzie destrukcji Stanów Zjednoczonych w działaniach rosyjskich służb wywiadowczych, published in “Przegląd Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego” in 2020. The first and following parts of this article will be supplemented with new research findings.

[12] In this report, the term “Negro” is used in proper names or in citations. See: M. Łaziński, Murzyn zrobił swoje. Czy Murzyn może odejść? Historia i przyszłość słowa Murzyn w polszczyźnie, „Poradnik Językowy” 2007, No. 4, pp. 47–56, M. Łaziński, Jeszcze o słowie Murzyn i o stereotypach. Po lekturze artykułu Margaret Ohii Mechanizmy dyskryminacji rasowej w systemie języka polskiego, „Przegląd Humanistyczny” 2014, No. 5, pp. 127–141, M. Łaziński, Spory o słowo Murzyn, „Polityka” 2020, No. 21, pp. 70–71.

[13] D. Kingsbury, Separatism and the State, New York 2021, pp. 5–7.

[14] B.R. Wolfman, The Communist Party, Always Out of Step, In: Black Separatism and Social Reality: Rhetoric and Reasons, (ed.) R.L. Hall, D. College, New York 1977, pp. 109–114.

[15] Read more in: R.K. Debo, Revolution and Survival: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia 1917–1918, Toronto 1979, pp. 356–408, 419, T. C. Fiddick, Russia’s Retreat from Poland, 1920. From Permanent Revolution to Peaceful Coexistence, London 1990, J. Jacobson, When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics, London 1994, pp. 2, 283.

[16] Hereafter: the RKP(b).

[17] R. Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, New York 1993, pp. 196, 240 et seq.

[18] Peredyshka (передышка) – 1) a short stop or break, 2) a hiatus in an armed struggle to safely conduct other activities or work, see: Д.Н. Ушаков, Толковый словарь в четырех томах. Том 3: П – Ряшка, Москва 1939, p. 125.

[19] В.И. Ленин, Тези сы доклада о тактике РКП, In: В.И. Ленин и Коммунистический Интернационал, Москва 1970, pp. 267–272, В.И. Ленин, Доклад о тактике РКП, In: В.И. Ленин. Полное собрание сочинений. Vol. 44. Июнь 1921– март 1922, Москва 1974, pp. 34–54.

[20] R.L. Garthoff, Ideological Concepts in Soviet Foreign Policy, „Problems of Communism” 1953, No. 5, pp. 3–4.

[21] E. Topitsch, Stalins Krieg: die sowjetische Langzeit strategie gegen den Westen als rationale Machtpolitik, Herford 1990, K. Grygajtis, Józef Stalin oraz sowiecka geopolityka i geostrategia lat 1924–1953, Nysa 2011, pp. 10–18.

[22] Г.А. Деборин, Первые международные акты Советского государства и его внешняя политика в годы иностранной интервенции и гражданской войны (1917-1922 гг.) Стенограммапу бличной лекции, прочитанной 1 июня 1947 года в Лекционном зале в Москве, Москва 1947, p. 3.

[23] M. Kornat, Program czy improwizacja? Idee polityki zagranicznej państwa sowieckiego, „Dzieje Najnowsze” 2017, No. 49 (4), pp. 97–112.

[24] P. Eberhardt, Koncepcje geopolityczne Aleksandra Dugina, „Przegląd Geograficzny” 2010, No. 82, p. 236.

[25]А.Л. Яанов, Русскаяидеа. От Николая I до Путина. Книга 3 (1990–2000), Москва 2015, pp.359–360. Read more: J. Potulski, Współczesne kierunki rosyjskiej myśli geopolitycznej: między nauką, ideologicznym dyskursem a praktyką, Gdańsk 2010, pp. 275–292.

[26] It was in particular the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage under the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR (Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия по борьбе с контрреволюцией и саботажем при СНК РСФСР, ЧК, ВЧК), which was replaced by the State Political Directorate under the NKVD of the RSFSR on February 2, 1922 (Государственное политическое управление при НКВД РСФСР, ГПУ НКВД РСФСР). After the official proclamation of the Soviet Union on December 30, 1922, the Joint State Political Directorate was formed from the State Political Directorate of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on November 15, 1923. It was reincorporated as the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD on June 10, 1934 (Главное управление государственной безопасности НКВД СССР). See: А.И. Колпакиди, Энциклопедия секретных служб России, Москва 2003, pp. 196–250.

[27] The Soviet military intelligence agency, established on October 21, 1918, by the secret order signed by Leon Trotsky, People’s Commissar of Military Affairs, as the Registration Agency of the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. In 1921 it was reorganized as the Intelligence Board of the Red Army within the Second Department of the General Staff of the Red Army. As a result of reorganization in 1925, it was known as the Fourth Department of the General Staff of the Red Army. In 1937, the Intelligence Board was incorporated into the Seventh Directorate; between April 1937 and late November 1938, it was subordinated to the NKVD-GUGB before becoming part of the Fifth Department of the General Staff. The GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate) was created under its current name in 1942. K. Kraj, Rosyjski wywiad wojskowy, „Secretum. Służby Specjalne, Bezpieczeństwo, Informacja” 2015, No. 1 (2), pp. 77–95, A. Север, А. Колпакиди, ГРУ. Уникальная энциклопедия, Москва 2009.

[28] R. Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, New York 1993, pp. 172-173, 184, А.Ю. Ватлин, Коминтерн: Идеи, решения, судьбы,Москва 2009, p. 37.

[29] И. Симбирцев, Спецслужбы первыхлет СССР, 1923–1939, Москва 2008, pp. 247–250. Of particular interest may be here an instruction of the Politburo of the Central Committee of RKP(b) of February 25, 1925, in which Communist leaders advised to conspire any links between the Red Army’s intelligence and insurgent militias in Central and Eastern Europe and  in the Balkans, see in: Постановление Политбюро ЦК РКП (б) «О Разведупре». 25 Февраля 1925 г., In: Лубянка. Сталин и ВЧК – ГПУ – ОГПУ – НКВД. Архив Сталина. Документы высших органов партийной и государственной власти. Январь 1922 – декабрь 1936, (ed.) А.Н. Яковлев, В.Н. Хаустов, В.П. Наумов, Н.С. Плотникова, Москва 2003, pp. 98–100.

[30] И. Линдер, С. Чуркин, Красная паутина: тайны разведки Коминтерна. 1919–1943, Москва 2005, p. 92.

[31] Alexander Ivanovich Kuk (born January 6, 1886, at Kuriste in Estland guberniia). In 1909, he graduated from St. Petersburg Infantry Officers School and joined the 1stEast Siberian Rifle Regiment as commander of a machine gun company. During the First World War, he was senior errant officer on the staff of the 4th Army Corps at the Nikolayev Military Academy. In 1917, he completed an accelerated course at the academy and was then attached to the staff of the Romanian Front. In March 1918, he volunteered for service with the Red Army. He initially worked for the intelligence section. He was subsequently head of the intelligence section of the Smolensk Defensive Region and the operations section of the staff of the Estonian Army. From June 1919, he was staff officer with the Southern Group of forces of the 7^th Red Army, and from July 1919 he was chief of staff of the 15^th Red Army. In October 1919, he became acting chief of staff of that same force while in September 1920, he was made commander of the 16^th Red Army. In May 1921, he was made assistant chief of the intelligence section of the Main Staff of the Red Army. In August 1923, he became chief of staff of the Western Front and then assistant commander of the Forces of the Leningrad Military District (December 1926).In February 1931, he was made military attache in Japan. He died in Yalta on May 31, 1932. See: П. Селиванов, А.И. Кук, “Военно-исторический журнал” 1975, No. 1, pp. 125–126, CC Войтиков, Отечественные спецслужбы и Красная армия. 1917–1921, Москва 2010, pp. 6–7.

[32] Stanislav Stepanovich Turlo, born on August 19, 1889, in Adutiškis in the Vilna guberniia, was an activist of the revolutionary movement in the Russian Empire and a Soviet activist. In 1919 he became inspector of the Special Department of Cheka at the Councils of People’s Commissars and then served as deputy head of the Special Department of Cheka at the 15^thArmy and head of the Special Department at the 2^nd Cavalry Army of the Southwestern Front. In 1921 he was chairman of a regional branch of Cheka secret police in Fergana, where he was wounded and sent for treatment. From 1922 to August 1924, he was head of the Counterintelligence Department of the GPU/OGPU in Western Krai. In August 1924 he became head of the district office of the GPU in Vitebsk; until 1926 he worked for the Central Committee of the RKP(b) and the VKP(b). By 1928 he took courses in Marxism at the Communist Academy before joining party structures in the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) and Tatar ASSR (until 1936). In 1936 he became the secretary of the VKP(b) in Novosibirsk. By August 1938 he was in charge of the party district archive in Novosibirsk. He was arrested on August 15, 1938, and sentenced to eight-year imprisonment in September 1941. He served his sentence in a labor camp in Krasnoyarsk, where he died on July 27, 1942, see: А.А. Зданович, Предисловие, In: Антология истории спецслужб. Россия 1905–1924, Москва 2007, pp. 14–17, Справочник по истории Коммунистической партии и Советского Союза 1898–1991, http://www.knowbysight.info/TTT/14329.asp, [accessed: August 23, 2021].

[33] С.С. Турло, И.П. Залдат, Шпионаж, In: Антология истории спецслужб. Россия 1905–1924, Москва 2007, pp. 422–428.

[34] Зданович Александр Александрович, https://myrotvorets.center/criminal/zdanovich-aleksandr-aleksandrovich/ [accessed: August 6, 2021], Александричалекикиксачндровандрикиксачндрон

https://autogear.ru/article/376/629/aleksandr-aleksandrovich-zdanovich—biografiya-istorika/ [accessed: August 6, 2021].

[35] И. Симбирцев, Спецслужбы первых лет СССР. 1923–1939…, pp. 251–253, 255.

[36] Г.М. Адибеков, Э.Н. Шахназарова, К.К.Шириня, Организационная структура Коминтерна 1919-1943, Москва 1997, pp. 25–26, 48–50, 74–75, 115–117, 199–117, 159–117, Симбирцев, Спецслужбы первых лет СССР, 1923–1939…, pp. 252, 254, В.Н. Усов, Советская разведка в Китае. 20-е годы XX века, Москва 2002, pp. 36–40.

[37] Г.М. Адибеков, Э.Н. Шахназарова, К.К.Шириня, Организационная структура…, pp. 80–81, A. Диенко, B. Величко, Разведка и кондцразв. Энциклопедический словарь российских спецслужб, Москва 2002, p. 489, Изпротокола № 10 (Особый № 5) заседания Политбюро ЦК РКП (б), In: Политбюро ЦК РКЩб) -ВКП (б) и Коминтерн: 1919-1943 гг. Документы, (ed.) Г.М. Адибеков, Москва 2004, pp. 261–262, E. Kowalczyk, Zasady konspiracji partyjnej – projekt końcowy Komisji ds Nielegalnej Działalności przy Komitecie Wykonawczym Międzynarodówki Komunistycznej (1923–1925), „Dzieje Najnowsze” 2020, No. 52, pp. 233–235.

[38] M. Алексеев, Советская военная разведка в Китае и хроника «китайской смуты»: 1922–1929, Москва 2010, pp. 51, 414–415.

[39] A. Jaskowski, Komintern a przyszła wojna, „Wschód–Orient. Kwartalnik poświęcony sprawom Wschodu” 1939, No. 1,p. 30.

[40] R. Pipes, A Concise History of the Russian Revolution, New York 1996, pp. 298–299, R. Ulyanovsky, National Liberation. Essays on Theory and Practice, Moscow 1978, pp. 36–84, 327–356, W. Szczerba, Problem kolonializmu w leninowskim programie wyzysku człowieka przez człowieka, „Przegląd Socjologiczny” 1971, No. 24, p. 44, D. Torr, Marxism. Nationality and War, London 1940, pp. 29–37.

[41] В.И. Ленин, Первоначальный набросоктезисов по национальному и колониальному вопросам (для второго съезда Коммунистического интернационала), In: Стратегия и тактика Коминтерна в национально-колониальной революции: напримере Китая, (ed.) П. Миф, Москва 1934, p. 31, 33, Резолюция по национальному и колониальному вопросам, In: Протоколы конгрансовексрансотанкотинкенкотинсанкот. Второй конгресс Коминтерна. Июль-Август 1920 г., (ed.) О. Пятницкий, Д. Мануильский, В. Кнорин, Б. Кун, М. Зоркий, Москва 1934, p .493.

[42] Отчет Исполкома Коминтерна (Апрель 1925 г. – Январь 1926 г.). Составлен секрет ариатом ИККИ, Москва 1926, pp. 393–394.

[43] P.S. Foner, J.S. Allen, American Communism and Black Americans: A Documentary History, 1919–1929, Philadelphia 1987, pp. 116–117, 124.

[44] М.A. Чекалова, К.M. Андерсон, Н.М. Насонов и его Статья «Негритянская проблема в Северо-Американских соединенных Штатах, „Развитие общественных наук российскими студентами” 2017, No. 5, pp. 40–41, М. Пантелеев, Агенты Коминтерна: солдаты мировой революции, Москва 2005, p. 73.

[45] Г.М. Адибеков, Э.Н. Шахназарова, К.К.Шириня, Организационная структура Коминтерна 1919–1943, Москва 1997, p. 155.

[46] М.A. Чекалова, К.M. Андерсон, Н.М. Насонов и его …, pp. 41-43, М. А. Тимофеева, Дискуссии о сущности негритянского вопроса в США вКоминтерне, in Левыеидеологии, движения и организации в истории. Сборник избранных статей участников Девятой Международной конференции молодых ученых и специалистов «Clio-2019», (ed.) А.К. Сорокин, Москва 2019, pp. 167–168, O. Berland, Nasanov and the Comintern’s American Negro Program, „Science and Society” 2001, No. 65, issue 2, pp. 226–228.

[47] W. Materski, Przewrót listopadowy 1917 r. w Rosji a hasło bolszewików prawa narodów do samostanowienia, „Dzieje Najnowsze” 2017, No. 49, issue 4, p. 17.

[48] C.I. Resolution on Negro Question in U.S., „The Communist” 1930, No. 9, issue 1, pp. 48–49.

[49] Ibidem, pp.52–53. Cf. Resolution on the Negro Question in the United States. Final Text Confirmed by the Political Commission of the E.C.C.I., „The Communist” 1931, No. 10, issue 2, pp. 154–156.

[50] Ibidem, p. 161.

[51] Ibidem, p. 166.

[52] E. Browder, What is Communism ?, New York 1936, p. 143. See more on the influence of Marx’s and Lenin’s ideology on the CPUSA’s attitude to African American liberation and Comintern’s orders in: R. Wilson, The Development of the Communist Position on the Negro Question in the United States, „The Phylon Quarterly” 1958, No. 19, issue 3, pp. 306–326, H. Klehr, W. Tompson, Self-determination in the Black Belt: Origins of a Communist Policy, „Labor History” 1989, No. 30, issue 3, pp. 354–366, O. Berland, The Emergence of the Communist Perspective on the „Negro Question” in America: 1919–1931: Part One, „Science and Society” 1999/2000, No. 63, issue 4, pp. 411–432, Ibidem, The Emergence of the Communist Perspective on the „Negro Question” in America: 1919–1931: Part Two, „Science and Society” 2000, No. 64, issue 2, pp. 194–217, J. A. Zumoff, The Communist International and US Communism, 1919-1929, London 2015, pp. 287–365.

[53] Resolution on the Negro Question in the United States…, p. 166.

[54] Ibidem, p. 165–166.

[55] Resolution on the Negro Question in the United States…, pp. 159–160.

[56] J. Pepper, The American Negro Problem, „The Communist” 1928, No. 7, issue 10, p. 634, W. Z. Foster, Toward Soviet America, New York 1932, p. 303.

[57] Resolution on the Negro Question in the United States…, p. 161.

[58] Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives. The American Negro in the Communist Party, Washington 1954, p. 2.

[59] Statement of Nowell, William Odell, Former Member of the Communist Party of the United States, In: United States. Congress. House. Special Committee on Un-American Activities. Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, Volume 11 (October 28 – December 3, 1939), Washington 1940, pp. 6996–6997.

[60] Ibidem, p. 6998.

[61] E. Browder, Communism in the United States, New York 1935, p. 292.

[62] Д. Даллин, Советский шпионаж в Европе и США 1920–1950 годы, Москва 2017, p. 284, A. Weinstein, A. Vasiliev, The Haunted Wood Soviet Espionage in America. The Stalin Era, New York 1999, pp. 22–50, 84–110, H. Klehr, J. E. Haynes, F. I. Firsov, The Secret World of American Communism, New Heaven London 1995, pp. 20–42, 71–119.

[63] S. McMeekin, The Red Millionaire. A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow’s Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West, London 2003, p. 1.

[64] Заседание пятое – 20 июля 1928 года. Прения по докладу т. Бухарина. Речь т. Мюицонберга, In: VI Конгресс Коминтерна. Стенографический отчет. Выпуск 1. Международное положение и задачи Коминтерна, Москва – Ленинград 1929, pp. 101–106, C.A. Hathaway, On the Use of „Transmissions Belts” in Our Struggle for the Masses, „The Communist” 1931, No. 10, pp. 409–424, J. E. Hoover, The Masters of Deceit. The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It, New York 1958, pp. 227–243.

[65] Federal Bureau of Investigation. United States Department of Justice, The Communist Party and the Negro, Washington 1953, pp. 51–57. Cf. Federal Bureau of Investigation. United States Department of Justice, The Communist Party and the Negro 1953–1956, Washington 1956, pp. 30–37.

[66] United States. Congress. House. Special Committee on Un-American Activities. Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States. Appendix Part IX (Communist Front Organizations). Fourth Section, Washington 1944, p. 1282.

[67] Г.М. Адибеков, Э.Н. Шахназарова, К.К.Шириня, Организационная структура Коминтерна…, p. 127, M. Szumiło, Wspomnienia Romana Zambrowskiego z Międzynarodowej Szkoły Leninowskiej w Moskwie (1929–1931), „Komunizm. System – ludzie – dokumentacja” 2012, No. 1, pp. 167–168, A.A. Соколов, Коминтерн и Вьетнам. Подготовка вьетнамских политических кадров в коммунистических вузах СССР, 20-30-е годы, Москва 1998, p. 19 et seq.

[68] Statement of Nowell, William Odell…, pp. 7021-7022. Any facilities of strategic, economic, and technical importance inside the city as mentioned by Nowell are now called critical infrastructure.

[69] See more: C. McClellan, Africans and Black Americans in the Comintern Schools, 1925–1934, „The International Journal of African Historical Studies” 1993, No. 26, issue 2, pp. 371–390.

[70] Quoted in: M. Szumiło, Wspomnienia Romana Zambrowskiego…, p. 194.

[71] United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities. The Shameful Years. Thirty Years of Soviet Espionage in the United States, Washington 1951, pp. 5–7, A.C. Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development 1917 to 1930, Stanford 1968, pp. 246, 261, 269, 287, Ф.Д. Бобков, КГБ и власть, Москва 1995, p. 107–124, Д. Даллин, Советский шпионаж в Европе…, pp. 288–292.

[72] B. Абрамов, Евреи в КГБ, Москва 2006, pp. 320, 339–340.

[73] B. Абрамов, Евреи в КГБ…, pp. 320–321. Read more on Harris’s espionage: И.А. Дамаскин, Семнадцать имен Китти Харрис, Москва 1999.

[74] United States. Congress. House. Special Committee on Un-American Activities. Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States. Appendix Part IX (Communist Front Organizations)…, pp. 1282–1284.

[75] H. Haywood, Black Bolshevik. Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist, Chicago 1978, pp. 148–176, 198–218, 467–490.

[76] H. Haywood, Negro Liberation, New York 1948.

[77] H. Haywood, Black Bolshevik…, pp.565–566.

[78] United States. Congress. House. Special Committee on Un-American Activities. Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States. Appendix Part IX (Communist Front Organizations)…, pp. 1283–1284, J. W. Ford, The Negro and the Democratic Front, New York 1938, pp. 81–83.

[79] H.D. Lasswell, D. Blumenstock, World Revolutionary Propaganda. A Chicago Study, New York–London 1939, pp. 52, 78, 201–203.

[80] Testimony of Joseph Zack Kornfeder, In: Subversion in Racial Unrest. An Outline of a Strategic Weapon to Destroy the Governments of Louisiana and the United States. Public Hearings of the State of Louisiana Joint Legislative Committee, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, March 6-9, 1957, Part 1, Baton Rouge 1957, p. 75.

[81] L. Sorensen, The Scottsboro Boys Trial: A Primary Source Account, New York 2004, pp. 7–26, J. R. Acker, Scottsboro, and Its Legacy: The Cases That Challenged American Legal and Social Justice, Westport–London 2008, pp. 1–17.

[82] Из протокола нр 94 заседания Политбюро ЦК ВКП(б). Об Информационном бюро. Предложение МОПР о кампании протеста против смертного приговора рабочим-неграмиз Скотсборо. 1 апреля 1932 г., In: Политбюро ЦК РКЩб)-ВКП(б) и Коминтерн: 1919–1943 гг. Документы, (ed.) Г.М. Адибеков, Москва 2004, p. 654.

[83] В.И. Соколова, В.И. Каллин, О.Н. Галошева, Роль Секретариата ЦК ВКП (б) в активизации движения МОПР напримере деятельности Интердомаимени Е.Д. Стасовой в 1930-х годах, „Вестник Чувашского университета” 2019, No. 2, p. 175, А.И. Аврус, Пролетарский интернационализм в действии (Изистории Международной организации помощи борцам революции), Москва 1971, pp. 43–53, 74–81.

[84] В.И. Пятницкий, Осип Пятницкий и Коминтернна весах истории, Минск 2004, p. 188.

[85] M. L. Roman, Opposing Jim Crow: African American sand the Soviet Indictment of U.S. Racism, 1928–1937, Lincoln–London 2012, pp. 92, 95.

[86] Federal Bureau of Investigation. United States Department of Justice, The Communist Party and the Negro…, pp. 58–62, H. T. Murray, Changing America and the Changing Image of Scottsboro, „The Phylon Quarterly” 1977, No. 38, issue 1, pp. 82–92.

[87] J. A. Miller, S. D. Pennybacker, E. Rosenhaft, Mother Ada Wright and the International Campaign to Free the Scottsboro Boys, 1931-1934, „The American Historical Review” 2001, No. 106, issue 2, p. 401.

[88] J. Atkinson, The Politics of Struggle. The Communist Front and Political Warfare, Chicago 1966, p. 35.

[89] К.М. Андерсон, Л.В. Максименков, Л.П. Кошелева, Л.А. Роговая, Г.Л. Бондарев, Кремлевский кинотеатр. 1928–1953: Документы, Москва 2005, pp. 25–30.

[90] Г.В. Лапина, «Черные и белые»: история неудавшегося кинопроекта, “Антропологический Форум” 2016, No. 30, pp. 83–84.

[91] Из протокола № 198 заседания Оргбюро ЦК ВКП (б) 16 мая 1930 г., In: Кино: организация управления и власть. 1917–1938 гг.: Документы, (ed.) А.Л. Евстигнева, Москва 2016, pp. 402–403.

[92] Справка, выданная редактору «Киносправочника» Г. М. Болтянскому в связи с утверждением изменений в уставе Кинематографического акционерного общества «Межрабпом-Русь» и переименованием его в «Межрабпомфильм», In: Кино: организация управления и власть. 1917–1938 гг.: Документы, (ed.) А.Л. Евстигнева, Москва 2016, pp. 363–364.

[93] Г.В. Лапина, «Черные и белые»: история неудавшегося кинопроекта…, pp. 83–84, 102–105.

[94] Сталин и Каганович. Переписка 1931–1936 гг., (ed.) О.В. Хлевнюк, Р.У. Дэвис, Л.П. Кошелева, Э.А. Рис, Л.А. Роговая, Москва 2001, p. 252.

[95] F. Berry, Langston Hughes Before and Beyond Harlem, Westport 1983, pp. 168–169.

[96] Г.В. Лапина, «Черные и белые»: история неудавшегося кинопроекта…, p. 83.

AUTHOR’S BIO

Michał Wojnowski, PhD – independent scholar. He authored several studies published in Przegląd Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego and reprinted in special services magazines in Romania (SRI) and Ukraine (SBU). He rendered a number of expert opinions for such institutions as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, the Special Services Coordinator, the Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, the Sejm Bureau of Research, and the National Security Bureau. His research interest include hybrid, sabotage, and propaganda activities of the Soviet and Russian security agencies.