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May 18, 1925

J.V. Stalin, 'The Political Tasks of the University of the Peoples of the Far East: Speech Delivered at a Meeting of Students of the Communist University of the Toilers of the East, May 18, 1925'

After World War I, several communist movements tried to replicate the Bolsheviks’ take-over of Russia in European countries, most importantly and most often in Germany. All failed. As a result, the Soviet leadership and communists worldwide from around 1920 focused more energies on colonized countries, especially in Asia. As most of these seemed to lack the economic and sociopolitical conditions necessary for a communist revolution, the aim was to weaken if not overthrow European imperial rule, serving the interests of both the USSR and the local petit bourgeoisie, peasants, and few industrial workers. The perhaps greatest price was China. Moreover, India was seen to be (exceptionally) ripe for direct communist action.

Communists and some anti-colonial nationalists were also active in and across the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe, often sharing resources while being networked with the Communist International. Abbreviated as the Comintern (also the Third International), the latter was thekey international communist organization: founded in 1919 in Moscow, headquartered there, and employing through its dissolution in 1943 thousands of professional cadres from around the world, principally from Europe and Asia, as Brigitte Studer’s Reisende der Weltrevolution: Eine Globalgeschichte der Kommunistischen Internationale (2020) shows. Also in the Soviet Union, the year 1920 saw the landmark Congress of the Peoples of the East, in Baku. And in 1921, the Communist University for Laborers of the East (Kommunistichyeskii univyersityet trudyaschikhsya Vostoka, KUTV) opened its doors in Moscow. It became the first full-fledged Soviet training center for Soviet Muslims and for foreign communist cadres, principally from Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, and it impacted Soviet views of the East, as Lana Ravandi-Fadai and Masha Kirasirova have shown in “Red Mecca” (2015) and “The ‘East’ as a Category of Bolshevik Ideology and Comintern Administration” (2017), respectively. The text here is the English translation, published in 1954 in the collection J. V. Stalin: Works: Volume 7, of a Russian text published in 1925 in the principal Soviet newspaper, Pravda, rendering a speech that the 1924-1953 Chairman of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) held to KUTV’s students in 1925.

October 9, 1964

Conversation between Comrade Beqir Balluku and Comrade Mao Zedong on 9 October 1964

Mao Zedong and Beqir Balluku ridicule Nikita Khrushchev and discuss the grievances that both Albania and China have towards the Soviet Union.

December 6, 1946

Report from General-Colonel T. Shtykov to Cde. I.V. Stalin and Cde. V.M. Molotov

Shytkov concludes that the Soviet delegation cannot back down from its demands for the parties in Korea to support the Moscow decision. A reversal of this position, Shtykov writes, would lead to the domination of US-backed, right-wing parties to take control over the Provisional Government of Korea.

1956

Mao Zedong, 'On the Problem of Stalin'

Mao discusses Stalin in excerpts from "The Origin and Development of the Differences between the Leadership of the CPSU and Ourselves."

March 9, 1953

Mao Zedong, 'The Greatest Friendship'

After the death of Stalin, Mao honors his legacy and achievements.

December 21, 1949

Congratulatory Remarks [Delivered at] the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow

Mao attends Stalin’s 70th birthday celebration, offering praise for his leadership of the socialist and internationalist movements.

September 23, 1944

The Battle for Warsaw

Stalin updates Harriman and Kerr on the Battle for Warsaw and what the Red Army has encountered as it advances toward Warsaw.

September 23, 1944

The President’s and the Prime Minister’s Message to Marshal Stalin regarding the Quebec Decisions

Stalin, Kerr, and Harriman discuss plans for fighting in the Far East and the Pacific.

September 23, 1944

Prisoners of War in the Balkans

Harriman and Stalin discuss the Red Army's help evacuating American prisoners of war from Romania and their treatment by the Bulgarians.

September 23, 1944

Establishment of a Tripartite Military Committee in Moscow

Harriman, Kerr, and Stalin discuss the development of a tripartite military committee.

Pagination