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On A Field of Red: The Communist International and the coming of World War II

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On a Field of Red, by British journalist Anthony Cave Brown and American military historian Charles B. McDonald, is the history of the Communist International from its inception soon after the Bolshevik Revolution to its official demise during World War II. The authors drew heavily on recently (1981) declassified files from the US Army and present an exceedingly detailed account separated into two periods: 1917-33 and 1933-39. In each period, they devote separate chapters to events and perceptions in America, Britain, Germany, and Russia.

The mission of the Comintern, as it was known in Bolshevik jargon, was to foment unrest with the goal of triggering the proletarian revolution that true believers were certain was imminent throughout the western world. This mission was a major impediment to establishing normal diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the American and British governments. Despite Soviet protests that the Comintern was an independent organization over which the Soviet government exercised no control, the Americans and British recognized that the Comintern, the Soviet government, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were all controlled by the same handful of Bolshevik leaders who, in turn, took orders from Lenin and subsequently from Stalin. Consequently, On a Field of Red is simultaneously a history of the Comintern, Soviet foreign policy, and the role of the Communist Party in directing both.

The authors present the history of the Comintern in such great detail and from so many perspectives, that a concise summary is not possible. Instead, I'll offer three anecdotes that seem representative.

1. During the 1920s, the WWI allies treated the Soviet Union as a diplomatic leper in reaction to the flagrant interference of the Comintern in western domestic political affairs and the increasingly brutal and antidemocratic character of the Soviet government. Germany, on the other hand, was defeated, friendless, economically prostate, and saddled by the Versailles Treaty with oppressive reparations payments and severe limits on German military power. Not surprisingly, these conditions drove the Germans to seek rapprochement with the other outcast, the Soviet Union. The 1922 Treaty of Rapallo provided the basis for the secret rebuilding of German military strength on Soviet territory and, quid pro quo, for German training and organization of the Red Army. Despite Rapallo, the Comintern continued to agitate for the proletarian revolution in Germany, undermining the Weimar government, and leading to the rise of Hitler.

2. Prior to invading Poland in 1939, Germany had negotiated the Ribbentrop-Molotov non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, assuring Hitler a free hand in Poland while ceding to the Soviets the eastern part of Poland and the Baltic states. This treaty was also designed by Hitler to circumvent the blockade of German-controlled Europe by the British Navy by substituting imports of Russian raw materials, including oil, metals and food which could be delivered by land routes. This arrangement continued virtually up to the day Hitler attacked Russia.

3. In the early days of WWII, prior to Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union and Pearl Harbor, Comintern agents worked to stir up labor unrest in US defense plants, inciting workers to strike rather than send arms and aid to the British in the "Second Imperialist War." This stance was altered overnight when Hitler invaded Russia. The new Comintern line urged US workers to make every effort to increase arms production and support the Soviet Union in the "Great Patriotic War." The "abolition" of the Comintern in 1943 was actually an attempt to project an image of Soviet Union as a loyal ally of US and Britain with a goal of greater aid and an early opening of a second front. In reality, many of the resources and personnel of the Comintern were transferred to the NKVD and refocused on espionage and penetration of the US and British governments by Soviet agents.

The authors need to hire a good editor to correct the numerous factual and typographical errors. At one point, the city of Baku has moved to the Crimea, although it is back where it belongs in Azerbaijan a few pages later. Warren Harding is cited as running against Woodrow Wilson in the 1920 election.

Despite these flaws, On a Field of Red offers a valuable and detailed diplomatic history of Soviet-German-US-British relations between the wars. It is a good sequel to George Kennan's two volume History of American-Soviet Relations, Russia Leaves the War and The Decision to Intervene, which I have reviewed separately on Amazon.com.