title: A “Dark Stain” on the Reputation of the Comintern: the Case of the Missing French Delegates
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Slutskaya, L. V.
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.accessioned
metadata.value: 2016-11-11T14:32:24Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.available
metadata.value: 2016-11-11T14:32:24Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.issued
metadata.value: 2016
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.citation
metadata.value: Slutskaya L. V. A “Dark Stain” on the Reputation of the Comintern: the Case of the Missing French Delegates, Modern History of Russia, no. 2, 2016. P. 124–137.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.identifier.other
metadata.value: 10.21638/11701/spbu24.2016.208
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.uri
metadata.value: http://hdl.handle.net/11701/5645
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.description.abstract
metadata.value: This article is devoted to the mysterious disappearance of three French Comintern delegates: the socialist Raymond
  Lefebvre, and the anarcho-syndicalists Bertho Lepetit and Marcel Vergeat as they returned from Soviet Russia to their homeland
  after the Second Congress in 1920. According to the official version presented by the Soviet authorities, the French delegates died on
  October 1 of that year during a storm on the Barents Sea. Their disappearance caused a great public resonance in France and dealt a
  significant blow to the reputation of the Comintern. Among the circles of French anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists and socialists there
  ensued persistent rumors about the fact that the French delegates had actually lost their lives because of their opposition to Bolshevik
  policies. Furthermore, other accounts in the country’s right-wing press about a politicized murder of these French delegates only
  fanned the flames of such rumors. Despite attempts by Soviet and French Communists to shift responsibility for their disappearance
  onto the "villains of the Entente", the official version of their death has been questioned repeatedly. Based off analysis of archival documents
  and the testimony of contemporaries well-acquainted with the French delegates, this article also reveals a number of contradictions
  in the official version of events. First, the man in charge of seeing the French off home was not actually in the Comintern, but
  instead one Viktor Kingisepp—a known Cheka officer, as well as a member of the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal of the RSFSR, and
  one of the organizers of the Estonian Communist Party. Second, there is no mention in any of the official documents uncovered here
  that the bodies of the French and their belongings were ever found. But in the correspondence of the Comintern staff it follows that the
  French belongings were said to be sent to Berlin. There are also uncovered here differences in the actual date of the French delegates’
  death. Whether this disappearance was a crime designed as an intentional elimination of the dissent from the political arena is still an
  open questions. There is still no direct evidence of Lefebvre, Lepetit and Vergeat’s murder. And no investigation has ever been carried
  out. Until that is done, and without any evidence documenting what really happened to them, it can be only assumed that the French
  delegates paid with their lives for their opposition to the Bolshevik policies. The death of Lefebvre, Lepetit and Vergeat had certain implications
  for the future fate of the French left-wing movement. It largely predetermined the split of the General Confederation of Labor
  in 1922 where the Confederation’s anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists moved to oppose joining the Comintern’s Third International.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.language.iso
metadata.value: ru
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.publisher
metadata.value: St Petersburg State University
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.relation.ispartofseries
metadata.value: Modern History of Russia;Issue 2(16)
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Comintern
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: II Congress of the Comintern
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: the anarcho-syndicalists
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: the communist movement
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Soviet Russia
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: the Emergency Commission
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: socialism
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.title
metadata.value: A “Dark Stain” on the Reputation of the Comintern: the Case of the Missing French Delegates
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.type
metadata.value: Article
metadata.lang: en_GB
resources.filename: 08-Slutskaya.pdf
resources.url: https://dspace.spbu.ru/bitstream/11701/5645/1/08-Slutskaya.pdf
resources.format: Adobe PDF
resources.size: 378,76 kB