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To Preserve Their Freedom (1988) is one of 41 paintings by artist Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), which look at the life of Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture.

Unit 1: Internationalism and National Liberation

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Instructor: Bikrum Gill

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Why did the revolution not begin in Europe? This question preoccupied revolutionaries in the early years of the Communist International, and ultimately saw them look away from what Vladimir Lenin describes as “Backwards Europe” — a place so riven by reactionary violence that no emancipatory horizon could be seen. They looked, instead, towards “Advanced Asia”, where new political energies were brewing. The revolution, they saw, would begin in the periphery.

In Unit 1, we look at the theories underpinning the internationalism of the Comintern, and why the rebellion of the South was so central to the project of liberation everywhere.

Required Readings

• 📖 Karl Marx, Capital Vol. I, Ch. 26, 33.
• 📃 V.I. Lenin, “Backwards Europe, Advanced Asia”
• 📃 M.N. Roy, *Supplementary Theses on the National and Colonial Question* [scroll down the page until you find the text]
• 📃 Simón Bolívar, The Jamaica Letter

Recommended Readings

• 📖 Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972)
• 📃 Che Guevara “Message to the Tricontinental”
• 📖 Elisabeth B. Armstrong, Bury the Corpse of Colonialism: The Revolutionary Feminist Conference of 1949

Additional Readings

• 📃 V.I. Lenin, Second Congress of the Third International, “Report Of The Commission On The National And Colonial Questions, July 26”.
• 📃 M.N. Roy, Fourth Congress of the Third International, “Speech in Discussion of the Eastern Question”.
• 📃 Mahfoud Bennoune, “Origins of the Algerian Proletariat"
• 📃 John Bellamy Foster, Hannah Holleman and Brett Clark, “Marx and Slavery”