Colonies in Interwar Europe? The Balkan Communist Parties as Precursors of Anticolonialism

P. 297–318.

Gužvica S.

This chapter calls for rethinking socialism and its reception in the European periphery in the early twentieth century, by examining the development of Balkan Marxist thought. I will show how the critique of the peripheral position of the Balkans, developed by Marxists in the interwar period, converged with contemporary anticolonial movements in the Global South and showed similarities to subsequent decolonial thought. The chapter will first outline the engagement of Balkan Marxists with the anticolonial and anti-imperialist struggles during the Second International, showing how it arose out of an awareness of structural dependence of nominally independent Balkan states. From there, I will present the political strategy of the Balkan communists in the Comintern era, developed around the tripartite alliance of workers, peasants, and oppressed nations. This outlook was formulated from an analysis of the Balkans within the global imperialist system, something that was already partially present before 1914. Finally, I will pay particular attention to the so-called “Third Period” of the Comintern (1928–1935). At this time, the communists began to explicitly articulate the social and national struggles in the Balkans as “anti-colonial”. They developed original contributions not only to anticolonial thought and dependence theories but also to the Marxist theories of revolution in the periphery.

Keywords: Bulgaria, Hungary, decolonization, Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania, anti-colonialism, Balkan History, Anti-colonial movements, Balkan economies, Balkan Periphery, Balkan and comparative history of economic thought

Publication based on the results of: Social transformation processes in the context of the changing political communication languages in Russia in the 16th-20th centuries (2024)

In book

Decolonial Politics in European Peripheries: Redefining Progressiveness, Coloniality and Transition Efforts

L.: Routledge, 2023.