In July 1936, units of the Spanish military, backed by a collection of domestic right-wing elements and by fascist governments elsewhere in Europe, staged a rebellion against the legally constituted national government that had been elected five months previously. The governing bloc, an ideologically broad coalition of liberal republicans, Marxists, and anarchists known as the People's Front, embodied the strategy formulated by Stalin and the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow to stem the advance of international fascism and mitigate the danger it posed to the Soviet Union and, by extension, the communist movement and the global radical working class it represented. During the destructive and bloody civil war that ensued, the Comintern sponsored recruitment of anti-fascist volunteer fighters from around the world. Before the war ended, nearly 3,000 Americans had surreptitiously traveled to Spain to defend its republican government. This thesis addresses the question of how these volunteers came to develop an allegiance to their global political and social movement strong enough to motivate them to risk death in what they perceived to be its defense against fascism. Drawing on the theoretical formulations of political scientists Benedict Anderson and David Malet, this thesis will demonstrate that over the course of a century, radical proletarian internationalism developed into a community of working-class revolutionaries, mostly within or allied to communist parties, whose shared ideological formulations and sociopolitical aspirations bound them together, irrespective of nationality. American members of that global community - whose numbers and influence had recently expanded in the context of the Great Depression and the People's Front strategy of liberal-left conciliation - had their perceptions and priorities about the Spanish crisis shaped by the American communist press. Examination and analysis of its coverage of the political, social, and military dimensions of the conflict there will demonstrate it to have been copious and persistent, imparting unmistakably to its readership the centrality of the Spanish people's struggle against fascism in the defense of the global working class, whose political and social survival was at stake. The thesis will argue, in the context of the contentious historiography of American communism, that although the messages conveyed to American proletarian internationalists via the communist press reflected policies and priorities determined in Moscow and designed to serve the interests of the Soviet state, American anti-fascists were for the most part well informed ideologues whose decisions reflected both the concerted influences of their movement's leadership as well as their own deep commitments to a more equitable world.

Submitted by Miriam Lucas (miriam.lucas@unioeste.br) on 2017-09-01T17:23:11Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Sandra_Severo_Kasper_2017.pdf: 9517391 bytes, checksum: f1f561f5dffc998681ee3dd8e114f48d (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-01T17:23:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Sandra_Severo_Kasper_2017.pdf: 9517391 bytes, checksum: f1f561f5dffc998681ee3dd8e114f48d (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-05-09 / This máster thesis delimits the comparative study of the structures of formal organization of unions in education of the Brazil-Paraguay-Argentina border, with the general objective of verifying if there is evidence of internationalist articulation among unions of public education workers in this region. The cut of the comparative study occurred in the formal organizational structures of the National Union of Educators, National Union, Ciudad del Este-Alto Paraná-Paraguay Base Committee (hereinafter UNE-SN-CDE), APP- Union of workers in education (hereinafter referred to as APP-FI) and the Union of Teachers of the Province of Misiones (hereinafter UDPM-PI), the Trade Union Department of Puerto Iguazú-Misiones-Argentina. The central question of this study was: do the formal structures of these unions reveal evidence of internationalist initiatives among workers' unions in the education of the Foz do Iguaçu-Brazil, Ciudad del Este-Paraguay and Puerto Iguazú-Argentina frontiers? What are the similarities and differences in the formal organizational structures of these unions? The initial understanding is that these unions had in common the territorial proximity, given by the Brazil-Paraguay-Argentina border. We chose as method of research the Historical Dialectical Materialism, the general categories that guided the study were praxis, totality and contradiction. We analyze the categories of content: nationalism, proletarian internationalism, I, II, III and IV editions of the International Workers' Association (1st chapter), the Brazilian scientific production on proletarian internationalism, currently (2nd chapter). Through the methodological resources of interviewing and documentary analysis, we performed the comparative analysis of oral histories, formal organization structures and union documents UNE-SN-CDE, APP-FI and UDPM-PI evidencing the internationalist articulations found (3rd chapter). The results of the study show that there are few, occasional, individualized, discontinuous and sparse internationalist articulation initiatives, materialized in the form of meetings, meetings and participation in seminars and congresses. / Nesta dissertação de mestrado delimitamos o estudo na comparação das estruturas de organização formal de sindicatos em educação da fronteira Brasil-Paraguai-Argentina, com o objetivo geral de verificar se há indícios de articulação internacionalista dentre sindicatos dos trabalhadores da educação pública nesta região. O recorte do estudo comparado se deu nas estruturas de organização formal da Unión Nacional de Educadores, Sindicato Nacional, Comité de Base Ciudad del Este-Alto Paraná-Paraguai (doravante denominada UNE-SN-CDE), da APP-Sindicato dos trabalhadores em eduacação pública do Paraná-núcleo sindical de Foz do Iguaçu-Paraná-Brasil (doravante denominada APP-FI) e da Unión de docentes de la província de Misiones (doravante denominada U.D.P.M.-PI) Departamento Sindical de Puerto Iguazú-Misiones-Argentina. Os questionamentos centrais deste estudo foram: as estruturas formais desses sindicatos revelam indícios de iniciativas internacionalistas entre sindicatos de trabalhadores em educação da fronteira Foz do Iguaçu-Brasil, Ciudad del Este-Paraguai e Puerto Iguazú-Argentina? Quais as semelhanças e quais as diferenças nas estruturas organizativas formais desses sindicatos? A compreensão inicial é que estes sindicatos tinham em comum à proximidade territorial, dada pela fronteira Brasil-Paraguai-Argentina. Elegemos como método de pesquisa o Materialismo Histórico Dialético, as categorias gerais que nortearam o estudo foram a práxis, a totalidade e a contradição. Analisamos mediante uma revisão de literatura, as categorias de conteúdo: nacionalismo, internacionalismo proletário, as I, II, III e IV edições da Associação Internacional dos Trabalhadores (1º capítulo), a produção científica brasileira sobre internacionalismo proletário, na atualidade (2º capítulo). Através dos recursos metodológicos de entrevistas e análise documental, realizamos a análise comparativa: das histórias orais, das estruturas de organização formal e de documentos dos sindicatos UNE-SN-CDE, APP-FI e U.D.P.M.-PI evidenciando as articulações internacionalistas encontradas (3º capítulo). Os resultados do estudo demonstraram que existem poucas, eventuais, individualizadas, descontínuas e esparsas iniciativas de articulação internacionalista, materializadas na forma de reuniões, encontros e participação em seminários e congressos.