50 Chapter 3THE FIRST SEEDS OF XENOPHOBIA
The Comintern was established in March 1919. Its mission was to build a
“world party” of communists dedicated to the armed overthrow of cap i tal ist
private property and its replacement by a system of collective owner ship and
production.^76 Many saw the October Revolution in Rus sia as the first of
many such upheavals. The events in Munich gave false hope to Rus sian Bol-
sheviks. Eugene Levine took control of the Bavarian Soviet Republic in
April 1919, proclaiming, “The sun of the world revolution has risen!” This
republic was soon under siege by noncommunists and or ga nized a Bavarian
Red Army to defend itself. The Bavarian Red Army was crushed, as was
the republic. In August 1919, Bela Kun’s Hungarian Soviet collapsed as
well. Both leaders were Jewish, as were many in their cabinets and vari ous
commissars. The spark for these revolutions was linked to Jewish Bolshe-
vism in Rus sia (Eugene Levine was born in St. Petersburg). By late 1919,
the belief in a world socialist revolution beginning in Eu rope had faded;
hence a change to the theory that the world revolution would begin in the
East (Asia).^77 At the Second Congress of the Communist International in
July 1920, Lenin delivered his preliminary ideas on the socialist revolution
in Asia. Specifically, they stated that the proletariat in Asia must form “tem-
porary alliances” with the bourgeoisie. Turkey and China were given as two
examples where this type of co ali tion might work.^78
In August 1922, Maring, who represented Indonesia at the SCCI, or-
dered the Chinese CP to join with the Kuomintang as a united front.^79 This
idea of a co ali tion with the pe tite bourgeoisie in the developing world was
first stated in Lenin’s 1913 article, “Backward Eu rope and Advanced Asia.”
On July 27, 1920, Ilia (Chin Sun) Pak, a delegate representing the RFE
who supported Lenin’s temporary alliances with bourgeois and other class
and po liti cal groups, stated during a speech at the SCCI:
Of course, there are ele ments among the revolutionists themselves who
will join us, the internationalists, only for the purpose of national po liti cal
liberation.... but if the revolution requires it, we will know how to turn our
weapons on the “allies” of yesterday, and the victory undoubtedly will be
ours.... Without tiring for a minute, we must explain to the broad masses
of toilers of the East that national po liti cal enfranchisement alone will not
give them what they are fighting for, and that only social liberation [through
proletariat revolution] can give them the full guarantee of freedom.^80Pak emphasized that even Koreans exploited the peasants and proletariat
from within Korea. He understood that the strug gle was based on class, not