The League Against Imperialism

Things must have got rather heated at times in 1929 in the office of the ‘International Secretariat’ of the League Against Imperialism at 24 Friedrichstr., in what is now the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district. In this office, which was situated close to numerous film companies, transnationalism and diversity were given high priority (at least in ethnic terms). The inner circle of the Secretariat consisted of Willi Münzenberg, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya and Bohmir Smeral, born in Erfurt, Germany; Hyderabad, India; and Trebitsch, Czechoslovakia, respectively. However, from autumn 1929 onwards, the same office was also home to the League for the Defence of the N**** Race (LzVN), founded as the German branch of the French organisation of the same name. The seven founding members were Joseph Bilé, Louis Brody, Richard Dinn, Thomas Ngambi ul Kuo, Victor Bell, Thomas Manga Akwa and Manfred Kotto Priso.^[1] They were all Duala and came from the former German colony of Cameroon, but according to internal activity reports, the league initially had even more members – around 20 in total – some of whom had also immigrated to Germany from other regions of the African continent. Although everyone involved in the office was united by the common goal of the global struggle against imperialism, disputes arose constantly. This was particularly true as Chattopadhyaya, known as ‘Chatto’, rarely held back when expressing his opinions.

Smeral became secretary of the LAI in September 1929 on direct instructions from Moscow. Since its foundation in 1927, the ‘League’ had been subordinate to the ‘Communist International’ (Comintern, also known as the ‘Third International’), which Lenin had initiated in 1919 as an alliance of all communist parties. He was to organise day-to-day business whilst also reporting to headquarters. In November, Chatto voiced sharp criticism of this personnel decision to the relevant authorities in Moscow. Smeral had absolutely no connection to the colonial countries; he, Chatto, could not understand why a ‘superficial politician’ was being sent to Berlin instead of ‘comrades with genuine knowledge of and connections to the colonies’.^[2] Here, the conflict that had accompanied the LAI from the outset – and which would lead to its demise a few years later – was palpable.

The Comintern, the ‘world party’ in Moscow, was at once a mainstay of anti-colonialism and a problem for the anti-colonial movements. On the one hand, the Comintern had stipulated in its ‘guidelines’ that ‘international proletarian communism’ would ‘support the exploited colonial peoples in their struggles against imperialism’.^[3] In 1919, such clear statements stood in contrast to the theoretical and practical vacillation of most socialist parties, which certainly acknowledged that colonialism had a ‘civilising’ character. The German SPD, for example, had agreed to a cross-party motion in the Reichstag five days before the Comintern’s guidelines were adopted (tabled, amongst others, by the SPD MP and later President of the Reichstag, Paul Löbe), which called for “the restoration of Germany’s colonial rights”. Only the USPD, which had split from the SPD in 1916, had voted against it – citing the resolutions of the 1907 Socialist Congress in Stuttgart.^[4]

On the other hand, however, after 1927 the Comintern had abandoned the strategy of the so-called united front and tightened its control to such an extent that Chatto’s complaint appeared more than justified. The term ‘united front’ referred to a strategy that allowed communist parties (which, in their own view, represented the working masses) to cooperate even with those anti-colonial liberation movements that were nationalistic and bourgeois in character. However, the Comintern had abandoned this approach in 1927, when the Kuomintang movement in China – initially perceived as left-wing – took brutal action against its Communist allies. This disappointment led the Comintern to insist that anti-imperialist cooperation should take place only with reliable communists. In 1929, Chatto was undoubtedly such a communist, but his focus nevertheless remained on liberation from colonialism. Just two years earlier, Margarete Buber-Neumann had written about him in her memoirs, stating that she had gained the impression “that Chatto was not a communist, but an Indian nationalist”.^[5]

In fact, Chatto’s story illustrates the full range of tensions within anti-colonial resistance amongst the émigré community. Born into a wealthy Indian family, Chatto had enrolled as a student in Berlin in 1914.

As a revolutionary nationalist, he campaigned there too for the expulsion of the British from India. During the First World War, the German Empire appeared to him as a potential partner in this endeavour. He thus began working for the News Bureau for the Orient, where Max von Oppenheim sought to organise Muslims worldwide in the German interest against the colonial rule of the Entente powers. In 1915, the Indians in Berlin succeeded in becoming independent of the Information Bureau and Oppenheim’s mediation. The Indian Independence Committee, known as the ‘Berlin Committee’ for short, was based in an office in Charlottenburg and negotiated directly with the Foreign Office – Chatto saw himself as a sort of ambassador in this context. However, the Committee’s (global) efforts to instigate an Indian uprising against the British failed for many reasons, with the result that Wilhelmstraße was increasingly losing interest even before the end of the war.^[6]

In Stockholm, Chatto eventually came into contact with the Bolsheviks, whose explicit commitment to the liberation of India seemed more sincere to him. Moreover, with the founding of the Soviet Union, the British had gained a new principal enemy, with whom Chatto wished to form an alliance. Consequently, a delegation of the ‘Berlin Indians’ travelled to Moscow to discuss cooperation with the Comintern, although this did not actually materialise until years later.^[7] During his stay in Moscow, he was expelled from Sweden at the instigation of the British. Back in Berlin, he founded the Indian News Service and Information Bureau (INSIB)^[8] with offices in Halensee, which was intended to supply both German and Indian media with independent news, but also served to support Indians in Germany (students and businesspeople). Berlin was an attractive destination for students from overseas at the time; around 5,000 were living in the city – not least because the German Empire had no longer possessed any colonies since 1919 and the Weimar Republic appeared comparatively open. In the years that followed, however, the ‘Berlin Indians’ also protested on several occasions against German policy. This concerned the increasing trade with the British in the colony, but also events in Germany itself. The strongest reactions were triggered in 1926 by an ‘India Exhibition’ organised by John Hagenbeck (Carl’s half-brother) at, of all places, Berlin Zoo – the Indian emigrants wrote indignant letters to the Chancellor’s Office and the matter was hotly debated in the German media.^[9] Shortly afterwards, Willi Münzenberg recruited Chatto to the predecessor organisation of the LAI.

However, Chatto had problems not only with the ‘superficial politician’ Smeral – whose rather reserved manner he soon managed to come to terms with – but also with the members of the League for the Defence of the N**** Race. Chatto did not consider them ‘sufficiently revolutionary’, but rather as insecure amateurs with unrealistic expectations, particularly in financial terms. Joseph Bilé, the chief secretary of the LzVN, who suggested returning to Cameroon to recruit students there for the struggle, was personally rebuffed by Chatto with the remark that he would rather promote recruitment in India – and in any case, the dissolution of the LzVN would not be the slightest loss to the LAI.^[10] In fact, the LzVN was very much a figurehead organisation – the only collective activity in the strict sense that has actually been recorded is the performance of a ‘racial theatre’ piece apparently initiated by Louis Brody, entitled ‘Sunrise in the Orient’. Admittedly, the founding of the LzVN stemmed from the LAI’s contacts with the organisation of the same name – and of far greater relevance – in Paris, which was^[11] initially led by Lamine Senghor, who is today unjustly largely forgotten, and later by Tiemko Garan Kouyaté. However, Münzenberg, whose talent for what is now known as ‘organising’ was nothing short of phenomenal, did not seem particularly convinced by the political awareness of the African immigrants he had contacted in Berlin, and apparently wanted to train them – and, to a certain extent, test them – within a sort of front organisation.

However, these immigrants did not, like Chatto, come from a distinguished family background and, partly due to the pervasive discrimination, often scraped by in Berlin. In some cases, fraud served as a survival strategy, whereby the deception was frequently accompanied by a ‘performance’ of ‘being Black’ based on stereotypes. Wilhelm Munumé, who appeared as a ‘West African delegate’ at the founding meeting of the LAI’s predecessor organisation, had not hesitated to exploit anti-colonialism to line his own pockets.^[12] From 1921 onwards, he was involved in a number of scams (in which he posed as a representative of the Liberian government or as such for a fictitious king in Accra).

From 1925 onwards, he received regular support from the colonial-revisionist ‘German Society for Native Studies’, whose remit also included looking after Cameroonians who had emigrated to the Reich. In 1927, Munumé was convicted of attempting to print and circulate counterfeit money.^[13] When he faced the threat of deportation, the differing interests between the Black activists and Chatto became unmistakably apparent. For the former, the case provided an opportunity to draw attention to their own precarious residence status and the unjust denial of access to citizenship. Chatto, on the other hand, whilst showing a keen interest in the case, saw it merely as an opportunity to denounce the revisionist demands for the return of the colonies.^[14]

Bilé, for his part, lodged complaints in Paris and Moscow about Chatto, whose arrogance undoubtedly went too far. In fact, Bilé was the only reasonably coherent activist in the LzVN (and previously in the African Aid Society), although he too had, at times, unrealistic expectations regarding the financial resources available for his work.^[15] Bilé attended courses at the MASCH (Marxist Workers’ School) in Berlin, became a member of the KPD and travelled to Moscow in the summer of 1930. From late 1932 to early 1934, he was back in Moscow, studying at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East, founded by the Comintern. Bilé was a welcome speaker at all manner of events whenever the topic concerned the colonies or the cause of ‘Black people’ worldwide.

He also spoke at protests against the conviction of the black ‘Scottsboro Boys’, who were sentenced to death in the USA in 1931 by an all-white jury for an alleged rape – such cases were also noted in the German Reich at the time. Naturally, he always presented himself as a representative of his ‘race’. At that time, the communist organisations often seemed to have little more than a tactical relationship with their respective ‘representatives’. In her memoirs, Buber-Neumann describes a person of Algerian origin who was born in Wedding but appeared at KPD meetings as a ‘representative of the Rif Kabyle people fighting for their freedom’.^[16] Even more outrageous stories are Jan Valtin (who, admittedly, was^[17] certainly not always credible), who reports that at the first World Congress in 1932, organised by the Comintern front organisation ‘International of Seamen and Dockworkers (ISH)’, Chinese students from Berlin posed as dockworkers from Canton. When it became clear that the delegation from the East Indies would not be able to attend due to passport problems, Valtin himself lured three ‘Hindus’—who were working on a freighter—to the congress with absurd promises of a free revue show, where they then acted as silent envoys.

Nevertheless, even in the case of this latter example, it must be added that the congress had been organised largely by two black trade unionists, the American James Ford and George Padmore from Trinidad. Until Stalin’s ‘purges’ began, the structures of the Communist organisation offered many opportunities. Joseph Bilé, however, had wanted to return to Cameroon since the late 1920s – which led to the proposal, mentioned above, that he should act as an agitator there. In the Soviet Union, he was no longer considered fit for this role. In 1932, the Soviet Africanist Alexander Zusmanovich reported that Bilé had become ‘Germanised’, and that his understanding of colonial issues and African realities was merely abstract, and at times even mythical.^[18] Bilé found himself in an impossible situation: the more he tried to fit in within the KPD, the more he forfeited his usefulness as a ‘representative’. Incidentally, Ralph Ellison described this situation impressively in his novel *Invisible Man*: there, the protagonist in Harlem becomes a much sought-after speaker for the ‘Brotherhood’ (easily identifiable as the Communist Party USA).

Two years before the LAI moved into its premises at 24 Friedrichstrasse, another organisation with close ties to many of the people mentioned had been based directly opposite at number 232: the Chinese National Agency, headed by Hansin Liau. Liau was the Kuomintang’s representative in Berlin and, as head of this ‘Agency’, was tasked with fuelling anti-colonial propaganda concerning China (with all news coming from Moscow). However, Liau, who sympathised with the Communists, was caught off guard in April 1927 by the Kuomintang’s brutal coup against its Communist allies in Shanghai. Suddenly, the propaganda no longer had a clear line, and the office was closed down again. As mentioned, the Comintern issued the directive that cooperation should henceforth be limited to reliable Communists in the respective countries.

Things had been different in the early days. The idea for an international anti-colonial movement – initiated by communists but politically broad-based – originated with Willi Münzenberg. With help from Moscow, he had founded the ‘International Workers’ Aid’ (IAH) in Berlin – essentially a charitable organisation, but one which collected its donations under the banner of ‘international solidarity’ amongst the working class. He had risen through the ranks of the communist nomenklatura as an unskilled labourer and, whilst working for the Comintern in Berlin, had built up a veritable media empire that rivalled the Hugenberg Group. Münzenberg regarded the anti-colonial struggle as one of the most important tasks for the future – something that was quite unusual at the time – and saw a convergence of interests between the European working classes and the oppressed colonial peoples. As early as 1925, he had orchestrated a campaign with the IAH against the imperialist encroachments of the Western powers in China, which were closely watched, particularly by the pacifist-minded public of the Weimar Republic: ‘Hands off China’. Funds were raised, China-themed stamps were sold, and in August an international conference on China took place at the Berlin Herrenhaus (the former Prussian State Parliament and then meeting place of the Prussian State Council, chaired by Konrad Adenauer) at Leipziger Str. 3.

In line with the Comintern’s principle of the united front, Münzenberg sought to forge an alliance transcending party boundaries and therefore tirelessly established contacts in all directions: into the German pacifist movement, amongst anti-colonial socialists, and amongst representatives of anti-colonial movements all over the world. He had to coordinate all his efforts with Moscow, where Münzenberg’s zeal, independence and pragmatism did not always meet with a favourable response. Following the establishment of several committees (against the colonial atrocities in Syria, for example), a conference in Berlin in 1926 led to the founding of the LAI’s predecessor organisation, the League Against Colonial Oppression, whose International Secretariat (there were also national offices) was based in the IAH’s premises at Wilhelmstr. 48.^[19]

In 1927, Münzenberg achieved a remarkable success when he organised the ‘Congress against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism’ in Brussels from 10 to 15 February. The writer and politician Ernst Toller wrote about it in March in the weekly magazine *Die Weltbühne*, edited by Kurt Tucholsky: ‘As I reflect on the significance of the Congress in Brussels following my return, I dare say, notwithstanding the hackneyed nature of the expression: ‘An event of world-historical significance’. What was achieved in Brussels was nothing more and nothing less than the organisational unification of all the rebellious forces of the East, the West and Europe against the supremacy of the European-American ruling class.”^[20]

174 delegates had travelled to the Belgian capital, and they were not merely intellectuals, but representatives of organisations and parties from Europe, the USA, Latin America and the colonies in Africa and Asia. The meeting at the Palais Egmont served as a bridge between European figures such as the Labour doyen George Lansbury, the well-known pacifist Helene Stöcker and the writer Henri Barbusse, and prominent figures—both contemporary and future—from former or then-current colonies: Among those present were José Vasconcelos, who had only recently been Mexico’s Minister of Education; Josiah Tshangana Gumede, who was soon to become President of the African National Congress; and Jawaharlal Nehru, Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh) and Mohammad Hatta, who went on to become Prime Ministers of their respective countries – India, Vietnam and Indonesia – following independence.^[21] Albert Einstein was unable to attend, but sent a message of greeting.^[22]

However, the euphoria at the Palais Egmont did not last long: the socialists soon turned their backs on the organisation, there was friction with the ‘bourgeois’ movements, and Moscow became increasingly authoritarian under Stalin. When the LACO was renamed the League Against Imperialism, the organisation became unambiguously communist, yet its activities remained impressive. The secretariat in Berlin co-ordinated the protest actions of a number of national groups; it organised a further international meeting in Frankfurt (attended by the future Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta^[23]), youth conferences in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Berlin, as well as an anti-war conference in Amsterdam, and maintained contact between the Comintern and representatives of the liberation movements.^[24]

There is no doubt that the LAI never realised its full potential because the differences in political views were too great. From 1932 onwards, it sank into obscurity, even though the secretariat had moved to Paris. Münzenberg also went to Paris in 1933, where he eventually turned his propaganda efforts against Stalin. He died in 1940 under unexplained circumstances. Joseph Bilé did indeed settle in Cameroon in 1935, withdrew from politics and worked as an architect.^[25] Chatto and Smeral turned their attention to Moscow. Smeral remained true to his career as a party official and allowed himself to be posted by the Kremlin to Mongolia, where, as an adviser, he played a key role in the post-revolutionary ‘purges’. Chatto, on the other hand, fell victim to these ‘purges’. In July 1937, the secret police arrested him without warning; on 2 September, the military wing of the Supreme Court sentenced him to death. That very same day, Chatto was handed over to the firing squad.

Historically speaking, the offices of the anti-imperialist leagues on Friedrichstrasse and half a kilometre further north on Wilhelmstrasse, in what is now the Mitte district, served as something of a hub for the movement of people and transnational connections. It was here that a network was created which truly had ‘world-historical’ significance, as it helped to establish and foreshadow pan-African, pan-Arab, pan-Asian and overarching anti-colonial solidarities.^[26] Jawaharlal Nehru paid tribute to Münzenberg’s groundwork at the legendary Bandung Conference of 1955, the conference at which the ‘Non-Aligned’ and ‘Third World’ movements were born.