Unpredictable Routes: Communists, Fascists, and Political Refugees in South America During World War II

This paper asks how World War II impacted the growth of Soviet-backed Communism in Latin America. It traces the origins of Communist parties throughout Latin America in the 1920s to their emergence as mature competitors for local and national political power between 1944 and 1948, a critical conjuncture in Cold War history. During World War II, the Soviet Union gained global prestige, becoming an alternative model for development for what would be termed the Third World. Latin American communists used the political opening that emerged during these years to organize across national borders. It argues that during this period Latin America became a terrain for fighting global fascism, and that Latin American communists emerged as a principal bulwark against fascist movements in Latin America.

Unpredictable Routes draws on State Department reports from the 1940s, along with communist publications from Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela, to reconstruct the transnational routes of Latin American communism. These include organizing efforts by communist organizers and communist refugees who fled detention in their country of origin. These organizers became transnational subjects, people of concern to the US government and its allies in the hemisphere. With logistical assistance from local communists, they settled clandestinely in cities where communist organizing flourished, creating a communist cartography that transcended national borders. State Department records reveal that Spanish Communists fleeing General Franco’s dictatorship were instrumental in organizing communists in Chile and Colombia in the struggle against “Hitlerism” as well as Italian fascism. In the process, they developed links between the Soviet Union, European anti-fascists, and Latin American communists, including peasants and workers outside major urban hubs.