Deserters of war, soldiers of revolution : Charles Francis Phillips and the origins of communism in the Americas, 1914–21

Abstract

This article explores the origins of the global communist movement in the years 1914–21, with special emphasis on the Americas and Spain. It does so through the biography of Charles Phillips, a US army deserter who defected to revolutionary Mexico in 1918, where he intervened in the country’s stormy labor politics and plugged into dynamic transnational networks geared toward Soviet Russia. His contact with Soviet emissaries drove him to Moscow in 1920. He became a roving organizer for the Communist International in Europe and the Americas, helping set up communist groups in Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, and Spain. Phillips’ trajectory is representative of the generation of activists that helped transform communism into a global movement. Though far from consummate Marxists, these militants, whose radicalization was often shaped by the experience of the First World War, proved crucial organizers for the Communist International by dint of their mobility, their international networks, and their commitment to the cause.