The Road to Moscow: On Archival Sources Concerning the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers in the Comintern Archive

Abstract

This article is a critical assessment of the documentary sources of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW) available at the Comintern Archives in Moscow. The organization was the key platform within the Comintern Apparatus to establish an African-Atlantic network of radical activists and organizations in Africa and the Caribbean during the first half of the 1930s. The article addresses the current status of available archival sources for assessing and analysing the objectives, intensity, extent and impact of the organization and its key activists, namely James W. Ford, George Padmore and Otto Huiswoud. It reflects on past and present presentations and evaluations of the ITUCNW's activities and provides a short outline of the chronological order of the organization. In addition, the transfer of its records from Hamburg to Moscow is discussed. The main emphasis is laid on the presentation of the various documentary sources available in Moscow, including reports, resolutions and correspondence.