Brigitte Studer is a historian and professor emerita of contemporary history at the University of Bern. She is the author of Travellers of the World Revolution: A Global History of the Communist International.
No organization in modern history was as transnational in its scope as the early Communist International. The men and women who worked for it had to travel across borders and forget about any kind of settled life as they sought to promote a global revolution.
Throughout history, it’s been hard for agitators and troublemakers to hold down a good job. In the interwar decades, tens of thousands of them were hired by the Communist International — an employer with long hours, difficult bosses, and a lot of opportunities for travel.