ABSTRACT
In the early years of the Soviet regime, the story was told of an incident at
the Second, 1920, Congress of the Communist International, or Comintern, when without warning a delegation arrived from the recently established
revolutionary regime in Mongolia. The members of the Soviet leadership
were a bit taken aback by this event, and Lenin asked around anxiously to
see if they could find someone to translate from Mongolian into Russian or,
even better, into German, the official language of the organization. At this
point one of the Bolshevik leaders, Karl Radek, already noted for his gen-
erally cosmopolitan outlook and experience, and in command of several
languages, volunteered to do the job. Thus when the Mongol delegate came to speak, the Comintern audience were duly regaled with tales of the defeat
of Great Han chauvinism, Japanese militarism, White Russian renegades,
and so forth, as well as of the unrelenting struggle of the workers, peasants,
and nomads of Mongolia against feudalism, Lamaism, and tribal fragmen-
tation. The audience was enthused by this tale, and the Mongol delegate
took his seat again. At this point Lenin turned to Radek and said: ‘‘Karl,
that was excellent, but I did not know you spoke Mongolian.’’ To which
Radek replied: ‘‘I don’t, in fact I do not know a word of the language. But I knew what they were going to say, so I thought I might as well help them
convey this to the audience at the Congress.’’ In this anecdote, true or false,
is summed up much of the fate, of the good and bad, in the modern revo-
lutionary concept of ‘‘internationalism.’’ Spontaneous enthusiasm and soli-
darity on one side, calculated takeover by stronger states on the other, an
appearance of common language and struggle masking very contrasted
societies, interests, and cultures (Halliday 1999: chs 3 and 4).
