ABSTRACT
While foreign fighters are jihadis in the contemporary public imagination, over the last 100 years many more individuals volunteered to be foreign fighters for Marx than for Mohammed. During the 75 years between the Russian Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union, approximately one quarter-million volunteers joined Marxist armed groups in civil wars in foreign countries. The shift in leadership from the Soviet Union and the European-based Comintern to China and its diaspora networks in Asia to Cuban direction of missions across Latin America and Africa produced increasingly strategic and long-lived deployments of non-combatant nation-building volunteers along with fighters. Some of these entities remain active, and the movement continues to inspire Marxist foreign fighters in conflicts such as Syria even without state sponsorship. This article examines the life cycle of this transnational movement, and how it evolved as different state actors directed it to match their interests and strategic goals. It also examines understudied instances of foreign fighters in the Global South and the impact of their leadership.
