This fascinating history of the efforts of the Soviet-led Communist International (Comintern) to found the Mexican Communist Party (PCM) sheds light on a series of challenges and knotty issues facing the foreign Communist emissaries sent to that nation. Much of the book is the product of research conducted by the author in the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) following its opening to the public in the 1990s. Daniela Spenser notes some discrepancies between RGASPI documents on the PCM and other primary sources, such as published personal accounts also cited by the author. The book contrasts with original works published on the Comintern beginning in the 1950s, which were influenced by the anti-Communist setting of the Cold War and which focused on the impositions of Moscow while failing to analyze in depth the rich internal debate within the movement. Spenser’s book also corrects a subsequent tendency among...

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