Ritið : tímarit Hugvísindastofnunar - 01.10.2017, Page 69

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A B S T R A C T
A Russian Revolution in Iceland?
On the transfer of international communism
and its reception in the 1920s and early 1930s
The Russian Revolution and its aftermath – the construction of the Soviet Union
and the international Communist movement – were global events, intertwining
political ideologies and practices from Russia, Europe and, eventually, all corners of
the globe. As such it is well suited for historians interested in transnational, translo-
cal and/or entangled histories. Looking at correspondence between Communist
men and women during the 1920s, various political texts from the same period and
taking note of the input from Comintern, this article considers the way in which int-
ernational communism was transferred to Iceland. Having considered how and by
whom revolutionary ideas were imported, at the particularities of the local context,
and finally, how different social groups, including women, interpreted and found
meaning in the revolutionary message, it argues that Icelandic Communists were
relatively successful in translating international communism into Icelandic; more-
over, that their successful translation (so to speak) goes a long way towards explain-
ing the strength of the Icelandic Communist movement.
Keywords: Russian revolution, the Communist movement in Iceland, cultural trans-
fer
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