The International Workers’ Relief, communism, and transnational solidarity

In The International Workers’ Relief, Communism, and Transnational Solidarity, Kasper Braskén offers the first comprehensive account of the international solidarity campaigns organised by the German communist Willi Münzenberg in Weimar Germany. Set in the context of the post-First World War era, the book looks at the making of communist and socialist cultures, movements and public celebrations of solidarity. Radical transnational solidarity was empowered by its intersection of liberation and resistance movements that all had a transnational or even a global agenda. Through its international solidarity campaigns, workers were encouraged to ’think globally’ and to realise that, just as major strikes in neighbouring countries were linked with their own future prospects, so too were the far-off struggles in the colonies. In essence, it forms a study of how transnational communities and imaginaries have been constructed beyond national frameworks during the 20th Century.