Relations between what came to be known as the Second and the Third Worlds have emerged as a significant focus of historical inquiry in recent years. Scholars have explored the complex interplay of socialism, development, and decolonization, shedding light on projects and experiences of “alternative” globalizations while examining the similarities and differences between the modernist ideologies and practices of key actors in the global Cold War. Addressing the challenges posed by global history and the broad generalizations it demands, this body of scholarship has often had to make difficult choices—frequently favoring macro-level analyses over detailed case studies, or concentrating on a limited set of political agents as central subjects of investigation.
Kristin Roth-Ey’s collection, however, charts a different course. In her introduction, the editor highlights the inherent tension in Second-Third World encounters between “the universal of socialism” and “a great many particulars” (5), and sets the stage for the volume’s distinctive focus on the latter. The seemingly unified concept of an “encounter” is deconstructed into a mosaic of diverse stories, narrated from the ground up, revealing what these interactions meant to various groups and individuals across different times and places. In addition to emphasizing people as agents of internationalism, the essays delve into spaces—both physical and conceptual. These include concrete sites of encounter and interaction, as well as mediated and imagined spaces where the Third World was introduced to the Second, and vice versa. Each of the volume’s twelve chapters centers on one such space.
Examples of physical sites explored include Czechoslovakian, Romanian, and Hungarian boarding schools where North Korean war orphans were housed, educated, and socialized into local and socialist customs during the 1950s (Péter Apor); the Aswan High Dam, as seen from the perspective of the Soviet specialists who participated in its construction (Elizabeth Bishop); a Libyan hospital managed by Romanian healthcare professionals from 1975 to 1985 (Bogdan C. Iacob); and the secretive setting of the Soviet military training camp for Guinean and Cape Verdean guerrillas (Natalia Telepneva). While these sites offered opportunities for mobility and direct encounters, they engaged only a very small fraction of the populations involved. For the overwhelming majority, knowledge of the “other world” was mediated by the press, radio reportages, cinema newsreels, party initiatives, and other channels. This reality underscores the volume’s emphasis on intangible spaces of encounter, such as the airwaves of Radio Moscow, whose relationships with Third World listeners are analyzed by Roth-Ey; the state-sponsored correspondence between Soviet women and their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, promoted by the Committee of Soviet Women (Christine Varga-Harris); and east European travel literature about the postcolonial world (Eric Burton, Zoltán Ginelli, James Mark, and Nemanja Radonjić).
As this brief overview suggests, the chapters cover a wide range of topics and actors. At first glance, reading them sequentially may feel akin to looking through a historical kaleidoscope: constantly shifting fragments form an endless series of captivating patterns, none of which claim to represent a fixed “whole.” Yet, the collection’s focus on the deconstructed reality of the particular is not just an end in itself—although amplifying the voices of subjects typically marginalized in western-centered narratives of globalization is indeed one of the goals of the volume. More crucially, it seeks to provide elements for reconstructing what might be described, following Marc Bloch’s classic formulation, as a “wider and more human history” of east-south linkages during the Cold War. Common threads run through the chapters, and the introduction adeptly highlights several key themes that tie the collection together.
Through the concrete experiences of their protagonists, Second-Third World relations emerge as marked by ambiguities and contradictions. Discourses of solidarity and internationalism that permeated bilateral relations coexisted with persistent tendencies to frame these relations hierarchically. East European actors often saw themselves as agents of modernization, bringing not only technical expertise but also “socialist” values and a suite of social norms they deemed essential for overcoming perceived “backwardness.” Although officially alien to socialist societies, racial discourse sometimes underpinned the way cultural differences were construed during these encounters.
Alena Alagmir’s fascinating chapter, for instance, examines criminal dossiers produced by the Czechoslovak judiciary in cases involving foreign workers, primarily from Vietnam and Cuba, and highlights how pubs often became spaces where foreigners were openly subjected to racist remarks by local patrons. In a different context, Eric Burton’s chapter on East German trade unions’ involvement in East African labor politics reveals tensions between class-based strategies advocated by the former and the racial strategies of emancipation prioritized by local activists.
Yet another contradiction emerges regarding gender norms. While women’s emancipation was heralded as a hallmark of socialist modernity, women were typically underrepresented and relegated to secondary roles in internationalist ventures that required extended stays abroad. Authorities often prioritized policing their social and sexual relationships, imposing restrictions that limited their interactions with local communities.
The rich and complex picture presented in this volume is primarily built on sources produced by Second World institutions and individuals. Exceptions include Małgorzata Mazurek’s chapter, which draws extensively on Ghanaian sources to explore the role of Polish academics in reorganizing Ghana’s post-independence university system, and Telepneva’s interviews with former trainees from Soviet training camps. A stronger focus on Third World perspectives might have further highlighted the collection’s distinctive contributions. Nevertheless, Socialist Internationalism represents a significant and valuable addition to a growing field of study, offering a promising indication of the directions being pursued in research on the global Cold War.
