THE RIGHT TO REVOLUTION: LAW, CULTURE, AND COMMUNISM IN THE INTERWAR UNITED STATES

The talk will focus on the use of immigration law to punish foreign-born radicals, 
communists in particular, for political and labor activism in the interwar United States. 
It is one chapter of a larger book project that aims to write a new history of American 
communism that focuses not only on ideology and politics, but also on its engagement 
with major contemporary American legal, cultural, and ethnic struggles. Drawing on the 
world of the International Labor Defense, the communist party's legal aid organization, 
the talk explores how immigrant workers, lawyers, artists, and organizers became, often 
reluctantly, key defenders of civil rights—speech, assembly, due process, racial justice, 
and asylum—in an era of repression, segregation, and deportation. By tracing these 
conflicts across immigrant neighborhoods, courtrooms, and transnational networks, the 
talk shows how radical activists reimagined what and who America was, and who had 
the right to challenge it.

For further information, please contact Elena Kochetkova 
(elena.kochetkova@uib.no) or Marcus Colla (marcus.colla@uib.no)
 

• *Please note that the doors to the building are locked. Guests from outside AHKR will have to 
  arrive through the entrance at Øysteins Gate 3, where we will be waiting to let you in