The Politics of Communist Biography: Alfred Kantorowicz and the Spanish Civil War

After the German communist author Alfred Kantorowicz's breakwith Communism in 1957, he was lionized by his supporters asan icon of humanism and antifascism, and vilified by his formerallies as a turncoat and traitor. In his autobiographical writings,Kantorowicz portrayed himself as a victim of Stalinism, whohad always been opposed to the authoritarian and repressiveaspects of Communism. Again and again he returned to his timein the International Brigades as a way of illustrating bothhis commitment to antifascism and the betrayal of grassrootsCommunism by the party leadership. But contemporary recordsreveal a more ambiguous picture: not only was Kantorowicz along-time functionary, he was also more involved in the repressiveaspects of Communism than he later cared to admit. This articleargues that, like many ex-Communist biographies of the ColdWar, Kantorowicz's memoirs are shot through with retrospectiveself-justification. Given his post-1957 loathing for Communism,he needed to explain why he had joined the party in the firstplace, and then remained an active member for twenty-five years.By organizing his life around the dichotomies of footsoldiersand functionaries, antifascism and Stalinism, and censorshipand truth, Kantorowicz was able to avoid discussing his ownculpability as a Communist functionary.