In this talk, I examine the political activity of Bohumír Šmeral, the first leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, from 1926 until 1928, when he was the head of the Comintern’s Balkan Land Secretariat. Through his political engagement with the communist parties of the Balkans, I try to show a different Šmeral, one whose views were far more in line with the Comintern’s policies on national self-determination and Bolshevization. While he is seen as an opponent of such policies in Czechoslovakia, he seems to have been far more optimistic about their application in the Balkans, a view which stemmed from his analysis of differences in the material conditions between countries in Central and Southeastern Europe.
The talk was delivered virtually on May 19th, 2021, at a Prague-based conference titled”100 Years since the Founding of KSČ.”
