One hundred years later, we are still wrestling with the ways in which the event ofOne hundred years later, we are still wrestling with the ways in which the event ofthe Bolshevik Revolution launched Communist-led political and cultural movementsthat generated myriad progeny. The transnational optic of the new movement inauguratedby 1917 was nowhere more evident than in the literary and creative production.Among cultural activists in the United States, Communism normally encouraged theextension of a feeling of deep horizontal comradeship and belonging to a commonstruggle. Communists in their “imagined solidarities” cared specifically about classoppression, racism, anti-Semitism, colonialism, and the danger of a repeat of WorldWar I. Under slogans of solidarity, Communists were imagining many features aboutSoviet life, Soviet foreign policy, and the practices of various Communist parties thatare now shown to be false. The methods of observation and inference required to engagethis post-revolution tradition evoke the need for an analytical category close tothat of a longue durée: it is to be apprehended as an extended development throughthe broader and layered context of gradually evolving structures, institutions, and culturesbrought to life by collective biographies of actors from the ranks and leadership.