Red Jihad: Translating Communism in the Muslim Caucasus Leah Feldman Now we summon you to the first genuine holy war, under the red banner of the Communist International. We summon you to a holy war for your own well-being, for your freedom, for your life. —Congress of the Peoples of the East, Manifesto to the Peoples of the East (1920) The translation of Marxism-Leninism on the Soviet periphery gen- erated a paradox—Muslim communism. This notion was paradoxical not because it proposed an encounter between communism and Islam but because it institutionalized a new form of political subjectivity that oper- ated simultaneously within discourses of Soviet hegemony and discourses of anti-imperialism. Muslim communism envisioned a Soviet totality that nonetheless proclaimed the self-determination of nationalist movements as part of its constitution. The term Muslim, which under the Russian Empire boundary 2 43:3 (2016) DOI 10.1215/01903659-3572490 © 2016 by Duke University Press I would like to thank Liudmila Kuzyagina, marketing manager at the Mardjani Foundation, for her help in procuring the images of the Bakkavrosta posters. This article also bene- fited from invaluable exchanges with several individuals, including Sina Rahmani, Hoda El Shakry, and Nilufer Hatemi. boundary 2 Published by Duke University Press