Occupied Istanbul as a Cominternian Hub: Sailors, Soldiers, and Post-Imperial Networks (1918–1923) BURAK SAYIM * E-mail: burak.sayim@graduateinstitute.ch Between 1918 and 1923, Istanbul was the capital of a defeated empire and occupied by the “interallied” forces composed of Britain, France, and Italy. Notwithstanding, or precisely due to, these conditions, it functioned as a vibrant hub of global communist militancy. This article explores the brief history of occupied Istanbul and discusses different agents and aspects of communist network-making. It underlines the agency of two neglected actors: a multinational body of communist sailors who connected Istanbul and its commu- nists to European, Middle Eastern, and Soviet ports; and European and colonial soldiers stationed in Istanbul, who counterintuitively contributed to these connections. Finally, it shows how Istanbul, as the multiethnic and multilinguistic soon-to-be-former capital of the Ottoman Empire, provided a fertile ground for communist connections. Keywords: Istanbul, Communist International, post-Ottoman, transnational, sailors Recently, historians have started paying attention to the interconnected worlds of the global left-wing movements. In these studies, the Communist International (Comintern, or the Third International), as a self-proclaimed world party, is bound to be a key actor, even a protagonist. However, the theoretical possibilities that such study offers remains under-explored. Michael Goebel points out this curiosity when he states that “ironically, as historians have become more interested in globalisation in recent decades, their curiosity in communism and in the Comintern, an internationalist organisation if ever there was one, has receded.” 1 Addressing this issue and drawing upon the emerging interest in the Communist International during the last years, this text offers a case study of the transnational and interconnected world of the Communist International. The history of the Comintern did indeed receive its fair share of attention, starting even before its demise and with highly different interpretations. C. L. R. James’ s work Itinerario, page 1 of 22. The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Research Institute for History, Leiden University. This is anOpen Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. doi:10.1017/S0165115321000395 terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115321000395 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, on 29 Jan 2022 at 13:16:15, subject to the Cambridge Core