> On Dec 16, 2009, at 3:39 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:
>
>> Armed CP fighters alone - you can't get more "active" than that -
>> numbered in the tens of thousands in Spain and occupied Europe, and
>> the hundreds of thousands when China and other liberation movements
>> are included, at the peak of the Comintern's global influence
>> between 1935-45.
>
> Let me say this again, since people seem to be missing it: I think
> Hobsbawm was talking about hardcore members, professional
> revolutionaries, cadre, whatever you want to call them - and not the
> rank and file or the infantry or whatever.
===========================
Yes, but even excluding the PLA infantry, there were almost certainly more than 20,000 CP militants who fought in Spain and in the resistance movements throughout Nazi-occupied Europe in the course of a decade. On the other hand, if Hobsbawn was alluding only to full-timers employed by the party at all levels, 20,000 is a very impressive number, and probably an exaggeration. But we'd need to see the quote...