The editorial categories are research topics that have guided researchers during the recovery phase and continue to be the impetus behind the Documents Project’s digital archive and the Critical Documents book series. Developed by the project’s Editorial Board, each of the teams analyzed this framework and adapted it to their local contexts in developing their research objectives and work plans during the Recovery Phase. Learn more on the Editorial Framework page.
“The Red International”—as Ramón Pi, Jr. referred to himself—describes his vehicle for distributing revolutionary words and images from his base in New York. His goal is to place his publication in the hands of professionals whose names he draws from telephone directories, and to supply relevant information to fellow revolutionaries who will, in turn, pass the material on by hand. The mail was the distribution method of choice because of its safety and anonymity under the prevailing conditions of repression and censorship. The Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios [League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists] took it upon themselves to buy several copies of each issue and distribute them; they also exhibited prints, fliers, and “murals” that were large-scale posters. Thanks to the efforts of Ramón Pi, Jr., LEAR received brochures, press clippings from workers’ newspapers, and pamphlets from workers’ groups in the United States.
Ramón Pi Jr. was an extreme example of cultural activism. Using the resources at his disposal as the building superintendent at two apartment properties, he worked with LEAR in order to create his own system for distributing information to several Latin American countries, Spain, and the southern United States, in the spirit of the antifascist, internationally oriented cultural front that operated during the 1930s.