Author of 'Notes on the Revolution' and agrarian economist in whose apartment the Bolshevik CC voted for armed uprising
"Sukhanov is one of the best representatives of the petty bourgeoisie" — Lenin, Sept 1, 1917
Born Nikolai Gimmer. A founding member of the Petrograd Soviet Executive Committee after the February Revolution, he belonged to the Menshevik-Internationalists, opposing the war and the Provisional Government while arguing for a united socialist coalition. His seven-volume memoir 'Notes on the Revolution' remains one of the most vivid primary sources on 1917. On October 10, 1917, the Bolshevik CC met in his Petrograd apartment and resolved on armed uprising. Sentenced to 10 years at the 1931 Menshevik Trial and shot on false charges in 1940; posthumously rehabilitated.
Career timeline
1903–1905Joined SR Party; arrested 1904 in Taganka Prison; freed Oct 1905, took part in Moscow December armed uprising
1911–1913Exiled 3 years to Arkhangelsk; compiled agricultural census data
1914–1917Editor of 'Sovremennik' and 'Letopis'; anti-war internationalist; Feb 1917 founding member of Petrograd Soviet Executive Committee, launched first 'Izvestiya'
1917–1918Menshevik-Internationalist; editor of 'Novaya Zhizn'; VTsIK member 2nd–4th convocations; expelled June 1918
1919–1923Wrote and published 7-volume memoir 'Notes on the Revolution' (Записки о революции)
1920–1929Left Menshevik Party; worked in trade agencies & Agrarian Institute; Communist Academy member; 1928 speech opposing forced collectivization
1931Sentenced to 10 years at Menshevik Trial; imprisoned in Verkhneuralsk political isolator
1940Sentenced to death June 29; shot same day in Omsk prison
From Rosa Luxemburg's lawyer to KPD leader, his 'anti-putschism' took on Comintern adventurism
Right after the March Action of 1921 he wrote: 'When I conceived this pamphlet, the Communist Party had 500,000 members in Germany. Eight days later when I wrote it, the party was shaken to its foundations and its very existence called into question. The fallen, sacrificed to this Bakuninist madness, cry out: Never again!'
A socialist who rose from Rosa Luxemburg's lawyer to chairman of the German Communist Party (KPD). Expelled for his pamphlet Unser Weg, which condemned the 1921 March Action as 'Bakuninist putschism,' he returned via the USPD to lead the SPD left. Trotsky called him 'the only man in Germany who had a head to lose.'
Career timeline
1906Joined the SPD; began law practice in Frankfurt
1913Defended Rosa Luxemburg in court on charges of inciting soldiers to disobedience
1915–1918Co-founded the Spartacus League; Zimmerwald Left bureau; edited Spartakusbriefe
1918.12Introduced the 'National Assembly' debate at the KPD founding congress
1919.03–1921.02KPD chairman — rebuilt the party after the murders of Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and Jogiches
1920Led unification with the USPD left, turning the KPD into a mass party; championed the 'Open Letter' tactic
1921Expelled from the KPD for Unser Weg: Wider den Putschismus, his critique of the March Action
1922Returned to the SPD via the USPD; published Luxemburg's suppressed manuscript The Russian Revolution
1924–1930SPD Reichstag deputy; fought to expose the Liebknecht–Luxemburg murders and opposed the rising Nazi movement
The social democrat who became the voice of divided Berlin
“People of the world, look upon this city! You cannot, you must not, forsake us!”
Ernst Reuter was a German politician whose path from social democracy through communism and back reflected the upheavals of twentieth-century Europe. After Nazi persecution and exile in Turkey, he returned to Berlin and joined municipal administration to a practical social-democratic politics. During the Berlin Blockade, he gave West Berliners’ resolve an international voice and helped make the divided city a symbol of freedom and self-government. His career also reveals the tensions of a generation that moved from revolutionary radicalism toward democratic local government.
Career timeline
1912Joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany
1918–1919First chairman of the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
1921First secretary of the Berlin district of the Communist Party of Germany
1926–1931Berlin city councillor for transport
1931–1933Mayor of Magdeburg
1935–1946Lecturer in urban planning at Ankara University and adviser to the Turkish government
1947Elected mayor of Berlin, without Soviet consent
1948–1953Mayor of West Berlin, Governing Mayor from 1951
