A Pole who passed through the German and Russian revolutions and tried to bring revolution home
As the Red Army prepared to march on Warsaw in 1920, he joined Radek in repeatedly urging Lenin to halt — warning him not to overestimate the revolutionary consciousness of the Polish worker.
Co-founder of Polish communism, he established the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKPiL) in 1893 together with Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches. Active in the German SPD's left wing, he helped build the Spartacus League and the German Communist Party, and after the Russian Revolution joined the Bolsheviks, becoming one of Lenin's close advisers on agrarian policy. During the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 he served as chairman of the Polish Provisional Revolutionary Committee, and later became the first chairman of International Red Aid (MOPR) and first rector of the Communist University of the National Minorities of the West.
Career timeline
1889Co-founded Polish Workers' Union
1893Co-founded SDKPiL with Luxemburg and Jogiches
1896Doctorate from Zurich University
1906–1907SDKPiL delegate to RSDLP London Congress; candidate CC member
1914–1918Spartacus League; imprisoned in Germany for anti-war activity
The revolution's underground organizer, always behind the scenes, until he had to lead
On 10 March 1919, still investigating the killings of Luxemburg and Liebknecht, Jogiches was arrested and shot in the back of the head in Berlin's Moabit prison within hours. His last words to an interrogator: 'You will never find these murderers.'
Polish-Jewish Marxist revolutionary. Co-founded the SDKPiL with Rosa Luxemburg in 1893, the main forerunner of the Communist Party of Poland. During the First World War he was the key behind-the-scenes organizer of the underground Spartacus League in Germany. For decades Luxemburg's closest political comrade and personal companion, a brilliant organizer who struggled to write for himself. After Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered in January 1919, Jogiches took over KPD leadership and investigated their killings, only to be assassinated by the same Freikorps milieu two months later.
Career timeline
1885Founded one of Vilnius's first underground socialist study circles
1890Fled conscription to Zürich; met Rosa Luxemburg
1892Founded the Social-Democratic Library publishing house
1893Co-founded the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP, later SDKPiL) with Luxemburg
1905–1906Led SDKPiL Central Committee in Warsaw; arrested, sentenced to 8 years' hard labor, escaped
1907Elected candidate member of the RSDLP Central Committee at the London Congress
1916–1918Directed the underground Spartacus League; oversaw the Spartacus newsletter
1919.01–03Took over KPD leadership; led the investigation into the murders of Luxemburg and Liebknecht
“Freedom is always the freedom of the one who thinks differently”
On 14 January 1919, the day after the Spartacist uprising fell, Luxemburg's final article appeared in Die Rote Fahne. To the victors' cry of 'Order prevails in Berlin!' she answered: 'I was, I am, I shall be!' Arrested that night, murdered the next day.
Polish-born German revolutionary, and the Bolsheviks' sharpest comradely critic. From prison she defended the Russian Revolution while warning against the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and the suppression of the press. Murdered by Freikorps troops during the January 1919 Berlin rising.
Career timeline
1893Co-founds the Polish social democracy
1898–1914Theorist of the SPD left; the revisionism dispute
1899Published Reform or Revolution
1906The Mass Strike
1913Published The Accumulation of Capital
1915–1918Jailed for anti-war work; writes on the Russian Revolution from prison
1918.12Co-founds the German Communist Party
1919.01Murdered by Freikorps troops in the January rising
The Polish revolutionary who ran Lenin's financial pipeline from Kraków to Stockholm
April 13, 1917, Stockholm station. Parvus waited for Lenin, who arrived on the sealed train. Lenin refused to meet him in person and used Ganetsky as intermediary. Parvus asked: "Peace is necessary. What does he intend to do?" Ganetsky relayed the question; Lenin answered: "I am not interested in diplomacy. My task is social-revolutionary agitation."
A Polish revolutionary from Warsaw who co-founded the SDKPiL and became Lenin's trusted financial operative. During World War I he partnered with Alexander Parvus to establish trading companies in Copenhagen and Stockholm, channelling profits from scarce wartime goods into revolutionary coffers, a route central to the 'German gold' controversy. After the October Revolution he helped build the Soviet financial system as deputy head of the State Bank and a collegium member of Narkomvneshtorg, later serving as plenipotentiary to Latvia and signing the Treaty of Kars before perishing in the Great Terror.
Career timeline
1896–1912Co-founded SDKPiL; party leadership; alternate RSDLP CC member
1912–1915Arranged Lenin's move to Kraków; became his closest aide
1915–1917Ran trading firms with Parvus in Copenhagen and Stockholm; funded Bolsheviks
1917–1920Deputy head of State Bank; Deputy Commissar of Finance; director of Gokhran
1920–1923Plenipotentiary to Latvia; signed Treaty of Kars; Narkomindel and Narkomvneshtorg
1923–1935Collegium member of Narkomvneshtorg and VSNKh; director of GOMETs
1935–1937Director of the Museum of the Revolution, Moscow
1937Arrested by NKVD; 15-minute trial; executed; posthumously rehabilitated 1954
Interior commissar of Soviet Lithuania, a Lithuanian communist leader killed in the Great Terror
He urged that Lithuania remain an independent state, yet imagined that independence as socialist.
A Lithuanian communist leader, he was commissar for internal affairs of Soviet Lithuania and Litbel in 1918 and 1919. In exile he worked in the Comintern and wrote the history of the Lithuanian labour movement; arrested in 1938, he was shot in 1940.
Career timeline
1906Joined the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (Central Committee member from 1907)
1909Arrested and sentenced to four years' katorga, later exiled to the Yenisei province
1917Deputy commissar for Lithuanian affairs in Petrograd, editor of Tiesa
1918–1919Commissar for internal affairs of the first Soviet Lithuanian government
1920Secretary of the Lithuanian CP's Foreign Bureau (Comintern executive representative from 1921)
1926–1935Chairman of the Comintern International Control Commission
Polish Social Democrat who forged an independent revolutionary path from the SDKPiL underground to the Comintern
In June 1911 she gave birth to her son Jan in Warsaw's Pawiak prison and lived with him in her cell for eight months.
Born into a Polish-Jewish family in Warsaw and trained at the Warsaw Conservatory, Sofia Dzerzhinskaya joined the SDKPiL in 1904 and became a core cadre of the Polish revolutionary movement alongside Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches. Despite repeated arrests and Siberian exile, she continued underground newspaper publishing and exile organizing in Kraków, then served with the Soviet diplomatic mission in Bern (1918) before settling in Moscow. From 1939 to 1943 she handled Polish affairs on the Comintern Executive Committee, directed Radio Kościuszko broadcasting communist messages into occupied Poland during World War II, and received the Order of Lenin three times.
Career timeline
1904Joined SDKPiL, began underground revolutionary work in Warsaw
1906–1911Repeated arrests; SDKPiL 6th Congress delegate (1908); married Felix Dzerzhinsky (1910); gave birth to son Jan in Pawiak prison
1912Escaped Siberian exile; secretary of SDKPiL Foreign Sections Bureau in Kraków
1918–1919Served with Soviet diplomatic mission in Bern
1922–1928Teacher at Rosa Luxemburg School and Communist University of National Minorities of the West; executive secretary, Polish Bureau of CPSU Agitprop
1929–1937Research scholar and editor-in-chief, Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute
The Soviet trade representative who sent Republican Spain's gold to Moscow
Stashevsky proposed to finance minister Negrín the idea of opening 'a current account in gold' in Moscow, and persuaded him it could be used to buy arms and raw materials.
A Soviet intelligence officer and trade official from the SDKPiL. He ran the joint INO–GRU residency in Berlin as one of the key figures of early Soviet military intelligence, later headed Torgsin and served in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade before being posted to Republican Spain as trade representative in 1936. In Spain he negotiated arms sales and managed the financial side of Operation X; he has been identified as the man who persuaded Juan Negrín to deposit the Bank of Spain's gold reserves in Moscow. Recalled in June 1937 and shot two months later, he was rehabilitated in 1956.
Career timeline
1921–1924Head of the joint INO–GRU residency in Berlin
1925–1926Board member, Sovtorgflot
1926–1932Deputy chairman, Pushnotorg and Soyuzpushnina
1932–1934Chairman, Torgsin
1934–1937Head of Glavpushnina, People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade
