People

Activity
Any Political and party leadership 1
Affiliation(set)

Most people

Any Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 28 Soviet Union state institutions 21 Latvia state institutions 9 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 5 Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries 2 Left Opposition 1 Comintern 1 Nazi party and regime 1 Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR) 1

All 10 affiliations

Germany

Nazi party and regime 1

International organizations

Comintern 1

Latvia

Latvia state institutions 9 Popular Front of Latvia 1

Russia

Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR) 1 Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries 2 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 5

Soviet Union

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 28 ↳ Left Opposition 1 Soviet Union state institutions 21
Position
Any Left critics of Bolshevism 1
Citizenship
Any Soviet Union 1
Background(set)
Any Russia 29 Moldova 5 Belarus 3 Azerbaijan 1 Latvia 1 Lithuania 1 Ukraine 1
Era
Any

People of the Soviet Union

The revolutionary generation1917–1940 1
Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR) Background: Latvia Clear all
GlossarySocialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR)

Isaac Zakharyevich Steinberg

Исаак Захарович Штейнберг
Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries Left critics of Bolshevism Soviet Union Latvia 1888–1957 ○ Natural causes

First People's Commissar of Justice under Lenin: the Left SR who defended revolutionary legality against the Cheka

"Then why bother with a Commissariat for Justice? Let's call it frankly the Commissariat for Social Extermination!" — to Lenin, protesting a Cheka summary-execution clause, February 1918

Left SR lawyer, first People's Commissar of Justice in Lenin's coalition government. He championed revolutionary legality against the Cheka and resigned over the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. In exile he was a Yiddish writer and territorialist activist.

Career timeline
  • 1906Joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party while at Moscow University
  • 1908Arrested, exiled to Tobolsk province for 2 years; later earned law master's at Heidelberg
  • 1915Arrested for anti-war work, exiled to Ufa; practiced law and led Ufa Left SRs
  • 1917Elected to Constituent Assembly (Ufa), Left SR Central Committee, executive of All-Russian Council of Peasant Deputies
  • 1917.12–1918.03People's Commissar of Justice: restricted Cheka powers, freed political prisoners, issued Revolutionary Tribunal rules; resigned over Brest-Litovsk
  • 1918Organized partisan detachments in Kursk and Taganrog; detained by Cheka for 4.5 months in 1919
  • 1923Emigrated to Berlin, stripped of Soviet citizenship; co-founded 'Skify' publishing, joined Vienna International
  • 1933–1957Co-founded Freeland League in London, pursued Kimberley Plan; edited Yiddish journal Afn Shvel; died in New York