The pianist-turned-revolutionary who drove the KPD's ultra-left turn, and became the anti-Stalinist left's perpetual dissident
“Comrade Maslow, who is playing at Leftism and wishes to exercise himself 'hunting Centrists,' has more zeal than sense.” — Lenin, singling him out by name in his 'Letter to the German Communists' (14 August 1921).
Born into a Ukrainian Jewish merchant family, he moved to Germany as a child. He abandoned a concert-pianist career to study under Einstein and Planck, but the First World War radicalized him into the KPD's founding. As Ruth Fischer's lifelong partner, he became party chairman in 1924 and drove 'Bolshevisation': an ultra-left turn that put the party at the Comintern's center but triggered mass defections. Expelled in 1926 after Stalin and Thälmann seized control, he spent fifteen years searching for an anti-Stalinist left home: the Leninbund, collaboration with Trotsky, and finally his own Marxist-Leninist International Group. He was found dead on a Havana street in 1941, almost certainly murdered by the NKVD.
Career Timeline
- 1919Founding member of the KPD; agitates among Russian POWs for the Spartacus League
- 1920–1923KPD Central Committee; leads Berlin left wing with Fischer; foreign-affairs editor, Die Rote Fahne
- 1924–1925KPD chairman; drives 'Bolshevisation' and the party's ultra-left turn
- 1924–1926Arrested by German authorities; sentenced to 4 years, released July 1926 due to failing health
- 1926Expelled from the KPD for opposing Stalin and Thälmann; backs the United Opposition
- 1928Co-founds the Leninbund with Urbahns and Fischer; soon resigns
- 1934–1937Works closely with Trotsky; active in the Fourth International movement's International Secretariat
- 1937–1941Exile in Paris and Cuba; breaks with Trotsky, founds Marxist-Leninist International Group