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
- 1920Chairman, Polish Provisional Revolutionary Committee
- 1922–1925First chairman of MOPR; first rector of KUNMZ
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
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
