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
Leader of the Georgian Mensheviks who headed the government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1918–1921
Born in Guria, western Georgia, in 1868, he took up Marxism at the Warsaw Veterinary Institute and in the 1890s led Mesame Dasi, Georgia’s first legal Marxist organization. He sided with the Mensheviks in 1903 and sat in the First State Duma in 1906. In 1917 he chaired the Tbilisi Soviet and the National Council of Georgia; in May 1918 he headed the session that declared independence, and from July he led the government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, carrying out land reform and social legislation. After the Red Army invasion of 1921 he went into exile in France, led the government-in-exile and died near Paris in 1953.
Career timeline
- 1890sLeader of Mesame Dasi
- 1906Member of the First State Duma
- 1917Chairman of the Tbilisi Soviet and of the National Council of Georgia
- 1918–1921Head of the government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia
- 1921–1953Head of the government-in-exile in France
Trade union leader who commanded the Finnish Red Guards from January to March 1918
Born in Kuopio in 1880, he joined the labour movement while studying law at Helsinki University. He was one of the leading Red Guard organisers in Helsinki during the 1905 general strike and in 1907 became the first chairman of the Finnish Trade Union Federation, losing the post in 1911 over his drinking. One of the most radical voices of 1917, openly calling for armed revolution, he was elected to the five-man committee of the Red Guards and in January 1918, without any military training, succeeded Ali Aaltonen as their commander-in-chief. Removed on 20 March after a series of defeats, he organised the defence of Viipuri with Edvard Gylling and escaped to Petrograd in May. He helped found the exiled Communist Party of Finland and worked in the Karelian Workers’ Commune, but was arrested in the Great Purge and shot in Petrozavodsk in 1937.
Career timeline
- 1907–1911First chairman of the Finnish Trade Union Federation (SAJ)
- 1917Commander of the Kymi Paper Mill Red Guard; member of the five-man Red Guard committee
- 1918Commander-in-chief of the Red Guards; member of the People’s Delegation
- 1920–1923Several posts in the Karelian Workers’ Commune
- 1931–1935Head of the revolution research department, Karelian Research Institute
Menshevik politician who chaired the Transcaucasian Commissariat and became foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of Georgia
Born to a noble family in Martvili in 1881, he joined the Social Democratic movement as a student at Moscow University, became a Menshevik and sat in the Third State Duma from 1907 to 1912. From November 1917 to March 1918 he chaired the Transcaucasian Commissariat, then served as minister of war under the Transcaucasian Sejm. He signed the Georgian declaration of independence in May 1918 and was foreign minister, justice minister and deputy head of government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. He left for France in March 1921 and from 1953 until his death in Paris in 1954 headed the government in exile.
Career timeline
- 1907–1912Member of the Third State Duma
- 1917Russian Provisional Government commissar for western Georgia
- 1917–1918Chairman of the Transcaucasian Commissariat
- 1918–1921Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of Georgia
- 1953–1954Head of the Georgian government in exile
Sun Yat-sen's political advisor, architect of the First United Front, and the Comintern's global emissary
When American KMT supporters warned Sun Yat-sen, asking 'Do you know that Borodin is a pseudonym? Do you know his real name — Gruzenberg?', Sun replied: 'I know. Lafayette.'
Sun Yat-sen's political advisor and the Comintern's global emissary who engineered the First United Front between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party. Born into a Jewish family, he joined the Bund at sixteen and the Bolsheviks in 1903, then after the 1905 Revolution emigrated to Chicago, where he ran a school for exiled Russian revolutionaries. In 1919 he became the first Soviet consul in Mexico and helped found the Mexican Communist Party. From 1923 in Guangzhou, he reorganized the Kuomintang into a Leninist vanguard party and established the Whampoa Military Academy. The United Front he built gave the CCP a foothold in mass politics, but it collapsed when Chiang Kai-shek purged the communists in 1927.
Career timeline
- 1903Joins the RSDLP; Bolshevik
- 1905–1907Revolutionary work in Riga; delegate to the 4th Party Congress in Stockholm
- 1907–1918Exile in the United States; runs an immigrant school in Chicago
- 1919First Soviet consul in Mexico; helps found the Mexican Communist Party
- 1919–1922Comintern agent touring Europe and the Americas
- 1923–1927Sun Yat-sen's political advisor; KMT reorganization, First United Front, Whampoa Academy
- 1932–1949Editor-in-chief of Moscow News and the Soviet Information Bureau
- 1949–1951Arrested in anti-cosmopolitan campaign; dies in Lefortovo prison
The first Korean communist, who gave her life bridging the Russian Revolution and Korean liberation
On September 16, 1918, dragged before Ataman Kalmykov's White Cossacks to be shot, her final cry: 'Freedom and independence for Korea!'
Born to Korean migrants in Siberia, she joined the Bolsheviks in 1916, becoming the first Korean communist. Dispatched to the Far East on Lenin's orders, she served as Commissar of Foreign Affairs for the Khabarovsk Soviet, co-founded the Korean Socialist Party with Yi Tong-hwi, and organized Korean Red Guard units against White and Japanese forces before her execution in 1918 at 33, a symbolic figure bridging the Russian Revolution and the Korean independence struggle.
Career timeline
- 1916Joined the RSDLP(B)
- 1917Secretary, Khabarovsk Bolshevik branch & Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Far Eastern Council of People's Commissars
- 1918.04Co-founded the Korean Socialist Party in Khabarovsk
- 1918.06–08Organized Korean and international Red Guard units against White and Japanese forces
- 1918.09.04Captured by White and Japanese forces
- 1918.09.16Executed by White Cossacks in Khabarovsk
Petrograd Finnish Bolshevik who helped Lenin escape to Finland in 1917 and sat on the Red Guards’ three-man command in 1918
Born in Kronstadt in 1885 to a Petersburg Finnish working family, he worked in St Petersburg as a turner among other jobs and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903, siding with the Bolsheviks. He organised Lenin’s escape to Finland in the summer of 1917 and guarded him around the October Revolution. Over the winter of 1917–1918 he and his brother Jukka procured arms for the Finnish Red Guards; when Haapalainen was dismissed on 20 March 1918 he formed a three-man command with Evert Eloranta and Adolf Taimi, then took over the Lempäälä front. After the defeat he rose to corps commander in the Red Army and quarrelled with Kuusinen and Manner in the Communist Party of Finland, which dropped him from its Central Committee in 1927. Expelled from the army for alcoholism in 1935 and sentenced to death, he died of tuberculosis in 1936 before the sentence was carried out.
Career timeline
- 1903Joined the RSDLP (Bolshevik)
- 1917Organised Lenin’s escape to Finland; Lenin’s bodyguard
- 1918Three-man command of the Red Guards; commander of the Lempäälä front
- 1919–1922Commissar and inspector of the Red Army’s Finnish units
- 1918–1927Leadership of the Communist Party of Finland
- 1935Expelled from the Red Army
1867–1919
✕ Murdered
