People of the Revolution and the USSR

Comintern Communism 1882–1949 ○ Natural causes; some details unconfirmed

From Leipzig defendant to Comintern General Secretary

"I am defending myself, an accused Communist. I am defending my political honor, my honor as a revolutionary. I am defending my Communist ideology, my ideals." Spoken in the Leipzig courtroom in 1933, the words were meant to defend the content and significance of his whole life.

A printer and trade unionist who led the failed 1923 uprising, he became an international symbol by defying the Nazis at the Leipzig Reichstag fire trial. Elected Comintern General Secretary in 1935, after the 7th World Congress, he headed the CPSU Central Committee's International Information Department after the Comintern was dissolved in 1943. During the Great Purge he took part in the destruction of the Polish Communist Party's leadership and in reprisals against old Bulgarian comrades, while also intervening to save some. He returned to Bulgaria in 1945 and became Prime Minister the next year; his Bulgarian-Yugoslav federation plans were undone by the Stalin-Tito split. He died near Moscow in 1949.