Finnish realist who faced Stalin at the 1939 Moscow negotiations and later forged the Paasikivi doctrine of Cold War neutrality
'Acknowledging reality is the beginning of all wisdom': words Paasikivi borrowed from Stalin and made the cornerstone of Finnish Cold War policy.
A political realist whose career spanned Finland's autonomy under the Russian Empire, independence, civil war, and both wars against the USSR. As prime minister in 1918 he pursued a pro-German monarchy; in 1920 he led the delegation that signed the Tartu peace treaty with Soviet Russia. Summoned from Stockholm in October 1939, he negotiated directly with Stalin and Molotov in Moscow: the talks failed, but after the Winter War broke out he served as minister without portfolio and signed the Moscow Peace Treaty of March 1940. Elected president in 1946, he anchored Finland's Cold War survival on the principle that 'acknowledging reality is the beginning of all wisdom,' a doctrine of geopolitical accommodation with the USSR that defined Finnish foreign policy for decades.
Career timeline
- 1907–1913Member of Parliament, Finnish Party
- 1908–1909Head of Finance Division, Senate of Finland
- 1918.05–11Prime Minister of Finland
- 1914–1934CEO, Kansallis-Osake-Pankki
- 1936–1939Envoy to Sweden
- 1940–1941Envoy to Moscow
- 1944–1946Prime Minister of Finland
- 1946–1956President of Finland
First president of South Korea who demanded unification by force and refused to sign the armistice
In a July 1950 letter to Truman: 'I pray… that we can turn to the offensive, break through the hard crust of enemy forces and start the victorious march north.'
Syngman Rhee was a Korean independence activist imprisoned during the late Joseon period for his activities with the Independence Club; after his release he earned a PhD in political science at Princeton, and in 1919 became the first president of the Korean Provisional Government. In 1948 he was elected the first president of the Republic of Korea, building a fiercely anti-communist state under the National Security Law and publicly demanding the forcible reunification of the peninsula by marching north across the 38th parallel. During the Korean War he refused any armistice short of unification, and in 1953 he unilaterally released 27,000 anti-communist prisoners of war, nearly derailing the ceasefire talks; he never signed the armistice. Forced to resign by the April Revolution in 1960 after a rigged election, he died in exile in Hawaii.
Career timeline
- 1896–1898Independence Club and Hyeopseong Club activist; editor of Maeil Sinmun
- 1899–1904Imprisoned at Hanseong Prison; wrote The Spirit of Independence
- 1905–1910Studied in the US; PhD in political science, Princeton
- 1919–1925First President, Korean Provisional Government
- 1948Speaker of Constituent Assembly; elected first President of ROK
- 1948–19601st–3rd President; extended rule through constitutional amendments
- 1960–1965Resigned after April Revolution; exiled in Hawaii
From the Spartacus League to GDR head of state, the sole founding member who lived the full arc of German communism
On the night of 15 January 1919, Pieck was arrested alongside Luxemburg and Liebknecht and taken to the Eden Hotel. He became the sole survivor — the last to witness his comrades alive.
A coachman's son turned carpenter, he joined the SPD in 1895 and was radicalized under Rosa Luxemburg's influence. Court-martialed for anti-war agitation, he co-founded the Spartacus League and the KPD. Arrested with Luxemburg and Liebknecht in January 1919, he alone survived. He served on the ECCI (1921) and its Presidium (1931), then led the KPD in Moscow exile as Comintern secretary. Returning after the war, he drove the SPD-KPD merger that created the SED and became the first President of the GDR in 1949, holding that office until his death.
Career timeline
- 1895Joins the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)
- 1915Conscripted; court-martialed for anti-war agitation; flees to Amsterdam
- 1918–1919Co-founds Spartacus League and KPD; Central Committee member
- 1921ECCI member; elected to the Prussian Landtag
- 1928–1933Reichstag deputy
- 1931Elected to the ECCI Presidium
- 1934–1946KPD chairman (exile leadership)
- 1935–1943Secretary of the Comintern
- 1943Co-founds the National Committee for a Free Germany
- 1946–1950Co-chairman of the Socialist Unity Party (SED)
- 1949–1960President of the German Democratic Republic
The chancellor who made provisional statehood durable
As president of the Parliamentary Council, Adenauer helped present the Basic Law as a provisional settlement rather than a final constitution for a divided Germany.
Konrad Adenauer was a Catholic conservative statesman who helped shape the Federal Republic after the collapse of Nazism and the division of Germany. As president of the Parliamentary Council, he supported a provisional Basic Law rather than a permanent constitution, leaving open the possibility of reunification while establishing democratic institutions in the western zones. As the first Federal Chancellor, he pursued Westbindung, European integration, and a socially regulated market economy, while his anti-communist policy hardened the political division of the Cold War. His career thus joined parliamentary reconstruction with the consolidation of a state whose provisional founding became durable.
Career timeline
- 1906–1909Deputy mayor of Cologne
- 1917–1933Lord Mayor of Cologne
- 1921–1933President of the Prussian State Council
- 1948–1949President of the Parliamentary Council
- 1949–1963First Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 1951–1955Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs
- 1950–1966Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union
Weimar finance minister who founded the CDU in the Soviet zone in 1945 and was deposed for opposing the land reform
The son of a Cologne railway worker, he studied agriculture and from 1911 worked at the International Institute of Agriculture in Rome. A member of the Catholic Centre Party, he became Minister of Food in 1920 and was Minister of Finance from 1922 until the Cuno cabinet resigned in August 1923. Arrested after the Nazis took power, he later served as an economic adviser to the government of Colombia. Back in Germany he joined the resistance around Goerdeler, was arrested after 20 July 1944 and sentenced to death in January 1945, but his wife delayed the execution until the Red Army took Berlin. On 26 June 1945 he became the first chairman of the CDU of Berlin and the Soviet zone; because he refused to agree to the land reform without compensation, SMAD deposed him in December. In the West he founded the German Farmers’ Association and argued for reunification.
Career timeline
- 1911–1914Department director at the International Institute of Agriculture, Rome
- 1920Reich Minister of Food
- 1922–1923Reich Minister of Finance
- 1945Sentenced to death by a Nazi court
- 1945Chairman of the CDU in the Soviet zone; deposed in December
- 1948President of the German Farmers’ Association
UN commander who conceived the Inchon landing and overruled the unanimous opposition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"There is no substitute for victory": farewell address to Congress, 19 April 1951.
Douglas MacArthur was an American five-star general who led the Allied forces to victory in the Pacific War and governed occupied Japan as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. Appointed commander of UN forces after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, he conceived and drove through the Inchon landing against the unanimous opposition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reversing the course of the war. When China entered the war, MacArthur pressed for an expanded campaign including bombing Manchuria, clashing openly with the Truman administration and leading to his dramatic dismissal in April 1951. His removal remains the Cold War's sharpest constitutional confrontation over civilian control of the military.
Career timeline
- 1930–1935Chief of Staff, U.S. Army
- 1935–1941Field Marshal and Military Advisor, Philippine Army
- 1941–1945Commander, U.S. Army Forces Far East / Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area
- 1945–1951Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, Japan
- 1950–1951Commander, United Nations Command, Korean War
- 1952–1964Chairman, Remington Rand
Free-trade champion who built the world's largest cotton firm, then set the Marshall Plan in motion with his memo on Europe's collapse
In his memo to Secretary Marshall on May 27, 1947, Clayton wrote: 'Without further prompt and substantial aid from the United States, economic, social and political disintegration will overwhelm Europe.'
Clayton left school at thirteen and rose from stenographer to build Anderson, Clayton & Company into the world's largest cotton trading firm. A Democratic free-trader, he was named Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in 1944 and Under Secretary in 1946; returning from Europe in May 1947, he sent George Marshall his memo 'The European Crisis,' warning that 'without further prompt and substantial aid from the United States, economic, social and political disintegration will overwhelm Europe.' The memo became the direct catalyst for the Marshall Plan announcement, and Charles Bohlen drew heavily on Clayton's language when drafting the speech. In retirement he championed free trade and Atlantic alliance, co-founding the Atlantic Council with Christian Herter in 1961.
Career timeline
- 1880Born on a cotton farm near Tupelo, Mississippi
- 1904Co-founded Anderson, Clayton & Company in Oklahoma City as a cotton brokerage
- 1916Moved headquarters to Houston; firm grew into the world's largest cotton trader
- 1918Served on the Cotton Distribution Committee of the War Industries Board
- 1940–1944Served successively with the RFC, Export-Import Bank, and Surplus War Property Administration
- 1944–1946Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs; economic adviser at the Potsdam Conference
- 1946–1947Under Secretary for Economic Affairs; his 'European Crisis' memo catalyzed the Marshall Plan
- 1961Co-founded the Atlantic Council with Christian Herter
A pragmatic statesman who carried trade-union power into postwar diplomacy
At the 1946 Moscow conference, after Molotov’s repeated attacks, Bevin rose and shouted, “I've had enough of this I 'ave!”
Ernest Bevin was a Labour politician and trade-union organizer who rose from poverty to lead Britain’s largest union. His wartime management of labour shaped a postwar diplomacy that treated reconstruction as a question of organized work and state capacity. As Foreign Secretary, he and Georges Bidault organized the European response to Marshall’s Harvard speech, linking British security and western European cooperation to American aid and an Atlantic alliance. His firm anti-communism and defence of imperial interests also show how the postwar international order combined reconstruction with continuing forms of power.
Career timeline
- 1910Secretary, Bristol branch of the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers’ Union
- 1914National organiser, Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers’ Union
- 1922–1940General Secretary, Transport and General Workers’ Union
- 1940–1945Minister of Labour and National Service, wartime coalition government
- 1945–1951Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Attlee government
- 1947Organized the CEEC with Georges Bidault and led Britain’s response to Marshall aid
- 1949Contributed to the creation of NATO
A parliamentarian who carried constitutional politics into the Liberation Movement
He presided over the Second Session of AVNOJ in 1943, where the decision to form New Yugoslavia was taken.
Ivan Ribar was a Croatian lawyer and Yugoslavist whose career connected parliamentary politics in the kingdom with the anti-fascist Liberation Movement. As president of the Constituent Assembly in 1920 and an advocate for communist defendants under dictatorship, he carried a constitutional and oppositional tradition into wartime politics. As chair of AVNOJ and later head of Yugoslavia’s collective state presidency, he gave the new order an institutional face while its political foundations were being remade. The loss of both sons in the war marked the personal cost of that passage between political traditions.
Career timeline
- 1906Co-founded the Croatian Progressive Democratic Party; began legal practice
- 1918Member of the central committee of the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs
- 1919Vice-president of the Provisional People’s Presidency of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
- 1920–1922President of the Constituent Assembly and National Assembly of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
- 1942–1945Chair of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ)
- 1945–1953President of the Presidium of Yugoslavia’s National Assembly, the collective head of state
- 1960Retired from political life
Roosevelt's "assistant president" who, as Secretary of State, designed the Potsdam reparations compromise
After Byrnes took the oath as Secretary of State, Truman said, "Jimmy, kiss the Bible." Byrnes did so, then handed it back to the President and told him to kiss it too. Truman did, as the room laughed.
James F. Byrnes was a Democratic politician from South Carolina who, as senator, steered New Deal legislation through Congress; as director of war mobilization, earned the nickname "assistant president"; and as Truman's Secretary of State, designed the reparations framework at Potsdam. At Potsdam, Byrnes negotiated the compromise with Molotov whereby each occupying power would extract reparations from its own zone, while the USSR would receive 15% of western-zone industrial equipment in exchange for food and raw materials and an additional 10% without payment. Passed over as Roosevelt's running mate in 1944 and later sidelined by Truman as their relationship soured, Byrnes returned to elective politics as governor of South Carolina, where he championed "separate but equal" schooling against desegregation.
Career timeline
- 1911–1925U.S. Representative, South Carolina
- 1931–1941U.S. Senator, South Carolina
- 1941–1942Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
- 1942–1943Director, Office of Economic Stabilization
- 1943–1945Director, Office of War Mobilization
- 1945–1947U.S. Secretary of State
- 1951–1955Governor of South Carolina
Kodang Cho Man-sik, the Korean Democratic Party leader removed from the northern political stage in 1946
On 30 December 1945 Cho's party adopted its anti-trusteeship resolution despite pressure from the Soviet military command, and on 5 January 1946 the command confined him to the Koryo Hotel. From this point nationalists disappeared from the northern political stage and the left took the lead.
Cho Man-sik (1883-1950), pen name Kodang, was born in Kangso, South Pyongan Province, and worked as an educator, Presbyterian elder, journalist and politician. He graduated from Meiji University in 1913, taught at Osan School and became its headmaster in 1915, and later headed the Pyongyang YMCA, the Korean Product Promotion Society and the Chosun Ilbo. He pursued anti-Japanese activity on Gandhi's nonviolent line. After liberation he chaired the South Pyongan Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence and then the South Pyongan People's Political Committee, a left-right coalition that also included the South Pyongan Communist Party. He founded the Korean Democratic Party on 3 November 1945, and on 5 January 1946 the Soviet military command confined him to the Koryo Hotel. No confirmed reports of him remain and his death is reported rather than established.
Career timeline
- 1913–1915Graduated from Meiji University in 1913, became a teacher at Osan School that year and its headmaster in 1915, working in national education
- 1920s–1930sGeneral secretary of the Pyongyang YMCA and elder at Sanjonghyon Church; president of the Korean Product Promotion Society, chair of the Sin'ganhoe Pyongyang branch and president of the Chosun Ilbo
- 1945.08Chaired the South Pyongan Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence, then the South Pyongan People's Political Committee, a left-right coalition
- 1945.10–11Land reform and tenancy disputes over the 7:3 system exposed his position; right-wing members left the committee for the South, and on 24 November its name dropped "political", turning it into a left-led body
- 1945.11.03Founded the Korean Democratic Party and was elected its leader on an anti-trusteeship line
- 1945.12.30His party's central committee adopted an anti-trusteeship resolution rejecting trusteeship outright
- 1946.01.05Confined to the Koryo Hotel by the Soviet military command and removed from the political stage
- 1946.02Choe Yong-gon took over the party, and its first congress on 24 February elected him leader
- 1948–1950Kept in detention without trial amid failed exchange talks; confirmed reports end and his death is reported and presumed, its date and circumstances not established
Kaiser’s successor at the head of the East German CDU, who brought it into line with the SED as deputy prime minister
Born in Frohburg in Saxony, he worked as a journalist, moved through the left-liberal parties, helped found the German Democratic Party in 1918, and sat in the Weimar National Assembly and the Prussian Landtag. He joined the opposition after 1933 and went into hiding after the 1944 attempt on Hitler’s life. In 1945 he co-founded the CDU in the Soviet zone; when the Soviet authorities deposed Jakob Kaiser and Ernst Lemmer in 1947 he became acting chairman, and chairman in 1948. As a co-chairman of the German People’s Council he took part in drafting the GDR constitution, and in 1949 became deputy prime minister and head of the Church Office. A loyal supporter of the SED regime, he pushed out CDU members unwilling to follow the Communists. He died in 1957.
Career timeline
- 1918Co-founder of the German Democratic Party
- 1921–1933Member of the Prussian Landtag
- 1945Co-founder of the CDU in the Soviet zone
- 1948–1957Chairman of the East German CDU
- 1949–1957GDR deputy prime minister and head of the Church Office
The laconic reformer who replaced Churchill mid-Potsdam and built Britain's postwar welfare state
After winning the 1945 election, Attlee stood in silence with George VI at Buckingham Palace before volunteering, "I've won the election." The King replied, "I know. I heard it on the Six O'Clock News."
Clement Attlee was the man who replaced Winston Churchill as British prime minister in the middle of the Potsdam Conference, after Labour's landslide victory in July 1945. He had served loyally as Churchill's deputy in the wartime coalition, but voters chose the unassuming reformer over the war hero and his promise of a welfare state. His government created the National Health Service, nationalised major industries, and began dismantling the British Empire by granting independence to India and Pakistan. Abroad, he championed the Marshall Plan and NATO, aligning Britain firmly with the United States as the Cold War took shape.
Career timeline
- 1935–1955Leader of the Labour Party
- 1940–1942Lord Privy Seal (wartime coalition)
- 1942–1945Deputy Prime Minister (wartime coalition)
- 1945–1951Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- 1951–1955Leader of the Opposition
The last democratic president, who tried to topple a government with resignations and instead handed it to Gottwald
On 25 February 1948, with Communist militias controlling Prague and civil war imminent, Beneš accepted the resignations of twelve non-Communist ministers.
Beneš was a central figure in the Czechoslovak independence movement, co-founding the Czechoslovak National Council with Masaryk and Štefánik during the First World War. As foreign minister for 17 years from 1918, he shone at the League of Nations, built the Little Entente with Romania and Yugoslavia, and forged alliance treaties with France and the Soviet Union. Elected president in 1935, he resigned after Munich and led the government-in-exile in London, securing Britain's repudiation of the Munich Agreement. In February 1948, he accepted the resignations of non-Communist ministers and sanctioned Gottwald's Communist-dominated government, a decision that sealed Czechoslovakia's entry into the Soviet bloc.
Career timeline
- 1915–1918Secretary of the Czechoslovak National Council
- 1918–1935Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia
- 1921–1922Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
- 1935–1938President of Czechoslovakia
- 1940–1945President of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile
- 1945–1948President of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovak Communist who led the trade-union central council, became prime minister after February 1948 and president in 1953
He helped build the Communist Party and its unions, became premier after its 1948 takeover, and succeeded Gottwald as president in 1953, serving until his death in 1957.
A stonemason from Zákolany in Bohemia, he came from the Social Democrats to help found the Communist Party. Arrested under the German occupation, he was held in Pankrác prison and Dresden and from 1940 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Back home after liberation he became chairman of the Central Council of Trade Unions and a member of the Communist presidium, and briefly chaired the Constituent Assembly in 1946. He succeeded Gottwald as prime minister in June 1948 when Gottwald became president, and became president himself on Gottwald’s death in 1953. He favoured a more humane rule but was outflanked by Novotný.
Career timeline
- 1921Helped found the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and organize its press, trade unions, and cooperatives.
- 1929–1939Served as secretary-general of the Communist Trade Unions.
- 1945Became chairman of the postwar Revolutionary Trade Union Movement.
- 1948Became a member of the political secretariat and prime minister after the Communist takeover.
- 1953–1957Succeeded Gottwald as president and served until his death.
The "red bourgeois", a landowning lawyer who never joined the party yet served as the communist regime's first prime minister and head of state
In early March 1945 Vyshinsky flew to Bucharest and demanded that King Michael appoint Groza prime minister within two hours, warning that otherwise he could not guarantee Romania's survival as an independent state. The Rădescu government fell and the Groza government took office on 6 March.
Born into an Orthodox priest's family in Hunedoara, Transylvania, he studied law in Budapest, Berlin and Leipzig and became a lawyer and landowner. Starting in the Romanian National Party during the Hungarian parliament years, he twice served as a minister in Averescu's governments in the 1920s, founded the Ploughmen's Front at Deva in 1933 and allied it with the Communist Party through the Țebea agreement of 1935. Deputy prime minister after 23 August 1944, he became prime minister on 6 March 1945 as Soviet deputy foreign commissar Vyshinsky demanded at the palace, and at once decreed a land reform that broke up the great estates. When King Michael demanded his resignation in the summer of 1945 and began the "royal strike" of refusing to sign decrees, Groza held on, trusting Soviet backing. After the rigged election of 1946 and the dissolution of the National Peasant Party in 1947, he forced the king's abdication together with Gheorghiu-Dej on 30 December that year. Prime minister until June 1952, he then became chairman of the Presidium of the Grand National Assembly, the nominal head of state, and kept the post until his death. A wealthy landowner who never joined the Communist Party, he was friendly to the Hungarian minority of Transylvania and famous for the wit with which he called himself a "red bourgeois".
Career timeline
- 1920–1921Minister in the Averescu government
- 1926–1927Minister in the second Averescu government
- 1933Founded the Ploughmen's Front
- 1935Țebea agreement with the Communist Party
- 1944–1945Deputy prime minister
- 1945–1952Prime minister
- 1947Forced King Michael's abdication on 30 December
- 1952–1958Chairman of the Presidium of the Grand National Assembly (head of state)
The 33rd president who framed the Cold War with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan
On his Oval Office desk sat a sign reading 'The buck stops here,' and from the atomic bomb to MacArthur's dismissal, he lived by it.
Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, who succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt and ordered the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. In March 1947 he declared the Truman Doctrine (that 'it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures') and in April 1948 he signed the Marshall Plan into law, building the institutional framework for Western Europe's reconstruction and the containment of Soviet power. When North Korea invaded the South in 1950, he led the UN military response and later fired General Douglas MacArthur, reasserting civilian control of the military at the cost of his own popularity. Widely reviled at the end of his presidency, Truman was posthumously rehabilitated as a 'near great' president whose Cold War architecture outlasted the Soviet Union.
Career timeline
- 1884Born in Lamar, Missouri, the son of a farmer and livestock dealer
- 1917–1918WWI: captain commanding an artillery battery in France
- 1935–1945US Senator from Missouri; chaired the Truman Committee on wartime waste
- 1945.01–04Vice President; succeeded to the presidency on Roosevelt's death, April 12
- 1945–195333rd president: atomic bombs, Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, Korean War
- 1947.03.12Declared the Truman Doctrine, requesting aid for Greece and Turkey
- 1948.04.03Signed the Economic Cooperation Act, launching the Marshall Plan
- 1951.04.11Fired General Douglas MacArthur over Korean War strategy
National Socialist leader who led the ministers’ resignation in February 1948 and headed the exile Council of Free Czechoslovakia
In February 1948 he resigned with non-Communist ministers in an attempt to halt unconstitutional measures by the Communist interior minister. After the coup, he escaped surveillance to the West and led the political exile movement.
Born to a small tradesman in Tábor in Bohemia, he became a teacher and was mayor of Prague from 1937 to 1939. Arrested after the German occupation, he was held in Dachau and Buchenwald until American troops freed him in 1945. As postwar chairman of the National Socialists he was again mayor of Prague and, after leading the second party in 1946, deputy prime minister. In September 1947 he, Masaryk and Drtina received boxes of explosives. He resigned with the other non-Communist ministers in February 1948, escaped surveillance after the coup and chaired the exile Council of Free Czechoslovakia from 1949 to 1974.
Career timeline
- 1937–1939Mayor of Prague.
- 1945–1946Returned as mayor of Prague and became chairman of the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party.
- 1946–1948Deputy prime minister.
- 1949–1974Chairman of the exile Council of Free Czechoslovakia.
From civil-rights lawyer of the March 1st Movement to first Chairman of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly: a progressive nationalist
When he submitted a motion of non-prosecution during the March 1st Movement trial, the Japanese courtroom erupted in protest — and the scene, reported nationwide, made Ho Hon the symbol of the anti-colonial lawyer.
One of colonial Korea's 'three great civil-rights lawyers,' he defended the 47 national representatives of the March 1st Movement and handled pro bono cases for workers and independence activists. Elected chairman of Singanhoe's Central Executive Committee in 1927, he led the united-front anti-Japanese struggle, and after liberation served as Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Korea and chairman of the South Korean Workers' Party before crossing north, becoming the bridge by which Korea's independence movement passed into socialism.
Career timeline
- 1907Passed the first Korean Empire bar examination
- 1919Defended March 1st Movement leaders; President, Korean Bar Association
- 1927Chairman, Central Executive Committee of Singanhoe
- 1945Vice Chairman, Preparatory Committee; Prime Minister, People's Republic of Korea
- 1946Chairman, South Korean Workers' Party
- 1948Chairman, Supreme People's Assembly; President, Kim Il Sung University
Philosopher of the not-yet: thinker of concrete utopia and human emancipation in The Principle of Hope
“The true genesis is not at the beginning but at the end, and it begins only when society and existence become radical, i.e. grasp themselves at the root.” — The Principle of Hope
German Marxist philosopher who formulated the philosophy of concrete utopia and the 'not-yet' (Noch-Nicht) in his magnum opus The Principle of Hope. Alongside Lukács, Benjamin, Adorno, and Brecht, he shaped a central current of Western Marxism. Returned to East Germany in 1948 to hold the chair of philosophy at Leipzig and receive the GDR National Prize, but was forced into retirement after the 1956 Hungarian uprising for his humanistic Marxism; defected to West Germany in 1961. His thought profoundly influenced liberation theology and the 1968 student movements.
Career timeline
- 1905–1908Studies philosophy, physics, music at Munich and Würzburg; doctorate on Rickert
- 1912–1914In Heidelberg, associates with Max Weber, Simmel, and Lukács
- 1918Publishes The Spirit of Utopia — first major work
- 1921Publishes Thomas Müntzer as Theologian of Revolution
- 1920sFreelance journalist in Berlin; befriends Brecht, Benjamin, and Adorno
- 1933–1938Flees Nazi Germany for Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia
- 1935Publishes Heritage of Our Times; analyses fascism's appeal through non-synchronism
- 1938–1947Writes the three-volume The Principle of Hope in US exile
- 1949–1957Chair of philosophy, Leipzig University; GDR National Prize (1955); Academy of Sciences
- 1957Forced into retirement for teaching humanistic Marxism after the Hungarian uprising
- 1961Defects to West Germany after Berlin Wall built; guest professor at Tübingen
- 1967Receives the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade
- 1968–1970sInfluences the 1968 movement and liberation theology; mentors Rudi Dutschke
He met Lenin and Sun Yat-sen, then staked everything on left-right unity: the last Korean unificationist before partition
“A revolutionary does not die in bed. I will die in the street.” He said this to his children after surviving multiple assassination attempts. On 19 July 1947, at the Hyehwa-dong rotary, a bullet from the White Shirts Society found him.
In 1918 he founded the New Korean Youth League and sparked the March First Movement through the February 8 Declaration of Independence. He co-founded the Korean Provisional Government, met Lenin and Trotsky in Moscow (1922), and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party at Sun Yat-sen's invitation. In August 1945 he secured peaceful transfer of authority from Japan's governor-general, formed the Committee for Preparation of Korean Independence, and became vice-chair of the People's Republic of Korea. In 1946–47 he led the left-right cooperation movement with Kim Kyu-sik, the last serious attempt at a unified Korea, before being assassinated by a right-wing terrorist. He is officially honored by both South and North Korea.
Career timeline
- 1918Founded New Korean Youth League in Shanghai; became its leader
- 1919Led the February 8 Declaration of Independence; Deputy Foreign Minister of the Korean Provisional Government
- 1920–1922Joined Koryŏ Communist Party (Shanghai faction); met Lenin and Trotsky at the Congress of the Peoples of the East in Moscow
- 1925–1929Joined Chinese Nationalist Party at Sun Yat-sen's invitation; participated in First United Front
- 1933–1936President of Chosun JoongAng Ilbo; Chairman of Joseon Sports Council
- 1944Founded the secret Korean Restoration Brotherhood; built nationwide network
- 1945.08–09Chairman, Committee for Preparation of Korean Independence; Vice-Chair, People's Republic of Korea
- 1946–1947Led left-right cooperation movement with Kim Kyu-sik; Chairman, Labor People's Party
The non-Communist foreign minister who lent Gottwald's government legitimacy, found dead under Černín Palace window two weeks after the coup
Returning from Moscow in July 1947 after being forced to reject the Marshall Plan, Masaryk said: 'I left as a minister of a sovereign state and I have come back as Stalin's servant.'
Son of Czechoslovakia's founder-president Tomáš Masaryk, he served as minister-plenipotentiary to Britain from 1925, resigning in protest at the Munich Agreement. As foreign minister of the London government-in-exile, his weekly BBC broadcasts to occupied Czechoslovakia made him a national symbol. In July 1947 Stalin forced him to withdraw from the Marshall Plan; Masaryk returned saying he had left 'as a minister of a sovereign state' and come back 'as Stalin's servant.' When non-Communist ministers resigned in February 1948, Masaryk stayed on as Gottwald's only non-Communist minister, lending the coup a veneer of legality: two weeks later he was found dead beneath his bathroom window at the Černín Palace, and the shock of his still-unresolved death helped drive the Marshall Plan through Congress.
Career timeline
- 1919–1922Chargé d'affaires, Czechoslovak legation in Washington
- 1922–1925Counselor to the Foreign Minister
- 1925–1938Minister-plenipotentiary to the United Kingdom
- 1940–1945Foreign Minister of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile
- 1945–1948Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia
Hungarian communist who backed Soviet intervention with Kádár in 1956 and became prime minister after the revolution was crushed
Born into a German Catholic family in Seregélyes, he studied law and was taken prisoner on the Eastern Front in 1915 and sent to Tomsk. There he joined the Bolsheviks and commanded an international POW unit; back in Hungary in 1918 he helped found the Hungarian Communist Party and was war commissar of the Slovak Soviet Republic. He lived in the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1936 and, under the name Otto Flatter, commanded the XI International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. After the war he was Budapest’s chief of police and then a diplomat. In the 1956 revolution he was interior minister under Imre Nagy, but in November he went to Moscow with János Kádár and openly backed Soviet armed intervention. As minister of the armed forces and public security in Kádár’s government he helped organise the security regiments and the Workers’ Militia, and he was prime minister from 1958 to 1961.
Career timeline
- 1915Captured by the Russians; held in Tomsk
- 1918Co-founder of the Hungarian Communist Party
- 1919War commissar of the Slovak Soviet Republic
- 1936–1939Commander of the XI International Brigade in Spain
- 1946–1949Budapest chief of police
- 1956Interior minister under Nagy; minister of the armed forces and public security under Kádár
- 1958–1961Prime minister of Hungary
Catholic bishop of Telšiai in Lithuania, executed in 1946 on charges that included supporting the partisans
Born to a family of well-off Lithuanian farmers, he studied in Saint Petersburg, at the Sejny Priest Seminary and at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. In the First World War he was a chaplain in the Russian Imperial Army, and from 1927 he was rector of the Telšiai priest seminary until the Soviet occupation closed it in 1940. He became bishop of Telšiai in 1943 and refused to retreat to the West in 1944. Accused of anti-Soviet activities including support for the partisans, he was arrested by the NKVD in December 1945 and again in February 1946, and refused an offer of a pardon in exchange for cooperation. Sentenced to death for treason on 28 August 1946, he is believed to have been executed on 18 November and was buried in a mass grave at Tuskulėnai Manor in Vilnius. At his trial three Jews testified that he had helped Jews hide. His beatification process began in 1990.
Career timeline
- 1910Ordained priest
- 1916–1917Chaplain of the 10th Army of the Russian Imperial Army
- 1927–1940Rector of the Telšiai priest seminary
- 1943Became bishop of Telšiai
- 1946Arrested by the NKVD and executed
