Radical French prime minister at the end of the First World War who pressed harsh terms on Hungary at the Paris Peace Conference
A physician turned journalist from the Vendée, he became mayor of the 18th arrondissement of Paris in 1870 and the next year tried to broker a compromise between the Paris Commune and the government. A key figure of the Independent Radicals, he advocated the separation of church and state. As interior minister in 1906 he ordered repressive policies toward the workers’ movement and was nicknamed “the Tiger”, and he was prime minister in 1906–1909 and 1917–1920. Appointed in November 1917 at one of the darkest hours of the war, he demanded total victory over Germany and achieved the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference. Seeking to weaken Hungary as Germany was weakened, he brought about the stringent terms of the Treaty of Trianon. He died in 1929.
The philosopher-president who organized the Czechoslovak Legion from exile and signed the Penza Agreement with the Bolsheviks
On 7 March 1918, his 68th birthday, Masaryk boarded a train from Moscow to Vladivostok to prove to his Legion in person that the crossing of Siberia was possible.
Masaryk, a philosophy professor and Reichsrat deputy from Moravia, went into exile at the outbreak of the First World War and became the political leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement. In 1917 he travelled to Russia, where he organized Czech and Slovak prisoners of war into the Czechoslovak Legion and negotiated the Penza Agreement with the Bolsheviks, securing the Legion's transfer to France via Vladivostok. Elected the first president of Czechoslovakia in 1918, he presided over Central Europe's most stable parliamentary democracy for 17 years, a success built on the contradiction of his Legion being drawn into the Russian Civil War against the very Bolsheviks with whom he had bargained.
Career timeline
1882–1914Professor of Philosophy, Charles University in Prague
1891–1893Deputy of the Austrian Reichsrat (Young Czech Party)
1907–1914Deputy of the Austrian Reichsrat (Czech Progressive Party)
1915–1918Chairman of the Czechoslovak National Council (in exile)
1917–1918Organized the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia
US president whose Fourteen Points and League of Nations failed to win the Senate’s ratification
Born in Virginia, he was president of Princeton University and governor of New Jersey before winning the presidency in 1912, and in his first year imposed racial segregation across the federal bureaucracy. In April 1917 he asked Congress to declare war over unrestricted submarine warfare, and in January 1918 set out the Fourteen Points, with a League of Nations and self-determination. At the Paris Peace Conference he presided over the drafting of the League Covenant but conceded much to the other powers to get it. A stroke in October 1919 incapacitated him, and his refusal of a compromise sank the Senate’s ratification of the treaty. The Palmer Raids of the Red Scare came in the same years. He received the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize and died in 1924.
Career timeline
1902–1910President of Princeton University
1911–1913Governor of New Jersey
1913–1921President of the United States
1918Announced the Fourteen Points
1919Paris Peace Conference; chaired the League Covenant committee
Founding leader of the Wafd whose deportation to Malta in 1919 set off the Egyptian Revolution
Born in a village in the Nile Delta, he studied at al-Azhar and at a law school in Cairo and became a lawyer. Under the British occupation he served as a judge, minister of education (1906–1908) and minister of justice (1910–1912), and in 1913 became vice-president of the Legislative Assembly. In November 1918 he led the Wafd in demanding the end of the protectorate and a seat at the peace negotiations. When the British deported him to Malta in March 1919, the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 broke out. Exiled again to the Seychelles, he was allowed to return in 1923. After the Wafd’s landslide in the 1924 elections he formed the first Wafdist government, but resigned in November after the assassination of Sir Lee Stack, Governor-General of the Sudan, and the British demands that followed. He died in Cairo in 1927.
Career timeline
1906–1908Minister of education
1910–1912Minister of justice
1913Vice-president of the Legislative Assembly
1918Founding leader of the Wafd
1919.03Deported to Malta; Egyptian Revolution of 1919
Conservative viceroy of India and foreign secretary who gave his name to the Curzon Line and led the Allies at Lausanne
Born into an aristocratic Derbyshire family and educated at Eton and Oxford, he entered Parliament in 1885 and wrote travel books warning of a Russian threat to India. As Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905 he pursued administrative reform, but his 1905 partition of Bengal was criticised as an attempt to divide Bengali nationalism, and a major famine coincided with his tenure. In the First World War he served in Lloyd George’s war cabinet; appointed Foreign Secretary in October 1919, he gave his name to the proposed Soviet-Polish boundary, the Curzon Line. He designed the Treaty of Sèvres and, as chief Allied negotiator at Lausanne in 1922, settled the borders of Turkey. Passed over for prime minister in 1923, he died in 1925.
Japanese communist founder who shook Plekhanov's hand and shaped Comintern East Asia strategy
Amsterdam, 1904. When the chair announced that the vice-chairs were the delegates of the two warring powers — Plekhanov and Katayama — the two rose and clasped hands in silence. The hall answered with a standing ovation.
Father of Japanese communism. Born in Okayama, he studied in the United States and founded Japan's first trade union and Social Democratic Party. As a Comintern Executive Committee member he shaped anti-imperialist strategy for East Asia, and was buried in the Kremlin Wall.
Career timeline
1884–1896Studied in US; Grinnell College and Yale Divinity; became Christian and socialist
1896–1901Returned; founded Iron Workers' Union, Labour World, Social Democratic Party
1904Amsterdam Second International; anti-war handshake with Plekhanov
1911–1912Led Tokyo streetcar strike; 9 months imprisonment
1914–1921Exiled to US; joined CPUSA; communist groups among Japanese workers
1921–1922Via Mexico to Soviet Russia; led founding of Japanese Communist Party
1922–1933ECCI member and Presidium; anti-imperialist and anti-war congresses
Italian prime minister who led the country to victory after Caporetto but failed to win its territorial claims at the peace conference
Born in Palermo, he became a renowned law professor and from 1897 sat in the Chamber of Deputies as a Liberal. When the government fell after the defeat at Caporetto in October 1917 he became prime minister, dismissed Cadorna and rebuilt the army, and the victory of Vittorio Veneto in 1918 earned him the name “Premier of Victory”. At the peace conference he demanded Dalmatia, promised by the Treaty of London, and Fiume, obtained neither, walked out in April 1919 and resigned in June. The “mutilated victory” helped Mussolini’s rise. He at first supported Mussolini but broke with him after the murder of Matteotti in 1924. He died in Rome in 1952.
Career timeline
1897–1925Deputy for Partinico
1907–1909Minister of Justice
1916Minister of the Interior
1917–1919Prime minister of Italy
1919One of the Big Four at the Paris Peace Conference
Defender of the Dual Monarchy who was Hungary’s wartime prime minister and was killed by soldiers on the day of the Aster Revolution
The son of Kálmán Tisza, prime minister from 1875 to 1890, he grew up in a Calvinist family of untitled lower nobility and studied in Budapest, Heidelberg and Berlin. He entered parliament for the Liberal Party in 1886, was prime minister of Hungary twice, in 1903–1905 and 1913–1917, and Speaker of the House in 1912–1913. The most zealous adherent of the Dual Monarchy with Austria, he opposed universal suffrage and the break-up of the great estates. In July 1914 he alone at first opposed war with Serbia, but in the end supported it. Asked to resign by the reforming King Charles, he stepped down in May 1917. On 31 October 1918, during the Aster Revolution, he was killed by soldiers who broke into his home in Budapest.
German trade-union leader who signed the 1918 agreement with Stinnes and met the Kapp Putsch of 1920 with a general strike
Born in Marienburg, he grew up in an orphanage and became a wood turner. He joined the Social Democrats in 1885, chaired the General Commission of the German Trade Unions from 1890, and sat in the Reichstag in 1893–1898 and 1903–1920. In 1913 he became the first President of the International Federation of Trade Unions. He led the SPD’s right wing, and in the First World War supported the civil truce and the renunciation of strikes. On 15 November 1918 he signed an agreement with Hugo Stinnes under which employers for the first time accepted the unions as workers’ representatives, with the eight-hour day and works councils, while the unions rejected the radical socialists’ demands. In 1919 he became chairman of the new General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB), and in March 1920 he organised the general strike against the Kapp Putsch. He died in Berlin later that year.
Career timeline
1885Joined the SPD
1890Chairman of the General Commission of the German Trade Unions
1893Elected to the Reichstag
1913First President of the International Federation of Trade Unions
Lawyer who founded the USPD against the war and co-chaired the Council of People’s Deputies with Ebert in 1918
After Ebert’s government bloodily suppressed the revolutionary Volksmarinedivision in December 1918, Haase and fellow USPD delegates resigned from the Council of the People’s Deputies in protest.
Born to a Jewish family in East Prussia, he made his name as a lawyer defending socialists and in 1911 became SPD co-chairman alongside Bebel. In August 1914 he opposed war credits but had to read the party’s statement in their favour in the Reichstag. In 1917 he founded the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) with the war’s opponents. In November 1918 he co-chaired the Council of People’s Deputies with Ebert, leaving the government after the Christmas crisis. Shot outside the Reichstag in October 1919, he died in November.
Career timeline
1888Established himself as a lawyer, defending workers, peasants, and socialist activists.
1911Became co-chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) with August Bebel.
1914Opposed war credits but, following party discipline, voted for them in the Reichstag and defended the party’s support.
1917Helped found the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) and became its chairman.
1918From November, co-chaired the Council of the People’s Deputies with Ebert; resigned in December to protest the government’s suppression of the sailors’ division.
1919Was shot while entering the Reichstag on 8 October and died of blood poisoning from the wound on 7 November.
British Labour organizer and politician who led the international disarmament effort.
Henderson worked as an iron foundryman and became active in the trade-union movement. He helped establish the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, chaired the conference that formed the Labour Party in 1906, and served as party secretary from 1911 to 1934, building its organization and broadening its base. He was president of the Board of Education in 1915–16, home secretary in 1924, and foreign secretary from 1929 to 1931. Elected president of the League of Nations Disarmament Conference in 1932, he pursued international negotiations even as the conference ultimately failed; his work for peace and disarmament earned him the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize.
Career timeline
1900Helped establish the Labour Representation Committee
1906Chaired the conference that formed the Labour Party
1911–1934Served as Labour Party secretary
1915–1916Served as president of the Board of Education
1924Served as home secretary
1929–1931Served as foreign secretary
1932Was elected president of the League of Nations Disarmament Conference
Liberal prime minister who led Britain in the later war and argued for moderation towards Germany at the peace conference
Born in Manchester to Welsh parents, he made his name as a radical Liberal orator. As chancellor of the exchequer he introduced the 1909 People’s Budget and the National Insurance Act, laying foundations of the welfare state. After serving as minister of munitions and secretary for war he became prime minister in December 1916. At the Paris Peace Conference he opposed reparations that would wreck the German economy and sought to check French dominance. In 1921 he concluded the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement and negotiated the creation of the Irish Free State, but resigned in 1922 when the Conservatives left the coalition. In 1936 he met Hitler and praised him. He died in 1945.
Career timeline
1890MP for Caernarvon Boroughs
1908–1915Chancellor of the Exchequer
1915–1916Minister of Munitions
1916Secretary of State for War
1916–1922Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1919British representative at the Paris Peace Conference
Soviet Union
Soviet communism
1864–1941
○ Natural causes
From Warsaw boy patriot to Comintern old revolutionary: the Pole who returned in the sealed train
“As a six-year-old boy I dreamed of becoming a rebel leader and freeing Poland from the 'Muscovites' and 'Swabians'.” — from his memoirs Za 50 Let
A Polish revolutionary who endured twenty years of tsarist prisons and Siberian exile, emerging as a gold-medal ethnographer of Siberia's indigenous peoples. He led the anti-Piłsudski split of the Polish Socialist Party into its internationalist left wing, then joined the Bolsheviks on Lenin's sealed train. He helped found the International Red Aid (MOPR), built the Soviet radio broadcasting system, and spent nearly sixty years on the front lines of revolutionary struggle, outliving the Great Purge to die of natural causes at 77.
Career timeline
1882Joins 'Proletariat', the first Polish socialist party
1884–1891Arrested, sentenced to 10 years; serves at Kara penal colony; initiates mass poisoning protest (1889)
1891–1904Exiled to Yakutia, Irkutsk, Minusinsk — ethnographic research awarded gold medal; meets Lenin and Krupskaya
1904–1907Returns to Warsaw, leads PPS left wing; pushes Piłsudski out and splits the party (1906)
1907–1914Exile in Austrian Galicia — directs workers' health fund in Drohobych, PPS-Left abroad organiser
1914–1917Swiss exile — attends Zimmerwald Conference, internationalist left activist
1917Returns to Russia with Lenin in the sealed train; commissar for Polish affairs in Kharkov
1918Joins RKP(b) with seniority backdated to 1906; serves in Ukrainian NKID and Polish Bureau
1920Member of Polrevkom — attempt to establish a Polish Soviet government in Białystok
1921Responsible Secretary of the CP(b)U Central Committee (March–December)
1922–1923Secretary of the Comintern Executive Committee (ICCI)
1925–1928Editor-in-chief of Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star)
1928–1930Editor-in-chief of Rabochaya Gazeta and children's magazine Murzilka
1931–1933First chairman of the All-Union Radio Committee — creates Soviet radio broadcasting system
1933–1937Head of museum department, RSFSR Narkompros; editor of Sovetsky Muzey
1937–1941Editor of Nasha Strana; directs Polish-language Radio Moscow broadcasts after German invasion
German socialist and a leading figure in the workers’ council movement.
A social-democratic journalist, Däumig joined the Independent Social Democratic Party during the First World War and became influential among Berlin radicals and the revolutionary shop stewards. As a leading member of the Berlin workers’ council executive in November 1918, he sought to make the council system the basis of the constitution, but lost to supporters of a national assembly. In 1920 he led the USPD left into the Communist International and became co-chair of the United Communist Party of Germany. He resigned as co-chair with Paul Levi in February 1921, left the party after the March Action and Levi’s expulsion, and helped found the Communist Working Group; in 1922 he rejoined the USPD.
Career timeline
1901Began working for Social Democratic newspapers in Gera, Halle and Erfurt.
1911Joined the Berlin Social Democratic newspaper Vorwärts to cover military affairs and workers’ education.
1916After leaving Vorwärts, campaigned for the Independent Social Democratic Party.
1918Became a leader of the revolutionary shop stewards and a leading member of the Berlin workers’ council executive.
1920Entered the Reichstag as an Independent Social Democrat, backed acceptance of the Bolsheviks’ 21 conditions and affiliation with the Communist International, and became co-chair of the United Communist Party of Germany in December.
1921Resigned as co-chair of the United Communist Party of Germany with Paul Levi in February. After the March Action, he left the party and helped found the Communist Working Group.
1922Rejoined the Independent Social Democratic Party with the Communist Working Group.
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
Politician who gave up the Labour chairmanship in 1914 over war credits and later became Britain’s first Labour prime minister
He resigned as Labour chairman in 1914 over Britain’s entry into the war and war spending; in 1931 he led a national government and lost Labour’s support.
Born into poverty in Lossiemouth, Scotland, he became an organiser of the Independent Labour Party and Labour and was chairman of the party from 1911. When Labour backed the government’s war credits in August 1914 he resigned the chairmanship and was fiercely attacked for his opposition to the war. In 1924 he became Britain’s first Labour prime minister and recognised the Soviet Union, returning as prime minister in 1929. Forming a National Government with the Conservatives in the crisis of 1931, he was expelled from Labour. He died at sea in 1937.
Career timeline
1893Joined the Independent Labour Party and worked as a journalist in London.
1906Elected MP for Leicester.
1911Became chairman of the parliamentary Labour group.
1924Became Britain’s first Labour prime minister.
1929Led a second minority Labour government and included opposition leaders in a national government amid rising unemployment.
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
The soldier-politician who began as a socialist, became Head of State of reborn Poland, broke the Red Army's westward drive at Warsaw in 1920, and later ruled through a coup-built authoritarian regime
To be defeated and not to yield, that is victory; to be victorious and to rest on one's laurels, that is defeat.
Born 5 December 1867 at Zułowo manor (now Zalavas, Lithuania, then Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire), second son of a noble szlachta family that sources characterize either as Polish or as Polonized Lithuanians. Arrested in March 1887 over the plot against Alexander III and sent to five years of Siberian exile, he joined the Polish Socialist Party in 1893, led it, and edited its underground organ Robotnik from 1894. In the First World War he raised the Polish Legions on Austria's side, was imprisoned at Magdeburg after the 1917 Oath crisis, became Chief of State of reborn Poland in November 1918, and broke the Red Army's drive at Warsaw in 1920. He ruled as the strongman of the Sanacja regime after the May 1926 coup, jailed opponents in the Brest trials and Bereza Kartuska, signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR in 1932, and died of liver cancer in Warsaw on 12 May 1935.
Career timeline
1887–1892Siberian exile for implication in the plot against Alexander III
1892–1908Leader of the Polish Socialist Party; publisher of its organ Robotnik
1908–1914Organized the Combat Organization and Riflemen's unions; trained military cadres in Galicia
1914–1917Commander, 1st Brigade of the Polish Legions under Austria-Hungary
1917–1918Imprisoned in the Magdeburg fortress for refusing the oath of loyalty to Germany
1918.11–1922.12Head of State (Naczelnik Panstwa)
1919–1921Commander-in-chief of the Polish army in the Soviet-Polish War
1926.05Returned to power in the May coup
1926–1935Strongman of the Sanacja regime; War Minister and twice premier
1932Concluded the Soviet-Polish non-aggression pact
The brain of Action Française, the royalist theorist who denied the republic itself in the name of integral nationalism
'It is the revenge of Dreyfus!', on hearing his life sentence in the court at Lyon, 27 January 1945
A poet and polemicist from Martigues in Provence, deaf from his youth, who led Action Française for half a century after the movement formed out of the Dreyfus affair. His 'integral nationalism' called for the restoration of the monarchy and the abolition of the parliamentary republic, and named Jews, Protestants, Freemasons and foreigners as the 'four confederate states' eating France from within. The movement survived the Vatican's condemnation of 1926, and in 1938 he was elected to the Académie Française. Through January 1934 his paper named 'the thieves' day after day, and on the morning of 6 February it called on its readers to come to the Chamber that evening. He welcomed Pétain's accession in 1940 as a 'divine surprise', backed Vichy, and denounced resisters and Jews in print throughout the occupation. In January 1945 he was sentenced to life imprisonment and national degradation for collusion with the enemy.
Career timeline
1868–1890Born at Martigues; loses his hearing; begins writing in Paris
1899–1908Joins Action Française out of the Dreyfus affair; the daily is founded in 1908
1908–1939Theorist of integral nationalism, shaping the whole of the French far right
1926The Vatican condemns Action Française
1934.01–02Press offensive over the Stavisky affair; calls for the demonstration of 6 February
1938Elected to the Académie Française
1940–1944Backs Vichy; denounces resisters and Jews in print
1945.01Sentenced to life and national degradation for collusion with the enemy
1952Released in ill health and dies at Tours the same year
Estonian prime minister who concluded the Treaty of Tartu, publisher of Postimees
As Soviet forces occupied Estonia in June 1940, he urged President Päts to offer at least symbolic armed resistance.
Leader of Estonia's liberal national movement through the newspaper Postimees, he was prime minister in 1919 and 1920 and concluded the Treaty of Tartu. Pushed out for opposing Päts's authoritarian regime in 1934, he was arrested after the Soviet occupation of 1940 and disappeared.
Career timeline
1896Editor and publisher of Postimees, turning it into the organ of the national movement
1906Member of the First Russian State Duma; signed the Vyborg Appeal
1917Member of the Estonian Provincial Assembly (Maapäev)
1919–1920Prime Minister; concluded the Treaty of Tartu
Mongolia
Communism
1868–1928
○ Died of illness in office, (13 Feb or 13 Nov)
First prime minister of the Mongolian People's Republic, diplomat of the old regime
On 23 September 1924 a constitution-drafting commission chaired by Prime Minister Tserendorj was set up, and on 26 November 1924 the first Great Hural unanimously adopted its 6-chapter, 50-article constitution declaring Mongolia's first republican order.
Born in 1868 at Kherlen Bayan Ulaan as a subject of the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu's Great Shabi, he learned Mongolian, Manchu, Chinese and Russian and worked as a scribe and translator in the Manchu administration in Khüree from 1885 to 1911. After the 1911 independence he entered the Foreign Ministry, serving as deputy foreign minister in 1913-1915 and first-ranked minister in 1915-1919. He signed the 1919 renunciation document under Chinese occupation and became deputy foreign minister in the revolutionary government of 1921. Appointed prime minister in 1923, he headed the 1924 constitution-drafting commission and became the republic's first prime minister. After 1926, as Moscow tightened control, he resisted the abolition of private property and the persecution of the Buddhist Church, and he died of illness in office in 1928; sources give his death as 13 February or 13 November 1928.
Career timeline
1885–1890Scribe in the Manchu administration in Khüree
1890–1904Teacher at the Russian consulate's translator school
1904–1911Chinese-language translator in the Manchu ministry in Khüree (6th rank)
1913–1915Deputy foreign minister of Autonomous Mongolia
1915–1919First-ranked minister of foreign affairs
1923–1928Prime minister of Mongolia, from 1924 of the Mongolian People's Republic
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
The appeasement architect whose bid to avoid war helped open the way to it
Returning from Munich in 1938, he declared the agreement to mean “peace for our time.”
Neville Chamberlain was a British Conservative politician whose career combined domestic administrative reform with finance before he became prime minister. Seeking to avoid another European war and gain time for rearmament, he pursued appeasement, but the strategy failed to restrain Nazi Germany's expansion. His government's acceptance of the Munich settlement in 1938, and its limited response to Soviet proposals for collective security, formed part of the international conditions surrounding the 1939 crisis and the Nazi-Soviet Pact. After declaring war on Germany following the invasion of Poland, he resigned in 1940 amid criticism of the Norway campaign.
Career timeline
1911–1915Birmingham city councillor; chair of the Town Planning Committee
1915Lord Mayor of Birmingham
1916–1917Director of National Service
1923–1924Minister of Health; Chancellor of the Exchequer
1924–1929Minister of Health
1931–1937Chancellor of the Exchequer
1937–1940Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1938–1939Led the Munich settlement and appeasement policy toward Germany
The UGT worker-leader they called the Spanish Lenin, a prime minister broken between revolution and war
In November 1936 Largo Caballero appointed four CNT leaders to his cabinet: anarchists whose programme was the abolition of the state took ministerial office in one. One of them, the health minister Federica Montseny, was the first woman to hold a ministry in Spanish history.
A man who left school at seven, worked as a stucco plasterer and became a union leader. At the head of the UGT he was sentenced to life for the general strike of August 1917, and under the Primo de Rivera dictatorship he took a seat on the Council of State to keep the organization alive, a choice argued over for the rest of his life. As labour minister of the Second Republic he pushed through the eight-hour day in the countryside, and around the Asturias rising of 1934 he moved so far left that his supporters called him the Spanish Lenin. In September 1936 he became prime minister and war minister, and in November brought four CNT leaders into the cabinet, seating anarchists in a government for the first time; but he clashed continuously with the communists and the Soviet advisers over rebuilding a regular army and over the pace of the revolution. After the May Days of 1937 he refused to outlaw the POUM, lost his ministers and fell. In exile in France he was seized by the Gestapo and held in Sachsenhausen until the liberation of 1945.
Career timeline
1869Born to a poor family in Madrid; left school at seven and became a stucco plasterer
1890–1894Drawn into the UGT by a builders' strike; joined the PSOE in 1894
1917Sentenced to life for leading the August general strike; released the next year on election to parliament
1924–1930Councillor of State for labour under the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, keeping the UGT alive at the cost of a lasting controversy
1925Became the leading figure of both the PSOE and the UGT after the death of Pablo Iglesias
1931–1933Labour minister of the Second Republic; pushed through the eight-hour day in the countryside and other labour laws
1934–1935Moved far left, called the Spanish Lenin; jailed after the failed Asturias rising of October and then acquitted
1936.09.04Took office as prime minister and minister of war
1936.11Brought four CNT ministers into the cabinet and moved the government to Valencia
1937.05.17Refused to outlaw the POUM after the May Days and was forced out of office
1937–1938Pushed out of the UGT leadership as well
1939Went into exile in France with the defeat of the Republic
1943–1945Seized by the Gestapo and held in Sachsenhausen concentration camp until the liberation
1946.03.23Died in Paris; his remains were returned to Madrid in 1978
