Bolshevik historian who became Soviet Russia's first ambassador to Persia after thirty years of exile in Britain
Lenin wrote him in July 1920: "About your journey to Russia, I am in two minds. You are so very important for the work in London. Let them deport you: we shall see if they dare to do so."
A Bolshevik who spent thirty years in British exile. As the first Soviet ambassador to Persia (1921), he abolished Tsarist unequal treaties and later founded the Institute of World Economy and World Politics. A Marxist historian of the British labour movement and imperialism, he became a full member of the Academy of Sciences.
Career timeline
- 1891Left the Russian Empire for political reasons, emigrated to Britain
- 1895–1911Joined the Social Democratic Federation; executive committee member 1901–1906
- 1901Joined RSDLP; aligned with the Bolshevik faction
- 1911–1920Led left wing of British Socialist Party, maintained anti-war position; contributed to The Call
- 1914–1918Worked as Russian translator and interpreter at the British Foreign Office and War Office
- 1920Helped found the Communist Party of Great Britain; returned to Soviet Russia
- 1921–1923Plenipotentiary Representative of RSFSR in Persia; concluded Soviet-Iranian treaty
- 1923–1930Member of NKID Collegium; executive editor of International Life
- 1924–1925Founding director of the Institute of World Economy and World Politics
- 1927–1945Member of main editorial board, Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1st edition)
- 1939Elected full member (Academician) of the USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1945–1946Awarded Order of Lenin (1945), Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1946)
From Comintern underground courier to its organizational backbone, then devoured by the machine he built
At the June 1937 Central Committee plenum, when the resolution to grant NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov emergency powers was tabled, Piatnitsky rose and said: "At this rate we will shoot the entire party." Silence fell over the hall. He was expelled from the plenum on 25 June.
An Old Bolshevik born to a poor Jewish tailor's family who taught himself to read. A virtuoso of the underground, he built Iskra's clandestine cross-border distribution network. Then, as Comintern secretary for twelve years, he became the organizational backbone of the International, managing liaison, finances, and cadre for communist parties worldwide. At the June 1937 Central Committee plenum he openly opposed granting the NKVD emergency powers; arrested a month later, he was tortured for a year and shot in July 1938. Rehabilitated in 1956.
Career timeline
- 1898–1902Built Iskra's clandestine courier network; operated as 'Freitag'
- 1903–1908Joined Bolsheviks; Odessa and Moscow committees; 1905 revolution
- 1914–1917Arrested, exiled to Yenisei province; returned to Moscow after Feb. Revolution
- 1917Moscow Party Committee, combat party centre; led railway Red Guard unit
- 1921–1923Member, ECCI
- 1923–1935Comintern Secretary — liaison, finance, and cadre placement for all parties
- 1935–1937Head, CC VKP(b) Administrative-Political Department
- 1937.06Spoke against NKVD emergency powers at CC plenum; expelled, arrested
Lithuanian officer and envoy in Berlin who founded the Lithuanian Activist Front behind the June Uprising of 1941
Mobilised into the Imperial Russian Army in the First World War, he was the first to enlist in the Lithuanian armed forces after independence in 1918, and on 1 January 1919 his men raised the Lithuanian flag over Gediminas’ Tower in Vilnius. He became Chief of the General Staff in 1925 but had to resign after opposing the 1926 coup. He was envoy to Germany in 1927–1930 and 1938–1941. After the Soviet occupation of 1940 he founded in Berlin the Lithuanian Activist Front, which sought to restore independence by working with the Nazis; named prime minister of the provisional government in 1941, he was held under house arrest by the Germans. In 1944 he was arrested for a memorandum demanding a Lithuanian government. After the war he settled in the United States, working at the Library of Congress. His antisemitic writings have made dedications in his honour controversial.
Career timeline
- 1919Raised the flag over Gediminas’ Tower
- 1925–1926Chief of the Lithuanian General Staff
- 1938–1941Envoy to Germany
- 1940–1941Founded the Activist Front; named provisional prime minister
- 1949Emigrated to the United States
