People of the Revolution and the USSR

French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) Non-Bolshevik socialists 1862–1922 ○ Natural death

French Socialist deputy who joined the Union sacrée government as Minister of Public Works in 1914

Born in Bonnières-sur-Seine in Seine-et-Oise, he took a doctorate in law and practised as a lawyer, and as a journalist edited La Petite République. He joined the Blanquist-leaning Central Revolutionary Committee and followed its successor parties into the SFIO in 1905. From 1893 until his death he was re-elected as a Socialist deputy for a working-class district in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. Author of the 1911 pacifist pamphlet Faites un roi, sinon faites la paix, he nevertheless entered Viviani’s Union sacrée government in August 1914 as Minister of Public Works, and kept the post under Briand until December 1916. At the Congress of Tours in 1920 he voted against joining the Third International. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage in Chamonix in 1922.

Germany state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1865–1939 → Died in exile

SPD politician who proclaimed the republic from a Reichstag window on 9 November 1918 and became Weimar’s first head of government

On 9 November 1918, he proclaimed Germany a republic from a Reichstag window. In June 1919, he resigned as head of government rather than sign the Treaty of Versailles.

A printer from Kassel who became an SPD journalist and Reichstag deputy, he joined Prince Max of Baden’s cabinet in October 1918. On 9 November, hearing that Liebknecht was about to proclaim a socialist republic, he proclaimed a republic first from a Reichstag window, to Ebert’s fury. A People’s Deputy, he became head of government in February 1919 but resigned in June rather than accept the Treaty of Versailles. He was mayor of Kassel in the 1920s, survived a far-right cyanide attack in 1922, went into exile in 1933 and died in Copenhagen.

Non-Bolshevik socialists 1868–1920 ✕ Murdered by officers

Editor of the Social Democratic Népszava who was murdered by an officer detachment in 1920 for exposing the White Terror

A former schoolteacher, he wrote for Népszava from 1903, led the organisation of teachers, and in 1906 became president of the Free Association of Hungarian Teachers. He was state secretary for education in Mihály Károlyi’s coalition government, but during the Soviet Republic declined any role on grounds of principle and criticised the dictatorship of the proletariat in the National Assembly of Councils. In September 1919 he became responsible editor of Népszava and wrote articles exposing the White Terror. On 17 February 1920 officers of the Ostenburg detachment abducted and murdered him together with his colleague Béla Bacsó and threw the bodies into the Danube. Horthy’s amnesty of 1921 ensured the killers were never punished.

Spanish Republic state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1869–1946 ○ Illness

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.

Germany state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1870–1944 ○ Natural death

Social Democratic chancellor whose government accepted the Treaty of Versailles under an Allied ultimatum

Born in Darkehmen in the Province of Prussia, he worked as a lawyer’s clerk, co-founded the office employees’ union and was second chairman of the General Commission of Trade Unions from 1908 to 1918. Elected to the Reichstag for the SPD in 1912, he became labour secretary in Max von Baden’s cabinet in October 1918. When Scheidemann resigned in protest at the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, Bauer, until then a vocal critic of the treaty, succeeded him and got it through the National Assembly. His government carried out tax reform and extended social insurance, but was forced out in March 1920 over the negotiations conducted with the Kapp putschists. He was later vice-chancellor and treasury minister, and the Barmat corruption scandal cost him his seat in 1925. He died in Berlin in 1944.

Austria state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1870–1950 ○ Natural death

Austrian Social Democratic leader who signed the Treaty of Saint-Germain and founded the Second Republic in 1945

Born to an ethnic German farming family in Moravia, he studied law in Vienna, joined the Social Democrats and entered the Imperial Council in 1907. An Austromarxist theorist of “personal autonomy” on the national question, he was criticised by Lenin and Stalin. In 1918 he became the first chancellor of German-Austria, leading a grand coalition that introduced the eight-hour day among other reforms, and had to accept the ban on union with Germany and the territorial losses of Saint-Germain. He supported the Anschluss in 1938. In April 1945, at Soviet direction, he formed a provisional government, and that year became president. He died in Vienna in 1950.

French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) Non-Bolshevik socialists 1872–1950 ○ Heart disease

France's first Socialist prime minister, who left behind paid holidays and the 40-hour week

'I rarely left my desk while in power; but whenever I went out and crossed the Paris suburbs and saw the roads covered with processions of jalopies, motorcycles and tandems, with working-class couples in matching pullovers, I had the feeling that, despite everything, I had brought a kind of clearing, a break in the clouds, into difficult and obscure lives', statement at the Riom trial, March 1942

A literary critic drawn into politics by the Dreyfus affair, he kept the Socialist SFIO's 'old house' standing at the 1920 Congress of Tours when the majority left to found the Communist Party. As prime minister of the 1936 Popular Front government he brokered the Matignon Agreements and enacted two weeks of paid holidays and the 40-hour week, becoming France's first Socialist and first Jewish head of government and a target of the far right. One of the eighty parliamentarians who voted against full powers for Pétain in 1940, he turned Vichy's Riom trial into a platform for defending the Popular Front, survived internment near Buchenwald, and briefly headed a caretaker government in late 1946.

Italy state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1873–1951 ○ Natural causes

A reformist politician who organized compromises between fascism's fall and the monarchy

In June 1943, he secretly urged the king to dismiss Mussolini, appoint Badoglio, and break Italy's alliance with Germany.

Ivanoe Bonomi was a politician who moved from reformist socialism into the center of Italian liberal parliamentary politics. His record during fascism's rise included insufficient resistance and support for Mussolini's government, a compromise that later shaped criticism of his leadership. From 1942 he reconnected anti-Fascist forces, secretly urging King Victor Emmanuel III in 1943 to dismiss Mussolini and appoint Pietro Badoglio, then chairing the six-party Committee of National Liberation. He subsequently managed the difficult transition among the monarchy, the resistance, and the Allies, helping carry Italy toward postwar parliamentary institutions.

Finland state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1873–1963 ○ Natural causes

Finnish labour leader who became the world’s first Social Democratic head of government and then joined the Red government

Born in Kannus in Central Ostrobothnia in 1873, he emigrated to America at 17, worked in the mines and joined the radical Western Federation of Miners. Back in Finland from 1900, he entered Parliament for the Social Democrats in 1907, chaired the Finnish Trade Union Federation in 1912–1917 and was Speaker in 1913. In 1917 he became vice-chairman of the Senate’s economic department, the world’s first social democratic prime minister. In the civil war he was commissar for supply in the People’s Delegation, signed the 1 March treaty with Soviet Russia and fled to Russia after the defeat. In 1919–1920 he advised the British-organised Murmansk Legion, for which the Communist Party of Finland sentenced him to death. From 1922 to 1949 he edited the social democratic paper Raivaaja in the United States, and the 1944 Lex Tokoi cleared him of the civil war charges.

Germany state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1876–1931 ○ Natural causes

A Social Democratic politician of the Weimar Republic who served twice as chancellor.

Müller joined the Social Democratic Party in 1893 and rose to its leadership. As foreign minister from 1919 to 1920, he signed the Treaty of Versailles for Germany. His first chancellorship in 1920 combined the suppression of left-wing uprisings with reforms expanding disability employment, primary education, unemployment benefits and workers’ social protection. He returned as chancellor in 1928 to lead a grand coalition, which collapsed amid the Great Depression and disputes over financing unemployment insurance; he resigned in 1930.

Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR) Non-Bolshevik socialists 1878–1943 ○ Died

SR Party founder who chaired the last unified anti-Bolshevik government, overthrown by Kolchak

Trotsky called him 'the complete caricature of a statesman. A really charming teacher of language in a ladies' seminary in Oryol — that is really all you can say about him.'

A founder and right-wing leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, he led the SR faction in the 1905 St. Petersburg Soviet and served as Minister of the Interior and chairman of the Pre-Parliament in Kerensky's Provisional Government. During the Civil War, as the culmination of efforts to unite the anti-Bolshevik camp, he was elected chairman of the Provisional All-Russian Government (Ufa Directory) at the Ufa State Conference. Arrested and expelled by Kolchak's coup in November 1918, he continued émigré journalistic work in Paris and New York. His political trajectory encapsulates the collapse of democratic socialism in the Russian Revolution, crushed between armed extremes.

Belarus state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1879–1943 이후 Fate unknown

Veterinarian who chaired the First All-Belarusian Congress and, as chairman of the Rada, presided over the declaration of independence

Born in Zadzvieja in the Minsk Governorate in 1879, he graduated from the veterinary school in Warsaw in 1903 and worked as a veterinarian and as a teacher at the agricultural college in Marjina Horka. He served in the Russo-Japanese War and was active in the Belarusian Socialist Hramada. Elected chairman of the First All-Belarusian Congress in December 1917, he was arrested when it was dispersed. In February 1918 he was a Belarusian delegate at the Brest-Litovsk peace talks; as chairman of the Rada from March he presided over the session of 24–25 March that proclaimed independence, and from July to November he headed the People’s Secretariat. In the 1920s he worked in agriculture in Soviet Byelorussia; arrested in 1930 in the case of the “Union of Liberation of Belarus”, he passed through exile and the Gulag, and his fate after his release in 1943 is unknown.

Ukrainian People's Republic state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1880–1951 ○ Died

Ukrainian Social Democratic writer who led the Rada's General Secretariat and the Directory

Just as you created the dictatorship of workers and peasants in Russia, we must create a dictatorship of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine.

A Ukrainian Social Democratic writer, he led the Central Rada's General Secretariat in 1917 and retook Kyiv as first chairman of the Directory in 1918. Arguing for talks with the Soviets he broke with Petliura and resigned in 1919, dying in France in 1951.

Georgia state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1881–1954 → Died in exile

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.

Hungary state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1881–1956 ○ Heart attack

Hungarian Social Democratic and trade-union leader who won legal status for his party in the Bethlen–Peyer Pact of 1921

A machinist from Városlőd in Veszprém County, he led the metalworkers’ and miners’ unions. He ran the mining sector under the Soviet Republic in 1919 and after its fall was interior minister in the Peidl government and minister of labour and welfare under Huszár. When the Social Democrats boycotted the election because of the terror, he resigned in January 1920 and fled to Austria. Back in 1921, he concluded the pact with Bethlen’s government; he was a deputy from 1922 to 1944 and from 1927 general secretary of the Trade Union Council. In 1944 he was held in Mauthausen. Opposing the post-war merger with the Communists, he was expelled in 1947, emigrated to the United States and died in New York in 1956.

Russian Empire state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1881–1970 → Exile

The orator ground away between revolution and counter-revolution

In March 1917, taking the rostrum of the Petrograd Soviet to announce his acceptance of the Justice Ministry, he cried: "I cannot live without the people. In the moment you begin to doubt me, then kill me!" The workers and soldiers filling the hall erupted in wild applause.

The face of the Provisional Government and its last premier. In August 1917 he armed even the jailed Bolsheviks to stop Kornilov; in October, no army anywhere would come to save him. The story of his escaping in a dress is a Soviet fabrication. He spent half a century in exile lecturing on what had gone wrong, and died in New York.

United Kingdom state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1883–1967 ○ Pneumonia

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.

Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR) Non-Bolshevik socialists 1884–1940 ○ Heart attack

Bessarabian politician who presided over Sfatul Țării and the Moldavian Democratic Republic and saw through its union with Romania

Born to a peasant family in Răzeni, Bessarabia, in 1884, he graduated from the Chișinău seminary and Saint Petersburg University and worked as a physicist at the Meteorological Observatory. After the February Revolution he joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party and sat in the Petrograd Soviet, and Kerensky sent him to Bessarabia as the Provisional Government’s representative. At first he said Bessarabia should remain part of Russia, but as president of Sfatul Țării and of the Moldavian Democratic Republic he steered the vote for union with Romania in April 1918. After the union he became Minister of State for Bessarabia; in 1923 he took his wing of the Bessarabian Peasants’ Party into the National Liberal Party, and he later served as minister of health, of the interior and of communications and as vice-president of the Council of Ministers. He died of a heart attack in 1940.

Belarus state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1884–1942 ○ Died in prisoner transit

Founder of the Hramada who, as prime minister of the Belarusian People’s Republic, sought its recognition at the Paris Peace Conference

Born into an impoverished noble family in Šiauliai in 1884, he founded the Belarusian Revolutionary Hramada (later the Belarusian Socialist Hramada) with his brother Ivan and others in 1903. In Vilnius he brought out the first Belarusian newspapers, Nasha Niva among them, and under German occupation in 1915 he led the clandestine Belarusian People’s Committee. As president of the Belarusian Council of Vilnius he took part in the declaration of independence in 1918, and in October he became prime minister and then foreign minister. In 1919 he led the delegation to the Paris Peace Conference and negotiated a union with Poland, but with no result he resigned in February 1920. He devoted himself to publishing and education in Western Belarus until the Soviet authorities arrested him in 1939, and he died in 1942 while being transferred to a prison camp.

Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR) Non-Bolshevik socialists 1884–1971 ○ Died

Bessarabian Socialist Revolutionary who headed the first government of the Moldavian Democratic Republic and put land reform first

Born in Tănătari, Bessarabia, in 1884, he graduated from the Chișinău seminary and the Faculty of Letters in Saint Petersburg and taught. A Socialist Revolutionary, he returned to Bessarabia in 1917 with Inculeț at Kerensky’s urging and was elected chairman of the governorate peasants’ soviet and to the Russian Constituent Assembly. In December 1917 he became President of the Council of Directors General, the Moldavian Democratic Republic’s first government, and Director General for Agriculture, putting land reform first. His view that the republic should bear the majority people’s name prevailed; he put the entry of Romanian troops to a vote, yet protested their presence, fearing they would be used to block land reform. He voted for union but resigned amid charges of a pro-Russian stance, and later sat in the Romanian Senate. He fled to Bucharest in 1940 and died there in 1971.