The Indian Marxist who debated Lenin on colonial revolution
"You are so young! I expected a grey-bearded wise man from the East." — Lenin's first words to the 27-year-old Indian revolutionary upon meeting him at the Kremlin, 1920.
Bengali Marxist. He debated Lenin on the colonial question at the 1920 Comintern Congress and founded the Mexican Communist Party (the first outside Russia) as well as the CPI. Expelled from the Comintern, he served six years in British prisons before turning to Radical Humanism.
Career timeline
1917Co-founded the Socialist Party of Mexico, soon transformed into the Mexican Communist Party
1919Founded the Mexican Communist Party, the first communist party outside Russia
1920Presented supplementary theses on the colonial question at the 2nd Comintern Congress, debated Lenin
1920Founded the Communist Party of India (Tashkent group) in exile
1922–1929Member of the Comintern Executive Committee and Presidium; secretary of the Chinese Commission
1929Expelled from the Comintern for siding with Bukharin's Right Opposition
1931–1936Arrested by British colonial authorities, imprisoned for 6 years on conspiracy charges
1940–1948Founded the Radical Democratic Party; supported the anti-fascist war effort
1947Published the New Humanism manifesto, articulating his Radical Humanist philosophy
Revolutionary who went from Left SR leader to architect of Soviet chemical warfare
In July 1918, Left SR Central Committee member Fishman personally manufactured the two bombs used to assassinate German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach and handed them to his comrades.
An SR militant who escaped Siberian exile to study explosives and poison-gas chemistry at the University of Naples, Fishman returned in 1917, became a Left SR Central Committee member, and personally manufactured the bombs for the 1918 assassination of German ambassador Mirbach. After joining the Bolsheviks in 1920, he was appointed the first head of the Red Army's Military-Chemical Directorate (VOKhIMU) in 1925, laying the foundations of the Soviet chemical and biological weapons program; his 1928 report to Voroshilov argued for the offensive use of bacteriological warfare. Arrested in 1937 and sentenced to ten years, he developed a new gas mask model at the NKVD Special Technical Bureau; he was rehabilitated in 1955 with the rank of major general of technical troops.
Career timeline
1904Joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party
1905Petrograd Soviet deputy; led Okhta Powder Factory combat druzhina
1917Left SR Central Committee member; took part in the October Revolution
1918Left SR combat druzhina chief; manufactured bombs for Mirbach assassination
1921–1925Red Army intelligence officer; military attaché in Italy and Germany
1925–1937Head of Red Army VOKhIMU; director of Institute of Chemical Defence
1937–1947Arrested, 10-year sentence; developed gas mask at NKVD Special Technical Bureau
1955Rehabilitated; promoted to major general of technical troops
The deputy who founded the Jeunesses Patriotes, holding a street force and a seat in the Chamber at once
He kept a parliamentary seat and a paramilitary organisation at the same time, on the principle that the street belonged to his side too. The Jeunesses Patriotes were among the columns that reached the Concorde on the night of 6 February 1934, and several of the fifteen dead were their members
A First World War veteran turned deputy who founded the Jeunesses Patriotes in 1924 against the incoming Cartel des Gauches and built it into a paramilitary body tens of thousands strong. Equipped with blue raincoats and berets, it broke up Communist meetings and fought for the streets, while its leader kept his seat inside parliament: a doubleness characteristic of the French leagues. On 6 February 1934 the Jeunesses Patriotes formed one of the main columns on the Place de la Concorde, and some of the dead came from its ranks. He voted full powers to Pétain in 1940, presided over the Paris municipal council under the occupation, and was detained and then released after the liberation.
Career timeline
1887–1918Born in Paris; serves in the First World War
1919–1940Deputy in the Chamber
1924Founds the Jeunesses Patriotes
1925–1936Commands a paramilitary league tens of thousands strong
1934.02.06The Jeunesses Patriotes form one of the main columns on the Concorde
1940.07Votes full powers to Pétain
1943–1944Presides over the Paris municipal council under the occupation
1944–1945Detained after the liberation, then released
Nationalist leader who combined resistance to Japan with anti-communist rule
After signing the pact with the Soviet Union in 1937, he insisted that it did not mean permitting communism to grow, explaining that Nanking could not fight Japan and the Communists simultaneously.
Chiang Kai-shek was the Nationalist Party's military and political leader, rising through the Northern Expedition of the 1920s to consolidate much of China under a government based in Nanjing. He had prioritised the civil war against the Communists, but after the Xi'an Incident accepted a united front against Japan and secured Soviet arms and aircraft through the 1937 Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. He led China's wartime resistance, then moved the Republic of China's government to Taiwan after defeat in the civil war, where he built a long authoritarian rule under martial law.
Career timeline
1908Joined the Tongmenghui
1924–1927Commandant, Whampoa Military Academy
1926–1928Commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army, led the Northern Expedition
1928–1931Chairman of the Nationalist government and President of the Executive Yuan
1937–1945Supreme commander of China's theatre in the war against Japan
1948–1975President of the Republic of China
1950–1975Ruled the Nationalist government in Taiwan
Bolshevik who led the underground communist party in independent Estonia and was executed
A Cheka investigator on the Lockhart conspiracy and Kaplan affair, he was arrested after the May Day demonstration of 1922 and shot that same night in a forest by Lake Ülemiste.
The Bolshevik who led the October Revolution in Estonia in 1917, he directed the underground communist party in the independent republic until his arrest and execution in Tallinn in 1922.
Career timeline
1905Began revolutionary activity in a Marxist students' circle in Arensburg (Kuressaare)
1906Moved to St Petersburg and joined the RSDLP (Bolsheviks)
1906–1913Party work in St Petersburg and Revel (Tallinn); helped publish the Estonian-language paper Kiir
1917Deputy chairman of the Estland Military Revolutionary Committee; head of the administrative department of the Soviet ExecutComm
1918Investigator for the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal and Cheka; member of the All-Russian Central ExecutComm
1918–1922Led the underground Estonian Communist Party; Central Committee and Politburo member
Crimean Tatar national communist who pressed Crimean Tatar interests as head of the Crimean ASSR and was executed
Born in 1888 into a merchant family in Bakhchysarai, he worked from the age of 14 at the newspaper Terciman, where Ismail Gasprinsky tutored him. He took part in the 1905 revolution and lived in the Ottoman Empire in 1909–1912. In 1916 he chaired a Crimean Tatar labour union, and in 1917 he was a Qurultay delegate and led the left wing of Milliy Firqa. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1918 and served in the Cheka special department on the Caucasus front in 1919–1920. From December 1920 he called for Crimea to be recognised as a famine region, and in 1921–1924 he was People’s Commissar of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection of the Crimean ASSR. As chairman of the Crimean Central Executive Committee from 1924 he opposed Jewish resettlement, but in 1928 he was executed on charges linked to a murder case; he was rehabilitated in 1990.
Career timeline
1916Chairman of a Crimean Tatar labour union
1917Qurultay delegate; leader of the left wing of Milliy Firqa
1919–1920Cheka special department officer on the Caucasus front
1921–1924People’s Commissar of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, Crimean ASSR
1922Head of the Crimean emergency troika against banditism
1924–1928Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Crimean ASSR
On 25 January 1935, after chairing meetings all morning, he returned home pale and refused his housekeeper's offer to call a doctor, retiring to his room. When the Kremlin physician arrived, Kuibyshev was already dead of a coronary thrombosis.
Born the son of a tsarist officer, he joined the Social Democratic Party at sixteen and endured eight arrests and exiles in the Bolshevik underground. During the Civil War he served on the Revolutionary Military Councils of the 1st and 4th Armies; afterwards he chaired Rabkrin, the Supreme Economic Council, and Gosplan, becoming the architect and executor of Stalin's industrialization drive. A Politburo member from 1927, he oversaw the full span of economic policy and became a loyal symbol of Soviet industrialization whose name was bestowed on cities and factories after his death.
Career timeline
1917–1921Rises through party and military administration during revolution and civil war
1920sServes in economic oversight bodies including Rabkrin and the Supreme Economic Council
1930–1934Gosplan chairman during the First Five-Year Plan and industrialization drive
1934–1935Remains an economic elder of the party-state but dies early
after 1935Becomes a Stalinist industrialization symbol in city and factory names
Buryat revolutionary, drafter of Mongolia's 1924 constitution, victim of the Great Terror
At the third party congress in August 1924, as leader of the leftist faction he joined the rightists led by Dambadorj in accusing Danzan of representing bourgeois interests and dealing with American and Chinese firms; Danzan and Bavaasan were sentenced and shot within twenty-four hours.
A Buryat from Transbaikalia, he was elected first chairman of the Buryat-Mongol Central National Committee (Burnatskom) in April 1917 and helped lay the foundations of Buryat autonomy. In 1920 he became secretary of the Mongol-Tibet section of the Comintern's Far Eastern Secretariat. After the 1921 revolution he served until 1925 as chairman of Mongolia's Revolutionary Military Council, a government adviser, a member of the MPRP Central Committee presidium and a deputy in the Great and Small Khural. He helped draft the 1924 constitution and argued for the non-capitalist path at the third party congress, where he also joined in denouncing Danzan. Arrested in Moscow on 19 June 1937 (custody records date it 19 July), he was sentenced in 1938; sources disagree on the sentencing date and on when and where he was executed. A review of his case began in 1955 and he was rehabilitated in 1957.
Career timeline
1917Elected first chairman of the Buryat-Mongol Central National Committee (Burnatskom)
1918Elected in absentia as education minister of the Provisional Siberian Government
1920Secretary of the Mongol-Tibet section, Comintern Far Eastern Secretariat
1921–1925Chairman of Mongolia's Revolutionary Military Council, government adviser, member of the MPRP Central Committee presidium, deputy in the Great and Small Khural
1924Helped draft the constitution; joined in denouncing Danzan at the third party congress
1926–1930Studied at the Red Professors' Institute
1927–1934Research and teaching at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV), professor of political economy from November 1934
The “favourite of the whole party,” killed in its name
In the mid-1920s Stalin told his comrades he and Bukharin were “the Himalayas; all the rest are little spots.” Ten years later he had him shot.
The brilliant theorist Lenin's testament called “the favourite of the whole party.” At Brest he was the far-left voice for revolutionary war; a decade later, defending NEP and the peasants against Stalin's Great Break, he became the “Right Deviation.” Removed from the Politburo in 1929, he returned to the Central Committee in 1934, edited Izvestia and helped draft the 1936 constitution, was arrested on treason charges in 1937 and shot after the 1938 trial. His note to Stalin, “Koba, why do you need me to die?”, is attributed through the Medvedevs' writing.
Career timeline
1916–1917Edits the émigré press in New York
1917Published Imperialism and World Economy, written in 1915
1918Left Communist against the Brest peace
1918–1929Editor of Pravda; Comintern leadership
1920Co-authored and published The ABC of Communism with Preobrazhensky
1921Published Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology
1925–1928Theorist of NEP: “Enrich yourselves”
1929Falls as the Right Deviation
1934–1936Edits Izvestia; helps draft the 1936 constitution
At the 14th Party Congress in December 1925, before 1,306 delegates, Sokolnikov took the rostrum to demand Stalin's removal as General Secretary and the continuation of NEP. He was the only speaker to demand this from the rostrum. The move failed to win a majority.
Bolshevik leader killed in prison under Stalin. Born Grigory Brilliant, he took a law degree and a doctorate in economics at the Sorbonne and was fluent in six languages. After the October Revolution he oversaw bank nationalization and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and in the Civil War commanded the 8th Army that completed the defeat of Denikin. As Finance Commissar he directed the 1922–1924 monetary reform, stabilizing the ruble with the gold-backed chervonets. He advocated hard financial policy and gradual socialist construction, opposing forced industrialization and collectivization, and at the 14th Party Congress of 1925 demanded Stalin's resignation as General Secretary.
Career timeline
1905–1917Bolshevik activism and exile, then party work during the revolution
1918Serves in the Brest-Litovsk peace delegation
1920–1921Works on the Turkestan front and Sovietization in Central Asia
1922–1926Finance commissar, advancing the chervonets and NEP monetary stabilization
1926–1936Linked to opposition currents, moves through diplomatic/economic posts and loses power
1936–1939Imprisoned after a Moscow trial and killed in custody
First People's Commissar of Justice under Lenin: the Left SR who defended revolutionary legality against the Cheka
"Then why bother with a Commissariat for Justice? Let's call it frankly the Commissariat for Social Extermination!" — to Lenin, protesting a Cheka summary-execution clause, February 1918
Left SR lawyer, first People's Commissar of Justice in Lenin's coalition government. He championed revolutionary legality against the Cheka and resigned over the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. In exile he was a Yiddish writer and territorialist activist.
Career timeline
1906Joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party while at Moscow University
1908Arrested, exiled to Tobolsk province for 2 years; later earned law master's at Heidelberg
1915Arrested for anti-war work, exiled to Ufa; practiced law and led Ufa Left SRs
1917Elected to Constituent Assembly (Ufa), Left SR Central Committee, executive of All-Russian Council of Peasant Deputies
1917.12–1918.03People's Commissar of Justice: restricted Cheka powers, freed political prisoners, issued Revolutionary Tribunal rules; resigned over Brest-Litovsk
1918Organized partisan detachments in Kursk and Taganrog; detained by Cheka for 4.5 months in 1919
1923Emigrated to Berlin, stripped of Soviet citizenship; co-founded 'Skify' publishing, joined Vienna International
1933–1957Co-founded Freeland League in London, pursued Kimberley Plan; edited Yiddish journal Afn Shvel; died in New York
Christian Democrat who led the CDU in the Soviet zone until SMAD removed him, then became West Germany’s minister for all-German affairs
A bookbinder from Hammelburg in Bavaria, he became a leader of the Catholic trade-union movement and was elected to the Reichstag for the Centre Party in 1933. He joined the resistance against the Nazis, was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938, and went into hiding after the 20 July 1944 plot. After the war he co-founded the CDU in the Soviet zone and became its co-chairman with Ernst Lemmer; as a Christian Socialist he called for the nationalisation of key industries. Critical of the Communists, he and Lemmer were removed as chairmen by the Soviet Military Administration in December 1947, and he moved to West Berlin. He opposed Adenauer’s Western integration in favour of a neutral, united Germany, and was minister for all-German affairs from 1949 to 1957. He died in Berlin in 1961.
Career timeline
1933Reichstag deputy for the Centre Party
1938Arrested by the Gestapo
1945–1947Co-chairman of the CDU in the Soviet zone
A liberal statesman at the threshold of liberation and civil war
At Caserta, he agreed that military command after liberation would pass to the British commander, General Scobie.
A Greek liberal politician, Papandreou opposed the monarchy while also confronting the communist movement, combining social reform with firm anti-communism. During the Second World War he led the government-in-exile and, through the Lebanon Conference and the Caserta Agreement, helped establish a framework for resistance participation in government and the integration of armed forces. Returning in 1944 as prime minister of the Government of National Unity, he sought to restore state authority amid British intervention and conflict between EAM and non-EAM forces, a project that gave way to the Dekemvriana and civil war. He later founded the Centre Union and defended parliamentary democracy until his death under house arrest after the 1967 military coup.
Career timeline
1916Joined Venizelos's insurgent government and organised anti-monarchist support.
1923Minister of the Interior
1930–1932Minister of Education, expanding schools for refugee children.
1935Founded the Democratic Socialist Party of Greece
1944–1945Prime minister of the government-in-exile and Government of National Unity; represented Greece at Lebanon and Caserta.
1950–1952Deputy prime minister
1961–1965Leader of the Centre Union, winning the 1963 and 1964 elections.
1967–1968Held under house arrest by the military regime
On 9 January 1905, 16-year-old factory worker Nikolai Shvernik witnessed the 'Bloody Sunday' shootings before the Winter Palace. That autumn he joined the Bolsheviks.
A Petersburg worker who joined the Bolsheviks at 17, he built the Soviet trade-union system as First Secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions for 14 years. He succeeded Kalinin as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Presidium in 1946, though real power lay with Stalin and the Politburo. During the war he directed industrial evacuation and the Nazi atrocities investigation commission; after Stalin's death he worked with Khrushchev as head of the Party Control Committee, overseeing the rehabilitation of victims of political repression.
Career timeline
1920s–1930sRises through trade-union and party administration
1938–1946Chairman of the Soviet of Nationalities, a pillar of Stalin-era formal federal representation
1946–1953Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Presidium, the titular head of state
1953–1956Moves into trade-union and state-administrative elder roles after Stalin
after 1956Works on rehabilitation and discipline issues through party-control bodies
Worker-Bolshevik who demanded press freedom from Lenin, sparking the 'myasnikovshchina' polemic
'Seventeen, then. Too many. But there is no other way. Revolution is not a ball.' — Myasnikov, planning the execution of Mikhail Romanov, 1918.
A Russian revolutionary and Motovilikha metalworker. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1905 and as deputy chairman of the Perm Cheka organized the execution of Grand Duke Mikhail Romanov in 1918. After the Civil War he openly attacked party censorship, demanding press freedom 'from monarchists to anarchists inclusive', a challenge that provoked Lenin's direct rebuttal and was branded 'myasnikovshchina.' Expelled from the RCP(b) in 1922, he founded the Workers' Group. In French exile he published 'The Latest Deception,' theorizing the USSR as state capitalism. He returned in 1944, was arrested, and executed the following year.
Career timeline
1905–1906Metalworker at Motovilikha arms plant; joined SRs then switched to RSDLP (Bolsheviks); combat-squad member
1906–1917Repeated arrests, escapes, and exile; Oryol Central Prison; freed by February Revolution
1917–1918Chairman of Motovilikha Soviet; VTsIK member; deputy chairman of Perm Cheka
1918–1920Organized execution of Grand Duke Mikhail; commissar 16th Division; chairman of Perm Gubernia Party Committee
1921–1923Founded Workers' Group; open polemic with Lenin over press freedom — 'myasnikovshchina'; expelled from RCP(b), arrested
1928–1944Fled via Iran and Turkey to France; wrote 'The Latest Deception,' theorizing the USSR as state capitalism
1944–1945Returned on Soviet embassy invitation; arrested immediately; executed 16 November 1945 (rehabilitated 25 December 2001)
The left-communist theorist who rejected parliamentarism and analyzed the USSR as state-capitalist
"We do not wish to evangelize, but to ignite, and when the moment arrives the flame will burst forth." — 1912, Karl Marx Circle, Naples
Founder of the Italian Communist Party and a leading left-communist theorist. He championed parliamentary abstentionism and an 'invariant revolutionary program,' debating Lenin directly at the Second Comintern Congress. After his 1930 expulsion, he developed a distinctive analysis of the USSR as state-capitalist.
Career timeline
1910Joins the Italian Socialist Party (PSI)
1912Founds the Karl Marx Circle in Naples, nucleus of the abstentionist left
1920Attends Second Comintern Congress — debates Lenin on parliamentarism
1921Founds the Communist Party of Italy at the Livorno Congress — first General Secretary
1923–1924Arrested by the Mussolini regime; on release declines to reclaim his post
1926Arrested again, exiled to Ustica — reunited with Gramsci
1930Expelled from the party on charges of Trotskyism
1951–1970Active in the International Communist Party — contributes to Battaglia Comunista and Prometeo
Independence activist, linguist, and Yan'an faction leader who served as the first head of state of the DPRK
On the day the People's Assembly adopted the new DPRK flag in July 1948, Kim Tu-bong personally lowered the Taegeukgi and raised its replacement. Barely a year earlier, he had been the man passionately explaining the old flag's philosophical meaning to a skeptical Soviet general.
A Hangul linguist trained under Chu Sigyŏng who led the Korean Independence League in Yan'an. Became the DPRK's first head of state in 1948, though real power lay with Kim Il Sung. Purged and vanished in the 1958 August Faction Incident.
Career timeline
1908–1916Studied Hangul under Chu Sigyŏng; helped compile MalMoi dictionary
1919Joined March First Movement, then exiled to Shanghai provisional government
1920–1930sCombined communist activism with linguistic research in Shanghai
1942–1945Founded Korean Independence League in Yan'an; led the Yan'an faction
1946.02–08Chairman of the New People's Party of Korea
1946.08–1949.06Chairman of the Workers' Party of North Korea Central Committee
1948.09–1957.09Chairman of the SPA Standing Committee — first head of state of the DPRK
1957–1958Dismissed from all posts over August Faction Incident; disappeared
The Peking University librarian who first embraced Marxism in China and nurtured the generation of Mao Zedong
In 'The Victory of Bolshevism' (November 1918): "Look! Every place in the world will see the victorious flag of Bolshevism and hear the triumphal song of Bolshevism. (…) From this day onward, this is no longer a world of the bourgeoisie, of capitalism, of imperialism. It is a world of labor, a world of Bolshevism!"
Pioneer of Chinese Marxism and co-founder of the CCP. As Peking University librarian he introduced Marxism to Mao Zedong and led the May Fourth Movement, championing the Russian Revolution. He architected the United Front and was executed by warlord Zhang Zuolin in 1927.
Career timeline
1907–1913Studied political economy at Beiyang College, Tianjin
1913–1916Studied at Waseda University; led anti-Yuan Shikai protests in Tokyo
1918–1927Peking University chief librarian, history professor, New Youth editor
1919Ideological leader and organizer of the May Fourth Movement
1920Founded Beijing communist cell; linked Voitinsky with Chen Duxiu
1921CCP co-founder at the 1st National Congress
1922–1924United Front architect; KMT Central Executive Committee member
1926–1927Turned to peasant armed revolution; directed CCP underground from Soviet embassy
In 1922, after he called Ordzhonikidze "Stalin's donkey", Ordzhonikidze struck him in the face with his fist. The timing is disputed: one report gives 20 October, while an English-language account places it in November.
Akaki Kabakhidze was a Georgian Old Bolshevik who joined the party in 1904 and belonged to the Society of Old Bolsheviks. Repression records give his birth in 1889 in Ambrolauri, Georgia, nationality Georgian, with residence in Tiflis. In 1922, as a member of the Georgian Communist Party Central Committee, he sided with those opposing Transcaucasian amalgamation, and that year, after calling Sergo Ordzhonikidze "Stalin's donkey", he was struck in the face with the fist. The timing is disputed between October and November accounts. Arrested on 22 December 1936, he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court on 24 June 1937, shot the next day, and rehabilitated on 2 April 1957. Identifying the 1922 figure with the executed man is a source-based inference; a namesake cannot be excluded.
Career timeline
Oct or Nov 1922Struck in the face with a fist in the clash with Ordzhonikidze
1922.12Figure linked to Lenin's criticism of the nationalities question
1904Joined the party; member of the Society of Old Bolsheviks
1922Member of the Georgian Communist Party Central Committee
1936–1937Arrested (1936), sentenced to death and executed (1937)
In summer 1942, Hitler split Army Group South into Groups A and B to strike at Caucasus oil and the Volga at the same time, a decision that led to the encirclement and destruction of the Sixth Army.
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary, and held Austrian citizenship by descent; he moved to Munich in 1913 and falsely registered as stateless. He joined the German Workers' Party in 1919, led it from 1921, and dictated Mein Kampf in prison after the failed 1923 Munich putsch. Released from Austrian citizenship in 1925, he remained stateless until he acquired German citizenship in 1932. Appointed chancellor on 30 January 1933, he used the Enabling Act of 23 March 1933 to build a dictatorship and became head of state on 2 August 1934 after Hindenburg's death. His regime was responsible for the genocide of about six million Jews and the deliberate killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and POWs. He died by suicide in Berlin on 30 April 1945.
Career timeline
1889–1918Born in Austria; served in the German Army during the First World War
1919Joined the German Workers' Party and entered politics
1921Leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party
1923–1924Failed Munich putsch; dictated Mein Kampf in prison
1933Chancellor of Germany; established Nazi dictatorship
1934–1945Führer and head of state; directed the Second World War
1942Split Army Group South into Groups A and B, directing the Stalingrad and Caucasus offensives
SFIO general secretary who led the Tours vote to join the Comintern, became the first PCF general secretary and left in 1923
At the 1920 Tours Congress, Frossard led the move to join the Comintern and became the French Communist Party’s first general secretary, but left in 1923. Later a minister, he joined Pétain’s cabinet in 1940, voted for his full powers, and was acquitted of collaboration after the war.
A teacher from the Belfort region, he joined the SFIO and became its general secretary in 1918. After visiting Moscow with Cachin in 1920 he backed joining the Comintern at the Tours congress and became the first general secretary of the new French Communist Party. Clashing with the Comintern’s demands for discipline, he left in January 1923 and returned to the SFIO. He served as a minister in several governments in the 1930s and joined Pétain’s first cabinet in June–July 1940, but declined to serve Vichy; after the war he was tried for collaboration and acquitted.
Career timeline
1918–1920General secretary of the SFIO
1921–1923General secretary of the French Communist Party
1923Left the Communist Party and founded the Unitary Communist Party (PCU)
1928–1936Socialist deputy for Martinique and Haute-Saône
1935–1940Minister in several governments
1940Minister of Public Works in Pétain’s cabinet; voted in July to grant Pétain full powers
The social democrat who became the voice of divided Berlin
“People of the world, look upon this city! You cannot, you must not, forsake us!”
Ernst Reuter was a German politician whose path from social democracy through communism and back reflected the upheavals of twentieth-century Europe. After Nazi persecution and exile in Turkey, he returned to Berlin and joined municipal administration to a practical social-democratic politics. During the Berlin Blockade, he gave West Berliners’ resolve an international voice and helped make the divided city a symbol of freedom and self-government. His career also reveals the tensions of a generation that moved from revolutionary radicalism toward democratic local government.
Career timeline
1912Joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany
1918–1919First chairman of the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
1921First secretary of the Berlin district of the Communist Party of Germany
1926–1931Berlin city councillor for transport
1931–1933Mayor of Magdeburg
1935–1946Lecturer in urban planning at Ankara University and adviser to the Turkish government
1947Elected mayor of Berlin, without Soviet consent
1948–1953Mayor of West Berlin, Governing Mayor from 1951
Crimean Tatar politician who ran the military and foreign affairs of the Crimean People’s Republic and led the national movement in exile
Born in 1889 into a family of wealthy peasants in Kizil-Tash in the Yalta district, he met Noman Çelebicihan at the law faculty of Istanbul University. After publishing The Oppressed Crimean Tatar Nation in the 20th Century in 1911 he escaped arrest by studying in Paris, and on his return in 1914 he went through cadet school and became an ensign. In 1917 he briefly edited Millet and became director of military and foreign affairs in the Directory set up by the Qurultay. Driven out by the Bolsheviks in January 1918, he fled to Kyiv; under the German occupation he became foreign minister of Sulkiewicz’s Crimean Regional Government and sought recognition of its independence in Berlin. After the German withdrawal he went to Istanbul, founded the newspaper Emel and supported Prometheism. He took the surname Kırımer in 1934 and died in Istanbul in 1960.
Career timeline
1911Published The Oppressed Crimean Tatar Nation in the 20th Century
1914Graduated from cadet school; commissioned as an ensign
1917–1918Director of military and foreign affairs, Directory of the Crimean People’s Republic
1918Foreign minister of the Crimean Regional Government
1918–1960Led the Crimean Tatar émigré movement from Istanbul and Europe
The Reformed pastor-president who declared neutrality before Soviet tanks
At a press conference on November 1, 1956, asked about the likelihood of a new Soviet assault: "Such a tragedy is humanly impossible… it will never take place."
A Reformed pastor who became the face of Hungary's post-war democracy as founder and leader of the Independent Smallholders' Party. After his party's landslide victory, he served as prime minister (1945–46) and was elected the republic's first president, but communist salami tactics forced his resignation in 1948 on fabricated treason charges against his son-in-law; he spent the next eight years under house arrest. In October 1956 he joined Imre Nagy's revolutionary government as minister of state and was present at the November 1 cabinet meeting that voted unanimously to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and declare neutrality. Arrested after the crushing of the uprising, he was sentenced to six years and amnestied in 1959; the Supreme Court annulled his conviction in 1989.
Career timeline
1921–1929Reformed pastor; edited church periodicals
1936–1944Smallholders MP; pressed to exit the war; hiding after German occupation
1945–1946Prime Minister
1946–1948President of the Republic; forced to resign
1948–1956House arrest
1956.10–11Minister of State in Nagy's revolutionary government
