The party’s licensed voice of caution: his warnings outlived him
On 18 October 1917, Kamenev publicly called the coming armed rising ruinous for the revolution. Lenin demanded his expulsion; on 20 October the Central Committee instead accepted his resignation. On 25 October (7 November) he became head of state, but resigned on 4 November.
One of Lenin's oldest comrades, whom he met in Paris in 1902 and worked beside for over thirty years. He joined the RSDLP in 1901, endured arrest and Siberian exile, and by 1914 was directing Pravda. He opposed the October 1917 rising yet served the new state, chairing the Moscow Soviet from 1918 to 1926 and presiding over the Politburo during Lenin's illness. It was Kamenev who proposed Stalin as General Secretary in 1922, and with Stalin and Zinoviev he formed the triumvirate that blocked Trotsky. He broke with Stalin in 1925 and lost every post. Cut off from politics, he directed the Pushkin House and the Academia publishing house. In August 1936 he stood in the dock of the first Moscow trial and was shot on 25 August 1936, at fifty-three. He was rehabilitated in 1988, but never restored to the party.
Career timeline
1914Tried with the Bolshevik Duma fraction; Siberian exile
1917Edits Pravda; opposes the Theses and the rising
1918–1926Chairs the Moscow Soviet
1922–1924Presides in the Politburo during Lenin’s illness; the triumvirate
Red Army commander who was chief of staff of the Tambov suppression and became a historian of the Civil War
Born in Oryol in 1883 into a hereditary noble family of army officers, he graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy and in the First World War served as acting chief of staff of a division. In 1918 he joined the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic and in 1919 the Ukrainian Galician Army. Joining the Red Army in 1920, he commanded the 10th Division and the 3rd Army in the Polish–Soviet War; in 1921, as chief of staff of the Tambov forces under Mikhail Tukhachevsky, he co-signed Order No. 0116 on the use of poison gas against the insurgents. He joined the Communist Party the same year. In 1923 he became head of the Civil War history department at the Red Army Staff and was one of the authors of a three-volume history of the Civil War. Arrested in 1930, he died in Yaroslavl prison in 1936.
Career timeline
1910Graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy
1915Acting chief of staff of the 71st Infantry Division
1918Assistant to the chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian People's Army
1919Chief of staff of the 4th Corps of the Ukrainian Galician Army
1920Commander of the Red Army 10th Division and the 3rd Army
1921Chief of staff of the Tambov group of forces
1922Commander of Soviet troops in the Bukhara–Fergana region
1923Head of the Civil War history department at the Red Army Staff
Historian who headed the government of the Belarusian People’s Republic in exile, moved to Soviet Byelorussia and was executed
Born into a landless noble family in the Disna district of the Vilna Governorate in 1883, he had almost no formal schooling. He was active in the Hramada in 1906–1908, was editorial secretary of Nasha Niva and from 1915 openly advocated independence from both Russia and Poland. In 1918 he joined the Rada as a delegate of the Belarusian Council of Vilnius, and in 1919 he led the Belarusian Socialist Revolutionaries. Appointed prime minister in December 1919, he was soon arrested by the Polish authorities; released the following year, he went to Riga and toured European capitals seeking recognition until he stepped down in 1923. In 1927 he moved to Soviet Byelorussia, where he became director of the State Museum and a member of the Academy of Sciences, but he was arrested in 1930, exiled to Saratov and shot in 1938.
Career timeline
1909Editorial secretary of Nasha Niva
1918Member of the Rada for the Belarusian Council of Vilnius
1918Head of the Belarusian representation in Lithuania
1919–1923Prime minister of the Belarusian People’s Republic
1927–1930Director of the Belarusian State Museum
1928Academician of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences
Trotsky's sister and Kamenev's wife: the architect of Soviet cultural diplomacy with the West
In 1927, Sergei Prokofiev visited her in the Kremlin and wrote in his diary: 'Olga Davidovna herself seemed to be a lively, agreeable, somewhat American-style lady.'
A Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet cultural administrator, sister of Leon Trotsky and first wife of Lev Kamenev. As head of the Theater Division (TEO) of Narkompros from 1918, she worked with Vsevolod Meyerhold to radicalize Russian theater under Bolshevik control, and as chairman of VOKS (1925–1928) she built the framework of Soviet cultural diplomacy, hosting Western intellectuals including Le Corbusier and Theodore Dreiser. She also ran a leading Moscow literary salon in the 1920s and served on the board of the Party Women's Section, but lost all positions after her husband and brother fell from power in 1927 and was shot in the Medvedev forest massacre near Oryol in 1941.
Career timeline
1902Joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
1918–1919Head of the Theater Division (TEO), Narkompros
1919–1920sBoard member, Party Women's Section (Zhenotdel)
1921–1923Leading member, Central Commission for Fighting the After-Effects of the Famine
1923–1925Head, Commission for Foreign Relief (KZP)
1925–1928Chairman, All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS)
1927Lost all positions after Kamenev and Trotsky's defeat at the Party Congress
The Dutch revolutionary who planted communist seeds in Indonesia and China, then fought both Stalinism and Nazism
On the night of 12 April 1942 at Amersfoort camp, bound and facing the firing squad, Sneevliet refused a blindfold and together with seven comrades sang 'The Internationale.' He asked the executioners to untie his hands; they refused.
Dutch revolutionary. In the East Indies he co-founded the ISDV, forerunner of the Indonesian Communist Party; as Comintern envoy he brokered the founding of the Chinese Communist Party and the First United Front. He fought both Stalinism and Nazism before his execution in 1942.
Career timeline
1902–1911Dutch railway & tram union (NV) officer; chairman in 1911
1912Joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP); wrote for De Nieuwe Tijd
1914–1918Dutch East Indies — co-founded ISDV, organized railway union, expelled
1920PKI delegate to 2nd Comintern Congress; elected to ECCI
1921–1923Comintern representative in China — CCP founding, Sun Yat-sen meeting, First United Front
1924–1927CPN Central Committee, NAS secretary; broke with Stalinism
1929–1938Founded and led RSAP; International Bureau of Revolutionary Socialist Unity
1933–1937Dutch MP — elected from prison for supporting naval mutiny
1940–1942Organized MLL-Front, published Spartakus, February 1941 strike, arrested & executed
Sun Yat-sen’s heir and Kuomintang left leader who ended as head of the Japanese-sponsored Nanjing regime
In 1927 he led the left-wing Wuhan government, then purged the Communists that July; in 1940 he headed the Japanese-sponsored Nanjing regime. Arrested in 1910, he wrote: “With heroic abandon I sing in the market of Yan…”
A Tongmenghui revolutionary famous for a failed attempt on the Qing regent, and the confidant who took down Sun Yat-sen’s political testament. He led the Wuhan Nationalist government in 1927 and briefly kept the alliance with the Communists before breaking with them that July. After years of rivalry and cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek he left Chongqing in 1938 to advocate “peace” with Japan, and in 1940 became head of the Japanese-sponsored Nanjing government. He died of illness in Nagoya in 1944 and is remembered in China as the archetypal collaborator.
Career timeline
1927Chairman of the Wuhan Nationalist government
1932–1935President of the Executive Yuan
1940–1944Head of the Japanese-sponsored Nanjing government
On 25 July 1943, the king dismissed Mussolini as prime minister and had him arrested.
A socialist journalist turned nationalist during the First World War, Mussolini founded fascism as a movement claiming to overcome class conflict through the nation. After the March on Rome made him prime minister in 1922, he used political violence and institutional change to transform liberal Italy into a one-party dictatorship. Colonial war, alliance with Nazi Germany, and entry into the Second World War brought military defeat and political collapse. Overthrown in 1943, he headed the German-backed Italian Social Republic in the north until partisans captured and executed him in 1945.
Career timeline
1912Editor of the Italian Socialist Party paper Avanti!
1919Founded the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento
1921Leader of the National Fascist Party
1922–1943Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy
1925–1943Fascist dictator, Il Duce
1940–1943Directed Italy’s entry into and conduct of the Second World War
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
Factory owner who was prime minister of Hungary for three months after the August 1919 coup against the Peidl government
Born into a pharmacist’s family of German origin in Malacka (now Malacky, Slovakia), he studied engineering, worked for AEG in Berlin and then ran his own machinery works outside Budapest. He joined Mihály Károlyi’s Independence Party in 1912 and became one of his closest friends; after the Aster Revolution he was state secretary for war, but he drifted to the right and was dismissed in February 1919. Arrested under the Soviet Republic and sentenced to death, he had the sentence commuted and escaped. In August 1919 he joined the right-wing White House Comrades’ Association in ousting the Peidl government; on 7 August he was named prime minister, with Archduke Joseph August as regent, and held office until 24 November. Arrested by Rákosi’s regime in 1951 and sentenced to fifteen years, he died the same year; he was rehabilitated in 1990.
Career timeline
1904Played for the Hungarian national football team
1912Joined the Independence Party
1918–1919State secretary for war in the Károlyi government
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)
Journalist and politician who, as vice-president and later president of Sfatul Țării, led the movement for Bessarabia’s union with Romania
Born to poor peasants in Cubolta, Bessarabia, in 1883, he graduated from the Chișinău seminary and entered the University of Yuryev, but as a Socialist Revolutionary had to quit after the 1905 revolution. Sought by the Tsarist authorities after printing the hymn “Deșteaptă-te, române!”, he took refuge in Iași and studied there in 1908–1912. From 1913 he published the newspaper Cuvânt moldovenesc in Chișinău, writing unceasingly for union, and in 1917 he founded the Moldovan National Party. He was elected first vice-president, then president of Sfatul Țării. After 1918 he served as minister for Bessarabia and in other posts and joined the National Peasants’ Party; in 1924 he accused the Romanian government of turning Bessarabia into an “inferno”. Arrested in 1950, he was sentenced in the Soviet Union to 25 years’ hard labour, was held until 1957 and died in 1979.
Career timeline
1908–1912Studies at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, University of Iași
1913Launches the newspaper Cuvânt moldovenesc
1917Founds the Moldovan National Party
1917–1918Vice-president, then president of Sfatul Țării
1919–1920Romanian Minister and Secretary of State for Bessarabia
1927Romanian Minister of Public Works
1950–1957Arrest and imprisonment (Sighet, Soviet hard labour, Aiud)
Bolshevik military leader of 1917 and the Civil War
On the evening of 24 October 1917, Lashevich ordered A. V. Belyshev, the Military Revolutionary Committee commissar aboard the cruiser Aurora, to restore traffic across the Nikolaevsky Bridge that junkers had drawn apart the day before, and the task was carried out.
Born in 1884 in Odessa, in the Russian Empire, into a Jewish merchant family; he joined the RSDLP in 1901 and was a Bolshevik from 1903. In 1917 he took part in the October rising in Petrograd, and in the Civil War he commanded the 3rd Army. In 1925 he became First Deputy Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and Deputy Chairman of the USSR Revolutionary Military Council. After joining the United Opposition in 1926 he was demoted and worked at the Chinese Eastern Railway in Harbin until his death in 1928.
Career timeline
1901–1915Joined RSDLP; party work in Odessa, Nikolaev, Ekaterinoslav, Petersburg; repeated arrests and exile
1915–1917Conscripted WWI; twice wounded; rose to senior NCO for merit
1917Secretary and chairman of Bolshevik faction in Petrograd Soviet; MRC member; directed October rising
1918–1920Commander 3rd Army; RVS member Eastern, Southern & Western Fronts; acting commander 7th Army
1922–1925Chairman Siberian Revolutionary Committee; commander Siberian Military District
1925–1926Deputy Chairman USSR RMC; First Deputy Commissar for Military & Naval Affairs
1926–1927Joined United Opposition; organized illegal gathering; removed as candidate CC member; expelled at 15th Party Congress
1928Recanted opposition; party membership restored; died in Harbin
Editor of Krasnaya Nov, Marxist critic who discovered Babel and Pasternak and led Pereval against RAPP
1921, in Lenin's Kremlin apartment. At the founding meeting of Krasnaya Nov, Gorky showed a collection of Indian tales. Lenin cut him short: "We pay for this in gold currency. This year there will be famine." Voronsky recalled: "Two truths collided — one said man does not live by bread alone, the other answered: but what if there is no bread?"
Marxist critic who founded Krasnaya Nov and discovered Babel and Pasternak. As leader of the Pereval group, he championed art as cognition of life against RAPP's class-war aesthetics. Joined the Left Opposition in 1923; executed in 1937.
Career timeline
1904Joined the RSDLP(B) in Tambov
1906–1910Arrested; one year solitary in Peter and Paul Fortress, two years exile in Yarensk
1912Delegate to the Prague Conference; took minutes, spoke for a mass workers' daily
1917–1920Odessa Soviet executive committee, Ivanovo-Voznesensk Party chair, VTsIK member; helped suppress the Kronstadt rebellion
1921–1927Founded and edited Krasnaya Nov; edited Prozhektor; founded Krug publishing; led the Pereval literary group
1923Signed the Declaration of the 46, joined the Left Opposition
1927–1930Expelled from Party as Trotskyist, exiled to Lipetsk; renounced opposition in 1929, reinstated in 1930
1930–1935Editor of classical literature at Goslitizdat; wrote autobiographical fiction
1937Arrested 1 Feb during the Great Purge; on Stalin's signed death list; shot 13 Aug after a 15-minute trial
Head of the Estonian Workers' Commune and leader of the 1924 rising
He governed eastern Estonia as head of the Estonian Workers' Commune proclaimed at Narva in November 1918; arrested in 1937 during Stalin's Great Purge, he died on 11 December 1937 of injuries from a beating during interrogation.
Head of the Estonian Workers' Commune proclaimed at Narva in November 1918, he governed eastern Estonia for two months and organized the Tallinn rising of 1924. Arrested in 1937, he died under beating during interrogation.
Career timeline
1905Schoolteacher who joined the Bolsheviks and entered revolutionary work
1912Editor of the workers' paper Kiir in Narva
1917Chairman of the Estonian Soviet executive committee; led the seizure of power in Tallinn
1918Chairman of the Council of the Estonian Labour Commune
1921Underground leader of the CP of Estonia; directed the December 1924 uprising
1926Political commissar of the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy
1929Deputy head, then head, of the civil air fleet main administration
1935Member and executive secretary of the Comintern International Control Commission
From October Revolution Politburo member to the Enlightenment Commissar who led the fight against illiteracy
Elected to the Political Bureau on 10 (23) October 1917 and to the Party Center directing the armed uprising on 16 (29) October. In the Petrograd Military-Revolutionary Committee he directed the seizure of the city's railway stations on 24–25 October and headed the VRK field staff.
Born into a merchant family in the Russian Empire, he joined the party in 1903 and, as a member of the 1917 Politburo, was one of the leaders of the Petrograd Military-Revolutionary Committee that prepared the October Revolution. A Left Communist in 1918 who opposed the Brest-Litovsk peace, he belonged to the Democratic Centralists in 1921–22, joined Trotsky in 1923, then broke with him and became a zealous adherent of Stalin. As head of the Red Army Political Directorate from 1924 he directed a large-scale purge of commissars formerly aligned with Trotsky; as People's Commissar for Education (1929–1937) he led the introduction of universal compulsory primary education and the mass literacy campaign. Removed in October 1937 and expelled from the Central Committee that December, he was shot on 1 August 1938 and rehabilitated on 14 March 1956.
Career timeline
1903–1905Joined RSDLP at 19; organized Ivanovo-Voznesensk general strike
1906–1913Delegate to Stockholm Congress; editorial board of Pravda
1914–1916Led revolutionary work in Samara and Lower Volga; exiled to Turukhansk
1917Politburo member, Military-Revolutionary Party Center, field chief of VRK staff
1918–1919Chairman of All-Ukrainian VRK; People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Ukrainian SSR
1922–1924Head of Agitprop, Central Committee
1924–1929Head of Red Army Political Directorate; editor of Krasnaya Zvezda
1925Secretary of the Central Committee
1929–1937People's Commissar for Education of the RSFSR — compulsory primary education, mass literacy, children's publishing house
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.
Career timeline
1915Physicist at the Meteorological Observatory, Saint Petersburg
1917Member of the Petrograd Soviet (Socialist Revolutionary Party)
1917Assistant Government Commissioner of Bessarabia
1917–1918President of Sfatul Țării and of the Moldavian Democratic Republic
1918–1920Romanian Minister of State for Bessarabia
1927–1928Romanian Minister of Health and Social Protection
1933Romanian Minister of the Interior (Duca cabinet)
1936Vice-President of the Romanian Council of Ministers
Face of the Left SR Party and peasant tribune: the last revolutionary opposition leader to challenge the Bolsheviks from the left
"I undertook this sentence because my heart was tearing from pain... it was shameful and hard to live, hearing what was happening in the villages after Luzhenovsky." — Trial statement, 1906
A leading woman revolutionary of the Russian movement. Born in Tambov into a non-hereditary noble family, she left gymnasium in 1902 before joining the SRs. In 1906 she assassinated Tambov official Luzhenovsky over his suppression of peasants and became a national hero; her death sentence was commuted to lifetime hard labor at Nerchinsk. Freed by the February Revolution, she became a leader of the Left SR Party and chaired the All-Russian Peasant Congresses, and was nominated for Chair of the Constituent Assembly with Bolshevik support (153 votes to Chernov's 244). She broke with the Bolsheviks in 1918 and joined the Left SR uprising, then endured decades of arrest and exile. Rearrested in Ufa in 1937, she was sentenced to 25 years and shot near Oryol on 11 September 1941; Russian sources record 157 political prisoners executed there.
Career timeline
1905Joined the SR Party and its combat brigade
1906Assassinated Tambov official Luzhenovsky; sentenced to death, commuted to lifetime hard labor at Nerchinsk
1917Freed by February Revolution; Left SR leader, chair of All-Russian Peasant Congresses, VTsIK member
1918.01Nominated by Bolshevik faction for Chair of the Constituent Assembly (153 votes to Chernov's 244)
1918.07Joined Left SR uprising, arrested; sentenced to 1 year, then amnestied
Main theorist of the KPD and Bonapartist analyst of fascism
In July 1937, when six KPO members were arrested by Stalinists in Barcelona, Thalheimer and Brandler issued a joint statement: 'We take upon ourselves any political and personal guarantee for our arrested comrades. They are anti-Fascists and revolutionaries, incapable of any action that could be construed as high treason to the Spanish Revolution.'
One of the leading theorists of the founding generation of the German Communist Party (KPD), and the originator of the 'Bonapartist' theory of fascism, which saw fascism not as a mere instrument of finance capital but as an autonomous executive power rising above class antagonism. Expelled from the KPD in 1929, he co-founded the Communist Party Opposition (KPO) with Heinrich Brandler, holding a line opposed to both Stalinism and Social Democracy while continuing his anti-fascist writings in exile.
Career timeline
1910Joined the SPD; edited left-wing party newspapers
1916–1918Active in the Spartacus League; drafted and jailed for anti-war agitation
1918.12Founding member of the KPD; its main theorist in the early 1920s
1923Co-led the KPD with Brandler; summoned to Moscow after the failed 'German October'
1924–1928Taught and researched at the Marx-Engels Institute and Sun Yat-sen University, Moscow
1929Expelled from the KPD; co-founded the Communist Party Opposition (KPO) with Brandler
1933–1948Exile in France and Cuba; continued anti-fascist theoretical work
Musavat leader who headed the Azerbaijani National Council that declared the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918
Born near Baku in 1884, he founded Hummet, a Muslim social-democratic organization, in 1904. He took part in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in 1909, and after returning to Baku in 1913 he became the chief of Musavat. As head of the Azerbaijani National Council he declared the independence of the Azerbaijan Republic on 28 May 1918. After the republic fell in 1920 he directed resistance until his arrest, but because he had once hidden Joseph Stalin from the police he was released and taken to Moscow. He escaped to Finland in 1922, lived in exile in Turkey, Poland and Romania, and died in Ankara in 1955.
Career timeline
1904Founded Hummet
1909–1911Iranian Constitutional Revolution; co-founded the Democrat Party of Persia
1913Joined Musavat and became its chief
1918Head of the Azerbaijani National Council; declaration of independence
1920Arrested, released and sent to the Commissariat on Nations in Moscow
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.
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.
Career timeline
1917Chairman of the Bessarabian Governorate Soviet of Peasants’ Deputies
1917Member of the Russian Constituent Assembly
1917–1918President of the Council of Directors General and Director General for Agriculture
Officer who negotiated the Treaty of Lausanne and succeeded Atatürk as Turkey’s second president
Born in Smyrna, an Ottoman officer, he won the First and Second Battles of İnönü in the War of Independence as chief of the General Staff and commander of the Western Front. As Turkey’s chief negotiator at Lausanne in 1922–1923 he faced down Curzon and replaced the Treaty of Sèvres with the Treaty of Lausanne. As prime minister for most of Atatürk’s presidency he carried out the secularising reforms; after the Sheikh Said revolt he pushed the Turkification of the Kurds, and he is considered one of those responsible for the Dersim massacre. Elected second president in 1938, he took the title “National Chief” and kept Turkey in armed neutrality in the Second World War. After defeat in the 1950 election he handed over power peacefully. He died in 1973.
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.
The first Korean communist, who gave her life bridging the Russian Revolution and Korean liberation
On September 16, 1918, dragged before Ataman Kalmykov's White Cossacks to be shot, her final cry: 'Freedom and independence for Korea!'
Born to Korean migrants in Siberia, she joined the Bolsheviks in 1916, becoming the first Korean communist. Dispatched to the Far East on Lenin's orders, she served as Commissar of Foreign Affairs for the Khabarovsk Soviet, co-founded the Korean Socialist Party with Yi Tong-hwi, and organized Korean Red Guard units against White and Japanese forces before her execution in 1918 at 33, a symbolic figure bridging the Russian Revolution and the Korean independence struggle.
Career timeline
1916Joined the RSDLP(B)
1917Secretary, Khabarovsk Bolshevik branch & Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Far Eastern Council of People's Commissars
1918.04Co-founded the Korean Socialist Party in Khabarovsk
1918.06–08Organized Korean and international Red Guard units against White and Japanese forces
1918.09.04Captured by White and Japanese forces
1918.09.16Executed by White Cossacks in Khabarovsk
