Alexander Parvus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alexander Parvus

Alexander Parvus (actually Israil Lasarewitsch Help hand , Russian Израиль Лазаревич Гельфанд , scientific. Transliteration Izrail 'Lazarevič Gel'fand * August 27 . Jul / 8. September  1867 greg. In Berezino , Minsk province , today byerazino, Belarus ; † 12th December 1924 in Berlin ) was a Russian revolutionary who temporarily belonged to the Mensheviks . Since 1918 at the latest, however, he saw himself as a German social democrat .

He became known when he, together with German government agencies, organized Lenin's journey in a sealed car through the German Empire to Russia in 1917 . He was also a pioneer of the later economic policy of the Turkish Republic under Kemal Ataturk and, together with Trotsky, the father of the concept of permanent revolution . Since most of his documents about and about him were destroyed after the October Revolution , his contribution to bringing Lenin to power in Russia cannot be precisely assessed.

Life

Childhood and youth in Russia, studied in Switzerland (1867–1891)

Alexander Parvus was born in 1867 as Israil Lasarewitsch Helphand in a Jewish shtetl in the Minsk Governorate in Belarus . He grew up in Odessa , where he gained his first revolutionary experience at the age of sixteen. In 1886 Helphand went to Switzerland , where, along with numerous other Russian exiles, he met Plekhanov , who introduced him to Marxism . From 1887 to 1891 he studied economics at the University of Basel and graduated with a doctorate . He heard from Alphons Thun , Karl Bücher and Jacob Burckhardt , among others . The topic of his dissertation was problems of the division of labor.

Social Democrat in Germany (1891–1905)

Shortly afterwards he traveled to Stuttgart , where he met Karl Kautsky and Clara Zetkin . He began to write for their social democratic publications Die Neue Zeit and Die Gleichheit . He soon moved to Berlin , where he wrote for the central organ Vorwärts . Among other things, he reported for the paper on the famine in Russia in 1892. In 1893 he was expelled from the Kingdom of Prussia for rebellious activities and then commuted between different places in southern Germany. From 1894 he used the pseudonym Alexander Parvus.

From 1896 Parvus worked for the SPD party press in Saxony , first for the Leipziger Volkszeitung , and later for the Saxon workers' newspaper . For the latter, he even acted as editor-in-chief and brought his friend Julian Marchlewski into the editorial office. As early as 1896 he published a series of articles in the theoretical organ of the German social democracy, the Neue Zeit directed by Kautsky . In it, based on Engels' criticism of the barricade struggle, he described the expected future course of revolutionary events in which striking masses would fill streets and squares of cities and bring the police and military to dissolve through their massive appearance. So he brought the political revolutionary discussion to the subject of the political mass strike . Parvus quickly became one of the most prominent theoretical minds in the SPD. In 1895 he was even given the honor of speaking at a German Social Democratic party congress, although he was not a delegate. At the same time he kept in contact with the group around Plekhanov, through whom he got to know the young Russian socialists Lenin and Trotsky, among others . In 1896 he was invited by the co-founder of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Russia Alexander Potressov to attend the London Congress of the Socialist International . In contrast to the SPD, he never belonged to the party itself. In the revisionism debate within the SPD at the turn of the century, he took sides against Eduard Bernstein .

Agitation in Russia, participation in the revolution of 1905, expulsion from the SPD (1905–1910)

He also wrote for the Russian Social Democratic press. Parvus was expelled from several German countries as an "undesirable foreigner" and frequently changed his place of residence. He was u. a. Come to Munich in 1899 and had his apartment at Ungererstraße 80 in the north of Munich's Schwabing district , where Lenin (September 1900 to April 1902) and Trotsky (August 1904 to January 1905) in the Bavarian capital also found their first stop. Together with Lenin, Parvus founded the monthly Iskra here , which was also smuggled into Russia. The split of the Russian Social Democracy into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1903 led to the separation from Lenin, but Parvus acted as Trotsky's mentor in the following period. Like the latter, he welcomed the Russo-Japanese War of 1904/05 as an opportunity to bring about the long-awaited revolution in Russia.

Parvus, Trotsky and German in the Petersburg prison, 1906

In 1905 Parvus took part in the revolution in Saint Petersburg with Trotsky after they had managed to enter the country with Victor Adler's help. He was arrested in early 1906 and, like Trotsky and Leo Deutsch, temporarily imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress . On the way to exile in Siberia , he managed to escape and returned to Germany. Here he was embroiled in a financial scandal in 1907, in which he was accused by the Bolsheviks of having embezzled the writer Maxim Gorky from remuneration from author's rights amounting to 180,000 marks. The affair led to his exclusion from the SPD and permanently destroyed his reputation, especially among those who were formerly very close to him in the SPD, such as Rosa Luxemburg . Parvus' articles were no longer published in the SPD party press. Only a few comrades, e.g. B. Konrad Haenisch , still stood by him.

In Istanbul (1910–1915), journalist and arms dealer

In 1910 Parvus traveled to Turkey , where he worked as a journalist in Istanbul until 1914. He was in contact with the various socialist groups in the Ottoman Empire . At the same time he built up a successful trading company and in 1912, as a partner of the arms dealer Basil Zaharoff, was the general agent for various German companies in Istanbul, including Krupp , but also for the British armaments company Vickers , and made millions in sales of armaments from these companies to the Ottoman government during the Balkan War . In addition, he was also active again as a theorist and published a whole series of articles on economic policy in magazines of the Young Turks such as the Tanin and Türk Yurdu in the Turkish language. Parvus reported regularly for the SPD daily Vorwärts and regional social democratic newspapers on developments in the "new Turkey" after the Young Ottoman Revolution in 1908 .

Parvus temporarily worked for the French-language magazine Jeune Turc , which was banned by the Turkish authorities in 1915 and which was founded by Victor Jacobson , the then representative of the World Zionist Organization , to support the Young Turkish Party and to influence it in the spirit of Zionism . The editors-in-chief were the Zionists Wladimir Jabotinsky and Sami Hochberg and the Turkish publicist Celal Nuri.

First World War: agitation against Russia, magazine "Die Glocke" (Lensch-Cunow-Haenisch group)

After the beginning of the First World War , Parvus approached the German embassy in Istanbul at the beginning of 1915 with a plan to destabilize the tsarist empire through internal revolutionary unrest and thus prepare it for a separate peace. Since Germany had already noticed him through his successful work in the military rearmament of Turkey and his support for Turkish entry into the war, he was invited to Berlin. On the way to Germany he stopped in Romania, where he won Christian Rakowski for a job in his favor. After his plan had been approved by the Foreign Office and the first payments were made, Parvus, after his affairs had been settled, moved to Copenhagen in May 1915 , which he intended to use as the basis for his operations. Among other things, he had discussed his project in Switzerland with Lenin, who put Jakub Ganezki at his side.

In Copenhagen Parvus founded an import-export company that specialized in illegal trade with Russia via the neutral Scandinavian countries, as well as an "Institute for Research into the Social Consequences of War". He invested his profits and the payments from his German partners in supporting the Russian revolutionaries as well as various propaganda activities. In addition to the social revolution, he also promoted national independence efforts, for example in the Ukraine, Finland and the Caucasus. Cooperation with the Reich government was arranged through the German envoy Ulrich Graf Brockdorff-Rantzau .

From 1915 the Lensch-Cunow-Haenisch group was formed within the SPD and tried to justify the position of the party majority on the issue of war credits in a Marxist way. The theory of " war socialism " was developed. From mid-1915, Die Glocke , a social democratic magazine founded and financed by Parvus, became the organ of the group. From the group around Parvus, via Johann Plenge , Kurt Schumacher's doctoral supervisor , and via Schumacher himself and his secretary Annemarie Renger, there is a line of tradition that leads to today's conservative Seeheimer Kreis within the SPD and merges national and patriotic thinking with social democratic tradition .

A general strike broke out in Russia from March 8 to 12, 1917 (February 23 to 27, according to the Russian calendar then valid) . On March 15, 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. The provisional government under Alexander Kerensky then held out the prospect of convening a constituent assembly . The communist workers 'and soldiers' councils ( Petrograd Soviet ) formed in Petrograd aimed at the council dictatorship as their goal . So the situation of dual power came about. The provisional government stuck to the war with the Entente (France, Great Britain) against the central European powers (German Empire, Austro-Hungarian monarchy) (see Central Powers ).

In 1917 Parvus, together with the German secret service, organized Lenin's illegal entry from Switzerland through the German Reich to Russia. The German authorities supported the coup in order to conclude an armistice with Russia, which then became a reality (entered into force on December 15, 1917; see also the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty on March 3, 1918). Parvus was not part of Lenin's delegation because Lenin mistrusted Parvus.

Last years in Germany (1918–1924)

Grave of Alexander Parvus on the urn grove Tolkewitz

After the war Parvus lived in seclusion until his death in 1924 in the Villa “Waltrud” in Berlin- Schwanenwerder and was in contact with many leading figures in the Weimar Republic . His friend and student Konrad Haenisch (who called himself "Parvulus" in reference to Parvus) was appointed Prussian Minister of Education and Culture for the SPD and finally by Prussia's Interior Minister Carl Severing (SPD) as the regional president in Wiesbaden . In view of the emergence of National Socialism , for whose anti-Semitic propaganda Parvus was soon a welcome object due to his economic activities during the war, Konrad Haenisch became involved in a leading position in the Reichsbanner , the protection association of the republic supported by the social democratic forces, after Parvus' death . Parvus is buried in the Tolkewitz urn grove in Dresden.

Offspring and family

Parvus' son Yevgeny Gnedin initially made a career as a journalist and diplomat in the Soviet Union, but from 1939 he became one of the numerous victims of the Stalinist GULAG and spent many years in the camps. In 1979, four years before his death, he left the CPSU .

Works

  • Coup and political mass strike (1895/95)
  • The trade unions and the social democracy Verlag der Sächsische Arbeiter Zeitung, Dresden 1896. 88 pp.
  • Where is the political discipline of social democracy leading to? Verlag der Sächsische Arbeiter Zeitung, Dresden 1897.
  • Naval demands, colonial policy and workers' interests . Verlag der Sächsische Arbeiter Zeitung, Dresden 1898.
  • Dr. C. Lehmann, Parvus: The starving Russia. Travel impressions, observations and investigations . Dietz, Stuttgart 1900.
  • The trade crisis and the unions . Ernst, Munich 1901
  • The colonial policy and the collapse . Verlag der Leipziger Buchdrucker-Aktiengesellschaft, Leipzig 1907
  • In the Russian Bastille during the revolution. Impressions, moods and reflections from Parvus . Kaden & Comp., Dresden 1907.
  • The great lockout and the future of workers' struggles in the empire . Kaden, Dresden 1907.
  • The class struggle of the proletariat as a book, Buchhandlung Vorwärts, Berlin 1911. 217 pp. Originally in 6 issues, Buchhandlung Vorwärts, Berlin 1908–1910
    • 1. The union struggle .
    • 2. Capitalist production and the proletariat (1908). 46 pp.
    • 3. Social democracy and parliamentarism (1909). 39 p.
    • 4. Socialism and the social revolution (1909). 39 p.
    • 5. The working class and entrepreneurship (1910). 40 pp.
    • 6. The struggle for ideas against socialism (1910)
  • The banks, the state and the industry Kaden, Sozialistische Streitfragen , No. 2, Dresden 1910.
  • The state, industry and socialism . Kaden, Dresden around 1910. 192 pp.
  • In the fight for the truth (1918)
  • The social balance of the war Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft, Berlin 1918. 32 pp.
  • Worker Socialism and the World Revolution. Letters to the German workers . Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft, Berlin 1918/19:
    • I. The economic overcoming of capitalism. II. Socialism and Bolshevism (1918). 31 pp.
    • III. The development of the socialist economic system (1918). 16 pp.
    • Fourth letter. Peace and Socialism (1919). 31. S.
  • Social science library . Publishing house for social science, Berlin
    • Volume 10: The State, Industry and Socialism (1919). 112 pp.
    • Volume 11: The Nationalization of the Banks and Socialism . (1919). 110 pp.
  • Build up and make amends . Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft, Berlin 1921. 257 pp.
  • The economic rescue route Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft, Berlin 1921. 39 pp.
Release
  • The bell . Socialist bi-monthly published by Parvus. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft, Munich, No. 1, 1915. Completed with year 11.30.
  • Reconstruction . Magazine for world economy. Publishing house for reconstruction and world economy, Berlin 1922
Reprints
  • Antonia Grunenberg (Ed.): The mass strike debate . Contributions by Parvus, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky and Anton Pannekoek. European Publishing House, Frankfurt 1970.
  • Parvus, Karl Kautsky , Leon Trotsky , Nikolai Kondratieff , Ernest Mandel , in: The long waves of the economy. Contributions to the Marxist business cycle and crisis theory . Olle & Wolter, Berlin 1972.

literature

Web links

Commons : Alexander Parvus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schwanenwerder . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1922, IV. Streets and Houses of Berlin> Administrative District Spandau, p. 1150 (Haus Waltrud, Helphand, Dr. phil.).
personal data
SURNAME Parvus, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Israil Lazarewitsch Helphand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian revolutionary (Mensheviks) and German social democrat
DATE OF BIRTH September 8, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Beresino , Minsk Governorate
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 1924
Place of death Berlin