Max Levien

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Max Levien

Max Levien (born May 21, 1885 in Moscow , † June 16 or June 17, 1937 in the Soviet Union ) was a German-Russian communist .

At the turn of the year 1918/19 he was one of the co-founders of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). As the first party chairman of the KPD in Bavaria in April 1919, he was one of the protagonists of the Munich Soviet Republic , which emerged as a result of the November revolution of 1918.

Life

Beginnings

Max Levien was born in Moscow in 1885 as the son of the wholesale merchant Ludwig Levien, who came from an old Mecklenburg family. He began his school career in 1893 at the German grammar school in Moscow and continued it in Meißen in 1897 , where he graduated from high school in 1902. He broke off his natural science studies at the University of Halle , which he had started in autumn 1905 , because he took part in the Russian Revolution of 1905 . From 1906 a member of the Russian Social Revolutionaries , he served a prison sentence in Moscow in 1907/08. After his release, Levien went to Zurich , where he continued his studies and graduated with a doctorate in the summer of 1913. In Switzerland he joined the Russian Social Democrats, had contacts with Lenin and became a supporter of the Bolsheviks . After completing his doctorate, Levien went to Germany and took German citizenship. On October 29, 1913, he volunteered for the Bavarian Infantry Body Regiment and served as a soldier from 1914 to 1918.

Revolution and Soviet Republic

In the November Revolution, Levien was active in the soldiers' councils, working closely with the anarchist writer and activist Erich Mühsam (1878-1934). Levien became chairman of the Munich Soldiers' Council and the Munich Spartacus Group . As a Munich delegate, he took part in the founding convention of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and took over the chairmanship of the KPD in Bavaria. Together with his party comrade Eugen Leviné , Levien was after the suppression of the so-called Palm Sunday coup from 13/14. April 1919 one of the leaders of the second phase of the Soviet republic . In contrast to Leviné, Levien was not of Jewish origin, but like Leviné was defamed as a Jew by political opponents. After the Soviet Republic was crushed, Levien was arrested, but was able to flee to Vienna in May 1919 . There he was arrested again.

Karl Retzlaw , who knew him personally and worked with him, wrote in his biography: “Max Levien was an interesting person. About 35 years old, medium-sized, full dark hair - "artist's mane" - Doctor of Science and a great, quick-witted speaker. "

The Austrian government released Levien in late 1920; long negotiations had previously taken place after an extradition request from the Bavarian judiciary.

Soviet exile

Levien moved to Moscow in June 1921, where he initially worked in famine relief for Soviet Russia. In 1922 he was co-opted into the Executive Committee of the Comintern (EKKI), worked in its apparatus and in 1924 took part in the 5th Comintern World Congress. Levien was also the editor of the Comintern magazine Under the Banner of Marxism and taught at the Communist University of the National Minorities of the West . In 1925 he became a member of the Russian Communist Party . During this time Levien was closely associated with the disgraced KPD leader Arkadi Maslow .

In the 1930s he last held a chair in the history and philosophy of natural sciences at Moscow University .

Finally Levien fell victim to the Great Terror : on December 10, 1936, he was arrested by the NKVD and initially sentenced to five years in camp in March 1937 . The sentence was on 16 June 1937 in a death sentence converted, which the following day enforced was.

Max Levien is classified by the Russian historian Alexander Vatlin as a victim of the German operation of the NKVD , although he was convicted and shot before the start of the operation (end of July 1937).

literature

  • Martin H. Geyer: Upside Down World. Revolution, inflation and modernity. Munich 1914–1924, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998, p. 82.
  • Branko Lazitch; Drachkovitch, Milorad M. (Eds.): Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern, Stanford / CA, Hoover Institution Press, 1986, pp. 259f.
  • Natalia Mussienko; Ulla Plener (ed.): Sentenced to the maximum penalty. Death by shooting. Fatalities from Germany and German nationality in the Great Terror in the Soviet Union 1937/1938, Berlin, Dietz, 2006, p. 58.
  • Levien, Max . In: Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst : German Communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2nd, revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
  • Hermann Weber: “On the relations between the KPD and the Communist International”, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 16 (1968), 2, pp. 177–208, here: p. 188 ( PDF ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Photo in the Bavarian State Library here : “ Max Levien, anti-Semitic propaganda postcard - Levien was not of Jewish origin! - with the inscription 'Levin (Jew), a dangerous demagogue'. "
  2. ^ Karl Retzlaw: Spartacus . New Critique Verlag, Frankfurt 1971, p. 143, ISBN 3-8015-0096-9
  3. ↑ Alexander Vatlin : “What a devil's pack”: The German operation of the NKVD in Moscow and in the Moscow region from 1936 to 1941. Metropol, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86331-090-5 , p. 313
  4. ↑ Alexander Vatlin: “What a devil's pack”: The German operation of the NKVD in Moscow and in the Moscow region from 1936 to 1941. Metropol, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86331-090-5 , p. 313
personal data
SURNAME Levien, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Russian communist and protagonist of the Munich Soviet Republic
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 1937
Place of death Soviet Union