Glossary

Organisations

ADGB (Allgemeiner Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund, General German Trade Union Confederation): The main reformist trade union federation linked to the SPD.

Black Freikorps: Secret detachments trained by the Freikorps.

Centre Party: A catholic party based in the south of Germany.

COMINTERN: See ‘The Third (Communist) International’.

Democratic Party: A bourgeois liberal party.

DNVP (Deutschnationale Volkspartei, German National People’s Party): A party of big business, which was founded in 1918 from remains of the National Liberal Party. Before the rise of the Nazi Party, it was the major conservative and nationalist party in Weimar Germany.

DVP (Deutsche Volkspartei, German People’s Party): A national liberal party in Weimar Germany, which moved to the extreme right after WW1.

DVFP (Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei, German Völkisch Freedom Party): A National Socialist and anti-Jewish political party of Weimar Germany. It took its name from the Völkisch movement, a populist movement focused on folklore and the German Volk. It dissolved in 1924.

Freikorps: Right-wing mercenary gangs, which were linked to the military. Set up by the old army command and paid by the government War Ministry, they were used by Noske to crush the 1919 Revolution. They murdered Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht and Hitler took the Swastika from their insignia, and the SS took the Death’s Head.

Gestapo: The secret police of the Third Reich.

KAPD (Kommunistische Arbeiter-Partei Deutschlands, Communist Workers’ Party of Germany): An ultra-left group who were expelled from the KPD in 1919. They formed a party in April 1920 but eventually disappeared. The policies of some of its leaders were criticised by Lenin in Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.

KPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Communist Party of Germany): Formed in December 1918, mainly from the Spartacist League, it was led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. It merged with the Left Independents in December 1920 to form the United Communist Party (VKPD), but it dropped ‘United’ from the name soon afterward.

Left Opposition: Formed by Trotsky in 1923 to fight the growing bureaucracy in Russia, they were expelled from the Communist Party in late 1927. The International Left Opposition (ILO) was formed in 1930, bringing together the co-thinkers of Trotsky in a number of countries.

Left Radicals: Based in Bremen, they merged with Spartacist league in 1918 to form KPD.

National Party: A reactionary party based on landowning interests.

NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, National Socialist German Workers’ Party): The German fascist party, which was also abbreviated as ‘Nazi Party’. Formed in February 1920 on the basis of a twenty-five-point programme drawn up by Hitler, out of the pro-war German Workers’ Party.

Profintern (Red International of Labour Unions): Formed by the Comintern in 1923, it was an international body established by the Communist International with the aim of co-ordinating communist activities within trade unions. However, it met with little success and quietly disappeared in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

Proletarian Hundreds: Workers’ self-defence organisations set up in 1923.

Red League of Front Fighters (Roter Frontkämpferbund, RFB): A paramilitary organisation under the leadership of the Communist Party of Germany during the Weimar Republic. It was banned in 1929.

Reichsbanner: The paramilitary wing of the SPD. It was set up in 1924, with over 1 million members by 1925. They could have provided a powerful force against Nazism, but the cowardice of the SPD leadership left them impotent.

Reichstag: German parliament.

Reichswehr: The regular army of Weimar Germany, made up of old units and the Freikorps, it later became the Wehrmacht.

Revolutionäre Obleute (Revolutionary Stewards): An organisation of German shop stewards during the First World War, which opposed the war and acted independently of official trade unions and the SPD.

SA (Sturmabteilung, Stormtroopers): Often referred to as the ‘Brownshirts’, this paramilitary force was set up in 1921 by Hitler. However, they became a threat to Hitler himself when they demanded a second, or ‘social’, revolution to follow the ‘national’ one. Thus, the leadership of the SA were liquidated by Hitler on 30 June 1934 in the ‘Night of the Long Knives’. After this, the SA ceased to be an independent force.

SAP (Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany): A centrist political party, which arose out of a left split from the SPD in 1931. It briefly collaborated with the International Left Opposition, but after 1933, it moved to the right. Those members who survived the war eventually re-joined the SPD.

Second International (or Labour and Socialist International): Was organised in 1889 as a successor to the First International (International Workingmen’s Association) established by Marx and Engels in 1864. In 1914, almost all its national sections supported their own imperialist governments, and it fell apart during the war. It was revived as a completely reformist organisation in 1923.

Spartacus League (Spartakusbund): Named after the leader of the most famous slave rebellion against Rome, it grew from a revolutionary tendency in the SPD in 1914 opposed to the war. With members that included Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, Franz Mehring, and Leo Jogiches, they left the SPD, joining the USPD in 1917, and forming the Spartacus League as a public faction of the USPD in November 1918. They split from the USPD and formed the KPD in December 1918.

SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Social Democratic Party of Germany): Often referred to as Social Democrats or, after 1917, as Majority Social Democrats, the Party was originally formed in 1875. It emerged out of a fusion between two socialist groups, one based around Ferdinand Lassalle and the other around August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, which was known as the Eisenach Party. It was seen as the leading Marxist party in the Second International, with over 1 million members in 1914. However, it became Marxist in words, but reformist in deeds.

SS (Schutzstaffel): Also known as the Blackshirts, this organisation was originally set up as a personal bodyguard for Hitler. However, it was reorganised in 1929, later controlling the Gestapo and the concentration camps, through its Death’s Head units.

Third (Communist) International (Comintern): This body was organised under Lenin’s leadership as the revolutionary successor to the Second International. Founded in March 1919, its first four congresses developed the genuine ideas of Bolshevism, but from the Fifth Congress in 1924, until its dissolution in 1943, Stalin’s machine was in control.

USPD (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany): Also known as ‘Independents’, this Party was formed in April 1917 by the opposition expelled from the SPD. It participated in the provisional government of November-December 1918. In 1917, it had 120,000 members and, in 1919, it had 750,000. In 1920, the majority joined the KPD. The minority re-joined the SPD in 1922, although some joined the SAP in 1931.

Zentrale (Central): The day to day leading body of the KPD.

Papers

Die Neue Zeit (The New Times): The SPD theoretical journal from 1883 to 1923.

Die Freiheit (Freedom): The daily newspaper of the USPD, which was published between 1918 and 1922 as well as between 1928 and 1931. Rudolf Hilferding acted as the paper’s editor.

Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag): The paper of the Spartacus League and then the KPD.

Vorwärts (Forward): Founded in 1876, it was the central organ of the SPD for many decades.

Individuals

Prince Max von Baden (1867-1929): Replaced Kaiser Wilhelm II as German Chancellor for two months in 1918, overseeing the end of the war and the establishment of the Weimar Republic.

Otto Bauer (1881-1938): The leader of so-called ‘Austro-Marxism’, who played a leading role in the Social Democratic Party of Austria, becoming its leader in 1918. Exiled from Austria to France after the failed uprising of 1934.

Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932): A member of the SPD, he was the first theorist of reformism within the Second International. He opposed the war from a pacifist standpoint, but was opposed to revolution. He was one of the founders of the USPD in 1917, but re-joined the SPD in 1920.

Otto von Bismark (1815-1898): The first Chancellor of the German Empire between 1871 and 1890. He oversaw the unification of German states into a national entity.

Martin Bormann (1900-1945): Joined the Nazi Party in 1927 and the SS in 1937. Initially Hitler’s personal secretary, he was later given the title of Head of Parteikanzlei (Party Chancellory). He disappeared after Hitler’s death and his remains were discovered in 1972 in Berlin, which confirmed that he had been killed as he tried to escape the city.

Heinrich Brandler (1881-1967): A member of the SPD from 1901, he later became a leading member of the Spartacists. He was also chairman of the KPD between 1921-24, where he stood on the right of the party. Expelled from the KPD in 1929 as a supporter of Bukharin, he then organised his own group, the KPO.

Heinrich Brüning (1885-1970): A member of the Centre Party, he became Chancellor from 1930-32. He fled Germany in 1934 and moved to the US.

Nikolai Bukharin (1888-1938): A member of the Bolshevik Central Committee. Having moved to the right, he became general secretary of the EC of the Comintern (1926-29), but was expelled by Stalin from the Politburo in 1929. He was executed after the show trials of 1938.

Engelbert Dollfuss (1892-1934): A reactionary who became Chancellor of Austria in 1932. He dissolved parliament and ruled by decree from 1933 onwards, promoting so-called ‘Austro-fascism’. He was assassinated by agents of Hitler in 1934.

Hugo Eberlein (1887-1944): Joined the SPD in 1906 and opposed the war in 1914. He was a member of the Spartacus League and KPD central committees. A delegate to the First Congress of the Third International, he played a leading role in the Comintern as a supporter of Brandler. He was exiled to the USSR after 1933, where he was arrested by the GPU during the Moscow purge trials. He was supposed to have been handed over to Hitler by Stalin in 1940, but died in prison.

Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925): An SPD leader who collaborated with Bebel. He supported a chauvinist position during the war and was Imperial Chancellor in 1918. Between November 1918 and December 1919, he was chairman of the Council of People’s Representatives. He worked with the army to crush January rising and was President of Germany between 1919 and 1925.

Emil Eichhorn (1863-1925): An ex-glassworker, he worked for the SPD from 1893, heading the press bureau between 1908 and 1917. Between 1917 and 1920, he was a member of the USPD. His dismissal as chief of Berlin police – he had taken over control in 1918 – provoked the January uprising. He joined the KPD in 1920, and died in 1925.

Kurt Eisner (1867-1919): The editor of Vorwärts between 1900 and 1906. At first, he supported the war, but then moved into a pacifist opposition. He founded the Munich USPD and was imprisoned in January 1918. However, he led the November 1918 Revolution in Bavaria, and was made Prime Minister. Ultimately, he was assassinated by the monarchist Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley in February 1919.

Ruth Fischer (1895-1961): Joined the Austrian Social Democrats aged nineteen and was one of the first members of the Austrian Communist Party in 1918. After moving to Berlin, she led the ultra-left opposition. She was head of the KPD between 1924 and 1925, but was expelled in 1926, when she formed the Leninbund. She later became an anti-communist.

Paul Frölich (1894-1953): Joined the SPD aged eighteen and was on the extreme left of party. He supported Lenin’s position at the Kienthal conference in 1916 and was elected to the KPD Central Committee at its founding congress. In 1928, he was expelled from the KPD as a ‘rightist’, and he joined Brandler’s KPO (the right opposition Communist Party Opposition), then the centrist SAP (Socialist Workers’ Party). After nine months in a concentration camp in 1933, he went into exile. He returned to West Germany and re-joined the SPD in 1950.

Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945): A leading Nazi and the Minister of Propaganda during the Third Reich. He killed himself in 1945.

Hermann Göring (1893-1946): An early member of Nazi Party, he later served as Minister Without Portfolio in the Third Reich, establishing the Gestapo. He was became the commander in chief of the Luftwaffe before being given the title of Reichsmarschall. After the war, he was tried at Nuremberg, but committed suicide before the sentence of death could be carried out.

Hugo Haase (1863-1919): An SPD member of the Reichstag in 1897 and co-chair of the party between 1911 and 1916. Whilst he opposed voting for war credits in 1914, he ended up voting for them under the discipline of the parliamentary group and, in 1916, he voted against the war credits. He was co-chair of the USPD 1917 and a member of the Council of People’s Representatives between November and December 1918. He was assassinated by a monarchist in 1919.

Rudolf Hess (1894-1987): Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler, but, in 1941, he secretly flew to Scotland to negotiate a peace deal despite having no authority to do so. Interned by the Allies, he was tried after the war and remained in prison until his death in 1987.

Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934): Chief of the German Army during WW1 and effectively ran the state with Ludendorff during last period of the conflict. Elected President in 1925 and 1932, he appointed Hitler as Chancellor in 1933.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945): The leader of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) and, later, dictator (Führer und Reichskanzler) of the Third Reich. He committed suicide in 1945.

Rudolf Hilferding (1877-1944): An Austrian-born politician and chief theoretician for the Social Democratic Party of Germany during the Weimar Republic, he was widely recognised as the SPD’s foremost theoretician. He joined the SPD in 1922, became minister of finance in 1923 and again in 1928-30. He died in a Nazi prison in 1944.

Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945): He joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and later became leader of the SS and Head of Police. Given overall responsibility for the establishment of the death camps and the implementation of the Holocaust, he was arrested by the Allies in 1945, but killed himself before he could be tried.

Oskar Hippe (1900-1990): A Trotskyist and author of And Red is the Colour of our Flag. An active participant in all the key struggles of post-war Germany, he was imprisoned by both the Nazis and later by the East German Stalinist regime.

Max Hölz (1889-1933): An ex-metalworker, he joined the USPD 1918 and the KPD in 1919. He organised armed guerrilla action against the Kapp Putsch and was sentenced to life imprisonment for organising fighting in central Germany during the March Action. He was released in 1928, went to Moscow and died in an accident in 1933.

Jean Jaurès (1859-1914): A socialist who became leader of the French Socialist Party in 1902. He was assassinated in 1914 having opposed the war.

Leo Jogiches (1867-1919): Active in the revolutionary movement from an early age, he was a close collaborator of Rosa Luxemburg. One of the founders of the Polish revolutionary Social Democracy, and active in the 1905 Polish Revolution. He escaped to Germany in 1907 and became an organiser of the Spartacus group during the war. A member of the KPD central committee, he opposed the January 1919 uprising, and was arrested and murdered by the Freikorps in March 1919.

Lev Kamenev (1883-1936): A leading member of the Bolshevik Politburo in 1917, he was executed in 1936 after the first show trial.

Wolfgang Kapp (1858-1922): Founder of the extreme right-wing German Fatherland Party in 1917 and led the 1920 putsch attempt to re-establish a monarchy and military dictatorship.

Karl Kautsky (1854-1938): A collaborator with Engels, he was a founder and editor of Die Neue Zeit. He was also regarded as the chief theoretician of Marxism until 1914, when he adopted a pacifist stand, apologising for the Majority. A founder of the USPD and a supporter of the right wing, he opposed socialist revolution in Germany. He re-joined the SPD in 1922.

Béla Kun (1886-1939): Joined the Hungarian Social Democrats aged sixteen and joined Bolsheviks while a prisoner of war in Russia. In 1918, he founded the Hungarian Communist Party and, in March to June 1919, he was head of the Hungarian Soviet government. In exile in Russia, he became a Red Army commissar. A supporter of the ultra-left group, he was sent to Germany in 1921 and inspired the March Action. He worked in the Comintern apparatus until 1937, when he was arrested and killed without trial during the Moscow frame-ups.

Carl Legien (1861-1920): A right-wing SPD parliamentarian and the first chairman of the trade union body, the ADGB.

Theodor Leipart (1867-1947): A trade unionist and leader of the ADGB from 1922 to 1932.

Paul Levi (1883-1930): A member of the SPD from 1906, he was a revolutionary opponent of war and worked with Lenin in Switzerland during the war. He later became a member of the Spartacus League and KPD central committee, and was a central leader after the murder of Leo Jogiches in 1919. He opposed the ultra-left action in 1919 and became President of the VKPD in 1920. However, he resigned in 1921 and was expelled for publicly denouncing the March Action in the same year. In 1922, he joined the USPD, then SPD, where he organised a left opposition until his death.

Eugen Leviné (1883-1919): Took part in the 1905 Russian Revolution as a Social Revolutionary. He joined the SPD, then the USPD, then the Spartacus League during the war. He later became a leader of the KPD. He re-organised the Bavarian Communist Party in 1919 and was the leader of the second Bavarian Council Republic. In 1919, he was executed by the Social Democratic government after the overthrow of the Bavarian Republic

Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919): The son of a founder of the SPD, Wilhelm Liebknecht, he joined the party in 1900. He set up the Socialist Youth International in 1907 and was jailed in the same year for writing Militarism and Anti-Militarism. From 1912, he was a deputy in the Reichstag and he became the first member to vote against the war credits in December 1914. A founding member of the Spartacists, he was jailed in 1916 for anti-war agitation. However, he was amnestied in 1918, and took part in preparations for the November actions. He led the Revolutionary Committee during the Berlin January uprising. A leader of the KPD, he was murdered by the Freikorps in 1919.

Paul Löbe (1875-1927): An SPD parliamentarian who served at various times as President and Vice President, he was arrested several times during the period of the Third Reich and sent to a concentration camp in 1944. After surviving this, he later served in the West German post-war parliament.

Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937): A German general who effectively ran Germany with Hindenburg during the last period of WW1. He represented the German Völkisch Freedom Party in the Reichstag and supported the Kapp Putsch. Under Hitler, he argued for total war.

Hans Luther (1879-1962): A member of the DVP, he was Chancellor from 1925 to 1926. He served as ambassador to the US under Hitler from 1933 to 1937 and, after the war, he became a banker.

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919): Joined the movement in Poland in 1887, and became leader of the SDKP (Polish Social Democrats). However, she was exiled in 1889 and joined the SPD in Germany in 1898. From 1903, she was on the Second International bureau. She became a leader of the left wing against the revisionist right and, after 1910, against the Kautskyite group. A leading revolutionary opponent of war, she was one of the founders of the Spartacus group. In prison for most of the war, she became the chief writer for Die Rote Fahne from November 1918 to January 1919. As founder and leader of the KPD, she opposed the call for the January rising, although this was not reflected in her articles. Her arrest was ordered by the Social Democratic government for her participation in the uprising and she was brutally murdered by the SPD-instigated Freikorps at the same time as Liebknecht.

Arkadi Maslow (1893-1941): Led the ultra-left trend in the KPD with Fischer from 1921. A leader of the KPD in 1924, he was imprisoned between 1925 and 1926, and expelled from the party in 1926. Afterwards, he co-founded the Leninbund with Fischer.

Franz Mehring (1846-1919): A German Communist who was a senior member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany during the German Revolution in 1918-19. Already in ill health, Mehring was deeply affected by the death of his comrades Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in January 1919. He died just under two weeks later, on 28 January 1919, in Berlin.

Gustav Noske (1868-1946): A right-wing SPD leader, he was a member of the Council of People’s Representatives between 1918 and 1919. Between December 1918 and March 1920, he was Minister of War in Social Democrat governments. He organised the suppression of the January 1919 uprising and resigned after the Kapp Putsch, becoming President of the province of Hanover, until he was dismissed by the Nazis in 1933. He was imprisoned twice by the Nazis: once in 1939 and again after the Generals’ Plot.

Hermann Müller (1876-1931): Edited Vorwärts from 1916, he became Chancellor in 1920 and again between 1928 and 1930.

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945): The founder of Italian fascism, he was in power between 1922 and 1943. After this, he became leader of the German-controlled stooge state of the Italian Social (or Salò) Republic, based in the North, until he was arrested and executed by Italian partisans whilst trying to flee to Switzerland in 1945.

Franz von Papen (1879-1969): Advised Hindenburg during the Weimar Republic, he served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933 to 1934. He was also an ambassador, first to Austria and then Turkey. He avoided being found guilty of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials after the war and spent the rest of his life trying unsuccessfully to claim that he had nothing to do with the rise of Hitler.

Karl Radek (1885-1939): Active in the Polish revolutionary movement from the age of eighteen and was involved in the 1905 Polish revolution. In Germany in 1908, he supported the SPD left. A member of the Zimmerwald Left bureau with Lenin in 1915, he joined the Bolsheviks in 1917, who sent him secretly to Germany in 1918. In February 1919 he was arrested and freed in January 1920. He supported the March Action, and supported the calling off of the October 1923 insurrection. He played a leading role on the Executive Committee of the Communist International and later became part of Trotsky’s opposition to Stalin, being expelled from the Communist Party in 1927 and deported to Alma Ata. He capitulated in 1929 and became an apologist for Stalin. However, he was arrested in 1937 during the Moscow frame-up trials and died in prison.

Ernst Röhm (1887-1934): After WW1 he joined, first, the DAP and then the NSDAP, taking part in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. After plans his to reform the SA were rejected, he left political life and became an advisor to the Bolivian army. He returned to Germany after 1930 and became SA Chief of Staff. He became part of the Nazi radical faction, which was hostile to capitalism, and demanded merger of armed forces under his control. However, in 1934, he was arrested and executed as part of the 1934 ‘Night of the Long Knives’ purge.  

Otto Rühle (1874-1943): Opposed WW1 and was a founder member of the KAPD, but later expelled. He joined the SPD in 1923, but left Germany in 1933 to go to Mexico.

Philipp Scheidemann (1865-1939): A right-wing SPD member in the Reichstag from 1898, he became a central leader of the party after Bebel’s death in 1913. In 1914, he led SPD support for war, and became co-chair of the party in 1917. He was appointed Minister Without Portfolio by the Kaiser in October 1918, and declared the republic in November of that year. A member of Ebert’s Council of People’s Representatives, he presided over the suppression of the 1918-19 Revolution, becoming Chancellor in 1919. He was forced into exile by the Nazis in 1933.

Kurt von Schleicher (1882-1934): A German general who would be the last chancellor of the Weimar Republic, he recommended Hitler as his replacement and was later rewarded by being killed during the ‘Night of the Long Knives.’

Victor Serge (1890-1947): A revolutionary and writer who was originally an anarchist, which coloured his politics and writings throughout his life. He travelled to Russia and joined the Bolsheviks in 1919 and later worked for the Comintern. However, when he broke with Stalinism, his writings were suppressed and he suffered periods of imprisonment. Eventually, he escaped to France (where he was also imprisoned) and then to Mexico where he died in 1947.

Otto Strasser (1892-1934): Joined the Nazi Party in 1920 having helped form the Freikorps in 1918, becoming a key party figure in northern Germany. He wanted to see capitalism overthrown under a fascist state, which led to a break with Hitler. In 1934, he was killed as part of the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ purge.

Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929): A monarchist politician who belonged to several parties during his career, he was Chancellor for 102 days in 1923 and then served as Foreign Minister from 1923 to 1929.

Ernst Thälmann (1886-1944): An SPD member from 1903, he led the USPD Left in Hamburg between 1918 and 1920. He joined the VKPD in 1920 and mobilised the unemployed during the March Action of 1921. He also played an important role during the Hamburg rising of 1923. After the removal of Fischer and Maslow in 1925, he led the KPD. However, he was arrested in March 1933 and executed by the Nazis in 1944 at Buchenwald.

August Thalheimer (1884-1948): Involved with the Spartacists during the war years and later played a key role in the KPD. He was critical of the ultra-left turns and was blamed for the defeat of the 1923 Revolution. Expelled from the KPD in 1929, he helped form the Left Opposition group in Germany. After being interned in France, he was exiled to Cuba.

Otto Wels (1879-1939): A right-wing SPD member. As military commander of Berlin, he was responsible for crushing the left in January to March 1919. He led the opposition to Hitler in the Reichstag in 1933, calling for “lawful, non-violent opposition”, and, from 1933 he was exiled in Paris.

Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941): Emperor of Germany from 1888 to 1918, when he abdicated.

Walter Ulbricht (1893-1973): Joined the KPD in 1920, becoming its leader in 1933 after death of Thälmann. He was a murderous arch-stooge of Stalin and survived to later become leader of East Germany.

Hugo Urbahns (1890-1947): First joined the Spartacist League and later the KPD. However, he supported the left of the KPD and was expelled in 1926. He lead the Leninbund, which advocated a united front against Hitler, and he moved to Sweden in 1933.

Jan Valtin (1904-1951): Author of Out of the Night, a semi-fictional account of the events in Germany from 1918-23 and the later rise of Hitler, he was also known as Richard Krebs.

Clara Zetkin (1857-1933): Played a key role in the left of the SPD and later in the KPD and in the Communist International. She was a member of the Reichstag and, as the oldest elected member, gave the opening speech of the 1932 session, attacking Hitler.

Grigory Zinoviev (1883-1936): Leading member of the Bolsheviks in 1917, he was later head of the Communist International with particular responsibility for Germany. However, he was removed from leading positions by Stalin in 1926, and executed after the show trials of 1936.