“Father Joe” Stalin killed at least 20 million Russians. Sadly, he had a lot of communist comrades all over the world, many who were the founders and leaders of communist movements. Guess what these people all have in common?
Karl Marx – founder of communism
Moses Hess – a founder of zionism
Ferdinand LaSalle – Karl Marx associate
Leon Trotsky – prominent Soviet politician and helped ignite the 1917 communist revolution
Israel Epstein – born in Poland, moved to China, worked as journalist and author, minister of appropriations
Genrikh Yagoda, or “the Jewish Hitler” – Soviet secret police official who served as director of the NKV andorganized the infamous Gulag system.
Maurice Levitas – Irish academic and communist. In 1931 and joined the Communist Party of Great Britain. His brother Max Levitas was communist councilor for 15 years in Stepney in London.
Phil Piratin – member of the Communist Party of Great Britain andBritish Parliament. Manager of the communist Party newspaper – morning star
Matyas Rákosi (born Rosenfeld) – de-facto ruler of Communist Hungary. He fled to Russia and became Comiterm leader. Returned to Hungary as ruler enforced by Joseph Stalin when Hungary fell under communism after WW2.
Abraham Léon (born Wejnstok) – Belgian activist who adopted Marxist ideas and tried to incite Belgium workers to fight both against Nazis and Churchill in Leninist fashion. He incited at civil war & wrote “The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation“.
Lou Kenton– British communist activist, member of the Communist Party of Great Britain since 1929.
Iosif Koller – returned to Romania after Soviet takeover. Became head of the Directorate General of Prisons, deputy manager of General Labor Camps and colonies, commander of Aiud prison and Văcăreşti prison (both were political prisons).
Aleksandr Orlov (born Leiba Feldbin) – General in the Soviet secret police and NKVD during the Spanish Civil war. He secretly transported the entire gold reserve of the Spanish Republic to the USSR. Just like the Romanian National Treasure, the Gold was never returned. Fearing for his family’s well-being during the Great Purge of Stalin, Orlov fled to US where he published The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes after Stalin’s death.
Gheorghe Stoica (born Moscu Cohn) – one of the founders of the Romanian Communist party.
Sidney Rittenberg – American journalist and scholar who worked closely with leader Mao and statesmen of Communist China. As a prominent media leader in China, being the head of the Broadcast Administration, he promoted the Cultural Revolution in China
Artur London – Czech communist politician, part of the first communist government as foreign prime-minister in late 1940’s.
Lev Kamenev – Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. Served as Russia’s premier under Vladimir Lenin’s rule.
Sigi Beiner (Sigismund Bayner) – investigator and regional deputy at Securitate (Romanian communist secret police). During 1940 Soviet invasion of eastern Romania he was accused of participating in attacks on Romanian civilians and military who were retreating into unoccupied Romania, gaining him NKVD agent status
Martin Gray – NKVD officer who later pretended to be a Holocaust survivor. He wrote a book about his Holocaust experience, whose authenticity is questioned. His activity as an NKVD officer is overlooked and excused, despite the fact that it was a tool for mass murder and serious human rights abuses.
Max Goldstein – communist activist and terrorist in Romania, supported by Soviet Cheka. In 1920, together with 2 other Jewish communists –Leon Lichtblau and Saul Ozias, he committed 2 bomb attacks against Romanian government officials who were opposing communism. The first attack failed, the second one killed the minister of justice and 2 senators.
Adolf Joffe – Communist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and a Soviet diplomat.
Lazar Kaganovich(Kogan) – Soviet secret police (Cheka, OGPU, NKVD) high functionary, as follows: chief of the Gulag , deputy chief of the Gulag, deputy Narkom of Forest Industry.
Olga Kameneva (Bronstein) – sister of Leon Trotsky, wife of Lev Kamenev. She was an Officer in the Cheka Secret Police and Chairwoman of the Soviet Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries.
Ernest Gero – a member of Comintern in France in 1930’s; First Secretary of the Communist Party in Hungary.
Salvador Allende Gossens – senator, deputy and cabinet minister and eventually president of Chile (South American ) in 1970’s. He applied Marxist policies (nationalization, collectivization) which proved to be unpopular among Chileans. He was removed from presidency through a coup d’etat, after which he committed suicide.
Ilya Ehrenburg – one of the most prolific authors of the Soviet Union; Soviet cultural activist and journalist. He was accused of “promoting hate campaign” against Germans during World War II.
Quote from his 1942 leaflet called “Kill”: The Germans are not human beings. From now on, the word “German” is the worst possible curse-word to us. […] We shall kill. If you have not killed at least one German in a day, you have wasted that day. If you don’t kill the German, the German will kill you. He will abduct your relatives and bring them back to his accursed Germany where he will torture them.
Avram Bunaciu (born Abraham Gutman) – Romanian minister of Justice and Foreign minister in the new communist government formed after World War 2.
Isaac Steinberg – lawyer, revolutionary, politician, People’s Commissar (Narkom) of Justice in Vladimir Lenin’s coalition. After the war, he resigned in protest of the peace treaty between Russia and European powers. He fled to London and became leader of the Jewish Territorialist movement; his requests to buy land in order to resettle Jews in Australia and Suriname were refused.
Karl Pauker – NKVD officer, head of Joseph Stalin’s personal security and chief of the GPU Operations Department.
Vladimir Herzog – emigrated from Europe to Brazil. A journalist and Communist activist, he was active in the civil resistance movement against the government of Brazil in 1970’s. He was member of the Brazilian communist party, which was deemed illegal.
V. Volodarsky – a Marxist revolutionary in the Baltics and Poland, later a Soviet politician. He was assassinated in 1918.
Gabor Peter (born Benjamin Auschpitz) – head of the Hungarian secret police (AVH), which was notorious for its brutality even by Soviet standards.
Gheorghe Gaston-Marin (born Grossman) – Romanian ministry of Energy and minister of Economy in post-war communist Romania.
Idel Jakobson – NKVD investigator in Estonia. According to the official reports of the Estonian Internal Security Service, Jakobson sentenced 1.200 people to death and persecuted 2.000 people. Arrested for subversive activities directed against Estonia in 1931, he returned when communists took power after the end of WW2.
Grigori Voitinsky – member of Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he took part in the pro-Communist revolution in Siberia and the Far East. As a Comiterm official, he was sent to China as an adviser and he helped the formation of the Communist party of China.
Rudolf Slánský – Czech Communist politician who lead teh creation of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Was General Secretary of the Communist Party after World War II.
Albert E. Kahn – American journalist and secret member of the Communist Party of the United States , author, co-editor of the anti-Nazi bulletin The Hour. In 1946 Elizabeth Bentley stated in her deposition to the FBI that Kahn had furnished to Russia information on immigrant Ukrainians hostile to the Soviet Union. Kahn is referenced as code name “Fighter” in the Venona project
Isaac Babel – propaganda chief, journalist, playwright and short story writer for the Soviet Union.
Nikolai Yezhov – Soviet secret police official, head of the NKVD during the most severe period of Stalin’s Great Purge.
Mihály Farkas (born Loewy) – Hungarian politician, converted to communism in 1930’s, fought in the Spanish Civil war, lived in Soviet Union. Arrived in Hungary in 1944 as a secretary the Hungarian Communist Party; later became Minister of National Defense.
Alexander Parvus – Marxist revolutionary, wealthy banker who planned and financed the revolution. Together with Leon Trostky, he developed the concept of using a foreign war to provoke an internal revolt; this resulted in the planning of the Bolshevik revolution. He tried (but failed) to induce financial collapse in Russia.
Bedřich Reicin (born Reinzinger) – Czechoslovak army officer and communist activist. In February 1948, he organized mass purges of officers who were felt to not be loyal enough to the new communist regime.
Alexandru Nicolschi (born Boris Grunberg) – Romanian communist activist, Soviet officer, NKVD spy, and Securitate chief (Romanian Communist secret police). When sent as spy in Romania during the war, he was arrested; he was liberated by the Red Army and became the head of the most violent structures in communist Romania.
Jacob Havinson (Yakov Khavinson) – Director of “Soviet Information Bureau“ and head of Pravda (the newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party).
Michael Farkas (born Wolf) – Hungarian defense minister in the first communist government formed after World War 2.
Lev Mekhlis – Soviet statesman, member of the Communist Party since 1918; chief of the Press Section of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik); minister of state control of the USSR.
Boleslaw Bierut – Polish Communist leader, NKVD agent and President of Stalinist Poland after the end of World War II.
Sidney Shapiro – American author, he was a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Council (political advisory body in Communist China).
Lavrentiy Beria – Soviet politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, chief of NKVD during World War II, and Deputy Premier in 1946–53.
Salomon Morel – commander of NKVD set-up Polish concentration camp after the end of WW2; colonel in Poland’s political police; commander of Katowice prison. In 1994, Poland indicted him for crimes against humanity. Morel fled to Israel, who refused to extradite him despite repeated requests by Poland.
Ghiță Moscu (born Gelber Moscovici) – Romanian communist activist, one of the early leaders of the Romanian Communist Party and its permanent delegate to Communist International (Comiterm). Member of Bolshevik party since 1924.
Nikolai Bukharin – Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician. Editor of Communist newspaper Pravda. He was considered one of the principal theoreticians of the Bolshevik Party – wrote “The ABCs of Communism“.
Joseph Revai – one of the founders of the Communist Party of Hungary in 1918. Became minister of propaganda in the first Hungarian communist government formed after World War 2.
Silviu Brucan (Saul Brukner) – Romanian communist politician, international ambassador and general secretary of pro-Soviet Scinteia magazine. He admitted that the 1989 Romanian revolution lead by him and other communist members was not anti-communist, but anti-Ceausescu and claimed that the banning of communism was a mistake.
Yakov Sverdlov – leader in the Bolshevik party and chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee – the highest legislative and administrative body of Soviet Russia.
Angelica Balabanova – communist and social democratic activist; secretary of the Comintern (Communist International) .
Grigory Zinoviev – Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician. He was the longtime head of the Communist International.
Solomon Mogilevsky – head of the Soviet foreign intelligence service; involved in the suppression of Georgia’s uprising against Soviet rule. Died in a plane crash.
Karl Radek – Marxist activist in Poland and Germany’s social movements (when he had direct connections with Lenin), and international Communist leader in the Soviet Union.
Rosa Luxemburg – Polish Marxist theorist, economist and revolutionary; she co-founded “Spartacus League” which eventually became the Communist Party of Germany; after she became a German citizen, she became a member of the party.
Jenő Hamburger – Hungarian politician, People’s Commissar of Agriculture during the short-lived 1919 Hungarian Soviet Republic.
Hilary Minc – communist politician in Stalinist Poland and pro-Soviet Marxist economist.
Mikhail Koltsov – Bolshevik revolutionary, worked for NKVD. A key figure of the Soviet intellectual elite and one of the most famous journalists in the USSR. He was executed during Stalin’s Great Purge.
Iosif Chişinevschi(born Jakob Broitman, took wife’s name) – Romanian politician, propagandist for Communist party, vicepresident in the Council of Ministers.
Leon Lichtblau – Romanian communist militant in prewar Romania; assisted Max Goldstein in the 1920 terrorist attack on the Romanian Senate; he fled Romania and became Head of the Central Statistical Directorate of USSR.
Yakov Yurovsky – Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist; during the Bolshevik takeover of Russia, he executed the imperial Romanov family.
David Zaslavsky – prominent Soviet journalist and writer, director at Pravda (newspaper of the Communist Party).
József Pogány (known as John Pepper) – Hungarian Communist politician and propagandist, active in the radical movements of both Hungary and the United States.
Ana Pauker(born Hannah Rabinsohn) – Communist activist in pre-war Romania, she was arrested for being an agitator. Ran from the country and returned with the Soviet tanks in 1945. Became communist leader and foreign minister. In 1948, Time Magazine named her the most powerful woman alive and dedicated its magazine cover to her.
Romanians nicknamed her “Stalin with a skirt”.
Ana Toma (born Grossman) – Romanian communist activist, close advisor to Ana Pauker. Deputy minister in the Ministry of foreign affairs and the Minister of Commerce.
Eugen Levine – communist revolutionary and leader of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic (in Germany).
Bela Kun (Cohen) – communist revolutionary who led the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. The Romanian Army removed him from the government in the same year.
Rozalia Zemlyachka (born Rozalia Zalkind) – party secretary of the Kremlin and vice-chairman of the Council of People’s Commissaries. She was part of the Ukrainian Cheka and acted in Crimea in 1920 against “anarchist forces” (through summary executions).
Mihail Florescu (born Iacobi Iancu) – Romanian minister of Oil and Industries in post-war communist Romania.
Tibor Szamuely – Hungarian Communist leader in the short-lived Soviet Hungary of 1919.
Fred Rose – Communist politician in Canada, Member of the Canadian Parliament. He was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union after WW2.
Grigori Sokolnikov – Russian old Bolshevik revolutionary, economist, and Soviet politician.
Abram Slutsky – head of the Soviet foreign intelligence service, part of the NKVD. He engaged in industrial espionage; later, he also engaged in tracking down and eliminating the opponents of Stalin’s regime.
Israel Leplevsky – joined the Bolshevik party in 1917; became head of Soviet secret service in Ukraine.
Osip Piatnitsky (born Iosif Tarshis) – Bolshevik revolutionary, head of the International Department of the Communist International for over a decade.
Rezső Nyers – Hungarian politician, Minister of Finance in the 1960’s. His son became the head of the Hungarian National Bank.
Mikhail Borodin (born Mikhail Gruzenberg) – a prominent Comintern (Communist International) agent, and later a Chinese government adviser of Communist leader Mao. He joined the Bolshevik party in 1903 and became an associate of Vladimir Lenin. He worked in Mexico, the United States and the United Kingdom as a Comintern agent.
Ghizela Vass (born Gisella Vass) – Romanian Communist, was an activist and high-ranking politician of the Romanian Communist Party.
Jakob Berman – prominent communist in prewar Poland; member of the Soviet-formed Polish United Workers’ Party. Leader of the State Security Services Urząd Bezpieczeństwa – the largest secret police in Polish history. He was considered Stalin’s right hand in Poland.
Simion Bughici – Romanian ambassador to Moscow in post-war period, and later a Foreign minister.
Filipp Goloshchekin – Soviet statesman (war commissar, member of the Central Committee, soviet regional secretary). Took part in the struggle to consolidate Soviet power in the Urals and Siberia. He was involved in the execution of the Romanov family (Russian royal family) and all their relatives.
Solomon Lozovsky – prominent Bolshevik revolutionary, Presidium member of the All-Union Central Council of Soviet Trade Unions, a Central Committee member of the Communist Party, a member of the Supreme Soviet, the head of the Soviet Information Bureau.
Maxim Litvinov – Bolshevik revolutionary and prominent Soviet diplomat.
Julia Brystiger – Polish Communist activist and member of the security apparatus in Stalinist Poland. She was notorious for her cruel methods of interrogation.
Jenő Landler – people’s commissar of interior affairs in the government of short-lived Soviet Hungary in 1919; commander of the Hungarian Red Army. After the Romanian army removed the Soviet government, Landler ran to Austria. He died in 1928 and his ashes were buried in Kremlin Wall in Moscow.
Roman Zambrowski – communist activist in prewar Poland, chief organizer of the Polish Communists Central Bureau, head of the Political and Educational Management of the Polish Army in the Soviet Union ; deputy of State National Council, secretary of the Central Committee, vice-president of the Supreme Chamber of Control.
Andrei Loukanov – the last communist prime minister of Bulgaria. His family moved from Moscow to Bulgaria after the 1944 communist takeover.
Moisei Uritsky – Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Russia.
Béla Biszku – Hungarian communist politician and Minister of the Interior from 1957 to 1961.
Yemelyan Yaroslavsky – Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, communist party organizer, communist activist, journalist, and historian.
Karl Herbst – one of the founders of the Zionist movement in Bulgaria. Served as senior Bulgarian government official.
Moisey Gubelman – Soviet party leader; member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the People’s Revolutionary Army of the Far East; Secretary of Central Control Commission, chairman of Central Executive Committee of Workers’.
Nahum Eitingon – Soviet intelligence officer, he organized the suppression (terror) system.
Bela Brainer – communist activist in both Hungary and Romania. He joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1921. He was jailed twice for being an agitator. He was the head of the illegal communist newspaper Scinteia in Romania.
Jozef Rozanski – communist in prewar Poland, member of the Soviet NKVD, colonel of the Stalinist Ministry of Public Security of Poland; interrogator with the Polish communist security police.
Leonte Răutu (Lev Oigenstein) – Romanian chief of Propaganda and Culture for the Communist Party. He was highly-awarded for his work.
Isaac Mintz – Soviet historian and academician. Re-wrote history and books according to Soviet principles.
Mihail Roller – Romanian head of Institute of history of Communist party; one of the authors who re-wrote Romanian history to fit Communist agenda.
Anatol Fejgin – communist in prewar Poland, commander of the Stalinist political police at the Ministry of Public Security of Poland, in charge of its notorious Special Bureau.
Iosif Grigulevich – Soviet spy who assassinated those who were not loyal to Stalin.
György Lukács – commissar of the Hungarian Red Army. Traveled to Soviet Union and, after WW2, when communism returned to Hungary, he helped create its communist government.
Dulgeru Mihai (born Dulbergher Mihai) – State security colonel, inspector of all communist prisons in Romania. Together with Alexandru Nicolschi (born Grunberg), they sent tens of thousands of political prisoners to hard-labor camps. In the 1980’s he emigrated to Israel with family.
Felix Dzerzhinsky – Soviet statesman and a prominent communist revolutionary in Poland and Russia. He established and developed the Soviet secret police forces in various countries.