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| Born | (1883-03-11)March 11, 1883 Hechingen, Germany |
| Died | February 9, 1930(1930-02-09) (aged 46) Berlin, Germany |
| Nationality | Germany |
Paul Levi (1883 - 1930) was a German Communist and Social Democratic political leader. He was the head of the Communist Party of Germany following the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in 1919. After being expelled for publicly criticising Communist Party tactics during the March Action, he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party and, when this party merged with the Social Democratic Party, he became one of the leaders of its left wing.
Biography
Early years
Paul Levi was born 11 March 1883 in Hechingen in Hohenzollern Province, attending the Gymnasium in Stuttgart. He started work as a lawyer in Frankfurt in 1906 and also joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) the same year. There he became part of the party’s left wing together with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Beginning in 1913, Levi was also Luxemburg's lawyer in political cases. In 1914 he was elected as an SPD town councillor in Frankfurt.
Levi was one of the twelve delegates to the meeting in March 1915 which led to the formation of the Gruppe Internationale which became the Spartacist League. The following month he was conscripted to the army and sent to the Vosges. After starving himself, Levi was discharged on medical grounds in 1916, settling in Switzerland and associating with Karl Radek, Grigory Zinoviev and Vladimir Lenin, becoming a part of the bureau of the Zimmerwald Left and helping found La Nouvelle Internationale which he wrote for under the pseudonym 'Hartstein'. He was one of the signatories to a declaration approving of Lenin and other Russian revolutionaries actions in travelling through Germany in a sealed train.
Levi returned to Germany after the October Revolution and from March 1918 lived mostly in Berlin where he was one of the three editors of the 'Spartakusbriefe'. At the founding conference of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) on 30-31 December 1918, he introduced the discussion on 'The National Assembly'. Levi was amongst the majority on the KPD Zentrale who opposed the initiatives of Karl Liebknecht and Wilhelm Pieck who had supported a Revolutionary Committee with the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and the Revolutionary Stewards to lead what became known as the Spartacist Uprising in January 1919.
Communist leader
After the killing of the KPD’s main leaders Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and Leo Jogiches, Levi took over as the central leader of the Communist Party. At the KPD's second congress in October 1919, Levi expelled the party's Council Communist ultra-left, around half the membership many of whom formed the Communist Workers' Party of Germany. During the Kapp Putsch Levi was in prison.
Levi headed the German delegation to the 2nd World Congress of the Communist International in Moscow in 1920, where he threatened that the KPD delegation would leave due to the presence of representatives of the KAPD.
He led the party away from the policy of immediate revolution, orientating it to wider layers of workers. These efforts were rewarded when a substantial section of the USPD joined the KPD after a debate at their Halle congress, making it a mass party for the first time with around 449,700 members.
Following disputes within the KPD around splits within the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), which were fuelled in part by the role of the Comintern, Levi resigned from the chairmanship of the Communist Party in early 1921, alongisde his co-chairman Ernst Däumig and Clara Zetkin, Otto Brass and Adolf Hofman also resigned from the Central Committee. Shortly after, under the influence of Béla Kun, the party launched the March uprisings of 1921.
Following the failure of the uprisings Levi was expelled from the Communist Party for publicly criticizing party policies. Lenin and Trotsky substantially agreed with his criticisms, but not the way in which he had made them. Lenin sent him a private letter through his friend Clara Zetkin, in which he asked Levi to accept the expulsion for "break of discipline" and then adopt a friendly approach towards the KPD and cooperate with it in the class struggle in a loyal manner. If Levi would do so, Lenin would then push for his reinstatement in the party. Levi did not accept this proposal and continued to criticize the party sharply and condemn its leaders.
Levi edited a monthly Sowjet ("Soviet"), later named Unser Weg ("Our Way").
Later life, death, and legacy
After being expelled from the Communist Party, Levi formed the Communist Working Collective (KAG). In 1922 he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. Later, he rejoined the Social Democratic Party.
Because of his Jewish roots, he became the target of a hateful anti-Semitic campaign in the press. He responded by attacking prominent Nazis, such as Adolf Hitler, Ernst Roehm, Alfred Rosenberg and Wilhelm Frick in left-wing publications.
Levi died on 9 February 1930 in Berlin. He succumbed to injuries suffered when he fell from his window. After his death the Reichstag held a minute of commemoration during which the representatives of the Communist Party and the Nazi Party ostentatiously left the assembly hall.
Footnotes
- Fernbach, D. 'Introduction', In The Footsteps of Rosa Luxemburg, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012; pg.2-3
- ^ Fernbach, D. 'Introduction', In The Footsteps of Rosa Luxemburg, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012; pg.3
- P. Broué,The German Revolution: 1917-1923, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006; pg. 61
- ^ Fernbach, D. 'Introduction', In The Footsteps of Rosa Luxemburg, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012; pg.5
- ^ Fernbach, D. 'Introduction', In The Footsteps of Rosa Luxemburg, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012; pg.7
- Fernbach, D. 'Introduction', In The Footsteps of Rosa Luxemburg, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012; pg.10
- Fernbach, D. 'Introduction', In The Footsteps of Rosa Luxemburg, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012; pg.12
- ^ Fernbach, D. 'Introduction', In The Footsteps of Rosa Luxemburg, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012; pg.13
- Broue, P. The German Revolution: 1917-1923, pg. 487.
- Broue, The German Revolution: 1917-1923, pg. 516.
- See "To Clara Zetkin and Paul Levi"
- Broue, The German Revolution: 1917-1923, pg. 517-518.
- Frédéric Cyr: Paul Levis Kampf um die KPD, in: Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, No. I/2010 (German language).
Works
- In the Steps of Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Writings of Paul Levi. (2011) David Fernbach, ed. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012.
Additional reading
- Balabanoff, Angelica (1968). Impressions of Lenin.
- Broué, Pierre (1971). The German Revolution 1917-1923.
- Hallas, Duncan (1985). "The Comintern". Marxist Internet Archive - accessed August 9, 2009
- Jones, Mike (1985). "The Decline, Disorientation and Decomposition of a Leadership". Revolutionary History, Vol 2 No 3, Autumn 1989. On-line at Revolutionary History - accessed August 9, 2009
- Lenin, Vladimir (1921). "A Letter to the German Communists". Marxist Internet Archive - accessed August 9, 2009
- Troksky, Leon (1922). "Paul Levi and Some 'Lefts'". The First Five Years of the Communist International. Marxist Internet Archive - accessed August 9, 2009
External links
- Paul Levi Archive at marxists.org
- Paul Levi on Lenin in retrospect in 1927 translated by Mike Jones
- Why the German Revolution Failed by Walter Held
- The German Revolution In the Leninist Period by Jean Van Heijenoort
- The Downfall of Levi by Karl Radek
- Pierre Broué's German Revolution 1917-1923 by Todd Chretien
- 1883 births
- 1930 deaths
- People from Hechingen
- People from the Province of Hohenzollern
- German atheists
- Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians
- Independent Social Democratic Party politicians
- Communist Party of Germany politicians
- Executive Committee of the Communist International
- German Comintern people
- Members of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic