Weltrevolutionär im Abseits
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Alexander Vatlin
Vorspann
In vielen Darstellungen der revolutionären Ereignisse in Bayern 1918/19 taucht der Name Tobias Axelrod auf. Seine Rolle in der Münchner Räterepublik ist bekannt, doch darüber hinaus lagen über sein Leben bislang nur sporadische Informationen vor. Der Moskauer Historiker Alexander Vatlin hat sich in russischen und deutschen Archiven auf eine biografische Spurensuche begeben und zeichnet das Porträt eines rastlosen Revolutionärs, dem zur politischen Karriere Glück und Talent fehlten und der am Ende Stalins Terror zum Opfer fiel.
Abstract
In many portrayals, Tobias Axelrod appears as one of the leaders of the second, Communist, Bavarian Soviet Republic, even though little is known about his previous or later biography. The Moscow historian Alexander Vatlin has engaged in a biographical search through Russian and German archives in order to paint a more complete picture of the professional revolutionary Axelrod, which simultaneously sheds new light on his role in the Soviet Republic. Axelrod joined the socialist movement at a young age, took part in the 1905 revolution and was banished to Siberia, from where he fled abroad in 1910. In 1917 he returned to revolutionary Russia, but found no suitable duties there and was sent to Germany as head of a foreign press agency in early 1919. Once there, he quickly became embroiled in the Bavarian turmoil. After the bloody suppression of the attempted revolution by military Reichswehr and paramilitary Freikorps forces, it was probably due to political pressure from Moscow (insisting on his supposed diplomatic status) that he was not sentenced to death like his comrade Eugen Leviné, but instead to 15 years in prison. After a few months he was exchanged and returned to Russia. The unfulfilled and erratic life of a revolutionary who had lost the revolution ended in Stalin’s Great Terror in 1938: Following Stalin’s orders, the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court sentenced him to death as a “counter revolutionary”. He was shot on 10 March 1938.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Aufsätze
- Die Grünen und Gorbatschow
- Weltrevolutionär im Abseits
- „Schonungsloses Handeln gegen den bösartigen Feind“
- Diskussion
- Demokratie und Wirtschaftspolitik in der Weimarer Republik
- Dokumentation
- Theodor Eschenburg und der Raub jüdischer Vermögen 1938/39
- Rezensionen
- Rezensionen online
- Abstracts
- Abstracts
- Autoren
- Autorinnen und Autoren
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Aufsätze
- Die Grünen und Gorbatschow
- Weltrevolutionär im Abseits
- „Schonungsloses Handeln gegen den bösartigen Feind“
- Diskussion
- Demokratie und Wirtschaftspolitik in der Weimarer Republik
- Dokumentation
- Theodor Eschenburg und der Raub jüdischer Vermögen 1938/39
- Rezensionen
- Rezensionen online
- Abstracts
- Abstracts
- Autoren
- Autorinnen und Autoren
