Max Levien (; 21 May 1885 in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

– 17 June 1937 in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

) was a leading German-Russian

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

politician. He was one of the co-founders of the

Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West Germa ...

(KPD). As the first party chairman of the KPD in Bavaria, he was in April 1919 one of the

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...

s of the

Bavarian Soviet Republic The Bavarian Soviet Republic, or Munich Soviet Republic (german: Räterepublik Baiern, Münchner Räterepublik),Hollander, Neil (2013) ''Elusive Dove: The Search for Peace During World War I''. McFarland. p.283, note 269. was a short-lived unre ...

that emerged in the wake of the German

November Revolution of 1918 November is the eleventh and penultimate month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars, the fourth and last of four months to have a length of 30 days and the fifth and last of five months to have a length of fewer than 31 days. Nov ...

Life

Early life

Research has established that Levien was descended from

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bez ...

immigrants into Russia by the name of Lavigne. Max Levien was born into a German merchant family in Moscow in 1885. His studies began in 1893 at the Moscow German Gymnasium and continued in 1897 in

Meissen Meissen (in German orthography: ''Meißen'', ) is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrechts ...

, Germany, where he graduated in 1902. He discontinued his scientific studies at the

University of Halle Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university ...

in the fall of 1905 to participate in the Russian revolution that year. Joining the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR) in 1906, he was arrested by the

Okhrana The Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order (russian: Отделение по охранению общественной безопасности и порядка), usually called Guard Department ( rus, Охранное отд ...

and sentenced to prison in Moscow in 1907. After his release in 1908, Levien went to Zurich where he continued his studies, and graduated with a doctorate in the summer of 1913. In

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Party, had contacts with

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

and became a follower of the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

. After graduation, Levien went to Germany and became a German citizen. On 29 October 1913, he volunteered for the

Royal Bavarian Infantry Lifeguards Regiment The Royal Bavarian Infantry Lifeguards Regiment (') was a household-lifeguard (bodyguard) regiment of the Bavarian kings from the end of the Napoleonic Wars until the fall of the Wittelsbach monarchy and the subsequent disbanding of the Bavaria ...

and served from 1914 to 1918 on most fronts in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, fighting alternately in France, Italy, Serbia and Romania.

Revolution and Council republic

During the November revolution he was active in the soldiers' councils, working closely together with anarchist writer and activist

Erich Mühsam Erich Mühsam (6 April 1878 – 10 July 1934) was a German-Jewish antimilitarist anarchist essayist, poet and playwright. He emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic, for which h ...

. Levien became chairman of the Munich Soldiers´ Council and the Munich Spartacus group. He participated as a delegate for

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and H ...

in the founding convention of the

(KPD) over the

New Year New Year is the time or day currently at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner. In the Gregorian calendar, the most widely used calendar system tod ...

1918-19, and became party chairman for KPD in Bavaria. Levien was together with

Eugen Leviné Eugen Leviné (russian: Евгений Левине; 10 May 1883 – 5 June 1919), also known as Dr. Eugen Leviné, was a German communist revolutionary and one of the leaders of the short-lived Second Bavarian Soviet Republic. Background ...

one of the leaders of the second phase of the Soviet Republic after the suppression of the

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that view certain social orders and Social stratification, hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this pos ...

counter-coup on

Palm Sunday Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy ...

13 April 1919. Unlike Leviné, Levien was an ethnic German and not of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

descent, but was nevertheless defamed as Jewish by right-wing political opponents. Levien was arrested after the suppression of the Soviet Republic, but managed to flee to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in May 1919. There he was arrested again. Karl Retzlaw, who personally knew and worked with him, wrote in his biography: "Max Levien was an interesting figure. About 35 years old, medium-sized, full dark hair - "artist's mane" - doctor of science and a great, quick-witted speaker.“ The

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populou ...

n government released Levien by the end of 1920. Before that, long negotiations had taken place after the Bavarian judiciary had placed a request for his extradition.

Soviet exile

Levien settled in Moscow in June 1921, there he first worked in the hunger relief for Soviet Russia. Elected in 1922 into the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI), he worked in his apparatus and participated in 1924 at the 5th World Congress of the Communist International. Levien was later involved in academic work as a journalist and biologist, he was an editor of the philosophical journal ''

Under the Banner of Marxism ''Under the Banner of Marxism'' (russian: Под знаменем марксизма, german: Unter dem Banner des Marxismus) was a Soviet philosophical and socio-economic journal published in Moscow from 1922 to 1944. It was published monthly, e ...

'' and lectured at the

Communist University of the National Minorities of the West The Communist University of the National Minorities of the West (KUNMZ - ''Kommunistichesky Universitet Natsionalnykh Menshinstv Zapada''; КУНМЗ - Коммунистический университет национальных меньшин ...

and the

Communist Academy The Communist Academy ( Russian: Коммунистическая академия, transliterated ''Kommunisticheskaya akademiya'') was a higher educational establishment and research institute based in Moscow. It included scientific institutes o ...

and was a member of its presidium. In 1925 he became member of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union " Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspape ...

. During this time Levien was closely associated with the disgraced former KPD leader Arkadi Maslow. In the 1930s he had a professorship for History and Philosophy of natural sciences at the

Moscow University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

Death

Eventually Levien fell victim to the

Great Terror The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...

. He was arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

on 10 December 1936 and was in March 1937 initially sentenced to five years camp imprisonment. But on 16 June the verdict was converted into a

death sentence Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

, which was executed he following day. Max Levien is classified by the Russian historian Alexander Vatlin as a victim of the

German operation of the NKVD NKVD Order № 00439, signed by Nikolai Yezhov on July 25, 1937, was the basis for the German operation of the NKVD in 1937–1938. The operation was the first in the series of national operations of the NKVD. See also *Anti-German sentiment *Fligh ...

, even if he was sentenced and executed before

Nikolai Yezhov Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov ( rus, Никола́й Ива́нович Ежо́в, p=nʲɪkɐˈɫaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪt͡ɕ (j)ɪˈʐof; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940) was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the N ...

signed the order of its initiation.

Literature

* Martin H. Geyer: ''Verkehrte Welt. Revolution, Inflation und Moderne. München 1914–1924,'' Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998, p. 82. * Branko Lazitch; Drachkovitch, Milorad M. (Hgg.): ''Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern,'' Stanford/CA, Hoover Institution Press, 1986, p. 259f. * Natalia Mussienko; Ulla Plener (Hgg.): ''Verurteilt zur Höchststrafe. Tod durch Erschießen. Todesopfer aus Deutschland und deutscher Nationalität im Großen Terror in der Sowjetunion 1937/1938,'' Berlin, Dietz, 2006, p. 58. *
Levien, Max
'. In: Hermann Weber, Andreas Herbst: Deutsche Kommunisten. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 bis 1945. 2., überarbeitete und stark erweiterte Auflage. Karl Dietz, Berlin 2008, . * Hermann Weber: „Zu den Beziehungen zwischen der KPD und der Kommunistischen Internationale“, in: ''Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte'' 16 (1968), 2, p. 177–208, here: p. 188
PDF
.

External links

Friedbert Mühldorfer, Spartakusbund, 1915-1919, in: Historisches Lexikon Bayerns

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levien, Max 1937 deaths 1885 births German anti-capitalists German anti-fascists Russian anti-fascists Far-left politicians in Germany Far-left politics in Russia German people of Russian descent Russian people of German descent Russian expatriates Soviet journalists Academic staff of Moscow State University Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Communist Party of Germany members Great Purge victims from Germany Great Purge victims from Russia People of the German Revolution of 1918–1919 German people of World War I Russian people of World War I People of the Russian Civil War People of the Russian Revolution 20th-century journalists Soviet biologists German revolutionaries Russian revolutionaries German Marxists Russian Marxists German communists Russian communists German socialists Russian socialists