Mark Rafailovich Rein (1909–1937?) was a socialist journalist. His father was the

Menshevik The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The factions eme ...

leader Rafail Abramovich (Rein).

Biography

Mark Rafailovich Rein was born in 1909 in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

(then Vilna in the Russian empire). His father was a prominent leader of the Menshevik faction of the

Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...

(RSDRP). In 1911, as a small child, Mark Rein left Russia with his parents, who were escaping from the tsarist police. In 1917 he returned to Russia with his parents; his father played a role in the events of the

Revolution of 1917 The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...

. In 1920, aged 11, Mark Rein left Russia again with his parents. He lived mostly in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. As a young man he became a member of the Menshevik RSDRP, the

German Social Democratic Party The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...

and the

Swedish Social Democratic Party The Swedish Social Democratic Party, formally the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party ( sv, Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti ; S/SAP), usually referred to as The Social Democrats ( sv, link=no, Socialdemokraterna ), is a social-d ...

. In 1932 he graduated from the Berlin Polytechnic. He worked as a journalist for several socialist papers. He was more sympathetic to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

than his father, and for a while supported the idea of a unification of social-democratic and communist parties. In 1936 he went to Spain to support the Republican, anti-fascist forces during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

. Inter alia, he became a friend to

Willy Brandt Willy Brandt (; born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and served as the chancellor of West Ge ...

there, whom he met in Barcelona.Gregor Schöllgen: ''Willy Brandt''. Berlin, 2001, p. 57. On April 9, 1937, he was kidnapped in Barcelona by agents of the Soviet secret service

OGPU The Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU; russian: Объединённое государственное политическое управление) was the intelligence and state security service and secret police of the Soviet Union f ...

. He was spirited to Russia, apparently with the intention of using him in the show trial of

Alexey Rykov Alexei Ivanovich Rykov (25 February 188115 March 1938) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician and statesman, most prominent as premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1929 and 1924 to 1930 respectively. He wa ...

and

Nikolai Bukharin Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory. ...

. He was supposed to connect the accused in the third Moscow Trial in 1938 to the exiled Menshevik leadership. The kidnapping was apparently organised by A.M. Orlov, who supervised the kidnapping and execution of left-wing opponents of

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

in Spain during the Civil War and later defected to the USA. In spite of frantic efforts by Rafail Abramovich and western socialist supporters, he was never seen alive again and is thought to have been murdered by the OGPU.

References

Sources

* ''Papers of Mark Rein.'' International Institute of Social History. * ''Rafail Abramovich Papers''. International Institute of Social History. * 'The Case of Mark Rein.' ''Socialist Appeal'' Vol. I No. 11 Saturday October 23, 1937. * Krivitsky, W.G., ''I Was Stalin's Agent.'' New York, 1940, p. 193 ff. * Orlov, A.M., ''The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes.'' New York, 1953. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rein, Mark 1909 births 1930s deaths Year of death uncertain Jews from the Russian Empire Lithuanian Jews Russian socialists Jewish socialists Mensheviks Russian journalists Russian male journalists Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians Great Purge victims from Lithuania Jews executed by the Soviet Union Writers from Vilnius People from Vilensky Uyezd German male non-fiction writers 20th-century German journalists