Jules-Frédéric Humbert-Droz (23 September 1891,

La Chaux-de-Fonds La Chaux-de-Fonds (; archaic ) is a Swiss city in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura Mountains at an altitude of 992 metres, a few kilometres south of the French border. After Geneva, Lausanne, Biel/Bienne, and Fribourg, ...

– 16 October 1971) was a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

pastor, journalist,

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

and

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

. A founding member of the Communist Party of Switzerland, he held high

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

office through the 1920s and also acted as

emissary to several west European countries. He was involved in the

Right Opposition The Right Opposition () or Right Tendency () in the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was a label formulated by Joseph Stalin in Autumn of 1928 for the opposition against certain measures included within the first five-year plan, an oppos ...

in 1928."Nachts kamen Stalins Häscher"
''Der Spiegel'' (October 16, 1978), p. 100. Note: The HTML file is an OCR scan of a bad photocopy and is full of typos. There is a link at the URL to a PDF version, but the latter is not much easier to read. Retrieved November 15, 2011 He rejoined the Swiss Socialist Party in the 1940s and served as its secretary from 1946 to 1965.

Early life

He was born in a working-class family of watchmakers with

beliefs. His grandfather was a member of the International Workingsmen's Association. Humbert joined the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (Swiss Socialist Party) in 1911, at the age of 20. After studying Protestant theology in Neuchâtel, Paris and Berlin, he wrote a thesis about ''Socialism and christianism''. He became a pastor in 1914 and started writing in the socialist daily newspaper ''La Sentinelle'' soon after. He married Eugénie (Jenny) Perret in 1916, who would accompany him throughout his political life; she became known as Jenny Humbert-Droz.

Political life

Humbert-Droz opposed the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and refused to serve in the

Swiss Army The Swiss Armed Forces (; ; ; ; ) are the military and security force of Switzerland, consisting of land and air service branches. Under the country's militia system, regular soldiers constitute a small part of the military and the rest are ...

, for which he was imprisoned. He received another jail sentence for his participation the 1918 Swiss general strike. He supported the

Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It was led by Vladimir L ...

and travelled with Walther Bringolf to

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

to represent the left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland. There, both of them joined the Provisional International Bureau of the Kultintern. In 1921, at the Third International Congress of the

, Humbert-Droz was elected secretary of the Communist International, on the proposal of

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

himself. Humbert-Droz became after 1920 an outstanding leader in the international communist movement and travelled all around the world to organize the national sections of the Comitern. He exerted some control over the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (, , PCF) is a Communism, communist list of political parties in France, party in France. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its Member of the European Parliament, MEPs sit with The Left in the ...

and called himself ''the eye of Moscow in Paris''. He eventually became the first director of the Latin Secretariat of the Comintern. He was an ally and friend of

Nikolai Bukharin Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (; rus, Николай Иванович Бухарин, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ bʊˈxarʲɪn; – 15 March 1938) was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and Marxist theorist. A prominent Bolshevik ...

. After the 6th World Congress of the Communist International, Bukharin was politically isolated and only few people in the Moscow Apparatus stayed loyal to him, including Humbert-Droz, who was disgraced along with his ally. Their friendship later ended. He stated in his 1971 ''Mémoires'' that it was because in his last encounter with Bukharin in 1929, Bukharin said that he had sought to establish contact with Zinoviev and Kamenev in order to enlist their support in removing Stalin from the leadership and that Bukharin also told him he was planning to use individual terror (assassination) against Stalin. Humbert-Droz writes that he replied to Bukharin by criticising any rapprochement with Zinoviev and

Kamenev Lev Borisovich Kamenev. ( Rozenfeld; – 25 August 1936) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. A prominent Old Bolsheviks, Old Bolshevik, Kamenev was a leading figure in the early Soviet government and served as a Deputy Premier ...

and argued that resorting to individual terror would destroy the Bolshevik leadership.

Boukharine me dit aussi qu'ils avaient decide d'utiliser la terreur individuelle pour se debarrasser de Staline.Jules Humbert-Droz. ''De Lenine a Staline: dix ans au service de l'lnternationale communiste, 1921-1931''. Neuchatel: (Editions de la Baconniere, 1971, p. 379). ukharin also told me that they had decided to use individual terror in order to rid themselves of Stalin

He managed to re-enter the

Executive Committee of the Communist International The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI (Russian acronym ИККИ - for ), was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body. The ECCI, established by the Fo ...

after self-criticizing and capitulating. In 1943, he was definitely expelled from the Swiss Communist Party. Aware of his worth and experience, the Swiss Socialist Party invited him to return to his original party, where he was

party secretary In politics, a party secretary is a senior official within a political party with responsibility for the organizational and daily political work. In most parties, the party secretary is second in rank to the party leader (or party chairman). In s ...

until 1959 and then secretary of the Neuchâtel cantonal section of the party until 1965. He retired to La Chaux-de-Fonds but remained politically active. He fought the atomic armament of Switzerland and contributed to various journals. Toward the end of his life, he undertook the writing of his memoirs, published between 1969 and 1973.

Works

*''L’œil de Moscou à Paris, 1922-1924'' (1964) *''L'origine de l'Internationale communiste : de Zimmerwald à Moscou'' (1968) *Mémoires ::1, ''Mon évolution du tolstoïsme au communisme, 1891-1921'' (1969) ::2, ''De Lénine à Staline, dix ans au service de l'Internationale communiste, 1921-1931'' (1971) ::3, ''Dix ans de lutte antifasciste : 1931-1941'' (1972) ::4, ''Le couronnement d'une vie de combat : 1941-1971'' (1973)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Humbert-Droz, Jules 1891 births 1971 deaths People from La Chaux-de-Fonds Swiss Calvinist and Reformed ministers Social Democratic Party of Switzerland politicians Swiss communists Swiss socialists Swiss revolutionaries Members of the National Council (Switzerland) Red Orchestra (espionage) Executive Committee of the Communist International Swiss expatriates in the Soviet Union