Julian Borchardt (13 January 1868 – 16 February 1932) was a socialist politician, journalist, activist and participant in the Zimmerwald Left. Borchardt was born in

Bromberg Bydgoszcz is a city in northern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Kuyavia. Straddling the confluence of the Vistula River and its left-bank tributary, the Brda, the strategic location of Bydgoszcz has made it an inland ...

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

(modern

Bydgoszcz Bydgoszcz is a city in northern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Kuyavia. Straddling the confluence of the Vistula River and its bank (geography), left-bank tributary, the Brda (river), Brda, the strategic location of Byd ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

) in 1868. He became a socialist journalist and writer, serving as editor on

Social Democrat Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...

newspapers from 1901 to 1906. He was appointed as a lecturer to the SPD central education committee in 1907 and entered the Prussian diet in 1911. In 1913 he relinquished these posts and started editing ''Lichtstrahlen'', which provided a platform for German and international left anti-war-opposition and texts of the nascent Communist movement towards the end of the First World War and after. However he never joined the Communist party. He also wrote on historical and economic subjects including a widely translated digest of

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

's ''

Das Kapital ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' (), also known as ''Capital'' or (), is the most significant work by Karl Marx and the cornerstone of Marxian economics, published in three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his ...

''.Julian Borchardt Papers
International Institute of Social History, accessed 20 March 2011 He was a member of the

Association of Proletarian-Revolutionary Authors The Association of Proletarian-Revolutionary Authors () was a German cultural organisation established in 1928, at the time of the Weimar Republic. It was close to the Communist Party of Germany and published a magazine called . Its members were ...

. From 1927 until his death in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, 1932, he was working on a history of Germany which was never completed. His manuscript of this is in the

International Institute of Social History International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

Texts

''Preface to The People's Marx''
1919

, 1919
''Di yesoydes̀ fun der poliṭisher eḳonomye: loyṭ'n Ḳapiṭal fun Ḳarl Marḳs''
1925 in

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Borchardt, Julian German anti–World War I activists Members of the Prussian House of Representatives People from Bydgoszcz 1868 births 1932 deaths