Tobias Akselrod (15 October 1887 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 million ...

– 10 March 1938 in

Kommunarka shooting ground The Kommunarka firing range (russian: Расстрельный полигон «Коммунарка»), former dacha of secret police chief Genrikh Yagoda, was used as a burial ground from 1937 to 1941. Executions may have been carried out th ...

Moscow Oblast Moscow Oblast ( rus, Моско́вская о́бласть, r=Moskovskaya oblast', p=mɐˈskofskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ), or Podmoskovye ( rus, Подмоско́вье, p=pədmɐˈskovʲjə, literally " under Moscow"), is a federal subject of R ...

) was a Russian revolutionary and 1919 member of the Bavarian Soviet Republic.

Life

Akselrod joined the Jewish Labour Bund in 1905. By 1910 he fled abroad from his exile in

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part o ...

. He started working for the Social Democrat

Berner Tagwacht Berner is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Berner (rapper), San Francisco rapper *Alexander Berner (born 1901), Swiss skeleton racer who competed in the late 1920s *Boel Berner (b. 1945), Swedish sociologist, historian, and edit ...

newspaper and was a member of the Zimmerwald Left. In April 1917 he returned from

Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zürich () i ...

to Russia on the sealed train 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 19 ...

. After the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...

he was head of the press office of the

Council of People's Commissars The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...

, in April 1918 head of the press office of the Central Executive Bureau of the Bolsheviks (Sovnarkom). From July 1918 he was head of the Soviet press service in Germany. He stayed out of the November revolution in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, returning the 8 December to Germany. On 14 January 1919 he was arrested in Stuttgart, brought to

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 Ha ...

and formally placed under house arrest by

Kurt Eisner Kurt Eisner (; 14 May 1867 21 February 1919)"Kurt Eisner – Encyclopædia Britannica" (biography), ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 2006, Britannica.com webpageBritannica-KurtEisner. was a German politician, revolutionary, journalist, and theatre c ...

in the Ebenhausen sanatorium. In April 1919 he became a member of the Action Committee of the Workers and Soldiers Council and an advisory member of the Economics Commission. After the suppression of the Council Republic he was apprehended on 14 May in

Tyrol Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...

and sent back to

, where he was accused and sentenced to 15 years in prison. At the end of 1919 he was transferred from Munich to Berlin-Moabit prison, in 1920 put under house arrest, and on 6 June 1920 he was able to leave via

Stettin Szczecin (, , german: Stettin ; sv, Stettin ; Latin: ''Sedinum'' or ''Stetinum'') is the capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the German border, it is a major s ...

Petrograd Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. He became editor of the Bulletin of the

Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...

(Comintern) for the Russian press, the party organisation of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and Cultural propaganda (Narkompros) in the Russian Soviet republic. From 1921 to 1922 he was head of the publishing department of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI). After April 1922 he was active in Switzerland,

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 populous ...

and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

. He wrote for the L’Humanité (the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Un ...

's newspaper). He returned to Soviet Russia at the end of 1925 and worked as a journalist. In the course 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 Secret ...

Great Purge 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 Secreta ...

s he was arrested on 23 December 1937 and sentenced to death on 10 March 1938 for alleged membership in a "counterrevolutionary terrorist organization" by the

Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union ( Russian: Военная коллегия Верховного суда СССР, ''Voennaya kollegiya Verkhovnogo suda SSSR'') was created in 1924 by the Supreme Court of the Sov ...

and executed the same day.

References

* Joachim Lilla: ''Akselrod, Tobias'', in: ders.: Staatsminister, leitende Verwaltungsbeamte und (NS-)Funktionsträger in Bayern 1918 bis 1945, URL
verwaltungshandbuch.bayerische-landesbibliothek-online.de/akselrod-tobias
(30. Juli 2013). * Alexander Vatlin: ''Weltrevolutionär im Abseits. Der Kommissar der bayerischen Räterepublik Tobias Axelrod''. Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. Band 62, Heft 4, p. 515–536 {{DEFAULTSORT:Akselrod, Tobias 1938 deaths 1887 births Russian Jews Russian expatriates Great Purge victims from Russia Soviet politicians People of the Russian Revolution Soviet Jews Jewish socialists Soviet journalists Council communists Jews executed by the Soviet Union People of the German Revolution of 1918–1919 20th-century Russian journalists Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union executed by the Soviet Union Executed revolutionaries