Dimitrov’s
notes from the investigation materials in the case of the Polish Communists.[i]
1937.
Polish files.
CC CPP – 1930
-Knorin
-Lenski
-Bronkowski
-Slawinski[ii]
-Bur[iii]
-Bratkowski
-Henrykowski[iv]
-Marek[v]
-Korczyk[vi]
-Próchniak[vii]
Candidates:
-Ryng[viii]
-Grzegorzewski[ix]
-Skulski
-Bertynski[x]
-Rwal[xi]
and oth[ers].
Lenski
1. Drawn into the POW organization
(Pilsudski’s conspiratorial organization) after his return from emigration in
Petrograd in May 1917 (sympathized with this organization sometime
earlier) by Unszlicht.[xii]
-- Unszlicht and I came to a conclusion that
the Bolsheviks coming to power would be most useful to us since they
proclaimed the right of nations to self-determination.
- Some elements in our POW organization
considered joint work with the Bolsheviks necessary at that moment in order to
support the Bolshevik coup so as in the future to occupy leading positions
in the Soviet government.
The Polish corps of the General Dowbor-Musnicki[xiii]
– Polish military clubs in Leningrad
– worked with Unszlicht as secret supporters
of Pilsudski.
At the time of the October revolution, a
number of the POW members managed to get important positions:
-Unszlicht – member of the Petrograd
rev[olutionary] committee;
-Lenski – commissar for Polish
affairs;
-Pestkowski[xiv]
– deputy Narkom[xv]
Narkomnatz.[xvi]
By the time of the October coup, members of
the POW were also RSDRP(b) members, besides me and Unszlicht, there was Dolecki,[xvii]
Slawinski and Cichowski.[xviii]
The Polish revolutionary council was created from representatives of parties
recognizing the Soviet power: SDPKPiL, PPS-Lewica,[xix]
PPS-fraction -- all were the POW members:
- from the SDPKPiL – Leszszynski, Cichowski,
Dolecki, Bortnowski, Bobinski,[xx]
Mandelbaum[xxi]
and Slawinski.
- from the PPS-Lewica -- Lapinski,[xxii]
Budkiewicz,[xxiii]
his wife,[xxiv]
Longwa,[xxv]
Muklewicz,[xxvi]
Matuszewski,[xxvii]
Fabierkiewicz.[xxviii]
- from the PPS-fraction – Sibin, Krahelski,[xxix]
Krahelska,[xxx]
Puzak,[xxxi]
Makowski,[xxxii]
Plawski, Zarski(??) and Kochelok <...>.[xxxiii]
The section of the Polish commissariat
existed in a number of cities: for example, in Orel – Kwapinski,[xxxiv]
in Minsk - Slawinski, in Moscow – Próchniak, etc.
- Creation of an additional military force
for Pilsudski in the USSR.
- In 1918, a conference [held] in
Moscow with Pilsudski’s envoy, Wieniawa-Dlugoszowski[xxxv]
(the Warsaw POW center representative); present – Unszlicht, Pestkowski,
Leszszynski, Langwa and Budkiewicz.
A number of positions were worked out to accelerate
the formation of a reserve infantry division.
- Against the Brest peace[xxxvi]
– connection with the left SRs[xxxvii]
to overthrow the Soviet government, arrest Lenin and form a new government on the basis of a bloc of the left SRs
and “left” Communists[xxxviii],
since the members of our POW organization were affiliated with the latter.
- I know from Pestkowski that, on
behalf of our organization, [he] maintained a connection with the
representative of French intelligence in Moscow, together they sought to subvert
the Brest peace and involve Russia in continuing the war with Germany.
- The surrender of Vilno was made by
the POW people – Unszlicht, et al.
- During the Polish-Soviet war (1919-1920),
almost all members of our organization on the western front occupied important
positions and conducted propaganda work.
- Passing Soviet military plans and
information about Soviet troops to the Polish high command.
- Setting the peasants on the territory under
Red Army control against Soviet power.
- Failure to destroy bridges and passages
when the Red Army was in retreat.
- The activities of Polish saboteurs in the
Red Army was facilitated in every way possible.
In the fall of 1920, I was recalled
from the Southwestern front to Moscow, from where the CC RKP(b) sent me to Riga
as a political consultant to the Soviet peace delegation negotiating with Poland. Miller,[xxxix]
another member of the POW, was there, too. Exploiting the difficulties
of the peace process, we sought to gain the greatest possible concessions to Poland
from the Soviet government.
This resulted in:
a) The forfeiting of Soviet Russian valuables
to Poland.
b) The payment of a considerable war
indemnity to Poland, although the payment was not justified by the real state
of affairs.
c) The Lithuanian borders were set in such a
way as to completely separate Lithuania from Soviet Russia, which makes it much
easier for Poland to carry out its aggressive plans against Lithuania.
Pilsudski attached great importance to the
latter Polish achievement during the peace negotiations with Soviet Russia.
During a face-to-face confrontation
with me, Pestkowski correctly stated that Pilsudski had actually
instructed Koc[xl]
to convey his thanks, via Pestkowski, to me and Miller.
As early as 1918, during Wieniawa-Dlugoszewski’s
stay in Moscow, we discussed the necessity of me going to work in the Polish Communist Party, for the POW’s
benefit.
In 1921, the CC RKP(b) appointed me to
work in the CC’s Polish Bureau.[xli]
There I worked along with the POW member, Makowski, trying to infiltrate the Polish Communist Party. I
also took an active part in discussions of the problems and training of cadres
in the Polish Communist Party school in Moscow.
By planting its agents in the Polish
Communist Party, the POW sought to take over the CPP leadership, and
subordinate it to the pilsudchiks’ interests in order to destroy the party
as a revolutionary force while capitalizing on its influence.
- The POW worked to:
a) Paralyze the activities of the CPP as the
vanguard of the Polish revolutionary workers movement and thus to hamper or
bring to naught the entire mass revolutionary movement in Poland.
b) Use the Polish Communist Party in the
interests of pilsudchiks in a future Polish war against the USSR, similar to
the way the Polish Communist Party was used by the pilsudchiks during the
so-called coup of May 1926.
c) Use the Polish Communist Party and the
Polish section of the ECCI as channels for the massive transfer of the POW
members and agents of the official
institutions of Polish intelligence, disguised as political
émigrés, to the USSR to
conduct sabotage and intelligence work.
“The end
justifies the means:”
- Promoting the members of our organization
to the leading positions in the CPP by arresting and isolating in prisons the
communists who stood in our way; disseminating provocative rumors; direct
tampering with facts which raise suspicions of the Defenziva’s relations with
those communists; hindering the work of the CPP by our organization’s members;
direct physical elimination of communists who stand in our way; artificially
stirring up factional struggles inside the CPP; systematic, persistent and
variable inculcation of the pilsudchik-style nationalist ideology in the CPP
ranks – these are examples of the successful means used by the members of our
organization to achieve their goals in the Polish Communist Party.
- Taking into consideration the fact that the
Walecki, Warski and Kostrzewa group, which then (in 1923) had taken over
the party leadership, was compromised by open support from Trotsky, I
spearheaded a struggle against this group at the 5th Comintern
Congress, accusing it of Trotskyism. At the same time, in accordance
with the decision of the 5th Congress’ Polish commission, I was sent
to Poland to prepare the next CPP congress.
- In order to enhance my popularity,
my arrest in the Dombrowski region in 1925, as well as my subsequent
escape from prison, was staged.
- In January 1926 – IV CPP party
conference[xlii]
– the leading group in the CC – Warski, Próchniak and I!
Before the IV conference – the POW members of
Walecki’s group – personal friction, disorder.
- IV party conference was attended
almost exclusively by Poles [who were] members of different POW groups:
a) the Malecki[xliii]
group (Lauer,[xliv]
Wojtkiewicz,[xlv]
Wrublewski,[xlvi]
Krajewski, Rylski, Próchniak, Bogucki,[xlvii]
Cichowski, Walecki, who headed the group connected to Lapinski).
b) the Zarski(??) group (Klara,[xlviii]
Bertynski Albert)
c) the Domski[xlix]
group (Osinska,[l]
Markowski[li])
– Domski was known as a Trotskyist and was expelled from the party.
The unification of these groups did
not occur at the IV conference because of the continuing argument about
which group was to head the CPP leadership.
At the conference, prominent POW members were
also present: Leszszynski (my namesake), Aronsztam[lii]
and Korczyk.
- The POW’s line at the IV conference
was defined by a directive from the POW Warsaw center which Zarski
received in 1925 from Colonel Koc.
- The direct result and a substantial
achievement of our activity in that period was the open support offered by the
Polish Communist Party to Pilsudski during the so-called coup of May 1926, when
the CPP’s press was entirely in the hands of the POW members, who eulogized
Pilsudski as a national hero, claimed his action to be revolutionary, and
called on workers to support the Pilsudski’s action.
The delegation of the Sejm
deputies-“communists” (Warski, Sochacki(??) and others) had friendly
discussions with General Skladkowski[liii]
about how to undermine the movement for the [rights of] political prisoners.
Of course, I contributed in every possible
way to the implementation of this position with my articles from Danzig
as well as by positioning people. In Poland, Rylski and Henrykowski
(POW member since 1916) headed the CC Secretariat.
- Wojewódzki[liv]
became a [theorist] of “peasant question” [and was] sent to the CPP by the 2nd
Department of the Polish General Staff. On orders from Defenziva, he created the “Independent
Peasant Party.”
- In order to divest ourselves of the
responsibility for becoming traitors to working class interests, on the one
hand, we promoted the “May mistakes theory,” and on the other, in order to
divert communists from opposing a policy which strengthened the pilsudchiks, on
orders from the representative of the POW center, we artificially unleashed
fractional struggle in the CPP, by breaking into two groups – the
majority and the minority.
[In] 1929, the entire CC leadership
joined the former minority group under my leadership.
V CPP congress (Fall 1929)[lv]
– “renewal of the leadership.”
The congress’s decisions devoted little attention to the forms of struggle
that could stir the masses, but instead prematurely stressed the forms of
struggle that were isolating the party from the masses. Regarding the war –
the major emphasis was not on how to prevent it with the help of mass
movements, but on the general deliberations about what is to be done in case
the war breaks out.
- The CC Military Department, which was under
surveillance by both the okhranka[lvi]and
the 2nd Department of the Pol[ish] Gen[eral] St[aff], was destroyed
by systematic arrests; the POW hampered its work.
- Thanks to we POWists’ efforts, the
experience of the CPP military schools, which existed in 1929-30-31 in the
USSR, yielded negative results. Those graduating from these schools were
not prepared for the current conditions
of struggle in Poland, [and] occupied themselves with somewhat mechanical
discussions about how to transfer examples from the underground work to Poland,
rather than how to win the army over to the people’s side, thereby losing sight
of the urgent tasks of the anti-war struggle. Those coming [to Poland] after
graduation were promptly exposed by us, and the energetic anti-war work in the
army quickly collapsed thanks to us.
(p[age] 23!)
- In discussions with Koc [about] the question of the POW’s tasks in
the CPP within Poland itself, we agreed that it is important to continue
hindering the mass revolutionary movement in Poland and to prepare political
diversion in case of war against the USSR. For example, we discussed how, in
case a new Polish war against the USSR
breaks out, it would be essential to
issue, in the name of the Communist party, an appeal to the Polish working
masses calling on them to stand up for the defense of Poland, [and]
demonstrating that the Soviet Union is the aggressor.
- [We] also agreed on using Cichowski,
Bielewski, Redens[lvii] and
Maksymowski.[lviii] We
used the first three to plant [them] in the Comintern. Maksymowski was placed
on the editorial board of “Trybuna Radziecka.”
In 1932 – VI CPP congress.
- 90% of the delegates [were] POW
members.
- Characteristic of our work at this Congress
was not the resolutions, but rather the behind-the-scenes instructions to the
POW delegates by me, Bortnowski and Henrykowski.
- In order to infiltrate the CPP, we set for
POW members the task of taking military studies courses at the pilsudchik
“Rifleman,”[lix]
which they had to join under the pretext of conducting communist work in this
organization.
Another task [was] the complete takeover of
the CPP’s territorial and regional committees in which POW members already
constituted 50% by the time of the 6th congress.
- The previous main task remained in
force.
- At the VI
congress,
four POW members were planted in the Political Bureau: Próchniak, Henrykowski
, Korczyk and me. We worked in
this capacity for almost 3 years. The secretaries in the country were
also the POW members – Nowak(??) (“Marek”), Starewicz (“Edwin”)[lx] and
“Metek.”[lxi]
- “Metek” was killed by the Polish Defenziva.
- Both Nowak and “Metek” were POW
members. While working in the Polish Komsomol, they were constantly at odds
with each other. Since “Metek”
continued to attack Nowak, they were both arrested by the Defenziva in
the summer of 1933. Of course, Nowak was put in jail and convicted so as
to later be sent to the USSR. As for “Metek,” he vanished without a trace. The
Polish police announced the discovery near Warsaw of a corpse which looked like
“Metek.”
- In 1934-35, we established continual
cooperation with the POW elements from the PPS and later with the Peasant
Party, disguising it as a United Front [Popular]
tactics in order to jointly hinder the United Front movement.
- In 1936, we were facing big problems
in further planting our cadres. The arrest of Stasiak[lxii]
and Kopecki[lxiii]
in Kiev prompted the Comintern to concern itself with the CPP’s organizational
affairs. At the Comintern’s insistence, the verification of activists
was launched.
I suggested appointing the following
individuals, who were the POW members, to the verification commission: Próchniak,
Skulski, Bielewski, Bortnowski, Krajewski.
The commission’s composition, as suggested by
me, was approved, but I myself was also made a member.
(p[age] 28)—
- As a result of this “purge,” we managed to
safeguard our organization from more or less significant failures, however, we
had to sacrifice two POW members – Henrykowski and Korczyk.
- Henrykowski was removed from the CC,
Korczyk was handed over to the NKVD.
Soon experienced POW members such as Makowski,
Landy,[lxiv]
Sosnowski[lxv]
were arrested.
(The list of the POW members)
Slawinski
At the V congress, elected as CC members:
Lenski, Bronkowski, Slawinski, Rwal,
Sochacki, Próchniak, Bur, Henrykowski, Marek-Novak, Tojte (Janiczki),[lxvi]
Knorin, Korczyk, Horenko,[lxvii]
Zlikh(??) – all without exception are POW members.
-Among the delegates there was Purman,
who is not a POW member.
Upon his arrival in Moscow, Lenski,
Bronkowski and Próchniak created around Purman such an atmosphere
of suspicion regarding Purman’s
participating in provocations within the party that Purman could not bear this
atmosphere and shot himself, although no direct charges were made against him.
His suicide was explained as a result of a persecution complex, from which he
allegedly suffered.
(Mickiewicz-Kapuskas)[lxviii]
(died) – (POW).
Rylski.
I plead guilty to having participated in
intelligence activity for the Polish and German intelligence
services and, at the same time, being a member of and actively working in
the POW and the international Trotskyist-Rightist organization in the
Comintern system.
Rylski’s deposition.
- POWists:
- Wenianski(??) (currently in Poland).
- “Trusskier” – party alias “Fiedler”[lxix]
(currently in Paris).
- Leia(??) (currently in Poland).
After the 4th Conference of the CP
Poland in Moscow in December 1925, [he] returned to Poland and joined the
regional leadership of:
- Krajewski,(??) Stefanski, Rylski.
- Renewed his ties with Ostrowski[lxx]
(the POW leadership).
- Being responsible for organizational
questions, on Ostrowski’s orders, [he] conducted the line in support of Pilsudski in his struggle for
power against the Endeks [NDs].
- During the May 1926 coup, [he] secured the railroad
workers’ neutrality, which proved to be decisive for Pilsudski [since this
act] delayed the transfer of the
special forces from Poznan province to Warsaw.
- During the coup, [he] established
connections, via Ostrowski, with Krashkowski, a representative of
Pilsudski’s staff.
- At the 4th [party] congress
(1927), a factional struggle between the majority and the minority broke out.
The POW group, which I had created,
consisting of Abe Fluga, Leia and Nowotko Marian,[lxxi]
joined the majority at the POW’s order. Under my leadership, this group worked
on the worker delegates, with whom we had good personal relations.
- Soon after the congress, the elections to
the Senate and Sejm began. With my assistance, Ostrowski was made the
Chairman of the electoral committee. As a result, we managed to make
Sochacki, Zarski, Wojewodzki, Ballin,[lxxii]
my brother Felix Liubinetski, Kowalski,[lxxiii]
Bitner,[lxxiv]
candidates in the elections.
- In May or June 1928, I was arrested in
Berlin along with all the CC CPP plenum [delegates] and, after being released
(in 10 days), [I] was transferred, with the help from the Comintern’s <_>
apparatus, to Czechoslovakia and from there to Poland, and I [finally] arrived
in Paris.
- [I] immediately contacted Ostrowski.
- At that time, the Party was under the
leadership of Zarski, Henrykowski, Novak, Huber,[lxxv]
Iuzek(??) and myself.
- The major objectives of the POW’s work in
the CPP, via the POW connection, were to stimulate the factional struggle
between the “majority” and the “minority,” to eliminate people unsuitable for
the POW, and to contribute to the POW takeover of the party apparatus.
- Under the banner of factional struggle, I managed to dissolve the Warsaw party
committee. The naming of the new committee members was done with Ostrowski’s
sanction. The same was true for the Secretariat of the CC of the Polish
Komsomol.
- In October 1928, [I] was recalled from
Poland by the Comintern. The VI Comintern Congress Presidium and the Polish
Commission criticized my factional activities and transferred me to the
Comintern’s Polish section, headed by Purman, for disposition. Purman
sent me to study at the International Leninist School.
- It is very difficult for me to
distinguish between my work for the POW and for the Polish intelligence. It
was, in fact, all connected. I used to pass all the secret information I knew
to Ostrowski.
- I handed over to Ostrowski information about the composition of the central
technical [apparatus] of the Polish CP, which resulted in more than 20 people,
for example, Brodowska,[lxxvi]
Zamojski,[lxxvii]
etc., being arrested in February 1927.
- From 1919 on, I systematically passed on to
the intelligence service, via Ostrowski, copies of secret documents
from the ECCI and CP Poland, informed [him]about
the placement of cadres in the party, about the arriving and departing [party]
workers, etc.
- Between October 1928 and February 1929,
I studied at the Leninist School.
- In February 1929, I left for China.
- In March 1930, I came to Moscow with a
report.
- From Sochacki (CPP representative in
the Comintern) and Dabal[lxxviii]
I learned that the POW has sufficient information about the Comintern and the
CPP affairs.
- In July 1930, [I] returned to China. All my
aspirations were directed toward “sitting on the fence and returning to
Polish work as soon as possible.”
- From October 1931 to May 1932, I stayed in
the USSR and was used by the ECCI on different assignments.
- In May 1932, I was sent by the ECCI to work
in Berlin as the head of the ECCI’s OMS center.
- Before leaving for Berlin, I had a
conversation with Abramov, in the course of which he recruited me into the
anti-Soviet Trotskyist-Rightist organization within the Comintern system, and
[also] to work for the German intelligence. He told me to contact the
intelligence service representative in Berlin, and at once gave me his address.
- In Berlin in September 1932, through
Bertynski (at that time he worked in the CPP Political Bureau apparatus
in Berlin), I met with Ostrowski.
He told me that he had received extensive
information for the POW and the Polish Defenziva from Lampe-Novak, Henrykowski,
Hertinski, Glesser-Kolecki,[lxxix]
and that Lampe and Henrykowski were passing their information to the POW via Zarski’s
wife, Magda.
Ostrowski connected me to a commissar of the
Defenziva, Burkhard. He told me that he knew about my collaboration with
the German intelligence and that I would have to maintain this connection, but
I would have to pass to him copies of the materials that were being sent to
the German intelligence. I agreed. Immediately I told Burkhard that,
according to Comintern directives, Berlin was being cleared of all the
Comintern organizations.
- I maintained this connection with Burkhard
until my departure from Berlin for Moscow in December 1933.
- During the time that we maintained
connections, I told him about the transfer of the Comintern organizations from
Berlin to other countries, about underground Comintern workers passing
through Berlin, about the arrival in Berlin of the Poles Guber and
Markowski to conduct party work for the CPG. I systematically passed on
information about the work of the OMS centers in Prague, Copenhagen, Zurich,
etc., and about the composition of the cadres of those centers.
Then, I gave him copies of documents that
were arriving at the Berlin OMS center and addressed for other countries
and cities. Among them were various ECCI resolutions, decrees, directives and
reports.
During the meeting, Burkhard told me
that Schubert,[lxxx]
one of the leaders of the CP Germany, was an agent of the German police and
that he participated in betraying Thälmann. He later shared with me
that Dimitrov was allegedly betrayed by Popov[lxxxi]
(a participant in the Dimitrov trial), who was connected with the Bulgarian
police.
Before my departure for Moscow, Burkhard
told me that, on the POW’s and the Defenziva’s orders, Markowski would
partially replace me in Berlin [and] that intelligence was interested in my
working in Paris, where Comintern activities were concentrated, or in Moscow in
the ECCI apparatus.
- With Ludkiewicz[lxxxii]
in Moscow, connection with Burkhard.
- In February 1934, ECCI named me the
deputy head of the OMS.
- In order to have access to the ECCI
materials that were sent by mail, in March 1934, I recruited Berta Zimmermann,[lxxxiii]
who had access to these documents. I systematically received from her copies
of these materials typed on rice-paper. Thus I was told about all of the
OMS’ work and systematically passed that information on to Ludkiewicz. In
addition to that, I compiled for Ludkiewicz detailed reports about the
movements of ECCI and CPP workers. I personally knew which passports and
names ECCI workers were using, since I used to sign their visa papers.
I do not remember exactly how many
[party workers] I thereby betrayed to the Polish intelligence.
- In May 1936, after being removed from the
work in ECCI, I arranged with Lenski to be sent to conduct party work
in Poland.
- Upon arrival [there] in June 1936, I met
with Ostrowski in the city of Lodz in the apartment of the POW
member <_>[lxxxiv]
.
- In December 1936, [I went] to work in Warsaw.
- I passed on to him the plan of the 1 May
celebration which was worked out by the Political Bureau.
- At [our] last meeting on 9 July 1937, I
informed Ostrowski that, on Lenski’s orders, I was going to Paris.
Skulski.
- I admit that for the past 17 years, I have
indeed been a Polska Organizacja Wojskowa (POW) member and, as such, following
the orders and directives of this organization’s leaders, have engaged in treason,
especially when I was working in the Polish Communist Party, in which I
occupied a leadership position the entire time.
- [I was] recruited in 1920 in Belostok by
Bobinski.
- He told me that Dzierzynski had received a
POWist who deserted to the Soviets, the officer Dobrzynski, and took him
to work in the OGPU where he worked under the name of Sosnowski.
- In early May 1921, in Petrograd, Bobinski
told me that some POWists had joined the Polish Communist Party in order
to achieve a rapprochement with the POW and to subject the Com[munist] party to
the Pilsudski’s influence.
The major task of Communists who are the POW
members was, said Bobinski, [to render] all possible support to Pilsudski in order to make it possible to
prevent the takeover of power by the reactionary bourgeoisie represented by the
ND members.
Bobinski gave the order to send back to
Poland, in the first place, those Polish refugees who were POW members.
- In late 1921, [I] was sent to conduct
underground work in Poland.
- I introduced many POWists into the
pool of regional and district activists, justifying it as being essential to
rejuvenate cadres.
- In addition to planting POW cadres, I and
other POWists, following Heltman’s directives, viciously sabotaged the
United Front tactics. I was not the only one to do this, so too did
Próchniak and Heltman[lxxxv]
by sending more POWists from Moscow.
- In the months of August and September 1922,
the II CPP Congress, in which I participated, took place in Moscow. Radek
was the congress’s leader on behalf of the Comintern. The latter not only insisted on [using] sharper POW
language in the resolution, but, at some sessions, also insisted on making Zarski
and Dombal, the well-known old POWists and pilsudchiks, CC members.
- Lenski, Bobinski and Heltman sharply
opposed the POW line (“as a blind”).
- At that time, I learned that Lenski
was a POW member, because during the congress he openly discussed it
with me.
- S. Osinska-Unszlicht [was]in the party
leadership at this time.
- I cannot recall all of [our] treasonous
and provocative activities but we did everything to completely subject the CPP
to the pilsudchiks’ influence and to help Pilsudski to overthrow the ND
government.
In late 1930, at Lenski’s suggestion and by
the decision of the CC of the Polish
Com[munist] Party, I was sent to work in the Profintern.
- When at that time I wanted to refuse working
on Polish issues, because I did not want to live a double life, Lenski
threatened to take measures to expose my POW activity if I did not behave. I
had to comply. When I started working in the Profintern, Lenski began
demanding from me detailed information about strikes and trade union movement
in Poland and other countries, about trade union cadres, and about the movement
of these cadres. When I asked him why he needed those materials, he replied
that he needed to send these materials
to the POW leadership in Poland.
- In 1931, on Lenski’s orders, I was
again sent to conduct party work in Poland. I resisted, but Lenski openly threatened
me and insisted on having it his way.
- He told me to stop putting on airs and to
resume POW work. When I told him that I was not going to and, if
necessary, would inform “the appropriate [organs]”about me and him, Lenski
listened to me and then said that there was no return.
I still remember his words: “What do you
think will happen to you? You will vanish in Soviet prison or on Solovki, and
not with me, as you want it, but you alone. Who would believe you that Lenski
is a POWist? You will vanish due to your stupidity and we will not help you.”
- Lenski charged me with one central
task: to prevent major strikes and, if there is a large mobilization of the
masses, to nip [those strikes] in the bud.
- Other POWists and I managed to break the long-prepared general strike in
Poland.
- I achieved this by not permitting enough
time [for preparation], counting in advance on the failure of the strikes’
preparations and on the obstructing of the United Front tactics.
Question:
“What kind of treason did you commit while
holding this position? (as the CPP representative in the ECCI)”
Skulski:
“Permit me to testify on this next time.”
Bertynski
(“Albert”).
I
was recruited into the POW counterrevolutionary organization in 1926 by
the immediate leaders of this organization, Leszszynski, [and] Julian
Marianowic, with cooperation of Jan Belenski.
- In the summer of 1926 in Moscow, a
session of the ECCI’s Polish Commission took place about the question of the
CPP’s role during the Pilsudski’s coup of May in Poland. After one of the
sessions, I was invited by Leszszynski-Lenski to Stanislaw Budzynski’s[lxxxvi]
apartment, where, besides myself and Lenski, Bielewski, Slawinski and
Budzynski himself were present. [We] discussed the question of creating a
faction of the so-called minority in order to foment a factional struggle to
favor the pilsudchiks in the POW groups within the Polish CP, [and] to destroy
the revolutionary communist movement in the country.
- The “POW” organization in the CPP ranks had
as its goal undermining and demoralizing the revolutionary movement in
Poland, [and] struggling against the Comintern, VKP(b) and the USSR in the
interests of Polish fascism and the pilsudchina.
- In the late 1918 or in 1919, through
Pilsudski’s agent Wentskowski, Warski sent a letter to Lenin and
Dzierzynski protesting the red terror.
- In 1920, the POW leadership
of the CPP (Warski, Kostrzewa, Gzhekh-Kowalski, Krajewski, Martselli, Binder)
admitted [to the party] a whole group of pilsudchiks who had left the PPS. They
admitted the leaders of this pilsudchik group, Witkowski -- Sturm de Strem[lxxxvii]
and later Zarski, to the CC CPP, and charged Sturm de Strem with
heading the Military Department of the CC. During the Red Army’s
offensive on Warsaw, the POW leadership in the CPP completely disorganized the
party, and intentionally failed to provide any directives to the party
organizations during this difficult period.
- The CC systematically opposed the
directives of the Polish Rev[olutionary] Com[mittee][lxxxviii]headed
by Dzierzynski.
- The POWist Domski published an
article in the Berlin newspaper “Rote Fahne” in which he disapproved of the
“revolution brought in from the outside by bayonets.”
- In May 1921, at the CPP’s CC
session, where a number of [party] workers were present, the POWist
Gzhek-Kowalski suggested putting forth a resolution that the Polish
delegation to the III Comintern Congress introduce a declaration that the
foreign and domestic policy of the Soviet government goes against the interests
of the international proletariat. It was decided to make such a
declaration, not at the congress session, but at the meeting of the Polish and
Soviet delegations.
- In 1921, the POW leadership of the
CC CPP (Grzegorzewski, Wintsler, Rylski, Krutkowski,[lxxxix]
Krajewski) admitted to the party a group headed by agent provocateur, the
POWist Sochacki, who in 1920 was the PPS General Secretary.
- Dombal was also admitted at that
time.
- Under the influence of the POW leadership,
with whom Radek cooperated, the II
congress in 1923 adopted a nationalist platform.
- The POW agents played a crucial role
in obstructing the revolutionary struggle in Poland in 1925.
- At the VI congress, the group competing
with the POW, which was headed by Lenski, revealed itself and formed a
bloc with the counterrevolutionary activities of the POWists Domski,
Osinski, Adamski[xc]
and Gzhekh-Kowalski.
Unszlicht
became the leader of this group.
-
In late 1923, the POW group under the leadership of Warski, Kostrzewa
and Walecki openly supported Trotsky, thus implementing the POW line
of counterposing the CPP and the VKP(b) and of strengthening the elements
hostile to the Bolshevik party in the USSR.
-Within
the Comintern, the POW group of Warski and
Kostrzewa, together with Radek, tried to create a bloc against the
VKP(b) by supporting Brandler in Germany and the Right elements in other
parties. After the bankruptcy of the Warski-Kostrzewa group, the leadership
passed to the other POW group of Domski-Lenski, headed by Unszlicht.
-
After the arrest of Lenski in 1924, Domski along with Skulski-Mertens, Purman,
Osinski, Grszegorszewski, Krajewski, headed POW work.
-
This leadership aimed at organizing an anti-Bolshevik, anti-Comintern bloc
[composed] of “Left” elements [such as]
Ruth Fischer-Maslow in Germany and Treint[xci]
in France, which later became the base for the Zinovievite-Trotskyist
counterrevolutionary organization.
-
In <_> half of 1925, the POW leadership of the CPP openly raised the
banner of struggle against the Comintern by adopting a resolution in defense of
Ruth Fischer.
-
As a result of it – removal of Domski and Osinska.
-
The Warski leadership was supported by attracting Bielewski and
Lenski. Support of Pilsudski.
-
I know that shortly before the May 1925 coup, Walecki sent a letter to
the CC CPP in which he strongly insisted on starting negotiations with
Pilsudski about support for his actions.
-
At the time of the coup, the POW leadership of the CPP issued a manifesto
calling on the working masses to support Pilsudski’s “revolutionary troops,” to
go “part of the way” with Pilsudski, since the CPP’s goals went further than,
but did not contradict the goals of the pilsudchiks. Warski(?),[xcii]
Krajewski, Stefanski[xciii]
and Henrykowski authored this leaflet.
-
After the May coup, both groups (Kostrzewa’s and Lenski’s) unleashed, in the
interests of pilsudchiks, a bitter factional struggle that lasted for three
years and that led to the complete disorganization of the party and the
paralysis of all its practical work.
-
The POW group of Kostrzewa, in the period before and after the VI
Comintern Congress, was closely linked with Bukharin; the POW group of Lenski
with Lominadze. The connection of the Lenski group with Knorin
occurred in the period after the VI Comintern Congress (pp.
15-16-17-18).
-
In its counterrevolutionary activity, the POW group headed by Lenski was
connected in the Comintern with the group of Knorin and Piatnitsky,
namely: with Grunberg, Grigory[xciv]
and Lev Smoliansky,[xcv]
and Vasiliev.[xcvi]
During the last period of factional struggle in the CPP, Knorin was the
ECCI representative in the CC CPP, supported the Lenski group, and was
in close contact with Lenski himself.
-
At the 1932 ECCI plenum, Lenski, together with Knorin and
Pyatnitsky, pushed through a thesis that the Bruning government[xcvii]
in Germany was already a fascist one, and that it made no sense to speak
about the fascist danger in Germany any more. The major attack [should be
launched] against Social Democracy and Bruning, not against the National
Socialists. All of Lenski’s POW group, including me, shared the position of
Lenski-Knorin-Piatnitsky.
-
As the CPP representatives, Bortnowski and I supported Knorin and Pyatnitsky
in the Comintern, in particular their struggle against the implementation of
the United Front tactics.
Abroad,
the Lenski group used its connections in other com[munist] parties to
promote the views of Knorin-Pyatnitsky. It was primarily Henrykowski who
maintained these connections. I know of his close connections in the CP
Czechoslovakia with Rudolf Slansky,
[xcviii]
Sverma[xcix]
and
Svabova.[c] I
frequently had conversations with Bela Kun in the spirit of Knorin's [and]Pyatnitsky's
ideas.
-
The candidacy of Sochacki to the CPP Political Bureau was suggested by K. N.
Popov[ci]
in 1929.
-
From 1933, the leadership in Poland [consisted of] POW [elements]. – (pp. 20-21!).
-
Leninist School (p. 23).
-
Lately we have been following the line of Knorin-Pyatnitsky
regarding Comintern issues in the school.
Work in the army (p. 24).
-
In the newspaper “The Soldier of the Revolution” (editorial board –
Bortnowski, Zbikowski, Rwal and I), [we] published a pro-POW article by
Zbikowski[cii]
entitled “The Defense of the USSR.” In
accordance with the POW directives, Zbikowski tried to prove that an
offensive war on the part of the USSR was the only possible way to defend the
USSR. The publication of such an article in the CPP newspaper actually
served the interests of the anti-Soviet campaign [waged] by the Polish and
international bourgeoisie, since it provided it with the argument about the
USSR’s “aggressive plans.” For a long time, the fascist press capitalized on
this article, stressing simultaneously that its authors were Bortnowski and
Zbikowski, [who were presented as] distinguished Soviet military workers.
Bertynski
- Counterrevolutionary activity of the Kostrzewa
POW group in Poland was manifested in the demoralizing work within the party
conducted in the interests of fascism.
Henrykowski
(Saul Samoilovich Amsterdam)
-
[I] joined the “POW” in late 1923.
I received my first assignment to
conduct “POW” work in early 1924,
after the POW leadership of the CPP, Kruglikowski,
Wrublewski, Henryk Lauer, Danieluk-Stefanski, Warski, Kostrzewa, etc., went
bankrupt.
The nationalist pilsudchik policy of this
leadership led to an open reaction by the party’s lower echelons, and entire
organizations adopted resolutions protesting the current CPP leadership.
-
Following the “POW” leadership’s directive, the oppositional movement was
headed by “POW” member
Lenski-Leszszynski and his group, Osinska, Domski and Adamski. Pekarski (the “POW” leader) suggested
to me that I join this movement against the Warski group, which I did.
In late 1926, Pekarski told me that I should
contact Freilich. He [also] told me that in the CPP the active “POW”
members were Kruglikowski, Danieluk-Stefanski, Henryk Lauer, Wrublewski,
Klonowicz-Wygodski,[ciii]
whom I had to support and cooperate with to help the pilsudchik coup. Moreover,
I had to conduct the work in such a way that nobody would know about my
affiliation with the “POW.”
-
Later Freilich revealed that Warski, Kostrzewa, Landy-Witkowski,
Grszegorszewski, Cichowski, Rylski, Dutlinger,[civ]
Marianski,[cv]
Wojewódzki were also “POW” members, and suggested
that I support them.
-
As a result of our pro-POW activities, by the May coup, the CC CPP had already
turned into an open agency of Pilsudski, and the CPP – into an appendage of his
camp.
-
At the time of the coup, we fulfilled all the assignments given us by Major
Koshkowski and Colonel Slawski. The very same policy that we conducted in
Warsaw was conducted by the POWists Lenski-Leszszynski, Wrublewski, Ryng,
Próchniak in the Polit[ical] Bureau, and by the “POW” members Landy-Witkowski,
Henryk Lauer, Kostrzewa, etc. in Moscow.
We did not permit the holding of a demonstration by the CPP party organizations,
but took part in the demonstration, along with the PPS, to celebrate the
Pilsudski’s victory. The CPP party fraction headed by Warski made a decision to
vote in the Sejm for the Pilsudski’s candidacy for Chairman.
-Following
Freilich’s directives, Lenski, Bielewski, Pashin and I created the so-called
“minority” faction in the CPP, which was joined by the “POW” member Zarski, the
Defenziva agent Marek-Lampe, Fiedler, Neroki-Zaks,[cvi]
Tomorowicz Andrei,[cvii]
Karbowski, Marabut,[cviii]
Bertynski-Albert, Rwal-Reicher, Elena Jezierska,[cix]
Skulski and Grszegorszewski.
-
The policy that we conducted in the CPP between 1930 and the VII Comintern
Congress in 1935 was based on the following anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist
concepts.
1) The struggle for democratic rights in
Poland and other fascist countries is impossible under fascism, since fascism
can only be overthrown by a socialist revolution;
2) Under the fascist regime, communist
parties should not make partial democratic demands regarding general political
questions (electoral rights, establishment of the parliament’s legislative
authority, and municipal councils), [and] nationality and peasant questions;
3) The Com[munist] Party’s leading organs
should never present United Front demands
to the leading socialist organs because the United Front can only be
formed from below.
With these
we aimed to undermine the working class United Front which the Comintern
pursued.
The results were as follows:
a) mass political struggle was reduced to a
minimum. Instead of that struggle, an abstract propaganda about the goals of
the revolutionary movement was conducted with no connection to the current political
issues of the day;
b) denying partial demands on the nationality
question led to abstract propaganda of the nation’s right to
self-determination;
c)
not putting forward partial demands on the peasant question (reducing taxes,
annulling debts, reducing interest on debts, specific demands regarding
cooperation, etc.). Instead of these
demands, we favored adventurist Trotskyist forms of struggle that did not
correspond to the situation, namely, boycott of debts, boycott of cooperation,
seizing the landlords’ grain by the Polish peasants, etc.
Thus, we contributed to the alienation of the
CPP from workers and the popular masses, and from the mass trade union and
other organizations.
- In 1928, I received an order from Freilich
through the CPP to transfer to the USSR “POW” members disguised as political
émigrés, to conduct espionage and subversive activities.
The task of the “POW” members transferred by
me to the USSR was to organize act
of sabotage in enterprises, to create groups to conduct acts of sabotage at the
outset of war between Poland and the USSR, to collect intelligence materials on
military and economic affairs, to conduct pilsudchik propaganda among the
Polish population.
Stolarski.[cx]
(Head of the Sov[iet] bureau of the
Sailors’ International)
By decision of the Special Council of the
NKVD of 20 May 1937, sentenced to 5 years of ITL[cxi]
for espionage activities.
-
Recruited in late 1921.
-
Used the CPP treasury to promote the POW purposes.
-
In some cases, arrests would strengthen the position of the “POW” member in the
Com[munist] Party, in other [cases], [arrests would] eliminate any suspicions,
especially when the arrest was followed by the destruction of the whole
organization. Finally, arrests were used as steps for further transfers to the
USSR.
[In] 1928 – editor of the PPS-Lewica organ in
Krakow.
-
In 1929, attended a meeting in Berlin, Knorin was also there.
-
Besides Wzhos’ directive that I was to
be Purman’s “POW” subordinant and that I had to make contact with him in
Moscow, I also received a letter from “POW” member Roma[na] Juchniewicz[cxii]
to Tosia Feder[cxiii]
who worked in the Comintern.
-
After Purman, Gzhegozhewski became my boss (when [I] started
working in the Profintern).
-
Gzhegozhewski was particularly
occupied with Romanian and Yugoslavian affairs and ordered
me to write a brief memorandum, in particular regarding the contradictions and
struggle between the Right and Left wings in the Romanian and Yugoslavian trade
union movement and in the Communist parties of these countries.
-
Gzhegozhewski told [me] that it was necessary to intensify the
struggle within the revolutionary trade union movement in Romania.
-
After the V congress, Skulski and Kostanian[cxiv]
(he
had an agreement with Lenski) came to work in the Profintern.
-
The POWists in the Profintern took the side of Kostanian against Lozovsky.[cxv]
-
A few, including myself, formally remained Lozovsky’s supporters.
-
Sochacki, Gzhegozhewski and Skulski told me that in order to conduct my
work abroad ([in the] Sailors’ International) I had to contact Purman
who was working at that time in the Profintern’s European Secretariat in
Berlin, and [also contact] Lenski.
-
Upon arriving in Berlin in April 1931, I got in touch with Purman and, through
him, with Lenski.
-
Purman told me that my task [as a] POW member would be primarily to
conduct espionage so as to collect
information about the building of both merchant and military vessels in
different countries.
-
Also [to] meet with Próchniak.
(p. 9 – The Sailors’ Clubs
International).
-
Some 4-5 months after my arrival in Hamburg, I was able to pass on to Purman
for Lenski and thus to the Polish General Staff the first piece of
information that was required of me.
-
July 1932 – The I World Sailors’ Congress [took place] in Hamburg.
-
From the Profintern, Skulski was present, from the Profintern’s European
Secretariat – Purman, Smolianski (a Trotskyist), who had contacts with Purman,
and Heckert!
-
Some time in July or August 1934, I had a meeting in Copenhagen with Lenski,
and he instructed me to have my agents not only in the ports of France and
England, but above all, in the ports of the USSR.
-
In January 1936, [I] returned to Moscow.
-
Head of the Sov[iet] Bureau of Sailors.
[I]
received an order from Skulski: to get additional information
about the USSR’s Navy and, in particular, about newly-built [ships];
to send my people, preferably POW members, to the Inter[national] clubs,
first of all, in Arkhangelsk and Odessa.
-
On 25 July 1936, I was arrested.
Miller Willi – a German sailor, member
of the board of the Red Union of Sailors – recruited in 1934.
Ziebert Willi – a German sailor –
Hamburg – recruited in 1935.
Bronkowski – 1 July 1937.
From 1917 until [his] arrest in 1937, an
active “POW” member; he engaged in espionage and provocative activities.
- In order to improve working conditions for
the “POW,” Iuzowski ([he] had met with the pilsudchiks in Saratov)
recommended that I, as an SDPKPiL member (since 1912), join the Saratov
organization of the RSDRP(b), which I did in early April 1917 (after the
February revolution).
- Our “POW” organization considered the work
of the Bolshevik organizations as destructive and ruinous work that, in our
opinion, was leading to the weakening of our principal enemy – Russia.
I was the Bolshevik organization’s [delegate]
delegate to the local Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ deputies.
-
I left for Petrograd in early December 1917.
-
Iuzowski ordered me to meet with Puzak and Zarski.
I got in touch with the SDPKPiL members, whom
I had known before -- Lenski, Unszlicht and Dolecki -- and, at Unszlicht’s
suggestion, started, working temporarily on the editorial board of the SDPKPiL
newspaper in Russia.
-
Soon, on the Lenski’s suggestion, I became a Secretary of the Narkomnatz’s[cxvi]
Commissariat for Polish affairs.
-
In the Spring of 1919, on Puzak’s advice, I started working in the VChK[cxvii] as an investigator in the Department for
the struggle against counterrevolution, sabotage and speculation.
-
I took part in releasing Pilsudski’s personal adjutant Wieniawa-Dlugoszowski,
because I was the investigator and presented the case as necessary to Skrypnik,[cxviii]
who at that time was the head of the VChK Department for the struggle against
counterrevolution.
In August 1918, [I] was injured in Petrograd
-- [I] was sick and underwent treatment
for a year.
-
In Spring 1920 -- [I was] in the recon[naissance] group on the Western Front,
at Unszlicht’s invitation.
-
As a head of the Western Front’s recon[naissance] group, [I was] connected with
the official representative of the Polish General Staff, Captain Swiontkowski.
He gave me task[s], on behalf of the Polish
General Staff’s 2nd Department:
1. To pass on to him intelligence information that I received from
headquarters on the Western Front;
2. To inform him about agents sent by the
recon[naissance] group to Poland;
3. To coordinate with him the deployment of
agents and the partisan network.
Walecki
– August 1937
- For almost 18 years, I conducted espionage
activities for the II Department of the Polish General Staff, for whom I have
been an agent since 1919. I conducted espionage activity as a member of the
“Polska Organizacja Wojskowa.”
- Members of the POW organization center in
the USSR were:
1) Unszlicht, [who] directed all of the POW’s
espionage activities against the USSR. He was personally in charge of the
espionage activities in the Red Army and in Osoaviakhim; he organized the
connections with the II Department of the Polish General Staff.
2) Bronkowski-Bortnowski was Unszlicht’s
deputy in directing all espionage activity in the Red Army.
3) Staszewski,[cxix]
on Unszlicht’s personal directions, maintained connections with the II
Department of the Polish Gen[eral] Staff.
4) Lenski-Leszszynski directed
counterrevolutionary espionage activity in the VKP(b), CP(b) of Ukraine, and
the CP(b) of Belorussia, [and] conducted subversive work in the CP Poland.
5) I, Walecki, was in charge of the
counterrevolutionary espionage activities in the Comintern.
6) Krajewski, A., as the one in charge of
Comintern cadres, informed Polish intelligence about the Comintern’s
organizational work.
7) Olski, first directed the espionage
activities in the NKVD organs, and later, in the public catering.
8) Slawinski was in charge of
counterrevolutionary, espionage activities on the railways.
9) Lapinski, P., carried out assignments
for Polish intelligence by informing about the USSR’s foreign policy and the
work of the Narkomindel.[cxx]
10) Rajewski, Stefan,[cxxi]
assisted Lapinski in conducting espionage activities in the area of the USSR’s
foreign policy, and in maintaining contacts with for[eign] correspondents and
for[eign] embassies in Moscow.
11) Lauer, Henryk, provided information on
the USSR’s heavy industry.
12) Ciczewski[cxxii]
informed Polish intelligence about the construction of electric power stations.
13) Lauer, Kazimier,[cxxiii]
informed the espionage center about railway transport and railway construction.
14) Wasilkowski, as a worker in the
newspaper “Za Industrializatsiiu,” covered the largest new construction sites.
15) Budkewich directed espionage activities
in the Narkomat of Defense.
16) Zatoszki – covered the VKP(b).
17) Firin, S., provided information on the
construction of canals, [and] on the so-called “forced” labor of the
construction workers.
18) Brodowskaia, Elena, covered the situation
in the chemical industry.
19) Próchniak, Ed., collected
information on the VKP(b).
20) Rylski conducted the work of organizing
espionage communication in the USSR and abroad.
21) Skulski transmitted materials on
Belorussia.
22) Brun[cxxiv]
provided information about Polish nationalist elements among the Russian,
Ukrainian and Belorussian writers.
23) Ryng, Iu., concentrated on collecting
information about fascist elements in the USSR.
24) Fitsker explored the possibility of
using religion as a counterrevolutionary factor in the USSR.
25) Rwal, G., concentrated specifically on
the Komsomol.
26) Kowalski (editor of the for[eign]
department of “Izvestiia”) provided factual material about the methods of
indoctrinating public opinion in the USSR.
27) Dolecki, Ia., used his position in TASS
to conduct espionage activities.
28) Kostrzewa collected information about
the material and social conditions of citizens in the USSR.
29) Jablonski, M.,[cxxv]
passed documents to Polish intelligence and provided information about the work
of different sectors of the International Leninist School.
30) Budzynski, Stanislaw, collected
espionage materials on Belorussia.
31) Cichowski, Kazimir, worked on covering
the national question in the USSR.
32) Hanecki, Ia., covered foreign trade in
the USSR.
33) Usievich, Elena,[cxxvi]
passed on information about events in literary circles.
34) Krulikowski, Stefan, put together
counterrevolutionary forces from the Mensheviks and SRs in case of war.
- The goals of our organization were:
1) To plant the agents of the II Department
of the Polish General Staff and POW members of Polish espionage and sabotage
organizations in all sectors of the economy and in the Red Army in order to
take over the leading positions there and, through massive and thorough espionage,
prepare the defeat of the USSR in a war with Poland and other states.
2) Members of the POW organization have to
secure the defeat of the USSR during a war in order to cut off Belorussia and
Ukraine from the Soviet Union and to integrate them into Poland.
3) Finally, the chief and the most important
[goal] is the defeat of the Soviet Union in a war with the capitalist states so
as to overthrow the Soviet government and to restore capitalism in the Soviet
Union.
- I learned about the espionage activities of
Krajewski only in 1934. His activities consisted of:
1) [Providing]
espionage information about the secret schools in the Comintern system in
Moscow, namely about the military schools and communications schools. Krajewski
received materials on the International Leninist School from Jablonski.
2) As
a head of the Cadres Department, [he] provided information on people that the
Polish espionage center was interested in.
3) [He]
maintained connections between the Lapinski and Unszlicht groups.
RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 411, ll. 1-62
Original in Russian. Handwritten.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] This document consists of Dimitrov’s handwritten notes on confessions extracted during the NKVD’s investigation of Poles. Most of his notes are written in the past tense, but at times Dimitrov used the present tense. To make this document easier to read and to render it consistent, I have changed present tense verbs to the past tense when the latter was more appropriate (Trans.).
[ii]. Adam Slawinski (real name – Kaczorowski) (1890-1937). A member of the RSDRP(b) from 1914; a member of the Minsk RSDRP(b) committee. After 1917, he was the head of the Minsk police, and head of the provincial Commissariat of the Internal Affairs. In 1921-1924, he was a People’s Commissar of Agriculture of the Belorussian SSR; in 1924-1928, he was the representative of the CPWB in the ECCI. Between 1928 and 1930, he was a secretary of the Minsk regional party committee of the CP(b) of Belorussia. In 1930-1931, he was sent to conduct party work in Poland. Between 1931 and 1933, he was the representative of the CPP in the ECCI. In 1933-1936, he was secretary of the party collegium and head of the political department of the Moscow-Belorussian railroad. From March 1936 to July 1937, he worked in the People’s Commissariat for Railways. Slawinski was arrested on 9 July 1937, and sentenced to be shot by the Military Board of the USSR’s Supreme Court on 3 November 1937.
[iii]. Stanislaw Bur (real name – Burzynski) (1892-1937). Born in Warsaw, a member of the CPP from 1921. In 1924, he was elected a member of the Warsaw party committee. Between 1927 and 1930, worked in the trade union department of the CC CPP. He was a delegate to the 4th (1928) and 5th (1930) Profintern congresses in Moscow. From 1929, he was a member of the CC CPP and in 1930, elected to the Political Bureau of the CC CPP. Between 1930 and 1932, he was a Sejm deputy. Facing arrest, he emigrated to the USSR in 1932, where he worked in the Executive Bureau of the Profintern as a secretary of the Polish-PriBaltic section. He was a delegate to the 7th Comintern Congress. The 4th Plenum of the CC CPP (February 1936) expelled Bur from the Political Bureau and from the party’s CC. In 1937, he was arrested. The Military Board of the USSR’s Supreme Court sentenced him to be shot.
[iv]. Henryk Henrykowski (real name – Saul Amsterdam) (1898-1937). A member of the Poalei Zion from 1918; a member of the CPP from 1921. During the internal struggle in the party, he was part of the “minority” faction. In 1930, he was elected member of the CC and candidate member of the Political Bureau of the CC CPP. Henrykowski was a delegate of the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Comintern Congresses. In January 1935, following an ECCI decision, he was removed from the party work and sent to the USSR. In June-July 1936, he was removed from the CC CPP. On 5 April 1937, he was arrested; on 1 November 1937, the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to be shot.
[v]. Nowak Marek (real name – Alfred Lampe) (1900-1943). A member of the CPP from 1921. Between 1922 and 1926, he was imprisoned in Poland. He was a member of the Political Bureau of the CC CPP from 1919 to 1930, as well as member of the Foreign Secretariat of the Political Bureau in Berlin. Between 1932 and 1933, he was the representative of the CPP in the Profintern’s Executive Committee. In 1933, he was sent to conduct party work in Poland, where he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Liberated in September 1939, he emigrated to the USSR.
[vi]. Pawel Korczyk (real name – Josef Lohinowicz) (1891-1940). A member of the SR party of Belorussia in 1919-1921. In 1921, he headed the Belorussian revolutionary organization. From 1923, he was a member of the CPWB; he was a member of its CC. He attended the 5th and 6th Comintern Congresses. On 25 June 1936, he was sentenced to be shot; again sentenced to death on 26 October 1939. Korczyk died in prison.
[vii]. Edward Próchniak (1888-1937). Born in the town of Pulawy (Poland), he was a member of the SDPKPiL between 1903 and 1917, a member of the CPP from 1918, and a member of the RKP(b) in 1917-1918 and in 1920-1926. In 1918, he was the First Commissar in the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities. In 1920, he was a member of the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee. In 1923, he was elected a member of the CC CPP. Between 1931 and 1937, he was a candidate member of the party’s Political Bureau. During the factional struggle in the CPP (1926-1929), he played an important role in the “majority” faction. Between 1922 and 1924, he was a member of the ECCI; in 1924-1928, a member of the ICC. At the 6th Comintern Congress (1928), he was elected an ECCI member and he served on the ECCI’s Presidium. At the 7th Congress (1935), he was elected candidate ECCI member. He was arrested by the NKVD on 7 July 1937, and in accordance with the verdict of the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR executed on 21 August 1937.
[viii]. Jerzy Ryng (real name – Heryng) (1886-1938). A member of the CPP from 1919, he was a member of editorial boards of several CPP newspapers and journals. For many years, he was the editor of the CPP theoretical magazine Nowy Pzzeglad (“New Review”). In August 1924, he was arrested and convicted. After his liberation in April 1925, he again worked as an editor. He was a delegate to the 6th and 7th Comintern Congresses. In early 1937, Ryng was recalled to Moscow, arrested by the NKVD, convicted and shot.
[ix]. Marcin Grzegorzewski (real name – Franciszek Grzelszczak) (1881-1937). Born in Warsaw, he was a member of the SDPKPiL from 1904. At the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets (November 1917), he was elected member of the Presidium VTsIK. In early 1918, he went to Warsaw; he was a delegate to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th CPP congresses and a member of the CC CPP in 1918-1927 and in 1932-1937. In 1924-1928, he was an ECCI member; in 1935, he was elected member of the ICC. In 1919, 1921 and 1925-1928, he was imprisoned in Poland. In 1918, after the exchange of the political prisoners, he went to the USSR and worked in the VKP CCC; he was also the CPP representative in the ECCI. In the summer of 1937, Grzegorzewski was arrested and. on 22 December 1937, he was sentenced to be shot by the Military Board of the USSR’s Supreme Court.
[x]. Wiktor Bertynski (real name – Albert Zyltowski) (1900-1937). A member of the CPP from 1920, one of the leaders of the Lodz party organization, and a member of the CPP regional committee. Between 1921 and 1924, he was imprisoned. In 1925, he went to the USSR and transferred to the VKP(b). Between 1926 and 1928, he worked as an assistant to the head of an OGPU department. He was a delegate of the 3rd, 4th and 5th CPP congresses; in 1930, he was elected candidate member of the CC CPP; in 1935, he became a full CC member. Between 1933 and 1936, he was a deputy CPP representative in the ECCI. Bertynski was arrested in 1937. On 3 November 1937, he was sentenced to be shot by the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
[xi]. Gustaw Rwal (real name – Reicher) (1900-1938). Born in Lodz, he was a member of the SDPKPiL from 1917, and a member of the CPP from 1919. He worked in the Dombrowski basin. In 1919-1920, he was imprisoned. In fall 1920, he started working in the Communist movements of Poland and Germany; he was a political secretary of the Ruhr CPG organization. In May 1925, he was arrested in Poland and sentenced to six years of hard labor; in 1928, he went to the USSR after the exchange of political prisoners. There he was sent to work in the ECCI (1928-1929); in 1930-1937, he was a candidate member of the CC CPP; in 1932, he was a member of the CC CPWB. Between 1933 and 1934, he taught at the MLSh. In 1937, he was in Spain as a commissar of the Dombrowski International Brigade. Recalled to Moscow by the ECCI, Rwal was arrested and, on 17 September 1938, sentenced to be shot.
[xii]. Jozef Unszlicht (1879-1938). A member of the Bolshevik party from 1900. In October 1917, he was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee in Petrograd; during the Civil War, People’s Commissar for Military Affairs of the Lithuanian-Belorussian SSR, and a member of the Revolutionary Council of the 16th Army and the Western front. After 1921, deputy chairman of the GPU; after 1923, a member of the Military Revolutionary Council of the RSFSR and head of the Supplies Department of the Red Army. Between 1925 and 1930, he was a deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and deputy head of the People’s Commissar for the Navy; in 1930-1933, deputy chairman of VSNKh. Between 1933 and 1935, he was the head of the Main Board of the Civil Air Fleet. After 1935, Secretary of the All-Union Soviet of the TsIK USSR. In June 1937, Unszlicht was arrested and repressed.
[xiii]. Jozef Dowbor-Musnicki. Russian and Polish military leader, Lieutenant-General, General of the Armored units of the Polish army. Participant of the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905. During the WWI, he occupied military command and administrative positions. After August 1917, he was a commander of the First Corps of the Polish Legionaries. On 25 January 1918, he rebelled against the new Soviet government, but was defeated and retreated into the territory occupied by Germany. In the late 1918, he took Polish citizenship and became a Commander-in-Chief of the Polish army. He directed the occupation of the Western Belorussian territory. In early 1919, he was made Infantry Inspector, but soon after retired.
[xiv] Stanislaw Pestkowski (1882-1937). A member of the RSDRP from 1902; in 1917, a member of the Bolshevik fraction of the Petrograd Council of the Trade Unions. Later he worked in the CC RSDRP(b) Secretariat, was a Commissar of the Central Telegraph Office in Petrograd. In 1917-1919, a member of the Collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities (and later deputy People’s Commissar) and an Ambassador from the Council of People’s Commissars at the Western front to create the Lithuanian-Belorussian Republic. In 1919-1920, chairman of the Kirghiz Military Revolutionary Committee and a member of the regional RKP(b) Bureau of the Kirghiz province. After 1924, he was Ambassador to Mexico. After 1926, he was the deputy chairman and Secretary of the CC MOPR; he later worked in the ECCI. Repressed.
[xv] Narkom – People’s Commissar.
[xvi] Narkomnatz – People’s Commissariat for Nationalities.
[xvii]. Jakob Dolecki (real name – Fenigstein) (1888-1937). A member of the SDPKPiL from 1904, he was elected member of the Warsaw and Lodz committees of the SDPKPiL. In 1916-1917, he was a member of the Saratov RSDRP(b) committee and of the Saratov Soviet of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, delegate to the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets, and a member of the VTsIK. In 1918-1919, he was a TsIK member of the SDPKPiL groups and later, of the Communist Workers Party of Poland in Russia. After 1919, he worked in Minsk; he was a delegate of the First Congress of the CP of Lithuania and Belorussia, member of the Presidium of the CC CP of Lithuania and Belorussia. After September 1921, he was a head of the ROSTA telegraph agency (later – TASS). On 19 June 1937, he committed suicide.
[xviii]. Kazimierz Cichowski (1887-1937). A member of the SDPKPiL from 1907; from November 1917, deputy Commissar for Polish affairs of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Lithuanian-Belorussian Republic. After 1921, a member of the CC CP Western Ukraine. In 1923-1925, Cichowski was imprisoned in Poland; after liberation, he was co-opted into the CC CPP and elected member of its Secretariat and the Political Bureau. In September 1932, he went to the USSR and started working in the ECCI. In January-July 1937, he was in Spain where he was head of the Cadres Department of the International Brigades headquarters. In August 1937, Cichowski was recalled to Moscow, arrested in October, convicted and shot.
[xix]. PPS – Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socijalistyczna), formed in 1893. It had as its programmatic goal to rebuild the Polish state. The party’s left wing stood for the armed insurrection of the Polish proletariat, together with Russia’s working class, against tsarism. The 9th PPS Congress (1906) expelled the PPS's leader, J. Pilsudski, and his supporters from the party. The left wing, known as the PPS-Lewica, adopted a revolutionary program and, in December 1918, united with the SDPKPiL thus creating the Polish Communist Workers Party. After their expulsion from the party, Pilsudski’s supporters created a new organization, the PPS-Revolutionary Faction (from 1919 – PPS). This party took an active part in creating the independent Polish state and in July 1920, entered the coalitional government of W. Witas. In May 1926, the PPS supported Pilsudski’s coup d'état. In November 1926, the PPS refused to cooperated with the regime of “sanitation” and shifted to the opposition.
[xx]. Stanislaw Bobinski (1882-1937). A member of the SDPKPiL from 1905. In 1917, he was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee in Moscow. In 1918, he was a representative of the Commissariat for Polish affairs at the peace talks in Brest-Litovsk, a commissar of the Western infantry division, and a member of the 16th Army Revolutionary Military Council. In 1918-1920, he was a VTsIK member and in 1920, a member of the Polish provisional revolutionary committee. He taught and conducted research in the Sverdlov Communist University in Moscow between 1919 and 1920, was an organizer and rector of the Urals Communist University in Ekaterinburg (1922-1924), and the director of a Polytechnical museum in Moscow (1929-1931). On 15 June 1937, Bobinski was arrested and, on 20 September 1937, sentenced to be shot.
[xxi]. Bernard Mandelbaum (real name – Stefan Drzewieski) (1888-1963). Born in Lublin, he was a member of the SDPKPiL from 1908, and the RSDRP(b) from 1917. In 1917, he was a member of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ deputies. In 1918, he was the Chairman of the Commission for the preservation of Polish works of art and historical monuments of the Polish Commissariat of the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities. After his return to Poland, he moved away from the revolutionary movement, worked in the state apparatus. In 1939, he emigrated. Died in Paris.
[xxii]. Pawel Lapinski (real name – Lewinson) (1879-1937). A member of the PPS from 1904, and later of the PPS-Lewica; in 1906-1918, member of its CC. Between 1912 and 1913, he was in exile in Arkhangelsk; in 1913-1917, in France and Switzerland, he participated in the ISB sessions, in the work of the international Socialist conferences in Zimmerwald (1915) and Kiental (1916). From May 1917, he is in Petrograd. He was a member of the Central Executive Committee of the PPS-Lewica in Russia, and one of the organizers of the Polish Commissariat of the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities in December 1917. Between 1918 and 1920, he was a consultant to the People’s Commissarait of Foreign Affairs (NKID); in 1920-1927, he headed the Diplomatic Information department of the NKID RSFSR in Berlin. Between 1927 and 1932, he was a member of the editorial board of the newspaper Izvestiia in Moscow; in 1927-1932, Director of the Institute of the World Economy and World Politics. After 1932, on a diplomatic mission in the USA, and the Izvestiia correspondent in the USA and France. On 9 June 1937, Lapinski was arrested. He committed suicide on 10 September.
[xxiii]. Stanislaw Budkiewicz (1887-1937). A member of the PPS from 1905; after the split in the party, he joined the PPS-Lewica. In 1912, he went to Petersburg, and was a Director of the Fiat plant. In November 1919, commissar of the staff of the 16th Army, and later – of the Western front; member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Western front. In 1921, lecturer at the Party School of the Polish Bureau of the CC RKP(b) in Moscow. Between 1921 and 1928, he occupied leading positions in the Fourth Directorate of the Red Army’s headquarters; in 1928-1937, he worked in the People’s Commissariat for Army and Navy. In 1937, Budkiewicz was arrested and condemned to be shot.
[xxiv]. Barbara Budkiewicz (Czechowska). Born in 1886, she was a member of the PPS and PPS-Lewica from 1904, and a member of the CPP from 1918. After 1913, she lived in Petrograd with her husband, Stanislaw Budkiewicz. Between 1926 and 1930, she taught at the Lenin Communist University in Minsk, and between 1934 and 1937, in the KUNMZ. In 1937, she was arrested.
[xxv]. Probably, Roman Lagwa (1891-1938). Born in Warsaw, he was a member of the PPS-Lewica from 1910. After 1914, he served in the Russian army. In 1917, while a Lieutenant, he was elected Chairman of the Main Committee of the Union of Polish soldiers (Lewica). In November 1917, he was a manager of the Postal and Telegraph service in Petrograd, and later, head of the Military Demobilization Department of the Polish Commissariat of the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities. A member of the RKP(b) from 1918; he occupied leading positions in the Red Army. Arrested in 1937, and shot on 8 February 1938.
[xxvi]. Romuald Muklewicz (1890-1938). A member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Western front. In 1922-1925, he was a commissar of the Red Army’s Military Academy, and in 1926, Deputy Commander of the Red Army’s Air Force and deputy Chairman of the Council of Civil Aviation. From August 1926, he was Commander of the Red Army’s Navy. After 1934, he headed the Main Directorate of the Ship-Building Industry, from late 1936, deputy People’s Commissar of Defense Industry. Muklewicz was arrested and, on 8 February 1938, sentenced to the shot.
[xxvii]. Wladyslaw Matuszewski (1882-1942). Born in Kishinev, he was a member of the PPS in 1903-1906, and a member of the PPS-Lewica in 1906-1907. After 1907, he was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania. From 1908, he lived in Petersburg. In 1916-1917, he was a member of the PPS-Lewica committee in Petrograd. In December 1917 – January 1918, he was the First Secretary of the Polish Secretariat of the Polish Commissariat for Nationalities. Later he occupied responsible positions in the NKID USSR, conducted party work and worked as a professor. Matuszewski was arrested and convicted on 1 December 1937.
[xxviii]. Zbigniew Fabierkiewicz (1882-1919). Born in Warsaw, he was a member of the SDPKPiL from 1905. He contributed to Pravda in 1917-1918. He was one of the organizers of the Petrograd bureau of the SDPKPiL groups. In 1918, he was a member of the Council of Revolutionary Democratic Organizations of the Polish Secretariat of the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities. In 1919, Fabierkiewicz left for Poland to organize party work. There he was arrested and killed by the police.
[xxix]. Anton Krahelski (1892-1949). Born in Petersburg. During WWI, he was a POW member. Arrested in 1915 and released in March 1917. On PPS orders, he joined the Petrograd Soviet of Revolutionary Democratic Organizations. Later worked in the Polish Secretariat of the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities. In the late 1918, he returned to Poland and was one of the PPS leaders. In 1939, he participated in the defense of Warsaw and in the resistance movement.
[xxx]. Wanda Krahelska (1886-1968). A member of the PPS from 1905, she was involved in terrorist activities. In 1907, she was arrested but acquitted at the trial. She was engaged in educational activities and publishing. During WWII, she participated in the resistance movement.
[xxxi]. Kazimierz Puzak (1883-1950). One of the PPS leaders. In 1918, he was member of the Council of the Revolutionary Democratic Organizations of the Polish Commissariat of the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities. Between 1922 and 1939, he was a member of the Main Council and the TsIK PPS. He was the General Secretary of that party and a Sejm deputy in 1919-1935.
[xxxii]. Jerzy Franciszek Makowski (1889-1937). Born in Warsaw, he was a member of the PPS-fraction from 1909. From 1914 to March 1917, he was imprisoned. After the October revolution, he worked in the Polish Secretariat of the People’ Commissariat for Nationalities. A member of the RKP(b) from 1918, he served in the Red Army. In 1919, he was a Deputy People’s Commissar of the Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia. In April 1919, he was sent to conduct party work in Poland. He was arrested there in April 1920, but in April 1921, after an exchange of political prisoners, went to the USSR, where he worked in the GPU, and studied in the Frunze Military Academy. Repressed.
[xxxiii] The writing is illegible (Trans.).
[xxxiv]. Jan Kwapinski (1885-1964). Born in Warsaw, he was a member of the PPS from 1905. In 1907, he was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor. Released in 1917, he joined the Soviet of the Workers’ Deputies of Orel. In November 1918, he returned to Poland. He formed part of the PPS leadership and was a head of a trade union association. During WWII, he was part of the Polish government in emigration. Died in the emigration.
[xxxv]. Boleslaw Dlugoszowski-Wieniawa (1890-1942). A Polish journalist, he was a member of the PPS from 1905.
[xxxvi] The Brest peace – the peace treaty between Soviet Russia and Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey signed on 3 March 1918 in the city of Brest-Litovsk (now Brest). It was ratified by the 4th Extraordinary Congress of Soviets on 15 March 1918. On 13 November 1918, following those countries’ defeat in WWI, the Brest peace was repealed by the VTsIK decree.
[xxxvii]. Left SRs – the party of Left Revolutionary Socialists, which existed in Russia in 1917-1921. It emerged as an oppositional movement in the SR party. Along with the Bolsheviks, the Left SRs formed part of the Military Revolutionary Committees, participated in the 1917 October revolution, in the work of the 2nd All-Russia Congress of Soviets, and were elected to the VTsIK. In December 1917, at their first congress, the Left SRs formed an organizationally independent party. At the same time, seven Left SRs joined the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK). Tensions between the Left SRs and the Bolsheviks were aggravated during the negotiating of the Brest peace treaty which the Left SRs opposed. After the ratification of the treaty, they left the SNK and turned to open struggle against the Lenin’s policy by organizing a uprising against the Soviet power. After the defeat of the uprising, some of the Left SRs were expelled from the Soviets and the active participants in the rebellion were convicted. The party ceased to exist in the early 1920s.
[xxxviii]. Left Communists – a group of RKP(b) members that emerged in January 1918 and supported the continuation of the revolutionary war in order to promote the world revolution. The leaders of the group were N. Bukharin, A. Bubnov, A. Lomov (G. Oppokov), N. Osinsky (V. Obolensky), E. Preobrazhensky, G. Piatakov, K. Radek. In May-June 1918, having not received support from any party organization, the group ceased to exist. On the Left Communists, see Ronald Kowalski, The Bolshevik Party in Conflict. The Left Communist Opposition of 1918 (Pittsburgh, 1991).
[xxxix]. Solomon Miller (alias Goldberg) (1889-1937). Born in Belostok. In 1906 and 1911, he was in America where he took part in the Anarchist movement. He went to Russia in 1917 and participated in the revolutionary events in Odessa. He joined the RKP(b) in 1919 and conducted party and Soviet work in Belorussia; later he was sent to conduct underground work in Belostok. In 1924, Miller was elected secretary of the CC CPWB, and was a member of the central bureau of the Jewish section. Between 1928 and 1930, he studied at the MLSh. In 1930, he was sent to Western Belorussia and elected member of the CC CPWB Bureau. After that, he worked in the VKP, and was a secretary of the Bobruisk regional party committee. After 1935, conducted party work in Omsk. On 1 September 1937, he committed suicide.
[xl]. Adam Koc – an army Colonel and a member of the Beck’s ruling group in the Polish government in the late 1930s.
[xli] The Polish Bureau of Agitation and Propaganda of the CC RKP(b) was created in 1919 to direct the political and cultural work among Russia’s Polish population. In different cities of the USSR, independent party groups were created. Following the decision of the Eighth RKP(b) Congress (1919), all revolutionary organizations of the Polish proletariat were integrated into the Bolshevik party. The Polish Bureau had its departments in the local RKP(b) committees. The Bureau ceased to exist in the early 1930s.
[xlii]. The Fifth CPP conference took place between 24 November and 23 December 1925. On the agenda were issues relating to the political situation, the party’s tactics, its tasks in the trade union, cooperative and youth movements, and others. The major result of the conference was the disassociation of the party from the ultra-Leftist course of the L. Domski group. No representatives of the ultra-Left group were elected to the new party leadership.
[xliii]. Alexandr Malecki (real name – Aron Rubinstein) (1879-1937). A participant in the Social Democratic movement in Poland from the late 1890s; in 1906, he was elected member of the Main Directorate of the SDPKPiL. After the split in the SDPKPiL in 1912, he became one of the leaders of the so-called “rozlamovsky” opposition. In 1921-1922, he was a head of the Information Bureau of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. In 1922-1925, he was the secretary of the editorial board of the Kommunistichesky Internatsional. Between 1926 and 1935, he was a university professor, and later a consultant in the Department of Philosophy in the State Lenin Library. In 1937, Malecki was arrested by the NKVD. He died in prison.
[xliv]. Henryk Lauer (real name – Ernest Brand). A member of the CPP from 1919, he was elected a CC member. In 1921, he was arrested and convicted, but two years later, went to the USSR after an exchange of political prisoners. He worked in the CPP delegation in the ECCI. During the factional struggle in the party, he supported the “majority” faction. After 1929, he worked in the Soviet state apparatus, was the head of the Department for Planning Metallurgical Enterprises in Gosplan. He was arrested on 21 August 1937, and sentenced to be shot by the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
[xlv]. Miroslaw Zdziarski-Wojtkiewicz (1892-1937). A member of the CPP from 1918. In 1919, he was the Secretary of the Central Trade Union Commission of Poland. In 1923, he was the Secretary of the trade union of tobacco industry workers, a member of the CC CPP and the Trade Union Department of the CC CPP. In 1923, he was sentenced to four years in prison. In 1926, he escaped from Pawiak prison together with Leon Purman. After 1927, in the USSR, he worked in the Executive Bureau of the Profintern, and later in the Institute of the World Economy and World Politics. He was arrested on 10 June 1937 and sentenced to be shot.
[xlvi]. Waclaw Wrublewski (1878-1934). A member of the PPS from 1904, the PPS-Lewica from 1906, and the CPP from 1918. In 1918-1924, he was a member of the CC CPP. In 1924, he was arrested and spent a year and a half in prison. In 1925, he left for the USSR, where he worked in the CPP delegation in the ECCI, and in the Comintern and the Profintern press. Wrublewski supported the faction of “majority” in the CPP. He was arrested by the NKVD and repressed.
[xlvii]. Waclaw Bogucki (1884-1937). A member of the SDPKPiL from 1904. He spent four years in prison and in 1910, he escaped to America; he returned to Poland in 1912. A CPP member from 1918, he was a secretary of the Grodno party committee. In 1919, he was a member of the CC Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia, and the Chairman of the Cheka in Minsk. In 1921, he was a Secretary of the Central Bureau of the CP(b) of Belorussia and Deputy Chairman of the SNK of Belorussia. After 1923, he was a member of the TsIK USSR, and after 1924, member of the Presidium of the TsIK USSR. Between 1924 and 1927, he was a CPP representative in the ECCI. Between 1927 and 1934, he was the Chairman of the CC of the Communications Workers Trade Union. In 1935, he worked in the Profintern Executive Bureau. In 1936, he was sent to Krasnoiarsk, where he worked as a judge. Bogucki was arrested in the fall of 1937. The Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to capital punishment, and he was executed that same day.
[xlviii]. “Klara” – A nickname of Maria Kaminska (1897-1983), who was born in Warsaw and was a member of the CPP from 1918. After 1924, she was the Secretary of the district party committee in Upper Silesia, and later in the Dombrowski basin. In 1927, she was a Secretary of the Warsaw CPP organization; during the factional struggle in the party, she supported the “minority” faction. In the USSR from 1928, she studied in the MLSh; she worked in the ECCI in 1930. In October 1933, she was sent to conduct party work in Poland, where she was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After her liberation in the fall of 1939, she went to the USSR. After the WWII, she worked in the state and party apparatus in the Polish People’s Republic.
[xlix]. L. Domski (real name – Henryk Stein) (1883-1937). A member of the CPP from 1918; at the party’s first congress, he was elected to the CC. After the removal of the Warski—Walecki—Kostrszewa group from the leadership, Domski became one of the party’s leaders. During the party debates int he mid-1920s, he supported the “new opposition.” In 1928, he was expelled from the party, readmitted in 1930, and expelled again in 1935. Repressed in 1937.
[l]. Zofia Osinska (“Zoska”, maiden name – Unszlicht) (1882-1937). A member of the SDPKPiL from 1905, and after 1906, she was the Secretary of the Belgian section of the SDPKPiL. After 1914, she was a member of the Warsaw and later Lodz city committees of the SDPKPiL. Member of the CPP from 1918. In 1918, she was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1922, she went to the USSR after an exchange of the political prisoners between the USSR and Poland. In 1936, she was arrested. Repressed.
[li]. Leon Markowski (real name – Zandberg). Born in 1895 in the city of Lodz (Poland). During WWI, he served in the Russian army and was captured by the Germans. In June 1917, he escaped from prison and went to Poland, where he joined the SDPKPiL. Between 1919 and 1926, a member, with short intermissions, of the Warsaw CPP committee. After 1927, he was in the USSR, where he worked on the Murmansk railroad and later at the Kirov plant in Leningrad. Repressed.
[lii]. Lazarz Aronsztam (1896-1938). Born in the town of Romny, Poltava province, he was a member of the RSDRP(b) from 1915. After 1924, he worked in the Polish communist movement, was elected Secretary and member of the CC CPWB, and member of the CC CPP. In 1928, after an exchange of political prisoners, he went to the USSR, where he served in the Red Army and was a head of the Political Directorate of the Independent Red Banner Far Eastern army. On 31 May 1937, he was arrested and, on 25 March, 1938, the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Aronsztam to be shot.
[liii]. Felicjan Skladkowski-Slawoj (1885-1962). A Polish politician and General, he was a member of the PPS from 1905. After 1914, he participated in the organization of the Polish legions. Minister of the Interior of Poland in 1926-1929, 1930-1931, 1936. Prime minister in 1936-1939. Between 1939 and 1941, he was interned in Romania. In 1941-1942, he was in the Polish Army in the Middle East, and later in emigration.
[liv]. Sylwester Wojewodzki (1892-1938). Born in Pskov. During WWI, he served in the legions. After 1918, he served in the 2nd Department of the headquarters of the Lithuanian-Belorussian front. In 1922-1924, he was a member of the Polish populist party Wyzwolenie ("Liberation") and a Sejm deputy. After November 1924, one of the founders and Deputy Chairman of the CC of the Independent Peasant Party. After 1928, he was a member of the CPP. He lived in emigration in Germany and later in the USSR. On 16 March 1933, the OGPU Collegium sentenced him to ten years in prison on the charges of espionage. On 28 April 1938, the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Wojewodzki to be shot.
[lv]. The Fifth CPP Congress took place on 16-29 August 1930 in Petergof, near Leningrad. Lenski read the report of the CC CPP. The congress recognized the growth of the revolutionary situation in Poland and sharply criticized the position of the “majority,” characterizing it as a Right deviation. Only the “minority” members were elected to the CC and the Political Bureau. J. Lenski was elected General Secretary.
[lvi] Okhranka – popular abbreviation of Okhrannoe Otdelenie – the Secret Police Department in the tsarist Russia (Trans.).
[lvii]. Redens (alias of Mieczyslaw Bernstein) (1889-1937). A member of the CPP from 1918. In 1924, he was elected candidate member of the CC CPP; member of the CC after 1927. During the intra-party struggle, he supported the “minority” faction. In 1933-1936, he worked in the European Bureau of the Profintern in Paris and later in the ECCI. On 19 December 1937, he was arrested and later sentenced to be shot by the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
[lviii]. Robert Maksymowski (real name – Abram Rozenszajn) (1898-1937). Born in the village of Lukomir, Grodno province. In 1916, he joined the Jewish Socialist Party and, after its merger with the Bund, became a Bund member. In 1921, he joined the CP(b) Belorussia where he worked until 1925. He later conducted underground work in Western Belorussia and was a Secretary of the CC CPWB. In 1928, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. In 1932, after an exchange of political prisoners, he went to the USSR, where he worked as an editor in chief of the newspaper Trybuna Radziecka. Arrested by the NKVD and, on 26 October 1937, sentenced to be shot.
[lix]. “Rifleman” (“Union of Riflemen”) – a paramilitary organization of Polish youth led by Polish army officers; it was closely connected with the ruling circles of the Pilsudski regime.
[lx]. Aleksander Starewicz (real name – Antoni Lipski) (1904-1938). A member of the CPP from 1921; after 1923, he worked in the YCL Poland. He was imprisoned between January 1925 and November 1927. After being released, he was a member of the Bureau of the Organizing Committee (OC) of the Young Communist League of Poland (YCLP) in the Dombrowski basin. In 1929-1930, he worked in the EC KIM. Between September 1930 and June 1931, he was a Secretary of the CC YCLP. At the 5th and 6th CPP congresses, he was elected member of the CC CPP; he worked as a Secretary of the OC and member of the regional Secretariat of the CPP. In 1938, the ECCI recalled him to Moscow, where he was arrested; on 25 August 1938, he was shot in accordance with the verdict of the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
[lxi]. Matek Redyko (alias of Mieczyslaw Muetzenmacher). Born in 1903, he was a member of the YCLP from 1920, and in 1925, was elected a member of the CC. After 1926, he was the Secretary of the CC YCLP. In 1926, he was arrested, spent two years under investigation and was sentenced to five years of hard labor. At the same time, Redyko collaborated with the Polish Defenziwa. He was released in early 1931. After liberation, he headed the Dombrowski CPP organization. After being taken into J. Lenski’s confidence, he started planting suspicions about the CPP leading cadres, organized the downfall of A. Lampe and other communists. After that, the police hid Muetzenmacher and circulated a rumor that he had been killed. The CC CPP believed that rumor and put his assassination down to the Polish police. In 1934, Muetzenmacher, under a pen name of J. Regul, published a book in Warsaw about CPP activities in which he cited facts that compromised the CPP and its leaders. During the occupation, Muetzenmacher served as a Gestapo agent and was exposed only in 1947.
[lxii] Wiktor Stasiak (real name – Bronislaw Berman) (1903-1936?). Born in Warsaw, he was a member of the CPP from 1919 and after 1922, a member of the CC YCLP. He was arrested several times. In 1926, Stasiak was elected Secretary of the CC YCLP. He supported the “minority” faction in the party. In 1928, he was elected member of the KIM Executive Committee. Worked in the CPP after 1929. In 1932, he joined the Secretariat of the CC CPWU, in 1934, elected member of the CC and candidate member of the Political Bureau of the CC CPWU. In 1936, he was arrested by the NKVD. Repressed.
[lxiii] Probably, Josef Konecki (real name – Leon Rozin) (1900-1938). Born in the city of Lodz, in 1918, he was a member of the RSDRP (Mensheviks). After 1919, he was a member of the CPP. He was arrested in 1922; after his release in 1926, he went to the USSR. He supported the “minority” faction in the CPP. Between 1927 and 1928, he was a representative of the YCLP in the EC KIM. In 1928, he was elected member to the EC KIM Presidium. In the fall of 1928, he returned to Poland and was arrested. After his release in 1929, he returned to the USSR, where he studied in the Institute of the Red Professors. In 1934, he was sent to conduct party work in Ukraine, and worked in the CC CP(b)U apparatus. In 1935, he was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison.
[lxiv]. Adam Landy (real name – Witkowski) (1891-1937). Born in Warsaw, he was a member of the PPS-Lewica from 1909 to 1915, and of the PPS from 1915 to 1919. In 1919, he joined the CPP, and in February 1921, was elected to the CPP CC. In 1925, he was a Secretary of the Polish section in the ECCI, and between 1926 and 1930, a member of the Profintern Executive Bureau. In 1930-1933, he worked in different countries for the Comintern and the Profintern, and later on the Editorial and Publishing Committee of the ECCI’s Latin American Secretariat. After 1933, he taught in the Institute of the Trade Union Movement and in the KUTV. Landy was arrested on 21 August 1937 by the NKVD and sentenced to the shot by the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
[lxv]. Ignacy Sosnowski (real name – Dobrzynski). Born in 1897, he was a member of the PPS-Revolutionary faction from 1918. He served in the Intelligence and Information Department of the Polish Army’s General Staff. In 1920, he went over to Soviet Russia’s side. He joined the RKP(b), and worked for the Cheka-GPU. After 1926, he was a head of a GPU department.
[lxvi]. Tojte – alias of Beniamin Goldflam. He was born in 1905 in Warsaw, and started his revolutionary activity in the Jewish Socialist organization Cukunft. After a split in late 1921, he joined the Communist Cukunft. In 1923, he joined the YCLP. Between 1925 and 1927, he was a Secretary of the Warsaw YCLP committee. In 1927-1931, in prison; after his release, he was a YCLP representative in the KIM Executive Committee. After his return to Poland in 1932, he was a Secretary of the CC YCLP. In 1933, he was again arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. In April 1935, due to his deteriorating health, he was temporarily released from prison. He then went clandestinely to Moscow and became the YCLP representative in the EC KIM. At the Sixth KIM Congress (1935), he was elected member of the Presidium of the KIM Executive Committee. On 29 September 1937, he was expelled from the CPP and arrested. On 27 May 1939, he was sentenced to fifteen years in a corrective labor camp.
[lxvii]. Horenko – alias of Franciszek Mazur (1895-1966). A member of the Bolshevik party from 1919, he worked in Ukraine in the organs of justice. After 1930, he conducted party work in the CPP, and was a member of the CPP CC in 1930-1938. Between 1934 and 1938, he was imprisoned in Poland. After liberation, he worked in Czechoslovakia and France. During WWII, he lived in the USSR. After the war, he was one of the Polish People’s Republic leaders, a member of the CC of the Polish United Worker’s Party (1950-1956), and Ambassador to the Czechoslovak Republic (1957-1965).
[lxviii]. Winkas Mickiewicz-Kapuskas (1880-1935). A member of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party from 1903, and of the RSDRP(b). In 1917, he was a delegate to the Second All-Russia Congress of the Soviets and member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. In December 1917, he was made Commissar of the Soviet Government for Lithuanian affairs. He took part in creation of the CPLith and was a member of its CC from 1918. In 1918-1919, he headed the first Soviet government of Lithuania and the Council of the People’s Commissars of the Lithuanian-Belorussian SSR. After the fall of Soviet power in Lithuania, he conducted underground work in Vilnius (1920-1921). After 1923, he worked in the ECCI, and was a member of the ECCI from 1928.
[lxix]. Franciszek Trusskier (alias – Fiedler) (1880-1956). A member of the SDPKPiL from 1905, and of the SDPKPiL’s Central Trade Union commission and its Main Board. He was a member of the CPP from the time of its first congress. In 1918, he was elected to the CC CPP. In 1925, he worked in the Polish section of the ECCI. Upon return to Poland, he was arrested and spent two years in prison. After 1934, he lived in France until the end of the WWII, and took part in the Resistance movement. After the liberation of Poland, he conducted party and research work in the People’s Republic of Poland.
[lxx]. Probably, Aleksander Ostrowski. A CPP member from 1918, and a member of the Polish Central Trade Union Commission. In 1934, on the basis of the Tadeus Zarski’s testimony, the CC CPP accused Ostrowski of provocation. A special commission created by the Trade Union Board conducted an independent investigation of the Ostrowski case and came to a conclusion that he had never been a POW member and therefore there was no basis for accusing him of provocation.
[lxxi]. Marceli Nowotko (real name – Max Marian) (1893-1942). A member of the CPP from the 1918, he worked in the trade union of the metal workers and in workers’ cooperatives. In 1923, he was a Secretary of the Lvov party organization and in 1925-1926, Secretary of the regional party committee of the Dombrowski basin. In 1929-1933, he was imprisoned; after his release, he worked as instructor for the CC CPP. In 1935, he was arrested and sentenced to twelve years in prison; released in 1939. Between 1939 and 1941, he worked in Belostok and attended the ECCI party school. In the late December 1941, he was sent to Poland; after the creation of the Polish Worker’s Party, he became its leader. He was killed in Warsaw on 28 November 1942.
[lxxii]. Stanislaw Ballin (1897-1937). An activist of the Polish peasant movement, the Independent Peasant Party, and a Sejm deputy, he was a member of the CPP from 1925. In 1926, he was one of the creators and later Chairman of the Central International Secretariat for Amnesty for Political Prisoners. After 1928, he lived in the USSR and graduated from MLSh. In 1930, he was expelled from the party for “right-opportunist mistakes,” however the expulsion was changed to harsh reprimand. On 9 March 1934, the OGPU Collegium sentenced him to five years in prison. On 27 December 1937, he was sentenced to be shot.
[lxxiii]. Wladyslaw Kowalski (real name – Grzech Slusarski) (1883-1937). A member of the PPS from 1903, of the PPS-Lewica from 1906, of the SDPKPiL from 1916 to 1918, and of the CPP from 1918. He was a member of the CC CPP. In 1923, due to serious disagreements with the CC CPP line, he was relieved of party work. In 1926, he went to Moscow where he worked for Gostorg. In 1928, he joined the VKP. In May 1934, he was arrested and, on 2 December, sentenced to five years in prison.
[lxxiv]. Henryk Bitner (Bicz) (1887-1937). A member of the PPS-Lewica from 1906. In 1913-1914, he was imprisoned in Warsaw for revolutionary activities. He was a delegate to the first congress of the Communist Workers Party of Poland. In 1923-1925, he was a member of its CC, and in 1928-1929, a Sejm deputy. In 1929, he went to the USSR. He graduated from the MLSh in 1931, and worked in the Institute of Marx-Engels-Lenin in Moscow. Repressed.
[lxxv]. Stanislaw Huber (real name – Huberman, alias – Wrzos) (1897-1936). Born in Zelendorf. In 1916, he joined the SDPKPiL, moved to Germany, where he joined the Spartacus group and became a Secretary of the Polish section. In 1919-1920, he worked in the West European Bureau of the Comintern; he took part in the founding congress of the KIM in November 1919 in Berlin. He worked in the Austrian CP. After 1926, he worked in Poland as a Secretary of regional CPP committees in Upper Silesia and Lodz. In 1928, he was co-opted on to the CC CPP. In 1932, he was sent to Moscow to study in the MLSh. Between 1934 and 1935, he was a deputy head of the Central European Section of the Profintern Executive Bureau. He died on 6 November 1936 in an air crash.
[lxxvi]. Helena Brodowska (1888-1937). A member of the SDPKPiL from 1905; in 1919, she joined the CPP and was the party’s courier to the RSFSR. In June 1920, she moved to Berlin, where she worked in the USSR’s Trade Delegation. In 1926, she returned to Poland, and worked for the party. After 1928, she lived in the USSR. She worked in the Glavkhimprom between 1933 and 1935, later was a Director of the Chemical plant in the city of Kolate. In May 1937, she was arrested and, on 4 August, the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced her to be shot.
[lxxvii]. Wlodzimierz Zamojski (real name – Gadomski) (1905-1937). A member of the CPP from 1927. During the intra-party struggle, he was in the “majority” group. He worked in the CPP’s Military department. In 1930, he went to the USSR and, until 1934, studied in the KUNMZ. Later he worked on the editorial board of the newspaper Trybuna Radziecka. He was arrested by the NKVD and sentenced to the shot on 13 December 1937.
[lxxviii]. Tomasz Dabal (1890-1938). A member of the Polish Popular Party after 1909, he belonged to its Left wing. In 1919, he was elected to Sejm, and was editor-in-chief of the newspaper Jednosc Chlopska (“The Peasants’ Unity”). In 1920, he joined the CPP. In 1921, he was sentenced to six years in prison. In 1923, after an exchange of political prisoners, he went to the USSR, where he worked as a Deputy Chairman of the MOPR Executive Committee. He was member of the Presidium and deputy General Secretary of the International Peasant Council, and the editor of the newspaper Trybuna Radziecka. In 1930-1932, he studied in the Institute of the Red Professors. In 1932, he became a vice-Chairman of the Academy of Science of the Belorussian SSR. Between 1932 and 1937, he was a member of the CC CP(b) Belorussia. On 21 August 1937, Dabal was arrested; he died in prison on 4 December 1938.
[lxxix] Konstanty Graeser (aliases – Kalicky, Pawlowsky) (1901-1937). Born in Moscow, he lived in Poland after 1902. In 1918, he was a member of the Polish legions. A member of the CPP from 1922, he was a part of its delegation to the Fifth Comintern Congress in 1924. Upon his return to Poland, he was arrested. After being released in 1927, he conducted party work in Upper Silesia and in the Dombrowski basin. He supported the “minority” faction in the party. In 1929, he was arrested again, released in 1932 and went to the USSR, where he worked in the MLSh. At the Sixth CPP Congress in 1932, he was elected a candidate member of the CC. At the Sixth CC CPP Plenum, he was removed from the CC. On 6 August 1937, he was arrested. Repressed.
[lxxx]. Hermann Schubert (alias – Max Richter). Born in 1896 in Lengefelde, Germany. After 1914, he was a member of the SDP; in 1918-1920, a member of the Independent SDP; and after 1920, a member of the CPG. In 1929-1930, he was a secretary of the regional CPG committee in Eastern Prussia. After 1929, he was a candidate member of the CC CPG; after 1932, a candidate member of the Political Bureau; in 1933, a member of the Political Bureau and secretary of the CC CPG. He emigrated in the fall 1933, and in December 1934, he went to the USSR. In 1935, he was a representative of the CPG in the ECCI; after October 1935, a member of the MOPR Executive Committee. Schubert was arrested by the NKVD on 15 May 1937. Repressed.
[lxxxi]. Blagoy Popov (1902-1968). He was a Bulgarian communist and participant of the September 1923 anti-fascist insurrection in Bulgaria. In 1931-1932, he was a member of the Political Bureau of the CC CPBul, and in late 1932, was sent to Berlin by the ECCI. Arrested on 9 March 1933 along with G. Dimitrov and V. Tanev, he was one of the accused at the Reichstag fire trial in Leipzig. After 1934, he lived in the USSR. In 1938, he was arrested and convicted. After being released in 1954, he returned to Bulgaria.
[lxxxii]. Stanislaw Ludkiewicz (real name – Klemenz Fenigstein) (1897-1938). A member of the SDPKPiL from 1918, he later joined the CPP. In 1921, he had to emigrate in connection with the failed attempt to liberate S. Skulski (Mertens). In 1926, he returned to Poland and worked for the MOPR. In 1931, he went to the USSR and worked in the Mezhrabpomfilm studio and in the International Union of Revolutionary Writers. In early 1936, he was expelled from the CPP and arrested by the NKVD. The Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to be shot.
[lxxxiii] Berta Zimmermann (1902-1937). Born in Zurich, she went to the USSR in 1924 with her husband, Fritz Platten, and worked in the ECCI apparatus. She was arrested on 4 June 1937. On 2 November 1937, the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced her to capital punishment.
[lxxxiv] The name is illegible (Trans.).
[lxxxv]. Stefan Heltman (1882-1942). Born in Zamostie, he participated in the Socialist youth movement from 1903; a member of the Bolshevik party from 1917. In 1920-1924, he was a secretary of the Polish Bureau of the CC RKP. In the 1920s, he worked for the party and in research institutions in Belorussia. Between 1932 and 1937, he was an executive in the USSR People’s Commissariat of Sovkhozes. Arrested in April 1937. Repressed.
[lxxxvi]. Stanislaw Budzynski (1894-1937) A member of the SDPKPiL from 1912, he was one of the organizers of the SDPKPiL groups in Russia and a member of the All-Russian SDPKPiL Committee. In October 1917, he was a member of the Moscow Revolutionary Committee and the Moscow RSDRP(b) Committee. In September 1918, he returned to Poland and participated in the work of the First Congress of the Communist Workers Party of Poland. He was arrested in November 1919. After an exchange of political prisoners, he went to Russia. In 1928-1929, he conducted underground work in Poland and later worked in Belorussia. Between 1934 and 1937, he was a chair of a department at the MLSh, deputy Chair of a department at the Higher School of Party Propaganda of the CC VKP. In July 1937, he was arrested and sentenced to be shot.
[lxxxvii] Witald Sturm de Strem. A Polish communist of ultra-Leftist views. He organized sabotage groups and prepared an attempt upon the life of the French Marshal Ferdinand Foch during his visit to Poland in 1923. He was expelled from the party for Left extremism.
[lxxxviii] The Polish Revolutionary Committee was created in July 1920 as a revolutionary state organ on the territory occupied by the Red Army during the Soviet-Polish war. Members of the Committee were J. Marchlewski, F. Dzerzhinsky, F. Kon and others. The defeat of the Red Army near Warsaw and its retreat resulted in liquidation of the Committee.
[lxxxix] Stefan Krolikwski (real name – Bartoszewicz) (1881-1937). A member of the PPS from 1900, he supported the PPS-Lewica, took part in the formation of the CPP and was elected to the CPP’s CC at its founding congress. In 1923-1925, he was a Sejm deputy. During the factional struggle in the party, he supported the “majority.” In 1929, he was relieved of party work for his factional activities. After 1929, he lived in the USSR and did economic work and translations. On 11 May 1937, he was arrested and, on 21 August, sentenced to be shot.
[xc] Adam Adamski (real name – Ludwig Prentki) (1898-1937). Born in Lodz, he was a member of the SDPKPiL from 1904, and the CPP from 1918. In 1920, he was arrested. After an exchange of political prisoners in 1921, he went to the USSR and worked in the CC CPP apparatus. In 1924, he was again arrested in Poland and exchanged in 1926. After that, he worked in the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade of the USSR. On 3 November 1937, he was arrested. The Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to be shot.
[xci] Albert Treint (1889-1971). A member of the CPFr and of its CC from 1920. Following the ECCI decision of November 1922, he became General Secretary of the CPFr, but in January 1924, he was replaced by Louis Sele. At the Fifth Comintern Congress, Treint was elected to the ECCI, its Presidium and Secretariat. He was removed from the CC CPFr in August 1927 for supporting the Zinovievite opposition and, in January 1928, was expelled from the party. Between 1931 and 1932, he was a member of Trotskyist groups in France. In 1934, Treint joined the SFIO. Later he withdrew from political life.
[xcii] The question mark is Dimitrov’s. (Trans.)
[xciii] Edmund Stefanski (real name – Aleksander Danieluk) (1897-1937). Born in Warsaw, he was member of the RSDRP from 1915. After April 1918, he worked in Samara, was the Chairman of the Soviet’s Executive Committee and Secretary of the RKP(b) committee. In July 1919, he returned to Poland and joined the CPP. Between 1923 and 1927, he was a member of the CPP CC and, after 1925, a member of the Secretariat of the CC. In 1928, he went to the USSR and worked in the ECCI. After 1931, he was a member of the Romanian CP (CPR) and a member of the Political Bureau of the CC CPR. After 1935, he worked in the economic bureaucracy in the USSR (in Astrakhan and Kostroma). In February 1937, he was arrested. Repressed.
[xciv] Grigory Borisovich Smoliansky. Born in 1890 in Chernobyl, he was a member of the SR party in 1909-1917, and in 1917-1918, a member of the Left SRs. In 1919, he was a member of the Ukrainian Left SRs (borotbitsy). After 1919, he became a member of the RKP(b). In 1917-1918, he participated in the Second, Third and Fourth Congresses of the Soviets. In 1918-1919, he conducted underground work in Ukraine. In 1918, a German military court condemned him in absentia for participating in the murder of General Eichhorn. Between 1921 and 1924, Smoliansky worked in the Profintern. In 1925-1937, he was an executive in the Comintern apparatus. He was arrested in July 1937 and repressed.
[xcv] Lev Borisovich Smoliansky. Born in 1893 in Kiev. In 1910-1917, he was a member of the SR party and, in 1917-1919, a Left SR. Between 1913 and 1917, he was exiled in Siberia. In the 1930s, he worked in the Profintern apparatus. Repressed.
[xcvi] Boris Afanasievich Vasiliev (1889-1937). A member of the Bolshevik party from 1904. After 1925, he worked in the ECCI as a head of the Organizational Department and in the Latin American Secretariat. After 1935, he worked in the CC VKP. Repressed.
[xcvii] The government of G. Bruning in Germany was formed in March 1930 and existed until spring 1932. Bruning, the leader of the “Center” party, issued a series of decrees to cut social spending, reduce paychecks, increase taxation, etc. in order to stem Germany’s economic crisis.
[xcviii] Rudolf Slansky (1901-1952). A member of the CP Czechoslovakia (CPCz) from 1921. In 1923, he worked in the CC CPCz apparatus; in 1924, he became an editor of the party’s central organ, Rudé Právo, and later headed the party organization in the Morawski Ostraw. In 1928, he became a member of the CC and Political Bureau of the CC CPCz. In 1930, he became a Secretary of the CC. Slansky was a delegate of the 6th and 7th Comintern Congresses. In December 1938, he emigrated to the USSR and worked in the ECCI apparatus. After the liberation of Czechoslovakia, he went back and was elected General Secretary of the CC CPCz. In 1952, he was accused of being a "traitor, saboteur, spy, and Zionist" and was arrested. He was tried, convicted and hanged in 1952. He was rehabilitated after 1926.
[xcix] Jan Sverma (1901-1944). A member of the CPCz from 1921. In 1924, he was an editor of the newspaper Rude Právo; in 1925, he was an instructor in one of the CPCz party schools. Between 1926 and 1928, he studied in the MLSh. At the Fifth CPCz Congress in 1929, he was elected a CC member, and later a member of the Political Bureau of the CC CPCz. Sverma was a delegate of the 6th and 7th Comintern Congresses. At the 7th Congress (1935), he was elected candidate member of the ECCI. In 1935, he was elected deputy to the parliament of Czechoslovakia. In 1939, he was a CPCz representative in Paris. In 1940, he went to London. In 1944, he was sent to Slovakia, where he was killed.
[c] Maria Svabova (Svermova) (1902-1992). A member of the CC CPCz from 1929. In 1938-1945, she lived in the USSR and worked in the Czech department of the All-Union Radio and in the ECCI’s Press Department. After 1946, she was a member of the Presidium of the CC CPCz; after 1949, a deputy General Secretary of the CC CPCz. In February 1951, she was expelled from the party.
[ci] Nikolai Nikolaevich Popov (1891-1938). A member of the RSDRP from 1906, and the RKP(b) from 1919. In 1930 and 1934, he was elected a member of the CC VKP. Between 1933 and 1936, he was a Secretary of the CC CP Ukraine. He represented the CC CP Ukraine in the CC CPWB. At the Seventh Comintern Congress (1935), he was elected candidate ECCI member. In June 1937, he was expelled from the party. Repressed.
[cii] Stefan Zbikowski (1891-1937). A member of the SDPKPiL and RKP(b) from 1918, one of the founders of the CPP’s military organization. In 1919, he was arrested by Polish authorities and sentenced to eight years of prison. After an exchange of the political prisoners in 1921, he went to Russia, where he worked in the ECCI. Between 1923 and 1927, he conducted revolutionary work in Germany, England and China. In 1928-1929, he worked in the 4th Directorate of the Red Army General Staff. In 1930, he graduated from the High Command School of the Red Army and resumed working in the General Staff. In 1933-1934, he attended the Frunze Military Academy and was later a professor there. Zbikowski was arrested on 14 June 1937 and shot on 26 October 1937.
[ciii] Stefan Klonowicz (real name – Leon Kotowicz, alias – Winarski) (1889-1937). A member of the CPP from 1924, he was an economist by profession and worked in a Polish bank. In 1924, he went to the USSR and worked in the People’s Commissariat of Finances. In 1927, he was sent to conduct underground work in Poland; he joined the CC CPWU and the Political Bureau of the CC CPWU, and belonged to the “majority” faction. In 1930, he was removed from party work and returned to the USSR. Klonowicz was arrested on 30 July 1933 and sentenced to death on 9 March 1934. He was shot on 1 July 1937.
[civ] Jakub Dutlinger (1885-1937?). Born in Warsaw. In 1905, he joined the PPS. He was an active worker for the PPS-Lewica and a delegate to the First (1918) and Second (1923) CPP Congresses. In 1924, he was a member of the CC CPP Secretariat. He belonged to the “majority” faction. Dutlinger worked in the Profintern apparatus under the alias of “Marianski.” In 1936, he was the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper Journal de Moscou. He was arrested in 1937 and repressed.
[cv] Probably, Leon Marianski (Krieger). Born in 1903. He joined the CPP in 1919; he was a secretary of a YCLP regional committee and member of the district committee. In 1924-1928, he was imprisoned; in 1929-1930, he studied in the MLSh. Between 1931 and 1935, he was a Secretary of the Dombrowski coal basin district committee, and later a Secretary of the Warsaw party organization. In 1935, he went to Moscow. Repressed.
[cvi] Bernard Zaks (Nierski) (1886-1937). A member of the SDPKPiL from 1902. In 1912, he was a member of the Warsaw SDPKPiL group, and a SDPKPiL group member at the Moscow RSDRP(b) Committee. In 1928, he returned to Poland, was arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison. In 1932, he was expelled and went to the USSR where he worked in the State Bank. Repressed.
[cvii] Witold Tomorowicz (aliases: Andrzej Turkowski, Grzegorz) (1893-1937). A member of the CPP from 1918; between 1927 and 1930, he was a member of the CC CPP. He spent eight years in Polish prisons for his revolutionary activities (in 1919-1921, 1922-1923, 1928-1933). In 1923-1925 and 1933-1937, he lived in the USSR and worked as the head of the Polish sector in the KUNMZ and MLSh, and was an Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Z pola walki. In 1937, he was arrested by the NKVD and sentenced to be shot.
[cviii] Marabut – alias of Henryk Muszkat (Wyszkowski) (1898-1937). A member of the CPP from 1918. During the intra-party struggle, he was a member of the “minority” faction. He was arrested eight times and was imprisoned for more than five years. In 1931-1933, he was a secretary of the regional leadership of the CPWU. Between 1936 and 1937, he worked in the Polish delegation in the ECCI. Marabut was arrested by the NKVD on 3 November 1937, and sentenced to be shot by the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
[cix] Romana Jezierska (real name – Wolf, alias – “Helena”) (1889-1937). Born in Warsaw, she was a member of the RSDRP(b) from January 1917, and a member of the CPP from 1924. She was a wife of I. Unszlicht and later A. Guralsky. In 1921-1924, she worked in the Cheka. In 1924, she was sent to Poland to conduct party work; she was a secretary of district CPP and CPWB committees, a candidate CC CPP member, and a member of regional Secretariat of the CC CPP. In 1926-1932, she was imprisoned. After her release, she went to the USSR and studied in the MLSh. In 1924-1935, she was sent to Paris to direct the regional secretariat of the CC CPP. In May 1935, Jezierska returned to the USSR. She was arrested in 1937. On 11 December 1937, the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced her to be executed.
[cx] Alfred Stolarski (“Adolf” Bem). Born in 1900 in Lodz, he was a member of the CPP from 1919, and worked in the trade union of the transport workers of Poland. Following CC CPP directives, he joined the PPS in 1927 and was elected member of the party’s Main Board. He was arrested several times. In 1929, Stolarski went to the USSR and worked in the Profintern Executive Bureau. In 1931, he was made the Profintern representative to the International of Sailors and Port Workers; in 1932, he was elected Secretary of this International. In 1935, he returned to the USSR and was named, in March 1936, head of the Soviet Bureau of the International of Sailors and Port Workers. Arrested on 25 July 1936 and sentenced to five years of hard labor on 20 May 1937.
[cxi] Russian abbreviation of Ispravitelno-Trudovoi Lager (Corrective Labor Camp) (Trans.).
[cxii] Romana Juchniewicz (1900-1937?). Born in Petersburg , she was a member of the SDPKPiL and the Bolshevik party from 1917. She worked in the Polish Secretariat of the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities. After 1919, she worked in the apparatus of the CP Lithuania and Belorussia. After 1921, she conducted party work in Poland. In 1922, she was arrested and was in prison until the fall of 1923. In 1923, she went to the USSR. In 1926, she returned to Poland. She supported the “majority” faction in the CPP. In 1930, she returned to the USSR and worked in the Profintern apparatus. In 1937, she was arrested. Repressed.
[cxiii] Teodora Feder (1900-1987) Born in Lublin, Poland. A member of the CPP from 1918. In 1921, she was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1923, after an exchange of political prisoners, she emigrated to the USSR. Between 1923 and 1930, she worked in the Profintern and in the ECCI apparatus. After 1930, she studied in the Institute of Red Professors. In 1933-1934, she lived in Paris. Between 1935 and 1936, she was a deputy head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Voronezh regional VKP committee. In 1937-1938, she was a secretary of the party organization of the Soviet colony in Madrid. In 1940, she was arrested by the NKVD along with her husband, T. G. Mandalian (S. G. Marchenko). Her husband was condemned to death and, on 18 July 1941, Feder was sentenced by the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR to eight years in the corrective labor camp. In 1945, she was released.
[cxiv] A. A. Kostanian. In the early 1930s, he was a Secretary of the Profintern Executive Bureau. After 1934, he worked as a head of Political Department of the Moscow-Kursk railroad. In July 1937, he was arrested by the NKVD and shot soon after.
[cxv] Solomon Abramovich Lozovsky (real name – Dridzo) (1878-1952). A member of the RSDRP from 1901. In July 1917, he was elected Secretary of the All-Russia Central Trade Union Council. In 1920, he became Chairman of the Moscow provincial Council of Trade Unions. Between 1921 and 1937, he was General Secretary of the Profintern. In 1939-1946, he was Deputy People’s Commissar and later Minister of Foreign Affairs; at the same time, he was the head of Sovinformburo. Arrested in 1949, he died in prison in August 1952.
[cxvi] People’s Commissariat for Nationalities (Trans.).
[cxvii] VChK – Vserossiiskaia chrezvychainaia komissiia po borbe s kontrrevolutsiiei, sabotazhem i spekuliatsiiei (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combatting Counterrevolution, Sabotage and Speculation). Created on 7 (20) December 1917. The VChK Chairman was Felix Dzierzhinski. On 6 February 1922, the VChK was abolished by the VTsIK decree which replaced it with the State Political Directorate of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs RSFSR (Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie – GPU).
[cxviii] Nikolai Alekseevich Skrypnik (1872-1933). A member of the Bolshevik party from 1897, he was a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. After December 1917, he was a People’s Commissar of Labor and Industry. After 1918, he conducted party and administrative work in Ukraine. He was a member of the CC VKP from 1927, and a member of the ECCI from 1928. In 1933, Skrypnik committed suicide.
[cxix] Stefan Staszewski (real name – Gustaw Szusterman) (1907-1989). Born in Warsaw, he was a member of the CPP from 1923. In 1926-1928, he studied in the MLSh. Between 1930 and 1932, he worked in the Secretariat of the CC CPP. In 1933-1934, he was imprisoned. In December 1934, Staszewski went to the USSR. There he taught in the MLSh and worked in the editorial board of the newspaper Trybuna Rasziecka. In 1938, he was arrested by the NKVD organs. On 4 May 1939, the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to fifteen years in prison. In 1945, he was released and left for Poland.
[cxx] People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (Trans.).
[cxxi] Stefan Rajewski (real name – Nejman) (1885-1937). Born in Lodz, he was a member of the PPS from 1903, and of the PPS-Lewica from 1906. He was in prison between 1908 and 1912. Joined the RKP(b). In 1918, he went to Moscow and worked as a head of the International Department of the newspaper Izvestiia. After 1935, he was editor-in-chief of the magazine Journal de Moscou. On 6 September 1936, he was arrested and, on 1 November 1937, sentenced to be shot.
[cxxii] Josef Ciczewski (1876-1938). A member of the PPS from 1899, PPS-Lewica from 1906, and the CPP from 1918, he was a member of the first CPP CC. Arrested in 1920; in 1921, he went to Soviet Russia and transferred to the VKP. He worked in the apparatus of the Supreme Economic Council and Gosplan of the USSR. Ciczewski was arrested in October 1937. On 25 January 1938, the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to be shot.
[cxxiii] Kazimierz Lauer (1894-1937). Until his arrest by the NKVD, he worked as an engineer in the People’s Commissariat for Communications of the USSR. On 11 December 1937, the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to be shot.
[cxxiv] Julian Brun (aliases: Spis, Jankowski) (1886-1942). A journalist, he was a member of the CPP from 1919, a member of the VKP between 1927 and 1929, a member of the CC CPP between 1923 and 1926, and a candidate CC CPP member in 1930-1937. After the CPP’s dissolution, he lived in Brussels. On 10 May 1940, he was arrested by the German authorities and sent to a concentration camp in France; he escaped from the camp in September 1940. On 7 August 1941, he went to the USSR. He died in May 1942 in Saratov.
[cxxv] Marcin Jablonski (1906-1941). Born in Petrakov, he was a member of the CPP from 1923. In 1928, he joined the PPS-Lewica; arrested several times. In August 1938, he was sentenced to five years in prison. After 1939, he lived in the USSR.
[cxxvi] Elena Usievich. The daughter of a well-known activist of the Polish Social Democratic movement Felix Kon, she was born in 1893. A member of the RSDRP from 1915, she formed part of the Bern section of the Bolshevik party. In April 1917, she went to Russia together with Lenin. In 1918, she conducted underground work in the hetman Ukraine. After 1920, she lived in Moscow, worked for the Cheka and the Supreme Economic Council; later, she engaged in writing and publishing.