Alexander Parvus

File:Helphand Parvus.jpg

Dr. Helphand (Alexander Parvus)

Alexander Parvus (Russian: Александр Парвус) (September 8 [O.S. August 27] 1867 in Berezin, Russian Empire (now in Belarus)– December 12, 1924 in Berlin) was a Russian revolutionary (Menshevik) and a German Social Democrat, as well as a German intelligence agent - two partly contradictory and partly complementary roles in the circumstances of the time.

Early life

Parvus was born Israel Lazarevich Gelfand (Russian: Израиль Лазаревич Гельфанд; his last name in English is sometimes rendered Gelfant, Helfand, Helfant or Helphand) in Belarus shtetl Berezino, the son of Jewish parents. He was raised in Odessa (today's Ukraine), where he began associating with the Jewish revolutionary (The Bund) circles.

Revolutionary

At age nineteen he left for Zürich, where he continued his studies, becoming a doctor of philosophy in 1891. By this time he openly became a Marxist. He moved to Germany, joined the Social Democratic Party and befriended German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. In 1900, he met Vladimir Lenin for the first time, in Munich, each admiring the other's theoretical works. Parvus encouraged Lenin to begin publishing his revolutionary paper Iskra.

Parvus' attempts to become a German citizen proved fruitless. He once commented in a letter to his German friend Wilhelm Liebknecht that "I am seeking a government where one can inexpensively acquire a fatherland." Consequently for many years he attempted to immigrate to the United States. His socialist revolutionary compatriots were already busy establishing a network of mostly Jewish revolutionaries in the United States, including Leon Trotsky who briefly moved to New York City.

However, German counter-intelligence had penetrated part of the socialist revolutionary network and upon reading his writing in the socialist press during the Russo-Japanese War, found Parvus had predicted that Russia would lose the war, resulting in unrest and revolution. When this proved to be the case, Parvus' prestige among his socialist and other German comrades increased. Thus, German intelligence soon estimated he would be useful in efforts against the Russian Empire.

During this time he developed the concept of using a foreign war to provoke an internal revolt within a country. It was at this time that Parvus revived, from Marx, the concept-strategy of "permanent revolution" (See the linked Wikipedia article). He communicated this philosophy to Trotsky who then further expanded and developed it. Through Trotsky, the method was eventually adopted by Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Lenin's April Theses in 1917.

Russian Revolution of 1905

In 1905, Parvus arrived in St. Petersburg with false Austro-Hungarian papers. In December, Parvus authored a provocative article on behalf of the St. Petersburg Soviet, The Financial Manifesto, which described the Russian economy as being on the verge of collapse. In turn the article was dispatched to other communist agents in the more mainline newspapers who published it as well. In combination with this propaganda, Parvus coordinated an agitation of locals to feign a run on the banks. As the news of the article and the subsequent "rush" was spread, the consequent hysteria managed to upset the economy and enrage prime minister Sergei Witte, but did not cause a financial collapse.

In connection with this provocation and Parvus' involvement in the organization of anti-government actions during the 1905 revolution, Parvus (together with other revolutionaries such as Leon Trotsky) was arrested by the Russian police. While in prison he became close with other revolutionaries, and was visited by Rosa Luxemburg. Sentenced to three years exile in Siberia, Parvus escaped and ran away to Germany. There he published a book about his experiences called In the Russian Bastile during the Revolution.

A. Parvus (left) with Leon Trotsky (center) and Leo Deutsch (right) in prison.

The Maxim Gorky affair

While in Germany, Parvus struck a deal with Russian author Maxim Gorky to produce his play The Lower Depths. According to the agreement, the majority of the play's proceeds were to go to the Russian Social Democratic Party (and approximately 25% to Gorky himself). Parvus' failure to pay (despite the fact that the play had over 500 showings) caused him to be accused of stealing 130,000 German gold marks. Gorky threatened to sue, but Rosa Luxemburg convinced Gorky to keep the quarrel inside the party's own court. Eventually, Parvus paid back Gorky, but his reputation in party circles was scathed.

Istanbul period

Soon afterwards Parvus moved to Istanbul in Turkey, where he lived for five years. There he set up an arms trading company which profited handsomely during the Balkan War. He became the financial and political advisor of the Young Turks. In 1912 he was made editor of Turk Yurdu, their daily newspaper. He worked closely with the triumvirs known as the Three Pashas - Enver, Tamat and Cemal - and Finance Minister Djavid Bey. His firm dealt with the deliveries of foodstuffs for the Turkish army and he was business partner of Krupp concern and Vickers Limited of famous arms dealer Basil Zaharov. Arms dealings with Vickers Limited at war time gave basis to the theory that Alexander Parvus was also a British intelligence asset.

Russian Revolution

While in Turkey, Parvus became close with German ambassador Baron Hans Freiherr von Wangenheim who was known to be partial to establishing revolutionary fifth columns among the allies. Consequently, Parvus offered his plan via Baron von Wangenheim to the German General Staff: the paralyzing of Russia via general strike, financed by the German government (which, at the time, was at war with Russia and its allies). Von Wagenheim sent Parvus to Berlin where the latter arrived on the 6th of March, 1915 and presented a 20 page plan titled A preparation of massive political strikes in Russia to the German government.

Parvus' detailed plan recommended the division of Russia by sponsoring the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, encouraging ethnic separatists in various Russian regions, and supporting various writers whose criticism of Tsarism continued during wartime. Basing himself on his 1905 experiences, Parvus theorised that the division of Russia and its loss in the First World War was the best way to bring about a socialist revolution.

Copenhagen operation

Some accuse Parvus of having funded Lenin while in Switzerland. Historians, agree. A biography of Parvus by the authors Scharlau and Zeman have concluded that there was absolute cooperation between the two. It declared that

Austrian intelligence through Parvus gave money to Russian emigre newspapers in Paris. But when the sources of this funding became clear in the beginning of 1915 and more widely understood--Lenin and the emigres in Paris rejected such support. Harold Shukman has concluded, "Funds were plainly not flowing into Lenin's hands"

Parvus placed his bets on Lenin, as the latter was not only a radical but willing to accept the sponsorship of the Tsar's wartime enemy, Germany. The two met in Berne in May 1915 and agreed to collaboration through their organizations, though Lenin remained very careful never to get associated with Parvus in public. There is no certain proof that they ever met face to face again, although there are indications that such a meeting may well have occurred on April 13, 1917 during Lenin's stop-over in Stockholm.

Parvus assiduously worked at keeping Lenin's confidence, however Lenin kept him at arms length to disguise the changing roles of both men, Parvus involvement with German intelligence and his own liaisons with his old ally, who was not respected anymore among the socialists after his years in Turkey and after becoming a millionaire entrepreneur. German intelligence set up Parvus' financial network via offshore operations in Copenhagen, setting up relays for German money to get to Russia via fake financial transactions between front organizations. A large part of the transactions of these companies were genuine, but those served to bury the transfer of money to the Bolsheviks, a strategy made feasible by the weak and overburdened fiscal and customs offices in Scandinavia, which were inadequate for the booming black market in these countries during the war.

It is still debated to the present day whether the money with which this financial network operated was actually of German origin. The evidence published by Kerensky's Government in preparation for a trial scheduled for October (November) 1917 was recently reexamined and found to be either inconclusive or outright forgery. (See also Sisson Documents)

The most notorious was the Institute for the Study of the Social Consequences of War which Parvus set up in Denmark. Initially he had intended for Nikolai Bukharin to lead the operation, but under the pressure of Lenin who mistrusted Bukharin as a probable government agent (Trotsky's nickname for Nikolai Bukharin was "Nick Blabbermouth"), instead instituted Lenin's confidants Yakov Ganetsky and Karl Radek. The activities of agent couriers were organized by Moisei Uritsky, later the head of Soviet Petrograd's Cheka.

However, setbacks occurred, as Ganetsky's suspicious arms smuggling activities drew unwanted attention from British SIS who now traced Ganetsky to Parvus and hence to Baron von Wangenheim. The Baron had long been under surveillance for his support of the Young Turks' revolutionary actions against the British. As a result Ganetsky was forced out of Denmark, while attempts were made by the British and Russians to stamp out the Bolshevik's financial network in Turkey. Additionally, as Lenin became more and more aware of Parvus' relations with German intelligence their relations became increasingly strained. Losing the confidence and/or control of his agents, Parvus began looking for other avenues of operation.

Parvus' reputation with the German ministry of foreign affairs came into question when in the winter of 1916 a Parvus planned financial catastrophe in St. Petersburg (akin to Parvus' provocation against the Russian banks in 1905) failed to produce a massive uprising. As a result, financing for Parvus' operations were frozen. Parvus went for support to the German Navy, briefly working as their advisor. He managed to help prevent Russian naval admiral Kolchak from taking on his offensive against the Turko-German Fleet in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles by planning the sabotage of a major Russian warship. This success gave him more credibility, once again, in the eyes of the Germans.

In March 1917, in a plan strategized together with Parvus, German intelligence sent Vladimir Lenin and a group of 30 of his revolutionary associates from Switzerland through Germany in a train car under supervision of Swiss socialist Fritz Platten.

Spartacist uprising

As the depth of Parvus' arrangements with the Germans became known this also ruined relations with the rest of the revolutionary network including Rosa Luxemburg and other German socialists who were engaging in the subversion of Germany. Despite evidence showing the Parvus had never betrayed German socialists to the authorities, his credibility among the revolutionary elite went sour.

As his political activity waned, the war ground to a halt, and he refused to help the new German authorities smash Rosa Luxemburg's Red Revolution, he retreated to a German island near Berlin. Despite his failure to help the new Weimar Republic regime he was well provided for, living in a well appointed 32-room mansion in Berlin's Swan Isle. He later published his memoirs from this residence.

Legacy

Parvus died in Germany, in December 1924. His body was cremated and interred in a Berlin cemetery. After his death Konrad Haenisch wrote in his memoir "This man possessed the ablest brains of the Second International"

The party's gold

Igor Bunich in his The Party's gold (Zoloto partii) suggests that Parvus was tightly connected to the grand theft of the monstrous communist funds deposited in Swiss banks. These funds were later identified by Nazi Germans who forced the Swiss to freeze and/or hand over the funds. British and American intelligence also managed to lay hands on part of the funds. The accounts were later mixed up in the Holocaust account fund scandal in Switzerland.

Controversy

During his lifetime Alexander Parvus' reputation among his revolutionary peers suffered as a result of the Maxim Gorky affair and the fact that he was in effect a German government agent. At the same time both his business skills and revolutionary ideas were appreciated and relied upon by Russian and German revolutionaries and Ottoman's Young Turks. After the October Revolution in Russia for obvious political reasons his role was denied and he himself vilified. This continued during Stalin's era and sometimes had anti-semitic overtones to it. In Germany however he was considered favorably. His name is often used in modern political debates in Russia