Eugen Levine - Biography

Eugen Leviné (born May 10, 1883, St Petersburg, Russia – July 5, 1919, Bavaria) was a Communist, revolutionary and leader of the short lived Bavarian Soviet Republic.

1 Background
2 Bavarian Soviet Republic
3 Influence
4 Sources
5 See also
6 External links

Background

Leviné was born in St. Petersburg, to Jewish parents, and educated in Germany. In 1905, he returned to Russia to participate in the failed revolution against the Tsar. For his actions, he was exiled to Siberia. He would eventually escape to Germany and began studying at Heidelberg University and in 1915, married Rose Levine, daughter of a rabbi in the Polish town of Grodek. They had at least one child (a son, whom they named Eugen). For a short time, he served in the Imperial German Army during World War I.

Bavarian Soviet Republic

After the war ended, Leviné joined the Communist Party of Germany and helped create of a socialist republic in Bavaria. However, this republic lasted a few months, replaced quickly by a soviet republic after the assassination of Kurt Eisner, who was then leader of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD).

The ruling government of the new republic did not last very long, due to poor leadership under German playwright Ernst Toller: six days. Eugen Leviné rose to power as the Communists assumed control of the government.

Leviné attempted to pass many reforms, such as giving the more luxurious apartments to the homeless and giving workers control and ownership of factories. He also planned reforms for the education system and to abolish paper money, neither of which he ever completed.

Under orders from Leviné, the Red Guards began rounding up people they considered to be hostile to the new regime, as hostages against imminent outside attack. As German president Friedrich Ebert ordered to subdue the Soviet Republic and reinstate the Bavarian government under Johannes Hoffmann, the Red Guards executed eight hostages on 29 April 1919.

The German Army, assisted by Freikorps, with a force of roughly 39,000 men, invaded and quickly conquered Munich on May 3 1919. In retaliation for execution of the hostages, the Freikorps captured and executed some 700 men and women. Leviné himself was arrested, found guilty as part of those executions, and was shot by firing squad in Stadelheim Prison.

Influence

The American Soviet agent Whittaker Chambers cited Leviné as one of three men who inspired him. (The other two were Felix Dzerzhinsky, head of the Soviet Cheka, and Sazonov, a member of the SR's Terrorist Brigade.) Chambers wrote,

During the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919, Levine was the organizer of the Workers and Soldiers Soviets. When the Bavarian Soviet Republic was crushed, Levine was captured and courtmartialed. The court-martial told him: "You are under sentence of death." Levine answered: "We Communists are always under sentence of death."