David Petrovsky

Petrovsky in 1917 as part of the Jewish Socialist Federation, seated second from left

David Petrovsky (1883 – about 1938) was a Russian communist activist.

Born in Berdychiv in Russia as Max Goldfarb,^[1] he joined the Bund before switching his affiliation to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). When the party split, he sided with the Mensheviks.^[2]

Before World War I, Goldfarb emigrated to New York City, where he found work as the labour movement editor on the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper.^[3] He returned to Russia after the October Revolution and switched his support to the victorious Bolsheviks. He served with the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, then worked for the Comintern.^[2]

In 1924, the Comintern sent Petrovsky to Britain as its representative there. He adopted the pseudonym "A. J. Bennet", closely involved himself with the Communist Party of Great Britain, and married a fellow activist, Rose Cohen. From 1928, he served as an alternate member of the presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, and he was recalled to the Soviet Union the following year.^[2] There, he headed the Anglo-American Secretariat of the Comintern.^[3] However, he fell from favour, and was removed from the post in 1931. In 1938, he disappeared, presumed killed in the Great Purge.^[4]

References

1. ↑ Jonathan Frankel, Crisis, Revolution, and Russian Jews, p.221
2. 1 2 3 Bruno Lazitch, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern, p.310
3. 1 2 Theodore Draper, American Communism and Soviet Russia, p.168
4. ↑ Wolfgang Brezinka and David P. Hornstein, Arthur Ewert: A Life for the Comintern, p.71