My oldest friend died. He lived ninety-three years. During the Second World War, he attended the secret school of the Comintern together with Tito's son, Žarko Broz. He was one of ten German communists whom Stalin sent to Germany at the end of World War II to build socialism. Then he declared against the Resolution of the Information Bureau and defected to Yugoslavia. His autobiographical book "Revolution Dismisses Its Children", in which he dealt with Stalinism, became a bestseller. I would like not only to remember him, but also for those who have never heard of Wolfgang Leonhard to learn about him.
GENESIS OF COMMUNISM: Lenin,…
When I congratulated him on his eightieth birthday on the phone, he told me: "You'll see, the eightieth birthday is terrible censorship!" Nine years ago, he wrote to me: "You're only 76 years old, and that's why you're full of plans, and I'm 83. At first glance, that is a difference of only seven years, but that is only at first glance, the figures are the most inaccurate thing that exists in this chaotic world. In my experience the difference between 76 and 83 is about 140 years. Therefore, here's a good tip: make as many plans as possible for the next two years, because after that things get serious. Suitcases, which used to weigh 80 kilograms, and surprisingly still weigh 110 to 200 kilograms on the scales at railway stations, as you probably already know. The staircase in my house gives the completely false impression that there are thirty steps, while anyone who climbs them at my age knows that there are over XNUMX…”
I didn't listen to him, I'm still writing, and now about him.
…Stalin,…
For more than half a century, Leonhard was one of the most famous and respected analysts of all events in the Soviet Union, and after its collapse, Russia as well.
At the prestigious Yale University, he taught the history of the USSR and the history of the world communist movement for more than two decades. His students included former US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, as well as President George W. Bush and his father. I start from the assumption that they gained the first serious knowledge about Russia, their main opponent on the world stage, thanks to him.
CHILD OF THE COMMUNIST: The origin of my Volodya is as complex as the subject he studied. His name was not Wolfgang, but Vladimir, Volodya. German, and Volodya? The fact that he first received a Russian baptismal name, and then changed it, is in the spirit of the story about his unusual life. The German communist writer Rudolf Leonhard is officially considered his father. Between the two world wars, this long-forgotten poet was considered so important that he was translated by Miroslav Krleža. In the Zagreb Encyclopedia of the Lexicographical Institute (edition from 1959), I guess that's why there is a note about Rudolf Leonhard, but nothing about Bertolt Brecht. When I asked in amazement how this was possible, the answer was: "Comrade Krleža does not like Brecht."
…Ulbricht,…
Rudolph recognized the boy Vladimir, who was born in April 1921 in Vienna, as his son, even though he had not been in a relationship with his then ex-wife Suzana for quite some time. Volodya's real father was Myechislav Bronsky, a close friend of Lenin, at that time the first Soviet ambassador to Austria. Bronsky arrived in Russia with Lenin in a barricaded train in the middle of the First World War from Switzerland via Germany to start the October Revolution. Can something like that be passed on genetically?
The mother, Susanna, was much more important in Volodya's life than the "fathers". She was born in 1885, her father died early, she grew up with a rich grandfather, a banker. She studied mathematics and philosophy, at the age of twenty she enrolled in the "Spartacus" communist union, was a friend of Rosa Luxemburg, after her marriage she quickly left her first husband and moved to Vienna, where she became the head of the press department of the Soviet embassy. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, Suzana and her son fled first to Sweden in 1933, then to the Soviet Union, where in 1936 she was arrested as part of one of the purges and spent the next twelve years in a camp near Vorkuta in northern Siberia.
...Tito
Little Volodya saw his nominal father for the first and only time as an adult, and his real parents rarely, he mostly grew up either with "friendly families" or lived in children's homes. In Moscow, he first attended a gymnasium for the children of German and Austrian anti-fascists, then a Russian gymnasium, and then enrolled in a university in Moscow where he studied English. At the beginning of the Second World War, all the Germans were driven far to the east, he arrived in Kazakhstan, where he first continued his studies in Karaganda, but soon became a party functionary and already in the summer of 1942 was transferred to the secret high school of the Comintern in Kushnarenko in Bashkortostan, where are the most trusted personnel of foreign countries trained for illegal work. Tito's son, Žarko Broz, and Maya, the daughter of the legendary Spanish revolutionary Dolores Ibaruri, known as La Pasionaria, also attended that school. In his autobiographical book "Revolution Dismisses its Children", Leonhard mentions that Jarko and Maya were in that school, he also mentions that alcohol and sex were strictly forbidden, but not that Jarko was the only one there who could allow himself to be undisciplined, so left school early. He told me that Žarko Broz and the beautiful Maja Ibaruri made love in public despite everyone. They knew who Broz and Ibarurieva were, although all students had to use pseudonyms, and even those who had known each other for a long time addressed each other as if they were illegals. Vladimir Leonhard temporarily became Wolfgang Linden.
FROM STALIN TO TIT: In July 1943, Leonhard was returned to Moscow and began to write and read news in German on the radio. He flew to Germany on the same plane with Walter Ulbricht, who was destined to become the first man of the Soviet occupation zone, and then of the German Democratic Republic. The first ten in that predecessor were later called the "Ulbricht Group". Leonhard was the youngest among those invited to build a new socialist state on the ruins of the eastern part of Germany. He was only twenty-three years old then.
He visited Yugoslavia for the first time in 1947. It seemed to him that life was much freer in that country than in the USSR. At the time of the conflict between Tito and Stalin, Leonhard was the youngest professor at the Higher Party School in Berlin, which was also called the "forge of personnel". In the eastern part of Germany, there were few thoroughly educated and indoctrinated communists like him. One of them was Marcus Wolff, known as Misha, who went to the Moscow high school with Volodya, and later to the secret school of the Comintern. This is Misha Wolff, who will head the East German intelligence service, and will be considered the "most successful spy" of the XNUMXth century.
The resolution of the Cominform - as that institution was called in the East, we usually speak of the Informburo - struck Leonhard and some other honest, primarily younger Marxists in the Soviet zone of Germany, just like a proverbial bolt from the blue. Until that time, Yugoslavia was presented to them as the country closest to the ideals of the USSR, Tito as "the most loyal student of Lenin and Stalin". Wolfgang Leonhard took note, but did not yet dare to tell anyone:
"The thesis about a special road to socialism is based on the teachings of Marx, Engels and Lenin. The Yugoslavs are right, since they took the path that suits their conditions. All those who condemn the Yugoslav communists have abandoned Marxism-Leninism. The thesis on the equality of communist parties within the communist labor movement agrees with the teachings of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Those who replaced that thesis with the leading role of the USSR do not stand on the foundations of Marxism..."
The Yugoslav Embassy realized faster than Leonhard's immediate comrades and party leaders that Leonhard was breaking down. She supplied him with material, primarily newsletters from the Tanjug agency, the response of the Yugoslav Central Committee to the Informburo attacks, and material from the 5th Congress of the KPJ. None of this was published in the press of Eastern countries, even senior party officials were not informed through their internal bulletins. The Yugoslavs sent their views to Leonhard through Switzerland from always different addresses. He received them and dispersed them conspiratorially as he had learned in the school of the Comintern.
He went secretly to the celebration of the Yugoslav national holiday on November 29, 1948. There he spoke only in Russian and English, pretended that he was not German, hoped that no one from the eastern part of Berlin would come, and he was right. Then he agreed to defect to Yugoslavia when he got sick of it. It is important to emphasize, he did it out of conviction. He spoke fluently not only German and Russian, but also English and Swedish and was in places where literature and press from all over the world were accessible to him.
THE HOLE IS TIGHTENING: He began to regret the sinful ease with which he once accepted the arrest of his mother in Moscow even though he knew she was innocent. Then it seemed to him as if it was some kind of stroke of fate, as if she had fallen seriously ill. He realized how horrible mutual wiretapping and denunciation was in the "first country of socialism", which seemed to him logical and even necessary in the name of the revolution.
His lover from Moscow University approached him one day, took him aside, to the park, made him swear not to tell anyone what she was about to tell him, told him that she had been recruited to write reports for the secret service and asked him never to tell her anything. which would be "inconvenient", because she can't guarantee that she wouldn't betray him. Of course they threatened her not to tell anyone about her new assignment. Leonhard writes about it: "I have never experienced such a declaration of sincere love in my life..."
One day in East Berlin, he met a provocateur, and perhaps a naive fellow, who publicly said in the canteen of the party school that "Comrade Leonhard" agreed with the Yugoslavs. The next day, he was called to the rector to explain himself. Volođa claimed that he did not say that he agreed with Yugoslavia, but only that in an institution, such as this school, one should study all relevant documents, including the statements and positions of Belgrade. Fortunately for him, they did not immediately arrest him, but announced that because of his position in the party hierarchy, the decision on "his case" would be made by the Politburo.
YUGOSLAV CONNECTION: From the payphone, he gave his mother, his girlfriend, Ilza, and his liaison at the Yugoslav embassy prearranged passwords. A representative of our embassy drove him to the border with Czechoslovakia, and from there a man, who normally engaged in smuggling for money, transferred him across the border, but they were over four hours late and his connection did not appear.
He waited a long time. He realized that it would seem suspicious. At the train station in Prague, policemen controlled personal identification cards and passports. He quickly went to the toilet. He knew he wouldn't be able to stay there for long. Looked through his pockets and bag, tore up and threw away some discriminatory papers. A little later, the militiamen were banging on the toilet door. “Right away!” he shouted in Russian. He opened the door, pretended to be a drunkard, and yelled at them: "I was sick, I guess I drank too much..." The young blond man in a very good coat and suit appeared to the Czechoslovak law enforcement officers in 1949 as a Russian who should not be questioned in detail.
He had an address to contact if the connection missed him. He found a house and an apartment, but he knocked in vain. He did not dare to ring the bell and knock for a long time, he returned to the street and began to think about what he had learned at the school of the Comintern for such a case? What should an illegal do, who in the middle of the night without documents and with little money, finds himself in an unknown city in a country whose language he does not know? He was not allowed to stay in the suburbs, where there was no one on the street anymore, but to go somewhere where there were more people. He returned to the train station. He stopped in front of the entrance. He silently offered a cigarette to the man next to him, and he said something in Czech.
"Unfortunately, I don't know Czech, we can talk in German, Russian or English..."
The stranger asked where he was from.
"From Berlin..." He simply didn't have the strength to invent a story.
"And where are you going?"
Leonhard decided to take a risk.
"For Belgrade. And tonight I have nowhere to sleep..."
"Then come with me!"
He slept with an unknown man who "supported" Yugoslavia. The next day he went to the given address again and found his relation. The Yugoslav embassy took him over and managed to put him on the JAT plane to Belgrade.
PARTY "NOR-NOR": That's how Wolfgang Leonhard found himself in Belgrade at the end of March 1949. He was assigned to write a report on how, above all, circles in the opposition against the leadership of the leading party in East Germany experienced the conflict between Tito and Stalin. After that he worked at Radio Yugoslavia.
That's when we met. I no longer remember who referred Volodya to me as a young man who knew German well. When I combine today, who else, if not Udba?
Those who took it upon themselves to manage his life soon realized that he was fit for higher goals. They sent him to West Germany with a large sum of money, in order to found a "left party", "to the left" of social democracy, but to be "on our side". Her name was Unabhängige Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, abbreviated UAPD, (Independent Workers' Party of Germany). Today it is mentioned as an "anti-Stalinist, non-bloc, Titoist party", but it is mostly forgotten. It also published a weekly newspaper. Although it was not her intention, she gathered mostly former Trotskyists. It existed only from 1950 to 1952, then it quietly went out of business. I guess the flow of money from Yugoslavia has also dried up.
It is characteristic that Volodya never uttered or wrote a single word anywhere that could harm Yugoslavia, he did not "give away" anything about that action in any of his numerous books. I remember that I called that party the "Party of Neither-Neither", because its program stated, and almost every other article in its party paper claimed, that they were "neither for capitalism nor for Stalinism..."
In the middle of 2007, I asked Wolfgang Leonhard whether and how much money he took from Yugoslavia and for what purpose, what kind of political project it actually was and why he never announced anything about it? In his reply, he only complained about his age, that his archive was unreadable and in disarray, but that his secretary would try to find something and send it to me. He sent me some of his interviews on various topics, but not a word about it.
In 1953, I visited Volodya in then completely destroyed Cologne. I lived with him, but he warned me that every time I return home from the center, I should be careful if someone follows me. He was still afraid that eastern agents might kidnap and kill him.
Thanks to him, I started receiving materials from the Trotskyist "Fourth International", which I found boring, and the literary-political magazine "Der Monat" ("The Moon"), which was very interesting. It was there that I read Orwell's novel for the first time 1984, texts by Ignacio Silone, Artur Koestler and one text by Milo Dor, unknown to me at the time, who wrote very positively about Koča Popović as the then Yugoslav Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In 1955, Wolfgang Leonhard published his autobiographical book entitled "The Revolution Releases Its Children", which in a few years had a circulation of hundreds of thousands of copies in Germany alone and was translated into almost all European languages. He became famous. Even today, he is considered one of the best connoisseurs of Stalinism and the development of the USSR and Russia after Stalin's death, the so-called perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union, communism, and the left-wing labor movement.
I think he started to become disillusioned with Titoism when the "Korčula Summer School" was banned, when the publication of the philosophical magazine "Praxis" was suspended, and when eight professors in Belgrade were deprived of the right to work at the University of Belgrade. When I asked him if that was the case, he wrote to me that for him "Belgrade is inextricably linked with one dream" and that for that reason it might be better to "keep a geographical and political distance", because that city and everything it meant would could turn out to be "too far from my former dream of the holy trinity - socialism, self-management and non-alignment...".
USSR UNDER THE SCENE: I admired how he managed to follow the events in the Soviet Union without even being allowed to come close to its borders for decades. I learned a lot when he explained to me how he made some timely conclusions based only on clues. I am giving examples.
In an article in the party organ "Pravda" dated June 10, 1953, Malenkov, Molotov and Beria are mentioned as "prominent leaders of the Soviet Union". A week later, on June 18, the newspaper "Pravda Ukraina" publishes an article by the supreme state prosecutor of the USSR Safonov, in which he strongly criticizes the "illegality and arbitrariness" of some associates of the "state apparatus" who should be "unmasked". On June 25, the press reports on the premiere of the opera "The Decembrists" at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and states that it was attended by "Malyenkov, Molotov, Voroshilov, Khrushchev and Bulganin." They do not mention Beria. Based on that, Leonhard concluded and announced that Beria was dismissed after June 10, but before June 25. Only on August 9 will it be publicly announced that Beria was relieved of all his duties and arrested, and later executed. Leonhard especially carefully followed the only available public reports in the newspapers, predicting the downfall of the then all-powerful head of the Soviet secret service six weeks in advance.
Another example: At the XX Congress of the Party in the USSR, which was held from December 21, 1955 to February 3, 1956, for the first time Stalin was not only publicly criticized, but Khrushchev in his secret speech accused him of numerous crimes. Leonhard established this in advance based on the following observation: Bulganin celebrated his sixtieth birthday on June 10, and Mikoyan on November 24, 1955. On that occasion, in the press they were called "loyal disciples of Lenin and comrades of Stalin". On the birthday of the late Stalin, December 21, he is still hailed as "the greatest leader." After that, his name did not appear in the press anymore. When Voroshilov celebrated his seventieth birthday on February 3, 1956, he was called a "faithful disciple of the great Lenin" in the newspapers, and Stalin was not mentioned. Based on this, Leonhard knew that the XX Congress had broken with Stalin long before it was announced.
Those two examples prove that for assessing the situation and development in the country, which is otherwise inaccessible, analytics is more important and usually more successful than the often unreliable reports of intelligence officers, who can be double agents, provocateurs, or simply naively fall for rumours, which would be said, spinning.
