Theodore Rothstein (russian: Фёдор Аронович Ротштейн, ''Fyodor Aronovich Rotshteyn''; 14 February 1871 30 August 1953) was a Soviet politician, journalist, writer and

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

. He served as a Soviet ambassador in the 1920s.

Life

Theodore Rothstein was born in 1871 in the

Imperial Russian The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The ...

city of Kovno, Kovno Governorate (present-day

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

), into a Jewish family. Rothstein left Russia in 1890 for political reasons and settled in the United Kingdom. He worked as a journalist in the area of foreign policy for '' The Tribune'', the '' Daily News'', '' The Manchester Guardian'', and became a member of the National Union of Journalists. Furthermore, he was active in London as a correspondent for several radical Russian newspapers. Rothstein also wrote articles for '' Die Neue Zeit'', the organ of the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...

(SPD), which represented the direct way of a consistent Marxism and in which took place debates regarding Marxism and socialism. In 1895, he joined the

Social Democratic Federation The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on 7 June 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury, James Con ...

(SDF) which was founded by

H.M. Hyndman Henry Mayers Hyndman (; 7 March 1842 – 20 November 1921) was an English writer, politician and socialist. Originally a conservative, he was converted to socialism by Karl Marx's ''Communist Manifesto'' and launched Britain's first left-wing ...

in 1884. Rothstein occupied the left-wing of the party as a prominent theorist and forward thinker, and in 1900 he was elected to its executive. He also joined the

Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...

as a British member in 1901, siding with the Bolshevik faction against the

Menshevik The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The factions eme ...

s and becoming a close comrade of Lenin, who often stayed at Rothstein's house on

Clapton Square Clapton Square is the second largest garden square in the London Borough of Hackney, located in Lower Clapton, Clapton, London, Clapton. It is lined by buildings on three sides. Its Conservation Area designated in 1969 – extended in 1 ...

in the Hackney area of London. Rothstein published "Egypt's Ruin" (1910), an analysis of Egypt's systematic exploitation by the British after the occupation, evidenced by British government documents and correspondent reports from London newspapers regarding Egypt. Although Rothstein was a convinced opponent of World War I, he worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the British War Office as a Russian translator and interpreter. Within the SDF's successor, the

British Socialist Party The British Socialist Party (BSP) was a Marxist political organisation established in Great Britain in 1911. Following a protracted period of factional struggle, in 1916 the party's anti-war forces gained decisive control of the party and saw t ...

(BSP), he was a leader of the opposition to Hyndman's support for the war. After Hyndman and his supporters left the BSP, Rothstein made numerous contributions to their paper, '' The Call''. He played a leading role in ensuring that the BSP played a significant role in the formation of the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

. However, following an invitation to Moscow in 1920, he was refused permission to return to Britain. He remained in Russia, became a member of the Bolshevik Party, took on the chairmanship of the "University reform commission" (1920–1921).

Soviet Ambassador to Iran

On 6 January 1921 Rothstein was accredited as the first Soviet Ambassador to Tehran and departed for the posting on 6 February after having had a discussion with Lenin. He took with him an abnormally large entourage of 150 people.

Later career

From 1922 on he was a member of the "Collegium of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs". Rothstein was appointed director of the Institute of World Economy and Politics in Moscow. Rothstein's son, Andrew, remained in Britain and became a prominent communist. Rothstein died in Moscow in 1953.

References

Works

* ''The Decline of British Industry'', 1903. * ''The Russian Revolution'', 1907.
''Egypt’s Ruin, A Financial and Administrative Record''
London, 1910. * ''Essays in the History of the British Labour Movement''. * ''From Chartism to Labourism - Historical Sketches of the English Working Class Movement'', Dorrot Press Ltd., London, 1929.

Sources

* Theodore Rothstein, ''From Chartism to Labourism - Historical Sketches of the English Working Class Movement'', Dorrot Press Ltd., London, 1929.

- Marxists Internet Archive

- Graham Stevenson, National Organiser for the Transport and General Workers Union

External links

at the Marxists Internet Archive
Theodore Rothstein
- Russian article about Rothstein with his photo {{DEFAULTSORT:Rothstein, Theodore 1871 births 1953 deaths Ambassadors of the Soviet Union to Iran British political writers British Socialist Party members Communist Party of Great Britain members Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Lithuanian communists Jewish socialists Lithuanian Jews Marxist writers Old Bolsheviks Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Social Democratic Federation members Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Jewish Soviet politicians Writers from Kaunas People from Kovensky Uyezd British emigrants to the Soviet Union Diplomats from Kaunas Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United Kingdom