Andrew Rothstein
Encyclopedia
Andrew Rothstein was a Russian-British journalist.
Rothstein, who was to became a significant figure in British Communism, was born in London to Jewish Russian political emigrants. His subsequent life was always tinged by the identity of his father, Theodore Rothstein
(1871–1953). He had been obliged to emigrate from Russia for political reasons and, from 1890, settled in Britain for the next 30 years.
Theodore joined the Social Democratic Federation
in 1895, being very much part of its left wing; in 1901, he also joined the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party (RSDLP) as a British-based member. The RSDLP would split into two factions, the Bolshevik
s and Menshevik
s and Rothstein would support the Bolsheviks all the way. Lenin frequently visited Rothstein and his family on his own visits to London
, as in 1905.
The SDF leader, H.M. Hyndman, was acutely disturbed by the election to the SDF executive in 1900 of Theodore Rothstein. For he and Zelda Kahan, who was also of Russian-Jewish origin, led the opposition inside the SDF to Hyndman's growing support for British militarism arising from his mistrust of German imperial ambitions, which was tinged by more than a whiff of ant-semitism.
Theodore Rothstein supported the unity process that led to the formation in 1911, by a merger between a number of socialist groups and the SDF (which had become the Social Democratic Party in 1907) to create the British Socialist Party
. Both the young Andrew and his father were strongly against the 1914-18 war, even though Theodore Rothstein was working for the Foreign Office and the War Office as a Russian translator.
He was decisive in the move to oust the Hyndman national chauvinist clique in the BSP in 1916 and also took part in founding of the Communist Party of Great Britain
. But he partly returned to Russia in 1920 and then increasingly became more involved in the new Russia to the extent that he remained there permanently. From 1921 to 1930 he was engaged in diplomatic work, starting with being the Soviet representative in Iran in 1921. He became Director of the Institute of World Economy and World Politics and, from 1939, was an Academician, receiving the Order of Lenin. Theodore also wrote a number of significant books, he wrote on Egypt, and his From Chartism to Labourism (1929) was a pioneering work on British labour and trade union history.
After winning a London County Council scholarship, Andrew Rothstein studied History at Oxford and served in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
and Hampshire Yeomanry
from 1917-19. He was a corporal when he discovered that his unit was about to be sent to Archangel, the Russian port where British troops had been sent to assist the Tsarist forces resistance to the new Soviet government, led by the Bolsheviks. Only one soldier volunteered to go to Russia, the rest stuck with Rothstein. This was the first of many rebellions and mutinies in the British Army against the intervention in Russia, involving up to 30,000 troops at its height, the history of which was later documented by Andrew Rothstein in his Soldiers' Strikes of 1919.
Andrew Rothstein was a foundation member of Communist Party in 1920 and was the man who recruited Tom Wintringham
to the communist cause. Rothstein met Sylvia Pankhurst on several occasions and said that he thought her "energetic and sincere but in a one-sided way, she always had a bunch of devoted women around her but often would think nothing of intercepting propaganda material being brought for my father and printing them as articles in her own paper. She was an unscrupulous woman." At the suggestion of the Comintern, a second British Unity Congress was held, with Pankhurst's group participating. Although a merger ensued, Rothstein recalled events as that "she broke away again after about three months".
When Andrew Rothstein returned to Oxford, he found that he had been deprived of an army grant to assist his return to university and was thus unable to continue in postgraduate research. A stern letter from the Master and Fellows at Balliol announced that he must leave immediately. Twenty years later, when he met a former junior dean from those days, who told him that the Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon had personally intervened in his case. Rothstein recalled: "He told me a letter was read out from Curzon, which said that I was a very dangerous Communist and must not be allowed to stay."
On completing his university education in 1921, he became the London correspondent of ROSTA (later TASS), the Soviet news agency. He regularly wrote articles for the Party, the labour movement, and as a correspondent for the Soviet news agency as "C M Roebuck". At the 8th Congress of the CPGB, he was elected to the EC and politburo but removed from the latter after six years membership when the 11th Congress in December 1929 took the CPGB on a left turn. Rothstein was "utterly against" the new line but found himself appointed as deputy head of the Anglo-American department of the Red International of Labour Unions and served in the post for 18 months, based in Moscow.
From 1920 to 1945, he was press officer to the first Soviet mission in Britain, and then correspondent for the Soviet press agency TASS, in London, Geneva and elsewhere. He became an authority on Soviet history, economy, institutions and foreign relations and began to publish widely: e.g. The Soviet Constitution (1923), Problems of Peace (essays on Soviet foreign policy, 1936-8), Workers in the Soviet Union (1942), Man and Plan in the Soviet Economy (1948).
Andrew Rothstein was President of the Foreign Press Association, from 1943–50 and, after the war, was the London correspondent of Czechoslovakian trade union paper, Prace, a post he held until 1970. From 1946, he lectured at London University's School of Slavonic and East European Studies but was dismissed on spurious grounds in 1950 in an affair that had the feel of a McCarthyite purge about it. In this period, he published A history of the USSR (1950) and Peaceful Coexistence (1955). He translated many Marxist texts from the Russian into English; for example, Plekhanov's In defence of materialism and segments of Lenin's Collected Works, such as, for the 4th English edition (1963), a report on the meeting of the editorial board of the journal `Proletary� in 1909.
Rothstein was awarded a Soviet pension in 1970 and, after formal retirement, was chair of the Marx Memorial Library and vice-chair of the British-Soviet Friendship Society. He also wrote and published widely; there was an account of the origins and background of the building that houses the Marx Memorial Library, A house on Clerkenwell Green (1972), and material that he had first hand knowledge of: When Britain Invaded Soviet Russia: the Consul Who Rebelled (1979) and The Soldier's Strikes of 1919 (1980).
A member of the Communist Party all his days, he was a critic of the drive to revisionism in the CPGB of the 1980s and wrote, with Robin Page Arnot, another veteran communist, a piece entitled The British Communist Party and Euro-Communism for the CPUSA's Political Affairs, published in October 1985, which described the manufactured crisis in British Communism. He was proud to be the recipient of card number one of the re-established Communist Party of Britain
in 1988. His last published article was for the CPB's Communist Review, on British Communists and the Comintern 1919-1929, printed in the summer of 1991 and he died on September 22, 1994, aged 95.
Rothstein, who was to became a significant figure in British Communism, was born in London to Jewish Russian political emigrants. His subsequent life was always tinged by the identity of his father, Theodore Rothstein
Theodore Rothstein
Theodore Aronovich Rothstein was a journalist, writer and communist. He served as a Soviet ambassador in the 1920s.- Life :Theodore Aronovich Rothstein was born 1871 in the Imperial Russian city of Kovno , the son of a Jewish family.Rothstein left Russia in 1890 for political reasons and settled...
(1871–1953). He had been obliged to emigrate from Russia for political reasons and, from 1890, settled in Britain for the next 30 years.
Theodore joined the Social Democratic Federation
Social Democratic Federation
The Social Democratic Federation was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on June 7, 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury and Eleanor Marx. However, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's long-term...
in 1895, being very much part of its left wing; in 1901, he also joined the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party (RSDLP) as a British-based member. The RSDLP would split into two factions, the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s and Menshevik
Menshevik
The Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1904 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...
s and Rothstein would support the Bolsheviks all the way. Lenin frequently visited Rothstein and his family on his own visits to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, as in 1905.
The SDF leader, H.M. Hyndman, was acutely disturbed by the election to the SDF executive in 1900 of Theodore Rothstein. For he and Zelda Kahan, who was also of Russian-Jewish origin, led the opposition inside the SDF to Hyndman's growing support for British militarism arising from his mistrust of German imperial ambitions, which was tinged by more than a whiff of ant-semitism.
Theodore Rothstein supported the unity process that led to the formation in 1911, by a merger between a number of socialist groups and the SDF (which had become the Social Democratic Party in 1907) to create the British Socialist Party
British Socialist Party
The British Socialist Party 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 the defection of its pro-war Right Wing...
. Both the young Andrew and his father were strongly against the 1914-18 war, even though Theodore Rothstein was working for the Foreign Office and the War Office as a Russian translator.
He was decisive in the move to oust the Hyndman national chauvinist clique in the BSP in 1916 and also took part in founding of the Communist Party of Great Britain
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
. But he partly returned to Russia in 1920 and then increasingly became more involved in the new Russia to the extent that he remained there permanently. From 1921 to 1930 he was engaged in diplomatic work, starting with being the Soviet representative in Iran in 1921. He became Director of the Institute of World Economy and World Politics and, from 1939, was an Academician, receiving the Order of Lenin. Theodore also wrote a number of significant books, he wrote on Egypt, and his From Chartism to Labourism (1929) was a pioneering work on British labour and trade union history.
After winning a London County Council scholarship, Andrew Rothstein studied History at Oxford and served in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry was an infantry regiment of the British Army.The regiment was formed as a consequence of Childers reforms, a continuation of the Cardwell reforms, by the amalgamation of the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 52nd Regiment of Foot , forming the 1st...
and Hampshire Yeomanry
Hampshire Yeomanry
The Hampshire Yeomanry can trace its formation to the late 18th century. King George III was on the throne, William Pitt the Younger was Prime Minister of Great Britain, and across the English Channel, Britain was faced by a French nation that had recently guillotined its King and which possessed...
from 1917-19. He was a corporal when he discovered that his unit was about to be sent to Archangel, the Russian port where British troops had been sent to assist the Tsarist forces resistance to the new Soviet government, led by the Bolsheviks. Only one soldier volunteered to go to Russia, the rest stuck with Rothstein. This was the first of many rebellions and mutinies in the British Army against the intervention in Russia, involving up to 30,000 troops at its height, the history of which was later documented by Andrew Rothstein in his Soldiers' Strikes of 1919.
Andrew Rothstein was a foundation member of Communist Party in 1920 and was the man who recruited Tom Wintringham
Tom Wintringham
Thomas Henry Wintringham was a British soldier, military historian, journalist, poet, Marxist, politician and author. He was an important figure in the formation of the Home Guard during World War II and was one of the founders of the Common Wealth Party.-Early life:Tom Wintringham was born 1898...
to the communist cause. Rothstein met Sylvia Pankhurst on several occasions and said that he thought her "energetic and sincere but in a one-sided way, she always had a bunch of devoted women around her but often would think nothing of intercepting propaganda material being brought for my father and printing them as articles in her own paper. She was an unscrupulous woman." At the suggestion of the Comintern, a second British Unity Congress was held, with Pankhurst's group participating. Although a merger ensued, Rothstein recalled events as that "she broke away again after about three months".
When Andrew Rothstein returned to Oxford, he found that he had been deprived of an army grant to assist his return to university and was thus unable to continue in postgraduate research. A stern letter from the Master and Fellows at Balliol announced that he must leave immediately. Twenty years later, when he met a former junior dean from those days, who told him that the Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon had personally intervened in his case. Rothstein recalled: "He told me a letter was read out from Curzon, which said that I was a very dangerous Communist and must not be allowed to stay."
On completing his university education in 1921, he became the London correspondent of ROSTA (later TASS), the Soviet news agency. He regularly wrote articles for the Party, the labour movement, and as a correspondent for the Soviet news agency as "C M Roebuck". At the 8th Congress of the CPGB, he was elected to the EC and politburo but removed from the latter after six years membership when the 11th Congress in December 1929 took the CPGB on a left turn. Rothstein was "utterly against" the new line but found himself appointed as deputy head of the Anglo-American department of the Red International of Labour Unions and served in the post for 18 months, based in Moscow.
From 1920 to 1945, he was press officer to the first Soviet mission in Britain, and then correspondent for the Soviet press agency TASS, in London, Geneva and elsewhere. He became an authority on Soviet history, economy, institutions and foreign relations and began to publish widely: e.g. The Soviet Constitution (1923), Problems of Peace (essays on Soviet foreign policy, 1936-8), Workers in the Soviet Union (1942), Man and Plan in the Soviet Economy (1948).
Andrew Rothstein was President of the Foreign Press Association, from 1943–50 and, after the war, was the London correspondent of Czechoslovakian trade union paper, Prace, a post he held until 1970. From 1946, he lectured at London University's School of Slavonic and East European Studies but was dismissed on spurious grounds in 1950 in an affair that had the feel of a McCarthyite purge about it. In this period, he published A history of the USSR (1950) and Peaceful Coexistence (1955). He translated many Marxist texts from the Russian into English; for example, Plekhanov's In defence of materialism and segments of Lenin's Collected Works, such as, for the 4th English edition (1963), a report on the meeting of the editorial board of the journal `Proletary� in 1909.
Rothstein was awarded a Soviet pension in 1970 and, after formal retirement, was chair of the Marx Memorial Library and vice-chair of the British-Soviet Friendship Society. He also wrote and published widely; there was an account of the origins and background of the building that houses the Marx Memorial Library, A house on Clerkenwell Green (1972), and material that he had first hand knowledge of: When Britain Invaded Soviet Russia: the Consul Who Rebelled (1979) and The Soldier's Strikes of 1919 (1980).
A member of the Communist Party all his days, he was a critic of the drive to revisionism in the CPGB of the 1980s and wrote, with Robin Page Arnot, another veteran communist, a piece entitled The British Communist Party and Euro-Communism for the CPUSA's Political Affairs, published in October 1985, which described the manufactured crisis in British Communism. He was proud to be the recipient of card number one of the re-established Communist Party of Britain
Communist Party of Britain
The Communist Party of Britain is a communist political party in Great Britain. Although founded in 1988 it traces its origins back to 1920 and the Communist Party of Great Britain, and claims the legacy of that party and its most influential members Harry Pollitt and John Gollan as its...
in 1988. His last published article was for the CPB's Communist Review, on British Communists and the Comintern 1919-1929, printed in the summer of 1991 and he died on September 22, 1994, aged 95.
Major works
- The Soviet constitution, 1923
- In Defence of Materialism, 1947
- Man and plan in Soviet economy, 1948
- A History of the U.S.S.R, 1950
- Peaceful coexistencePeaceful coexistencePeaceful coexistence was a theory developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of its ostensibly Marxist–Leninist foreign policy and was adopted by Soviet-influenced "Communist states" that they could peacefully coexist with the capitalist bloc...
, 1955