Portal:Communism/Selected biography
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Selected articles list
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François-Noël Babeuf (23 November 1760 - 27 May 1797), known as Gracchus Babeuf (in tribute to the
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/2
Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a
Marx argued that
While Marx remained a relatively obscure figure in his own lifetime, his ideas and the ideology of Marxism began to exert a major influence on workers' movements shortly after his death. This influence gained added impetus with the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian October Revolution in 1917, and few parts of the world remained significantly untouched by Marxian ideas in the course of the twentieth century. Marx is typically cited, with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science.
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Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/4
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/5
Rosa Luxemburg (Rosalia Luxemburg,
In 1914, after the
She regarded the
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/6
Karl Liebknecht (13 August 1871,
After their deaths, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg became
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/7
Antonio Gramsci (22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an
Gramsci wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3000 pages of history and analysis during his imprisonment. These writings, known as the Prison Notebooks, contain Gramsci's tracing of Italian history and nationalism, as well as some ideas in Marxist theory, critical theory and educational theory associated with his name.
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Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (22 April 1870 – 21 January 1924) was a
As a politician, Lenin was a persuasive and charismatic orator. As an intellectual his extensive theoretic and philosophical developments of Marxism produced Marxism–Leninism, a pragmatic Russian application of Marxism that emphasized the critical role played by a committed and disciplined political vanguard in the revolutionary process, while defending the possibility of a socialist revolution in less advanced capitalist countries through an alliance of the proletarians with the rural peasantry.
Lenin remains a controversial and highly divisive world figure. Critics labeled him a dictator, but supporters saw him heroically as a champion of the working classes. He has had a significant influence on the Marxist-Leninist movement, which since his death had developed into a variety of schools of thought.
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Leon Trotsky (7 November [
Trotsky was initially a supporter of the
After leading a failed struggle of the
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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the
Stalin launched a
.During the late 1930s, Stalin launched the
In 1939, after failed attempts to establish a collective security system in Europe, Stalin decided to enter into a
Stalin fostered a cult of personality around him, but after his death, his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, denounced his legacy and drove the process of de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union.
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Mao Zedong, also
Mao developed a brand of Sinified Marxism-Leninism communism known as Maoism, paralleling the political ideology known as Stalinism. While in power, he started a series of experiments aimed at speeding up China's economic development known as the Great Leap Forward. The Great Leap Forward sought to rely on labour instead of capital to help agriculture and industries succeed. Unfortunately, as a result of the Great Leap Forward, at least 20 million people starved to death. He forged, and later split, an alliance with the Soviet Union and launched the Cultural Revolution, with its stated goal of purging Chinese society of bourgeoisie elements and enforcing socialism.
Mao is widely credited for creating a mostly unified China free of foreign domination for the first time since the
Mao Zedong is commonly referred to as Chairman Mao (毛主席). At the height of his
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/12
Hồ Chí Minh (19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), born Nguyễn Sinh Cung, was a
Hồ led the
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Josip Broz Tito (
Tito was the chief architect of the "second Yugoslavia", a socialist, aspiring towards communist, federation that lasted from World War II until 1991. Despite being one of the founders of Cominform, he was also the first (and the only successful) Cominform member to defy Soviet hegemony. A backer of independent roads to socialism (sometimes referred to as "national communism" or "Titoism"), he was one of the main founders and promoters of the Non-Aligned Movement, and its first Secretary-General.
During his rule he suppressed nationalist sentiment and promoted the "
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Ernesto "Che" Guevara (14 June 1928 – 9 October 1967), commonly known as El Che, was an
Some time later, Guevara became a member of
After his death, Guevara became an icon of
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Rohana Wijeweera (14 July 1943 – 13 November 1989) was the leader of the
His father was an active member of
Like Che Guevara he raised an army but the Government found out and he was not prepared; the 1971 uprising followed: a brief but violent struggle that claimed 15,000 lives. Wijeweera was imprisoned but remained a popular figure. In the 1977 elections,
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Pak Hon-yong (28 May 1900 – December 1956(?)) was a leader of the Korean Communist Party and Workers' Party of South Korea. One of the main leaders of the Korean communist movement.
He led of "Irkutsk Faction" and "Tuesday Faction", and "Kyongsong Communist Group" in Korean communist movement during Japan's colonial rule (1910–45). After the liberation of Korea, he participated in the formation of People's Republic of Korea in Seoul, but he strongly opposed the joint with the right-wing in South Korea. Eventually the government is dismissed. In the late 1940s, started the uprising and general strike in South Korea. In addition, he led factions involved in Jeju uprising. After returning to the failed uprising in South Korea, he go to North Korea for reunification talks, was remained in there. And his led Faction called "Domestic Faction" or "WPSK Faction" in Workers' Party of Korea. He led faction's Guerilla movements in the South continue until the Korean War. After 1955 he was not seen again, and it is widely believed that he was eliminated by
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Paul Verner (26 April 1911,
In 1925 he joined the Young Communist League of Germany (KJVD). In 1929 he became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). He worked as a volunteer in the communist publishing house Kämpfer-Verlag in Chemnitz. He became a member of the regional leadership of KJVD in Saxony. In 1932 he became editor of Junge Garde ('Young Guard').
With the
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/18
Ardeshir Ovanessian (born 1905,
Ovanessian was eventually captured by the police, and would spend eleven years in
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/19
H. N. Goshal (
Goshal graduated from
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/20
Narayan Man Bijukchhe (
In the early 1970s, Bijukchhe became a
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/21
Yusuf Salman Yusuf (
In building up the party, Fahd was guided by his own class feelings and political distrust of the intelligentsia and students, as much as by
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/22
Vinod Mishra (
Vinod Mishra was born to Suryakesh Mishra. The family moved to
Mishra became the secretary of the Durgapur Local Organising Committee of the
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Salawati Daud was an Indonesian politician and a member of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). Salawati Daud was married to a government official from Maros, a guerrilla stronghold during the Indonesian War of Independence. She travelled to Jakarta, trying to convince the republican government to support the guerrilla struggle.
Salawati Daud became the first female mayor in
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V. Subbiah (7 February 1911 – 1993) was an Indian communist politician from Pondicherry (Puducherry). Subbiah was the secretary of the Communist Party of French India. He is regarded as the founder of the trade union movement in the union territory.Subbiah was one of the 97 'Tamrapatra awardees', awarded the decoration for their role in the Indian freedom struggle.
Born and raised in Pondicherry, Subbiah studied at the Calve College High School, but he was expelled from the school after organizing an agitation. The expulsion was however revoked as students and parents had protests against the decision. During the early phase of his political career, Subbiah was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and joined the Indian National Congress. He founded the Harijan Sevak Sangh in 1933. Moreover, he launched a publication called Sutantiram ('Independence'). Soon he was recruited into the communist movement after having befriended Amir Hyder Khan and S. V. Ghate. He took part in agitations in different areas of the Madras Presidency. He was jailed both by French and British colonial authorities, and moved underground when not in jail.
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Knud Jespersen (12 April 1926, Sulsted – 1 December 1977) was a Danish politician. Jespersen served as chairman of the Communist Party of Denmark between 1958 and 1977 and was a member of parliament between 1973 and 1977.
During his teenage years Jespersen joined the
After the war Jespersen became a trade union activist. Following his release he began to work as a casual labourer. He was elected local union chairman of warehouse workers in Aalborg in 1953. During the strike movements of the spring of 1956, he became known as an agitator.
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Johann Zénon Bernard (13 February 1893 in
Bernard was a metal worker by profession. He joined the socialist movement when the
Bernard was elected to parliament in the
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Nahuel Moreno (real name Hugo Miguel Bressano Capacete) (24 April 1924 – 25 January 1987) was a Trotskyist leader from Argentina. Moreno was active in the Trotskyist movement from before World War II until his death.
During the 1953–1963 split in the
Prior to the reunification of the two factions in 1963, the International Secretariat's best-known leader in
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Nuon Chea (
Nuon Chea was born as Lau Ben Kon (
and Khmer.
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/29
Todor Khristov Zhivkov (
He became First Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1954 and remained on this position for 35 years, until 1989, thus becoming the longest-serving leader of any Eastern Bloc nation, and one of the longest ruling non-royal leaders in history. His rule marked a period of unprecedented political and economic stability for Bulgaria, marked both by complete submission of Bulgaria to Soviet rule and a desire for expanding ties with the West. His rule remained unchallenged until the deterioration of East-West relations in the 1980s, when a stagnating economic situation, a worsening international image and growing careerism and corruption in the BCP weakened his positions. He resigned on 10 November 1989, under pressure by senior BCP members due to his refusal to recognize problems and deal with public protests. Within a month of Zhivkov's ouster, Communist rule in Bulgaria had effectively ended, and within another month the People's Republic of Bulgaria had formally ceased to exist.
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Gustáv Husák (Czech pronunciation:
Gustáv Husák was born as a son of an unemployed worker in Pozsonyhidegkút, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now part of Bratislava, Slovakia as Dúbravka). He joined the Communist Youth Union at the age of sixteen while studying at the grammar school in Bratislava. In 1933, when he started his studies at the Law Faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava, he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) which was banned from 1938 to 1945. During World War II he was periodically jailed by the Jozef Tiso government for illegal Communist activities, and he was one of the leaders of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising against Nazi Germany and Tiso. Husák was a member of the Presidium of the Slovak National Council from 1 September to 5 September 1944.
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Georges René Louis Marchais (7 June 1920,
He entered the Party in 1947. In 1956, he was appointed a member of the extended
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Erich Honecker (German:
Honecker's political career began in the 1930s when he became an official of the Communist Party of Germany, a position for which he was imprisoned during the Nazi era. Following World War II, he was freed and soon relaunched his political activity, founding the youth organisation the Free German Youth in 1946 and serving as the group's chairman until 1955. As the Security Secretary of the Party’s Central Committee in the new East German state, he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and, in this function, bore responsibility for the "order to fire" along the Inner German border.
In 1971, he initiated a political power struggle that led, with Soviet support, to his replacing
As Cold War tensions eased in the late 1980s under the liberalising reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Honecker refused all but cosmetic changes to the East German political system and was consequently forced to resign by his party in October 1989 and ousted from power as the regime sought to retain its power, thus ending Honecker's eighteen years (effectively) at the helm of the soon-to-cease state.
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Charilaos Florakis (also Harilaos Florakis; Greek: Χαρίλαος Φλωράκης; 20 July 1914 – 22 May 2005) was a leader of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). Florakis was born on 20 July 1914 in the village of Paliozoglopi, located near Agrafa in the Itamos municipality, prefecture of Karditsa, Greece. He joined KKE, in 1941. An ELAS partisan during the resistance to the Nazi occupation in World War II, Florakis was on the losing side of the Greek Civil War that followed the liberation of the country, and subsequently left the country.
On his return to Greece in 1954 he was arrested. During his life he spent 18 years in detention or jail - including being put in internal exile by the
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János Kádár
Kádár was born in
As leader of Hungary, Kádár was a team player, and took care to consult his colleagues before acting or making decisions, and his tenure saw an attempt at liberalising the economic system to put greater effort to build up industries aimed at consumers. His rule was marked by what later became known as '
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Michael O'Riordan (
O'Riordan was born at 37 Pope's Quay, Cork City, on 11 November 1917. He was the youngest of five children. His parents came from the West Cork
As a teenager, he joined the republican youth movement,
O'Riordan joined the
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Enrico Berlinguer (Italian pronunciation: [enˈriko berliŋˈɡwɛr]) (25 May 1922 – 11 June 1984) was an Italian politician; he was national secretary of the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano or PCI) from 1972 until his death. The son of Mario Berlinguer and Maria Loriga, Enrico Berlinguer was born in Sassari to a noble Sardinian family, in a notable cultural context, with family ties and political contacts that would heavily influence his life and career. His surname is of Catalan origin, a reminder of the period when Sardinia was part of the dominions of the Crown of Aragon.
He was a cousin of
In 1937 Berlinguer had his first contacts with Sardinian
Immediately after his detention ended, his father brought him to
Togliatti sent Berlinguer back to Sardinia to prepare for his political career. At the end of 1944, Togliatti appointed him to the national secretariat of the Communist Organisation for Youth (FGCI); as a secretary of the FGCI, Berlinguer at one point presented Maria Goretti as an example for activists; he was soon sent to Milan, and in 1945 he was appointed to the Central Committee as a member.
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Edward Gierek (Polish pronunciation:
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/38
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (Russian: Леони́д Ильи́ч Бре́жнев, IPA:
Brezhnev was born in
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/39
Santiago José Carrillo Solares (18 January 1915 – 18 September 2012) was a
In 1932, he joined the Executive Commission of the Socialist Youth and became editor of its newspaper, Renovación. Carrillo was on the left wing of the organisation. In 1933, as the Socialist Youth was becoming more radical, Carrillo was elected as General Secretary. From October 1934 to February 1936 he was jailed, due to his participation in the failed 1934 leftist coup (Carrillo was a member of the National Revolutionary Committee).
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Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal, who used the name Álvaro Cunhal (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈaɫvɐɾu kuˈɲaɫ]; Sé Nova, Coimbra, 10 November 1913 – Lisbon, 13 June 2005), was a Portuguese politician. He was one of the major opponents of the dictatorial regime of Estado Novo. He served as secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) from 1961 to 1992. He was one of the most pro-Soviet of all western Europe communist leaders, often supporting Soviet Union world policies, including the intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Cunhal was born in Coimbra, the third child of Avelino Henriques da Costa Cunhal (
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Xi Jinping (
Son of communist veteran
Xi is now the leader of the People's Republic's fifth generation of leadership. He has called for a renewed campaign against corruption, continued market economic reforms, an open approach to governance, and a comprehensive national renewal under the neologism "Chinese Dream".
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Li Dazhao (29 October 1888 – 28 April 1927) was a
As a leading intellectual in the
By many accounts, Li was a
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Zhu De (
Zhu was born on 18 December 1886 to a poor tenant farmer's family in Hung, a town in Yilong County, a hilly and isolated part of northern Sichuan province. His family relocated to Sichuan during the migration from Hunan province and Guangdong province. Despite their poverty, Zhu was sent to a classic private school in 1892. At age nine, Zhu was adopted by his prosperous uncle, whose political influence allowed him to gain access to Yunnan Military Academy later on. Before the repeal of imperial examinations in 1906, he attained the rank of Xiucai, which allowed him to qualify as a civil servant. Enrolling in Sichuan high school around 1907, upon graduating in 1908 he returned to Yilong high primary school as a gym instructor. An advocate of modern science and political teaching, rather than the strict classical education afforded by schools, he was dismissed from his post and entered the Yunnan Military Academy in Kunming. There, he joined the Beiyang Army and the Tongmenghui secret political society (the forerunner of Kuomintang).
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Deng Xiaoping (
Born into a peasant background in
Deng was instrumental in China's economic reconstruction following the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s. His economic policies, however, were at odds with the political ideologies of Chairman Mao Zedong. As a result, he was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution, but regained prominence in 1978 by outmaneuvering Mao's chosen successor, Hua Guofeng.
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Jiang Zemin (born 17 August 1926) is a retired Chinese politician who served as
Jiang Zemin came to power following the
Under his leadership, China experienced substantial developmental growth with
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Lin Biao (
Lin abstained from taking an active role in politics after the civil war, but became instrumental in creating the foundations for Mao Zedong's cult of personality in the early 1960s. Lin was rewarded for his service to Mao by being named Mao's designated successor during the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 until his death.
Lin died in September 1971 when his plane crashed in
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Blas Roca Calderio (24 July 1908 – 25 April 1987) was the First President of the National Assembly of People's Power in Cuba, leader of the Communist Party of Cuba, editor of the communist newspaper 'Hoy', and influential member of Castro's government. Blas Roca, a leading theoretician of the Cuban Revolution who led Cuba's prerevolutionary Communist Party, left school at the age of 11 and began shining shoes to help support his poor family. He changed his name to Roca, meaning 'rock', after he joined the Communist Party in 1929.
1929, was elected Secretary General of the Union of Shoemakers of Manzanillo. In August 1931 he was co-opted to the
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Kaysone Phomvihane (ໄກສອນ ພົມວິຫານ) (13 December 1920 – 21 November 1992) was the leader of the
Phomvihane attended law school at Hanoi University in
He became an active revolutionary while studying in the Indochinese capital of Hanoi during the 1940s. Lao People's Liberation Army (LPLA) was established by Kaysone Phomvihane on 20 January 1949. He was Minister of Defence of Resistance Government (of the Neo Lao Issara) the from 1950. In 1955 he was instrumental in setting up the LPRP at Sam Neua in northern Laos, and subsequently served as the Pathet Lao leader, with Souphanouvong as its figurehead. In the years which followed, he led communist forces against the Kingdom of Laos and U.S. forces. After their victory he served as Prime Minister from the founding of the Lao PDR in 1975 until 1991. He married Thongvinh Phomvihane.
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Võ Nguyên Giáp (born 25 August 1911) is a retired
Giáp was also a journalist, an interior minister in President Hồ Chí Minh's Việt Minh government, the military commander of the Việt Minh, the commander of the Vietnam People’s Army (PAVN), and defense minister. He also served as a member of the Politburo of the Vietnam Workers' Party, which in 1976 became the Communist Party of Vietnam.
He was the most prominent military commander, beside Ho Chi Minh, during the Vietnam war and was responsible for major operations and leadership until the war ended.
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Rashed Khan Menon (b. 18 May 1943,
Menon studied at Dhaka Collegiate School, finish in 1958. In 1960 he passed intermediate in arts group from Dhaka College. He graduated from Dhaka University in 1963 with a degree in Economics. In 1964 he achieved his master's degree.
In the late 1960s, Menon the president of the
Menon contested the
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Luís Carlos Prestes (3 January 1898 – 7 March 1990) was one of the organizers of the 1920s
in Brazil.Prestes, also known as the "Knight of Hope", helped organize the failed tenente revolts of 1922, an uprising of the largely middle class officer corps and poor conscripted servicemen against the agrarian oligarchies that dominated Brazil's Old Republic (1889–1930). Prestes was sick with typhoid fever and was unable to fight on the day of the revolt. From 1924, Prestes was one of the leaders of the insurrectionist movement, leading the Coluna Prestes (Prestes' Column) on a 25,000 km (15,534 mi) march through the Brazilian countryside. The march did not aim to defeat the enemy forces of the Federal government, but rather to ensure the column's survival and to continue threatening the enemy.
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Pushpa Kamal Dahal (
The
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/53
Dr. Baburam Bhattarai (
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/54
José Carlos Mariátegui La Chira (14 June 1894 – 16 April 1930) was a
Mariátegui was born in
Though he hoped to become a
Portal:Communism/Selected biography/55
Joe Slovo (23 May 1926 – 6 January 1995) was a South African politician, long-time leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP), and leading member of the African National Congress.
Slovo was born in
Slovo joined the
Between 1946 and 1950 he completed a law degree at
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Chris Hani, born Martin Thembisile Hani (28 June 1942 – 10 April 1993) was the leader of the
Hani was born on 28 June 1942 in the small town of Cofimvaba in a rural village called kuSabalele Transkei. He was the fifth of six children. He attended Lovedale school and later studied modern and classical literature at the University of Fort Hare.
At age 15 Hani joined the ANC Youth League. As a student he was active in protests against the
He received military training in the
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Khalid Bakdash (1912–1995; occasionally spelled Khalid Bagdash,
Bakdash was a
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Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (Latin American Spanish:
Born in
The longest-serving non-royal head of state in the 20th and 21st centuries, Castro polarized world opinion. His supporters view him as a champion of socialism and anti-imperialism whose revolutionary regime advanced economic and social justice while securing Cuba's independence from American imperialism. Critics view him as a dictator whose administration oversaw human-rights abuses, the exodus of a large number of Cubans and the impoverishment of the country's economy. Castro was decorated with various international awards and significantly influenced various individuals and groups across the world.
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