Theodore Rothstein

{{Short description|Soviet politician, journalist, writer, and diplomat (1871–1953)}}

Theodore Rothstein ({{langx|ru|Фёдор Аронович Ротштейн}}, Fyodor Aronovich Rotshteyn; 26 February 1871 – 30 August 1953) was a Soviet politician, journalist, writer and communist. He served as a Soviet ambassador in the 1920s.

Life

Theodore Rothstein was born in 1871 in the Imperial Russian city of Kovno, Kovno Governorate (present-day Kaunas, 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 Tribune, The Daily News, The Manchester Guardian, and became a member of the National Union of Journalists.{{Cite book|last=Burke|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vROJDwAAQBAJ&q=Theodore+Rothstein&pg=PA270|title=Russia and the British Left: From the 1848 Revolutions to the General Strike|date=2018-02-08|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-78673-324-5|language=en}} 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 (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 (SDF) which was founded by Henry Hyndman in 1884.{{Cite book|last=Burke|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xZpzjbkfa64C&q=Theodore+Rothstein&pg=PA22|title=The Spy who Came in from the Co-op: Melita Norwood and the Ending of Cold War Espionage|date=2008|publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd|isbn=978-1-84383-422-9|language=en}} 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 Labour Party as a British member in 1901, siding with the Bolshevik faction against the Mensheviks and becoming a close comrade of Lenin, who often stayed at Rothstein's house on Clapton Square in the Hackney area of London.

Rothstein published Egypt's Ruin in 1910, a work which argued that Egypt was being exploited under British rule. He used British government documents and correspondent reports from London newspapers regarding Egypt to bolster his arguments. Although Rothstein was a convinced opponent of World War I, he worked for the Foreign Office and the War Office as a Russian translator and interpreter.

Within the SDF's successor, the British Socialist Party (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.{{cite web |last1=Crawford |first1=Ted |title=Index of articles in The Call, 1916-1920 |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/call/index.htm |website=www.marxists.org |publisher=Marxist Internet Archive |accessdate=16 November 2020}} He played a leading role in ensuring that the BSP played a significant role in the formation of the Communist Party of Great Britain. However, following an invitation to Moscow in 1920, he was refused permission to return to Britain.{{Cite book|last=Udy|first=Giles|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m3ypDgAAQBAJ&q=Theodore+Rothstein&pg=PT46|title=Labour And The Gulag: Russia and the Seduction of the British Left|date=2017-04-27|publisher=Biteback Publishing|isbn=978-1-78590-265-9|language=en}} 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{{cite journal |last1=Nejad |first1=Kayhan A. |title=To break the feudal bonds: the Soviets, Reza Khan, and the Iranian left, 1921-25 |journal=Middle Eastern Studies |date=2021 |volume=57 |issue=5 |page=761 |doi=10.1080/00263206.2021.1897578|s2cid=233524659 }} 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.{{Citation

|publisher = University of Pittsburgh Press

|title = The Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, 1920-21: Birth of the Trauma

|author = Cosroe Chaqueri

|edition =

|date = 1994

|oclc = 831417921

|ol = 25431986M

}}

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 also became a prominent communist.

Rothstein died in Moscow in 1953.

References

Works

The Decline of British Industry, 1903.
The Russian Revolution, 1907.
[https://archive.org/stream/egyptsruinfinanc00rotsuoft#page/n25/mode/2up 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.
[http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/r/o.htm#rothstein-theo Theodore Rothstein biography] - Marxists Internet Archive
[http://www.grahamstevenson.me.uk/archives/000089.html Compendium of Communist Biography by surname] - Graham Stevenson, National Organiser for the Transport and General Workers Union

External links

[http://www.marxists.org./archive/rothstein/index.htm Theodore Rothstein] at the Marxists Internet Archive
[http://www.vestnik.com/issues/2001/1023/win/muller.htm Theodore Rothstein] - Russian article about Rothstein with his photo

Category:1871 births

Category:1953 deaths

Category:Diplomats from Kaunas

Category:Writers from Kaunas

Category:People from Kovensky Uyezd

Category:Ambassadors of the Soviet Union to Iran

Category:Communist Party of Great Britain members

Category:Communist Party of the Soviet Union members

Category:Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences

Category:Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members

Category:Social Democratic Federation members

Category:Recipients of the Order of Lenin