David Petrovsky

Biography

David Lipets was born in 1886 in Berdychiv in a cloth shop owner's family, a merchant 2nd guild, Efraim Lipets. He studied at a Jewish school, and at home with the teachers passed the gymnasium course, was the chairman of the literary and theatrical society of Berdychiv. He soon became interested in revolutionary activities and in 1902 he joined the General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia (Bund). Since the autumn of 1903 he began to study in Paris in the Russian Higher School of Social Sciences, where he became acquainted with many of the revolutionaries.

Since the beginning of the 1905 Russian revolution he returned to Russia. He worked among workers of Dvinsk, Bialystok, Gomel, was one of the leaders of the strike at Libava-Romny railroad. At the 7-th Congress of the Bund, where he first came under the pseudonym Max Goldfarb, he was elected as a candidate for the Central Committee. At the end of 1906 he was arrested by police and spent three months in prison. This was followed by the departure from Russia - first at the London Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), and then to Brussels, where in 1910 he graduated from the Faculty of Economics of the Free University of Brussels with the degree of Doctor of Economic Sciences (supervisor Emile Vandervelde - the future statesman of Belgium).

Along with his studies he lectures (as a member of the Bund) in the cities of Belgium and France. Back in Russia he was engaged in party work. At the end of 1912, he was arrested in Odessa and sentenced to exile, which was then replaced with expulsion from Russia.

Work in the US

By agreement between the Central Committee of the Bund and the Jewish Socialist Federation of America David Lipets comes in New York City to conduct work among the Jewish workers and to raise funds for the Bund as well.

In the US, in 1913 - 1917 he worked and published as Max Goldfarb: member of the Central Committee of the Jewish Socialist Federation of America, a member of the Socialist Party of America. He was the editor of The Forward.

In America Max Goldfarb was quickly and firmly on his feet, but Russia pulled him with new opportunities for the application of his forces and knowledge. In the summer 1917 after the bourgeois-democratic February revolution in Russia, he returned to Russia with a passport in the name of David Lipets, on the way he stopped in Stockholm to the International Socialist Conference.

After the revolution 1917 in Russia

Upon arrival, he was actively involved in the political life of Russia and the Ukraine: ran for Russian Constituent Assembly election, 1917, wrote political articles in Bund magazines, was elected the mayor of the city of Berdichev and chairman of the Jewish communities of the cities of Berdichev and Gitomir. In January 1919, he survived the pogrom of haidamaks, almost did not finish the death of himself and his loved ones.

Since April 1919 David Lipets in Kiev. He starts to serve with the Red Army, and becomes the lecturing instructor in the school in the Red Army. At the end of 1919, David Lipets left from Bund and joined the Bolsheviks. From the book of D.Petrovsky "Military schools during the revolution (1917-1924)": "I was charged the head of speakers bureau in the General Directorate of military schools (GUVUZ) fall of 1919. Since the end of 1919 I'm starting to come into contact with the general operational activity of the military schools, first as the head of the political department of GUVUZ (1919 - early 1920), and then as the chief of the General Directorate of military schools (GUVUZ), from March 1920 to April 1924."

David Lipets becomes David Petrovsky, or just General Petrovsky. As soon as possible military educational institutions of the Russian Empire, destroyed by the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, were rebuilt and began to prepare the young generation. Ideas of Petrovsky for the establishment of Soviet military schools met with resistance, the time for them to come only twenty years later, when the Suvorov and Nakhimov military schools will be opened. His point of view on the problems of a single military doctrine has caused sharp negative reaction of Mikhail Frunze. Yet in 1924 Mikhail Frunze expresses gratitude to him for "the fruitful work done over the matter of raising the military power of the Soviet Union."

In 1924 he has sent to work in the Communist International as Communist International representative in the communist parties of Great Britain, France and United States. Petrovsky comes in England under the name of Bennett, and everyone - even the British Communists and his future wife Rose Cohen, consider him as an American - the Yankees from the East Coast of the United States. Western intelligence agencies not managed to declassify him. In France he was known as Humboldt, and he had passports on the other names. He led the Anglo-American Secretariat, and controlled the communist movements in Great Britain, Ireland, US, India, South Africa, Canada, Japan, Korea and Dutch Indonesia. He worried the situation of black people in the US and South Africa. In 1928, Petrovsky was elected and served as a member of the presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International . "God Goldfarb" - called him old friends in US

In 1929 D.Petrovsky was transfered to the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy - a member of the Presidium and the Chief of the Department of higher and secondary technical schools and institutions (GLAVVTUZ). His experience in managing military schools became useful.

The old party comrades didn't believe that he will succeed with higher and secondary technical schools and institutions in the USSR, because he as a former Bundist will not dare to take on the work of former Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionary Party members, the former right-wing and the Trotskyists (see:Trotskyism), and he will only take those who know how to properly vote, but not able to work.

But he has once again everything turned out. On the basis of large multi-faculty institutes, in the early 30-ies, branch institutes were established. For example, on the basis of the Moscow Mining Academy - Moscow Mining Institute (Moscow State Mining University), Geological Prospecting Institute (Russian State Geological Prospecting University), Moscow Oil Institute (Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas) , Institute of Steel (National University of Science and Technology MISiS), Institute of Nonferrous Metals and Gold. On the basis of Bauman Moscow State Technical University - Moscow Aviation Institute, Moscow Power Engineering Institute, Moscow University of Civil Engineering, and other institutions in the USSR.

Arrest and execution

In March 1937 he was arrested (as the head of the Department of educational institutions in the Ministry (People's Commissariat) of Soviet Heavy Industry and was accused for "counterrevolutionary" activity, and shot September 10, 1937. In August 1937 his wife Rose Cohen was arrested, and in November 28, 1937 she was also shot (rehabilitated in the USSR in 1956). She was the head of the Department and the editor in the "Moscow Daily News" (The Moscow News) newspaper.

Political rehabilitation and family

In January 25, 1958 the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR quashed the judgment of September 10, 1937, all charges were dropped and the case was dismissed for the lack of evidences. David A. Petrovsky (Lipets) was posthumously rehabilitated in the USSR.

He married Rose Cohen (1894-1937) a British feminist and suffragist, a founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. They had a son - Alexey D. Petrovsky (1929-2010) - PH.D. in Geological and Mineralogical sciences, an academician of Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. They have a grandson - Michael A. Petrovsky - PH.D. in Physics and Mathematics, and great-grandchildren: Maria Petrovskaya and Alexey M. Petrovsky.

Proceedings

David Petrovsky is the author of many publications, including more than ten monographs. The most significant works:

Memory

Honorary cadet of the Moscow Higher Military Command School named after the RSFSR Supreme Councel