Name Yakov Ganetsky | Died November 27, 1937 | |
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Yakov Stanislavovich Ganetsky (also transliterated as Hanecki), also known as Jakub Fürstenberg (Fuerstenberg) (15 March 1879 — 26 November 1937) was a prominent Old Bolshevik and close associate of Vladimir Lenin, famous as one of the financial wizards who arranged, through his close working relationship with Alexander Parvus, the secret German funding that saved the Bolsheviks. After the October Revolution of 1917, Ganetsky served as Chief Soviet banker, trade representative and Ambassador to Latvia. On behalf of the Soviet government he signed the Peace of Riga and Treaty of Kars. His last post was that of a director of the Museum of the Revolution of the USSR, presently the State Historical Museum. He was executed during the Great Purge and was rehabilitated posthumously.
Biography
Yakov Ganetsky was born in Warsaw, then in the Russian Empire, into the family of a Jewish factory owner. In 1896 he joined the Bolshevik fraction of the RSDRP. He moved to Germany in 1901 and studied in rapid succession at Berlin, Heidelberg, and Zurich universities. He worked as a salesman. In 1903-09 Ganetsky was a member of the main administration of Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) and an active participant in the 1905-07 revolution in Poland.
For his revolutionary activities Ganetsky was repeatedly arrested. From 1907 he was a member of the Central Committee of RSDRP(b). During the division of SDKPiL (1912–16) he was a member of the boundary administration and one of the leaders of the pro-Lenin fraction.
During World War I Ganetsky, in association with Alexander Parvus and Karl Radek, was involved in secret negotiations with the German General Staff regarding funding of the Bolsheviks and was one of the organizers of the (Copenhagen operation) as well as a mediator between Lenin and the Germans. He was one of the organizers of Lenin's return in a "sealed train" from exile in Switzerland to Russia in 1917.