Paul Frölich, American Exile, and Communist Discourse about the Russian Revolution

Abstract

Paul Fr€olich (1884–1953) was among the most important politicians in the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later in the Communist Party of Germany Opposition (KPDO) and the Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany (SAPD). His 1939 biography of Rosa Luxemburg (1871– 1919) also confirms his importance to historical scholarship, as the three volumes he edited about Luxemburg’s estate reflect his own position within communist history. In his early days as a communist, Fr€olich was ideologically similar to his former idol Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924). The two men met for the first time at the Kienthal Conference in 1916, and Fr€olich followed Lenin and the Bolsheviks’ policies in the following years. On the eve of the National Socialist “seizure of power,” Fr€olich praised Lenin’s policies in the immediate aftermath of the Russian October Revolution of 1917. Fr€olich’s exile in European countries, time in prison, time in a concentration camp, exiles in Czechoslovakia and France, and emigration from Europe changed nothing for him at the time. Only after he and his future wife Rosi Wolfstein (1888–1987) were exiled to New York in