Isaac Steinberg

Isaac Nachman Steinberg (; 13 July 1888 – 2 January 1957) was a lawyer, a Left Socialist-Revolutionary, politician, People's Commissar under Lenin, and a leader of the Jewish Territorialist movement and writer in Soviet Russia and in exile.

Biography Early life and first exile Steinberg was born in Dvinsk, Russian Empire (today Daugavpils, Latvia), into a family of Orthodox Jewish merchants. He was raised in a traditional religious home. In 1906, Steinberg entered Moscow University, where he studied law. He joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party (also known as SRs). He was arrested in 1908 and sent to Tobolsk province for 2 years. After exile he left for Germany and studied at the University of Heidelberg, graduating with a master's degree. On December 19, 1917, he signed an “Instruction” to the Revolutionary Tribunal on the termination of systematic repressions against individuals, institutions and the press and sent a corresponding telegram to the Soviets at all levels. From December 1917 - January 1918, the Council of People's Commissars examined Steinberg's claims against the Cheka several times. On December 31, 1917, the Sovnarkom, on his initiative, decided to delimit the functions of the Cheka under the Petrograd Soviet.

After the scandal caused by the murder of Andrei Ivanovich Shingarev and Fyodor Kokoshkin on the night of January 6–7, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars, after hearing the report of Steinberg, instructed the NKJ to “as soon as possible verify the thoroughness of the detention of political prisoners ... all those who cannot be charged within 48 hours should be released”.

On January 11, at his suggestion, the Sovnarkom decided to investigate the activities of the People's Commissariat, the Bolsheviks Pyotr Krasikov and Mechislav Kozlovsky were accused by Steinberg of illegal activities. During a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars in February, Lenin presented the draft of a decree, "The Socialist Fatherland in Danger!". In it, there was a clause calling for the execution "on the spot" of a loose category of criminals defined as "enemy agents, speculators, burglars, hooligans, counter-revolutionary agitators, [and] German agents". Steinberg expressed objection because a "cruel threat ... with far reaching terroristic potentialities." He stated "Lenin resented my opposition in the name of revolutionary justice. So I called out in exasperation, "Then why do we bother with a Commissariat for Justice? Let's call it frankly the 'Commissariat for Social Extermination' and be done with it!" Lenin's face suddenly brightened and he replied, "Well put ... that's exactly what it should be ... but we can't say that".

On February 18, 1918, he released Vladimir Burtsev from prison. In March–April 1918, Steinberg confronted Felix Dzerzhinsky.

In the spring of 1918 he saved Prince George Lvov, who was about to be executed by the Ural Bolsheviks under Filipp Goloshchekin, with Steinberg ordering Lvov's release along with two other prisoners under a written undertaking not to leave Yekaterinburg.

On March 15, 1918, he resigned his post and left the SNK in protest against the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. On March 19, as part of the southern delegation of the Left SR Central Committee, he went to Kursk to organize partisan detachments. From there he went to the south of the country, visited Kharkov, Rostov-on-Don, and took part in the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in Yekaterinoslav. Steinberg was elected to the All-Ukrainian Central Committee of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. Together with Boris Kamkov and Vladimir Karelin, he became the organizer of the Main Military Headquarters of the Left SRs in Taganrog. In the spring of 1918, he actively participated in the Second Congress of the Left SRs. He delivered a speech approving the withdrawal of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries from the SNK and warned of the danger of the Soviet bureaucracy. He was arrested by the Cheka on February 10, 1919, and spent four and a half months in custody.

In 1923, having been warned that he was in danger of assassination, Steinberg again moved to Germany and took his young family to live with him in Berlin. Steinberg based his campaign on the officially declared need to populate northern Australia. On 23 May 1939 he arrived in Perth and by early 1940 gained substantial public support, but also encountered opposition.

Steinberg left Australia in June 1943 to rejoin his family in Canada. On 15 July 1944 he was informed by the Australian Prime Minister John Curtin that the Australian government would not "depart from the long-established policy in regard to alien settlement in Australia" and could not "entertain the proposal for a group settlement of the exclusive type contemplated by the Freeland League". Steinberg was an Orthodox Jew; it is rumored that during his short tenure as Commissar of Justice he refused to work on Sabbath, much to Lenin's dismay.

Isaac Steinberg died in New York in 1957. His son was the distinguished art historian Leo Steinberg.

Political views

Steinberg's political views were essentially anarchist, although he defined himself as a Left Eser or Left Narodnik. Russian Left Esers proposed a radically decentralized federation of worker syndicates, councils and cooperatives whose delegates are chosen by direct democracy and could be revoked at any moment.

Unlike many anarchists, Steinberg believed that it is possible and necessary to form a political party whose task would be the destruction of the state from within. He also noted, like some contemporary anarchists, that even an established syndicalist federation would not be completely free of elements or "crystals" of organized power. According to Steinberg, even a relatively free and stateless social system has to acknowledge the existence of some reminiscent government-like structures within itself, in order to decentralize or dismantle them and further "anarchize" the society. Steinberg viewed anarchism as an underlying principle, spirit, and drive of revolutionary socialism, rather than as a concrete political program with an ultimate goal. Therefore, he refrained from equating his syndicalist ideas with "anarchism", because such an equation, in his view, would have compromised the very subtle and perpetual nature of anarchist principles.

Steinberg was a leader of the Jewish Territorialist movement. He worked hard to establish a Jewish self-managed territory, but did not support the idea of the Jewish nation-state and was highly critical of Zionist movement politics. After the establishment of the State of Israel, he supported the idea of creating a binational federation in Israel/Palestine and, at the same time, continued his efforts to establish a compact self-ruled Jewish settlement somewhere outside the Middle East.

Works "Нравственный лик революции" ("Moral Face of the Revolution"), Berlin, 1923 ("Memoirs of People's Commissar"), Warsau, 1931 Gewalt und Terror in der Revolution. (Oktoberrevolution oder Bolschewismus), Berlin 1931 (2nd edition Berlin 1974, 3rd edition Bremen 2024, with new German subtitle: Das Schicksal der Erniedrigten und Beleidigten in der russischen Revolution) "Spiridonova: Revolutionary Terrorist". Translated and edited by Gwenda David and Eric Mosbacher. London, 1935 ("Lived and dreamed in Australia"), Melbourne, 1943 Australia: The Unpromised Land (London, 1948) ("With one foot in America: People, Events and Ideas"), Mexico, 1951 ("In Struggle for Man and Jew"), Buenos Aires, 1952 In the Workshop of the Revolution, New York, 1953