Viktor Alter
| Victor Alter | |
|---|---|
Victor Alter
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| Born |
February 7, 1890 Mława, Płock Governorate, Vistula Land |
| Died | 17 February 1943 (aged 53) Samara, Soviet Union |
| Occupation | Bundist leader and activist |
Victor Alter (also Wiktor Alter; February 7, 1890 – February 17, 1943) was a Jewish socialist activist and publicist of the Bund, and a member of the executive committee of the Second International.
Alter studied in Belgium, at the University of Ghent where he received a degree in mechanical engineering in 1912. Afterward he returned to Warsaw. In April 1913 he was arrested by Tsarist authorities for his activism for the Bund and was exiled to Siberia. He managed to escape and soon made his way to Great Britain where he joined the Labour Party. During World War I he took part in the campaign of conscientious objector and refused military service. After the February Revolution he moved to Russia. In December 1917 he became a member of the Central Committee of the Bund.
From 1918 on he resided in newly independent Poland. He was one of the leaders of the Polish Bund in the interwar period, associated with the organization’s left wing. He was in favor of closer cooperation with the Polish Socialist Party, and opposed the Comintern and the Polish Communist Party. During this time he was also a member of Warsaw City Council.
In September 1939 after the German invasion of Poland, and the subsequent Soviet invasion of Poland he found himself in the Soviet occupied zone. On the 29th of September he was arrested by the NKVD. In July 1941 he was sentenced to death by the Soviet authorities, although the sentence was later commuted to ten years in the Gulag. After the Nazi invasion of Soviet Union, and the signing of the Sikorski–Mayski Agreement between the Polish Government in Exile and the Soviet Union he was released from the gulag.
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