Moisei Rafes

Moisei Grigorevich Rafes Моисей Григорьевич Рафес
General Controller
In office July 13, 1917 – August 14, 1917
President	Mykhailo Hrushevsky (speaker of Central Rada)
Preceded by	position created
Succeeded by	Aleksandr Zarubin
Personal details
Born	December 0, 1883(1883-12-00)
Died	December 0, 1942(1942-12-00) (aged 59)
Nationality	Jewish
Political party	Jewish Bund
Occupation	Politician

Part of a series of articles on the Jewish Labour Bund אַלגעמײַנער ײדישער אַרבעטער בּונד אין ליטע פוילין און רוסלאַנד 1890s to World War I Russia · Austria-Hungary Interwar years and World War II Belarus · Latvia · Lithuania · Poland · Romania · Soviet Union After 1945 International Jewish Labor Bund Branches: Australia · France · Israel · United Kingdom People Victor Alter · Henryk Ehrlich · Esther Frumkin · Arkadi Kremer · Pati Kremer  · Mikhail Liber · Vladimir Medem · Noah Meisel · Anna Rozental · Szmul Zygielbojm Press Arbeiter Fragen · Arbeiterstimme · Der yidisher arbeyter · Folkstsaytung · Lodzer veker Associated organisations Klain Bund · Kultur Lige · Morgnshtern · S.K.I.F. · Tsukunft · Tsukunft shturem Splinter groups Communist Bund (Poland) · Communist Bund (Russia) · Communist Bund (Ukraine) · Komtsukunft Categories Bundism · Jewish history · Socialist parties v · d · e

Moisei (Moishe) Grigorevich Rafes (Russian: Моше Рафес) (b. 1883, d. 1942) was a prominent politician of the Ukrainian People's Republic as the Bundist representative. After 1919 an official of the Bolshevik Party until the victory of Stalin, when he was imprisoned.^[1]

Rafes was a member of the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly^[2] and also of the Ukrainian Central Rada; he was even a member, as general controller, of the General Secretariat of Ukraine (the chief executive body of the Ukrainian National Republic from 28 June 1917 to 22 January 1918).^[3] He was succeeded at this post by another Bundist, Aleksandr Zolotarev.

When tensions within the Bund heightened, due to the pro-Bolshevik leaning of a part of the leadership, Moisei Rafes was the leader of the centrist wing of the Bund, while Mikhail Liber and Benjamin Kheifetz led the rightists.^[4]

However, Rafes led the scissionist Kombund group in Kiev in February 1919, later joined by similar groups in Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov and Poltava, but the Kombund lasted only till May 1919, when it merged into the Ukrainian Communist Union, 'Komfarband'. These moves were apparently motivated by the large-scale pogroms committed by all the armies present in Ukraine at the time, except the Red Army. After the refusal of the Soviet authorities to authorize the formation of a distinct Jewish Communist Party, Rafes, like other former Bundists Esther Frumkin, Alexander Chemerinsky and Rakhmiel Veinshtain, finally joined the upper echelons of the Yevsektsiya, the Jewish section of the Soviet Communist party (CPSU).^[5]

Moisei Rafes was at the head of the artistic section of Sovkino and a member of the Sovkino board in the late 1920s and through 1930.^[6]

Sources

1. ^ Lazić, Branko M.; Drachkovitch, Milorad M. (1986). Biographical dictionary of the Comintern. Hoover Press. pp. 532. ISBN 9780817984014. http://books.google.be/books?id=UWALiF59JU4C&pg=PA381. 
2. ^ Bunyan, James; Fisher, Harold Henry (1934). The Bolshevik revolution, 1917-1918: documents and materials. Stanford University Press. pp. 735. ISBN 9780804703444. http://books.google.be/books?id=dTGsAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA439. 
3. ^ General Secretariat of the Central Rada
4. ^ Borys, Jurij (1980). The Sovietization of Ukraine, 1917-1923: the Communist doctrine and practice of national self-determination. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. pp. 488. ISBN 9780920862032. http://books.google.be/books?id=b3seAAAAMAAJ. 
5. ^ Levin, Nora (1990). The Jews in the Soviet Union Since 1917: Paradox of Survival. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 9780814750513. http://books.google.com/books?id=1Nz0N5GBW6MC. Retrieved 2009-11-10. 
6. ^ Miller, Jamie (November 2006). "The purges of Soviet cinema, 1929–38". Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema I (1): 5–26. doi:10.1386/srsc.1.1.5 1. ISSN 1750-3132. http://www.atypon-link.com/INT/doi/abs/10.1386/srsc.1.1.5_1. 

Persondata
Name	Rafes, Moisei
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1883-0-0
Place of birth
Date of death	1942-0-0
Place of death