A Preface to the Study of Modern Jewish Political Thought

Abstract

U niversalism or particularism? That was the issue debated around 1890 within a student circle in Berlin. One speaker was A. L. Helphand, a revolutionary better known later by his pen name, Parvus. In ensuing years this curious figure helped to shape Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution; he was expelled from German Social Democracy for corruption, and, after he became the kaiser's agent, he helped to arrange Lenin's passage to the Finland Station.