Walecki, Henryk

(pseudonym of Maksymilian Horwitz). Born Sept. 6, 1877, in Warsaw; died 1938. Leader in the Polish workers’ movement. Born into a bourgeois family.

Walecki graduated from the University of Ghent in 1898. In 1895 he had joined the Polish Socialist Party (PSP). In 1904-05 he was one of the leaders of its left wing and a member of the Central Workers’ Committee of the PSP (1905). After the split in the PSP (1906) Walecki was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of the PSP Leftists. Following the formation of the Communist Party of Poland (CPP) in December 1918, Walecki was a member of its Central Committee (1918-19 and 1923-25). From 1921 to 1925 he was the representative of the CPP in the Comintern. Beginning in 1925 he worked in the administrative structure of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. In 1925 Walecki was transferred from membership in the CPP to membership in the ACP (Bolshevik), with his date of membership extended back to 1905. At the Seventh Congress of the Comintern (1935) he was elected a member of the International Control Commission. During the period 1935-36, Walecki served as editor of the journal Kommunisticheskii Internatsional.