The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

by Edmond Taylor

With Trotsky, Parvus co-edited an enormously successful left-wing daily in St. Petersburg and he probably inspired many of the revolutionary tactics applied by the Soviet. In the intervals of his conspiratorial activity Parvus found time to continue his career as a big-time international playboy. The Czar’s police when they finally arrested him were baffled to discover a book of fifty theater tickets in his pocket. They assumed it was in preparation for some kind of outrage: in reality it was just for a little party that Parvus was giving. Parvus shared a spell of prison and then of Siberian exile with Trotsky, and like him finally escaped to the West. In the summer of 1907 he joined the Trotskys for a hiking trip in Saxony.