Die Glocke, and drew from Hugo Hasse the following observation:  “I blame nobody for being wealthy; I only ask if it is the role of a Social Democrat to become a profiteer of the war."[85] Very soon we find this precious gentleman settled in Copenhagen, where he established a “Society for Studying the Social Consequences of the War,” which was, of course, entirely pro-German.  This society is said to have exercised considerable influence among the Russians in Copenhagen and to have greatly influenced many Danish Socialists to take Germany’s side.  According to Pravda, the Bolshevik organ, the German Government, through the intermediary of German Social Democrats, established a working relation with Danish trade-unions and the Danish Social Democratic party, whereby the Danish unions got the coal needed in Copenhagen at a figure below the market price.  Then the Danish party sent its leader, Borgdjerg, to Petrograd as an emissary to place before the Petrograd Soviet the terms of peace of the German Majority Socialists, which were, of course, the terms of the German Government.  We find “Parvus” at the same time, as he is engaged in this sort of intrigue, associated with one Furstenberg in shipping drugs into Russia and food from Russia into Germany.[86] According to Grumbach,[87] he sought to induce prominent Norwegian Socialists to act as intermediaries to inform certain Norwegian syndicates that Germany would grant them a monopoly of coal consignments if the Norwegian Social Democratic press would adopt a more friendly attitude toward Germany and the Social Democratic members in the Norwegian parliament would urge the stoppage or the limitation of fish exports to England.

During this period “Parvus” was bitterly denounced by Plechanov, by Alexinsky and other Russian Socialists as an agent of the Central Powers.  He was denounced also by Lenine and Trotzky and by Pravda.  Lenine described him as “the vilest of bandits and betrayers.”  It was therefore somewhat astonishing for those familiar with these facts to read the following communication, which appeared in the German Socialist press on November 30, 1917, and, later, in the British Socialist organ, Justice: 

STOCKHOLM, November 20.—­The Foreign Relations Committee of the Bolsheviki makes the following communication:  “The German comrade, ‘Parvus,’ has brought to the Bolshevik Committee at Stockholm the congratulations of the Parteivorstand of the Majority Social Democrats, who declare their solidarity with the struggles of the Russian proletariat and with its request to begin pourparlers immediately on the basis of a democratic peace without annexations and indemnities.  The Foreign Relations Committee of the Bolsheviki has transmitted these declarations to the Central Committee at Petrograd, as well as to the Soviets.”

When Hugo Hasse questioned Philipp Scheidemann about the negotiations which were going on through “Parvus,”