Virendranath Chattopadhyaya alias Chatto, was a prominent Indian revolutionary who worked to overthrow the British Raj in India by using the force of arms as a tool. He was younger brother of Sarojini Naidu and Harindranath Chattopadhyay⁣
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Chattopadhyaya received a secular and liberal education. He was a polyglot and was fluent in the Indian languages Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, as well as English; later he was to learn French, Italian, German, Dutch, Russian and the Scandinavian languages as well. ⁣
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In 1902, Chattopadhyaya joined the University of Oxford, while preparing for the Indian Civil Service. While frequenting Shyamji Krishna Varma’s India House at Chattopadhyaya became closely acquainted with V. D. Savarkar (since 1906).⁣
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In May 1910, seizing the opportunity of tension between the United Kingdom and Japan over the Korean peninsula, Chattopadhyaya discussed the possibility of Japanese help to Indian revolutionary efforts.⁣
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He went to Berlin in April 1914 to further revolutionary activities. He and Dr. Abhinash Bhattacharya formed a “German Friends of India” association, and were received by the brother of Wilhelm II. The Indians and Germans signed a treaty in favour of German help to oust the British from India.⁣
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With the failure of the Indo- German Plan, he opened a new Bureau of the Independence committee in Stockholm. ⁣
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His involvement with Agnes Smedley (American journalist and writer) was most significant. It was 1920 he met her in Germany to where she had moved to escape the heat of pursuit from the American police because of her involvement with the Indians who had been indicted in the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial. They got separated in 1928.⁣
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He went to Moscow in 1920 to develop support by the Communists for the Indian movement, including among Asians in Moscow who were working on revolutionary movements. ⁣
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He joined the German Communist Party (KPD). He lived in Moscow for several years in the 1930s. Arrested in July 1937 in Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge, It was much later revealed that Virendranath was one among the 187 marked for execution.⁣