The astrophysicist who mapped the Milky Way, and the council communist Lenin attacked in 'Left-Wing Communism'
One summer night in Bremen, 1908 — after teaching a workers' class — Pannekoek went out with his telescope. His verbal descriptions of the Milky Way clouds, notebook after notebook, would later become the evidence that let stellar statisticians first gauge the distance to our galaxy's spiral arms.
Dutch astronomer and founder of council communism. He won the RAS Gold Medal for his work on stellar atmospheres and galactic structure. In the Dutch and German left he built the theory of workers' council revolution, becoming the principal target of Lenin's 'Left-Wing Communism'.
Career timeline
- 1899Observer at Leiden Observatory; PhD on Algol variability
- 1901Joins the Dutch SDAP
- 1906–1914Active in the SPD left wing in Berlin and Bremen; party-school teacher
- 1909Co-founds the Social Democratic Party, forerunner of the Dutch CP
- 1918–1921Co-founds the Dutch CP; Comintern Amsterdam Bureau
- 1920Target of Lenin's pamphlet; replies with 'World Revolution and Communist Tactics'
- 1921–1927Expelled from CP; active in KAPN and the Communist Workers' International
- 1925–1942Professor at University of Amsterdam; founds the astronomical institute
- 1938Publishes 'Lenin as Philosopher' under pseudonym J. Harper
- 1946Publishes 'Workers' Councils' as P. Aartsz
A physician of the Left Opposition who shares a name with the first president of Russia
He has no connection to Boris Yeltsin, the first president of Russia. Even the Russian spellings differ: Eltsin for him, Yeltsin for the president.
He was born in 1876 in Zvenigorodka, Kiev Governorate (some sources give 1875). He joined the RSDLP in 1897 and completed medical studies at Novorossiysk University in Odessa the following year, working thereafter as a physician. Exiled to Ufa Governorate in 1910 for revolutionary activity, he worked as a sanitary doctor in Belebey and attached himself to the Bolsheviks. After the revolution he served in local soviets and on various commissions, and from 1923 he belonged to the Left Opposition and signed the Declaration of 46. Expelled from the party in 1927, he was exiled to Ust-Vym early the next year and held in the Suzdal political isolator in 1929. Arrested again in 1936 and exiled to Siberia, he was one of the organizers of a hunger strike by political prisoners in Magadan that year. He was shot in 1937 and rehabilitated on 23 November 1956. His son Viktor Borisovich Eltsin was also active in the opposition.
Career timeline
- 1897Joined the RSDLP
- 1898Graduated in medicine, Novorossiysk University, Odessa
- 1910Exiled to Ufa Governorate; sanitary doctor in Belebey
- 1923Joined the Left Opposition, signed the Declaration of 46
- 1927Expelled from the party
- 1928–1929Exiled to Ust-Vym, then held in the Suzdal political isolator
- 1936Arrested again, exiled to Siberia, organized a hunger strike of political prisoners in Magadan
- 1937Shot
- 1956Rehabilitated
