Activities and affiliations

Political and party leadership Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR) 1850–1919 ○ Natural causes

The great unifier of the Russian revolutionary movement, from the Chaikovtsy to the Left SRs

'I have complete discord with Lenin... I no longer believe in Lenin' — in 1919, on the eve of exile, breaking with the Bolsheviks after half a century of shared struggle.

Mark Natanson was a pivotal organizer who built the institutional backbone of the Russian revolutionary movement across half a century: co-founding the Circle of Tchaikovsky, Land and Liberty, and the People's Rights Party, and serving on the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Known as the 'Ivan Kalita of the revolution' for his talent in unifying dispersed circles, he stood with Lenin as an internationalist at the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences during the First World War. In 1917 he led the formation of the Left SRs and later the Party of Revolutionary Communism, backing the Bolsheviks through the October Revolution, but grew disillusioned as the regime turned toward one-party dictatorship, leaving the words 'I no longer believe in Lenin' before fleeing into exile.

Political and party leadership Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries 1883–1918 ○ Typhus

Left SR People's Commissar in the first Soviet coalition: 'the core of the party'

'Proshyan succeeded in doing more to strengthen the Soviet power before July 1918 than he did after July 1918 to undermine it.' — Lenin, 'In Memory of Comrade Proshyan,' December 1918

Core leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party and People's Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs in the first Soviet coalition government, serving alongside Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin on the Provisional Executive Committee of the Council of People's Commissars (February 1918). As commissar (December 1917–March 1918) he broke the postal-telegraph sabotage and normalized communications, while also serving as political commissar to the Supreme Military Council and member of the VTsIK Presidium. He resigned in protest against the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and became one of the leaders of the July 1918 Left SR uprising; he died of typhus while underground. Maria Spiridonova called him 'the internal builder, the main spring, the core of the Left SR party.'

Political and party leadership Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries 1884–1941 ✕ Executed

Face of the Left SR Party and peasant tribune: the last revolutionary opposition leader to challenge the Bolsheviks from the left

"I undertook this sentence because my heart was tearing from pain... it was shameful and hard to live, hearing what was happening in the villages after Luzhenovsky." — Trial statement, 1906

A leading woman revolutionary of the Russian movement. Born in Tambov into a non-hereditary noble family, she left gymnasium in 1902 before joining the SRs. In 1906 she assassinated Tambov official Luzhenovsky over his suppression of peasants and became a national hero; her death sentence was commuted to lifetime hard labor at Nerchinsk. Freed by the February Revolution, she became a leader of the Left SR Party and chaired the All-Russian Peasant Congresses, and was nominated for Chair of the Constituent Assembly with Bolshevik support (153 votes to Chernov's 244). She broke with the Bolsheviks in 1918 and joined the Left SR uprising, then endured decades of arrest and exile. Rearrested in Ufa in 1937, she was sentenced to 25 years and shot near Oryol on 11 September 1941; Russian sources record 157 political prisoners executed there.

Political and party leadership Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries 1885–1938 ✕ Executed

Co-founder and chief theoretician of the Left SR Party: from coalition with the Bolsheviks to the July 1918 uprising

"We, as political actors, at a moment when an event of immense historical significance is taking place, could least of all occupy ourselves with moral characterization. It was clear to us that our place was with the revolution." — First PLSR Congress, November 1917

Co-founder and chief theoretician of the Left SR Party. Entered coalition with the Bolsheviks, then led the July 1918 uprising against the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. After its suppression he endured repeated exile and was executed in 1938.

Political and party leadership Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries 1887–1961 ○ Died

Revolutionary who went from Left SR leader to architect of Soviet chemical warfare

In July 1918, Left SR Central Committee member Fishman personally manufactured the two bombs used to assassinate German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach and handed them to his comrades.

An SR militant who escaped Siberian exile to study explosives and poison-gas chemistry at the University of Naples, Fishman returned in 1917, became a Left SR Central Committee member, and personally manufactured the bombs for the 1918 assassination of German ambassador Mirbach. After joining the Bolsheviks in 1920, he was appointed the first head of the Red Army's Military-Chemical Directorate (VOKhIMU) in 1925, laying the foundations of the Soviet chemical and biological weapons program; his 1928 report to Voroshilov argued for the offensive use of bacteriological warfare. Arrested in 1937 and sentenced to ten years, he developed a new gas mask model at the NKVD Special Technical Bureau; he was rehabilitated in 1955 with the rank of major general of technical troops.

Political and party leadership Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries 1888–1957 ○ Natural causes

First People's Commissar of Justice under Lenin: the Left SR who defended revolutionary legality against the Cheka

"Then why bother with a Commissariat for Justice? Let's call it frankly the Commissariat for Social Extermination!" — to Lenin, protesting a Cheka summary-execution clause, February 1918

Left SR lawyer, first People's Commissar of Justice in Lenin's coalition government. He championed revolutionary legality against the Cheka and resigned over the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. In exile he was a Yiddish writer and territorialist activist.