Russian revolutionary who organized the first Marxist circles in the Volga region
"Fedoseev enjoyed the extraordinary sympathy of all who knew him, as the model of an old-time revolutionary, wholly devoted to his cause" — Lenin, 1922
Nikolai Fedoseev was a pioneer of Russian Marxism who organized the first Marxist study circle in Kazan in 1888, introducing young Lenin and Maxim Gorky to Marxist theory. From prison, he corresponded with Lenin on questions of Marxist worldview, and wrote a major study analyzing the economic causes of the fall of serfdom in Russia, as well as a draft program for a proletarian party. His polemic against the Narodnik theorist Nikolai Mikhailovsky opened the early Marxist-Narodnik debate, and Lenin later called his party program draft 'the only correct one'. But in 1898, hounded by a fellow exile's slander in Siberia, he took his own life at 27.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1888Organized the first Marxist circles in Kazan
- 1889.7Arrested for organizing an illegal printing press
- 1890–1892Imprisoned in Kazan and St. Petersburg's 'Kresty' prison
- 1892.9Organized workers during the Morozov factory strike — arrested again
- 1893.11Exiled to Solvychegodsk for 3 years
- 1895.7Exiled to Eastern Siberia for 5 years
Worker Organizing and a Program for Proletarian Struggle
During the September 1892 strike at the Morozov factory in Nikolskoye, Vladimir province, Fedoseev helped organize the workers and publicly presented a program for proletarian struggle based on Marxism. The Tatar Encyclopedia describes this as his first role organizing a body of workers. He was arrested on September 10 and sentenced to three years of exile in Solvychegodsk. Lenin, who stressed that he had never met Fedoseev in person, recalled discussing questions of Marxist or Social-Democratic worldview with him in correspondence and credited him with an important influence on the spread of Marxism in the Volga region and parts of central Russia. Lenin's account does not detail the strike organization, but his recollection places Fedoseev's work with workers alongside his theoretical engagement in the early Marxist movement.