A social democrat who changed course between revolution and economics
At the Northern Front, he reported to Kerensky the reality that soldiers no longer wanted the offensive.
Vladimir Voitinsky was a Russian revolutionary and economist who explored both the labor movement and theories of markets. After Bolshevik work during the 1905 Revolution and exile in Siberia, he moved toward the Mensheviks in 1917 and sought cooperation between the soviets and the Provisional Government. As commissar of the Northern Front, he helped prepare the June Offensive but then confronted soldiers exhausted by war and unwilling to obey orders, exposing the limits of revolutionary military authority. After October he lived in exile and became an international labor and economic researcher who argued for democratic social reform.
Career Timeline
- 1905–1907Worked in the RSDLP Petersburg Committee and organized a council of the unemployed
- 1908–1912Arrested in Yekaterinoslav, sentenced to hard labor, and exiled to Siberia
- 1914–1916Worked with Siberian Zimmerwaldist social democrats
- 1917.04Member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and editorial board of its newspaper
- 1917.06–10Commissar of the Northern Front, involved in June Offensive preparations and political work at the front
- 1918–1935Represented the Democratic Republic of Georgia, wrote for European socialist publications, and worked with the International Labour Organization
- 1935–1960Conducted economic and labor research for the U.S. Census Bureau, Social Security Committee, and other institutions
- 1960Died in Washington