Marx's greatest rival: founder of collectivist anarchism, at the center of the First International's great split
At the 1869 Basel Congress: 'Take the most fervent revolutionary and give him absolute power — within a year he'll be worse than the Tsar' — cited in Statism and Anarchy
A Tver nobleman, founder of collectivist anarchism. He opposed Marx's statism in the First International, was expelled at the 1872 Hague Congress, and codified stateless federalism in Statism and Anarchy (1873).
Career timeline
1829–1835St. Petersburg Artillery School — commissioned ensign, dismissed for insubordination; joined Stankevich Circle, Moscow
1840–1842Berlin University — joined Left Hegelians, published 'Reaction in Germany' as Jules Elizard
1843–1847Paris and Brussels — befriended Proudon and Marx, expelled from France after pro-Polish speech
1848–1849Pan-Slav Congress, led Prague and Dresden uprisings — death sentences in Saxony and Austria, commuted to life
1851–1861Extradited to Russia — 6 years in fortresses, Siberian exile, escaped via Japan and the United States
1861–1864London exile — joined Herzen's Kolokol, failed expedition for the 1863 Polish uprising
1864–1868Italy — built revolutionary socialist organizations, wrote 'Revolutionary Catechism', founded International Brotherhood
1868–1872Joined First International, formed Alliance of Socialist Democracy — fought Marx, expelled at 1872 Hague Congress
1872–1876Lugano and Locarno — Statism and Anarchy (1873), unfinished God and the State; died in Bern
Rurikid prince, founder of anarcho-communism, geographer of Mutual Aid: escaped the Peter and Paul Fortress
When Kerensky offered him any cabinet post in 1917, Kropotkin replied he considered 'the trade of a bootblack more honest and useful' — Emma Goldman.
A Rurikid prince and geographer who founded anarcho-communism. Escaped a tsarist prison and spent 41 years in European exile writing The Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid. After returning in 1917, openly criticized the Bolshevik Red Terror.
Career timeline
1857–1862Graduated top of the Page Corps — served as Emperor's personal Kammer-page
1862–1867Cossack officer and explorer in East Siberia — discovered Patom and Vitim plateaus, gold medal of Russian Geographical Society
1867–1874Studied at St. Petersburg University; Physical Geography Secretary at Russian Geographical Society — glacial theory, predicted Franz Josef Land
1872–1874Joined Jura Federation, became anarchist — worker agitation with Chaikovsky Circle, led 'Going to the People'
1874–1876Arrested — completed glacial research in Peter and Paul Fortress, escaped from Nikolaevsky Military Hospital
1876–1917Exile in Western Europe — founded Le Révolté, 3-year imprisonment after Lyon Trial, wrote The Conquest of Bread, Mutual Aid, Memoirs of a Revolutionist
1917–1921Returned to Russia — refused Kerensky's cabinet, criticized Bolshevik Red Terror, died of pneumonia in Dmitrov while writing Ethics
Russian revolutionary who organized the Paris Commune's Women's Union
She organized cooperative workshops to give women control over their labor.
Born Elizaveta Kusheleva, she later used the married name Tomanovskaya. She took part in the Geneva section of the First International and met Marx in London in 1870. Sent to Paris in 1871 as the International's representative, she founded the Women's Union and organized cooperative workshops for women workers. Wounded while fighting on the barricades during the suppression of the Commune, she escaped to Geneva, returned to Russia, and later followed her second husband, Ivan Davydovski, into Siberian exile. Her date of death is unknown; it has been placed probably between 1916 and 1918.
Career timeline
1867Married Mikhail Tomanovski to gain access to her inheritance and funded revolutionary organizations.
1868–1869Financed and co-edited the Russian-language journal Narodnoye delo and helped found the First International's Russian section in Geneva.
1870Went to London as an envoy of the Geneva section and met Karl Marx.
1871Founded the Women's Union during the Paris Commune and promoted cooperative workshops and labor rights for women.
1871–1877Returned to Russia after the Commune's defeat, then married Ivan Davydovski and followed him into Siberian exile.
Theorist of the mass workers' party: the argument that lost to Lenin's vanguard
Trotsky recalled: 'An atmosphere of simplicity and sincere comradely participation reigned in the Akselrod household.'
A former narodnik, he co-founded the Emancipation of Labour group (1883) with Plekhanov and Zasulich, the first Russian Marxist organisation. As an Iskra editor (1900) and, after the 1903 RSDLP split, the central theoretician of Menshevism, he argued for a mass, democratic workers' party against Lenin's vanguard model. He served on the Petrograd Soviet executive in 1917 but opposed the October Revolution and spent his final decade in exile, active in the Second International.
Career timeline
1872–1874Narodnik in the Chaikovsky circle, Kiev; joins the 'Going to the People'
1876–1879Land and Liberty, then Black Repartition leadership
1881–1883Converts to Marxism in exile; works with German SPD leaders
1883Co-founds Emancipation of Labour in Geneva
1900–1903Editorial board member of Iskra and Zarya
1903–1905Key Menshevik theorist; first to warn Lenin's vanguard risks Jacobin degeneration
1906–1914Active in Second International; defends liquidationism; elected to OK Foreign Secretariat
Co-author of permanent revolution who arranged Lenin's sealed train: the 'merchant of revolution'
In December 1917, Lenin refused Parvus's request to return to Russia with the words: 'the cause of the revolution should not be touched by dirty hands.'
A Marxist theorist and journalist in the German SPD who co-developed the theory of permanent revolution with Leon Trotsky in 1904–1905. During World War I, he built a revolutionary network inside Russia with German government funding and played the decisive role in arranging Lenin's return via the 'sealed train' in April 1917. After the Bolsheviks took power, Lenin refused his request to return, declaring that 'the cause of the revolution should not be touched by dirty hands'; Parvus remained in Germany and became an advisor to early Weimar Republic leaders. Criticized for commodifying his principles between revolutionary Marxism and realpolitik, he remains one of the most controversial figures of 20th-century socialism.
Career timeline
1891PhD from Basel, joins German SPD
1894–1897Writer for Die Neue Zeit, adopts pseudonym Parvus
1897–1898Editor of Sächsische Arbeiterzeitung
1900Helps Lenin and Martov launch Iskra
1904–1905Co-formulates permanent revolution with Trotsky
1905Strategist of the St. Petersburg Soviet, authors Financial Manifesto
1915Presents revolutionary plan to German Foreign Ministry, builds Copenhagen network
One of the six who built Iskra: the Menshevik theorist who parted with Lenin
Witnessing the October Revolution, Potresov called it "the murder of democracy" and the Bolshevik regime that followed "the socialism of fools."
One of the six original editors of Iskra (1900) and a founding figure of the RSDLP. At the 1903 party congress he sided with Martov and became a leading Menshevik theorist, arguing for a mass party against Lenin's vanguard model. During WWI he led the defensist wing of Menshevism; he rejected the October Revolution and was briefly imprisoned by the Cheka in 1919. He left the USSR in 1925 and continued writing against the Soviet regime from Berlin and Paris until his death.
Career timeline
1892–1896Active in Struve's and Martov's SD circles; contacts with Emancipation of Labour group
1896Co-founds the Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class
1897–1899Arrested and exiled to Vyatka province
1900–1903One of six founding editors of Iskra; joins Menshevik leadership after the II Congress
1905–1907Returns to Russia; edits Menshevik papers Nachalo and Nevsky Golos
1910–1914Edits the Liquidator journal Nasha Zarya; co-edits the 4-volume The Social Movement in Russia
1914–1917Leads the Menshevik defensists; publishes Nashe Delo
1925–1934Exiled in Berlin and Paris; publishes Notes of a Social Democrat and the book In the Grip of Illusions
Exiled revolutionary who made anarchism an international political movement
After witnessing the crushing of Kronstadt, Goldman wrote: 'Kronstadt broke the last thread that held me to the Bolsheviki.' She left Soviet Russia in December 1921.
Russian-born anarchist revolutionary, writer, and orator who emigrated to the United States. Politically awakened by the Haymarket affair, she played a pivotal role in developing anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe. Known as 'Red Emma,' she drew thousands to lectures on birth control, free love, and antimilitarism, and was deported to Soviet Russia in 1919. After the Kronstadt rebellion, she became a prominent critic of Bolshevik authoritarianism, documenting her disillusionment in My Disillusionment in Russia (1923).
Career timeline
1889Moves to NYC; mentored by Johann Most, enters anarchist movement
1892Implicated in Berkman's attempted assassination of Henry Clay Frick
1893First imprisonment — one year for incitement after Union Square speech
1906Founds the anarchist journal Mother Earth
1917Sentenced to two years for anti-draft organizing
1919Deported to Soviet Russia aboard the 'Soviet Ark' Buford
1923Publishes My Disillusionment in Russia, a critique of Bolshevik rule
1936Supports the anarchist revolution in the Spanish Civil War
Anarchist writer who served 14 years for the Frick assassination attempt, then broke with the Soviet state
At his farewell banquet in Chicago, told of Frick's death, Berkman remarked: 'Frick had been deported by God.'
Russian-born anarchist revolutionary and writer who emigrated to the United States in 1888. Outraged by the repression of striking Homestead steelworkers, he attempted to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick in 1892, served 14 years in prison, and chronicled the experience in Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1912). After his release he became editor of Emma Goldman's Mother Earth and a central figure in the American anarchist movement; in 1919 he was deported to Soviet Russia for anti-war activism. Initially enthusiastic about the Bolshevik Revolution, he became disillusioned after witnessing the Kronstadt rebellion's suppression and documented the early Soviet state's authoritarianism in The Bolshevik Myth (1925); in French exile he wrote the anarcho-communist primer Now and After (1929).
Career timeline
1888Immigrates to US, joins anarchist movement as typesetter for Johann Most's Freiheit
1892Attempts to assassinate Henry Clay Frick during Homestead strike; serves 14 of 22 years
1907–1915Editor of Mother Earth, builds it into the leading US anarchist journal
1916Launches his own journal The Blast in San Francisco
1917Imprisoned for anti-draft organizing; deported to Soviet Russia in 1919
1921Witnesses Kronstadt suppression, breaks with Bolsheviks, leaves Russia
1925Publishes The Bolshevik Myth, a diary-based critique of early Soviet rule
1929Publishes Now and After, classic introduction to anarcho-communism
Menshevism's theoretical pillar who stood for democratic socialism against Lenin
In 1943, the lifelong anti-Bolshevik Menshevik leader Dan wrote in The Origins of Bolshevism that Bolshevism had been chosen by history to be 'the carrier of socialism, the key idea of our epoch.'
Fyodor Dan was a revolutionary, physician, and a founding leader and chief theorist of the Menshevik faction of the RSDLP. At the 1903 Second Congress he sided with Martov against Lenin; after the February Revolution he became the leading ideologist of 'revolutionary defencism' and served on the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet and the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee. Exiled in 1922, he headed the Menshevik Foreign Delegation from Martov's death in 1923 until 1940, upholding democratic socialism against both Bolshevik authoritarianism and Western social-democratic accommodation. In The Origins of Bolshevism (1943) he recognized Bolshevism as the historical carrier of socialism while arguing for political liberalization in the Soviet Union.
Career timeline
1894–1896Active in St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class; arrested and exiled to Vyatka
1901–1903Emigrated to Berlin, joined Iskra assistance group; at RSDLP 2nd Congress sided with Martov, co-founded Menshevik faction
1905–1912Editorial board of Nachalo, main Menshevik paper; delegate to 4th and 5th RSDLP Congresses; co-editor of Golos Sotsial-Demokrata
1917Executive Committee of Petrograd Soviet, Presidium of Central Executive Committee; ideologist of 'revolutionary defencism'
1919–1920Speaker for Mensheviks at 7th and 8th All-Russian Congresses of Soviets; served as Red Army doctor
1922–1923Arrested, imprisoned, then exiled abroad; helped found Socialist Workers' International; deprived of Soviet citizenship
1923–1940Headed Menshevik Foreign Delegation; exile activity in Berlin then Paris
1941–1947Exile in New York, published Novy Put journal; wrote The Origins of Bolshevism (1943)
