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
A French journalist who moved from antimilitarist socialism toward nationalist authoritarian politics.
“When war comes, do not fire on your brothers ... You will not march to defend the capitalists’ strongbox.”
A former history teacher, Hervé was dismissed from teaching in 1901 after publishing an antimilitarist article and became a socialist journalist. He took part in founding the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) in 1905 and was active in the General Confederation of Labour (CGT); through his paper La Guerre sociale, he advocated antimilitarism and insurrection in the event of war. At the outbreak of the First World War he turned to patriotism and support for the war, and in 1919 he helped launch the National Socialist Party. Between the wars he attacked parliamentary government and called for an authoritarian republic led by Philippe Pétain. He briefly supported German Nazism in the 1930s but condemned its persecution of Jews.
Career timeline
1901Dismissed from teaching after an antimilitarist article.
1905Took part in founding the SFIO and was active in the CGT.
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)
Secretary of the Second International from 1905 to 1922 who kept its Bureau alive in the war and later became Belgian prime minister
In 1917, the Socialist International’s Bureau, led by Huysmans, sought to mediate among socialists in the belligerent countries through a Stockholm peace conference; Allied governments’ refusal to issue passports prevented it from taking place.
A Flemish teacher and journalist, he was secretary of the International Socialist Bureau from 1905 to 1922. When war came he moved the Bureau to the neutral Netherlands, tried to bring the belligerent parties back together and prepared the Stockholm conference of 1917. Between the wars he was a Belgian deputy and education minister; in the Second World War he fled to London and again served as the International’s secretary. He was prime minister of Belgium in 1946–1947.
Career timeline
1905–1922Secretary of the Second International
1910–1965Member of Belgium’s House of Representatives
1925–1927Minister of Education
1933Became mayor of Antwerp
1936–1939President of Belgium’s House of Representatives
Lenin’s oldest friend and most principled adversary
In 1918 Martov published an exposé revealing that Stalin had been expelled from the party in 1907. Stalin sued him for libel, and the revolutionary tribunal sentenced Martov to 'public censure.'
He built Iskra alongside Lenin, then split with him in 1903 over a single clause on party membership and led the Mensheviks. After October he stayed, fighting to keep a legal opposition alive, and in 1920 was permitted to leave. He died of tuberculosis in Berlin. It is told that the dying Lenin asked after him.
Career timeline
1895Co-founds the Petersburg League of Struggle with Lenin
1900–1903On Iskra; leads the Mensheviks after the split
1914–1917Anti-war internationalist
1917–1920Leads the Menshevik Internationalists; tries legal opposition
"East Side Joan of Arc": from the IWW's Rebel Girl to first woman chair of the CPUSA
"We are Communist leaders, proudly and avowedly. We will prove to you that we are not a criminal conspiracy but a 33-year-old working-class political party, devoted to the immediate needs and aspirations of the American people." — Summation to the jury, Smith Act trial, April 24, 1952
American labor organizer and communist. Known as the IWW's "Rebel Girl" from age 15, she led the Lawrence strike and co-founded the ACLU. Elected CPUSA's first woman chair in 1961; died in Moscow and was given a Red Square state funeral.
Career timeline
1906First socialist speech, Harlem Socialist Club — arrested; joins IWW
1907–1916Full-time IWW organizer — Lawrence and Paterson strikes, Missoula and Spokane free-speech fights
1918Founds Workers' Defense Union to defend Espionage Act arrestees
1920Co-founds ACLU; leads Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaign
1936Joins CPUSA; writes weekly column for the Daily Worker
1940Expelled from ACLU board for Communist Party membership
1951–1955Convicted under Smith Act; serves 2 years at Alderson prison, writes The Alderson Story
1961–1964Chair of CPUSA National Committee; dies in Moscow — Red Square state funeral
Independent activity
Nationalism
1894–1918
○ Died of tuberculosis in prison
Young Bosnia member who shot dead Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo in 1914
Born to a poor Serb farming family in western Bosnia, he studied in Sarajevo and in 1911 joined Young Bosnia, a secret society seeking to free Bosnia from Austrian rule and unite the South Slavs. Expelled from school after anti-Austrian demonstrations, he went to Belgrade. Armed and trained through the Serbian secret society the Black Hand, on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo he shot dead the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife Sophie. The assassination set off the July Crisis and the First World War. At his trial he declared himself a Yugoslav nationalist; too young for the death penalty, he received twenty years. He died of tuberculosis in the prison of the Theresienstadt fortress in 1918.
Career timeline
1911Joined Young Bosnia
1914.06.28Assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo
