People of the Revolution and the USSR

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Any Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 1

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Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 1
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People of the Soviet Union

The old regime and its challengers1905–1917 17

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The age of the Internationals and empires1820–1917 1
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Pavel Borisovich Axelrod

Павел Борисович Аксельрод
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) Non-Bolshevik socialists Russia Russia 1850–1928 ○ Natural causes

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
  • 1917Returns; Petrograd Soviet executive; opposes October, re-emigrates
  • 1918–1928Leads Menshevik emigration; anti-Bolshevik line in Second International; dies Berlin