Biographical Notes Abramovich, Rafael (1880-1963) Member of the Central Com­ mittee of the Bund, which he represented in the St Petersburg Soviet in 1905, and of the Central Committee of the RSDRP. Lived abroad 1911-17. Member of the Petrograd Soviet in 1917. Emi­ grated in 1920 and with Martov and Dan founded the Menshevik paper Sotsialisticheskii Vestnik in Berlin. Adler, Max (1873--1937) Studied jurisprudence at Vienna Univer­ sity. Leading theorist of the Austrian Social-Democratic Party. On the left wing of the party during the First World War and a supporter of the Workers' Council Movement. Member of parlia­ ment 1920-3. Professor of Sociology, University of Vienna, 1920-37. Criticized the Bolshevik regime as a dictatorship of the minority. Aladin, Aleksei Fedorovich (1872-?) Member of the Trudovik faction of the PSR in the First Duma. Resided in England 1905--17 and became London correspondent of the conservative Novoe Vremya. In 1917 served as a translator for the British army. After July, representative of the 'Republican Centre', in the entourage of General Kornilov. In exile after the collapse of the White move­ ment. Andreev, Leonid Nikolaevich (1871-1919) Associated with Gorky and his publishing-house Znanie until 1905, the writer Andreev later gravitated towards the Symbolists and edited the journal Shipovnik. He adopted a patriotic stance during the First World War, opposed the Bolshevik Revolution and in 1919 issued from Finland an 'SOS' calling upon the Western world to save Russia from Bolshevik tyranny. Antonov-Ovseenko, Vladimir Alexandrovich (1884-1939) Son of an army captain, graduate of the Cadet Schools of Voronezh and St Petersburg (1904), and RSDRP activist from 1903. An organizer of the army mutiny in Novo-Alexandria and of the insurrection in Sevastopol in 1905--6, he was sentenced to death (commuted) in 281 282 John Reed and the Russian Revolution 1907. Following his escape he worked as an agitator in the army and navy and in industry. In 1910 became secretary of the Parisian Labour Bureau for Russian trade unionists, and, from September 1914 co-edited with Dmitri Manuilsky the anti-war Golos, which had links with the Petrograd Mezhraionka group of the RSDRP. In May 1917 he joined Lenin. In November, as Secretary of the Military Revolutionary Committee, he organized, with Podvoisky and Lashevich, the capture of the Winter Palace and the arrest of the Provisional Government. A member of the first Sovnarkom, he occupied several commands during the Civil War. Avilov, Boris Vasilievich (187~1938) A founder member of the Bolshevik fraction in 1904, A vilov was an organizer of the insurrec­ tion in Kharkov in 1905. An author of works on the Russian economy, he belonged in 1917 to the United Social-Democratic Internationalists, a group ideologically close to Martov but more hopeful of reaching an accommodation with the Leninists. An assistant editor of the Izvestiya of the Petrograd Soviet from Sep­ tember, he was elected to the Central Executive Committee by the Second Congress of Soviets. After abandoning politics in 1918 he worked in the Central Statistical Bureau and in Gosplan. Avksentiev, Nikolai Dmitrievich (1878-1943) A founder mem­ ber of the PSR, Avksentiev was a member of the patriotic Prizyv group in Paris during the First World War. A Freemason, member of the PSR Central Committee and close associate of Kerensky, he became a member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet and Chairman of the All-Russian Soviet of Peasant Depu­ ties. From July to September he served as Interior Minister of the Provisional Government and on the eve of the Bolshevik coup he was Chairman of the Provisional Council of the Republic. Presi­ dent of the Directorate formed in Ufa, he was exiled to China with V. M. Zenzinov when.the Directorate was overthrown by Kolchak on 18 November 1918. Azef, Evno Fishelevich (1869-1918) Leader of the combat organ­ ization of the PSR from 1903, and key figure in the assassination of Interior Minister Plehve in 1904 and of Grand Duke Sergei Alexan­ drovich in 1905. Azef was exposed in 1908 by the PSR counter­ espionage expert, V. L. Burtsev, as having been a police spy since Biographical Notes 283 1893. He took refuge in Germany, where he protested his inno­ cence until his death in 1918. Bakhmetiev, Boris Alexandrovich (1880-1951) Engineer and member of the War Industry Committee, 1914-15. Assistant Minis­ ter of Trade and Industry, March-April 1917. Appointed Ambassa­ dor to the United States by the Provisional Government, Bakhmetiev retained this nominal office under the Bolsheviks until 1922 (the United States in this period did not recognize the Soviet regime). He later became Professor of Civil Engineering in Colum­ bia University. Bleikhman, I. S. (I8??-1920) Anarchist-communist member of the Petrograd Federation of Anarchists. Delegate to the Petro grad Soviet. In July he called upon the First Machine-Gun Regiment to overthrow the Provisional Government. Led anarchist expropri­ ations of bourgeois property in Moscow until his arrest by Cheka in April 1918. Died of a lung condition aggravated by imprison­ ment. Bonch-Bruevich, General M. D. (1870-1956) Major-General, Chief of Staff of the Northern Front and of the Sixth Army (cover­ ing Petrograd). A specialist in counter-espionage, he had played a prominent role in the arrest of Myasoedov. The brother of V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, he was one of the first prominent Tsarist officers to go over to the Bolsheviks. Bonch-Bruevich, Vladimir Dmitrievich (1873-1955) Revolution­ ary activist in Moscow from the 1890s, founder member of the Bolshevik fraction in 1904, specialist in the editing and production of illegal literature. Member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet Military Revolutionary Committee and Cheka; Executive Secretary of Sovnarkom. Closely connected with the Old Believer community and a Tolstoyan, he devoted himself to farm­ ing, publishing and scholarship after 1920, notably as editor of the works of Tolstoy. Played a leading part in promoting the cult of Lenin. Breshko-Breshkovskaya, Ekaterina Konstantinovna (1844-1934) Involved from an early age in legal, educational and social work on 284 John Reed and the Russian Revolution behalf of the peasantry and a participant in the 'Going to the People' movement on 1874. In 1878 became the first woman to be sentenced to hard labour in Siberia. Founder member of the PSR in 1901. Exiled again to Siberia, 1907-17. Renowned as the 'Grand­ mother' of the Revolution, she was a supporter of Kerensky to (whom she appealed to arrest the Bolsheviks) and of close collabor­ ation with the Allies. The American magnate William Boyce Thompson provided her with funds to support patriotic, pro-war propaganda. Emigrated to Czechoslovakia in 1918. Bryan, William Jennings (1860-1925) Lawyer, politician, editor, Chautauqua speaker, a tireless advocate of reform; Bryan's 'Cross of Gold' speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1896 won him the nomination for the US presidency in that year and again in 1900. Although he was twice defeated by McKinley, and once by Taft in 1908, he remained a powerful figure within the party. On the election of Wilson in 1912, Bryan was appointed Secretary of State. He resigned in June 1915, rather than send the second Lusitania note drafted by Wilson, with which he disagreed. He supported religious fundamentalism and in 1925 was the pros­ ecutor in the trial of J. T. Scopes in Tennessee for teaching Darwi­ nian evolution. Burtsev, Vladimir Lvovich (1862-1942) Independent journalist and historian. After escaping from internal exile in Siberia in 1888, he settled in England after 1890, where he was convicted and served eighteen months in Wormwood Scrubs for soliciting the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II. Returned to Russia in 1905, then went into exile again, finding a new role as self-appointed 'spy­ catcher' of the Russian revolutionary movement. He exposed Azef as an Okhrana agent within the Combat Organization of the PSR. Editor of Svobodnaya Rossiya, 1899, and Obshchee Delo, 1909 and 1917. After the Kornilov affair, called for the suppression of Bol­ sheviks and denounced Kerensky for cowardice. Member of the anti-Bolshevik National Committee in Paris after 1917. Chaikovsky, Nikolai Vasilievich (1850-1926) Veteran Populist and organizer of the co-operative movement. In exile 1875-1907. Joined the PSR and then, in 1917, became secretary of the Popular Socialist party. Head of the anti-Bolshevik North Russian govern­ ment in Arkhangelsk in 1918 and of the cabinet of Denikin in 1919. Biographical Notes 285 Cheremisov, General A. V. (1871-?) Commander of the North­ ern Front, September-October 1917. Willing to work with the soldiers' committees and with the commissars of the Provisional Government, he had been the Soviets' candidate for the post of Commander-in-Chief before the appointment of Kornilov. Con­ cerned in November that the army should remain politically neutral, he advised Kerensky to form an alternative government at staff headquarters in Mogilev rather than send troops from the Northern Front into Petrograd to reinstate the Provisional Government. Chernov, Viktor Mikhailovich (1876-1952) Founder member of the PSR in 1901, Chernov was the party's leading theoretician and was responsible for replacing the Populist emphasis upon the peasant commune with an acceptance of capitalism in agriculture. A Zimmerwald Internationalist during the First World War. Mem­ ber of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets. As Agricul­ ture Minister (May-September 1917) he unsuccessfully attempted to persuade his colleagues to endorse peasant land seizures. In January 1918 he was elected Chairman of the Constituent As­ sembly. Emigrated in 1921. Chicherin, Georgii Vasilievich (1872-1936) Scion of an ancient but impoverished branch of the Russian aristocracy.