- Pavel Axelrod
Infobox Person
name=Pavel Axelrod
birth_date=1850
birth_place= Potcheff near Chernigov,Ukraine
death_date=1928
death_place=Berlin ,Germany Pavel Borisovich Axelrod ( _ru. Павел Борисович Аксельрод (
August 25 1850 –April 16 1928 ), was aRussia nMarxist revolutionary.Private life
Born Pinches Borutsch ( _ru. Пинхус Борух) in Potscheff near
Chernigov and raised toShklov , a small provincial town in (currentlyBelarus ) andMogilev , the biggest town of the three in theRussian Empire (currentlyBelarus ), Axelrod was the son of a poorJew ish innkeeper.In 1875 in Geneva, Axelrod married his former private student Nadezhda Ivanovna Kaminer. A student himself, Axelrod was Kaminer's and her sister 's
tutor . Despite severe financial hardship during the first years, the marriage proved to be successful. They had three children: Vera(22.11.1875), Alexander (18.07.1879) and Sofia (14.11.1881). Nadezhda Ivanovna Axelrod-Kaminer died in 1906.In the mid-1880s Axelrod established his own small company producing
kefir . By the end of the 1890s, Axelrod's company had offices inZurich ,Geneva , andBasel , which provided steady income and allowed him to support revolutionaries. In 1908, Axelrod sold his company in exchange for the retirement payments to him from the new owner.Axelrod died in exile in
Berlin in 1928.Marxist revolutionary
Influenced by
Mikhail Bakunin in his youth, he remained anIdealist even after adopting theMarxist philosophy ofhistorical materialism . Axelrod co-founded the Marxist groupEmancipation of Labor inSwitzerland with his lifelong friendGeorgi Plekhanov andVera Zasulich in 1883. In 1900, Axelrod, Plekhanov and Zasulich joined forces with younger revolutionary MarxistsJulius Martov ,Vladimir Lenin andAlexander Potresov and the six edited "Iskra ", a Marxist newspaper, from 1900 to 1903. When "Iskra" supporters split at the Second Congress of theRussian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1903, Axelrod sided with theMenshevik faction against Vladimir Lenin'sBolshevik s.In 1917, after the
February Revolution Axelrod returned to Russia. By then some Mensheviks had already joined Kerensky's Provisional Government and supported government war policy. Despite all his efforts Axelrod failed to gain Mensheviks' support for a policy of immediate peace negotiations with theCentral Powers .After the Bolshevik victory, which Axelrod called a "historical crime without parallel in modern history", he toured the world rallying socialist opposition to the Bolsheviks.References
* Abraham Ascher. "Pavel Axelrod and the Development of Menshevism",
Harvard University Press , 1972, ISBN 0-674-65905-8, 420p.External links
* [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSaxelrod.htm Pavel Axelrod Biography]
* [http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/a/x.htm#axelrod Axelrod, Pavel (1850-1928)]
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