Pavel
Axelrod was
born in Chernigov, Russia, in 1850. Deeply influenced by the writings
of Mikhail Bakunin, he established a
socialist group of students in Kiev. He also contributed to the radical
journals, Worker and Commune.
In 1877
he joined the Land and Liberty. Three years
later the group split into two factions. The majority of members,
who favoured a policy of terrorism, established the People's
Will. Axelrod and George Plekhanov
established the Black Repartition group
that rejected terrorism and supported a socialist propaganda campaign
among workers and peasants.
Axelrod
went with George Plekhanov to live
in Switzerland and in 1883 they established the Liberation
of Labour group.
In March,
1898, the various Marxist groups in Russia
met in Minsk and decided to form the Social Democratic
Labour Party (SDLP). The party was banned in Russia so most of
its leaders were forced to live in exile. Axelrod became co-editor
of a journal called Iskra. It was
printed in several European cities and then smuggled into Russia by
a network of SDLP agents.
At the
Second Congress of the Social Democratic Labour Party in London
in 1903, there was a dispute between Vladimir
Lenin and Julius Martov, two of SDLP's
leaders. Lenin argued for a small party of professional revolutionaries
with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters. Martov
disagreed believing it was better to have a large party of activists.
Julius
Martov based his ideas on the socialist parties that existed in
other European countries such as the British
Labour Party. Lenin argued that the situation was different in
Russia as it was illegal to form socialist political parties under
the Tsar's autocratic government. At the end of the debate Martov
won the vote 28-23 . Vladimir Lenin was
unwilling to accept the result and formed a faction known as the Bolsheviks.
Those who remained loyal to Martov became known as Mensheviks.
Along with
Julius Martov, Pavel
Axelrod, Leon Trotsky, Irakli
Tsereteli, Moisei Uritsky, Noi
Zhordania and Fedor Dan, Axelrod joined
the Mensheviks. However, a large number
of important figures in the Social Democratic
Labour Party, including Gregory Zinoviev,
Anatoli Lunacharsky, Joseph
Stalin, Mikhail Lashevich, Nadezhda
Krupskaya, Mikhail Frunze, Alexei
Rykov, Yakov Sverdlov, Lev
Kamenev, Maxim Litvinov, Vladimir
Antonov, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Gregory
Ordzhonikidze and Alexander Bogdanov
joined the Bolsheviks.
An opponent
of the First World War, Axelrod worked with
Julius Martov, Vladimir
Antonov and Leon Trotsky, to produce
the internationalist newspaper, Our World.
After the
February Revolution Axelrod returned to
Russia but was too late to stop some Mensheviks
joining the Provisional Government.
He strongly criticized those Mensheviks such as Irakli
Tsereteli and Fedor Dan who now supported
the war effort. However at a conference held on 18th June, 1917, he
failed to gain the support of the delegates for a policy of immediate
peace negotiations with the Central Powers.
After the
October Revolution, which Axelrod called
a "historical crime without parallel in modern history",
he toured the world rallying socialist opposition to the Bolsheviks.
Pavel
Axelrod
died in 1928.
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