David Ryazanov
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents[hide] |
From the Narodniks to the October Revolution
Born into a Jewish family in Odessa, Ryazanov, at the age of 15, joined the Narodnik revolutionaries, for which he was arrested and spent five years in prison. He adhered to socialism in 1887, then to Marxism. At 19, he entered into contact with Russian Marxist circles. Two years later, in 1891, he was sent to a katorga (Russian labour camp) by the Okhrana, the tsarist political police. He stayed there for four years. In 1900, he went into exile and devoted himself to the diffusion of Marx's texts. He returned to Russia during the 1905 Revolution, which failed. He was then deported, and then went again into exile, during which he started writing a history of the First International.Ryazanov fought in 1914 after the outbreak of World War I and participated to the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference of the Second International. He returned to Russia following the February Revolution in 1917, and joined the Bolsheviks who were supporting the Soviets (workers' councils) against the temporary government. Ryazanov then participated in the October Revolution.
Under the Soviet Union
David Ryazanov later founded the Marx-Engels Institute, which became one of the main institutions of Soviet philosophy, and was named its director in 1920. He dedicated himself to the publication of their works. Ryazanov also created MEGA (the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe), which was to publish the complete works of Marx and Engels. He also edited others authors such as Diderot, Feuerbach and Hegel.During this period, "he unceasingly participated in the life of the party and trade unions as a conscious marxist, a democratic communist, in other words, opposed to any dictatorship over the proletariat" (Boris Souvarine, David D. Ryazanov, 1931). Defending the trade unions' autonomy against the will of the party, he was excluded from any political responsibility in 1921, at the end of the "war communism" period and the beginning of the NEP ("New Economic Policy"). David Ryazanov was sent to a labour camp in 1930; he was then freed, but finally rearrested and executed at Stalin's orders in 1938. Ryazanov left many annotations and commentaries on Marx and Engels' works.
See also
External links
- David Ryazanov in the Marxists Internet Archive
- David Riazanov e a edição das obras de Marx e Engels (Texto para discussão n° 352) Belo Horizonte: Cedeplar/UFMG, 2009 (text in Portuguese).
