October: The Story of the Russian Revolution

Glossary of Personal Names

Alexeev, Mikhail (1857–1918) General. Tsar’s chief of staff until February 1917; commander-in-chief until May 1917. Died while fighting the Bolsheviks in the Civil War.

Antonov, Vladimir Alexandrovich (1883–1938) Bolshevik activist. Marxist since 1903, Bolshevik since 1914. Executed under Stalin.

Balabanoff, Angelica (1878–1965) Russian–Italian Marxist activist.

Bochkareva, Maria (1889–1920) Soldier. Founder of the Women’s Battalion of Death. Executed by the Cheka, the Soviet state security organisation set up in December 1917.

Bonch-Bruevich, Vladimir (1873–1955) Bolshevik activist. An ‘Old Bolshevik’ and researcher on religious sects; Lenin’s personal secretary.

Breshko-Breshkovskaya, Catherine (1844–1934) SR activist. Close to Kerensky, on the right of the SR party. Fled Russia after October.

Bubnov, Andrei (1883–1938) Bolshevik activist. Active in Moscow, and in the Military Revolutionary Committee. Executed under Stalin.

Chernov, Viktor (1873–1952) SR politician. Leader of the SR party, minister in Kerensky’s government. Briefly chair of the Constituent Assembly in 1918, before fleeing Russia.

Chkheidze, Nikolai Semenovich (1864–1926) Menshevik politician. First chair of the Petrograd Soviet. After October moved to Georgia, then Europe.

Dan, Fyodor (1871–1947) Menshevik activist. Doctor and founding leader of the Mensheviks, on the presidium of the Soviet in 1917. Arrested and exiled in 1921.

Dyusimeter. L. P. (1883–?) Colonel. Head of the Republican Centre’s Military Section; right-wing anti-Bolshevik conspirator in August 1917. In exile in Shanghai from 1920, where he died.

Fedorovna, Alexandra (1872–1918) Tsarina. Wife of the last tsar, Nicholas II. Arrested and sent with her family ultimately to Ekaterinburg; executed by the Bolsheviks on 16 July 1918.

Filonenko, Maximilian (1885–1960) Right SR, army commissar. Collaborator with Kerensky. After 1917, led an underground anti-Bolshevik group that assassinated Cheka chief Moisei Uritsky in 1918, provoking the Red Terror. Fled Russia in 1920.

Finisov, P. N. (?–?) Right-wing conspirator. Vice-president of the Republican Centre; conspirator against the Bolsheviks in August 1917.

Gapon, Georgy (1870–1906) Priest. Leader of the workers’ march on Bloody Sunday in January 1905. A police contact, he was assassinated by SR activists.

Gorky, Maxim (1868–1936) Writer. Socialist activist, editor of Novaya zhizn, associate of leading leftists; grew increasingly disaffected with the Bolsheviks after 1917.

Gots, Avram (1882–1937) SR leader. Leading member of the Petrograd Soviet. In 1922, was arrested and tried with other Right SR leaders. Rearrested and shot in Kazakhstan.

Grand Duke Michael (1878–1918) The youngest brother of the last tsar Nicholas II. Declined the throne when Nicholas abdicated. Murdered by Bolshevik activists in 1918.

Guchkov, Alexander (1868–1936) Politician. Conservative Octobrist until February 1917. War minister in the Provisional Government until April. Supportor of Kornilov. Left Russia after the revolution.

Kamenev, Lev (1883–1936) Bolshevik activist and politician. An ‘Old Bolshevik’; long-time collaborator with Lenin. Briefly in opposition to Stalin in the mid-1920s. Executed after a mass show trial under Stalin.

Kamkov, Boris (1885–1938) Left SR activist. A long-time internationalist, Zimmerwaldist Left SR. Increasingly opposed to the Bolsheviks after 1918; repeatedly arrested. Executed under Stalin.

Kerensky, Alexander (1881–1970) Trudovik/SR politician. Leading figure in the Provisional Government after February 1917; took several positions, becoming prime minister after July. Unsuccessfully attempted to retake Petrograd with loyalist troops after October 1917. Fled Russia and died in exile.

Kishkin, Nikolai Mikhailovich (1864–1930) Kadet politician. Spent time as minister of welfare in the Provisional Government in 1917. Granted ‘special powers’ by rump government in October; arrested the same night. Later worked under the Soviet government’s Commissariat of Health.

Kollontai, Alexandra (1872–1952) Bolshevik activist. Initially a Menshevik, joined the Bolsheviks in 1914. People’s commissar for social welfare after October 1917. Later formed the ‘Workers’ Opposition’ with Alexander Shlyapnikov.

Kornilov, Lavr (1870–1918) General. Hard-line authoritarian; briefly commander-in-chief in July 1917, before the ‘Kornilov Affair’ in August. Escaped confinement in November; fought against the Bolsheviks in the Civil War. Killed in battle.

Krupskaya, Nadezhda (1869–1939) Bolshevik activist. Long-time militant. Married to Lenin in 1898. Served as Soviet government’s deputy minister of Education from 1929 until her death.

Latsis, Martin (1888–1938) Bolshevik activist and politician. An ‘Old Bolshevik’ active during 1905 and after, including throughout 1917; member of the Military Revolutionary Committee, then of the Cheka. Executed under Stalin.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870–1924) Bolshevik activist and politician. Prolific writer and theorist. Inaugurator of the 1903 split between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. Leader of the Bolsheviks during and after 1917, and of the Russian government after October. Died after a series of strokes.

Lunacharsky, Anatoly (1875–1933) Bolshevik activist and politician. Prolific writer, unorthodox Marxist theorist. Briefly a member of the Mezhraiontsy in 1917, then the Bolsheviks. First people’s commissar for education in the Soviet government after October; lost influence under Stalin. Died of natural causes.

Lvov, Prince Georgy (1861–1925) Liberal politician. From a noble family, joined the Kadet party in 1905. First prime minister of Russia after February 1917, resigning in favour of Kerensky in July. Fled Russia after October.

Lvov, Vladimir Nikolaevich (1865–1940) Liberal politician. Ex-Duma member for the Progressive Party, in coalition with Kadets. Lay procurator for the Synod of the Orthodox Church between March and July 1917. Directly involved in the Kornilov Affair in August, then arrested. Supporter of the Whites 1918–20. Escaped Russia after October.

Martov, Julius (1873–1923) Menshevik activist. Popular leader of the Menshevik faction of the RSDWP after 1903. On the far left of the Mensheviks, opposed to the right Mensheviks in charge of the party after February 1917. Would not ally with the Bolsheviks, but supported them against the Whites in the Civil War. Left Russia for Germany in 1920. Died of natural causes.

Milyukov, Pavel (1859–1943) Kadet politician. Prominent historian and leading member of the Kadet party. Minister of foreign affairs in Provisional Government after February 1917; a staunch patriot committed to victory in the war; resigned after provoking a crisis in April. Left Rusia in 1918.

Nicholas II (1868–1918) Last tsar of Russia. Abdicated in March 1917, and lived under house arrest thereafter with his family. Executed along with them by the Bolsheviks on 16 July 1918.

Nogin, Viktor (1878–1924) Bolshevik activist. Initially a ‘conciliator’ who attempted to reunite Mensheviks and Bolsheviks in 1910. Active throughout 1917, including as chair of Moscow Soviet. Died of natural causes.

Plekhanov, Georgy (1856–1918) Marxist theorist. Founder of the Emancipation of Labour group in 1883. The pre-eminent Russian Marxist theorist between the 1880s and 1900s. Initially sided with Lenin in the split with the Mensheviks in 1903, but moved to the right. An outspoken supporter of Russia’s war effort in the First World War, very critical of the Bolsheviks. Left Russia after October 1917 and died of natural causes.

Radek, Karl (1885–1939) Marxist activist. Colourful Polish/German/Russian activist of long standing. Joined the Bolsheviks in 1917, then the Left Opposition of the party in 1923. Expelled from the Bolsheviks in 1927; capitulated to Stalin and re-entered in 1930. Imprisoned after a show trial in 1937. Died in a labour camp.

Rasputin, Grigori (1869–1916) A faith healer and priest of a peasant background, close to the last tsar and tsarina. Murdered by disaffected right-wingers.

Rodzianko, Michael (1859–1924) Conservative politician. A founder of the conservative Octobrist party in 1905, chair of the Fourth Duma from 1912 to October 1917. Supported the Whites in the Civil War. Died of natural causes.

Rovio, Kustaa (1887–1938) Marxist activist and police chief. Finnish Social Democrat and chief of the Helsingfors (Helsinki) police. Moved to Russia in 1918. Executed under Stalin.

Savinkov, Boris (1879–1925) SR politician. Member of the terrorist SR Fighting Organisation in 1904–5; joined the French army in the First World War; close to Kerensky in the Provisional Government in 1917. Organised counterrevolutionary anti-Bolshevik groups after October 1917, before fleeing Russia. Writer of sensationalist pulp political thrillers. Returned to Russia in 1921; died in prison in Moscow.

Semashko, A. I. (1889–1937) Bolshevik activist. Marxist militant, served in the First Machine Gun Regiment in Petrograd; active in the Bolshevik Military Organisation. Served in the government after October 1917. Grew disaffected and left for Brazil in 1924, to return in 1927, but was imprisoned. Executed under Stalin.

Shlyapnikov, Alexander (1885–1937) Bolshevik activist. ‘Old Bolshevik’, trade unionist, worker–intellectual. A leading Bolshevik in Petrograd in February 1917. Appointed commissar of labour after October. Leader of the Workers’ Opposition with Kollontai in 1920. Executed under Stalin.

Shulgin, Vasily (1878–1976) Conservative politician. A hard-line anti-revolutionary; persuaded Nicholas II to abdicate when his position became untenable. Supported Kornilov in August 1917, then the White movement after October 1917, fleeing Russian in 1920.

Smilga, Ivar (1892–1938) Bolshevik activist. Elected to the Bolshevik CC in April 1917; chair of the Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet in 1917–18. Member of the Left Opposition within the Bolsheviks in the 1920s. Executed under Stalin.

Spiridonova, Maria (1884–1941) Left SR activist. Assassin of Luzhenovsky, notorious security chief of Borisoglebsk; spent eleven years in jail in Siberia. Returned to Petrograd in May 1917; marginalised by party moderates. After October, entered government with the Bolsheviks. Broke with them in 1918 and supported an uprising against them by Left SRs. Remained a left critic of the Bolsheviks, and was imprisoned in a psychiatric prison in 1919, released in 1921. Executed under Stalin.

Stahl, Ludmila (1872–1939) Bolshevik activist. Fled Russia for France in 1907, returning in February 1917, where she was active in the Petrograd organisation.

Sukhanov, Nikolai (1882–1940) Socialist writer. Originally a member of the SRs; took part in the 1905 revolution, and spent years as a non-aligned radical. Returned to St Petersburg in 1913, to edit socialist journals. Joined Martov’s Menshevik–Internationalists that year, to leave in 1920. Wrote an engrossing diary of 1917. Executed under Stalin.

Trotsky, Leon (1879–1940) Marxist activist. Long-time leading socialist theorist and activist; originally close to the left Mensheviks; joined the Mezhraiontsy in 1917, then the Bolsheviks. Deeply involved in the revolution of 1917. First people’s commissar for military and naval affairs after the revolution; head of Red Army in 1918. Leader of the Left Opposition within the Bolsheviks 1923–27. Exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929. Moved to Mexico in 1936, where he continued vigorous agitation against Stalin. Inaugurated the 4th International (of ‘Trotskyist’ anti-Stalinist socialist groups) in 1938. Murdered by a Stalinist agent.

Tsereteli, Irakli (1881–1959) Menshevik politician. Georgian Menshevik activist and Duma deputy; exiled to Siberia in 1913. Returned to Petrograd in March 1917; became a moderate socialist leader of the Soviet. Served in the Provisional Government in 1917, as minister of posts and telegraphs, then minister of the interior. Left Russia for Georgia after 1917, then moved to Paris in 1921.

Volodarsky, V. (1891–1918) Marxist activist. Initially a member of the Jewish Bund in 1905. Moved to the US in 1913, allying with the Menshevik–Internationalists during the First World War. Returned to Russia in May 1917, joined the Mezhraiontsy, and with them the Bolsheviks shortly afterwards. Assassinated by SR activists in 1918.

Woytinsky, Wladimir (1885–1960) Menshevik activist. From an intellectual background, joined the Bolsheviks in 1905; exiled to Siberia. Defected to the moderate Mensheviks during the First World War. Active in the Soviet in Petrograd in 1917. Fled to Georgia after 1917, then to Germany in 1921.

Zasulich, Vera (1849–1919) Marxist activist. Originally anarchist-influenced, attempted to assassinate the governor of St Petersburg, Trepov, in 1878; acquited by a sympathetic jury. Became a Marxist and co-founded the Emancipation of Labour group with Plekhanov in 1883. Joined the Mensheviks in 1903. Her political activism waned after 1905. Supported the Russian war effort in the First World War. Died of natural causes.

Zavoiko, Vasilii (1875–1947) Right-wing activist. A wealthy political intriguer, amanuensis and advisor to General Kornilov. Seems to have left Russia for the USA after the revolution.

Zinoviev, Grigory (1883–1936) Bolshevik activist and politician. An ‘Old Bolshevik’ and collaborator with Lenin from 1903. Closely involved in the revolutionary movement throughout 1917; involved in various power struggles within the regime thereafter. Capitulated to Stalin in 1928, but executed by Stalin.