Fyodor Ilyich Dan (surname at birth: Gurvich) (died 22 January 1947) was a political activist and journalist who helped found the

Menshevik The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The factions eme ...

faction of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...

Background

Fyodor Dan was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in St. Petersburg to a father who was the owner of a local pharmacy In 1895 he graduated from the medical faculty of Yuryevsky University (now University of Tartu) and became a doctor. He participated in the

social democratic Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...

movement from 1894Jewish Telegraphic Agency
''Fyodor Dan, Social Democrat Leader, Dies in New York.''
JTA Daily News Bulletin, January 23, 1947.

Career

Dan was a lifelong socialist activist and journalist. He was a member of the St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class and was one of the organizers of the textile workers' strike. In 1896 he was arrested and deported for 5 years to the Vyatka province.

Menshevism

In the summer of 1901 he emigrated to Berlin, where he joined the

Iskra ''Iskra'' ( rus, Искра, , ''the Spark'') was a political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). History Due to political repression under Tsar Nicho ...

assistance group. On his return, he joined the

in 1902 and went to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

for their Second Congress in 1903. Dan aligned himself with Julius Martov who wanted to have a larger party of activists, rather than

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...

's conception of a smaller party of professional revolutionaries. Dan helped Martov form the Mensheviks, returning to

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

in 1912. He was an active member of the irregular

freemasonic Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

lodge, the Grand Orient of Russia’s Peoples. From 1913 he worked legally in Russia. Editor of the newspaper Golos Sotsial-Demorata and was a member of the Menshevik Central Committee. In 1915 he was arrested and exiled to

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

. He was pardoned and mobilized as a military doctor with the outbreak of

WWI World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Russian Revolution

After the

February Revolution of 1917 The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...

he became an ideologist of "revolutionary defencism". One of the most notable figures of the period, he was a member of the

Executive Committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...

of the

Petrograd Soviet The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (russian: Петроградский совет рабочих и солдатских депутатов, ''Petrogradskiy soviet rabochikh i soldatskikh deputatov'') was a city council of P ...

and the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the 1st convocation. After the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

he worked as a doctor. At the 7th (December 1919) and 8th (December 1920) All-Russian Congresses of Soviets, he was a speaker on behalf of the Mensheviks.

Exile

Dan was arrested on the order of the Soviet authorities in 1921 and after a year in prison was sent into exile on charges of being an "enemy of the people". In 1923 he participated in the creation of the Socialist Workers' International. In the same year he was deprived of Soviet citizenship. After the death of Julius Martov in 1923, until 1940, he headed the Foreign Delegation of the RSDLP (m). When the Soviet Union was attacked in 1941, Dan gave his support to the country. In his book ''The Origins of Bolshevism'' (1943) he argued that Bolshevism was the carrier of

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

, whilst still arguing for political liberalisation in the Soviet Union.

Death

Dan left France during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

for refuge in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. He died in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

on January 22, 1947.

Works

* ''F. I.'' Two years of wanderings (1919-1921) / F. I. Dan. - Berlin, 1922 .-- 268 p. * ''Dan F.I.'' The origin of Bolshevism: To the history of democratic and socialist ideas in Russia after the liberation of the peasants / F.I. Dan. - New York: New Democracy, 1946 .-- 491 p. * Fedor Ilyich Dan. Letters (1899-1946) / Selected, provided with notes and an outline of the political biography of Dan B. Sapir. - Amsterdam, 1985. * Fedor I. Dan und Otto Bauer. Briefwechsel (1934-1938). - Frankfurt; New York, 1999.

References

External links

Fedor Il'ich Dan, ''Account of British Workers' Delegation to Moscow'', 1920

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dan, Fyodor 1947 deaths American people of Russian-Jewish descent Jewish socialists Members of the Grand Orient of Russia's Peoples Mensheviks Politicians from Saint Petersburg people of the Russian Revolution Russian Jews Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Soviet emigrants to the United States