Vladimir Dmitriyevich Bonch-Bruyevich (; sometimes spelled Bonch-Bruevich; in Polish Boncz-Brujewicz; – 14 July 1955) was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

politician, revolutionary, historian, writer and

Old Bolshevik The Old Bolsheviks (), also called the Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, were members of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Many Old Bolsheviks became leading politi ...

. He was

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

's personal secretary.

Early life

Vladimir Dmitriyevich Bonch-Bruyevich, born in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

into the family of a land surveyor who came from the Mogilev province, belonged to the nobility of the former

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

. He was a younger brother of the future

Soviet military The Armed Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, the Red Army (1918–1946) and the Soviet Army (1946–1991), were the armed forces of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republi ...

commander Mikhail Dmitriyevich Bonch-Bruyevich. At the age of ten, he was sent to the in Moscow; where he studied in the school of land surveying. In 1889, he was arrested for taking part in a student demonstration, expelled from the Institute and banished to

Kursk Kursk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur (Kursk Oblast), Kur, Tuskar, and Seym (river), Seym rivers. It has a population of Kursk ...

. He returned to Moscow in 1892, entered the and distributed illegal literature. From 1895 he was active in

social-democratic Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, socia ...

circles. In 1896 he emigrated to Switzerland and organized shipments of Russian revolutionary literature and printing equipment. He became an active member of the staff of ''

Iskra ''Iskra'' (, , ''the Spark'') was a fortnightly political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). History ''Iskra'' was published in exile and then smuggl ...

''.

Researching dissenters and supporting Doukhobors

One of Bonch-Bruyevich's research interests were Russia's dissenting religious minorities ("sects"), which were usually persecuted to various extent by both the established Orthodox Church and the Tsarist government. He believed that

Baptists Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

and

Flagellant Flagellants are practitioners of a form of mortification of the flesh by whipping their skin with various instruments of penance. Many Christian confraternities of penitents have flagellants, who beat themselves, both in the privacy of their dwel ...

s were "transmission points" for revolutionary propaganda. During the 1917 revolutions, he is reputed to have played a crucial in neutralising the

Cossack The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Rus ...

garrison in the capital Petrograd, took part in Dmitry Schultz's trial process, through his contacts in the New Israel and Old Israel sects. He also met

Grigori Rasputin Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin ( – ) was a Russian Mysticism, mystic and faith healer. He is best known for having befriended the imperial family of Nicholas II of Russia, Nicholas II, the last Emperor of all the Russias, Emperor of Russia, th ...

, but judged that he was an Orthodox Christian, not sectarian. In the late 1890s, he collaborated with Vladimir Chertkov and

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

,O.A. Golinenko (О.А. ГОЛИНЕНКО
"Leo Tolstoy's questions to a Doukhobor" (ВОПРОСЫ Л.Н. ТОЛСТОГО ДУХОБОРУ)
in particular in arrangement of the Doukhobors' emigration to Canada in 1899. Bonch-Bruyevich sailed with the Doukhobors, and spent a year with them in Canada. During that time, he was able to record much of their orally transmitted tradition, in particular the Doukhobor "psalms" (hymns). He published them later (1909) as "The Doukhobor Book of Life" (, ''Zhivotnaya Kniga Dukhobortsev'').

Political activism

When the RSDLP split in 1903 between the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

, led by Lenin, and the

Mensheviks The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...

, Bonch-Bruyevich was among the original Bolsheviks. He helped bring out the RSDLP newspaper

while it was still under Lenin's control, and backed Lenin during 1904, when it appeared he might be losing control of the Bolsheviks to conciliators who wanted to heal the split. In December 1904, he helped organise Vpered, the first Bolshevik newspaper. According to Lenin's widow "Bonch-Bruyeich was in charge of the business side. He permanently beamed, concocted divers grandiose plans, and was always dashing around on printing-press matters." He also helped set up and run the party archive. Bonch-Bruyevich returned to Russia early in 1905, and for a time worked illegally for the Bolsheviks in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

, organising an underground storage of weapons. After the

1905 revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...

, he was able to operate legally. In 1906, he organised the Bolsheviks' weekly newspaper ''Наша мысль'' (Nasha mysl - Our Beliefs or Our Idea), the journal ''Вестник жизни'' (Vestnik zhizni – Herald of Life), and several other publications. From 1907, he headed the Bolshevik publishing house, ''Жизнь и знание'' (Zhizn i znanie – Life and Knowledge). From 1912 he was a member of the editorial board of the newspaper ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, 'Truth') is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most in ...

''. During this time he was repeatedly arrested, but did not serve a long prison sentence. On the outbreak of the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

, in 1917, Bonch-Bruyevich founded the newspaper ''Izvestya'', and used it in April as a vehicle to defend Lenin's decision to return to Russia through Germany, despite the two countries being at war. He was dismissed from the staff by the Menshevik-controlled Petrograd Soviet in May for using it to disseminate Bolshevik propaganda. During June and July 1917, Bolshevik party meetings were held at his dacha, to avoid attention of the police. In August, the head of the provisional government,

Alexander Kerensky Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early November 1917 ( N.S.). After th ...

, ordered his arrest, and he went into hiding. During the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

, he was in charge of protecting the Bolshevik party headquarters in the

Smolny Institute The Smolny Institute () is a Palladian edifice in Saint Petersburg that has played a major part in the history of Russia, notably as a center of women's education, and the headquarters of the Bolsheviks during the early stages of the October Re ...

, in Petrograd. Bonch-Bruyevich was head of administration for the Council of People's Commissars (equivalent to head of Lenin's private office) from November 1917 to October 1920. Between December 1917 and March 1918 he was the chairman of the Committee against Pogroms and in February – March 1918 a member of the Committee for the Revolutionary Defense of Petrograd. From 1918 he was the deputy chairman of the Board of Medical Colleges. In 1919 he was the chairman of the Committee for Construction of Sanitary Checkpoints at Railway Stations in Moscow and the Special Committee for Rehabilitation of Water Supply and Sanitation in Moscow. Between 1918 and 1919 he was the head of the publishing house of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) " Kommunist." Bonch-Bruyevich took an active part in nationalization of the banks in preparation of the Soviet government moving to Moscow in March 1918. In 1918 as managing director of the Council of the People's Commissars, he endorsed setting in motion the

Red Terror The Red Terror () was a campaign of political repression and Mass killing, executions in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police ...

. In 1918 he was elected a member of the Socialist Academy of Social Sciences. After Lenin's death, he did research and authored works on history of the revolutionary movement in Russia, history of religion and atheism, sectarianism, ethnography and literature. In the Soviet Union, Bonch-Bruyevich was best known as the author of a canonical Soviet book about Vladimir Lenin, whom Bonch-Bruyevich served as secretary in the years immediately following the Bolshevik revolution in 1917."The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police", NY, Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 197 Following Lenin's death, Bonch-Bruevich was one of the key people involved in organising the funeral. He personally opposed the mummification of Lenin's body.

Later life and career

Between 1920 and 1929 he was the organizer and leader of a farm that supplied its products mostly to the leaders of the Communist party and the government. Beginning in 1933, he was the director of the State Literary Museum in Moscow. Between 1946 and 1953 he was the director of the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, Academy of Sciences of the USSR in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. Bonch-Bruyevich died on 14 July 1955. He was buried at the

Novodevichy Cemetery Novodevichy Cemetery () is a cemetery in Moscow. It lies next to the southern wall of the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, which is the city's third most popular tourist site. History The cemetery was designed by Ivan Mashkov and inaugurated ...

in Moscow. Bonch-Bruyevich's daughter, Yelena, married

Leopold Averbakh Leopold Leonidovich Averbakh (Russian: Леопо́льд Леони́дович Аверба́х; 8 March 1903 – 14 August 1937) was a Soviet literary critic, who was the head of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) in the 1 ...

. After her husband's arrest, she was sentenced to seven years in labour camps.

Awards

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

References

External links

The Committee to combat pogroms
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonch-Bruyevich, Vladimir 1873 births 1955 deaths Writers from Moscow Old Bolsheviks Academicians of the Soviet Union Soviet Marxist historians Soviet male writers Soviet politicians People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent Soviet people of Polish descent Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Switzerland Polish revolutionaries Revolutionaries of the Russian Revolution of 1905 Russian atheists Recipients of the Order of Lenin Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery Personal staff of Vladimir Lenin