Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and Marxist theorist. A prominent Bolshevik described by Vladimir Lenin as a "most valuable and major theorist" of the Communist Party, Bukharin was active in the Soviet government from 1917 until his purge in 1937.
The ten years 1917–1927 saw a radical transformation of the Russian Empire into a socialist state, the Soviet Union. Soviet Russia covers 1917–1922 and Soviet Union covers the years 1922 to 1991. After the Russian Civil War (1917–1923), the Bolsheviks took control. They were dedicated to a version of Marxism developed by Vladimir Lenin. It promised the workers would rise, destroy capitalism, and create a socialist society under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The awkward problem, regarding Marxist revolutionary theory, was the small proletariat, in an overwhelmingly peasant society with limited industry and a very small middle class. Following the February Revolution in 1917 that deposed Nicholas II of Russia, a short-lived provisional government gave way to Bolsheviks in the October Revolution. The Bolshevik Party was renamed the Russian Communist Party (RCP).
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. It was led and controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and maintained strict conditions of affiliation in order to exclude social democratic parties and more moderate or non-Marxist socialists. The international was intended as a replacement for the Second International, which had dissolved in 1916 during World War I.
The Workers' Opposition was a faction of the Russian Communist Party that emerged in 1920 as a response to the perceived over-bureaucratisation that was occurring in Soviet Russia. They advocated for the transfer of national economic management to trade unions. The group was led by Alexander Shlyapnikov, Sergei Medvedev, Alexandra Kollontai and Yuri Lutovinov. It officially existed until March 1921 when it was forced to dissolve by the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and semi-clandestinely until the subsequent 11th Congress in 1922, where its main exponents teetered dangerously on the verge of being purged for fractionist activity. In some aspects, it was close with the German council communist movement, although there is no information about direct contacts between these groups.
Pavel Dmitrievich Turchaninov, commonly known by his pseudonym Lev Chernyi was a Russian individualist anarchist. Having joined the anarchist movement during the Russian Revolution of 1905, during which he developed his individualist theory of "associational anarchism", Chernyi was arrested and exiled to Siberia for his revolutionary activities. After several escape attempts, one of which resulted in mutinous exiles capturing Turukhansk, he managed to flee to Paris, where he stayed until the Russian Revolution of 1917. After returning to Russia, he acted as secretary for the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups and organised the Black Guards, the federation's armed wing. As political repression against anarchists intensified after the Bolsheviks took power, Chernyi joined an underground anarchist group, which bombed a Russian Communist Party meeting. In 1921, Chernyi and Fanya Baron were arrested on charges of counterfeiting and were executed by shooting by the Cheka.
The Left SR uprising, or Left SR revolt, was a rebellion against the Bolsheviks by the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party in Moscow, Soviet Russia, on 6–7 July 1918. It was one of a number of left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks that took place during the Russian Civil War.
Fyodor Andreyevich Sergeyev, better known as Comrade Artyom, was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, agitator, and journalist. He was a close friend of Sergei Kirov and Joseph Stalin. Sergeyev was an ideologist of the Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic.
Anarchism in Russia developed out of the populist and nihilist movements' dissatisfaction with the government reforms of the time.
The 7th (extraordinary) Congress of the RSDLP(b) (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party), also known as the Extraordinary 7th Congress of the RCP(b) (Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)), was held between 6–8 March 1918. During this congress the Bolsheviks changed the name of the party to include the word "Communist".
Elena Dmitriyevna Stasova was a Russian Soviet revolutionary, Old Bolshevik and an early leader of the organisation that would go on to become the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Gleb Ivanovich Bokii was a Soviet Communist political activist, revolutionary, and paranormal investigator in the Russian Empire. Following the October Revolution of 1917, Bokii became a leading member of the Cheka, the first Soviet secret police, and later of the OGPU and NKVD.
Lev Borisovich Kamenev was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. An Old Bolshevik, Kamenev was a leading figure in the early Soviet government, serving as the first head of state of the Russian SFSR as chairman of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and as a deputy premier of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1926, among other roles.
Alexei Ivanovich Rykov was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician and statesman, most prominent as premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1929 and 1924 to 1930 respectively. He was one of the accused in Joseph Stalin's show trials during the Great Purge.
Valerian Valerianovich Obolensky was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, Marxist theorist, Soviet politician, economist and Professor of the Agricultural Academy of Moscow.
Iosif Solomonovich Bleikhman was a Belarusian Jewish anarchist communist revolutionary. He was the leader of the Petrograd Federation of Anarchist-Communists at the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, organising a series of demonstrations against the Russian Provisional Government that culminated in the July Days. Following the October Revolution, he also began to agitate against the new Bolshevik government, which resulted in him being arrested and sentenced to periods of penal labor a number of times. During one of these periods, he contracted tuberculosis, which he succumbed to shortly before the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921.
Several attempts are known to have been made on Vladimir Lenin's life. The most famous of them was committed on August 30, 1918, by the Socialist Revolutionary Party member Fanny Kaplan, as a result of which Lenin was seriously wounded.
Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky was a revolutionary, party activist, Secretary of the Moscow Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Yakov Borisovich Bykin was the 1st Secretary of the Bashkir Regional Committee of the All–Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
The Fifth All–Russian Congress of Soviets was held on July 4–10, 1918, in Moscow.
Donat Andreevich Cherepanov was a Russian revolutionary. He joined the Socialist-Revolutionaries around the time of the Russian revolutions of 1917, and emerged as a leading dissident in the Left-Socialist Revolutionary movement. He is believed to have died in captivity after being arrested in 1920.
