Anatoli Lunacharsky

Russian revolutionary Soviet statesman writer translator publicist critic art critic From October 1917 to September 1929 the first Peoples Commissar of Education of the RSFSR an active participant in the revolution of 1905 and the October Revolution Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences February 1 1930 In 18961898 the young Lunacharsky traveled to France and Italy and in 1898 he came to Moscow where he began to engage in revolutionary work In 1904 after the end of his exile Lunacharsky moved to Kiev and then to Geneva where he became a member of the editorial boards of the Bolshevik newspapers Proletary and Vperyod Soon Lunacharsky became one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks He became close to A A Bogdanov and V I Lenin under the leadership of the latter he participated in the struggle against the Mensheviks Martov Dan and others He took part in the work of the III Congress of the RSDLP where he made a report on the armed uprising and the IV Congress of the RSDLP 1906 In October 1905 he went to Russia for agitation Started working for the newspaper New Life was soon arrested and put on trial for revolutionary agitation but fled abroad In 19061908 he was the head of the art department of the magazine Education By the end of the 1900s the philosophical differences between Lunacharsky and Lenin intensified soon escalating into a political struggle In 1909 Lunacharsky took an active part in organizing the extreme left group Vperyod which included ultimatumists and otzovists who believed that Social Democrats had no place in the Stolypin Duma and who demanded the withdrawal of the Social Democratic faction Since the Bolshevik faction excluded this group from its ranks later until 1917 Lunacharsky stayed outside the factions Lunacharsky will return to the party Lenin said to Gorky he is less individualistic than those two Bogdanov and Bazarov An extremely richly gifted nature Lunacharsky himself noted about his relationship with Lenin refers to 1910 We personally did not break off relations and did not aggravate them Together with other vperyodovtsy he participated in the creation of party schools for Russian workers in Capri and Bologna representatives of all factions of the RSDLP were invited to give lectures at this school During this period he was influenced by the empiriocritical philosophers was subjected to harsh criticism by Lenin in the work Materialism and EmpirioCriticism 1908 In 1907 Lunacharsky took part in the Stuttgart Congress of the International then in Copenhagen He worked as a columnist for Western European literature in many Russian newspapers and magazines spoke out against chauvinism in art From the very beginning of the First World War Lunacharsky took an internationalist position which was strengthened under the influence of Lenin was one of the founders of the pacifist newspaper Nashe Slovo about which I Deutscher wrote Nashe Slovo gathered a wonderful circle of authors almost each of whom wrote his name in the annals of the revolution At the end of 1915 he moved with his family from Paris to Switzerland