AKSELROD, PAVEL BORISOVICH

born Aug. 25, 1850?, Chernigov?, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now Chernihiv, Ukraine] died 1928, Berlin, Ger. also called Paul Axelrod Marxist theorist, a prominent member of the first Russian Social Democratic Party, and subsequently a Menshevik leader. Akselrod participated in the Narodnik (populist) movement during the 1870s and with Georgi Plekhanov formed the revolutionary splinter group Black Repartition in 1879. He went to western Europe, became a Marxist, and was a founder of the Liberation of Labour (1883), the first organization committed to spreading Marxism in Russia. He also became a member of the editorial board of the Marxist newspaper Iskra (The Spark; 1900). He adopted Menshevism at the Second Congress of Russian Social Democrats (1903) and for the next 15 years was the leading ideologist of the Mensheviks. Akselrod called for Russian Marxists to abandon violent revolutionary activities and instead concentrate their efforts on labour organizing and parliamentary work, as in the Social Democratic tradition of western Europe. Akselrod opposed the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin's emphasis on a highly centralized Marxist political party led by professional revolutionaries, and he predicted that if such a party were to gain power in Russia, it would simply replace the despotism of the tsarist autocracy with its own form of despotism. During World War I Akselrod favoured the defense of Russia, and he opposed the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917. In the ensuing years he was one of the leading Marxist critics of Leninist rule. He lived in western Europe from 1917 on. His memoirs Perezhitoye i Peredumanoye (Experiences and Reflections) were published in 1923.