Alexander Potresov

Alexander Nikolayevich Potresov (Russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Потре́сов) (September 13, 1869 – July 11, 1934) was a Russian social democrat and one of the leaders of Menshevism. He was one of six original editors of the newspaper Iskra, under the pen name "Starover".

A. N. Potresov was born in Moscow into a noble family; his father was a Major General. He studied physics, mathematics and law at the University of St. Petersburg. As a student he came into contact with revolutionary groups. In the early 1890s he converted from Populism to Marxism and joined the secret Social-Democratic circles of Peter Struve and Julius Martov. In 1892 he contacted the exiled Emancipation of Labour group of George Plekhanov and arranged for some of Plekhanov's writings to be published in Russia legally. The Russian government was at that time more concerned about the revolutionary populism of Narodnaya Volya (The People's Will) than about Plekhanov, whose group was opposed to populism.

In 1896 Potresov helped found the St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, one of the nuclei of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (RSDRP). Other members of the St. Petersburg Union included Martov and Vladimir Lenin. In 1897, Potresov was arrested and exiled to Vyatka province. After his release in 1900 he left Russia and lived mostly in Germany, where he had good contacts among the German Social-Democrats and among the Russian exiles. He grew close to Pavel Axelrod and Vera Zasulich.

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