Martov
| Julius Martov | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum 24 November 1873 Constantinople, Ottoman Empire |
| Died | 4 April 1923 (aged 49) Schömberg, Germany |
Julius Martov or L. Martov (Ма́ртов; real name Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum (Russian: Ю́лий О́сипович Цедерба́ум; IPA: [ˈjʉlʲɪj ˈosʲɪpəvʲɪtɕ tsɨdʲɪrˈbaʊm, ˈmartəf]) (24 November 1873 – 4 April 1923) was a Russian politician who became the leader of the Mensheviks in early 20th-century Russia.
According to his sister and fellow Menshevik, Lydia Dan, Martov had an 'inexhaustible charm that attracted people'. As a result, some commented it was frequently difficult to record why they followed him, and he confessed himself that 'I have the nasty privilege of being liked by people'.
He was an old friend and mentor of Leon Trotsky. Trotsky later described him as the 'Hamlet of Democratic Socialism'.Vladimir Lenin later confessed in 1921 that his single greatest regret was 'that Martov is not with us. What an amazing comrade he is, what a pure man!'
Martov was born to a Jewish middle-class family in Constantinople, Turkey (modern day Istanbul). His sister was fellow Menshevik leader Lydia Dan.
He recounted that the famine crisis of 1891 made him a Marxist: 'It suddenly became clear to me how superficial and groundless the whole of my revolutionism had been until then, and how my subjective political romanticism was dwarfed before the philosophical and sociological heights of Marxism.' He was arrested as a teenager, and his grandfather paid 300 roubles to bail him. Instead of accepting his grandfather's suggestion of emigrating to the United States of America, he chose to be exiled for two years in Vilna.
Martov was one the Marxists who wanted Nikolay Bauman expelled from the party after an incident where he drove a party member to suicide after drawing a vicious cartoon of her.
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Wikipedia