Semyon Dimanstein

Semyon Dimanstein (Russian: Шимон (Семен Маркович) Диманштейн (1886 (uncertain) – August 1938) was a Soviet state activist, publisher, theorist of national issues in the USSR, and one of the founders of the Soviet Oriental studies. He was considered by the Soviet regime to be a representative of Soviet Jews.

Dimanstein was born in Sebezh, Vitebsk Governorate (today Pskov Oblast) in a Litvak family of a trader. He studied in a Chabad yeshiva where eighteen-year Semyon was ordained as a rabbi. He suffered from poverty and homelessness, and gradually abandoned his religious upbringing in favor of revolutionary activities.

In 1904 Dimanstein became a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Vilnius. In political debates, he often clashed with Jewish Socialist Party, Bund and Zionist parties. After the range of the government repression in 1908, he was sentenced to life settlement in the Irkutsk region. Dimanstein escaped and left the Russian Empire for France until the March Revolution 1917.

At that time Russia was at war and Dimanstein was a propagandist of a peace treaty. He was one of the editors of Trench Truth (Окопной правды). Dimanstein played a significant role during the Bolshevik October Revolution in 1917. He was appointed a head of Yevsektsiya in January 1918.

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