The Axelrod family of Dunilovitz
Rabbi Yitzhak was born c 1845. He was the rabbi of Dunilovitz c 1870.
In the book “Yahadut Lita” volume 3 page 112-113 there is a story about his two revolutionary daughters.
Axelrod Lyuba was born in 1868 in Dunilovitz . Already at age 15 she left her family in Dunilovitz to Vilna. There she joined under ground organizations and moved to Poltachova, Kharkov and Malitopol in the Ukraine.
After the assassination of the Russian czar Alexander in 1889, she moved with her friend; Ch. Rapoport, first to Paris and then to Switzerland. Studied in the university of Bern were she received a Ph.D. (Philosophy. ) She was politically involved with the underground S.D and later S.R.
After the revolt of 1905 she returned to Russia and wrote for some socialist newspapers. She was a member of the professional union in St. Petersburg. She lectured in centers for unionized laborers. In 1915 she was punished and sent to Siberia together with all the members of the Russian paper “ our concern’.
In 1917 she was an editing member of the Russian papers “Unity”.
After the first revelation in 1917 she was a member of the central S.D and the temporary parliament
After the Bolshevik revolution of October (1917), she retired from political activities.
She lived in Tambov 1918- 1920 and in 1921 headed a philosophy department in the institution of “Red professorship”.
Her bibliography (all in Russian);
“Philosophical dissertation” 1906
“In opposition to Idealism” 1922
“Criticism of the capitalist society and historical materialism” 1925
L. Tolstoy and the S. D.”
Axelrod Ida was born in Dunilovitz in 1870. She followed her sister and already at age 17 was a member of a revolutionary cell and imprisoned. In 1893 she joined her sister in Switzerland She studied in the university and received a pH. D. in Philosophy.
She was a member of the movement ‘free the laborers’ and “Eeiskara”.
In 1903 She joined the Bolsheviks. After some time she transferred together with Georgi Plekhanov
1856 – 1918 the Mensheviks. During the First World War she was a member of the group that signed the pamphlet “‘To the nation of workers in Russia” (1915).
Took part in the collection by Plekhanov “War”. http://www.nlr.ru:8101/eng/nlr/housePleh/p1.htm
Returned to Russia before the October, 1917 overthrow. Wrote revues of Marxist literatures.
(I do not know if Axelrod was the original name of the sisters; on the Internet I found information about another Axelrod who might be somehow related)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSaxelrod.htm
Pavel Axelrod was born in Chernigov, Russia, in 1850. Deeply influenced by the writings of Mikhail Bakunin, he established a socialist group of students in Kiev. He also contributed to the radical journals, Worker and Commune.
In 1877 he joined the Land and Liberty. Three years later the group split into two factions. The majority of members, who favoured a policy of terrorism, established the People's Will. Axelrod and George Plekhanov established the Black Repartition group that rejected terrorism and supported a socialist propaganda campaign among workers and peasants.
Axelrod went with George Plekhanov to live in Switzerland and in 1883 they established the Liberation of Labour group.
In March, 1898, the various Marxist groups in Russia met in Minsk and decided to form the Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP). The party was banned in Russia so most of its leaders were forced to live in exile. Axelrod became co-editor of a journal called Iskra. It was printed in several European cities and then smuggled into Russia by a network of SDLP agents.
At the Second Congress of the Social Democratic Labour Party in London in 1903, there was a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, two of SDLP's leaders. Lenin argued for a small party of professional revolutionaries with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters. Martov disagreed believing it was better to have a large party of activists.
Julius Martov based his ideas on the socialist parties that existed in other European countries such as the British Labour Party. Lenin argued that the situation was different in Russia as it was illegal to form socialist political parties under the Tsar's autocratic government. At the end of the debate Martov won the vote 28-23 . Vladimir Lenin was unwilling to accept the result and formed a faction known as the Bolsheviks. Those who remained loyal to Martov became known as Mensheviks.
Along with Julius Martov, Pavel Axelrod, Leon Trotsky, Irakli Tsereteli, Moisei Uritsky, Noi Zhordania and Fedor Dan, Axelrod joined the Mensheviks. However, a large number of important figures in the Social Democratic Labour Party, including Gregory Zinoviev, Anatoli Lunacharsky, Joseph Stalin, Mikhail Lashevich, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Mikhail Frunze, Alexei Rykov, Yakov Sverdlov, Lev Kamenev, Maxim Litvinov, Vladimir Antonov, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Gregory Ordzhonikidze and Alexander Bogdanov joined the Bolsheviks.
An opponent of the First World War, Axelrod worked with Julius Martov, Vladimir Antonov and Leon Trotsky, to produce the internationalist newspaper, Our World.
After the February Revolution Axelrod returned to Russia but was too late to stop some Mensheviks joining the Provisional Government. He strongly criticized those Mensheviks such as Irakli Tsereteli and Fedor Dan who now supported the war effort. However at a conference held on 18th June, 1917, he failed to gain the support of the delegates for a policy of immediate peace negotiations with the Central Powers.
After the October Revolution, which Axelrod called a "historical crime without parallel in modern history", he toured the world rallying socialist opposition to the Bolsheviks. Pavel Axelrod died in 1928.