Social origin and educational level of the chief Bolshevik leaders in 1917

Bolshevik central committee 1917

A questionnaire filled in by Bolshevik leaders in 1917 reveals their social origin and educational level:

Author

Name	Profession of father	Studies
Antonov-Ovseenko	Officer	Higher
Bukharin	Mathematician	,,
Bubnov	? [Merchant?]	Primary
Shliapnikov	Carpenter	,,
Dzherzinski	Lesser nobility	Higher
Joffe Rich	merchant	,,
Kalinin	Poor peasant	Secondary
Kamenev	Engineer	Higher
Kollontai	Nobility	,,
Krupskaya	Nobility	Secondary
Lenin	High functionary	Higher
Lozovski	Lecturer	Secondary
Lunacharski	Functionary	Higher
Molotov	Merchant	,,
Pyatakov	Industrialist	,,
Podvoisky	Priest	,,
Preobrazensky	Priest	,,
Radek	Lecturer	,,
Raskolnikov	Functionary	,,
Rykov	Poor shopkeeper	Secondary
Smilga	Big landowner	?
Stassova	Lawyer	Higher
Skrypnik	Railway worker	Secondary
Stalin	Shoemaker	,,
Sverdlov	Engraver	,,
Tomsky	Natural child [Illegitimate]	Primary
Trotsky	Landowner	Higher
Uritsky	Merchant	,,
Zinoviev	Landowner	Autodidact

The above are the statistics from a questionnaire filled in at a Bolshevik conference in 1917.

Sources:

Ferro, Marc. Des Soviets au communisme bureacratique. Collection Archives, France, 1980

Haupt, G, Marie J-J, Les Bolcheviks par eux-memes, France, 1967

Comments

This was meant to be in

This was meant to be in columns but somehow it's compressed them. Can one of libcom administrators sort this out or tell me how to do it????

This is great information,

This is great information, thanks for posting it.

To post tables on the Internet, they need to be coded in a particular way. How to do this is here:
http://www.pageresource.com/html/table1.htm

But if you've not got time, I will go and sort it out when I get a chance this week. Cheers!

I changed the 1st column from

I changed the 1st column from 'age in 1917' to 'name' as no ages were given. Tomsky's 'profession of father' is given as 'natural child'??

Ret Marut wrote: Tomsky's

Ret Marut

Tomsky's 'profession of father' is given as 'natural child'??

would that be a euphemism for child out of wedlock, i.e. father's occupation unknown?

According to the biographical

According to the biographical dictionary "Political Activists of Russia in 1917" (Moscow, 1993), Bubnov's father was a merchant.

is there equivalent

is there equivalent information for prominent anarchist, SR, or menshevik figures?

Natural child means

Natural child means "illegitmate" or bastard
Perhaps Bubnov was concealing his origins.

"is there equivalent

"is there equivalent information for prominent anarchist, SR, or menshevik figures?"

I've not seen one. You'd have to first compile a list of leading members and get their bios.
But at least for the Makhnovists it was almost entirely poor peasant or worker as can be seen from the bios here on libcom.

I amended Bubnov and Tomsky.

posi wrote: is there

posi

is there equivalent information for prominent anarchist, SR, or menshevik figures?

I think it was in André Liebich's From the other shore : Russian social democracy after 1921 were I read, that the exile leadership of the Mensheviks with the exception of Nicolaevsky who came from a peasant background came from the urban intelligentsia, ... many leading Georgian Mensheviks came from the petty aristocracy and were (like Stalin) students/dropouts of the theological seminary at Tbilisi

This is interesting but I'd

This is interesting but I'd question how accurate it is seeing as a number of mistakes have already been noted and who the father of bolsheviks were is something none of us should know. It's really nerdy. But on that, the 'profession' for Dzherzinsky's father is also wrong. It says he was 'lesser nobility' which according to wiki he was (he was part of a szlachta family), but also according to wiki his profession was as a teacher.

george wrote: a number of

george

a number of mistakes have already been noted

Read again. No mistakes have previously been noted, only additional info. As the caption above says "The above are the statistics from a questionnaire filled in at a Bolshevik conference in 1917." The info is presumably as provided by Dzherzinsky himself, so if a "mistake" then it's in how he chose to answer.

As for whether "This is interesting but ... who the father of bolsheviks were is something none of us should know" - it should hardly seem surprising that the class composition of Party leaderships within working class movements should be of some interest.

btw., being a member of the

btw., being a member of the Szlachta, especially after 1700 (mainly due to the tradition of passing the property equally divided to all sons) didn't necessarily mean that people were well off, they were of course holder of all kinds of privileges

Here's a PDF version

Here's a PDF version http://www.mediafire.com/view/?uz36wuba5zsvwmu

"Information from a…

"Information from a questionnaire filled out by members of the Bolshevik central committee in 1917, regarding the social background of the so-called leaders of the Russian working class." it's very funny this is being used to dismiss the bolsheviks as bourgeois. wasn't so hard to understand about the fact that a person can be a communist (and thus a "leader of the working class") while having a background from a non-proletarian class?

There's nothing really…

There's nothing really controversial about Russian socialism originating from the upper/middle classes (e.g. Alexander Herzen, the "father of Russian socialism," came from the land-owning class, as did Bakunin and Kropotkin). The majority of Russians were illiterate peasants who were more concerned with surviving than wrapping their heads around Western philosophy or political ideas. That is not to say that Russian peasants and workers did not rebel against their immediate conditions, but rebelling is not the same as being a socialist or being politically informed. In any case, obsessing over social background, or using it as some "smoking gun" against the Bolsheviks, is wrong-headed; one can just critique the ideas and actions of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. (It also sort of reminds me of Maoists who persecuted people in the Cultural Revolution for having a "tainted" social background, a distant cousin who might have been a landlord, etc.).

it's very funny this is being used to dismiss the bolsheviks as bourgeois. [what's] so hard to understand about the fact that a person can be a communist (and thus a "leader of the working class") while having a background from a non-proletarian class?

I'd probably start with the assumption that the working class needs to be led in the vanguard-party sense of Lenin (Russia was also a peasant society).