In Memoriam: W. S. Woytinsky:
NICOLAEVSKY, BORIS
In Memoriam: W. S. Woytinsky By Boris Nicolaevsky ON JUNE 11 Wladimir Savelievich Woytinsky died in Washington after a painful illness. An active participant in public affairs and a writer and...
...His brothers and sisters all became scholars and scientists and he was the most talented among them...
...But by temperament, Woytinsky was not an armchair scholar and he threw himself passionately into the revolutionary movement of 1905-07...
...October 1917 found him in the post of Commissar of the Northern Front...
...His principal work in this field during his years of exile consisted of two volumes of memoirs, Years of Victories and Defeats (Berlin, 1922-23), published in Russian...
...An active participant in public affairs and a writer and economist with a world-wide reputation, he contributed illuminating articles to THE NEW LEADER over a period of many years...
...From his earliest youth, he was interested in political economy and at the age of 19, while still a student, he wrote his first book—on the economic theories of Eugen von Baum-Bawerk, leader of the so-called "Austrian school" of economics...
...His memoirs of those years, written soon after his release and published in leading Russian magazines, evoked a tremendous response among the readers...
...Uniting in its ranks tens of thousands of unemployed workers, this Unemployed Council secured the aid of the St...
...During his years abroad, Woytinsky devoted most of his energies to work in the political and socio-economic fields and left a significant mark in the social sciences, in literature and in the socio-political life not only of Russia, but also of Germany, France and the United States...
...Although he maintained relations with the Russian social democratic organization in exile and contributed to its publication, The Socialist Courier (Sotsial-istichesky Vestnik), Woytinsky devoted relatively little attention to Russian affairs...
...The Ekaterinoslav prison, where he was held for several years, was at that time notorious for its particularly harsh and brutal regime...
...The son of a professor at the University of St...
...Arrested at a meeting of the Council on October 15, 1907, Woytinsky managed to escape from prison and went to the south of Russia to continue his socialist activities...
...Prisoners were beaten and even killed and the years he spent in this prison were the darkest in Woytin-sky's life...
...Nevertheless, he joined the ranks of the Russian social democrats, became a member of the Bolshevik faction, and occupied an important place in its Petersburg organization...
...Petersburg city Duma, by dint of an energetic and successful campaign, and set up a broad system of public works...
...Freed from Siberian exile by the 1917 Revolution, Woytinsky returned to St...
...Especially moving were the pages devoted to his meetings with men condemned to death...
...At the time of the memoirs' appearance, Woy-tinsky's stories about these condemned prisoners were ranked among the greatest protests against the death penalty...
...A Russian by birth, as a young man he plunged into the socialist movement of the early 20th century and traveled the long, difficult road of a Russian socialist and democrat, an opponent of Bolshevik dictatorship and then an exile...
...After several months, however, he was arrested again in Ekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk) and sentenced to hard labor...
...In the days of the Bolshevik coup, he took part in the attempt to organize resistance and was arrested by the Bolsheviks, who imprisoned him for several months in the Fortress of Peter and Paul...
...After his release, he was compelled to leave for Georgia, where he edited a Russian-language social democratic newspaper...
...Petersburg, but did not rejoin the Bolsheviks...
...During his decade of wanderings, in prisons and in exile, his ideas evolved in the direction of humanist socialism, while the Leninist Bolsheviks had spent those same years divesting themselves of the last shreds of humanism...
...In 1919 he emigrated, to begin the life of an exile, first in Italy, then in Paris, Berlin, Paris once more, Geneva, and—from 1934 on—in the United States...
...His discussions with their leaders had convinced him that he had nothing in common with the Leninist Bolsheviks...
...After meetings and debates with Lenin in April 1917, Woytinsky formally joined the social democrats...
...A summation of his activities from 1904 to 1917, these memoirs still remain among the most important sources on the history of the period...
...One of the most popular orators at workers' meetings of that time, he played a particularly significant role in the movement of the unemployed and was the founder and leader of a special organization—the Council of Unemployed — which contributed some vivid pages to the history of the workers' movement of 1906-07...
...Petersburg, he grew up in an atmosphere favoring the development of intellectual interests...
...His first book clearly reflected his critical approach to certain aspects of Marxian economics...
...In their ranks he continued his political activity during the ensuing months in close personal contact with Iracli Tseretelli, with whom he had formed a warm friendship in Siberia...
Vol. 43 • June 1960 • No. 25
