Y. P. Denike, 1887-1964
NICOLAEVSKY, BORIS I.
Y. P. Denike 1887-1964 ON DECEMBER 29, Yurij Petrovich Denike, a historian who far many years had been a contributor to THE NEW LEADER and co-editor of the Russian-language Socialist Courier, died...
...Denike did not remain in the service of the Soviet government for long...
...In 1908 Denike returned to academic work, but in 1917 politics again interrupted his scholarly endeavors...
...In 1920, he was elected professor at the Moscow University for Contemporary Western History by the then still independent Council of Professors...
...He was among the very first of the Petersburg Bolsheviks to come out against Lenin's appraisal and tactical recommendations...
...Once in this country, he continued to write extensively for the German, French and American press...
...For his second essay, on Xenophon, he received Kazan University's gold medal...
...some were executed...
...Even in high school his brilliant gifts were recognized, and he was told that he could look for-ward to a great future as a historian...
...Denike, of course, actively op-posed the coup and was one of the group of Mensheviks that tried to organize, at first in Petrograd and then in the entire country, a workers' opposition-the so-called movement of factory and plant representatives...
...His role in Kazan in the first months of the revolution was enormous: He was deputy chairman of the Soviet, editor of the Soviet newspaper that was at the same time the Menshevik party organ, and a frequent lecturer...
...Denike, in his capacity as representative of the Soviet, was in charge of the bloodless putting down of the uprising, after which he left for Petro grad to report on the events...
...He was 77...
...In the first eight months of 1918 this movement spread rapidly, only to be broken by terror...
...His future seemed assured...
...Denike was born in Kazan, on the Volga...
...In many localities its leaders were the object of cruel repression...
...From 1922 on he lived as an exile, first in Germany until 1933, when he spent a few months in prison, then in France until 1941, and at last in the United States...
...These hopes seemed to be materializing when Denike's first university essay on Tbucydides and his History of the Peloponnesian War was published in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, an honor granted annually to no more than one or two students in the entire country...
...from 1904-07 he played an active role in the Social Democratic movement in Kazan, Petersburg and Lugansk...
...Yet despite his academic accomplishments, Denike was not merely absorbed in his own specialty...
...But illness finally compelled him to join the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs as a means of getting to Germany for medical treatment...
...Denike, who was arrested at the session of the AII-Russian Conference of Factory and Plant Representatives, spent almost six months in jail under the constant threat of the firing squad...
...Immediately upon arriving in Berlin, he renewed his ties with the Mensheviks...
...From the first day of the February revolution he plunged headlong into political activity, this time not as a Bolshevik but as a Menshevik...
...While still in high school...
...He was particularly close to Rudolf Hilferding and for several years helped him edit the magazine Gesellschait...
...In August and September 1906, although only 19, he realized that Lenin was wrong in predicting a country-wide peasant uprising "immediately following the gathering of the harvest...
...He died in Brussels, where he had gone to visit museums...
...But Denike's training as a historian prevented him from definitely casting his lot with the Bolsheviks...
...In 1964 Denike returned to France and started writing his memoirs...
...That is where he witnessed the October coup...
...The Kazan uprising was confined to a mutiny of reservists, badly prepared and led by the Bolsheviks...
...he was a member of illegal Social Democratic groups...
...Y. P. Denike 1887-1964 ON DECEMBER 29, Yurij Petrovich Denike, a historian who far many years had been a contributor to THE NEW LEADER and co-editor of the Russian-language Socialist Courier, died of a heart attack...
...From early youth, too, he took an active interest in politics, and this is what interfered with his academic career...
...The Bolshevik insurrection in Kazan preceded the insurrection in Petersburg and Moscow by four to six weeks...
...His personal impressions gathered in Lugansk, where he spent the winter of 1906-07 and where he made his acquaintance with prison life, not only fortified him in his own conviction but also effectively immunized him against any future pro-Bolshevik inclinations...
...BORIS I. NICOLAEVSKY...
...He knew, loved and understood the world's music, painting, literature...
...Gravely ill as a result of the harsh prison conditions, Denike returned to academic life...
...In those years he read extensively on theoretical questions, was close to the leading group of Bolshevik theoreticians and writers, and came to know Lenin...
Vol. 48 • January 1965 • No. 2
