Virgil Shantser
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Virgil Leonovich Shantser (Russian: Виргилий Леонович Шанцер; 21 September 1867 — 29 November 1911) (pseudonym - Marat) was a
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
revolutionary active in the
Moscow uprising of 1905 The Moscow uprising, centered in Moscow's Presnensky District, Presnensky district between 7 and 18 December 1905, was the climax of the 1905 Russian Revolution, Russian Revolution of 1905. Thousands of workers joined an armed rebellion against ...
. He became a leading Bolshevik, but followed
Alexander Bogdanov Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer and Bolshevik revolutionary. He was a polymath who pioneered blood transfusion, a ...
into the
Vpered Vpered ( rus, Вперёд, p=fpʲɪˈrʲɵt, a=Ru-вперёд.ogg, ''Forward'') was a subfaction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). Although Vpered emerged from the Bolshevik wing of the party, it was critical of Lenin ...
faction in 1909. However he contracted an illness and died in 1911.


Early life

Shantser was the son of Leon Schantser, an Austrian engineer who had become a winemaker. His mother was a descendant of Louis-Vincent Tardan, the founder of the Swiss community in Shabo and also a winemaker. He attended the Gymnasium in Nikolaev, and in the late 1880s he became a supporter of People’s Will, the major
populist Populism is a contested concept used to refer to a variety of political stances that emphasize the idea of the " common people" and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite. It is frequently associated with anti-establis ...
revolutionary organization A revolutionary movement (or revolutionary social movement) is a specific type of social movement dedicated to carrying out a revolution. Criteria Charles Tilly defines it as "a social movement advancing exclusive competing claims to control o ...
. He attended the University of Yuryev in
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where he joined a Social Democratic student circle. After graduating in 1899 he moved to
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
where he undertook party work for the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...
. However he was arrested and exiled to
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. Following the Second Congress of the RSDLP in 1903, he became a Bolshevik.


1905 Revolution and after

In 1904 he became a member of the Bolshevik Moscow Committee, where he soon took on a leading role during the
1905 Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...
, editing the newspaper ''Rabochii''. He was elected to the executive of the Moscow Soviet at its first meeting in November, and as one of a trio who ran the Bolshevik organisation during the preparations for the Moscow insurrection - the others being Martyn Liadov and Mikhail Vasilyev-Yuzhin. According to Liadov "Shantser was a colourful personality (who) went about his business carrying two revolvers in his belt, but was honest and tactful in his dealings with his Party colleagues". The historian Nikolai Rozhkov, who was also in Moscow at the time, recorded that Shantser was "the actual leader of the Moscow Committee of the Bolsheviks" and a strict and demanding "guardian" of "Bolshevik purity and orthodoxy". Shanster was arrested during a police raid in December - the day when the uprising began - but the police failed to identify him properly, and he was treated as a minor offender, and exiled to Yeniseysky District, from whence he soon escaped to
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and then to
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
. He attended the Fifth Congress of the RSDLP in London, 1907. Here he was elected to the Bolshevik Centre, the clandestine leadership of the Bolshevik faction. He was arrested again later that year and exiled to Siberia, and then to
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. He escaped again and by 1909 was in
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. where he was appointed to the editorial board of ''
Proletary ''Proletary'' (The Proletarian) was an illegal Russian Bolshevik newspaper edited by Lenin; it was published from September 3, 1906, until December 11, 1909. A total of fifty issues having appeared. Active participants in the editorial work were ...
'' on 13 August 1908, replacing Bogdanov who had resigned. Abroad, the Bolsheviks were divided over the issue of whether their deputies should participating in the Third Duma, which
Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
thought they should. In June 1909, the issue was debated by the enlarged editorial board of ''Proletary'' in June 1909, at which Bogdanov and Shantser were the leading representatives of the Otzovists, who advocated a boycott. When the split became open, Shantser joined Bogdanov in the Vpered faction of the RSDLP. In Paris, Shantser fell seriously ill, possibly from tuberculosis. He returned to Moscow, where he died in a police hospital in 1911. Pavel Malyantovich looked after his two children until 1917. His son Evgeny Shantser grew up to become a prominent geologist.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shantser, Virgil 1867 births 1911 deaths Candidates of the Central Committee of the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Bolsheviks People from the Russian Empire