Dan F. I. (1871-1947), Social Democrat, Menshevik

Categories / Social Life/Personalia
DAN (birth name Gurvich) Fedor Ilyich (1871, St. Petersburg - 1947), a statesman. On graduating from the Faculty of Medicine of Yuryev University (1895) Dan worked as a doctor of Obukhovskaya Hospital of St. Petersburg. In 1896, as one of the heads of the St. Petersburg Union for Liberation of the Working Class, he was an organizer of the strike of textile industry workers (see St. Petersburg Industrial War 1896). Dan was arrested and imprisoned in St. Peter-and-Paul Fortress and in 1898 he was exiled to Vyatka Province. In 1901-02 and in 1903-05, Dan lived in emigration. After the split of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (1903), he was a member of the Menshevik faction. In 1905, he was a member of the editorial board of the St. Petersburg newspaper Beginning, in 1906 - of Party News newspaper. From 1908, he was in emigration again. In the beginning of 1913, he returned to St. Petersburg after an amnesty, and served as a member of the Organizational Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party, editor of Ray newspaper, and Head of the Social Democratic faction in the Fourth State Duma. In 1914 he was exiled to Siberia. From 1916 he was a military doctor. After the February Revolution of 1917, he returned to Petrograd and became a Head of the Centrist Movement in Menshevism. He was an assistant to the head (deputy director) of the Petrograd Soviet, and member of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. After October 1917, he was a member of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party, and editor of Workers' Newspaper. In 1919-20 he was a doctor in the Red Army. In February 1921 he was arrested and incarcerated in St. Peter-and-Paul Fortress. Later he was transferred to Moscow, and after a hunger-strike sent abroad in January 1922. He lived in Berlin, Paris, and New York, in 1923-40 he was in charge of the Foreign Delegation of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party. He was deprived of the Soviet citizenship in 1923.

References: Двинов Б. Л. Ф. И. Дан // Мартов и его близкие. Нью-Йорк, 1959. С. 119-137; Галили З. Лидер меньшевиков в русской революции: Социал. реалии и полит. стратегия. М., 1993; Тютюкин С. В. Меньшевизм: Страницы истории. М., 2002 (ук.).

I. S. Rozental. Dan Fedor Ilyich
Двинов Б. Л. Ф. И. Дан // Мартов и его близкие. Нью-Йорк, 1959
Галили З. Лидеры меньшевиков в русской революции: Социал. реалии и полит. стратегия. М., 1993
Тютюкин С. В. Меньшевизм: Страницы истории. М., 2002 Obukhovskaya Hospital
Union of Struggle for Liberation of the Working Class, St. Petersburg
Petersburg Industrial War 1896
St. Peter and Paul fortress
St. Peter and Paul fortress
Luch (Ray), newspaper
State Duma
February Revolution of 1917