Early years V. Volodarsky was born to the family of a
Jewish craftsman in
Ostropol, in the
Volhynian Governorate of the
Russian Empire (present-day
Ukraine).
Revolutionary politics In 1905, he became involved in revolutionary activity within the
General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, but soon joined
Spilka, the
Ukrainian Social Democratic organisation which aligned itself with the
Menshevik faction of the
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. He was briefly imprisoned in 1908 and then was politically active in
Volhynia. Then in 1911 he was exiled by the government to
Arkhangelsk, but was included in the general
amnesty of 1913. Continued persecution led him to emigrate to the
United States, settling in
Philadelphia. Here he became active in the
International Trade Union of Tailors and the
Socialist Party. During
World War I, Volodarsky sided with the internationalist Mensheviks and moved to the left. In 1916–1917, he was a contributor to the New York-based newspaper of the
Russian Socialist Federation,
Novy Mir (New World), edited by
Nikolai Bukharin.
Return to Russia In May 1917, Volodarsky returned to Russia, joined the
Mezhraiontsy group and was elected to the
Petrograd City
Duma. Along with the rest of the
mezhraiontsy, he joined the
Bolsheviks at the 6th Party Congress in July–August 1917 and soon became one of their best known public speakers and agitators. He focused his activity in the
Petergof area, including the
Putilov factory. In mid-October 1917, while the Bolsheviks were debating whether to try to overthrow the
Russian Provisional Government, Volodarsky sided with
Grigory Zinoviev and
Lev Kamenev, who were against the insurrection. At the Second Congress of Soviets during the
October Revolution of 1917, Volodarsky was elected to the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK). He was appointed editor of the
Red Gazette in Petrograd and chief of the Press Division of the of the Union of Northern Communes. This gave him broad censorship powers. His colleague
Anatoly Lunacharsky wrote: :
And he was ruthless. He was imbued not only with the full menace of the October Revolution, but with a foretaste of the outbursts of Red terror which were to come after his death. There is no sense in concealing the fact that Volodarsky was a terrorist. He was profoundly convinced that if we were to falter in lashing out at the hydra of counter-revolution it would devour not only us but along with us the hopes that October had raised all over the world. He was against the
Brest-Litovsk Treaty, but remained silent on the topic in order to maintain party discipline.
Death Volodarsky was assassinated on June 20, 1918, by
Grigory Ivanovich Semyonov, a member of the Central Battle Unit of the
Socialist-Revolutionary Party, during labour unrest at the
Obukhov Works in
Petrograd. He was buried at the
Monument to the Fighters of the Revolution on St. Petersburg's
Field of Mars. == Honors ==