Vyacheslav Menzhinsky - Political Activism

Political Activism

He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1902. In 1905 he became a member of the military organization of the Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP. In 1906 Mężyński was arrested, but was able to escape from Russia. He lived in Belgium, Switzerland, France, USA, working in foreign branches of the RSDLP. He joined the editorial board of Vpered, aligning himself with Grigory Aleksinsky and Mikhail Pokrovsky, rejecting the concpet of "proletarian culture" developed by Alexander Bogdanov and Anatoly Lunacharsky. After the February Revolution of 1917, Mężyński returned to Russia in the summer of that year.