Fedor Il'ich Dan: A Menshevik Leader in Lenin's Russia

This is the first translation into any language of Fedor (Theodore) Dan’s Dva goda skitaniy [Two Years of Wandering], written in early 1922, and published in Russian in Berlin later that year. It is a remarkable portrayal of Soviet Russia during and after the civil war, as seen by one of the most senior social-democratic Menshevik leaders in Russia at that time. Dan’s memoir is not the account of a politically disinterested witness. He had been active in the Russian revolutionary movement since 1894, and had been a consistent critic of Lenin and his supporters in Russian Marxist politics for almost two decades. The memoir was written not for posterity, but first and foremost as a political intervention. But this does not detract from its value as a source on this period of early Soviet history, for several reasons. First, it is very immediate. Shortly after his expulsion from Russia at the end of January 1922, Dan started writing the memoir, and by June of that year he was already correcting the proofs. Second, although it seems to have been written without notes, it is generally very accurate. Where it has been possible to check Dan’s recollections against other accounts or archival documents, they tally, despite occasional minor errors of detail. Third – a related point – it seems to be a generally honest memoir.