Martyn Liadov

Who was Martyn Liadov?

Martyn Nikolaevich Liadov was a Bolshevik and Vperedist.

Liadov was first drawn to the populist Narodnik movement in Moscow in 1891. By 1893 he was involved in founding the Moscow Workers’ Union. Following his arrest in 1895 he was exiled to Verkhoiansk two years later. In 1902 he joined the Saratov Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. However he emigrated in 1903, and attended the Second Congress of the RSDLP, joining the Iskra faction. The Central Committee of the party offered him a post following thee Congress and in 1904 he attended the meeting of 22 Bolsheviks in Geneva where he was elected to the Bureau of the Committees of the Majority. He then attended the International Socialist Congress, Amsterdam 1904 as a Bolshevik delegate.

During the 1905 Revolution, Liadov fought at the barricades in Moscow and served as a member of the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP. He served as a delegate to the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Party Congresses. Between 1909 and 1911 he sided with the Otzovisty faction, and moved to Baku in 1911. In 1917 he was deputy chairman of the Baku Soviet and now sided with the Mensheviks.