Martyn Liadov

[1] Liadov was born in Moscow on 12 August Old Style 1872, the son of a prominent obstetrician and gynecologist, Nikolai Martynovich (Nokhim Mendelevich) Mandelstam.

In May 1895, he organised a meeting of the Central Workers' Union that drew a crowd of several hundred - the first of its kind held in Moscow.

"[7] In January 1906, after the Moscow insurrection had been suppressed, Liadov travelled the Urals and Siberia, helping to organise the 4th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Stockholm, which he attended as a delegate.

[8] In 1911, he moved to Baku and gave up illegal activity, to work in the oil industry, and later as an employee of the Nobel brothers.

He was arrested when the Turkish army occupied Baku, held in prison for two months, then deported to Georgia, where he worked for the Menshevik government for two years.

In 1929, when Stalin began the forced collectivisation of agriculture, Liadov, supported the right wing opposition, led by Uglanov and Nikolai Bukharin, for which he was sacked, and ostracised after Stalinist gained control of the Moscow organisation.

[9] In 1930 he was appointed director of the Archive of the October Revolution and served as a member of the academic boards of the Lenin Institute and of Istpart.