Mikhail Gots

Gots was born in Šiauliai in the Kovno Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Lithuania) into a wealthy Jewish family.

In 1889 he took part in a convicts' uprising in Yakutsk and was sentenced to hard labour in Siberia for life.

In 1895 an amnesty enabled Gots to emigrate to Paris, where he collaborated with Nikolai Rusanov and Ilya Rubanovich in editing the PSR newspaper Herald of the Russian Revolution (Vestnik Russkoi Revoliutsii).

With Victor Chernov, Gots also edited the PSR's theoretical journal, Revolutionary Russia (Revoliutsionnaia Rossiia).

Gots was also instrumental in establishing relations between the PSR and French and Italian socialist parties.