Salme Murrik was born in Helme Parish, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire (present-day Estonia), and spent her childhood in Valga.
She was expelled from the A.S. Pushkin Gymnasium in Tartu due to her participation in the Revolution of 1905, and moved to Moscow, and to Siberia, and Finland before settling in Britain.
During the early years of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Murrik, a Comintern agent, acted as Dutt's link to Moscow.
[1] Salme Murrik had been directed to Britain on Lenin's orders to participate in forming the Communist Party there.
Salme Dutt's treatment of the Chartist movement, When England Arose, was published in 1939.