Society of Translators and Publishers

Society of Translators and Publishers 

a revolutionary youth organization in Moscow in the early 1880’s.

The society’s members were mainly Moscow University students from Siberia who had originally formed the Circle of Siberian Militarists. In the autumn of 1882 they turned to the translation, publication, and distribution of Russian and foreign socialist literature. Among the society’s most active members were V. T. Raspopin, P. A. Argunov, I. Iu. Vorozheikin, and P. V. Sokolov. In 1883 and 1884 the society published such works by K. Marx and F. Engels as the Communist Party Manifesto and Wage-Labor and Capital; the collection Socialist Knowledge (vols. 1–3); works by W. Liebknecht, G. V. Ple-khanov, P. L. Lavrov, L. Blanc, E. Dühring and F. Lassalle; and leaflets for workers. These were printed in the lithography shop of N. A. Iankovskaia and distributed in St. Petersburg, Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Shuia, Rostov-on-Don, Perm’, Orenburg, and elsewhere.

The society organized self-education circles among students and military youth in such institutions as the Technical School, the Aleksander Military School, and the Advanced Courses for Women. It established ties with the Liberation of Labor group, the Polish Proletariat party, the Paris center of the People’s Will (Narodnaia Volia) party, and D. Blagoev’s group. The society was broken up by the police in May 1884.

REFERENCES

Anatol’ev, P. “Obshchestvo perevodchikov i izdatelei.” Katorga issylka, 1933, no. 3.
Polevoi, Iu. Z. Zarozhdenie marksizma v Rossii, 1883–1894 gg., Moscow, 1959. Pages 337–9.
Samedov, V. Iu. “E. E. Paprits i moskovskoe ‘Obshchestvo perevodchikov i izdatelei.’ ” Istoriia SSSR, 1970, no. 5.

O. A. SAIKIN