Boris Kamkov
Boris Davidovich Kamkov was a Russian revolutionary, a leader of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, and a member of the Council of People's Commissars. He was killed during the Great Purge.
Early years
Boris Davidovich Kats, who became known under the name 'Kamkov', was born on June 3, 1885 in Kobylnia, a village in Bessarabia Governorate. He was of a Jewish family and his father was a doctor. As a youth he became involved in radical politics and joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, becoming a member of its 'Combat Organisation' in 1904. He participated in the abortive Revolution of 1905, was arrested and banished to Turukhansk. In 1907, Kamkov escaped and went into exile abroad, living mostly in Germany, France and Sweden. He contributed to various SR publications and studied law at Heidelberg University, graduating in 1911.World War I and February Revolution
During World War I, Kamkov took an Internationalist position. He belonged to the Parisian SR group 'Life' and supported the Zimmerwald Conference. Kamkov was also involved in organising aid to Russian prisoners of war, using the opportunity to distribute revolutionary propaganda.After the February Revolution of 1917 he returned to Russia via Germany and was elected to the Petrograd Soviet in April. He became a leader of the staunch anti-war faction of the PSR, along with Maria Spiridonova, Isaac Steinberg, the veteran Mark Natanson and others. This put him in opposition to the Revolutionary Defencist SR and Menshevik leaders who dominated the soviets during Kerensky's government. He squared off against the right SR leader Avram Gots; Gots and Kamkov had both been commissioned to report on the War and gave sharply divergent reports, with Kamkov denouncing Gots as a 'social patriot' and calling for an end to the war.
Kamkov occupied various minor posts in the PSR but increasingly called for a break with the Defencists. He was one of the leaders of the Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, which broke away from the PSR in the late summer of 1917. Later, at its first official congress in November, he was elected to its central committee. Kamkov was also elected to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets and served on its Central Executive Committee. He was also a member of the Pre-Parliament in September. He advocated the abolition of the Provisional Government and the transfer of all power to the soviets. This was also the battle cry of Lenin's Bolsheviks, and in the lead-up to the October Revolution, the Left SRs collaborated closely with the Bolsheviks. The Left SRs were not privy to the Bolsheviks' plans for a revolution and were not included in the very first Council of People's Commissars; in fact, they had tried to discourage the Bolsheviks from a unilateral seizure of power.
Collaboration with the Bolsheviks
However, after the victory of the Bolsheviks, the Left SRs accepted the October Revolution, and Kamkov participated in negotiations with the Bolsheviks to form a coalition government. Kamkov favoured some agreements between all socialist parties, a popular position at the time, feeling that "the Left should not isolate itself from the moderate democratic forces." However, efforts to bring about such an all-socialist coalition quickly foundered on the opposition of both Lenin and the SR/Menshevik leaders. The Left SRs were the only party to enter a coalition with the Bolsheviks. Along with Isaac Steinberg, A.L. Kollegaev, Vladimir Karelin, V.Y. Trutovsky, V.A. Algasov and P.P. Proshyan, Kamkov became a member of the Council of People's Commissars. He was also elected to the new Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets.The Bolshevik/Left SR coalition was short-lived. Although Kamkov supported the Left SRs' participation in the Russian delegation in the peace negotiations with Imperial Germany at Brest-Litovsk, he was appalled by the harsh conditions imposed on Russia by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, fearing that it would suffocate the Russian Revolution. Along with some 'Left Communists', the Left SRs called for rejecting the Treaty. The 'Left Communists' were eventually brought to heel, but in March 1918, the Left SRs resigned from the Soviet government in protest against the peace treaty. Soon afterward, following the so-called 'Left SR uprising', they were expelled from the soviets. Kamkov was involved in many of the activities of the Left SRs over the next few months: organising resistance to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and to the Bolshevik policy of forced grain requisitions, holding merger talks with the 'Socialist Maximalists' and Ukrainian revolutionary groups.