Matvey Skobelev
Matvey Ivanovich Skobelev was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and politician.
Biography
Trotsky's Disciple in Vienna (1908–1912)
Skobelev was born in the family of a wealthy Baku oilman and industrialist of the Molokan faith. He joined the Russian [Social Democratic Labor Party] in 1903. After the Russian Revolution of 1905 he went abroad to study at a polytechnic in Vienna. While in Vienna, he became a friend and supporter of Leon Trotsky, whose bi-weekly Pravda he helped edit in 1908–1912. Skobelev and another editor, Adolph Joffe, both scions of wealthy families, also helped Trotsky finance the paper.Duma Deputy (1912–1917)
In the summer of 1912 Skobelev went back to his native Caucasus and was elected to the 4th Duma from the Social Democrats. He soon came under the influence of the head of the Menshevik part of the Social Democratic faction in the Duma, Nikolay Chkheidze, and supported him against the Bolshevik emigre leaders who, in 1912–1913, were trying to get the Bolshevik deputies to break away from the Menshevik majority and form a separate faction in the Duma. After the faction finally split in mid-1913, Skobelev and Chkheidze went to London for the 1 December 1913 meeting of the International Socialist Bureau to apply pressure on the Bolshevik deputies to preserve socialist unity, ultimately unsuccessfully. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Skobelev and Chkheidze tentatively supported the war effort while remaining critical of the Russian government's internal policies and prosecution of the war. Skobelev, like Chkheidze, was an active member of the irregular freemasonic lodge, the Grand Orient of Russia’s Peoples.Revolutionary Leader (1917)
During the February Revolution of 1917, Skobelev and other Menshevik Duma deputies became leaders of the Petrograd Soviet when it was formed on 27 February, Skobelev at first serving as chairman. On 7 March Skobelev became one of the 5 original members of the Contact Committee of the Petrograd Soviet which coordinated policy decisions with the newly formed Russian Provisional Government. On 12 March he was elected deputy chairman of the Petrograd Soviet's executive committee with Chkheidze as chairman. When the Mensheviks agreed to join the Provisional Government on 5 May, Skobelev became the new government's Minister of Labor. On 23–24 May Skobelev and Irakli Tsereteli hammered out a compromise with rebellious Kronstadt sailors who, led by Bolsheviks Fedor Raskolnikov and Semion Roshal, had formed a self-styled autonomous Kronstadt Republic. The compromise avoided a showdown with the Provisional Government.He was also elected deputy chairman of the [All-Russian Central Executive Committee|All Russian Soviet Executive Committee] at the first Soviet Congress in June 1917. In August 1917 he published two government "circulars", which attempted to limit factory workers' rights as follows:
- 23 August - restated the prerogative of management to hire and fire, and the illegality of "coercion", which rendered the culprits liable to criminal prosecution
- 28 August - reminded factory inspectors and commissars that factory committees could only meet outside hours, and that workers had a duty to maintain productivity, "in order to satisfy the demands of the country's defense and the urgent needs of the population"