Virgil Shantser

Shantser was the son of Leon Schantser, an Austrian engineer who had become a winemaker. His mother was a descendant of Louis-Vincent Tardan, the founder of the Swiss community in Shabo and also a winemaker. He attended the Gymnasium in Nikolaev, and in the late 1880s he became a supporter of People’s Will, the major populist revolutionary organization.[1] He attended the University of Yuryev in Tartu where he joined a Social Democratic student circle. After graduating in 1899 he moved to Moscow where he undertook party work for the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. However he was arrested and exiled to Eastern Siberia. Following the Second Congress of the RSDLP in 1903, he became a Bolshevik.[1]

In 1904 he became a member of the Bolshevik Moscow Committee where he soon took on a leading role, editing the newspaper Rabochii. He was arrested for his part in the Moscow armed Uprising of 1905, which led to his exile in Yeniseysky District. However he soon escaped to Omsk and then to Saint Petersburg. He attended the Fifth Congress of the RSDLP in London, 1907. Here he was elected to the Bolshevik Centre, the clandestine leadership of the Bolshevik faction. He was arrested again later that year and exiled to Siberia, and then to Turukhansky District. He escaped again and by 1909 was in Paris.[1]

Shantser was appointed to the editorial board of Proletary on 13 August 1908, replacing Bogdanov who had resigned.[2]He participated in the enlarged editorial board of Proletary in June 1909, joining with Bogdanov in defending the Otzovists,[3] and joining him in the Vpered faction of the RSDLP. However he contracted a disease and died in 1911.[1] Pavel Malyantovich looked after his two children until 1917. His son Evgeny Shantser grew up to become a prominent geologist.