Lev Deutsch (Deich)

Lev Grigoryevich Deutch (Deich; Leo Daytsh) was born in Tulchin, Ukraine, to a russified family and studied in Kiev. He initially followed maskilic ideology, funding Jewish schools that would promote assimilation. After repeated frustrations, Deutsch became a narodnik (populist) and revolutionary socialist. He left Russia in 1880; three years later in Geneva, he, with Georgi Plekhanov and Pavel Axelrod, formed the Group for the Liberation of Labor, to disseminate Marxist ideas in Russian. He was soon arrested and returned to Russia, where he was sentenced to deportation. He escaped in 1901 and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, and later belonged to the Menshevik faction. After multiple imprisonments and escapes (including to the United States), he returned to Russia following the February 1917 revolution.