Lev Nikolaevich Gartman

Born 1850, in Arkhangel’sk Province; died 1908, in New York. Russian revolutionary, a Narodnik (populist). From the petite bourgeoisie.

Gartman joined the revolutionary movement in southern Russia in 1876. From 1878 to 1879 he lived in Saratov and Tambov Land and Liberty settlements. After the break-up of Land and Liberty (1879) he joined the Black Partition organization, but he quickly changed over to the People’s Will. During September-November 1879, under the name N. S. Sukhorukov, he prepared plans for an attempt on the tsar’s life (undermining a railroad near Moscow) with S. L. Perovskaia and others. In December 1879 he escaped abroad. He was arrested in Paris on Jan. 23, 1880, under pressure from the tsarist government, but thanks to the interference of Russian revolutionary émigrés and the progressive French press (V. Hugo and others) he was liberated. He became the foreign representative of the People’s Will. In late 1881 he left London for the USA. Gartman knew K. Marx and F. Engels personally.