MUTNIK (Mutnikovich), ABRAHAM

MUTNIK (Mutnikovich ), ABRAHAM (pseud. Gleb ; 1868–1930), cofounder of the *Bund. Mutnik was born in Vilkomir (Ukmerge), Russian Lithuania. In Kovno he belonged to a revolutionary circle of Narodnaya Volya (the People's Will movement) which functioned among the pupils of his school, and he was subsequently expelled from the school. In the 1880s he studied in Berlin and became acquainted with the German workers' movement. He was expelled from Germany and on returning to Russia lived in Ponevez, Lithuania, gave private lessons, and disseminated illegal revolutionary propaganda which led to his arrest. From 1894 he was a central figure among the *Jewish Social Democrats in Vilna. On its behalf he wrote a detailed report for the Congress of the Socialist International in London (1896). At the founding convention of the Bund he was elected, with V. *Kossovski and A. *Kremer, to its central committee. Mutnik drew up the first proclamation of the Bund (May 1, 1898) and represented it at the first conference of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (March 1898). He was arrested in Lodz, but in 1900 he escaped abroad. In the years 1902–06 he was secretary of the Bund "committee abroad" in London and Geneva and a member of the editorial board of its organ, Der Yidisher Arbeter. He published an important article on the history of the Bund and its activity (in Zhizn, no. 2, May 1902 signed G. Ya.); he returned to Russia in 1906 and took charge of the Bund press. He then withdrew from party activities and after World War i lived in Germany. His autobiographical memoirs were published in Zukunft (38 (1933), 509–13, 595–6, 664–6, 718–20).

bibliography:

J.S. Hertz (ed.), Doyres Bundistn, 1 (1956), 122–30; J. Hertz et al. (eds.), Geshikhte fun Bund, 1–2 (1960–62), indexes.

[Moshe Mishkinsky]