From a Farmhand to the Head of an Institute: Life of the Historian Otto Augustovich Lidak

Abstract

The history of the Bolshevik party figured prominently in the reform of postrevolutionary Soviet science. After the Civil War, many revolutionaries who took accelerated special learning courses subsequently became professors and heads of newly organized academic institutions. Their aim was to prepare new ideologically strong specialists for the country. However, despite their considerable contribution to higher education in the prewar USSR, a significant number of “red professors” became victims of repression in the 1930s. Otto Augustovich Lidak — one of the main Leningrad historians of the Bolshevik party in the 1930s — was a bright representative of this generation. As a Bolshevik in the Civil war, he traveled from Lithuania to the Siberian city of Minusinsk and from Petrograd to Persia. Having all the necessary qualities (social background, revolutionary experience, connections, etc.), O. A. Lidak was able to build a successful academic career within a short period. At various times, he was the head of the Institute of History of the CPSU(b) and the Communist Institute of Journalism. He was also a professor in the Leningrad branch of the Communist Academy, Communist University, Leningrad State University. Finally, he was an active member of the Society of Marxist Historians, the Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiles, etc. Thus, he was involved in the work of all the major party institutions that prepared “pro-Soviet” cadres. This article considers the milestones of Lidak’s biography and also explores his contribution to the historiography of the Russian Revolution.