Sh
Shachtman, Max (1904-1972)
Leader in the American Communist Party and a founder and leader of the American Trotskyist movement. He split from the SWP in 1940 because of differences over the characterization of the Soviet Union. In 1958 he joined the Socialist Party.
See the Max Shachtman Archive and Socialism from below in the United States, by Milton Fisk.
Shaginyan, Marietta (1888-1982)
Soviet writer and Lenin Prize winner, was an artist with broad philosophical and social views. Her collections of verse, plays, adventure stories ("Mess-Mend", 1923-1925) etc., and a novel (Hydroelectric Plant, 1931) were written after Shaginyan had lived quite some time at the construction site of the Dzor Power Station in Armenia. She also wrote the Ulyanov Family tetralogy (1937-1968) about V.I. Lenin, various articles, literary portraits, memoirs: The Man and the Times (1980), etc. (from A New Life Begun: Prose, Poetry and Essays of the 1920s - 1930s, Progress Publishers, 1987)
Few of Shaginyan's writings have been translated into English. For a small collection, see the Marietta Shaginyan pages in the Women and Marxism section.
Rahman, Shamsur (1929-2006)
Shamsur Rahman, widely recognised as the unofficial "poet laureate" of Bangladesh, authored nearly 100 books, of which more than sixty are collections of poems. Rahman won a number of highly prestigious awards including the Bangla Academy Award in 1969, Ekushey Padak in 1977 and the Swadhinata Award in 1991. He chaired a national committee of editors, writers and artists dedicated to resisting fundamentalist forces opposed to individualism and democracy.
In early 1999 he had narrowly survived a murderous attempt on his life allegedly by the members of the religious extremist Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islam. It was understandably a plot to kill at least 28 prominent Bangladeshi intellectuals.
He popularised modern Bangla poetry among the general masses of Bangladesh like none else by giving expression to their multifaceted emotions about the country, its people and their language. He will be remembered by the posterity just not for his literary output but also for his role in the liberation war and championing of human values, democratic rights and opposition to hatred based on religious identities under extremely trying conditions till he breathed his last.
Further Reading: Shamsur Rahman Archive
Written by Sukla Sen
Sharkey, Lance (1898-1967)
Foremost leader of the CPA from 1929 when Sharkey and Moxon received Comintern support to remove Kavanagh and implement the "social-fascist" policy. Jailed in 1949 for "sedition". Wavered in the period of the Sino-Soviet split. Although he was General Secretary at this time, his influence in the Party had declined, and Sharkey was on the side-lines by 1962.
Shastri, Onkarnath Verma (1908– c.2000)
Party pseudonym: Sharma.
Born Allahabad, the son of Lalta Prasad. Educated Kashi Vidyapith, Benares. Joined the Civil Disobedience movement and jailed in 1932. Became a Socialist. Leader, Kashi Vidyapith party. Member, Communist Party, 1935-36. Editor, Samaj, 1937-38. Formed Bolshevik-Leninist Party of the United Provinces and Bihar, 1939. Attended clandestine conference of Ceylonese and Indian Trotskyists in Ceylon, 1941. Founding leader, Bolshevik Leninist Party of India, 1942. Jailed, 1942-45. Broke with BLPI, 1945. Joined Bolshevik Mazdoor Party, 1946. General Secretary, Mazdoor Trotskyist Party, 1947. Formed Revolutionary Workers Party, 1948. Joined Congress, 1953. Supported Indira Gandhi during the “Emergency” in the ‘seventies. He never married.
Compiled by Charles Wesley Ervin
Shastri, V.
See Sastry, Vellala Srikantaya Seshagiri
Compiled by Charles Wesley Ervin
Shukla, Chandravadan Pranjivan (1910– 2000)
Party pseudonyms: Rafiq, Ramesh Munshi, Sidney, Brelvi.
Born in the Princely State of Lunawada (Gujarat). Educated Ahmedabad. Student leader, Ahmedabad Vidyarthi Mitramandal. Joined CPI, 1936. Secretary, Mill Kamgar Union, Ahmedabad. Quit CPI, 1938. Formed Bolshevik Mazdoor Party, 1940. Founding leader, Bolshevik Leninist Party of India, 1942. Editor, Bolshevik Leninist, 1942-46. Split from BLPI, 1943, and functioned as Bolshevik Mazdoor Party. Editor, Jagat Kranti . Joined SP (Loyalists), 1952. Provisional Central Committee, MKP, elected 1955. Later associated with Morarji Desai and the Janata Party. Author: Ninth August Betrayed (1949) and Socialistic Pattern? (1955). Wrote for Socialist Appeal, 1953. Opposed the linguistic reorganization of the Indian states and left the Trotskyist movement over that issue. Editor, Virat Jage .
Compiled by Charles Wesley Ervin
Shaumyan, Stepan (1878-1918)
Stepan Shaumyan was the son of an Armenian merchant, born in Tbilisi in 1878. While studying at Riga Polytechnic he joined the Russian Social Democratic Party.
Arrested for taking part in student politics, Shaumyan was exiled to the Caucasus. He escaped and went to live in Germany where he met Plekhanov, Lenin and Julius Martov.
Shaumyan returned to the Caucasus where he became a teacher and the leader of the Bolsheviks in Tiflis; joined the Bolsheviks at the 1903 Congress. In 1907 he moved to Baku where he helped to build up and lead the workers' movement.
Led the Bolshevik campaign against nationalism in the Caucasian working class; led the 1914 Baku General Strike, for which he was jailed.
After the February Revolution Shaumyan was elected chairman of the Baku Soviet. He took part in the October Revolution and joined the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party.
After the October Revolution he became Commissar Extraordinary for the Caucasus and Chairman of the Baku Council of People's Commissars.
In March, 1918, there was a Muslim uprising in Baku. Shaumyan and 25 other Baku commissars fled but were arrested by British troops in Krasnovodsk. Stepan Shaumyan was executed on 20th September, 1918.
Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin 1856. As a young adult he moved to London, where he first became active in socialist politics, something he remained actively committed to for the remainder of his life. Hearing a lecture by Henry George on land nationalization was an early influence on Shaw's ideas. He soon after joined the Social Democratic Federation, (SDF) led by, Henry Hyndman. Shaw read Marx, but never accepted the concept of a revolutionary working-class. During his SDF days, Eleanor Marx, Edward Aveling, and William Morris were among his social circle.
In 1884 Shaw joined the Fabian Society, a reformist organization which included members Beatrice and Sidney Webb. He lectured and authored numerous pamphlets published by the Fabians, including The Fabian Manifesto (1884), The True Radical Programme (1887), Fabian Election Manifesto (1892), The Impossibilities of Anarchism (1893), and Socialism for Millionaires (1901). Shaw argued for equality of income and an equitable division of land and capital. Also during this period, Shaw was having success as a playwright and worked as an art, music and theater critic.
In 1900 the Fabian Society joined with the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation and trade union leaders to form the Labour Representation Committee (LRC). Two of the LRC candidates won seats in the House of Commons. The party continued to be successful in attracting voters and eventually changed its name to the Labour Party.
Shaw continued to write political works throughout his life, and many of his literary works also have political themes. They often dealt with women's or other social issues which made him an influential figure with Marxist women of the era.
Shaw died at the age of 94 in 1950. For a number of his politically-oriented works, see the Shaw Reference Archive.
Shingaryov, Andrei Ivanovich (1869-1918)
Physician. Cadet. Member 2nd, 3rd and 4th Dumas. Finance Minister March-May 1917. Cadet. Leader of the Cadet group in the Third and Fourth Russian Duma. May-July 1917 Minister of Agriculture for the Provisional Government. Minister of Finance in the second Provisional Government (after the July events). Resigned July l5th, 1917. Arrested and imprisoned by Bolsheviks in November 1917. Killed by sailors 1918.
Shliapnikov, Alexander (1885-1937)
Alexander Shliapnikov was born in 1885 in Murom, Russia, into a Russian family belonging to the urban estate (meshchanstvo) and professing the Old Belief (a religious sect that split from the Russian Orthodox Church in the seventeenth century). His father died when he was three, leaving his mother to support four children by taking in washing. Shliapnikov completed primary school at age eleven and started factory work at age thirteen; he worked as an apprentice in Murom and Sormovo factories. In 1901, he became an apprentice mechanic at a St. Petersburg metalworking factory, but was fired and blacklisted after taking part in a strike. He returned to Murom, where he worked in a factory, improved his metalworking skills, and conducted illegal revolutionary agitation and organization. He became a member of the RSDLP in 1901 and after the party split in 1903, he joined the Bolsheviks.
From 1904 to 1907, Shliapnikov spent a total of two years in jail or prison. In January 1908, he left Russia for Western Europe. From 1908 to 1916, he worked in French, German, and English factories, becoming a highly accomplished master of metalworking, participated in Bolshevik party politics, helped organize trade unions, and published newspaper and journal articles about industrial work and trade union organization. During World War I, he served as the chief organizational link between the Bolshevik central committee abroad and Bolsheviks within Russia.
Shliapnikov led the bureau of the Bolshevik central committee in Petrograd in early 1917. During the February Revolution, he helped organize the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and was a member of its executive committee. He favored formation of a revolutionary provisional government through negotiations with other left socialist parties in the soviet, but did not support the immediate violent overthrow of the provisional government. In 1917, he helped organize the Petrograd and All-Russian Metalworkers’ Unions and was elected chair of both; he remained chair of the All-Russian Metalworkers’ Union until May 1921. Shliapnikov supported the Bolshevik seizure of power on behalf of the soviet in October 1917. He served as Commissar of Labor until fall 1918. During the civil war, he held important posts on the Caspian-Caucasian and Western fronts.
In fall 1919, Shliapnikov first began to express disagreements with Communist party policy on trade unions. His theses proposing trade union control of industry and “workerization” of leading party organs were presented to the Ninth Party Congress in March 1920. Those who supported his views came to be called the “Workers’ Opposition.” Alexandra Kollontai joined in late 1920. When the trade union debate was opened in December 1920, Shliapnikov led the “Workers’ Opposition” in trying to elect to the Tenth Party Congress delegates who would vote for their theses (published in “Pravda” on January 25, 1921). The Workers’ Opposition was only a small minority at the congress (held in March 1921), where Kollontai’s famous pamphlet about the Workers’ Opposition caused a stir. The congress censured the Workers’ Opposition and banned factionalism within the party, but Shliapnikov was elected to the party central committee and several other important posts. He and his supporters continued to struggle for their views, adapting them to new conditions under NEP, and they presented a letter to the Comintern in 1922 criticizing the suppression of dissent within the Russian Communist Party. At the Eleventh Party Congress in March-April 1922, Shliapnikov and others narrowly escaped expulsion from the party for their petition to the Comintern.
After 1922, Shliapnikov continued to participate in internal party politics, but to little effect. He turned to writing and publishing his memoirs of the revolutionary movement, including in them oblique messages to workers about the importance of organizing themselves without depending on party intellectuals. He briefly worked at the Soviet diplomatic mission in Paris in 1924-25. From 1927 to 1929, he was chair of Metalloimport and in 1932-33 worked in Gosplan RSFSR. He was investigated several times for oppositional activities in the 1920s and early 1930s, although he never joined Trotsky, Zinoviev, or any other top party leaders in any of the various large oppositions. In 1932, he was forced to publish a confession of having committed errors in his memoirs of 1917. In 1933, he was purged from the Communist Party, in 1934 exiled briefly to the Russian north, in 1935 arrested and in 1937 executed. He was rehabilitated of criminal charges in 1963 and restored to membership in the Communist Party in 1988.
Contributed by Barbara C. Allen
See Shliapnikov Archive.
Shoul, Bernice (1920-1977)
Bernice (“Bunny”) Dorothy Shoul was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1920. She studied at Radcliffe College (Harvard). She was an associate of Jan Van Heijenoort, Trotsky’s former secretary. Her thesis supervisor was the prominent bourgeois theorist of business cycles, Josef Schumpeter. She completed her doctoral thesis on “The Marxian Theory of Capitalist Breakdown” in 1947. She subsequently taught at Brooklyn College, at the University of Massachusetts and Bard College. She made important contributions to Marxist Political Economy, clarifying Marx’s method and results.