Nikolai Utin

Nikolai Isaakovitch Utin was a Russian socialist and revolutionary. He grew up in Saint Petersburg, and became a charismatic leader of the student movement. Because of his revolutionary activities, he spent most of his adult life in political exile in Switzerland, where he participated in the founding of the Russian section of the International Workingmen's Association and kept up correspondence with liberals and revolutionaries across Europe. In the conflict between Mikhail Bakunin and Karl Marx, he supported Marx, and through his involvement with Geneva journals Narodnoye delo and l'Égalité as a writer and editor, he played an important role in increasing support for Marx at Bakunin's expense. He was extremely influential in revolutionary circles until the breakup of the First International in 1876, whereupon he withdrew from politics and returned to Russia.