N Valentinov

(pseudonym of Nikolai Vladimslavovich Vol’skii). Born 1879. Russian journalist, idealist philosopher, and advocate of Machism.

Valentinov participated in the revolutionary movement in the Ukraine. After the Second Convention of the RSDLP (1903), he joined the Bolsheviks. In 1904 he went over to the Menshevik position; in the years of reaction, he became a liquidator and called for the revision of Marxism (in the journal Obrazovanie, 1909, no. 2, p. 109), striving to “complete” it with the ideas of E. Mach and R. Avenarius. He considered the study of these two authors an introduction to any kind of philosophy (see The Philosophical Constructions of Marxism, Moscow, no date, p. 101). Valentinov’s Machist views were criticized in works by V. I. Lenin and G. V. Plekhanov. In 1930, Valentinov emigrated, and he now lives in the USA.