Potresov, Aleksander Nikolaevich (1869–1934)

Russian Social Democrat. He cooperated with Lenin in the Iskra organization, but soon found Lenin's opportunism and lack of moral scruples intolerable. After the revolution of 1905–07, he became leader of the right-wing Mensheviks. After the October Revolution in 1917, Potresov left the Menshevik party because he thought its policy of no more than legal opposition to the Bolsheviks too restrained. He emigrated in 1927 and continued to oppose the Bolshevik system from abroad.