Martemyan Nikitich Ryutin | |
|---|---|
Мартемьян Никитич Рютин | |
 Martemyan Ryutin in 1936 | |
| Born | February 13, 1890 |
| Died | January 10, 1937 (aged 47) |
| Occupation(s) | Activist, revolutionary |
Martemyan Nikitich Ryutin (Russian: Мартемьян Никитич Рютин, romanized: Martem'yan Nikítich Ryutin; 13 February 1890 – 10 January 1937) was a Russian Marxist activist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and a political functionary of the Russian Communist Party. Ryutin is best remembered as the leader of a pro-peasant political faction organized against Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in the early 1930s and as the primary author of a 200-page oppositional platform. Ryutin was arrested by the Soviet secret police, along with his co-thinkers, in what has come to be known as the Ryutin Affair. He was executed in January 1937 as part of the "Yezhovshchina" (Great Purge) conducted against political oppositionists and suspected economic "wreckers" and spies.
During the final years of the Soviet Union, Ryutin was politically rehabilitated, and his lengthy critique of Stalin and his policies was published for the first time. The document saw its first edition in English translation in 2010.