18 Facts About Abani Mukherji

Abaninath Mukherji was an Indian communist and emigre based in the Soviet Union who co-founded the Communist Party of India.

Abani Mukherji's father was Trailokyanath Mukherji and his family was Hindu.

In 1914, Mukherji met Rash Behari Bose and joined the revolutionary movement.

Abani Mukherji managed to reach Java in the Dutch East Indies, where he stayed until the end of 1919, living under the name of Dar Shaheer.

In 1920, Abani Mukherji traveled to Russia to take part in the Second Congress of the Communist International.

At the Congress, Abani Mukherji met Vladimir Lenin for the first time.

Also in 1921, Abani Mukherji drafted a document on the Malabar rebellion, which he sent to Lenin.

In 1922, Roy and Abani Mukherji together wrote the book India in Transition, a Marxist analysis of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, which the Communist International published in four languages in 1922.

In December 1922, Abani Mukherji returned from Moscow to India clandestinely, via Berlin.

Abani Mukherji privately met local communist leaders on his way.

Abani Mukherji helped Chettiar with his efforts to form the Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan and to draw up its manifesto.

Roy and Abani Mukherji did however part ways and became bitter enemies.

Abani Mukherji learnt that during his travel to India, Roy had sent a circular to the Indian communist groups denouncing him and claiming that he did not represent the Communist International.

Abani Mukherji took an uncompromising attitude towards cooperation with nationalist sectors.

Abani Mukherji was an indologist at the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and became president of the All Union Association of Orientalists.

Abani Mukherji fell victim to the Great Purge by Joseph Stalin in the late 1930s, but his death was only acknowledged by the Soviet Union after 1955.

Abani Mukherji was assigned for the first category of repression in the list "Moscow-Center" and executed on 28 October 1937.

In 1920, while in Russia, Abani Mukherji met Rosa Fitingov, who was then an assistant to one of Lenin's private secretaries, Lydia Fotieva.