Ivan Udaltsov

Ivan Udaltsov
Иван Дмитриевич Удальцов
Rector / Director of Moscow University
In office 1928–1930
1st Director of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations
In office 1944–1945
Succeeded by	Georgy Frantsov
Personal details
Born	(1885-03-07)7 March 1885 (20 March [O.S. 7 March] 1885) Moscow, Russian Empire
Died	30 January 1958(1958-01-30) (aged 72) Moscow, Soviet Union
Resting place	Novodevichy Cemetery
Spouse(s)	Margarita Manuilovna Udaltsova (sculptor)
Children	Ivan Ivanovich Udaltsov, historian and diplomat
Education	Moscow University (1912)
Occupation	Jurist, economist, academic administrator
Awards	Two Order of Lenins Order of the Red Banner of Labour Badge of Honour (1940) Honoured Scientist of the RSFSR (1950)

Ivan Dmitrievich Udaltsov (Иван Дмитриевич Удальцов; 7 O.S. March 1885 – 30 January 1958) was a Soviet jurist, economist and academic administrator. He served as acting rector and then director of Moscow University from 1928 to 1930, founded and long chaired its Faculty of Economics, and became the first director of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in 1944.

Early life and revolutionary activity

Udaltsov was born into a noble family in Moscow on 7 March 1885, the son of a doctor at the Second City Hospital. He graduated with a gold medal from the First Moscow Gymnasium and in 1903 entered the law faculty of Moscow University, transferring in 1905 to the faculty's newly opened economics department. He joined the revolutionary movement in 1904, and in the spring of 1906 an expanded meeting of the Moscow committee of the RSDLP(b), addressed by Vladimir Lenin, was held in his apartment on Ostozhenka Street. Udaltsov became secretary of the university's social-democratic faction, sat on the coalition Council of University Students, took part in organising aid to the insurgents of the Presnya district, and was among students besieged for two days by police inside the university building.

In 1907, Udaltsov was arrested and expelled from the university. After a six-month investigation spent in Butyrka prison, he was sentenced to exile in Vologda Governorate but was instead permitted to go abroad, with no right to return before 1910. He attended lectures at the universities of Leipzig, Munich and Freiburg. On returning to Russia in 1910, he found the doors of Moscow University closed to him and was soon conscripted for active military service. He was not permitted to sit his state examinations at the law faculty until 1912, when he graduated with a first-class diploma and was admitted as an assistant to a sworn attorney at the Moscow judicial chamber, going on to advise Moscow trade unions and private clients.

First World War and revolution

Following the outbreak of the First World War, Udaltsov was mobilised and served on the South-Western Front until January 1918. After the February Revolution of 1917, he was elected chairman of his regimental committee and chairman of the Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies of the town of Zaleshchiki in Galicia, and was subsequently elected to the executive committee of the South-Western Front at an army congress, later becoming secretary of its Presidium.

Soviet career and academic administration

Returning to Moscow in 1918, Udaltsov worked in the cultural department of the Moscow Soviet and then headed agricultural courses at the Moscow Agricultural Academy, while also serving in a department of the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment (Narkompros) in 1918–1919. Mobilised by the party, he served as deputy head of a Red Army political department before being recalled to Moscow at the end of 1920.

From January 1921, Udaltsov was a professor of political economy at Moscow University and subsequently deputy dean and dean of its Faculty of Social Sciences and Faculty of Soviet Law (1921–1928). He was elected to the university's Board (Pravlenie) in 1927 and, from 1923, sat on the Presidium of the Main Scientific Council of Narkompros.

Rector and director of Moscow University

Udaltsov served as acting rector of Moscow University from 1 September 1928 to 22 March 1929, and then as its director until 1930. His brief tenure coincided with a sweeping dismantling of the university's traditional academic structures, which some feared would destroy the institution; he was the author of an article, "The 175-Year-Old Elder," published in the journal Krasnoye Studenchestvo ("Red Students") in 1930, which set in motion the university's reorganisation, during which its rectorate was converted into a directorate and a new chemistry faculty was established (1929).

Later academic career

Udaltsov went on to serve as dean of several Moscow University faculties, including those of history, law and international relations, and from 1943 to 1944 was dean of the university's newly created Faculty of International Relations. In 1944, when the faculty was reconstituted as the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) by decree of the Council of People's Commissars, Udaltsov became its first director, a post he held until 1945, when he was succeeded by Georgy Frantsov.

His central and lasting institutional legacy, however, was at Moscow University's Faculty of Economics, which he founded and served as dean from 1941 to 1955. In the autumn of 1934, he had already formed the university-wide Department of Political Economy under his leadership; after the economics faculty's creation he headed its department of specific branch economics, and in 1947 established the department of history of the national economy and economic doctrines, which he chaired until 1955. He is credited with introducing subjects such as national economic planning and the economics of industry, agriculture, trade and finance into the university curriculum.

Alongside his administrative roles, Udaltsov edited the university-wide newspaper Pervy Universitet ("First University") in 1927 and chaired its Bureau of Correspondence Legal Education. He was also active in publishing, serving from 1933 to 1936 as editor-in-chief of the Sotsekgiz publishing house and, in the 1930s, contributing to the publication of the literary heritage of Georgi Plekhanov and of the collected works of Nikolay Chernyshevsky; he helped bring about the 1948–49 edition of Chernyshevsky's Selected Economic Works. He also contributed to works on the history of Moscow University, including editing Ocherki po istorii Moskovskogo universiteta ("Essays on the History of Moscow University", 1940), and was one of the authors of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

Death and legacy

Udaltsov died in Moscow on 30 January 1958 and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery. In 1962, a street in south-western Moscow, Ulitsa Udaltsova, was named in his honour. After his death, the department he had founded carried out his planned multi-volume university course on the history of economic doctrines (1961–1970).

Family

Udaltsov was married to Margarita Manuilovna Udaltsova (1887–1964), a sculptor, with whom he is buried at Novodevichy Cemetery. Their son, Ivan Ivanovich Udaltsov (1918–1995), was a historian of the Slavic peoples who later served as a Soviet diplomat, including as ambassador to Greece.

References

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