Gershuni, Grigori Andreyevich

(1870–1908)

   Russian revolutionary. Born in Shavli, Lithuania, Gershuni settled in Minsk, where he ran a bacteriological laboratory. He was drawn into the anti-czarist Social-Revolutionary Party (S-R). After his arrest and interrogation by the police, he organized the underground terrorist group of the S-R called the Fighting Organization which was responsible for the assassination of several political leaders. In 1903 he was captured and condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted to exile in Siberia. He escaped hidden in a barrel and made his way through China and Japan to the United States, where he campaigned in working class districts to gain support for the S-R. He died in Zurich and was given a mass funeral in Paris, having become a legend in radical circles.