MEMORANDUM

a youthful prank. But it was certainly more serious and important than that. The textile
industry of St. Petrograd was at the turn of the century the largest industry in St. Petersburg
in terms of employment. There were strikes at several textile factories in St. Petersburg in
May-June 1896. The strike among the textile workers spread quickly and at one point in
June 1896 it comprised all textile workers in St. Petersburg. Another wave of strikes
followed in January 1897. The textile workers’ struggle for improvement of harsh
working conditions was met with sympathy and material support in wider segments of the
society. Leontief Sr. had graduated from the gymnasium at 16 years of age in 1896; and
his involvement in the strike took place soon afterwards. The conflict resulted in the
adoption of a law in 1897 limiting daily working hours to eleven and a half.
Strikes were not tolerated by the oppressive Tsarist regime and might have serious
consequences for those involved. Leontief Sr.’s involvement in the textile workers’ strike
indicates that he was connected with political circles. He joined later the Socialist
Revolutionaries (SRs), the ideological heir to the Narodniki (Populists) of the 19th century,
which drew its support from rural Russia on a program of agrarian socialism, as opposed to
the emerging Social Democratic Workers Party (SDs) which relied on Marxist doctrines
and later split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. But as the youngster Leontief Sr. was in
1897 his political views may not have been elaborate beyond the views that all the
revolutionary movements of Russia shared: political freedom and abolishment of the
autocratic Tsarist rule.
Leontief Sr.’s involvement with the strike made him persona non grata with the
authorities, quite likely preventing him from entering St. Petersburg University. Perhaps
his honorary citizenship as a member of the Leontief family saved him from harsher
sanctions? The strike involvement of Leontief Sr. doesn’t seem to have caused any fallout
with the larger Leontief family. Perhaps the family on the contrary appreciated his political
involvement and facilitated and supported him in his voluntary exile.
After having been enrolled at the Higher School for Commerce in St. Petersburg
Leontief Sr. left for Germany to study at the newly opened Leipzig Handelshochschule in
1899, graduating two years later. After Leipzig he entered doctoral study at Munich
University in 1902, completing it eventually in 1906. He suspended his Munich university
enrolment, however, in 1904/05 to spend one year in Paris. During that year he met Zlata
Bekker (1881-1979), a well-educated and strikingly beautiful woman of Jewish extraction
who studied in Paris. Possibly they might have become acquainted earlier. Zlata Bekker
(1881-1979) had come to Paris from Odessa in 1901. She belonged to a well off Jewish
family with economic interests in transportation business. Jews were barred from
university enrolment in Russia; hence Jews who could afford it went abroad to study. Zlata
chose Paris rather than Germany and studied briefly medicine at the University of Paris.
She changed to a study of art and art history in a Russian school of higher education
established in Paris. Zlata Bekker was described at the time as a striking, exotic beauty.
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