Abramovitch (real surname: Rein) Rafael (??.??.1880, Dinaburg, Vitebsk province [now Daugavpils? Latvia] – ??.??1963, New York), a political figure.
Rafael Abramoich studied at the Riga Polytechnic Institute. In 1899 he got involved in illegal student movement, for this in 1901 he was expelled from the Institute. He completed his education in Liège, Belgium. The same year he joined Bund and was arrested. After his release he went abroad and worked in a support group for Bund.
In 1903, Rafael Abramovich took part in the 5th Congress of the Bund and then returned to Russia illegally, working in Bundist organisations in Vilna and Warsaw. In 1904, he was co-opted into the Central Committee of the Bund. At the end of 1905, he became a member of the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ Deputies.
In 1906, he attended the 4th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) as a Bund delegate with an advisory vote and was elected to the Central Committee. In 1907, he participated in the 5th Congress of the RSDLP, where he aligned with the Mensheviks. During the period of reaction, he became one of the leaders of the Bund’s “liquidationist” faction.
In 1910, Rafael Abramovich was exiled to Vologda province but escaped abroad. From 1912 to 1914, while living in Vienna, he was a member of the editorial boards of the Bund’s legal publications. During the First World War, he held “centrist” (social-pacifist) views.
After the February Revolution of 1917, Rafael Abramovich returned to Russia, rejoined the Bund’s Central Committee, and within the RSDLP, became part of the Menshevik-Internationalist faction. He was a deputy of the Petrograd Soviet and a member of the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets' Central Executive Committee (VTsIK), later joining its Bureau. In August, he participated in the State Conference, in September in the Democratic Conference, and in October, he became a member of the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic (the Pre-Parliament).
At the end of October, as a delegate at the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Rafael Abramovich called on delegates to leave the congress in protest against the Bolsheviks’ armed uprising. On 23 July 1918, he was arrested but was released at the end of January 1919 following an appeal by Western European social democrats.
During the Russian Civil War, Rafael Abramovich supported the strategy of “peace with the Bolsheviks.” After the 12th Congress of the Bund (April 1920) he decided to leave the RSDLP and recognise the programme of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), he became one of the founders of the Social Democratic Bund, which maintained a Menshevik stance.
In October 1920, he emigrated, becoming head of the Bund’s Central Committee Foreign Delegation and joining the RSDLP’s Foreign Delegation. In 1921, in Berlin Rafael Abramovich helped establish the journal Socialist Messenger, where he remained on the editorial board until his death.
In May 1923, following the founding of the Socialist Workers’ International, he became a member of the Bureau of its Executive Committee. In 1939 F. moved to Paris and in 1940 - to New York. Since then he lived in the United States and authored a number of historical works, including the memoirs In Zwei Revolucies (In Two Revolutions, 1944) and The Soviet Revolution: 1917–1939 (published in 1962 in English).