Pavel Ivanovich Lebedev-Polianskii (21 December 1881 - 2 January 1948) was Bolshevik revolutionary and later state functionary and literary scholar.
Born Pavel Lebedev in Melenki, Vladimir Oblast he became active in the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1902. In 1908 he went into exile in Geneva where he stayed until returning to Russia in 1917. In 1914 he reconstituted Vpered arguing that the reason why so many Euro[ean socialists supported the First World War indicated that socialist ideologfy was weak - somthing which could be addressd by scientific and socialist education.[1]He also used the pseudonym Valerian Polianskii. From 1917 - 1919 he was commissar of the literature and publishing department of the People's Commissariat for Education, where he organised new editions of works of classic Russian literature. From 1918 to 1920 he was chairman of the All-Russian Council of Proletkult during which time he edited Proletarskaia kul’tura. [2]
In 1921 he became director of Glavlit, a post he held until 1930. From 1928–30 he edited Literatura i marksizm (Literature and Marxism). He was also a member of the editorial board of the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
From 1934–39 he edited Literaturnaia entsiklopediia (Literary Encyclopedia).
He published a number of books:
He was awarded the Order of Lenin.