Ivan Ilyin

Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin (Russian: Иван Александрович Ильин, romanized: Ivan Aleksandrovich Il'in; 9 April [O.S. 28 March] 1883 – 21 December 1954) was a Russian jurist, religious and political philosopher, publicist, orator, and a far-right thinker.

Ilyin began his career as a political writer during the failed 1905 Russian Revolution; by the February Revolution of 1917, which he later saw as a "temporary disorder", he shifted towards liberalism, and by October he became a radical right opponent of democracy. October Revolution, in his view, marked a "national catastrophe". This conviction led him to oppose the Bolshevik regime. As a white émigré journalist, he aligned himself with Slavophile beliefs and emerging as a key ideologue of the Russian All-Military Union. This organization firmly believed that force stood as the sole means through which the Soviet regime could be toppled.