Since 1900, took part in revolutionary activities. Arrested on May 1, 1902 for revolutionary propaganda, emigrated to America. In January 1905 he returned to Odessa and joined the RSDLP. Re-arrested in April 1905, the following year sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. In 1909, he made an unsuccessful attempt to escape from the settlement in Goryachinsk of Barguzinsky Uyed together with thewriter Andrei Sobol (who subsequently dedicated his memories to him "On the hard labor road" in the journal "Hard labor and exile").The next year, he still fled from exile and emi- grated to the United States again. He lived in Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy, worked as a translator and foreign correspondent for periodicals in several langua- ges, as a factory worker in Marseille. In 1921 he participated in the constituent con- gress of the Communist Party of Italy in Livorno. On the recommendation of Antonio Gramsci joined the C P U (b). In 1922 he headed the Russian trade delegation at the Genoese Conference, becamethe personal secretary of theUSSR People's Commissar for Foreign Trade .L B. Krasin. In 1923 he wasappointed trade representativeand cultural representative in France, then worked at Vneshtorg. In 1927 he returned to Leningrad, was appointed a member ofthe board of Sovkino and director of the Leningrad film factory Soyuzkino (later Lenfilm). Later he was also a member of the board of the All-Union Photographic Film Association.