Anatoli Vasilevich Lunacharsky (November 23 [November 11, Old Style], 1875 - December 26, 1933) was a Russian communist politician.
Lunacharsky became a Marxist at the age of fifteen, and after studying at Zurich University where he met figures such as Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.
At the split in the party in 1903 into the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin and Mensheviks under Julius Martov, Lunacharsky initially sided with the Bolsheviks. However political disagreements with Lenin forced him into the Menshevik camp, before he decided to return to the Bolsheviks in 1917.
After the October Revolution he was appointed as the Commissar of Enlightenment from Narkompros's conception until 1929, which gave him responsibility for education. He was also in charge of the state's first censorship. Lunacharsky oversaw massive improvements in Russia's literacy rate and was regarded as fairly lenient.
In 1930 Lunacharsky represented the Soviet Union at the League of Nations and in 1933 Josef Stalin appointed him ambassador to Spain. He died before he could take up the post.
