From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yakov Sverdlov

Snow-covered statue of Sverdlov in Yekaterinburg

Yakov Mikhaylovich Sverdlov (Russian: Я́ков Миха́йлович Свердло́в); known under pseudonyms "Andrey", "Mikhalych", "Max", "Smirnov", "Permyakov" (June 3 [O.S. May 22] 1885 – March 16, 1919) was a Bolshevik party leader and an official of pre-Soviet Union Soviet Russia.

He was born in Nizhny Novgorod to Jewish parents, his father being an engraver. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1902, and then the Bolshevik faction, supporting Vladimir Lenin. He was involved in the 1905 revolution.

After his arrest in June 1906, for most of the time until 1917 he was either imprisoned or exiled.

After the 1917 February Revolution he returned to Petrograd from exile and was re-elected to the Central Committee. He played an important role in planning the October Revolution. Research in 1990 by the Moscow playwright and historian Edvard Radzinsky uncovered Sverdlov's role in the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Sverdlov ordered their execution on July 16, 1918.

A close ally of Vladimir Lenin, Sverdlov played an important role in persuading leading Bolsheviks to accept the controversial decisions to close down the Constituent Assembly and the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. It was claimed that Lenin provided the theories and Sverdlov made sure they worked.

He is sometimes referred to as the first head of state of the Soviet Union but this is not correct since the Soviet Union came into existence in 1922, three years after Sverdlov's death. As chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) he was the de facto head of state of the Russian SFSR from shortly after the October Revolution until the time of his death.

He died of influenza in Oryol during the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic.

The city of Yekaterinburg was renamed Sverdlovsk in 1924 to honour Sverdlov. However, in 1991, as Russia's leader Boris Yeltsin helped return pre-Soviet names in the Soviet Union, the name was changed back to Yekaterinburg.

The Imperial Russian Navy destroyer leader Novik (commissioned in 1913) was renamed Yakov Sverdlov in 1923. The first ship of Sverdlov class cruisers was also named after him.

A slab of marble bearing his name is in Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Yakov Sverdlov

• Zinovy Peshkov (Zinovy Sverdlov), Yakov's brother

v • d • e Chairmen of Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR
Russian SFSR (1917–1991) Lev Kamenev • Yakov Sverdlov • Mikhail Vladimirsky (acting) • Mikhail Kalinin • Andrey Zhdanov • Mikhail Tarasov • Leonid Soloviev • Vasily Prokhorov • Vasily Krestyaninov • Alexey Badayev • Ivan Vlasov (acting) • Mikhail Tarasov • Nikolay Ignatov • Nikolay Organov • Nikolay Ignatov • Mikhail Yasnov • Vladimir Orlov • Vitaly Vorotnikov • Boris Yeltsin