Yakov Mikhaylovich Sverdlov (
Russian:Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
Я́ков Миха́йлович Свердло́в); known under pseudonyms "Andrei", "Mikhalych", "Max", "Smirnov", "Permyakov" – March 16 1919) was a
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
party leader and an official of the Russian Soviet Republic.
He was born in
Nizhny NovgorodNizhny Novgorod , colloquially shortened as Nizhny, is the fourth largest city in Russia, ranking after Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novosibirsk...
to Jewish parents, his father being an engraver. He joined the
Russian Social Democratic Labour PartyThe Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, or RSDLP , also known as the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party and the Russian Social-Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...
in 1902, and then the Bolshevik faction, supporting
Vladimir LeninVladimir Ilyich Lenin , born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov , was the Bolshevik Leader of the 1917 October Revolution, and the first Head of State of the Soviet Union; in the course of his political career, he used the pseudonyms Lenin, V. I. Lenin, Nikolai Lenin, and N. Lenin...
.
Yakov Mikhaylovich Sverdlov (
Russian:Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
Я́ков Миха́йлович Свердло́в); known under pseudonyms "Andrei", "Mikhalych", "Max", "Smirnov", "Permyakov" – March 16 1919) was a
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
party leader and an official of the Russian Soviet Republic.
Early life
He was born in
Nizhny NovgorodNizhny Novgorod , colloquially shortened as Nizhny, is the fourth largest city in Russia, ranking after Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Novosibirsk...
to Jewish parents, his father being an engraver. He joined the
Russian Social Democratic Labour PartyThe Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, or RSDLP , also known as the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party and the Russian Social-Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...
in 1902, and then the Bolshevik faction, supporting
Vladimir LeninVladimir Ilyich Lenin , born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov , was the Bolshevik Leader of the 1917 October Revolution, and the first Head of State of the Soviet Union; in the course of his political career, he used the pseudonyms Lenin, V. I. Lenin, Nikolai Lenin, and N. Lenin...
. He was involved in the
1905 revolutionThe 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political unrest through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included terrorism, worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...
.
After his arrest in June 1906, for most of the time until 1917 he was either imprisoned or exiled. During the period 1914-1916 he was in internal exile in
TurukhanskTurukhansk is a village in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is located 1474 km north of Krasnoyarsk, at the confluence of the Yenisei and Lower Tunguska rivers. The Turukhan River joins the Yenisei about 20 km northwest. Population: 4,849 ; 8,900 ; 200...
, Siberia, along with
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
.
Work
After the 1917
February RevolutionThe February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It occurred March 8–12 and its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the collapse of Imperial Russia and the end of the Romanov dynasty. The non-Communist Russian Provisional Government under...
he returned to Petrograd from exile and was re-elected to the Central Committee. He played an important role in planning the
October RevolutionTheOctober Revolution , also known as the Soviet Revolution or Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution. It began with an armed insurrection in Petrograd traditionally dated to 25 October 1917 Julian calendar...
. Research in 1990 by the Moscow playwright and historian
Edvard RadzinskyEdvard Radzinsky is a Russian writer, historian, TV personality, and author of numerous plays and film screenplays.-His publications:Since the 1990s, Radzinsky has written books for the series Mysteries of History...
uncovered Sverdlov's role in the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Sverdlov ordered their execution on July 16, 1918, which took place in the city of
YekaterinburgYekaterinburg , formerly Sverdlovsk is a major city in the central part of Russia, the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast. Situated on the eastern side of the Ural mountain range, it is the main industrial and cultural center of the Urals Federal District...
.
A close ally of
Vladimir LeninVladimir Ilyich Lenin , born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov , was the Bolshevik Leader of the 1917 October Revolution, and the first Head of State of the Soviet Union; in the course of his political career, he used the pseudonyms Lenin, V. I. Lenin, Nikolai Lenin, and N. Lenin...
, Sverdlov played an important role in persuading leading Bolsheviks to accept the controversial decisions to close down the
Constituent AssemblyThe All Russian Constituent Assembly was a democratically elected constitutional body convened in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917. It met for 13 hours, from 4 PM to 5 AM 5 January–6 January 1918 . It was elected by popular vote and dissolved by the Bolshevik government...
and to sign the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. It was claimed that Lenin provided the theories and Sverdlov made sure they worked.
Later their relationship suffered as Lenin appeared to be too theoretical for practical Sverdlov, who at that time was the chief architect of the Red Terror.
He is sometimes referred to as the first head of state of the Soviet Union but this is not correct since the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
came into existence in 1922, three years after Sverdlov's death. However, as chairman of the
All-Russian Central Executive CommitteeAll-Russian Central Executive Committee , was the highest legislative body in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the interim of the sessions of the Congress of Soviets, and the only one with the power to pass constitutional amendments...
(VTsIK) he was the de jure head of state of the
Russian SFSRThe Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , also called the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the Russian SFSR and the RSFSR for short, was the largest and most populous of the fifteen Soviet republics of the Soviet Union and became the Russian...
from shortly after the October Revolution until the time of his death.
Death
An official version is that Sverdlov died of
influenzaInfluenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals. The name influenza is Italian and means "influence"...
in
OryolOryol or Orel is a city in Russia, administrative center of Oryol Oblast. It is located on the Oka River, approximately 360 km south-south-west of Moscow. In Russian, the word means eagle. Population: 333,310...
during the 1918
Spanish influenza epidemicThe 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic that spread to nearly every part of the world. It was caused by an unusually virulent and deadly influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin of the virus...
. He is buried in the
Kremlin Wall NecropolisThe Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow emerged in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik victims of the October Revolution were buried in mass graves on the Red Square. It is centered on both sides of Lenin's Mausoleum, initially built in wood in 1924 and rebuilt in granite in 1929–1930...
, in Moscow. Another version is that he died of tuberculosis. According to Paganuzzi, on the 16th of March 1919, he visited Morozov's factory in Moscow where a worker hit him on his head with a heavy object at around four in the afternoon. The real facts about Yakov Sverdlov's death remained a state secret in the Soviet Union.
In 1924 Yekaterinburg was renamed Sverdlovsk in his honor. In 1991,
Boris YeltsinBoris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999....
began reverting pre-Soviet names in Russia, and Sverdlovsk was changed back to Yekaterinburg.
His son Andrei had a long career as an officer for the Soviet security organs (
NKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including...
, OGPU).
The
Imperial Russian NavyThe Imperial Russian Navy refers to the Tsarist fleets prior to the Bolshevik Revolution.-First Romanovs:Under Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich construction of the first three-masted ship, actually built within Russia, was completed in 1636. It was built in Balakhna by Danish shipbuilders from Holstein...
destroyer leader
Novik (commissioned in 1913) was renamed
Yakov SverdlovYakov Sverdlov was a destroyer of the Soviet Navy that served in the Baltic Fleet during World War I and World War II. Originally known as Novík, she was renamed Yakov Sverdlov in 1923. She was a training ship when Operation Barbarossa began, but was recalled to active duty the following day...
in 1923. The first ship of
Sverdlov class cruiserThe Sverdlov class cruisers, Soviet designation Project 68bis, were the last conventional cruisers built for the Soviet Navy; 13 ships were completed before Nikita Khrushchev called a halt to the programme as these ships were considered obsolescent with the advent of the guided missile...
s was also named after him.
External links