Home > Yakov Sverdlov

He was born in Nizhny Novgorod, the son of a Jewish engraver. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1902. He joined the Bolshevik faction and supported Lenin. He was involved in the 1905 revolution.

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

After the 1917 February RevolutionThe February Revolution of 1917 in Russia was the first stage of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. It occurred largely as a result of dissatisfaction with the way the Tsar was running the country,, he returned to Petrograd from exile and was reelected to the Central CommitteeThe Central Committee abbreviated in Russian as "Tseka", was the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Its full name was or the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. According to Party rules, the Central C. He played an important role in planning the October RevolutionThis article is about the October Revolution in Russia. See October Revolution (disambiguation) for other meanings. The October Revolution also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was the second phase of the Russian Revolution, the first having been instig. 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.

A close ally of Vladimir LeninVladimir Ilyich Lenin ( Russian: ), original name Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( Russian: ) ( April 10 ( April 22, New Style), 1870 January 21, 1924), was a Russian revolutionary, the leader of the Bolshevik party, the first Premier of the Soviet Union and the, Sverdlov played an important role in persuading leading Bolsheviks to accept the controversial decisions to close down the Constituent AssemblyA Constituent Assembly is a body elected with the express and limited purpose of drafting, and in some cases, adopting a constitution. It may refer to either of the following: The National Constituent Assembly formed in 1789 during the French Revolution T and the signing of the Brest-Litovsk TreatyA treaty negotiated between Bolshevik Russia, headed by Leon Trotsky, and the Central Powers intended to end Russia's inolvement in the Great War without the loss of territory to Austria and Germany. The negotiations began on the 3rd December 1917, and so. It was claimed that Lenin provided the theories and Sverdlov made sure they worked

He is sometime referred to as the first head of state of the Soviet Union but this is not quite correct since the USSR as such was not been proclaimed during Sverdlov's lifetime. It is true that, as chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) he was the de facto head of the communist Russian state from shortly after the October Revolution until the time of his death.

He died of influenza in Oryol during an epidemic.

The city of Yekaterinburg was renamed Sverdlovsk in 1924 to honour Sverdlov. However, in 1991, the name was changed back to Yekaterinburg.