Official publisher of Pravda who rose from Duma deputy to nominal head of the Russian republic
When war broke out, Badayev and the Bolshevik Duma deputies voted against war credits, and the Petersburg Committee issued its first anti-war proclamation: 'Down with war! War against war!'
A Petersburg locksmith turned Bolshevik deputy to the Fourth State Duma, Badayev served as the official publisher of Pravda at Lenin's direction, using his parliamentary immunity as a legal shield for the party newspaper. Exiled to Turukhansk with the Bolshevik Duma faction for anti-war activity in 1914, he returned after the February Revolution and took charge of food supply for Petrograd and the Northern Region. Under Stalin he rose through the cooperative movement and food industry commissariat to become Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (1938–1944), the republic's formal head of state during the war years, while also serving as Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He authored the widely translated memoir 'Bolsheviks in the State Duma' (1929), and the Badayev Warehouses in Leningrad remain a lasting toponym.
Career Timeline
- 1912–1914Deputy, IV State Duma · official publisher of Pravda
- 1914–1917Exile, Turukhansk
- 1917–1920Food Commissar, Petrograd and Northern Region
- 1930–1935Chairman, Tsentrsoyuz (Central Consumers' Union)
- 1935–1937Deputy People's Commissar of Food Industry, USSR
- 1937–1938People's Commissar of Food Industry, RSFSR
- 1938–1944Chairman, Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, RSFSR · Deputy Chairman, Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, USSR
- 1943–1951Head, Glavpivo (Main Beer Industry Administration)