Menshevik Bundist intellectual who drafted the core of Order No. 1 among the soldiers
At the soldiers’ section meeting on March 1, 1917, he used the alias “Maksim” while formulating the core provisions of Order No. 1.
A Jewish social-democrat who joined the Bund in the 1890s, led the Riga general strike of 1905, and attended the 1907 London party congress as a Bund delegate. Returning from emigration in 1917 as a Menshevik 'defencist,' he formulated the core points of Order No. 1 at the March 1 soldiers' section meeting under the alias 'Maksim'; elected to the Constituent Assembly, he was arrested the following year and exiled to Arkhangelsk.
Career timeline
1890sJoined the Bund (General Jewish Labour Bund)
1899Delegate to the 3rd Bund Congress
1905Led the Riga general strike
1907Bund delegate to the 5th RSDLP Congress in London
1917.03Formulated core points of Order No. 1 at the Petrograd Soviet soldiers' section meeting
1917Editorial contributor to the Menshevik-defencist newspaper Den'
A Menshevik who defended the revolution against its Bolshevik direction
After the June 1917 crisis, he called for firm measures against the Bolsheviks in the name of defending the revolution.
Born Mikhail Goldman, Mikhail Liber was a revolutionary who rose through the Bund, the Jewish workers’ movement, to become a leading Menshevik. At the 1903 RSDLP Congress he defended the Bund’s organisational autonomy, while in 1917 he tried to combine revolutionary democracy with a policy of revolutionary defensism. In the Petrograd Soviet and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee he supported coalition with the Provisional Government, and after the June 10 demonstration crisis he became a leading advocate of firm measures against the Bolsheviks. His opposition to the October uprising and to negotiations with the Bolsheviks was followed by repeated arrests and exile; executed in 1937, he was rehabilitated posthumously.
Career timeline
1896Joined the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party
1897–1902Founding-generation Bund activist; joined its Central Committee in 1902
1903Bund delegate to the Second Congress of the RSDLP
1905Executive Committee member of the St Petersburg Soviet
Dismissed from the OGPU in 1931 for protesting Yagoda's "Vesna" frame-up, he returned under Yezhov to organize the troikas of the Great Terror.
A Cheka veteran, he became chief of the Soviet militia in 1934 and Yezhov's deputy at the NKVD in 1936, where he organized the regional troikas that issued mass death sentences during the Great Terror. Arrested in 1939, he was shot in 1941 and has never been rehabilitated.
Career timeline
1934–1936Chief of the Main Directorate of Workers' and Peasants' Militia, NKVD
1936–1938Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs
1938–1939First Deputy People's Commissar of Railways
Petrograd's press commissar whose assassination helped trigger the Red Terror
“Comrades, do you think I am looking at my watch? No — I am looking at the clock of humanity, the clock of the world revolution.”
Petrograd's Commissar for Press and Propaganda and a magnetic crowd orator who built the Bolshevik censorship apparatus and founded Krasnaya Gazeta. Shot dead by an SR militant on 20 June 1918, his assassination, alongside Uritsky's murder and the attempt on Lenin, became the spark for the full-scale Red Terror.
Career timeline
1905Joins the Bund at 14; expelled from gymnasium for unreliability
1908–1911Social Democratic agitator in Volhynia and Podolia
1911–1913Exiled to Pinega; freed under 1913 Romanov amnesty
1913–1917US emigration: Philadelphia garment worker; co-publishes Novy Mir
1917.05Returns to Russia, joins the Mezhraiontsy
1917.06–08Joins Bolsheviks via Mezhraiontsy; chief agitator; VI Congress delegate
1917.09–10Petrograd Soviet Presidium; October rising
1917.11–1918.06VTsIK Presidium; Commissar for Press/Propaganda; founds Krasnaya Gazeta
The man who drove the Ukrainian mass operations to their peak
According to the testimony of GB Major Z.M. Ushakov, Leplevsky was so ruthless that even his own superior, Nikolai Yezhov, feared him.
A Chekist from Brest-Litovsk who headed the NKVD of Belorussia before taking charge in Ukraine, where he drove the mass operations of the Great Terror to their peak. One of Yezhov's closest lieutenants, he was among the first to be consumed by the machinery he had helped run.
Career timeline
1934–1936People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Belorussian SSR
1936–1937Chief of the Special Department, GUGB NKVD
1937–1938People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Ukrainian SSR
1938Chief of the 6th Department, then of the 3rd Directorate (transport and communications), NKVD
