Armenian-born reformist minister called the "dictator of the heart"
On the morning of March 13, 1881, Alexander II signed Loris-Melikov's reform and declared: "I have given my approval, but I do not hide from myself the fact that it is the first step towards a constitution." Hours later, the tsar was assassinated.
An Armenian nobleman who distinguished himself as a cavalry general in the Caucasus and Russo-Turkish wars, Loris-Melikov's historical weight lies not in his generalship but in his political reforms. After the Winter Palace bombing of 1880, he was granted near-dictatorial powers and pursued the 'dictatorship of the heart': suppressing revolutionary terror while advancing press liberalization, local self-government, and an elected advisory body with zemstvo and city representatives. On the morning of March 13, 1881, Alexander II signed the ukase for Loris-Melikov's consultative commissions, and was assassinated hours later; Alexander III, urged by Pobedonostsev, scrapped the reform and proclaimed inviolable autocracy. The architect of Russia's first constitutional experiment, thwarted by reaction, he personifies the moment reform was lost at the crossroads of reform and autocracy.
Career timeline
1847Transferred to Caucasus; fought in Chechnya and Dagestan
1853–1856Fought in Crimean War at Bayandur and Bashkadyklar
1855Commander of Kars region
1863–1875Governor of Terek Oblast, ataman of Terek Cossacks
1877–1878Commander of Caucasus front in Russo-Turkish War; captured Ardahan and Kars
Dashnak foreign minister and prime minister of the First Republic of Armenia who signed the treaties of Batum and Alexandropol
Born in Tbilisi in 1874 to a prominent Armenian family of noble origins, he trained as a doctor, was mayor of Tbilisi from 1910 to 1917 and in 1914 organized the Armenian volunteer detachments. He joined the Dashnaktsutyun in 1917. As foreign minister of the Republic of Armenia he signed the Treaty of Batum in June 1918, and he was prime minister from May 1919 until he resigned after the May Uprising of 1920. On 3 December 1920 a delegation led by him signed the Treaty of Alexandropol with Kâzım Karabekir, but power had already passed to the Soviet authorities and the treaty is held to be invalid. He went into exile in Paris and died there in 1945.
Career timeline
1910–1917Mayor of Tbilisi
1917Joined the Dashnaktsutyun
1918Foreign minister of Armenia; signed the Treaty of Batum
The 'Caucasian Lenin', Marxist theorist of the national question and leader of the Baku Commune
As the Baku Commune crumbled, a comrade's wife urged him to flee first. Shaumyan answered: "What will the workers say to me? It would be a disgrace to flee first."
Pioneer of Armenian Marxism and leader of the Caucasus Bolsheviks. Born to a Tiflis merchant family, he studied at Riga Polytechnic and Berlin University, organizing Armenia's first Marxist circle in 1899. He translated the Communist Manifesto into Armenian, pioneered Armenian Marxist literary criticism, and was elected a candidate CC member at the 1912 Prague Conference. In 1918 he chaired the Baku Council of People's Commissars, the 'Baku Commune', and famously debated Lenin by correspondence on the national question. Captured and shot with the 26 Baku Commissars in September 1918, he became a Bolshevik martyr.
Career timeline
1898Graduated Tiflis Realschule; entered Riga Polytechnic Institute
1899Organized the first Marxist circle in Armenia
1900–1902Joined RSDLP; expelled from Riga Polytechnic; founded the League of Armenian Social Democrats
1902–1905Studied philosophy at Berlin University; translated Communist Manifesto into Armenian; first met Lenin in Geneva
1906–1914Delegate to 4th and 5th RSDLP Congresses; edited Baku underground press; led Caucasus Union Committee
1912Confirmed as candidate member of Bolshevik CC at Prague Conference
1917.03–05First chairman of the Baku Soviet of Workers' Deputies
1917.11–1918.04Chairman of Baku Soviet Executive Committee; appointed Extraordinary Commissar for Caucasus by Lenin
1918.04–07Chairman and Foreign Commissar of Baku Council of People's Commissars — the Baku Commune
1918.09.20Arrested and shot with the 26 Baku Commissars
Left SR People's Commissar in the first Soviet coalition: 'the core of the party'
'Proshyan succeeded in doing more to strengthen the Soviet power before July 1918 than he did after July 1918 to undermine it.' — Lenin, 'In Memory of Comrade Proshyan,' December 1918
Core leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party and People's Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs in the first Soviet coalition government, serving alongside Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin on the Provisional Executive Committee of the Council of People's Commissars (February 1918). As commissar (December 1917–March 1918) he broke the postal-telegraph sabotage and normalized communications, while also serving as political commissar to the Supreme Military Council and member of the VTsIK Presidium. He resigned in protest against the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and became one of the leaders of the July 1918 Left SR uprising; he died of typhus while underground. Maria Spiridonova called him 'the internal builder, the main spring, the core of the Left SR party.'
Career timeline
1903Joined SR Party at Odessa University; student organizer
1905Arrested for attempting to free political prisoners from Odessa prison; 6 years katorga
1910–1913Escaped settlement, recaptured, 3 more years hard labor; exiled to Siberia, fled abroad
1917Returned after February Revolution; Left SR leader in Helsingfors, editor of Socialist-Revolutionary; elected to VTsIK at Second Congress of Soviets
1917.12Appointed People's Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs
1918.02–03Member of Provisional Executive Committee of Sovnarkom; Political Commissar to Supreme Military Council
1918.03Resigned from Sovnarkom in protest against Brest-Litovsk Treaty
1918.07Participated in Left SR uprising leadership; went underground after suppression, sentenced to 3 years in absentia
Lenin's periphery-builder who brought Soviet power to Belarus and Armenia
When news of the October Revolution reached Minsk, Myasnikov immediately formed and led a Military Revolutionary Committee, and Soviet power was established there without bloodshed.
An Armenian Bolshevik born to a merchant family in Nakhichevan-on-Don. He joined the RSDLP in 1906 and was administratively exiled to Baku for illegal literature, where Shaumyan influenced him. In 1917 he led the Western Front Bolsheviks in Minsk and played the leading role in establishing Soviet power there. He chaired the Byelorussian SSR Central Executive Committee in February 1919, then from May 1921 headed the Armenian SSR Council of People's Commissars, building Soviet Armenia's state institutions and economy. From 1922 he chaired the Transcaucasian SFSR Union Council and served as first secretary of the Transcaucasian Kraikom. He wrote on Marxist-Leninist theory and Armenian literature. On 22 March 1925 his aircraft caught fire and crashed near Tiflis, killing him alongside Atarbekov and Mogilevsky; the cause of the fire was never established.
Career timeline
1906Joined the RSDLP; exiled to Baku for illegal literature — met Shaumyan
1911–1914Graduated Moscow University law faculty (1911); army service, then assistant barrister writing for Bolshevik press
1914–1917Served on the Western Front in WWI, revolutionary propaganda among soldiers
1917.09–1918.05Chairman of North-Western Regional Party Committee, Minsk VRK chairman, Western Front Commander
1919.01–02First Chairman of the Central Executive Committee and Military Commissar of the Byelorussian SSR
1919–1920Military organiser then secretary of Moscow Party Committee; head of Political Directorate, Western Front
1921–1922Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and Military Commissar of the Armenian SSR; deputy chairman of ZSFSR
1922–1925Chairman of the Transcaucasian Union Council, first secretary of the Transcaucasian Kraikom — USSR CEC Presidium, Revolutionary Military Council, candidate CC member
1925.03.22Died in a plane fire near Tiflis alongside Atarbekov and Mogilevsky
1824–1888
○ Retired after reform defeat
