A lawyer who crossed the boundary between law and politics in revolution
On 4 July 1917, he authorized the press release of treason allegations aimed at the Bolshevik leadership.
Pavel Pereverzev was a Russian lawyer known for defending political defendants under the imperial regime, then taking on legal administration during the revolution. In July 1917 he released press material alleging Bolshevik links with Germany, helping intensify the political crackdown, while the reliability and interpretation of the evidence remained disputed. Criticized for acting without full coordination with the government, he resigned, later emigrated, and became active in Russian émigré legal organizations in France.
Career timeline
1894Graduated from the Faculty of Law, Saint Petersburg University
1901Began practice as an attorney-at-law
1915Defence counsel for Bolshevik deputies of the Fourth State Duma
1917.03Procurator of the Petrograd Judicial Chamber
1917.05–07Minister of Justice in the Provisional Government
1920–1921Lived in exile in Constantinople and Tunis
1927–1944Worked in Russian émigré lawyers’ organizations in France
SR Party founder who chaired the last unified anti-Bolshevik government, overthrown by Kolchak
Trotsky called him 'the complete caricature of a statesman. A really charming teacher of language in a ladies' seminary in Oryol — that is really all you can say about him.'
A founder and right-wing leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, he led the SR faction in the 1905 St. Petersburg Soviet and served as Minister of the Interior and chairman of the Pre-Parliament in Kerensky's Provisional Government. During the Civil War, as the culmination of efforts to unite the anti-Bolshevik camp, he was elected chairman of the Provisional All-Russian Government (Ufa Directory) at the Ufa State Conference. Arrested and expelled by Kolchak's coup in November 1918, he continued émigré journalistic work in Paris and New York. His political trajectory encapsulates the collapse of democratic socialism in the Russian Revolution, crushed between armed extremes.
Career timeline
1905SR faction leader, vice-chairman of the St. Petersburg Soviet
1907Elected to SR Central Committee; exiled to Obdorsk, escaped abroad
1907–1917Edited SR newspaper Znamya Truda in Paris exile
1917Chairman of All-Russian Soviet of Peasants' Deputies; Minister of Interior
1917Chairman of the All-Russian Democratic Conference and Pre-Parliament
1918Chairman, Ufa State Conference; headed the Provisional All-Russian Government
1918–1940Émigré political work in Paris; Freemasonry; published Sovremennye Zapiski
1940–1943Published Za Svobodu (For Freedom) in New York
The Menshevik Labour Minister sent to calm the crowds during the April Crisis
On 20 April 1917, as 15,000 armed soldiers and sailors gathered before the Mariinsky Palace outraged by Milyukov's note, Skobelev and Gots were sent to address them: their speeches were unavailing.
A son of Baku's wealthy Molokan merchant class, he studied at the Vienna Polytechnic and helped edit Trotsky's Vienna Pravda. After the February Revolution he became deputy chairman of the Petrograd Soviet; during the April Crisis he was sent with Abram Gots to calm the armed crowds outside the Mariinsky Palace, and on 5 May 1917 he entered the first coalition government as Minister of Labour. He opposed the October Revolution but later reconciled, joining the Bolshevik Party in 1922 and working in the Soviet foreign trade system until his execution during the Great Purge in 1938.
Career timeline
1903Joined RSDLP; led Baku oil workers' strike
1906–1912Exile in Vienna; edited Trotsky's Pravda; graduated Vienna Polytechnic (1912)
1912–1917Deputy, Fourth Duma (Russian population of Transcaucasia); Menshevik faction
