Vyborg worker-Bolshevik who handed Lenin his party card
On the night of 3 April 1917 at the Finland Station, representing the Vyborg district committee, he handed Lenin, just back from exile, party membership card No. 600.
A veteran of the 1905 Sormovo barricade fighting who studied at Lenin's Longjumeau party school in 1911, Chugurin was, alongside Kayurov and Pavlov, one of the Vyborg Bolshevik nucleus that drove the February 1917 street actions from the Women's Day strikes into armed insurrection. He personally handed Lenin party card No. 600 at the Finland Station upon his return from exile, served on the Vyborg district uprising headquarters during October, and later headed the political department of the 5th Army and held posts in the Cheka presidium. Arrested on fabricated charges in 1940, he emerged from the camps ill and worked as a tinsmith until his death; he was rehabilitated posthumously.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1902Joined the RSDLP while working at the Sormovo plant, began underground revolutionary activity
- 1905.12Member of the 'pyatyorka' directing the Sormovo armed uprising; led barricade fighting
- 1911Studied at Lenin's Longjumeau party school; arrested upon return, exiled to Narym for 5 years
- 1916Member of the underground Vyborg district committee of RSDLP(b) in Petrograd
- 1917.02–10With Kayurov and Pavlov, drove the armed uprising in the February Revolution; member of the Vyborg uprising headquarters
- 1918–1919Head of political department, 5th Army; member and secretary of the Cheka presidium, head of Cheka Transport Department
- 1921–1937Deputy director of Krasnoe Sormovo, director of Northern Shipyard and Dvigatel Revolyutsii plant, among other industrial posts
- 1940Arrested on fabricated charges; released from camp in ill health, worked as a tinsmith
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905Sormovo uprising commanderIn December 1905, he led the barricade fighting in the Sormovo armed uprising.
- 1917.02–07The February RevolutionVyborg Bolshevik who led the February street actionsA close comrade of Kayurov and a veteran of the 1905 Nizhny Novgorod fighting detachments, he was a core member of the group that led the street actions in the February Revolution.
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionMember of the Vyborg uprising headquartersHe served on the Vyborg district uprising headquarters during the October uprising.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionHead of the 5th Army political departmentDuring the Civil War, he headed the 5th Army political department in 1918–1919.
1906–1916: prison, Narym exile, escape and re-arrest
After the First Russian Revolution was crushed, Chugurin's life entered a cycle of arrest, exile, escape and re-arrest. Having directed barricade fighting in the December 1905 Sormovo armed uprising, he went into hiding after it was put down, moved to the Motovilikha plant and sat on the Perm committee. Arrested in March 1906 for revolutionary activity, he spent three and a half years in the Perm prison before resuming work in Kiev, Yekaterinoslav and again in Sormovo.
In 1911 the Sormovo party organization sent him to Lenin's Longjumeau party school. After finishing the course he was arrested while crossing the border, taken to Nizhny Novgorod, and exiled for five years to the Narym region. He escaped from exile two years later, but was arrested again in 1914 in Tula and sent to Siberia; when his term ended in 1916 he arrived in Petrograd. Through this repeated confinement, exile and escape, he settled in Petrograd among his fellow Sormovo workers, worked as a tinsmith, and in the autumn of 1916 entered the illegal Vyborg district party committee, positioning him for the February and October turning points of the following year.