The 21-year-old commissar who brought Kronstadt sailors to the revolution
Freed from Kresty Prison on the day of the October Revolution, he went straight to the front as political commissar of the combined sailor-soldier detachment blocking the Kerensky-Krasnov advance on Petrograd.
The young Bolshevik who led Kronstadt and brought the Baltic Fleet sailors to the revolution. Freed from Kresty Prison during the October Revolution, he helped repel Kerensky's counter-offensive, then was sent to the Romanian Front where a clandestine officers' group murdered him.
Career Timeline
- 1912–1914Revolutionary circle at 10th Gymnasium; expelled for organizing all-school conference
- 1914Joined RSDLP(b); organized workers at Putilov factory insurance office, Narva district
- 1915Mobilized to Northern Front; arrested for front-line propaganda, imprisoned in Kresty
- 1917.3–1917.7Kronstadt Bolshevik committee chairman & Soviet executive member — organized Baltic Fleet sailors
- 1917.7–1917.10Arrested after July Days; re-imprisoned in Kresty with Trotsky, Raskolnikov and others
- 1917.10Freed during October Revolution; commissar of detachment vs. Kerensky-Krasnov; took part in Stavka seizure
- 1917.12Sent by Lenin as Sovnarkom commissar to Romanian Front; arrested, killed by secret officers' group in Iași
Related historical events
- 1917.02–07The February RevolutionKronstadt Bolshevik organizerTogether with Raskolnikov he organized the Kronstadt sailors' July uprising; afterwards he surrendered to the authorities and was imprisoned at Kresty.
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionKronstadt Bolshevik chairman, commissar of the combined detachment against Kerensky-KrasnovFreed from Kresty Prison on the day of the October Revolution, he was immediately sent to the front as political commissar of a combined sailor-soldier detachment blocking the Kerensky-Krasnov counter-offensive, and took part in the seizure of Stavka (Supreme Command HQ).
The Romanian Front Mission and Death
In November 1917, Lenin appointed Roshal as Sovnarkom commissar to the Romanian Front. After helping Krylenko seize the Stavka at Mogilev and arrest General Dukhonin, he made his way through Odessa and Kishinev toward Iași, organizing a front-line Military Revolutionary Committee. The front commander, General Dmitry Shcherbachev, colluded with Romanian authorities and invited Roshal to negotiate under a guarantee of safe conduct. This was a trap. Upon arrival in Iași, Roshal and his committee were disarmed and arrested. Romanian police held Roshal separately; days later, two men in Russian officers' uniforms presented forged release papers and drove him away. Shortly after 8 (21) December 1917, a body in a soldier's tunic was found in the outskirts of Iași, bearing a slanderous note pinned to the chest and showing signs of violent death. It was almost certainly Roshal. The killing, orchestrated by Romanian authorities and a secret White officers' group, was among the very first political murders of a Soviet commissar. In January 1918, the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets, still uncertain of his fate, passed a resolution expressing confidence that the hands of the workers and peasants would yet open the doors of his prison.