A Bolshevik praktik who pushed the movement's radical edge
“Until power has been transferred to the Soviets, there is no hope for an early end to the war.”
Sergei Bagdatev was a Bolshevik praktik who joined the party in 1903 and continued underground organizing through tsarist repression and exile. In April 1917, he issued a leaflet in the Petrograd Committee's name calling for the Provisional Government's removal, contrary to party decisions, and was disciplined for violating party discipline. His premature slogan, alongside his insistence on Soviet power, captures the revolution's tension between an urgent political aim and the practical work of winning a mass audience.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1903Joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
- 1908Member of the Petersburg Committee and its executive commission
- 1917Petrograd Committee praktik; issued the April demonstration leaflet
- 1917Took part in the June and July demonstrations; arrested by the Provisional Government
- 1918–1925Party work in Moscow and Transcaucasia
- 1926–1939Deputy chair of the Irrigation Committee under the USSR Council of People's Commissars; chaired Rezino-trest and other bodies
- 1940–1949Lived as a personal pensioner
Related historical events
Party and administrative work after the Revolution
After the October Revolution, Bagdatev worked for the party in Moscow and, from 1920, in Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus. He served on the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia and on the Transcaucasian Central Executive Committee. Back in Moscow from 1926, he became deputy chair of the Irrigation Committee under the USSR Council of People's Commissars and chaired Rezino-trest, among other posts. In 1940 he became a personal pensioner. His career thus moved from underground party organizing into regional party and administrative bodies and economic organizations after the revolution.