Vladimir Pavlovich Antonov-Saratovsky
Владимир Павлович Антонов-Саратовский
1884–1965
○ Died, natural causes
Bolshevik jurist who joined the party in 1902 and became an architect of Soviet legislation
In October 1917, as chairman of the Saratov Soviet, he proclaimed the establishment of Soviet power from the city's Conservatory and led the Red Guard detachments.
A Bolshevik revolutionary who joined the RSDLP in 1902, Antonov-Saratovsky led the establishment of Soviet power in Saratov as chairman of the Saratov Soviet in 1917 and served as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in 1920–1921. From 1923 to 1938 he simultaneously chaired the Commission for Legislative Assumptions under the USSR Council of People's Commissars and sat on the USSR Supreme Court, becoming a principal architect of the Soviet judicial and legislative framework and serving as a judge at the Shakhty trial, the Menshevik trial, and the Industrial Party trial. He authored the revolutionary memoirs Under the Banner of Proletarian Struggle (1925) and The Red Year (1927).
Career Timeline
- 1902Joined RSDLP
- 1905Participated in Moscow December armed uprising
- 1917Chairman of Saratov Soviet and Revolutionary Committee
- 1919NKVD RSFSR collegium member, Kursk Executive Committee chairman, 13th Army Revolutionary Tribunal chairman
- 1920–1921People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, anti-Makhno operations commissar, 4th Army RMC member
- 1921–1923Rector, Sverdlov Communist University
- 1923–1938Chairman, Commission for Legislative Assumptions, USSR CPC & USSR Supreme Court member
- 1939–1952Served in RSFSR People's Commissariat/Ministry of Justice
Related historical events
The 1930 Commission on Special Settlements Legislation
In June 1930, the Preparatory Commission of the USSR Council of People's Commissars, at the initiative of the OGPU, formed a secret commission chaired by Antonov-Saratovsky to design the legal framework for "special settlements" (спецпоселки) (camps for peasants classified as kulaks and deported with their families from areas of collectivization). The commission, which included representatives of the OGPU, NKVD, and the Council of People's Commissars, held its first session on 13 June 1930, determining the size of settlements (maximum 300 households, reduced to 50 in areas of full collectivization), the administrative structure through district executive committees (райисполкомы), the deprivation of residents' political rights and restriction of movement, and the principle that settlements would be financed at the residents' own expense. A second session on 18 June substantially reworked the NKVD's draft, adopting some 50 amendments, and the resulting draft became the basis for the July 1930 Decree of the Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars 'On Special Settlements.' The legal framework designed by Antonov-Saratovsky's commission became the administrative skeleton governing thousands of special settlements across the USSR for the following decade, and included punitive mechanisms directly linked to the forced labor system, including provisions for sending escapees to corrective labor camps. The commission's work both legally justified the mass forced deportation spearheaded by the OGPU and provided the institutional basis for organizing the settlements as a state labor resource.