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
A Socialist-Revolutionary agrarian thinker who championed peasant cooperation
“We talk too much; at moments like these, action is necessary.”
Semyon Leontyevich Maslov was a Socialist-Revolutionary agrarian economist and organiser of the peasant cooperative movement. He supported land reform but opposed unsanctioned seizures of estates, seeking to join legal reform with rural self-government. As minister of agriculture in October 1917, he lived through the Provisional Government’s final hours and arrest in the Winter Palace, while continuing to defend the Constituent Assembly and cooperative politics. His later defence of cooperative autonomy conflicted with the direction of Soviet policy, and he was executed in 1938 and rehabilitated in 1988.
Career timeline
1897–1903Exiled to Kazan, then graduated from Kazan University’s law faculty
1902–1913Statistician in the Kazan zemstvo, peasant-press editor and Socialist-Revolutionary publicist
1913–1917Worked in Moscow agricultural cooperation and helped organise the Central Flax-Growers’ Association
1917.04–10Deputy chair of the Main Land Committee and member of the All-Russian Council of Peasant Deputies’ executive committee
1917.10.03–25Minister of Agriculture in the Provisional Government
1917.10–1918Arrested in the Winter Palace, then joined the underground Provisional Government and Constituent Assembly
1921–1929Chair of Selsko-Soyuz, professor and vice-rector of the All-Russian Cooperative Institute
1930–1938Exiled and rearrested before being executed in 1938
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
Bessarabian politician who presided over Sfatul Țării and the Moldavian Democratic Republic and saw through its union with Romania
Born to a peasant family in Răzeni, Bessarabia, in 1884, he graduated from the Chișinău seminary and Saint Petersburg University and worked as a physicist at the Meteorological Observatory. After the February Revolution he joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party and sat in the Petrograd Soviet, and Kerensky sent him to Bessarabia as the Provisional Government’s representative. At first he said Bessarabia should remain part of Russia, but as president of Sfatul Țării and of the Moldavian Democratic Republic he steered the vote for union with Romania in April 1918. After the union he became Minister of State for Bessarabia; in 1923 he took his wing of the Bessarabian Peasants’ Party into the National Liberal Party, and he later served as minister of health, of the interior and of communications and as vice-president of the Council of Ministers. He died of a heart attack in 1940.
Career timeline
1915Physicist at the Meteorological Observatory, Saint Petersburg
1917Member of the Petrograd Soviet (Socialist Revolutionary Party)
1917Assistant Government Commissioner of Bessarabia
1917–1918President of Sfatul Țării and of the Moldavian Democratic Republic
1918–1920Romanian Minister of State for Bessarabia
1927–1928Romanian Minister of Health and Social Protection
1933Romanian Minister of the Interior (Duca cabinet)
1936Vice-President of the Romanian Council of Ministers
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
