People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity
Any Political and party leadership 1 Social movements and organizing 1
Affiliation

Most people

Any Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 1 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 1

All 2 affiliations

Russia

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 1

Soviet Union

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 1
Position
Any Imperial establishment and White movement 1
Citizenship
Any Russia 2
Background(set)
Any Russia 130 Ukraine 6 Georgia 3 Germany 3 Armenia 2 Poland 2 Kazakhstan 1
Era(set)
Any

People of the Soviet Union

The old regime and its challengers1905–1917 2 The revolutionary generation1917–1940 16 People of the Stalin era1929–1953 11 People of the thaw and the stagnation1953–1985 3

People of the wider world

The age of the Internationals and empires1820–1917 1 The revolutionary wave and the world war1917–1945 16 The Cold War and decolonization1945–현재 43 Scholars of this history1892–현재 4
Background: Poland The old regime and its challengers 1905–1917 Clear all

Roman Vatslavovich Malinovsky

Роман Вацлавович Малиновский
Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Imperial establishment and White movement Russian Empire Poland 1876–1918 ✕ Executed

Bolshevik Central Committee member and Duma leader who was the Okhrana's best-paid spy

At a Bolshevik fundraising ball in February 1913, Stalin — wearing a suit and silk cravat lent by Malinovsky — was arrested while Malinovsky was talking to him; Malinovsky shouted he would free him.

A Polish-born labour organiser who rose to the Bolshevik Central Committee and leadership of the party's Duma faction (1912), Malinovsky was simultaneously the Okhrana's highest-paid secret agent, codenamed 'Portnoi' (the Tailor). Having won Lenin's deep trust, he penetrated the party leadership and enabled the arrests of Ordzhonikidze, Sverdlov, and Stalin, while deepening the Bolshevik-Menshevik split on police instructions. Forced to resign in 1914, he returned to Soviet Russia in 1918, was convicted by the Supreme Tribunal, and executed by firing squad in the Kremlin. His exposure deepened the culture of conspiratorial mistrust within the Bolsheviks, contributing to the paranoid logic that later fuelled the Great Terror.

Career timeline
  • 1901–1905Served in Izmailovsky Guards Regiment
  • 1906–1909Secretary, St. Petersburg Metalworkers Union
  • 1910Recruited as Okhrana secret agent 'Portnoi'
  • 1912Elected to Bolshevik Central Committee at Prague Conference
  • 1912–1914Bolshevik deputy, Fourth State Duma; faction leader
  • 1914.05Forced resignation; fled abroad
  • 1914–1918POW in German prison camp
  • 1918.11Returned; sentenced to death by Supreme Tribunal; shot

Bogusław Zborowski

Saul Zborowski
Russian Empire Polish ?–? ○ Life and death unknown

The briefly recorded first chair of the Petersburg Soviet

On 13 October 1905, he was elected the first chair of the newly founded Petersburg Soviet.

Bogusław Zborowski was a labour movement activist in the 1905 Revolution whose personal biography is scarcely documented. He became the first chair of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies at its founding on 13 October 1905, and was replaced the following day by Georgy Khrustalev-Nosar. His brief tenure marks the moment when workers' representatives began consolidating a political organization amid the strike movement.

Career timeline
  • 1905Activist in the Petersburg labour movement
  • 1905.10.13Founding chair of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies
  • 1905.10.14Replaced as chair