Yakov Sverdlov,
the son of a Jewish
engraver,
was born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1885. When he was a student he became
involved in radical politics and in 1902 joined the Social
Democratic Party. He quickly became a supporter of the Bolshevik
faction led by Vladimir Lenin.
Sverdlov
took part in the 1905 Revolution and developed
a reputation as one of the party's leading orators. Arrested in June,
1906, and was imprisoned for three years. On his release in 1909 he
moved to Moscow but he was now a well-known revolutionary and was
soon arrested and deported to Siberia.
Sverdlov
escaped in 1910 but was re-arrested and sentenced to four years in
prison. He made several unsuccessful attempts to escape and on one
occasion nearly died after spending several hours in icy water.
In the
autumn of 1912 Sverdlov managed to escape and reach St Petersburg.
He worked on Pravda until he was
betrayed by the double agent Roman Malinovsky
and was exiled to Turukhansk in Siberia.
After the
February Revolution and the abdication
of Nicholas II, Sverdlov was released and
he returned to Petrograd where he became a member of the Bolshevik
Central Committee. Together with Vladimir
Lenin and Leon Trotsky, Sverdlov
was a strong advocate of an armed uprising and helped organize the
October Revolution.
A close
ally of Vladimir Lenin, Sverdlov played
an important role in persuading leading Bolsheviks
to accept the controversial decisions to close down the Constituent
Assembly and the signing of the Brest-Litovsk
Treaty. It was claimed that Lenin provided the theories and Sverdlov
made sure they worked. Despite his young age, Sverdlov was expected
to be Lenin's choice as the party's next leader.
In 1919
Sverdlov toured the country making speeches encouraging people to
support the Bolsheviks in the struggle
against the White Army. While in Oryol
he got he was a victim of the influenza
epidemic that was spreading all of Europe.Yakov Sverdlov died,
aged thirty-three, on 16th March, 1919.
(1)
The Granat Encyclopaedia of the Russian Revolution
was published by the Soviet government in 1924. The encyclopaedia
included a collection of autobiographies and biographies of over two
hundred people involved in the Russian Revolution.
Despite the burden of a large family and difficult
financial circumstances, his father tried to give his children an
education. Thus on 30 April 1896, Sverdlov was admitted to the Nizhny
Novgorod provincial Gymnasium. There he spent four full years, during
which time the family's financial position worsened considerably,
and he fell foul of the teachers. He rebelled violently against the
school routine and the arid scholasticism.
Political
consciousness was awakened in him at an early age. He developed a
growing desire to devote all his energies to the interests of the
working class. After the Gymnasium, Sverdlov found work as an apprentice
in the chemist's shop at Kanavin. Here he came into contact with the
working masses for the first time. Near Kanavin were timber works
with a large number of workers. He won over the craftsmen at his father's
flat already served as a hiding-place for visiting Party activists
and as a store for illegal literature and even arms.
(2)
In his book, The Russian Revolution, Nikolai
Sukhanov describes meeting Yakov Sverdov for the first time
in 1917.
Standing on the platform of the Tram I was extraordinarily
irritable and gloomy. A short fellow with a modest look was standing
near us, with a pince-nez, a black goatee, and flashing Jewish eyes.
Seeing my mood he set about cheering me up, and tried to distract
me with some advice about the route. But I answered him disagreeably
and monosyllabically.
"Who's
that?" I asked, when we left the tram.
"That's
our old party worker, Sverdlov."
In my bad
temper I should undoubtedly have cheered up and laughed a great deal
if someone had told me that in a fortnight this man would be the titular
head of the Russian Republic.
(3)
In his biography of Vladimir
Lenin the Russian exile, David Shub,
described the role played by Yakov Sverdlov in closing down the Constituent
Assembly.
In accordance with custom, the parliament was opened by
the oldest deputy. From the Socialist Revolutionary benches rose Shvetzov,
a veteran of the People's Will. As he mounted the platform, Bolshevik
deputies began slamming their desks while soldiers and sailors pounded
the floor with their rifles.
Shvetzov
finally found a lull in the noise to say: "The meeting of the
Constituent Assembly is opened." An outburst of catcalls greeted
his words.
Sverdlov
then mounted the platform, pushed the old man aside, and declared
in his loud, rich voice that the Central Executive Committee of the
Soviet of workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies had empowered
him to open the meeting of the Constituent Assembly. Then on behalf
of the committee he read the "Declaration of Rights of the Labouring
and Exploited Masses", written by Lenin, Stalin and Bukharin.
The declaration demanded that all state power be vested in the Soviets,
thereby destroying the very meaning of the Constituent Assembly.
(4)
Georges Haupt, Makers of the Russian Revolution (1969)
As from August 1917, Sverdlov controlled the organizational
bureau of the Central Committee and its five-man secretariat, and
with Dzerzhinsky he was the head of the Central Committee's military
commission. In Lenin's absence, in October 1917, it was he who presided
at Central Committee meetings.
Lenin's
constant supporter, Sverdlov showed in these critical circumstances
that his loyalty was absolute. He was indeed the only member of the
Central Committee to support Lenin unhesitatingly in the tumultuous
and agonizing debates of 1917 and 1918, which often put the leader
in the minority.
(5)
Vladimir Lenin
, tribute to Yakov Sverslov (March, 1919)
If we have succeeded in bearing for over a year those
burdens that fell on a narrow circle of selfless revolutionaries,
if the leading groups could solve the most difficult problems in such
strict unanimity, it is only because a prominent position in them
was occupied by such an exceptionally talented organizer as Sverdlov.
He alone
succeeded in assembling an amazing personal knowledge of the leaders
of the proletarian movement, he alone succeeded in cultivating over
many years the practical flair, the organizational ability and the
indisputable authority which enabled him to to direct single-handed
the Vista, the most crucial branch of the government which would normally
require a group of men to control.
Such a
man we shall never be able to replace, if by that we mean finding
one comrade who combines all these abilities. The tasks which he performed
alone will now be entrusted to a group of people who, by following
in his footsteps, will continue his work.
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