Shmit, Nikolai

Shmit, Nikolai Pavlovich 

Born Dec. 10 (22), 1883, in Moscow; died there Feb. 13 (26), 1907. Participant in the Revolution of 1905–07. Bolshevik and a member of the RSDLP.

The son of the owner of a furniture factory in Presnia, Shmit studied at Moscow University. On May 1, 1905, having assumed ownership of the factory, Shmit reduced the working day from 11V2 hours to nine, raised wages, and opened an outpatient clinic and a special general-education school on the premises. In 1905 he gave 20,000 rubles to the Moscow committee of the RSDLP for the purpose of arming the workers. He willed his estate to the Bolshevik Party.

Shmit was arrested on Dec. 17, 1905. His factory was destroyed that month during the suppression of the armed uprising. Shmit was killed in his solitary-confinement cell at Butyrka Prison in the early morning hours of Feb. 13, 1907. His funeral developed into a political demonstration.

REFERENCE

Andrikanis, E. N. Khoziain “Chertova gnezda”, 3rd ed. Moscow, 1975.