Sobolev, Vasiliizakharovich

Sobolev, Vasiliizakharovich 

Born Jan. 17 (29), 1893, in Smolensk; died July 17, 1928, in Moscow. One of the leaders of the struggle for Soviet power in Smolensk. Member of the Communist Party from 1913.

The son of an office worker, Sobolev studied at Moscow University in 1915; he was expelled for revolutionary activity. He conducted party work in trade unions and collaborated on the Bolshevik journal Voprosy strakhovaniia (Problems of Insurance). In March 1917 he became a member of the Executive Committee of the Smolensk soviet and chairman of the city committee and provincial committee of the RSDLP(B). In October he became chairman of the military revolutionary committee of the Smolensk soviet. While conducting party work, he served as deputy chairman of the soviet. In 1918 he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of People’s Commissars of Zapadnaia Oblast, deputy chairman of the oblast executive committee of the RCP(B), and a member of the oblast committee of the RCP(B). Beginning in 1919, he did trade union and government work. He was a delegate to the Eighth Party Congress in 1919.

Sobolevis buried in central Smolensk, where a street (the former Armianskaia Street) is named in his honor.

REFERENCE

Aleksandrova (Soboleva), I., and Z. Bulycheva, “Odin iz pervykh.” In the collection Soldaty partii. Moscow, 1971.