Alexander Myasnikyan

Who was Alexander Myasnikyan?

Alexander Myasnikyan Armenian: Ալեքսանդր Մյասնիկյան, Russian: Александр Мясников Myasnikov; 28 January [9 February] 1886 – 22 March 1925) was a prominent Armenian Bolshevik.

Myasnikyan was the son of a small merchant. He graduated from the law department of Moscow University in 1911. As a student in Nakhichevan and later in Moscow, Myasnikyan was active in underground groups beginning from 1901 and formally became a member of the revolutionary movement in 1904. He was arrested and exiled to Baku in 1906.

Between 1912 and 1914, Myasnikyan worked as an assistant to a lawyer in Moscow and participated in disseminating political literature. He was drafted into the Russian Army in 1914, where he promoted revolutionary ideas among the soldiers. Myasnikyan's revolutionary nom de guerre was Martuni.

After the February Revolution of 1917, Myasnikyan became a member of the Western Front's frontline committee and was an editor of the Bolshevik newspaper Zvezda in Minsk. He was elected as a delegate for the 6th Congress of the Bolshevik Party. He became chairman of the Northwestern Regional Committee of the Bolshevik Party, and became part of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Western Region. Myasnikov was elected the commander of the Western Front at the congress of deputies.