Prokofy Dzhaparidze

Who was Prokofy Dzhaparidze?

Prokofy "Alyosha" Aprasionovich Dzhaparidze or Japaridze, was a Communist activist, one of the Red Army and Bolshevik Party leaders in Azerbaijan during the Russian Revolution.

Dzhaparidze, an ethnic Georgian joined to Bolsheviks in 1898 where he earned the nickname Alyosha, then moved to Baku. Helping the founding of the Azerbaijani socialist party Hummet, he became Delegate of the Caucasian Union of the RSDLP at the 3rd Congress of the RSDLP in London. During his political life, he was many times arrested or exiled for his anti-tsarist activities in Russian Empire.

After the February Revolution he became a member of the Caucasian Regional Committee, joined the Baku Commune and became one of the legendary 26 Baku Commissars. He took several different positions in the commune. Dzhaparidze, along with Stepan Shahumyan, Meshadi Azizbekov, Ivan Fioletov and other commissars tried to spread the communist ideology through the whole Caucasus. Soon after the fall of the commune, on the night of September 20, he was executed by firing squad in a remote location between the stations of Pereval and Akhcha-Kuyma on the Trans-Caspian railway along with other Commissars.