Ivan Nikitich Smirnov

Who was Ivan Nikitich Smirnov?

Ivan Nikitich Smirnov was a Communist Party activist. He was born in January 1881 in Gorodishche, Moscow Governorate in a family of Russian ethnicity.

In 1899, Smirnov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and became a Bolshevik. He led his party activity in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Vyshniy Volochok, Rostov, Kharkov, and Tomsk. Smirnov was subject to repeated arrests. In 1916, he was called up for the military service in a reserve regiment in Tomsk, where Smirnov conducted revolutionary activity. In 1917, he became a member of the executive committee of the Tomsk Soviet. In August of the same year, Smirnov was one of the organizers and upkeepers of the Bolshevist publishing house "Volna" in Moscow. He was a deputy of the Constituent Assembly. During the Russian Civil War, Smirnov was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Eastern Front, and the 5th Army.

In 1920-1923, Smirnov was a member of the Executive Committee of the Russian Communist Party. At the same time, he chaired the Siberian Revolutionary Committee and was a member of the Siberian bureau of the Russian Communist Party. Smirnov is known to have had close ties with the Cheka and administered massacres of the rebellious peasants in Tyumen and Altay Mountains. He was the one to organize the capture of General Roman Ungern. In 1921-1922, Smirnov was a secretary of the Petrograd Committee and Northwestern Bureau of the Executive Committee of the Russian Communist Party. He was the closest associate of Grigory Zinoviev. Smirnov took part in mass executions and deportations from Petersburg of representatives of the "exploiter class".