Varlam Avanesov

Who was Varlam Avanesov?

Varlam Aleksandrovich Avanesov was an Armenian Bolshevik and Soviet communist politician.

Avanesov was born to a peasant Armenian family in the historically-Armenian Kars Oblast of the Russian Empire.

He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903. Initially he sided with the Mensheviks, moving to Bolshevik faction in 1914. From 1907 to 1913 he lived in Switzerland, studying at the University of Zurich. He was secretary of the RSDLP group in Davos.

In 1917 he became a member of the Presidium of the All-Russia C.E.C.; in 1920–24, Deputy People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, member of the Collegium of the Cheka, and later Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Trade.