Isaak Abramovich Zelenskii

Born June 10 (22), 1890, in Saratov; died 1938. Soviet statesman and party figure. Became a member of the Communist Party in 1906. The son of a tailor. Completed elementary school. Worked sewing caps.

Zelenskii was frequently arrested for his revolutionary activity, and on several occasions he escaped from exile. He arrived in Moscow on the eve of the February Revolution of 1917; between February and October 1917 he worked first as a party organizer and then as chairman of the Basmannyi Raion soviet and a member of the presidium of the Moscow soviet. From 1918 to 1920 he was head of the Moscow department of provisions, secretary of the Moscow committee of the party, and a member of the collegium of the People’s Commissariat for Provisions. In April 1921 he became secretary of the Moscow committee of the RCP (Bolshevik); in 1924 he was secretary of the Central Committee and a member of the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (B). Beginning in November 1924, he was secretary of the Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (B), and in 1931 he became chairman of the Central Union of Consumers’ Societies of the USSR.

Zelenskii was a delegate at the Sixth and Tenth through Seventeenth Party Congresses. At the Tenth he was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee and at the Eleventh through Seventeenth a member of the Central Committee of the ACP (B). He was also a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR.